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ISSN 1757-5419 Issue 31 – October 2017 Edited by Sheri White Editorial By Sheri White
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Black Raindrop By Christopher T. Hamel Illustration By Greg Chapman
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The Experimental Man By Todd Outcalt
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Dark Work By Shamus McGillicuddy Illustrated By Jeffrey Oleniacz
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Once We Were All Readers By Richard Farren Barber
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Bodies By Chuck Lyons
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The Screecher By Anthony Watson
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Child Of His Desire By Alan Loewen
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Like Sisters By Cameron Trost Illustration By P. Emerson Williams
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Cover By Max Martelli - www.maxmartelli.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.
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Welcome to the latest issue of Morpheus Tales! If this is your first time taking a look, you are in for a treat. And if you’re a regular subscriber, tell your friends about us! After all, it is October as I write this, horror season – the most wonderful time of the year! The Walking Dead comes back, Stephen King’s IT is in theaters (and it is damn scary!), horror books and magazines are exploding in number. Add candy, and who needs Christmas? Halloween is where the fun is, and you don’t have to spend it with relatives you don’t really like. So enjoy this time before the “real” holiday season ramps up and you have to spend the weekends shopping for gifts and attending parties trying to make small talk with people who think horror is for weirdos. I mean, it is, but being a little weird is a good thing. And in just in case the apocalypse comes this year (zombie or otherwise), remember the wise words of Dale from The Walking Dead: “If I had known the world was ending, I'd have brought better books.” Editor/Walking Dead Addict Sheri White
Morpheus Tales Special Issues available exclusively in print through lulu.com, visit our store: http://stores.lulu.com/morpheustales 3
The black raindrop fell in the dark of night, splashing on the earth like acid on flesh. It ate away at the ground, burning and digging through toward its core. ### Dale woke that morning with only a sliver of memory regarding the dream. It was five-thirty in the morning and, despite the knowledge of his alarm set a half-hour from then, he tried to fall back to sleep. Five minutes later, he peeled away the covers. The box fan in front of his bed was running, and without the cocoon’s warmth of blankets, its power sent chills up and down his body. He got out of bed, went to the fan, and turned it off. His morning routine then began without thought: downstairs he went about making a pot of coffee for him and his parents. As the coffee maker percolated, he went about making himself breakfast: Cinnamon Toast Crunch with milk. Right on cue, his bowels moved, urging him into the bathroom. It was in the bathroom that he received a text from Vince: Hey no school today. It was late May, not much longer to go before he transitioned from junior to senior at Chamberlain High. What u mean? Dale texted. Check the news. I’m taking a shit right now. TMI Lol. Dale finished his business, then went into the living room and turned on the TV. He had to change the channel from the Home Shopping Network to channel three. A female news anchor whose name escaped Dale spoke of President Trump and his latest White House adventures. The news went on to other stories, one after the other. Dale was in the process of texting Vince when someone spoke of a mysterious hole found early this morning in Chamberlain, Connecticut’s Recreation Park. “No one really knows how deep it is or how it came to be,” the reporter said. He was outside of the park wearing a hazmat suit. “Environmental police are investigating whether or not the hole was made by something toxic. Residents are told to stay indoors until the proper authorities can determine whether it’s safe to come outside. Updates to this strange phenomenon will be available here, on-” Dale’s six o’clock alarm went off and he jumped. He turned it off, then opened his messaging app and texted Vince: Holy shit! Five minutes later, Dale got a text back: Ikr. Because there was no school, Dale didn’t see it necessary for him to be awake any longer. He went into the kitchen, turned off the coffee pot, and climbed back upstairs to his room. At first, he had trouble getting comfortable, but sooner than later, he fell back asleep. ### It had been rainy last night. Even if it wasn’t, nobody would be able to catch a glimpse of a thing so small, yet so powerful. The black raindrop fell from heaven among the rain. It was an imposter to the others. Something from a different plane—a different dimension. It had dug into the earth, and kept going. Dale saw this in his dreamer’s eye, felt the significance of the black raindrop at work. It constructed stairs of spiral design, going down, down, down into an unknown abyss. 4
