Morpheus Tales Presents:
13 Tales of Dark Fiction Table of Contents Introduction to 13: Tales of Dark Fiction Civil Beasts By Eric S Brown Dirty Story By Gary McMahon If You Lay Here Quiet Next to Me By Alan Spencer Desperate Measures By Stanley Riiks The Tax Collector By Tommy B. Smith Organ Grinder By William R.D. Wood The Machine By Fred Venturini To Hear a New World By Matt Leyshon Whatever It Takes By Joseph D’Lacey Wounder By Andrew Hook Mongrel Days By Andy Remic 103 By Shaun Jeffrey The Watchers at Work By Gary Fry
Proofread By Samuel Diamond, Craig Saunders and Sheri White
Introduction to 13: Tales of Dark Fiction An original anthology of dark fiction. I thought it would be a good idea. It was better than I ever imagined. I wrote a wish list, authors I admired, authors I dreamed of working with. Names I knew would never let me publish them. How wrong I was. Writers want to write. If you give them the freedom and the opportunity to tell a story they grasp it. The stories in this book are written by authors, both established and up-and-coming, who inspire me, thrill me, excite me and scare me. The number 13 is considered to be an unlucky number in some countries. There is even a recognized phobia, Triskaidekaphobia. During the last supper there were thirteen people around the table. The Knights Templar arrests were sanctioned by King Philip IV of France on Friday the 13th, October 1307. Thirteen moons instead of the 12 caused headaches for monks working on calendars who considered it an “unfortunate circumstance.� But the alternative community has taken 13 as their number. Tattooists consider 13 their symbol. Italy thinks of 13 as a lucky number. On a more personal note, my sister was born on the 13th. As was Taylor Swift... You decide for yourself if that is unlucky or not! 13 is an original anthology of dark fiction: dark SF, dark fantasy and horror. Thirteen dark stories by thirteen (surprisingly nice and well-adjusted) authors, the anthology includes tales of murder, hurt, music, loss, writing, pain, murder, insanity, Sasquatch... Thirteen very different stories, offering a range of dark fiction, to draw you in, to creep you out, to send shivers down your spine... To entertain you. Adam Bradley
Civil Beasts By Eric S Brown Private Jessie Morgan of the Union Army held his position in the trees above the road and prayed the Rebs passed by without noticing him or any of the other remaining members of his unit. His hands were shaking so bad, he was terrified his Springfield rifle might go off accidentally and doom them all. He wasn’t a newbie; Jessie had seen plenty of action in the last few days but at the moment he felt like one. Robert, Wes, himself, and the Colonel were the only survivors that he knew of from the engagement two days earlier when the Rebs had sprang their trap. With all the fighting going on to the north in Virginia, no expected the Rebs to have such a large force, over a thousand strong, on patrol in this part of North Carolina. Their unit had stopped near a creek they’d come across, for their midday meal and for the officers to plot their next move, when the Rebs had caught them off guard, taking out their sentries silently. No one saw or heard the bastards coming. The first volley of fire from the Rebs cut their numbers nearly in half. The Colonel rallied the men as best he could and they tried to make a stand but it was futile and hopeless. Most of the men were dead before they got to fire more than a single shot. The Colonel gave the order to retreat but there was no organization to it. By that time, it was every man for himself and everyone knew it. Most of the men were gunned down, shot in the back as they made a break for it. Jessie had narrowly escaped with his life. There had been a couple of rounds that came so close, whizzing past him as he ran, that he’d nearly wet his pants. Jessie felt no shame in running though. His wife and son were waiting on him back home. Dying in a battle that was already lost wouldn’t help them or serve to do anything except get him a fast fall into Hell. He’d fled into the trees and kept moving until the sounds of screams and gunfire were far behind him. For a long time, he’d merely wandered about trying to decide what he should do. Jessie was alone, lost behind enemy lines. When the Colonel and the others found him, he nearly wept at the sight of them. Now, the four of them headed north. The Colonel assured them all their best hope was to stay low and keep moving. Eventually, he told them,
they’d reach safety or stumble across another battle group who had fought their way through the Rebs’ lines and be able to join up with them.
Eric S Brown is the author of numerous books including Bigfoot War, Bigfoot War II, War of the Worlds Plus Blood Guts and Zombies, Season of Rot, and World War of the Dead to name only a few. His short fiction has been published hundreds of times. He lives in North Carolina with his wife and son where he continues to write tales of flesh eating corpses, blazing guns, and the things that lurk in the woods.
