Underland arcana 1, p.8
Underland Arcana 1, page 8
The day she came home, her box said, "You're going to be hit by a car," and with a smile, she wrote it under Absurd.
She slept soundly that night, for the first time in so long.
The next morning, her box said, "Today, the world comes to an end." She started a new page in her notebook, added her three columns, and under Absurd wrote "Apocalypse." Then she made a tally at the bottom, 1/100, and got up to start the day. She had to check for spiders, check for mold, check for spoiled food, eat a perfectly balanced breakfast, and start work an hour early before anyone could think ill of her for working from home.
She was examining her bananas when the box said, "Today, the world comes to an end."
It was the first time she had ever heard the box make the same prediction twice. Hesitantly, she made another tally in her notebook, but overall thought it a good thing. "Right," she said aloud, "but only one prediction comes true. So if you predict the same thing twice, that prediction must be wrong."
In reply, the box made its third prediction for the day. "Today, the world comes to an end."
Sarah's shaking returned. She sat at her table, fingers trembling, and waited for the box to tell her she was having a seizure, or had diabetes, or needed to rush to the hospital.
"Today, the world comes to an end."
She hyperventilated, clutching her face, breathing in her hands, whispering profanities to herself over and over. Opening all the locks on her door revealed the building hallway, and she threw a wad of cash halfway through the open doorframe, so it would be visible to anyone passing by. Money, a nice apartment, an unlocked door. She waited for the box to tell her she was going to be robbed.
"Today, the world comes to an end."
She did not go to work. She did not exercise or cook or do any of the other things she meant to do. She spent the whole day researching ways the world could potentially come to an end before midnight that night. Predictions the box made were not predestined. Perhaps she could avert what was to come.
Her conclusions did not inspire her: asteroid impact, nuclear war, a black hole passing through the solar system, supervolcano eruption. None of the ways the world might abruptly end seemed within her power to change.
But didn't she have to try?
She called NASA, and when their general helpline blew her off, she put her considerable research skills to use finding the personal cellphone number of a mid-level director. He picked up his phone, and she argued and screamed and ranted about imminent danger from the stars. But he called her crazy, and hung up.
Two more NASA staff blocked her calls, and by mid-afternoon, she couldn't find any more numbers. That left two possibilities she could theoretically do something about: nuclear war, and a supervolcano.
She couldn't find any numbers for anyone at the DoD—not surprising, really—but a nuclear war wouldn't be instant death for everyone on the planet. Remote areas would survive. Likewise, a supervolcano would not be instantly fatal for the entire population, and she might ride it out if she was lucky and had enough food.
"Today, the world comes to an end."
By four o'clock, it was up to prediction fifty-two, all of them the same. Her car tore out of the parking lot for her apartment, headed first to the bank, then to the nearest shopping center. The car she filled with food, clean water, iodine tablets, filter masks, bullets, a gun, and everything else she thought she might need to survive the apocalypse. Stuffed into the glove compartment was a printout from her research.
Likely targets of nuclear strikes, supervolcanos in the western hemisphere, safest places to ride out the above. She'd found a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, that was somehow listed on AirBnB.
"Today, the world comes to an end."
She drove all night across the country, watching the clock tick by, the box with the seahorse on the top resting on her dashboard.
"Today, the world comes to an end."
When she found the farmhouse, navigating by GPS, she drove through the picket fence that surrounded it. Perhaps because it was hard to see, or perhaps because she simply didn't see it. Either way, she didn't care. It was too close to midnight.
"Today, the world comes to an end."
She threw all her supplies into the basement, and took shelter under the strongest part of the structure.
"Today, the world comes to an end."
Her hands shook uncontrollably, and it was only with considerable effort that she took out her notebook and little pencil, and made another entry on the tally. When she finally came to rest in the farmhouse, she was up to ninety-one.
