Whispers From The Abyss (22 page)

“Did he show any warning signs?”

“Do you know if he was using illegal drugs?”

“Were you aware of Wacky Wilbur’s extensive criminal record?”

Charlie had kept his cool through all of it.

When Charlie had finally made it home, Sharla wasn’t there. No note. No phone message. Just a mess of clothes in the bedroom and a missing suitcase. Probably had gone to spend the night at her mother’s trailer. For the best, really. No. It was more than for the best. It was ideal.

Which brought Charlie to where he was now—on the couch, in his underwear, uncapping a fresh bottle of Dewars. It was time to drink himself into a pleasant oblivion.

“Fucking Wilbur,” he spat. “You worthless, stupid, dead asshole piece of shit.”  The writing was on the wall. Another job and another wife, both lost in a single evening of televised stupidity, and this time it wasn’t even Charlie’s fault. No, a goddamn clown had wrecked his life.

Charlie popped open a can of Coke Zero, dumped it into a red plastic cup filled with ice. Usually Charlie didn’t bother with chasers, but for what he was about to do, he’d need it. But before Charlie mashed his brain into an inebriated pulp, there was one more thing required. Company. He’d learned long ago, it was never wise to get shit-house drunk alone. And just like college, when flesh friends were not on-call, there was always the ol’ electronic babysitter.

Charlie flicked on the TV.

“Tonight’s top story! Bizarre on-air death reignites concerns over the safety of kid’s programming! How will this affect the children?!”

Shit.

*     *     *

That evening Charlie dreamt of tentacles. Of something huge and scaly rising from the bay. Its was a bloated, pockmarked mass, encrusted with barnacles and reeking of decay. Its yellowed eyes shown down on
Tranquil Bay like broken moons—bleak and unforgiving. And to meet its gaze was to know oblivion.

The earth shook.

The sky wept.

Lightning stitched across battered gray.

At the water’s edge stood Charlie, naked and alone. He felt the leviathan’s shadow fall upon him. The sand beneath his feet became living molten pitch that crawled up his legs, consuming his flesh.

“ARRRRRRRRRRRGGGHHH!”

Charlie’s eyes slammed open mid scream. He was shaking. Kicking. Hot tears burned his cheeks. Deep within his chest Charlie’s heart hammered at his ribcage. The image of the beast flashed in this mind. Charlie belted out another panicked cry, his fingers tensing, clawing, nails boring into cheap polyester. The couch. “Sh-shit!” Charlie gasped, loosening his grip.

A dream.

It was all a goddamned dream.

He’d fallen asleep in the living room.

“Oh thank fucking god,” Charlie panted, wiping sweat from his brow. He sucked in a lungful of air. Exhaled. Repeated the process twice, then reached for the bottle of scotch that’d been waiting patently in its usual spot—the coffee table, left side, perched atop the pile of
Women’s Day
magazines. Charlie took a swing. Felt the knots in his chest uncoil. He swallowed another mouthful, then sunk his head back into the cushions. In the darkness the television’s glow washed over the peeling walls, forming jagged shadows. He took another deep breath. The nightmare was fading fast, disappearing into one of the many convenient holes in Charlie’s memory, but the physical effects were taking a bit longer to dull.

“Fuck you, Wilbur,” Charlie said to the empty room. “I only pray you’re frying in hell right now, getting corn holed by goddamn demons.” Even in death that dumb son of a bitch had managed to screw up Charlie’s life. The bastard wasn’t content to off himself in private like a normal person. Nope. Not fucking Wilbur. Even that had to be a problem Wilbur dumped into Charlie’s lap. Asshole. At least, never again would Charlie (or anyone else) be forced to hear…

“This is the end, beautiful friend!”

…him sing... No. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible!

“This is the end, my only friend, the end!”

From the TV it came, a voice like cheap candy and cigarettes. Charlie jerked his gaze to the screen. From a haze of blue static a form emerged. Wilbur. He was sitting on the remains of the Happy Fun Time Show set, bleary eyed and waxy, his own guts puddled around him.

“Of our elaborate plans, the end!”

Wilbur coughed out the verse. Began to choke, gagged. Traces of blood trickled from the corners of his mouth. Suddenly a thick spray of vomit erupted, speckling the screen red.

“Hey, dude,” Wilbur laughed. He paused to spit up a wad of giblets. “I think the show went really, really well! The best ever, in fact!”

   Charlie didn’t remember standing, but he was on his feet now and stumbling backwards. “What the fuck?!?!” he cried. He grabbed the end table for stability, nearly upending it.

