by Murr
To Be One With You; An Anthology of Parasitic Horror
To Be One With You; An Anthology of Parasitic Horror
Edited by Tim Murr
2018 St Rooster Books
Cover by Stephanie Murr 2018
All stories are copyright of their individual authors. No part of this book mat be reprinted with out the sole written authorization of St Rooster Books or the authors, except in the case of review. All the content within is fiction. Any similarity to persons live or dead is purely coincidental.
“Silverfish” copyright Marie O’Regan 2018, “Cravings” copyright Paul Kane 2018, “Tongue” copyright Adam Millard 2018, “Rickettsial Illness” copyright Ross Peterson 2018, “Ready To Start” copyright Jeffery X Martin 2018, “Cock Necked” copyright David W Barbee 2018, “The Beer” copyright Peter Oliver Wonder 2018, “Seeing Things” copyright DJ Tyrer 2018, “From The Inside” copyright Tim Murr/St Rooster Books 2018
I want to give a heartfelt thank you to Steph, Paul, Marie, Jeffery, Adam, Ross, David, Peter, and DJ for contributing to To Be One With You. This book means a lot to me both as an artist and a promoter of art.
Dedicated to Gabino Iglesias, it was his idea to begin with!
#What’s Inside and Where To Find It#
Introduction…page 7
Silverfish by Marie O’Regan…page 9
Cravings by Paul Kane…page 33
Rickettsial Illness by Ross Peterson…page 57
Tongue by Adam Millard…page 73
Ready To Start by Jeffery X Martin…page 91
Cock Necked by David W Barbee…page 109
The Beer by Peter Oliver Wonder…page 123
Seeing Things by DJ Tyrer…page 141
From The Inside by Tim Murr…page 155
INTRODUCTION
I’m not sure where I first encountered the phrase “body horror” when I was a kid, but I knew one name attached to it; David Cronenberg. I was introduced to him by the classic movie review show Siskel and Ebert, which I watched every week in those desolate pre-internet days of the 1980s/90s. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert could be very unkind to horror movies, but that didn’t matter, because they still showed me what was coming out and discussed the films in a way that would obviously go on to influence me as a journalist/ reviewer in my adult life (even if it’s me 95% of the time pushing back against their smugness and condescension). And I learned early on, the more they hated something, the more likely I was to love it.
Cronenberg didn’t create body horror. You can trace that back through literature to John W Campbell’s “Who Goes There,” which would be the basis for three film adaptations known as The Thing. Or The Fly written by George Langellan , which would also be the basis for an excellent trilogy in the 50s and 60s and then be remade by Cronenberg in the 80s as the gold standard for horror films. Then there’s Herbert West; Re-Animator (also one of my all time favorite films, thank you Stuart Gordon!) which was HP Lovecraft’s cheapo shock value take on the original body horror classic, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus. What Cronenberg did, though, was create a very distinct body of work that ran from his debut feature Shivers aka They Came From Within up through his adaptation William Burrough’s Naked Lunch and his original take on video games Existenz. Cronenberg took us out of the summer camp, got rid of the masked mad man, and turned the human body against itself. The horror was inside of us-it came from within-it could lash out and spread-mutate and dominate. You could sit alone in your apartment and suffer unspeakable terrors, pulsating inside your skull and your guts. (Frank Hennenlotter did this as well with films like Basket Case and Brain Damage, but was funny).
Cronenberg has been my favorite director since high school at least. His influence isn’t very clear if you read my books Motel On Fire, City Long Suffering, or Conspiracy of Birds, we have very different storytelling styles, but the one big take away I’ve always taken to heart is his belief that just because you’re making a horror film, doesn’t mean it can’t be art. When novelist/journalist Gabino Iglesias (his Zero Saints is a must read!) published his Lit Reactor article about types of anthologies he wanted to see, the one I zeroed in on was parasitic horror. My mind jumped to Shivers as well as Cronenberg’s second feature Rabid. I quickly laid claim to this one, because a) I have a publishing imprint, b) I’ve been brain storming a theme for an anthology, and c) the idea of fostering a collection of Cronenbergian tales of external beings creating horror within our bodies sounded fucking delicious.
