Nightmare Magazine Issue 22

by Nightmare Magazine

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Issue 22, July 2014

  FROM THE EDITOR

  Editorial, July 2014

  John Joseph Adams

  FICTION

  The Black Window

  Lane Robins

  Talking in the Dark

  Dennis Etchison

  Death and Death Again

  Mari Ness

  The Misfit Child Grows Fat on Despair

  Tom Piccirilli

  NOVEL EXCERPT

  Object Permanence

  John F.D. Taff

  NONFICTION

  The H Word: Misunderstood Monsters

  Janice Gable Bashman

  Artist Gallery

  Galen Dara

  Artist Spotlight: Galen Dara

  Wendy N. Wagner

  Interview: Del Howison of Dark Delicacies Bookstore

  Lisa Morton

  AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS

  Lane Robins

  Dennis Etchison

  Mari Ness

  Tom Piccirilli

  MISCELLANY

  Coming Attractions

  Stay Connected

  Subscriptions & Ebooks

  About the Editor

  © 2014 Nightmare Magazine

  Cover Art by Galen Dara

  www.nightmare-magazine.com

  FROM THE EDITOR

  EDITORIAL, JULY 2014

  John Joseph Adams

  Welcome to issue twenty-two of Nightmare!

  It seems like it’s been ages since I told you about a new anthology I had out. Er . . . well, I guess it was actually only about two months ago. But nevertheless! July marks the publication of HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY!!! and Other Improbable Crowdfunding Projects! As you may recall, I Kickstarted this anthology in late 2013, inspired by the eponymous story by Keffy R.M. Kehrli, which was published in the October 2013 issue of Lightspeed.

  In case you missed it, HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY!!! is an anthology of science fiction/fantasy stories told in the form of fictional crowdfunding project pitches, using the components (and restrictions) of the format to tell the story. This includes but is not limited to: Project Goals, Rewards, User Comments, Project Updates, FAQs, and more. The idea is to replicate the feel of reading a crowdfunding pitch, so that even though the projects may be preposterous in the real world, they will feel like authentic crowdfunding projects as much as possible. The anthology is on sale now. To learn more, visit johnjosephadams.com/robot-army.

  • • • •

  With our announcements out of the way, here’s what we’ve got on tap this month:

  We have original fiction from Lane Robins (“The Black Window”) and Mari Ness (“Death and Death Again”), along with reprints by Denis Etchison (“Talking in the Dark”) and Tom Piccirilli (“The Misfit Child Grows Fat on Despair”).

  We also have the latest installment of our column on horror, “The H Word,” plus author spotlights with our authors, a showcase on our cover artist, and a feature interview with Del Howison of the legendary Dark Delicacies bookstore in Los Angeles.

  That’s about all I have for you this month. Thanks for reading!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  John Joseph Adams, in addition to serving as publisher and editor-in-chief of Nightmare, is the series editor of Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is also the bestselling editor of many other anthologies, such as The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, Armored, Brave New Worlds, Wastelands, and The Living Dead. New projects coming out in 2014 and 2015 include: Help Fund My Robot Army!!! & Other Improbable Crowdfunding Projects, Robot Uprisings, Dead Man’s Hand, Operation Arcana, Wastelands 2, and The Apocalypse Triptych: The End is Nigh, The End is Now, and The End Has Come. He has been nominated for eight Hugo Awards and five World Fantasy Awards, and he has been called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble. John is also the editor and publisher of Lightspeed Magazine, and is a producer for Wired.com’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Find him on Twitter @johnjosephadams.

  FICTION

  THE BLACK WINDOW

  Lane Robins

  The house looked like a sand castle after the tide had come in. Except sand suggested a crumbling grayness, and the tall, narrow house was a fresh white. A front porch was large enough for a swinging bench if I could bear that level of domesticity. Blue shutters marched from the ground floor to the third, and above that—

  “. . . a finished attic,” the Realtor told me.

