A Chance of Rain E-Book

Joshua G. J. Insole

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 460

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Over 40 tales of monsters, magic, mystery, and madness. From the real to the weird, from the traumatic to the hilarious. Includes three shortlisted works. So, make yourself a cup of coffee or a pot of tea. Turn off the lights. Make sure you locked your front door. (Did you remember to latch it? Best check.) Wrap your hands around your mug. Wrap your blanket around your shoulders. Come, spend a while in the twisted corners of the human mind. And always keep an eye on the shifting shadows. Sometimes, terrible things lurk in the darkness.

Leseprobe

JOSHUA G.J. INSOLE

A Chance of Rain

Short Horror & Sci-Fi Stories

Copyright © 2020 by Joshua G. J. Insole

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

Publishing and printing: tradition GmbH, Halenreie 40-44, 22359 Hamburg

ISBN:

Paperback: 978-3-347-19495-3

Hardcover: 978-3-347-19496-0

e-Book: 978-3-347-19497-7

Second edition

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy.

Find out more at reedsy.com

For my family, friends, and loved ones.

You all knew I had a twisted imagination.

Contents

Foreword

A Heart is Not an Orange

A Long, Narrow Box

A New Breed

As It Ends

A Village Under the Purple Moon

Blind Visitors

By the Side of the Road

Don’t Let It Feed

Foliage

Forests of Bone

Frank

Grandma’s Garden

House of Mirrors

I Am the Groundskeeper

I Like to Knit

Listening to Ghosts

Living and Dying in 42 Beachley Street

Muffled

No Bubbles

Old Strittie

Onwards, Towards the Witch

Play It Again, Daddy-O

Printed Words

Public Order

Reiteration

Sequel to the Apocalypse

Something Swims Behind (Still My Sunshine)

Spy-Hopper

Ten Fingers, Two Hands

The Comicbook Kid

The Dead at My Door

The Hands That Rattle the Cage

The Night Has Teeth

The Open Window Lets the Rain In

The Place Where the Birds Don’t Sing

Too Many Candles

Two Wheels to the Coast

Watching Jeremy

Water Wears Rock

We Take the Wolves

What Did We Do?

When the War Falls Silent

Prompt Acknowledgements

About the Author

Foreword

Hello there! Thank you for picking up this collection of short stories. I hope you like scary, weird, and funny things, ‘cause I’ve packed this book full of ‘em.

This collection isn’t the entirety of my short stories — rather, the darker ones. At some point in the future, I will release another book with uplifting and cheerier stories. I decided to release two themed collections, rather than one tome that’s inconsistent in tone. Most of the stories presented here I wrote for Reedsy’s Weekly Writing Contest. I also wrote a few for online blogging circles, and one is brand new for this book. I’ve put ‘em in alphabetical order as that seemed to be the most logical way of tackling this beast…

I guess that’s all for now! So, make yourself a cup of coffee or a pot of tea. Turn off the lights. Make sure you locked your front door. (Did you remember to lock it? Best check.) Wrap your hands around your mug, wrap your blanket around your shoulders… and spend a while in the twisted corners of my mind.

And always keep an eye on the shifting shadows. Sometimes, terrible things lurk in the darkness.

A Heart is Not an Orange

Martin Wilson never returned from his student exchange program abroad. This is because he didn’t escape the vampire.

“Oh, sweet Jesus!” cried the Brit, as he pounded down the stony hallways of the castle and his footsteps echoed into the night. Fog obscured the grounds outside the tall, gothic windows. The labyrinth warped and twisted the boy’s perception until he no longer understood his location. Martin thought he had been at ground level, but now it looked as if he were on the third or fourth floor.

“There is no Jesus here,” crooned the bloodsucker. “It’s you and I, my dear boy.” The vampire’s voice penetrated his heart, and the words reverberated in his mind. It sounded as if they were his thoughts, not the insidious whispers of a monster that shouldn’t — couldn’t — exist. Martin also swore he could hear the sickly smile touch the corners of the destroyer’s lips. The predator enjoyed this. It toyed with him as a cat plays with a mouse.

Martin stole a glance over his shoulder to see how far away his pursuer was. He frowned. He couldn’t see the creature who had been hot on his heels, only shadows that crept closer and closer. Oh God oh God oh God, his brain repeated over and over in a religious mantra — the first prayer he’d said since a child. The darkness encroached upon him with tendrils that sought to grasp, clutch and claw. The boy ran through Count Ardelean’s maze and continued to mutter his message to the deity he now hoped was real — between his screams and whimpers.

When he turned back to look where he was going, he ran straight into the creature. Quite how the vampire apparated in front of him, Martin didn’t know. The boy bounced off the spectre of the night, rebounded as if he’d run into a statue. The leech didn’t flinch. His eyes indicated nothing more than repulsion at the boy’s presence.

As the denizen of the macabre loomed closer, the world and shadows warped around him. It was as if the very fabric of the universe understood this was a thing that should not be. The vampire advanced. Cape billowing, eyes wide with hunger, teeth (are they growing dear god they’re growing) long and sharp.

Martin raised his hands in self-defence. “W-wait,” he stammered. “Please, please wait, I’ll give you anything, I’m rich! My parents, they—” The vampire reached out and slashed his pointed nails against the boy’s throat. A warmth began to bloom across his chest. It took Martin a few seconds to register what had happened. He tried to talk, except only a watery gurgle came out.

The young man’s neck opened in a horizontal slit, and a powerful jet of blood gushed out at full speed. His head tilted back as his lifeforce spurted across the face of the vampire, who crowed with pleasure. Martin then stumbled away as the world around him swayed, and he tripped.

