Free Future Lovecraft by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Anthony Boulanger, Paula R. Stiles Page B

them. It was Ithaqua, my soul. I removed my respirator.I could breath the thin Martian air. I thanked my new god as I greedily feasted on the corpse.
    An opportunity arose soon afterwards to ship out on a deadliner ship. With my seniority, I got on easily. A “deadliner” is a term invented by the 20th century philosopher Barrington Bayley. It’s a spaceman gone for decades at a time, a victim of time dilation who has become totally removed from human warmth and kindness. When they’re in port, they know everyone they see will be dust before they return. I felt at home among those dead souls. Deadliners go deep into the galaxy, further than I’d ever been. Some of the crew actually had birthdates decades before mine. In a ship of such individualists, I could stalk easily. I signed on as ‘Albert Donner’, a famous miner and cannibal of the 19th century. Even a ghoul can have his little jokes.
    A light month past the solar system, I began to let my claws grow. They were semi-retractable. I could pass in human society. Especially in deadliner society—for deadliners never look too closely at their shipmates. They’re always spiraling inwards.
    A young-looking computer tech with magnificent red hair would be my first target. I stalked her quietly, waiting for my moment. When the moment came, I ripped her tender, white throat open with my claws. I carefully placed the bleeding body on plastic to avoid telltale bloodstains.
    I hadn’t taken the security of a deadliner ship into account. These people often kill each other. The stresses of the long voyage overcome all of their civilised traits. The ship was ready. It snared me in hundreds of tiny robot arms.
    They didn’t give me a trial, didn’t ask me anything. They came into normal space and shoved me through the airlock.
    I felt all the air sucked from my lungs. I screamed the call in the silence of airless space. Ithaqua came and filled me and changed me. Oh, my burning feet of freezing fire! As the ancient wind god, long since banished from the Earth by disbelief, filled me, he changed me into a burning ball of hunger and hate.
    I travel through the void at great speeds. I will return to Earth. I will eat you all, every one.

PHOENIX WOMAN
    By Kelda Crich
    Kelda Crich is a new-born entity. She’s been lurking in her host’s mind for some time, but now, she wants her own credits. Find her in the intestines of London, laughing at the status quo, or on her blog, (It’s about time she got one of her own):  http://keldacrichblog.blogspot.com/ .
    Rising phoenix, garmented in
    plumed rust-red feathers,
    groomed with persistent
    nano-mites.  
    Gene-modded eyes stretched endlessly
    into infinity’s seeing vision.
    Iron talons flexed,
    a promise of rendition.

    Warrior-women-bird.
    See dust-eyed, endless men
    chant and dance
    to bone flutes’ tunes.
    The priest masked in yellow silk
    on a gold throne,
    spanning altar stone.

    Phoenix arch over
    dust-dry plains,
    sucked dry by thirty, thirsty gods.
    Shapes of chaos, crawling slowly,
    digesting our colony bones.

    Metallic-bird-woman,
    seek the wind-walkers,
    seek crowded chaos,
    the ocean’s spawning flesh,
    rise over jungles’ colossal shapes,
    ancient teeth,
    fed by fluttering mouths
    grown in marrow-wood stars.

    Seek the space of things.
    Fly, phoenix,
    born in our end of days.
    Hosanna hunting song
    that will not be stilled.
    Over endless factories,
    Where our recurring flesh
    quivers in Fibonacci sequence,
    Mandelbrot tentacles around our necks.
    Rise, phoenix.
    With down-blind-cast eyes, we watch you.

POSTFLESH
    By Paul Jessup
    Paul Jessup: Published in a slew of magazines(in print & online) and a mess of anthologies. Has a short story collection out ( Glass Coffin Girls ) published in the UK by PS Publishing. Have a novella published by Apex Books ( Open Your Eyes ) and a graphic novel published by Chronicle Books.
    1. Captain Found Us a Ghost World
    SHADRIM. IT WAS a grave of space, a planet of bones. It was