Old Gory: Two Tales of Flag Horror

You see them everywhere you look: planted in the ground, waving from utility poles, adorning shop windows, affixed to the bumpers of passing cars.

American flags. Comforting, inspiring, familiar. Or are they?

What if, instead of a beacon of freedom and a banner of democracy, the flag were something sinister, something occult, something redolent of terrors most of us can only guess at?

In these two tales of New England folk horror, Orford Parish Books authors Tom Breen and Joseph Pastula explore the hidden terrors lying in the red, white, and blue folds of that most familiar symbol.

Combining the blackest version of absurdist humor with a commitment to pulpy thrills, the two authors peel back the genteel veneer of small-town patriotism in this first in a series of "split chapbooks."

Once you read it, you'll never look at a flag the same way again.