Creeping Corruption Anthology

By Madness Heart Press, Jeremy Megargee, Gustavo Bondoni and 14 more

From the slow degradation of society to the rotting of holy places, corruption touches everything. Featuring stories from new and upcoming horror authors, the first anthology from Madness Heart Press represents the best and most horrifying of corruption stories. Inside you'll find corruption in all of its forms. Diseases and parasites that eat away at the flesh, madnesses, and phobias that destroy minds and degrading acts that peel away the soul. 

16 stories by some of the freshest and best horror writers working today. Dig in, and feast on the corruption.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Madness Heart Press
• Release date: Jan 31, 2019
• ISBN: 9781790644766

Book preview

Eggshells

Daniel Hale

DANIEL HALE WRITES dark fantasy and horror. His debut collection, The Library Beneath the Streets, is available at most online book retailers. He can be found at danielhale42.wordpress.com. 

Hello, Nate. It’s your brother.

Don’t get up.

Heh. Sorry. That joke never started being funny, did it? You know me. Can’t help myself.

You awake? Tap once for...yeah, you are. Hard to tell sometimes, these days. I don’t remember the last time you opened your eyes. Am I that fucking ugly?

Heh. Sorry.

Mum and dad couldn’t be here. I told them not to come. Figured you’d prefer it that way. They both send their love. You know that.

It’s Easter today, Nate. Your special day. Remember how mum used to say that? The day you were conceived. She was so proud of that. Damned weird and annoying. Like we had to celebrate your birthday on both ends of the year. Never mattered what day Easter was actually on that year (and I can’t remember, honestly, what day it was when they got you), she’d still have to crow about it like it was a miracle.

You remember Easter supper when we were kids? Course you do. You were always the centerpiece. Mum would wheel you out special for the occasion, give you pride of place at the head of the table, where everyone could see you. Did you like that? I used to wonder. They’d keep you in your room the rest of the time. Hardly anybody ever went in there without mum or dad’s say-so. They used to make me go and play in there just so you wouldn’t be lonely. I would’ve preferred to be on my own if it was me.

We did an egg hunt at home for Alan and Olivia. Bad idea. More than a dozen chocolate eggs between two kids and they still got into a fight it. Might do the church’s Easter service next year instead, if I can talk Allison into it.

That’s another thing mum made us do, isn’t it? Every Easter she’d have me share my chocolate with you, and half the time you wouldn’t even eat it. Just let it fall out of your mouth. Was it because you didn’t like chocolate, Nate? Or because you couldn’t get it yourself? I wish you’d told us. I wish you could.

Last time I got to do a proper egg hunt on my own was the Easter you were conceived. Have I ever told you that? I’ll always remember it. It was the last time mum and dad took me to the church for Easter service. They never took us back after you were born. Old Reverend Fillby used to call you the Easter boy (Fillby the Bilby, eh? There’s a face I’ve not thought of in a long time). But you never went to church on Easter.

I wonder if they still do the service the same way. Fillby never conducted it himself. He always had a guest vicar to do it. The Reverend Osterhase. You never met him, more’s the pity. I only ever saw him on Easter. He was this thin little guy with a pink bald head and big round glasses. He had ugly little buck teeth, too, very prominent, and a sort of high, breathy voice. He spoke quietly and wheezed a little when he gave the sermon.

God, those Easter sermons. I still remember them.

Primitive cultures once believed that the world hatched from an egg. Each egg hatching is a life. Every rabbit spotted is a life to come. Every chocolate eaten is life’s fleeting moments, too little savored.

More like a lecture than a proper sermon. He was strange, yeah, and do you know, I don’t think Father Fillby liked him very much? He never hung round when he came for Easter. Wouldn’t see him again till the next Sunday, and by then Osterhase would be gone. I’ve no idea what church he came from.

We missed the sermon that last Easter—the one before mum and dad had you. They were arguing. Dad told me they’d overslept, but I could hear them through the wall. Couldn’t hear what they said, but mum was crying when she came out of the room. By the time we got to the church, the sermon was over, and the other children were out on the lawn, hunting for eggs.

