Morgan Delaney

Dark, strange and fantastic fiction

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Trucks

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Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash

This week’s flash fiction is pretty grim. Well, it’s art reflecting life, isn’t it?

The grey trucks used to transport dead bodies quickly became ubiquitous as the sickness spread. The living formed a morbid honour guard safe behind their windows each morning to watch the trucks roll past.

As supplies started to run out, it became more important not to miss the parade to check out whose windows were empty and make sure your own didn’t. Any house that looked empty could count on being broken into as people searched for dwindling supplies.

Despite the sickness, and the protests that followed, the government had managed to keep the power on. The news told me that there were still plenty of crops in the countryside if we could hold out until the harvest.

My dog had run away from the siren on the first day of the new curfew and hadn’t returned yet. If things got really bad, and she didn’t come back, I’d be able to survive a little longer on the tinned dog food, though I told myself it wouldn’t come to that.
Two men had set up on the next street corner with an open fire in a metal drum, offering chunks of meat in exchange for a ring, or a video recorder, or whatever else they could spare.
In the evenings the street was grimy with the stink of burnt flesh. The news told me the world was watching, and would send help as soon as they could.

Gangs had divided up the streets into territories. Not that there was anything left to plunder. The news still insisted help was on the way. It helped to pass the time until the grey trucks full of dead bodies rolled past again.

My mouth drooled at the smell of meat when I opened the tin of dog food. My stomach had twisted into a knot when the jellyish chunk had slithered into it, but it was because it was the first solid food I had eaten in a long time.
If only I had more I could hold out until help finally arrived. The only other option was the meat that the men roasted on the fire below me, and there was only one source of meat readily available here.

Once my boots were gone, I joined the parade of grey people following the trucks, calling for them to stop.

I’ve been let off my chain, so will be returning next week with a special “field notes” edition. Find out where I’ve been, next week!

Quick

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A swimmer's legs in dark water
Photo by David Romualdo on Unsplash

Spring is in the air… but what’s in the water?!? Dive into this week’s creepy flash fiction to find out!

The water terrified him ever since he lost his trawler to it. He could have got a job in one of the island’s cafe’s and restaurants serving tourists, if he’d been able to cook or talk to people. And as much as the heaving grey brown of the ocean terrified him, it was still home.

The doctors told him he’d been lucky to survive.

He never told them it felt more like he’d been rejected.

Nobody wanted to know what lived down there out of the sunlight: they relied on fishing near the surface and already looked at him like they knew he should be dead.

And he hadn’t actually seen it. He’d only seen where it lived.

After the water had dragged his trawler to the seabed, he’d clung to an empty fuel jerry can for several hours before the cold had loosened his grip. The dense murky gravity of the freezing ocean had pulled him down, his feet merging with the silt of the ocean floor as the last bubbles of his oxygen burst escaped to the sky high above him. His trawler was already there, vague through the stirred up sediment, almost like it had parked at the side of a long winding road. But the road had not led to the open ocean or to land. Despite being laid out in front of him, it had somehow led further down.

Kelp and sea anemones grew along a path which wound around enormous algae-covered columns. Even the closest must have been several hundred foot tall. Its round base was thicker than the length of his trawler.

It proved that the path led down as they must otherwise have broached the ocean’s surface.

But the worst thing was the pyramid crouching at the far end of the downward path, hidden behind the murk, except where a green light shone from its windows. He was sure that it was the thing’s size, rather than lack of oxygen, had shut his brain down at that moment.

It took a while, but his insurance bought him a new trawler. By any objective measure, it was a better boat, but he hated it because it didn’t feel like his. He found a crew of men and women unable to find work anywhere else and returned to the waters.

He’d never wanted to become a fisherman, but that was the work that was available. The only thing he liked about it was the silence, and he got plenty of that with his new crew. Superstitious like all fishermen, as soon as they left sight of land, they avoided saying a single word to him.

He knew they wouldn’t believe him anyway, wouldn’t want to. And he was half inclined himself to believe he’d been concussed and dreamed shadows into fantastic shapes.

But that couldn’t explain the hook dug into his stomach through his bellybutton which pulled him out to the waves each day.

One day, the invisible cord would pull tight and tug him, twitching and struggling, into the water by the fisher thing that lived in the pyramid behind the garden under the sea.

Help the Ukraine while listening to great music? Sounds good!

Berlin-based Pelagic Records is releasing a limited edition double cassette sampler with 100% of the proceeds going to Berlin-based Be An Angel charity which is accompanying Ukrainian refugees, finding them homes, jobs and deal with paperwork (paperwork in Germany. That’s a big job!) and more.

Get it here!

Prefer podcasts? Great!

