The Captain’s Spell A Novella and Three Stories

In the title story, and debut novella from Jason Grunspan, a drifter in 1930 Baltimore finds his options quickly drying up. A failed relationship and a dispute with a local crime syndicate leave him wandering disoriented through the city. When he makes his way down to the harbor port, he's hired aboard an old cargo steamship and soon finds himself at sea, trapped on a ship captained by an imposing and mysterious man. The Captain takes Dent under his wing, but as the voyage progresses he grows more and more tyrannical, his behavior volatile and erratic. After Dent witnesses a disturbing incident between the Captain and the ship's youngest crew member, he must decide whether to intervene and if he has the mettle to contend with a man whose powers venture into the mystical realm.

In The Company of Crows, a poor undocumented man with a rich imagination is enticed by a couple of crows to take a job at an auto repair shop. When he catches the shop owner engaged in sabotage, he's forced to confront his own beliefs and moral compass.

Troglodyte follows the travails of a frustrated writer stuck at a dead end warehouse job, while A Long Night at the Grab N' Go takes place over the course of one night at a twenty-four hour convenience store.

Each of these compelling stories invites the reader into a quirky world of hidden motives and characters surviving on society's fringe, struggling to transcend the trappings of their existence.