dark horse/ˈdärk ˈˌhôrs/noun1. a candidate or competitor about whom little is known but who unexpectedly wins or succeeds."a dark-horse candidate"Join us for a monthly tour of writers who give as good as they get. From hard science-fiction to stark, melancholic apocalypses; from Lovecraftian horror to zombies and horror comedy; from whimsical interludes to tales of unlikely compassion--whatever it is, if it's weird, it's here. So grab a seat before the starting gun fires, pour yourself a glass of strange wine, and get ready for the running of the dark horses.In this issue:CLOUDSWayne Kyle SpitzerME AND NO-MERobert PopeLAURENCameron TrostTHE VOICE OF SAVAGES WOODTim JeffreysTHE GOLDEN ROSEAlexandra AmickBETWEEN STOPSJohn MangioMALPRACTICEJames MathewsURNEMichael FowlerPREDATOR IN A PINAFORE DRESSTre LunaANGEL HOUSETim Newton Anderson

How did it all begin? That depends on where you were and who you ask. In some places it started with the weather—which quickly became unstable and began behaving in impossible ways. In still others it started with the lights in the sky, which shifted and pulsed and could not be explained. Elsewhere it started with the disappearances: one here, a few there, but increasing in occurrence until fully three quarters of the population had vanished. Either way, there is one thing on which everyone agrees—it didn’t take long for the prehistoric flora and fauna to start showing up (often appearing right where someone was standing, in which case the two were fused, spliced, amalgamated). It didn’t take long for the great Time-displacement called the Flashback—which was brief but had aftershocks, like an earthquake—to change the face of the earth.From In the Season of Killing Bolts:“Looks like a mushroom cloud–only, like, horizontal.”I confess I jumped, and that my hand dropped to my weapon—had I carried one. “Donovan. Now how many times have I told you not to cut through the cemetery?”“Ah, Chief, but then I’ve got to go all the way around. And there’s a mean dog on Oberlin; you know that. Besides,” He stepped up next to me and gazed at the cloud. “You don’t really mean to tell me you care about that when there’s, well, that. Am I right?”I peered at the cloud: at its curtains of rain and lightning—like the tendrils of a jellyfish—at its billowing cumulonimbus, which flickered and flashed.“What is that?” I mumbled. “Is that, is that lightning up there, or something?”I guess he must have followed my gaze. “Up there? Near the top? No—no, I don’t think so. More like—more like balloon beacons, or aircraft. Their wing lights, maybe—glowing in the gloom. Those colors, though. They don’t—they don’t look right. Almost like—”“That’s because you’ve never seen them,” I said, and toggled my radio. “No one has. K-94, this is the Chief. Do you copy?”But there was nothing—only static. Only white noise. I listened for the truck’s radio: nothing. Just dead air. Just silence as thunder rumbled and the rain fell and the wind gusted—powerfully. Alarmingly.“K-94, this is the Chief—do you copy?”More static, more noise. I looked at the fast-approaching cloud.“Donovan,” I said.“Yeah, Chief?”“Don’t cut through the cemetery.”And then I hustled for the truck and quickly climbed in—jammed it into gear, activated the light bar. Then I was driving out of the cemetery at a dizzying clip; reaching for my cellphone even as it started ringing and ringing; glancing at the shotgun as it lay—bleakly, funereally, like a coffin—between the seats.

dark horse/ˈdärk ˈˌhôrs/noun1. a candidate or competitor about whom little is known but who unexpectedly wins or succeeds."a dark-horse candidate"Join us for a monthly tour of writers who give as good as they get. From hard science-fiction to stark, melancholic apocalypses; from Lovecraftian horror to zombies and horror comedy; from whimsical interludes to tales of unlikely compassion--whatever it is, if it's weird, it's here. So grab a seat before the starting gun fires, pour yourself a glass of strange wine, and get ready for the running of the dark horses.In this issue:"In the Forests of the Night" by Wayne Kyle Spitzer"The Devil's Playground" by Kurt Newton"Death Before Birth" by James Harper"People of the Land" by Alistair Rey"A Whisperer Among the Graves, Prt. 2" by Bill Link

How did it all begin? That depends on where you were and who you ask. In some places it started with the weather—which quickly became unstable and began behaving in impossible ways. In still others it started with the lights in the sky, which shifted and pulsed and could not be explained. Elsewhere it started with the disappearances: one here, a few there, but increasing in occurrence until fully three quarters of the population had vanished. Either way, there is one thing on which everyone agrees—it didn’t take long for the prehistoric flora and fauna to start showing up (often appearing right where someone was standing, in which case the two were fused, spliced, amalgamated). It didn’t take long for the great Time-displacement called the Flashback—which was brief but had aftershocks, like an earthquake—to change the face of the earth.From The Concrete Veldt:I finished my rows and took out my Bick; followed his gaze.“Looks pretty quiet,” I said.“Yeah.” He readied his lighter. “But we can fix that.”And we started flicking; lighting up the rows with grim precision, setting off a hail of sparks and hisses, retreating into the grass as first one then another then another piffed and launched—screaming into the air; whistling toward the target, exploding like grenades on its roof and in the bushes. Turning the suburban street into a warzone.Laughing and carrying on as the carnage unfolded and at last subsided; the smoke drifting, the embers settling. Patting ourselves on our scrawny backs for another mission accomplished; even as shots rang out and something whizzed past—a blunt thing, a humorless thing. Something which struck a granite tombstone deeper in the cemetery and punched a dollar-sized crater in it.And then we were scrambling: crawling as fast as we could—double-timing it toward the car as still more shots rang out and echoed along the streets; as bullets pocked the mausoleum and cut the air like knives. Until we reached the Charger and leapt to our feet, throwing open the doors—even as raptors gathered and encircled the car—at which I lit a string of M-80s and threw them into the group; and the fireworks exploded like dynamite, reverberated like shotgun blasts. At which the animals scattered in perfect unison and we peeled from the lot—en route to the Nunnery, I suppose. En route to Alexa.En route to the last shag of our lives.

