Stupefying Stories 23: Stupefying Stories, #23

By Julie Frost, Jamie Lackey, Terry Faust and 9 more

Edited by Philip K. Dick Award-winning author and cyberpunk legend Bruce Bethke, STUPEFYING STORIES is the place to read tomorrow's famous writers today! Stupefying Stories 23 features all-new stories by—

• Julie Frost - "Woe to the Hand"
• Jamie Lackey - "The Unicorn's Companion"
• Terry Faust - "The Secret of Erin Stewart"
• Helen French - "Outrider"
• Karl Dandenell - "The Last Feast of Silas the Wizard"
• Allison Thai - "The Bird and Baby"
• Tom Jolly - "The Worm's Eye"
• Beth Hudson - "Magic with the Bones"
• Kevin Stadt - "Eddie's Upgrade"
• Amy Caylor - "The Dead Barn"
• Gary Pattinson - "They Call Me Charon"
• Beth Powers - "Brimstone and Brine"

Whether your taste runs to science fiction, fantasy, paranormal, or something so new it doesn't yet have a name, you're sure to find it in STUPEFYING STORIES!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rampant Loon Press
• Release date: Sep 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223666165

Book preview

Stupefying Stories 23

A Rampant Loon Press Publication

Copyright © 2021 Rampant Loon Media LLC

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living, dead, or undead (we prefer the term postmortal) is coincidental and not intended by the author(s).

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Masthead

Editor in Chief: Bruce Bethke

Editorial Minion: Katherine M. Karr

Proofreading: Karen Bethke

Consigliere: Henry Vogel

Social Media Director: Eric Dontigney

Special Thanks to: The Fearless Slush Pile Reader Corps. They also serve who read and reject the dreck. Thank you!

Extra Special Thanks to: Chris Pearce and Sharon Cherri, for additional proofreading above and beyond the call of duty. Thank you!

Cover art: ©grandfailure/Adobe Stock

March 2021: Vol. 1, No. 23

STUPEFYING STORIES is a production of RAMPANT LOON PRESS and is published in the United States of America by Rampant Loon Press, an imprint of Rampant Loon Media LLC, P.O. Box 111, Lake Elmo, Minnesota 55042.

www.rampantloonmedia.com

Copyright © 2021 Rampant Loon Media LLC

The individual works contained herein are copyright © 2021 by their respective authors, unless otherwise indicated. All works contained herein are published by contractual arrangement with the authors. Stupefying Stories, Rampant Loon Press, the Stupefying Stories logo, and the Rampant Loon colophon are trademarks of Rampant Loon Media LLC.

Contents

A few words from the editor...

Woe to the Hand, by Julie Frost

The Unicorn’s Companion, By Jamie Lackey

The Secret of Erin Stewart, By Terry Faust

Outrider, By Helen French

The Last Feast of Silas the Wizard, By Karl Dandenell

The Bird and Baby, By Allison Thai

The Worm’s Eye, By Tom Jolly

Magic with the Bones, By Beth Hudson

Eddie’s Upgrade, By Kevin Stadt

The Dead Barn, By Amy Caylor

They Call Me Charon, By Gary Pattinson

Brimstone and Brine, By Beth Powers

Wait, before you leave...

A few words from the editor…

Hello, I’m Bruce Bethke, editor of Stupefying Stories magazine and executive cat-herder-in-chief here at Rampant Loon Press. You hold in your hands Stupefying Stories 23, a book that was beginning to approach The Last Dangerous Visions in terms of its quasi-mythic Will that damned book ever be released? status.

Yet here it is at last: the biggest and most ambitious project we’ve done to date. Twelve stories, covering a range of genres from contemporary horror, to urban fantasy, to science fiction so hard it clanks. Twelve authors, ranging from names you probably know and love already to new voices you haven’t heard before, but who we believe you’ll be hearing a lot more from in the not-too-distant future. A nice balance of previous contributors and new friends; a good mix of lengths and tones, from a novelette set on a generation ship gone terribly awry (Outrider) to the delightful little confection that is Brimstone and Brine.

