TABLE OF CONTENTS Issue 80, May 2019 FROM THE EDITOR Editorial: May 2019 FICTION Malotibala Printing Press Mimi Mondal The Deer Boy Micah Dean Hicks Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island Nibedita Sen Fail-Safe Philip Fracassi BOOK EXCERPTS Inside the Asylum Mary SanGiovanni NONFICTION The H Word: The Tragedy of La Llorona Aaron Duran Interview: Gabino Iglesias Lisa Morton AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS Mimi Mondal Nibedita Sen MISCELLANY Coming Attractions Stay Connected Subscriptions and Ebooks Support Us on Patreon or Drip, or How to Become a Dragonrider or Space Wizard About the Nightmare Team Also Edited by John Joseph Adams © 2019 Nightmare Magazine Cover by Chainat / Fotolio www.nightmare-magazine.com Editorial: May 2019 John Joseph Adams | 266 words Welcome to issue eighty of Nightmare! This month, Mimi Mondal plays with a classic Bengali trope about ghosts in her new short story “Malotibala Printing Press.” Remember being in school and writing bibliographies for your papers? Well, Nibedita Sen spins that academic exercise into true horror in her new short “Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island.” We also have some nightmarish reprints by Micah Dean Hick (“The Deer Boy”) and Philip Fracassi (“Fail-Safe”). Writer, podcaster, and all-around geek Aaron Duran brings us the latest installment of our column on horror, “The H Word.” Of course we have author spotlights with our authors, and we also have a feature interview with Gabino Iglesias. Plus, our e-book readers will get a special e-book exclusive excerpt from Mary SanGiovanni’s new novel, Into the Asylum. Awards News As you may recall, back in March, we told you about how two of our sister-magazine Lightspeed’s authors, José Pablo Iriarte and Sarah Pinsker, were named 2018 Nebula finalists. Both José’s novelette, “The Substance of My Lives, the Accidents of Our Births” (lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/substance-lives-accidents-births) and Sarah’s short story, “The Court Magician” (lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-court-magician) were published in Lightspeed’s January 2018 issue. Now we’re pleased to also announce that Sarah Pinsker’s story is also a finalist for the Hugo Award, as is frequent Lightspeed cover artist Galen Dara. Congrats to them both! ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Joseph Adams, in addition to serving as publisher and editor-in-chief of Nightmare, is the editor of John Joseph Adams Books, an science fiction and fantasy imprint from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is also the series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, as well as the bestselling editor of many other anthologies, including The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, Robot Uprisings, Dead Man’s Hand, Armored, Brave New Worlds, Wastelands, and The Living Dead. Recent projects include: Cosmic Powers, What the #@&% Is That?, Operation Arcana, Loosed Upon the World, Wastelands 2, Press Start to Play, and The Apocalypse Triptych: The End is Nigh, The End is Now, and The End Has Come. Called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble, John is a two- time winner of the Hugo Award (for which he has been a finalist eleven times) and is a seven-time World Fantasy Award finalist. John is also the editor and publisher of Lightspeed Magazine and is a producer for Wired.com’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Find him on Twitter @johnjosephadams. Malotibala Printing Press Mimi Mondal | 6305 words I cannot understand why, but the young men of this generation have developed a new sport—to go and spend a night in a haunted house. Every three months or four, I receive a group of guests. It goes the same way each time. They arrive after sundown, bringing hurricane lamps, candles, sleeping mats, snacks and bottles of water lovingly packed from home. They come in groups of four or five, almost always the atheist, sceptical students of the Presidency College who remind me of my own youth. They sweep aside dirt and rabble from the floor, unfurl their mats, light a hurricane lamp at the centre of their circle, and settle down to tell ghost stories. I love listening to those stories, though there is little truth in any of them. Often, I find someone narrating how this very establishment— Malotibala Printing Press—came to be such an abandoned wreck. It is not an antique tale. Even so, the embellishments in the narrative are nothing less than dazzling. “I have heard that, in its day, Malotibala Printing Press was the most prosperous business on Chitpur Road,” tells the young man to his companions. “Of the thirty-four printing presses along this road, Malotibala