Gleefully Macabre Tales by Jeff Strand

Gleefully Macabre Tales
by Jeff Strand
Dark Regions Press, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-888993-76-9
Trade Paperback
279 Pages
Horror/Comedy

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Jeff Strand and his short story collection Gleefully Macabre Tales: What should I say?

First, I wish I could produce stories that feel as if they were written without effort, like they flowed out of my pen of their own volition. Why? Because that is exactly what I thought a number of times while reading Jeff Strand’s stories. And it happened because he’s a master craftsman. To quote the great Tony Bennett, “Take the most difficult thing you do and make it look effortless.” Read a few of Strand’s stories and you’ll have an example of what he was talking about.

Second, Strand’s collection is placed in the Genre: Horror/Comedy at his own behest. Yet, as you read you will find honest horror, black humour, the macabre, complete and utter silliness, the gross, the humorous horrific and laugh-out-loud comedy. Strand is a madman with a pen! And he has great fun touching on things even the scariest horror writer alive would shy away from. Some of these tales should be told out behind the proverbial barn; a few of the stories should never have seen the light of day. Which is why I’m an immediate fan of Jeff Strand. Horror is supposed to disturb. Gleefully Macabre Tales disturbs on several levels.

Third, Fourth and Fifth…

There will come a day when the “animal protectionists” read the story Really, Really Ferocious. Strand will go on their most wanted list.

I believe Everything Has A Purpose should be required reading for all students heading into difficult courses.

If Common Sense, Brain Bugs and I Hold The Stick can’t get a smile or a chuckle out of you, then I say with complete seriousness… Get a life!

Sixth, Jeff Strand has a unique voice. I’ve read just one of his books, and I’d be willing to bet I could recognize his writing anywhere. Whatever you think of him and his stories, this is a guy who stands out.

And finally, in a time of zealous political correctness, and in a world chock full of people who have forgotten certain types of humour are supposed to be irreverent when they can, I find Strand to be a breath of fresh air.

Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye

Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story

Apartment 14F:
An Oriental Ghost Story
Christian Saunders
Damnation Books, LLC, 2009
Digital ISBN:
978-1-61572-011-8
Print ISBN:
978-1-61572-010-1
eBook: 52 pages
Ghost Story/Horror


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Jerry is new to China. He’s working as an English Teacher and “foreign expert.” The job is pleasant enough and his teaching assistant, Yin Tao, is a dream. All should be good in Jerry’s world. But its not.

Jerry can’t sleep. First it was the noises that couldn’t be explained away. Then it was the sensual nightmares of a beautiful woman with long black hair. And someone or something kept moving his keys: he had to search for them every time he left his apartment, 14F. By the time Jerry started seeing glimpses of the woman in his dream while he was wide awake, the man was ready to accept something unnatural was happening to him.

Enlisting the help of Yin Tao, Jerry, a problem solver from way back, decides to face head-on the enigma which is 14F. What happens next is an interesting and decidedly oriental solution, as well as a warning to the reader of the consequences that are sometimes borne by a stranger in a strange land.

Christian Saunders’ novelette, Apartment 14F, is a tight story about a Londoner who moves to Beijing with the idea of starting anew. Filled with observations of a culture as seen from a fresh and interested eye, the reader is quickly drawn into the story. In fact, the story I just described so slowly intertwines with the “ghost story” that the end creeps up with a suddenness which surprises.

I’ve read many ghost stories, and I must confess most of them bored me to tears. Not Apartment 14F: I enjoyed it.


Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye 2010

Something Different For Stephen King Fans

Just After Sunset
by Stephen King
Pocket Books
October 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4165-8665-4
539 Pages
Mass Market Paperback
Horror/Collection

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Stephen King’s latest offering of short stories, Just After Sunset, disappointed me when I first read it. I was expecting to be drawn into some horrendous places and to have any number of heroes sacrificed to the writing Gods. Didn’t happen. In fact some of the stories have what, considering this is Stephen King we’re talking about, I would call happy endings.

So, I read the story notes at the back, and I reworked each story. Turns out, for this offering, Mr. King has decided to do away with fairly straightforward horror and offer us stories with meaning. I find that King not only poses some interesting questions, but he suggests some unusual answers. My verdict after revisiting Just After Sunset? A thoughtful, mature and sometimes freaky collection he should be proud of.

Willa – I didn’t like this ghost story, possibly because I just finished a similar story by a different author. Both deal with emotions after death, obviously offering up the assumption that some part of us goes on living after our bodies die. Stephen King’s story suggests that love and compassion and loyalty could all carry over with the soul. Such happenings could lead to interesting situations when it comes time for each individual to cross over. Willa presents us with one of these.

The Gingerbread Girl – A story reminiscent of Duma Key, The Gingerbread Girl gives us a woman trying to literally run away from the tragic death of her baby and a marriage she no longer wants. Having moved into her father’s place on one of Florida’s many keys, Janet has complete freedom to run as much and often as she wishes. Deep down she knows this will be the place that heals her. She’s right, but not in the way she thinks. Because Janet is about to stumble upon a murder, and the murderer, who is very good at what he does, easily adds her to the equation, so to speak. What Janet learns from her captor is frightening enough to bring her back to life–if she can beat him at his own game.

