Category Archives: Issue 20: The Mythos Planet
Pseudopod, by Karen Bovemyer
First published in Abyss & Apex magazine, in June 2015.
After Lovecraft’s Dunwich Horror
The skin was thickly covered with coarse black fur,
and from the abdomen a score of long
greenish-grey tentacles with red
sucking mouths protruded limply
And from the abdomen a score of long
cries reverberated in the air, shivering with
sucking mouths protruding limply
kissing empty air with flinching passion
Cries reverberated in the air, shivering with
love, yearning for touch
kissing empty air with passion flinching
Reaching like me, unanswered
Love, yearning for touch
My hand lifted
Reaching, unanswered, like me
until we touched, stroking gently
My hand lifted
Tentacle coiling, uncoiling
and we answered, stroking gently
each skin thickly covered with coarse black fur
Karen Bovenmyer earned an MFA in Creative Writing: Popular Fiction from the University of Southern Maine. She teaches and mentors students at Iowa State University and serves as the Nonfiction Assistant Editor of Escape Artists’ Mothership Zeta Magazine. She is the 2016 recipient of the Horror Writers Association Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Scholarship. Her poems, short stories and novellas appear in more than 40 publications and her first novel, SWIFT FOR THE SUN, an LGBT romantic adventure in 1820s Caribbean, will be available from Dreamspinner Press on March 27, 2017. http://karenbovenmyer. com/
The Cubicle from Beyond Space and Time, by D.A. Madigan
It was Tuesday, and Kenneth Cooke, newly promoted from training status to the actual troubleshooting floor, was looking for an empty cubicle. His shift started at 10 am, and while that was cool for many reasons. The one drawback to it was, by the time he arrived at work every day, people who had gotten there earlier took all the cubicles.
Finally he spotted an empty cubicle and headed over to it. Whoever normally sat here had heavily personalized the work space, with pictures of various family members, a couple of plants, and several cute little plaques containing humorous mottos, like “I’m a 5:01 person in a 9 to 5 world” and “Remind me again how lucky I am to work here, I keep forgetting”.
Kenneth hesitated before pulling the chair out. Technically, there were no assigned seats at the call center, but this particular person had so obviously and utterly colonized this space that it just seemed…wrong, somehow….to sit there.
Amanda Resoyce, who was a supervisor in Kenneth’s department, saw his hesitation. “Yeah, it’s fine,” she told him. “Bill, the guy who sits there, is off on Tuesdays. Go ahead and sit down and get logged in.”
“Great,” Kenneth said. He still felt a little hesitant, but, reassured by Amanda’s instruction, he grabbed the back of the chair to pull it out—
Reality fractured into thick ice-like chunks above Kenneth’s head, and fell in jagged shards like daggers all about his feet. A shrieking void filled with unimaginable colors that writhed like eight dimensional slugs through configurations no human mind could sanely comprehend gaped open before, above, behind, and around him. Amanda Resoyce frantically grabbed at a support post, as she felt what seemed like a vast wind, smelling of blood and shit and cinnamon, grab her in a thousand invisible hands and try to tug her into the indescribable rip in the quantum fabric of time and space.
Kenneth screamed once and was sucked in to the howling void.
Sprawled on a pulsating field of somehow living (and hungry) grit, Kenneth looked up into the ululating awfulness of non-sky above him and, feeling his eyeballs starting to slide like melted wax out of their sockets, screamed his mind away in endless horror, even as the Undulaters began tendril-skating towards him, maws askew in interested hunger.
Back in the call center, Amanda combed her fingers through her hair. Another supervisor, Jameela Price, said, “Oh, you didn’t see the email? We’re not letting anyone sit at Bill’s workstation today. Some kind of thing… I’m not sure what.”
Amanda stared. “Well,” she said, “I know Bill doesn’t like it when other people sit at his station, but…um…say, was that symbol always drawn in the carpeting under his chair?”
“No,” Jameela said, “he put that there yesterday towards the end of his shift. He was chanting, too. I don’t know… I guess I should have said something. I didn’t notice the symbol until after he’d gone home, though. I guess we can talk to him tomorrow about it.”
