Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Future Lovecraft

Her eyes moved past him, to the shadows that coated the walls of Aphelion Station. “I am not,” she said, seeing no reason to deny it. She was not well and neither was her station, but she wondered how both might be so, again.

“You speak in riddles, Abeni,” Esmail said, after she told him of Bolanle, of the nutmegs, of the writhing darkness. She could not make better sense of all that she had seen, did not know how to stop what she felt coming. “You speak of things that are not so. These shadows do not move and nutmegs are but nutmegs.”

The worst thing of it, Abeni decided, was not Esmail disbelieving her. It was that she longed for the things the shadow man had shown her. She wanted these creatures to come through Aphelion Station and make their mark upon it. How wonderful a discovery these great and terrible things. This corner of the universe had never seen their like. The curious child within Abeni responded to that, wanted to see these creatures in the light of the sun, wanted—

No. What she wanted did not matter. She could not allow it. Would not. “Esmail, I need your help,” she said. “I need the containers of your ship and the compost of this station.”

The shadow man said it would not matter, but Abeni moved forward, anyhow, claiming one cargo bay for her experiment. Sunlit grain, she wanted a forest of sunlit grain. She would have to make do with nutmegs and so, did, planting all that she had in the malodorous compost the engineers gave her with mocking smiles. They thought she had finally lost her mind, for nutmegs were not grown this way. The horticulturists told her the same, insisting she come to their deck to see how they did their work—one must splice, one must graft!—but no. Abeni paid to house her experiment within one of the cargo holds and waited, ignoring everyone who told her she was wrong.

As the hold began to warm over the coming days, Abeni wondered if perhaps she was wrong after all, but something within her said to keep on. Never had she heard such an insistent voice and so, she tended the nutmegs as she might children, often forgetting her normal duties as she walked among the growing trees. This could not be so, the arborists said, walking down the neatly planted rows; how could these poor nutmegs be growing as they were? Abeni did not know, but watched as they soared upward and reached for the ceiling with its artificial sunlight streaming downward.

Harvest, and Abeni welcomed those who would see what she had grown. Esmail came to help her gather the nutmegs and it was he who opened the first of the pods to reveal the spice inside. Thus, it was Esmail who suffered the first horror as the creature unwound itself from the nutmeg and crawled out of the pod, latching onto the nearest arm. It was, after all, hungry, Abeni supposed.

The creature was a thing she had seen in the writhing darkness, a dozen lashing limbs and one hungering mouth. As it suckled at Esmail’s arm, he staggered backward. Below his moan, the cracking of other pods was heard within the cargo hold. Beneath Abeni’s feet, the decking rumbled. She moved to the doors, knowing then that Aphelion was lost. All that it had been, gone. Her mistake. Her vain hope. She pushed the arborists into the main docking ring, sealing the cargo hold with herself and Esmail inside. All around them, pods broke open, creatures writhing to escape their confines.

And then, the shadow man came and laughed in Abeni’s ear as he wrapped his arms around her. Abeni leaned back in his embrace, wanting to let these creatures out, wanting to show them to the world, and yet -

“Told you, there will still be the water,” the shadow man whispered.

She thought, Oh, but I miss the sunlight. “Let the water come.”

The shadow man flooded the compartment with his warm, oil-slick water. Abeni felt herself float upward, amid the creatures who swam and seemed to grow within the disagreeable water. They moved effortlessly, bobbing and darting, swarming over what remained of Esmail, drifting closer to Abeni and the shadow man. She pressed closer to him, into his darkness and beyond.

“Sweet Mother,” he whispered—and then his eyes flew wide.

Abeni had reached beyond him, to the control panel, where slick fingers skimmed to vent the compartment. Water and creatures alike were blown outward, into the abyss beyond Aphelion Station, into the darkness between the stars. Abeni felt the shadow man release her, felt his scream as his children died, amid boiling water which then exploded in a shower of ice. Did it snow between the stars? That day, it did.

And Abeni…Abeni reached until she could reach no more, and dreamed she felt sunlight trailing over her cheeks, her throat, and into the hollow of her fish-marked palm.

for J., as always

James Dorrhas published two collections with Dark Regions Press, Strange Mistresses: Tales of Wonder and Romance and Darker Loves: Tales of Mystery and Regret , and has a book of poetry about vampirism, Vamps (A Retrospective) , that came out this August from Sam’s Dot Publishing. Other work has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine , New Mystery , Science Fiction Review , Fantastic , Dark Wisdom , Gothic.Net , Chi-Zine , Enigmatic Tales (UK), Faeries (France), and numerous anthologies. Dorr is an active member of SFWA and HWA, an Anthony and Darrell finalist, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a multi-time listee in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror . Up-to-date information on Dorr is at: http://jamesdorrwriter.wordpress.com.

“HOUSTON,” THE VOICE crackled, “we’ve completed our separation. We’re starting our descent to Tsiolkovsky now.” Tasha monitored the transmission, only half-glancing at the flickering control panel screen as she fired her own rockets. She didn’t need to follow it word for word, anymore than she needed to check the adjacent monitor’s feed from Earth, with its pre-dawn view of the Moon’s hair-thin crescent—the dark of the Moon—just above the horizon to know, more than anyone else, what was happening. The voice was that of Gyorgi, her husband.

“Commander Sarimov, we read you in Houston. All systems A-OK?”

“Gyorgi Sarimov here. Yes, Houston. Tsiolkovsky’s below us, brighter than Tycho on your Earthside. Its central mountain—you’ll see for yourselves once Natasha has brought her C.M. to a higher orbit. Meanwhile, to north, we can see the Sun glinting off the peaks of the Soviet Mountains while, southeast of us, Jules Verne Crater, the Sea of Dreams….”

Tasha heard NASA’s reply, mostly lost in static, perhaps a result of her shifting orbits, or, more likely, because the Command Module that she now piloted alone was itself passing behind the Moon. It would store the pictures that Gyorgi sent to it, waiting until it passed once more into sight of the Earth, where she could transmit them to the International Space Station and, thence, to Houston. But, for now, she could still hear Gyorgi’s voice.

She shut her eyes. Listened.

…Fancies such as these were not the sole possessors of my brain. Horrors of a nature most stern and most appalling would too frequently obtrude themselves upon my mind, and shake the innermost depths of my soul….

Why had she thought that?

She thought, instead, of when she had first met Gyorgi, at what they then called the Baykonur Cosmodrome, over tea at the enlisted men’s mess. She was, technically, a civilian and he still in training, so that the officer’s sector was barred to them. Back when the U.S.S.R. still existed.

Such horrors as she herself had experienced that dark night, when she’d felt a loneliness such as she felt now—separated from her then-future husband, with nothing that she could do. The night of the accident.