Horror / Collection
Date Published: 07-22-2025
Publisher: Anuci Press
Evil lurks in the darkness, clawing its way towards unsuspecting victims . . .
A woman living with fibromyalgia finds an artifact that unleashes a reality she never thought possible . . . at a steep price.
Hold your breath as you immerse yourself in five harrowing stories written by bestselling author, Mallory McCartney. Fans of her gripping Black Dawn series will be kept on the edge of their seat by this horror collection inspired by real life events!
The Exchange
Abnormal pain perception.
I tied my running shoes, my fingers swollen, the ends still
tingling from waking with them completely numb.
I can only manage my symptoms. There is no cure. No cure.
No. Cure. Slowly, I stood, my hips cracking loudly, the stiffness in
my body feeling like I had been ripped apart in the night, haphazardly being
thrown back together.
I can sleep for ten hours each night, but I feel like I
haven’t slept at all.
Dragging my gaze up, I look at my reflection. My skin is
translucent, the spattering of freckles over my nose just accentuating the
black circles under my eyes. My auburn hair frames my gaunt face, my T-shirt
and shorts breathable. This is my battle armor. This is another morning
fighting to do one of the most overwhelming tasks now in my life.
Physical exercise.
I frown, and say to my reflection, “Don’t let the fucking
fibromyalgia win.”
Fibromyalgia, the disease everyone is convinced is all in
your head, but has made me feel completely dead inside. If anyone took the time
to learn, they would know it stems from your nervous system, creating a
complete neurochemical imbalance, and pain signals are sent down to
devour you from the inside out. It’s debilitating. It’s real.
And has left me completely isolated within my life.
I took my rage and left my apartment, stepping into the
complete silence of the hallway, to make my way to the elevator and downstairs
before anyone else in the building was awake.
The predawn sky glowed. I watched the edge of the horizon
start to bleed into soft pinks, oranges, and purples that promised a brilliant
sunrise. In late August in Sarnia, Ontario, if you wanted to look for beach
glass, it was best to rise with the sun. Come midmorning, the beach was usually
speckled with families on vacation, locals enjoying the summer, or tourists.
Quite frankly, I wanted to avoid them all.
I walked down the street that connected to the public beach
parking lot while adjusting my backpack straps and listening to the tempo of my
footfalls on the sidewalk. Left, right, left, right. The
comfortably cool breeze teased ideas of autumn, but I knew we were in for
another couple months of plus thirty with high humidity days. Thankfully, at
six A.M. it was twenty degrees and the perfect temperature. I pulled back my
auburn hair and allowed myself a moment, sighing into the quiet. All while I
repeated my daily mantra in my head:
You are here, today, in this moment.
A year ago, I couldn’t walk more than ten minutes. Being
diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, and then later with fibromyalgia at
twenty-seven, I often thought it was like being dragged into the undertow with
no immediate way back to the surface while simultaneously being set on fire.
Going through months of denial, losing my friends who didn’t have the space to
understand invisible chronic illnesses, having to stop working at my
career . . . I literally had a funeral for my past life—it was
ripped away so suddenly, so irrevocably harsh. I think drowning while on fire
was a pretty accurate description of the sensations rampaging through my body
and within my life.
After finding a sliver of peace knowing there was no way
back to that life, to that version of Kinsley Matthews, I
started to climb the mountain. I had to find a way to coexist with the monster
that had decided to live with me. I had no choice other than to fight.
For me, the first step to climbing that mountain came in the
form of walking. It was methodical—the steadiness of it—and searching for beach
glass had at first been a challenge. I searched for those beautiful pieces of
glass as if they were a lifeline when my body screamed that I couldn’t do the
walk, that I had to give up, or else I would collapse or throw up. Next came
the pain, the sweeping kiss of it, the overwhelming consumption until I felt
delirious. It sunk its claws so firmly in me that the rest of the day would
pass in flickers. But each morning, I went a little farther, a little longer. I
relished the sweat and each gritting step because they meant I was alive, that
I was fighting. This tyrant of a disease wouldn’t take everything.
Three hundred sixty-five days later, I welcomed the
challenge rather than how I used to dread it. The flare reaction of my body
slowly started to ebb too, like I was chiseling out a form of myself,
cold-pressed and molded from my experiences, but still me.
Today, I crossed the empty parking lot that led to the
beach, popping my earbuds in. They connected to my phone, and I pressed shuffle
on my playlist.
Brad Arnold’s voice from 3 Doors Down flooded my senses. As
soon as my runners hit the sand and my calves ignited, I fell into a well of
blissful routine. This was predictable. Cathartic. This walk was my choice, in
my control, when most things about my body were not anymore. My pain rippled,
wanting to cascade down on me, but I roared back at it internally. Like hell
was it going to take this from me. The endlessness of the sky brushed Lake
Huron, the still turquoise waters resembling a mirror. The beach was empty, and
I made my way to the shore, eager to find the smooth edges of the green, white,
and blue beach glass hidden within the pale golden sands.
Mallory McCartney currently lives in Sarnia, Ontario with her husband, their dachshunds Link, and Leonard and their sphynx cats Luna, Legolas, Ivy and Lily. When she isn’t working on her next novel or reading, she can be found day dreaming about fantasy worlds or bingeing her favorite horror movies.
No comments:
Post a Comment