Gibson could not identify the moment when he became aware of his gift. It was not a lightening-strike realization or an instantaneous awareness of changes in his body. Rather, the gift had settled upon him through perseverance, as an attrition of chemicals and time. He had first noted the skill in his late twenties, and had remained, thereafter, an ardent smoker under the watchful care of the Space Administration. Dr. Langston, who presided over a crack team of respiratory specialists, had been monitoring Gibson for the better part of three decades—each one astounded by the progress that Gibson revealed in every new study. “It’s a mystery,” Dr. Langston said at the debriefing, “but Gibson’s levels of arsenic, nicotine, and nitrogen are up, while his vitals show a marked improvement over last month’s numbers. And compared to where he was a year ago, he’s significantly stronger.” The other scientists cast their gaze upon the politicians who had flown in from Washington to witness Gibson’s freak show. The Space Administration hoped that Gibson would prove pivotal to their case and would, in due course, produce magnanimous support of the financial variety. Gibson stood before the panel, stone cold and unflinching, uncertain of his future. “What you are telling us,” one of the politicians intoned, “is that you may have hit upon some type of anti-ageing formula?” “In a manner of speaking,” Dr. Langston answered—lowering his black-rimmed spectacles atop his bulbous nose. “But the more intriguing aspects of this work demonstrate the possibilities, we believe, for cellular modification, perhaps genetic engineering, that could allow for less oxygen in the human body. Future work along these lines is vital to our research and our development in cryogenics—or as some of you like to call it, space sleep. The results might even impart new knowledge that could help us counter the physical limitations of space travel.” Another politician—more youthful than the others in his tasseled loafers and Italian-cut suit —spoke out of turn. “So, you’re telling us that this smoker can help us get to the stars?” Gibson’s face flushed but Dr. Langston intercepted the question and interjected new light. “This isn’t about denying the warning label on a pack of Camels. Mr. Gibson has continued to expose himself to finely-tuned and intricately monitored experiments involving all manner of chemicals and gases. In our labs, for example, we’ve been able to simulate certain conditions as they might exist on, say, a space station with limited resources or, perhaps, a planetary surface similar to Earth’s, but with variations of oxygen, nitrogen . . . or even helium. I don’t have to tell you that Mr. Gibson has, at times, become a soprano in some of our lab experiments.” The panel laughed—especially the career politicians—and Gibson relaxed under his strained nicotine smile. Though his skin was of a milky pallor, slightly bronzed by benzene, Gibson’s facial expression always wore a relaxed confidence and his green eyes belayed a rugged endurance fit for long exposure to the sun. “If I may interject a word here,” Gibson said. “This isn’t about me. But your vote does impart confidence in a work that could benefit humanity. In short, I am willing to go the distance in the advancement of science and for the future of the human race.” A couple of the politicians raised their eyebrows and made notations on yellow legal pads as if to say, “Case closed.” But Dr. Langston intervened once again. “We’ve come this far,” he said. “And I believe we are on the verge of a major breakthrough. Every scientific advancement has prescribed certain leaps of faith, even the breaking of barriers and taboos. And this is no different. Try to imagine, if you will, the discovery of an oxygen inhibitor, a kind of chemical ark that can import oxygen into the lungs or even directly into the cells without the necessity of large oxygen tanks, as our program implies today. Where might these discoveries take us? What other uses might they imply?” 5
