Arcane II
Page 31
A gas mask?
It wasn’t the clown. What it was, was a man, or possibly a woman. The figure peered through the protective glass eye shields of the mask. The eyes saw the dead body of Ingrid on the floor.
Dulcy began to crawl towards the opening, and the figure. She couldn’t speak. She crawled across the floor clutching the can opener, trailing her sister’s blood across the floor, towards the person, the one that she was one hundred percent sure was not a clown.
The figure looked at her, and at the bloody can opener in her hand, then at the dead woman on the floor, then at the can of beans. It reached a gloved hand out and plucked the can of beans up and stuffed it into a rucksack it was carrying. Then the figure slung the sack over its shoulder, turned, and was gone, taking the beans with it.
Dulcy screamed. It wasn’t a loud thing, she was so weak. She threw the can opener, not in any particular direction; it just flew up and disappeared into the dark at the top of the boxcar.
When it went up there, the can opener hit something, something hard, then it fell to the floor next to her. What it had hit made a rolling noise a bit like a large ball bearing, or a marble. The rolling sound made a tumbling sound and then a series of clicks and bangs rung out through the car. Dulcy, who had stopped screaming, looked up and saw a heavy can fall from the ceiling. It hit her in the forehead with a crack. A second later another equally large can fell and hit her in the head as well. It was probably the second can that killed her.
The first can had been green beans. The second was another can of Burtie’s Baked Beans—Secret Family Recipe. Guaranteed Fresh.
Contributors
Miranda Ciccone’s (“Orpheus and Eurydice”) stories have appeared online in The Harrow, The Three-Lobed Burning Eye, The Cynic Online and Kalkion.
Collaboratively, Libby Cudmore and Matthew Quinn Martin (“Convention of Ekphrasis”) have been published in The Writer Magazine, Big Pulp and Mixitini Matrix. Libby Cudmore’s stories and essays have been published in Pank, The Citron Review, Umbrella Factory, Connotation Press, the Yalobusha Review and Something Awful. Her website is www.geekgirlgoesglam.com. Matthew Quinn Martin’s original screenplay Slingshot was made into a feature film by Bold Films and is distributed on DVD by The Weinstein Co. His prose fiction has been published in The Beat To A Pulp anthology, Transition Magazine, Thuglit, The Oddville Press, Aphelion Magazine and elsewhere. His website is www.matthewquinnmartin.com.
Eric Dimbleby (“The House That Wept Puddin’”) has sold stories to more than 18 anthologies since 2010. His debut novel, Please Don’t Go, was published by Pill Hill Press last year, and won the Best Speculative Fiction award from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. His website is www.ericdimbleby.com.
Michael R. Fletcher (“Fire and Flesh”) lives in Toronto with his wife and daughter and a host of delusions he hopes to make manifest in the new year. His science fiction novel, 88, is due to be released by Five Rivers Publishing in the summer of 2013, and he has two more novels (including a dark fantasy novel that sprung from this story) currently in editing. His short stories have appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Interzone, On Spec, and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. Sporadic updates on what he has been up to can be found at www.michaelrfletcher.com.
Milo James Fowler (“Beneath the Surface”) is an English teacher by day and a speculative fictioneer by night. His work has appeared in AE Science Fiction, Cosmos, and Shimmer, and many of his short stories are now available on Amazon for Kindle readers. Find him on Twitter (@mfowler76), Facebook, and his blog where he posts weekly updates on his journey through the Published Land: www.milo-inmediasres.com. His story “El Diablo De Paseo Grande” appeared in the first ARCANE anthology.
Gef Fox (“Tree Hugger”) is a self-described rabid reader and wrabid writer. He spent his childhood daydreaming of monsters, ghosts, and robots. Now he writes about them. His stories can be found in Fading Light (An Anthology of the Monstrous), Stupefying Stories and elsewhere. He lives in Nova Scotia, Canada. Visit his blog at waggingthefox.blogspot.com.
Adele Gardner (“Triptych”) is an active member of SFWA with stories published in Daily Science Fiction, the Green Knight Press anthologies Legends of the Pendragon and The Doom of Camelot, Challenging Destiny, and Penumbra. She has also had poetry published in Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium, and The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, among others; her first poetry collection, Dreaming of Days in Astophel, is available from Sam’s Dot Publishing. Two stories and a poem earned honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. She is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. “Triptych” first appeared in Horror Garage #4, 2001, under the byline “Lyn C.A. Gardner,” and earned honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, 15th Ed., 2002.
Jean Graham (“Nightcrawlers”) has sold fiction to the DAW Books anthology The Time of the Vampires (1996, reprinted 2005), to the Oct.-Dec. 2000 issue of the online magazine wouldthatitwere.com, and to the print anthologies Fantastical Visions I & II and the 2009 anthology Under the Rose (Norilana Books). She has also sold short stories to the e-zines Coyote Wild, Firefox News, and Mundania/Fictionwise.com, and to the print magazine Renard’s Menagerie. Her work has also been published in the small press magazines The Horror Show, Quest, Outlands, Chosen Haunts, Melange, Gambit and Dark Graffiti, among others.
