The porcelain depThs Issue 4 An Ovi Publication 2026 Ovi Publications - All material is copyright of the Ovi & Ovi Thematic/History/Dark eMagazines Publications C Ovi Thematic/History/Dark Magazines are available in Ovi/Ovi ThematicMagazines and OviPedia pages in all forms PDF/ePub/mobi/txt, and they are always FREE. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi Thematic, an Ovi Dark or Ovi History eMagazine please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writers or the above publisher of this magazine. T here is a particular hour; somewhere past midnight before the first gray light, when a city stops pretending. The neon buzzes instead of glows. The rain tastes like rust and re - gret. And the things that walk the streets wear human faces, though everyone knows better than to look twice. Welcome to the fourth issue of Ovi Dark. This time, we descended into the alleyways where noir and the supernatural bleed into one another like ink into wet paper and we brought back stories. Tales of detectives who solve murders commit - ted by things that were never alive. Of femme fatales with reflections that move a half-second late. Of rainy nights when the only witness is a ghost who wants something in return for the truth. Of ...Hell. Why do these two genres fit together like a bullet in a chamber? Because both understand that the real horror isn’t the monster. It’s the knowledge that the world was never fair, never safe, never ours to begin with. Noir taught us that everyone’s guilty of something. The supernatural simply asks: what if that something can never die? editorial In these pages you’ll find a private eye who takes a case from a cli - ent already three weeks in the ground. A cursed jukebox that plays the last song you’ll ever hear. A tortured spirit running a protection racket in a drowned Louisiana parish. A séance that goes wrong in exactly the way everyone warned it would. Each story is steeped in cigarette smoke and bad decisions, and each one reminds us that some debts outlive the debtor. We believe the best dark fiction doesn’t just scare you. It unsettles you, makes you glance at your own reflection a beat too long. Noir gives us the flawed hero, the losing hand, the moral compromise. The supernatural gives us consequence without end. Together, they whis - per the oldest truth: the night is patient, and it remembers. So pour something strong. Lock the door, though we both know that won’t help. And remember, as you turn these pages: in a world where ghosts keep their promises and detectives keep their secrets, the only thing more dangerous than the truth is wanting to know it. Stay in the shadows. They’re reading with you. Thanos Kalamidas History, Mystery, Fiction & Flair All Under One Roof. One Click! Get every single issue of four iconic magazines: a thematic deep-dive, a history chronicle, a pulp fiction thrill ride, and a short story treasure trove. Complete collections, zero missing editions. Your ultimate library starts here. Grab the complete set today! It’s just one click away! we cover every issue! https://ovithematicmagazines.wordpress.com/ In the back alleys and dimly lit dives where morality goes to die, these stories stake their claim. Here, the world is rendered in stark contrast, the blinding flash of a muzzle, the deep shadow of a fedo- ra’s brim, the crimson stain spreading across a charcoal suit. This is the realm of the fatalistic and the fallen, where the dame is always trouble, the scheme is never clean and the hero is merely the last man standing. Driven by desperation and the promise of one big score, these tales unspool with the relentless rhythm of rain on a windowpane. Welcome. The verdict is already in: nobody walks away clean. The Ovi Dark eMagazine Pulp Fiction Short Stories September 2026 Editor: T. Kalamidas Contact ovimagazine@ yahoo.com Issue 04 Sharon Bailey, Conor Salas, Liliana Herrera, Tyrell Sawyer, Sid En- glish, Archie Michael, Jac Monroe, Abbie O’Con- nor, Xanthe Melton, Jorge Stuart, Bill Campos, Dawid Sims, Jerome Weiss, Libbie Barlow, Princess Conley, Benja- min Myers, Kieran Porter, Thanos Kalamidas, David Sparenberg contents The porcelain depths Ovi Thematic/Dark/ History eMagazines Publications 2026 Ovi’s unusual pulp eMagazine Editorial 3 A bad dog and a burlap sack IN HELL by David Sparenberg 19 Pennsylvania 1922 23 The porcelain depths 27 Double take 33 The tail-light blues 39 The soft touch 47 Tome & brimstone 57 The shadow in number eight 63 Red ribbon 69 T he sun down in Castle Rock didn’t shine so much as it leaked, standard-issue late Oc - tober grease filtering through a ceiling of bruised-purple clouds. It smelled like wet pine needles, bad choices, and the faint, sweet decay of winter pulling its boots on. Brenda Clack was thirty-four years old, wore a faded canvas chore coat that had belonged to her ex-husband, a bastard named Gary who was currently enjoying a five-year stretch in Thomaston for bad checks and was missing a three-legged Basset Hound named Barnaby. Barnaby had three legs, one ear that looked