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Dirty Story By Gary McMahon (For Rob Shearman) That night, when he got home from work, Harry couldn’t get all the dirt out from under his fingernails. He washed his hands in the sink, using washing-up liquid mixed with sugar (an old trick a mechanic friend had once shown him), but the dirt wouldn’t budge. He scrubbed his nails in the shower, but still it didn’t clean off. Finally, in an effort to promote sleep, he took a long bath, and while he was in there he once again took out the scrubbing brush and scrubbed his fingernails until the fingertips began to ache. The dirt, despite a lot of it being removed by the process, remained smeared and uglylooking. “It’s weird,” he said to Sharon, on the phone, later that evening. “I keep cleaning my hands but the muck under my nails just doesn’t seem to shift. I can see it coming off the skin, but it’s like there’s more replacing it.” “You always were a filthy bastard,” said Sharon, giggling. Then she started to talk dirty, just the way Harry liked it, and all thoughts of his reddened fingers – and his grubby fingernails – were forgotten. He couldn’t see them properly in the dark anyway, and once those fingers were clasped around his prick they felt clean enough. Especially when he pretended it was Sharon’s hand stroking him to climax rather than his own. He slept for a little while, about two hours. This was better than usual; certainly it was longer than the night before. He reached out to turn on the bedside lamp, and once again noticed the blackened ends of his fingernails. Sighing, he grabbed the book he’d been reading and opened the page to the part he’d got up to yesterday. It was a good book, a political thriller, and soon he was lost in a fictional world of spies and intrigue. When morning arrived he was dozing. He hadn’t quite managed a proper sleep after his nap, but had slipped in and out of a light snooze. He didn’t feel very refreshed; a headache was forming behind his eyes. He got up, showered and dressed in his work clothes, and then left the house without having breakfast. The work was backbreaking that morning. Harry and his crew had to dig up one side of a small residential street in the suburbs, making ready a trench for the installation of fibre optic
cabling. Most of the time Harry liked his job: It was easy, if strenuous, and allowed him the time to think about things that a more technical position would not. He’d lied about his qualifications to get this job, pretending that he didn’t have a degree and that he had failed all his O-Levels at school. It had been easy when he thought about it; because what kind of idiot would lie about something like that?
Gary McMahon’s short fiction has been reprinted in both The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror and The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror. He is the British-Fantasy-Award-nominated author of the novels Hungry Hearts from Abaddon Books, Pretty Little Dead Things and Dead Bad Things from Angry Robot/Osprey and The Concrete Grove trilogy from Solaris.
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If You Lay Here Quiet Next to Me By Alan Spencer “Don’t ever go in that room, Stacy. It’s not a place I want you to go.” Before she could remember why she couldn’t enter that nook in the bedroom, that glorified closet, she once again succumbed to a bout of dizzy confusion. Always confused. How did she get here in the first place? - in Robert’s flat? That was his name, she believed, though she had only recalled that after he had called himself “Robert”. The memory of getting here and arriving at this point laying down on the bed, his bed, open eyed and staring at the padlocked door across the foot of the bed, wouldn’t occur. Glancing at the suspicious door, she asked him, “Am I locked in, Robert?” Then she was bringing him in close, the black-haired man who smelled of fresh shaving cream - and how his face was so smooth; she didn’t want to be affectionate with him unless he’d just shaved - kissing him on the lips and teasing that special place under his neck and jaw line that always tickled him. She kept him near, the man she loved, who she now knew again, and declared, “I love you, Robert. I’ve missed you. How long have I been here? Did I stay the night?” She assumed she stayed the night, the morning light barely lighting up the closed drapes from the other side. “No, Stacy, you’ve been here all this time. It’s like you never left.” Then she shoved him away by pressing against both his shoulders, horrified by this strange man who seemed so comfortable - comfortable enough to clutch her breasts between kisses and admire her with knowing, familiar eyes - and she cried out, “Just who the hell are you?” Weak with tears, the source depleted from so many forced cries and delirious fits of confusion, she asked herself why did she smell like this man? Why was the bed so familiar? Where could she run to and escape? Robert watched her across the room, his back against the wall, his eyes doughy and on the verge of tears. He then shook his head in defeat, and he walked to a shelf of old pictures and removed a white leather bound book.
