A Lonely and Curious Country

by Matthew Carpenter

  With rubber fingers, I reached into my pocket and retrieved my car keys; dropped them; retrieved them again; got myself in the driver’s seat and closed the door, blocking out the forest and the sound of the Night Gaunt’s wings. I engaged the ignition. So far, so good. I reversed and backed onto the highway.

  The road seemed empty as my headlights cut through the night, paving a swath of dark asphalt. The cab smelled faintly of Jess and Alex, which I found vaguely disturbing. The hum of the engine lulled me.

  “Oh Goddammit!” I screamed suddenly, slamming my palm against the wheel. This all felt so crazy—I didn’t even know if I was going in the right direction. I kept moving: anything, even getting lost, was preferable to the forest, the death, and the Night Gaunt.

  I depressed the button to roll down the window, felt the cool rush of air, and stuck out my head. Listened. All I heard was the engine and the wind. The sound of beating wings was gone.

  I turned on the radio, a classical station—Strauss, I believed—and drove. Kept driving till the lights of town appeared. I recognized where I was finally and took the corresponding road to my downtown apartment.

  I parked, went in, and locked the door. The interior was silent. The Night Gaunt flashed before my mind’s eye, and I switched on the light to make it vanish. Earlier, before leaving to perform Jess’s hare-brained ritual, we’d had a few beers here in the kitchen; the empty bottles stood where we had left them.

  The horrible incident had left me feeling queasy, so I threw on my pajamas and got into bed. I had to leave the light on, though. I tried to sleep but kept tossing, turning, seeing Diane in the gulch reaching for me, and Kristine carried into the sky to be obliterated, Jess and Alex’s awful screams, but most of all… the terrible, beating wings of the Night Gaunt.

  My thoughts ran erratic; my body tingled with nervousness and fear, and I sweated even though there was a chill. Should I call someone? The police? Would they believe one word I said?

  My stomach formed knots at the thought of police officers standing at my front door, and I groaned as I rolled onto my side, then onto my stomach, but nothing could put me at ease. I was tortured.

  I got up to peer out the window, searching the stars and clouds and moon, looking for the beast.

  Where had it gone?

  Suddenly a mental lightbulb went on.

  I returned to the kitchen, grabbed a beer, and plopped down at my desk, switching on my laptop. I signed onto my email account and scrolled through my messages. A month ago Jess had sent me a link to the place where he purchased the goddam book that caused all this. That seller, I decided, was the person to contact.

  I found Jess’s email and followed the link. It sent me to eBay, a seller named mythosdealer93. I clicked the name and saw a picture of a gaunt, austere man with black hair and pale skin, wearing a tuxedo. In his profile picture he stood before a ruinous building beneath a sunset sky. It said location Bali, Indonesia.

  Who the hell was this joker?

  I searched through his available items: books, mostly; several creepy little bronze statues; ornate mirrors, hooded cloaks, a dagger; even a miniature stone altar.

  “What a bunch of freako shit...” I murmured.

  Mythosdealer93 had a seller rating of ninety-nine percent. I considered, with a chuckle, a negative review I could write: “Terrible seller! Beware! Items summon otherworldly beasts that will eat you!”

  I clicked on the Contact Member link and wrote a brief paragraph explaining who I was and what had happened. I hinted at the Night Gaunt but kept it ambiguous in case there could be a court case in the future. But I described how my four friends had been gruesomely murdered and ended the message with, “I blame you for all of this,” then hit SEND.

  “That ought to get his attention.”

  Not a minute later I heard the notification ding that I had received an email. My heart leaped into my throat.

  “Nah-huh, no way.” Probably just a spam advertisement.

  But when I switched tabs to my inbox, I saw in the bar-line of the new message the name Mythosdealer93. There was no subject.

  “Son of a bitch...”

  Swallowing my terror, I clicked the message.

  ***

  Tom:

  Thank you for getting in touch with me. I must admit that butchering your friends earlier this evening made for a fine time. However I was rather disappointed that I didn’t get my claws into you. You looked so supple and moved so limber. I appreciate your sending me this email that I might locate you again. Let us now finish what we have started...

  I hadn’t stopped reading even a second when I heard the tap on the window to my right. Slowly, I turned my head in that direction. Through the narrow part in the curtains, I could see...