Blood-thirsty carnosaurs ... gangs of hipsters .... post-apocalypse Seattle and Los Angeles are to die for.How did it all begin? That depends on where you were and who you ask. In some places it started with the weather—which quickly became unstable and began behaving in impossible ways. In still others it started with the lights in the sky, which shifted and pulsed and could not be explained. Elsewhere it started with the disappearances: one here, a few there, but increasing in occurrence until fully three quarters of the population had vanished. Either way, there is one thing on which everyone agrees—it didn’t take long for the prehistoric flora and fauna to start showing up (often appearing right where someone was standing, in which case the two were fused, spliced, amalgamated). It didn’t take long for the great Time-displacement called the Flashback—which was brief but had aftershocks, like an earthquake—to change the face of the earth.These are the stories of a group of experienced survivors and their incredible machine, Gargantua: How they came to possess it, and what they did with it after. This is the recounting of a heist in Seattle in which they barely escaped with their lives and a journey to Lost Angeles to find their forever home--which just happened to be occupied when they got there.Welcome to the Flashback.

In retrospect, I wish I’d continued recording, for what I saw in that instant is difficult to describe, even now. Suffice it to say that it had a body like that of a manta ray—upon who’s tail the balloonist had been impaled—or a manta ray combined with a bat, albeit huge, and that it was covered with a kind of camouflage which reminded me of pictures I’d seen of Jupiter—just a roil of purples and pinks and browns. I suppose that was when it first hit me: the possibility that there might be a connection between this thing and the Jupiter 6 probe. That the probe might have brought something back, even if it had just been a sprinkling of microbes on its surface.And then there was an explosion somewhere above us, the concussion of which rocked our balloon, and we all looked up to see Gas Monkey—my God, it was like the sun!—on fire; and yet that wasn’t all we saw, for as it dropped it became evident that there were more of the bat/manta ray things attached, suckling it as it fell, crawling upon it like flies. Then it passed us like some kind of great meteor—its occupants shrieking and calling out—and was gone below, the heat of it still painting our faces, its awful smell, which was the smell of rotten eggs, filling our nostrils.And then we were just drifting, all of us crouched low in the basket … and the only sounds were those of Karen sobbing and my own pounding heart.

First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the Riders on the Storm.Welcome to the world of the Flashback, a world in which man’s cities have become overgrown jungles and extinct animals wander the ruins. You can survive here, if you're lucky, and if you're not in the wrong place at the wrong time--which is everywhere, all the time. But what you'll never do is remain the same, for this is a world whose very purpose is to challenge you, for better or for worse. In short, it is a world where anything can and will happen. So take a deep dive into these loosely connected tales of the Dinosaur Apocalypse (each of which can be read individually or as a part of the greater saga): tales of wonder and terror, death and survival, blood and beauty. Do it today, before the apocalypse comes.Includes every Flashback/Dinosaur Apocalypse story through 2021, in the order in which they were written.

First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the dinosaur apocalypse.How did it all begin? That depends on where you were and who you ask. In some places it started with the weather—which quickly became unstable and began behaving in impossible ways. In still others it started with the lights in the sky, which shifted and pulsed and could not be explained. Elsewhere it started with the disappearances: one here, a few there, but increasing in occurrence until fully three quarters of the population had vanished. Either way, there is one thing on which everyone agrees—it didn’t take long for the prehistoric flora and fauna to start showing up (often appearing right where someone was standing, in which case the two were fused, spliced, amalgamated). It didn’t take long for the great Time-displacement called the Flashback—which was brief but had aftershocks, like an earthquake—to change the face of the earth. Nor for the stories, some long and others short, some from before the maelstrom (and resulting societal collapse) and others after, to be recorded.Welcome to the world of the Flashback, a world in which man’s cities have become overgrown jungles and extinct animals wander the ruins. You can survive here, if you're lucky, and if you're not in the wrong place at the wrong time--which is everywhere, all the time. But what you'll never do is remain the same, for this is a world whose very purpose is to challenge you, for better or for worse.In short, it is a world where anything can and will happen. So take a deep dive into these loosely connected tales of the Dinosaur Apocalypse (each of which can be read individually or as a part of the greater saga): tales of wonder and terror, death and survival, blood and beauty. Do it today, before the apocalypse comes.

