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ISSN 1757-5419 Issue 24 –2014 Edited by Sheri White Editorial By Sheri White
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Stories Our Parents Tell Us By J.S. Watts
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CafĂŠ Noir By Richard Farren Barber Illustrated By Danielle Ceneta
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Welcome To Flavor Country By Paul Newman
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Mucho Mongrel By Stephen McQuiggan Illustrated by Jeffrey Oleniacz
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The Dirge By Kevin J. MacLeod
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The Room in the Wall Where I Found the Spider By Dylan Henderson Illustrated by Joe Young
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The Metro Station By Michael Tugendhat
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The Decoder By Kenneth Buff
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A Fond Farewell By John Morgan
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Cover By - Deni Dessastra - http://doeasembilanpro.deviantart.com Proof-read By Sheri White All material contained within the pages of this magazine and associated websites is copyright of Morpheus Tales. All. Rights Reserved. No material contained herein can be copied or otherwise used without the express permission of the copyright holders. 2
Vampires. Tradition has it that they can be defeated with crucifixes and holy water, but you try using either on a previously Jewish or Muslim member of the undead and see where that gets you; invariably six feet under or hanging around the streets at night trying to score your next blood fix, that’s where. Tradition has a lot to answer for. By tradition, I mean received wisdoms and superstition and the distorted fairy tales that we tell our little ones to lull them into a false sense of security and keep the metaphorical wolf from the door. There – see what I mean? Okay, perhaps you don’t yet, but you will, I promise. The traditional stories our parents tell us are a pack of lies, seasoned with a tiny pinch of truth. As trusting infants we are somehow supposed to sort out the mass of falsehood from the grain of wisdom that might actually be worth knowing. Sometimes these supposedly instructive fables just leave things out altogether -- who knows that zombies eat flesh because they are fatally allergic to vegetables -- or skirt around the really important things; the things that might have saved you from a fate worse than death, had anybody bothered to let you know in the first place. As a for example, Little Red Riding Hood teaches you to be wary of walking in the woods, wolves in general and especially wolves in grannies’ clothing. Oh, and men with big choppers are a good thing. Just take a minute to think of what it doesn’t warn you about… I had just turned fourteen and was on my way to Grandma’s house. I would have been careful and chosen not to take the path through the woods, had there been any woods to avoid, but we lived in a big city, so instead I was careful to avoid the neighbourhood where the drug dealers hung out. Granny didn’t live in a particularly nice part of town and it had grown worse over the years, but she had lived there since before Granddad had died and after he died she didn’t want to move. Granddad had died from an infected animal bite; something quite small, like a cat or a rat, which tells you all you need to know about the area where Grandma lived. It was a sunny day, I had nothing serious to worry about other than standard adolescent anxieties and fixations, and I was on my way to Grandma’s house. You only ever visited Granny during the day because at night the streets around her house weren’t safe, but during the day it was fine. I was wearing my favourite red-hooded top and a new pair of jeans and I felt good. I was clutching a carrier bag of foodstuffs, care of my mother, who was concerned that Granny wasn’t eating properly. She had also thrown in a couple of cans of quality cat food to make sure that Grandma’s cat was being looked after properly, too. My mum was always concerned about the cat, which was apparently quite old, not that I had ever actually seen her. Granny said she was strictly nocturnal and slept all day so that she could hunt better at night. Of course, as I never went to Granny’s house after dark, the cat was always safely curled up somewhere fast asleep when I came round to call. I noticed that Granny liked a nap during the day too, but that was because she was very old, Mum said. She always woke up when Mum and I called round and would make Mum a cup of tea and me a glass of squash. Today, however, Mum was having one of her headaches and, as I had just turned fourteen, she said it would be safe enough for me to go across town to visit Granny all on my own. Grandma was certainly very pleased to see me and was very grateful for the carrier bag of food, especially the cat food. After I had had my glass of squash, which I thought was a bit babyish now I was old enough to visit her on my own, but I thanked her anyway, she packed me off home with messages of thanks for my Mum and strict instructions to me to go straight home before it started to get dark. Of course, I didn’t. At fourteen the world is an exciting place and when you are out on your own in a part of town you don’t normally go to unescorted, you want to explore a bit. I was particularly keen to get back to a particular street corner where a gang of lads had been hanging out. 3