  “Oh fuck...” I whispered.

  Then I jumped out of my chair as glass shattered and the room filled with noise, screams, wings, and whooshing air...

  CONTRIBUTORS

  Rebecca Allred lives in Salt Lake City, working by day as a doctor of pathology, but after hours, she transforms into a practitioner of macabre fiction, infecting readers with her malign prose. Her work has appeared at Hellnotes, Freeze Frame Fiction, Sirens Call eZine, in Vignettes from the End of the World, and Gothic Fantasy: Chilling Horror Short Stories. She hosts a weekly flash fiction writing challenge at The Angry Hourglass and is a proud pack member of the Flash Dogs, contributing to their annual charity anthology. When she isn’t busy rendering diagnoses or writing, Rebecca enjoys reading, drawing, laughing at RiffTrax, and spending time with her husband, Zach, and their kitty, Bug. You can keep up with Rebecca at diagnosisdiabolique.wordpress.com or follow her on Twitter @LadyHazmat.

  Cliff Biggers first discovered the wonders of H. P. Lovecraft thanks to a 1965 Belmont paperback; two years later, he bought his first Arkham House hardcover, and thus began a lifelong addiction to horror fiction. Cliff has written for a variety of comics publishers, including “Earth Boys” for Dark Horse and Isaac Asimov’s I•Bots for Tekno, and is the author of the upcoming novel 1967 Wayside. in addition, Cliff has written for DC Comics, Dynamite Entertainment, and IDW Publishing; he is also the editor and co-publisher of Comic Shop News, a comics industry promotional newsmagazine that recently released its 1470th weekly issue.

  Matthew Carpenter is a practicing radiation oncologist. He has been a devoted fan and collector of all things Lovecraftian for more than 40 years. After writing numerous reviews of Cthulhu Mythos books on Amazon, for a few years he wrote a column about the state of US Lovecraft fandom for the Japanese magazine Night Land. He has had one story published in a chapbook by Rainfall Books but it was a terrible pun that no one understood but him (And he still thinks it’s funny.), and no one else would accept (Maybe they didn’t get it?). Lately he has appeared as a regular panelist on the Sunday webchat for the Lovecraft eZine. This is his first effort at editing an anthology (Thanks Ulthar Press!). He lives in Peoria, IL with his wife, Isabelle, and two teen age sons, Ethan and Sam.

  Brett Davidson describes himself as an eclectic dilettante, perennial opsimath and practitioner of cat fu while his friends describe him as Hannibal Lecter’s nicer sibling. He is a New Zealander who grew up in Edinburgh’s southernmost clone, Dunedin, and now lives in his country’s capital, Wellington. In fact, ‘New Zealand’ is only the name given to the exposed highlands of a sunken continent called Zealandia (it’s true, look it up). Moreover, giant squid are frequently caught in its waters. All of this delights him.

  As for the bare facts of this temporary concatenation of transient cells, an entity had the name ‘Brett’ bestowed upon in some time in 1967 and has continued to accrue mass since. Since some of those cells are neurons, they have been put to use in education and academia so that he now has qualifications in fields as diverse as industrial design, architecture and English literature and he has taught in all of these areas to make a meager excuse for a living.

  Long fascinated by weird fiction and science fiction, Brett has turned
his hand to writing and has a number of creative and critical works to his name, a number inspired by that other writer of weird fiction, William Hope Hodgson. His first novel, Anima, has recently been published by Utter Tower. Naturally you are advised to buy it.

  Seán Farrell is a 25 year old human from Killeshin, Ireland, who currently works in advertising in Dublin. He graduated from Trinity College Dublin (the same college that features in The Horror at Red Hook) with First Class Honours in English Studies. In Trinity he discovered the works of H.P Lovecraft, and has never looked back since. He also managed the famed Sellotape for a period, while simultaneously acting as trequartista/box to box dynamo in a fabled partnership with John Colthurst. He counts this as his crowning achievement in third level education.

  His favourite writers are Samuel Beckett, James Joyce and Karl Peters. His favourite person is his girlfriend Laura. He lives in Ranelagh with his housemate (also his favourite pig farmer) owenfrog. In his spare time he likes to read, play football with 50 year old men, cycle with delusional Newcastle fans and settle.