Harvey’s Dream – Janet is analyzing her life and husband of thirty years. It’s not a pleasant set of thoughts. How could she know that in a few minutes she would give everything she has to return those boring, petty thoughts. You see, her husband, Harvey has had a dream. And as Harvey relates the dream, Janet is drawn into a very real nightmare she cannot stop.

Rest Stop – A frightening situation proves to an author that “under the right circumstances, anyone could end up anywhere, doing anything.” He also realizes this means there are endless stories he can write using his favourite character. How does this transformation come about? The author has to call on his alter ego, his pen name, for the strength and hardness of character to deal with the problem at hand. The results are surprising.

Stationary Bike – Richard Sifkitz creates art for dollars. Advertising, commissions, whatever. So imagine his surprise when he suddenly finds himself painting purely for himself. What brings on the change? High cholesterol, too much weight and his commitment to ride his exercise bike every day. Life is good… except there’s something weird going on with his paintings. Also reminiscent of Duma Key, Stationary Bike looks at art as a doorway into some very strange and dangerous places.

The Things They Left Behind – A man suffering from survivor guilt after 9/11 discovers that there is much about the world he doesn’t understand. Yet, his questioning in the face of quiet terror finally leads him past what seems to be a demonic (or at least a very hurtful) game to an answer so simple and beautiful it changes his and the lives of many others forever.

Graduation Afternoon – The rules regarding the pettiness and bigotry of the well-positioned in society continue to operate as a family watches (in brilliant detail) the end of their world, just as their guest (from the wrong side of several million dollars) turns to her own form of country simplicity and takes her usual pragmatic look forward. Are we really such rigid creatures of habit?

N. – Standing stones have long been associated with ancient ritual, power, magic and even as portals to other worlds. Stephen King bundles all these suppositions into one very strange tale about people who spend their lives keeping our world the beautiful place it is. This is a long piece that deals with the concept of reality as a very thin barrier between what we know and the endless, horrifying possibilities that await a chance to come on in.

The Cat From Hell – The best hit man in the business matches his skills against a strange cat in a battle that leaves the loser surprised, out of business and an empty shell of his/its former self.

The New York Times At Special Bargain Rates – An offer that won’t be repeated, just like the strange phone call Anne gets on the day of her husband’s funeral. What would you say or do if your husband of 30 years, dead for two days, called you on his cell phone, in which the battery is dying? Stephen King imagines for us.

Mute – The hitch-hiker: we’ve heard and seen every variation of this story, right? Not a chance! In Mute, Stephen King brings us an amazing, original and damned scary story of generousity and retribution, all wrapped up with a big red bow these kinds of pieces call the moral of the story. His bottom line? You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into when you pick up a hitch-hiker.

Ayana – Godless miracles that carry a strange price tag. Ayana is a commentary on what and how we label things we don’t understand, evoking the name of God or whispering about magic (as examples) when sometimes things… just… are.

A Very Tight Place – Stephen King has been spending part of each year in Florida for a number of years now. As you might expect, The Keys have become a risky place to visit or live. In A Very Tight Place an aging day trader learns (via one of King’s most gruesome settings) that getting along with one’s neighbour is much more than a friendly suggestion.


Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye

Introducing Joseph Freeman

Along The Corridors
by Joseph Freeman
Ghost Writer Publications
September, 2009
Chapbook
Horror

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According to his publisher (Ghost Writer Publications), “Joseph Freeman is regarded as one of the brightest new horror writers in the UK.” After reading his short story, Along The Corridors, I can believe this statement.

Mr. Ratchett is an old man who is clearly on edge. It seems that a couple of children who have moved in downstairs have been tormenting him. He also thinks there’s something not quite right with the parents. The reader rides along inside Ratchett’s head as he battles migraines—which of course make noises of all kind seem too loud. As these noises outside his apartment, in the streets, from other apartments and along the corridors of his apartment building begin to close in on Ratchett, the peace of mind he seeks becomes impossible; in fact, Ratchett begins to fear his safety.

As things progress the reader must make a choice: is what’s happening to Ratchett real or imagined? The decision might not be as simple as you think, because the old man has a secret.

Filled entirely with menace, Freeman’s story lets us know right from the beginning something is very wrong in the old man’s life, and his choice of words drive us, along with Ratchett, ever closer to that “something.” Reminiscent of that great old classic Fear by L. Ron Hubbard, don’t expect Along The Corridors to be a simple mental metaphor. Sometimes “somethings” are real.

The Waiting Room:

After being held up en route for some time, Walker is told “the train would be going no further. It would leave him at the next station, and from there he would have to wait for a connecting service. There had been some kind of disruption on the main line.”

The problem in this story is the same as that of Ratchett’s in the previous story. Walker is alone with ever increasing noises and shapes he can only glimpse through the windows of the decrepit station at which he has been left. As the afternoon wanes to evening and darkness begins to fall, so do Walker’s spirits and thoughts begin to darken. Is there really something outside? What could it or they be?

Everything begins to hinge on the arrival of the next train. And as Walker begins to count down the minutes, one wonders what will happen.