“What are you staring at?” “That door.” Jenny looked over her shoulder into the corner of the café. “The toilet?” “Nobody’s ever come out,” Mick said. “We’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes and five guys have gone in, but none of them have come out again.” “Maybe there’s a queue,” Jenny said. “It happens all the time.” “Not in the men’s.” “Then there’s another door. Maybe Sally’s café runs a urinary one-way system.” Jenny laughed at her own joke, even though she didn’t think it was that funny. She picked up the wipeclean laminated menu from the table and asked, “What are you having? I fancy a panini.” “I need a wee,” Mick said. He shuffled in his chair, embarrassed and scared – like an eightyear-old boy. Jenny stopped herself from telling him to quit fidgeting and grow up; she didn’t want another fight. Not here, in public. “Well, go then,” she snapped. Mick looked at the door to the toilet. “Nobody’s going to eat you; there’s bound to be a perfectly rational explanation. They’re probably talking about football or beer or whatever it is that men chat about when they get together.” Mick shook his head. “You could go to the toilets out by the square – you know, near W. H. Smiths?” “Too far.” His voice was strained. Jenny shrugged – not her problem. She tried to feel sympathetic but failed. “If it bothers you that much then use the women’s.” Mick’s reaction was suitably horrified. The waitress came across to the table – A sullen sixteen-year-old girl who garbled “canitakeyourorder?” as a single word and then stood waiting for a reply, pen hovering over the order pad. “Two mugs of tea, please. We haven’t quite decided what we’re going to eat yet,” Jenny replied. The waitress flounced away – as if an order for two teas had been a waste of her time. Mick got up, pushing his chair back so quickly he almost tipped it over, and walked towards the toilet. The door shut behind him. Jenny looked at the menu, maybe pesto and roasted vegetables? Ham and mozzarella? The waitress returned to place two grimy mugs of brackish tea down on the Formica table. A thin layer of grease floated on the top like an oil slick. Jenny took a sip that tasted as bad as it looked. She closed the menu and propped it back up between the salt and vinegar. Maybe we should pass on the food and get a sandwich from Sainsbury’s, she thought. She took another sip and then pushed Mick’s mug closer to his empty chair. He’d have to hurry back or it was going to be cold. Please don’t let us have another argument, she thought. That was one of the reasons they’d left the flat. The café was neutral territory. A woman bustled past, her collection of plastic carrier bags knocking against the table. In her wake the tea slapped over the edge of Mick’s mug. Jenny fetched a couple of paper napkins to mop it up and glared at the woman, who was too busy arranging the shopping bags around her feet to notice. Jenny looked at the door to the toilets. Mick was taking his time. Maybe… No. She shook her head to get rid of the thought, it was just ridiculous. Still… She looked around the café. A sad, tatty, little place. She could see out onto the street; the grey scene smeared through rain-dirty windows. People walked past, oblivious to Jenny’s inspection, ears lowered into their shoulders. 4
Writers write and that’s what I do and that’s what I did when the shit went down; I wrote. I had a good stash of spiral notebooks and I filled page after page, day after day, with the crazy spinning around me. The part of my brain that writes didn’t notice or maybe didn’t care that nobody was gonna be around to read it. It didn’t matter; the writing was the thing and there was plenty to write about so that was that. I didn’t have to go out, I wish like hell I hadn’t done it, but I couldn’t help it: I was out of smokes. You know how it is; life’s not worth living if you can’t get one. At least, it seems that way when the craving takes you and rakes its claws down your spine and won’t let you go. I locked the door behind me and walked down to the corner to scrounge up whatever I could find. The road was empty except for a pair of crows that had settled down in the middle of the intersection and were fighting and squawking over something, something big. I tried not to watch ‘em eat and just kept on walking. The Quik-Mart looked empty. The big windows in front were gone, smashed out days ago. I couldn’t see anything moving around inside so I went in. The place looked like a hurricane had come through. The shelves were damn near empty, but the floor was