Podchaser is a site for reviewing podcasts, and throughout April they will donate 25 cents for every review you submit. In other words, support your favourite podcasts be leaving them a review AND feed people from the Ukraine!

Here are the full details on how it works and here are a couple of podcast ideas to get you started: https://www.podchaser.com/users/morgandelaney/reviews

Return

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Graffiti of a man with a skull face staring dejectedly.
Photo by Doun Rain AKA Tomas Gaspar on Unsplash

The slogan for this week’s flash fiction is MAGA: “Make Anyone Great Again,” (I’m going to copyright that, so don’t steal it).

But first, let me tell you about this self-help group I came across. Self-help is all the rage these days, and everyone’s doing it. Even people you wouldn’t expect…

Barry always stared at the speaker’s chin. It made it hard for me to gather my thoughts, when it was my turn. Like I was being burdened with the wieght of his attention. But we didn’t judge each other here. Or weren’t supposed to, anyway. We were all equal on the folding chairs arranged in a circle in community centre’s basement.

“My name is Alice, and I’m a serial killer,” said the newcomer to my right. We gave her an encouraging round of applause. It almost felt like we were applauding ourselves: Now, we had two female killers, which made us properly progressive. I’d never been to a group where there was more than one before. “I’ve been killing for over 12 years, and… are you staring at my tits?”

Barry jerked back as if he been given a jolt of electricity, then shook his head.

“I was just listening,” he said.

I could have said something, explained about his chin thing, but we had to learn to live with each other.

Alice killed other women (which felt somehow less progressive.) She was now a headmistress, having started as a substitute teacher.

“My name is Barry,” he said, when it was his turn. He kept his gaze on the ground. “And I’ve been killing for four years.”

“Four years?” scoffed Alice. She wanted to make her mark on the group, but it wasn’t acceptable to judge the other killers. We were all doing our best.

Alice hung around afterwards until Barry left. I hung around to clean away the coffee thermos and chairs, interested to see what she might do. She clearly still believed he had been ogling her, and I could tell what she was thinking.

I’d love to kill you.

But he just wasn’t her type.

If you liked this, I can recommend horror comedy Vicious Fun, which has a similar premise and very enjoyable. Or, if you prefer arty/highbrow films and don’t require entertainment, then check out the fantastic The Hours Of The Day, which I thought was fantastic.

Voice

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A woman lying on the ground with hair covering her face. Yes, her hair.
Photo by Oscar Keys on Unsplash

Dialling up the flash fiction madness for my last March post! Enjoy!

Some people call them ghosts. I just call them voices, but then, I’ve never had much imagination. There’s no haunting, just scratchings and whisperings carried through the house to my ear as draughts. I know better than to pay attention to them.

Although there was this one thing they said which I’m still thinking about.

One day, while I was in the cupboard under the stairs, the voices told me I should get rid of the mice. They explained how to do it. How to do it and not get caught.

It was so easy. I wonder that I’d never thought of it before.

Yes, I normally avoid going into the cupboard under the stairs, but the mice had been making so much noise, and I needed to get away from it. (And yes, mice is just what I call them.)

I prepared the cheese and left it out. First on the table and the kitchen counter, then on the floor, then I ripped the yellow blocks apart and stuffed every gap, nook, and hole with cheese until my fingers glowed yellow from its fat.

The mice ate and went quiet. The cheese went blue from mould, but the house was free of their scratching and whispering. But the voices were gone, too.

I hope that doesn’t mean I’ve done a bad thing. What if the mice are having nightmares from all the cheese?

I should try some myself to check.

Tomorrow is Bandcamp Friday, and I’ll be getting the new Huntsmen E.P. The Dying Pines. What will you be getting?

Majestic

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A black and white photo of a smiling bearded man.
Photo by Kawaljit Singh on Unsplash

Did you know that fairy tales are sometimes allegories?

Well, did you know that sometimes they’re just straight up lies?

Welcome to this week’s fantasy flash fiction!

“Yeah, that’s one hell of a beanstalk,” said Grandpa Jack, as we took him on a tour of the garden before dinner. “But it’s nothing like the one I climbed.”

We groaned. We all knew the story. Grandpa told it whenever he came to visit.

The weather was mild, and it looked like he was just going to tell it again, right here, with the sound of a distant lawnmower floating in the air, but the words caught in his throat and his frame jerked as coughs wracked his body. His hand was bloody when he took it away from his mouth.

“Time to tell you what really happened up there,” he said, after we’d made him comfortable in the big armchair, and soothed his throat with a glass of milk.

“Most of the story is true and you know it,“ he said. “I never understood how I got away with the bit I lied about. We were poor in those days. Everybody was. That’s how I had nothing to lose. Not in this life.” He coughed. “As for what happens next, well, we’ll see.”