I’m not sure why the author and his publisher chose to include The Waiting Room in this chapbook. Yes, the stories are similar while offering different experiences for the reader. Maybe they felt the two pieces fit together or complimented each other. But I found this similarity somewhat disappointing. I would rather have experienced a completely different offering from Freeman, a stand-alone piece that could show me a wider range of his skills and imagination.

In any event, Joseph Freeman can most definitely spin a tale. His short stories slip by ever so quickly as they carry the reader toward the growing discomfort or horror that is the end. I look forward to reading more of this author’s work.

Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye

A Rhapsody for the Eternal by Darren Speegle

A Rhapsody for the Eternal
by Darren Speegle
Raw Dog Screaming Press
2009
978-1-933293-78-3 (hardcover)
978-1-933293-77-6 (paperback)
Dark Fantasy

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Official Blurb:

A Rhapsody for the Eternal is a complex gilded clock where gears in the future clank against the cogs of the past. Behind it all lies the mystery of human destiny. This is a new science that smells of dusty books and ancient secrets, things beyond human understanding. Speegle haunts his own stories with delicate insinuations of something more, something deeper. Yet even at the surface these stories breathe with tension. From the Tiptoeing Monk unraveling the riddle of a nursery rhyme to the parents of the first ghost born in centuries, these fantasies feel real and the people, though from a different time, are compelling in a way that our actual neighbors rarely are.


The Stories:

The Lunatic Miss Teak
Handpicked to replace a false and terrible God, a man unknowingly heads toward an unimaginable fate.

Elephant Speak
In the distant future, the science of genetics rules all. Yet human gods cannot prevent the occasional, random recessive gene from bringing back the past. Watch, and wonder at, the first “ghost” to be born in a century.

The Man in Window Three
A plan to escape lives of slave labour turns sour for six men when art thieves show up in the middle of their operation.

Transtexting Prose
When he buys a piece of modern art from the future equivalent of three girl guides, a man finds himself plagued with dreams about the picture, dreams that hint of something deeply disturbing locked within his memories.

Glitzing with the Big Delicious
In a bizarre new world of technology gone mad, some individuals use up their souls for glimpses into the future, while others siphon off these glimmers like today’s addict snorts cocaine. Get ready for a strange trip.

Waltz with the Echoes
Genetically engineered and enhanced beings provide a conduit between Armageddon and a new age now rising out of the darkness. None seem to know who or what they are—archetypes, collective memories of the past or simply tortured souls? You decide.

The Tiptoeing Monk
A father and son use a mythical key to open a door on what is, what was and other than were. Unfortunately, the duo finds that such awesome opportunities come at a similar price.

Disapparency
People are disappearing. When his friend becomes one of them, a man goes looking for answers. What he finds is an example of the old bromide “Be careful what you ask for.”

The Third Stanza
If you hated the world and were given the chance to bring about Armageddon, what would you do?

The Horn on Which the Fruit Blossoms
Is she Eve, Joan of Arc or something even more fundamental? A man is sent to the past to find out. He wanted to know and does: will you?

Night Watch
A couple living on a strange and devastating world, a result of mankind’s  attempt to escape Earth’s final hours, make one last effort to find a reason to hope.

A Last Word
A poetic summary of Speegle’s collection which includes the following tell-tale line: “And vanquished all futures and slaughtered all hope.”


The Review:

Darren Speegle writes stories that are often difficult to understand, and they rarely have a clear or definite ending. But life is not “cut and dried,” he says. Nor are his tales easily placed in a certain genre. Speegle claims to write fantasy; I see aspects of mystery, science fiction, fantasy and horror. Most definitely horror, as A Rhapsody for the Eternal is nothing if it is not disturbing.

With a style leaning heavily toward the literary and a tendency for almost poetic descriptiveness, Speegle regularly obscures his stories from the reader. This is, at times, both irritating and intriguing. On the one hand, you find yourself wondering what is going on; on the other hand, your mental state becomes much like Speegle’s tragic characters: off balance, feeling out of place, questing for meaning and aware of something just under the surface but unable to identify exactly what it is. Quite frankly, I’m not even sure you’ll agree with my short summary of each story.

There is little doubt Darren Speegle is a brilliant author, but I think he is also a little too self-indulgent. What I can say for sure is the stories in A Rhapsody for the Eternal will never bore you, and they’ll be with you long after you’ve finished reading.

What an exotic reading experience!


Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye 2009

None So Blind by Ian Faulkner

None So Blind
By Ian Faulkner
Ghostwriter Publications
Coming soon
ISBN: 978-1-907190-11-7
145 pages
Horror
ARC/PDF

NONE SO BLIND
Fanatics are blind to the thoughts and beliefs of others. What place will they find in the afterlife? Will the veil of self-deception part, or will the tortured soul continue along its cloudy and tragic path?

REWIND
Step inside the mind of a serial killer. Will you feel sorry for him or will your skin crawl and your guts churn? I wonder…

COLD BIRTH
Our actions have consequences. This story gives us a graphic and uncomfortable look at why we should never forget this simple truth.

NON OMNIS MORIAR
(I shall not altogether die)
What would happen to you if you lost a son or a parent? Would you fold in on yourself, or would you join together with the surviving members of your family to face the future? A terrifying look at the inside of a grieving mind.