The leech reached for him as he fell, but it was too late. Martin tumbled backwards over the balustrade and flipped through the air like a ragdoll. He spewed a fountain of blood in every direction.

Then, with a crack and a meaty thud, he hit the ground below and exploded across the cobbles like a ripe watermelon.

***

Count Gabriel Ardelean stared at the gore-slaked cobbles before him. He was astounded by the mess the young man had made. Blood even dripped from the ceiling. Splick. Splick. Splick. The vampire squinted up at the rafters with a frown. Splick! He stuck his tongue out and tried to catch the droplets but, somehow, he missed each time. One globule landed smack on the tip of his nose. Gabriel wiped it away and licked his hands clean. He shook his head and tutted to himself. “What a waste,” he said aloud. “Such flavour.”

What was he to do? Lick the blood from the floor like a beast? Gabriel turned around in a full rotation. The fluid was everywhere — in every crevice, nook and cranny. He wasn’t going to stick his tongue between the cobbles on the ground, that would be disgusting. Nobody had cleaned this place in well over a century. It was filthy. No, he refused to entertain the idea of crouching on all fours and lapping at puddles on the floor like a dog.

With a sigh and a drop of his shoulders, he resigned himself to cleaning the blood, as opposed to consuming it. It did occur to him that he could soak the liquid up with kitchen roll and then squeeze it into a glass. The vampire deflated like a balloon. “No, Gabriel,” he scolded himself. “You’re better than that!” He was over 400 years old. It was unbecoming of a being that had been on the planet since the mid-sixteenth century to eat food from the floor.

No. Better get the mop and bucket.

It was a shame there were no butlers left to clean up the mess for him.

If only he hadn’t eaten them all.

***

At first, Gabriel didn’t pay attention to the television. It was almost always on — to fill the silence, which had fallen like a blanket over the fortress in recent decades. It chattered away. Usually, some British or American rubbish the Count ignored. Besides, even if it had interested him, such as a bloody horror movie from the eighties, he had work to do.

“—there’s got to be a better way!” said one voice from the T.V., as images flashed across the screen. Gabriel rolled his eyes at the enthusiastic tone in the young man’s voice. Didn’t humans realise how cringeworthy they could be at times?

“…and there is! With the all-new fully motorised stainless steel—”

Gabriel opened the closet door and peered inside. He wasn’t much of a cleaner, Count Ardelean. Especially since becoming a bachelor, once more. He tried to think of the last time he’d opened the cleaning cupboard and winced when he couldn’t remember. He pushed several old brooms — priceless historical antiques — out of the way and reached for the mop and bucket. It was a red, plastic thing with a yellow squeeze drain at the top. Gabriel yanked what he wanted and slammed the door shut with his foot, as things began to clatter to the floor. “That’s a problem for future me,” he said, as the cacophony died down.

Gabriel headed for the sink, to see if he still had running water. It was at this moment a slice of the conversation from the T.V. program stuck out to him, like a thorn on the stem of a rose.

“—never waste another drop—”

He froze, ears attuned to the human’s words. He listened, bat-like, mop and bucket in hand.

“That’s incredible!” said the one voice. “I’m always saying to my wife — you know how she hates waste — well, I’m always saying to her: Honey, we don’t get as much juice outta these oranges as we should! And, you know—” The Count ignored the rest due to the irritation caused by the nasal voice. The vampire was already sold on the device. Never waste another drop.

The text flashed at the bottom of the screen in coloured font: ‘WAS $249.99, NOW $199.99! YOU SAVE $50 WHEN YOU BUY NOW!’ Gabriel shrugged and pulled a face: “Seems like a good deal to me,” he said to no one.

He read the number on the screen and picked up the telephone. Gabriel blew off the dust, which had settled like snow in an inch-thick layer. He dialled the number and waited.

“Yes, hello there,” he said, in his silky-smooth tones. “I just saw your incredible infomercial…”

***

After he placed his order, Count Ardelean returned with vigour to clean the boy from the cobbles. The vampire hummed as he gathered the chunks of flesh and body parts. He stuffed them into various Ziploc bags. He might not be able to drain much from the bits as they were, but if the promise of not wasting a single drop was true…

Like a man who returns from the grocery store, Gabriel stumbled into his cold room, arms overladen with plastic bags stuffed full of gore. Before he left, he scribbled ‘MARTIN, BRITISH’ and the date onto them. “Best before,” he whispered to himself with a boyish grin.

Once he’d gathered the ragged mess of flesh, skin, bone and hair, Gabriel mopped the tiles. The vampire whistled a jazzy tune as he washed the floor. The foamy suds formed pink bubbles in the diluted blood.

Halfway through the clean-up, the vampire broke out into a solid rendition of Queen’s I Want to Break Free. He twirled the mop around as if it were a microphone stand.

All in all, the destroyer was in good spirits.

***

The item arrived in the post 14 days later. Gabriel ripped through the packaging, pulled the box free, and then paused to admire the glossy graphics on the side. With more care than he’d ever taken a life, Count Ardelean pried open the top and eased the thing out, Styrofoam and bubble wrap torn away in the process.

He set the shiny silver device on the countertop in the kitchen and appreciated it for a moment. He gazed over its reflective metal and grinned at the way its curved features distorted the image of the room around it. Of course, Gabriel couldn’t see his reflection in its surface, for obvious reasons. The juicer had a good weight to it, too — he always felt you could judge an item’s quality by its heaviness. ‘BREVILLE’ read the name on the side.

Then, because he couldn’t contain himself any longer, the vampire skipped over to the cold room. There was a song in his heart and a rumble in his belly.

Count Ardelean returned to the kitchen minutes later, a Ziploc bag in his claws. He set the machine up in all its alien glory, glanced at the instruction manual, shrugged, and plugged the juicer in.

