August 31, 2010

From “The Dragons of Madness” by Thomas N. Kravinsky

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

Preston’s writing grew more elaborate as the pages wore on, even as his handwriting declined in quality.

I have finally begun to approach this with the correct conceptual framework. Dragons are merely the visible part of a greater–one might say inconceivable–organism. Like an anglerfish’s lure, they represent the barest part of a whole, but the only one we can comprehend. As for the larger organism…words like ‘magic’ and ‘pandimensional’ scarcely do the concept justice. My head aches as I think about it.

A variety of diagrams followed with intersecting parabolas and terms I couldn’t pretend to understand–then again, it’s possible that Preston, in his madness, had made them up. He reverted to prose some pages later:

As projections they have no inherent form. They’re no more giant lizards than I am. But you can see how such a monstrous visage would have proven useful, give the revulsion that people greet reptiles with even today. Primitive man could easily be frightened by such, or coerced into obedience, but the rise of nations and creeds that could seek to shun or slay such ‘monsters’ explains why such forms are rarely encountered.

It also explains why they’ve never been found. If a diver could see only an anglerfish’s lure through a cloudy sea, they’d perceive only a worm and go mad trying to locate it on the ocean floor. But if the lure could be anything it wanted to be, unbound by the laws of physics…the implications stagger me.

 

July 14, 2010

From “The Still, Sad World” by Lenny Trollheim

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

Everything seemed to be drained of color by the overcast sky, and there wasn’t a breath of wind. Once Allen had crossed the threshold, it was as if he’d stepped into an old, faded photograph of Barryton–not the real thing.

“As you get closer, there are a few things you’ll have to watch out for,” Carson had said, after his attempts to argue Allen out of the expedition had failed. “The cold’s one; I’ve never been all the way inside, but it’s been down to 40 on the dog days.”

“I’ll pack a parka.” Allen pulled his coat close about him, recalling his flip response; it didn’t seem to help. The thermometer on his wind gauge read 60, but he still felt chilled to the bone.

Carson had said more, of course: “The…silence…is another thing. It’s hard to describe but damn unsettling. You will quite literally be making the only sounds you can hear; there will be nothing else. Sound doesn’t carry well either, so even talking to yourself won’t do much against it. And I wouldn’t recommend drawing attention to yourself, anyway.”

“I thought you said it was deserted,” Allen had said. “Dead.”

“It is, but…there’s still something about that place. I don’t know what you’d call it…a presence, maybe. Like something’s watching you. Not so much as a blade of grass has grown there in decades, but something has kept the others from coming back. You’d best go cautiously and armed.”

Moving throughout the deserted streets as the temperature dropped and the silence grew all the more deafening, Allen came to understand what the old man had been talking about. Despite the fact that all color, motion, and sound seemed to have been sucked out of the world, he didn’t feel lonely.

He felt watched.

 

July 4, 2010

From “The Dark Cave of Un’Pro-Noun’Cible” by J. L. O. Unferth

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

“And so we release you, mighty Holaak-Hliqu, that you might rain fire and destruction upon our world!”

“Why is it that these faux-Lovecraftian elder gods always have such loyal cultist minions?” Lia asked. “It doesn’t seem to me that they have a very good benefits package.”

“They get eaten first, and spared the insane ravages of That Which Man Was Not Meant To See,” Jim replied. “Lesser of two evils.”

“But the Elder Gods are always released due to the cultists’ actions,” Lia said. “Why not just leave them sealed in the dark cave of Un’Pro-Noun’Cible? The ersatz Great Old Ones in the movies are never going to return on their own like in the real Lovecraft.”

“Maybe that part got left on the cutting room floor.”

“Or maybe they needed a lot of extras for the rock-jawed hero to blow up real good before the final confrontation. I tell you, it just doesn’t add up.”

Jim shrugged. “Well, the next time we come up against a murderous cult of insanity-worshippers, I’ll point out the contradiction.”