  The house was . . . nice. Nothing I’d ever wanted. I loved my job, loved that my years were split between sublet apartments and archaeological digs around the world.

  But things had changed.

  New job, new town, new responsibilities.

  “There are four bedrooms, two bathrooms,” he said, and ushered me in.

  The house was simply laid out—a hallway, a room on either side, stairs at the end of the hall. The kitchen was to my left, and it might have been updated since the thirties, but nothing else seemed to have been. The floor was scarred hardwood, and the doors had actual keyholes. The dining room was dark. Windowless.

  “That’s unusual,” I said, roused to comment.

  The Realtor sighed. “The house was bigger once. There was even an attached stable. But time takes things away.”

  That was the first utterly true thing he’d said. Six weeks ago, I’d been a daughter. Now, I was a parent to my fourteen-year-old siblings, Maddy and Aiden. Now, I was an orphan.

  Six weeks ago, I’d been a footloose archaeologist. Now, I was trying not to let my grief sink me, starting a job as a community college teacher in Missouri, and taking on a mortgage.

  The twins needed stability. I wished I could have kept them in their Chicago home, but our parents had double-mortgaged and I couldn’t afford the payments.

  “There’s even a garden,” the Realtor said. “You like to dig, right?”

  You like to dig. That was one terrible way to sum up my now-dead career as a field archaeologist. It wasn’t worth correcting him. Controlling my grief had ground me down to the essentials. I had to be strong for the kids. I had to make it work.

  The second floor echoed the first: a regular bedroom on one side, a windowless bedroom on the other, stairs and bath at the end of the hall. “Isn’t there a law about windows in bedrooms?”

  “Grandfathered in,” the Realtor told me.

  It was good enough. A week later, we moved in.

  • • • •

  “Holly,” Maddy yelled from the floor above, “I’m claiming this room!”

  It was the first thing she’d said to me since I’d told them about the new house. A miscalculation on my part. I’d accepted the necessity of moving; I’d expected them to have done the same. But Maddy had shrieked, thrown her purse at me, and stormed into her room, where she posted her displeasure on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, tagging me so I’d know I was ruining her life. Even Aiden had complained, just once, but bitterly—you’re getting rid of Mom and Dad’s house?

  I’d been furious and hurt. Didn’t they understand what I’d given up? Didn’t they think I missed our parents, too?

  Didn’t they know I was doing my best?

  So now, with Maddy laying noisy claim to a room, I took it as a good sign. Maybe she’d forgiven me.

  Aiden stood beside me, contemplating his sneakers. When I nudged him, asked, “Don’t you want to pick a room?” he looked at me blankly. His new normal. He used to be an expressive kid. There were pictures boxed somewhere in storage to prove it.

  Another shout from above. “Holly, I can’t get a signal! I need the internet!”

  “I’m working on it,” I shouted back
. The local cable company had made soothing noises about super-fast cable, made less soothing noises about how soon it could be connected. “Can you wait a week?”

  A wordless shriek was my answer.

  Aiden didn’t weigh in one way or another. Then again, his laptop had broken and he wouldn’t let me get him another. Not even a tablet.

  Aiden had been in the car when the truck plowed through the intersection. Dad had died behind the wheel, and Mom . . . Aiden had been playing with his laptop when the truck hit. His laptop had torn through the car like a missile, breaking Mom’s neck.

  “C’mon,” I said. “Let’s go pick a room.” He pulled away when I touched his shoulder.

  Maddy had picked the second-floor bedroom with the wide window, alongside the larger of the two bathrooms. It was a nice day and sunlight radiated brightly enough to penetrate through the hall and into the dark bedroom. I put my head in. Not as grim as I remembered. Still, I wanted Aiden to have real light if possible. I urged him upstairs.

  Maddy said, “Why can’t he be down here with me?”

  “Don’t you want your own bathroom?”

  “I’ll have to share with you,” Maddy said. Her grimace made it clear what she thought of that.

