Immoral Dilemmas

Contents

Advance Praise for Immoral Dilemmas

Also By Thomas R Clark

Copyright

Dedication

FOREWORD

PART ONE

DROPPING KARMA

SOBRIQUET A LA MODE

WHAT FRAGILE BEINGS ARE WE

AGAINST THE GRAIN

ALIVE INSIDE

PART TWO

THE HATE-BOX IN HER HEART

SIN RAFFLE

M.EN.TOR

YETI SHIT BLUES

FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Praise for Thomas R Clark

Advance Praise for Immoral Dilemmas

"Clark’s Immoral Dilemmas goes full-bore into the extreme, is creative as fuck, and the guy can write. He managed to stimulate this girl’s upchuck reflex… which, being a former operating room nurse, is hard to do!" —Bridgett Nelson, Splatterpunk Award-winning author of A Bouquet Of Viscera

"The Master of Splatterfolk is back. If you’re already a fan, you’ll find plenty of surprises in Clark’s new story collection Immoral Dilemmas. If this is your first book, prepare to be blown away." —Ryan C. Bradley, author of Saint’s Blood

"Immoral Dilemmas brings something for every horror lover to delight in. It will shock and intrigue you in equal measure. I can’t get enough! Clark is first rate at blending the dark, disturbing and unique." —Kirsten Craig, The Spine of Motherhood Reviews

Clark’s peregrinations are as versatile as they are potent. His curiosity is as fierce as his talent —Garrett Cook, author of Charcoal

"Immoral Dilemmas is a fantastic collection of horror, with an abundance of clever twists and turns! I genuinely loved every single story, all held me entranced and enthralled, made me feel a part of every story, every paragraph, every sentence. The writing pulled me in immediately, grabbed a hold of me with its disturbingly, blood saturated claws and did not let go, not even for a second, until it had wrung every last drop of horror and fear from my pores! It has fast become one of my fave collections ever!" —Corrina Morse, NoRemorse Reviews

"Immoral Dilemmas is a great collection of stories, deep and dreadful, written with precision and care for every blood-drenched detail. These thoughtful, terrifying tales will resonate long after reading them. Thomas Clark shows us yet again that he isn’t fucking around." —Robert Essig, author of This Damned House and Baby Fights

"Horror, sex and violence bend the boundaries of reality and consciousness giving Immoral Dilemmas a distinguished Videodrome vibe." —Mike Rankin, Horror Bookworm Reviews

Also By Thomas R Clark

SummerHome

The God Provides

Bella’s Boys: A Tale of Cosmic Horror

Good Boy: A Tale of Survivor Horror

The Death List

A Prayer from the Dead

Immoral Dilemmas

Copyright © 2023 by Thomas R Clark

Foreword © 2023 by Lisa Vasquez

Cover Art & Design © 2023 by Thomas R Clark

Interior Art © 2023 by Miguel Amaro-Santiago

Interior Design & Typesetting by Todd Keisling | Dullington Design Co.

This collection contains previously published material.

First Digital Edition

Paperback ISBN: 979-8-218-32817-7

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Nightswan Press

Syracuse, New York

www.thomasrclark.com

For John Urbancik, the master of the short story.

We are all humbled by your prose.

FOREWORD

BY LISA VASQUEZ

It’s a hit or miss for someone to take the time and read a foreword in a book. Still, being asked to write one is an amazing honor and I hope you take a moment to read this one.

I met Tommy in a whirlwind introduction at the Scares That Care convention in August of 2018. It was the end of the day, and he made his way to me among the scattered tables and littered floors. Scares is an experience in itself. Authors who have been lucky enough to attend talk about it all year until the next one. I was there with several authors from Stitched Smile Publications, and we were all exhausted from the amount of traffic and amazing conversations with readers. I think I was ready to crawl under the table and take a nap when he introduced himself. I’d seen and heard of him in our overlapping small circles, but we never formally met, until then.

Remember I said I was exhausted? Not this guy. He looked like he was getting a second wind and was about to do another shift. He handed me his book Good Boy, his underground newsletter (which I still have) some bookmarks. We talked for a few minutes when he said, I’d love for you to publish this book. Even with the crash of coming down from the day, my first impression of Tommy was how genuine he was (is). From that moment on, he and I have been through a friendship forged in heated, passionate debates and hysterical laughter.

Don’t take that to mean his writing is all warm and fuzzy, though, as you’ll see from the stories in this collection. I ended up publishing, Good Boy the following year and then later published Bella’s Boys and The Death List.

Since 2016, Stitched Smile’s blog had what we called, Stitched Saturday. Every week we’d throw out some writing prompts and invite authors to hone their skills. We posted their short stories on our blog for our readers to learn about the authors, follow them, and get mini samples of their work. Tommy was on every single one of them with the fervor of an obsessed writer. Later, we worked together on House of Stitched Magazine were Tommy had a featured series called, Roots of Apathy and touched on the contributions of Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and August Derleth to the writing world.