like it had been run through a hand-cranked meat grinder back in ’18, and a mind like an abandoned well. Deep, dark, and full of wet gravel. “Barnaby, you worthless bag of lard!” Brenda shout - ed into the brush off the old Logging Road 4. Her voice bounced back at her, sounding small and hollow, like a dime dropped into an empty beer bottle. “You come out here and I swear to God I’ll let the coyotes have the rest of your legs!” A bad dog and a burlap sack By Thanos Kalamidas She paused, leaning her hands on her knees, taking a deep breath that tasted like iron and cold mud. Her hips ached. Her left boot was letting in dampness around the welt. And that was when she heard it. Not a bark. Barnaby didn’t bark so much as he issued a low, wet gurgle that sounded like a toilet backed up with clogged pa - per. No, this was a rustle. Heavy. A dragging sound through the dry oak leaves fifty yards off the skid trail, down where the gulley pitched toward the Blackwood Stream. “Barnaby?” she muttered, pulling a flashlight out of her coat pocket. It was a heavy two- D-cell Maglite, heavy enough to double as a skull-cracker if some drunk got fresh down at the Mel - low Moon Tap. She pushed through a thicket of prickle-bushes that tore at her jeans, stepping over a fallen birch that had rotted into something resembling cold cream. “Barnaby, I swear...” She stopped. Barnaby was there, alright. The dog was sitting on his wide, wrin - kled rump; his single good ear flopped forward, intently sniffing a burlap potato sack that looked like it had spent the last two months under a manure pile. The sack was wedged into the hollow roots of a dead white pine. “What’d you find, you idiot? A dead skunk?” Brenda grunted, shuffling down the embankment. “If you’ve got fleas again, you’re sleeping in the wood cabin. I mean it.” She reached out with the toe of her boot and nudged the sack. It didn’t squish like a dead ani - mal. It gave a heavy, dense thud. Like a sack of flour, or maybe wet books. Brenda nudged it again. A tear in the burlap, right where some wood-boring beetles had made a meal, gaped open. Something green and crisp peeked out. Brenda froze. The woods went dead silent around her. Even the crows up in the hemlocks seemed to hold their breath. She dropped to her knees, ig - noring the mud soaking through her canvas pants, and hooked two fingers into the rip. She pulled. It wasn’t flour. And it wasn’t books. It was green. Bands of it. Worn, soft, sweet-smelling, glo - rious green. Stacked in bricks bound with blue paper straps marked Bangor Savings & Loan. She grabbed a bundle and brought it up to her face. Twen - ty-dollar bills. Fifties. A few hun - dred sprinkled in like dark cher - ries on a cheap cake. “Holy mother of pearl,” Bren - da whispered. Barnaby offered a low, mourn - ful boof and licked his nose. “Shut up, Barnaby,” she gasped, her heart suddenly ham - mering against her ribs like a trapped bird. “Just... shut the hell up.” She did a quick mental calcula - tion. The stack in her hand was at least two grand. The bag was the size of a fifty-pound feed sack. There had to be ...what? Twen - ty? Thirty thousand bucks sitting in the dirt next to a three-legged dog and a pile of pine needles. Two weeks ago, the paper had run a front-page piece about two fellows in nylon stocking masks who’d rolled the credit union over in Norway, Maine, shot a se - curity guard in the foot, and van - ished into the timber in a rust- ed-out Ford Pinto. Well, well, well, Brenda thought, a slow, dark grin stretch - ing across her face for the first time in three years. Looks like the Ford Pinto didn’t make it. Then, right behind her, a twig snapped with the crisp, unmistak - able sound of a small rifle shot. “Don’t move a muscle, lady,” a voice rasped. “Or I put one right through the back of your hair.” Brenda’s blood turned instant- ly to slush. She didn’t move. She kept her knees in the mud, the stack of twenties still clutched in her right hand, her heavy Maglite in her left. “Slow,” the voice said. “Turn around real slow.” Brenda turned. Standing ten feet up the slope was a man who looked like he’d been dragged through a hedge backward and then beaten with the ugly stick. He was wearing a grease-stained orange hunt- ing vest over a flannel shirt that smelled, even from ten feet away, like cheap gin and dried sweat. In his hands, pointed right at the center of her chest, was a dou - ble-barreled 12-gauge shotgun. The bluing on the barrels was worn right down to the bright silver steel. His face was a roadmap of bad living: pockmarks, a broken nose that healed sideways, and eyes the color of dirty river ice. “Look at that,” the man sneered, showing a mouth short three teeth on the left side. “I come back for my laundry, and I find a thief.” “Your laundry?” Brenda said. Her voice shook, but she forced a cold, hard edge into it. Liv - ing with Gary for six years had taught her one thing about men with guns: if you show them you’re scared, they eat you alive. “This laundry smells like a bank robbery, mister.” “It’s my bank