The Dark Issue 27: The Dark, #27

By E. Catherine Tobler, A.C. Wise, Ian Muneshwar and Ray Cluley

Each month The Dark brings you the best in dark fantasy and horror! Edited by award winning editors Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Sean Wallace and brought to you by Prime Books, this issue includes two all-new stories and two reprints:

“Ghostling” by E. Catherine Tobler
“Tekeli-li, They Cry” by A.C. Wise (reprint)
“Skins Smooth as Plantain, Hearts Soft as Mango” by Ian Muneshwar
“Mary, Mary” by Ray Cluley (reprint)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Prime Books
• Release date: Jul 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386279174

Book preview

THE DARK

Issue 27 • August 2017

Ghostling by E. Catherine Tobler

Tekeli-li, They Cry by A.C. Wise

Skins Smooth as Plantain, Hearts Soft as Mango by Ian Muneshwar

Mary, Mary by Ray Cluley

Cover Art: Carrie by Tomislav Tikulin

ISSN 2332-4392.

Edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Sean Wallace.

Cover design by Garry Nurrish.

Copyright © 2017 by Prime Books.

www.thedarkmagazine.com

Ghostling

by E. Catherine Tobler

Welch fucks the ghosts in the orchard. Before, it was the alleys, but the bricks of the five and dime were rough and the alley ground too wet and cold. In the orchard, it’s all long grasses gone to gold, the softness of rotting trees and fruit underfoot. The apples taste like cider, intoxicating if suckled too long, the wild roses black with hard thorns.

The ghosts don’t care whether it’s the orchard or the alleys; they come where Welch summons them, never making a sound, always smelling like mud. The alleys were more dangerous, the likelihood of someone rounding a corner to find Welch and a wraith higher, but Welch enjoyed that possibility. Still, the orchard is safer, and once Furst showed up, Welch knew the alley was right out. If someone caught a glimpse of Furst, there was no telling what madness might be loosed.

Furst, beloved performer of a weary nation, dead in the ground only two weeks. Welch has never seen such a new ghost, those who come usually being ages old, but Furst already knows the rules, already knows that when the living asks of a ghost, the ghosts get to take. They always want Welch’s body, because a body is what they miss most. A presence. A warmth, a heartbeat, the feel of skin over muscle. It hurt at first—Welch supposes all first things do—allowing a ghost under the skin, beneath a lung, into a cage of ribs.

Welch takes a breath, untangling limbs and clothes from the half-solid form of Furst still draped against the tree. He’s a new arrival, and Welch hadn’t intended to summon him, but then nothing about this system—this ability—has been intentional. Welch stares at the ghost, as perfect as the man had been in life—less solid but no less sensual. He hasn’t gone gray with age yet, still hues of wind-blown sand and lavender the way he’d been alive, a hint of stacked heels and fluttering scarves.

The cigarettes that have tumbled from a jacket pocket are damp with rotten apples, but one lights just fine. Welch takes a longer breath.

How does this work then? Furst asks. You summon me and I . . . what.

The first time a ghost spoke, Welch broke out in hives that necessitated the wearing of long sleeves for a month. Now, it’s just an elongated, low shiver against the spine, rattling into the skull.

It’s not precise, Welch says, plucking the jacket from the ground. The sleeves are damp, but Welch pulls it on anyhow. It’s never precise. Welch tucks the cigarettes back into the jacket pocket, but doesn’t miss the way Furst follows the motion. Plenty of ghosts hold on to what they loved in life, and this one seems no exception, so Welch leans in and exhales smoke into Furst’s face.

The ghost’s eyes roll shut—do ghosts have eyes, Welch has never stopped wondering—and a shudder moves through the body that is elegant even in its afterlife.

Again, Furst whispers through bee-stung lips.

Welch blows again, almost amused, but then the ghost dissolves, lost in the haze of smoke so that one becomes the other, until eventually Welch stands alone in the orchard, shadows deepening as does night.

Shit.

Welch smokes the cigarette to cinders on the way back into the city. Ghosts generally linger longer than that, some taking an uncomfortable amount of time before they step off. Welch doesn’t know why, hasn’t found a pattern though has kept good track in a book that would make sense to no one else. No names, only initials, just in case. It wouldn’t do, to have a list of dead celebrities and the dates of their post-mortem appearances.

Most times, Welch doesn’t think anyone else would care. The meetings would be brushed off as hallucinations—grief did strange things to people, and hadn’t Welch’s mother—

Stop right there, Welch would say. It isn’t about—

"But it’s always about the mother, Lisa says as they sit thigh against thigh at the sushi bar, rain pouring from the neon-edged sky, drumming on the metal awning. Lisa fingers a ruby slice of tuna into her mouth and Welch smokes. Any leads?"

Lisa believes, as do so many others, that Welch’s mother is missing. That she, as have many others, has been taken by parties unknown, to be used and abused, erased and rewritten. But Welch’s mother is not missing, she is dead, killed by the man who swore to love her above all things.

Welch leans against Lisa just a little more, reaching for the squat bottle of warm beer they share. Cold fish, but warm beer, and no one cares; it fills a belly. Welch drinks and considers. Furst was not a lead, didn’t stick around long enough to be one. His appearance might be a clue to something, but Welch has no idea what. With all the ghosts, there’s never a pattern to their comings and goings.

No.

The tuna is so cold against Welch’s tongue, a shiver soon follows. Welch chews and wonders if sushi would be the thing most-missed when death calls. Will it be fish, of all fucking things . . . Will Welch be a ghost begging sushi from Lisa’s fingers?

Maybe she— But Lisa doesn’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t have to.

Maybe she left. Lots of people do, of course, and Welch has considered it. But Welch saw the death, the spill of blood across the kitchen floor, and that was the first night— The first night Welch took to the alleys and met a ghost. It wasn’t intentional.

The first ghost was Iris Lesley, looking as if she had been peeled from a movie screen. She was all silver when the moonlight hit her, black and gray in the shadows. She moved like she hadn’t been in the ground for thirty years, like she was walking a red carpet in diamond slingbacks and McQueen gown. Welch hadn’t been able to look away, thinking the actress was a hallucination. After the knife across a throat . . . After all that blood . . . What might a mind do to erase it?

So Welch didn’t move when Iris Lesley did, allowing her ghostly fingers to stairstep their way up a cheek, into a tangle of hair, across and into a mouth. Iris Lesley was hot and tasted like ash, which didn’t surprise Welch one bit, given she had died in a studio fire that had consumed four blocks before it too died.

I can tell you, Iris Lesley