“Aw, c’mon dude. I thought it went pretty well. I was extremely happy with…” Wilbur trailed off. Noticed the enormous gash in his gut. The damn thing was huge—from stomach to sternum—showing hints of bone through severed muscle and caked blood. Wilbur’s reaction was almost childlike. When he reached down and scooped up a handful of intestines, he could’ve been a kid picking at a scab. “Ah, man…holy crap,” he moaned, “This is probably the stupidest I’ve looked in a long time.”

“This…this can’t be fucking real,” Charlie stammered.

“Ya think so, dude?” Wilbur poked at the wound. Something thick and gelatinous slid out. “I mean, this like feels pretty real to me…”

The screen flared white. Went hot with static. Out of the glow a new scene emerged. Colors. Then shapes. A glint of a razorblade kissing milky young flesh. The television began to pulse, no
,
breathe
, it’s glass face expanding and contracting, wheezing in air.

A universe of glass.

A thousand bleeding eyes.

Enormous maggots feasting on the sun.

The rapid fire of images scratched at Charlie’s mind, digging icy tendrils into all six of his senses.

Vomiting needles.

A sky gone blister red.

Razor sharp winds shredding skin down to the bone.

Charlie tried to scream. Needed to scream. His mouth had ceased to function. Reality was suffering. Coming undone. Charlie could feel it down to the cellular level. Calcium. Proteins. Enzymes. His own flesh and blood was succumbing to this televised infection.

A headless torso.

A mass of conjoined limbs.

Chaos burning cosmic ulcers into the eternal void.

A piercing noise shook the room. Threw Charlie to the floor. A second later the TV smacked down beside him. The screen cracked. Strobed. Faded to a dull flicker. An emergency broadcast cut in.

“WARNING! THIS IS NOT A TEST… REPEAT THIS IS NOT A TEST…”

Charlie pushed away from the TV. Rolled onto his back. Every movement was a struggle now. Every twitch, every quiver brought shooting pain. His veins were liquefying, muscles stripping away from bone.

And then he heard it, high pitched and pure. Through the windows, through walls, echoing from miles around—the voice of every child in town. They were chanting. Singing. Like a choir of angels. Charlie recognized the tune...

The Octopus Song.

That evening Charlie dreamt of tentacles. Of something huge and scaly rising from the bay. He never awoke from the nightmare.

Neither did any of the 21,543 residents of Tranquil Bay.

Alasdair Stuart
Alasdair Stuart is the host of
Pseudopod
(www.pseudopod.org), the weekly horror fiction podcast. He also currently cleans a mildly spooky building on cold winter nights. This is why he’ll be watching
The Conjuring
on DVD. In daylight. Find his blog at www.alasdairstuart.com

Greg Stolze
Greg Stolze is an American novelist and writer, whose work has mainly focused on properties derived from role-playing games. Stolze has contributed to numerous role-playing game books for White Wolf Game Studio and Atlas Games, including Demon: the Fallen. Some of Stolze's recent work has been self-published using the "ransom method", whereby the game is only released when enough potential buyers have contributed enough money to reach a threshold set by the author.

JC Hemphill
JC lives in Cumming, GA with his wonderful wife and a pair of lay-about dogs. Outside of writing, he is a cook for the rowdiest assisted living center in the South and is working toward a degree in creative writing. Since July of 2011, his short stories have reached the light of day in over fifteen magazines and short story anthologies. In 2012 he was awarded 1st place in the Washington Pastime Literary Contest for his magic realism story Taking Flight. His story Control won 4th in the Preditors and Editors Poll for best horror short of the year and The End of Silence received an Honorable Mention from Writers of the Future.

Jonathan Sharp
Jonathan Sharp is a mild mannered English Gentleman who divides his time between writing background music for television & film and obsessing over pulp literature. "Nation Of Disease" is his second published story.

Mason Ian Bundschuh
Mason Ian Bundschuh is an author, musician and troublemaker raised in Hawaii, educated in England and currently haunting Las Vegas. He loves writing bios because he could totally be making all this up and you’d never know. He once punched a shark and can play the banjo. He also reads
Beowulf
in Old English to his toddlers, and they in turn think he’s a little strange. His newest novel,
Piercing The Veil
(Samhain Publishing), comes out Spring 2014. (So far all this is true.) He can be found online at www.MasonBundschuh.com.

Martin Hill Ortiz
Martin Hill Ortiz, a native of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a professor of Pharmacology at the Ponce School of Medicine in Ponce, Puerto Rico. He has won several awards for poetry. His short stories have appeared in print in Haunts Magazine and Miami Accent, several anthologies along with a half-a-dozen online journals. He also has a theatrical background, having run a comedy troupe in South Florida for several years. His comedy pieces have been performed in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Puerto Rico and Ireland among other places. He can be contacted at: [email protected]

Charles Black
Charles Black is the editor of The Black Book of Horror anthology series. Among the places his fiction has appeared are Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror, Best New Zombie Tales, and Nemonymous. A collection of his stories is expected to be published later this year.

