Morgan Delaney

Dark, strange and fantastic fiction

Horror

Past

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A watercolour of two skulls kissing
Image generated by OpenAI‘s DALL-E 2 AI system. Prompt by Morgan Delaney

I finished reading Ryan North’s How to Take Over the World: Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain this week, so there’s a good chance you’ll be seeing me on the news wearing tights and battling my supervillain frenemy Elon Musk shortly.

In the meantime, check out my Goodreads review of that book, or stay on this page for some romantic horror flash fiction!

Enjoy!

Why not me, instead? Or both of us together?

I don’t leave the flat we shared. Let others put flowers on your grave.

The doorbell rings and rings. I only answer to make the noise stop, and there you are, dead.

The cold grave has not been kind to you. (You always hated the cold.) I strip you of your clothes and take you to bed to warm you up.

You feel different—not just cold—but you were an organ donor.

I have most of you back.

#

It happens naturally.

You hold me, and I hold you, and our mouths meet. I miss your breath pushing past mine as we kiss, but the chill of your tongue in my mouth is exciting.

It’s perfect. It’s you, but different.

Like starting over again with someone new, but already knowing them.

You’re hungry, too, not just cold. I feed you.

I’m happy to be buried inside you, so nothing can tear us apart again.

Research for the third Alumière sisters’ adventure (The Squared Circle, coming soon!) revealed this week that evergreen hit “Yes! We Have No Bananas” entered the public domain in the US in 2019.

So now anyone can sing it!

10 Exotic Delicacies And Why You Shouldn’t Eat Them

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Made by Morgan Delaney. Photos by Jennifer Martin and Debby Hudson on Unsplash

We’re back from a week in Georgia! The thing about Georgia is the food…or the wine… or the wine and the food. Mmmmmm.

So, inspired by a week’s gluttony, this week’s post is a killer list of things you shouldn’t eat.

As my mother always used to say: just ’cause it looks nice, doesn’t mean you should put it in your mouth!

Bon appetit!

1. The Pharyngeal Trumpet is a tall, annual flowering plant with a vivid yellow trumpet-shaped bloom and creamy white leaves. Its taste is of peppered beetroot, and the leaves are rich in both antioxidants and curcumin.

Unfortunately, they are also rich in the parasitic spores that the plant uses for reproduction.

The fine spores line its host’s throat until an opportunity presents itself—for example, when the throat dries out during sleep—to detach themselves and be inhaled into the lungs. Once there, the plant grows rapidly, expanding and crushing the host’s lungs.

2. Chipmunk spine. Long regarded as a delicacy in parts of Florida, they have since fallen out of favour, as the spine only retains its flavour (milk and earth) as long as the chipmunk is alive.

3. Dog milk. No further explanation required*.

4. Butterfly spice. Butterfly spice is nothing more than prepared and dried butterfly wings. The iridescent “spice” is tasteless and was used rather to sprinkle over dishes for its blue shimmering appearance. The link between consuming butterfly spice and a tendency to elephantiasis and incest is now well established.

5. Le concombre d’escalier. A type of cucumber native to French Polynesia. While it tastes delicious, the taste is impossible to describe afterwards until the person who wanted to know has gone away.

For this reason, it is a leading cause of fatally high blood pressure among frustrated food bloggers and chefs who continue to eat it, determined to have the perfect description ready the next time someone asks.

6. Celery. Their outward resemblance to rippled potato crisps is misleading.

7. Merscale sushi. Highly prized, these rolls consist of pure green-gold fish scale and sushi rice. These days, the fish scale is most likely to have been sourced from battery-farmed merfolk as it is no longer economic to meet the increasing demand any other way.

8. Sugar and spice and everything nice. Bad news for anyone with a sweet tooth, but you are basically eating the raw ingredients of little girls.

Expecting Roe v. Wade to be overthrown, several US states have now drafted trigger laws which will require any woman caught carrying sugar or spice on her person to continue carrying it, until such time as it is capable of looking after itself.