“Stealing’s not so bad,” I said. “Not when you have to, to survive.” That was something my family all believed, having profited from Jack’s adventures as a young man.

“No,” he said. “But there’s stealing, and there’s stealing. That’s why I said I stole from a giant, so it wouldn’t seem so bad. And it didn’t. I was even a kind of hero for a while. Got in the papers, and everything.”

He let us think about that while he drained the milk. The wash of white milk had traces of pink as it flowed back down the sides of his glass.

“So who did you steal from, if it wasn’t a giant?” I asked.

“You’re sure you don’t know?” Grandpa looked at each of us in turn.

I shook my head.

“Big fellow? Lives high above the clouds, watching everything we do? Angry when you cross him, but doesn’t otherwise get involved?”

I kept shaking my head, but it was because I didn’t want it to be true.

If he’d stolen from Him, there’d be Hell to pay for all of us.

I didn’t hear it until the lawnmower’s engine shut off outside, but then the scratching under our house was impossible to miss and getting louder all the time.

Something was climbing towards us to steal Grandpa, and anything else it could get its hands on.

Tonight is “Stand Up for Ukraine,” a two and a half hour show with ten top comedians, including Delaney favourites James Acaster and Sara Pascoe, to raise money for the Ukraine. Tickets are 10 pounds each and the link is good for a week, so if you miss it today, you still have time to watch it. Get your tickets here!

(I call it “Putin” your money towards a good cause… yeah, well, I’m not a comedian, am I?)

Steady

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A black and white photo of a mannequin looking out of the photo
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

For this week’s piece of horror flash fiction, I get behind the wheel of my car. Don’t think that’s horrifying? You haven’t seen me drive!

Because I got the angry driving examiner.

Just my filthy, bloody luck.

Frank, my driving instructor, had told me to cancel the test if Mrs Rathbone was assigned as my examiner for the practical. Her fail rate was through the roof, so I’d have little chance of passing anyway, and the drivers were trying to “boycott” her, until she either changed her approach or got fired.

As if I wasn’t nervous enough already

I didn’t mind so much about the waste of money (no refunds on booked tests!), but I’d just changed jobs, and promised my new boss I had a driver’s licence.

Frank took me on the “usual” routes that the examiners went, so we could practise them, but Mrs Rathbone made up her own routes on the spot. And one time, she didn’t leave the mall’s parking lot at all, just had the guy go around and around for an hour, backing in and out of parking spaces.

He failed because the parking lot has a speed limit of 10 mph. “You know how hard it is to stay under 10mph for an hour?” said Frank.

I said yes, because Frank is half-Italian and gets excited.

The test centre has four spots on the top of the mall, and when Mrs Rathbone pointed me down the ramp to get onto the street, I thought, well, at least I’ll fail the test properly.

And I knew about the first trap.

There’s an extra “do not cross” line before the stop sign at the bottom of the ramp. It’s faded, so it’s easy to overlook, and even when you see it, it’s natural to associate it with the stop sign. So, that’s a fail if you don’t stop twice at the bottom of the ramp. And the stop sign announces the pedestrian crossing, and then you have to stop again after that before driving onto the actual road. Three stops before you even make it to the road.

Frank had prepared me for it, however, and although I ground the gears at all three stops, the car shuddered instead of stalling. Mrs Rathbone groaned as if it pained her, but I couldn’t fail for that. She shook a finger towards King Street, instead of Marrickville, which was a surprise, but I practised on King Street, so things were going my way. It’s a lot of stop-and-go traffic, but otherwise easy.

She said nothing else, and I just kept going straight ahead.

Should have been easy.

The thing is, though, King Street is easy until the University. That’s where I normally turn left towards the hospital. Turn around in the parking lot there, and head back home.

Go any further and you’re suddenly on City Street, which takes you to Broadway, which leads you onto Pitt Street. Then you’re in the city centre and God help you.

I cracked.

As we came up to my usual turn, I put on the indicators and made my way to the hospital. Mrs Rathbone said nothing.

She was dead.

So, that, kids, is why I’m such a nervous driver.

I should have listened to Frank about not doing the test with Mrs Rathbone.

And I should have listened to his advice to use the test centre’s car.

I hadn’t wanted to spend the time learning the feel of an unfamiliar car, though, so I used my own.

And now I can’t get rid of Mrs Rathbone out of the passenger seat.

She never says anything, but she’s always watching.

Didn’t I say?

She hadn’t been scowling at the road.

When she’d died at the bottom of the ramp, she’d been scowling at me.

This one is for Frank, my actual driving instructor, who played Gary Numan on the way home, after I passed my test!