robbery,” he spat. He shifted his grip on the shotgun. “Name’s Earl. And you’re trespassing on my retire - ment fund.” Barnaby chose that exact mo - ment to stand up, wobble on his three legs, and let out a long, pa - thetic, whistling fart. Earl blinked, his eyes darting down to the hound for a split second. “What the hell is wrong with that dog?” “He’s got a weak stomach,” Brenda said smoothly. “And a bad disposition.” “Shut ‘im up,” Earl growled, bringing his focus back to Bren - da. “Here’s how this goes, lady. You leave the bag. You leave your shoes so you don’t run fast. You walk north toward the highway. If I see you turn around, I open you up like a November deer.” “My shoes?” Brenda looked down at her muddy boots. “It’s forty degrees out here, Earl. I’ll get frostbite.” “Then you better walk fast,” Earl barked, raising the barrels. “Now drop the flashlight.” “Sure thing, Earl,” Brenda said softly. She didn’t drop it. Instead, she whipped her left arm up with everything she had, slinging the heavy steel Maglite straight at his face. It was a wild throw, but it didn’t need to be precise. Earl flinched, ducking his head, and the flashlight caught him square on the cheekbone with a metallic CRACK. The shotgun went off BOOM ...a deafening roar that tore through the quiet woods, blow - ing a bushel of pine needles and branch-tips into the air six feet above Brenda’s head. “You bitch!” Earl howled, stumbling backward down the slippery slope, clutching his face as blood welled through his dirty fingers. “Barnaby, attack!” Brenda screamed. Barnaby sat down and began frantically scratching his remain - ing ear. “Worthless!” Brenda yelled, grabbing the top of the burlap sack. It was heavy, Jesus, it had to weigh forty pounds, but pure adrenaline is a hell of a drug. She heaved the bag over her shoul- der, turned, and bolted down the ravine toward the creek. “I’m gonna blow your head off!” Earl roared behind her, thrashing through the brush like a wounded bear. Brenda ran. Her boots slammed into the slick river rocks, mud splattering up her thighs. The burlap sack bounced against her back, hard and heavy, full of stolen cut-rate promises and green paper dreams. Behind her, she could hear Earl shouting curses that would make a sail - or blush, followed by the wet, rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack of Barnaby trotting along beside her, completely unbothered by the gunfire. Ahead, the Blackwood Stream broadened out into a shallow ford where the old timber trucks used to cross. Across the water sat the rusted, abandoned shell of a 1958 International Harvest - er flatbed, half-buried in river-silt and blackberry brambles. “Up, Barnaby!” Brenda gasped, splashing through knee- deep ice-water that stung her an- kles like needles. She hauled herself over the truck’s rotted wooden bed, throwing the sack into the rusted cab, and scrambled in after it. She slammed the driver-side door or tried to, but it was frozen in place by rust. Earl broke out of the tree line twenty yards away. His cheek was swollen to the size of a plum, dripping crimson onto his bright orange vest. He was breaking open the shotgun, frantically try - ing to cram two fresh 12-gauge shells into the breech with trem- bling, blood-slicked fingers. “You ain’t getting away with my money!” he screamed, his voice cracking. Brenda looked around the cab. Nothing. An empty pack of Lucky Strikes, an old fan belt cracked like snake skin, and a heavy, iron hand-crank lug wrench resting on the floor - boards. She grabbed the lug wrench. “Earl!” she yelled out the win - dowless frame. Earl raised his head, thumbing the shotgun closed with a sharp CLACK. “What?!” “You forgot something!” She threw the lug wrench. She hadn’t played softball since eighth grade at Castle Rock Mid - dle School, but back then, she’d been the starting pitcher for the Lady Cougars. The lug wrench didn’t float; it spun end-over-end through the cool autumn air like an iron propeller. It caught Earl right in the cen - ter of his forehead with a sound like a ripe watermelon hitting a concrete sidewalk. Earl’s eyes rolled up into his head. His knees gave out instant - ly, buckling inward, and he folded forward into two feet of rushing, freezing stream water like an old suit of clothes dropped into a washing machine. The shotgun slipped from his fingers and sank into the silt. Brenda sat in the truck cab, panting heavily, her heart ham - mering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. The woods went quiet again. The water gurgled over the stones. Down in the stream, Earl floated facedown for a terrifying three seconds before he suddenly rolled over, coughing, sputtering, and wheezing, entirely stripped of his fight. He dragged himself onto a gravel bar, groaning like a dying moose, and lay there bleed - ing into his orange vest. Brenda climbed out of the cab, carrying the burlap sack. She walked over to the bank, looking down at him. “You gonna stay there, Earl?” she asked, wiping a smudge of grease off her forehead. Earl let out a wet, pathetic