Amanda remembered the large black books Bill habitually carried around with him and read from between calls. She also remembered the bizarre sight of Kenneth, tumbling into a hole in the air that had done its best to suck her in, as well. She remembered Kenneth’s silhouette, tumbling over and over, growing smaller and smaller, as if falling into a deep, chaotically hued shaft leading eternally downward into nothingness.
“Uh,” Amanda said. “Well…maybe we just shouldn’t mention it to him. And, you know, make sure nobody else tries to sit there.”
Jameela shrugged. “Yeah, maybe,” she agreed.
My name is D.A. Madigan. I’ve had stories bought by various professional markets, including April Moon’s FLESH LIKE SMOKE and the upcoming THE STARS AT MY DOOR, PS Publication’s THROUGH A MYTHOS DARKLY, the upcoming TRANSMISSIONS FROM PUNKTOWN, and several others I can’t talk about yet because the final TOCs haven’t been announced as yet, but I’ll be on them when they are.
Jeffrey Thomas called my story for TRANSMISSIONS FROM PUNKTOWN ‘bizarre and brilliant’, so I take that as high praise, given that Jeffrey Thomas is pretty much the ruling god-emperor of ‘bizarre and brilliant’.
In 2011 the Louisville Eccentric Observer voted me Louisville’s Best Local Author and just last summer I won an Imadjinn Award for my novella RED LETTER DAY.
Litterbugs, by BanWynn Oakshadow
By this point the sails are so much confetti trailing micro-fiber lines. We look like a poorly tricked-out Bakian punk’s jumper. We figured that we might as well call this deploy “solar sails” since they managed to slow us down enough to find out that Sol is what the local call this little star before it turned us into a Rut Festival float. As always, my favorite ear jockey has maneuvered us perfectly. We are going to slip between Sol 2 and 3 to drop us into a nice, clean S-curve around Sol, then a single jerk of negative acceleration to the starboard engine and slingshot around this orifice evacuatied excuse for a system, saving fuel at 20% over optimum projections. I am going to have to fuck all three of his holes to say “Ghneezax” for this one. That means ten extra flips at full acceleration, and into the port 4.734 turns ahead of scheduled delivery. Narcotics are profitable and that means upgrades for my sweet baby…and some for the ship to.
“Tank, baby, grab your chin and cuddle them balls. You’re going to need them. We are now at Sol 3 planar orbit and nearing 180 degrees. 5 ren burn that’ll make your brain take a week sliding back down to your asses, and we are looping out of this…”
The whole ship jerked alright, but not because of the engine. We hit something…big. You absolutely, never hear dings against the hull, but I sure as fuck heard something.
I yelled, “Sweet Baby Roofus! What the fuck did you just do to my ship?”
“I didn’t see it. Honeybuns never detected it. Who could have expected it? It ain’t my fault!”
“What ain’t your fault, super pilot who ain’t getting laid tonight, after all?”
Fre giggled back, “Tank, I don’t know how to say this…but, at 180 degrees we…I had to have Baby rip data from Sol 3 to identify it…we hit a toaster. A big, fucking toaster. Tactile is on your pad now, if you wanna take a feel.”
Shit. Roofus was pretty stressed if Fre was venting NO2. Sometimes I hate Thrillians. “What kind of damage are we talking about, Slick-tail?”
Fre managed to sound ashamed while continuing to giggle, “Boss, we’re limping home. Thirty-seven turns late on delivery at best. Repairs are going to cost twice what we will get paid on delivery. I’m going to sling us back between Sol 4 and 5 then shoot it again at twelve degrees vertical of any planetary orbit.”
“Can you get decently close to Sol 3 on the way?”
“I can. It’ll cost a bit of fuel, but why?”
“We gonna drop some dead weight on the way home and make ourselves feel real good doing it. When you are close enough to the primitives who don’t understand “Don’t make us shoot. Don’t pollute.” drop three of Baby Bird’s eggs and glass that fucker.”
“I like the way you think. Looks like you’re the one getting lubed tonight…all eight of them.”
“Boss…got a weak transmission coming in. Their philosophers or priests or scientists or whatever are claiming that we just pulled a “hit and run” on God.”
“Fuck ’em. Count to three and say “Goorshik VorrroaW!”