covered in crushed bags of pork rinds and sunflower seeds and all that kind of shit. A light coating of dust had already settled over everything and made it look almost peaceful. I knew I didn’t have time to jerk around so I headed back to the counter where they kept the cash register and smokes. As I got closer, I heard something behind the counter, down low. A sloppy, meaty sound. I eased up close and leaned over to look. It was Omar, the guy who ran the place. He was stretched out face down on the floor but I recognized those red boots he always wore. He wasn’t moving but there was something crawling around on top of him. It looked like a muddy pile of rags, then I saw a hand and a tangled shock of greasy white hair. I realized it was Mickey, the old lady who usually sat outside the door and asked for change. She was squatting on top of Omar, huffing and grunting like a pig with her face buried in the back of the poor bastard’s head. I don’t think I screamed, I don’t remember, but she heard me somehow. All I know is Mickey looked up at me and the front of her face was painted red up to her ears. A few small white morsels of something wet hung from her chin. When she saw me, she smiled and pulled herself to her feet. I saw more of the rubbery white lumps of meat in the gaps where her teeth used to be. I backed away as Mickey came toward me. She tried to keep coming but couldn’t figure out that she couldn’t get through the counter. She didn’t know to stop or go around. She just kept reaching out for me and banging forward; over and over and over. I ran for the door but I stopped short when I remembered the smokes. All the cigarettes were back there behind the counter with Mickey. There wasn’t even any thinking about it, I turned and went back. Mickey saw me come back and she smiled so big I thought the top of her head was gonna fall off. The inside of her throat was inky black and gooey like roofing tar. She stopped trying to move forward and her eyes followed me as I edged along the counter.
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“You’re not a dog, you’re a…,” but Tone couldn’t find the words. He slammed the door in the dog’s face in lieu of a more fitting riposte. That night the dog woke him again, barking out its empty threats, each girlish yelp a fingernail in his ear. Damn mutt. He wouldn’t have minded so much if his sister had dumped a proper dog on him for the holidays, but no, Pamela had to have one of those fluffy ornamental toys of a dog. Why couldn’t she have a pit bull or an Alsatian? It galled him to be seen with such a thing, he who was so mucho macho and it so mucho mongrel. It carried on its incessant complaint throughout the night. Tone covered his head with a pillow, unaware the little dog could sense something dark within the house, smell a devil stain within its walls. He was stuck with it. He would simply have to make the best of a bad situation. The pink bows would have to go for a start, and the fussy diamante collar; he could always put them back on when Pamela returned. Tone tried dirtying the dog up a bit, rubbing dollops of muck into its prissy white fur, but somehow that only made it look worse. The yard was festooned with cigarette sized turds, and for something so small they didn’t half stink; what the hell had she been feeding it? Fois gras, no doubt. Despite his six-pack and rippling abs, Tone had a very delicate constitution. He nearly lost his breakfast on more than one occasion trying to clean up after it. He had to walk it or his yard would become a toxic minefield. The dog was even afraid of the old tomcat that regularly perched itself on the windowsill, regarding them both with dark, disdainful eyes. The cat made Tone feel small, defensive. He took his anger out on the dog. Dog became its name by default. He could not bear to use the one his sister had given it: Pixie Woof. Bloody thing would have to stay on the leash at all times; no way was that coming out of his mouth. Yet on a leash there was no way to deny the dog was his. He tried calling it Pix, but the satanic little fiend would only answer to all three syllables of its ridiculously camp and humiliating name. Well, fuck you, Pixie Woof, you’re just the right size to squeeze into a microwave. For a moment he could see it spinning behind the glass, its skin popping, its teeth flying out as it exploded on the ‘Ping!’, then he thought of the revenge Pam would exact upon him and quickly went to feed the dog instead. There was another creature in the house, one whose name was not an effeminate joke but hard earned in the fiery pit, one whose size and strength would appeal to Tone’s godlike arrogance: Ultha. It fed on Tone’s vanity, his overweening pride, and lately it had gorged itself so much it had taken corporeal form in the attic, shivering with satiated glee every time Tone preened in front of his mirrors or oiled his stony biceps. It too found the dog an unwelcome guest. Content to hide and feed on the platter that would undoubtedly last for years, the arrival of the yapping dog signalled the end of its unhindered feasting. Worse still, the dog could smell Ultha in his attic sanctuary, and the yapping hurt, cutting like a buzz saw into his brain. Of course, Ultha could always flee back to Hell in shame, or kill Tone and find another banquet; the world was full of vain and foolish men after all. What he would never do, on any account, not even if his Dark Master were licking on his neck, was mess with the dog. Dogs were anathema to Ultha’s kind, the one thing that could terrify a creature born to terrify. Tone had no idea the ‘pocket rat’ he so despised was deemed such a worthy adversary by the denizens of the underworld. 6
