Dark Tales Of Lost Civilizations Read Online Free PDF

mind, the darkness that finally devoured his sanity . . . that was my lure. I opened my mind to the blackest dreams. Now I think those things may consume me.
    The village of the Shanopei is gone. Only gutted remains survive, scorched in impossibly arbitrary fashion. There are no bodies, though the paraphernalia of life suggests the recent presence of people. There is nothing alive here. We can’t even hear the singing of birds.
    This was not the work of men. There are no tracks. It’s as if some force fell on the village, and desolated it, and was gone.
    I fear it hasn’t gone far.
    The sky is crimson and purple and black, as though blood were bruising behind it. It’s cold, so cold that the ground is hard, though yesterday we sweltered beneath tropical sun. The waters of the lake are viscous, swirling outward from the center. They give the impression of appalling depths. Tendrils of fog rise from the water to gather about our feet. There’s a carrion scent in the air, a murmuring that is something like music. The sky is without color. The cliffs, through the mist, are crystalline.
    I’m hallucinating. But the others claim they see the same. I can make out the bay, the canoes tethered there, the ravaged village, the river tumbling through mud flats into translucent water. Another scene lies on . . . over . . . through that one. At first, I could distinguish them. Now they seem to coexist.
    The others want to retreat back toward the plateau. They insist I stop writing and go with them. I wish I could. I’m frozen, by awe and fear, and by the need to leave some record in the face of what I fear.
    I remember Henry Johnson, tethered deep in the bowels of the asylum. The word he’d been calling incessantly since his arrival—and they told me his throat was cracked and torn by then, that it was a miracle he could make any noise at all—I believe that word was a name. Astasoth . I’ve known its meaning, I think, all along. I could have understood. I chose not to. The imprisoned one .
    I’ll leave this journal here. If I don’t survive, perhaps it will. I hope it’s never discovered. I hope it’s lost forever. I can’t tell anymore what’s real, what’s delirium. The lake is obsidian, bubbling and frothing, flailing the shore with fluid tendrils. Beyond the beach, a well leads further down than I can see.
    Something is rising.
    I can’t see. The fog devours everything. I hope it isn’t real, that I’m insane. I’ll follow my companions, to the path that leads up the cliff side. What else can I do? This wasn’t my fault. A record—a record, at least. In the face of it. What else?
    I hope this journal won’t be found. I hope I’m mad. Let me die in the jungle, and rot, and never be remembered. Let me die mad and forgotten!
    I fear I’m sane. I fear . . .
    I know. Astasoth is free.
    And it has other plans for me than death.
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    David Tallerman ’s horror, fantasy, and science fiction short stories have appeared in around forty markets, including Lightspeed, Bull Spec, Redstone Science Fiction, and John Joseph Adams’s zombie best-of The Living Dead. Amongst other projects, David has published poetry in Chiaroscuro and comic scripts through the award-winning British Futurequake Press , while a short he co-wrote won numerous awards in the 2011 Two Days Later horror film contest. David’s first novel, comic fantasy adventure Giant Thief , came out in February 2012 from UK publisher Angry Robot ; its first sequel, Crown Thief , is due toward the end of the year. David can be found online at http://davidtallerman.net and http://davidtallerman.blogspot.com.

 

     
    Mark Lee Pearson
     
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    Writing from Japan, Mark Lee Pearson brings an intriguing contribution to this collection. He explores the lore of an islander people through the eyes of a girl, Izanami, as she ages and the world changes around her. To Run a Stick Through a Fish is one of the shortest stories in this anthology, yet the author is