October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No17

This sort of follows on from yesterday's thread of horror. Maybe all horror stems from 'control'.

 

Titration of the Spirit

Stephanie was the perfect wife. When she knew she was dying, she insisted I clone her. We couldn’t bear to lose each other, you see.

Stephany was genetically modified, heightened intellect and flawless complexion. Stephanie had approved the changes. She was both beautiful and loving.

Steph-Anne had all the positive attributes of both. Mentally astute and physically stronger but somehow, less affectionate.

Stefann was a divine creature who accepted me as a companion but seemed somewhat distant.

Stef was intellectual but cold and aloof, and little resembled my wife.

How far can you dilute a soul, before it disappears entirely? 

Copyright: © 2008 Oonah V Joslin

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No16

 Time for exposure. We've all met Xselian. 

This one is in Bewildering Stories. I have quite an ARCHIVE there if you'd like to browse.

Exposure

by Oonah V Joslin

The invitation was unexpected. I was little acquainted with Xselian, although our properties adjoined. His globe-trotting lifestyle piqued my curiosity: business trips, weekend conferencing; so I decided to check him out.

I didn’t know the other dinner guests. They all seemed lacking in some way; self-obsessed maybe. Xselian was polite but distant with all of them but he showed me through the house. “Just bring your brandy along,” he said and walked into the gallery. “I want you to see something.”

“Oh you’re a photographer.” The range and quality of the prints was impressive.

“Thought you’d like these. You’re the guy with the turret room. Camera obscura, right?” I couldn’t read his expression. Reading mine, he added, “Word gets around.”

It was pure voyeurism, on my part: a kind of omniscience.

“I lived among these people,” he said strafing the line of photographs of Native Americans with cigar smoke as if conducting some purification ritual. “Mountain Horse, there, distrusted photographers. Some nonsense about ’em stealing your soul, like it would remain trapped in the celluloid, fixed by silver nitrate for all eternity. Yet there he is.”

I examined the picture. It had a superb clarity of definition but the chief looked like he was caught naked; laid bare. “So why’d he sit?”

“Fame! Whoever would’a heard of him if it wasn’t for this photo?” Xselian looked fleetingly solemn. “He’s gone now.” He puffed his cigar. “And if he did lose his soul, it wasn’t anything to do with my lens. It’s signed, see?” He pointed to the mark. “No come-backs.” Xselian strode across the gallery.

“Colleagues?” I asked, looking at a set of particularly formal photos.

He grunted affirmation. “Business is business. There’s no ‘board’ room for sentiment, I always say. Take this young man here, Matthews. Heads things up these days and I put him where he is. When I was in personnel I could smell ambition. It was my job to cut back dead wood. Of course I wasn’t about to un-employ myself, but you can get others to do the dirty work for you with the right incentives. Matthews earned a heap o’ bonuses.”

As Xselian turned, a slug of dead ash sloughed onto the parquet. He kicked it to one side. “Wages,” he continued. “If you get half as many people doing twice the work, the whole operation gets leaner.”

“Game theory,” I interrupted.

“You’re an intelligent guy,” he said. “A few judiciously rewritten job descriptions, asses on the line, bonuses for middle managers to implement change. Here’s the team before and after the cuts. Matthews there, signing his Deputy Manager contract. You met Matthews downstairs.”

I’d sat beside Matthews. He’d aged a lot since this photograph.

“And this?” I asked. The young woman’s eyes had the same clarity and expression, but this looked more like a mug shot.

“Ursula. She was always so soft-spoken, then all of a sudden she refuses to sign the new agreement. Starts kicking up about quality of care, cleanliness, budget cuts... details for Christ’s sake! Everybody knew she couldn’t afford not to have a job. Her boy was ill. She had time off. Legit, but let’s face it: a sticking plaster, right? So we decided to cut three jobs to one and she lost out. Like a month later she comes in spraying the executive canteen with automatic fire. I was out of the office that day. That’s her signing the confession. No use getting angry. It’s dog eat dog out there.”

I looked at my host. He was titanium. I wondered when we’d get to a portrait of him, and whether it would look like Dorian Gray’s. He kept talking like I wasn’t really there.

“Offering people something for nothing is easy. Fat-cat money without much work; talk the talk to shareholders; cream the profits. Offering people nothing for something is the real skill. Never sell anything tangible.” He showed his teeth. “Sell finance, insurance, sell’em fear — and then security. Sell some new psychological condition and corner the market for the cure. You got me?”