Still, it’s been so long since we released Stupefying Stories 22 that it seems like a longer introduction is needed. Therefore, since author’s and editor’s bios are always written in third person, it’s time to shift into third-person and tackle two questions: who is Bruce Bethke, and why should you care about the stories he’s presenting in Stupefying Stories 23?

¤   ¤   ¤

To answer the second question first, consider this review quote from Dave Brzeski at SFcrowsnest Magazine. Writing about Stupefying Stories 22, he said [emphasis added]:

"This is perhaps not a publication for those whose tastes fall within narrow boundaries, as the stories can fall pretty much anywhere within the broad scope of speculative fiction. It’s fairly obvious that Bruce Bethke’s only criteria for the magazine is that the work should be of a uniformly high standard."

To coin a phrase: Dave Brzeski  gets it.

To answer the first question, then, we need to add a qualifier: when? In the 1980s Bruce Bethke was a successful short story writer, with a list of professional publication credits so long he quit counting new sales after a while. In particular some of the SF stories he wrote and sold in the 1980s are considered significant now, by people who feel themselves qualified to judge such things. (And if you want to talk about any of those old stories, there’s a feature called Ask Dr. Cyberpunk on the Stupefying Stories web site where you can do just that.)

By the 1990s Bethke had realized that writers cannot live on short story sales alone, so he graduated to writing novels and became an award-winning novelist. He also served a few terms on the board of directors of a certain famous science fiction and fantasy writers association, and took a contract job as an anthology editor at a major publishing house. In the process of doing these things he gained a great deal of experience and insight into how the commercial publishing industry really works, although he has difficulty describing that experience now—at least, not without using excessive profanity.

In 2000, fed up with the way the publishing industry grovels before a small handful of bestselling authors and treats all the rest of their original content creators like fungible contract workers, he walked away from fiction publishing and went off to do something else. Again, he has difficulty describing that experience now, but in this case it’s because of NDAs he signed that are still in effect.

In 2010, aided by a terrific crew of friends and volunteers, Bethke founded Rampant Loon Press and launched Stupefying Stories, with the goal of using the attention people wanted to pay to him, because of all those stories and novels he wrote back in the 1980s and 1990s, to help boost the careers of new up-and-coming writers. Since then Stupefying Stories has had its ups and downs, and more than a few times when things went completely sideways, but along the way Rampant Loon Press has published dozens of books, hundreds of stories, and given a hand-up to hundreds of newer and younger writers.

Judging simply by the number of writers who got their start here, and then moved up and on to become award-winning authors, successful novelists, or recognized names on the covers of major magazines, that part of the original goal has been a success. And with the backstory thus established, it’s time to shift back into first person and talk about Stupefying Stories 23.

¤   ¤   ¤

As we turn the corner into the third decade of the 21st Century it’s tempting to issue a manifesto, to declare that Stupefying Stories has made a fresh start, or in some other hubris-laden way to make a statement, laying out our ambitions and plans for the coming year. However, I’ve become gun-shy about doing that. For the past ten years we’ve been experimenting, learning, and making mistakes galore. Too many times, when I thought we finally had everything all figured out, the Fates decided to throw a new spanner into the works just to see how we’d react. 2020 in particular was a year in which absolutely nothing went as planned or expected, for us as well as for everyone else. Frankly, if 2020 was a car, I’d call it a lemon and demand my money back.

Therefore, rather than make a statement, allow me to present to you Stupefying Stories 23. Consider this the prototype for the direction in which I want to take Stupefying Stories, God willing and the creek don’t rise. As I said at the start of this introduction, this is the biggest, most ambitious, and most expensive project we’ve done to date. We’re even using interior illustrations in SS#23, for the first time since our 2010 debut issue. (Although the illos didn’t turn out quite as planned: some look much better in the ebook than in the print edition.)

We’re still learning. We’re still evolving. Stick with us, if you please. Stupefying Stories 24 will look even better.

Per aspera ad astra,

Bruce Bethke

Woe to the Hand

By Julie Frost

werewolf changing

©stuart/Adobe Stock

Just relax and enjoy it, Zachary, darling. Annabeth extended her fangs and rested them lightly on my racing pulse point. Her breath wafted, room temperature, into my ear, and her dark brown hair tickled my cheek. She had me sat in one of the offices of her mansion on the outskirts of town, where she kept her hive of seven other vampires situated in sumptuous luxury. You know I’ll make this quite nice if you only allow it.

