The Muzac Man - Volume I

“After a series of gruesome murders catches the attention of the FBI, Special Agents Rick Thyssen and Pete Wellington are assigned to investigate a strange man who lives within the dark and decaying innards of a dying shopping centre. They discover the MUZAC MAN—an odd, loner security guard with a sad and painful past, a man who is connected to dozens of homicides, all with airtight alibis. Forcing the agents to consider other possibilities, the element of black magic is found in each crime.

Now, in a race against time, the unwavering federal agents must unearth the strange man’s dark secrets and bizarre, occult-related motives. But will they learn the truth about the Muzac Man and what he truly is? Will they discover the truth in time, before someone else meets a gruesome fate?”  

                                                                                                —Discover the facts about The Muzac Man coming                                                                                                soon online and to many retailers near you.”

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                           The Muzac Man: Synopsis

                                                           Thaddeus Hawthorne Grey

THE MUZAC MAN, a story that takes place in a not-too-distant future, revolves around a strange man who works and lives in an abandoned Kmart department store, a store that’s adjacent to an old, dying shopping mall in a desolate part of Northeast Florida. The man, PATRICK ALLEN BUSH, appears to be simple enough, working as a security guard for the unsettling Garver Town Mall, maintaining order and law in the desolate place. His solemn, though somewhat enigmatic, existence there has raised many eyebrows over the years. But there’s so much more to this strange man — so very much more.

           Since the mid-1990s, Patrick Allen Bush’s name had been attached to a series of extremely strange, unexplainable homicides all over the United States, the United Kingdom, and throughout Europe. Regardless, the odd security guard continues to eke out a simplistic lifestyle in the old mall, having permission to live in the ancient Kmart with his little black cat, Grimalkin. Now, as even more bizarre murders take place across America, all victims with connections to Bush, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is once again alerted. As they begin a formal investigation, and for a second time, they find that the man has been sending Biblical quotations and cryptic warnings to each of the victims. Though any link between the man and the homicides is sparse at best, and the man’s alibi is ironclad, the FBI knows better.

           Now, in recent days, more people have been found dead, and in the most horrific of ways. The first body is that of Nathan Prud, from DeKalb County, Illinois, a vile and corrupt college professor at Nimbus University. He had been discovered in a nearby forest preserve, gutted, torn and twisted like a filthy ragdoll. A local investigation begins, and investigators learn that the man was a cultist of certain renown, a devil worshiper, for lack of a better term. Meanwhile, the presence of a mysterious federal agent starts asking questions of an opaque nature. Who the agent is, however, remains a mystery, though this isn’t the first murder scene he’s been to.

           Later, in Baytown, Texas, yet another cultist has been receiving religious warnings to cease her service to the devil and to return to Christ Jesus. Though the warnings are cryptic and benign, they nonetheless prove a pattern. Each and every victim, whether by post or by electronic means since 1994, had received similar messages to redirect from wicked behaviours, all having come from Patrick Allen Bush. And though Patrick Bush had been cleared as a person of interest several years before our story begins, having been instigated with close to thirty homicides, the assistant director of the North Florida Field Office, MARGARET FANNING, has been given the task of overseeing the new investigation. As such, SPECIAL AGENTS RICHARD ‘RICK’ THYSSEN and PETER WELLINGTON are given the assignment. What they’ll discover, however, will be anything but ordinary.

           Now, as the Baytown cultist, a self-proclaimed witch and high priestess named Madam Tarja Delevingne was preparing for yet another night of Satanic debauchery, she began to receive a series of Biblical warnings to turn back from her wicked ways. This naturally infuriates the abhorrent woman into action. Now piqued with fiery hate, she organizes a gathering to stop the Christian invader she calls the Bible-thumper. She even enlists the aid of another cult from Ohio to help in the unholy act, only to find the MUZAC MAN at the other end of her rage. And once all is said and done, what is left are the mangled and torn bodies of the cultists.

         Now, this is where the story truly begins, when evil meets evil for the first and last time. And as the disgusting witch and her sycophantic cultists face an evil they had only thought to be folly, they would learn the horrible truth. In some strange act of attrition, however, two of the cultists had denounced their Satanic odes and begged God for forgiveness, a forgiveness that was offered to both. They were spared and allowed to live in order to share their experiences. For all of the victims, however, those who had led others to ruin, all would be found with strange symbols carved on their bodies. Only later would they be identified as runes from the Theban Alphabet, the mysterious cypher from ancient times. Why and how they were put there, however, remains a mystery.

