Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Future Lovecraft

“Wait. Look,” Maxim said, showing him the opening where the silver filaments fluttered. I see something on the other side.

And he was not lying.

“Stop! Stop, or I’ll shoot you down!” the other man cried, pointing his weapon at Max.

Maxim hesitated and looked again toward that other place which he had at his fingertips. Through the shimmering stripes, he glimpsed green landscapes. He could not believe his eyes…On the other side, a savage nature, almost original, held out its arms.

He temporised, clenching his fist before making an about face and turning back to the scientist. In a few seconds, he was level with the man who menaced him with his sidearm. He faced him down without flinching and it all went very quickly. In a flash, animated by a mad rage that increased his strength tenfold, the prisoner succeeded in disarming his attacker. In an ultimate gesture of despair, the other man tried to protect himself, but Max had already torn his hose that connected to his oxygen supply. The other man panicked and tried to replace it. It was already too late. His flushed face twisted in agony. He succumbed in only a few seconds, asphyxiated by the impure air of Mars.

Abandoning the corpse, Maxim then turned his steps and walked cautiously to the door. Where are you going to take me? Toward the past? The future? Or another world? All these questions of course remained unanswered, but the convict had already made his decision. For him, there was no way to return to Marslag. In any case, his crime would send him right to the gallows.

He thought back to the mine, to his family, to his comrades, to Fyodor and his legends. At last, you were right, old friend. ..Then he passed his gloved hands through the filaments of silver. He sensed a delicate flux, as if a liquid cotton surrounded him. Something warm and padded. On the other side, he thought he could see a prairie, which undulated in gusts under an unknown wind. He smiled as would a child.

And then, in an instant, everything tilted. In a fraction of a second, a tentacle haloed in suckers wrapped around him, crushing his arms against his abdomen. The cyclopean limb almost immediately threw him into an enormous mouth that emerged from the shadows. Maxim did not have time to wonder from which monster this foul mouth had appeared because, already, ferocious teeth slashed him; implacable mandibles crushed him. His ordeal lasted no more than a brief moment.

Natiusha, Alex, where are you?

Lee Clark Zumpe, an entertainment columnist with Tampa Bay Newspapers, earned his Bachelors in English at the University of South Florida. His nights are consumed with the invocation of ancient nightmares, dutifully bound in fiction and poetry. His work has been seen in magazines such as Weird Tales , Space and Time and Dark Wisdom , and in anthologies including Horrors Beyond , Corpse Blossoms , High Seas Cthulhu , and Cthulhu Unbound Vol. 1 . Lee lives on the west coast of Florida with his wife and daughter. Visit: http://muted-mutterings-of-a-mad-poet.blogspot.com.

Tucker Cummingshas been writing strange stories since the day she developed sufficient hand-eye coordination to hold a crayon. Sadly, her handwriting hasn’t improved much since then. She is the author of a 365-part microfiction serial about parallel universes, which can be found at MargeryJones.com Her work has won prizes in fiction contests sponsored by HiLoBrow.com and MassTwitFic. Her stories have been seen frequently on OneFortyFiction.com and she is one of the contributors to The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (HarperCollins, 2011) . Her upcoming publications include Grim Fairy Tales (Static Movement, 2012) and Stories from the Ether (Nevermet Press, 2012).

ACCORDING TO THE BUREAU of Colonial Records, the abandoned remains of the New Roanoke settlement were discovered on Independence Day, 3916 (Year 475 under the revised Imperial Calendar). The settlement was located on the northwest coast of Idris, the largest island on the surface of the planet Iranon.

Founded just 18 months prior to the tragic event (or so it was estimated), the colony of New Roanoke was the 5th colony to be established on the planet. The location of New Roanoke was selected because of proximity to both fertile soil and rich mineral deposits.

The proposed location of the colony had been contested by the regional governors, at first, as the site earmarked for the settlement was over eighty kilometers from the nearest sister colony. Ultimately, however, the board of governors gave Osiris Smith the charter and groundbreaking at the colony commenced in February of 3915.

The following items were removed from the site and catalogued by a team led by DCI Shane Yang and Lieutenant Colonel John Chastewick (assisted by Arianna Armitage, Professor Emerita of the Oread Theological College), and are currently housed in the Colonial History Collection at the college.

Our entire understanding of the New Roanoke Event is based on these 17 items.

Exhibit 01:Child’s stuffed bear, brown-and-white fur. Approximately one-third of the animal has been burned away, with the remaining portion of the toy covered in heavy smoke stains. The button eyes have been removed. Examination of the remaining threads under magnification showed a clean cut, indicating the eyes were deliberated removed from the bear, rather than lost due to normal wear and tear.

Exhibit 02:Cracked ceramic serving platter, blue-willow pattern. Stamped marking on the back reads: “Bell & Dobson 6871.”

Exhibit 03:Twisted lengths of metal (6). Believed to be the wheelchair of Dr. Thurston. Five of the fragments appear to be from the frame of the chair, with the last piece of debris resembling a modified tread-style wheel. Thurston had been paralysed from the waist down since her mid-thirties, and had preferred to use a wheelchair with tank-like treads, which allowed her greater mobility on the uneven terrain of the settlement.

Exhibit 04:The field journal of Dr. Zulema Thurston, partial. Some pages believed missing, or possibly out of sequence. Handwritten notes on bound pulp, transcribed below: