Darker Than Weird: Fourteen Tales of Horror by John R. Fultz

Author:John R. Fultz [Fultz, John R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

The streets grow less crowded but more dangerous as he walks through the lowering sun. Abandoned foundries crumble slowly into rust alongside the paved lanes. Clatterpox rattle in and out of drinking establishments and Doxie houses. Bloaters float above the crowds, siphoning stray thoughts into their spherical bodies through quivering, worm-like tendrils. The few Beatifics to be found on this side of town wear their collars up to meet their hat brims, scarves hiding all but their narrowed opticals. Some hide themselves deep inside hooded cloaks, the handles of clubs or blades visible on their hips. The corroded walls of metal seem to close in about the Surgeon as he walks. The sky has taken on a ruddy color, as if it too has rusted. Gangs of rowdy Clatterpox roam the alleys, exchanging cryptic tweets and hoots of compressed steam. Their hearts are miniature furnaces that burn tiny chunks of anthracite.

Finally he rounds the corner and sees the Avenue of Copper Lungs running east to west before him. Looking back, he can barely see the shimmering steel and glass of the Ministère of Science rising from the metropolis of ancient, tangled metal. Now the wind picks up as he steps out onto the avenue, which is strangely deserted. Shops have closed here, and taverns have nailed their doors. Something has driven everyone away. He walks into the emptiness and a whirlwind of rust blows tattered broadsheets down the sidewalk. One wraps about his foot.

He picks up the crumpled newsrag and reads the headline:

MYSTERIOUS FLESH GROWS ACROSS SOUTHERN QUARTER

Part of the ensuing article is readable, the rest of it having been smeared to illegibility by some acrid puddle.

Foundries 17, 34, and 53 are suspending operations due to an unexplained phenomenon along the eastern flank of the Southern Quarter today, centering on the Avenue of Copper Lungs. Seemingly overnight, a vast blanket of what appears to be Organic flesh has grown rapidly to smother the three factories and surrounding establishments, including a vent shop, two taverns, and a bronzing outlet. Authorities were quick to arrive and cordon off the scene, but not before several Clatterpox investigated personally. Many of those first-hand witnesses claimed the flesh was “alive with muscular tension” when touched. Gendarmes arrested three citizens who refused to flee the cordoned area (all Clatterpox), and traffic has been indefinitely suspended along the Avenue.

Tribune Anteus had no comment when contacted about the spazmal, as some engineers are calling this outbreak of flesh, but in a statement he promised the “swift and immediate execution of anyone foolish enough to

The rest of the piece is a mélange of runny black ink that reminds the Surgeon of Alain’s decaying skin. He casts the paper aside and climbs the new metal fence placed by gendarmes to block the street.

An electricity in the air glides about his face and limbs, a growing pressure that signals the inevitable rise of a rabidity. He half-runs down the street toward the closed factories. They seem hung with great, flapping sheets or tarps of a torn and ragged substance.

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