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  SWALLOWED BY THE CRACKS

  Edited by Bill Breedlove & John Everson

  Featuring Stories By

  Lee Thomas

  Gary McMahon

  S. G. Browne

  Michael Marshall Smith

  www.darkartsbooks.com

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  BILL BREEDLOVE & JOHN EVERSON:

  Introduction: Typically Atypical

  LEE THOMAS:

  About Lee Thomas

  Appetite of the Cyber Tribes

  I'm Your Violence

  The Dodd Contrivance

  Before You Go

  GARY MCMAHON:

  About Gary McMahon

  Creep

  A Night Unburdened

  The Ghost In You

  My Name is Natasha Putkin

  S. G. BROWNE:

  About S. G. Browne

  Dream Girls

  Lower Slaughter

  The Lord of Words

  Dr. Lullaby

  MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH:

  About Michael Marshall Smith

  Death Light

  The Stuff That Goes On In Their Heads

  REMTemps

  Dave 2.0b2

  ABOUT THE EDITORS

  OTHER TITLES FROM DARK ARTS BOOKS

  SWALLOWED BY THE CRACKS

  Compilation copyright © 2011 by Bill Breedlove & John Everson.

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. This book contains works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. For more information on this and other Dark Arts Books titles, visit www.darkartsbooks.com or e-mail [email protected].

  All stories are printed or reprinted here with permission of the authors.

  Cover photos, collage and book design copyright © 2011 by John Everson.

  For more information on this and other Dark Arts Books titles, visit www.darkartsbooks.com or e-mail [email protected].

  All stories are printed or reprinted here with permission of the authors.

  Cover art and book design copyright © 2011 by John Everson.

  "Typically Atypical" copyright © 2011 by Bill Breedlove and John Everson.

  "Appetite of the Cyber Tribes" copyright © 2009 by Lee Thomas.

  First published in In the Closet, Under the Bed (Dark Scribe Press).

  "I'm Your Violence" copyright © 2008 by Lee Thomas.

  First published in Unspeakable Horror (Dark Scribe Press).

  "Before You Go" copyright © 2004 by Lee Thomas.

  First published in Chizine.

  "The Dodd Contrivance" copyright © 2011 by Lee Thomas.

  "My Name Is Natasha Putkin" copyright © 2011 by Gary McMahon.

  Originally published in a different form as "What Must be Done" in Three Crows Press, the Morrigan Books ezine, May 2009.

  "Creep" copyright © 2011 by Gary McMahon.

  "A Night Unburdened" copyright © 2011 by Gary McMahon.

  "The Ghost In You" copyright © 2011 by Gary McMahon.

  "Lower Slaughter" copyright © 2000 by S.G. Browne.

  First published on Horrorfind.com, 2001, and in Outer Darkness, 2005.

  "Dream Girls" copyright © 2011 by S. G. Browne.

  "The Lord of Words" copyright © 2011 by S.G. Browne.

  "Dr. Lullaby" copyright © 2011 by S.G. Browne.

  "REMTemps" copyright © 1996 by Michael Marshall Smith.

  First published in Postscripts 10.

  "Dave 2 Beta 2" copyright © 2009 by Michael Marshall Smith.

  First published in Michael Marshall Smith's blog.

  "Death Light" copyright © 2011 by Michael Marshall Smith.

  "The Stuff That Goes On In Their Heads" copyright © 2011 by Michael Marshall Smith.

  First Print Edition, April 2011

  e-Book Edition, May 2011

  ISBN-0-9779686-6-9

  ISBN-978-0-9779686-6-4

  Introduction: Typically Atypical

  What if thinking about something really bad happening to you drew something REALLY BAD to you?

  What if that interesting stranger in the Internet chat room was lying about much more than you'd ever expect – like about even being human?

  What if the human brain was just a big tape recorder? How long until it was just another commodity? And how would you use it?

  What if seemingly innocent medical trials for experimental drugs led to spontaneous evolution and a superhero known as… Diarrhea Boy?

  Yes, these typically atypical questions (and so much more) will be answered in the latest Dark Arts Books anthology that you now hold in your hands!

  Welcome, then, to the seventh volume of stories where – pretty literally – anything goes. Just like the six previous volumes in this odd little subset of literary adventures, Swallowed By The Cracks mixes and bends genres without apology, because boundaries are exactly the thing that fiction should break.

  Dark Arts Books strives to present the best in dark fiction – but dark fiction can be uproariously funny or socially relevant as easily as it can be soul-searing and bone-chilling.

  In many anthologies, the focus is often on a unifying topic – vampires, mummies, vampire mummies, etc. And twenty or so talented authors offer their take on that particular theme. Which is all well and good. But haven't you, in reading such anthologies, sometimes come across someone whose story was so different, whose perspective was so interesting, whose writing was… so right, that it left you wanting to read more? But instead of getting more from that author, there were sixteen more tales of those darn mummies. Sometimes you might jot that author's name down, and vow to look for more work by him or her – but just as often, life intervenes, and that moment of discovery is sadly, forgotten.

