Nightmare Magazine Issue 8

by Caspian Gray

  Nightmare Magazine

  Issue 8, May 2013

  Table of Contents

  Editorial, May 2013

  Centipede Heartbeat—Caspian Gray

  Houses Under the Sea—Caitlin R. Kiernan

  Doll Re Me—Tanith Lee

  Feminine Endings—Neil Gaiman

  The H Word: “Domestic Horror”—Nathan Ballingrud

  Artist Gallery: Benjamin König

  Artist Spotlight: Benjamin König

  Interview: Steve Niles

  Author Spotlight: Caspian Gray

  Author Spotlight: Caitlin R. Kiernan

  Author Spotlight: Tanith Lee

  Author Spotlight: Neil Gaiman

  Coming Attractions

  © 2013, Nightmare Magazine

  Cover Art and Artist Gallery images by Benjamin König.

  Ebook design by Neil Clarke.

  www.nightmare-magazine.com

  Editorial, May 2013

  John Joseph Adams

  Welcome to issue eight of Nightmare!

  This month, we have original fiction from Caspian Gray (“Centipede Heartbeat”) and Tanith Lee (“Doll Re Me”), along with reprints by Caitlín R. Kiernan (“Houses Under the Sea”) and Neil Gaiman (“Feminine Endings”). We’ll also have the latest installment of our column on horror, “The H Word,” plus author spotlights with our authors, a showcase on our cover artist, and a feature interview with acclaimed comics writer Steve Niles.

  That’s about all I have for you this month, but before I step out of your way and let you get to the fiction, here are a few URLs you might want to check out or keep handy if you’d like to stay apprised of everything new and notable happening with Nightmare:

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  Thanks for reading!

  John Joseph Adams, in addition to serving as publisher and editor of Nightmare (and its sister magazine, Lightspeed), is the bestselling editor of many anthologies, such as The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, Oz Reimagined, Epic: Legends of Fantasy, Other Worlds Than These, Armored, Under the Moons of Mars: New Adventures on Barsoom, Brave New Worlds, Wastelands, The Living Dead, The Living Dead 2, By Blood We Live, Federations, The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and The Way of the Wizard. He is a six-time finalist for the Hugo Award and the World Fantasy Award. He is also the co-host of Wired.com’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Find him on Twitter @johnjosephadams.

  Centipede Heartbeat

  Caspian Gray

  Each time Lisa rested her head against Joette’s breasts, she heard the centipedes. In between heartbeats there was the tiny sound of hundreds of chitinous footsteps against bone, of miniature mandibles tearing at organs.

  Joette refused to admit to it, or maybe she didn’t know.

  “It’s hot,” Joette announced.

  Lisa refused to take the hint. She tried to memorize the feel of Joette’s body tangled with her own: prickly shins, downy calves, the warmth of Joette’s stomach, the tight swell of the small breasts on which Lisa was resting her head.

  “It’s hot,” Joette repeated. Their bed was stripped to only one thin sheet, but the July air, thick with humidity, made it almost too much to bear. Joette pulled away, leaving a gulf of mattress between them.

  “What are you reading?” Lisa asked.

  Joette held up her thin paperback just long enough for Lisa to make out a cover dominated by shapes and primary colors. The kind of cover that told her nothing about the book, except that probably it was for people too smart to need that one precious picture to illustrate all the words inside.

  “Is it good?” asked Lisa.

  “It’s okay.” Joette paused. “I’m really tired,” she added. “It’s been such a long day.”

  “Oh.”

  Lisa bent her body under the sheet. Her knees crept toward Joette’s, one last sally for even the feeblest contact.

  Joette rolled further away, until the arm holding her book was hanging off the edge of the bed. Lisa retreated.

  The centipedes were ruining everything.

  Joette did not mind the idea of centipedes in their home.

  “They’re good for the house. You know, like spiders. They eat other bugs. We won’t have to worry about silverfish or earwigs.”

  “We should just call an exterminator,” Lisa replied. “Then we don’t have to worry about any kinds of bugs.”

  “That’s horrible!” Joette gave her a look of such sincere disgust that Lisa felt embarrassment creep up the back of her neck. “We’re not going to commit genocide against a bunch of little guys who are just here to help us keep our house clean.”

  Except for the occasional order of chicken vindaloo, Joette was a vegetarian. She opposed genocide on even a bacterial level.

  “They’re not here to help us,” said Lisa. “They’re here to commit insect cannibalism and poop inside the walls. I don’t think that calling an exterminator would be unreasonable.”

  Joette did think it would be unreasonable. No exterminator was called.

  This was Lisa’s first failure to eliminate the enemy.

  The problem with centipedes was that Lisa did not know how to lure them. She tried, first with bowls of sugar water as if for ants, then with bowls of saltwater, as if for slugs. Centipedes, she discovered slowly, were not that kind of bug. Like most predators, they preferred live prey.

