Fossil Lake: An Anthology of the Aberrant
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Fossil Lake
An Anthology of the Aberrant
Copyright © 2014 Sabledrake Enterprises
All rights reserved
2nd Edition – Spring, 2014
Cover Design by Kirsten Maloney Copyright © 2014
Dinosaur images by KeithBishop © 2007
Published by Sabledrake Enterprises
http://sabledrake.com
http://christine-morgan.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
* * * * * SMASHWORDS EDITION * * * * *
Thank you for downloading this ebook. Kindly observe that stories and poems contained herein are copyright of their respective creators as indicated and are reproduced here with their permission. They may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed for any commercial or non-commercial use without permission from the respective author. Quotes used in reviews are the exception. No alteration of content is allowed.
If you enjoyed this book, then encourage your friends to purchase their own copy. Your support and respect for the property of each author is appreciated.
This book is dedicated to the memory of Janrae Frank, the King of Daverana.
Copyrights
“A Letter from the Lake” by Ramsey Campbell from The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants, originally published in 1964
“Revolver Concert” by Spencer Carvalho, originally published in Barcelona Review issue 70, 2010
“Malicious Intimacy” by William Andre Sanders, originally published in Carnage Conservatory e-zine, June 2012
“The Last Revelation of Gla’aki, an Excerpt” by Ramsey Campbell, from The Last Revelation of Gla’aki, 2013
“Eat Yourself” by Michael Shimek, 2014
“The Varmint of Fossil Valley” by Lewis Unknown, 2014
“Road Kill Angel” by Dana Wright, 2014
“Silver Screen Shadows” by Mathias Jansson, 2014
“C-C-Cold” by Ken Goldman, 2014
“What’s Your Beef?” by Mark Orr, 2014
“Alchera” by D.J. Tyrer, 2014
“The Dank” by Doug Blakeslee, 2014
“Dark of Madness” by Tanya Nehmelman, 2014
“All That Jazz” by Meagan Hightower, 2014
“Thick” by Melanie-Jo Lee, 2014
“The Ziggurat of Skulls” by Joshua Dobson, 2014
“Apartment B” by Stinky Cat, 2014
“Pretty Girl” by Deb Eskie, 2014
“Come Fly With Death” by Wesley D. Gray, 2014
“The Horn of Plenty” by Russell Nayle, 2014
“The Lost Link” by Carl Thomas Fox, 2014
“Nat Poopcone vs. the Beast of Fossil Lake” by Jerrod Balzer, 2014
“Where Lost Ones Dwell” by Tony Flynn, 2014
“Lana Doesn’t Get Lucky” by Kerry Lipp and Emily Meier, 2014
“Gothicism on Trial” by G. Preacher, 2014
“Finding Miss Fossie” by Melany Van Every, 2014
“Arkham Arts Review: Alienation” by Peter Rawlik, 2014
“Mishipishu: The Ghost Story of Penny Jaye Prufrock” by Mary Pletsch, 2014
“Beneath” by Michael Burnside, 2014
“Passionate in Chicago” by John Goodrich, 2014
“Mr. Winter” by Jeremy Terry, 2014
“Impressions” by Christine Morgan, 2014
“Make Me Something Scary” by Patrick Tumblety, 2014
“The Day Lloyd Campbell’s Mama Came to Town” by Scott Colbert, 2014
“The Rack” by Mike Meroney, 2014
“Beautiful” by John Claude Smith, 2014
"A mix of horror and humor, the frightful and the bizarre, this darker than dark anthology is transgressive and fun. FOSSIL LAKE is truly and "literary" an eye in the shadows, a glimpse of terrors big and small in all their horrific forms as they make a home in Fossil Lake. Readers are sure to fear the dark of grandparental basements – this anthology is better than the best of Norwood's Discoveries!" –Mary SanGiovanni, author of CHAOS and THE FADING PLACE.
Table of Contents:
Editor's Introduction
“A Letter from the Lake” – Ramsey Campbell
“Eat Yourself” – Michael Shimek
“The Varmint of Fossil Valley” – Lewis Unknown
“Road Kill Angel” – Dana Wright
“Silver Screen Shadows” – Mathias Jansson
“C-C-Cold” – Ken Goldman
“What’s Your Beef?” – Mark Orr
“Alchera” – D.J. Tyrer
“The Dank” – Doug Blakeslee
“Dark of Madness” – Tanya Nehmelman
“All That Jazz” – Meagan Hightower
“Revolver Concert” – Spencer Carvalho
“Thick” – Melanie-Jo Lee
“The Ziggurat of Skulls” – Joshua Dobson
“Apartment B” – Stinky Cat
“Pretty Girl” – Deb Eskie
“Come Fly With Death” – Wesley D. Gray
“The Horn of Plenty” – Russell Nayle
“The Lost Link” – Carl Thomas Fox
“Nat Poopcone vs. the Beast of Fossil Lake” – Jerrod Balzer
“Where Lost Ones Dwell” – Tony Flynn
“Lana Doesn’t Get Lucky” – Kerry Lipp and Emily Meier
“Gothicism on Trial” – G. Preacher
“Finding Miss Fossie” – Melany Van Every
“Arkham Arts Review: Alienation” – Peter Rawlik
Mishipishu: The Ghost Story of Penny Jaye Prufrock – Mary Pletsch
“Malicious Intimacy” – William Andre Sanders
“Beneath” – Michael Burnside
“Passionate in Chicago” – John Goodrich
“Mr. Winter” – Jeremy Terry
“Impressions” – Christine Morgan
“Make Me Something Scary” – Patrick Tumblety
“The Day Lloyd Campbell’s Mama Came to Town” – Scott Colbert
“The Rack” – Mike Meroney
“Beautiful” – John Claude Smith
“The Last Revelation of Gla’aki, an Excerpt” – Ramsey Campbell
About the Contributors
Editor’s Introduction:
Fossil Lake is a real place.
