Antlers, Colorado (often shortened to Antlers, CO or just Antlers) is a web serial about Austin Jones, a budding medium with an attitude problem. Austin flees from his home in Havenwood, Pennsylvania in the year 1999, running from a predestined position at the Department of Paranormal Research, an agency his family has run for decades. The ghost of his father, Richard Jones, follows him. But that's all in the prologue. The real story picks up in the fall of 2000, when Austin finds himself in the town of Antlers, Colorado, cut off from the family bank account by his older brother and shacking up with easygoing med student Otter Redford. In search of a job, Austin finds himself an unwitting consultant to Sheriff Monty Maxwell and her deputy Mac, who take advantage of Austin’s psychic powers to unravel the origins of the strange cases that only seem to happen in Antlers.
Antlers is available in its entirety on its website
, and re-serialized on Substack in 2023. Each chapter deals with Austin and co. investigating some paranormal phenomenon or crime in or around the town of Antlers.
Antlers, Colorado provides examples of:
- Abandoned Mine: Setting for much of Chapter 4.
- Ancient Evil: Crocell qualifies as this.
- Blood Magic: In Chapter 3, the witches use blood magic to summon Crocell.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each of the characters on the cast page has an illustration with a particular color assigned to them. Austin and Landis' carry over into the banner for Chapter Two. Landis and Walker's carry over into the banner for Chapter Seven.
- Creepy Crows
- Cute Ghost Girl: Paper Museum qualifies; also the ghost girl haunting the Antlers library.
- Demonic Possession: In Chapter 2, Austin is possessed by Crocell; in Chapter 4, Otter suffers the same fate.
- Eye Scream: Mac's right eye is torn out in Chapter One. Her ghost is still missing it.
- Fiery Redhead: Austin, but he dyes it.
Word of God says his natural hair color is the same mousy brown as Richard's. - I See Dead People
- It Won't Turn Off: After Crocell possesses a television to talk to Austin, the Paper Museum ghosts tell him there's no way to get the TV set to go back to normal unless he does what it says. Danton also reveals that several of Landis' books were possessed the same way, and Landis burned them when the text wouldn't go back to normal.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Mac's death towards the end of Chapter One, and the fact that Landis is not actually the villain of Chapter Two, and goes on to become the secondary protagonist. Also, Walker being a DPR agent and the demons that show up later.
- Meaningful Background Event: Austin's dream sequences, usually quickly glossed-over in the text, often contain clues as to what to expect in later chapters. See: the PAPER MUSEUM REUNION TOUR dream in Chapter One. Word of God confirms that Austin's dreams are often premonitions.
- Magical Eye: One of Austin's eyes allows him to see ghosts.
- Magnetic Medium: Austin's power as a medium is what attracts Crocell to possess him.
- Meat Puppet: Austin and Otter while being possessed by Crocell.
- Murder Water: The lake behind Landis' house is possessed by an demon who requires a blood sacrifice twice a year to stay dormant.
- Occult Detective: Austin, of course, though Richard is implied to have done his fair share of it when he ran the Department of Paranormal Research.
- Serial Killer: Landis Holliday.
- Sinister Surveillance: Richard implies in the Chapter Two epilogue that Austin's older brother Jacob may already have someone in the town of Antlers looking after Austin. Confirmed in Chapter Three - it's Walker.
- Spirit Advisor: Richard for Austin.
- Surprisingly Sudden Death: Poor Mac.
- Tongue Trauma: Landis nearly bites all the way through his tongue to escape from police custody.
- Trapped-with-Monster Plot: In Chapter 4, Austin and Rabbit are trapped in the mines with Crocell-Otter.