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“Hey Derek, are you ready to go?” Trina says. “The haunted house tour starts soon.” Trina rests a hand on the edge of my cubicle, her computer bag hanging off her shoulder. When I look at her, a familiar thrill turns over in my chest. We’ve been dating for a few months, but she will always be my office crush too. We flirted more than a year before we shared a semi-sober kiss at a coworker’s summer party. “Trina, I’m really sorry. Jerry gave me a last-minute project. I’m stuck here for at least a few hours.” Her smile flickers. “It’s okay if you’re scared. We don’t have to go.” Trina’s disappointment stings, but the doubt in her voice hurts more. She thinks I’m chickening out. Trina loves scary stuff, and Halloween is her favorite holiday. At a Halloween party last weekend, so many women were wearing sexed up, off-the-rack costumes. Not Trina. She assembled a zombie costume with some of the most intense and gory makeup I’d ever seen. On the way to the party, we stopped at a bodega for a case of beer. The cashier yelped when he saw her. I would describe myself, on the other hand, as faint-hearted. I cover my eyes during horror movies, I shy away from creepy places, and I dislike spookiness in general. Despite my aversion to such things, attending the haunted house tour was my idea. I wanted Trina to know I can be adventurous and push my boundaries for her, and the tour would definitely do it. It visits a bunch of lower Manhattan homes that are supposedly haunted. The Time Out New York review said some of the ghost stories are gruesome. “Seriously, my boss ambushed me at lunch. He wants an analysis of a customer survey on his desk first thing tomorrow.” I point at my computer screen, which is covered with spreadsheets and PowerPoints. She bites her lip. “Really? He dumped a project on you?” The lingering doubt in her voice transports me back to childhood, when I was terrified of the dark and trying to convince my mother that I needed her to leave the light on when I went to bed. I shake away the memory. “Yes, really. “ “Your boss is a jerk. “ She steps inside my cubicle and sidles up to my desk. My breath catches as her hip presses against my arm. She glances around the office for a moment and bends down to kiss my cheek. “I’ll stay. I could help.” “No, you should go. Have fun. I’ll catch up if I can. “ “Are you sure? “ “I’ll do my best to get through these stats, but it’s not looking good.” “I have faith in you.” She winks and backs out of my cubicle. “If you’re stuck here really late, come to my apartment later. Wake me up if you have to.” “I will.” I watch her walk away. As she turns a corner out of sight, my eyes catch on the blue and yellow birthday balloons taped to Frank’s cubicle. Frank was a dorky guy in his forties who tended to stay late at work like me. Normally when I’m stuck in the office doing last-minute projects for my boss, he’s here to keep me company. Not anymore. We threw a little office birthday party for him a week ago, with singing and cake. The next day he quit his job. My buddy in human resources said Frank gave no reason. He emailed his boss to say he wasn’t coming back, not even to clean out his desk. Frank had worked here for eleven years, and one day he decided he was done, no goodbyes or anything. 7
I was working the fields just a few hundred metres from the front of our house when the soldiers came. In the distance they were already a terrible sight; a troop of motorcycles throwing up dust and slapping the air with two-stroke engines. I counted ten of them, in a long straggled line, winding through the valley toward the town. “Jack!” I shouted. My voice was weak against the noise of the approaching army. I screamed my son’s name again—“Jack!”—and dropped the spade I was holding. I ran toward the house, casting a glance over my shoulder to check on the progress of the bikers, filled with a terrible fear that they had heard me, even from so far away. My son, twelve years old and wide-eyed, stood in the doorway to the house. “Mama?” I saw his innocence slip away in those few seconds it took to reach him. I saw the way he looked beyond me to the cloud of dust. I would have given anything, anything, to have wiped away the look of understanding that I saw on his face. I gathered him into my arms and whispered hard into the crown of his head. “It’ll be all right. Everything will be all right.” “Maybe they won’t find us up here,” my son said. “Maybe they’ll leave us alone.” “Maybe,” I murmured. But