What I loved most about working with Tommy, from mentoring him (for a fleeting moment, as that credit goes to Garrett) to watching his wings grow, putting him where he is now—an award-nominated author—is how grounded he is and how serious he takes his writing. Not only is he is always looking for ways to improve his craft and experiment with his range, but he is always humble in his acceptance of critique. This is why his work stands out.

It goes without saying, I believe in Tommy’s talent as a writer.

Let me say this: Tommy’s a tornado, and he will buzz around you like a swarm of bees. But somewhere in the middle of his energy and chaos is unfeigned warmth. He puts his soul and passion into every piece of work he places in your hand as if it’s a personal gift he’s crafted … because it is.

With this special collection, you’re getting several of Tommy’s best works from the spinning, dark waltz that is "Dropping Karma to the nightmare version of America’s iconic, favorite pastime (featuring a cameo appearance), For the Love of the Game." If you are new to Tommy’s world, this collection will treat you to a glimpse of this author’s diversity, and if you’re a veteran fan, you’ll appreciate having some of his best works in a single volume.

I’ve mentored and published many authors in my career, and Tommy is best in class. Why should you read his work? Because it’s entertaining, it’s authentic, and it’s fucking brilliant. Once you step into his world, you’ll be hooked because while you never know what he’ll throw at you next, you’ll take it like Chris Rock took that pimp hand.

Written in blood by the Queen’s hand,

Lisa Vasquez

PART ONE

Ghosts aren’t scary…

DROPPING KARMA

Part One: The Drops

Things have been looking up for me since I promised to stop killing myself. I can’t really say the same for everyone else. But me? I’ve been doing fine. Who I am isn’t important. Hell, I’ve learned no names or designations are static. Why? Because everything changes.

Today I’m sitting on a stool at a diner, staring at my reflection in the mirror behind the counter. I haven’t seen myself in a few years and, all vanity aside, I’m happy with my appearance. I better be, it’s about as good as it’s ever going to get.

My hair is long, and dark, with a few streaks of silver and white. The gray makes me look wiser and more distinguished than I am, while piercing hazel eyes stare back at me, hiding secrets better left untold.

The man sitting two stools down wears a postal uniform. He’s eating a piece of cherry pie and it’s evident he likes it. He’s cutting off more than he should and shoveling it into his mouth. The red sauce drips off his fork, trailing down his chin, and splatters as it lands on the counter.

He snorts as he wolfs down the dessert and wipes off his chin with a napkin. A waitress hands him more napkins, then stops in front of me, blocking my view of the mirror. The server, a blue-haired, frumpy matron in a plain smock, offers me coffee. I forgo the brew, asking for cold water instead. She happily obliges.

As the waitress pours the water into my glass, I watch the ice swirl about in the self-contained maelstrom. The cubes of frozen water clink off the surface and chaos reigns as a battle between gravity and buoyancy is fought. She stops when it is full, and soon order prevails. The water settles, the ice floats to the top, and all is tranquil and calm.

I sip from a straw, taking care not to disturb the new found serenity within the confines of the tumbler. The water is cold and crisp, and I feel a bit of ecstasy as I swallow. It’s euphoric and somewhat familiar, a mirror of my life as of late.

It’s a bitch to break an addiction of this magnitude. Personal experience has taught me how one could abuse the fuck out of it. I’m happy now, I think. For the past seven years or so, abstinence has been working out for me.

I didn’t ask for this curse, but multiple lapses in judgment have led me to this juncture, and I’ll own all of them. Once you learn how to drop, it’s easy to damn yourself to some form of Hell.

Shit, I’m only now learning stopping doesn’t prevent you from paying the tithe for a previous infraction or stop others from dragging you along with them on a drop. According to science, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, right? I accepted this, but I never anticipated how the side effects of breaking the cycle might affect others.

The cold ice in the tumbler is a stark reminder of the first time I dropped-well, the first time I can remember dropping. I see it in the glass, reflecting back, reminding me of the fractured being I’ve become. I watch it unfold, as I do with all of my dreams, as an outsider.

The girl's hands shoot forward as she runs, hitting the frosted storm door of the porch. The metal door on the little white house flies open with a loud crack, resonating through the chill air of the early winter evening. The girl bursts through the threshold, bundled for the weather in appropriate attire, sans the overlarge boots she wears.

Her father’s boots.

They are far too big for her little feet, but she doesn't care. It isn't everyday Mom lets her get the mail, and in her excited haste, she instead slipped her father's boots on. The child perseveres in her quest and jumps, bounding past the four steps connecting the porch to the sidewalk and driveway.

