Moon: The Lunar Book of Horror and Dark Fiction

By Mia Dalia, Elana Gomel, Carlton Herzog and 13 more

Moon is a collection of fifteen stories that take place on and below the moon, from new authors and award-winners alike: tales of alienation, punishment, or transformation. Approximately 47,000 words. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: R. James Gauvreau
• Release date: Mar 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215896792

Book preview

Contents

––––––––

Emergence

What Happened

Blood Moon

La Luna

The Beauty of Selene

Tenebrous

The Pale, Cratered Face

Survival Strategies

Moon Fever

The Jewels of the Mermaids

Primal Scream

Black Iron Trees

Where Nothing Walks

Maenad

A Piano at the Edge of the Moon

Author Bios

Copyright & Credits

Emergence

Bruno Lombardi

THERE’S A HOLE IN THE sky where the Moon used to be.

Hold up your thumb and extend your arm as far as it’ll go. See that size? That’s how big the hole is. In daylight, the hole is a black spot in an otherwise clear blue sky, like a computer screen with a big clump of dead pixels. At nighttime, it’s ‘blacker’ than the black sky—which makes no sense but there it is. When the sky is cloudy or raining or whatever, the hole is still there, like black laser beam un-shining through the muck and crap and clouds.

It makes no sense, I know. But we’re used to things making no sense these days.

It’s been two days since the Moon exploded.

And I’m out of medication.

We still have electricity—but all the power plants have stopped operating. And the radios and TV and internet still work, but nobody on it says anything logical or factual or even sensible.  They say the Moon exploded, but no debris can be seen in the sky and nothing have crashed. They say the hole is there, and yet, not there. They say that there is an explanation for everything, but none have been given.

I stay in my apartment, the curtains drawn and sleeping with the blankets over my head.

The hole in the sky doesn’t frighten me.

It’s what behind the hole that does...

It’s been four days since the Moon exploded.

And I’m out of food.

My iPhone beeps. There is an alert on it – all cap letters.

It says DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DO YOU LOOK AT THE MOON.

My iPhone beeps again. Facebook, emails, text messages, Instagram, Twitter—they’re all going crazy. I have dozens—no, hundreds of notifications. From friends and relatives and even strangers. They all say the same thing.

It's a beautiful night tonight. Look outside. Come. Look outside.

I go under the covers and throw an extra blanket over my head.

Even under the layers, I can still sense it.

Not hole in the sky. The thing that’s...behind the hole. Calling me. Calling all of us.

It’s been five days since the Moon exploded.

I had turned on the news first thing in the morning, only to see empty news desks and empty studios and dark screens. All the stations are like that—except one. There’s a man in a rumpled suit, sitting behind an empty desk. The lights are dimmed and I get the distinct impression that he is the only one in the studio. He’s murmuring the same words over and over again. His speech is slurred and stuttered and he clearly hasn’t had any sleep for days.

The...migration...has...begun. The...migration...will...occur.

He repeats the words for as long as I watch, as if they are a mantra. Or a blessing.

Or a warning.

I go out. For the first time in five days.

My plan is to find a store or a supermarket and buy or steal some food.

I didn’t know what to expect when I went outside. But definitely not this, not masses—congregations—of people standing outdoors, simply standing, on street corners and sidewalks and driveways and balconies and rooftops and roads.

And all of them staring upwards.

And smiling. They’re all smiling.

Meg. I see Meg. Beautiful Meg. My girlfriend.

She’s standing. And staring. I dare not follow her gaze, dare not look upwards, at the hole where the Moon ought to be.

Meg? I ask, my voice croaking from five days of disuse. I wave my hand in front of her face, hoping to dispel the spell or curse that she’s under. For a few seconds, there is no action, no reaction, no acknowledgement.

And then she blinks, and turns and faces me, the smile still on her face. Look, she says. Look at the Moon. It’s a beautiful day.

I take a step back and begin to circle around behind her.

There is a cracking sound... A horrible, cracking, tearing, ripping sound.

Meg begins to move her head to follow me, and as her head slowly twists around, too far around, the horrible tearing sound rises higher and higher, until her head has turned an impossible one hundred and eighty degrees.

She is still smiling. Look, Meg says. Look at the Moon. It’s a beautiful day.

And I then hear creaking and tearing from all around me.

Everyone is staring at me, heads tilted and twisted at impossible angles. Look, they say, speaking in unison. Look at the Moon. It’s a beautiful day.

I run home. I don’t get any food.

It’s been seven days since the Moon exploded.

It’s been two days since I’ve eaten.

When I glance out from the window, I still see people standing. And staring.

Then, as if a switch was turned on, they turn and begin to walk. But still staring upwards. Ever upwards.

They people disperse in every direction, seemingly without rhyme or reason or plan. After a few moments, I receive a sudden revelation. There’s a pattern after all, a reason for their movement.

They heading for the parks.

Curiosity compels me to follow them. Hunger compels me to find some food instead. Fear compels me to stay inside. In the end, hunger wins.

I eat my fill of junk food and energy bars and chips, and stuff armloads of food into my knapsack. I go to leave, to return to my apartment and stay until...I’m not sure until what, to be honest. But something—curiosity, maybe, now that I’ve eaten, or maybe the same call that pulled everything else—something draws me towards the nearest park.

There are people there. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people. Standing. Smiling. Staring. And quiet. So, so quiet.

Then, as if a puppet master was at work, they begin to move again.

I run and hide immediately, ducking inside an apartment building. I take the stairs two at a time as I rush up to the roof. The building is huge—thirty, forty stories—but I get to the roof, gasping for air, my legs on fire, my lungs aching. From up here, I can see a fair chunk of the city.