GRANDPA BILLY
Meet a boy living in poverty with alcoholic parents who finds refuge in regular visits to his grandfather’s home. One day the old man moves away, and the boy doesn’t see him again until one tragic night when he and his siblings face certain death. A story about the power love has to raise us from the squalor and dangers of our lives.

EMMY
A young man interested in developing serious relationships and starting a family strikes up a conversation with an old woman out for a walk with her granddaughter. But she tells him an ever darkening story which takes him somewhere he could never expect.

AND THE HUNTER HOME
Observe a complacent man who discovers his entire life has been manipulated by his family. Will his discovery of their secret be enough to spur him into action, or will he fall victim to his habit of going with the flow?

DINNER FOR ONE
Have you ever watched a cat play with a mouse before killing and eating it? This may not be a behavior limited only to the feline species. Read Dinner for One to find out what I mean.

THE REVIEW

Ian Faulkner has put together a dark collection of tales examining the underbelly of life. It begins in a somewhat stumbling fashion with a story in need of more editing (for example, he makes the common mistake of overusing the word “that”). However, the rest of his short stories stand up better. In particular, Grandpa Billy, the only tale in the collection with a “lighter” side, is a fine example of short story writing. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

None so Blind was a read that left me with mixed feelings. The stories don’t try to make you feel better about some nasty people and experiences. Faulkner lays things out, warts and all; he writes horror without pretension. And he does it well. Hence my conflict…

The stories are so interesting, I read one after another: I gobbled them up. But there is little room for pleasure. Faulkner appears to be a writer who wishes to disturb, and he does so successfully.

True horror buffs should be pleased.

Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye 2009

Dialogue with The Devil

Many readers, writers and editors think of the short story as something with a beginning, middle and end. The story, they understand, must make the very best use of every word. And the main character must be changed in some way, emotionally, mentally or physically. This change may be subtle or not.

All these of these points are true. Yet I have never been one to follow rules. I obey the laws of our land because the alternative is anarchy. But if breaking a rule does not harm, then I see no reason not to challenge it. To hell with the traditions of others.

The following short short story is an example of this. If you haven’t read the other related stories on this blog (They are all chapters in my new novel TechnoMage.), then you may not figure out all of the connections; oh, the necessary information you need exists within the story, but it isn’t going to be spoon fed to you. And the traditional beginning, middle and end just doesn’t exist.

Think of the story as exactly what it is: a few moments of conjoining time-lines in the lives of an antagonist and  a protagonist. These few moments demonstrate both the positive and negative results of arrogance. I shouldn’t have to tell you this but, as I’ve hinted, readers of today are much too used to being spoon fed.

Enjoy the short for what it is meant to be…

Dialogue with The Devil

Satan was in ecstasy. Not since the destruction of mankind’s original planet had he experienced such a feeling of joy. His goal had been achieved! Magic and technology once again worked together to give him the power his siblings had taken away. And humanity’s medicines, when combined with Eden’s magic, worked miracles. Satan was still human, but never had there been a man like he. If his new state of being was what The Creator had been after with the humans, then the fallen angel would never again regret his battle with God. Mankind did not deserve even the possibility of such power.

And now, to crown this marvelous accomplishment, the seer had brought young Lightfoot back as a sacrificial offering. The Devil felt like dancing.

Reveling in the moment, the ancient being poked his captive with a black, sausage-like finger, licked black lips with a scarlet tongue, expressed his contentedness with a deep rumbling in the bellows of his lungs.

The boy’s eyes flickered, then opened. His breath hissed inward between suddenly clenched teeth. The Devil grinned at the sight of Jack’s eyes going flat. You could almost see hope draining from his body into the air.

“Having a bad dream, Jack?”

A fly circled around the boy’s head, landed on his sweat-slicked face. Lucifer set his gaze upon the carrion eater. The fly dropped to the floor, its tiny life snuffed out—just like that.

Jack trembled.

The Devil walked in a circle around his captive. He moved slowly, his ancient skin protesting every footstep with audible cracking and popping and ripping noises. Lucifer knew what his skin looked like: he resembled a giant, overcooked pig, one that had been roasted over open coals until black. His appearance, and the sounds of his breaking skin, seemed to horrify humans more than anything else about him. One used the tools one had.

“Speak to me boy,” The Devil commanded. “Ask me your questions, and tell me what you will trade for your life.”

That got the boy’s attention.

“Yes,” he said. “Your kind always wants to bargain.”

Jack didn’t answer right away. He forced his eyes away from the horrible creature who stood before him, checked out his surroundings.

He knew this place!

The Devil had taken over Morgan’s home. Jack was back on Eden! What did this mean?

“What’s going on?” Jack asked.

“You didn’t think your actions were going to go unanswered, did you?” replied The Devil. “I had a lot invested in Morgan. And what you did to Richard… That was noteworthy, boy. Such potential.”

“How can that thing be Richard?” Jack queried. “He’s dead. He must be dead.”

“You haven’t figured it out, Jack? Not as bright as you think you are?”

The Devil chuckled. It was a terrible sound.

“All things are possible when you combine magic and technology. The beginning and end of all of man’s atrocities lie in that marriage bed.”

He paused, looked into Jack’s eyes.

“Pandora’s Box,” said The Devil, his voice filled with undisguised glee.

