Crossover Cover: The Lost Level

An occultist named Aaron Pace discovers how to navigate the Labyrinth between worlds, and begins exploring other dimensions before ending up stranded in the Lost Level, a reality that can be journeyed to, but never returned from, and where things are constantly arriving from parallel realities. Pace mentions it was the Simon Necronomicon that introduced him to occultism as a child, but he didn’t realize it was a fake, and it was many years before he laid eyes on the real Necronomicon. Nyarlathotep is mentioned in Pace’s spell for opening doorways into the Labyrinth. In one of the alternate universes he visits, Tony Genova is President. When he meets a group of serpent men, the Annunaki, in the Lost Level, Pace compares them to tales of the Dark Ones, a race of lizard men he’d heard about in his studies. Mushroom men living in a swamp are referenced. Pace is familiar with the Void. He also knows about Globe Package Services and the Globe Corporation, and a robot employed by a future version of the company appears. Pace meets a cowboy, Deke, from another dimension, where a zombie plague wiped out civilization in the Old West. Deke mentions he was born in his world’s version of Brinkley Springs, WV. Pace has knowledge of the Thirteen, and names Ob, Ab and Api in particular. Pace and his allies battle a giant Clicker. Pace is familiar with Black Lodge. The Labyrinth is a core part of Keene’s connected fiction. The Lost Level is mentioned in Keene’s novel Ghost Walk. The Necronomicon and Nyarlathotep are from H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Tony Genova is from the Clickers novels by Keene and J. F. Gonzalez, where he is a mobster (as is his CU counterpart, who has appeared in other stories by Keene), and is also president in the world of Clickers vs. Zombies. The Dark Ones are also from the Clickers novels, though the species also exists in the CU, as Levi Stoltzfus mentions them in “Last of the Albatwitches.” The mushroom men in the swamp may or may not be those infected with the fungus from Keene’s Earthworm Gods novels. The Void is where Ob and the Siqqusim were confined until they were released in the alternate dimension of Keene’s The Rising. Globe Package Services and the Globe Corporation exist across Keene’s multiverse. Deke’s homeworld is the world of Keene’s short story “Lost Canyon of the Damned.” The zombie virus, Hamelin’s Revenge, is the same one that destroyed civilization in the 2000s in the world of Keene’s Dead Sea and Entombed. The CU version of Brinkley Springs, WV was seen in Keene’s novel A Gathering of Crows. The Thirteen are the main villains of the Labyrinth cycle. The Clickers are the crab-lobster-scorpion beasts that are the primary villains of the Clickers novels. Black Lodge is a government agency that recurs throughout Keene’s fiction.

Crossover Covers: A Gathering of Crows

In Brinkley Springs, West Virginia, Levi Stoltzfus, the ex-Amish magus, battles agents of Meeble of the Thirteen. Former soldier Donny Osborne served with the likes of Tyler Henry, from York, Pennsylvania, and Don Bloom, who went AWOL and was rumored to have joined Black Lodge. Levi is familiar with Cthulhu cultists, and has an e-reader that contains scanned pages from the Necronomicon. A supernatural entity called “Mrs. Chickbaum” is mentioned. Nyarlathotep is named. Levi is familiar with the siqqusim. “That crazy Earl Harper wingnut” and Teddy Garnett are mentioned. Levi walks through the Labyrinth with a group of survivors, one of whom observes in the various realities zombies, “something dark in the middle of it all,” goat-men, a giant monster with a squid for a head, and crab-lobster-scorpion monsters, as well as being passed by a different version of Teddy Garnett, “a real pretty black girl,” “some young guy dressed up like a mobster,” and an old farmer Levi believes to have been Nelson LeHorn. Levi defeats Meeble’s agents by using the Labyrinth to send them to Yuggoth, domain of Behemoth of the Thirteen; while there, he glimpses the shining trapezoid. The Thirteen are the main villains of Brian Keene’s Labyrinth Mythos, pre-Universal beings that travel from reality to reality destroying Earths. The Labyrinth is an otherdimensional realm that connects all of Keene’s various realities. Tyler Henry was a minor character in Keene’s novel Ghost Walk. Don Bloom was the protagonist of Keene’s short story “Babylon Falling.” Black Lodge is a super-secret occult organization that appears throughout Keene’s works, and across his multiverse. While there is no overt connection in this story, Keene’s notes on his short story “Halves” claim the leprechaun “Mr. Chickbaum” from that story is connected to this “Mrs. Chickbaum.” The siqqusim are the main villains of Keene’s Rising series and the novel Clickers vs. Zombies, all of which take place in an AU. The Earl Harper and Teddy Garnett mentioned here are this world’s versions of those characters, which originally appeared in Keene’s book Earthworm Gods; the version of Teddy seen in the Labyrinth is probably from that world. The zombies could be from any of Keene’s zombie realities. The “something dark” is Nodens of the Thirteen, from Keene’s novels Ghost Walk and Darkness at the Edge of Town. The goat-men are a reference to Keene’s novel Dark Hollow. The squid-monster is Keene’s Leviathan, of the Thirteen. The crab-lobster-scorpion monsters are Clickers, from the worlds of Keene and J. F. Gonzalez’ trilogy of novels and Clickers vs. Zombies. The black girl is Frankie, from The Rising and City of the Dead, and the mobster is Tony Genova, from various Keene works; there’s no way to know yet which of Keene’s worlds they hail from. Nelson LeHorn is from Keene’s novel Dark Hollow, which does take place in the CU. Across all levels of the Labyrinth, Frankie, Teddy Garnett, Tony Genova, and Nelson LeHorn are of the Seven, a group of people with the power to destroy the Thirteen. According to Keene, the Exit, the serial killer from his stories “This is Not an Exit” and “I Am an Exit,” is also one of the Seven, and was originally supposed to appear in this tale, until Keene felt he was stealing the show. Cthulhu cultists, Nyarlathotep, Yuggoth, and the Necronomicon are all from the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft. The shining trapezoid is almost certainly connected to the shining trapezohedron from Lovecraft’s “The Haunter of the Dark.”