“Lost and Found on Haunted Plum Island” (2021)

I thought this story by John Waterfall was pretty impressive, perhaps partly because it’s from 96th of October and typical of their fare—literary, artistic, hip, sometimes experimental to a fault. “Plum Island” is in much the same vein, classified on the website as “magic realism” and “spirituality,” selling us a heady take on the afterlife. It reminded me of Lost and also of the patient explorations required in role-playing games. A man dies in a plane crash (I think) and lands on an island as “Crasher,” more or less a human being but with red mist swirling a light source instead of a head. He is befriended by a chatty stuffed teddy bear named Ruggles, who accompanies him and is able to explain some things—this also reminded me of video game setups. But try thinking Toy Story too because, in fact, there are lots of stuffed animal toys on Plum Island, which have all been lost and/or abandoned by their child owners. This detail veers toward precious but all is saved for me by Crasher’s regard for Ruggles, who suffers a setback. The idea, stop me if you’ve heard this, is that children’s stuffed toys have unsuspected souls that suffer by being thrown away. There’s a certain safety in staying on the shore of the island. Crasher paces out the circumference of it but eventually ignores Ruggles’s warnings and heads inland. Going inland is freaky and all the freaky stuff is artful and thoughtful and above all weird and never comforting. This is no Christian paradigm except it’s a little like purgatory. Waterfall is fearless about pursuing the details of this story, but what I think makes it work, circling back, is Ruggles and his fate and how it affects Crasher. In spite of all its “cute” signifiers, this story is never cozy but more often unnerving. It comes partly of the fact that Crasher’s head is red mist, which Waterfall leans into with an effective touch. But it’s the Ruggles character that grounds the story and makes it feel vital in a way so many contemporary horror stories I’ve seen don’t. There are flaws—the language is high-blown and can be turgid—but in its totality it basically works. It’s weird and unsettling and also kind of beautiful and of course horrific in places without being gross or strained. A nice surprise.

Read story online.