First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the dinosaur apocalypse.How did it all begin? That depends on where you were and who you ask. In some places it started with the weather—which quickly became unstable and began behaving in impossible ways. In still others it started with the lights in the sky, which shifted and pulsed and could not be explained. Elsewhere it started with the disappearances: one here, a few there, but increasing in occurrence until fully three quarters of the population had vanished. Either way, there is one thing on which everyone agrees—it didn’t take long for the prehistoric flora and fauna to start showing up (often appearing right where someone was standing, in which case the two were fused, spliced, amalgamated). It didn’t take long for the great Time-displacement called the Flashback—which was brief but had aftershocks, like an earthquake—to change the face of the earth. Nor for the stories, some long and others short, some from before the maelstrom (and resulting societal collapse) and others after, to be recorded.Welcome to the world of the Flashback, a world in which man’s cities have become overgrown jungles and extinct animals wander the ruins. You can survive here, if you're lucky, and if you're not in the wrong place at the wrong time--which is everywhere, all the time. But what you'll never do is remain the same, for this is a world whose very purpose is to challenge you, for better or for worse.In short, it is a world where anything can and will happen. So take a deep dive into these loosely connected tales of the Dinosaur Apocalypse (each of which can be read individually or as a part of the greater saga): tales of wonder and terror, death and survival, blood and beauty. Do it today, before the apocalypse comes.From The Wine Dark Earth:What is it? I sign, gripping the M14’s handguard (which has become slick with sweat); locking eyes with Beth.Will thinks he heard something; something in one of the shops. Something big—heavy. He says to check our flanks.I just stare at her, bewildered. But I don’t want to check my flank, I think. Because if I do, I might see something; something I won’t be able to unsee. Something I’ll have to react to. And I’m not ready for that.But then, of course, I do—check my flank, that is. Then I look into the dusty, broken window of Swanberg’s and, seeing only handcrafts and crystals and strings of fine beads, begin to exhale—deeply; wondering what it was I was so afraid of (for it is only the dogs, I am certain; the stringy, pitiable creatures we saw in the street; the slim, spare scavengers whom, having now inherited the earth, have simply followed us up from the pier). Then I just stare at the crystals; the prisms—the lovely, pure, many-faceted gems—which manage to glimmer even though there is so very little light.At which, strangely, something seems almost to blink—to shutter and reopen. At which something does blink; just as surely as I am standing there. Something blue; ovoid, which glitters like a gem. Something which is encompassed by dark, tapered brow ridges and cruelly-curved hornlets; and bright-yellow markings—like a witch-doctor or a cannibal. Something I glimpse only briefly, fleetingly, in semi-profile—before it flits back into darkness and is gone.

First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the dinosaur apocalypse.How did it all begin? That depends on where you were and who you ask. In some places it started with the weather—which quickly became unstable and began behaving in impossible ways. In still others it started with the lights in the sky, which shifted and pulsed and could not be explained. Elsewhere it started with the disappearances: one here, a few there, but increasing in occurrence until fully three quarters of the population had vanished. Either way, there is one thing on which everyone agrees—it didn’t take long for the prehistoric flora and fauna to start showing up (often appearing right where someone was standing, in which case the two were fused, spliced, amalgamated). It didn’t take long for the great Time-displacement called the Flashback—which was brief but had aftershocks, like an earthquake—to change the face of the earth. Nor for the stories, some long and others short, some from before the maelstrom (and resulting societal collapse) and others after, to be recorded.Welcome to the world of the Flashback, a world in which man’s cities have become overgrown jungles and extinct animals wander the ruins. You can survive here, if you're lucky, and if you're not in the wrong place at the wrong time--which is everywhere, all the time. But what you'll never do is remain the same, for this is a world whose very purpose is to challenge you, for better or for worse.It is a world where frightened commuters will do battle with murderous bikers even as primordial monsters close in, and others will take refuge in an underground theme park only to find their worst enemy is themselves. Where ordinary people—ne’er-do-wells on a cross-country motorcycle trip, a woman on a redeye flight to Hell, a sensitive boy stricken with visions of what’s to come--will find themselves in extraordinary situations, and a gunslinger and his telekinetic ankylosaurus will embark on a dangerous quest. A world where travelers will be trapped with an unravelling President of the United States and a band of survivors will face roving packs of monsters and men in post-apocalyptic Seattle; where rioting teenagers will face deadly predators (as well as their own demons) while ransacking the nation’s capital; where a Native-American warrior will seek to bury his past--and offer an elegy for all the Earth--in what remains of Las Vegas.In short, it is a world where anything can and will happen. So take a deep dive into these loosely connected tales of the Dinosaur Apocalypse (each of which can be read individually or as a part of the greater saga): tales of wonder and terror, death and survival, blood and beauty. Do it today, before the apocalypse comes.

The steel mesh started to break: first one joint, then another. Napoleon stood sideways on the fence like a parrot, his splay toes gripping the bars. He braced himself with his legs and pulled at the grid with his teeth. The muscles of his neck rippled; his growl was a steady trill. Metal squealed as he peeled a section back.Lightning flashed nearby, followed by a crack-kaboom! In the wash of light, the man saw the dinosaur looking at him. Glaring at him. Its color had gone blood red.He dropped the shock prod and swallowed, tasting bile. His head was swimming; he felt nauseated. The game had gone far enough, he realized. He had to end it—he had to end it now. He stepped back over to the control box and flipped it open, sought out the RUN ELECTRIFICATION button. He punched it with the bottom of his fist.The air seemed to vibrate, and sparks exploded beneath Napoleon's hands and feet. The dinosaur was knocked off the fence instantly. It crashed into the mud with a tremendous splash, and writhed violently. Then it struggled to its feet and latched onto the fence again. Sparks popped and spit; there was the smell of burnt flesh. Napoleon backed off, cocking his head. His foreclaws opened and closed. He sniffed at the electrically charged air, and at the ground. His left foot was smoking. He didn't approach the fence again.The man stepped closer and peered through the mesh. “You’re learning, aren't you?” he said, and scooped up the shock prod from the mud. He wiped it on his lab coat. “You’re learning not to mess with me, aren't you?”Napoleon looked at him, then shifted his neck to the side oddly. He was looking at something behind the man, something low to the ground.The man turned around. There was nothing there but the steel hatch to the feeding shaft, set into concrete like an oversized manhole cover. It was dotted with dried blood and padlocked heavily. He turned back to Napoleon, dismissing the behavior, and found the dinosaur craning to look behind itself. Its head was cocked as though listening to something.The man exhaled; he was tired of playing dino-games. “Well,” he began, preparing to prod it a final time, “here 's one for the road ...”A pair of headlights suddenly appeared in the distance, from the direction the T was looking. They were moving through the blackness out beyond the perimeter, winking in and out between trees. The man glimpsed the car as it passed beneath a street light: it was a sleek white Saturn, the kind employed by Atrax Security. Its bluish spotlight scanned the area.S.O. Trevor was making his nightly perimeter check. 