  Eventually, it occurred to us: instead of having a set theme for an anthology, what if the authors themselves were the theme? The only way that would work would be to feature several tales, not just one, from each author. It didn't matter if they were new stories or reprints... it should simply be the authors' best, and – perhaps – most diverse work.

  The key, as with any successful anthology, is to find the right authors for the right project at the right time. Once that is done, the smart move is to get out of their way and let them do what they do best – tell stories.

  Until it's all said and done, we never know what we're going to get when we start out to compile a new Dark Arts collection – which is part of the fun. We're readers and lovers of stories and fans, too. Perhaps the best part of this gig is discovering these tales when reading them for the first time.

  Swallowed By The Cracks has worked out to become Dark Arts' longest title, featuring more novelettes than we've ever published in a single volume. But it also includes several examples of taut, tight short works as well.

  Maybe you are already familiar with all of these authors, but we're guessing that one or more will be somewhat new to you. One of our goals has always been to present fans with work from their favorite authors while cross-pollinating the work of other interesting writers.

  Notice that we did not say "similar." Our unofficial motto has always been "typically atypical" and nowhere is that as apparent as in the tremendous range our authors showcase – both within their own work and as an aggregate. They all h
ave their own wildly sly, stylistic ways of insinuating their visions into your head.

  What these four authors all excel at is in creating a mood – weaving a whole world completely formed into the tightly-compacted mechanism of the short story.

  This is a book of sensuous, lush tales.

  Lee Thomas writes with sensuous lushness in almost all of his fiction. The characters ache so strongly the reader can almost feel their pain. And, that's usually before the real shit hits the fan. Lee puts the entire gamut of human emotions on display, and he mixes them all as expertly as an artist blending colors on a palette.

  Lee opens these pages with "Appetite of the Cyber Tribes," a meditation on loneliness and the insularity that computers allow us to hide within... yet, ironically, it is that same technology that exposes us like never before. With "I'm Your Violence," he treads in 7even territory, but with a deeply personal twist.

  Then he switches gears to the Lovecraft-by-way-of-Jules-Verne stylishness of "The Dodd Contrivance" and then changes it up again with the chilling epitaph of "Before You Go." You'll think twice about doing things behind your spouse's back after that one.

  Gary McMahon excels at building dread. Like an infinitely patient model-maker, carefully planning each and every detail, he draws the reader into his stories with the small things – a comfortable pub for a setting, a Radiohead song on the radio – and when the reader is invested fully in the characters (who, after all, inhabit a world just like he/she does), that's when he kicks the supports out from underneath and reveals the chaos ready – always ready – to attack our precious reality.

  Whether it's the clarion call issued (knowingly or unknowingly) for the narrator in "Creep" or the disillusioned and lonely people in both "A Night Unburdened" and "The Ghost in You" who start out thinking they have it bad, and then soon enough find out how subjective "bad" can really be, Gary fills in those spaces with haunting perfection. His epistolary "My Name Is Natasha Putkin" offers the flip side of all those tired torture-porn tropes with a series of heart-wrenching missives.

  The narrators in S.G. Browne's stories seem so… nice. So…pleasant. They are articulate, clever and bright. They're good company. What they say makes perfect sense, and it's fun to go along with them.

  Until.

  Until it's too late to turn back. Wait for the oh-so-gradual shift in "Dream Girls" where he takes a seemingly comical (and comically gauche) premise – insatiable female sex slave robots created to please every stereotypical male fantasy – and in a heartbeat turns it into something much, much darker.

  "Lower Slaughter" and "Lord of Words" follow with a more traditional creep factor before he brings back a twist of the light in "Dr. Lullaby," a story of human guinea pigs who find some very interesting side-effects to their experiments.

  Michael Marshall Smith is kind of like a one-man band, a whirling dervish of ideas and notions that, no matter in what direction he turns his keen intellect and amazing storytelling prowess, he delivers something unique and memorable. The four selections found in this volume are a testament to his prodigious gifts.

  With "Death Light," he presents a British screenwriter on a depressingly pointless trip to Hollywood. But things go from bad to worse when he suddenly finds himself face-down on the hotel lobby floor accused of multiple homicides.

  "The Stuff That Goes On In Their Heads" is a quieter and yet profoundly powerful look at the relationship between man and his son, while "REMTemps" toys with the conceit of the brain as a big tape recorder. What if you could store other people's dreams and memories for them? What if they'd pay you for it? What sort of things would they pay you to take from their minds for a bit?

  Finally, we close Smith's section (and the book itself) with "Dave 2 Beta 2" which perhaps is the funniest and saddest commentary on Middle-Aged Man ever penned.

