EOM: Equal Opportunity Madness

By Michelle Stengel

In the depths of the cosmos there is madness to be found and there are stories to be told...

The Elder Gods, Cthulhu, Nyarlethotep, and the like have a taste for fear, for madness, for flesh... But over the years they have grown bored with the taste of the standard straight, white male so often portrayed in the tales of the Mythos. Like a human being with a hankering for Thai after a steady diet of steak and potatoes, the Gods of the Mythos are craving something different...

An African Igbo head man defends his tribe against eldritch incursion with the help of his own Gods...
A couple of English debutantes throw epic parties while keeping the otherworldly at bay...
A deeply scarred man gathers strength from Sobek, the Egyptian God who claimed him young, as he stands against the horrors shoulder to shoulder with a Priestess of Bast...
A Jewish lesbian rides into town to save it from the Unspeakable, with a little help from her girlfriend and her rich heritage...

All this and more await you in these pages. Welcome to equal opportunity madness...

Stories and Authors:
Scars of a Certain Value by Christine Lucas
The Horror of the Atoll by DJ Tyrer
With the Dark and the Storm by John Linwood Grant
The Sisters Derleth by Michelle D. Sonnier
A Singular Event, in Several Courses by Kris Dikeman
The Bath, Bottle, and Bar'nyeth Party by Lizz-Ayn Shaarawi
Innsmouth Blues by Jean Roberta
The Black Magnolia on the Bank of the Night's River by Gordon White
The Thing at Akeley Farm by A.Z. Louise
But Who Can Catch Leviathan? by Chris Pearce
North Bronx Nightmare by Andrea Stanet
The P'tulpa Cult by Daniel S. Duvall
Golem by Jennifer R. Povey
Dreidel of Dread: The Very Cthulhu Chanukah by Alex Shvartsman

• Language: English
• Publisher: Otter Libris
• Release date: Jul 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9781627960045

Book preview

EOM:

Equal Opportunity Madness

Edited By

Michelle Stengel

Copyright 2017 Otter Libris

Published by Otter Libris at Smashwords

Cover Art by Robyn Jones

Cover Design by Jasen A. Stengel

Interior Art by Jenny Redding

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to https://www.smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

ISBN: 978-1-62796-004-5

Published by Otter Libris

Please visit us on the web at

www.otterlibris.com

To all our readers, backers, writers, friends, and family,

Thank you for all your encouragement and support,

For all your help in letting us spread the madness around.

Table of Contents

By Way of Introduction... by Michelle Stengel, Editor

Scars of a Certain Value by Christine Lucas

The Horror of the Atoll by DJ Tyrer

With the Dark and the Storm by John Linwood Grant

The Sisters Derleth by Michelle D. Sonnier

A Singular Event, in Several Courses by Kris Dikeman

The Bath, Bottle, and Bar’nyeth Party by Lizz-Ayn Shaarawi

Innsmouth Blues by Jean Roberta

The Black Magnolia on the Bank of Night’s River by Gordon White

The Thing at Akeley Farm by A.Z. Louise

But Who Can Catch Leviathan? by Chris Pearce

North Bronx Nightmare by Andrea Stanet

The P'Tulpa Cult by Daniel S. Duvall

Golem by Jennifer R. Povey

Dreidel of Dread: The Very Cthulhu Chanukah by Alex Shvartsman

By Way of Introduction... by Michelle Stengel, Editor

It all started with a conversation about how do you handle being a fan of problematic things, or if you can be a fan at all once you know about the problems. It was Balticon 49, in late May 2015, on one of the many panels about all things fantasy, science fiction, and horror. We started first by defining what we meant by problematic things and came to the conclusion that these fell into roughly two categories, problematic things in the story itself (like depictions of rape or abuse) and problematic things with the creator of the story (like the author’s personal attitudes about race, gender, or sexual expression readers themselves find unacceptable).

But wait a minute.... Isn’t our entertainment supposed to be just that, entertainment? Do we really want to think that hard or are we just in this for a fun ride to take our minds off the stress at the office or at school, our last argument with our partner, that guy who rear-ended us in rush hour traffic. Do we really want or need to vet everything we read and watch from all angles to determine if it is personally acceptable before we allow ourselves to enjoy it? That seems like an awful lot of work for what’s supposed to be entertaining us in our free time, but then again, will your conscience bear a weight if the money you spend on that next book or movie goes to financially support someone who abuses animals, or children? What about someone with whom you disagree with on minor points of politics? Do you consider that a slippery slope to supporting the truly heinous, or a reasonable practical accommodation to keep your entertainment options from dwindling to a small echo chamber that only reflects back what you already believe? Isn’t part of reading, even for entertainment, is that it’s supposed to be something that opens our eyes and broadens our minds and allows us to find the common threads of humanity in those who look, feel, and believe differently than we do?