Roadkill ...A funny thing happened to Roger and Savanna Aldiss on the Interstate. They hit a dinosaur. But that's nothing compared to what awaits them down the road ... for something is at work to reverse time itself, something which makes the clouds boil, glowing with strange lights, and ancient trees to appear out of nowhere. Something against which Roger, Savanna, and a handful of others will make their final stand.From Flashback:The cop was just standing there, staring at the trees. And staring at the rex, too—though he clearly didn't know it.“My God,” Savanna pleaded. “You can't just let him be ripped to pieces …”Omar raised an eyebrow. “No?” He slid off the table and approached her. “And why not?”She hesitated. His face hovered in her own like some foam-latex Halloween mask—Uncle Pervis, perhaps, or Baby Stinky. “You, you just can’t,” she stammered.He cocked his head to one side and smiled broadly, wickedly. “You ever been to prison, sugar-muffin?”His teeth seemed covered with a yellow, pussy substance which reminded Savanna of that gummy liquid SPAM was packed in.She shook her head.“That's too bad …. they'd like you there.” He stepped closer and Savanna felt his coat pressing against her breasts, the reek of liquor-sweat and pitted-out leather seeming to radiate off him in waves. “You ever heard stories about what goes on inside?”Again, she shook her head. The glass of the window was cold against her back, as if it had frosted on the inside.“They stick you in a little room to rot,” he said, and with the word rot came an invisible cloud of stale barley which made her eyes water and her throat want to close in on itself. “But the trick is, they don't put you in there alone. No, they always put you in there with some shifty-eyed S.O.B. who's crazier even then you are …” His voice had become a quavering hiss, like sparks running along a fuse. “They put you in there with some poetry-writing faggot, or some jittering crackpot who's so hard-up for a cigarette he picks butts out of the toilet, or some darkie …”He glanced sidelong at the cashier and menaced him with molten eyes, but the stout black man was unmoved. “… who's built like Mike Tyson and wants you to be his joy-boy. And if that's what he wants, that's what he'll get … because you're not going anywhere. And don't think the guards will help you, sister. Because they won’t. They’ll just walk right by whistling and swinging their keys. You're helpless, just like you’re helpless now …”

Welcome to the Big Empty, the world after the Flashback, a world in which most the population has vanished and where dinosaurs roam freely. You can survive here, if you're lucky, and if you're not in the wrong place at the wrong time--which is everywhere and all the time. But what you'll never do is remain the same, for this is a world whose very purpose is to change you: for better or for worse. So take a deep dive into these loosely connected tales of the Dinosaur Apocalypse (each of which can be read individually or as a part of the greater saga): tales of wonder and terror, death and survival, blood and beauty. Do it today, before the apocalypse comes. He hesitated before peeling off a wedge and placing it in his mouth, at which he closed his eyes and seemed to melt, hanging back his head, working his jaw in a circular motion, reopening his eyes—pausing suddenly. “What?” I asked. “What is it?” He tilted his head, peering into the branches. “Isn’t that strange?” I followed his gaze into the tree but, alas, saw nothing. Which, of course, was precisely the problem; there was nothing—no oranges, no leaves, no uppermost branches, it was as though someone or something had picked the treetop clean. “Someone has a helluva reach,” said Maldano.   I looked around the lot: at the lichen-covered Public Market and the Jersey Mike’s Subs with the Prius in its window, at the Vietnamese Nail Salon and the El Buzo Peruvian Restaurant. “We should split up, canvas the area. Make sure—there’s nothing else.” “Yeah,” said Maldano. “I think you’re right.” I headed for the Public Market. “Make a sweep of the strip mall. I’m going to check out that grocery store.” He laughed a little at that—which caused me to pause. “Orders—Hooper?” I half-turned, but didn’t make eye contact. “Sorry?” “I mean, in all this? This Big Empty? This ‘world tenanted by willows … and the souls of willows?’” There was something in his voice. Something subtle, something contentious. “Call it what you like,” I said, and continued toward the market.

