Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

The last time I saw him, he was working on a wood burning project, an art thing. I’d never known him to do anything creative, and it looked really good. I couldn’t see enough of the finished thing to know what it was, I just know that it looked good.

I wanted to tell him that we should hang out soon, that we should go bowling on Saturday or maybe to the zoo. I wanted to tell him that I’d missed his company and that it wasn’t doing him any good to shut people out of his life.

But I didn’t. I just said hey and left. I don’t even know if he knew I was gone.

It was the last time I ever saw him alive, though he lived another 20 years.

I wonder if he ever finished the burning, what it was, and how it came out.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

I was ready for the blood. It’s the first thing that you numb over like a scabbed wound. By the third or fourth time, the blood had no more horrors for me, though I’ll admit the first time left me gagging in a bathroom.

It’s not the uncertainty either. That’s what does it for a lot of the guys on my crew, since half the hazards we face are invisible and undetectable. You might as well stress over being hit by a meteor or clobbered by a city bus in your blind spot, the way I see it.

It’s the silence.

Whether it’s ectoplasm left over from a haunting, the rind left from an alien ectoparasite pupating, or even the crispy bits left over from exposing something cthonic to daylight, it’s wreathed in silence. Things that make sound, hell, even the sounds themselves, they stay away for days. Weeks sometimes.

Often as not, that’s how long cleanup takes. It’s a long time for the only sound to be in your headphones.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“So what exactly does Campus Crusade for Cthulhu do?”

“It seeks to bring about the early return of our lord and destructor, that the truly faithful might be eaten first and spared the horrors to come.”

“The Campus Whig Party, huh? What’s that all about?”

“We are for the Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement of laws. The slavery issue is to be decided by the states.”

“Do you really play rollerball in the Campus Rollerball Derby?”

“Of course! It’s the most popular blood sport of 2018.”

“So is the Most Dangerous Gamers like for video games?”

“No, no! We select one member by lots every month, and then the rest of us hunt them down for sport.”

“If you’re the Fencing Club, why aren’t there any foils?”

“Oh, we don’t do that kind of fencing. We teach students how to sell stolen goods at a profit.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

The bargain they reached was thus:

The Dreamer had committed sins of untold ugliness and depravity, sins that could not be atoned for because the Dreamer could not regret them. Infernus was the only possibility should the Dreamer die.

It was offered this escape: an eternal dream of light and beauty, populated by beings that were the echoes of the souls the Dreamer had destroyed in one way or another and were thus bound to it. In this place, the Dreamer would be all of them and none of them, with none of its sins and none of its vices. Its body, wasted and twisted but immortal, would be but a vessel.

Naturally, there was another side to the bargain, as there often is. In exchange for this private heaven apart from the blistering embrace of Infernus, the Dreamer agreed that if ever its physica body were destroyed, or if ever it were awakened from within the dream, it would immediately die and go to its just reward. The deal was sealed, and the Dreamer secreted itself in a well-guarded, obscure place of hiding.

And the dream-specters inhabiting its visions? Why, that is us. All of us.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

Complicating matters are the archives on which any good investigation must rely. February 1882 is long enough ago that most of the surviving newspapers and broadsheets are long since vanished, but some do remain.

The Hopewell Tribune and the Hopewell Democrat both agree with the Detroit and Chciago papers. But the smaller Cascadia Post and the Cascadia Gazette (which would not merge into the Post-Gazette until 1911) disagree, as does the smaller Deerton Herald.

While the possibility of fraud exists, the oddity is present in both the physical back issues that have been uncovered as well as microfilmed copies. As the latter was handled by three different microfilming companies, including University Microforms out of Ann Arbor, this seems unlikely.

But the fact remains that all three newspapers contain an issue, with happenings and other mundane information, from February 30, 1882.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“JIPI-san.”

Kenji “JIPI” Yamasaki smiled. “Let me guess,” he said with a soft voice and light backcountry Hokkaido accent. “You are a Musjido fan?”

“Yes I am, JIPI-san,” said Mitsuko. “I grew up with it. Mother bought it for my older brother and it was mine when he tired of it. I credit that machine for helping me to become a databasse programmer.”

“Come in, come in,” said Yamasaki. “I always enjoy visitors, and I am always happy to talk about video games.”

The apartment was clean, if sparsely furnished. Original artwork from Musjido video games and posters decorted the walls, but most of the acoutrements were analog, save for an old Amiga humming in a corner. Someone–a daughter or son, perhaps–was watching a game show on a television in one of the bedrooms.

Mitsuko took a seat at the small kitchen table while Yamasaki made tea. His back was stooped and his fingers curled in from arthritis, but he still moved quickly and spoke clearly. For a man of 90, he seemed in excellent shape.

“You were one of the oldest people working at Musjido, weren’t you?” Mitsuko asked once the tea had brewed and was steeping in front of her.

Yamasaki lowered himself into the hard chair with a grunt. “Yes, I was in my late 50s when I started with them. Bunch of young kids, they always called me ‘grandfather.’ But I loved it all the same.”

Mitsuko leaned forward. “What was it about programming for video games that attracted you, JIPI-san?”

The old man clutched at his cup. “The order,” he said. “Absolute order. Everything in its place, everything following directions. Even the music I wrote. Sawtoothed sine waves without any ambiguity in their bits.”

“Order?” said Mitsuko.

“Order,” repeated Yamasaki.

Mitsuko reached into her backpack. “It is funny that you mention this, JIPI-san,” she said, “as it segues into the reason for my visit.” She removed a manila folder and laid it on the tabletop.

