Cthulhurotica by Cody Goodfellow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Jennifer Brozek, Ahimsa Kerp, Carrie Cuinn, Gabrielle Harbowy, Don Pizarro, Madison Woods, Richard Baron, Juan Miguel Marin, Maria Mitchell, Mae Empson, Nathan Crowder, KV Taylor, Andrew Scearce, Constella Espj, Leon J. West, Travis King, Steven J. Searce, Clint Collins, Matthew Marovich, Gary Mark Bernstein, Kirsten Brown, Kenneth Hite, Justin Everett

on a beaded peace sign belt buckle. Next to it were a series of Smokey the Bear stickers. The big brown creature was smoking a joint, holding the jay delicately with his enormous bear paws.
    While the vendor was talking to a couple of guys playing Frisbee, Euphoria slipped a couple of stickers into her purse. Diane tisked softly. Euphoria ignored her. What was a girl with no money supposed to do? Her karma was generally still pretty good.
    The vendor turned to them. “I love this place,” she said to Diane, covering. “It’s not like Iowa.” She didn’t miss the place she’d grown up, but occasionally she wondered about calling her parents. Her father’s birthday had been last month.
    “Iowa. Ha,” the guy selling the stickers said. “I’m from Akron – same shit, sister.”
    “Yeah, it’s a real scene,” Diane agreed. She seemed bored.
    “Right on,” the guy said. “Hey, you two got a guru? There’s a new dude in town, and he is way far out. He can tell prophecies, that kind of shit. He’s camping here in the park.”
    “The soul brother?” Diane sounded surprised. “I, uh, yeah I know him.”
    “Sounds like fun,” Euphoria said. She needed some guidance in her life. “Let’s beat feet.”
     
    ****
     
    It took them almost two hours to find the camp. They had to wade through the creek, walk up through a forest, and past something that looked like a giant hamster wheel. Once they were close, though, they could hear the drums beating and smell the smoke of the bonfire. The sun had set and the summer sky was filled with waning, streaming light.
    There were already twenty or thirty people. Lots were getting high, some were playing drums, and plenty were just chilling out.
    “There he is,” Diane said. She didn’t need to say it though, he stood out.
    Lithe and swarthy; he stood by the fire but was wrapped in darkness. Shadows wreathed languidly about his body. His face was dark except for his eyes, which shone with an awful, joyous light. He wore camouflage fatigues and a combat vest with lots of pockets, with black leather sandals on his feet. His beard was curly and neatly trimmed. On his head was an almost rectangular headpiece that immediately made Euphoria think of an Egyptian pharaoh.
    He clutched an elongated ivory flute. The instrument appeared to be made from a hollow reed or a bone, bleached white, with several finger holes along the shaft. The man was very beautiful.
    “Look at that dude,” Euphoria whispered to Diane. “He is seriously far out.”
    As they watched him, he lifted his flute into air and played. The sound filled the air. It was fey, wild music that may have lasted seconds or hours. It transcended beauty, and spoke directly to the soul. It was over all too quickly. The world itself seemed to have changed, to have been destroyed and clumsily rebuilt in an instant.
    Her heart was beating fast and her head seemed to be swimming. She found herself approaching him.
    He looked at her. His smile was smoldering, but cruel.
    “Where ya’ from, man?” she asked.
    “Hard to say,” he answered. His voice was low and gruff.
    “My name is Euphoria. What’s yours?” She pressed her breasts into him, slightly, as she leaned in to talk with him.
    “I have many names. You can call me… Nyarlathotep.”
    “That’s a trippy name. Are you, you know, from Egypt?”
    “I’ve been there. Amongst other places.”
    “Like, where?”
    He paused. “It might be easier to tell you where I haven’t been. I have looked on sights which others saw not. ”
    “You’ve been to Kathmandu? Kabul? Benares? Ceylon?”
    He interrupted her. “That’s not the kind of traveling I do. Think more … celestial.”
    She understood all right. She wondered if she could bag some acid off of him.
    “Do you want to get out of here?” he asked her. There was no mistaking what his invitation entailed. She was thrilled at his directness. She glanced over to Diane, who was chatting with a guy who looked