The hell of it was, she would, whether I ‘allowed’ her or not. Vampire thrall entailed a peculiar form of dubious consent, especially when the vamp in question spent most of her time amped up on werewolf blood. Specifically, her vampire thrall and my werewolf blood. My fingers gripped the arms of the wide-seated parlor chair, extended claws poking all the way through the brocade fabric and sinking a half-inch into the hardwood beneath.

Get it over with, I said through my own gritted fangs, hate dripping from every syllable.

She straddled my lap and ran her fingers across my chest, bared at her insistence for her feedings. Your wish is my command.

Liar. I didn’t even get the entirety of the word out before the points of her teeth slashed my throat open. A wave of pleasure suffused me with an all-over tingle as she commenced an enthusiastic feed. My eyes slipped shut involuntarily, and a moan escaped my lips. She let out a low chuckle and stroked me from collarbone to abdomen with one hand and my cheek with the other before her fingers tangled in my hair and yanked my head to the side for a better angle.

I detest you, I managed, slurring through slack lips.

She stopped feeding for a moment, and blood ran in a thick rivulet down through my chest hair. Now who’s the liar? she asked, before fastening her mouth back over the slashes.

Thrall meant we couldn’t precisely lie to each other but it was, as they say, complicated. So long as I agreed to be her donor, the rest of my pack was safe from her hive. As the queen, she was the only one allowed to use the extra power provided by wolf blood to walk in daylight. Since wolves can’t protect ourselves from vampires—what with the thrall, and the fact that they were stronger and faster, not to mention the whole turning-into-mist trick—this kind of arrangement tended to be the norm rather than the exception.

She also kept out other vampire hives that might be less… kind, which was the wrong word but the only one I had. During the decade we’d had this understanding, she’d defended the territory against takeover three times with the same casual, brutal efficiency she’d captured it with at the start. My former queen Natasha hadn’t a chance, and Annabeth could end me as easily as crushing a bug if I displeased her.

She never threatened to. Annabeth actually treated me as well as could be expected under the circumstances. But I never forgot her cold expression as she’d staked Natasha, nor the look of utter possession she’d bestowed upon me afterward as I crouched frozen in the corner of the parlor, a mouse speared by the gaze of an eagle. So I didn’t like the situation much, or her, or the degree of control she had over my body’s responses. If I thought my pack would be safe from the rest of her hive, I’d have found a way to drive a stake through her unbeating heart long ago. But she ruled them with a fist of steel, our pact ironclad and even including the humans in our territory. This didn’t make her good, in my book, but she wasn’t precisely evil either, as some of her kind justly had a reputation for being. Natasha, for instance, had brutally murdered my mate in front of me and then taken far more than my blood, deciding she owned my body as well—I hadn’t actually been sorry to see that one go.

Worth it, I told myself once again, gasping and limp, before I realized something. Did you feed more than usual? I asked, fixing her with a somewhat bleary glare. What the hell, Annabeth?

I need my strength, darling. I’m hearing rumors I can’t just set aside. She brushed my hair away from my eyes with gentle fingers and cleaned the stray blood from my chest with her tongue before raising her eyes to meet mine. Are you well?

As well as ever, I suppose. As well as an over-used dishrag. She’d feed me a steak soon, and I’d heal, but sessions like this took it out of me.

All right, then. She kissed the wounds she’d left on my throat closed. Good boy. Like I was a dog she was fond of.

Perhaps I was.

¤   ¤   ¤

A low whine from the mouth of an alleyway made my head jerk around, and the reek of far too much wolf blood hit me a bare second later. I rushed over and knelt beside one of my packmates, cradling his head and trying—ineffectively—to stanch wounds too grievous to survive, even for one of us.

Zach. Jared’s voice was a bare whisper.

Easy. Stay with me. Who did this to you? It had been a vampire, but not Annabeth or any other I knew; I could smell that much.

Big guy. Blond. Goatee. Shallow breathing. Jared’s heart galloped with faint desperation under my hand, striving to pump not enough blood through his body. Moving. Moving in. He said. He made a grab for my shirt and missed completely. Injected me. After.