With the notebook to her right, the light of her cellphone to her left, she watched both the tally and the time advance. To her, the room felt as a furnace, and she broke out in a hot sweat. Drops ran down her face and fell from her nose, staining the paper.
Prediction ninety-two came at 11:12 PM. Still the same. Ninety-three came at 11:22, and so forth. Ninety-nine came at 11:59 PM. "Today, the world comes to an end."
One prediction left. One which had to come true.
Her phone didn't display seconds, so she counted them down aloud: sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight, and so forth. Tears ran down her face, and her vision blurred as she began to sob. The trembling in her hands was so violent that she clawed at her own flesh, digging long and bloody scratches down her arms.
Then the last prediction came, at the very stroke of midnight.
"Today's the day you finally snap."
Contributors
Michael Barsa
Michael Barsa grew up in a German-Syrian household in New Jersey and spoke no English until he went to school. So began an epic struggle to master the American "R" and a lifelong fascination with language. He now teaches environmental and natural resources law, and his scholarly articles have appeared in several major law reviews, The Chicago Tribune, and The Chicago Sun-Times.
His first novel, The Garden of Blue Roses (released through Underland Press), made the Preliminary Ballot for the Bram Stoker Award for First Novel and received praise from Alice Sebold, Paul Tremblay, Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal.
Elou Carroll
Elou Carroll is a graphic designer and freelance photographer who writes. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Aloe, Emerge Literary Journal, 101 Words, Apparition Lit, Walled Women, and perhappened mag. She is the editor-in-chief of Crow & Cross Keys, and she spends far too much time on Twitter (@keychild).
Stephen O'Donnell
Stephen O'Donnell is a writer, living in Dublin, Ireland. His short stories have appeared most recently in Strange Horizons, Short Edition, and Typehouse.
His website is: http://bit.ly/stizzle0dizzle
David Hewitt
David A. Hewitt was born in Germany, grew up near Chicago, and spent eight years in Japan, where he studied classical Japanese martial arts and grew up some more. A graduate of the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast MFA program in Popular Fiction, he currently teaches English at the Community College of Baltimore County, but has at various times worked as a Japanese translator, an instructor of martial arts, a cabinetmaker's assistant, a pizza/subs/beer delivery guy, and a pet shop boy. His hobbies include skiing, writing, meditation, writing, disc golf, travel, and writing.
His short fiction has appeared in Kaleidotrope, Metaphorosis, and Mithila Review; his novelette "The Great Wall of America" is also available from Mithila Press as a standalone book. As a translator of Japanese, his credits include the anime series Gilgamesh, Kingdom, and Kochoki: Young Nobunaga.
Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Over the past four decades, Nina Kiriki Hoffman has sold adult and young adult novels and more than 350 short stories. Her works have been finalists for the World Fantasy, Mythopoeic, Sturgeon, Philip K. Dick, and Endeavour awards. Her novel The Thread that Binds the Bones won a Horror Writers Association Stoker Award, and her short story "Trophy Wives" won a Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Award.
Nina does production work for the The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. She teaches short story classes through Lane Community College, Wordcrafters in Eugene, and Fairfield County Writers' Studio. She lives in Eugene, Oregon.
For a list of Nina's publications, check out: http://ofearna.us/books/hoffman.html.
Jessie Kwak
Jessie Kwak has always lived in imaginary lands, from Arrakis and Ankh-Morpork to Earthsea, Tatooine, and now Portland, Oregon. As a writer, she sends readers on their own journeys to immersive worlds filled with fascinating characters, gunfights, explosions, and dinner parties. She is the author of supernatural thriller From Earth and Bone, the Bulari Saga series of gangster sci-fi novels, and productivity guide From Chaos to Creativity.
You can learn more about her at www.jessiekwak.com, or follow her on Twitter (@jkwak).
Tristan Morris
Tristan Morris has authored or co-authored four books, but "Seahorses and Other Gifts" is his first publication in Underland Arcana. He organizes the Quills and Sofas writing society, a creative writing association based in the San Francisco Bay area, where he lives with his wife.