my son had the excuse of youth on his side. The soldiers would come into the hills. It had already happened in other towns across the valley. They would come and they would rip and tear and burn. “Mama, you’re hurting me.” Jack’s voice rose up from between my breasts, as if originating from somewhere inside me. I relaxed my hold on him but did not release him completely; I couldn’t bear to be parted from him. “I’m sorry. I’m scared.” “You’re scared?” he asked. I laughed. “Yes, Jack. Even mamas can be afraid.” When I finally let him go I had a terrible foreboding that I would never hold him again. That, after the soldiers left, nothing would ever be the same. I tried to tell myself that I was being melodramatic, that tomorrow Jack would still be complaining about his chores and asking when his father would be coming home. I wanted to believe this, but I had to accept that with the arrival of the soldiers the world had changed. I took Jack’s hand into mine. It was small and warm, the skin hardened by hours spent dragging a hoe across the fields. His head almost reached my shoulder. In a couple of years he would be as tall as me, maybe it wouldn’t be that long. When that happened I would be living with a young man, not a boy. The idea filled me with terror. Not the sharp, bright terror of the soldiers, but a soft fear that had lived in my heart from the day he was born. He sighed, and I recognised the sound as one I made myself. It was something he had picked from me as casually and completely as the way he licked the tip of a spoon or the way he dragged his feet when he walked back up the hill. My son. Forever my son. “Come on,” I said. I closed the door behind us and together we started down the road. There were other houses along the ridge and as we got closer I saw people join the track ahead of us; Joseph Sands and his wife, Mary; Francis Dell and her three daughters. Ordinarily I would have hurried to catch them and we would talk our way down to the market place, but this was not an ordinary day. I made no attempt to catch them and in turn they did not wait for me. We walked in a straggled line, clumps of people held apart. I heard the soldiers’ voices before I saw them. Every word was shouted. As I entered the market place I saw their motorbikes gathered beneath the shadow of the Town Hall. The bikes were old and stripped back to bare metal. There were no accessories, not even a mirror. There was no insignia to declare to whom the bikes belonged. 8
I’ve seen three bodies, three real bodies. I’ve seen other bodies, of course, in funeral parlours, lying there with all the flowers and Mass cards, the bulletin boards with pictures of the guy with his kids or holding some dead fish. Sometimes I go to a funeral of someone I don’t even know just to see the body. But it’s not the same; there’s not that much fun in it. I’ve seen plenty of those kinds of bodies, but I’ve only seen three real ones, you know what I mean. They hadn’t been prettied up. They were real dead people. I liked that. One was in the riverbed downtown, washed down from upriver and caught on a flat rock near the Broad Street Bridge. It had gathered a noonday crowd of office workers and shoppers. It was the body of a man. I remember especially his socks, the blue solid-colours socks, and the way they were crumpled down around his ankles, the socks he had picked from his drawer that morning and the socks he had died in. I would have liked to have one of those socks. Firefighters were working to get him out of the riverbed, and I saw a man come out of the War Memorial building with a brown paper bag and a can of Coke, settle down at one of the picnic tables that edged a part of the river then, and eat his lunch while he watched the firefighters trying to get the body. I envied him. One of the other two was also in the river. I was hiking along the river gorge downriver from the middle falls hoping to catch a couple of people making out; it’s very remote and wild down there. I was looking in the bushes when I saw something orange caught among branches on the other side of the channel and bobbing in the water. I pushed through the bushes, and I could see it was the blouse of a woman whose body was rocking in the waves from the falls. Up a few inches when the wave lifted her and then down when it passed. Up and down in the current. Up and down. Up then down. I watched it for a while and it almost hypnotized me. It was kind of beautiful in a way. I had heard on the local news that a woman was seen to jump into the river a couple of days earlier and that her body had not been found yet.