 

June 10, 2010

From “The Stripe” by Kevin MacCullen

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

The city was beautiful at night. At precisely 7:00, the lights would switch on and shine into the darkness, creating an island of light. They glinted off the calm waters of the bay, they cascaded over the low buildings, and they cast eerie shadows on the hill overlooking the city. One structure in particular, tall and thin, cast a gigantic dark line over the hill and the complex of buildings perched atop it. Because of this, the inhabitants called the whole area “the Stripe.”

And standing on the Stripe, illuminated from ahead by the city lights and behind by the rising moon, stood a lone man, a sentinel. A casual glance would’ve revealed nothing aside from his alert pose, but a more discerning observer could’ve noticed his sharp military tunic and the rifle slung over his shoulder. A cigarette, its tiny glow accentuating the contours of his face, completed the picture.

He’d been on watch for hours, and wasn’t to be relieved for another three. No one in his unit wanted the graveyard shift; it was dull and cold. He always volunteered for it, though: the graveyard shift was quiet, and nothing ever happened. The “sunshine shift,” however, was another story. The guard smiled, thinking of his mates dealing with the crowds that invariably formed around the compound gates. Along with jeers and insults, the malcontents usually threw stones too.

It was odd, he thought. His unit guarded the Stripe, but no one knew what it was they were really protecting. He had his own ideas, of course, but they were of the un-soldierly type: research lab, weapons development, government offices, and so on. That was one odd thing about the job, the guard thought again. No one knew what they were guarding.

A sudden movement to the right caught the sentry’s eye. Unslinging his rifle, he took one last puff on his smoke and crushed it with his bootheel.

“Who’s there?” he demanded.

As if in response, a loud clatter sounded to his rear. Whirling around, he fired blindly into the darkness. Cursing himself for wasting ammunition, the guard fumbled for his flashlight. Its brutal, high-powered beam revealed a metal can, old and rusted, lying on its side with a bullet hole through it.

He’d only been staring at the can for a moment when he heard a soft but distinct “whump” behind him. The guard turned, only to see that a small dart had embedded itself in his forearm. He yelped and ripped it out, trying to illuminate it with the flashlight’s beam. Even as he did so, his eyes began to water, and a feeling of calm passed over him. He struggled to aim as a figure stepped into the beam, but collapsed in a heap as another figure appeared at his back.

 

June 8, 2010

From “A Rainy Beginning” by Fred T. Kent Jr.

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

Mikey was going to come up with something that his brother couldn’t explain.

During the long, late summer days they often spent together in the house, waiting for their parents to come home from work, Mikey would flit from TV to bookshelf in pursuit of the new and the interesting, drinking in hours of programming on Dad’s favorite channels and leafing through the family’s handsome encyclopedia set. It was an exploration of the rawest kind, filled with new wonders and mysteries, and he would always burst into the living room, where Dave was usually camped with a comic book in the nook of one arm or hunched over the family computer.

“Dave, did you know that there’s a whale that grows a horn like a unicorn does?”

Dave would look up. “Yeah. The narwhal. I touched one of those horns once, in a museum before you were born. Go back and watch your kiddie shows.”

“Dave, did you hear about the lost colony they had in Virginia? They disappeared hundreds of years ago, and nobody ever found them!”

“Wouldn’t be much of a lost colony if they found it, would it?” Dave would respond. “Roanoke didn’t disappear, they were starving. Went and lived with the Indians. Some of them still have blue eyes, you know. Now leave me alone.”

Time and again, some great discover or fantastic mystery would be delivered to Mikey, and time and again Dave would swat it down with a casual hand. There wasn’t a thing Mikey could say that his brother couldn’t grab and squeeze and wring the magic out of. Sitting there, thinking he was so smart and so wise—Mikey was sick of it.

 

May 27, 2010

From “Unsolved Mysteries of 232 West Jackson Plaza” by Hans Schmidt

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

“And if it’s not done by the end of the week, I’ll have your heads on a platter at the partners’ meeting and on stakes in the plaza after that!” Kilp yelled. “When you work in this firm, you produce results!” She stormed off, ponytail swinging angrily. Each strike of a high heel on the floor seemed forceful enough to shatter shoe or tile, whichever was weaker.