Jack glanced at the soft glow on his CD player. It was 3AM. The roads were vacant on the four lanes of I-95. He didn’t know where he was; just that he was somewhere south of St. Louis. He didn’t care where he was going. He just wanted to escape. Find a dark hole somewhere and hide from the world and the pain that ate at him like some wasting disease. He looked at the half-swallowed bottle of tequila that sat in the passenger seat. He grabbed it up off the seat with his free hand and unscrewed the bottle with his teeth. He spit the cap and watched it bounce off the seat. The cap disappeared somewhere on the floorboard. He knew he was well on his way towards alcohol poisoning. He surprised himself by the fact that he had not yet passed out or driven off the road. He wished he could force himself to veer off the road. Smack a tree and end it all. He wished he had the courage to eat a bullet. Something stopped him. He did not know whether it was fear, or a spark of something inside him that still wanted to live. “Fuck it,” he whispered between mouthfuls of liquor. He looked in the rear-view. He barely recognized himself. His eyes looked tortured. His face was lifeless and vacant. Whether he lived or died tonight was of little consequence to him. Nothing mattered anymore. Mary was gone. His mind spoke those words to him as if it were someone else. Nothing matters anymore… He was fracturing inside. He felt splintered with the pain of his loss and the sudden isolation. He screeched to a stop in the middle of the highway. He put the car in park and sat still for long moments. He stared at the steering wheel as he thought of the life that he had shared with her. He pictured the love that they had shared and the world of the future that would no longer hold her smile. He started to hit the steering wheel, the horn honking each time he hit the wheel in the centre. He lost track of how many times he had hit the wheel or how many screams had left him. When he was through he looked at his cut knuckles. He rubbed his face, smearing the itchy tears and feeling the moisture starting to dry on his face. He opened the door and half stumbled out of his car. The electronic sound of the door and the light of the globe were his only friends in the lonely night. He heard no night bird songs. No scurrying animals or chirping insects in the growth at the sides of the road. No sounds from distant cars, trucks, or planes. He did not even feel a breeze of wind through the trees that lined the highway. The silence was unsettling. He turned towards the concrete partition that separated the north and south lanes. He found walking more of a challenge then he had thought as he swayed his way to the cool barrier. He leaned against it and tipped the bottle to his lips. While he had his head turned up to drink he saw the moon shining down on him. He pulled his arm back and flung the near empty bottle up at the shining sky. He wanted to hit the moon. To smash that liar who was up there watching and speaking of love and lifetimes together. “Why?” He screamed to an uncaring sky. He heard the bottle thud on the ground somewhere in the darkness past the edge of the road. The bottle was as alone in the night as he was now. “I hate you!” He screamed at whatever gods might have been listening. He hoped that they heard, or even cared. He imagined them flinching from his anger. Wishing he could deliver to them the same pain they’d given him. “God, I fucking hate you.” What could they do to him now, if they existed in the first place? What dastardly deed would they come up with next that could possibly hollow him out more than they had tonight? Nothing mattered anymore. He let himself slide down the curved partition. Nothing… A mist moved in, like a cloud crawling down the road towards him. Images of his years with Mary played against the back of his eyelids every time he blinked. Their years as friends, turned to lovers, turned to husband and wife. 7