                                                   Concepts and Reasoning

         With the FBI in full force, the Patrick Bush investigation proved futile just as the first set of investigations had, being clouded with conjecture and incorrect hypotheses. But this is where the story begins. By the end of the novel, even more deaths occur, with the strange man appearing totally innocent, despite his name being attached to each and every one of the victims. The first story (Volume I) is meant to set the stage for the series. The Muzac Man is designed as a suspense thriller in the beginning, with common traits of a police procedural-like drama. By volumes II-III, heavy overtones of a spy thriller are intermixed with occult horror taking over the senses. By volumes IV-V, the tones are apocalyptic, with elements of a dystopian film, the result of Patrick Bush’s hatred for the world.

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         The genre falls within speculative fiction and cosmic horror, respectfully, much like the works of Howard P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Arthur Machen, and others of the original contributors. In addition to this, the works of M. R. James and Dennis Wheatley are also highlighted in the work, adding a sense of suspense and doom throughout the series, until the very end when the ‘big reveal’ exposes the purpose of the Muzac Man and the cult he serves. There are many Easter eggs throughout the book series that only certain aficionados of H. P. Lovecraft and the occult in general will discover, though such will not take away from the story or its message. There is a sense of the familiar, though this story is definitely part of an alternative timeline and history, whether present or past, there are distinctions. The important difference in the story is the reader. Is the Muzac Man the antagonist or the protagonist? This answer will depend on YOU…

        Now, prepare for a world steeped in the mystic, the fantastic, where the things of the nightmare world coexist right along with us, hidden within the shadows that walk by us, side-by-side, and at all times. Prepare for THE MUZAC MAN.

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​                                                             AUTHOR’S NOTE

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The concept for The Muzac Man, originally titled: ‘The Kmart Man,’ came about with a lot of downtime, and by witnessing the social unrest in the streets and on social media platforms during the 2016 elections between Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton, a time in recent history that seemed to signify a distinct divide between the nation and its people. Then, when the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic hit, the natural course of fear and paranoia followed, spreading like wildfire across the globe. It was a turbulent time for sure, though such emotions appear to be continuing despite a renewed feeling of hope in the nation. Certainly, there is still a noticeable divide that’s hard to deny.

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       During this time, I had been working as a deputy medical examiner in the state of Virginia and had found myself inundated with more than my share of paperwork and other obligations. And though we took universal precautions when dealing with the dead, only high-profile cases were allowed, as the nature of the Coronavirus was still questionable within the medical community, leaving more mystery than fact. As such, I would assist the Chief Medical Examiner and other pathologists in performing examinations, but because the Medicolegal process had greatly altered the practice of conducting autopsies, my job description changed greatly for the next few years, so many of us were assigned secondary and even tertiary jobs. We were all understandably scared.

     My wife, Gwen, was working with the federal government then, and so I was able to glean some aspects of her work that inspired me to write again. Having penned several nonfiction books under the nom de plume: Greg Jenkins and G. Cledwyn Jenkins, the name of a deceased friend from college, I had decided that it was time to write a work of fiction using my own identity. It was in October of 2022 when I sat at a little café and outlined my first synopsis of what I was calling The Kmart Man, but after calling my attorneys about the title, they warned me to change it just in case someone wanted to get litigious about the brand name. Nevertheless, this was when my journey began.

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     The concept for the Muzac Man came while conversing with a federal agent after one of our more salacious medical inquests. I learned of one of his past cases involving a security guard, a strange man who worked in a now-defunct shopping mall in South Florida. Apparently, the man was practising magick in a long-abandoned Kmart department store attached to the mall where he worked. Allegedly, the man was conducting rituals and even sacrificing animals there. But as weird as this sounds, the man was much stranger than all that.

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      The agent went on to say that the strange man would sit and sometimes even live in the old, deserted Kmart that had departed the shopping mall years earlier. And though the department store was dark and damp and strangely chilly, there was nonetheless power. As such, he would listen to old cassette tapes of Muzak that the store’s past managers had left behind, along with an antiquated tape deck that would play one tape after another, again and again. The agent said that when police arrived to investigate reports about the man, they had discovered the odd security guard listening to outdated tunes while staring at a blank wall in the dark. But it wasn’t until the agent pulled up a photo of the man on his iPad that I had an immediate epiphany. This was when Patrick Allen Bush was created, when the Muzac Man was born.

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     Now inspired, I checked to see if YouTube had any samples of old store Muzak, and sure enough, there was a plethora of actual Kmart Muzak there, and quite a bit of it, too. Apparently, a former employee had kept these old cassette tapes when his store was closing and uploaded them on the social media platform for fun. He probably didn’t know it, but he made an important, if not obscure, contribution to retail history in the process. And there are thousands of subscribers who, to this day, still listen to the antiquated Muzak of a lost era in America. Though somewhat sad to listen to, I realized that the world I knew was gone, and yet, it inspired me to write my strange tale of the Muzac Man.