  He’s finding it hard to fill this 500 word bio, so he’s going to quit while he’s ahead, and ask that anyone wishing to contact him can do so at farrelsj@tcd.ie

  Aaron J. French is a book editor for JournalStone Publishing and the Editor-in-Chief for Dark Discoveries magazine. He has edited several anthologies, including Songs of the Satyrs, Monk Punk & Shadow of the Unknown Omnibus, and The Gods of H.P. Lovecraft (Winter 2015) from JournalStone Publishing, which includes new Mythos work from the biggest names in horror fiction, including Adam Nevill, Laird Barron, Bentley Little, Christopher Golden, Jonathan Maberry, Joe Lansdale, and Seanan McGuire.

  2014 saw the publication of The Chapman Books, a supernatural thriller collection from Uncanny Books featuring Aaron's novella "The Stain." His single-author collection, Aberrations of Reality, was published by Crowded Quarantine Publications and it is the first book to collect Aaron's fiction focusing on the occult, metaphysics, and the weird. His zombie collection Up From Soil Fresh was published by Hazardous Press in 2013; also in 2013 "The Order," an occult thriller novella about a Lovecraftian secret society, was published in the Dreaming in Darkness collection. Look for Aaron's brand new hard-boiled Lovecraftian novella "The Dream Beings" forthcoming from Samhain Publishing in January of 2016.

  Jamie D. Jenkins is a fan of all horror mediums and has devoted over a decade to celebrating the genre in one form or another. She began writing film reviews, soon transitioned to conducting interviews, then to having her own editorial column where she enjoyed stretching her legs in research and non-fiction writing. From there, she became the editor of The Chainsaw Mafia, then the Director of Marketing for Viscera Film Festival, a festival dedicated to highlighting women horror filmmakers, which led to her writing and directing her own critically acclaimed short film “Secret Shopper.” For the past several years, she has been behind the mic as host or co-host of a half dozen genre-related podcasts including her labor of love, Lycan It!, a podcast which strictly discusses werewolves. Most recently, Jamie has begun to tap her inner storyteller via fiction prose with this tale and one that will be appearing in the upcoming anthology Summer of Lovecraft.

  Paul R. McNamee was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his wife, kids and cats. He discovered H. P. Lovecraft during college, drifted, found other literature, then stumbled into Robert E. Howard. All things pulp and weird (with the help of friends) brought him back to horror and the Cthulhu Mythos. A few of his stories appeared in online venues, and he had a sword-&-planet tale in the illustrated print anthology Strange Worlds. He is very happy to be appearing in a Lovecraftian anthology. His blog can be found at; http://paulmcnamee.blogspot.com

  Christine Morgan works the overnight shift in a psychiatric facility, which plays havoc with her sleep schedule but allows her a lot of writing time. A lifelong reader, she also reviews, beta-reads, occasionally edits and dabbles in self-publishing. Her other interests include gaming, history, superheroes, crafts, cheesy disaster movies and training to be a crazy cat lady. She can be found online at https://www.facebook.com/christinemorganauthor and https://christinemari emorgan.wordpress.com/

  Robert M. Price, a fan of H.P. Lovecraft since the Lancer paperback collections of 1967 appeared, began writing scholarly articles and humorous pieces on H. P.L and the Cthulhu Mythos in 1980. His celebrated semi-pro zine Crypt of Cthulhu began as a quarterly fanzine for the Esoteric Order of Dagon Amateur Press Association in 1981 and made it to 109 issues. Contributors included most of the rising stars of Lovecraft scholarship as well as renowned Cthulhu Mythos writers. In 1990 Price began editing Mythos fiction anthologies for Fedogan & Bremer, Chaosium, Inc., and others. His own fiction has been collected in Blasphemies and Revelations from Mythos Books. He has continued the adventures of Lin Carter’s Sword-&-Sorcery hero Thongor of Lemuria, as well as those of Carter’s occult detective Anton Zarnack.

  Steven Prizeman is a freelance writer and graphic designer based in the small town of Amersham, Buckinghamshire, southern England – the last home and final resting place of Arthur Machen, who, like H. P. Lovecraft, is a strong influence on his short stories.