I’ve missed you so much over the past year, Katelyn, especially since the abductions began. I didn’t know, at first, that I was being abducted at night. Months passed before I could recall, with any accuracy, what happened during those hours. Looking back, though, I think the abductions must have started around Valentine’s Day when I was still working for the school. I remember sitting in the lounge one morning, drinking coffee and watching the blackbirds outside, when two other teachers, Sydney and Philips, came in and, after giving me a strange look, sat down and began dividing up an old newspaper. I stood up and moved over to the window. Neither one of them said anything to me, but, later one of the secretaries asked me why I had missed class. I didn’t know why. Sitting by the window, sipping coffee, I had completely forgotten about my morning class. The aliens abduct me at night while I’m sleeping. I’ve tried to stay awake, Katelyn. I’ve tried energy drinks and coffee and pills, but I can never stay awake for more than three days. Every night, I sit on the floor, listening to heavy metal or punk rock or grunge. I put on headphones, so I won’t disturb the neighbours, and turn the volume up as high as it will go. Every light in the apartment is blazing. I cross my legs and keep a pitcher of ice water beside me, but, inevitably, the desire, the compulsion, to stretch out on the floor or to rest my bloodshot eyes begins to grow. The moment I lose consciousness I’m aboard. Like I said, for a long time, I didn’t know that I was being abducted. I awoke each morning, my body aching, dimly aware of strange dreams. My joints felt stiff. My head ached, and my molars throbbed. I stopped eating. I know this will sound ridiculous, but I became afraid of the dark. I stopped leaving the apartment after the sun went down, and I bought a deadbolt for the front door. At night, before I went to bed, I pushed my writing desk against the door to my bedroom and an overturned bookcase against the door to the closet. I thought about getting a gun. One night, I dreamed that I was crouching at the bottom of a well. High up above, I could see a tiny spark of light like a star, but that speck of light was the only thing I could see: everything else was black. For a long time, I sat there, shivering, too afraid to move. Water dripped off the stone walls and plopped into the pool at my feet. Hours passed, and the sense of claustrophobia began to fade. I realized that I could stretch out my arms without touching the sides of the well. I stood up slowly, my knees throbbing, the water swirling about my ankles. It felt heavier than water, like oil or mercury. Blind, I walked slowly, straining to hear every sound. When I looked up again, the light had disappeared. It was night. I remember descending a long ramp, the water rising until it lapped against my chest and, icy cold, wetted the back of my neck. My feet, feeling the worn stone through the thin soles of my shoes, guided me forward. As you might have heard, I transferred to Edison in the fall. The change helped. I was tired of Huxley and the faculty’s petty intrigues and machinations. The principal at Edison seemed friendly and the staff professional, and I, tacking a print of Boston Common over my new desk, felt healthier than I had in a long time. The dreams stopped, and I can remember only one from that brief period. I was walking through a field of yellow flowers, carrying you in my arms. You were asleep and dressed in your bridal gown. When you awoke, we wandered through the countryside for a long time, holding hands as we strolled down country roads and looked for the house where I grew up, although we never found it. Briars and blackberry bushes sprang up and entangled us, and I lost sight of you. For several weeks, I thought I was being taken aboard a spaceship. I knew, for certain, that I was no longer on Earth. The walls of the ship, made of blocks of greyish-green rock, meet overhead in a vaulted ceiling, which rises more than three hundred feet from the floor. The floor sometimes slopes upward until it reaches the ceiling just as the walls in the corridors sometimes grow farther apart as they rise. Condensation drips downs the walls, collecting in gutters and low places and forming streams and whirlpools. Whole wings lie under water. Others are sealed off by ice. 8
As Brian rubbed his face in frustration, his wife was on the couch wiping out the remaining guacamole from the ceramic bowl Brian had made her when they were in love. She was situated on the couch, legs elevated to release the stress on her stomach. Brian was at the door, wondering why certain thoughts were running through his head, but not denying them. “I’m not in the mood,” she said, nibbling on some chips, “so don’t test me tonight.” This was a typical, I want you to spend money on me when I want you to, flare up. It was so typical it almost made him laugh. This was a normal Thursday night in the O’Brien household with Beth at the reins of his destruction. Brian O’Brien (he knows it, it’s a stupid name) did this because he was too exhausted to complain. Subjecting himself to this task seemed easier than the alternative, so he rubbed his eyes again and said okay. Tonight Brian would be heading into DC because his wife only liked a certain type of chocolates, very expensive ones that could only be purchased at one store in all of Washington. He would know them when he saw them, and he only had one chance to get this right so he told himself he better not