With a meaty slap, he opened up the bag and emptied the fleshy contents onto the counter. Count Ardelean grabbed handfuls of the meat and rammed the chunks of Martin into the juicer. He flicked the machine on.

The juicer roared into life. Blood sputtered into the collection container whilst bits of fat, skin and other undesirables deposited into the pulp jug. So engrossed was the vampire with the crimson liquid that poured out, he didn’t hear the machine as it started to whine.

Then, the juicer splatted the last of the juice from the hunk of meat into the outgoing plastic jug and the machine’s engine resumed a normal buzz. The Count flicked off the Breville and snatched the jug away. He downed the contents in several desperate gulps, then slammed the jug on his kitchen counter and gasped for air.

“My dark lord,” he groaned. “That was fantastic!”

Blood smeared across his face, eyes wild and wide, Gabriel raced back into his cold room.

He returned with the Ziploc that contained Martin’s heart. Without a second’s hesitation, he stuffed the blood-pumping organ into the chute of the juicer.

Gabriel failed to see the bone, which stuck out the side of the chunk, as he patted the meat down the chute with the food pusher.

The offending skeletal fragment was part of Martin’s cracked rib.

***

Count Ardelean picked up his phone for the second time in 40 years and dialled customer service. Behind him, smoke billowed from the juicer. Somewhere inside it, something ticked.

“I’m sorry, Sir, you said you put a what in the juicer?”

“A heart,” he said.

“A— what? A human heart?”

“Of course, a human heart! What else? Do I sound like an animal to you?”

“No, not at all! I do apologise, but—”

“But what?” demanded Gabriel.

Silence from the other end of the line as the man struggled for words. The vampire received this answer: “I’m sorry, Sir, but… a heart’s not an orange. And where did you…” His voice trailed off.

“I know that!” snapped the vampire. The Count held the telephone between ear and shoulder, arms crossed. His foot tapped. Then the realisation dawned on him and he covered the receiver and swore.

“Maybe I should speak to my manager—”

“You’ll have to excuse me, my English is not fantastic,” interrupted the Count, playing up his accent. “I of course meant I used blood oranges.” He then offered a hearty chuckle, as if this were the funniest thing ever.

After a slight pause, Gary, who worked in Customer Service, laughed in return. Although, it sounded forced. “Oh, oh right! Oh my God, for a second there, I was like… Whoa! You know?”

Gabriel chuckled again. “Can you imagine?”

“So, you say the machine broke whilst juicing blood oranges, is that correct?”

‘Yes… that’s right.”

“Hm, okay. That shouldn’t have happened. Did you remove the excess rinds from the fruit?”

“…of course.”

“Hm. Oh, oh! Did you use oranges with pits and seeds inside ‘em?”

Count Ardelean slapped his forehead. “Oh, so that’s what did it!”

“Ah, yeah. It does say in the instructions how to prep your fruit. But, listen, buddy, I like you, so I’m gonna go ahead and send you a replacement juicer, how’s that sound?”

Gabriel grinned. “That sounds fantastic, Gary, thank you so much for your help!”

“No problem, man! Have a good day!”

“You too,” said the vampire.

Before he hung up, he heard Gary say to his colleague: “Did you know, that in other languages blood oranges are called…”

***

The replacement juicer came via expedited delivery. The vampire donned his reading glasses and perused the instructions. “Huh,” he said to himself as he pulled a face, which seemed to say, How about that?

The manual said the user should peel fruits — especially the harder varieties — as part of the preparation. Additionally, it recommended pitting fruits with hard seeds or stones. And when you thought about it, wasn’t the human body just a hard fruit with lots of stones inside? At least, Gabriel thought so.

With a renewed lust for juicing, Gabriel gave the device a second chance. This time, he diced the flesh into cubes and made sure no bones jutted out of the meat. The machine didn’t whine at all when the vampire fed the prepared flesh into the chute, and blood spurted out with vitality. The Count could have sworn it shot from a live human’s severed artery.

Gary from Customer Service called him later that day, to see how he was getting on with his replacement juicer. Count Ardelean left a five-star review for the machine.

“Doesn’t it work much better when you remove the fruit’s outer layers and rind?” asked the customer service rep.

“Much better,” agreed the vampire. “I can’t believe how much juice he had in him!”

“Oh, and don’t throw away the skin—” began Gary, but Gabriel cut him off and finished his sentence.

“Because you can make potpourri from it!”

The two men chuckled, wished each other a nice day, and then hung up.

With a sigh, the vampire smiled and finished off the last of his Martini; six parts gin, one part dry vermouth, and a dash of Martin. As he drained his glass, Count Ardelean surveyed his calendar. He tapped a date three weeks away.

Not long until the next exchange student.

Gabriel looked forward to trying a Bloody Mary.

A Long, Narrow Box

Marvin needed help, and this seemed to be the place to get it. He looked at the laminated label on the bookshelf. SELF-HELP SECTION. He nodded to himself. Yup, this was the right place all right. He held his hands behind his back — as Mother had taught him — and surveyed the books on offer.

Deidre had made a stink all week, and Marvin had finally caved and gone in search of a remedy to their problems. It was a very specific issue. Marvin was doubtful he’d even find a single book dedicated to alleviating the matter, let alone a selection. Still, he wanted to check. Otherwise, he’d have to ask, and the thought of that made him shiver with fear and burn with embarrassment. No, he’d have a look in the self-help section first, have a go by himself, and if the subject persisted, then he might request help.