Michael Haynes (“In the Paint”) lives in Central Ohio where he helps keep IT systems running for a large corporation during the day and puts his characters through the wringer by night. An ardent short story reader and writer, Michael has had over 20 stories accepted for publication during 2012 by venues such as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, and Daily Science Fiction. His website is michaelhaynes.info.
Harry Markov (“Hurricane Drunk”) is an SEO specialist by paycheck and a supporter of the written word in every other spare moment. Writer, reviewer and columnist, Harry Markov has transitioned to slush and some editorial work. A connoisseur of the surreal and fantastic in every medium, Harry Markov won’t judge a piece of work by its muddled genre genealogy; on the contrary, the Markov prefers a rich blend of genres. His personal soapbox is The Alternative Typewriter and you can follow him on Twitter @HarryMarkov.
Patrick McGinnity (“The Dubious Apotheosis of Baskin Gough”) teaches English at Central Michigan University. His work has appeared in Paradigm, The Truth About the Fact, and Word River, as well as at The Harrow and Ad Hominem. He has also been known to blog sporadically at keltickarnival.blogspot.com.
Brooke Miller (“The Last Laugh”) prefers to remain mysterious.
Joanna Parypinski (“Lakeshore Drive”) is the author of the horror novel Pandora as well as other short speculative fiction appearing in Mistresses of the Macabre, First Time Dead 3, Cover of Darkness, and other venues. You can find more of her writing at her website JoannaParypinski.com.
Craig Pay (“His City”) writes speculative fiction. His stories have been published with various magazines receiving positive reviews from the Guardian newspaper, Interzone and Strange Horizons. In 2011 he won the NAWG David Lodge trophy. In 2012 he completed a two-year master’s degree in Creative Writing with Bolton University. Craig runs a writing group in Manchester and he enjoys target shooting, martial arts and learning Mandarin Chinese. He doesn’t need any more hobbies. Feel free to get in touch via his website craigpay.com.
Philip M. Roberts (“90-Day Notice”) lives in Nashua, New Hampshire and holds a degree in Creative Writing with a minor in Film from the University of Kansas. As a beginner in the publishing world, he’s a member of both the Horror Writer’s Association and the New England Horror Writer’s Association, and has had numerous short stories published in a variety of publications, such as the Beneath the Surface anthology, Midnight Echo, and The Absent Willow Review. His website is www.philipmroberts.com.
Priya Sharma (“The Beatification of Thomas Small”) has had stories published in Black Static, Interzone, Albedo One and Fantasy magazine, as well
as reprinted in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror Vol. 4 and Paula Guran’s The Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2012. She has a story coming out on Tor.com in 2013. She blogs at priyasharmafiction.wordpress.com.
Anna Sykora (“Palace of Rats”) has been an attorney in New York and teacher of English in Germany, where she resides with her patient husband and three enormous Norwegian Forest cats. To date she has placed 120 tales in the small press, most recently with Niteblade, The Lorelei Signal, The Copperfield Review, Tales of the Talisman, Freedom Fiction and The Barbaric Yawp. She has also placed 260 poems, mostly genre. Writing is her joy.
Nicole M. Taylor (“The Pianist’s Wife”) is a freelance ghostwriter and full time livingwriter. Her fiction has been published in a variety of venues including Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer Magazine, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine and elsewhere. She lives and works in Los Angeles with her partner Edward Gauvin and a pug/french bulldog that is way more popular than either of them. She bloggerates at www.nicolemtaylor.com.
Steve Toase (“Fate’s Mask”) spent most of his childhood being haunted by wallpaper and the persistent faces that clothed themselves in paisley flock design. This has given him an interesting, though not necessarily normal, outlook on the world, which he now uses to write stories and interpret archaeology. His fiction has appeared online at Sein und Werden, Street Cake Magazine, NthPosition.com, Flashes In The Dark, Cafe Irreal, Pow Fast Flash Fiction and Byker Book, amongst others. He writes about the places where the otherworld seeps into ours. Steve lives in North Yorkshire, England, and occasionally Munich, Germany. When not writing he spends his time trying to keep vintage British motorcycles on the road. Occasionally he succeeds. You can find him at www.facebook.com/stevetoase1 and www.stevetoase.co.uk
If you enjoyed this book, check out some of the other publications from Cold Fusion Media:
SPACE ELDRITCH
Startling Stories meets Weird Tales in SPACE ELDRITCH, a volume of seven original novelettes and novellas of Lovecraftian pulp space opera. Featuring work by Brad R. Torgersen (Hugo/Nebula/Campbell nominee), Howard Tayler (multiple Hugo nominee), and Michael R. Collings (author of over 100 books), plus a foreword by New York Times bestselling author Larry Correia, SPACE ELDRITCH inhabits the intersection between the eternal adventure of the final frontier and the inhuman darkness between the stars.
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Arcane Sampler
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The Golden Age of Crap
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Cold Fusion Media
http://www.coldfusionmedia.us