She shirked from him as he closed in, and the man quickly reassured her, “It’s safe. I’m not going to hurt you. I want to show you some pictures. It’ll get you up to speed, baby. I promise.”
Alan Spencer is a horror author who has published the novels The Body Cartel, Inside the Perimeter: Scavengers of the Dead, Ashes in Her Eyes, and the forthcoming book Zombies and Power Tools. His short fiction has appeared in over twenty anthologies and in the magazines Morpheus Tales, Black Ink Horror, and House of Horror. Spencer's story “Suffering Begins in the Mouth and Ends in the Belly” was nominated for the 2010 Pushcart Prize. Visit his blog at: http://horroralan.blogspot.com/
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Desperate Measures By Stanley Riiks They always used to say that cockroaches would be the only ones to survive a nuclear holocaust. Well, they were half right. The cockroaches did survive. But they weren’t the only ones. No, the fucking rats made it through too… most of them from what I’ve seen. Humans didn’t fare too well. Apart from the explosions at the beginning destroying the population centres, there were the after-effects, the nuclear winter. But that wasn’t the worse. I haven’t seen a human being for almost a month according to my watch. It’s difficult to tell time when the sky’s a permanent dull grey, no sunshine, only acidic rain and ashy-sleet. Anything that comes from the sky burns, so you have to hide during the regular downpours. Staying underground has other advantages. The flies don’t come down here. Up there, out on the streets of a decimated London, the flies rule. Swarms of them feast on the dead bodies that litter the city. I was on holiday at the coast when it all started. That was ages ago now, must be over a year. Time stopped, almost literally. With no news, no papers, no daylight, no night, it’s difficult to keep track of time. At first it filled the TVs, and it wasn’t a great big bang. Not to begin with. Kim Jong Il, that crazy little North Korean, from his deathbed, set off a load of missiles heading towards South Korea. We watched them on the news, fourteen there were. Everyone expected that they would be nuclear, but they weren’t. Of course, by the time we found out it was too late. The South Koreans retaliated, the U.S. retaliated, and the Chinese then retaliated against the U.S. and the South Koreans. And the North Koreans had started a world war without even using a single nuclear bomb. They’d used something far worse. It was a deadly virus. It didn’t just kill people, it twisted them, turned them into monsters, making them killing machines. It was like an ultra-fast version of rabies and it spread across the devastated world like a plague. The nuclear fallout affected crops, food supplies started shrinking, prices exploded. Russia was basically the only major country still able to produce crops after China and America virtually
wiped out each other. When the Russians attempted to save themselves by banning the sales of wheat and corn outside the country, the European Union went to war with them. More bombs dropped. The devastation that caused affected me directly.
Stanley Riiks is a genius. It’s official, he’s a signed up member of MENSA and everything. Oh, and it’s pronounced Ricks if you were wondering. Stanley Riiks describes himself as the action man of fiction, but with the appendage attached and in fully working order. He can prove it if you like. Stanley Riiks is a writer and critic, currently more critic than writer, his work has appeared in numerous magazines, journals and books. Stanley Riiks enjoys starting every sentence with his name and writing about himself in the third person. Apart from writing and critiquing Mr Riiks (yes, you may call him that) leads a scholarly life involving as much sex, money, travel, crime and punishment as possible. There is also some alcohol involved in there somewhere. His latest project is Editor of the Morpheus Tales Supplement.
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The Tax Collector By Tommy B. Smith Once each year, the Tax Collector rode through town on his gleaming metallic stallion, and this was no abnormality, but a second visit, such as in the special case of Mack Brumbleby, was. Because the situation was a tax matter, local law (which consisted of Sheriff Tacker and one deputy whose name no one could remember, widely referred to as “Deputy No-Name”) stepped aside. Unaware of his plight, Mack sat in the local saloon soaking up cheap whiskey and watching the ebony figure of Ella Tempesta circle the saloon tree. The tree’s base issued from beneath the saloon where it received water from a crude irrigation pipe. The narrow trunk wound through the wooden floor and small, round stage upward to the ceiling and beyond. The high branches spread jaggedly out above the saloon’s roof, and were visible to anyone standing outside. In the town’s early days, the saloon had actually been constructed around this tree. Around this tree she now danced, Ella Tempesta, curvaceous and inhumanly sensual in her movements and her burning eyes which lanced blistering-hot desire through every human gathered. Mack Brumbleby forgot about both his whiskey and his friend Miguel Castillo, who sat a seat over. In one corner, the anonymous pianist kept a curious, rhythmic melody reminiscent of sprinkling cold rain that sliced through the smoky air, and Ella Tempesta’s body turned with it - or did the music instead follow her? Mack and Miguel could only watch her, entranced, speechless. When someone approached to nudge Mack and whisper into his ear, Miguel never noticed. Mack’s head slowly turned. The color drained from his white-bearded face. He swallowed hard. Even the incomparable Ella Tempesta could not distract him from the news he had just received. “Miguel,” he whispered. Miguel didn’t respond. Mack pushed his friend’s shoulder. “Miguel!” he repeated, more insistently, but Miguel’s attention was locked elsewhere. For the sake of precious time, Mack gave up his efforts and quickly
stood, almost stumbling over the seat in his effort to hurry out of the saloon. When the entire saloon began to clear, Miguel’s spellbound gaze broke from the dance. He was puzzled to notice his friend’s absence, and the emptying saloon. He made his way over to one patron who remained, but before he could ask the question, he had his answer.