First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the Dinosaur Apocalypse … How did it all begin? Well, that depends on where you were and who you ask. In some places it started with the weather—which quickly became unstable and began behaving in impossible ways. In still others it started with the lights in the sky, which shifted and pulsed and could not be explained. Elsewhere it started with the disappearances: one here, a few there, but increasing in occurrence until fully three quarters of the population had vanished. Either way, there is one thing on which everyone agrees—it didn’t take long for the prehistoric flora and fauna to start showing up (often appearing right where someone was standing, in which case the two were fused, spliced, amalgamated). It didn’t take long for the great Time-displacement called the Flashback—which was brief but had aftershocks, like an earthquake—to change the face of the earth. Nor for the stories, some long and others short, some from before the maelstrom (and resulting societal collapse) and others after, to be recorded. Welcome to the Lost Country. From “The Devil’s Triangle”: There were six of them, as I said—all of whom rushed us the instant our feet touched the ground. All of whom snarled and charged us like wolverines as we raised our weapons and fired—the flare gun cracking and hissing, blanching the scarlet haze (for the sun had painted everything red and gold), its projectile punching through one of the raptors’ chests and lighting it up so that its ribs were backlit briefly and I could see, if only for an instant, its burning, beating heart. Yet still they came, another one leaping at me even as I dropped the gun—which clattered against the planks—as I dropped it and grabbed the thing by its neck—then brought the knife down with my other hand and stabbed it between the eyes. “Run!” I shouted, even as Amanda shot another—her second—and then bolted toward the shore, drawing the others so that I was able to snatch up the flare gun and quickly reload it; so that I was able to pursue them and to shoot one in the back—while Amanda turned and took out the last of them (shooting it in the head so that the back of its skull exploded like a spaghetti dinner thrown against the wall; so that it collapsed, writhing, about 10 feet in front of her—whereupon she quickly approached it and shot it again, just to be sure). And then she looked at me (as the dead and dying animals lay all around us) and I looked back: our chests heaving; our faces covered in sweat, our worn clothes bloody and disheveled, and I knew that she knew—which was that today we were the predators, the thing needing to be feared—the killers. And that neither of us needed to worry; not about food or other predators or mysterious lights in the sky or anything. Because we were the masters of our fate, we and no one else, not even God. And we were the master of the world’s fate, too. At which she ran to me and we collided and I held her fast, there on the long jetty in the Atlantic Ocean (in the Bermuda Triangle), there beneath a day moon and the blood-red sky, in an instant in which it was good, so very good, not to be afraid, not to be alone. And as to what may or may not have happened in those breaths, those pulse points between that moment and the next—the next day, the next search, the next milestone; as to that, I offer only a quote from Gandhi: “Speak only if it improves upon the silence.”

In a world beyond imagination, they would stand by each other no matter what ... After a devastating time-storm called the Flashback eliminates most the population and recolonizes the world with prehistoric flora and fauna, three boys bearing a powerful talisman set out on an impossible quest. An all-new post-apocalyptic adventure for mature young adults set in the same world as Flashback, A Survivor's Guide to the Dinosaur Apocalypse, Ank and Williams, A Reign of Thunder and The Lost Country.

First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the Dinosaur Apocalypse ...   How did it all begin? Well, that depends on where you were and who you ask. In some places it started with the weather—which quickly became unstable and began behaving in impossible ways. In still others it started with the lights in the sky, which shifted and pulsed and could not be explained. Elsewhere it started with the disappearances: one here, a few there, but increasing in occurrence until fully three quarters of the population had vanished. Either way, there is one thing on which everyone agrees—it didn’t take long for the prehistoric flora and fauna to start showing up (often appearing right where someone was standing, in which case the two were fused, spliced, amalgamated). It didn’t take long for the great Time-displacement called the Flashback—which was brief but had aftershocks, like an earthquake—to change the face of the earth. Nor for the stories, some long and others short, some from before the maelstrom (and resulting societal collapse) and others after, to be recorded. Welcome to the Lost Country. From “The Primeval World”: I stood abruptly and raised the back of my hand—but was restrained by Linda, who had inserted herself between us. “That’s enough! Please—Chris. Enough. She’s not going to tell us.” She backed me away from the girl. “But I have an idea … if you want to hear it.” I yanked away from her and began pacing, furious at the stranger but really angry with myself—for losing my cool in front of my crush, whom I’d liked since the moment we’d met (at the Coke machine in the Community Room, about a month before the Flashback). And for sending them—Penny and Fred—to the food mart in the first place, ostensibly to save time but really just so I could be with Linda.   “I—I’m sorry. Jesus. It’s just that—” She came to me and put a finger to my lips. “Shhh. Forget it. All right?” I tried to look away but she forced me to look at her. “All right? Listen. We know which direction they went. So … why don’t we just—take Valerie here—and go looking for them?” She turned to face the young woman. “She’ll point us in the right direction—won’t you, Little Miss Sunshine?” She glared at her menacingly. “If she ever wants to see home again.” And she was right, of course; I knew it and the girl knew it. And so I reconfigured her bonds so she could travel and we doused ourselves in rex urine— including Valerie (for who knew how far we’d have to go or how long we’d be exposed to potential predators), and we headed out; walking up South Union Avenue toward the capitol even as Compies watched from the undergrowth and I thought I saw a face: simian yet strangely human, animal, and yet somehow not—peeking at us briefly from between two fronds. Staring at us, passively, almost meditatively, like a great ape behind glass; or a manatee through green, hazy water.

-- Collector's Edition cover with one-of-a-kind art by Wayne Kyle Spitzer -- Interior illustrations “This done, they entered the grotto, of which the floor was strewn with bones, the guns were carefully loaded, in case of a sudden attack, they had supper, and then just before they lay down to rest, the heap of wood piled at the entrance was set fire to. Immediately, a regular explosion, or rather a series of reports, broke the silence! The noise was caused by the bamboos, which, as the flames reached them, exploded like fireworks. The noise was enough to terrify even the boldest of wild beasts.”

