TABLE OF CONTENTS Issue 58, July 2017 FROM THE EDITOR Editorial, July 2017 FICTION Promises of Spring Caspian Gray Brushdogs Stephen Graham Jones And With Her Went the Spring Caroline Ratajski The Midwife Cynthia Ward NONFICTION The H Word: Kiss the Goat Nathan Carson Interview: Richard Kelly The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS Caspian Gray Caroline Ratajski MISCELLANY Coming Attractions Stay Connected Subscriptions and Ebooks About the Nightmare Team Also Edited by John Joseph Adams © 2017 Nightmare Magazine Cover by grandfailure / Adobe Stock Art www.nightmare-magazine.com FROM THE EDITOR Editorial, July 2017 John Joseph Adams | 867 words Welcome to issue fifty-eight of Nightmare. This month, we’re bringing you original fiction from Caspian Gray (“Promises of Spring”) and Caroline Ratajski (“And With Her Went the Spring”), along with reprints by Stephen Graham Jones (“Brushdogs”) and Cynthia Ward (“The Midwife”). In the latest installment of “The H Word,” we have Nathan Carson sharing the creepy truth about goats. Plus, we’ve got author spotlights with our authors, and a feature interview with Donnie Darko’s Richard Kelly. ICYMI: Cosmic Powers My latest anthology, Cosmic Powers, is now available from Saga Press. It’s a collection of epic-scale science fiction, inspired by movies like Guardians of the Galaxy and Star Wars, featuring brand-new stories from Dan Abnett, Jack Campbell, Linda Nagata, Seanan McGuire, Alan Dean Foster, Charlie Jane Anders, Kameron Hurley, and many others. Here’s what some reviewers have been saying about it: “Astonishingly good [. .] Rich in great stories.” —Rocket Stack Rank “This collection will prove to be great reading for fans of the space cowboy antics of Guardians of the Galaxy.” —RT Book Reviews “Highly recommended for anyone looking for a variety of engaging sf experiences.” —Booklist “One kickass good anthology [. .] Highly recommended.” —File 770 “The first great anthology of the year, jam-packed with smart, entertaining sci-fi adventure stories that bring a nicely modern sensibility to old ideas and tropes.” —SF Bluestocking Visit johnjosephadams.com/cosmic to buy the book, read selected stories from the anthology, or just learn more. John Joseph Adams Books News: 2017 Cover Reveal No new deals to report for John Joseph Adams Books, but we did just do a cover reveal for all of our 2017 titles. If you’d like to check that out, visit johnjosephadams.com/2017-covers. Otherwise, here’s a quick rundown what to expect from John Joseph Adams Books in the coming months: July 11, we’re publishing Carrie Vaughn’s novel, Bannerless—a post- apocalyptic mystery in which an investigator must discover the truth behind a mysterious death in a world where small communities struggle to maintain a ravaged civilization decades after environmental and economic collapse. Here’s what some of the early reviews have been saying about it: “Skillfully portrays a vastly altered future America. [The] focus on sustainability and responsibility is unusual, thought-provoking, and very welcome.” —Publishers Weekly “An intimate post-apocalyptic mystery [. .] well-crafted and heartfelt.” —Kirkus “A compelling, deft post-apocalyptic tale.” ​—Library Journal “Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower mixed with a modern procedural mystery […] Wonderfully intriguing.” —Thomas Wilkerson, BookPeople “Totally fascinating as a thought experiment and compulsively readable.” —Jenny Craig, Seattle Public Library Also in July, we’re be publishing Sand by Hugh Howey, a reissue of his acclaimed indie-published novel: “Magnificent […] After reading Wool, his other post-apocalyptic series, I didn’t think he could repeat the creation of a great world setting filled with characters you instantly care about. But he did.” — SFF World “Sand immerses you in its grubby post-apocalyptic world. […] Howey conjures a credible, brutal future.” —Financial Times In September, we’ll be publishing Retrograde by Peter Cawdron, a hard SF novel about an international colony of astronauts on Mars, who have been prepared for every eventuality of living on another planet except one: What happens when disaster strikes Earth? In October, we’ll be publishing Machine Learning: New and Collected Stories by Hugh Howey, a short story collection including three stories set in the