Happy December!  I hope all of you are getting in the holiday spirit… I know I am.  This is the last issue of 2011, and I’d like to say thank you to all of my readers.  Thanks for spreading the word, for reading, for being here.  You guys rock.

I also want to say a big THANK YOU to a lot of people who are helping to make this magazine great.  If you get a moment, click their name and check out their websites:

Pat (mimulux), a wonderful story illustrator who’s been with me from the beginning.   A.J. French, who is such a tremendous help; he assists with editing, reads the slush pile, and gives me great advice.  Thanks so much, Aaron.  Cthulhu Chick, without her we wouldn’t have a Kindle or Nook version.  Bruce L. Priddy, who also assists in reading stories.  Artists: Galen Dara, Ronnie Tucker (who is working on a video trailer for the ezine!), Leslie H, Stjepan Lukac, Mike Dominic, Steve Santiago, Jethro Lentle, and Nickolas Gucker.  And James L. Carey, who assists with links.  (I think I remembered everyone…!)

And a lot of audio talent just joined us; they are going to record quality audio versions of the stories.  Upcoming issues will be done first, but eventually my goal is to have an audio version of every story in every issue (unless the author prefers not).  I’ll be mentioning more audio folks in the future, but for now I’d like to especially thank Mars Homeworld and Morgan Scorpion.  (By the way, Mars scored the music to the awesome documentary Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown, and he’s agreed to score the music to The Lovecraft eZine trailer!)

And of course, a big thank you to all of the great writers who have contributed.

So there are a lot of talented people on board, and I can promise you that 2012 is going to be even better than 2011!

Which brings us to this issue’s stories:

Elder Instincts, by W.H. Pugmire: I walked beneath the yellow sky, over the ancient track. Moss and grass now covered most of the large sandstones with which the road had been constructed in some early epoch. I stopped once and used the firm edge of my shoe to shove the growth aside, and then I bent down and touched the hefty block of stone that had been worn into a rut in the road by the traffic that had journeyed on it over many decades. I tried to imagine those carts, drawn by horses or mules, which had crossed the road so long ago on their way to Dunwich two miles yonder. I tried to imagine what I fancied might have been the curious cargo of some of those carts, and the curious dreams of they who walked beside them. I carried my own outlandish cargo, within the depths of my skull-space, images that had so haunted me that I returned, at last, to this ancient track, to the once-familiar spot where I knew the olden ways…

Among the Dark Places of the Earth, by Julio Toro San Martin: As I gazed atop their snowy summits from the 6-passenger plane I feared we had greatly erred and had made an intrusion into places where man should not be, and watched beings that saw our onlooking and curious eyes as trespasses and voyeurship, but they were patient and waited. To our north in the distance loomed one of the highest of earth’s monoliths, iridescent Aconcagua, clothed with a sliver of clouds. I imagined it to be the mighty monarch of the peaks –peaks that were its subjects. And should it become annoyed, what then? I thought, what if mountains moved? What if they got up and walked? What army could stop one leg from lifting? A profound respect for them dawned on me such as I never experienced before, for if these mountains moved, would they even see us as sharers in a common destiny on this earth; or as nuisances, as flies, inconsequential to their estranged and alien minds?

At Best An Echo, by Bradley H. Sinor: Van Helsing pointed at several places on the handle, showing how the design went from the wood onto the metal itself. “These symbols are pictographs, used by some obscure South Seas tribes. Loosely translated, it seems to describe this weapon as being the sting from beyond the edge and the dark of Nyarlathotep and Yog Sog Oth.”  “Part of the Cthulhu mythological cycle, as I recall,” Bell said.  “A bit more than myth, I would say,” observed Van Helsing…

Stone City, Old as Immeasurable Time, by Kelda Crich: “The stone mother will not give you back your children, Elizabeth.” “She will.” She had made the promise in my dreams. That’s why I’d traveled across the world to find her. “She will not. She will give you something that looks like them, sounds and thinks like them, but underneath there will be something other, something old, and strange born in the distant skies. The things that are waiting to be born…”

Just An Accountant, by Henrik Sandbeck Harksen: Tumbling dazed to the floor, his arm still flickering and wild tendrils reaching down for him, he stared wide-eyed and disbelievingly at the almost lazy snaps of the colorful bonds around the dead woman’s body. As if someone was beginning to free himself . . . As if something was beginning to free itself.. A strong slap across his face, and he could hear again.  “For god’s sake, man–snap out of it! You’re releasing it!”  Before them, a grotesque form was taking shape above the table…

Enjoy the stories!  And remember, it helps The Lovecraft eZine when you click the Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter sharing buttons at the end of each story. And be sure to comment — if you’re enjoying the magazine, let me know!

Happy Holidays, and have a great New Year.

Mike Davis
Publisher