The Reality Conspiracy

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NOVELS
:

Lake Monsters

UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOKS:

Joe Citro's Weird Vermont

1. Named one of the "113 Best Books of Modern Horror" by critic Stanley Wiater.

2. Reviewer Don Kaye: "…a supercharged cross between The X-Files and The Exorcist."

3.
Fangoria
: "For those of you who are tired of vampires, serial killers and angst-ridden, deteriorating artists, DEUS-X will be welcome relief.

4. Emmy Award winner Anne MacLeod: "Why it hasn't yet been turned into a movie is beyond me."

5. T. B. Estabrook: "Lucy—dear, sweet Lucy—she's easily the scariest anti-heroine I've ever encountered. Even though my skin crawls every time I think of her (and what eventually happens to her), I'm glad I met the creepy little being."

6. Amazon reviewer:
 
"…will spook you in ways you've never been spooked before."

7.
 
Artist Stephen R. Bissette: "D
EUS
-X culminates in one of the most chilling finales in modern fiction."

One Good Reason NOT to read DEUS-X

1. It might scare the sap out of you!

******************

Scare-master Richard Laymon: "Citro
'
s stuff is as good as it gets."

Acclaimed author Dan Simmons: "…the work of Joseph A
.
Citro could make a vampire fear the dark."

FICTION

Not Yet Dead, 2009

DEUS-X: The Reality Conspiracy, 2003

Lake
Monsters
, 2001

The Gore, 2000

Guardian Angels, 1999

Shadow Child, 1998

NONFICTION

Vermont's Haunts, 2010

Vermont
Monster Guide, 2009

Weird
New England
, 2005

Cursed in
New England
: Stories of Damned Yankees, 2004

Vermont
Ghost Guide, 2000

Green Mountains
, Dark Tales, 1999

Passing Strange, 1996

Green
Mountain
Ghosts, Ghouls and Unsolved Mysteries, 1994

Curious
New England
, 2003

Vermont
Air (Ed. 2002)

Vermont
Lifer (Ed. 1986)

To properly thank everyone who helped me with DEUS-X: The Reality Conspiracy would require another volume this size. Scores of individuals made contributions, whether they realize it or not. However, I owe a substantial debt to the following: Michael Johnson, Pat Whitman, Craig Goden, John Keel, Steve Bissette,  Wayne and Darlene Decker.  In addition, I'd like to thank David Dodd and David Niall Wilson at Crossroad Press for bringing this book into the 21st century. Thanks, too, to everyone who, by request or oversight, is not listed above.

"The only thing I will say with complete confidence about the mystic and invisible power is that it tells lies."

— G. K.
 
Chesterton

X Marks the Spot: A
Foreword (by Ste
phen R.
Bissette)

Part One: In the Beginning

1. Tribulation

2. Rapture

Part Two: The Next Year

3. Mr. Splitfoot

4. The Ancient Priest

5. The Widening Gyre

6. The Secret Birthday Wish

7. Pig on a Spit

8. The Foolish Fates

9. The Crouching Man

10. Crawling Things

11. Strange Awakenings

12. Blue Monday

13. Foul Spirits

14. Ghosts

15. Hand

16. A Coming of Serpents

17. Invaders

Part Three: Revelations

18. Earl King

19. Time to Kill

20. The Acolyte

21. Necessary Evil

Part Four: Devil's Town

22. Shepherds of the Light

Part Five: Armageddon

23. The Change That Is Coming

24. The Name of the Father

DEUS-Xtras

Commentary

Deleted Scenes

X Marks the Spot: An Afterword (by Stephen R. Bissette)

Let us begin by noting that there are, in and about us, "bad places." If you visit a "bad place," deliberately or inadvertently, you may see "bad things."

U
nlike the novel you are about to read, I'll begin by putting all my cards on the table:

Joseph A. Citro is a friend of mine. In fact, he's one of my best friends in the world. So you see, I already have a stake in this volume.

I also have a stake in this book because I made my own mark in here—or, rather, my marks. Joe's
DEUS-X
was originally published in 1994. It was his fifth and, as it turned out, final novel to date. It was also our first published book project together, as I illustrated the signed-and-limited edition hardcover first printing.

I have a personal philosophy as an illustrator:
give nothing away
. (Damn near every copy of
Moby Dick
I've ever seen gives away Moby Dick's smashing of the whaleship
Pequod
—oops, sorry. Spoiled that for you, I reckon. Apologies. PS: Ishmael alone survives.)

I make sure my illustrations are eye-catching and fit the text, but to keep them free of "spoilers" some illustrations will seem downright eccentric and enigmatic until you've absorbed the narrative, which is as it should be.

The same goes for intros and forewords: I'll give nothing away here, either, about what you're about to read.

DEUS-X
was also, as Joe details in his appendix to this edition, a "cursed book," in and of itself. I was privy to every nuanced emergence, twist, turn, and element of that curse, but found myself left strangely untouched by it. If anything, the only manifestation of the curse I personally experienced was the world's seeming indifference to its publication. Neither the world at large nor the world in miniature blinked an eye or cared a whit.

Mind you, while I might have expected the lack of attention to my own humble contribution (the illustrations), I was gob-smacked that even the so-called "horror community" seemed oblivious to Joe's newest work, and its considerable significance.

That is the greatest curse of all I've seen attached to
DEUS-X
: the curse of apathy and neglect.

In this, there's not much of a surprise. As with the Devil himself (as upstanding Catholic youths such as Joe and I were told again and again), the forces at work in
DEUS-X
count upon our apathy, myopia, ignorance, and neglect; our lack of attention spans, of noticing when things go awry, or of comprehending anything once they
do
.

So, a suggestion:

Pay attention. Remember what you read and see and hear in the following pages. There are forces greater than you or me or the Devil or the Deep Blue Sea counting on the fact you don't, and won't.

I dare say that much, much more than merely your state of mind or comparative comfort level with the following novel is at risk.

Pay.

Close.

Attention.

I fear I've said too much, though really I've told you nothing at all.

Oh, and, please, one more thing—

Turn the page.