It was the first night of the Sacrificium, a night of sacrifice and death, a night when the black coins tendered in the Lottery would be tendered back. It was also the Hora Mille Semitis, the Hour of a Thousand paths—for that is the day the Sacrificium had fallen on this year—the hour when best friends might become enemies, when lovers of longstanding might betray oaths, the hour in which anything and everything was possible. And the alignment was felt: from the upper echelons of the capitol to the poorest quarters of the downriver provinces. For the message of Valdus’ rebellion had spread—whether it was a tract nailed to a door before quickly being torn down or a blast in the night that caused the power to fail in entire regions. It was a night for dreaming and for huddled collusions, for the breeze to course through rustling leaves, for long dead hearts to awaken and start pumping blood. The Sacrificium had once more come to Ursathrax, but so had the Hour of a Thousand Paths, and Valdus’ Revolution, and something else, something elusive but impossible to ignore, nebulous, but as real as the River Dire, which seemed to have stolen into the world on the wind itself ...

It was the first night of the Sacrificium, a night of sacrifice and death, a night when the black coins tendered in the Lottery would be tendered back. It was also the Hora Mille Semitis, the Hour of a Thousand paths—for that is the day the Sacrificium had fallen on this year—the hour when best friends might become enemies, when lovers of longstanding might betray oaths, the hour in which anything and everything was possible. And the alignment was felt: from the upper echelons of the capitol to the poorest quarters of the downriver provinces. For the message of Valdus’ rebellion had spread—whether it was a tract nailed to a door before quickly being torn down or a blast in the night that caused the power to fail in entire regions. It was a night for dreaming and for huddled collusions, for the breeze to course through rustling leaves, for long dead hearts to awaken and start pumping blood. The Sacrificium had once more come to Ursathrax, but so had the Hour of a Thousand Paths, and Valdus’ Revolution, and something else, something elusive but impossible to ignore, nebulous, but as real as the River Dire, which seemed to have stolen into the world on the wind itself.

An omnibus of science-fiction, fantasy and horror stories from Wayne Kyle Spitzer, author of the Witch Doctor and Dinosaur Apocalypse series ... It is raining. That’s the first thing I notice, the first thing that tells me I am no longer in the cockpit. The second is that I’m bleeding—bleeding from the leg, which is making it difficult to press the attack. The third is that I’m dying—as is my opponent—dying beneath a blood red sky. “It is finished,” he says, stumbling forward and back—his blood flowing freely, his hair matted in sweat. “Look at you! Your broadsword is shattered. Your armor is compromised. Why is it you continue?” But I do not know why I continue—only that I was a Crash Diver once and will be so again, and so must face the vision, endure its consequences. Endure them so that future generations may bridge the gulf of galaxies! At last I say: “Are you better off? We die together, Sir Aglovere. Surely you— ” But I am baffled by my own voice, so familiar and yet strange, and by my own words, which have materialized from nowhere. And then he is charging, hacking at me wildly, and I am forced back along the hedgerow: until I lose my footing over a protruding root and topple headlong into the mud and bramble—whereupon my opponent falls on what’s left of my sword and is promptly run through, his entrails unspooling like loops of linked sausage and his eyes turning to empty glass. At length he says, “We kill ourselves,” and laughs, even as I push him off me. And then we just lay there, staring at the sky, neither of us saying anything, as our blood pools together and spirals down the slope. As the clouds continue to rumble—pouring rain into our dying eyes.

After breaking their sworn oaths in a fit of forbidden passion, a sacrificial bride (Shekalane) and her fearsome escort (the ferryman Dravidian) find themselves alone and on the run in the subterranean river-world of Ursathrax. “Do you know what it is?” he said at last. She studied it, nodding slowly. “I think so. It’s a doorway, of sorts. It’s what awaits on the other side of death.” Dravidian nodded. “It is what Montair speaks of. Not death—but transition. For what winks out in one place winks on in another, always.” He stared at the fountain, his eyes seeming to dream. “If I were to step through that door ...” He turned to face her. “Would you come with me?” She looked at him longingly—at his fearsome mask—but hesitated. She trusted him, and yet, was this not how death would come? As a whispering seduction? “I don’t know yet,” she said. There was a soft hiss as he depressed the pad at his temple and swung the mask around to his back, then moved his lips to within a few centimeters of her own and paused, breathing slowly, seeming to draw her own breaths from her. “But you would consider it …” “But, Dravidian, where would we go? How would we survive?” He cupped her face in his hands. And though he was too close for her to see his face clearly, his beautiful eyes with their golden irises and Stygian pupils drew her in inexorably, like black holes with golden linings, if such a thing were even possible, and she whispered, “I would step through it ...” He took her in his arms and drew her slowly against him. “And would you find the strength within yourself to persevere even when the world turns its cold face against us?” “Yes,” she rasped. “Then run with me, Shekalane. To the end of Ursathrax and beyond …” And he gently but firmly locked his lips with her own.

“You talk to yourself a lot, don’t you?” said Luna. Williams looked at her and finally smiled in spite of himself. “Or it just may be that he’s really talking to me, and you just can’t hear it.” He tweaked her nose. “Yet. Either way, you need to eat something and get some sleep. We all do. We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.” “Why a big day?” “Ank, camping gear,” he said, and the dinosaur folded his front legs with a groan. “Because we’re going to head out for Barley’s in the morning.” He loosed his bedroll from the supplies strapped to Ank’s back and tossed it to her. “The place where the sounds on your radio come from. We’ve—we’re searching for something. A place we call Tanelorn. And we think that might be it.” “Tanelorn,” she repeated. “What’s that?” Williams rested his arms on the bundles of supplies, thinking about it. “I don’t know, exactly. I reckon it’s just a place someone feels drawn to … even if they don’t know why. A place where the homeless can find a home, maybe.” He looked at the lights in the sky, the Alien Borealis, as Ank called it, and wondered. “But it may be that it’s something else—a kind of Omega Point. A place where all the colors of the spectrum meet, like a prism. And become focused into a single, burning light. Maybe that’s what people mean when they talk about the power and the glory.” He tugged on a rope, releasing a waterfall of pots and pans. “Meh. It’s just something to keep us going.” “Like a magnifying glass,” she said, ignoring his last statement. He paused, thinking about it. “Like a magnifying glass,” he agreed. Then he added, “Now, what’ll it be? Beans or beans?”