Tim Pratt
Tim Pratt's stories have appeared in
The Best American Short Stories
,
The Year's Best Fantasy
,
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror
, and other nice places. He has won the Hugo Award for his short fiction, and he's been a finalist for World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Stoker, Mythopoeic, and Nebula Awards. He lives in Berkeley CA with his wife, writer Heather Shaw, and their son.

Greg van Eekhout
Greg van Eekhout is the author of the middle-grade novels
Kid vs. Squid
,
The Boy at the End of the World
, and the mythological fantasy novel
Norse Code
, as well as about two-dozen short stories. His
In the Late December
(2003) was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story. He’s currently working on a modern-day fantasy trilogy, to be published by Tor Books beginning in 2013. Find him online at: www.writingandsnacks.com.

Tim Jeffreys
Tim Jeffreys, a fiction writer from Manchester, UK. Tim's stories incorporates elements of horror, fantasy, absurdist humor, slipstream and non-genre into his writing to create his own brand of weird fiction. He has been published in
The Best of Dark Eclipse
, The
Horrorzine
, and
Shadow Masters: An Anthology from Horror Zine
. You can find him online at www.timjeffreyswriter.webs.com.

Nathan Wunner
Nathan Wunner has been writing stories most of his adult life, but only recently decided to pursue a career in it. His interests range anywhere from pulp to sci-fi; but his true passion is for horror, particularly of the surreal variety. You can follow @NathanWunner on Twitter for updates concerning future short stories and his upcoming novels
The Undying Kingdom
and
Piss Black
. Or you can contact him by email at [email protected].

Corissa Baker
Author, Actress, and film maker, Corissa Baker saw her first novel,
The Shadow of Dracula; Harker’s Inheritance
, published in 2012. When she's not writing scripts or improving her skills as a real-life bad ass, Corissa chases bears out of her yard. More info at www.CorissaBaker.com.

Jason Andrew
My short fiction has appeared in markets such as Shine: An Anthology of Optimistic SF (Harper Collins), Frontier Cthulhu: Ancient Horrors in the New World (Chaosium), and IN SITU (Dagan Books).  In 2011, my story “Moonlight in Scarlet” received an honorable mention in Ellen Datlow’s List for Best Horror of the Year. In addition, I've have written for a number of role-playing games such as Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun, and Vampire: The Masquerade.  My most recent projects include Hunters Hunted 2 (The Onyx Path), Anarchs Unbound (The Onyx Path), and Atomic Age Cthulhu: Terrifying Tales of the Mythos Menace (Chaosium).  I currently hold the position of Associate Developer for the Mind's Eye Theatre games for By Night Studios.

David Tallerman
David Tallerman is the author of the fantasy novels
Giant Thief
and
Crown Thief
, both released in 2012 by UK publisher Angry Robot and to be followed by a second sequel,
Prince Thief
, later this year. The first issue of his comic book series
Endangered Weapon B
will be available on Free Comic Book day, May 4th, with a collected edition to follow soon after. David's short horror, fantasy and science fiction has appeared in over fifty markets, including
Lightspeed
, Bull Spec,
Nightmare
and
Flash Fiction Online
. He can be found online at http://davidtallerman.net/ and http://davidtallerman.blogspot.com/.

A.C. Wise
A.C. Wise is the author of numerous short stories, which have appeared in print and online in publications such as
Clarkesworld
,
Lightspeed
,
Apex
and
The Best Horror of the Year
Vol. 4, among others. In addition to her writing, she co-edits The Journal of Unlikely Entomology, an online magazine of fiction and art relating to bugs. You can find the author online at www.acwise.net and on twitter as @ac_wise.

Stephen Brown
Visit www.StephenBrown.com

John R. Fultz
John R. Fultz lives in the North Bay area of California, but is originally from Kentucky. The first two volumes of his Books of the Shaper trilogy,
Seven Princes
(2012) and
Seven Kings
(2013), are now available everywhere from Orbit Books. The concluding volume,
Seven Sorcerers
, will be released this December. John’s short fiction has appeared in
Weird Tales
,
Black Gate
,
Space & Time
,
Lightspeed
, and the anthologies
Way Of The Wizard
,
Cthulhu’s Reign
,
Other Worlds Than These,
and
The Book Of Cthulhu Ii
. In a former life he was a wandering storyteller on the lost continent of Atlantis. You can find him online at: www.johnrfultz.com

Brandon Barrows
Brandon Barrows lives in the shadow-haunted hills of Vermont with his wife and a pair of elder spawn cats, writing comic books, prose and poetry. His detective comic series JACK HAMMER is published by Action Lab Comics and his sci-fi series VOYAGA is published by AAM/Markosia. His prose and poetry have appeared in the book anthology Another 100 Horrors from Cruentus Libri Press and magazines such as Sorcerous/Mystic Signals, Fiction365, Scifikuest, Linguistic Erosion, Daily Love and others. Find more at http://www.brandonbarrowscomics.com/.

