When a disturbing postcard arrives at his Atlanta office, Emerson knows he must report it to the NAACP. The postcard, sent by the mysterious Lurleen from Abbotts Creek, Arkansas, depicts yet another lynching. Emerson agrees to travel to Abbotts Creek to investigate, but he knows doing so poses great risk. Emerson only passes as white, and this Lurleen knows his face.

Emerson knows one day his luck will run out. And when he arrives in Abbotts Creek, he soon discovers that day might have come at last.

“The Monster in Our Midst,” by Edgar Award-nominee Kris Nelscott is free on this website for one week only. The story’s also available as an ebook through various online retailers here. You can also find the story in Fiction River: Past Crime, available in ebook and trade paper here.

The Monster in Our Midst

Kris Nelscott

“I ask not only black Americans but white Americans, are you not ashamed of lynching? …The nation today is striving to lead the moral forces of the world in support of the weak against the strong. Well, I’ll tell you it can’t do it until it conquers and crushes this monster in its own midst.”

—James Weldon Johnson
NAACP Field Secretary
The National Conference on Lynching
May 10, 1919

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