A sudden hollowness appeared in Jack’s gut. He couldn’t breathe.

“My family,” he whispered.

Now Lucifer truly shone. His voice took on a silky tone as he spoke.

“We are sorry to announce the tragic passing of the entire Lightfoot family. John Lightfoot, son of Patrick; Rosalee Lightfoot (nee Marsalis) and Jack Lightfoot, son of John. Also mourned is Katy Lightfoot (nee Watterson), wife of Jack. All were respected members of their community. They will be missed. God have mercy on their souls.”

Lucifer tilted back his head and laughed.

Rage blossomed in Jack’s chest. Red and white butterflies pulsed behind his eyes. He fought back tears. Then, for the first time since regaining consciousness, Jack noticed his restraints. He noticed because he was straining against numerous leather straps that bound him to a table top.

“Bastard,” he screamed. Then he jumped. First, to the world he called Hell, to see for himself that Richard wasn’t at the bottom of the pit where Jack had left him to burn. The seer wasn’t there, but The Devil was, a grinning visage of evil. Jack jumped again. This time to his father’s home. A blackened ruin was all that remained. The Devil stood beside Jack and shook his head sorrowfully.

“You’re mine Jack. There’ll be no escape for you. How could I allow that?”

And they were back in Morgan’s office.

Lucifer commanded that Jack look him in the eyes. Jack did. The Devil began to grow in size. He continued to expand until he was ten feet tall, becoming more muscular, growing heavier, skin taking on a golden hue, smooth, younger. Hair sprouted on The Beast’s head. And in the end, transformed, Lucifer stood before Jack as an Adonis. He’d become a blond, gorgeous giant, whose beauty put your heart into your mouth and sent your eyes to the floor in subdued awe.

“I rule here. How did you come to think otherwise?” The Devil said. “Your choice is to live and serve me or die and serve me. There is nothing else available to you.”

But Lucifer, arrogant by nature, failed to understand Jack Lightfoot’s own arrogance. Oh, to be sure, Jack knew he was in serious trouble, understood that he had been defeated, recognized his terrible loss. But Jack didn’t know how to give up. He believed with everything he was—and this was his arrogance—that  humans are unlimited beings, that they are young gods. Jack wasn’t capable of joining The Beast, nor could he roll over and die. Instead, the talented sorcerer, in a moment of absolute genius, saw a way out.

The Devil, through Morgan and Richard, had opened Pandora’s Box. Jack would use that. He would embrace Lucifer’s desire to bring magic and technology together. He would go into the box itself.

The boy made one more jump. This time it was to a place he suspected The Devil wouldn’t follow.

What did our young hero do? The unimaginable, of course. Jack Lightfoot jumped out of his physical body, across the void and into the largest, most complicated computer he knew of—the newly completed Google complex on the shores of the Columbia river, in the northwestern US. He did this by riding a wave of all the power he could summon, combining magic, spirit and technology to create his version of what The Devil appeared to have done to Richard the seer.

Lucifer stared at the lifeless body before him and howled his fury.


Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye 2009

Speculative fiction author, C. June Wolf

Finding Creatures & Other Stories
by C. June Wolf
Wattle and Daub Books, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-9810658-0-9
240 pages
Fiction

Buy at my Amazon.com store

Buy at my Amazon.ca store


Casey Wolf submitted her book Finding Creatures & Other Stories to be reviewed on The Deepening World of Fiction’s horror blog. We both knew, in advance, the collection probably wouldn’t fit the horror genre. Yet Wolf’s stories dig at the soul in a sometimes dark and subtle way. Much of the fiction is also speculative, a type which lends itself well to horror.

There’s Aggie’s Game, a disturbing look at a child’s battle with the grim reality of her life. This is a fine horror story. It contains a few computer generated formatting problems that messed up some words, but the piece is an otherwise superb example of what good horror writing is. Truth be told, Wolf makes me wish I was a better writer than I am. Her work touched me in deep places.

Dana’s Hand is another of Wolf’s stories which resonates with a quiet horror. A mother lost in dementia is guarded during the day by her offspring, Dana, and calmed of her night-time terrors by the strange healing powers of Dana’s left hand. But it is not the subtle horror of the situation which captures us. No, it is Dana’s capacity for joy and her appetite for life that reaches us, that lifts our spirits to a sweet sadness too many of us already know.

Mr. Cowmeadow’s Sky is at once disturbing and uplifting. A story about a dying man on a dying world who yet finds joy in the continued existence of his son, the only thing in his life he ever considered worthwhile.

The rest of the stories in this wonderful collection? I think the talented and accomplished author who introduces the book sums it up perfectly: “Wolf uses different genres, different voices, different cultures—in short whatever she needs to make the story work. What ties it all together is her sure-handed prose and a depth she brings to her writing, that indefinable element that rises up from between the lines and gives a good story its resonance… —Charles de Lint—

Finding Creatures & Other Stories is excellent fiction—period. I heartily recommend it.

Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye 2009

Deus Ex Machina

This short story is the third chapter in my upcoming novel, TechnoMage. The previous two chapters (also stories in their own right) appear in earlier blogs. You can find them under the titles of The Speed of Dark and Resurrection.