was the richest of all.” With a nod, I lean in closer to listen. “But then came its downfall—a heart-wrenching tale of unrequited love and rejection.” . Oh?! “Friends, all of us must have purchased books from Malotibala Printing Press in our schooldays. But I bet nobody remembers them,” says the storyteller. “There was nothing remarkable about the books from Malotibala in those days. Cheap prints of the Ramayana and the Mahabharat, some standard mythologicals, insipid romances—the same as every other press was churning out. We may have bought books that were printed in this very room, on that cobwebbed machine at the corner, or we may have bought the same books from another press.” My pride somewhat injured, I continue to listen. “But then came the big break for Malotibala Printing Press—it was approached by the immensely talented author known as Kojagori Debi!” Sly grins of recognition appear on the listeners’ faces. The storyteller continues, “But of course, Kojagori Debi was a pseudonym. Behind it was a young lady from one of the wealthy households of the city, educated at home, not the kind of lady who can afford to be seen in mingling with the printers on Chitpur Road. Rumor is that this young lady was as beautiful as she was, hrrm, intriguing. And, as Secret Annals of the Queen by Kojagori Debi started flying off the peddlers’ boxes and booksellers’ stalls, as second and third and fourth reprints were set to run, the luckless owner of Malotibala Printing Press was falling in love. “This chap, called Udayan Dhar, was the lowest of the low, no different from any other pulp-book printer, with little money and no pedigree. Hardly a match for the daughter of a wealthy, high-caste household, even in this age of scandal. He dared to ask her hand in marriage, and was duly despised. Heartbroken, Udayan Dhar returned to his press and committed suicide in that little compositor’s room at the back. “Since that day, these premises have been haunted by the spirit of Udayan Dhar. His family—wanting to have nothing to do with the print business—sold off the press, but all the work started going wrong. Sheets of paper would come out blank, carefully composed pages would come out rudely misspelled, obscenities would creep into the text of respectable books. The worst assaults of the ‘printer’s devil’ were suffered by Secret Annals of the Queen by Kojagori Debi. Eventually the new owner, Bibhishon Bhattacharya, decided to shut down the press. And thus it has remained till this day.” A collective sigh emerges as the story comes to an end. A couple of boys peer at the long shadows on the wall, trembling gently with the flame of the hurricane lamp. It is approaching midnight. I begin to talk. “I don’t know where you heard this story,” I address the original storyteller, “but I know a different version—quite a scintillating one on its own. I will present it, if I may.” The night is long and there’s no other entertainment in this house, so the young men consent. “This is the story of Udayan Dhar,” I begin. “The former owner of Malotibala Printing Press was twenty-four years of age on the day he was murdered—murdered, yes! One can hardly commit suicide by clubbing himself at the back of the skull. Did not read that part in the newspaper, did you? None of the gossipmongers speak about it? Yet another miracle that money and connections can achieve.” I relish the shock on their faces. “Udayan Dhar was not born a pauper. His father had been a textile merchant, once quite prosperous. Udayan was the only son—stubborn, eccentric, hardly wise to the ways of the world. One of his obsessions was the printing press. As a schoolboy he had devoured those cheap romances and mythologicals. When he grew up, he wanted to print more of them. “There is a false perception that books are a genteel business. No such thing in the murky alleyways that branch off Chitpur Road. Out here, authors steal each other’s material, turf wars between vendors turn bloody, henchmen walk about in broad daylight extorting money from the printers. Young Udayan plunged himself into this world, and unsurprisingly, he sank. “While he struggled not to shut down his little press, one day Udayan was approached . not by any beautiful lady who populates these tales of romance, but a hard-knuckled hack writer whose name was Bibhishon Bhattacharya. This man had prowled these rough streets for many more years than young Udayan. ‘I have written many bestsellers with a wide variety of names,’ said the writer to Udayan, ‘but I bring you my best invention yet—a saucy young lady from a wealthy household called Kojagori Debi. She will write an account of the amorous escapades of the rich and famous women of the city, not in the least her own.