9. Raw fish of any kind. Scientists still don’t know where human dreams “go” after being experienced, but evidence continues to mount that fish store theirs in adipose pockets in their flesh. Cooking dissolves this fatty residue. Eating fish raw means the dream is ingested too.

A sure sign that you are consuming too much raw fish is a dream where you need to do something or go somewhere, but cannot move faster no matter how hard you try, as if wading through molasses.

This is caused by the disconnect between your subconscious mind, which accepts that the dreamer is “still” underwater, and the conscious mind, which expects the dreamer to move at its usual pace.

10. Teeth. Although mustard and curry powders are no longer made with teeth, trace elements can still be found in factories with older equipment. The teeth of anorexics were long preferred for these and other yellow spices, because of the discolouring effect of stomach acid on them.

The recent photos from Catalan of the victim of internal biting provide a graphic reminder of the effects of consuming too much ground teeth.

*On the off-chance that you do require further explanation, here’s a relevant clip from Red Dwarf.

Meanwhile, the rest of us will be bouncing along to new ska punk by Random Hand and new Deutschpunk by Joseph Boys.

Newsletter subscribers can expect to get some exclusive deep cuts about life in Kazakhstan on Saturday, I’ll see the rest of you on Thursday!

Acceptable

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A woman in the bath, superimposed faces beside her.
Photo by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash

Hello!

Summer’s here, so we’re all hot and sweaty. Time for a bath in this week’s dark flash fiction.

Bring your rubber ducky.

You don’t want to be alone.

No matter how I scrubbed my flesh, I couldn’t get the smell off. The steam from the hot water still pouring into the bath saturated my lungs. My red skin glowed in it.

The roar of the water almost hid the sound of someone knocking on the bathroom door.

It was a soft knock, when it came again, like a timid house guest who wanted to know if they could brush their teeth after their host seemed to have forgotten they were there.

That had happened to me once. Years ago, when there were still people I could visit.

But there wasn’t—wasn’t ever—anyone else in my house.

I lived alone. That was the problem.

When the knock came again, it sounded so familiar that I was tempted to answer. I knew that knock, and it would have been a relief to pretend I had company.

But who would want my company?

I said nothing, but turned off the water to better hear what they might do next.

Leather shoes squeaked in the hallway as they shifted their weight. This must be what it was like to have someone. You recognised them by the sound of their shoes.

But it only sounded familiar to me, because my own shoes squeaked. I had never worked out how to buy shoes which would carry me quietly and confidently down the busy streets, like you see in the ads. My shoes squeaked like mice, drawing attention to the fact that I hurried along alone.

They knocked again. Exactly the way I knocked whenever I came to a closed door, hopeful but knowing I wasn’t welcome.

I had been a lonely child, but it wasn’t until my parents died that I realised how bad it had become. Loneliness had seeped into my pores and marked me out. No matter how hard I scrubbed, I could never get its stink off my skin.

All those skin cells over the years. All the loneliness. Washed down the drain to… where?

The knock came again, needy, the knuckles almost caressing the door in an attempt to ingratiate themselves. Familiar. Because only one person would come back to me for company.

Also this week, after two great EPs, Orochen have released their debut album! If you haven’t heard them before then now is the time to jump onboard the post-something/something-folk/metal bandwagon. It’s packed full of gloomy, moody bangers. Perfect for your next bath.

Get it here!

Boast

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Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

This week’s flash fiction takes us into the master bedroom of the haunted Davis Hall. Enjoy!

“You wouldn’t make it through a single night. You hate sleeping alone.” John’s gentle teasing had degenerated into blunt “home truths” over the evening, and he laughed off my claim that I could survive on my own if I had to.

“I could if I had to. I could get through a night at Davis Hall, if I had to.”

“Alone?” he scoffed.