Marvin reached forward — one hand at the small of his back, as was proper — and pinched the spine of a book between thumb and finger. He slid it out of its spot on the shelf. HOW TO SPEAK CAT offered the book. Marvin held it at arm’s length and, with one raised eyebrow, surveyed its cover. No, that wasn’t it. He shelved the book and selected another. Microwave Dinners for One. A picture of a bespectacled middle-aged woman in a frumpy cardigan. She smiled but her eyes looked sad. Marvin shook his head. Nope, not it either. Unmoved, he shoved the book — and the lonely woman — back into its spot.

He decided to take a random stab, closed his eyes and pulled a book from the shelf. Marvin read the title of How to Poo on a Date and then shoved the book back into the stack. He glanced around to make sure nobody had seen him, cheeks red. Some people! The next book was less embarrassing but more perplexing; HOW TO BE POPE. Marvin wondered whether any sane people had ever purchased such a self-help book. He doubted it.

He selected another and thought he’d picked up the first book again by accident. Upon closer inspection, Marvin found that the words ‘paint your’ had replaced the word ‘speak’. He offered a humourless, derogatory bark, which might have been an attempt at a laugh. At the sound, the woman behind the counter looked up from her book with a sharp frown.

Marvin sighed. He thought he’d never find anything useful. He shoved the book on feline decoration back into the stack with reckless abandon. Somewhere behind him, the bookstore owner tutted but said nothing. Marvin tried to ignore the hawk-like glare of the woman at the counter and turned on his heel. He started to march out of the dusty old shop, hands still linked behind him, shoulders square, back upright. Marvin had almost reached the door — with its smudged glass and faded brass bell above — when self-doubt struck. Was he giving up that easily? Mother never raised a quitter, after all.

Oh, and the stink that Deidre had kicked up — the stink!Could he face her lifeless gaze knowing he’d found no answer to the problem? With a grumble, Marvin wandered back over to the shelf, arms still folded at the small of his back. He pretended he didn’t feel the burn of the old bat’s stare, as her finger held open the dog-eared paperback and the glasses slid down her nose with librarian authority. Mother would have been proud.

Marvin’s first foray after he returned to the self-help section didn’t ignite much hope within his heart. He found a book on writing self-help books. HOW TO WRITE A HOW-TO BOOK. The nerve of these people. Marvin shoved it back where he had found it, temper boiling. To cool his mood, Marvin pulled a nice beige-coloured book from its home — the blandness soothed his disquieted soul. And then he read the title. How to Date Women: What to Say and Do and Look Like. Marvin rolled his eyes. He didn’t need any help with the ladies, he had a Deidre back at home and God knew one was enough. He pushed the guide back into its spot but left it stuck out — a little. There was some poor old sap who’d need it, and who was Marvin to deprive them? He wondered whether anyone had stumbled across the self-help book he looked for. If so, why hadn’t they been considerate enough to leave it sticking out — a little — as he had done? Inconsiderate, that’s what they were.

THE FIRST STEPS IN STARTING YOUR OWN COUNTRY offered his next selection. Marvin would be lying if he said he wasn’t at least somewhat curious, but… no. One thing at a time, as Mother had taught him. Marvinland could wait. There was a more pressing task at hand. Marvin made a mental note to return to this shop and buy the guide, once he had his schedule free. He briefly pondered purchasing it along with the book he sought (should he ever find it), but again chastised himself. Two books at once? Gosh, no. What would Mother have said, were she not 12 years in the grave?

Marvin shuffled along the shelf — hands still clasped at his back, like a soldier — and looked down his nose at the literary wares. He saw a picture of a pooch in a jumper and picked up the thing, guilty at allowing curiosity to get the better of him. But, what the heck, Mother wasn’t always looking over his shoulder. Or was she? Marvin looked around but could neither see Mother nor smell her perfume. He nodded to himself — he was safe. At least, for the time being. He returned to the book in his hands. Dog Hair — GREAT for Knitting! Marvin eyed the all-caps ‘great’ with a stony glare. He wrinkled his nose at the thought of a poodle cardigan and dropped the book back where he’d found it. He wiped his hands against his trouser legs. Egad. Was there nothing in this bookstore that he could use?

The final book he raised to his eyes had the nauseating title of ANYONE CAN BE COOL — A Guide for Wannabe Hip Teens! Marvin decided he was neither a teen nor did he “wannabe” hip. Besides, Marvin felt he was cool in his own unique way. He caught his reflection in the shop window — despite the thick layer of dust — and nodded to his mirror image with affirmation. Still got it. He tried to put the book back in its place but found the fit was too tight. So, he left it on top of the shelf and glanced over at the shop owner like a criminal. Luckily, whatever pulp trash she pawed her way through held her attention.

Disillusioned, Marvin turned back to the self-help section. His eyes ran across the useless guides, how-to books, and other novels on improvement or learning something or another.

And then he saw it.

It caught his vision like a fishhook. How had he missed it before? Like a man who reaches for the holy grail, he extended his arms and ignored the tremble in his hands. BUILD YOUR OWN COFFIN read the title. And then the subtitle: A DIY Book You Can REALLY Bury Yourself In!!!

Marvin pondered the title. Marvin pondered the subtitle. Marvin pondered the use of three exclamation marks. At the bottom of the cover, in a far-too-fancy font, was the author’s name: Richard Hardy. Marvin thought it was an obscene name. He flipped the book over and scanned the blurb. “Hmm,” he said to himself. If one were to listen to his tone of voice, one would find it difficult to discern whether he felt concerned, pleased, surprised, or any emotion at all. “Hmm,” Marvin repeated, with a single nod. He brushed through the pages as if it were a flipbook and some cartoonish animation might jump out at him. Marvin tapped the spine with his thumb. Tap-tap-tap.

