What the #@&% Is That? Read online

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  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  DOUGLAS COHEN

  MOBILITY

  LAIRD BARRON

  FOSSIL HEART

  AMANDA DOWNUM

  THOSE GADDAM COOKIES

  SCOTT SIGLER

  THE SOUND OF HER LAUGHTER

  SIMON R. GREEN

  DOWN IN THE DEEP AND THE DARK

  DESIRINA BOSKOVICH

  ONLY UNCLENCH YOUR HAND

  ISABEL YAP

  LITTLE WIDOW

  MARIA DAHVANA HEADLEY

  THE BAD HOUR

  CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN

  WHAT IS LOST, WHAT IS GIVEN AWAY

  JOHN LANGAN

  NOW AND FOREVER

  D. THOMAS MINTON

  #CONNOLLYHOUSE #WESHOULDNTBEHERE

  SEANAN MCGUIRE

  THE HOUSE THAT LOVE BUILT

  GRADY HENDRIX

  WE ALL MAKE SACRIFICES: A SAM HUNTER ADVENTURE

  JONATHAN MABERRY

  GHOST PRESSURE

  GEMMA FILES

  THE DAUGHTER OUT OF DARKNESS

  NANCY HOLDER

  FRAMING MORTENSEN

  ADAM-TROY CASTRO

  THE CATCH

  TERENCE TAYLOR

  HUNTERS IN THE WOOD

  TIM PRATT

  WHOSE DROWNED FACE SLEEPS

  AN OWOMOYELA AND RACHEL SWIRSKY

  CASTLEWEEP

  ALAN DEAN FOSTER

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  ABOUT THE EDITORS

  FOR CTHULHU

  IÄ! IÄ! CTHULHU FHTAGN!

  INTRODUCTION

  DOUGLAS COHEN

  Explaining how this project came to be is a story unto itself. Back in 2007, Harper Perennial Modern Classics published a book called Tales of H. P. Lovecraft, which reprinted a number of tales penned by H. P. Lovecraft, one of the most influential horror writers of all time. The book’s cover featured an illustration of Lovecraft’s most famous creation, the iconic monster known as Cthulhu.

  Fast forward to 2012. While scrolling through Facebook one day, I came across an Internet meme1 featuring the cover art from the aforementioned Tales of H. P. Lovecraft. The book’s original design elements had been stripped away and replaced with new design elements—so instead of the original title, the meme’s creator had replaced it with the title What the Fuck Is That. And whereas on the original cover, Stephen King had provided a real promotional quote that called H. P. Lovecraft “The twentieth century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale,” in the meme version, King’s quote now read: “I don’t know what the fuck is going on.” And so on.

  So I had a good laugh, never imagining this gag cover was based on a real one. I did know what (the fuck) “that” was though—it was clearly everyone’s favorite tentacled beastie, Cthulhu. This particular meme proved funny enough that over the next few months, I came across it several more times, as the online community continued sharing and linking to it across various social media.

  Then one day, months later, I again came across our intrepid meme on yet another social media site. While reading the accompanying comments, someone opined how this meme would make a great poster. I thought so too, but I chimed in with a different possibility: “Forget that. Make it the cover to a horror anthology. Twenty stories, and in every story one character is guaranteed to say, ‘What the fuck is that?’ ” I’d written this as a joke, but the ensuing comments were so enthusiastic that I realized I had stumbled onto a legitimate idea for a horror anthology.

  Sometimes, good ideas come from mediocre jokes.

  Since the “that” in the title and artwork referred to and depicted Cthulhu, I thought that this obviously should be an anthology set in the universe of the Cthulhu mythos, and since the book was inspired by the Internet, my initial plan was to fund the project via Kickstarter2.

  I had never run a Kickstarter campaign before, but I knew from talking with colleagues that there is a lot that goes into them. So rather than go in flying blind, I decided to bring a collaborator onto the project, someone with previous Kickstarter experience I could learn from.

