Apotheosis: Stories of Human Survival After the Rise of the Elder Gods (25 page)

It would be mercy to say I slid into oblivion, but I felt every minute. I tasted every drop of sweat. I cherished every tear, cradled it on my tongue. After, Jason slept. I drank half the remaining bottle of wine, and threw the rest into the trashcan - a spray of glass, a gout of flame, the horse's soft whinny turning into a scream.

The fire traced wings on my back.

And I flew.

Dizzy, I grip the edge of the bar. "Your mother paid me a lot of money." I force the words out through clenched teeth.

Marco's image doubles, sways. I swam in marble corridors, in drowned-green canals. I tried to let tentacles steal the best of me, the rest of me. It wasn't enough. My sin kept me safe; it kept me whole.

"Your mother..." I try again.

"It doesn't matter." Marco shakes his head.

The ghosted memory of a smoky voice, tasting of bitter chocolate, threads the air and fades away. Scratchy hay presses a pattern of almost-words into my skin. I hold a blind man as he sobs. Shadow tendrils touch the deepest part of me, stripping my bones clean, taking everything except what matters.

I could cash in. I could make the biggest paycheck of my life. I could keep running and test the theory that the future is infinite. Or I could stay this time. I could burn.

Marco's gaze meets mine. Flames reflect between us. Inside the flames, impossible angles rise dripping from the canals. An eerie, piping song needles me with remembrance. Stars draw blood from my skin. Marco lays his hands, palms up, on the bar - an invitation.

*
         
 *
         
 *
         
 
*

There are many possible futures; I see them all. Two charred corpses decorate the remains of Josie's restaurant, one in front of the bar and one behind. One charred corpse sits slumped against the bar, alone. An empty, charred husk of a bar remains, with no one to witness its end.

It will come down to a battle of wills, my will to survive against Marco's will to die. I know what I gave up to survive; what did he give up to run? Which matters more?

My scars itch and stretch tight across my back, shaping wings. Wings for flight, or wings for salvation? Maybe this time they'll stay stitched beneath my skin, folded tight around my body like loving arms.

My wings have always been there; the stars have always been right. R'leyh rose everywhere,
everywhen
. I have always been what I am now. I have always survived.

For the moment, I take Marco's hands. And together, we watch Venice burn.

Glynn Owen Barrass
lives in the North East of England and has been writing since late 2006. He has written over a hundred and twenty short stories, many of which have been published in the UK, USA, France, and Japan. He also edits anthologies for Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu fiction line, and writes material for their flagship roleplaying game. For Chaosium, he has co-written the campaign book
A Time to Harvest
and contributed scenarios to
Blood Brothers III
,
Doors to Darkness
, and a Gaslight Cthulhu book, and contributed technical information and a scenario for the upcoming Punktown sourcebook from Miskatonic River Press. To date, he has edited the collections:
Eldritch Chrome
,
Steampunk Cthulhu
, and
Atomic Age Cthulhu
for Chaosium;
World War Cthulhu
for Dark Regions Press; and
In the Court of the Yellow King
for Celaeno Press. His upcoming books include
Cthulhu AD 1970
,
The Summer of Lovecraft
, and
World War Cthulhu II
.

Steve Berman
lives all alone in New Jersey, the only state in the union with an official devil.

Gustavo Bondoni
was born in Argentina, which, he believes, makes him one of the few - if not the only - Argentinean fiction writers writing primarily in English. He moved to the US at the age of three because his father worked for a multinational company that bounced him around the world every three years. Miami, Zurich, Cincinnati. He only made it back to Buenos Aires at the age of twelve, by which time he was not quite an American kid, not quite a European kid, and definitely not Argentinean! His fiction spans the range from science fiction to mainstream stories, passing through sword & sorcery and magic realism along the way, and it has been published in fourteen countries and seven languages to date. Apart from over a hundred short stories, he has published two collections, a short novel, and a novella, with a third collection coming in 2015. His website is
gustavobondoni.com
.

Jeff C. Carter
lives in Venice, CA with a dog, two cats, and a human. His latest stories appear in the anthologies Delta Green Extraordinary Renditions, That Hoodoo Voodoo That You Do, A Mythos Grimmly, and issues of Trembles, Calliope, and eFiction magazine. He is currently developing an RPG for Heroic Journey Publishing.  You can follow him at jeffccarter.wordpress.com.

J. Childs-Biddle
lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. She has been writing since a child, starting with a story of a lonely okapi. As an adult, her words about forlorn animals have morphed into stories of Old Gods, anguished spirits, and terribly unfortunate people. She spends most of her free time digging into articles about microbiology, psychology, and cephalopods in wild attempts to piece these elements into dark horror (or designing educational games for children, which is almost the same).

By day,
Evan Dicken
analyzes medical data and studies old Japanese maps at The Ohio State University. By night, he does neither of these things. His work has most recently appeared in
Shock Totem
,
The Lovecraft eZine
,
Analog
, and 
Daily Science Fiction
, and he has stories forthcoming from publishers such as Chaosium, Darkfuse, Pseudopod, and Unlikely Story. Feel free to drop by at 
evandicken.com
.

Jeffrey Fowler
lives in Seattle, Washington and has just recently begun his writing career. Apotheosis is his anthology debut, though he does work as a freelancer writing for role-playing games with companies like By Night Studios and Onyx Path. With an amazingly talented wife, an adorable little girl, and two demonic hell cats for pets, he’s a stay at home dad who is becoming practiced at spinning tales for a giggling three-year-old, as well as for publication. Luckily for him, he has an incredibly supportive family, a supremely talented mentor, and a best friend with whom he shares a brain, all of whom are willing to listen to him ramble about ideas and encourage him to write them down with varying degrees of enthusiasm, laughter, and sarcasm.

