And One Day We Will Die, page 1
Praise for And One Day We Will Die:
"As multifarious and seductive as the lyrics of Jeff Mangum, these stories all stand beautifully on their own while together producing a cryptic spectacle worthy of their inspiration."
-Molly Tanzer, author of Creatures of Will and Temper and "Jirel and the Mirror of Truth"
"Every author milks their surreal sonic source material with tales ranging from horrifically weird to heartbreakingly poignant in a collection that's anything but neutral."
-Brian McAuley, author of Curse of the Reaper and Candy Cain Kills
"Delightful and poignant, And One Day We Will Die riffs beautifully on the enigmatic songs of Neutral Milk Hotel. Each story shapes its own strange and brilliant world, yet carries the poetry and transcendence of the band's legacy. Both fans and nonfans of the band will lose themselves in these dark, lovely tales."
-Ivy Grimes, author of Glass Stories
And One Day We Will Die
STRANGE STORIES INSPIRED BY THE MUSIC OF NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL
EDITED BY
PATRICK BARB
Copyright © 2025 Patrick Barb.
All stories copyright © 2025 their respective authors.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover art copyright © 2025 by Chris Bilheimer
Edited by Patrick Barb, patrickbarb.com
Interior formatting by Brandon Applegate
Content warnings at the end of the book. Check the table of contents for page number.
Contents
Editor’s Note
Foreword
Adam Clair
Untitled
Inspired by “Ghost”
Lillah Lawson
Argyria (Progress Review)
Inspired by “Where You'll Find Me Now”
Helen Victoria Murray
The Polyamorous Heart of Death
Inspired by “Holland, 1945”
M. Lopes da Silva
Twins
Inspired by “A Baby for Pree”
Camila Hamel
Her Reflection
Inspired by “My Dream Girl Don't Exist”
Briar Ripley Page
The Clown King in Yellow
Inspired by “The Fool”
Joe Koch
Not Even the Ghosts, Not Even the Birds
Inspired by “The King of Carrot Flowers Part 1”
Tiffany Morris
Just the Motion
Inspired by “Little Birds”
D. Matthew Urban
The Project
Inspired by “Oh, Comely”
Christi Nogle
Transmission
Inspired by “Two-Headed Boy”
Tim Major
Terminus
Inspired by “Two-Headed Boy, Pt. 2”
Dan Coxon
White Roses in Their Eyes
Inspired by “untitled (‘Ghost’ coda)”
Matthew Kressel
Styx and Stones
Inspired by “Someone Is Waiting”
Lindz McLeod
Mirrorboy
Inspired by “Avery Island/April 1st”
Erin Brown
The Garden Head
Inspired by “Gardenhead / Leave Me Alone”
Brian Evenson
The Oxygen Thief
Inspired by “I Hear You Breathe”
Edward Barnfield
Crungus and Loeb – An Unpublished Review
Inspired by “I Will Bury You in Time”
Dale Light
The Church of Our Lords. The Church of Dogs.
Inspired by “The King of Carrot Flowers Part 2 and 3”
Corey Farrenkopf
On the Bridge Above the River
Inspired by “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea”
Ai Jiang
Perfect Dream
Inspired by “Engine”
Michael Horita
Naomi Ascending
Inspired by “Naomi”
Richard Thomas
For the Rest of Our Lives, We Will Wait in You: A Record
Inspired by “You’ve Passed”
John Langan
Content Warnings
Biographies
Acknowledgments
Books by Patrick Barb
Editor’s Note
Weird and horror fiction is for everyone, regardless of experience, trauma, or situation. With that in mind, we’ve included content warnings at the back of this book so you can enjoy these stories safely. If you don’t need them, that’s awesome. If you do, please use them.
Foreword
ADAM CLAIR
I have been scared by music before.
I have been overwhelmed by My Bloody Valentine’s Lovecraftian layering of guitars and paranoia.
I have been shaken to my bones by Death Grips’ beguiling, menacing, formless intensity.
I have been bedeviled by Broadcast’s ethereal lamentations and tormented by John Carpenter’s legendary film scores. There’s an entire genre of music known as “hauntology.”
Neither In the Aeroplane Over the Sea nor On Avery Island nor any of Neutral Milk Hotel’s other work has ever really scared me, though, and despite writing a book about and talking to way too many people about this music, I don’t recall coming across anybody for whom it inspires horror.
But I wasn’t surprised when I learned of this anthology, because just about any emotional response is appropriate for Neutral Milk Hotel.
What has made Aeroplane such an affirming, uplifting album for me and lots of other folks connects to why it’s such a good launch point for horror stories and why it’s inspiring to so many people in so many other genres and mediums: it’s impressionistic and abstract in a way that invites individual interpretations (and projections), but it’s still so masterfully realized that anyone listening can forge a deep connection to it. It’s accessibly intense. You’re probably going to feel something, and you’re going to feel it a whole heck of a lot, while the record is spinning and long after. What Jeff Mangum is expressing, mostly on an extratextual level, is his deep-rooted belief in the power of art to change people on an individual and societal level. Because that’s expressed extratextually, the listener is invited to provide their own text.
