Lennon Andrew - In darkness, delight. Volume one, Masters of midnight

Copyright 2019 by Corpus Press

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, unless explicit permission was granted for use. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. This book or portions thereof may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the publisher. All stories are copyrighted to their respective authors, and used here with their permission.

Letters 2018 by Michael Bray

Mirrors 2018 by Billy Chizmar

The Pipe 2018 by Israel Finn

Every Lucky Penny is Another Drop of Blood 2018 by Joanna Koch

In the Ground 2018 by Patrick Lacey

Run Rabbit Run 2018 by Andrew Lennon

Kruze Nite 2018 by Lisa Lepovetsky

One Million Hits 2018 by Evans Light

Violet 2018 by Jason Parent

Pulsate 2018 by Espi Kvlt

Dogshit Gauntlet 2018 by John McNee

Tattooed All in Black 2018 by Mark Matthews

One Thousand Words on a Tombstone: Dolores Ray 2018 by Josh Malerman

Refuge 2018 by William Meikle

Angel Wings 2018 by Paul Michaels

Who Are You? 2018 by Ryan C. Thomas

Rules of Leap Year 2018 by Monique Youzwa

Cover by Mikio Murakami.

Interior formatting by Lori Michelle of

The Authors Alley.

For more information, please visit:

www.corpuspress.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

WHO ARE YOU?

Ryan C. Thomas

As I get older, I find my memory is as reliable as a pothead friend who says hell help you move a couch. My lapses are worse when the heat waves arrive, such as they had been lately. So it shouldnt have registered with me that the woman behind me in line at the grocery, with her gray-streaked oily hair and schoolmarm olive green dress, was the same exact person who'd stood behind me in line at the bank yesterday.

Strangely enough, two days later, as I was coming home from the gardening store where I had purchased some sprinkler parts for my home irrigation system, I saw her again. She was walking by the small duck pond near the on-ramp to the interstate. She wore the same green dress. She carried no purse. Her hair shined like a wet towel, impervious to any wind or humidity. A few oily strands hung sadly down her back, like running paint on a wet canvas. I noticed the way her arms barely moved as she walked, as if theyd been stapled to her ribs. There was something almost waxen about her. If it got any hotter out I thought she might just melt into a puddle right there in the street.

She glanced over and caught me staring, and perhaps out of embarrassment broadcast a half-hearted smile at me that revealed a parade of oversized horse teeth.

I drove by, watching her in my rearview mirror, noting the way she kept her eyes on me as I put distance between us. Stop following me, I muttered. And Mom said Id never grow up to be popular. I laughed at my own lame joke because I am a sad, lonely soulmy brothers words, not mine.

At home, I turned on the news and chewed my own tongue while watching a report about politicians trying to solve crime rates in inner cities around the country. They splashed the usual statistics onto the screen, as if they meant anything. Crime was up, always up, never stopping. I thanked my stars I lived in a good neighborhood. Besides a solitary incident in which a teenager stole my neighbors car a few years backjoy riding, he told the policewe had not had any criminal activity in a long time.

A couple days later, when the marine layer had rolled in and dropped the temperature to something tolerable, I went out into the backyard and fixed the sprinkler system with the PVC Id acquired. I dug down around the lines and saw that the gophers had come back. They always flourished when the heat rose. I talked down their tunnels: Stop coming into my yard, assholes.

I swear one of them responded: It was our land first, you dick.

I thrust the hose down there and tried to drown the bastard out, but after several minutes of wasting water I gave up and went back inside the house.

***

Over lunch that same day, I saw a man walk in front of my house. He wore a dark brown suit and a fedora, which I found peculiar since his young age seemed inappropriate for such anachronistic dress. Perhaps in his twenties, though he sported the kyphotic frame of an elderly woman. Bent forward, stiff arms by his sides, walking with a forced smile. I figured him for a religious missionary of some sort, and watched him move down the road until he was lost in the heat wave. He did not leave any pamphlets in mailboxes or knock on doors.

I should have forgotten about him, especially in the blistering heat which lasted all through the next week, but I saw him again at the donut shop on Sunday morning. I proffered a cordial, Hey, as I got in line behind him. He tipped his hat to me and smiled. A wide, crooked smile that seemed to wrap around his head like a crack expanding in a sheet of glass. And inside that smile, a row of pearly white, massive horse teeth.

Christ, I thought, those teeth... its like some disease going around.

I saw him again several times over the next couple of days. At the grocery store, at the Home Depot, at the high school football game on Friday night. He sat one row in front of the woman in the green dress. They remained statuesque throughout the game, neither cheering, nor booing, nor checking their phones like the other people in the stands.

My house was just three blocks up past the high school parking lot, so Friday night games helped pass the time these days. Id tried online dating, but aside from two dates to get coffee, nobody seemed to want me. My brother, who called me once a week, told me, Itll happen when it happens. Dont rush it, Tim. Remember how I met Jillian?

At the doctors office. Id heard the story so many damn times I wanted to reach through the phone and punch him.

At the doctors. She has gout. I have gout. So I said, Would you like to gout with me sometime? He chuckled like a moron.

Thats really... a dumb joke. I hung up on him.

It was almost nine oclock when the game ended and I was wiping sweat off my forehead, wondering how high my electric bill was going to be with all the fans I had on at home, when both the man and woman stood and walked down the bleachers, onto the grass, and disappeared into the night. Neither of them moved their arms when they walked. It was weird. Why didnt anyone else seem to notice it?

Surely it had to seem weird to others?

As the concession trucks rolled away, and the players ventured into the stands to see their friends, I decided to head home. Thats when I noticed the little girl sitting by her father. She was maybe nine or ten, wearing a pink and yellow dress, a white bow in her hair, and she studied the high school crowd like she was observing salamanders in a terrarium. There was little to no emotion in her face, which was neither here nor there. Except, it felt off. She wasnt bored, or tired, or anxious to leave, or confused, or content. She was blank. Her father looked back and caught me staring, and I quickly looked away, but not before I saw he was wearing a T-shirt that read Vista Police Athletic League Softball.

He was a cop.

I waited a full minute before looking again, at which point the girls father asked if she was ready to leave.

She nodded. Smiled. She had the giant teeth. I swear I was seeing those teeth everywhere.