Tommy B. Smith is a writer of dark fiction whose work has appeared in numerous publications that include Morpheus Tales, Every Day Fiction, Darker, Black Petals, and a variety of other magazines and anthologies. His presence currently infests Fort Smith, Arkansas, where he resides with his wife Carrie and three cats. More information can be found on his website at: http://www.tommybsmith.com
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Organ Grinder By William R.D. Wood Gravel crunched under the Mustang’s tires. Frank Delgado eased the vehicle to a stop beside the abandoned black-and-white and silenced the growl beneath the hood with a turn of a key. He lowered the window and checked out the patrol vehicle. The driver’s door stood ajar on the brand new ‘69 Plymouth Fury and the car’s radio microphone lay on the front seat. The leather seats glistened, covered with the dew, and an overloaded key ring hung from the ignition switch. Frank shook his head. A cop would never make a move like that in Philly. Good way for some lowlife to come along and jack your ride. Bunch of dumbass hicks could afford a hot, straight-off-theline patrol car, but not a cop with an ounce of brains to drive it. The Sheriff had decided to send an officer to talk to the carnival’s manager before sunrise. The carnies wouldn’t be expecting a visit so early from local law enforcement. Last two times this carnival had blown through town they’d failed to drop by the county clerk and pay for their permits. Not this time. Frank had received the call to check up on the rookie cop when he’d failed to check back in or return. Frank stepped out of the Mustang, his foot cutting a swath through the mist oozing across the ground. Another humid day in the making here in Middle of the Nowhere, VA. Overcast too. A combination guaranteed to trap the heat like a goddamned sauna. Frank reached into the patrol car and pulled the mike out to the extent of its cord. “Dispatch, this is Delgado.” He looked at the tents and booths and trailers clustered together in the freshly cleared field. The trees had been cut and the grasses mowed down not two weeks ago and the gravel poured not long after. More land cleared on the taxpayers’ dime so the county could make it available for events, or contractors. Who would want to set up this far from town, though? A damned carnival, of course. “Go ahead, detective. Any sign of Richie?” asked a woman’s voice from the speaker. Frank winced. So unprofessional. “No. I’m headed in now. “ “Sheriff said he’s coming out himself. He’ll be along in about twenty minutes.”
Frank clicked the radio microphone button twice to acknowledge and let the coiled cord snatch the mike inside the car with a clunk. “Reckon you should wait, then?” squawked the woman.