  Enter Jaym Gates3, good friend and editorial colleague . . . and as you’re probably figuring, wise in the ways of Kickstarter. So, I pitched her the idea, and in short order I had recruited a coeditor. From there we did as coeditors do, slinging ideas and questions back and forth, and the anthology gradually started assuming a more definitive shape.

  One possibility we had discussed was to possibly incorporate the original artwork from the meme into the anthology. The problem was we had no idea who had done the artwork; the meme’s creator didn’t credit the artist, and at the time I didn’t know what book cover the meme was actually based on.

  Then one night I stumbled upon this nifty online tool called Google Image Search. When I uploaded the meme through this search engine, my efforts were rewarded by revealing a book called (you guessed it) Tales of H. P. Lovecraft, featuring the exact same artwork as in the meme. From there it was a simple matter to finally uncover the artist’s identity.

  That’s when my jaw dropped.

  The artist was none other than Mike Mignola. If you’re familiar with the movie and comic Hellboy, you are familiar with the work of Mignola. I could practically hear the steam whistling from my ears as the gears in my brain started churning. A quirky anthology based on a silly meme owed everything to a cover illustration for a real book by Mike Mignola? It was all too perfect.

  The project had suddenly developed new tentacles. The cover illustration of a book reprinting a bunch of horror stories had inspired a meme. Now we could take that meme and do what the Internet so often does with memes: reinvent it. Only, in our case we would be bringing it back to the printed page, this time in a book filled with original horror stories. And while I knew it would be a long shot, who better to provide an original illustration than the artist who unwittingly started it all4? (How we might get him was an obstacle for another day!)

  Sometimes, good ideas come from blind luck.

  Then, in keeping with this introduction’s emerging theme, something unexpected happened as the project progressed: my coeditor, Jaym, had to step down. Her reasons were more than solid and I wished her nothing but the best, but I was still of the opinion that a coeditor savvy to Kickstarter would benefit the book tremendously. Enter John Joseph Adams, a good friend and previous coeditor of mine. Of course, with John’s participation, I understood there would be changes—you don’t invite a new coeditor aboard without accepting their creative input. John suggested some additional authors for recruitment, excellent writers who hadn’t occurred to me before. But John’s involvement went far deeper, and the end result is that this project is every bit his
as much as it is mine.

  For example, there is the matter of the title. What the Fuck Is That?—the title of the meme—made for a fun title, one that grabbed your attention. And it did represent the theme of the anthology. But did we really want a curse word in the title? Would it be too much? What the Hell Is That? was safer, but did the anthology lose something in the bargain, perhaps too much? So John said, “What if, instead of “What the Fuck Is That?” we just use the F in ‘Fuck’ and put three symbols afterward, like they do in comic strips?” I loved this idea . . . only I misheard him, and I thought he suggested we replace all the letters in the word with symbols . . . giving us a title of What the #@&% Is That?

  Sometimes, good ideas come from misunderstandings.

  Employing these symbols (or “grawlix5,” as they’re called) also created an unexpected side benefit: the exact wording of the phrase “What the fuck is that?” was no longer mandatory, nor would any other phrase be (at least not exactly). So, instead, we asked the authors to use the phrase “What the #@&% is that?” at least once in their stories and to substitute the grawlix with whatever word (or words) they wished, “fuck” included.

  Sometimes, good ideas come from weird, random bull#@&%.

  Another important change had to do with Cthulhu. While I initially envisioned that each of the stories would be about Cthulhu, John suggested we make it more diverse, allowing for all sorts of monsters. And as it happened, John was not alone in thinking this. Enter Joe Monti, editorial director of Simon & Schuster’s Saga Press. Shortly after joining me as coeditor, John received an e-mail from Joe, wondering if he had any horror anthologies to pitch. (Yes, timing is indeed everything.) When Joe learned about the anthology, he expressed an interest in acquiring it . . . but like John, he wondered if perhaps the theme could cover all monsters . . .