  On the internet, some people defended house centipedes. Those bodies in many shades of brown, with their feathery legs and long antennae sprouting from either end of the abdomen, had their admirers. To Lisa, they looked more like fugitives from some extraterrestrial coral reef than common household pests. Each flitting movement suggested flight, despite their closeness to the ground. Some people even sold boxes of scutigera coleoptrata to be released in the home, that they might eradicate less innocuous insect populations.

  In the face of such incredible ignorance and casual evil, Lisa did not know how to explain that all insects were less innocuous than centipedes. The idea of trying and failing to save each hapless eBay customer was overwhelming, especially in the face of the seller’s long pages of positive feedback.

  So Lisa did what she could, which was to concentrate on the war at home before it was too late.

  “Yeah,” said the exterminator, peering behind the couch. “We take care of centipedes all the time.”

  “Mh,” said Lisa. “Well, I’m also worried about preventing them from coming back, once you get rid of them.”

  “The two main things you can do,” said the man, “are to make sure that your house doesn’t have any other infestations, since those’ll just feed the centipe
des. You gotta starve ‘em out.” He pointed at an old spiderweb near the ceiling, then offered her a tenuous smile. “Also, you gotta eliminate damp spots in the house. If any of your pipes leak, or if you’ve got cracks in your foundation, or if you’ve ever had a water main break, it needs to be fixed. Pretty much anything that’ll give ’em moisture. If you can dry your house out, you can clear up your centipede problem. I’d be happy to look around for any trouble spots, but it’ll be easier at night. Centipedes, they like the dark.”

  Lisa nodded, trying to steer him to the front door. Guilt nibbled at her. Moronta Pest Solutions was the only place in town that offered free estimates, and the man had driven at least twenty minutes to get here.

  The exterminator ignored her edging him toward the door and headed down into the basement. Lisa followed, clicking on the light.

  “Wow,” he said. Lisa looked over his shoulder. “You’ve got quite an infestation here.”

  She could see only the basement.

  “There.” He pointed to a lumpy shadow cast by a pile of boxes she and Joette had never unpacked. “See right there?”

  Lisa squinted. There was movement, as if the shadow was alive, testing the edges of the light.

  “No offense, ma’am, but this place is crawling.”

  Lisa felt sick. The questions she wanted to ask the exterminator were not questions he could answer. No exterminator would know how to dry out a human body without killing the main occupant. He could only make sure that the centipedes within her didn’t have more sinister confederates hiding under cupboards and between walls, waiting.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Lisa. “I really have to consult with my husband before I can make you an offer.”

  The exterminator blinked. “I haven’t given you an estimate yet.”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Lisa, herding him up the stairs and toward the front door.

  “If it was that infestation comment,” he said, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be rude—”

  Lisa shut the door behind him. An exterminator was not enough.

  When Joette came home from work, her red hair plastered to her scalp with sweat, Lisa was waiting by the door to ambush her.

  “I think that I have lice,” she announced.

  “Lice,” repeated Joette, bending down slowly to take off her shoes. “Where would you have gotten lice?”

  “I don’t know.” Lisa shrugged. “Maybe at the store, trying on a hat.”

  “Oh,” said Joette. Not when was the last time you left the house? or I have never seen you wear a hat. She put her work shoes against the wall, next to her single pair of dress shoes and her worn summer sandals. “Did you actually see the lice?”

  “I found an eggstring.” Lisa fiddled with her left earring. “So, you know. If one of us has lice, probably both of us have lice. I thought, if you buy some lice shampoo, I’ll do all the laundry to make sure they don’t spread.”

  Joette shook her head. “I really don’t think I have lice.” She took a few steps forward. “You know what, let me take a look at your scalp. Let me make sure.”

  “No.” Lisa ran a hand over her hair. “It’s embarrassing. I don’t want you looking at me like this. It’s gross.”

  Joette reached out, almost close enough to brush Lisa’s face with her fingers, then withdrew. “I could never think you’re gross.”

  The quiet moment that followed was devastating. It was hard to believe in the centipedes at all when Joette was so much herself. Lisa wanted to make her understand. She wanted to say, I have to starve the centipedes out somehow.

  “I’m sorry,” she offered instead.

  “Don’t be sorry,” said Joette. “But can I buy the lice shampoo tomorrow? It’s been a long day.”

  “Sure. There’s no hurry. The lice can wait,” said Lisa, all her words tumbling over each other. “I made dinner, it’ll be out of the oven in a minute. I made your favorite lemon cookies, too.”

  Joette’s expressions flickered over her face too fast for Lisa to read them. “Do you mind if I have a lemon cookie now? Or do you want me to wait ’til after dinner?”

  “Have one now,” said Lisa. “Have a couple if you want. Please.”

  Lisa and Joette played school nurse with the lice shampoo, picking carefully through each other’s hair for lice and nits.

  “You know,” said Joette. “When I was a kid, it always took a couple washes to wipe the lice completely out.”