William R.D. Wood lives in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley in an old farmhouse turned backwards to the road. His profound love of horror and science fiction routinely leads him to destroy the world, whether by alien artifact, zombie apocalypse or teddy bear. http://writebrane.blogspot.com
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The Machine By Fred Venturini March 3, 2005 Now that I have a prototype of the machine in my home, I have to begin keeping a journal. Thomas relented and gave me one to try out for myself, if I’m going to chronicle this technology’s rise - mainstream media won’t cover it. They call Thomas and his doctors quacks, but this is often the name reserved for all alternative therapies, even the effective ones. After this is over, I won’t be a freelancer or hobbyist anymore when it comes to writing - I may be a footnote in encyclopedias and articles, one of the first to turn away from the evil indoctrination of pharmaceuticals to blaze a trail into a new world of health and wellness. Last night, I attended a dinner at an expensive steakhouse in an expensive city, sitting alongside Dr. Mexico (I’ll call him that since he’s a specialist from Mexico, specializing in UV light therapy). “Ultraviolet light can purify the human body,” Thomas said. He wasn’t a doctor, but educated himself in the company of doctors once he laid the groundwork for his machine prototype. “Toxins are removed, viruses and bacteria and fungus have no chance. Diseases are eradicated; the immune system goes from being a casual militia to a motivated armada. Aches and pains, sore joints, the common cold, the flu - the list goes on. These ailments disappear in hours on my machine.” Dr. Mexico talked about the proven history and results of the treatment - photoluminescence, it’s called - but added, “It is shunned in this country because it would cripple the pharmaceutical companies. If a machine that could cure dozens of ailments could be in every home, billions stand to be lost. The government is lobbied hard by these people, and would shut down the research.” “We want to take some of our closest friends and allies, people who have followed our work, people who believe in us, and have them use the machine for a few weeks,” Thomas said. “But I’m not sick,” I said. “So wouldn’t it be harmful or useless?” “You’re toxic, Frank,” Dr. Mexico responded. “Processed foods, impure water, even the aluminum in your deodorant can
poison our systems. This will cure that condition and make you nearly invincible to illness.” Thomas swirled his wine, then nodded to the waiter, wanting another bottle. I’d seen the wine list; two bottles was a week’s salary for me. “We are having success against AIDS and Hepatitis C,” Thomas said. “It seems that everyday, we’re having results against something new. Hell, even hangovers.”
Fred Venturini lives and writes in Carlyle, Illinois. Horrific things do not happen in that idyllic town, so he makes them up. Occasionally, those stories appear in magazines and anthologies, such places as Sinister Tales, Dark Distortions 2, Writer's Post Journal, Susurrus, and others. Even more rarely, he gets a check for something he has written and pays the light bill with the money. He is still waiting for the Cubs to win the World Series.
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To Hear a New World By Matt Leyshon Joe spins the barrel of the gun just so, as he has many times before. His eyes, like discs of jet afloat in shimmering white aspic, gaze blankly ahead at some shadowy space above the heads of all those gathered watching. He tries to recall the sound he has heard so often as he travels from one world to the next, the orchestral swoon of a bullet rushing through his brain, but it evades his probing like a fragment of eggshell suspended in spilt albumen. Sat opposite him at the small foldaway table the Turk clenches and unclenches his fingers nervously at his chest, his eyes wide with hopeful desperation. Slowly, delaying the bliss like a junkie preparing his fix, Joe angles the gun just right into the roof of his mouth, feeling the cold metal he closes his eyes and pulls the trigger. Pop. A sleep encrusted eye flickers open, spraying alternate universes of dust into the ether. He tastes a rush of oceanic minerals furring his tongue and feels himself drowning beneath a wet and insufferable weight; the reek of stale quim and salty cum. His clothes flap against his flesh like seaweed at high tide. The bullet careers around the curve of his skull, racing through holographic worlds like an overexcited child sprinting through a hall of mirrors. It furrows The Valley of the Saroos along the surface of his brain with a plough of not just moulded lead, but also of sound, and in that moment Joe hears perfect oscillations, and a reverberation that hints at eternity. The crowd in the private room explodes into cheers and applause. Joe opens his eyes, feeling them burn as though he were submerged in rancid seawater. Disorientated, as if awakening from a dream, he withdraws the barrel from his lips. His lungs lighten and he opens his senses to absorb and comprehend his surroundings, at once just as he remembers them, but also bearing the air of an impostor, as if everything has been replaced with replicas; the spectators, the furniture, and Joe himself, none seem quite as they were. He absently scans the men in suits who have gathered in plush chairs around the room to watch desperate and broken men play Russian roulette. Joe was desperate, but not for
money, he craves fix after fix of that sound, the roar of his brain being blasted into nothingness, from one world to the next. A few seconds pass, and he finds himself once more at one with the world, belonging in this room, like the last piece of a broken mirror being glued back into place. He spins the barrel again and passes the gun over to the Turk and the crowd hush once more.
Matt Leyshon is a writer based in Blackpool, England. Many of his strange stories are set in the fictionalised Dorset town of Leddenton where he grew up. His work can be found in publications such as E'ch Pi El, Lovecraft's Disciples, and Paraphilia Magazine.
