Author:
Author, teacher, storyteller, and supernatural historian Mason Winfield studied English and Classics at Denison University, earned a master’s degree in British literature at Boston College, and studied poetry and fiction at SUNY Buffalo with professor emeritus and MacArthur grant recipient Irving Feldman. He has written or edited fourteen books, including the regional sensation “Shadows of the Western Door” (1997) and “Iroquois Supernatural,” co-authored with Michael Bastine, on the traditions of the Six Longhouse Nations (Inner Traditions International/Bear & Company, 2011). Several of his surveys of upstate folklore and paranormal tradition may be found at the website of Western New York Wares: www.buffalobooks.com. He may be reached at www.masonwinfield.com.

An anatomically perfect human jaw fashioned of diamond-hard quartz crystal is uncovered at an Ohio burial mound and sold on the underground antiquities market. Shortly after, three pothunters are found dead.

A mysterious new drug suspected of South American origin surfaces in Buffalo, NY. Its unprecedented psycho-tropic effects include the momentary activation of ESP. 

Blind, speechless, emaciated street people start appearing in many parts of the world. An urban legend-cycle forms around them, and the name of a murderous old cult, “the Whistlers” attaches to them.

An archaeological team at a Mayan site reports finding a bizarre artifact and vanishes. 

An upstate schoolteacher’s book of New York legends and folklore foreshadows these developments and more. 

   These are the threads – plus his affair with a maddening woman – that draw narrator Ward Courier into the international adventure of occultism, terror, Native American tradition and onrushing prophecy that is Mason Winfield’s anticipated new novel THE WHISTLERS. By the time the picture of THE WHISTLERS becomes clear, we are ready to believe in a sinister conspiracy that could predate Atlantis and even hail from another world.

The Whistlers

NARRATIVE of WARD COURIER/CONFERENCE with TEAM 8, Continued


He splayed the middle and index fingers of his left hand into the peace sign and tapped the tips to his lower left chest. "Dented my Kevlar. Put two holes right through the shirt I was wearing like drops of acid. I could put my fingers right through them." He inclined the tips toward me, showing me the spacing.


My eyes must have gone in and out of focus a couple times a minute. "And you said a couple days later, you checked one of the dents and you found a substance."


"Hours later," said Jonas. "The dent was kind of covered over. Would have been just about air-tight."


"And there was a liquid there," I said. "A wet substance."


"Not much," he said. "I rubbed it between my fingers and it seemed to just vanish. Evaporate. Like alcohol."


"And you touched your fingers on your forehead right after that."


"Yessir. And I had a crazy little trip. Almost fell off the ATV."


Chapter 163: Some Real Medicine, Part 163