#gale the sentient walker

[im-immortal]

Small Miracles

Beth Greene is not dead. Though it is not for a lack of trying.

After eight long years spent in the CRM's grasp, struggling to find reasons to continue surviving, Beth finally finds her reason: Rick and Daryl are alive, and they are closer than she ever could've guessed. Now she must take advantage of her only opportunity to escape and track them down.

Along the way, she revisits all of the places that changed her into who she has become. And she is forced to remember who she truly is at heart despite how unrecognizable she finds herself.

But she has an unexpected ally along for the journey. Just the same as her, he is somewhat of a living miracle. Except he's no longer living... he's a walker.

Moonshine Awards 2023 Third Place Winner for Best WIP ZA, and Second Place Winner for Best WIP Reunion/Fix It!

Chapter 24 // Part 15: North Carolina I

She is double-checking her map, tracing the routes with the tip of her finger for the millionth time, when Mae and Gale return together.  The door swings open like Mae shoved it, and she is panting, breathless, her face flushed and eyes wide with panic. Gale is right behind her, the flower crown Mae wove perched atop his head. At first, Beth chuckles at the sight. “What the hell is that?” “What?” Mae asks, glancing back at Gale and suddenly realizing how ridiculous he looks. “Oh—it’s the Flower Crown of Forgiveness. Not important.” Beth’s smile immediately falls as she takes in the panicked looks on both Mae’s and Gale’s faces. She quickly folds up her map and shoves it back into the pocket of her bag as she asks, “What’s goin’ on? What happened? Are you okay?” “No—I mean, yes,” Mae starts, taking a deep breath before she goes on, “Beth, I really don’t wanna freak you out, but I think we might need to leave sooner rather than later.” “What? Why?” Gale steps forward and says flatly, “We found tracks—human tracks. More than one. They found our snares an’ took the kills.” Beth’s blood goes cold. “I think there’s people,” Mae says. “And I think they know we’re here.”

[weirdletter]

The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic, edited by Clive Bloom, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. Cover image by Angela Waye / Alamy Stock Photo, info: palgrave.com.

The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic is the most comprehensive compendium of analytic essays on the modern Gothic now available, covering the vast and highly significant period from 1918 to 2019. The Gothic sensibility, over 200 years old, embraces its dark past whilst anticipating the future. From demons and monsters to post- apocalyptic fears and ecological fantasies, Gothic is thriving as never before in the arts and in popular culture. This volume is made up of 62 comprehensive chapters with notes and extended bibliographies contributed by scholars from around the world. The chapters are written not only for those engaged in academic research but also to be accessible to students and dedicated followers of the genre. Each chapter is packed with analysis of the Gothic in both theory and practice, as the genre has mutated and spread over the last hundred years. Starting in 1918 with the impact of film on the genre's development, and moving through its many and varied international incarnations, each chapter chronicles the history of the gothic milieu from the movies to gaming platforms and internet memes, television and theatre. The volume also looks at how Gothic intersects with fashion, music and popular culture: a multi-layered, multi-ethnic, even a trans-gendered experience as we move into the twenty first century.