  Funny, frightening, furious... sarcastic, sardonic, sensitive... the stories you're about to read send light into spaces you may never have looked in before. There are forgotten things to be found there.

  Truths and abominations.

  Fear and solace.

  These are stories of things that slip between the cracks in our vision. Sit back, and let them swallow you for a little while.

  Enjoy.

  – Bill & John

  Chicago, IL

  March 2011

  «-ô-»

  About Lee Thomas

  Lee Thomas is the Lambda Literary Award and Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Stained, Parish Damned, The Dust of Wonderland, and In the Closet, Under the Bed.

  His novel, The German, was released by Lethe Press in March 2011.

  You can find him on the web at www.leethomasauthor.com

  Appetite of the Cyber Tribes

  By Lee Thomas

  When it came to the Internet, Walter knew that people weren't always what they seemed. The online world was, quite simply, a fantasy kingdom where any number of beings, some wonderful and some hideous, roamed about their realm wearing magical disguises. Cloaked in the woven spells of personal profiles and fabricated histories, the creatures of the web had the power to mask the truth of their being only to be exposed when they were conjured and drawn from that enchanted, digital land into the concrete domain of real life.

  Walter knew this because he was one of those beings. Behind the guise of his screen handle, he was confident, funny and charming. But now on a chilly autumn afternoon as he approached the row of glass-faced buildings harboring shops and restaurants, he felt the weave of his magical persona unravel, and he wished he had stayed at home. He didn't like being exposed. He was an average guy in a world that demanded more.

  All of the perfect young bodies – images that had once been relegated to porn sites – spilled onto the dating pages he frequented. He couldn't compete with the well-hung twenty-somethings who'd spent their adolescent-year allowances buying steroids. They were a VIP generation, and Walter couldn't get past the doorman.

  He walked with slow, precise steps along the sidewalk toward Downing Street, his gut twisting in electric knots. His friend, Gary, would have called him a wuss for being so anxious about his date, but Walter wasn't like Gary. His friend hooked up with guys as easily as he ordered pizzas, but Walter's experience was far more limited. The chat rooms and dating sites allowed him to observe and sometimes participate in the rituals of the beautiful. He could be charming, even somewhat aggressive, online, but when it came time to swap pics, his confidence withered. On those rare occasions when sending his photo didn't end the conversation, and he actually hooked up, he sensed from the moment he met his date, that he'd been summoned for his convenience and little else.

  In no hurry to endure the awkward first moments with another disappointed date, he paused, looked up to check his location and saw a throng of pedestrians meandering along the shopping district. A mother gave her son an ice cream cone and brushed a lock of hair from his brow; two men with perfect smiles and matching white fleece jackets entered the video store; a straw-haired woman stood in front of a new age card and candle boutique, chewing gum and examining her fingernails; and a man in a forest green trench coat stood on the far corner. The guy seemed to be watching him, but Walter figured that was his imagination – another bit of anxiety to add to his afternoon.

  Above, the sky threatened rain, and on the near corner just beyond the new age boutique and the chewing woman, who now returned to the card shop's interior, stood the coffee shop where his date was waiting.

  He didn't know why he was so worried; Barry was great. At least he seemed great. He liked Chinese food, Grisham novels and court shows like Judge Judy; Barry didn't much like crowds or bars, and he preferred DVDs to going to movie theaters, just like Walter did. But for all Walter knew, Barry was just another cloaked denizen of the fantasy kingdom, willing to lie to assuage his loneliness. A lot of people did that these days.

&
nbsp; And what if… (and this was an even more uncomfortable prospect)… What if he hadn't lied? What if Barry was as great as he thought, and what if he didn't feel the same way about Walter? The questions made the anxiety in his belly roil and spit lightning through his gut.

  He walked to the door of the coffee shop and rested his hand on the metal handle, letting the cold seep into his palm. Through the glass he saw Barry sitting at a table across the room.

  He looked exactly like the picture he had sent: blonde hair, the color of wheat, short and spiky and only slightly receding. Large blue eyes gazed at the counter with a sparkle of anticipation dancing over the irises. His slender body rested in an overstuffed chair. He hadn't lied.

  Walter stepped back on the sidewalk, away from the glass door.

  Unfortunately, Walter could not make the same claim to veracity as his date. The picture he'd sent to Barry was nearly five years old, and though Walter looked almost identical to the image he had sent, he felt like a cheat and a liar for having passed the image off as recent. He looked at his reflection in the pane of the boutique window and saw round, chipmunk cheeks framed by a thinning hairline. His brown eyes were flat and uninteresting, and his lower lip looked too full. His sturdy build, when viewed in the reflective glass, appeared simply, fat.

  Barry would give him a quick frisk with his eyes, find him plain in all of the least comforting ways; he'd finish his coffee; he'd explain he had another appointment; he'd leave and Walter would be sent home to entertain his disappointment.