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His laptop pings to announce the arrival of an email, distracting him from the small video screen which bears an image of his own face. He presses the pause button and his face freezes – an apt description given that the video is of him stood amidst falling snow, his piece to camera almost obliterated by the heavy flakes which fall around him. He swivels on his chair to look at the laptop, sees the subject line of the email “THE SCREECHER” and the paperclip icon announcing that there’s an attachment. He scans the sender’s address – chadster98@... – but it’s a new one, no one he knows. He jabs a finger at the email to open it. Hi Dan, my name is Chad Feeney and I live in Cobalt Springs in the fine state of Colorado. I’m like a major fan of your vlog Mythbunker and have watched every episode, many of them more than once…” Real original, he thinks to himself whilst at the same time feeling just that little bit pleased with himself. Hell, that’s part of why he’s doing this isn’t it? That, and securing a primetime deal for his show… I think I might have a good idea for one of your next shows. There is a local legend around our town that everyone with any amount of sense knows is just total BS. It’s kinda creepy too though so I think it would make for some good footage or at the very least some really neat sound effects – check put the MP3 I sent! He glances at the attachment but refrains from clicking it open just yet, continues instead to read the text of the email. We all know that THE SCREECHER is just some bullshit story made up to scare kids and to keep them out of the woods at night where they might get up to all kinds of anti-social shit ‘cause like that’s all we care about doing. Doesn’t work most of the time of course but every year they go way, way overboard and put out a curfew and actually prevent people from going out their own houses. This really needs to stop and we think that you coming on out here and showing this story up to be the BS we all know it is would help us out in this regard. Shouldn’t keep mentioning bullshit, he thinks; I know it when I see it and things are starting to smell round here… The thing is, curfew night is coming up – one week from today in fact. It’s the same night every year because it’s the anniversary of the hanging of Augustus Hawkins – who is who THE SCREECHER is meant to be. He was hanged way back in 1873 for a whole range of stuff involving human beings and animals and apparently it took him hours to die because the knot in the rope wasn’t done properly and all the time he dangled there he screeched and screeched. Legend has it(!) that on his anniversary he stalks the woods looking for victims who he’ll kill. Hence the curfew. BS! One more strike and you’re out. Thing is, there have been bodies discovered out in the woods. Thing is, they were all hobos who could’ve died anytime but – and if this is right then it stinks – they were used as “evidence.” Sick or what?! Thing is too that you can hear the screeching, late at night, out in the woods… (Cue heavy, dramatic chords..!) So, like I say, I think it might make an “interesting” show for you… The MP3 file is a recording of THE SCREECHER (Man, he hates those capitals) so have a listen for yourself. Let me know if you’re interested – you now know how to contact me.
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Dr. Abraham Winslow stopped outside the closed door to the hospital conference room and watched the man within through the small window. Joel Dekker sat at the table staring at his hands, not looking much like a best-selling author. His doughy face, heavily lidded eyes, and fat quivering lips spoke more of a man who could barely remember his alphabet. Scarlet scratches, only a few days fresh, marred his face. Winslow rapped on the door and opened it. Dekker looked up but did not stand. “Mr. Dekker,” the doctor said, “thank you for meeting with me.” A flash of pain went across Dekker's face. “My daughter, is she okay?” “There has been no change in her condition but, Mr. Dekker… a few questions have come up about Deirdre.” The doctor sat down at the table across from Dekker and opened a large file.”When your daughter did not respond to traditional medications, we did a full medical scan on her. The results are… puzzling.” “But you can help her, can't you?” Winslow saw the flash of tentative hope, an expression the doctor had seen on the faces of countless parents. “We want to help your daughter, Mr. Dekker, but first we have to explain some strange anomalies.” Winslow checked the medical file in front of him. “We gave Deirdre some powerful antipsychotics to bring her rage under control. We used every one in our pharmacy with no effect, so in trying to discover what was happening, I ordered a full blood scan.” The doctor looked up from his notes. “Mr. Dekker, your daughter does not have blood as we know it. No red cells. No white cells, nothing we would