by Tony Burgess
Discs of fire slip in and out under the door at the top of the stairs. Its blue-tip fingers have lifted all the tile. I would like to picture the kids not escaping but they might, after all. I feel the expectation that I should release them. That I should give life back while mine goes. But really, what can I practically do? I let you live. I can’t even say it. I have no tongue and even if I could, the roar of the fire would drown my voice. And even if it didn’t, even if it was heard, say, in the sky above the house, spoken by birds and repeated by rabbits, there is nothing in the words to shrink the flame or dim the heat. Even if there were birds and rabbits to speak them. So I am safe to say that they should live, that that is my last wish because I know that they will not. The fire is bounding down the stairs like a Slinky. Part of the house leans and opens an edge. They will burn in here or freeze out there. I hope that they are safe.
I feel solved now. There are two sumps in the floor. One has a pump the other not. The sump was designed hundreds of years ago and dedicated as a tomb. I roll. I approach the sump at an angle so my bottom enters first. Skin is gone in places and seared tough in others. I decide not to feel pain for a sec. My bottom hits crumpled chicken wire that compresses under my weight. I slide in. I am a nematode in a grub’s back. What I am doing is repeated in nature. I fill the sump. The floor is level with my chin. It is warmer in here, close as I can be to the hot centre of the earth. I feel colossal. I think that in the moments before you die, your body assumes things. I fit perfectly in this hole.
all good things.
Stone in water. Corner in water. Joists in water. Kids in water. Sub-basement in water. Water in water. Stone in ash. Corner in ash. Joists in ash. Kids in ash. Sub-basement in ash. Ash in ash.
Plastics bent. Stone in plastic. Corner in plastic water. Kids in ash. Sub-basement in plastic. Plastic in plastic. Joists. Water. Water. Stone. Plastic. Kids. Ash. Window is Q. Stairs are ash. Window.
I can’t say this story right now.
Brick is over. Water is over. Window is Q. Ash is ash. Kids are ash. Sub-basement is ash. Water is ash. Plastic is black. Ash is black. Sub-basement is black. Window is black. Black in water. Water in black water. Brick is over. Brick is over. Water is plastic. Water is black plastic. Puddle in plastic. Water in ash. Ash is over. Puddle in brick. Kids in puddle. Sub-basement in puddle. Window is Q. Ash is Q. Q is over.
Some minutes in.
The man is a maggot with no arms or legs or genitals wrapped in a sopping foul rag. He has risen on flood waters from a sump in a burned-out basement. A single lung is emptied of water and filled with air for ballast. The man is a bandaged toe. He is conveyed on slow-moving ash. It is enough to call trees by name. Birch. Ash. Maple. Poplar. Cedar. White Pine. Blue Spruce.
More minutes in.
Jackson Pine. An entire cloud. Sand in ash. If the water recedes it will leave a wide gasket of brackish gel. The bandaged toe is turned by a rock. There is a thing called a bunny. Not here. Not now. But there is. The water isn’t revealing its vertical face. Its pirate hat. But there it is. Half in and half out. An entire cloud.
Not minutes. Not right now.
The culverts clear the water from the land and the graded roads breach like whales. The trucks are all in pots of ash and the silos are upright. The deer are a carcass and the coyote are alone. There are things that people made by hand and what they are. Pollen is picked from bark and sound is watching this spread. There is no rhythm to things. Not right now.
I am lying on a flat stone. The ash flow moves around it. I have lost all sensation. My nerve endings have been cut by bleach. I have to share my lung with my septic heart. My brain. Oh, well.
The sky is mighty blue. So blue it looks like sky. The sun is fire. Burning gas. I feel this on my flat rock. The ultra violet light. The radiation reaching my sides by bouncing off the flat rock. I have to turn my face from the direct rays. I am a bean from a can. I am sniffing the sun as it lands. This is a real sky. I turn on the rock to pull my robes off. I am a bean from a can. Is this the real sky? I turn to the east. A dark cloud. I smell rainwater.
It is the thing we haven’t seen in ten long years. It is the thing we were told might never return. Our bodies in the sky prevented it. The red takes up the orange and they curve. A yellow path lined with green. Blue. Indigo. Violet. We have left the sky. Returned its flags. Apologized.
Rainbow.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tony Burgess writes fiction and for film. He lives in Stayner with his wife, Rachel, and their two children, Griffin and Camille.
THE ’GEISTERS
DAVID NICKLE
When Ann LeSage was a little girl, she had an invisible friend—a poltergeist, that spoke to her with flying knives and howling winds. She called it the Insect. And with a little professional help, she contained it. But the nightmare never truly ended. As Ann grew from girl into young woman, the Insect grew with her, becoming a thing of murder. Now, as she embarks on a new life married to successful young lawyer Michael Voors, Ann believes that she finally has the Insect under control. But there are others vying to take that control away from her. They may not know exactly what they’re dealing with, but they know they want it. They are the ’Geisters. And in pursuing their own perverse dream, they risk spawning the most terrible nightmare of all.
AVAILABLE NOW
978-1-771481-44-1
THE MONA LISA SACRIFICE
BOOK ONE OF THE BOOK OF CROSS
PETER ROMAN
For thousands of years, Cross has wandered the earth, a mortal soul trapped in the undying body left behind by Christ. But now he must play the part of reluctant hero, as an angel comes to him for help finding the Mona Lisa—the real Mona Lisa that inspired the painting. Cross’s quest takes him into a secret world within our own, populated by characters just as strange and wondrous as he is. He’s haunted by memories of Penelope, the only woman he truly loved, and he wants to avenge her death at the hands of his ancient enemy, Judas. The angel promises to deliver Judas to Cross, but nothing is ever what it seems, and when a group of renegade angels looking for a new holy war show up, things truly go to hell.