He took the book over to the hawk at the desk. “This.” He slid the book over the counter with the air of a man buying a pornographic magazine. The woman raised her eyebrows and said nothing in return. She opened the first page of the book and pointed to the pencilled-in price. Marvin paid the store owner the petty change with a grumble. Daylight robbery. Without thanking the shop owner, Marvin snatched his sale and left the store.

The tarnished bell tinkled overhead as he passed through the doorway. The tantalising image of a long, narrow box filled his mind. He hoped his choice in self-help book would please Deidre, for she had made a stink.

She’d been dead for 37 days and her corpse had begun to smell.

A New Breed

When Steve Nurburn finally found the place, he whispered silent thanks to the deity he didn’t believe in. He had gotten lost three times on his way here. Four if you counted the point when Steve took the wrong exit on the motorway. That little detour had cost him 35 minutes — but it had been Steve’s fault.

That the farm was in the middle of nowhere had caused the other three. To call what he had driven on for the last three-quarters of an hour a ‘dirt track’ would be generous. Even a driver not as geographically challenged as Steve would have had trouble. Or so Steve told himself.

Steve squinted through the windshield. All around him were miles upon miles of luscious fields. Even a city boy like him had to admit, it was rather beautiful. He didn’t even know there were so many different shades of green and brown. To his right, Steve could see a few metres of a pen, which disappeared behind a wall of hedges and shrubbery. The fences of the pen looked huge. There was no sign of the man whom he’d come to meet.

Steve opened the door to his car and got out. He stretched his legs. He’d been in the car for hours. He was a tall and overweight man who didn’t enjoy being in such cramped conditions for so long. Whilst he reawakened his body, Steve inspected the mud that caked the lower half of his blue BMW M5 and tutted.

He scanned the area. There was nobody. There were almost no sounds. Birds tweeted and insects buzzed, somewhere in the grass. “Hello?” he called; a bit uncertain. “Mr Rondal?”

Silence.

Steve looked down at his smart leather shoes, then at the muddy fields. He grumbled to himself. He leaned back into his car and reached over to retrieve the pregnant brown envelope. He wasn’t sure why it had to be cash, but then again, what did he know about animals?

“Mr Nurburn!”

Steve jumped and banged his head on the ceiling of the car. “Bugger!” He backed away, envelope in one hand, and rubbed his crown. Oh, I hope I don’t get a bruise there.

Grinning like a fool, Steve turned around and nodded at the man who had appeared behind him. “Ah, Mr Rondal! I was just about to come looking for you!”

“Sorry, Mr Nurburn!” His West Country accent was so thick it was almost impenetrable. “I do most sincerely apologise!” He then bowed — one arm across his torso, the other extended. Steve wasn’t sure if he was being made fun of, and his smile faltered.

“Er… not a problem, Mr Rondal. It’s fine.” He forced the grin.

The man straightened up. “Call me Gerald.” He extended a grubby hand caked with dirt. Steve had to stop himself from recoiling. With an internal grimace, he shook the offered hand.

“Steve,” he said.

The man was short, fat, and stinky. He had long, thin hair, and a complexion that screamed alcoholic. And his eyes… there was something wrong with his eyes.

“So, I understands that the horse is for your lil’ girl, ‘en?”

“That’s correct. Her name’s Raquel.” The thought of his daughter helped Steve to feign his smile. “She’s always dreamed of owning a horse, but…”

Gerald winked at Steve. “The cheapest an’ best ‘orses you can find are roight here, Steve-O! Roight here!” He walked towards the pen and beckoned Steve. “Roight this way, sir. Roight this way!”

***

The stable was gigantic and long. Looking at it straight on, the walls and roof made the shape of a pentagon. Inside the building, hungry darkness lingered.

Steve stood in the open doorway and stared inside. His eyes adjusted to the gloom. His heart raced. The stench was awful; rot and decay.

“Mother of God…” said Steve. “What are they?”

Gerald smiled; his yellow teeth visible. “A new breed,” he purred, as he flicked through the envelope of cash. Why, oh why, had he handed over the cash straight away?

“What’s wrong with them?” Steve was dimly aware his voice had acquired a wavering, high-pitched quality.

“Oh, there’s nuffin’ wrong with them,” said Gerald with a humourless chuckle. “Moighty strong beasts, they are!”

Something ahead in the darkness whinnied. The noise was deep, primal, and somehow intelligent.

“Are— are you sure they’re okay?”

“Oh, they’re foine! They’re jus’ ungry! Tha’s all!”

Steve spun around. He was about to ask why on earth he would buy an unfed animal when Gerald kicked him in the chest.

As he sprawled backwards into the darkness, the main thought in Steve’s surprised mind was: He’s quite limber for a fat man.

Steve hit the dusty floor and the stable door shut with a clang, followed by frantic clicks that could only be the locks.

Something thudded in the shadows. The floor vibrated.

“Wha—?” asked a disoriented and winded Steve.

Something breathed to his left, hot and heavy.

“O-open the door, Rondal!” he wheezed.

“Oh, I did forget to mention one thing, Mr Nurburn!” Steve could hear the maniacal grin in his voice.

The shadows were closer.

He took a deep breath. “OH, GOD. PLEASE, LET ME OUT!”

Things moved all around him. Faster now. Closing in.

“The thing I forgot to mention,” he said, ignoring Steve’s pleas, “is that these ‘ticular ‘orses… well, they’re carnivorous.” Gerald took care in his pronunciation of this last word.

“Carniv— oh Jesus Christ.” Steve whimpered.

He caught a glimpse of something in a sliver of light from the door. Something with too many teeth.