He moved on. “These were some of the biggest deals I’ve ever done.”

The photos certainly reflected that; celebrities, Nobel winners, politicians, fashion moguls, drugs barons, clerics even. I knew every one by sight.

At the far end of the gallery he stopped. “Here’s a good example.”

It was hard core like I’d never seen.

“You think this girl wanted to do that? Nah! She wanted a fix, but she was willing to do a shoot for the fix and the guys got their fix too. They all have their price.”

I felt nauseous. “All that stuff about stealing souls,” I said, “it’s true isn’t it?”

“And I thought you were intelligent? I never stole nobody’s soul.”

My relief was short-lived.

“They sold ’em to me!”

“And you keep them locked in these photographs?” Mounting fear replaced disgust.

“Hell no!” he protested. “I store only components.” He pointed to a cabinet in the alcove, where glowing diaphanous shapes constantly changed contour and tone, like light forms struggling to break free.

“Purple — that’s a vanity jar. Think of it like a containment field for humility. The chief for instance, he didn’t want humility, he wanted fame, and he gave up his most sacred beliefs to get it. Once a soul is shattered like that, I just pick up the pieces. It’s a fair exchange.”

I saw all the spectrum of deadly sins there. Red for anger -- restraining patience, green for envy – imprisoning kindness, blue for lust -- desire without conscience. Inside the bulging plasma jars, his victims’ agonies played out, writhing in a torturous dance on the white walls of this sepulchre of souls fragmented.

I swung round to face Xselian. “What do you want with me? My soul is not for sale!”

“No indeed,” he said. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

The final picture in his gallery was of a young man, a young man standing outside a building in Edinburgh, a building that used to house the camera obscura that was now in my turret room. Suddenly I recognized on my own face, that exposed look.

He held out a pen. “You can run!” he taunted.

Xselian’s hollow laughter pursued me as I vainly fled my own emptiness.

Copyright © 2008 by Oonah V Joslin

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No15

 Time for a good, old GHOST STORY. 

Just Doing Her Job

by Oonah V Joslin

“I’m already worn out,” I told the ward Sister Bridget at midnight break. “Four times up them bloomin’ stairs for nothing. Just as I get to the door, the baby stops crying. I checked all the cots. Only one baby was awake and he was beaming up at me, making gurgling noises.”

“Well, I never go unless they keep on crying,” said Sister. “Matron usually gets there first.”

“Matron?”

“We think she must have been Matron at one time. Dear knows when.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Did nobody tell you? The nursery is haunted.”

I nearly choked on my tea.

“Oh don’t fret about it! She calms the babies down. If there’s something really needs seeing to, they keep on crying and she leaves it to us. I don’t think she can actually change nappies or anything. Sometimes babies just cry. Newborns don’t see well. They only want a bit of attention, a friendly presence. She can do that.”

“So have you seen her?”

“Seen? No. But I‘ve heard her singing to them and once, when a baby died, there was a very faint scent of lavender in the air by that cot. Another nurse told me she saw a figure, like a tall, grey mist, she said it was, moving slowly away, cradling something.” Sister Clarke looked far away for a moment. “We liked to think she was taking its soul to heaven. But if a baby dies – which is very rare by the way, that spritz of lavender is always in the air.” Sister smiled. “So you see there’s really nothing to worry about, Nurse Smyth. It’s just Matron – doing her job.”

Call me a worrier but I wondered exactly what her job was. I was appalled by the notion of babies being comforted by a ghost.

That was decades ago now. I went visiting there the other day. It’s a nursing home now and Bridget was sitting in a chair in what used to be the old nursery. She looked up like she recognised me for a change. “Brought you some nice flowers,” I said. “How are you today?”

“These babies keep on crying.”

“There aren’t any babies here now, Bridget.”

“Who are you? Where’s Matron?”

“Nurse Smyth. Jeanie Smyth. We worked together. Remember?”

I went to speak to the Charge. “Bridget’s very agitated,” I said.

“Yes. Babies and Matron? She’s had her medication. We hoped your visit might calm her down a bit.”

Just then I caught a faint scent of lavender on the air and turned. Bridget’s wrinkled face was beaming in recognition, but not of me. Then her expression changed and she relaxed. A gathering greyness surrounded her and I knew immediately what was happening.

“Don’t worry,” I told the charge. “It’s just Matron -- doing her job.”