  I shook my head. I wanted to be on the same floor as Aiden. He needed looking after. “You can have it all to your lonesome.”

  That didn’t make her happy either. She scowled and trudged up the stairs after Aiden. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong now, and gave up trying to figure it out.

  Aiden ignored both third floor rooms, and peered up the narrow stairs. “There’s an attic? I always wanted to live in an attic,” he murmured, as if he’d nearly forgotten that desire. As if he’d nearly forgotten how to want things.

  We went on up. The attic was spacious, shadowy beneath the slanted eaves, but dry and clean. The floorboards had been painted white, and unlike the lower floors, the west side of the attic had a window. In keeping with the blind walls below, the window had been painted black.

  A small window on the north wall spilled light across the floor, raising dust motes. Aiden wandered the room, testing how far he could go before the slanting roof made it impossible to walk upright.

  “Can I have this room?”

  “There’s no bathroom up here. No outlets; it’ll be dark,” I pointed out. But this was the first thing Aiden had asked for since the accident. I wanted to give it to him. I had kept all my gear, had battery operated lanterns from my digs. We could make it work.

  “I think it’s painted on the outside,” Maddy said. She picked at the glass with her thumbnail, but the black wasn’t coming off.

  It was an odd window. The north window was the usual type of attic window, a wood-paned hexagon that didn’t open. The black window looked like a regular window, two large panes, one above the other.

  Maddy shoved at the sill, grunting with frustration, and my heart skipped. “Don’t!” I imagined her falling through, another abrupt tragedy. My hands shook.

  She huffed. “Jeez, calm down.”

  Aiden ran his fingers along the join of frame and glass. “Maybe they caulked it shut.”

  “You’ll roast during the summer,” Maddy predicted. “The whole attic’s gonna stink like sweaty boy.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You’ll be two floors away!” Maddy said, an edge in her voice. Her inevitable anger.

  Aiden said, “You can text me.”

  “You’re a dick,” she said.

  “Hey,” I intervened. Maddy stomped downstairs, and I tried to remember that she was grieving, not just a pain in the ass.

  I found a smile for Aiden. “You sure you want the attic?”

  He nodded, studying the window.

  “Maybe I can get the paint off.”

  The air was cooler in the deep slant of the wall, and the black glass was blacker, the color deeper, dense. I ran my fingers over the glass, testing. It was cold even on the warm day. The glass didn’t have any of the streaks or bubbles I expected from paint. Stained glass, maybe.

  I unclipped the penlight from my belt loop. The light bounced back, didn’t seem to penetrate.

  I breathed against the glass, laid my palm against it. The window . . . twitched.

  I jerked back, falling over my feet, dropping the light. It hit the floor, bounced, and disappeared into a gap between the wall and eaves.

  “You okay?” Aiden said. Not quite concern, not quite disinterest. At least he’d noticed.

  “Bird must have hit the house,” I said. “Startled me.”

  • • • •

  I took a bedroom on the third floor, the better to keep an eye on Aiden. I chose the dark one in case Aiden changed his mind about the attic. I never knew what the teens were thinking, and half the time I figured they didn’t either—changing their minds as the wind blew.

  It was nearly three am, after a brutally tough series of days—packing, moving out, the drive, moving in—and I couldn’t sleep because Aiden was doing . . . something . . . in the attic. Scrabbling and scratching and thumping.

  I struggled up the stairs, leaden with exhaustion. “Aiden?”

  He crashed about and swore, a flurry of noise, but no boy. I finally located him, a dark shadow beneath the dark eaves, glimmering light edging his face.

  “My penlight . . .”

  “I can’t reach it,” he said. “And I can’t sleep with it shining.” He sounded as tired as I felt, near tears.

  The penlight had caught somewhere beneath the black window—even more eerie at night, velvety matte and as deep as a starless night. I tore my eyes away and tested the gap between the wall. Two inches. Wide enough to swallow the penlight, too narrow to get a hand down there.

