The Dark Issue 24 by A.M. Muffaz

Author:A.M. Muffaz [The Dark Magazine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dark fantasy, fantasy, horror, magazine
Publisher: Prime Books
Published: 2017-04-21T17:27:40+00:00

Samantha Henderson’s short fiction and poetry have been published in Strange Horizons, Interzone, Clarkesworld, Realms of Fantasy, The Lovecraft eZine, Goblin Fruit, Bourbon Penn, and Weird Tales, reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Science Fiction, Nebula Awards Showcase, Steampunk Revolutions and The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, and is upcoming in The Year’s Best Science Fiction 34. She’s the author of the Forgotten Realms novels Heaven’s Bones and Dawnbringer.

Queen Midnight

by Eliza Victoria

“They say its eyelids have gone down another meter,” Abi said, her voice echoing in the stairwell. “It’s just a matter of time. Maybe in three years, it’ll finally close its eyes and stop giving us nightmares.”

“Are you looking at Bakunawatch again?” Mimi asked, the balloon squeaking in her hands. Abi raised her cell phone. The screen showed the monster’s face, eyes like a pair of bloody tumors protruding above sharp, pointed teeth the size of skyscrapers.

Paula frowned at them both. “What a stupid name,” she said. “It doesn’t even look like a sea serpent.” Scientists had likened it to the giant Grenadier fish, a deep-sea fish with large mouth and eyes, except that this one was truly gigantic, with the tip of its head resting on what used to be Alesund in Norway and its tail brushing what used to be Krasnoyarsk in Russia, a body length of more than four thousand kilometers. Some fiction writer, in an attempt to reference local mythology, called the creature “Bakunawa” on social media. Her post was shared more than eighty thousand times, and now the name still stuck, five years after the Surfacing. She also coined the term “Surfacing”, to describe the day the creature began to appear from the depths of the ocean. A girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do, Paula thought. Some turn to naming the unnamable; others join a sad, undermanned, underfunded, wish-granting nonprofit organization, pretending the world is still sane.

They were sitting on the stairs of the apartment building where the Child of the Month lived. It used to be an affluent building, but after the Surfacing it had fallen into disrepair, like most other places. The stairwell was dark, made darker by the gray clouds outside, threatening rain. The elevators and corridors smelled like dog pee, and Paula had earlier stepped on what could either be wet mud or feces.

The balloon in Mimi’s hands exploded, the sound as surprising and deafening as a blast. “Jesus!” Paula said.

“Sorry,” Mimi said, looking distraught.

“Maybe we should give up on the balloons,” Abi said. “We’re not making any headway, and we only have thirty minutes left.”

“The boy asked for balloons,” Paula said, reaching into the box next to her for the hand balloon pump. “Let’s give it fifteen more minutes.”

Abi sighed. “I’ll go fix Mimi’s eye makeup.”

They managed to make four balloons—one shaped like a poodle, one shaped like a cat, one shaped like a monkey, and one shaped like a sort-of horse with one ear and three legs. “It’s the effort that counts,” Abi said, indignant, when Paula stared at it five seconds too long.

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