THE DISCIPLE OF BAPHOMET: a short story

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From the 2021 edition of Dissections: The Journal of Contemporary Horror:


Ever since my divorce last summer, I’ve been renting this two-bedroom apartment in a converted warehouse not far from the lake. The building is more than a century old, a relic from the sweatshop days of the early twentieth century when children as young as eight and nine were sent at dawn by their half-starving parents to work twelve-hour shifts at the looms and presses. In my dreams I see them sometimes, the shades of those miserable little boys and girls, their faces sparkling with graphite dust, their tiny fingers working the spindles of those unforgiving high-speed machines. I have an 18-year old daughter who lives with her father. Had she been around in the days before the enactment of child labor laws, she would have been a professional saboteur. Within an hour of entering the building, she would have made sure every lever and gear had malfunctioned. What’s more, an entire army of cigar-chomping overseers, their eyes scanning the floor for whimpering slackers, never would have caught her in the act. She is a genuine sneak, my daughter, and an exceptionally convincing liar.

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