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         Three years later, I have eight volumes now completed for this series. Set in a timeline that doesn’t exceed a decade from the date of this writing, it covers one possible environment and philosophy should a different political party have won and should that particular party have changed the world in the process. And though such may entice some to think it’s about them, in truth, it is complete fiction with absolutely no distinction whatsoever. It is, however, an alternate universe, an aspect of the multiverse, if you will. Here, there are monsters, both human and daemonic. So please keep in mind that it’s just a story.

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    Now, a few remaining items. First, the name ‘Muzac’ is misspelt on purpose. The Special Agent who told me about the odd security guard said that when he read over documents with the man’s security reports and other writing, he had misspelt it. And because the proper spelling is still copyrighted, I decided to keep the odd spelling.

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    The second item may not concern people from Europe or the United Kingdom, but most Americans may find certain spellings and sentence structures that may appear somewhat archaic. This is done to emulate the style, at least some of it, of Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937), the famous author of cosmic horror. Mr. Lovecraft was a staunch Anglophile and often antiquated in his thinking, an unfortunate earmark of his time. Regardless, I chose to honour him in this work, which is to suggest that other things may exist right next to us, whether it be in the vast emptiness of space, beneath our oceans, or even in the unseen spaces right behind us.

In the end, this work, should you wish to continue reading this saga, is for those who believe that there is yet so much more than what our philosophies dictate. This work is for the cosmic dreamer who can see beyond the confines of our mundane world; it’s for those who dwell within the obscure recesses of the fantastical and the grotesque. And it may be for people just like you. Cheers!

                          Folklore, Fact and Fiction

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In the early 1970s, having visited my grandparents in Fort Braden, Florida for many youthful vacations, my parents always travelled from Danvers, Massachusetts down a relatively new Interstate 95, all the way down to West Jacksonville, Florida. From there, we would hop on the West County Road 108 and stop in the little town of Hilliard for the night. From there, we would always take Route 301 to Interstate 10 and then on to Fort Braden. But it was just before reaching Hilliard that my brother and I would hear the tale of the haunted shopping mall — the ghost shopping mall.

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        While driving past a patch of wilderness that would one day become the township of Evergreen, my father would always point to a section of open land just north of the road, saying that on certain nights when it was just about dark, and usually before or just after a rain storm, drivers might catch a glimpse of the Garver Town Plaza, sometimes referred to as a shopping mall. Of course, it was just an empty field, there never being a shopping mall there, nor an amusement park with go-karts, or a small town that was said to rest behind it. It was, in truth, a tall tale designed to spook the casual driver, and yet, many people have claimed to have seen the ghostly shopping mall shimmering through rain-soaked windshields in the dusk or on early mornings just after a rain shower.  

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        Even today, the area is barren of any commercial structure, save that of a small field and modest home. And where a town should be is nothing but heavy woods and the Little Saint Mary’s River quietly flowing. It is a section of Florida that will most likely stay this way for many years to come.

This was in 1973, and whenever we made our yearly jaunts to see my grandmother, I would hear the story. Like clockwork, when we reached the Aloha Motor Lodge & Restaurant in Hilliard for the night, my brother and I would hear the tale again, but in more detail. The story had sounded real to us, especially when Grandma would retell it. You see, she claimed to have actually seen the ghost mall when driving to Jacksonville to visit friends back in the late 1960s. It was while passing that barren piece of land, as a torrential storm raged in the night, that she said she saw light glowing from within a clearing. When she got closer, she saw what looked like a beige or tan-coloured, single-story structure with larger buildings attached to its ends. And though it was raining heavily, she said she could make out the lighted letters on a modest-sized marquee. In bold, yellow letters, it read: Garver Town Mall.

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      Now, as Grandma was actively looking for a turn to enter the shopping mall, the storm became heavier, with flashes of lightning. When her eyes adjusted from the bright light, she discovered that there was nothing there but a huge, dark, and very vacant field. There never was a shopping mall.

My grandmother never forgot the experience and retold it for many years after that. The legend of the place inspired me to become interested in ghost stories, the paranormal, hauntings, and other things. But, of course, I went on to other things, earning my doctorate in funeral sciences and forensics and working in the field of criminal investigations. I couldn’t write about such things, or so I thought. I figured that someday, once I retired, I could write about weird things without it jeopardizing my career or credibility, so I let it go and forgot about it.