Jeff’s own life offers a similar opportunity. Jeff, with bandmates and collaborators, made a classic album. When an artist makes something so revered and never releases anything else after it, it’s often for a horrific or at least tragic reason: a suicide or overdose, financial exploitation, crimes against humanity, take your pick. As any horror reader knows, though, the lack of a reason can be scariest of all. Jeff has not released any new music since 1998’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. A few years of solo and reunion tours about a decade and a half later featured only songs from the ‘90s and earlier, and Jeff hasn’t even performed in public since 2015. Why would someone on the verge of rock stardom, someone whose music speaks to a great capacity for empathy and an endless curiosity about other people (not to mention a singular artistic talent), choose hermitage instead?
What happened to him? Why is he hiding? What does he know?
Could he reappear?
What’s compelling about Jeff and his work is the mystery but also the ways in which that mystery provokes questions and a second look at the things we take for granted in our day-to-day lives. Horror does the same thing. The little bells that ring in your brain when you come across an opaque lyric or a strange melody or or an unfamiliar instrument or a baffling biographical detail are the same chimes you hear when you encounter the door you never noticed on the abandoned old church or the cryptic voicemail from an unknown number or the otherworldly sound emanating from the woods or the unexplainable curl of light in the early morning sky.
What’s new is weird, and what’s weird can be scary.
With that in mind, I won’t say much about the stories that follow. With an abstract work like Aeroplane, listener reactions tell you less about the record and more about the listeners themselves. On the ensuing pages, twenty-two fabricators of fright have channeled the dread, fear, and anxious awe that Neutral Milk Hotel inspired in them into twenty-two chilling tales. Whether you’ve got the Neutral Milk Hotel catalog committed to memory or haven’t even heard a song, you’re about to learn a lot about some of the minds it has touched and likely a lot about yourself, too.
Adam Clair is a writer based in Philadelphia and the author of Endless Endless: A Lo-Fi History of the Elephant 6 Mystery.
Untitled
INSPIRED BY “GHOST”
LILLAH LAWSON
She left the city right after work and drove for several hours, arriving at a nameless place just before dusk.
She drove the whole way in silence. Once or twice she broke up the quiet by rolling down the window and listening to the sound of the wind whipping by, the occasional barking dog, a passing car. These mundane sounds calmed her. Occasionally, she would hum to herself; a low voice out of tune. She talked to herself a bit. Mainly, she was quiet. And when the city had truly fallen behind her,
Only then could she accept that she was free.
She brought nothing with her, except for a few tiny little objects that had no importance to anyone, maybe not even her: an empty bottle of gin, a beaded necklace with a broken bead, the Diary of Anne Frank, old and battered and dog-eared. She also brought an extra pair of shoes, because hiking up the side of the cliff in fancy blue six-inch heels would not be a fun prospect. These random objects she had brought, packed all together in a little drawstring bag, like treasured memories. But she had not thought to bring food or drink, a change of clothes, or to let anyone know where she was going. The last part was rather on purpose. She did not wish to be found.
Time to be a ghost.
She changed into the clunky brown hiking boots, which combined with her delicate powder blue blazer and skirt—women’s workwear, it was called; girlboss clothes—looked odd. She did not care. Nobody would see. She exited the car dispassionately, leaving her purse and keys and only grabbing the drawstring bag, hoisting herself up the tall, grassy, craggy hillside, the damp, espresso-colored earth clinging to her boots. Rich and thick and almost oily, like brownie batter, it made its way up her legs to the delicate material of her skirt. Silk; unwashable. Who cares? The sky was a vivid blue, full to bursting with plump white clouds. She could not see the water as she climbed, her boots sinking deep into the mud, but she knew it was there—just up there, waiting for her. She could hear the gentle lap of waves against the rocks; the muted splash. She stopped for a moment, taking a second to relish the tiny sounds, letting her pulse slow, wishing she could fade into a vapor and float among them. A tiny flash of light before her eyes, then gone.
How would it feel? To be so wispy; just a puff of moistened air?
She tucked the bag into the waistband of her skirt and kept climbing. Sweat beaded and mixed with her foundation, a tear-like streak of taupe marking her cheek. Her manicured nails dug into the soft, dark earth, and she could feel the wet, gritty grains lodging themselves under her $75 navy-blue tips, just done at the salon the day before.
who cares?
