In this short story from the bold, timely, sinister anthology Never Whistle at Night, Junior gets a brick to the head in a drive-by and six weeks later the creature Louis turns up with a sack of Junior's assailants' severed white heads. A wholly original and shiver-inducing tale, this is a celebration of Indigenous peoples’ survival and imagination, and a glorious reveling in one of the things an ill-advised whistle might summon. A Vintage Short.
THEODORE C. VAN ALST JR. is the author of Chicago-set award-winning story collections Sacred Smokes, Sacred City, andSacred Folks as well as the novella Pour One for the Devil. He is the co-editor of the award-winning, bestselling Never Whistle at Night series from Vintage/Penguin Random House. His debut novel, The El, a Chicago Public Library Favorite Book of 2025, was shortlisted for the Pattis Family Foundation Book Award as well as the Chicago Reader’s Best New Book of 2025, received a Booklist starred review, and won the 2025 Chicago Review of Books Fiction of the Year. His upcoming novel Sunshine Home will be published by Vintage/Penguin Random House.