  His fiction springs from a variety of sources – love of history, the landscape (and what it might conceal), the writers he admires, and a constant stream of odd ideas for which he has no one to blame but himself.

  He has published three novels, all available from Amazon:

  Arise, Black Vengeance: a blood-soaked, Renaissance-set, Young Adult epic.

  Huck: a reworking of the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, based on the premise that the ghosts and superstitions in which the protagonists believed were real.

  Nietzsche Against Dracula: a confrontation between the world’s most egomaniacal philosopher and the definitive literary vampire.

  His short story ‘Books (Misc)’ was published in the December 2014 edition of The Lovecraft eZine.

  Sample chapters from Steven Prizeman’s novels, and several of his short stories, may be downloaded free of charge from his website: stevenprizeman.com.

  Pete Rawlik, a long time collector of Lovecraftian fiction, and is the author of more than twenty-five short stories, a smattering of poetry, the Cthulhu Mythos novel Reanimators, The Weird Company, and the forthcoming Reanimatrix. He is a frequent contributor to the Lovecraft ezine and the New York Review of Science Fiction. In 2014 his short story Revenge of the Reanimator was nominated for a New Pulp Award. He lives in southern Florida where he works on Everglades issues.

  Damir Salkovic is an aficionado of weird and macabre tales, presently residing in Arlington, Virginia. His short stories have been published on the Tales to Terrify podcast, the Lovecraft ezine, in the Schlock! Bimonthly magazine and in anthologies by Schlock! Webzine, Source Point Press, Parasomnia Press, Apokrupha, Villipede Publications, Miskatonic Press, Mad Scientist Journal, Thirteen O'Clock press, the Black Library Bolthole and Emby Press. He earns his living as an accountant, a profession that lends itself well to nightmares and harrowing visions.

  Brian M. Sammons has been writing reviews on all things horror for more years than he’d care to admit. Wanting to give other critics the chance to ravage his work for a change, he has penned stories that have appeared in such anthologies as Arkham Tales, Horrors Beyond, Monstrous, Dead but Dreaming 2, Horror for the Holidays, Twisted Legends, Mountains of Madness, Deepest, Darkest Eden and others. He has edited the books; Cthulhu Unbound 3, Undead & Unbound, Eldritch Chrome, Edge of Sundown, Steampunk Cthulhu, Dark Rites of Cthulhu, Atomic Age Cthulhu, World War Cthulhu and Flesh Like Smoke. He is also the managing editor of Dark Regions Press’ new Weird Fiction line. He is currently far too busy for any sane man. For more about this guy that neighbors describe as “such a nice, quiet man” you can check out his very infrequently updated webpage here: http://brian_sammons.webs.com/ and you can follow him on Twitter @BrianMSammons.

  Jonathan Titchenal has been reading and writing we
ird fiction for many years, both in the Lovecraftian genre and others. In recent years he has been published in the Das Krakenhaus collection The End of the World as We Know It, and is currently at work on an epic fantasy novel. His favorite horror movie is John Carpenter's The Thing. He lives in Milwaukee.

  Don Webb is from the place in Texas with the most Helium and Plutonium -- Amarillo. He is the Head of the Humanities Department at Goodwill Charter School in Austin, TX. He lives with his lovely wife and two tuxedo cats. He has been writing fiction influenced by Lovecraft since 1986. His latest collection is Through Dark Angles from Hippocampus Press

  Kevin Wetmore is the author of Post-9/11 Horror in American Cinema and Back from the Dead. He has also published essays in Rue Morgue, Gothic Studies, Horror Studies and many other magazines and journals. He has also published over a dozen short stories in such anthologies as Enter at Your Own Risk: The End is the Beginning, Moonshadows, History and Horror, Oh My!, Book of the Dead, Dark Tales of Elder Regions, and Midian Unmade. An actor, director and stage combat choreographer, this native New Englander now calls Los Angeles home.

  While the other children were playing outside in the fresh air, Susan Hicks Wong was scrunched down in a tattered armchair inhaling the miasma of H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe and Shirley Jackson. After stints as an art director and textile designer, she now travels wild and free across North America as a long haul truck driver with her husband. She attended the 2013 Odyssey Writer’s Workshop, an experience she would recommend for aspiring speculative writers. Susan reads and writes as the prairie rolls past and she still loves the funk of decaying old books.