mess with Beth’s hormones any more than he already had. The store closed at eleven, and it was nine-thirty. He wasn’t all that bitter. Okay, he was a little bitter, but mostly, he was tired. Tired of going to work and coming home to work even harder. Tired of the woman he’d promised many moons ago to love and care for not respecting him – where the fuck was his thank you for all that? He still felt a sense of commitment, but maybe it was just to see his kid. And because his parents were so horrible, he didn’t want to bestow that same fate on a child that he shared something with. Certainly the kid wouldn’t have the same dumbass name, and there too was an innate connection he couldn’t turn away from. He talked to himself as he walked. He went into the Ballston Metro Station and fed the machine his last remaining bills, apart from those allocated for chocolate. After going down the escalator he saw the crowd he’d be surrounded by tonight – a group of college kids, a man reading what was most likely Fifty Shades of Grey on his Kindle. Then there were the wildcards, the drifters who were a staple of the late-night crowd. A voice rose over the PA; it was full-on static, but Brian could still make out the words. “The Metro is shutting down,” it said. Panic immediately struck as two iron gates were lowered over the turnstiles. They fell so quickly, Brian had no shot at stopping them camped out on a bench at the lower level, let alone evaluating what the hell was going on. It was usual for these idiots in the rail system to make mistakes; he told himself it could be dismissed that easily. No one else seemed to notice until the gates hit the ground. Then the sound gathered some attention. People walked up the escalator to the gate, and Brian followed. He kept his mouth shut, which was typical for him when he was thinking about what to do, figuring out a difficult situation. If his time at Best Buy taught him one thing, it was that there was always a way out of any uncomfortable circumstances. Something began to rumble inside of Brian. It’d been three minutes and no train had come for them. Was he really stuck? Then the Metro speakers crackled again. “We are closed…for the night. We’re going to have some fun while we wait for one of your loved ones to come calling for you. You better hope they don’t because the next person that descends those escalators is going to blow all that nice, tasty C-4 I laid down.” Screams came from the crowd. Grumblings. People trying to dial out in warning, or in the name of love. Or fear. Brian thought of Beth asleep on the couch. “Now…to continue. The floors of the station and tunnel have been wired with a new technology. The tracks and tunnel are padded with a new electrical system that you will not be able to dismantle, but will switch on after two hours have passed – I have made sure of this myself. 9
I’m standing in line watching the people swirl by me in a blur. I swirl by them, too. Everyone’s using their time decoders in the store, just as they should; it’s only 10 a.m., and legally you don’t have the option to turn it off until noon. Most people leave it on until 4 p.m., the mandated time that the decoders must be switched off. In what feels like seconds I’m at the front of the line, words pass through me to the cashier, and she hands me my prescription. I make my way to a water fountain, leaving a trail of colour behind me. I take my pill, Jeochlorino, it helps with the headaches the decoder gives me. I go to my car and leave. I drive on the interstate with my car’s decoder on. The blurs of cars passing me, and the blurs of cars that I’m passing, make me feel a little nauseous. I take another Jeochlorino and close my eyes. I let the car take me home. The car parks itself in the garage and I go inside. I look at the clock on the wall; it’s now 10:06. I decide to mow the lawn, do the dishes, fold the laundry, dust the walls, vacuum the carpet, hang the new curtains, re-paint the guest bedroom, and make the kids lunches for the week. When I’m done, I look up at the clock on the wall to see that it’s now 11:30. I spend the next 30 minutes alphabetizing the canned goods, painting the doghouse, patching the fence, mopping the floor, and shingling the roof. I walk into the kitchen and turn the decoder off. My head jolts forwards as it always does when I turn it off; for a moment I feel like I might be sick, but it passes. I go to the fridge and I ask it to make a roast beef sandwich; it makes it, and I go down stairs to eat and to write. I’m writing a story about a man who lives in a world where decoders slow time down. He uses it to soak up life by living longer. The basement phone rings, it’s my wife. I can barely understand her since she’s still using her decoder. I think she tells me she’s running late, but will be home soon. I tell her I love her and hang up. I go back to writing my story. Two minutes later my wife is home. She prepares dinner and dessert and calls me up in under seven minutes. I leave my story and go upstairs. My wife has made lasagne, and she and the