There are several excellent entries in the anthology Cthulhu's Reign, but none better than Mike Allen's "Her Acres of Pastoral Playground." This story has stuck with me, like a splinter in my gray matter, ever since first reading it this past summer. The imagery here--at once surreal and supernatural (as the protagonist's recurring nightmares clue him in to an even more horrific reality)--is absolutely haunting. Delmar, a former academic at the local university (Lovecraft fans can guess which one) attempts to create a safe haven for himself and his wife and daughter when the old gods waken, but the results are nothing like he planned. Seeds of mystery and dread are sown throughout this weird tale: What has happened to Delmar's not-quite-absentee daughter Meaghan? What is the significance of that black circle singeing the grass, and the walls of fog surrounding Delmar's farm? Allen's pulpy horrors (e.g. "the windowpane bows and shatters as a slimy mass of dense hairy jelly shoves its way through, unfurls in an explosion of sucking lamprey mouths and clusters of lidless human eyes") assault the reader on a visceral level, while also prodding phobic pressure points (all those tentacles spontaneously sprouting from human bodies evoke the fear of cancerous mutation). Yet the story proves most disturbing on the emotional front, as a loving husband/father is forced to come to terms with the consequences of his well-meaning efforts to shield his family from eldritch catastrophe. A character-driven narrative detailing the impact of cosmic horror on a decidedly domestic scene, "Her Acres of Pastoral Playground" is an easy choice for Best Mythos Tale of 2010.
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