For the last few years, I haven’t sold (or written) as much short fiction as I used to, so it’s nice whenever I do sell a story. Recently, I got a nice boost from selling one to The Dark somewhat unexpectedly – unexpected in that they happened to need something at short notice, and I happened to have something that fit the bill.

“Please Turn on Your Magic Beam” had been kicking around in my drafts folder for a while before I finally finished it, and it was just sitting in my completed folder without a home when The Dark needed a piece. That’s unusual for me these days, when I rarely finish short fiction that isn’t intended for a specific market.

While the title obviously comes from the 1954 song originally recorded by Vaughn Monroe and his orchestra but more familiar to me from the version performed by the Chordettes that same year, the inspiration for the story began with a viewing (not my first) of Lamberto Bava’s Demons 2 (1986).

For those who haven’t seen them, the original Demons (1985) took place in a movie theater, with the eponymous demons spilling out of the screen of the movie being watched and infecting the audience, while the follow-up concerned the various inhabitants of a high-rise apartment building, who were watching a similar horror movie being broadcast on TV, from which the demons emerged.

The idea of a bunch of people in the same building, who were otherwise largely strangers to one another, all being linked together by watching the same movie at the same time appealed to me, and I wanted to do my own version of it.

For my story, I naturally gravitated toward an older, black-and-white style of horror movie, inspired by the various B-pictures of the 40s that were full of creeping shadows and stalking stranglers. This also allowed me to set my story in an unspecified historical moment when everyone in the building watching the same movie being broadcast on television was more likely than it is today, or even when I was a kid.

While those old black-and-white mystery thrillers were what I had in mind while writing, however, the inspiration for my Sandman figure came from somewhere else – or, perhaps more accurately, came from a distillation of those. As I described the killer, I was picturing the work of illustrator Richard Sala, whose influence I have written about before.

Sala’s evocations of old movies and, specifically, their nefarious villains played a huge role in helping me to bring this unusual story to life. I really enjoyed writing this one – switching between the various apartments – and so far it’s gotten a pretty good response from readers. I hope everyone enjoys it, and I’m really happy to have something to share again.

The last short story I published was “The Phantom of the Wax Museum,” which came out at the tail end of last year in the Phantom of the Opera-themed collection Final Curtain, from Lethe Press. I’m proud of that story, too. It deals with the death of Lon Chaney, an aborted sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, and, of course, one of my very favorite subjects, a wax museum.

Prior to that, my most recent publications were in my latest collection from Word Horde, Notes from Underground, which came out last October. For those who aren’t aware, Notes from Underground is a very different collection for me, bringing together a “story cycle” of seven tales written with linked narrative elements. All but one had previously been published elsewhere, but the novelette “Leandra’s Story,” which does some important work in tying the rest of the book together, is original to the collection.

I was lucky enough to get a blurb from none other than Trevor Henderson himself, who called Notes from Underground, “A wonderful collection quite unlike any I’ve read before,” and the site Blog Without a Face named it one of their Best Horror Books of 2025, where they hailed it as, “Smart, uncanny, and fun as hell.“

If you enjoy “Please Turn on Your Magic Beam” and haven’t already picked up a copy of Notes from Underground, I think you’ll like it, and I’d sure like it if you checked it out.