“MR RONDAL!” He was squealing now. “MR RONDAL! PLEASE! PLEASE! I’LL—”

Something clamped around his leg and he screamed in agony. Something else grabbed his arm and his flesh tore. Steve heard splintering sounds that he knew were his own bones snapping.

***

Scott Thimberton — his real name — chuckled as he counted the money to the cacophony of Steve Nurburn’s screams.

He knew from experience the wet, ripping sounds would continue for a while.

As It Ends

Sally didn’t see the nukes explode.

She’d been sailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Portland, Maine. A short, doable stretch. Training. Preparation for something bigger. In her heart, she knew she wanted to do an around the world trip in the memory of her mother. Raise money for a breast cancer charity. Give herself some much-needed thinking time. Win-win.

Oh, Sally knew if she did sail the world her father would worry about her, especially now his wife was gone. But he wouldn’t stop her. And the proud smile he flashed people as they drove down to the coast filled her chest with love and joy. If she did something bigger, then wouldn’t that intensify the connection with her father? She hoped so.

She was sound asleep when the first airburst detonated over Washington, D.C., her vessel a few miles short of Mount Desert Island. Sally, like several of her contemporaries, slept in catnaps. She set her alarm to go off at 20-minute intervals and snoozed between. Her harsh alarm would go off and she’d get up, check the horizon and all her points, adjust all that needed adjustment, then return to bed.

Sally woke up several minutes before her timer. After sleeping the night and most of the day in regular bursts, her body had gotten used to the rhythm. When her phone began to beep before the alarm, she knew something was up.

Eyes half-closed, mind fogged with sleep, stomach growling from hunger, Sally reached out for her phone.

‘PRESIDENTIAL ALERT’ said the headline. ‘THIS IS NOT A TEST OF THE NATIONAL WIRELESS EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM.’

Sally read the rest of the alert in a daze as the cloud of sleep dropped away. Her stomach rolled. Eight to twelve minutes? That’s no time at all.

Like a woman in a dream, Sally staggered to her comms equipment. Across the airwaves was the same message. It had to be a hoax, it had to be.

She tried every line of communication but got through to nobody. Her equipment had worked fine several hours prior, so why would it send nothing out now? She called and screamed into her sender. She got no response in return, only the sound of a nation that had descended into chaos.

When the detonation occurred, she’d been busy with the nobs and dials, trying to get through to someone, to anyone. Sally didn’t see it; she was too far away and hadn’t been looking for it. The aftershock from the bomb didn’t strike her, either. At least, not immediately.

She didn’t know the bombs had vapourised over three million people in an instant, or that there were a further five million wounded. And she didn’t know that was the start of things.

Several minutes later, the wave hit. An alarm went off somewhere to her right, loud and red, and then her small vessel rocked to the side. The lurch knocked her to the ground and her head missed the desk by inches. Sally screamed and covered her crown with her hands as her yacht tilted to the side. And then… nothing.

She lay there and peeked through her hands as she took a few ragged breaths. The vessel righted itself and swayed side to side from the impact. Sally waited for another strike, a more violent strike, but it never came. She got to her feet and looked out across the waves. All looked normal, as far as she could tell, except the birds flew in droves and—

The mushroom cloud loomed on the horizon. It was huge. She couldn’t place its exact location, but it looked as if it rose from the nation’s capital.

“Oh my God,” she whispered as the cloud swelled. She climbed out onto the deck and walked to the nose of her yacht. She gripped the cold metal rail and stood there as she caught her breath.

She watched the thing expand and shift.

***

She arrived at Portland in the early hours. The sky was swollen and black. Blood-red cracks of light tried to peek through the ashen clouds. Even from her yacht, Sally could see no movement on the shoreline. Is the whole continent dead? she thought as panic and fear swirled inside her chest.

Unbeknownst to her, a nuclear exchange had taken place. The major superpowers of the world participated; attacking and retaliating. Defence systems intercepted some of the missiles. Many were taken out. But not all. Oh no, not all.

She began to bring her yacht into the harbour and surveyed the scene. Not a single thing moved as she approached. Several vessels floated, listing to one side or the other, no captain aboard.

Although Sally couldn’t make out all the details, she could see cars strewn across the roads behind the marina. There might have also been a handful of corpses on the streets, but she averted her gaze. She didn’t need anything else to cloud her dreams. She had enough nightmares, these days — on the days she could sleep, anyway.

Without forethought, she guided herself away from the harbour. Sally pointed the nose of her yacht towards the greater ocean — away from Cape Elizabeth and the Gulf of Maine. She cut a wide angle and headed straight out into the greater ocean.

After all, she had Yarmouth and the Cape Cod National Seashore to steer around.

***

The trip was slow and demanding, but Sally didn’t stray from her course. There was a compass in her heart and she followed where it led her. If humanity had collapsed, she wanted to see it for herself.

Storms came and went, and rocked her yacht with alarming irregularity. Some of the gales were normal, and although she knew how to cope with these, they still frightened her. As a solo yachtswoman, she knew all too well how merciless the seas could be.

Some of the storms were not normal, and these she dealt with as they arrived. Their timings could be strange, too — they were hard to predict. More than once, the sky erupted in a hailstorm. It was as if someone had turned a tap on, somewhere up above the broiling clouds. The hail that fell was huge and discoloured, the hue of smoke-stained plaster. So far, Sally had survived unscathed. Whether due to her quick wit or sheer blind luck, she still hadn’t decided.

She pressed on, undeterred by the out-of-control weather and ominous skies. Her diminishing food stores did trouble her a bit. Despite her strict rationing, the supplies grew thin. Sally pushed those worries to the back of her mind. Why worry? she told herself as she noted the depleted stocks. What’s there left to worry about?

