I suppose there are people who live completely productive, happy, generous lives without even considering the ugliness of humanity.

My stories are peopled by chance encounters. By dream characters, minor players in novels who get under my skin, stuff on the cutting room floor, a stray bar of music or scrap of lyric.

For me, scary stuff is like, “Will I be able to pay my rent this month?” I don’t get disturbed by the idea of the living dead, or unknowable cosmic horror.

I’m definitely not a fan of the military mentality, particularly because of the way it can overwrite ordinary people’s moral codes with one that’s a lot more ruinous.

The story owes a great deal to Fritz Leiber’s “The Sinful Ones,” which horrified and fascinated me when I read it in high school.