In an Octopus's Garden

By Kevin L. O'Brien

Joshua and Victoria Matisse are a young couple who, after five years of connubial bliss, remain childless, though not for lack of trying. Their doctor believes their failure is due to stress, so on his advice they decide to take an extended vacation cruise through the island chains of the South Pacific. As an added bonus, they rent a deserted atoll for a month, so they can spend time alone, wearing nothing but suntan lotion and doing nothing except have sex and dive the lagoon's reef.

However, soon after their arrival, Josh and Vicki begin to have vivid erotic dreams involving the octopi that inhabit the lagoon. In time they learn they have been selected to conceive and bear the avatar of the atoll's cephalopod god, slumbering imprisoned in a tomb at the bottom of an abyssal pit. Their dreams climax in a ceremony in which Vicki is impregnated with an egg that Josh fertilizes. Afterwards, they cannot shake the feeling it had all been real, even as they hope it wasn't.

But there is one way they can discover the truth: find the tomb and see if it was occupied.

This story contains foul language, sexual situations, and scenes of intense violence. Reader discretion is advised.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kevin L. O'Brien
• Release date: Dec 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311367815

Kevin L. O'Brien

Kevin L. O'Brien was born with a pen in his hand.Well, not quite, but he has been writing for as long as he can remember, at least since First Grade. Writing has always been his first, true love, but it hasn't always been his career. He worked for 15 years as a biomedical researcher, then for 3 years as a web designer. However, after 30 years of trying to be published in print with little success, he has decided to try his hand at self-publishing.He writes primarily speculative fiction -- fantasy, science fiction, horror, and their sub-genres -- but he also likes to try his hand at thrillers, suspense, mystery, and even westerns. However, his stories tend to have a fantasy element, no matter how subtle.Most of his stories involve the following three main characters:Medb hErenn (http://www.medbherenn.com/) -- One-time queen of Ireland, she is over 3500 years old. A warrior and a sorceress, she cannot be harmed by any weapon made by the hand of man.Eile and Sunny, Team Girl (http://www.teamgirlforever.com/) -- They are two adorable, vivacious, fun-loving young women whose motto is ONWARD TO ADVENTURE!!! Yet trouble follows them like a love-sick puppy wherever they go.Sir Differel Van Helsing (http://www.sir-differel.com/) -- The descendent of Abraham Van Helsing and King Arthur, she heads the Caerleon Order, the premier monster-hunting organization of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. She commands Dracula, the most powerful vampire extant, and the greatsword Caliburn, better known as Excalibur.He also writes a series of sword & sorcery stories set in an alternative universe known as the Lands of the Dreams of Men.Kevin lives in Denver with his family and 4 cats.For more information, see his website: http://www.kevinlobrien.com/

Book preview

In an Octopus's Garden

Kevin L. O'Brien

Smashwords Edition

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Text Copyright 2013 by Kevin L. O'Brien

Cover design and typography copyright 2013 by Kevin L. O'Brien

Bodoni Monotype Poster Compressed font distributed under an End User license by Microsoft as part of their Office Professional Edition 2003

First printed 2007 in Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror #10 (Wildside Press, LLC)

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License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. It is licensed for your personal enjoyment and remains the copyrighted property of the author. This ebook may not be sold, reproduced, or copied, whether for commercial or non-commercial purposes, but it may be given away if no changes are made. If you enjoyed this book and would like to share it, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from Smashwords or their favorite online retailer, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support, and for respecting the hard work of this author.

Please consider writing a review for this book on the retailer's website.

If you see any misspellings or typographical errors, please notify Kevin L. O'Brien using one of his online social networks. Thank you.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents, including those based on the real world, are either products of the imagination of Kevin L. O'Brien or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Because some ebook platforms do not support special characters, certain words may appear misspelled, but this was done deliberately to avoid the problem of the platforms deleting the characters. Also, the LRF platform used by older models of the Sony Reader does not permit the use of links to external URLs, whereas the PDB platform used by Palm reading devices does not support any form of linking whatsoever.

