Nightscript 2

by C M Muller

  The maestro cuts my strings.

  Brick and concrete swirl around me, and I fall to the ground. The handkerchief comes to rest at my side. I make a weak grab for the fabric. Its wrinkled corner waves once and then is still.

  I can hear the sounds coming from deep in the alley now, the whispers and small wet noises. Grabbing the handkerchief, I pull myself up with the sword and begin to tread slowly over the jewels of glass marking the entrance like scattered teeth. The ground slants hellward as I journey down the alley’s sulfurous gullet. The chattering intensifies. A gathering of phantasmal shapes crouch in a pool of milksoft moonlight at the end of the alley. Three Fever Men all counted, making the most of a humble meal.

  I stand still, listening to their harsh music. One of the Fever Men finally detects me from the shadows and emits a sharp hiss from his nest of tubes, his brothers huddling jealously over their prize. In the moon’s glow, I can see my prince’s face, his pale mouth still smiling up at the sky, sleeping forever in a depthless, dreamless bog. Within seconds it has crumbled and wasted away, never to return.

  The life of a clown. An old joke, and nothing more.

  My cursed hand passes the burden weighing down my soul and touches the rising blade of the moplah with a white, simmering fire. The bottle is rolling, the drum is beating, and the crowd is holding its breath as it waits for the funny-man to finish his act.

  I am the greatest clown in the world, and my public shall want for nothing.

  “Everybody laugh,” I whisper.

  My shadow swells with the taste of their fear and then descends, a great black curtain coming down.

  From here, the city is just a memory.

  Rolling dunes block most of its empty towers from my view. The sand blisters with radiation, sends its glistening breath into the air. The desert is not a traditional theater, but a clown’s life is one of constant adaptability. The possibilities and the playing space are endless.

  I can no longer remember how many fell at the end of my sword last night. It was a strange night, one of confusion and screams, a funhouse night. At some point the monsters began to disguise themselves, started to wear pleading human faces like masks of melting wax, thinking they could fool me. But you cannot fool a fool.

  The moplah now stands atop the first hill of the desert that borders the city, its blade sunk deep, its haft bejeweled with fresh rubies and wreathed with two old handkerchiefs, one red and one blue, a signpost for those horseless riders passing through to mark where that part of the ending stops and this one begins.

  The little paper heart remains with me. I had intended to abandon it, to run it through with the sword and leave it pinned and weeping on the ground. But when I searched the pockets of Father’s coat, I discovered that I couldn’t find it. So it stays inside of me now, somewhere, fluttering gently.

  Now there is only I, the sand, the arcane scavengers circling above, and the sun bowing its hooded head to the west. The maestro pulls me along no longer. My strings trail behind me now, phantom limbs dragging through the dust.

  I crest a shining hill and look over the purple rim into the valley below. My eyes take a moment to adjust to the bite of the gritty wind before they recognize the shapes moving ahead.

  A great circus tent, tall spires framed against fire, flaps with the scent of peanut oil and dirty rain. Gray sinewy mountains pull the tent across the desert by chains, marching solemnly towards the sunset. Their footprints are tremendous and instantly forgotten in the sand.

  And there, just above the roaring of the earth, like the soft hum of a scream or a smile along a thin wire, is the dirge of an old organ playing the day down. Its jaunty, discordant tune makes promises to the desert of sights unseen, sounds unheard, of magic and mystery, of death and life. Those who are patient will hear this in its song. Those who are wise will know it to be true.

  I look up to the sky and ask: What good is the end of the world to a clown?

  Raw laughter bursts from my throat and echoes across the scarlet valley. The searing wind turns the tears on my cheeks to mercury and carries my laughter up, up into the wide, absolving sky, up where some greater mystery waits to hear it, dreaming of the end.

  My path is clear now. I walk on.

  About the Contributors

  Michael Griffin’s collection The Lure of Devouring Light was published by Word Horde, and Dim Shores will soon publish his novella An Ideal Retreat. His work has appeared in magazines like Apex, Black Static, Lovecraft eZine, and Strange Aeons, and such anthologies as Autumn Cthulhu, the Shirley Jackson Award winner The Grimscribe's Puppets, the Laird Barron tribute The Children of Old Leech, and Cthulhu Fhtagn! Upcoming work will appear in Eternal Frankenstein, The Madness of Dr. Caligari, and the Ramsey Campbell tribute Darker Companions. He’s an ambient musician and founder of Hypnos Recordings, an ambient record label he operates with his wife in Portland, Oregon. Michael blogs at www.griffinwords.com. On Twitter, he posts as @mgsoundvisions and writing-specific news appears as @griffinwords.