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Whatever it takes By Joseph D’Lacey “Get up.” He was still asleep when he heard the words and for a moment they became part of his dreams. Between the oil slick that was his conscious mind and the purer water of the unconscious below it, there were currents, riptides. A ‘get up’ was a stupid looking costume. He saw a clown with a green nose wearing the get up, looking out of place at a funeral. It was something a cowboy said to a horse to make it move. It was what your prick did for your lover, but he didn’t have a lover. In his half-dream state he conjured three teenage babes, all for him; saw himself ‘getting up’. He drifted deeper into the comfort of the water layer, the slick receding above him. Get up was what James Brown did; he did it like a sex machine, man – and he stayed on the scene. “I said, get up.” In the warm safe water, a thermocline chilled him. Below the angle of his jaw he felt cold, blunt pressure. He popped upwards through the water, into the filthy oil of consciousness above it. Into confusion and reality. The pressure increased causing his head to turn. He felt the pillow beneath it, the musty duvet drawn tightly around him. The bluntness was hard and it felt sharper the greater the pressure became. He could even smell the oil. Was it sewing machine oil? He opened his eyes, but there wasn’t much to see; they were fogged with sleep crud. He felt the grit of it in the corners of them, the smear of gummy fluid across his vision. The curtains in the bedroom were still closed. But the shape, the outline of a person leaning over him and the gesture and positioning of the shape’s hand was unmistakeable even in those circumstances. There was a woman in his bedroom and she had a gun tucked under his chin. She gestured, with an incline of her head, in the direction of his bedside table. “Take a look.” In the gloom, all he could see was the luminous digits of his alarm clock. “What does it say?” she asked.
He blinked away the sleep and saw that it was five past eight. He should have been at work by now. “Yeah, that’s right. You’re late. What have I told you about that? Huh?” Impossibly, the gun pressed harder into him, hard enough to make him want to gag as it constricted part of his throat. He didn’t struggle. He didn’t fight. What was the point? “I... I’m sorry,” he said.
Joseph D’Lacey is the author of MEAT and Garbage Man – EcoHorror published by Bloody Books – and post-apocalyptic survival novella, The Kill Crew. MEAT has been translated into German, French, Hungarian, Russian and Turkish and was optioned for film in ’08. The novel also earned him the British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer in 2009. His fiction has appeared in small presses, magazines, print anthologies and online. He co-curates www.horrorreanimated.com where he blogs about Horror and interviews today’s creators of the genre. He lives in Northamptonshire with his wife and daughter.
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Wounder By Andrew Hook Cramped on the single bed in my one-room apartment, Chloe’s head rests on my chest and I try to synchronise our breathing. Outside, the dawn is rising. My amber curtains become translucent with the emergence of the sun. It was a warm night. Not too hot to be huddled together, yet too cold not to be. Chloe’s thin hair is tied back into a ponytail held by pink elastic. I kiss her forehead, taste sodium traces like a deer at a salt lick. She dreamt the deer overnight. A white hart. Her own heart had beat inside her chest and she pulled up her t-shirt, antlers under the skin pushing out mini-triangles, until suddenly it burst through and skittered left and right, flicking up forest debris with hooves of shining silver. She gave chase – her stomach unquestioningly healed – until the deer stopped by a white lake. She had imagined fish in the lake until the deer’s hooves refused to fall through the surface. She watched as it bent its neck, extended its tongue. Just at the point of touching the surface, she woke. I know all this despite her not telling me. She knows that I know. The white hart faded into the whiteness of the lake, became background. Two hours later, with the top of the sun level with my windowsill, I regulate my breathing until it matches hers. Only it doesn’t: she is always either one breath ahead or one breath behind. ### When I first met Chloe everything was bonus or wounder. Our favourite band coming to play at The Waterfront. Bonus! The same gig cancelled: wounder! It became habit. Something she – and then we – said repeatedly, a validation of the relationship. The sharing of certain words like a mantra, a secret handshake. Something that was wholly me and wholly her. Something that was us. That I would always associate with us. She was a natural brunette. During summer months her hair colour lightened as her skin colour darkened. We met during Spring, and shortly afterwards her previously one-tone face became speckled with freckles. In my madder moments I imagined that each new freckle was an indication of her increased love for me. I wanted love
to manifest itself in ways other than the purely emotional. I see now that she wanted this too, but that the freckles were not part of it. Due to the death of her previous tutor, our evening digital photography classes had been combined. I saw her first through the lens of my camera, as I was working through the menus, trying to find a setting for multiple exposures which I was sure I had found before but somehow never managed to find again. She wasn’t the tallest girl on the planet, five foot two in her estimation, although I had a feeling she might be taller. Later, several weeks later, as I bent to kiss her during a coffee break, the air coalesced around us and sealed us together. From then on, we were inseparable. Like a couple living in a bubble, kept away from the dangers of the outside world. Yet our immune systems vulnerable due to the fragility of love. Andrew Hook has had over 80 short stories published in the past ten years, with recent fiction appearing in PostScripts, Art From Art, Nemonymous and Zahir. His most recent novella, Ponthe Oldenguine (Atomic Fez), is a comic media satire which he promoted using a penguin mask. He considers this to be normal.