Even if some of the stories don’t feel immediately Cronenbergian, they all possess that horror-can-be-art quality, but you may feel like washing your hands after reading some them (Peter!). I’m so proud of these great writers and honored they trusted St Rooster Books with their word babies. I hope you fall in love with these writers too, if you haven’t already, and dig into the rest of their work.
Marie O’Regan
Marie O'Regan is an award-nominated writer and editor of horror and dark fantasy fiction, and her short fiction has been published in such places as The Alsiso Project, When Darkness Comes, Terror Tales 2, Terror Tales of London among others - her first collection, Mirror Mere, was published in 2006, and she is also the co-editor of Hellbound Hearts (Pocket Books), The Mammoth Book of Body Horror and Carnivale: Dark Tales From the Fairground (PS Publishing) along with her husband, Paul Kane, and the solo-edited anthology The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women. Marie and Paul's non-fiction interview book, Voices in the Dark, was published early in 2011. Marie's new collection, In Times of Want, was launched at FantasyCon 2016, and a novella, Bury Them Deep, was launched at FantasyCon 2017. Excerpts of her fiction together with details of where it can be found are elsewhere on this site. Marie is also currently Co-Chair of the UK Chapter of the Horror Writers' Association.
SILVERFISH by Marie O’Regan
Jamie stared out the window at the people wandering past: couples talking, people hurrying… not one of them thinking about how lucky they were to be able to walk at all. He stared down at his own, useless, legs, and felt the familiar anger starting to rise.
‘That’ll be you soon.’
Jamie looked up, saw his father’s hopeful expression as he stood behind him, and wanted to wipe that smile right off his face.
‘You don’t know that,’ he said, and felt a peculiar sense of satisfaction as his father’s face fell.
‘You have to have faith, Jamie,’ his dad muttered. ‘Keep your chin up.’
Jamie stared at his dad, angry all over again. He grabbed the wheels of his chair and spun it round, wanting to get away. ‘Tell you what, Dad,’ he spat, ‘you keep yours up. You’ve got enough faith for both of us.’ He wheeled himself down the corridor towards the specialist’s office, eager to get this latest appointment over with so he could go home.
Twenty minutes later he was being wheeled, stone-faced, off to the car park, trying his best not to listen to his dad rattling on about the latest ‘chance’ he was being given as he was loaded into the car and driven home. The doctor’s words were buzzing around his head like angry bees, and he wasn’t entirely sure he’d understood what the man was trying to explain. He’d switched off after the first few minutes, as usual; sick of endless long words that always meant nothing in the end. He couldn’t walk. Chances were he’d never walk again. How many words did you really need to say that?
‘It’s a miracle, Jamie.’
That got through to him. That and the sickening sound of hope in his father’s voice. Was he that desperate to ‘fix’ his broken son? He sighed, relenting. Time to play the game, if it gave his dad a good night’s sleep or two. His guilt o
ver the grief he’d caused his dad – however inadvertently – never lessened. So let him cling to hope until this one proved as vain as all the others; he needed a branch, and without one sank into a depression Jamie found frightening. Mum was gone, killed in the same car accident that took his legs; he couldn’t lose his dad too.
‘So when will we hear?’ he asked, and turned his head to look up at his father with what he hoped was an expression of interest.
Mollified, his dad grinned at him. ‘We should get a letter in a couple of weeks, son; you know the drill as well as I do.’
Jamie nodded, and let his dad prattle on about his hopes for the future, the words washing over him in a warm rush, lulling him to sleep almost. Six words broke through his daze, though, and he felt his eyes sting with unshed tears. ‘Your mother would be so happy.’
Six weeks later, Jamie was lying in his hospital bed, trying not to get angry as his dad fussed around the room, plumping pillows, pouring water, bothering the nurses with endless questions.
‘Dad,’ he said, and saw his father flinch. The man was terrified, and all this was his attempt to deflect thinking about the source of his fear.