© Oonah V Joslin

My sister actually worked as a sister in a maternity hospital she said was haunted, and that was the inspiration for this particular tale.

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No14

 There really are such things as Ice Tsunamis and they look creepy as Hell! 

Something about the Ice

I was playing kick-around with my two best pals, Alan and Gino that day.

“What is that?” Alan pointed.

We stopped our game and looked towards the lake which was only a couple of hundred yards from our homes dotted along the shore. Between us and the lake, a sparse line of conifers stood tall. Behind them now, what looked like a cloud bank was moving toward us, steadily, but along the ground. It was difficult to judge its mass without scale reference, but as it approached the trees, we saw it was pretty vast with a low leading edge and wide expanse.

“Let’s go see,” said Gino, always the adventurous one.

Whatever the white mass was, it was coming on and gaining speed. It covered all the ground now almost up to the tree line.

“Ice!” said Alan. “It’s ice.”

“Cool,” said Gino and he ran towards it and skipped onto the surface. It began to carry him along. It was moving fairly fast now so he made a pose like a surfer and was laughing and mucking about.

Suddenly he seemed to lose balance. We began to laugh now but when he didn’t get up again, I shouted “You okay Gino?”

“Help! Help me!” came the reply.

Alan jumped up onto the encroaching ice and I was about to do the same when Gino screamed and I stopped in my tracks.

“He’s being dragged under! Get help! Get help!” shouted Alan.

Gino struggled and screamed out in terror.

I’ll never forget the panic in Alan’s voice, the look on his face, nor what I saw next.

The ice surface was creeping forward all the time, the top layer moving over the bottom layer, but as it did so, the top put out legs of ice: white spidery legs of ice, sharp as razors, strong as steel, relentlessly pushed onward by the sheer speed of the accumulation behind. Alan screamed as his legs were pulled under and lacerated by these sharp blade-like protuberances. Gino was silent by now. But there was more. Among that seething mass of white, I saw, periodically, as one layer moved inexorably over the other, eyes – many eyes – little bead-black eyes – thousands of them – blinking open and then sinking down within the general mass.

I ran home – ran as if hell was after me, and raised the alarm. According to official records, there were only two victims of the ice tsunami that winter’s day in the UPs and the verdict was, though no bodies were ever found, that they had been crushed to death after being caught in the ice flow. But you have to believe me… I saw what I saw. Somewhere out there, there are creatures of ice, millions of them and they have a liking for blood.

© Oonah V Joslin

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No13

 I dedicate this to Roxanne Hillier and all the staff at the RVI eye clinic and ward 20, who were so very helpful and attentive earlier this year when my husband suffered a retinal detachment. Thank you to all you wonderful 'eye people' out there in cyberspace.

The Eye Specialist

By Oonah V Joslin

The sign simply says: “Eye Specialist.” Inside the décor is all eyes. The staff are very attentive.

“Please, take a seat,” said the waiter eyeing us.

We sat on giant, squidgy eyeballs, at a round table decorated with holographic eyes.

“Someone will attend you in a moment. Please read the presentations.”

I chose A la Carte. Immediately a holographic eye blinked on and a presentation appeared.

“This place is amazing,” I said.

“May I get you something to drink?”

“Water would be lovely,” said my companion.

“Aqueous humor for the lady—and would you like eyes with that?”

“Please.”

“And for you, sir?”

“Let me see…”

“I can recommend l’Oeil du Chat-eau Noir.”

“Thank you; I’ll have that, then.” As I said—very helpful.

The drinks came. Aqueous humor, a generous serving, freshly extracted—none of your reconstituted rubbish—and clinking with lots of little fish eyes-cubes. L’Oeil du Chat was from an optic, complete with a real cat’s eye cocktail stirrer. Very promising.

For Glimpsers, I had the Lachrymal Soup which was salty, as one expects, but not overly so, not contaminated by snot as in some outlets and it did not make me sad—as tear soup can sometimes do, especially when the tears are extracted cruelly. My partner went for Spider Eyes on Convex Blini-lenses which she declared to be were a perfect soft accompaniment for such crunchy, compound eyes.

As Main View, I had the Eyeball and Optic Ganglia Pasta which comprised brown, blue and green eyes in a light sauce with a garnish of bright orange fish eyes—a most attractive if not adventurous choice, pleasing to any palate. The optic nerve itself had been removed so there were no chewy bits. My partner went for the ‘whites only’ option of Poached Sclera and I have to say that these were beautifully presented and completely free from iris coloration. They came in a transparent bowl and were served in a clear jelly of vitreous humor. I tried one and they were very tender.