As you can see, there are a lot of thorny questions, a lot of room for interpretation, and about a million shades of gray.

The genre of horror came up in the conversation as particularly problematic. By its very nature horror is supposed to depict that which disturbs. Horror is about monsters - in the closet, on other planets, within ourselves - that do monstrous things, who may or may not be defeated by the end of the story. But there are also many redeeming things about the horror genre, like catharsis, or the ability to hold up a mirror to the uglier parts of humanity and thereby perhaps start the slow movement of change, or the ability to show that which is different is not a true horror, but simply different.

It wasn’t long before the conversation about horror turned to H.P. Lovecraft, one of the early greats who shaped modern horror fiction. His stories about the insignificance of the human race on the cosmic scale, and the tentacled Unspeakable that was so horrific it could not be properly described in the narrow confines of human speech, left an indelible mark on readers and writers of horror that is going strong more than 90 years after he published his first short story. In fact, there is a whole subgenre of horror dedicated to recreating, reimagining, and continuing his legacy of stories of human insignificance, eldritch horror, and madness.

But Lovecraft was problematic man himself...

Living as he did in United States in the early 20th century, Lovecraft and everyone else around him was steeped in a culture that included casual racism, a blasé attitude (or worse) about anti-Semitism, and institutionally supported misogyny. Lovecraft expressed many of the attitudes of his time in his creative work and in the volumes of letters he wrote. However, even measuring him by the common attitudes of his time, his racism was leaps and bounds past what was considered normal for the time and his anti-Semitic attitude went past blasé (despite marrying a Jewish woman; he considered her a good one because of her lack of activity in her hereditary faith). As for the misogyny, there does not seem to be much overt evidence in his letters, but his relationships with the women in his life were often stilted and strange, and the women in his fiction, when they even existed, were weak or evil. To this day these small clues inspire lively debate about whether misogynist can be added to Lovecraft’s list of flaws.

So do we ignore some of the defining work of an entire genre just because the creator of that work had some personal attitudes that many modern people find distasteful or even repugnant? For that matter, do we throw out everything that came after Lovecraft, from August Derleth on, and let a popular niche genre wither and die? I can think of quite a few readers and writers who would be crushed over the prospect of losing Lovecraftian fiction. Or do we let time soften our attitude a bit? After all, Lovecraft shuffled off his mortal coil in 1937 and those who write modern fiction in his style don’t necessarily share the views we’ve identified as problematic. Allowing ourselves to enjoy fiction done in the Lovecraftian style starts to look like a pretty safe bet.

As the panel relaxed a bit from the intense Lovecraft discussion, a joking suggestion rose up to put together an anthology of Lovecraftian stories that would make the dear, old boy roll in his grave. By mutual consent the panel concluded that the near perfect protagonist would be a black lesbian Jew. And the panel exchanged grins and twinkling glances, and the book now in your hands was conceived.

A little over two years in the making, EOM is a book with protagonists both male and female, straight and not, and who come in a wide variety of skin tones. We’re serving up a little variety to the Elder Gods, and we hope you enjoy it as well.

Back to the Table of Contents

Scars of a Certain Value by Christine Lucas

Everything Khemes had planned for his day off awaited an arm’s length away: food, beer, good company. Only his plans had not included a portal blinking several paces behind him, beside the ancient Bast statue in this remote shrine of the Cat Goddess. While his glance kept darting to that accursed gateway, Ta-miut, Bast’s priestess, sipped beer in silence beside him, oblivious to the portal. Oblivious or just indifferent, like her many cats? Those too hadn’t even glanced twice at it, or much less so hissed or arched their backs; they played, napped, hunted and frolicked between the statue and the Nile as they always did.

Khemes craved peace and quiet for one of his few days off. Others might rush to a tavern to drink their day away, but not him. He’d hoped to find serenity here. And then that portal appeared beside Bast’s statue. According to old folk, that rock, barely resembling Bast nowadays, had been standing there long before the pyramids up north had been constructed.