Actually, Fossil Lake is several real places. There are Fossil Lakes in Wyoming, Oregon, Colorado, North Dakota and Montana. Professor Edward W. Barry of the John Hopkins Institute published a paper on a Fossil Lake in France in 1917. A Fossil Lake was discovered in Darfur, Sudan, in 2007. There’s a Fossil Lake in Australia.
For any one person to attempt to lay claim to it is preposterous. Fossil Lake belongs to us all. It belongs to the world.
And what about the other Fossil Lakes, the ones that exist within our minds? The Fossil Lake of the psyche, of the soul? What might be found buried in those subconscious, sedimentary layers? What might drift in those deep, dark undercurrents?
In this book, you will visit many different Fossil Lakes. Some are overt, some subtle. Some share certain common themes and threads while others visit their own unique landscapes of the transgressive and surreal.
You’ll find stories to amuse, arouse, disturb, enlighten, entertain and perhaps sicken, in various turns and measures. You’ll find stories from seasoned pros and talented begi
nners, all of whom it was a genuine honor and pleasure to work with. You’ll find original tales as well as reprints, and stories inspired by or in the tradition of masters of the genre.
It is my hope, Dear Reader, that you enjoy this anthology in the spirit with which it was intended.
Christine Morgan
Seattle, WA
October 2013
* * *
A LETTER FROM THE LAKE
Ramsey Campbell
The following is a letter from Thomas Cartwright to his friend Alan Kearney, dated 30 October 1960 …
Last Friday I made a special journey down to Bold Street, and found out quite a bit about my lakeside street. The agent wasn’t particularly pleased to see me, and seemed surprised when I told him I hadn’t come for my money back. He still was wary of saying much, though – went on a bit about the houses being built “on the orders of a private group.” It didn’t seem as though I’d get much out of him, and then I happened to mention that I was having dreams like the earlier tenants. Before he could think, he blurted out: “That’s going to make some people a bit happier, then.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, sensing a mystery.
Well, he hedged a bit, and finally explained: “It’s to do with the ‘haunting’ of your lake. There’s a story among the country people – and it extends to them in the suburbs around Mercy Hill, which is nearest your place – that something lives in the lake, and ‘sends out nightmares’ to lure people to it. Even though the nightmares are terrifying, they’re said to have a hypnotic effect. Since the place became untenanted, people – children particularly – in the Mercy Hill area have been dreaming, and one or two have been admitted to the Hill hospital. No wonder they have nightmares around there – it used to be the site of a gallows, you know, and the hospital was a prison; only some joker called it ‘Mercy Hill’ and the name stuck. They say the dreams are the work of what’s in the lake – it’s hungry, and casting its net further out. Of course, it’s all superstition – God knows what they think it is. Anyway, if you’re dreaming, they’d say it won’t need to trouble them any more.”
“Well, that’s one thing cleared up,” I said, trying to follow up my advantage. “Now, why were the houses really built? What was this ‘private group’ you’re so secretive about?”
“It’ll sound crazy to you, no doubt,” he apologized. “The houses were built around 1790, and renovated or added to several times. They were put up on the instructions of this group of about six or seven people. These people all disappeared around 1860 or 1870, apparently leaving for another town or something – anyway, nobody around here heard of them again. In 1880 or so, since there’d been no word from them, the houses were let yet again. For many reasons, people never stayed long – you know, the distance from town; and the scenery too, even if that was what got you there. I’ve heard from earlier workers here that the place even seemed to affect some people’s minds. I was only here when the last but one tenant came in. You heard about the family that was last here, but this was something I didn’t tell you. Now look – you said when you first came that you were after ghosts. You sure you want to hear about this?”
“Of course I do – this is what I asked for,” I assured him. How did I know it mightn’t inspire a new painting? (Which reminds me, I’m working on a painting from my dream; to be called The Thing In The Lake.)
“Really, it wasn’t too much,” he warned me. “He came in here at nine o’clock – that’s when we open, and he told me he’d been waiting outside in his car half the night. Wouldn’t tell me why he was pulling out – just threw the keys on the counter and told me to get the house sold again. While I was fixing some things up, though, he was muttering a lot. I couldn’t catch it all, but what I did get was pretty peculiar. Lot of stuff about ‘the spines’ and ‘you lose your will and become part of it’ – and he went on a lot about ‘the city among the weeds.’ Somebody ‘had to keep the boxes in the daytime,’ because of ‘the green decay.’ He kept mentioning someone called – Glarky, or something like that – and he also said something about Thomas Lee I didn’t catch.”