  Kristi DeMeester received her M.A. in Creative Writing from Kennesaw State University in 2011. Since then, her short fiction has appeared in publications such as Black Static, Apex Magazine, The Dark, Year’s Best Weird Fiction Volumes 1 and 3, and several others. Her debut novel, Beneath, is forthcoming in spring 2017 from Word Horde. In her spare time, she alternates between telling people how to say her last name and how to spell her first. Find her online at www.kristidemeester.com.

  Christopher Slatsky is the author of Alectryomancer and Other Weird Tales (Dunhams Manor Press, 2015). His work has also appeared in the Lost Signals anthology, Strange Aeons Magazine, and Year’s Best Weird Fiction vol. 3. He currently resides in the Los Angeles area.

  J.T. Glover’s short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Children of Old Leech, The Lovecraft eZine, Goreyesque, and Pseudopod, among other venues. His nonfiction has appeared in various markets, including Thinking Horror and Postscripts to Darkness. By day he is an academic research librarian specializing in the humanities, and he studies literary horror, writers’ research practices, and related topics. He lives in Richmond, Virginia, and you can find him online at www.jtglover.com.

  Eric J. Guignard’s a writer and editor of dark and speculative fiction, operating from the shadowy outskirts of Los Angeles. His works have appeared in publications such as Nightmare Magazine, Black Static, Shock Totem, Buzzy Magazine, and Dark Discoveries Magazine. He’s won the Bram Stoker Award, been a finalist for the International Thriller Writers Award, and a multi-nominee of the Pushcart Prize. Outside the glamorous and jet-setting world of indie fiction, Eric’s a technical writer and college professor, and he stumbles home each day to a wife, children, cats, and a terrarium filled with mischievous beetles. Visit Eric at: www.ericjguignard.com, his blog: ericjguignard.blogspot.com, or Twitter: @ericjguignard.

  Malcolm Devlin’s stories have appeared in Interzone and Black Static and the anthologies Aickman’s Heirs and Gods, Memes and Monsters. His first collection, You Will Grow Into Them, will be published by Unsung Stories in June 2017.

  Gwendolyn Kiste is a speculative fiction writer based in Pennsylvania. Her stories have appeared in Nightmare, Shimmer, LampLight, and Interzone as well as Flame Tree Publishing’s Chilling Horror Short Stories anthology. She currently resides on an abandoned horse farm with her husband, two cats, and not nearly enough ghosts. You can find her online at gwendolynkiste.com and on Twitter (@GwendolynKiste).

  Ralph Robert Moore’s books include the short story collections Remove the Eyes and I Smell Blood, the novels Father Figure, As Dead As Me, and Ghosters, and the upcoming collection of ten novelettes, You Can Never Spit It All Out. He is a twice-nominated British Fantasy Society author whose work has appeared in a wide variety of literary and genre magazines and anthologies, including Nightscript I, Black Static, Shadows & Tall Trees, Midnight Street, and Sein und Werden. His website SENTENCE at www.ralphrobertmoore.com features a broad selection of his wr
itings, videos, and photographs. Moore and his wife Mary live outside Dallas, Texas.

  Christopher Ropes lives in New Jersey with his family and their numerous pets. He is the author of the poetry collection The Operating Theater through Dynatox Ministries and the weird fiction chapbook Complicity from Dunhams Manor Press. He also writes occult nonfiction and lives in a perpetual “derangement of all the senses.”

  Steve Rasnic Tem’s last novel, Blood Kin (Solaris, 2014), won the Bram Stoker Award. His next novel, UBO (Solaris, January 2017), is a dark science fictional tale about violence and its origins, featuring such historical viewpoint characters as Jack the Ripper, Stalin, and Heinrich Himmler. He is also a past winner of the World Fantasy and British Fantasy Awards. A handbook on writing, Yours To Tell: Dialogues on the Art & Practice of Fiction, written with his late wife Melanie, will appear soon from Apex Books. Visit the Tem home on the web at: www.m-s-tem.com

  Jason A. Wyckoff is the author of two short story collections published by Tartarus Press, Black Horse and Other Strange Stories (2012) and The Hidden Back Room (2016). His work has appeared in anthologies from Tartarus Press and Siren’s Call Publications, as well as the journals Nightscript v.I, Weirdbook, and Turn To Ash. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, USA, with his wife and their cats.