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     During my college years in Vermont, a good friend, Greg Jenkins, along with a small group of students and myself, travelled throughout the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia and parts of the Middle East. Greg was a noted folklorist and collector of weird tales and spooky oral traditions, having shared many of them during our travels. He was also an aficionado of the writer H. P. Lovecraft and others of his circle. It was during this time I too got hooked on all things of a folkloric nature, as well as the ‘Cthulhu Mythos,’ a term coined by Lovecraft’s friend, August Derleth. It would turn out to be one of my most loved, non-scholastic pastimes, and Lovecraft would become one of my favourite authors.

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    We graduated in May of 1993, Greg moving on to graduate school and becoming a mental health counsellor in Orlando, Florida, and myself to Norfolk, Virginia to work with the medical examiner’s office. I kept in touch with my friend, though sporadically, having become hampered by heavy workloads, and finally got married in 1998. A year later, in October of 1999, my friend, Greg, was killed while trying to talk down a young man attempting to rob a local convenience store. The man was armed and heavily on drugs at the time. As Greg tried to convince him to cease his criminal behaviour, he was shot in the neck and died almost immediately. The killer received twenty years, though he was released on good behaviour in only nine. He was freed, while I lost a good friend.

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     While at Norwich University and when travelling abroad, Greg had gleaned many stories and legends from these ancient lands, learning of their hauntings and magic lore. One in particular was The Testament of Solomon, a pseudepigraphical text by Israel’s King Solomon, circa 970–931 BCE. This unfinished document, allegedly penned between the 1st century AD and the High Middle Ages, has created much debate with Biblical scholars. It had told of the king’s dealings with demons and other fallen angels that were controlled and harnessed to do the king’s bidding. And with archaic ‘magick’ rings, the mighty king had constructed the First Temple of Jerusalem. When complete, the king simply banished what demons he no longer needed, though he nonetheless held control over them. This story stuck with me, and once its cloudy history was explained to us while visiting the Holy Land by a Rabbinic scholar, the legend never left my mind.

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        As for my lost friend Greg, he had always said he was going to write books but had never had the time. Certainly, he was interested in many strange topics, including Parapsychology and Psychical Research. To this day, I can remember his collection of strange occult paraphernalia, along with his vast collection of books on the subject, books that were as strange as the topics. Nevertheless, I, too, enjoyed the subject matter, which gave us much to talk about. Sadly, his writing career never happened, though in the early 2000s, having lived in DeLand, Florida at that time with my wife Gwen, I decided to write a book for him in his name and in his honour. I had no idea, however, that I would be writing close to ten books using his name as a nom de plume — but I did.

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    Almost 22 years later, in 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself with some time off, or at the very least, with extra time on my hands. I’d watch a lot of YouTube videos then, especially on creepy locales and hauntings, including Dan Bell’s Dead Mall Series, UniComm Productions, Retail Archaeology and others. I thought about my friend, Greg, and figured I might pen one last book in his honour, which I did. But now, I wanted to do something out of the ordinary and attempt fiction as a new artistic vocation. And so, while conversing with a retired federal agent after one of our office meetings, I learned of one of his past cases involving a strange man who worked in a shopping mall in South Florida. Apparently, the man was practising magic in a deserted part of the mall he worked at, and allegedly, was sacrificing animals there, though he was much stranger than all that.

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      The agent went on to say that the weird man would just sit and sometimes even live in the old, deserted Kmart that had departed the shopping mall years earlier. He would listen to old cassette tapes of Muzac that the store’s past managers had left behind, and he would listen to them repeatedly while staring at a blank wall in the dark. And once the agent pulled up a photo of the man on his cellphone, I had an immediate epiphany. This was when Patrick Allen Bush was created, when the Muzac Man was born.

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      The rest is history now, having just completed my last volume in the series. I had no idea that it would go beyond one novel, but I guess that’s how it goes sometimes.

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      Now, it’s important to realize that although the content of this series is pure fiction, there are some aspects that have been taken from actual accounts as recorded by various local, federal, and international law enforcement case files. Such is reported as having been factual by said agencies. The names, places, and timelines, of course, have been so obscured as not to interfere with or muddle any ongoing investigation. As for the history and certain topics herein, these have been reported as true and historically accurate, despite the dubiousness of such events. Only the names, locales, or other persons exemplified herein are false. They are strictly a work of fiction. Regardless, the next time you walk through a dead or dying shopping mall, you may wish to keep an eye out for an odd security guard walking the beat. He might very well be the Muzac Man.

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— Thaddeus H. Grey, 15 March 2024

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