A chill skittered up my spine and tickled the hairs at the nape of my neck. With what?

He exhaled with a raspy rattle, and I didn’t think he’d inhale again, but he did after a few moments. Vampire poison. He said. Coming after. All. Hurts, Zach. Don’t. Don’t let—

His heart and lungs stilled under my hands. I held him tight, resting my forehead on his hair with my eyes closed and prickling.

Some bastard had invaded Annabeth’s territory and murdered one of my wolves—a wolf under her protection.

No one should have to die like that. Guilt and rage warred within me. Rage won.

Vampire poison. I could smell it on Jared, an astringent botanical concoction I was sure I’d recognize if I caught the scent again. I wondered how long it lasted, if it was fatal for werewolves too, what the side effects would be—and if I could somehow use it to release me from this obligation I had to Annabeth.

Clearly, the rumors she’d been hearing were true. I bared a long, sharp fang. I wouldn’t forget the new vamp’s odor anytime soon, and if I ever encountered him, I would kill him—or die trying.

¤   ¤   ¤

I hadn’t realized that die trying would come sooner than expected. The six of us remaining of the pack gathered at my home that night to throw a wake for Jared, as much a celebration of his life as a reaffirmation of our solidarity. Vampires weren’t invited; even Annabeth with all her arrogance knew better than to show up.

Others crashed the party anyway.

That thing about vampires needing an invitation to come in? A myth they spread to keep humans off-balance. They hit us hard and fast, from all four sides of the house, dematerializing from outside, reappearing with arms already wrapped about throats before we could do more than realize they were there. One for each of us, which was overkill, really, considering the strength differential. I supposed they weren’t taking any chances.

The split second I realized what was what, I shifted to wolf, an instantaneous transformation that tripled my mass to a six-hundred-pound monster, surprising the vampire attacking me enough that I was able to tear loose from his grip. My teeth met through his ribcage, crunching and ripping before he could react. He let go with a pained shriek, stumbling away, and I turned my attention to my packmates.

Two of them had the same thought I did and were wolfed and fighting, but the other three writhed in preternaturally powerful vampire grips with fangs sunk in their throats. When a vampire concentrated, he didn’t take long at all to drain a victim dry, wolf or human or whatever, and I only had seconds before I lost more of my pack to their depredations.

I shifted back to human and made a frantic grab for my phone. We were far overmatched; only other vampires could hope to take them on and prevail. Annabeth was at the top of my speed-dial list, but before I could get out more than a strangled shout at her, an enemy vamp plowed into my side and sank his fangs deep into the side of my neck.

Fuck it, I changed to wolf again, and he ended up with a mouth full of bloody fur as I ripped free. I aimed a massive snap at his face, and he recoiled—not because it would kill him (because it wouldn’t, more was the pity), but because vampires didn’t like getting hurt any more than anyone else. But it worked well enough to get him to back off me, which was what I wanted, and I turned to see how my wolves fared.

Not well. Robbie and Mack were dead or near enough that it didn’t matter. Laura was well on her way, a vamp enthusiastically sucking her life out. I leaped and fastened my teeth into the nearest portion of his anatomy I could reach, which was his arm, and ripped it right from its shoulder socket in a spray of stolen blood. He screamed and disengaged, but I knew before he did that I was too late.

I was also woefully outnumbered. My own vampire came back for seconds, or possibly thirds, and the two who’d already killed my packmates joined him. They swept my legs from under me, bearing me to the floor, holding me tightly enough that I couldn’t even thrash. I had time to think that this was it, I was done for—

And the three of them disappeared, along with all their friends.

I lay gasping, knowing I’d dodged a sterling silver bullet but not quite sure how. Annabeth’s hand on my ruff told me, along with her voice in my ear. Zachary, she choked. That couldn’t possibly be concern. I was a tool, a toy. Nothing more.

I lifted my head, sniffing, before dropping it back to the floor with a hopeless thump, shifting back to human and gasping. Are they really all gone? I asked.

She petted my hair. I’m sorry, Zachary. I’m so, so sorry.

My heart hurt more than my abused body. I couldn’t quite believe it, and had to