expect to find in normal blood. Your daughter has some reddish fluid in her veins acting as blood, but we don't know what in heaven’s name it is.” Dekker looked back down at his hands. Winslow continued. “We did an EEG. Your daughter has no brain waves. And there's more.” He flipped a page. “Deirdre has no fingerprints. An ultrasound shows lungs, a heart, a rudimentary digestive system, and nothing else. Physically, she is a beautiful sixteen-year-old, but internally, she shouldn't even be alive.” Dekker looked up, tears threatening to spill from his eyes, “Deirdre is ... special.” “Deirdre is a medical impossibility,” Dr. Winslow responded. “We had our legal department make a quick phone call.” Dr. Winslow waited until Dekker looked up to look into his eyes. “Mr. Dekker, Deirdre has no birth certificate.” He closed the folder. “Mr. Dekker, if you want us to help your daughter, you need to tell us what is going on here.” Dekker looked back down at his hands. “Dr. Winslow, you are a man of science. I can't ask you to believe the truth.” Winslow sat back in his chair. “I am a man who deals with reality. Deirdre is a reality though she should not even exist. Try me. You might find me more open than you think.” “Tulpa,” Dekker whispered. “What?” the doctor asked. “A tulpa? What's that?” “A child of my desire,” Dekker said. “Sir, before I discuss all this, could I see my daughter for just a few moments?” Dr. Winslow gave Dekker an impatient glance. “We have been incapable of sedating her and, even in restraints, I consider Deirdre still dangerous to herself and others. She almost clawed your eyes out before she was brought to us. I'm sorry, but until we can discover what is happening here, I have to say no.” “Just a few minutes.” Winslow shook his head. “I'm sorry.” 11
“Keryn, we’ve been best friends for nearly twenty years now, haven’t we?” We were sitting at Smoked Paprika, our favourite breakfast spot. There wasn’t much of a view because the café faced south, opening onto the constantly busy McGregor Terrace instead of offering a view over the lower-lying suburbs to the north. That didn’t matter though. We went there for the great food, and the fact that there was never a crowd. “I guess so,” she replied, looking up from the breakfast menu. “We were in the sixth grade if I’m not mistaken. You were new to school. You’d just moved up from Grafton. You know what my first impression was?” I shook my head even though I knew, even though I knew that she knew I knew. I wanted to encourage her to reminisce. “I had a feeling we were destined to be together, that my dad had been transferred to Brisbane just so we would meet.” “Like sisters separated at birth,” I added. She smiled. That was how everybody described us, and it was true. But, at the same time, we were so very different. I was the stable one, the rock, whereas Keryn was always losing her way. Ever since high school, one hopeless boyfriend after another had sucked her in. Steve was the latest. He’d entered her life four months ago at a party neither of us should have gone to, and two months ago, they’d suddenly decided to move in together. “You’ve always been there for me despite the shit I keep getting myself into.” “And you for me.” She frowned. “Yeah, but we both know it’s mostly you doing the rescuing.” I started fidgeting with the salt shaker, then, decisively, put it back down and spoke my mind. “Keryn, the thing is, well, it’s really worrying me this time. You’ve changed. He has changed you.” She sighed and turned her attention back to the menu, hiding her face from me. But it didn’t work. I noticed the grimace. It lasted just a fleeting moment. Her pencil-thin eyebrows rose and the now cracked corners of her mouth sank in as though she’d tasted something sour. I knew her every expression. I had to keep talking. “Maybe you can’t see it because you’re inside it, Keryn. It’s like when you go to an art gallery. To fully appreciate an epic tableau, you have to step back, right back. That’s the only way to make sense of the big picture.” Her face was blank. She wasn’t impressed. Perhaps the metaphor was lost on her. After all, we hadn’t been to a gallery together in years, and that was part of the problem. Too many Mr Wrongs had led her astray and crushed two of her most endearing characteristics; creativity and curiosity. “I’m still me, honey. I haven’t gone anywhere.” Her eyes said otherwise. “I’m a vet’s assistant, remember? I’m trained to know when an animal is in distress. You’ve lost weight since you moved in with him and your hands tremble now.” She looked at her hands, clasping the menu too tightly, and tried to keep them perfectly still. It was impossible. She clenched them into fists. “What are you guys using? Heavy stuff?” She bit her lip. She knew I hated drugs. Sure, we’d experimented at high school, just like everybody else, but I’d never made a habit of it. She had, but never to this extent. 12
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