As her yacht sliced through the choppy waves, her radio remained silent. The lack of signal and internet had long since reduced her phone to an expensive brick. Several days in, Sally stopped bothering to charge the thing altogether. Why cling to it? she thought after the battery died for the last time.

She hadn’t managed to reach her father.

***

Shortly after she rounded the point of Nantucket, her heart began to flutter.

There were fires on the horizon.

***

She had to steer away from the shore as she approached New Jersey. The flames billowed high and wide, the thick plumes of black smoke spilling out onto the ocean. Sally could smell the wrongness in the air, even at a distance. The flames looked not quite right, too. She’d once observed a house fire; the orange-red flames that had consumed the home looked nothing like this. She wondered what it was doing to her lungs… and then realised she didn’t care. The world was aflame. What would it matter if she got throat or lung cancer several years down the line?

Sally pointed her yacht away from the shore, to make some room between herself and the coast. With her back to the flames and an eye on the horizon, she realised her skin was sore — as if she’d spent the day in the sun without protective cream. Her face felt as if it glowed. As she navigated the waves, Sally did not doubt that if she looked in the mirror she’d see her skin was red and raw. A blister or two.

She shrugged it off and continued on her way.

Washington was close.

***

Atlantic City was an inferno. So was almost all of Delaware. The fires here, closer towards the nation’s capital, were humungous. They made the flames that swallowed New Jersey look like a barbecue. Bits of charred ash drifted towards her, floating on the sea breeze. It caught in her hair and collected in her eyelashes. And it stung when it got into her eyes, making them bloodshot and watery.

Sally couldn’t see the mushroom cloud over Washington anymore, and she wondered if it was still there. She didn’t know that much about nuclear bombs. She guessed it had disseminated and spread its poison across the states — borders and state lines ignored. In her mind’s eye, she still saw it as it bloomed and flourished, colossal and silent.

Was there anyone alive out there? She didn’t know. She’d never know, she admitted to herself. It’d be best if they weren’t alive. Better to die in the blast. Those were the lucky ones. Were there politicians huddled up in an underground bunker somewhere? Safe against the blast and hidden from the aftermath whilst their citizens burned? Had they sought shelter before they alerted the general population? Sally didn’t consider herself to be particularly cynical, but she thought the idea had a ring of truth to it. The image of old white men safe in a bunker as they argued among themselves, whilst the world above them crumbled and charred. It filled her with white-hot anger. Although she hated to admit it, Sally hoped they were dead.

She docked several miles off Ocean City for a few days, bobbing in the water. The sky above churned like lava and spat out tempests, on occasion.

There were no other boats in the water. At least, no manned boats. And nobody tried to contact her on the radio, either.

The place was dead.

***

As Sally watched the skyline burn, her thoughts returned to her mother. Thank God she hadn’t been around to see it end like this. Who’d want to be alive to witness such a thing?

Her mind drifted to her father. She didn’t think of him much, these days. Not through a lack of love; the topic left her distraught. Was he alive? Did she even want him to be still there, to suffer through the chaos alone and afraid? His wife dead, his daughter at sea, the world around him charred and melted? Would it be better if the blast had vapourised him? An instantaneous death? Was it wrong to wish a fast demise for your dad? Her yacht dipped and nodded in the water, a response to the questions that plagued her troubled mind.

“Seems only right that I was at sea as it all ends,” she told the waves. Sally startled herself by speaking aloud. She hadn’t talked in God knows how long. The sound of her voice was strange and alien in the muffled silence. It didn’t sound real. And it didn’t sound like her.

But the words she said rang true. It did seem right. As right as the end of days could be, at any rate. Her mother was a lover of all things aquatic, and she’d passed the passion on to her only daughter. Sally’s mother often said that if she hadn’t become a nurse, she would have loved to sail the oceans. But helping others had been a smidge more important, in her eyes.

Sally had fond memories of summer days on sandy beaches. Building sandcastles. Catching crabs in a bucket then setting them free again. Squealing about their pinchers. Learning to swim, her dad holding her up in the water, the brine stinging her eyes and cooling her skin. Letting the sun warm her, sitting in the sand between her parents. Flying a kite on the days when it got windy and the coast was clear of fair-weather tourists. And laughing. Always laughing. In her mind, it seemed everyone was forever smiling, cheeks hurting, hearts overflowing.

Even if the world leaders hadn’t pressed their big red buttons, the death of her mum would have left a chasm in her life. Like a tooth wrenched from the gums without anaesthetic — a bloody, fleshy hole left to try and heal itself. Forty-nine was no age for a woman to die. Not in the twenty-first century.

After she was gone, Sally and her father had gone to her mother’s favourite stretch of sand. It was late September, and the place was all but deserted. Her father had hugged her then, unable to hold back the tears. “This is where she belongs,” he’d said as he tried to choke back the flood. She told her dad that she loved him and buried her face into his chest — the way she had done when she was a little girl. It had been an overcast day, the sky and the ocean each shaded the same hue of grey. White waves rolled and crashed on top of each other, hushing the already silent world. And then they scattered her ashes and watched as the gentle breeze whipped the sullen grey dust out to sea.

Now that same wind spread radiation and sickness.

***

Sally sailed onwards. She followed the Eastern Seaboard, more or less. She kept her eye to the land on her right, for a break in the fires and smoke.

But, of course, there was none. Not this close to Washington, anyway. She’d have better luck back up towards Nova Scotia. Or down towards the Carolinas. Not for the first time, Sally also pondered about the West Coast — had the nukes struck there, too?

She pushed on. Through the changing weather and fluctuating seas. These days, fog and ash filled the skies and the sea was grey and choppy. Sometimes a terrific thunderstorm would crack the sky and the waves would roar. The rain left dimples on the surface of the yacht, almost like pebbledash. The precipitation that fell from the sky didn’t burn her skin as she feared it might, but it did leave a rash. And her hair had begun to fall out.