“I wouldn’t be alone at Davis Hall, would I?” I batted my eyelids suggestively to turn the argument back into a game.

He held me to it, though. He wanted me to back down as usual.

When I wouldn’t, he argued with me all the way to the preserved hulk of Davis Hall the following evening, listing reasons I couldn’t possibly go through with it.

Nobody ever stayed the night.

We had planned on going to brunch the next morning, I wouldn’t be in the mood after a bad night’s sleep.

I’d only scare myself.

What if the ghost really was real?

I didn’t need to prove anything.

But I did. And I’d had butterflies all the way over, until I realised that he was scared, too.

All I had to worry about was getting through one night with a ghost lurking behind the curtains of the master bedroom at Davis Hall. But John would have to deal with the fact that if I could do this, I might be able to do a lot more without him, too.

John offered to come to the door with me, but I refused and pushed my way through the bushes that overgrew the gap in the fence and made my way to the door. I waited for John’s car to roar as he sped home. Instead, he sat in the car, his quiet presence pulling insidiously at me as the damp wooden front door pushed silently open and I entered the hallway, which smelled of green moss and damp plaster.

I had my purple sleeping bag under my arm, with a rucksack full of extra blankets and clothes, a book, a camping light, a flashlight, and a tin of pepper spray still pinned between its cardboard backing and plastic bubble.

In my Thermos was green tea, and there were lettuce, and egg sandwiches in a night-sky blue Tupperware box, and packets of new biscuits.

I staked my claim to the master bedroom with them, deciding that a space near the door, with a good view of the curtains, was mine for the night, and arranged my items like totems around me.

It was a late summer evening, and the light was fading, blurring the shadow of tree branches as they beckoned me to come out to the garden to play. The curtains were tied back to either side of the window, and I had wedged the door open to make sure I had a clear run to the front door in case I needed it.

I took a lonely tour of Davis Hall, wondering how many people had been here over the years to explain the piles of bitter-smelling dry leaves in the centre of the empty rooms. I took my shoes off when I arrived back at camp, which is when I heard a car driving away.

My original idea had been to take energy drinks and caffeine tablets to stay awake until I realised it would be better to sleep. Let the ghost appear behind his shroud of curtain while I slept until the alarm woke me at seven the next morning.

It was supposedly one of Mrs Davis’ lovers who hid all night behind the curtains of the Hall, having been driven to suicide when she stayed with her husband. But he did nothing other than lurk behind the drawn curtains, holding his vigil over the deserted room.

When I woke in the submarine blue of my camping light during the night, the curtains were closed. I woke confused from my surroundings by the pain in my back from sleeping on the floor. Between the sag of the drawn curtains and the floor, two neat black leather shoes pointed at me. The ghost had not pulled the curtains tight and a black gap about an inch wide promised to reveal the ghost if I cared to look deep enough, close enough, into it. I stayed where I was, listening to my harsh panicked breathing, hoping the illusion would reverse itself, or that I’d fall asleep.

It felt like ages.

When I tried holding my breath, I realised the sound was coming from behind the curtains, a strained breathing sound, regularly uneven, impatient.

I kept my eye on the dark gap. Whatever had happened—whatever he’d done to himself—he didn’t want to be seen, and the room was empty with nothing else for him to hide behind if I kept him in view.

I pinched the mound of flesh at the base of my thumb to avoid falling asleep again.

Several times, though, the sly squeak of leather woke me as he tensed to move.

A chill woke me as the dawn lightened the darkness in the room. Though the curtains were still drawn, the shoes were gone and the gap between was empty, simply a grey gap.

I groped around for my sleeping bag, wondering at the cold. I couldn’t see the sleeping bag in the murk and pushed myself up on my elbows, to see where it had got to..

In the corner behind me, some odd rectangle shape moved.

Even as I turned towards it, the leather shoes poking out from the mouth of my upside down sleeping bag squeaked as the ghost closed the distance between us in a rush.

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