There is a tsunami of people. Like those films of army ants from those documentaries, there are tens upon tens of thousands of people, marching as one. In the distance, there are other groups spread out throughout the city. I stare in jaw-dropping shock.

There are precisely four groups. And each is marching—no, migrating, like the man said, in one of the four cardinal points: North, South, East and West.

The ocean lies directly east of the city. And as I watch, one quarter of the city calmly, unhesitatingly marches into the water.

I debate which group, if any, to follow. I have the whole city to myself now, but for how long? If the city—and presumably other cities—is being emptied, then what will happen when the last group leaves the last city? If I stay here, as King of the City, will it be a short reign? Will fire or ice come from the sky? Will the earth swallow the cities whole? Will the oceans drink its fill?

And always, always, I feel the pull. The pull to follow, to obey...to march. It is a compulsion. One that I can resist, but...it’s always there, tugging at my brain, my heart, my soul.

Follow the group going north? No, it’s close to winter and before long we’ll find nothing but cold and snow and ice.

Go south? Just a few weeks of walking will bring me to the ocean again. Will they walk into the sea like their brethren?

West? Yes. There is safety, at least for now, in walking westward.

I take my backpack and I follow the wave westwards...

It’s been ten days since the Moon exploded.

Waves of people leave from every town and city we pass. In each case, they too follow the cardinal points. Some waves intersect with others, they don’t mix or interact. When an eastward-marching passes through a northward-marching group, passing is all they do. What criteria are used to sort them? Does melancholy doom you to march into the East? If you drink alcohol, do you get shuffled into the southwards group? Or was it all a matter of chance?

And why am I still unaffected? Can I really be the only person who never stared at the Moon? Who sent the text warning? Are there others like me, hidden in secret government bunkers? Or was it the last desperate act of a lone final survivor?

And how can these people—if people they remain—continue to march without needing food or water or rest? Why do they continue to stare up, no matter how long far they walk?

I have so many questions. And so few answers.

Unlike them, I need food and all the rest. I stop at a grocery store to replenish my supplies. I fall, exhausted, on a pile of coats at a department store.

I awake in the late morning to see another group marching into the West.

I follow.

It is twelve days since the Moon exploded, when I see the Spider.

My mind reels at her size, as tall as a skyscraper and blacker than the darkest night.

She has the face of a kindly grandmother.

She takes a position in front of my group.

And we follow.

It is twenty-one days since the Moon exploded, when I reach a desert.

Just before midnight, the wave stops. For a moment, a long moment, I think that we’re at the base of a mountain, and then I notice that the mountain is moving.

The mountain is a mass of bodies—human bodies—rising thousands and tens of thousands of feet into the sky. A pyramid of bodies and limbs. The base, crushed beneath untold tons of weight, is a smear of blood and flesh and bone, hundreds of feet thick. As my eyes stretch upwards, I see the mass of human bodies rise up into the sky, so high that I dare not look, lest I see the hole in the sky.

And all of them are still alive. Still alive.

The Spider smiles, a grin as huge as a stadium, teeth as huge as a house. She moves and begins to climb up the mountain of flesh and bone and dead and living.

She calls to us, beckons us to follow her.

We follow.

Arms and legs and heads brush against me as I climb. When I dare to look, I see smiling expressions, all of them looking further upward. Look, they whisper. Look at the Moon. It’s a beautiful day.

It is twenty-four days since the Moon exploded, when I reach the top of the mountain of bodies. The spider is there, at the top of the mountain. Waiting. Waiting for me.

I can feel, without looking, her smile. Her benevolent, caring smile.

One leg, as long as several city blocks, reaches down and touches my forehead with a delicate touch. I should find it surprising that a being so large could be touch so lightly, but I do not.

Another leg reaches up, and I follow it with my eyes, all the way up to the hole in the sky. I feel tears well up in my eyes. I understand now.

I’m looking, and it’s a beautiful day.

And I continue to climb.

What Happened

Heinrich von Wolfcastle

LYDIA LUNGED OVER SPLASHES of pumpkin remains on her driveway. She was only gone for a couple of hours, but the neighborhood kids were fast to desecrate her house. She scoffed at the toilet-paper confetti woven between tree branches lining the walkway up to her front door.

If he would just put out a bowl of candy, none of this would happen, she muttered to herself.

She opened the front door to their house and found him in his recliner watching TV in the dark, flashes of light catching the soft contours of his face. A narrator droned on about seventeen hundred refugees traveling to Miami from Havana every week in 1962—the least Halloween thing he could put on, she noted.

I didn’t mean to wake you, she said.

What’re you doing home? he asked, stirring from his nap.

I just wanted to come home, she replied sharply.

Sure. OK, he said. He searched for the remote control but can’t seem to find it.

Lydia dropped her sleeping bag and backpack and carefully took off her shoes. Her father turned to watch her.

At the sleepover, Lydia’s friend Tammy called another girl from school—Arianna—to talk about Lydia. Unbeknownst to Arianna, Lydia was in the same room as Tammy, listening in on their conversation. When Tammy and Lydia usually did this, it was an opportunity to hear more about rumors being spread around school or to hear what someone (Arianna) really thought about somebody else (Lydia). But this particular conversation turned especially cruel.

Tammy said to Arianna, I heard you don’t like Lydia. She left the statement hanging as a way to ask, Is that true?

Arianna replied, Yeah, she’s so dramatical. I mean, if I were her mom, I’d be glad I was dead, and I’m surprised her dad hasn’t killed himself.

Tammy expected cruelty, but even that was a little harsh for her. You know it’s her birthday.

Whatever, Lydia said loud enough for Arianna to hear. She wanted to defend herself, but that purple ball of grief that she worked hard to keep buried started to climb from her chest up into her throat, and she thought it would be best if she just went home.