Release date: February 19, 2019
Subgenre: Short fiction collection
About Collision:
A collection of twelve of J.S. Breukelaar's darkest, finest stories with
four new works, including the uncanny new novella "Ripples on a Blank
Shore." Introduction by award-winning author, Angela Slatter. Relish the
Gothic strangeness of "Union Falls," the alien horror of "Rogues Bay
3013," the heartbreaking dystopia of "Glow," the weird mythos of "Ava
Rune," and others. This collection from the author of American Monster and the internationally acclaimed and Aurealis Award finalist, Aletheia, announces a new and powerful voice in fantastical fiction.
Excerpt:
Like Ripples on a Blank Shore
The Host went down in an eruption of crimson and
bone, bringing commuter traffic to a standstill. Car windows unwound as drivers
scanned for the shooter. Reports would later confirm that a pedestrian lost her
footing on the splashed goo of the Host’s brain matter and broke her hip in two
places. The passing woman turned out to be the shooter’s aunt.
There was no doubt about it. Hosts were bad news.
That was the beginning. No one in Deerport, or anywhere, knew what drew
the Hosts in such sudden numbers to some towns and not others. Experts
attempted to pinpoint a cause, or reason, or remedy—but no one could agree on
even what they were, let alone why. Arriving in twos and bad-news threes at the
Greyhound Station, into Deerport they came over those dark, wet weeks.
Alighting uncertainly from the bus or the backseats of Uber rides, they tracked
slush down the aisles of the Safeway and slowed traffic and filled the darkness
of the purple-curtained multiplex theaters with their relentless, restless
rustle.
And there were more on the way, according to Professor Maya Grayson at
Sullivan College, an expert in medieval folklore and on all things Hostish.
When asked by a reporter, “Why so many Hosts pouring into Deerport?” Grayson
quickly answered by referring to last year’s Tower 9 Incident in New York City
where an apartment building in the Upper West Side attracted Hosts (a shortened
version of the singular hostis, from the Latin word
for enemy, stranger, or guest) by the hundreds. Residents reported seeing them
slumped on the fire escape and in the basement laundry room, leaving a shimmer
of dark ooze along the walls where they edged like spiders. Riding up and down
the outside of the building on the joists, laughing—if that clotted sigh could
be called a laugh—as the wind peeled off their loose flesh.
“I can understand glass towers in Manhattan, but why Deerport?” the radio
caller had asked Professor Grayson. But no one, not even Grayson, could say why
they came to a certain place, or for whom—if they targeted certain individuals
or towns. Nobody knew.
At six p.m. on a Monday evening, the Upper Deerport Terminus was thronged
with Hosts and nons. Celia, at five feet eight, scanned over the sea of heads
for Terminal 10, where her bus was already almost full and ready to depart.
She’d never make it through the crowds in time. She would be lucky to make the
next one. A male Host with a seamed face jostled her elbow. From one swollen
eyelid, slid a single tear, tensely oblong. Celia watched the tear trickle down
the filthy crease that bisected his cheek, over his jaw and back into a
bloodless slit at his neck, and decided she would get an Uber. But getting out
was easier said than done—the Terminus was packed.
Gooseflesh rode the back of her neck—there was something wanting about
their presence, as if they knew her even if she didn’t know them. That was the
problem with these so-called infestations—random and inexplicable as experts
insisted that they were. It was as if the Hosts knew where they were going and
what they were looking for. Or who.
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About J.S. Breukelaar:
J.S. Breukelaar is the author of the Aurealis-nominated novel Aletheia, and American Monster, a Wonderland Award finalist. She has published
stories, poems and essays in publications such as Gamut, Black Static, Unnerving, Lightspeed, Lamplight and
elsewhere. She is a columnist and regular instructor at LitReactor.com. California-born and New York raised, she currently
lives in Sydney, Australia with her family.
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About Meerkat Press:
Meerkat Press is an independent publisher committed to finding and
publishing exceptional, irresistible, unforgettable fiction. And despite
the previous sentence, we frown on overuse of adjectives and adverbs in
submissions. *smile*
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