Dark Tales Of Lost Civilizations by Eric J. Guignard (Editor) Page A

out.”
    “So?” Lyddy’s head raced, not knowing what to think or do. “Beef marrow makes for a good soup.”
    “This is human,” said Clayton.
    “Man corn!” said Shorty.
    Lyddy spun on him, waved a fist. “Shut the hell up, Shorty.”
    Shorty cowered. Eyes slit.
    “He’s right,” said Clayton. “I’ve read stories. About bad times what done in the Cliff Dwellers. Civil war. Murder. No food. Hungry stomachs.”
    “What stories?” said Lyddy. “I never heard those stories. How can you know that?”
    Clayton shrugged. “The paintings inside the houses. It’s like they’re words to me.”
    The lantern light bobbed, tremors reverberating through Lyddy’s grip on the handle. “We should go,” he said. “Take what we got and go.”
    Shorty screamed, charged Lyddy. He dropped the lantern, whipped the carbine from his shoulder. No time to aim—he swung the stock like a club, batting Shorty’s shoulder. The arm sheared off, dropped to the ground. It was empty and desiccate like the hive of a paper wasp.
    Clayton smacked Lyddy on the neck with the leg bone. Lyddy fell.
    Clayton threw away the club. He stooped to retrieve the lantern, still lit.
    The old double-cross , Lyddy tried to say. It came out as a sigh. He lay stunned and immobile.
    “I imagine the story of this place was scrambled as it moved north, all the way from here to Dakota,” said Clayton.
    The Indians brought gold and skins and what-not to the hole in the hill, thought Lyddy. In exchange, the serpent brothers gave medicine to their kinsmen to help in their battles.
    “Yessir. And the snake medicine was making extra warriors. The Cliff Dwellers must have built this place for the new people to live in. Though they weren’t people exactly.” Clayton walked over to the ladder well. “But that’s a lot of mouths to feed—especially if the new ones don’t like corn pone. So it went to pieces.”
    The Indians built high to get away from the ground. Snakes live on the ground. Or under it.
    “So many people you could have been,” Clayton said. “Instead you got stuck on gold.”
    Maybe there never were four brothers in the story. Maybe there was just the one to start.
    “I presume you’re correct,” said Clayton. His voice echoed in the vertical tunnel, the pool of light diminishing as he descended. “Now I’m gonna go see how old Jenny Allen’s getting along.”
    If she would’ve married me poor, she’ll sure marry you rich.
    “Ha!” Clayton whooped. “So many decisions to make, so many opportunities.” He sounded far away. “So many different people I could be. Have fun, Shorty!”
    “Mmhphgr,” said Shorty. Somehow he had disarticulated his jaw and swallowed Lyddy up to the waist.
    =[]=
     
    Jackson Kuhl is the author of Samuel Smedley, Connecticut Privateer (The History Press, 2011). His website is www.jacksonkuhl.com .
     

 
     

     
    Michael G. Cornelius
     
    =[]=
     
    The following story is another that, the moment I read it, I knew right away I had to have it. It really pushes the boundaries of what I was visualizing to be included in this anthology, and it just fits so perfectly. The lost civilization in this next tale is one that is long beloved in our imaginations and has been popularized in modern culture the world over. In this account, Michael G. Cornelius explores the lives of four sisters, each a unique voice, as they lament their mortality in the lost and wonderful land of . . . Oz.
    =[]=
     
    West
    It wasn’t a schoolgirl.
    That’s not how I pictured my death.
    My delicious evil deserved far better than to perish at the hands of a raw-boned, wastrel youth from Kansas. Kansas! How ignoble that I, terror of the Winkie clan, scourge of all western Oz, should be reduced to oblivion by the cursory actions of a mere child, a slip of a girl in blue calico and pig tails. Pig tails! My murky beauty outshone everything about that girl, and still I fell before her.
    No, that wasn’t supposed to be my end! I was