  Long story short, we agreed to sell the anthology to Saga with a focus on all monsters (beings in the Cthulhu mythos included). In explaining the anthology’s premise to Joe, we explained its evolution, including how we hoped Mike Mignola could be recruited to do a new cover . . . and as it happened, Joe had a lead that could maybe bring this about. Several months later, the final puzzle piece fell into place when we learned that Mignola had indeed agreed to illustrate the cover. (Go ahead, look at it again. Ain’t it grand?)

  So, there you have it. Although there were many trials and tribulations along the way that caused the book to morph and evolve over the course of its development, essentially we ended up with (almost) exactly what we intended from the start: twenty stories, and in every story one character is guaranteed to say, “What the #@&% is that?”

  So, now that you’ve heard the story-behind-the-stories, it’s time to take a backseat while you enjoy the twisted imaginations of our authors . . . and maybe, just maybe you will learn what the #@&% that is . . .

  * * *

  1. Wikipedia defines an Internet meme as “an activity, concept, catchphrase or piece of media which spreads, often as mimicry, from person to person via the Internet.” It’s as good a definition as any for our purposes.

  2. Kickstarter is an online platform that relies on public crowdfunding for entrepreneurs in various fields to achieve the financial backing for their creative projects. Publishing projects are no exception, and around the time I was initially developing this book, anthologies were starting to find success on this platform.

  3. If you’ve noticed that this book is actually coedited by John Joseph Adams, not Jaym Gates . . . very observant! I’m getting to that. Be patient!

  4. Technically speaking, I suppose H. P. Lovecraft started it all back in 1928 when he first published “The Call of Cthulhu” in Weird Tales magazine. But I digress. . . .

  5. The word “grawlix” was coined by American cartoonist Mort Walker, and it refers to the typographical symbols employed in dialogue balloons that represent profanities.

  MOBILITY

  LAIRD BARRON

  Life is hard in forty million B.C. beneath the apple-green heavens. Something is always trying to eat the monkeys. A shadow ripples across the forest canopy to confirm this fact. The monkeys screech and scatter among the lush treetops. The black shape veers out of the sun in pursuit. It closes the gap at an astonishing rate.

  Branches slap together and howlers howl. The shadow snatches a few of the slower troop (rending treetops as well) and glides away, trailing pitiful monkey screams.

  The forest is still. Eventually, birds trill and buzz in a thousand tongues. The monkeys also call to one another and the survivors make their way back to the central group for commiseration. The troop settles. The monkeys return to cracking nuts and eating fruit and picking each other’s nits. One watches the cloudless apple-green skies, although the memory of why soon fades.

  * * * *

  Bryan murdered a squirrel a few hours into his eleventh birthday. Uncle So-and-So handed him a pump-action air rifle for a birthday present and the kid shot the first animal he saw. Which happened to be a semi-tame gray squirrel nibbling an acorn on the sidewalk in front of Bryan’s house. He pumped the action twenty or thirty times, aimed with his tongue sticking out, and squeezed the trigger. Lucky (?) shot blew that squirrel’s eyeball to jelly. A little kid laboriously pedaling a tricycle witnessed the slaughter with a vacuous smirk. This was the brat who’d recently learned how to burn ants with a magnifying glass.

  Bryan felt surprised and a little bit sick for a few minutes. The family cat, Heathcliff, also known as the Black Death, swooped in and nabbed the squirrel’s corpse and Bryan forgot the whole thing.

  The universe would have its vengeance. It had begun to wreak it eons before Bryan was ever born.

  * * * *

  Snow fell on Providence all afternoon. Made a mucky slush of the walk from school. Bryan ordered baked tuna at the grill where Lovecraft had eaten whenever Weird Tales sent a check, which was sufficiently infrequent to qualify as a special occasion. Came back to bite both of them in the ass.

