The Evil That Men Do (iPhone stories)

“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones” (William Shakespeare). So said Mark Antony at Caesar’s funeral. But even when no one wants to speak ill of the dead, the effects of their evil lives linger forever. These stories explore those lingering aftereffects. In Medieval Catalunya, evil persists on the walls of long-abandoned churches in murals where demons torture saints and martyrs. In Colonial Virginia, native Powhatan bones preserve the tale of genocide. In Post-War Chicago, a P.I. finds evil interred with his mother’s bones, then deduces how the weak are punished for the crimes of the powerful. In the 1990s, a young woman decides there’s no benefit in being more sinned against than sinning.Suitably at the end of this collection, a maid at a resort hotel at the foot of Mount Powhatan uncovers bad memories in the sheets and pillowcases she changes each day—but it’s nothing compared to the evil that stalks the foothills of her Serbo-Croatian homeland.