CTHULHU’S NIGHTMARE by Bric Barnes

While checking up on some of my favorite blogs, I came across a new market for weird fiction on Grasping for the Wind, which gives its issue away, yes that means free, Arkham Tales: download issues for free.

I quickly went to Arkham Tales website and downloaded both issues: Issue 2, February 2009 and Issue 1, November 2008. I’m a huge fan of Mythos. Finding a new market is exciting as a consumer of Lovecraftian Mythos and as a writer consumed with visions of tentacles and nightmares that could only be inspired from vast darkness that lies between the stars.

“Cthulhu’s Nightmare,” by Bric Barnes, is story that I wish that I would have written. It seems that when I sit down in front of my computer Cthulhu’s dreams still influence the click-clack of my key strokes as if I were some mindless cultist. However, Barnes has found a way to fight back against the dreaming god of R’yleh. Cthulhu is having nightmares of his own. He is being haunted by the voice of Rasta woman fortune teller who’s spam and infomercials bombard him from every angle:

“Are ya calling Miss Clio? Hoot, mon. Ya can’t help yourself. Only Miss Clio has the power. And she’s waiting for ya. Call her now.”

Not even Yig’s news about the success of the markets or the prospect of dancing with fire vampires can cheer Cthulhu up. All of his favorite pastimes have lost their appeal, drinking blood, chewing on human bones; where have his cultist gone. Cthulhu for the first time considers retirement. Retirement seems to have suited his brother, Cthugha.

“Cthulhu’s Nightmare” is witty and fresh. A story like this one, speaks well for the new periodical’s attention to editorial selection and what must be a strong commitment to publishing only the best new weird fiction in the tradition of Lovecraft.

I have joined the email list that will announce the publication of each new issue. I might still have several stories left to haunt me in the first two issues, but I’m already looking forward to seeing that will crawl its way out of the deep in the upcoming third installment of Arkham Tales.

It is free. What are you waiting for? This is your invitation: download issues for free.

Barnes, Bric. “Cthulhu’s Nightmare.” Arkham Tales. Issue 2, February 2009. Ed. Nathan Shumate, et al. Cold Fusion Media Empire, 2009.