  Bryan stood a shade under six feet. Burly Scandinavian stock. Curly hair and precisely trimmed beard, colored blond out of a bottle. Forty-five years made him as good as any vintage LP. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t not smile, either. He’d worn his lucky cardigan to dinner. Black and white, separated by a jagged divide, animals fighting, the two wolves of the soul from Native American folklore locking jaws. He’d worn a knit cap, black. He’d worn black-and-white knit gloves to match the sweater. He’d worn glasses, rimless. Not necessary, yet the coeds liked the look. The glasses said philosopher, poet-wunderkind; he was a professor of Pawhunk Community College Nonfiction Writing Department these past four years, so it seemed appropriate. He’d worn a gold band, although it signified nothing since he’d never married and never planned to (God help him if Angie ever twigged to the truth). Merely a prop from his community theater stint. The coeds liked men with wedding bands. The band said, I could fuck you if I wanted to, but I’m not gonna try, because well, look. He’d worn buckskin pants. And moccasins. With fringe.

  Angie, his eye-rolling girlfriend of a decade, served as the English Chair at Brown, and good for her, although he routinely mentioned she could do better and tried to ignore how her eyebrows shot up. Late that autumn, after much subtle manipulation on Bryan’s part, they celebrated her thirty-fourth birthday with a cruise to Nova Scotia. Serendipity! He wanted to research a nonfiction crime author who lived there, anyway. Angie toured thrift shops and outlet malls while he spent the weekend plying the down-on-his-luck author, one Buford Creely, with booze and picking (pickling?) the fellow’s brain about a sensational murder case from the 1960s and ‘70s. Thirty-nine missing persons, a secret grotto littered with skulls piled into pyramids, and skulls on stakes. Unsolved, cops baffled, movie-of-the-week fodder. The kind of lurid material the faculty at Pawhunk frowned upon yet were stuck with in the infrequent event one of its professors girded his loins and took a stab at publishing.

  The vacation arrangement worked out great, although Angie seemed moody after
they returned to his apartment in Providence. Meanwhile, Bryan was positively energized and stoked to sequester himself in the spare bedroom (his den) for a week or two to go at a new essay, which is exactly what he did.

  This was the first evening they’d been together during that hectic stretch.

  “Eat up, sport,” she said, watching him put away another fork-load of the tuna. “You’ll need your strength tonight.”

  “Oh, boy!”

  She smiled, pure flint. “Got some bad news. Skylark Tooms passed away. Remember her?”

  “Rich, attractive. Dad was a clothing designer or . . . ?”

  “She died in an industrial accident the other day. Burned alive. Like this damned steak.”

  “I’m sorry your friend is dead.” Through a mouthful.

  “Friend, no. We weren’t close since school. It’s been on the news. A whole port town was destroyed. Train derailment. Chemicals. Nobody can get close.”

  “Awful, awful.” Another chunk of delectable, flaky salmon glazed in garlic and lemon. This bite almost lodged in his throat. It left a metallic aftertaste. Bryan’s eyes smarted and he quickly sipped water to ease the lump in its passage.

  “I’m over it. A shock, is all.” Angie appeared oblivious to his struggle, utterly consumed with her own concerns.

  Bryan recovered. He signaled the waiter and ordered crème brûlée and a cup of black coffee. Delicious. “Did you want something?” he said, dabbing his lips with a cloth napkin, vaguely piqued she hadn’t offered to do it for him like when they first dated. She’d acted the part of a depraved concubine then.

  She smiled and shook her head.

  After dinner, he called a cab to save them from another slog through the gloppy streets. Back at his place, he put Boys in the Trees on the stereo (antiquing for the win!) and broke out a bottle of kinda good wine. Angie watched from her perch on the arm of the leather couch, where he’d begged her pretty please not to sit a million and one times. Her manic-pixie haircut, thick-rimmed glasses, and red lipstick seemed brutally severe. However, she rocked an angora sweater and tartan skirt combo, and that made up for the rest.