whimper and curled into a ball. “My head... Jesus, lady...” “Yeah. Well. You shouldn’t have shot at my dog’s pine tree,” Brenda said. She turned to Barnaby, who was standing by a clump of cat - tails, sniffing a dead frog with in - tense fascination. “Come on, boy,” she said soft - ly. She gripped the top of the sack, hitched it higher onto her shoulder, and began the long walk back up toward Logging Road 4. Halfway up the hill, she stopped, dropped the bag for a second, and unzipped the top. She reached in, pulled out three neat, paper-strapped stacks of twenties, six grand, give or take and stuffed them deep into the big side pockets of her ex-hus - band’s canvas coat. Then she zipped the bag back up, hauled it to her shoulder, and kept walking. An hour later, she reached the state police barracks on Route 117. She walked right up to the front desk, dumped the muddy burlap sack onto the polished li - noleum, and looked Sergeant Joe Clavin dead in the eye. “Found this down by the creek,” Brenda said, dusting off her hands. “Some fella named Earl tried to shoot me for it. He’s sitting in the Blackwood Stream right now with a knot on his head the size of a turnip. You might want to go collect him before he catches pneumonia.” Joe Clavin’s jaw dropped. He stared at the sack, then at Brenda, then out the window at her bat- tered old Dodge pickup parked in the lot. “Brenda...” Joe stammered, pulling the zipper back on the bag. “Is this... is this the Norway Credit Union money?” “Looks like it,” Brenda said, turning toward the door. “Every last cent of it, far as I know.” “Wait a minute!” Joe called out, pushing back his chair. “There’s a reward on this! Ten percent from the insurance company! That’s... Jesus, Brenda, that’s almost three grand!” Brenda stopped at the glass door, her hands shoved deep into her canvas coat pockets, her fin - gers resting comfortably against six thousand dollars of uncol - lectable, unregistered, beautifully crisp cash. She turned, offered Joe a small, sweet, dangerous smile, and pat - ted Barnaby on his ears. “Keep the reward, Joe,” Bren - da said smoothly. “Buy yourself a nice pair of boots. Mine are soaked.” The End IN HELL a footnote on the multiverse legacy of Giordano Bruno* by David Sparenberg H ell: In Hell per se there is no light, there is no darkness. In hell there are only shades of gray. In Hell everyone brings their own dim, flickering light, eternally threatening to burn out. In Hell everyone brings their own dense, impenetrable, and inescapable darkness. Hell is the contextual dimension most conducive to maintain and isolate the cowardice of criminal corruption traumatizing the well-being of others. Hell is political and emperors, kings, tyrants, inquisitors, false witnesses. fleecing false prophets, snake oil evangelicals, and war profiteers are in high percentage. Many of those exulted, popularized and worshippedare commonly followed as heroes and role models on the sorrowful road to perdition. Such is the density of shadows. Such is the narrative tragedy of slaves. Too often thus Hell will gush, will seep and ooze, or rise flash flooding, contaminating the surface of the Earth. Then Hell is history and history is Hell. In Hell per se there is no ice, there is no fire. Hell itself is climate neutral, like a boundless while yet confining sensory privation chamber. Everyone brings their own ice, experienced in the degrees of criminal efficiency. Everyone in Hell brings their own fire, scalding, cooking in the depravity of identity rage. Throughout the densities and intensities of the multiverse, nothing demonic is fouler, more depraved and dangerous than the resentful and twisted human intellect. In Hell per se there are no Native methods or devices. In that condition of torment everyone brings with them their own methods and means of torture. All secrets are exposed in the nether region and serve as confessions. Beyond consciousness, beyond reason the soul is preternaturally sensitive to the acquired and cumulative energies of good and evil. Purgatory: A contextual dimension and non-locality scattered deep among the Imaginal All-Around, meaning exactly what is understood in common usage. Purgatory is emergence of a second chance, where the candle of conscience reignites and a return of consciousness begins to dawn. Purgatory is more process than place, designed to disentangle, clarify and resolve confusion between good and evil. The direction to rise or to fall is worked on and decided. There is agony in purgatory but it results from the vigor of struggle. And we understand experientially that much of contemporary life is purgatorial—a cathartic process when inner movement is victorious, a labyrinthian darkening when constellation struggles fail to integrate. Heaven: In one conditional aspect Heaven is similar to Hell. Heaven is what the soul achieves, what learns, what good has been done and is brought (joyously), as spiritual treasure, as the no longer hidden desire of unlived and benignly unfulfilled life into the responsive poiesis of the Imaginal.