Dark Horses: The Magazine of Weird Fiction No. 14 | March 2023: Dark Horses Magazine, #14

By Wayne Kyle Spitzer

dark horse
/ˈdärk ˈˌhôrs/
noun
1. a candidate or competitor about whom little is known but who unexpectedly wins or succeeds.
"a dark-horse candidate"

Join us for a monthly tour of writers who give as good as they get. From hard science-fiction to stark, melancholic apocalypses; from Lovecraftian horror to zombies and horror comedy; from whimsical interludes to tales of unlikely compassion--whatever it is, if it's weird, it's here. So grab a seat before the starting gun fires, pour yourself a glass of strange wine, and get ready for the running of the dark horses.

In this issue:

MOTHER STORY
Lee Landey

LIGHTSIREN
Tim McHugh

MEN'S HELL CLUB
Fred Nolan

ONE OF THESE NIGHTS
H. Thomas

SHADOWS IN THE LIGHT
Todd Sullivan

SOMEWHERE ANYWHERE
Kevin Brown

THE HAUNTING OF THE HAUNTED HOUSE
K. Danckert

THE NEW NORMAL
Matthew McAyeal

BEER AND TENTACLES
Bill Link

THE GHOSTS IN THEIR BOROUGHS
Wayne Kyle Spitzer

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hobb's End Press
• Release date: Mar 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215248478

Wayne Kyle Spitzer

Wayne Kyle Spitzer (born July 15, 1966) is an American author and low-budget horror filmmaker from Spokane, Washington. He is the writer/director of the short horror film, Shadows in the Garden, as well as the author of Flashback, an SF/horror novel published in 1993. Spitzer's non-genre writing has appeared in subTerrain Magazine: Strong Words for a Polite Nation and Columbia: The Magazine of Northwest History. His recent fiction includes The Ferryman Pentalogy, consisting of Comes a Ferryman, The Tempter and the Taker, The Pierced Veil, Black Hole, White Fountain, and To the End of Ursathrax, as well as The X-Ray Rider Trilogy and a screen adaptation of Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows.

Book preview

MOTHER STORY

Lee Landey

––––––––

Nathan disappeared on Wednesday morning. Or I suppose that’s when I discovered him gone. Mom had work early at the court – she slipped out to the wind and tossing trees with toast protruding from her face – so it was my job to see him off to school. We occupied the old ground floor unit I’d grown up in, and Nathan stayed now unchaperoned in the room we once shared, I having taken up the den since moving back. He was past his years of leaping from bed at dawn, and had settled into preadolescent sloth at the hoary age of 11.

I slumped down our creaking hall to wake him, in need of a proper rousing myself, and beat at his door with the bovine persistence of any good sister. He was slow to respond, even for old Nathan, so I shouldered through with a hand over my eyes grumbling something to the effect of If you miss your bus this morning, old Nathan, it will be the final appointment you make or miss for the rest of your short life.

But through my fleshy blindfold I could make out no half-obscured features of protest, no pajamaed rump among the blankets. I found, as my stomach fell away with my hand, no rotten little brother at all. I yanked open his closet, stuck my head below his small desk, all the while calling his name when I felt the wind violate my hair. The wind?

Sure enough his bedside window was open. Thrusting curtains aside, I found the wrought iron burglar bars rent apart and ugly. I screeched his name once more into the alley, and that’s all I remember of that.

I must have called the police.

Mom returned home, white-faced, and we sat in my makeshift bedroom and watched as a shabby gunmetal sedan puttered up to our curb with a chug of exhaust. The troopers were broad-faced, laconic, asking few questions and poking about. The bent burglar bars elicited a furrowed brow from the taller. I showed them around the apartment while Mom sat in the den. When my brief tour was ended she had some things to say.

It was Mary Fischer’s boy went missing just last month, she howled, and not a word from you! Not a word!

They left us with perfunctory assurances and waddled back to their car, disappearing past apartments into the fog. Mom hadn’t talked much since I’d moved home, but she talked less after that.

We both had work in mornings, and mostly she and I would slump out the door together and depart for our separate train stops. I’d walk through the tall, grimed buildings of North Park, past scant trees under a hint of rain, and dip into tunnels full of morning rush. The F train took me south, past my alma mater toward midtown, and the high offices of Gradus-Montgomery where I worked as a file clerk. Three years at Franklin University had at least afforded me that.

Along my morning commute I would imagine my mother on hers, huddled on the M toward downtown as it hurtled through dark tunnels to the courthouse where she had spent two decades as a stenographer. She had a curved spine, now, that forever suggested a seated position, hunching as she had, for the whole of my life, over a stenotype machine, spilling out abridgements of municipal proceedings, arsons, larcenies and child support, to be read or not by attorneys and litigants in an unclear future. She was the ear for a thousand ills, but always came home and quietly prepared supper and did not resent the world.

