Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology

On his way to Paris, Tom struggles to focus on his book about a man with a rare disorder: “Capgras delusion, which makes you think imposters have replaced your loved ones” (328). However, a knot in his shoulder blade distracts him. 

Tom is traveling to Paris for a book tour publicizing the new French translation of his novel. Tom sits through his first interview and finds it strange that the interviewer focuses heavily on a scene involving a car crash where the interviewer says a lot of blood is spilled and the characters must face their sins. The interviewers’ remarks do not seem to correspond to what Tom actually wrote about, and he begins to question the French translation’s accuracy.

On his second day of interviews, Tom struggles with more questions that seem to suggest that his book is religiously themed. When the last interviewer asks about a correlation between a character and Jesus, Tom gets up and leaves. From his perspective, no part of his writing is about Jesus. In his frustration, Tom reads from the Bible at his book reading later that day, driving everyone to leave. The lump in his shoulder grows heavier and more bothersome.

The next morning, Tom meets his translator. When Tom begins questioning the man about why he made the book about sin and Jesus, the man confesses to not being the translator, merely a stand-in coordinated by the agent to appease Tom. Tom grows angry, scaring the man out of the room. When Tom sees his reflection, his lump bursts, and Kokopelli, a trickster with a curved back, emerges. This vision fades, but Tom feels memories that mirror his novel emerge. His wife is digging a hole and burying a body. He presses on the lump and sees himself behind the wheel, “a local tweaker dashing across the road like a deer” (345). The memory is too burdensome, and Tom rushes out of the office to the Seine. As he stares at the water, he contemplates returning home and recovering his true self. However, he also reflects, “[N]othing that I thought should happen, would happen” (346).

Bets sits with her colleagues Dr. Anders Lilley and Dr. Harmoni Coelho at a restaurant outside the Oceanographic, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences Conference. When their conversation turns toward horror movies, Anders offers to tell a ghost story.

An old friend of Anders named Mike texted him to ask if the ground can emit radiation. Mike revealed that multiple patients at his hospital no longer had functional DNA after visiting the abandoned stables at Pinot Ghost Town. Mike believed it was due to radiation, and Anders promised to investigate. Archie, Anders’s brother, drove Anders to the town, but Anders found no radiation. Before leaving, Archie and Anders were confronted by a man who threatened to call the police. As they argued, Anders read texts from Mike, who explained that the patients’ DNA had been sequenced and formed a repetitive pattern: “TAAGATAAGATAAGATAA” (355).

Anders and Archie shared their story with the man, a private investigator, gaining his trust. The private investigator explained that he was investigating the disappearance of a girl named Aggie, who went missing in Pinot Ghost Town. He had no leads, but Anders suggested he search for wells. Days later, Aggie was found at the bottom of a well. Anders believed that Aggie haunted the town, as the patients with the mysterious condition began appearing after her death. Moreover, Aggie’s given name was Agata, which was spelled out in the victims’ DNA.

Neither Bets nor Harmoni believe the story, and Anders reveals that it is indeed fictional. Bets then tells a story of how one night, as she waited to receive approval for a project meant to research “the effects of flooding and hurricanes on the homeland of an unrecognized coastal tribe” (362), she watched a horror movie called Fun House of Wax V. It had foolish characters and a bad plot, and Bets yelled at the characters not to make obviously bad decisions. The next day, Bets’s grant was denied on the grounds that it was limited in its scope. As Bets began working with her team to defend their reasoning, she realized that it was like yelling at the characters in the movie: futile. She will not watch bad horror movies any longer, not wanting to feel that same sense of helplessness and hoping she can make a difference and create a better future for coming generations. Anders and Harmoni don’t respond.

Megis Cloud is a sophomore English student working her way through college by waiting tables at a restaurant. She hates the job and is not good at it, but she stays with it, needing the money. After a particularly difficult shift, she attends an end-of-semester party at the home of her professor, Smith. Megis does not want to go but needs a recommendation from Professor Smith to obtain an internship. When Megis walks in, she is horrified to see human heads on the walls. A space over the fireplace is conspicuously empty. She feels uncomfortable both because none of the other attendees are BIPOC and because no one seems to care about the heads. Megis asks a classmate about them, and he tells her that Professor Smith collects them, legally, and that it is not that odd. Just as Megis is about to leave, the classmate calls Professor Smith over.

Professor Smith gives Megis a tour of her house, showing her the many heads and telling their stories. Every head is a former student and mentee whom Professor Smith helped guide through a successful writing career. Megis feels sick, convinced her professor is a murderer, but stays, engaging in polite conversation. Professor Smith explains that she has a head for every religion, orientation, and race but one: Indigenous. She explains that she desperately wants this final head and offers to help Megis escape her job at the restaurant and become a successful writer. Megis looks at Professor Smith and sees a wiindigoo staring out of her eyes, greedy and hungry. Megis wants to flee but is enchanted by the vision of success, not wanting to lose her chance. Professor Smith promises to help her, saying she knows how hard life at school can be for marginalized students.

Makwa and Carter walk through a forest. Makwa knows the region as Anishinaabe Aki, while Carter calls it Ontario. Makwa acts as a local guide for Carter, who is a surveyor for a company searching for a mining and logging location, part of a greater trend during the 1800s. They walk in silence before settling in at an isolated cabin. Carter suggests a drink and then accuses Makwa of wasting his time, showing him no worthwhile land. Makwa accuses Carter of wanting to destroy the land and profit from it. When Carter emphatically agrees, Makwa smacks the bottle of alcohol off the table. In retaliation, Carter knocks Makwa out.

Makwa wakes up tied to a chair. Carter twists both of his knees, tearing the ligaments and immobilizing Makwa. Carter tells Makwa that he is going to take Makwa’s limbs and that he and other men are coming for Makwa and his community’s land: Nothing will stop them. He threatens not only Makwa but also generations of Makwa’s descendants. Carter then takes a knife and cuts off each of Makwa’s toes while Makwa begs him to stop. When he is done, Carter takes Makwa’s pinky toe and eats it. A knock at the door draws Carter away, and when he steps outside to investigate, a tree branch falls and hits him on the head. He falls to the ground, where roots rise out of the ground, impale him, and pull him down into the earth. Makwa unties himself, crawls to the bed, and waits for his brother to find him.