Jonathan Raab
Jonathan Raab is the author of numerous short stories, veteran advocacy essays, and novels including Camp Ghoul Mountain Part VI: The Official Novelization and The Hillbilly Moonshine Massacre. He is the editor of several anthologies from Muzzleland Press, including Behold the Undead of Dracula: Lurid Tales of Cinematic Gothic Horror and Terror in 16-bits. He lives in Colorado with his wife Jess, their son, and a dog named Egon.
You can find him on Twitter @jonathanraab1.
Rebecca Ruvinsky
Rebecca Ruvinsky is a student, poet, and emerging writer in Orlando, Florida. She has kept a streak of writing a poem every day since 2016, with work published or forthcoming in Wizards in Space, Prospectus Literary, Sylvia Magazine, From the Farther Trees, and others. She loves watching rocket launches, reading late into the night, and finding the magical in the mundane.
She can be found on Twitter @writeruvinsky.
The thirteenth Tarot card is Death, and he is a symbol not of the end, but of transformation and rebirth. This is the genesis and root of Thirteen: Stories of Transformation. The twenty-eight authors of this collection are voices—new and old—who are not afraid to explore what comes next. Whether it be a life after death, a life without love, a life filled with hunger, or the life shared by a ghost. These are stories of the weird, the mythic, the fantastic, the futuristic, the supernatural, and the horrific.
With stories by Liz Argall • M. David Blake • Richard Bowes • George Cotronis • Amanda C. Davis • Julie C. Day • Jetse de Vries • Jennifer Giesbrecht • Daryl Gregory • Rik Hoskin • Rebecca Kuder • Claude Lalumière • Marc Levinthal • Grá Linnaea • Alex Dally MacFarlane • Juli Mallett • Lyn McConchie • Fiona Moore • Gregory L. Norris • Adrienne J. Odasso • Cat Rambo • Andrew Penn Romine • David Tallerman • Tais Teng Richard Thomas • Fran Wilde • A. C. Wise • Christie Yant
Edited by Mark Teppo.
Available at independent bookstores everywhere.
http://www.underlandpress.com
The eighteenth Tarot card is the Moon, and those who raise their arms to her know she offers Mercy and Severity in equal measure. This is the great river at night, where wolves howl and all doors are open. All futures are possible, and every truth is elusive. This is the source and passion of Eighteen: Stories of Mischief & Mayhem. These twenty-four stories from voices—old and new—celebrate the inevitability of fate, the horror of prophecy, and the shivering delight of not knowing what comes next.
Cross over the threshold with us, and explore the strange, the weird, and the fantastic. Do not fear what lies ahead. It is the same as what came before. The only difference is you. This is Eighteen, and nothing will be the same.
With stories by Forrest Aguirre • Darin Bradley • Christopher East • Scott Edelman • Nicole Feldringer • Ben Gamblin • Ingrid Garcia • A. P. Howell • Emma Johnson-Rivard • E. E. King • Jessie Kwak • Shannon Lawrence • Gerri Leen • Mark Mills • Christi Nogle Tammie Painter • Josh Rountree • Erica Sage • Lorraine Schein • J. Dee Stanley • Richard Thomas • John Waterfall • Wendy N. Wagner • Todd Zack
Edited by Mark Teppo.
Available at independent bookstores everywhere.
http://www.underlandpress.com
© 2021 Firebird Creative LLC and the respective contributors.
Underland Arcana is published quarterly. This issue is published in conjunction with the first new moon following the winter solstice.
EDITOR
Mark Teppo
COVER IMAGE
George Cotronis
SIGIL ART
Andrew Penn Romine
PUBLISHER
Underland Press
Clackamas, OR, USA
These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used in an absolutely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved, which means that no portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the copyright holder(s).
These are the days . . .
www.underlandarcana.com
Michael Barsa, Underland Arcana 1