Sally didn’t fear for her life during the storms. After all, the worst had already happened. Any extra time this world gave her was a bonus. The woman drove through the storms when she could and bunkered down when she couldn’t. If there had been anyone to observe her, they would have remarked at her sheer grit and determination. And at the good time she made.

It was only when she was roughly parallel to Cape Charles that she realised what she was doing. The urge in her heart to sail the world had taken over, in the absence of… well, everything.

She didn’t know how far she’d go. She didn’t know how far she could go. After all, she had very little food left. She’d go ashore somewhere near Virginia Beach or Kitty Hawk. If she could. Provided the place wasn’t aflame.

And if she couldn’t? Well, she guessed she’d sail on. Until she found a land that wasn’t a literal hell on earth. Or until she starved to death. Who knew, perhaps she could make it to the Bermuda Triangle and see what all the fuss was about? It wouldn’t matter if she died in the process, and Sally had always wanted to know.

If she died out at sea, she’d die with her mother. As the days melted into one, Sally felt more and more as if her mum were with her when the wind whispered and the gales blew. Ssssaaalllllyyyy, sighed the breeze, as she passed Mockhorn Island. She couldn’t see the place, but she knew it was there; like reaching for the light switch on the wall in the dark of night.

Ahead of her was nought but haze and fog. Thick, bulbous clouds of nuclear ash hung low and hugged the waves.

Sally had begun to develop a harsh, barking cough. She doubted that she’d have enough time to circumnavigate the world, but she’d give it a good go, nonetheless.

“For Mum,” she said, as she adjusted her mainsail. “And for Dad. I love you both. See you soon.”

Sally pressed on, towards her destination.

A Village Under the Purple Moon

Marianne felt the eyes of the townsfolk upon her; hatred intermingled with fear. Although they’d never know it, the people of Maydale had played a role in their demise.

As she walked the muddy path — wet splatters caked to her shins — Marianne met their gaze. If they were to call upon her to save them, the least they could do was acknowledge her. She would not shy away from them.

Many of the peasants dropped their stare or made the sign of the cross with their fingers. The latter would have made her laugh had the circumstances not been so grave. What did they hope to ward off? Her magic? Wasn’t that why they sent for her in the first place?

The elders huddled in a group in the square. Marianne knew which ones had voted to request her help. And which ones had not.

Gerald met her as she arrived. “Praise the Gods,” he raised his hands to the sky, “I knew you’d come.”

“It’s not the gods you need to thank, Gerald.” Her words might have sounded cold, but she offered the man a warm smile. As the oldest person in Maydale, Gerald deserved respect; from her, and the village’s citizens.

“Marianne!” Gerald grinned. They knew each other well. They didn’t agree on everything — the importance of gods and the darkness of alchemy — but they shared a mutual admiration. After all, Gerald had been one of the few to argue against her exile.

“How are you keeping, Gerald?” Marianne asked, but she already had a good idea. She had eyed the pained shadow on his face as he walked, and the awkward, stilted motions of his movements. His eyes looked whiter and cloudier, too. She wondered what else was ailed him, which was not immediately visible.

“Me? Oh, fine! I’m fine.” He gave her his winning grin. The smile lit up his face. Despite the wrinkles around his eyes and lips, the expression made him look 20 years younger. “And you, my dear?”

Thoughts of her solitary home, deep in the shadowy recesses of the woods, flashed before her eyes. The concoctions she bubbled in kettles and cauldrons. The specimens she kept on her shelves. The creatures that resided nearby. The things that visited her in the night. “Can’t complain.” She returned Gerald’s smile with a lopsided smirk of her own.

“I trust you haven’t been up to any… wrongdoings, have you, my dear?” The elder raised his eyebrows. He sounded serious, but his blue-grey eyes sparkled.

“No…” She knew full well that Gerald would not approve of some of her activities. She was about to make a joke when someone huffed and tutted behind him.

Marianne looked over Gerald’s shoulder. The other three elders had hung back a little. Vivienne and Dag gave her suspicious looks, whilst Martha smiled at her. Martha was a kind-hearted woman but she wasn’t the brightest; she was scared of Marianne.

The other two…

“Has the witch girl got everything she needs?” Dag said, words like knives. He folded his arms across his slender frame and tapped the floor with a pointed shoe. “Only we haven’t got all day. People are dying.”

Vivienne nodded along with Dag and echoed his words: “People are dying, Marianne. If that matters at all to you.”

“If that matters at—” Marianne took a deep breath. Of course it mattered to her. Even after years of isolation, Marianne still considered these to be her people. They would not draw her into a disagreement. There had been enough arguments.

Gerald gave her a sympathetic look but did not chastise his fellow elders. “Shall we…?” He gestured towards the building on the furthest side of the square. That was, after all, the reason they had summoned her.

“Yes,” she said and straightened up. She held a basket in one hand and a satchel over her shoulder. Each was heavy, and her arms and back ached with the strain, but she would show no weakness to those who had discarded her. Marianne could have requested aid, but she’d have nobody else touch her implements. She also doubted any of Maydale’s men would come to her house — the dense woods scared them witless.

Marianne followed the elders to the steps of the village hospital. To call it a hospital was a bit of an overstatement, but it was the closest thing Maydale had to such a place. Gerald strode up the steps and into the ramshackle building, Martha waddled in tow. There was a lot to critique about Martha, but none could fault her loyalty.

Vivienne and Dag stopped out front and opened up Dag’s bag. They each pulled out a strange, pointed object, which