A short silence followed.

“Kilp, why must you be the queen of all bitches, indeed of all bitch-kind?” Mike said to the closed door. “The single template from which all other bitches are wrought?”

“Upbringing,” said Gene. “Raised in a house with seven brothers, forced to learn how to mash balls to live.”

“Sex change,” Mike countered. “You can take the drill instructor out of the Marines, you can even cut the drill off of the Marine, but you can’t take the marine out of the drill instructor. Not even with hormones.”

“You guys have it all wrong,” said Jason. “You see, Kilp is really the proboscis of a pandemensional predator which must feast of human souls.”

“Give it a rest, Jason,” Gene groaned. Fun was fun, but Jason’s moronic flights of fancy had a way of getting old.

“Hear me out, hear me out,” said Jason, grinning. “Kilp’s projected into our reality as a lure, like an anglerfish, and our misery sustains her between feedings. She subsists on a diet of interns, since no one notices when they disappear, but every now and then hungers for sweeter meat. When one of us gets fired, we’re really enveloped and consumed.”

Grumbles and a few crumpled wads of paper came at Jason from every angle.

“Mark my words,” he continued. “And beware if she ever opens her mouth way wider than usual and you see rows of teeth.”

In the nearby conference room, Kilp had one ear pressed to the door.

“He knows!” she growled.

 

May 23, 2010

From “A Killing Word” by Jamie C. Dougal

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

“Knock it off with the potty mouth, Cassidy,” she said. “I believe that, whenever we speak, we bring worlds and concepts into existence, somewhere, somehow.”

“So?” said Cassidy.

“The reverse is also true. Every time you drop an f-bomb, somewhere, somehow, it annihilates a civilization of puppies and rainbows. Every time you hyphenate a body part with another word, someone has their very own model infected with a flesh eating virus. And every time you say ‘that’s what she said,’ some she does in fact say it, bringing brutal recrimination down upon her and hers.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I’m saying, Cassidy, that you’re destroying the universe with your coarse and loutish tongue. What’s so hard to understand about that?”

 

April 2, 2010

From “Across Worlds Book IV: Sands of Taas” by Altos Wexan

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

The crowd below began to cheer loudly even before Steyr stepped onto the podium; cries of joy and praise filtered up from below, bringing a smile to the young Prime Minister’s face.

“Citizens!” she cried, her voice echoing from speakers up and down the plaza. Steyr had to wait a moment as the cheers died down before she spoke again. “We stand at the threshold of the greatest event in the history of our fair nation! The dream of my mother, her mother, and all the Prime Ministers back to the foundation will now at last come to fruition! We have fought, we have suffered, and we have triumphed over all who would oppose us!”

“Victory!” came the cry from below.

“All resistance has been crushed. All are now included in our glorious vision. Only the final step remains: we shall once again go forth, and attain what eluded even the Founding Ministers themselves: a victory so absolute that a thousand years will not dull its memory!”

 

March 14, 2010

From “Across Worlds Book V: Xencobourg’s Fury” by Altos Wexan

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: , , , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

“We have been content to watch from afar, to feed. Still, we always expected that someone would arrive,” said one of the Children.

“Just as the ruins of the old world gave birth to us, so too did we beget suffering and chaos unprecedented even in the time of its destruction,” said another, who might once have been a woman. “That was our ultimate revenge.”

“But we knew it could not last, just as the strife that burned for generations before our coming. Now that the wall has been breached, the time has come for the children of the old world to begin the next phase.”

“We have seen the suffering we have wrought echo across a hundred generations, but no more. As in all matters of revenge, we must now move on to death.” The Child who had spoken smiled, the eerie green light of the glass reflected in its eyes. “The Children of Xencobourg will sear our enemies to dust.”

 

« Previous Page