world of Hugh’s mega-hit Wool and two never-before-published tales, plus fifteen additional stories collected together for the first time. In November, we’ll be publishing Molly Tanzer’s Creatures of Will and Temper—a Victorian-era urban fantasy inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray, in which an épée-fencing enthusiast and her younger sister are drawn into a secret and dangerous London underworld of pleasure-seeking demons and bloodthirsty diabolists, with only her skill with a blade standing between them and certain death. A bit further out, in Spring 2018, we’ll have The City of Lost Fortunes by Bryan Camp, about a magician with a talent for finding lost things who is forced into playing a high-stakes game with the gods of New Orleans for the heart and soul of the city. And then in late 2018, we’ll have Upon a Burning Throne by Ashok K. Banker, an epic fantasy about a group of siblings battling for control of a vast empire while a powerful demonlord pits them against each other. That’s all the JJA Books news to report for now. More soon! • • • • Well, that’s all there is to report this month. Thanks for reading! 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, a new SF/Fantasy imprint from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is also the series editor of Best American Science Fiction & 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 and forthcoming 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 ten 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. FICTION Promises of Spring Caspian Gray | 5832 words 2009 It was a freezing day in January, so Cody was surprised when Tay answered the door to his apartment without a shirt. His wet hair was still slicked down from the shower. “Um, hey,” said Cody. “It’s good to see you.” “Huh,” said Tay. “Come in, I guess.” Cody expected the scar in the middle of Tay’s chest. It was raised and shining, a ragged knoll that Tay crossed his arms over as soon as he noticed Cody looking. What Cody hadn’t expected was the other one, lower on his torso, two parallel tildes that might have been waves or a curvaceous equal sign. They were deep but clean, as clearly intentional as the puncture scar was arbitrary. “Where’d those come from?” Cody asked. Tay turned away from him and reached for a shirt. “Got it all done at the same time, man.” He remembered the night they’d carried Tay back through the woods. Early March, damp but unseasonably warm, the air rich with the smells of rot and onion grass and daffodils. He’d been giddy before the screaming started, adrenaline and the promise of spring making it seem like a game at first. Tay had been delirious when they found him, the big chest wound already packed with medical foam and wrapped with tape. His bare skin was grimy to the touch, flecked everywhere with dirt, bearing designs painted on him in his own blood. It hadn’t even occurred to Cody that any of those designs might have been carved there. He’d been the second person on the scene; not the person to cut Tay down, but the person to bear his weight as he fell. It was impossible to look at Tay, even five years later, without invoking visceral memories. It didn’t take much effort to override Tay’s long face, freshly- shaved and straight from the shower, with the way he’d looked that night: dirty and bright-eyed and distant, mumbling his half of a hallucinatory argument. “I, uh, didn’t know she did that to you,” Cody said finally. Tay shrugged. Fully-clothed, he was visibly calmer. “I didn’t either, ’til later. I remember the beginning a little bit, but then it’s all just a bad trip. I mean, worse than that, obviously. Shrooms never gave me PTSD.” Cody didn’t realize this was an attempt at humor until Tay smiled, the wide stoner grin that he remembered from before. You’re okay, he realized with some surprise. Probably not his old self—the Tay he remembered had never seemed to feel any particular shame about his scrawny body, as eager to shed layers as the gym rats who’d had significantly more to show off—but not some husk, either. That was why he’d put off this trip. On some level, he’d already decided Tay was broken, that when he’d left Zanesville, he’d left the world. But here he was, still essentially himself. He’d cut his hair short, and he hesitated now where before he might have been blithe.