‘Yes?’ He turned around, and Jamie saw how old his father looked suddenly. The last few years had aged him far beyond what was natural for his years – he looked seventy instead of fifty-eight. His anger deflated, and he felt sorry for ever giving into that emotion. None of this was his dad’s fault; he was just desperate for a fix – to have his son whole again. Mum wasn’t coming back; there was no getting around that, but here – here was something he might just be able to see fixed. And he was clinging on to that with every ounce of strength he had.
He took a deep breath, smiled and said, ‘Don’t worry so much, okay? We’ll be fine whatever happens.’
‘’Course we will, son,’ his dad said, but the smile etched onto his face didn’t reach his eyes; they were wide and blue, terrified of what was to come.
The door to Jamie’s room banged open and a trolley made its way through, pushed by the largest orderly Jamie had ever seen, and a tiny red-haired nurse.
‘Are we ready, Jamie?’ she asked, grinning impishly at him.
‘Ready as I’ll ever be,’ he said, and grinned back. What else was he going to do? He raised an arm as the orderly bent down, ready to put it round the man’s shoulders – or as far as he could, at least, when he was lifted into the air. The man grunted, but lifted Jamie with no discernible effort other than that, and Jamie tried not to look at his wasted legs poking out from the hospital gown as he was transferred easily across to the gurney.
‘Off we go, then,’ the nurse announced, her tone annoyingly bright. ‘Are you waiting here, Dad?’
Her tone brooked no argument, and Jamie watched his dad deflate, reduced to waving at his son as he was wheeled off to surgery once more. He raised a hand and waved back. ‘Don’t worry,’ he begged. ‘It’ll be over before you know it.’
Jamie was floating. He could feel himself drifting, sounds moving nearer and then further away before coming back almost into touching distance. They didn’t make much sense, at first, and he wondered why his eyes wouldn’t open. They felt as if they were taped shut, the weight of the eyelids so vast he had no hope of ever opening them again.
‘Jamie.’
The voice was familiar, but Jamie struggled to place it. He could smell cigarettes, and as he realized this, the brand (Dunhill) came back to him, and with it the identity of the person speaking his name, over and over.
‘Dad?’
‘You’re back,’ his dad said, his voice sounding happier now that his son had recognized him. ‘You were gone ages.’
‘I was?’ Jamie still couldn’t open his eyes, but the details of the room he was in and the reason he was there were starting to come back, along with a sensation he couldn’t immediately place. ‘Feel funny.’
‘Funny how?’ His dad’s voice had sharpened a little. ‘Should I call someone?’
Jamie tried to shake his head, and was gratified to realize that was something he could manage, at least. He tried once more to open his eyes, and succeeded in cracking one eye open a little. His dad’s worried face swam into focus, mere inches away, and Jamie smiled. ‘I’m okay, Dad, promise.’
His dad didn’t look convinced. ‘What do you mean, you feel funny?’ he repeated.
Jamie thought about it, lying in the bed trying to locate the source of this weird feeling. His eyes widened as he realized what it was. ‘Pins and needles,’ he whispered, ‘in my legs.’
His dad went white, and as Jamie watched tears started to well. ‘Really?’
Jamie nodded. ‘I can feel something, I’m sure.’
His dad was up in moments, heading for the door, calling over his shoulder as he went, ‘I’m going to get someone, won’t be a minute!’
True to his word, within what felt like seconds the room was full of doctors and nurses. One doctor, a kind man Jamie remembered from previous surgeries (Dr. Lassiter, that’s it) sat at the foot of the bed and looked directly at Jamie.
‘I’m going to see if you have any reflexes, Jamie, okay? You remember how this goes.’
Jamie did. He watched as Dr. Lassiter stroked a pen along the soles of his feet, and laughed as he realized it tickled. His feet arched a little in response to the pressure, and now Dr. Lassiter laughed.
‘That’s it, well done. Only slight movement so far, but it means the operation was a success.’ He paused, smiling at both father and son. ‘We won’t know how much of a success for a while yet, but it’s looking good.’