On the Periphery, there was a choice of various eyes-creams and scleric soufflés. But for myself, I chose the Cataract Cake with Corneal Frosting and Baby Eyes and my partner tried a conjunctiva jelly called “Pink-eye,” perhaps the only disappointment of an otherweyes excellent evening.

Now this place doesn’t come cheap, but the holographic menu includes many delicaceyes and we were assured that all eyes are ethically resourced from renewable suppleyes, i.e., no undue cruelty is practised and all eyes that are extracted from any animal, including humans, are replaced and re-grown in situ using the most advanced stem cell technology. This prolongs the life of the donor speceyes, allowing sustainable suppleyes for years to come.

A fine and far sighted example of responsible animal husbandreye -- in my view.

There is a non-ocular alternative available, of course, but this is The Eye Specialist after all and though I am as keen on animal welfare as the next person—it’s not as if these earth animals are in any way like us. It’s not as if they’re Oculatarians!

Copyright: © 2013 Oonah V Joslin

eye-natomy

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No12

 

The Dispensary

Tatum walked through the deserted high suburbs towards the low white buildings of the Dispensary. The only residents here were the feral cats and vermin. Life on the outside was too harsh for her now so she had come for aid. She had skills, qualifications. Maybe not the skills they wanted but she would do anything.

 

Last time they'd given her nutritional supplements and turned her away. “This one is a super processor,” she'd heard the chip analyst say, “Supplements only.” That meant she wasn't from the genetic pool they wanted. She carried genes for obesity, intelligence and creativity. People like that had a tendency to be fat, physically lazy and imaginative enough to make trouble.

 

Tatum knew the buildings of the Dispensary well. She had helped develop the facility; had been instrumental in training some of the operatives. She had tried to give them a sense of moral responsibility for what they were doing. It was important that all the measures put in place to combat disease, provide employment and share resources be equitable and humane. Nowadays the operatives trained each other and left moral concerns to the Global Committee.

 

Tatum pulled the fur coat she'd found at the fill sites tight around her. She was more coat than woman now. Flurries of snow were beginning to fall. From this elevation she could still make out the coastline and the ever encroaching rubbish slick just off-shore. If the snow lay you wouldn't be able to see where the land ended and the great North Pacific Gyre began. It would all look like bleached plastic. They'd probably put her to work on that floating toxic heap. Still it didn't stink like… She looked back towards the land fills where she'd picked out a living. Life was rubbish whichever way she turned but at least this way she would stay alive.

 

The door slid open. A mechanical voice said, “Welcome. Please place your left wrist over the consul scanner.” This had all been automated. She wondered what the chip analysts did for food these days. A barrier was lowered and she went into the booth.

“Chip expired,” said the voice.

“What does that mean, ‘chip expired'?” she asked, looking for the camera she knew was somewhere.

“Operator to booth 9.”

A young man approached. “If you'd like to step this way um, Tatum,” he said consulting an electopad.

 

“What does it mean expired?” Her voice wavered.

“The systems run off plasma processors now. They cannot interpret your chip. You will receive a new one.”

“Right.”

“Functions change. We will require fresh information.”

Tatum looked at the bland and Spartan surroundings. This kind of impersonal atmosphere was exactly what she'd fought to prevent. But efficiency and accountability had given way to expediency and dissenters to the new regime had been relocated. She wondered whether Dr. Fiche was still Director.

 

It was warm enough to remove her coat but she still shivered, missing its accustomed weight. In the booth there was a bed, a table and a chair. Tatum sat in front of the interactive screen and answered all the questions put to her, submitting with ill grace to the various scans.

“Age?”

“59…”

“Status?”

“Outsider. Super Processor.”

“Last employ?”

Paneuropia Dispensary G666 C grade.” It seemed a long ordeal. Each answer was verified by RetNaScan.

 

“I will fit your chip,” said the operative coolly.

“Will it hurt?”

He didn't answer. He swabbed her left wrist and removed the sub-dermal chip deftly. It hurt a little.

“Is there any work here? I'm a geneticist. I wrote, ‘Mutant Man,' you know.”

The operative made no reply.

“I’m Dr. Tatum Fenton?”

Still there was no hint of recognition.

“Dr. Fiche would remember me.”