For most of his adult life, he’d been in the service of a great sorcerer, the High Priest of Anubis. Khemes had seen enough to know that, when the air blinked at him like that, nothing good slouched towards Egypt. Now, when he looked at that spot sideways, out of the corner of his eye, a small town appeared inside. Strange houses with upper stories full of flowers, the smell of crisp mornings, fresh bread and cinnamon, and a narrow, simmering river at the distance. Once or twice, cats strolled on its cobblestone streets. The image wouldn’t stay long; like a mirage upon the western sands, it flickered under the midday sun.

Ta-miut offered him a fig. Gossiping busybodies back in Thebes would snicker at their friendship: the old, crippled servant and the even older mute priestess. Old people like them weren’t supposed to desire, love or crave the companionship of someone who knew how hard such a life could be. He took a bite of the sweet fruit, and smiled at his friend. Damn those gossips, and may their noses grow boils the size of a hippo’s balls. He cared for her more than his shy tongue could articulate, and although she wouldn’t fix his leg. He grimaced at the pinpricks along the deep, red scar on his left thigh - his lifelong reminder of his encounter with a crocodile. Damned thing hurt every time something unnatural lurked nearby. Or when he got his feet wet. Or when the winds blew from the north. Or when he slept on it. Every damned moment of every damned day.

He sighed, rubbed his thigh with his left hand and pointed with his right thumb over his shoulder to the blinking spot.

Seen that? Just in case he’d had too much beer and nothing flickered there.

Ta-miut raised her gaze from the kitten on her lap. A glance at the spot, a glance back at him, and a nod. A little slower than her usual responses - perhaps she had had too much beer.

A bad place? Ta-miut had magic skills of her own, although nothing that could match his master’s. Still, if something lurked in her home, she’d know.

A slow shake of her head.

Been through there? To that place?

A nod, slow. She licked her lips, and mouthed one word.

What was that? Ithar? Elthar? Khemes wanted her to repeat it, but it felt cruel, to ask a mute person to try and speak, so he let it go. It didn’t really matter. He searched the basket for another ripe fig.

Is this where you came from? Damn that beer, the question had sprung to the tip of his tongue without consulting with his wits first - or his heart. Several years ago, Ta-miut had entered Thebes, mute and injured and - as people soon discovered - a healer of great skills. No one knew where she’d come from, and she’d made this forgotten shrine her home.

Her eyes widened for a moment. Her head moved as if for a shake, then a nod, then she just bent over the purring kitten on her lap.

Damned be his foolish tongue, he’d gone too far, and hurt a person who’d showed him only kindness. No words to comfort her felt right, but then a cat trotted before them with prey in his fangs and dispelled the uncomfortable moment, bearing gifts of gore and mischief.

Nedjem. Of course. His master’s pet cat loved to follow Khemes to the shrine and sire as many kittens as possible. This time he brought a gift to Ta-miut, to thank her for her cats’ hospitality. A bloody, gruesome, mauled gift.

Khemes held one finger up, then pointed to the ground.

Nedjem, put that down. Right now. Why did he bother? That cat had never listened to anyone.

Nedjem just gazed at him, the mangled thing in his fangs still squirming. Merciful Bast, what was that? It looked like a malformed toad, if toads were soft and bubble-like, with eel-like tentacles and countless eyes surfacing on the clammy skin, only to retreat back inside again. The other cats took notice and started to approach, paw after paw, bellies close to the ground, long bodies of growling sinew and headstrong muscle.

Ta-miut pointed to the ground with a soft motion of her wrinkled hand. Down.

Bast help him, did that furred rascal roll his amber eyes? But he did put his prey down. With a yawn, he trotted away, toward the cluster of acacia trees north of the clearing. Khemes poked the half-dead creature with his walking stick, but before he could get a good look, the other cats charged.

Ta-miut shrugged and offered him another fig. He glanced askance at her. Why had she shrugged off this blood incident? Had she seen such creatures before? Perhaps they had a nest at this part of the river, and her cats fished them out often for their supper. He sat up, glanced about, saw nothing else out of the ordinary, and settled back down. Hopefully, he’d seen the last of its kind.

They ate in silence, watching cats chase fat horseflies and sparrows and each other. Khemes washed down chunks of dried meat with lots of cool beer, and had almost dozed off when Nedjem returned with more prey.