Landing with a grunt, she expels her breath, creating a fog of ice crystals in the crisp air. Tiny feet slide in the boots, and she wavers, almost toppling over. Regaining her balance, the girl's eyes attempt to adjust to the twilight of dusk and three-foot high snow banks obscuring her destination.

The mailbox across the street.

Orientating herself, the girl strikes forward without further hesitation. She half slides, half runs down the expanse of the driveway, dodging ice patches and lumps of snow.

A dozen and a half strides later the girl reaches the driveway's end, and the road. With her goal in view, she stops, not forgetting her mother's last words as she suited up, Look both ways before you cross the road, young lady!

Doing as her mother said, she peers left and then right, and left, again. Seeing no vehicles or headlights, she decides to traverse the salted tarmac and lunges forward. She is half way across when the world lights up, telling her something has gone horribly wrong.

And this is where things get fucked. Because I remember it all as if it happened at this moment. A small hill universally hid me and the driver from one another. I didn't see the car coming. The driver, an old woman, simply forgot to turn on her headlights in the dim light.

She accelerated as she ascended, hitting some forty-five miles per hour. At this point she realized her lights were off. She took her eyes off the road for a moment and turned them on, flooding the road and illuminating me, who was committed to my ill-fated actions.

I turned to see the Buick's lights upon me as time slowed to nothing. The woman looked up, saw me with my eyes open wide, and slammed on her brakes. The laws of physics took control from here, a catalyst for all to come, or so I once believed.

She struck me in place and watched in terror as my body crumpled onto the hood of the vehicle. My midsection and ribs were crushed. I felt no pain.

I moved in slow motion, my broken body bounced off the hood of the car. My head slammed into the windshield and popped like a melon, shattering the safety glass, covering it in pink and red. Inertia carried my body over the car, somersaulting it to the road behind the vehicle with an audible plop. The brakes and tires squealed as rubber caught the pavement and the car finally stopped.

I fucking died. I experienced it, through every horrible moment of the collision. The car mangled my body into a pulpy corpse.

The old woman exits the Buick and finds a pair of boots, standing up as if they had been placed there. In the snowbank directly in front of her is the girl, her stocking feet sticking out of the snow bank, her body wiggling to fight free of the dirty snow and ice. She is cold, half buried in the snow. She feels a tug on her backside as she is pulled out. The night is lit up by the headlights of a car.

Oh, thank God you're alive! The girl hears the strange woman say.

What happened? She asks, shocked, staring in awe at the car, her boots, and the woman.

Oh, my God. Oh, no! The girl hears her mother, hysterically screaming, as she runs down the driveway.

What happened? The girl asks.

Why did you do that, young lady? The woman driving the car exclaims.

Huh? The girl replies, not understanding what is going on. She has no idea how she got in the snowbank; let alone why she is outside. Her mother reaches them at this point, tears streaming down her face. She grabs the girl and holds her tight.

I told you to look both ways!

The three people stand in the cold winter night, lit by the red and white lights. A fog grows in the wake of the car's exhaust, the sick sweet smell of salt and carbon monoxide tinges the air.

Your daughter is awfully lucky, ma'am, the lady says, it wasn't her time to go, that much is obvious.

But I did die, the girl thinks.

Her mother holds the girl in a death-grip hug and sobs into her bosom, unaware of her daughter’s paradox.

The nightmares came next. Through a forest nestled deep within the recesses of my mind, a girl ran, jumping over logs and dodging brambles. She dared not stop. She knew what chased her. She knew it would never stop, not until it caught the girl, and thus she ran as fast as her small legs could carry her. Her breath labored; her heart pounded in her chest. Her legs ached with burning fire, but she knew if she stopped, it would fucking kill her.

A great vacuum came to life, sucking everything out of the forest. Darkness erupted and filled the girl’s world with shadow while she tumbled with the rest of the debris into the void.

The nightmare ended and a new one began. Bright lights flooded the dream in a brilliant, white sheet. Memories of an accident that didn’t happen sped through on fast forward as a car hit the girl.

The girl wakes up.

Too terrified to cry out, I violently shook my head to make the lingering visions of my death go away. And it worked. Each time I shook, it blissfully removed the images from my memory until the next time I would close my eyes to sleep.

The nightmares continued until I became numb to them. In time, what remained of these visions became a blur of soothing imagery, calming me. I all but forgot the night terrors as I grew into a woman.

I smile and suck down my drink. The water is refreshing, yet also a trigger for another of my repressed memories from my tenth birthday, five years later. Doctors claim all of my drops are, and I quote, A product of an overactive imagination, concocted as a coping device from some trauma event. They’re right about the latter, but there’s nothing imaginary about a drop. They’re all too real.

The weekly family get-togethers at her Aunt and Uncle's lake house are joyous occasions. The late summer is always best, not so hot or buggy, and this day is no different. The air is thick with the delicious smells of a Yankee