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Mongrel Days By Andy Remic The huge man sat at the table with a half-empty bottle of brandy. His powerful hands - knuckles tattooed with script and military data - were spread flat on the surface amidst pools of old beer and trey spirit. He watched the dancer with gleaming, hungry eyes, watched her twirl and shift, her young limbs supple and smooth, black skin unblemished, scared eyes a testament to humble beginnings with a promise of worse to come. The man sipped his drink; felt the alcohol kick his brain around his skull. He groaned inwardly, then glanced at the other men who watched the dancer with wet lips and panting tongues, clapping and cheering her on as gyrations accelerated and clothing fell away, was tossed away carelessly as drugs took hold, and their cheers grew louder, more urgent, and her movements were fluid, final lacy items cast aside to reveal quivering, naked flesh The blow smashed him from his chair, and he rolled automatically despite the brandy, coming up snarling with fists raised. Kicks rained down, but the tattooed man rode the blows, surging up and out to grab one of his attackers, pulling him tight, sinking teeth into the man’s thigh and drawing a glinting stiletto blade from his belt which he shoved up and over, a slam into the attacker’s lower back. Screams. Panic. Chaos. Another blow landed, with a heavy bar this time; then another, and another. The huge man staggered, scattering chairs. He was aware of blood pooling across the floor, making it slippery. The music had stopped. Another blow hit him across the shoulders, and he went down on one knee, like a half-felled oak. He groaned, blood frothing through spewed sounds. The SMKK clicked behind his skull and he ceased all movement. The men gathered close around, invading his personal space and binding his hands tight and dragging him violently from the London nightclub. Outside, rain pounded the black streets. Gutters chugged with an excess of water. Blood and rain streamed down the man’s
face as he was dragged before another, larger, group of men, sheltering under umbrellas with neat suits and gleaming pistols. “Mongrel,” nodded the largest of the men. The tattooed man looked up into cruel black eyes. “What the fuck you doing, McDonnell?” Blood was seeping from his face, and McDonnell gestured to a corpse being dragged down the steps by its legs, head bumping on every edge. A man handed McDonnell a bloodied blade. McDonnell tutted, shaking his head.. “Come on, you know the way we play, Mongrel. What are you doing, stabbing my men? Killing them dead? That’s not the way we play on these mean streets anymore. You should know that, better than anyone.”
Author of Spiral, Quake, Warhead, War Machine, Biohell, Hardcore, Cloneworld, Kell’s Legend, Soul Stealers, Vampire Warlords, Serial Killers Incorporated, and the upcoming SIM, Theme Planet and Toxicity. www.andyremic.com www.anarchy-books.com
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103 By Shaun Jeffrey Daniel stared down at the long line of people. He couldn’t believe so many had turned out to claim they were the reincarnation of the late Max Francis, but when there was over a million pounds at stake, he guessed the saying ‘where there’s a will’ was more than apt. When he had seen the advert, he knew straight away there was a possible story for the newspaper: Are you the late Max Francis? Have you been reborn? If you can verify your identity, then the substantial estate totalling over a million pounds will be given back to you as per the instructions of the will. Identification process will begin at 9 a.m. on 20th March at Brown & May Solicitors. A short call later and he managed to obtain exclusive rights to sit in on proceedings. “So, Miss May, what are your feelings about adjudicating over the will of a man hung for murder?” Daniel asked the middleaged brunette. The leather chair squeaked in protest as Miss May sat back. She looked up from the notes she had placed on top of her crossed legs and frowned, making her pinched features even more pronounced. “What do my feelings matter?” “I’m just interested in getting an opinion from someone other than one of the claimants. From someone involved in the execution – excuse the pun – of the will.” Miss May shrugged, noncommittal. “I’m just doing my job, which is adjudicating in a will made out in 1945.” “But don’t you find it a bit, you know, strange?” “Apparently Max Francis was a great believer in reincarnation, and he believed he would return to claim his own fortune. He had no descendants, so his money has been sitting idle.” She glanced briefly across at her partner, Mr. Brown, who sat in the corner of the room, reading a newspaper. He seemed taciturn and had hardly said a word, the only sign he wasn’t asleep being the odd furtive rustle as he turned the page. “So why was the advert placed now?”