That name Thomas Lee sounded a bit familiar to me, and I said so. I still don’t know where I got it from, though.
“Lee? Why, of course,” he immediately said. “He was the leader of that group of people who had the houses built – the man who did all the negotiating … And that’s really about all the facts I can give you.”
“Facts, yes,” I agreed. “But what else can you tell me? I suppose the people round here must have their own stories about the place?”
“I could tell you to go and find out for yourself,” he said – I suppose he was entitled to get a bit tired of me, seeing as I wasn’t buying anything. However, he went on: “Still, it’s lucky for you Friday is such a slack day … Well, they say that the lake was caused by the fall of a meteor. Centuries ago, the meteor was wandering through space, and on it there was a city. The beings of the city all died with the passage through space, but something in that city still lived – something that guided the meteor to some sort of landing from its home deep under the surface. God knows what the city would’ve had to be built of to withstand the descent, if it were true!
“Well, the meteor-crater filled with water over the centuries. Some people, they say, had ways of knowing there was something alive in the lake, but they didn’t know where it had fallen. One of these was Lee, but he used things nobody else dared touch to find its whereabouts. He brought these other people down from Goatswood – and you know what the superstitious say comes out of the hill behind that town for them to worship … As far as I can make out, Lee and his friends are supposed to have met with more than they expected at the lake. They became servants of what they awoke, and, people say, they’re there yet.”
That’s all I could get out of him. I came back to the house, and I can tell you I viewed it a bit differently from when I left! I bet you didn’t expect me to find all that out about it, eh? Certainly it’s made me more interested in my surroundings – perhaps it’ll inspire me.
Excerpt from: “The Inhabitant of the Lake,” 1964
EAT YOURSELF
Michael Shimek
Josephine Kline felt as if her every hair stood straight as an arrow, bats flapped wildly in her stomach, and her heart had started its own drum circle.
She was going to go through with it, though.
Maybe.
How could she not? It was the experience of a lifetime. She and her husband had somehow won tickets to the most exclusive restaurant in the world: Eat Yourself.
The reviews, signs, and advertisements spoke for themselves:
Top notch ... frightfully entertaining! – George Fannelli, The New York Times.
Treat yourself to ... yourself!
Five thumbs up! (attached to a billboard with five human hands giving the thumbs up sign, the last one with a bite taken out of it)
The restaurant was one of a kind. Only A-list celebrities were invited – yes, it was invitation only. No one who wasn’t rich or famous was ever invited.
Until now.
“Paul, I’m nervous.”
“Jo, there’s nothing to be worried about. This is exciting!”
“I don’t know ... We don’t belong here. We’re not these type of people. I mean, look.”
Outside their limousine was a mass of paparazzi, lights flashing at anyone entering and exiting the upscale restaurant. It was a two-story building with no windows, painted all black. Somehow bypassing fire codes, it had only one set of doors, which were so large an elephant could stroll through. A red carpet ran from the entrance to the curb, velvet rope keeping back the gawkers.
Jo’s husband was nothing but wide eyes and smiles as he stared at the glamour that was so foreign to them.
They were from a rural town in Minnesota. She was a schoolteacher, and he was an accountant for a local hardware store. They had never been to New York City, maybe traveling to Minneapolis once or twi
ce a year for fun. They were small city folk; the big city was a whole new experience. They’d immediately found themselves lost at the JFK airport, even with a man stationed to greet them.
“It’s amazing, Jo! We’ve never been pampered like this before, and I don’t think we’ll ever get another chance. We’re living like celebrities! How can you not be enjoying yourself?”
He ignored her pleas of concern, too caught up in the spotlight. She sulked back into the leather seat. Their vehicle was second in line. She couldn’t see who had exited the limo in front of them, but the flashbulbs popped wildly for whoever walked down the carpet. Their chariot rolled forward. It was their turn.
All of Paul’s teeth could be seen. Jo faked a smile.
The door opened. Cameras blazed with blinding twinkles. Paul grabbed Jo’s hand and pulled her into the craziness. Her dress sparkled, and his suit shone. He waved for the cameras; she did, too, but quickly and hurrying toward the entrance. When the giant door opened, she darted inside, losing her husband’s grip in the process.
Paul came in soon after. “Whoa,” he said, his smile never faltering. “That was intense.”
“I’ll say,” she said, hoping he would get the hint.
He did not.
Jo tried to ignore his ignorance and breathed a sigh of relief. The new surroundings helped her relax.
The room they were in was quite fancy: leather couches, ultra-modern art and décor, water cascading down the entire side of a wall. Although it was more elegant than anything she was used to, Jo still found the room calming.
“Welcome to Eat Yourself.” A voice came from the only other doorway in the room. The woman was tall and svelte, prettier than most models. “My name is Teresa, and I will be assisting you with the preparations. Please, sit.”
They sat on one of the couches. e the waivers. You must sign these before going any further.”
Paul immediately began skimming and signing next to the red tabs.
“There’s so much of this,” Jo said, hesitatin