Red taillights streaked through the countryside, crisscrossing the forest and vales like lines on a map.

The drum beat echoed in her head, pounding out a staccato rhythm piercing through the rev of the engine.

A house. The house. His house. A facade she remembered from a lifetime ago.

——

Thanks to AJ Fillari for joining us this week! Go listen to their show Dot Zip, or hire them to edit your audio!

Visit the website | Join the discord | Follow us on Twitch

Social Links

Eric is MrTheHuman

Gianni is GianniDiCrosta

Nate is HeroicHeadgear

Phil is Phil Bothun

In this episode of the Content Mill, we dig into the latest news and happenings in the games industry.

Today's big story is the talk of the town: the games industry is taking a big old break. So sit down, relax, and hang out as we talk about the backlog games that will be filling up this year of no new releases!

Visit the website | Join the discord | Follow us on Twitch

Social Links

Eric is MrTheHuman

Gianni is GianniDiCrosta

Nate is HeroicHeadgear

Phil is Phil Bothun

Mr. Ree was not having a great time. Did not have a great time. He'd been dead for at least a week. But, in a room filled to the brim with newspapers, the body was only the second most unexpected thing.

The place had stunk to high Heaven, but I couldn't tell anymore. This wasn't my first rodeo. No, what grabbed my attention was the organized chaos of the newspapers and the red pen circling words and headlines and faces in photographs. My face, specifically.

There was a meaning to the madness. Somehow, it all pointed back to me.

Visit the website | Join the discord | Follow us on Twitch

Social Links

Eric is MrTheHuman

Gianni is GianniDiCrosta

Nate is HeroicHeadgear

Phil is Phil Bothun

Predator. Prey. Stars. Smoke.

A drum beat. Pounding. Quarter notes, then eighths. Urgency and danger.

And then she blinked. The Dame—that's who she was now—couldn't shake the hollow gaze and incessant beat of the Emptys' drums. Even miles away, pushing the accelerator to the max, she could still hear them...getting louder, somehow?

Predator. Prey. Stars. Smoke. Predator. Prey. Stars. Smoke.

What did it mean to this her? And what did it have to do with the Emptys?

Visit the website | Join the discord | Follow us on Twitch

Social Links

Eric is MrTheHuman

Gianni is GianniDiCrosta

Nate is HeroicHeadgear

Phil is Phil Bothun

From the first days in the trenches when he found the first, Ellington’s Bones spoke to him. It took him weeks to determine that the dissonant whispers nagging at the back of his mind, edging in from his periphery, were emanating from the bone of unknown origin in the mud. A rat femur. Or rabbit, perhaps.

The whispers never calmed though, not until he found more. Overlaying tones coalescing into something, though he was never quite sure what. But they spoke, he was sure of that.

He worked them and they helped him. He lived through the war because of them, and he found his livelihood too.

The Empties though, he was never quite sure if he found them or the Bones did.

Visit the website | Join the discord | Follow us on Twitch

Social Links

Eric is MrTheHuman

Gianni is GianniDiCrosta

Nate is HeroicHeadgear

Phil is Phil Bothun

Mr. Ree's apartment door was loosely swinging on rusted hinges. The dial tone of a phone echoed through the hall, an incessant ringing too loud to make any sense.

I shoved the door open with a gloved hand and stood in the doorway, my eyes unable to settle on what I saw. Newspapers covered everything. Stacks of every rag and sheet available between the rivers teetered like funhouse skyscrapers. The walls, floors, and furniture were covered with papers, inky contours wrapping every table leg and hiding every speck of plaster on the walls.

And the red. It was hard to tell the red pen and the red leaking from Mr. Ree's body apart.

Visit the website | Join the discord | Follow us on Twitch

Social Links

Eric is MrTheHuman

Gianni is GianniDiCrosta

Nate is HeroicHeadgear

Phil is Phil Bothun

There were a lot of things that Ellington brought back from the War. Scars, callousness, his crew, and his Bones. Few things in his life were as hard-won and cherished as that vibraphone, built piece by piece over his years in the trenches.

When he played, they sang. When they talked, he listened. And right now, they were telling a very interesting story.

Visit the website | Join the discord | Follow us on Twitch

Social Links

Eric is MrTheHuman

Gianni is GianniDiCrosta

Nate is HeroicHeadgear

Phil is Phil Bothun

Ten years ago. A soirée at War’s end. Combat boots and heels gliding along floors slick with champagne suds and gin. The sound of lost loves and newfound ones pounding in rhythm to the exuberant roars of a band letting loose.

Romance was in the air and Ellington was loving it. Four long years and he was back; back in front of a crowd, and backed by his newfound friends: The Emptys.

Visit the website | Join the discord | Follow us on Twitch

Social Links

Eric is MrTheHuman

Gianni is GianniDiCrosta

Nate is HeroicHeadgear

Phil is Phil Bothun

The Dame. The Broad. Madame Noir. The Woman with Black Hair. She had so many names and came from so many places it was hard to keep track.

Behind the facade, who she truly is was hard to say anymore. They were like oil, glistening and swirling together, a rainbow of identity that only coalesces in unity when looked at the right way.

She sipped her drink, waiting for Ellington to say something.

Ice swirled in the frosted glass, clinking like neurons. Was the job just a distraction to get some time with the Emptys? Or did she really want that musty detective to find her?

Visit the website | Join the discord | Follow us on Twitch

Social Links

Eric is MrTheHuman

Gianni is GianniDiCrosta

Nate is HeroicHeadgear

Phil is Phil Bothun

I peeled off a handful of bills and handed them to the cabbie, tipping my hat and pulling the collar of my coat close. The weather had not improved since I left Ellington and the Emptys on the boardwalk and I was grateful for the stack of cash the Dame had handed me.

The case made no sense, but in this city the difference between reality and fantasy was blurry on a good day.

Trash flanked the entry to the building, piled like cord wood. I found Mr. Ree's apartment and rang, getting an electric shock from the buzzer for my courtesy. The button popped out and rolled to the door. Propped open with a Gideon's Bible, I let myself through the door. An out of order sign hung from the elevator.

Time to climb.

Visit the website | Join the discord | Follow us on Twitch

Social Links

Eric is MrTheHuman

Gianni is GianniDiCrosta

Nate is HeroicHeadgear

Phil is Phil Bothun