AVAILABLE NOW
978-1-771481-46-5
ZOMBIE VERSUS FAIRY FEATURING ALBINOS
JAMES MARSHALL
In a PERFECT world where everyone DESTROYS everything and eats HUMAN FLESH, one ZOMBIE has had enough: BUCK BURGER. When he rebels at the natural DISORDER, his marriage starts DETERIORATING and a doctor prescribes him an ANTI-DEPRESSANT. Buck meets a beautiful GREEN-HAIRED pharmacist fairy named FAIRY_26 and quickly becomes a pawn in a COLD WAR between zombies and SUPERNATURAL CREATURES. Does sixteen-year-old SPIRITUAL LEADER and pirate GUY BOY MAN make an appearance? Of course! Are there MIND-CONTROLLING ALBINOS? Obviously! Is there hot ZOMBIE-ON-FAIRY action? Maybe! WHY AREN’T YOU READING THIS YET?
AVAILABLE NOW
978-1-771481-42-7
IMAGINARIUM 2013
THE BEST CANADIAN SPECULATIVE WRITING
EDITED BY SANDRA KASTURI & SAMANTHA BEIKO
INTRODUCTION BY TANYA HUFF
COVER ART BY GMB CHOMICHUK
A yearly anthology from ChiZine Publications, gathering the best Canadian fiction and poetry in the speculative genres (SF, fantasy, horror, magic realism) published in the previous year. Imaginarium 2012 (edited by Sandra Kasturi and Halli Villegas, with a provocative introduction by Steven Erikson) was nominated for a Prix Aurora Award.
AVAILABLE NOW
978-1-771481-50-2
CELESTIAL INVENTORIES
STEVE RASNIC TEM
Celestial Inventories features twenty-two stories collected from rare chapbooks, anthologies, and obscure magazines, along with a new story written specifically for this volume. All represent the slipstream segment of Steve Rasnic Tem’s large body of tales: imaginative, difficult-to-pigeonhole works of the fantastic crossing conventional boundaries between science fiction, fantasy, horror, literary fiction, bizarro, magic realism, and the new weird. Sever
al of these stories have previously appeared in Best of the Year compilations and have been the recipients of major F & SF nominations and awards.
AVAILABLE NOW
978-1-771481-48-9
TELL MY SORROWS TO THE STONES
CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN
A circus clown willing to give anything to be funny. A spectral gunslinger who must teach a young boy to defend the ones he loves. A lonely widower making a farewell tour of the places that meant the world to his late wife. A faded Hollywood actress out to deprive her ex-husband of his prize possession. A grieving mother who will wait by the railroad tracks for a ghostly train that always has room for one more. A young West Virginia miner whose only hope of survival is a bedtime story. These are just some of the characters to be found in Tell My Sorrows to the Stones.
AVAILABLE NOW
978-1-771481-54-0
THE SUMMER IS ENDED
AND WE ARE NOT YET SAVED
JOEY COMEAU
Martin is going to Bible Camp for the summer. He’s going to learn archery and swimming, and he’s going to make new friends. He’s pretty excited, but that’s probably because nobody told him that this is a horror novel.
AVAILABLE NOW
978-1-771481-48-9
THE DELPHI ROOM
MELIA MCCLURE
Is it possible to find love after you’ve died and gone to Hell? For oddball misfits Velvet and Brinkley, the answer just might be yes. After Velvet hangs herself and winds up trapped in a bedroom she believes is Hell, she comes in contact with Brinkley, the man trapped next door. Through mirrors that hang in each of their rooms, these disturbed cinemaphiles watch the past of the other unfold—the dark past that has led to their present circumstances. As their bond grows and they struggle to figure out the tragic puzzles of their lives and deaths, Velvet and Brinkley are in for more surprises. By turns quirky, harrowing, funny and surreal, The Delphi Room explores the nature of reality and the possibilities of love.
AVAILABLE NOW
978-1-771481-86-1
THINGS WITHERED
SUSIE MOLONEY
The first story collection from this award-winning author. A middle-aged realtor tries to get ahead any way she can. A bad girl pays for cheating with a married man. A wife with a dark past lives in fear of being exposed. The bad acts of a little old lady come home to roost. A young man with no direction finds power behind the wheel of a haunted truck. From behind the pretty drapes of the average suburban home, madness peers out. Nine stories of suburban darkness prove that life can turn on you, or you can turn on it.
AVAILABLE OCTOBER 2013
978-1-771481-62-5
WILD FELL
MICHAEL ROWE
The crumbling summerhouse called Wild Fell, soaring above the desolate shores of Blackmore Island, has weathered the violence of the seasons for more than a century. Built for his family by a 19th-century politician of impeccable rectitude, the house has kept its terrible secrets and its darkness sealed within its walls. For a hundred years, the townspeople of Alvina have prayed that the darkness inside Wild Fell would stay there, locked away from the light.
AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 2013
978-1-771481-60-1
GAMIFICATION/C-MONKEYS
keith hollihan
This is a double novella “flip book” pairing a modern corporate suspense story about the cover-up of a CEO’s illicit affair, with a 1970s-era science fiction thriller about an oil company’s environmental disaster. It is an exploration of the paranoia inherent in business and the thin line between competition and conspiracy.
AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 2013
978-1-771481-52-6
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