Cody Goodfellow
has written three collections and four novels––his latest is
Repo Shark
––and co-written three more with John Skipp. His collections
Silent Weapons For Quiet Wars
and
All-Monster Action
both received the Wonderland Book Award. He wrote, co-produced, and scored the short Lovecraftian hygiene film “Stay At Home Dad,” which can be viewed on YouTube. As a bishop of the Esoteric Order of Dagon (San Pedro Chapter), he presides over several Cthulhu Prayer Breakfasts each year. He is also a director of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Los Angeles and cofounder of Perilous Press, a micropublisher of modern cosmic horror. He “lives” in Burbank, California.

Andrew Peregrine
's first writing work was for role-playing games. Over the last ten years he's worked on several lines, including 7th Sea, Victoriana, Doctor Who, Firefly, and Vampire: the Masquerade. His short stories have appeared in Broadsword and Visionary Tongue magazines and he recently wrote for the Onyx Path anthology
Tales of the Sun and Moon
. He hasn't managed to complete a novel yet, but has plenty of unfinished ideas he really means to get around to. He works full time at the Theatre Royal Haymarket as a lighting technician, and wishes he was a lot better at writing bios.

Peter Rawlik
, a long time collector of Lovecraftian fiction, is the author of more than twenty-five short stories, a smattering of poetry, the Cthulhu Mythos novels
Reanimators
,
The Weird Company
, and the forthcoming
Reanimatrix
. He is a frequent contributor to the Lovecraft ezine and to 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.

Joshua Reynolds
is a professional freelance writer. His writing credits include stories in anthologies such as
Atomic Age Cthulhu
,
Challenger: Lost Places
,
New Worlds
, and
Sharkpunk
. He has also contributed t
o Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 tie-in lines. A full list of his credits can be found at 
https://joshuamreynolds.wordpress.com/

Adrian Simmons
writes, reads, and edits from a well-provisioned base in Central Oklahoma. He has hoofed the Ouachita Trail, the Ozark Highland trail, the northern England coast to coast trail, and a respectable distance of the Camino de Santiago in Spain
.
His genre nonfiction has appeared in Black Gate and Strange Horizons. His short fiction has popped up in James Gunn’s Ad Astra Magazine, Pseudopod, Outposts of Beyond, and Strange Constellations
.
In 2009. he founded the webzine Heroicfantasyquarterly.com and currently serves as one third of its editorial staff.

Jason Vanhee
was born and grew up in Seattle, Washington. Raised by a single mother who left him free to explore his imagination, he began to write almost as soon as he could read. His work most often encompasses the speculative fiction that was his reading mainstay in his younger life. Jason lives in Seattle still with his husband Adam. His first published novel,
Engines of the Broken World
, was released by Henry Holt in 2013.

June Violette
is an agent provocateur, kayaking tour guide, and roleplaying enthusiast from the distant and mysterious city of Seattle, Washington. When not dreaming up terrible ideas unfit to see the light of day, June most enjoys arguing about music and/or soccer, wrangling ferrets, and bearing the battle standard of the mighty Oxford Comma. June's favorite pursuits are those with no practical application in the modern world, a predilection reflected in hir recent decision to study Welsh. Cymru am byth!

L. K. Whyte
is a Pacific Northwest native, gamer, and academic who loves fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and the macabre. When not teaching or tutoring in colleges or prisons, Whyte enjoys hearty debates, researching gaming as a means of social justice intervention, playing video games, and mapping fictional places. The publication of “What Songs We Sing” marks Whyte’s fiction debut.

A.C. Wise
's short fiction has appeared in places such as
Shimmer
,
Apex
,
Uncanny
, and
The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2015
, among others. Her debut collection,
The Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron Saves the World Again
, will be published by Lethe Press in October 2015. In addition to her fiction, she co-edits
Unlikely Story
. Find her online at
www.acwise.net
.

Jonathan Woodrow
lives with his wife and three young children in a quiet village on the outskirts of Toronto, Ontario, where he spends his time writing dark, mostly speculative fiction. His short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including
Blight Digest
,
Under the Bed Magazine
, and the terrifying
Cranial Leakage
anthology, along with many others. His debut novel,
Wasteland Gods
, will be released at the end of the year by Horrific Tales Publishing, so keep a look out!

Jason Andrew
lives in Seattle, Washington with his wife Lisa. By day, he works as a mild-mannered technical writer. By night, he writes stories of the fantastic and occasionally fights crime. As a child, Jason spent his Saturdays watching the Creature Feature classics and furiously scribbling down stories. His first short story, written at age six, titled “The Wolfman Eats Perry Mason” was severely rejected. It also caused his Grandmother to watch him very closely for a few years.

His short fiction has appeared in markets such as
A Mytho Grimmly: A Lovecraftian Fairy Tale Anthology
(Wanderer's Haven Publications)),
Frontier Cthulhu: Ancient Horrors in the New World
(Chaosium), and
Atomic Cthulhu: Tales of Mythos Horror in the 1950s Coins of Chaos
(Chaosium). In 2011, his story “Moonlight in Scarlet” received an honorable mention in Ellen Datlow’s List for Best Horror of the Year.

In addition, Jason has written for a number of role-playing games. His most recent projects include
Mind’s Eye Theatre: Vampire the Masquerade
(By Night Studios),
Shadowrun: Data Trails
(Catalyst Game Labs), and
Rites of the Blood
(Onyx Path Publishing). He currently holds the position of Developer for the Mind’s Eye Theatre line published through
By Night Studios
.
Check out his website at http://www.jasonbandrew.com

Anthologies Edited by Jason Andrew

Gods and Monsters

Into the Dreamlands

The Future Embodied: Evolution of the Human Body