The operative replaced the chip with one from the computer output tray. None of this technology was familiar to her and the young man, what was he? Some kind of robot?

“Can I get some food here? I'm so very hungry. I walked all the way down from the fills you see,” she said. “It took days.” Her voice tailed off.

He remained impassive.

 

They brought her some real food if you could call it that. It looked grey and tasted synthetic. Afterwards she was asked to check the information on her new implant and confirm it with her secret pin number.

She waved her wrist over the scanner and the screen glowed green.

“There's nothing on here but today's date,” she said.

“Please insert your pin.” The operative left.

 

Tatum keyed in the number. She felt the chip tingle in her arm and waited for the rest of the information to appear on the screen. Maybe it took a while to process. The young man had been so uncommunicative; she wasn't really sure what she was supposed to do next. She was so tired though - drained - drained from years scavenging the fill sites, tired from the walk, exhausted and confused by all the new technology. At least it was warm here and she had a full stomach. Still the screen was blank and somewhat distorted. It was a relief to go and lie on the bed. She felt a little dizzy and heavy – as if she was falling…falling...

Copyright: © 2008 Oonah V Joslin          First published in Static Movement

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No11

 One for all you gardeners. 

The Head Gardener

TurksEpalie the Cateoid, head gardener to the Regent Verona Cellid, put aside his platter of meat. He was not looking forward to this meeting but what had to be done had better be done sooner than later. He took the little bottle of Castor Bean cordial and made his way to the splendiferous Palatial Gourd.

“SEpalie!” greeted the guards. “He’s in a good mood. You’ll be alright.”

TurksEpalie handed them the bottle and they thanked him. The guards looked forward to his home-made liquors.

“Well, you wanted to see me?” said the Regent dismissively.

He was devouring a plateful of warm lactu-cahaemo globes; a kind of fleshy, red lettuce with warm blood sacks. TurksEpalie noticed with disgust that the juice was dripping down the royal chin but averted his gaze as was expected.

TurksEpalie bowed low and began hesitantly. “My Liege, the planting may disappoint this spring. We were unable to reach an agreement -- alas.”

“Agreement? Damn it all, TurksEpalie, they’re plants!”

“Sire, they are not just –”

“So bloody PLANT THEM!” The regent sprayed saliva yellow with Celidicus juice.

TurksEpalie bowed again and stretched his arms in acquiescence. His tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth. He needed to play for time. “I have planted the usual array of Allia floriscoliae and mixed Angiospermatozoid elegantusrex.”

“So what’s yer problem, Cateoid slime?” the Regent babbled skinning another fruit.

“Sire, the Lapidopterae trifolia T universalis refuse to take root.”

“Refuse?”

“They have that right, Sire.”

“Who says?”

“You says -- said Sire. They sued for the right to float free across the surface of the land last autumn and your majesty ratified by signing the papers.”

“Why wasn’t I properly informed in this? You know I never read those damned documents in detail. Are these Lapidopte-thingamies that important? I mean cannot you simply plant something else?”

“I might indeed. Unfortunately My Lord’s taste for their egg pods already exceeds the entire national demand.” TurksEpalie indicated the discarded skins of more than a dozen Celidicus all consumed in the course of the current conversation. “And the clamor for vege-rights has since escalated. The Aspargalas liliiae and Triodis gnatho-stomatas have also refused to be planted.”

“Are those the ones with the big red jaws?”

“That is correct Sire. Now several edible and flowering varieties of Gumata mintolithia superbum have joined in.”

“But they are vegetables.”

“Yes Lord. And they are refusing to be exploited as food.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing.” The Regent was furious and nearly choked on a Celidicus he’d forgotten to skin. “You’re supposed to be the head gardener, Cateoid. GUARDS!” Red in the face and stained with juices, he stumbled towards TurksEpalie but the head gardener was in no danger. He knew the Regent would not soil his hands by touching a Cateoid. “GUARDS!”

But the guards, having drunk the cordial, could not respond.

TurksEpalie bowed and left unchallenged. He’d had no doubt that half the plants capable of hearing, including Triodis gnathostomatas, were now converging on the Palatial Gourd with big red jaws, whipping tendrils and spore canons loaded.

Outside, the pale purple sky radiated with a lemon sundown glow that played across the underbellies of soft grey clouds out to the west. The head gardener swiftly passed beneath the free floating tendrils of Lapidopterae trifolia T universalis and stroked them with his fingers.

“The Regent is alone,” he whispered.