Deus Ex Machina

Jack Lightfoot was enjoying a cup of his wife’s kick-you-in-the-ass coffee when the front door exploded. The thing that caused the damage didn’t belong on Eden, came right out of one of Earth’s sci-fi movies. A close cousin to the Terminator, the robot stood well over six feet, was black in colour but gleamed like polished chrome and had a sleek, deadly look Jack figured was meant to paralyze the mind.

Jack blasted the robot back out the hole where his door had been. The spear of power he used would have killed a man. What came next did succeed in freezing Jack’s mind. The machine got to its feet. A laser erupted from the robot’s right hand. A tiny, concentrated beam, the laser didn’t even mark the wall behind Jack. But from the moment the laser appeared, you could see the power curling around the beam, enhancing it, strengthening the force of the thing, until it became an ugly, coiling rope of red and blue that torched Jack’s home as he tried to get his mind around what was happening.

The heat hit Jack almost as an afterthought. His head hair curled, ends turned into golden fuzz by the inferno. His arm hair was vaporized. And as his lungs rebelled against the superheated air, Jack heard Katy’s screams.

He took one more look at the machine through the flames. It was already advancing on his ruined home. Jack turned his back on the thing and began to pick out a path through the flame-filled building.

Their bedroom was thick with smoke. Flames snaked up walls, slithered across the ceiling. Scalding, fist-sized balls of fire were dropping here and there. One had lit up Katy’s bedclothes. Jack dove for the bed, wrapped his arms around his wife and threw them both out of the world.

A few minutes of panic followed as Jack slapped at Katy’s nightgown until he was certain all of the flames had been subdued. Then, as she sat on the ground, hugging her knees to her chest, steam and smoke curling up in wisps from various locations on her body, breath puffing white in the icy air, Jack tried to make some sense of where they were.

He hadn’t framed a conscious image before sending them hurtling across the void. All he’d been concerned about was getting Katy away from the flames. Perhaps his mind equated cold with no fire.

Jack took a look around. No trees. Short grasses and shrubs. Barren ground in places. Some gravel and ice and snow. The land was flat. Low, grey clouds scudded across the sky, quite visible in the moonlight.

The moon… Earth’s moon. Jack was sure of it. He’d stared at it often enough when he was a child. Sure. Sure it was.

Jack sent his mind deep into the earth, seeking the lazy rivers of power he knew would be there.

He found them.

“Katy,” Jack said.

She shuddered.

“Katy,” he repeated, his voice sharp this time.

Jack’s wife turned her head toward him.

“We’re on Earth. Somewhere in the Arctic.”

She remained silent.

“We’ll freeze out here. Got to get you somewhere warm.”

Katy nodded.

I’ve never tried jumping from place to place on Earth, Katy. Even by myself.”

“’What are you saying?” she said, voice made husky by the smoke she’d inhaled.

Jack shrugged and said “I don’t know if I can do it or if it’s safe. Just wanted to warn you.”

“What happened, Jack?” she asked.

“Don’t know. Some kind of machine. Looked like something from Earth. But it used magic. Torched the house with a spell.”

Katy went white. “Magic and technology?” She shook her head and mouthed the word no.

“Doesn’t seem possible. But it’s what I saw, honey.”

Jack pulled Katy into his arms.

“Can’t be a positive turn, anyway you look at it.”

Trembling, Katy put her face into Jack’s neck. When she spoke, her voice was muffled.

“Morgan got his wish after all.”

Morgan Heist had been a sorcerer and a businessman of some note who’d attempted to bring Earth’s technology and Eden’s magic together. Jack, through a combination of talent, perseverance and luck, had managed to thwart the tycoon-mage. Morgan hadn’t survived the ordeal. Nor had his sidekick, a seer who went by the name of Richard.

But there may have been a third plotter, a master of the dark arts. Morgan had supposedly awakened Satan himself. He’d enlisted The Old One to help him cross the void to Earth. Satan wasn’t an archangel anymore, had apparently been sentenced to live out his days as a human. The man was still unbelievably powerful, though. And he had spells most sorcerer’s just dreamed about.

“Must be The Old One,”

Katy pulled Jack closer.

“Shall I try to get us out of here?” he asked.

Jack felt his wife’s head move up and down against his neck.

The young sorcerer gathered the power he’d discovered, letting it build until his head buzzed and his teeth and bones ached. When he judged he had enough extra juice, Jack envisioned his parents’ home. The house, an 1880’s restoration they’d recently purchased as a Bed & Breakfast, was located in Gananoque, on the way to Ottawa. Jack couldn’t construct a clear mental picture of the dark green clapboards, the cedar shakes or the rock-walled basement, but he was able to recreate the feelings those images had generated when he visited his parents. He could hear the voices of his mom and dad. Could smell pasta cooking on the stove. He even felt the slap of waves against the dock which was married to the wrap-around deck his dad had just finished building.

“Beam me up Scotty,” Jack muttered.

The two lovers experienced a peculiar twisting in their abdomens, as if their intestines were snaking around in their bellies. It was a fluttering and squeezing and pinching sensation—all as one experience.

Then they were there.

A sailboat was floating in the bay. John Lightfoot stood at the barbeque, tongs in one hand, a bottle of Rickard’s Honey Brown Ale in the other. Rosalee was humming in the kitchen. Jack could hear her through the French doors that opened onto the deck.

