Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
Memory
Friday, October 1st, 2010
Our story today is a classic piece of flash from Howard Phillips Lovecraft, starting what we hope will be a tradition of every now and then mixing our spanking new stories with much less spanking, older pieces. We should probably mention that this story isn’t covered by our usual creative commons license, as it’s in the public domain. A technicality, true, but we do not relish the idea of Mr. Lovecraft becoming wrathful with us from beyond the grave.
In the valley of Nis the accursed waning moon shines thinly, tearing a path for its light with feeble horns through the lethal foliage of a great upas-tree. And within the depths of the valley, where the light reaches not, move forms not meant to be beheld. Rank is the herbage on each slope, where evil vines and creeping plants crawl amidst the stones of ruined palaces, twining tightly about broken columns and strange monoliths, and heaving up marble pavements laid by forgotten hands. And in trees that grow gigantic in crumbling courtyards leap little apes, while in and out of deep treasure-vaults writhe poison serpents and scaly things without a name. Vast are the stones which sleep beneath coverlets of dank moss, and mighty were the walls from which they fell. For all time did their builders erect them, and in sooth they yet serve nobly, for beneath them the grey toad makes his habitation.
At the very bottom of the valley lies the river Than, whose waters are slimy and filled with weeds. From hidden springs it rises, and to subterranean grottoes it flows, so that the Daemon of the Valley knows not why its waters are red, nor whither they are bound.
The Genie that haunts the moonbeams spake to the Daemon of the Valley, saying, “I am old, and forget much. Tell me the deeds and aspect and name of them who built these things of Stone.” And the Daemon replied, “I am Memory, and am wise in lore of the past, but I too am old. These beings were like the waters of the river Than, not to be understood. Their deeds I recall not, for they were but of the moment. Their aspect I recall dimly, it was like to that of the little apes in the trees. Their name I recall clearly, for it rhymed with that of the river. These beings of yesterday were called Man.”
So the Genie flew back to the thin horned moon, and the Daemon looked intently at a little ape in a tree that grew in a crumbling courtyard.
Unmasked
Thursday, September 30th, 2010
“You’re paranoid,” said Yellow Fever, slamming the muggers head into the wall. Bone and brick caved.
Centurion shrugged, shattered another man’s kneecaps. “The problem is endemic to the phenomenon, Yellow,” he said. “It’s waiting to happen. One day this anonymity stuff is going bite us on the ass.”
#
Trevor Milbank: mild mannered bank worker by day. Mild mannered husband by night. Less of an everyman, more of a nobody.
#
“I’m serious,” Centurion said as they took to the air. “I don’t know half the guys in the League from Adam. Wearing a mask and beating on people is not what normal people do.”
“What about me?” Yellow Fever asked.
“Don’t think I haven’t worried about you.”
#
Janice Milbank. Mild mannered wife of Trevor by day. Dr. Necrosis by night. He hadn’t had a clue. But there was a lab and a zombie army and everything. And he would have been willing to accept that. Except he didn’t find out until after a superhero ripped out the more important parts of her spine.
#
Centurion shrugged as they landed at the League’s hollowed-out volcano. “I just want to be more than a support group for the superpowered and unhinged.”
#
Trevor was angry of course. But he was a nobody. So in the end he just decided to dismantle Janice’s lab. It was for the best. But then there was the accident. And then…
#
“What would you have the superpowered do then?” asked Yellow Fever, as they pushed into the bustling main common room. “Don’t they have a responsibility to help?”
“They should be helped,” Centurion said. “Professionally”
Yellow Fever wrinkled his nose. “So what? If someone doesn’t measure up you’ll pull out bits of their spine?”
Centurion furrowed his brow. “I did that once. A zombie army, man. That was justified.”
“So’s this.” And mild mannered Trevor Milbank by day, Yellow Fever by night, took of his mask, and there were tears in his eyes. Yellow tears, that scored acid streaks down his cheeks. His eyes glowed yellow. And his mouth opened and screamed yellow. He erupted—an explosion that stripped skin from muscle, tore muscle from bone, and not for one moment allowed Centurion to appreciate quite how right he was.