Speaking of Joe, my next story is based on an idea of his. There are alterations. The protagonist is a woman. She’s one of the first callbacks, having already spoken to the character in my first story and referenced in the third - that’s a conscious decision, given that the one about the farmer is its own self-contained piece, with little drawing from the wider world.
It’s also the first one to acknowledge a difference in time - it’s set a few months after the end of The Nightwatchman (still not sure of the best way to hyphenate that, if at all), and about a decade before the preceding story. It’s about the hunt for a good story, the technical difficulty of executing someone, and unlikely friendships. Also: vampirism. Bit of a funny one, this.