“What is this?” said Yamasaki.

“Something I discovered in my database work,” said Mitsuko. “I wonder if you’re familiar with the story of Kiyoshi Yamaguchi, the Beast of Borneo, who inherited command of a battallion when his superior was killed and orchestrated the massacre of 2000 Dutch prisoners of war and their families.”

Yamasaki said nothing.

“When asked why he did it–before he fled and disappeared, naturally–Yamaguchi was asked why he did it. ‘Order,’ he said. ‘Beasts of the old order, there was no place for them in the new.'”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

CORVUS the Renaissance Plague Doctor
Real Name: Connor Hofstadter

Corvus is manic and energetic, which is not a good match with his delicate mask and its tendency to imapir his breathing. He believes himself to be silent but is in fact quite noisy. He’s also extremely opinionated, even hypocritical, about the others’ costumes.

SQUIDS the Clown
Real Name: Emilee Verde

Squids is depressed, sarcastic, and deeply introverted–exactly the opposite of what one would expect from a classic clown but exactly what one would expect from a post-Joker clown. She wants to be more outgoing and friendly and wears the makeup to that end, but is nevertheless deeply ribbed for attempting a disguise that seems so done-to-death.

BUCKEROO the Cowpoke
Real Name: Bruno Rodriguez

Buckeroo is not a gaucho, and not a vaquero, despite being called such. He’s quick to point out the historical, cultural, and literary context for his disguise and hates being associated with the modern glitzy Texas cowboy. Trying desperately to learn how to ride despite a total lack of balance and poise.

JANGLE the Pirate
Real Name: Marcus Washington Jr.

Jangle chose his name completely independent of the fried chicken chain and the famous dancer, trying to evoke the jingling sound of his many flashy pirate acoutrements. This does not stop people from making the latter assumption and looking at him askance. He is also in the fencing club.

SUZUKI the Ninja
Real Name: Annabelle Li

Suzuki is Chinese and her grandparents speak Cantonese at home. Her disguise tends to confuse people because they mistake her for a Japanese nisei, which she is quick to dismiss. As for the traditional animosity between China and Japan, she insists that her disguise is based on the ideal of a ninja, not the way they actually behaved.

GREAVES the Knight
Real Name: Lakshmi Gupta

If Suzuki disguize confuses people, Greaves’s outright bamboozles them. She simply insists that she has an affinity for the knights of fantasy lore, with their sparkling armor and cruciform swords, and that this is in no way incompatible with her Bengali heritage. Perhaps the most proficient of the group, she is an SCA member and can swordfight and ride with a reasonable degree of skill.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

In time, the Dirge became aware of the need to present itself in a favorable light when dealing with outsiders.

It therefore acquired a magnificent embroidered robe, spun from the finest burial shrouds and grave goods.Gold and silver from raided tombs provided the materials to craft a pair of glittering metal gauntlets and greaves.

Finally, it created a mask to conceal its hideous “head” from the world. Adapted from the death mask of an emperor long since dust, it was fine-featured and porcelain, with sunken eyes and a neutral, regal expression. Naturally, the Dirge spoke from the various mouths scattered about its form, making the mouth purely decorative in that respect, but the mask did reduce its field of vision to two eyes.

When the Dirge was seen in its finery, that meant that it was relatively safe to approach, at least from a position of strength. Plenty died and had their corpses absorbed into its writhing flesh despite this, but only those who had at least somewhat earned that ire.

But woe to those who saw the towering form of bubbling and running necrotic flesh unveiled. For that was when the Dirge hunted, and that was when a hundred dead eyes looked out in all directions from every crevasse of its body.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

They said it was tradition.

He said it was superstition.

Neighbors watched, sullen and withdrawn, as the Stokes boy painted over the curved symbol on his family’s barn, one that had been there since it had been raised.

His father had carefully repainted it every year, but the Stokes boy was fresh from ag school and knew better.

Two weeks later they found him dead in the paddock. Someting had trampled him to death. The coroner’s report said horses or cows, but the neighbors knew what was a hoof print and what wasn’t.

The day after the wake, the youngest Stokes was up on a ladder, painting the symbol from memory.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

At least his dad doesn’t get to hear it, he became deaf after a rainbowmine exploded near his trench during the second and a half world war! LEST WE FORGET.

Those were dark days. Many gumdrop unicorns came back maimed and hornless from rainbombs. Luckily, he survived, but at what cost. AT WHAT COST?

Why do we keep up with this mayhem?

The war is still going on, in those countries that nobody dares to pronounce. Like MOLISE. But we don’t care, we turn a blind eye. All for our own egotistical profit. Who cares if we’re not going to see rainbows crossng our clear blue skies anymore? All they care about is their black gold: the licorice mines.

You can see a thousand of documentaries on the black market behind those precious goods. Some say its worth sky-rocketed after the first and a half war exploded, creating an ever growing popular demand due to the relevancy of the news. But why do we keep mining it? The government lies, but what can that business of baboons hide from us? Especially when it pollutes our environment so?

We do know the reason: if we don’t, somebody else will, and we can’t let that happen.

Sustainable red licorice has been available for decades, and it doesn’t taste like butt either. Yet, no research progress has been made it that field. NOT EVEN A LITTLE. It’s as if they were trying to milk everything they could from the black kind only to finally destroy our ecosystem.

They’re beasts. BEASTS I TELL YOU. AND YET WE PAY THEM. RUN OUR BUBBLECARS ON THEIR BLACK EVIL. USE IT IN RAINBOW GENERATORS.

It has to stop.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!