  I sat back, tried to think. My penlight had a carabiner at the end of it, making it easy to hook to things. “Get me a wire hanger.” Aiden did, and I pressed my shoulder against the window, trying to get the angle right. Metal grated, wire catching. I pulled.

  In my ear, the window sobbed. Something like a dying foghorn over distant waters. I nearly lost my grip. Just the wind, sighing through the eaves outside. Nothing more.

  I yanked the hanger up; caught on the end was a small book with a metal clasp.

  “What’s that?” Aiden asked, peering over my shoulder.

  “Old,” I said, my fingers sandy with dust. “Guess we’re not the first one to lose stuff here.” I passed him the journal and went back for the flashlight.

  Once I had it snagged, I switched it off and left us in the dark.

  “Can you sleep now?”

  “I’ll try,” he said.

  “You want me to stay until you do?”

  “No.”

  Quick, heartfelt. Hurtful. A clear rejection.

  “Sleep well,” I told him, and sought the hall below. The strange wind, that breathless sob of air, seemed to follow me. I shuddered. It took me far too long to realize it wasn’t the wind. I opened Maddy’s door, and her sobs hitched, broke. “Get out!”

  Her face was blotched and swollen with tears. When I hesitated, she threw her pillow at me and said, “I hate you! Get out!”

  I got.

  Mom would have known what to say; she would have soothed Maddy’s tears. Dad would have jollied Maddy out of them, fed her ice cream and made her laugh so hard she nearly puked chocolate sauce. They’d done the same for me once upon a time.

  I lay in my bed, in the darkness as absolute as a tomb, and refused to cry. Above me, the window keened.

  • • • •

  The next night, Maddy got over her huff enough to boot me out of the kitchen when she declared my pizza making skills “pathetic.” I climbed the stairs into Aiden’s attic. He jerked away from the window and I felt that familiar swoop of anxiety.

  The window was still sealed. No four-story drop for him.

  I wondered if I’d ever get free of that sick sense of terror, that at any moment I was going to lose Aiden or Maddy.

  “Hey,” I
said. “Pizza in ten or twenty or whenever Maddy gets bored of playing chef.”

  Aiden pointed at the black window, greased with his earprint, and said, “Do you hear that?”

  He gestured me over to the window. Reluctantly, I put my ear to the glass—so strangely cold on a warm night—and I heard the whistle and suck of a vast wind, stronger and louder than it had been last night. Not just a wind, but a gale. I retreated, went to the other window, and peered out. Late spring evening, the sun still high, and the trees . . . motionless.

  “It’s not windy outside.”

  “Not here,” Aiden said. “The window goes someplace else.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  I put my hand back on the black glass, leaned closer, rested my forehead against it, trying to look through. The window shivered; vibrations moved through my skull. I pictured black storm clouds in a black sky, a whole range of inky colors, rising and falling. It wasn’t wind, I thought. It was like whale song, the cries of some enormous beasts some enormous distance away.

  I shivered. I’d had this same cold feeling once on a dig in the Yucatan, right before I saw a jaguar stalking our camp. The hind-brain recognized threats before the conscious mind could.

  “I think you should move downstairs,” I said slowly.

  “What? No.”

  “Please.” I looked at the attic room, at Aiden. He seemed small and lost in this space, dwarfed beside the window. We’d rigged lights but all they did was cast shadows. Aiden crossed his arms over his narrow chest.

  “No. I like this room. I like the window.”

  “I don’t think it’s safe.”

  “Driving down the street’s not safe,” Aiden said. He sounded tired and bitter.

  Maddy poked her head into the room. “I’ve been calling and calling . . . what’s going on?” Suspicion crawled across her features, shifting quickly to anger. “What are you two talking about?”

  “Nothing,” I said, just as Aiden said, “The window.”

  Maddy glared at me and stomped over beside her brother. “What about it?”

  “It’s weird,” he said.

  “Weird how?” she snapped.

  “I think it goes someplace else,” Aiden told her.