Jamie’s dad seized Dr. Lassiter’s hand and started pumping it up and down, shaking it furiously as he thanked him. Dr. Lassiter managed to extricate himself without damaging his hand and clapped Jamie’s dad on the shoulder as he and the other doctors started to leave the room, muttering their congratulations as they went.
Jamie saw his dad was crying openly now, and felt bad for all the times he’d shouted at him, or cursed him for making him go through test after test, operation after operation. He’d been convinced all along that Jamie could be fixed, even when Jamie himself had given up hope. Now he smiled at his father as he said, ‘You were right, Dad. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.’
‘Forget all that,’ his father replied. ‘Let’s concentrate on getting you home, where you belong.’
Two weeks later, Jamie stood behind his father as he opened the front door to their house, a home he hadn’t seen for what felt like forever. He sensed Mrs. Smith’s net curtains twitching to his right, and smiled to himself. Word had got round, it seemed. The cripple was walking, up on his feet once more. Everyone would want to see the freak for themselves. Well, they’d have to wait.
The front door swung open, pushing back against what looked like several days’ worth of junk mail, and Jamie’s dad swept it all to one side then stood aside for his son to enter. He looked around at the other houses as he did so, scowling, as if jealous of sharing his joy.
Jamie walked forward into the dim hall, still slightly dazed at the fact his feet would now bear his weight, and stared around at this place that was once so familiar. The house was dusty, his dad having spent most of his time lately at the hospital with him; the air had a disused quality that made him feel nervous, and the light was filtered through heavy curtains at the front of the house.
‘It’s a bit gloomy, Dad,’ he said, and saw his father rush to open curtains and windows, let the air and light flow back in.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered, ‘been a bit busy.’
‘No worries,’ Jamie said, smiling at his father, ‘it’s just we’re home now, aren’t we. We can relax a bit, for once.’
His dad nodded. ‘I suppose we can.’
Jamie watched as his father tried to filter that information, make sense of it somehow. After dealing with grief and pain for so long, he seemed to be having trouble imagining anything else. His dad brushed past him, wandered into the kitchen, put the kettle on.
Jamie lay in bed staring at the ceiling as he tried to track the movements he could feel in his nerves. They’d been limited to tremors in his spine at first, and the doctors had told him this was normal; they’d used a new technology, nano-technology, to implant something (he couldn’t for the life of him remember the proper name, but when they’d said they were like tiny robotic silverfish, partly organic, that had stuck) in his spine to close the gap where his spinal cord had been severed.
‘They’re designed to cling on,’ the doctor had said, ‘forming a bridge between the nerve endings and completing the circuit, if you see what I mean.’ He’d looked at Jamie, then, expression serious over his half-rimmed glasses. ‘Does that make sense?’ he’d asked.
Jamie had nodded, but it hadn’t, really. He liked the image of little silverfish flitting along his nerves, though, so had stuck with that. He didn’t really care how it worked, just that it did.
Over time, though, those movements had become more than the occasional prickle; they’d become delicious little thrills along his legs, like being tickled with something that was sharp. He frowned. That made it sound painful, and it wasn’t; not really. It felt more like his legs were hypersensitive, feeling every touch and movement more keenly than they ever had before. Gradually, that feeling started to spread, until there wasn’t an inch of him that didn’t thrill to the movements of the silverfish inside him. He did wonder how they’d spread; the doctor hadn’t mentioned them being able to reproduce, to spread out and multiply as they seemed to be doing. He remembered anew the doctor’s ‘part organic’ comment, and smiled. Organic. Living tissue. That could reproduce, couldn’t it? Maybe it was a side-effect they hadn’t foreseen, and would want to reverse when he had his next check-up (he did a quick calculation in his head and realized that was only a week away). That thought brought an unexpected twinge of pain in his legs, and he almost cried out, stopping himself just in time. If he cried out, his dad would be in like a shot, convinced the reprieve had been short and fate had caught Jamie in its grip once more, reducing him to the cripple he’d been before this latest operation.