She dug at the mop of grass, propelling herself upward, savoring the onion-like smell of the waxy, clean green blades. Everything was cool—the gentle breeze, the grass, the dirt, the smooth gray rocks that studded the ground around her. The hill was not steep, rather a steady incline, and it wasn't really necessary to climb up it on all fours, voraciously digging her fingers into the brownie-batter earth, but she did it. Because it felt good and right. Because she wanted to feel it all. Even the tiny, sharp grains of dirt that dug into the sensitive skin of her fingers. Especially the tiny, sharp stabbing of the grains as they dug into the quick and lodged there, forever and ever
and ever
Some might argue that ghosts felt nothing, being dead, but she would disagree. Ghosts could see it all, and they felt it all, too. They could transform energy into physical sensation if they pleased, and they, too, would like the dirt.
The hill got rockier as she went up, jagged and uneven. She slipped on a wet patch of grass and landed with her knee against a sharp stone. The impact of the rock against the bone of her kneecap sent forth a spasm of pain that made her gasp. Her powder blue skirt now bore a grass stain and a noticeable rip beside the brown smears of mud. She mulled over flinging it off and continuing up the hill in her underwear but decided against it. It wasn't that she cared about being naked—she didn't give a flip (who cares); it would be less precious that way, after all. But she didn’t want to leave anything behind.
I am not a litterbug besides I leave nothing behind not even my–
With one last breathless pull, she reached the top of the hill. She scrambled up, grasping, then stood, catching her ragged breath. She had expected some kind of triumphant change in atmosphere, for the air to be different, or to simply feel different. Having accomplished something. But no.
It was simply the top of a hill. And she was simply standing there. It was all rather simple, really.
does everyone taste it in their mouth when they’re winded or am I just dehydrated? no need of water where I’m going?
A light breeze kissed her sweat-dampened skin; clammy. She looked down at her hands, thick with grime, her nails and cuticles black with embedded dirt. She put her fingers to her nose and breathed it in; the deep, mineral, murky smell. Life and death, simultaneously. Rich and deep and gross. Nothing like brownies.
She stepped to the edge, letting her booted toes dangle.
The water was calm, almost-blue, the shade so similar to the sky you couldn’t make out where they met if you were, say, drunk on chardonnay. The sun glinted on the surface, barely moving and suspended, like Jell-O in a dish. There were no other bodies in sight—no swimmers or fishermen, nobody on boats, nobody on the edge staring out to the horizon. How often did one get to be truly alone in front of a body of water? It seemed a serendipitous gift that she was here unbothered, alone, free. How long might it last? How long dare she hope?
hello, old pal it’s me again me me
So far below, and yet, was that a hint of her reflection in the almost-blue depth?
em em
Water strengthened ghosts. She had read that somewhere. Their energy fed on it; it made them mighty.
She had hoped that once she got to the top, had baptized herself in the dappling sunlight, that well-being would come. She stood and waited, slightly out of breath, feeling the sheen of sweat on her brow and chin slowly drying into salt, her heart tittering a little in her chest, exerted. Better? No. Better was an abstract thing, an undefinable and unmeasurable concept that meant nothing; the things she did feel were all physicalities; nothing could touch her heart.
who cares, I ran away?
She had gotten in her car after a long workday—the same as every day that ended in Y on the fourteenth floor of a stupid gray building with a stupid gray cubicle—but today, instead of going home to her picture-perfect family, she'd gotten in her stupid gray car and without thinking, raced along the highway to freedom; freedom from two lives: the one she had and didn't want, and the one she wanted and didn't have. Neither could touch her here.
Raced away with her empty heart; so empty, a hunger so keen that it had grown teeth.
Ghosts did not have lives—the very essence of a ghost, its very definition, was the absence of a life. It had no need for a life—a life was not relevant. Could there be anything more free?
oblivion
She was glad she hadn't worn tights or pantyhose. Her boots sunk deeper into the soft earth, a random hard rock lodged in the heel of her right foot, but otherwise, a comfort. The ground was cool and pliable.
Guilt washed over her. There were people who loved her, who stood around waiting, expecting. Always needing. She could meet needs fine. She was good at small gestures. Little gifts of herself, thoughtful trinkets. She was good at those, so good. But they all seemed to want the grand gestures, the giving of her all, to tear her arms and legs off and feast on them. They wanted her everything, to chew her up and consume her, to own her and absorb her. She would give that happily, if she had it to give, but she did not. She was not consumable; she was not palatable. When they tried, they tasted her sourness, and complained.
They were all so hungry, all of the time, and they fed (complained) and fed (complained) and fed, and never saw that she was starving.
She thought of her handsome auburn-haired husband and equally handsome, adorable and brilliant children. The lights of her life, measured out in handsome beachside pictures taken every year, mounted in silver frames and lined up on the side table in the library, marking each year that she’d become less and somehow more needed. A library which held dozens of books on each shelf, most of them never opened. As pockets of time unfurled, they were filled with the stupid gray building with the stupid gray cubicle and never for her own stupid gray free time.