“There was a specific request with the will stating when the advert should be placed in all the national newspapers. Something to do with it being a special Spring Equinox.” Daniel readjusted his position on the windowsill. “I read the advert, which is why I’m here. But to be honest, I thought it was a joke, you know.” “It’s no joke.” “So how are you going to verify if one of these people is Max Francis returned from the dead?”
Shaun Jeffrey was brought up in a house in a cemetery, so it was only natural for his prose to stray towards the dark side when he started writing. He has had four novels published, The Kult, Deadfall, Fangtooth and Evilution, and one collection of short stories, Voyeurs of Death. Among his other writing credits are short stories published in Cemetery Dance, Surreal Magazine, Dark Discoveries and Shadowed Realms. The Kult was optioned for film by Gharial Productions. Shooting has been completed. Release details pending. For more information, please visit: www.shaunjeffrey.com
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The Watchers at Work By Gary Fry There was a security camera attached to the wall at the end of the street; Jamie Hood was surprised somebody hadn’t nicked it. It was high up, surveying the whole shopping precinct, but he’d known lads to commit stupider acts. No doubt adult watchers were on the lookout for brats like Jamie’s old friends, only a few of whom he’d retained since leaving school eighteen months ago. His own job in the bookstore kept him above suspicion, but he sometimes considered how easy it would be to steal a small fortune from the safe in the cellar. He never would, of course – he was an honest boy. Nevertheless, this thought often brought out the latent rebel in him. The intercom buzzed from the ground floor and Jamie’s heart rate stepped up a notch. That would be Lynda – only the pair of them was on duty this morning – wanting one of two things: another cup of coffee, or to remind him that he must break down the delivery boxes in the cellar before lunch. In a short while, a third member of staff would join him and their manageress, but until then he was stuck up here in the sale section. He loved working downstairs with the beautiful twenty-six year old; he entertained fantasies of their stealing away together for some foreign clime . . . But it was all ridiculous: her dad owned the chain of Big Print. Jamie lived in an ex-council house with his parents. A wider gulf between them he couldn’t imagine. He nervously thumbed the intercom’s wheel that allowed him to listen, and then pressed the button to speak. “Hi. Er, hello. Yes?” He’d made a mess of that, but his boss didn’t appear too troubled. It would have been different if he’d been speaking on the phone to a customer. “Oh yes, Jamie, as soon as Brenda arrives, I want you to tackle the cardboard,” came Lynda’s cool artificial voice from the speaker. “Yes, okay.” Sometimes he thought he’d do anything for her, legal or illegal... “Erm, would you like a cup of – ” But she’d already terminated the communication, other important matters to attend to. It was Friday; there was a lot to
organise before their busiest time at the weekend. Jamie sulked and went back to unprofitable daydreaming. Over a year earlier, a few of his so-called friends had tormented him over his decision to apply to work here. One laid bricks, the other installed burglar alarms; the last book either had read would be something in their childhood. Jamie was no great scholar himself – he’d failed three of his GCSEs, and secured only two grade Cs – but every now and then he’d pick up a horror novel, welcoming the change from dispiriting telly at home. In truth he wasn’t keen on work at all, but if he wished to keep up with other people his age, he needed money. And there was no other way he’d get a girlfriend. He didn’t want people to think he was a loser.
Gary Fry lives in Dracula’s Whitby. He's had a number of short story collections published, a chapbook, a handful of novellas and a novel. Ramsey Campbell has described him as “a master”. Forthcoming are a new novel called Fearful Festivities (Screaming Dreams) and a short story collection called Shades of Nothingness (PS Publishing). Check out all his activities here: www.gary-fry.com
13 Tales of Dark Fiction Available from lulu.com and all good booksellers www.lulu.com/product/paperback/13-tales-of-dark-fiction/18720432 Available as an ebooks in many formats:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/110688
13 Tales of Dark Fiction Available from lulu.com and all good booksellers www.lulu.com/product/paperback/13-tales-of-dark-fiction/18720432 Available as an ebooks in many formats:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/110688