“Those I can hear,” said Luna—and began retreating up the stairs again. “They only talk when they’re about to attack.” Williams, meanwhile, had focused on Ank. “Jesus … it called me by name.” Ank stared at him from beneath his brow. Williams nodded slowly. “But how in God’s name? The only one who knew our names was … Unless—” Williams misted up as he thought of the saloon girl who had shown him such affection. “I won’t shoot them, then.” “I said I won’t shoot them,” he snapped, and turned toward Luna, who was cowering at the top of the stairs. “We’ll have to find another way.” To Luna he said: “It’s all right, sweetie. Everything’s going to be all right.” “Meh,” Williams sighed angrily and moved toward the building’s front windows, which Ank had blocked with pinball machines and video games, with only partial success. Ank lumbered after him, the tiled floor cracking beneath his elephantine feet. “Go away!” Williams hissed. He peeked around one of the machines and saw the raptors lined up in the gathering dark, waiting to make their move, waiting to rush the snack bar and overwhelm them, waiting to kill them or, worse, to turn them into creatures like themselves. “Are you talking to me?” whined the girl, her voice seeming to bleed as if cut by invisible knives. “Why would you want me to go away all of a sudden?” “No—that’s not what I meant—I …” Williams held up his rifle—pressed his forehead against it. “Come out, Williams!” “Yes, my love, come out!” A new voice. Her voice. Katrina. Williams squeezed his eyes shut. And then they were coming, he could hear their growls and the tapping of their awful sickle-claws against the cracked and broken pavement, and Ank was charging past him, breaking through the windows and walls, roaring defiantly, and when Williams looked up he saw the dinosaurs collide like thunderheads, heard Luna scream her piercing, drill bit scream, and knew they’d never make it to Barley, to say nothing of Tanelorn.

Jonesing for a drive-in theater and a hotrod El Camino? It’s the dawn of the 1970s and everything is changing. The war in Vietnam is winding down. So is the Apollo Space Program. The tiny northwestern city of Spokane is about to host a World’s Fair. But the Watergate Hearings and the re-entry of Skylab and the eruption of Mount Saint Helens are coming…as are killer bees and Ronald Reagan. Enter ‘The Kid,’ a panic-prone, hyper-imaginative boy whose life changes drastically when his father brings home an astronaut-white El Camino. As the car’s deep-seated rumbling becomes a catalyst for the Kid’s curiosity, his ailing, over-protective mother finds herself fending off questions she doesn’t want to answer. But her attempt to redirect him on his birthday only arms him with the tool he needs to penetrate deeper—a pair of novelty X-Ray Specs—and as the Camino muscles them through a decade of economic and cultural turmoil, the Kid comes to believe he can see through metal, clothing, skin—to the center of the universe itself, where he imagines something monstrous growing, spreading, reaching across time and space to threaten his very world. Using the iconography of 20th century trash Americana—drive-in monster movies, cancelled TV shows, vintage comic books—Spitzer has written an unconventional memoir which recalls J.M. Coetzee’s Boyhood and Youth. More than a literal character, ‘The Kid’ is both the child and the adult. By eschewing the technique of traditional autobiography, Spitzer creates a spherical narrative in which the past lives on in an eternal present while retrospection penetrates the edges. X-Ray Rider is not so much a memoir as it is a retro prequel to a postmodern life—a cinematized “reboot” of what Stephen King calls the “fogged out landscape” of youth. Want to go for a ride?

They streamed out from the tree line in a veritable blitzkrieg, the guns of the tanks rotating and firing, the foot soldiers alternately taking cover behind vehicles and squeezing off bursts, the raptors and triceratops and stegosaurs charging—as Red and Charlotte and Roger and Savanna continued shooting and the children ran ammo and Bella lit the gasoline trenches, as Gojira and the clerk prepared shoulder-mounted rocket launchers. As hundreds of others joined the battle belatedly and began to kill and to be killed. And then they were there; they were at the gates, and the triceratops and stegosaurs had waded into the burning trenches and begun serving as bridges—sacrificing themselves so that the raptors and the foot soldiers could cross—even as a column of bulldozers fanned out along the perimeter and prepared to break the lines for good: dropping their blades—which rattled and clinked against the hail of gunfire—revving their engines, spewing black smoke. “Bayonets!” cried Red as the raptors fell upon them, thrusting his own so that it skewered one of the dinosaurs like a shish kabob even before he used its own weight and momentum to swing it over and behind himself.