I could hear Roofus’ smiles, “I never get over how much prettier those glassed planets look after we’re done with them.”
My ear began to erect and get cold, “You’re just a hopeless romantic. That’s number four of the three reasons I love you, so peel them open. Put the big girl on auto and let’s fuck.”
“Whatever you say, you’re the boss. You want me to bring some Tribbles?”
BanWynn Oakshadow has been a poet, writer, artist and photographer since 1978 He grew up in rural Ohio, lived much of his adult life in the desserts of Colorado and Arizona and lives on a 400 yo farm in Sweden.. He writes about Native American & Viking history, lots of speculative fiction, Child Abuse, Mental Illness and Spirituality. He loves donating works to animal charity anthologies and publications that don’t pay, but give people who live to write and write to live a place to share it. You can find him at uncleoakie.wordpress.com
Meganuera monyi, by Richard Stevenson
Well, I ain’t no chopper, baby.
Didn’t come to mist your crops.
I just got the drop on this lamb.
Gonna drop ‘im on those rocks.
Yeah, I’m gonna drop in for dinner,
get right at his innards. Gonna daub
my masticating mouth bits with his
Soft little fleece suit. Little fleece suit.
Got here through a wormhole, babe.
Ain’t May 2004 where I’m from, hon!
Sorry to cause so much trouble.
Sorry to bust your time/space bubble.
I’m just an eight-foot dragonfly.
Relax. Yer too skinny to scarf.
Don’t do cotton burritos in bikinis,
even itsy bitsy teeny weeny polka-dotted ones.
Fifties caught up with you, babe.
Cold war fantasies of giant radioactive
ants had you freaked. I just decided
to visit, spin a few platters from the past..
Cop some fast food, cruise the valley
with my top down, so to speak.
Grab a sheep. Go on the lam
before heading back to my Cretaceous crib.
G-g-g giant d-d-dragonfly!
Don’t go flub flub flub
When I’m in flyin’mode. Just hover, hon.
Suck back a few sanguine shakes.
Meganuera monyi, Cretacious cutie.
Gonna sock it to you, babe,
in psychedelic moire colours,
all four wings ablaze!
Leda only had a Don Juan
gone-by-dawn swan, sweetheart –
a smooth talker, great lover maybe –
but he knocked you up, didn’t he?
I may be more mechanical,
But I can dance on a dime,
hover, feint left or right
better than your best boxer.
Hey! I’ve got compound eyes.
I see you comin’ and goin’.
Know all three of my right feet
from my left. Am totally tubular!
Fast shuffle, fox tot, waltz –
I got ‘em covered. Flap flap.
Don’t need a gat, pork pie,
Zoot suit, or any flim flam scam.
Zzz Zzzz Zzz. C’mon, honey,
Shake your money maker!
I’m the dude who can take you
to another era. Fly with me!
Richard Stevenson recently retired from a thirty-year teaching gig at Lethbridge College . His most recent books are Rock, Scissors, Paper: The Clifford Olson Murders, a long poem sequence (Dreaming Big Publications, USA, 2017), and A Gaggle of Geese, haikai poems and sequences, ( Alba Publications, UK,2017 )
Mirrors, by Mathias Jansson
Down the stairs, I went in a spiral.
Down to the dark cave furnished only with a mirror and a lectern.
In the ancient open book I could read words in a language not spoken since the beginning of time. The mirror’s surface trembled, and in the distance I could see a shadow approaching fast. The perspectives were perverted and the sight filled my mind with madness.
Before the abnormal creature stretched its tentacles outside the frame, I managed with my last sanity to throw the book in the mirror and shatter the glass.
Since that day, I fear mirrors.
Mathias Jansson is a Swedish art critic and horror poet. He has been published in magazines as The Horror Zine, Dark Eclipse, Schlock and The Sirens Call. He has also contributed to over 100 different horror anthologies from publishers as Horrified Press, James Ward Kirk Fiction, Source Point Press, Thirteen Press etc. Homepage: http://mathiasj ansson72.blogspot.se/ Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.co.uk/ Mathias-Jansson/e/B00BTDBYBQ/r ef=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_4?qid=13668 06658&sr=8-4