This one looked like a big centipede, if centipedes had malformed wings and were an arm’s length long and flesh-colored. Or some monstrous crab. With wings. Or could those be fins? This too seemed half-dead, its articulated limbs and short antennae still moving erratically. Nedjem looked too damn proud of his catch. Silly cat, what if the creature was poisonous?

Khemes’ gut tightened to a cramping knot. A scene flashed inside his skull, a scene that should fall into the deepest waters of Duat and never return: going home to his master with the cat’s dead body in his arms. He slapped the side of his head to banish the thought. No. That would not happen. He wouldn’t let it.

Nedjem, put that down.

Nedjem growled and kept his squirming catch. Khemes sat up, attempting to pry the damned creature from the cat’s fangs, when another cat approached. Nedjem dropped the bloody creature down, it landed belly up and stayed that way, while the cat growled his welcome to the newcomer. Khemes had never seen such a cat before, with fur black as the deep night and green eyes that regarded Ta-miut as an old friend. Where had he come from? He glanced back. From over there, from that Olthar-place. Another cat leaped through the portal. Black, again. Of course.

A cat’s howl reached them through the portal. Beside Khemes, Ta-miut sat up. With agility unusual for her aged bones, she drew a curved dagger from the basket of fruit and stabbed the creature in its gut. The cat from beyond howled again. Both Nedjem and Blackfur abandoned their hissing and air-clawing pleasantries and fixed their eyes ahead, their bodies rigid.

Across the river, the air rippled. The Nile wasn’t as wide at this spot as further south. Someone - something - at the other side could easily reach theirs. And something did stir under the surface of the water, shadows of things that shouldn’t be there, that didn’t belong there, and yet there they were.

Khemes grasped Ta-miut’s arm. What’s going on? What’s happening?

Ta-miut offered him a timid smile, withdrew her blade and wiped black blood on dead leaves. Her fingertips caressed his forearm. It’s going to be all right, her touch whispered; I’ll let no one harm you. But Khemes knew that, no, it wouldn’t be all right, something evil slouched this way, his scar burned, his old injury hurt too much, and he was just a useless old man, a cripple with no weapon but his walking stick, and his master’s magic half a day away in Thebes.

The portal across the water shifted and darkened. A vast emptiness lay beyond, a starless night over gray sands. Someone over there played the flute, someone else the drum; a monotonous rhythm, each beat drilling into his skull, urging his feet to follow, join the long procession of moaning people forward, onward, outward into the dark, until his soul’s breaking. But the burning pain rooted his leg into the dirt, reminding him whom he belonged to: Sobek, the crocodile-headed god, who wouldn’t relinquish those marked by his children easily.

Ta-miut shook him and brought him back to the reality of sun, sand, and battle-ready felines. She’d drawn something on the dirt with her blade: it looked like the Eye of Horus, but wasn’t, with more hieroglyphs and symbols around it. Not that he could read them anyway; he’d never mustered enough attention to learn anything but the basic hieroglyphs. Ta-miut held her palm up. She’d sliced it open, and her wide eyes under a creased brow expected him to offer his as well.

Oh no. No. No. No. Blood magic? He’d seen enough to know that such rituals rarely ended well. No blood of his would go into a spell.

Forgive me. I can’t.

Ta-miut cast a long glance at his shaking head, then turned to the drawing. She let blood drip upon the lines. Something hungry within the land itself, something eternal, of rock and sand, the ancient statue and the backbone of Egypt, devoured it all. A light tremor beneath. A glow above, like a parasol made of light, shielded the clearing. All cats retreated under its protection.

And there they came, abominations crawling out of the primordial waters of Duat, spawned from angles within angles, from the strange shapes revolving inside that portal across the water, hexagons and cubes and obelisks and tetrahedra that merged and mingled into each other in impossible depths.

There they came, and he’d meet them standing. Khemes pushed himself up, groaned at the stabs of pain, but gritted his teeth and picked up his walking stick. Carved from strong cedar wood, it had crushed skulls before.

Some of the creatures could pass as men from a distance, with arms and legs and flat heads. Others couldn’t, with trunks and snouts instead of faces. They too walked upright, but some had tentacles for arms, others claws, some had soft, mushy flesh, others pinkish bellies and green-grey scaly skin. Some had slits for mouths while others a vibrating mass of ever-moving pinkish tentacles. Some marched forward, others slouched on short, stubby legs and, Bast be praised, none of their gruesome lot carried any weapons.

Across the river, a form appeared at the portal: a man’s figure. His features were cloaked in darkness, but his signal was clear. He beckoned at Ta-miut, inviting her over.

