Plugs

Kat Beyer’s Cabal story “A Change In Government” has been nominated for a BSFA award for best short fiction.

Jason Fischer has a story appearing in Jack Dann’s new anthology Dreaming Again.

Trent Walters, poetry editor at A&A, has a chapbook, Learning the Ropes, from Morpo Press.

Read Rudi’s story “Detail from a Painting by Hieronymus Bosch” at Behind the Wainscot.

FROM THE BOOK OF MONSTERS ( FN 1 )

by Daniel Braum

Pg. 270.

Excerpt from the account of Raul Sanchez given to Father M. Sorenson. ( FN 2)
Translated from Spanish by D. Francis Leslie. PHD ( FN 3)
Ash Wednesday. 1983.

I had just come from church. Some of the old farmers asked for help with something that had been tearing up their fields. ( FN 4) Something had dug a huge pit right where they said; a tunnel about four feet around at the bottom. So I climbed down, and immediately realized something was there.

At first I thought I was looking at the hindquarters of a fat, giant mole. Then it turned and looked at me. Its face was a human face but was shriveled and purple. When I saw its teeth, which were jagged and triangular, like an old shark’s, I realized I was face to face with a demon from the first world. ( FN 5 ) I thought I was going to die. But I was wearing the Ash and the two brothers were protecting me. It tunneled into the earth and I never saw it again. ( FN 6)

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Footnotes:

(1) The name commonly associated with the untitled volumes of D. Francis Leslie’s accounts, transcriptions, and translations of unexplained biological and paranormal occurrences from around the globe. -DB

(2) Original footnote from D. Francis Leslie: These skeptical notes predate Sorenson’s account of The Green Man and related episodes in the now infamous town.

(3) PHD appears after D. Francis Leslie’s but confirmation of where this doctorate was obtained and of what discipline remains unconfirmed at the time of this printing. I located a degree in Veterinary medicine for one Franklyn Brahma, one of his suspected alias, from a school in Thailand. I’ve heard accounts of F Brahma traveling with some of the more reclusive crypto-botanists in China but was unable to find any documentation. -DB

(4) A Handwritten Note from Father Sorenson’s transcription read as follows: It is more likely Sanchez was investigating an animal of some sort that was tunneling under his fields of illicit crops. I am of the opinion this story was concocted to keep prying eyes and thieving competition out of the area.

(5) Original footnote from D. Francis Leslie: Despite the references to Mayan mythology and cosmology I doubt Father Sorensen believed Raul was a religious man.

(6) Original footnote from D. Francis Leslie: There are tales of strange creatures attacking livestock and even children. Finding out if these accounts are connected to Mr. Sanchez’s tale will require additional investigation.

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