ABE: (looks around nervously) Swede…? He looks for SWEDEN again, and again sees only the tops of the bushes, roaring in the wind. A beat later there is another crack! Another splash! ABE whips around. He sees, a few feet out, what at first appears to be a human arm reaching up from a gurgling eddy—deaden spidery fingers groping. He focuses his eyes upon it: the pressure stops cold as we see it is merely a gnarled branch. ABE exhales. Then, as driftwood is proving scarce on the island, he breaks off some willow stems and tries to fish the branch closer. The current dislodges it as he looks on and it floats down stream, bobbing and turning on the waves. ABE watches it go; it looks rather like a hand again; gesturing to him, summon-ing. A real hand suddenly lands on his shoulder. He spins around. It is SWEDEN; he is shining a Coleman lantern directly into his eyes. SWEDEN: It’s gone now. There was a sound. Like…. ABE squints in the glare, which obscures SWEDEN’S face. ABE: (breathes hard, listens) It’s this awful wind. It roars such that I didn’t even hear you approach! SWEDEN hands ABE a flashlight. SWEDEN: Here. ABE: Where were they? SWEDEN: In the stern. Under the ballast. ABE: (exhales) I wish this wind would go down…. SWEDEN doesn’t say anything. There’s clearly something very wrong. ABE: What? SWEDEN: We’re not alone here. ACT 2, SCENE 12 EXT. THE FAR BANK. TWILIGHT. SWEDEN is standing with his back to us, facing the river. ABE approaches—he has taken the long way around the willows. SWEDEN turns slowly; the men look at each other. It is nearly dark. ABE: Sweden…? SWEDEN steps aside as the camera dollies past him and in on A CORPSE, a real one. It is caught up in the roots of the willows, several feet from the crumbling bank, chest-deep in the water, vertically positioned, bobbing up and down in a violent whirlpool. The corpse is wearing an Army-green or dark blue nylon parka, slick from the river, with a sopping fur-lined hood. The hood droops, obscuring the face from the top of the mouth up, the mouth which is stretched, contorted, whose chin is far too long. The whole body is stiff like a statue, its flesh an ashen gray-blue. Its hands are twisted and groping, like tree branches—willow branches. One is frozen with Rigor Mortis in such a way that it appears to be reaching out, its fingers gnarled, misshapen; they are too-long, really, to seem entirely human. The bony, branch-like index finger seems almost to be pointing, indicting the sky. ABE: My God, Sweden…. (turns to his friend) What happened here?

It’s the dawn of the 1970s and everything is changing. The war in Vietnam is winding down. So is the Apollo Space Program. The tiny northwestern city of Spokane is about to host a World’s Fair. But the Watergate Hearings and the re-entry of Skylab and the eruption of Mount Saint Helens are coming … as are killer bees and Ronald Reagan. Enter ‘The Kid,’ a panic-prone, hyper-imaginative boy whose life changes drastically when his father brings home an astronaut-white El Camino. As the car’s deep-seated rumbling becomes a catalyst for the Kid’s curiosity, his ailing, over-protective mother finds herself fending off questions she doesn’t want to answer. But her attempt to redirect him on his birthday only arms him with the tool he needs to penetrate deeper—a pair of novelty X-Ray Specs—and as the Camino muscles them through a decade of economic and cultural turmoil, the Kid comes to believe he can see through metal, clothing, skin—to the center of the universe itself, where he imagines something monstrous growing, spreading, reaching across time and space to threaten his very world. Using the iconography of 20th century trash Americana—drive-in monster movies, cancelled TV shows, vintage comic books—Spitzer has written an unconventional memoir which recalls J.M. Coetzee’s Boyhood and Youth. More than a literal character, ‘The Kid’ is both the child and the adult. By eschewing the technique of traditional autobiography, Spitzer creates a spherical narrative in which the past lives on in an eternal present while retrospection penetrates the edges. X-Ray Rider is not so much a memoir as it is a retro prequel to a postmodern life—a cinematized “reboot” of what Stephen King calls the “fogged out landscape” of youth.

There was a single, sharp tap of the drums followed by a rapid succession of beats as the crushed velvet curtains spread and the audience gasped: for Tran had taken her position in the box and was even now being secured as Williams struck a gunfighter pose and his hand hovered next to his weapon. “Ladies and gentlemen, I think it goes without saying,” said the announcer over the speaker system, “Do not try this at home.” Williams relaxed his entire body even as his mind cycled through the calculations—altitude, the breeze, humidity, temperature, the curvature of the earth, the spinning of the earth … It was, like music, a largely mathematical proposition; a cold equation he’d had a gift for ever since he could remember, ever since he was a boy with a Daisy BB gun in the backyard of their southern California home. He focused on the knife blade as the balloons to each side of it warbled in the breeze. It was a funny thing, sharpshooting, so utterly unlike music, in that each time he did it he felt like he was doing it for the first time, felt like he was starting over from scratch. With music his fingers just automatically found the frets, just instantly knew where to begin and where to end; he never felt as though he were lost in a vortex of potentialities, never doubted his ability to perform. But sharpshooting was a different beast altogether. With sharpshooting he had to call on something outside of himself as well as from within—something which was not his to control. Something which either kissed him with its ghostly lips or turned away with perfect indifference—like love itself, he supposed. Or God. And then the drum taps stopped and he was alone with the breeze, and it was time to make the intuitive leap which would set the bullet in motion. And as he breathed out and drew his revolver and squeezed its trigger softer than he would a daisy, he knew, even before the crack! and the ka-chink! and the pop of the balloons, that the projectile had found its target. That it had found the slim blade and split like an atom—becoming two loaves rather than one—two soft but lethal slugs, which had spread like shrapnel in the Fresno heat and ruptured the red balloons—releasing their air in a vacuum-like rush and causing the audience to gasp and to cheer. And then his wife was there, having loosed her mock bonds and scrambled out of the tall wooden box (with its crushed velvet curtains and bulletproof glass), and she’d bowed to the audience before embracing him like the wind, and he had kissed her as he always did after completing their final act—when air raid sirens sounded and he looked at the sky, which had darkened with a storm front as fast-moving as it was inexplicable ...