  Gordon White has lived in North Carolina, New York, and now the Pacific Northwest, collecting various terrors as he goes. His work has appeared in venues such as Dark Fuse, Halloween Forevermore, Milkfist, Dark Moon Digest, Borderlands 6, and others. In addition to writing, he also reads submissions for Kraken Press and Pantheon Magazine, and conducts interviews for various outlets. You can find him online at www.grizzlyspectacles.com.

  Nina Shepardson is a biologist who lives in the northeastern US with her husband. She’s a staff reader at Spark: A Creative Anthology, and her writing appears or is forthcoming in over a dozen publications, including Devilfish Review, The Colored Lens, and Electric Spec. She also writes book reviews at ninashepardson.wordpress.com.

  Kurt Fawver is a writer of horror, weird fiction, and dark fantasy. His short stories have previously appeared (or will appear) in venues such as The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Aeons, the Lovecraft eZine, and Weird Tales. He’s also released one collection of short fiction, Forever, in Pieces. His non-fiction has been published in places such as Thinking Horror and the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. You can find Kurt online at www.facebook.com/kfawver or http://kurtfawver1.blogspot.com.

  Rowley Amato was born and raised in New York City, where he makes his living as a writer. “Aycayia” is his first published work. He’s trying very hard to get a website together, but in the meantime, he tweets about movies and things at @rowleyamato.

  Charles Wilkinson’s publications include The Pain Tree and Other Stories (London Magazine Editions). His stories have appeared in Best Short Stories 1990 (Heinemann), Best English Short Stories 2 (W.W. Norton, USA), Unthology (Unthank Books), Best British Short Stories 2015 (Salt), and in genre magazines/anthologies such as Supernatural Tales, Horror Without Victims (Megazanthus Press), Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, The Dark Lane Anthology Phantom Drift (USA), Bourbon Penn (USA), Shadows & Tall Trees (Canada), Nightscript (USA), and Best Weird Fiction 2015 (Undertow Books, Canada). Ag & Au, a pamphlet of poems, appeared from Flarestack in 2013. His collection of strange tales and weird fiction, A Twist in the Eye, is now out from Egaeus Press. He lives in Powys, Wales.

  H.V. Chao’s fiction has appeared in Pseudopod, The Kenyon Review, West Branch, Epiphany, The Coachella Review, and the anthology Strange Tales IV from Tartarus Press. It has also been translated in Le Visage Vert and Brèves. He is at work on a story collection called Guises. Home is wherever his wife and dog are.

  Daniel Mills is the author of Revenants: A Dream of New England (Chomu Press, 2011), The Lord Came at Twilight (Dark Renaissance Books, 2014), and of the forthcoming Moriah (ChiZine Publications, 2017). He lives in Vermont. Find him online at http://www.daniel-mills.net.

  Rebecca J. Allred lives in the Pacific Northwest, working by day as a doctor of pathology, but after hours, she transforms into a practitioner of dark fiction, penning malignant tales of suffering and woe. Her work has appeared in A Lonely and Curious Country: Tales from the Land of Lovecraft, Gothic Fantasy: Chilling Horror Short Stories, Borderlands 6, and others. When she isn’t busy rendering diagnoses or writing, Rebecca enjoys reading, drawing, laughing at RiffTrax, and spending time with her husband and their cat. Keep up with Rebecca online at www.diagnosisdiabolique.com.

  Matthew M. Bartlett is the author of Gateways to Abomination, The Witch-Cult in Western Massachusetts, and Creeping Waves. His short stories have appeared in a variety of anthologies, including Resonator: New Lovecraftian Tales From Beyond, High Strange Horror, and Lost Signals. He lives and writes in a small brick house on a quiet, leafy street somewhere in Northampton, Massachusetts with his wife Katie Saulnier and their cats Phoebe, Peachpie, and Larry.

  José Cruz is an author and freelance writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in print and online venues such as Video Librarian, Turn to Ash, bare•bones e-zine, The Terror Trap, Classic-Horror, and Paracinema Magazine. He lives in Southwest Florida with his wife and a very furry child. He can be found online at hauntedomnibus.wordpress.com. “Pause for Laughter” is his first published story.

  C.M. Muller lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with his wife and two sons—and, of course, all those quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore. He is related to the Norwegian writer Jonas Lie and draws much inspiration from that scrivener of old. His tales have appeared in Shadows & Tall Trees, Supernatural Tales, and Weirdbook. He hopes you have enjoyed the twenty-one tales collected herein.

  For more information about Nightscript, please visit:

  www.chthonicmatter.wordpress.com/nightscript