Release date: October 20, 2021
Subgenre: Horror, Alternate History
About Madame Antic's Hotel Grotesque:
In an alternate Victorian era, factory worker Anthony Reynolds seeks to
improve his station in life for the sake of his young bride-to-be.
Against his better judgment, he joins Richard, a gregarious coworker
with social connections, for a night on the town after their late shift.
Richard leads them deep into the city’s underworld to a brothel of
sorts specializing in the illegal art of mutilation. There Anthony
witnesses victims skinned, broken, and mangled without lasting damage
due to a special drug that returns them to their original state. Anthony
immediately wants to leave, but before he can, Constables raid the
establishment. While trying to flee the scene, Anthony runs into a giant
tumor of a man who spills a viscous fluid on him. Anthony is disfigured
by the strange substance, and when the authorities capture him, he is
unable to identify himself, let alone speak. What follows is a
mind-bending adventure of mistaken identity, multiple realities, and
paranoia as Anthony fights to reclaim a simple life he never truly
appreciated but now wants more than anything else. Once he learns the
truth of his world, nothing will ever be the same again.
Excerpt:
The ironwood doors creaked, just when it was beginning to
appear that no one was inside. Now they pivoted on their hinges,
opening of their own accord. I looked for a doorman but couldn't see
anyone of the sort—nothing at all beyond the threshold. Instead, the
most impenetrable black met my eyes.
"Wonders, chap." Richard clapped me on the back yet again, but I grit my teeth and didn't utter a sound.
My complete attention had been stolen by the automaton wheeling out of the darkness to greet us.
"Welcome, deviants." It uttered the words in a low monotone. Its eyes, a pair of magnifying lenses, locked onto each of us in turn, the metal box-head squeaking as it pivoted left to right. Its steel arms wielded pincer-claws that beckoned us to follow as it wheeled backward, returning from whence it had come. Wheeled was perhaps the wrong word to describe how it rolled upon treads similar to a tank's. In height and girth, the thing was only as large as an average ten-year-old child. "This way, if you please. Your night of transformation is about to commence."
With that, it disappeared inside—literally. On our side of the threshold, the machine had been clear to see; as soon as it crossed over, however, the blackness absorbed it completely from sight. Grinning at me, Richard followed the automaton into the darkness that swallowed him whole.
Alone now, I stared at the black wall that rippled like a vertical pool of ink. No sounds emanated from within.
"Richard?"
I reached forward, wondering if it would stir at my touch like a pond of murky water or a column of fog. Would my fingers dissolve into it, merging with the black, so that it appeared I'd lost them altogether? Would a force of some kind draw me inside once I had breached the darkness? Did it run on a power source of some sort, or was it merely an example of the same technique used to cover the windows? One-way glass, Richard had called it.
"Coming along, chum?"
I jumped back with a start at the sight of Richard's disembodied head floating before me. The black soup rippled as he laughed and wagged his face side to side.
"Through the looking glass you go! This is your night, Tony. We'll pretend you're getting married tomorrow to that girl of yours, and I'm your best man. Let the debauchery begin!"
After a wink, his head dissolved, vanishing inside.
Left with only one decision to make, I clenched my fists to my chest and shut my eyes, forging into what I was sure would feel as cold and wet as the deepest sea. But the sensation was nothing of the sort, and it took only a moment to pass into the glowing warmth of a small hotel's receiving area.
Every surface that met my gaze was either velvet or silk in shades of crimson or the colors of autumn: golds and rust hues with silver ribbons, drapes and furnishings more lavish than any establishment I had ever set foot in my entire life...
"Wonders, chap." Richard clapped me on the back yet again, but I grit my teeth and didn't utter a sound.
My complete attention had been stolen by the automaton wheeling out of the darkness to greet us.
"Welcome, deviants." It uttered the words in a low monotone. Its eyes, a pair of magnifying lenses, locked onto each of us in turn, the metal box-head squeaking as it pivoted left to right. Its steel arms wielded pincer-claws that beckoned us to follow as it wheeled backward, returning from whence it had come. Wheeled was perhaps the wrong word to describe how it rolled upon treads similar to a tank's. In height and girth, the thing was only as large as an average ten-year-old child. "This way, if you please. Your night of transformation is about to commence."
With that, it disappeared inside—literally. On our side of the threshold, the machine had been clear to see; as soon as it crossed over, however, the blackness absorbed it completely from sight. Grinning at me, Richard followed the automaton into the darkness that swallowed him whole.
Alone now, I stared at the black wall that rippled like a vertical pool of ink. No sounds emanated from within.
"Richard?"
I reached forward, wondering if it would stir at my touch like a pond of murky water or a column of fog. Would my fingers dissolve into it, merging with the black, so that it appeared I'd lost them altogether? Would a force of some kind draw me inside once I had breached the darkness? Did it run on a power source of some sort, or was it merely an example of the same technique used to cover the windows? One-way glass, Richard had called it.
"Coming along, chum?"
I jumped back with a start at the sight of Richard's disembodied head floating before me. The black soup rippled as he laughed and wagged his face side to side.
"Through the looking glass you go! This is your night, Tony. We'll pretend you're getting married tomorrow to that girl of yours, and I'm your best man. Let the debauchery begin!"
After a wink, his head dissolved, vanishing inside.
Left with only one decision to make, I clenched my fists to my chest and shut my eyes, forging into what I was sure would feel as cold and wet as the deepest sea. But the sensation was nothing of the sort, and it took only a moment to pass into the glowing warmth of a small hotel's receiving area.
Every surface that met my gaze was either velvet or silk in shades of crimson or the colors of autumn: golds and rust hues with silver ribbons, drapes and furnishings more lavish than any establishment I had ever set foot in my entire life...
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About Milo James Fowler:
Milo James Fowler is the author of Captain Quasar, Spirits of the Earth, BackTracker, Charlie Madison P.I., The Interdimensionals, Those Who Wait, Westward Tally Ho, Coyote Cal, Vic Boyo, Dahlia & Brawnstone, Mercer the Soul Smuggler, Roadkill Joe, and a whole lot more. His shorter fiction has appeared in AE SciFi, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Cosmos, Daily Science Fiction, and Nature. Some readers seem to enjoy his brand of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and humor — available wherever books are sold.
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