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Table of Contents

Preface

In an Octopus's Garden

About the Author

Other Books by Kevin L. O'Brien

Connect with Kevin L. O'Brien

Sample Excerpts

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Preface

This story is perhaps the culmination of my Cthulhu Mythos fan writing. It is the last purely Mythos story I've written so far (though Mythos elements do show up in some later stories), it is the most overtly Mythos story I've written that is not meant to be a pastiche, and it is the most professional (that is, it does not use existing characters, settings, grimoires, or entities). Neither does it use the cliched plot of an investigator learning the Awful Truth and getting eaten. It does use the Derlethian element of the Great Old Ones and their minions being imprisoned, but only in a peripheral sense rather than as a major plot device, and modified by the Lovecraftian feature of the entities being susceptible to certain cosmic cycles. It also uses the plot device of cultists trying to create an avatar of a major entity using a woman as a breeding vessel, but with each important feature heavily modified. And it makes use of the first-person unreliable narrator who leaves behind a hidden testimonial, but in some important ways that is the best method for telling this type of story.

Robert M. Price suggested the title. I tried a number of different scenarios, none of which really worked, until I hit upon this one. This is one of my favorite stories.

This story contains foul language, sexuality, and scenes of intense violence. Reader discretion is advised.

Back to TOC

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Editor's Note: On March 1, 2000, Joshua and Victoria Matisse set sail from San Francisco on a six month cruise through the central and south Pacific. On board they had a satellite telephone, and they called their parents at least once a week. They reached the State of Pohnpei, the largest island in the Federated States of Micronesia, on April 3rd; on April 5th they left for a nearby atoll they had rented. They were last heard from on May 6th. By May 21st their parents contacted their congressman, who in turn convinced the State Department to launch an investigation. On June 9th a team lead by an attache arrived at Pohnpei and remained for a week, conducting the investigation with the cooperation of the Pohnpei governor's office, before returning to the US. Though they verified that the Matisses had arrived at Pohnpei, they found no trace of them at the atoll, except for a handwritten manuscript allegedly composed by Joshua Matisse hidden in a hollowed-out coconut buried beneath a small stone cairn.

The State Department eventually issued a report which stated that experts were unable to verify the authenticity of the manuscript. As such, it concluded that there was no evidence that the Matisses had ever visited the atoll. It further speculated that they may have deliberately mislead their parents for the purposes of staging a disappearance, but in any event they were simply declared missing. The case was closed, pending an investigation by the Justice Department into Victoria Matisse's trading practices at the brokerage firm where she worked.

What follows is the text of the manuscript. No changes have been made, except that underlines have been converted to italics. It has been released for publication by the parents of the couple in the hope that someone may have information regarding the fate or whereabouts of the Matisses. If anyone reading this has such information, please contact the publishers of this magazine.

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I don't know if anyone will find this testament. I've already split and cleaned out the coconut, dug the hole, and gathered the stones; all I need to do is finish writing. The problem is they may find it, but if I hide it too well no one else will. So I have to take the chance.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning. Vicki and I had been married for five years, but we could not conceive any children. Not that we weren't trying; we made love three times a week and twice on weekends. But nothing seemed to work. We went to our doctor to ask about alternatives. He wanted to give us a physical before he discussed that, but afterwards he pronounced us in perfect health. He thought it might be stress. We were both rather busy with our respective professions, so what he said made sense. He suggested we take some time off; if that didn't work, then he would be willing to try fertility drugs.

We had always wanted to take a sailing tour of the South Pacific, but to do it right we would have to take several months. We didn't have enough vacation time accumulated, but we talked it over and decided to each take a leave of absence, since we had enough savings to cover it. So we arranged with our respective employers for a six month sabbatical. After that it was a simple matter to rent a boat and set up our itinerary. One thing we really wanted to do was find some place where we could rent an island or something. While we didn't plan to waste any nights on the boat, we wanted to spend time in a romantic location where we didn't have to wear anything except suntan lotion and we didn't have to do anything except have sex. That proved more difficult. Fortunately, our travel agent knew of a realtor on an island called Ponape in the East Caroline Islands that could rent us a small atoll. So we made a reservation and paid a retainer.

The boat itself was a single-masted schooner with an inboard motor, an onboard computer and GPS tracking system, and a radio with a satellite phone. It had a single spacious cabin, a galley, and a lavatory, plus an expansive afterdeck. Both Vicki and I were experienced