kids are almost through by the time I make it upstairs. “Hey,” I say. Barbara says something but the words are so slurred I don’t understand them. I sit down at the table and I begin to cut up the lasagne and eat it, even though I’m not hungry. “How was your day?” I ask Barbara. She mutters something then cleans off her plate, moving so fast I can barely see her. I think she kisses me before she heads upstairs. I look across the table and see that the kids have already left. I clean the lasagne off my plate and go back downstairs. I can’t decide if I want my hero to die or not. I think I’ve decided I want him to die, but I’m not sure how to kill him. Maybe having a heart attack with his decoder on, so he’ll experience the seconds as if they were hours. Barbara calls from upstairs, she’s gone before I get there, but she’s left a note. She’s going jogging with Ted—she’ll be back before 4:00. I set the note down and decide to go outside for a walk. My neighbours pass me with their decoders, or really just people I assume are my neighbours, I can’t really tell. 10
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Grey, neglected, sweaty with rot; the ruins of the crematorium skulked in the shadows of a quiet country lane. Surrounded by ten or fifteen miles of diseased woodland, the weed-choked lane was barely wide enough to allow anyone but the most optimistic of motorists through. On this particular morning, however, nearly half its length was choked with stationary vehicles; the air alive with the buzz of excited chatter. A party atmosphere was very much in evidence, with laughter and banter startling the usually omniscient birdsong into stunned silence while a crowd swelled before the ugly, lopsided mouth of the crematorium like a hanged man’s tongue. The women twittered excitedly about the latest gossip while the men spoke of sport and how long they thought it might be before they could grab themselves a beer. As if in sympathy to the plight of the latter, a figure so thin that it hurt just to look at it emerged from the dark, yawning entrance of the ruins. The man was dressed like a priest, though his clothes were scarecrow-ragged and stained with shit, and the toothless grin that split his face was a wound beneath eyes that resembled thumb-deep cavities gouged into a mask of clammy putty. He held out his skeletal hands and muttered words that raised cheers from the crowd, sending them scrambling towards the doorway in a clawing, spitting frenzy. Whooping shrills of delight exploded from those who passed over the threshold first; the ones at their heels having to fight and scream and threaten their way through the tightening knot of bodies. Alec Boden was oblivious to all this. Lying in his coffin, he was still semi out-of-it from the blow he had received to the back of the head. The last thing he remembered -- other than bright, brilliant pain followed by a merciful darkness -- was sitting at the kitchen table, munching on a slice of toast and casting an eye over the newspaper headlines. Beyond the war-drums that now thundered between his ears he was only vaguely aware of the raised voices and the clamour of approaching feet. Blinking away tears of pain, he realised what he was lying in and felt a sunburst of agony behind his eyes when he tried to raise his head. His bellow was muffled by the gag in his mouth and his hands jerked alive from where they lay bound across his stomach. The motion caused a sheet of paper that had been placed upon his chest to slip into the space between his right arm and the side of the casket. He squinted at the words slashed across the otherwise blank surface. They screamed: SHIT HEAD!!! Unable to speak, Alec blinked his confusion. He tried to force himself into a sitting position but the binding ropes and his flabby stomach made any attempt a painful joke. Somebody – some-thing - shoved him back down into the coffin. Alec glimpsed a dusty, moss-streaked suit and a cratered, moon-like face as the rear of his head smacked against its uncushioned bottom to send a butcher’s knife of pain slicing through his brain. Other faces bobbed into view; faces he had known all his life: among them, those of his elderly parents, both looking younger than he had seen them in years -- possibly because of the joy splashed across their beaming features. His father laughed; his father winked; his father guzzled from a bottle of champagne so that foamy streamers ran down his chin to drizzle like piss into the coffin. Alec felt light-headed and the world danced in and out of focus. Something hammered against his cheek and he felt the back of his skull rattle wood again. He howled into the gag, his vision blurring as fresh tears watered his eyes. Through a wet, distorting veil he could just about see his eleven-year-old son, Tommy. The boy’s features seemed to ripple and quake like the raw, doughy surface of a bug-filled pie. Tommy grinned -- the effect grotesque -- and withdrew a fist that was already going red around the knuckles. 12
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