John, a sorcerer himself, took the materialization of his son and daughter-in-law in stride. He stepped over to the couple, placed a hand on Katy’s back, kissed her smoke-grimed cheek and wordlessly handed her his beer.

The three turned to make their way through the French doors into Rose’s country-style kitchen. All of them, Rose, John, Katy and Jack, were discussing what had happened—beer for everyone—when the machine dropped out of the sky.

The thing was about six feet away from where Jack was sitting, and the kitchen doors were still open, so he could see this was the machine responsible for destroying his home.

Father and son rose from their spots at the table and went out to meet the monster. Sunlight gleamed on the black metal skin of the machine, danced and twinkled on the water behind it. A warm wind fluttered Jack’s hair then continued on to the barbeque, where it puffed up clouds of meat-laden smoke.

John Lightfoot said “I would know with whom I battle.”

Red eyes flashed. The air filled with an insect hum. And an emotionless machine voice answered.

“What I once was, I am no longer. But you may call me Richard.”

The seer! Jack had left him for dead on a planet he thought of as Hell.

“You are surprised,” the monster said. “I was too. My new master was not ready to let me go. I have been remade, given a new purpose.”

The robot stopped speaking and attacked. A ball of blue lightning erupted from each hand. One for Jack and one for his father. Both men were slammed back against the wooden wall of John’s home.

John bounced off the wall, spun left and dove over the railing of the deck through a space between the house and the barbeque. Jack went right.

The robot tracked Jack. It sent another ball of blue flame his way. The mass of energy found its target. Jack felt as if he’d been immersed in boiling oil. He screamed.

The abomination, with speed surprising for such a large machine, moved on Jack, taking him up in its black-bone hands as if he were a weightless piece of paper. Those hands, merciless, dug into young Lightfoot’s flesh and, to Jack’s horrified astonishment, proceeded to leach the life from his body. In just a few seconds Jack was as weak and defenseless as the newest of newborns.

A fist-sized rock clanged off the back of the robot’s head. The thing turned. A barrage of stones and pebbles, traveling at the speed of bullets struck it in the face and neck. It appeared unharmed. Then, the robot began a deep, ominous humming. The sound built in intensity until Jack could feel vibrations in his own body. The frightened mage wanted to warn his father, who after sending the hail of stones at Richard, was moving in for a more personal attack. But Jack couldn’t speak, couldn’t even lift a hand to warn his father off.

A blinding white light erupted from the dark figure which held Jack. The flash seared the image of his father onto the wall behind him, burnt his skin and plunged him into unconsciousness.

Richard the seer, once known as Richard Bartholomew—late of Eden but formerly from a place much further away—and now the Devil’s right hand, tucked Jack Lightfoot a little more tightly under one arm, walked over to where John Lightfoot lay on the deck, looked down, then squashed the man’s head with a heavy metal foot.

Jack, still unable to move, watched in helpless terror. And as the monster moved into his father’s home, the young sorcerer loosed an unheard and unhinged cry. The Devil had sent him a message… He heard it in the dying screams of his mother and his wife.

Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye 2009

Resurrection

Resurrection is the second chapter in my upcoming dark fantasy novel, TechnoMage. Each chapter in this novel will be a short story in itself (I hope). The first installment of this book was The Speed of Dark and is featured in an earlier blog on this page.

Resurrection

Pain was everywhere. It reached down into Richard’s memories and pulled him back to the light. He could hear himself screaming: sounds which seared his brain as the unending light had seared his eyes and the hot gravel had seared his skin. But he couldn’t stop. The screams rolled out in waves, one after another, time and time again—until blessed unconsciousness came crashing down.

Tim fed them for months. Mother was pleased. One day, after finishing a particularly good roast, she even went so far as to say he tasted better than Becky. Richard figured that was because he was younger.

At night, when greasy rain fell on the rotting roof, creating phosphorescent droplets which occasionally fell on his skin and burned him, Richard would conjure up images of what his mother would say when the time came to eat him.

“Richard didn’t have an ounce of fat on him,” she would brag. Or, perhaps, “He made a fine stew.”

The boy could hear the smacking of her wet, red lips, could envision her licking juices from jewel-encrusted fingers, flat, black eyes studying each morsel as she calculated how to get all the precious meat from his dead bones.

On the days Richard wasn’t locked in the cellar, when his mother chose not to go foraging for edibles in what was left of the city, he enjoyed walking in the fields. Trees hadn’t yet recovered from the firestorm, but clover and hay and the like had come up greener than ever. He also watched dragonflies. They weren’t birds, but they were alive. And mother wouldn’t eat them.

Bright light behind his eyes. Voices in his head. The unmistakable buzz of an electric saw.

How strange. The world had faded for a moment, had left him feeling like he was somewhere else. Richard shuddered, gooseflesh rose upon his arms. Time to head back. Mother was cooking up the last of the Tim-steaks. She’d be angry if he was late.

The boy pushed through waist-high grasses. Poisoned grasses. Ones he’d contemplated ingesting on many previous occasions, as a way to bring about an end to the headaches and the nausea and the aching in his chest.