W.B. Stickel
W.B. Stickel lives in upstate New York with his wife and three children. He works for the Air Force by day and writes as much as possible at night. He has had stories published in numerous magazines and anthologies and is working on his first novel. He is also deathly afraid of Teletubbies.

Kelda Crich
Kelda Crich is a new born entity. She's been lurking in her creator's mind for a few years. Now she's out in the open. Find her in London looking at strange things in medical museums or on her blog: http://keldacrichblog.blogspot.com/ Her work has appeared in
Spinetinglers
,
The Lovecraft E-zine
and in the
After Death
anthology.

Nick Mamatas
Nick Mamatas is the author of the Lovecraftian novels
Move Under Ground
and
The Damned Highway
(with Brian Keene). His Lovecraftian short stories have appeared in anthologies such as
Lovecraft Unbound, Black Wings II
,
Future Lovecraft
, and
New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird
. He writes other things too, including the fantasy-noir novels
Bullettime
and
Love is the Law
, forthcoming from Dark Horse. Nick's short fiction has appeared or soon will in Asimov's Science Fiction, Tor.com, Weird Tales, New Haven Review, and Best American Mystery Stories.

Silvia
Moreno-Garcia
Silvia's stories have appeared in places such
as Imaginarium 2012: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing
and The Book of Cthulhu
. She operates a micro-press, Innsmouth Free Press, in her spare time. She has edited several anthologies, including
Fungi
(fungiantho.com) and the upcoming Canadian zombie antho
Dead North
.
This Strange Way of Dying
, on sale this year, is her first collection. You can find her on Twitter @silviamg or at silviamoreno-garcia.com.

James Brogden
James Brogden is a part-time Australian who was born in Manchester in 1969, and lives with his wife and two daughters in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, where he teaches English. His stories have appeared in various magazines and anthologies such as the Big Issue, the British Fantasy Society’s
Dark Horizons
,
Urban Occult
, and the Alchemy Press
Book of Ancient Wonders
, and he was a winner of Den Of Geek’s new talent showcase with his story
The Phantom Limb
. His first novel, The Narrows, was published by Snowbooks in 2012, to be followed by Tourmaline in summer of 2013. Blogging occurs at jamesbrogden.blogspot.co.uk, and he can be followed on Twitter as @skippybe

Lance Axt
Lance Roger Axt was the creator of the audio theatre production company
Play it by Ear Productions
,  and is a founder of
AudioComics
. He produced world-premiere radio one-acts for the award-winning anthology series “We Have Ignition,” and produced and co-directed a festival of original five-minute radio plays,
You Have Five Minutes
… before a live audience in Albuquerque, NM in 2009. In addition, he produced a live re-creation of Norman Corwin’s legendary audio essay We Hold These Truths at the Canterbury Woods Auditorium in Pacific Grove, CA (2005), followed by a series of old-time radio re-creations on the Central Coast, “Those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.” He also produced the NATF’s “Audio Art of Animation” workshop in Hollywood, where actors in voice-over worked with animation legends Mark Evanier and Corey Burton, and is one of the co-creators of the Norman Corwin Award for Excellence in Audio Theatre, the only award of its kind in America honoring life achievement in audio theatre/radio drama, for which he serves on the Nominating Committee.

Aaron J. French
Aaron J. French (a.k.a. A. J. French) is a member of the Horror Writers Association. He edited
Monk Punk
, an anthology of monk-themed speculative fiction, as well as
The Shadow of the Unknown
, an anthology of nü-Lovecraftian fiction. His latest anthology
Songs of the Satyrs
will be published in 2013-14. Aaron's recent article on Thomas Ligotti appeared in issue #20 of
Dark Discoveries
magazine, where he is also an associate editor. Aaron's fiction has appeared in many publications including
Dark Discoveries
,
Black Ink Horror
,
Something Wicked
,
After Death...
,
Bedlam
,
Tales of Obscenity
, and
The Lovecraft eZine
. Look for his zombie collection
Up From Soil Fresh
from Hazardous Press, and read his novella
The Order in the Dreaming in Darkness
collection about a Lovecraftian secret society. He is also the Reviews Coordinator for
Hellnotes
.