Come, child.

A voice in his thoughts soft and stern, like a caring father chastising an unruly child. It promised peace, comfort, the warm bosom of oblivion where no one hurt or hungered. It promised healing of all scars, of those on flesh and those on soul, no pain, only sweet forgetfulness of all strife, of all...

A shriek. Blessed be the cats, led by Blackfur, who charged the nearest creature and brought it down. Its shrieks disrupted the dark man’s seduction and drowned it in blood. Nedjem, miffed by his rival’s initiative, led his own pride of consorts, sons and daughters, and downed two more creatures. After each kill, all cats returned behind Ta-miut’s protective light, licked their wounds, and located their next targets.

Ta-miut herself stood tall and straight, her eyes closed, her arms crossed over her chest, wielding crook and flail made of light. What a fool he’d been, thinking her magic inferior to his master’s. Like those gossip-mongers, he’d seen the surface only, this of an old, mute woman. She was more. Much, much more.

And so was he.

Khemes spat on the ground. His thick head be damned if he’d stay back and allow a lone woman and a horde of cats to protect his sorry hide. He hefted his walking stick as an axe and marched on. He managed a well-balanced blow on the tentacled snout of the nearest creature. It howled and choked on thick, green ichor, but not for long. Nedjem led his group to finish it off. Khemes brought his stick down on the flat head of the next one, and let Blackfur and his own group take care of the rest. He retreated back into the light for a breather and a couple of hurried gulps of beer, and waited for the cats to regroup.

Perhaps they’d survive this fight. Perhaps they’d even win.

He kept an eye to the portal, to the dark figure that seemed to approach with every heartbeat, and worked with the cats, cutting down one abomination after another. His leg hurt, sending burning daggers into his spine, up to the base of his neck. Sweat dripped into his eyes, every joint ached but, damn, did it feel good. And now strips of flesh and pools of black blood and ichor stained the ground, and the last few creatures lingered at the riverbank, reluctant to advance.

Ah, Child. Such a disappointment.

The figure stepped out of the portal, a dark man in full regalia: Egypt’s twin crown, and bearing the crook and flail. Chill followed his heel, the stale breath of forsaken tombs buried in the forbidden crevices on the world, and whispered in forgotten tongues.

Behold the Black Pharaoh, the One and Forever Ruler of Egypt, the Trickster, the Deal-maker of the Crossroads, the Crawling Chaos.

Nyarlathotep.

He raised the hand bearing the flail and pointed it at Ta-miut.

I will have what is mine. Yield.

A flick of his arm and the portal behind him widened. Armies marched in its dark depths, armies that could blacken the western sands, hordes upon hordes of abominations, beasts and soldiers from a thousand worlds to swarm Egypt.

Ta-miut grinned and raised her arms, reciting in a tongue Khemes should know, but had long forgotten. Against the armies of Chaos stood the cats of Egypt abreast with the cats of Ulthar, along with their kin from a myriad yesterdays and countless tomorrows: the dead, the unborn, the reborn, felines of flesh and felines of spirit, they perched on every branch, crouched under every tree, teeth bared, eyes unblinking and unyielding.

And Khemes knew. This place by the Nile was not a shrine; it never had been. From times immemorial, it had been a Watchtower against Chaos, and Ta-miut its current Guardian.

Ah, Child. Haven’t we played this game before?

He turned to Khemes.

But this time, we have a new player. Or merely another pawn? Kneel, little man. Kneel before your god.

Tentacles sprang forth from beneath the Black Pharaoh’s feet at every direction. The cats hissed and spat, Ta-miut held her place, and Khemes paced backwards to reach safety behind the light. And, damn his bad leg, he tripped and fell face down on the dirt. . .

...right on Ta-miut’s protective sign, breaking the spell. He didn’t realize what he’d done until he raised his head, spitting out dirt and blood. A surge of power burst from the Dark Pharaoh and knocked Ta’miut back. She crashed against a palm tree and fell motionless on the ground. The summoned cats vanished. In a blink, all remaining cats gathered around her, a wall of clawed limbs and fanged fur, hissing their warnings.

The Dark Pharaoh chuckled and stepped forward, walking on the surface of the Nile as effortlessly as he’d stroll on limestone-paved roads. A long line, an umbilical cord of darkness, connected him to the portal blinking at the opposite bank and the cacophony of flutes and moans within.

Khemes let his face fall back into the dirt. He’d