But Richard was more afraid of the dark than Tim had been. So, recently, rather than thinking about ways to kill himself, he’d begun to harbour a secret dream. Down in the black place that was now his mind, the boy was cultivating the thought that maybe, just maybe, he could find the nerve to make mother a dessert.

“Wake up seer,.” the voice rasped and rumbled. “Now, majicker, I demand it.”

Richard’s eyes opened of their own volition. The owner of the voice, he of indeterminable age, skin the colour and texture of pig cracklings, eyes of liquid fire, stood before Richard like some terrible combination of dream answered and nightmare delivered.

Richard wondered how this could be. He knew in his gut that he’d died on some hellish world, abandoned there by his young enemy, Jack Lightfoot. Yet here he stood, before his liege.

“How?” he asked.

The voice that came out of Richard’s mouth was not his own. It wasn’t even human, having a strange mechanical quality he equated with those telephone devices he’d learned to use on Earth. Richard attempted to bring his hand to his face. Nothing happened. He couldn’t move any part of his body other than his eyes and his mouth.

“What have you done?” he asked in his strange new voice.

“All will be revealed,” said the Old One. “For now, know that you have been resurrected. Understand that I have kept my word with you. Eden will be yours. Perhaps, in time, Earth shall follow.”

The beast came close.

“Right now, we need to speak about Lightfoot. Did he cause what happened to you? Is he, as I suspect, a throwback? Has he the ability to cross the void at will? Does the Godhead flow through his veins?”

Richard let his mind revisit the battle he’d fought with Lightfoot. The incredible power he’d felt in the boy. The way the young mage had straddled two worlds, and the ease with which he had tossed Richard across the void.

“I suspect that what you say is true, but I can’t verify. All I know for sure is the boy was able to pull me from this world and leave me in another. I saw him cast no spell.”

The Old One nodded, waved a hand, and the world went black.

After finishing off every hateful morsel on his mother’s bones, Richard had gone to the city. He lived off scavenged foodstuffs, spending his nights foraging under the cover of darkness and his days holed up with books he found in an underground archive. It wasn’t safe to be out in the daylight. Too many hungry eyes. Besides, the books turned out to be useful. Most were about magick, the chosen trade of his father and his father’s father.

The boy studied and practiced magick until his supply of edible food ran out. Winter was coming, and he knew that to further linger in the city meant starvation. But he’d learned enough by then; he was able to defend himself—after a fashion. Selecting a few of the more substantial books in his collection, Richard filled his pack with as many other useful items as he could find: a boning knife, a durable tarp weighing but an ounce, a lamp guaranteed to never fail and Devil Dust for starting fires. He then turned away from the city and headed south on a snow-kissed road.

Years went by as words roll off the tongue. Richard continued to damage his soul. He embraced evil, following the path his mother had set him on, a path which took him to many strange places. One of these was his father’s childhood home. Here he reclaimed a few of his sire’s prized possessions, namely a crystal ball and an unusual stone almost too large to carry. In another place, a village full of thieves and murderers where he spent two summers and one winter, the boy learned the importance of preparedness and forward thinking. He also learned to speak little and listen a lot.

So it was, that in his seventeenth year and full of well-hidden venom, Richard Bartholomew invited an old man to share his fire. They’d camped on an open plain, at the side of a dusty road, under a canopy of a million stars. Neither of the men had wanted to close his eyes on the majestic view, so they’d chosen to forgo sleep for conversation.

“There’s many a world under them stars,” said the old man, running a hand through his wispy hair. “And I met a man who claimed to have been to one of them.”

Richard had been intrigued.

“This fellow—called himself Herod—told me he was a trader. Said his family had been traveling between the stars for generations. Got around in some kind of iron ship that was lighter than air, if you can get your mind to believe it.”

“They flew through the heavens?” Richard asked in wonder.

“Never saw it,” said the old man. “But that’s what Herod claimed.”

“He had this weapon. It was a small thing you could hide in the palm of one hand. A thief took my purse one day. Herod just pointed the thing at him and the fellow was gone. There was this incredible flash of white light, then nothing. Nothing, that is, but the ground, my purse lying on it, and the thief’s severed hand attached. No blood, though. The hand was sealed at the wrist, smooth as glass.”

The old man gazed up at the stars and said, “I was a young man, I’d find me one of those ships, or I’d summon me a demon that had the power to carry me across the void. Either way, I’d get off this world. She’s almost done for.”

Richard, who knew a little bit about demons, listened carefully. Then, as first light touched the eastern horizon, he sent the old man home. It was a fine breakfast, enjoyed more because the old man had been well met. Once the feast ended, Richard put his new knowledge to work. He endlessly studied and practiced the magick in his books—long past the time when the old man was fit for eating. But he did it. He managed to conjure up one of the fallen Gods, and he bargained for passage to a new world. The deal wasn’t great, but it worked for both of them. Richard gave her the use of his body for a year; she gave him The Garden of Eden.

When the Old One turned on the lights again, Richard had his mind back. He remembered what had happened to him, realized he’d been reliving parts of his childhood, even understood that his new master had somehow brought him back from the dead. The questions remaining were: What was the Beast up to? How had the Devil found him? And as it had been through so much of Richard’s life—what price would he pay?

“Ready for that war?” the monster asked his vassal.

Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye 2009