Osterhase was waiting in the church, with the parents. The idea was the kids had an hour to find as many eggs as possible. They’d bring them back to their parents, and they’d all paint them together. Then they’d give them to the reverend.

Some of the other kids were already running eggs back to the church before heading out for more. Dad got a basket off the reverend for me, told me to go and find some eggs before they were all gone.

Well, you know what the church is like. All those hedges. The big rolling lawn that buts up right to the edge of the woods. Lot of places to hide an egg, even without a bunch of kids who’d gotten a head start on you. And they were vicious, those kids. I got tripped and pushed and shoved out of the bushes. I got the basket knocked out of my hands twice, and Wesley Hogan, that fat brat, even stepped on it at one point. Meanwhile, I’m seeing kids running back to the church with their baskets full of white and brown eggs, going as quick as they could without breaking any, and then running back out for more.

You want to know the stupid thing, Nate? They were normal eggs. Not chocolate or anything, and you didn’t get any for finding the most eggs or painting the prettiest eggs. You could bring a sack-full of them back to Osterhase, and there’d be no guarantee you’d win. He’d pick one egg, and give it back to you, with a big chocolate bunny for your trouble. I don’t know how he picked which family won, even after all the Easters I’d been by that point. It all looked pretty random to me.

By the time the hour was almost over, I’d about given up. Mum and dad hadn’t seen me back in the church since we’d gotten there, so I was sure they’d given up too. But the thought of mum just sat there by those bowls of unused dye, her eyes still red...and you know how dad looks when he’s disappointed (or do you? I’ve never been sure). I couldn’t face that. Not emptyhanded.

So I did what little boys are best at. I picked a fight with the one nearest to me. That just happened to be Benny Grenigan, who was biggest by far of our year and had the eggs in his basket to prove it. All I had to do was give him a shove, and he turned around and started smacking me. He dropped his basket in the bargain, the eggs went rolling, and the other kids got involved going after them.

I’m surprised more of the eggs didn’t get smashed, to be honest. As it was, the ground was covered in yellow fluff and broken shells when parents started pulling their kids off each other, and I got away with precisely one egg and just a little bit of yolk on my shirt. I was a little worried for a moment that Grenigan would tell until I saw his dad bringing him back inside, big red mark still on the right side of his face. Serves him right.

I brought the egg to mum and dad. They didn’t look as happy about it as I’d hope, but mum still took it and dunked it in some dye. It came out quite pretty, too; all these blue and green swirls, like the sun trying to set as the clouds come apart. When it was dyed, she wrote on it with a white crayon. A name.

When she was finished I got into line with the other kids and their newly dyed eggs. At the head of the line was the Reverend Osterhase. The line was moving quickly as the reverend took each egg that was handed to him. The kids who finished walked past me to go sit with their parents, crying or looking confused. Nobody’d won yet.

I hate being the last to do anything, but I hated being the last in that line most of all. The worst part was watching the girl in front of me, handing over her eggs. There must have been nearly twenty stacked in her basket, and she handed each one to Osterhase. The reverend would bring each egg up to his face, turn it this way and that, running his fingers over the shell.

And then he would let go.

He smashed every one of that girl’s eggs, and she ran back to her parents in tears. My feet crunched and squelched as I stepped on the remains of all the eggs rejected by the reverend. Every egg but mine.

He took it from my basket before I could hand it to him. Eager. He looked it over, right up close so it was almost touching his face. I’m sure I could hear him sniffing it. He traced the name mum had written on it with his fingers. Then he touched the tip of each finger on his tongue, tasting them.

He looked at me. He looked at mum and dad. Then, he very carefully set the egg back in my basket and nodded.

The look on mum’s face might have been the happiest I’ve ever seen her. She and dad both hugged me hard, neither really noticing that everyone else in church was silent. Except for Osterhase.

A new life, he said. Savor it.

Course I had to go and drop the egg on the way back to the car. Mum wanted to keep it, preserve it I guess, give it to you when you were older. But I swung the basket too hard and it hit the tarmac. Split apart. The thing