Prior to Nathan’s disappearance, I must confess I was assailed by no premonition of dread. The dread came later. Each day that passed without his return saw my mother retreat further into silence. I took to preparing our meals, and we would eat wordlessly at the small table that bridged my sleeping place from the kitchen. Often those nights she would doze off where she sat, or else in mornings I would find her abed in Nathan’s room, his closet open as I’d left it, the window still ajar, autumn wind moaning through the twisted iron.

The first order of business was to flyer the neighborhood. I found a printing shop two stops away that produced endless facsimiles of his small face, too wistful for its age. The weather was worsening but I made the rounds, to nearby tenements and then outward. Mom first insisted that she hadn’t the heart, staring ruefully at me from the kitchen as I’d tramp out the door into the cold. But restlessness got the better of her, and soon she joined me in an oversized jacket, red-nosed and white-lipped, pasting pictures of old Nathan on every surface in sight.

Though the troopers had performed a cursory examination at the time of their only visit, in those early days I returned to Nathan’s room, when left unoccupied by my mother, to examine his window. Its wrought iron bars, customary of ground floor units in the neighborhood, were terribly mangled. Black paint was split along stress marks where they had been twisted and torn, leaving ragged points like knives facing the alley, as though to ward off future invaders. What I found on those dark barbs was traces of a substance, whitish and foul-smelling; some secretion turned to snowy amber. I poked it, pinched it, uncareful with curiosity. The feeling made my stomach turn. Something to melt metal? If so, it had lost its corrosive properties, and felt to the touch like nothing so much as saltwater taffy.

I showed the stuff to Mom, who responded by throwing a raincoat over her shoulders and marching out into the deluge with more posters and a tape roll.

Following my discovery I spent long nights awake on the couch, aware of each shadow that crossed our windows. The pale light of a streetlamp was cast across my blankets, and each obstruction laid a body of darkness over my own. Soon I was sleeping as seldom as Mom, and the two of us would trudge through monotonous workdays and insomniac nights, falling unconscious at the kitchen table only by pure accident.

Now and then the phone would ring and one of us would pounce upon it breathlessly. It was never the police, though on occasion it would be in reference to one of our thousand posters. Mostly the calls were incoherent or unhelpful, a report of the boy on such and such train at such and such time. After frantically riding any reported route for hours, we tired of these leads and would simply write their contents on an end table notepad, staring at them blurry-eyed in the fading light.

What I began to notice on morning commutes through crowded tunnels was that our posters were not alone. Mom hadn’t been crazy when shouting about Mary Fischer’s boy; another North Park child had gone missing some months prior, and faded posters for little Ian’s face could be found on many of the same streetlamps and notice boards. But it wasn’t just him. First appeared the black and white face of young Jane Watson, then a Peter Stoller and a Raymond Bills. Class photos all, with cloudy backdrops and faces half-attentive, some baby teeth gone, and the pleading eyes of one who must briefly sit still.

I watched their faces on my walks home from work. The dark bustle would twist behind me, and I’d wonder where old Nathan could be. I watched the faces grow multitudinous, and sometimes – felt watched myself. I could not deny a growing panic, like a small slug roaming my gut. Maybe in dreams, I thought. Couldn’t a sister find her sibling in dreams? But when I slept I saw only torn iron, its barbs sticky in moonlight with some colorless thing growing dry in the wind.

I had made dinner one evening, a quick effort of reheated rice, which sat untouched as usual between us. Mom stared listlessly across the table, looking through blinds into the dark where it had begun to rain.

I never knew you, she said, pushing her food around with a plastic fork.

What’s that mean, Mom? I sighed.

Never knew my children. I tried to listen. All you can do. Little aliens that grow like plants. Leap out you when they’re done. What a horrible thing. She began, softly, to weep. How could I... where is my mind? Mustn’t I keep you both, she beat her belly. How’s it I could lose track?

The dishes were pushed aside and I was on my knees, my head in her lap.

How’s it I could let you go? Where is the place? Where do you go when you’re gone from me?

You know me, Mom, you know me. I gripped her pants as she wept. I’m right here, Mom. You know me.

Where is our boy? she shook. Where is old Nathan?

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The next night I was first to arrive home and had the quiet house to myself. The rain had stopped, and a bare tree beat at the glass. I went to Nathan’s room and shut his window. When he came home he could use the front door. I had slumped onto his small mattress, staring out the glass to where bare iron bent away like broken fingers, when the phone rang. I was by this time past pouncing, and dead tired, and I shuffled into the den with the clangor. Lifting the receiver felt almost too much a task.

Hello, I muttered, and sank onto the couch.

Hello? a woman’s voice breathed through shuffling papers. This, uh, it’s about the boy. Am I speaking to a relative? Another rustle came sharply through the phone. Nathan Suther? A relative of Nathan’s?

This is Mona Suther, I rubbed my eyes. Nathan’s sister. You know something?