Contents: Introduction to the Gothic Handbook Series:​ Welcome to Hell – Clive Bloom     Global Gothics Latin American Horror – Sandra Casanova-Vizcaíno and Inés Ordiz Dark Tourism – Joan Passey Two Twentieth-Century Mexican Writers – Antonio Alcalá González Dark Urbanity – Tijana Parezanović and Marko Lukić Contemporary Australian Trauma – Jessica Gildersleeve Postcolonialisms​ – Gina Wisker Strains of the South – Naomi Simone Borwein Indigenous Alterations – Angela Elisa Schoch/Davidson Hillbilly Horror – Tosha R. Taylor Southern Agrarianism and Exploitation – Gerardo Del Guercio     Hostile Environments British ‘Hoodie’ Horror – Lauren Stephenson Green Trends in Euro-Horror Films of the 1960s and 1970s – David Annwn Jones Ecocriticism and the Genre – Emily Alder and  Jenny Bavidge The Wilderness – Kaja Franck ‘Queer’ Representations of Rural and Urban Locations – Paulina Palmer James Herbert’s Working-Class Horror – Simon Brown Re-defining the Genre with Mo Hayder – Sian MacArthur Stephen King – Brian Jarvis     Occult Gothic Aleister Crowley and Occult Meaning – James Machin Aleister Crowley and the Black Magic Story – Timothy Jones     Gothic Romance The Gothic Romance – Holly Hirst Georgette Heyer – Holly Hirst The Body in Pieces Abjection and Body Horror – Xavier Aldana Reyes Torture Porn – Tosha R. Taylor Clive Barker’s Hellraiser – Mark Richard Adams     Psychological Gothic The Asylum – Laura R. Kremmel Psychopaths, Sociopaths and the Psychotic Mind – Lauren Ellis Christie Beyond the Unfeeling Narcissus to Patrick Bateman – Robert K. Shepherd     Zombie Gothic Zombie Folklore to Existential Protagonists – Kelly Gardner The Sentient Zombie – Kelly Gardner     New Vampire Gothic Transmedia Vampires – Simon Bacon The Post-human Vampire – Simon Bacon Monstrosity, Performativity, and Performance – Laura Davidel     Young Gothic Encounters with the ‘Hidden’ World in Modern Children’s Fiction – Chloé Germaine Buckley Gender and Sexuality in Young Adult Fiction – Michelle J. Smith and Kristine Moruzi Horror Hosts in British Girls’ Comics – Julia Round Lemony Snicket – Valeria Iglesias-Plester     Gothic Film Ghostly Gimmicks:​ Spectral Special Effects in Haunted House Films – Laura Sedgwick Universal Horror – Brian Jarvis Arthouse Cinema – Stacey Abbott The Horror Genre in Balkan Cinema – Tanja Jurković Slavic Cinema – Agnieszka Kotwasińska Gender Politics in a High-Camp, Lowbrow Musical – Joana Rita Ramalho Roger Corman – Murray Leeder David Lynch – Brian Jarvis     Gothic Television Doctor Who:​ Identity, Time and Terror – J.S. Mackley Nigel Kneale and Quatermass – J.S. Mackley Dark Costume in Contemporary Television – Stephanie Mulholland Wildlings, White Walkers, and Watchers on the Wall of Northumberland’s Borderland – Chelsea Eddy Grand Guignol, Inside Showtime’s Penny Dreadful Demimonde – Tanja Jurković     Gothic Music The Blasphemous Grotesqueries of The Tiger Lillies – Joana Rita Ramalho The Return of the Past in the Lyrics of Black Metal – Antonio Alcalá González     Interactive Gothic Interactive and Movable Books in the Tradition – Jen Baker The Evolving Genre of the Vampire Games – Jon Garrad The Digital Haunted House – Erika Kvistad Anxiety in the Digital Age – David Langdon Horror Memes and Digital Culture – Tosha R. Taylor Virtual Desert Horrors – Alison Bainbridge Immersive and Pervasive Performance – Madelon Hoedt     Gothic Lifestyle Fashion Gothwear – Victoria Amador Walking with the Lancashire Witches – Alex Bevan The Influence of the Genre in High Fashion – Jennifer Richards The Geisha Ghost – Jenevieve Van-Veda     Theoretical Gothic Three French Modernists – Giles Whiteley Dark Modernisms – Matt Foley     Post Modern Gothic The Postmodern Genre – Joakim Wrethed Heterotopian Horrors – Marko Lukić and Tijana Parezanović The New Batman – Michail-Chrysovalantis Markodimitrakis     Post Human Gothic Global War from Tokyo to Barcelona – Naomi Simone Borwein Posthuman Interstellar Gothic – Holly-Gale Millette Degeneration in H.​P.​ Lovecraft and William Hope Hodgson – Antonio Alcalá González Lovecraft, Decadence, and Aestheticism – James Machin List of Contributors   Index