  “Hm,” said Lisa. She had grown up without lice. It was not the kind of thing that children at her school passed around. “Maybe this is a better brand.”

  “It’s the same one. I figured that if RID worked then, it’d work now. And I guess it does, just better.”

  “It’s been a while since you were a kid. They must’ve improved the formula.”

  “They must’ve.” Joette’s voice almost wasn’t skeptical.

  The centipedes were not disturbed by the lice shampoo. Whatever they were eating, it did not come from outside Joette’s skin.

  Lisa no longer only heard them, on those rare nights when she and Joette still touched each other. She was beginning to see them, perpetually scuttling out of range of her vision. These were not house centipedes, which suddenly seemed benign by comparison. They wore dark bodies, coiled tightly with the promise of tensile strength.

  The centipedes were growing.

  Scolopendra gigantea [scol’o*pen”dra jahy-gan-tee-uh]: the Amazonian Giant Centipede. The largest extant breed of centipede, it can grow over a foot long, and is capable of pulling down bats in mid-flight. Unlike most other types of centipede, Scolopendra gigantean is a carnivore, not an insectivore. Other insects—even other Amazonian breeds, grown by the tropical heat to monstrous size—are not large enough to feed its hunger.

  In insectariums, Scolopendra gigantea are fed infant mice, much like snakes, and are known for being particularly cruel to their prey.

  Lisa spent hours on the internet, looking for new solutions. There was a whole family of antihelminthics, toxins meant to kill parasitic worms that were safe—in mild doses—for humans to eat. There were abortifacients, from pennyroyal to tansy, to be brewed into tea. If it was impossible to starve the centipedes out, she would have to kill them.

  The poison she eventually settled on wasn’t a poison at all, but a desiccant. The promotional material was what convinced her:

  Drione Dust is a white, low odor dust that works as a

  desiccant on insects. Once sprinkled on the insects’

  bodies, Drione Dust cuts away at the exoskeleton and

  then robs household pests of vital moisture. This

  unique formulation will last over a year, and, because

  Drione Dust works by dehydrating insects rather than

  chemically poisoning them, is among the safest

  insecticides available. Perfect for homes with pets

  and young children!

  Lisa liked the word “safe.”

  She also liked that, because it was not a poison, she did not have to sign for it when the UPS man delivered it. “Low odor,” she discovered, actually meant “no odor.” Still, she imagined that she could smell its grit, its very whiteness.

  That night, after Joette went to sleep, Lisa poured the rest of the lice shampoo into the tub and pulled herself a bath. The submersion was painful, and the tender parts of her body carried a little sting for days afterward.

  It was one more tiny thing that might keep the centipedes away.

  Joette’s sickness started with diarrhea, which Lisa didn’t learn about until one morning when she heard a pause in Joette’s usual preparation for work. The shower stopped. Instead of the immediate buzz of the hairdryer through the closed door, she heard nothing.

  Then—clear and quiet—retching.

  Lisa got out of bed and went to stand outside the bathroom door. The dots did not connect. She thought, first, that most horrible thought: morning sickness. Joette was seeing someone else; the centipedes had r
eversed even that most integral part of her.

  No.

  Even invasive centipedes could not change a person so much, not in the less than six months they had made Joette’s body their home.

  Joette opened the bathroom door, then took a rapid step back at seeing Lisa standing so close. Her breath smelled like vomit.

  “Are you okay?” asked Lisa.

  “I don’t know,” said Joette. “I mean, there was some blood.”

  Lisa’s heart stopped, then reanimated in double-time. “Where?”

  “I puked,” said Joette. “There was blood.”

  Lisa thought, The drione dust. Lisa thought, It was supposed to be safe.

  Then, worst of all, one final thought: This means that it’s working.

  “Has this happened before?” she asked. “I mean, the blood.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Maybe I did something wrong with the quiche. Maybe I didn’t cook the eggs all the way through.”

  Joette shook her head. “If it was the eggs, you’d be sick, too. Maybe it was the graham crackers I had before bed.”

  “Do you want to go to the hospital?” Lisa asked, the air in her lungs thick with anticipation.

  “No.” Joette reached out one hand and leaned heavily against the doorframe. Lisa stood her ground. The vomit on her breath was not so bad. “I just want to brush my teeth and go to work.”

  “Do you want me to make you something to eat? If you still have enough time, I can make you a good hot breakfast. It’ll be better for your stomach than cold milk and cereal. No eggs, this time.”

  Joette’s expression was sympathetic, which didn’t make sense, since she was the one who was sick.

  “Sure,” she said. “Make me breakfast.”

  Lisa stumbled through flipping pancakes and squeezing orange juice, soft things to keep from hurting Joette’s insides. She sprinkled the syrup only lightly with drione dust, then ate some of the pancakes herself. If the drione dust was working, she needed some of it, too. Once Joette’s body became a hostile environment, the centipedes would need a new home.

  Lisa was only a little surprised. Mixed with syrup, the drione dust tasted exactly as white as it smelled.