My boy Noah is gone, she panted. He’s gone too.

I’m very sorry to hear that, Miss.

My name is Minnie. Can call me Minnie. What’s yours?

Mona, I repeated. Sorry about your boy.

Mm, well. It’s not just us, you know.

I’ve noticed. I sat up and reached for pen and paper.

Lots of faces we’re seeing now, she went on. Every few days another one. Been a week my Noah’s gone. I’ll tell you the troopers didn’t help one bit.

Here either, I shook my head in the dark.

They come in, says ‘what’s huh, and this here,’ and poke around and they’re gone.

Sounds about right.

So I’m calling. Calling every face has a number attached. You’re number four. Got lots more after you. I say enough of the waiting, let’s us get together. See what this is. See what we know.

A dry wind blew outside, and something crossed our window. I took a sharp breath. A tick sounded from the door. It was opening, I was onto my knees, the receiver clutched to my face. Before I could howl it swung in, and my mother stood there, glum and defeated.

Yes, I exhaled. Yes, I’ll come. 

––––––––

I met Minnie the next night at a small, darkened shop. She was a small dark woman, wrapped in a gray coat and blowing fog into the cold.

Early, she said. I shrugged. Good. Me too. Come in. She struggled with the door a moment, jangling a ring of keys. This’s my place, she grumbled, ushering me through. We entered a cluttered workshop. Watch repair, she said. Clocks, whatever. Bit of a mess. She pushed a handcart aside and disappeared into shadow. A light clicked on sending a shaft of yellow into the dust, and she returned with some folding chairs on her arm.

How’s business? I asked. She shrugged. We opened her chairs among the countless faces of broken timepieces.

Fifteen women showed up that night.

Musta called twice this many, Minnie said when the last had arrived. But you’re here and that’s something.

The women were of different ages, mothers and sisters from all across the city.

I thought first it’s just North Park, Minnie expounded. We sat in a circle among the jumble. Most looked sleepless and uncomfortable. But then started walking, she went on, taking trains, and it was all around. Posters everywhere, all those faces. ‘How many could it be?’ I thought. The women kept silent, shifting positions in the dust. Troopers acting like I said my cat’s missing. Couldn’t do less if they were dead. But this many gone, this many missing – I figure we can sort things through. Find what’s common. Find a pattern.

Can I smoke? asked a slim mother across from me.

Oh, said Minnie. Oh sure, go ahead.

Some others joined, and we sat in the musty stillness with cigarette haze seeking the rafters.

How’d your Noah get taken? I asked.

Well, Minnie sighed, from his window, far as I can tell. We’re in a ground floor unit, east side of North Park. Ian’s 12 now, usually gets himself home from school and I’ll come back for dinner once I’ve closed the shop. It’s just the two of us. Closed up eight days ago, came home and the house was empty. Called his school, said he left same time as usual. Was then I noticed the open window in his room. We got those iron security bars, and they were... wrenched apart. Mangled. That’s all I know.

It’s the same at our house, I said. So they like first floor units.

No, one of the smokers shook her head, a broad woman with a lump of brown hair. No, my Steph and I are on the third floor. A few others nodded. But from the window too. Went up the fire escape. Two weeks ago now. I call the coppers, call and call, they tell me two weeks is long, not much hope after two weeks. So I get your call I came running.

And it went like that. Similarities, but always a contradiction as soon as we wished to call something a rule. It wasn’t only North Park, but I’d assumed the richer neighborhoods to be excluded. That wasn’t true either. We had two women from Plaster Hill, which mostly passed for rich these days. Their boys attended Plaster Elementary, but weren’t friends, nor were the mothers. Another miss. And it wasn’t just windows; here and there were reports of a splintered door, a jimmied garage.

What about the...

The goop? The slim smoker finished my sentence. I nodded. Anyone? She squinted. Like candle wax or something.

Or taffy, I offered.

Mine was fresh, said an old woman with a spool of silver hair. On the doorknob when I walked in. Got all over my hand. She held it up as if to demonstrate. Smelled off. Like fish, maybe.

Everyone murmured at that. The talk went in circles, with mothers and sisters listing schools, neighborhoods, bus stops; anything to link us as a group. Finally, yawning, I looked around.

Well, I shrugged, there’s one thing we have in common. Minnie, didn’t you call any men?

Silence ensued.

I just called the numbers, she shrugged. She shuffled over to a handcart and held up a fistful of posters. Whatever’s on here. This’s who showed.

Any fathers around? I asked. Brothers? The room was quiet but for the sucking of cigarettes. So what’s that about? I wondered aloud.

––––––––

We met twice more before I convinced Mom to join. The women and I spent those nights picking over our lives, what school or transit route we might all share.

No missing child had a father. Could the fathers be the connection? My own had left one brisk morning, fleeing some daybreak disagreement as Nathan swelled in my mother and I slurped gray marshmallows from the