CHROMO Countdown: 26

Today is June 4th, and that means you only have 26 more days to pre-order the special edition of CHROMOPHOBIA. You can place your order HERE.

Today’s entry is the second story in the collection. We think it’s top-shelf Weird Horror, truly. And, it features… impossible cows.

“Stygian Blue”

by Jo Kaplan

First, Mr. Mapleton discovered one cow upside-down.

Not lying on its back, but occupying the same patch of space it would had it been standing up—floating with its hooves in the air and its ears nearly grazing the grass. Mr. Mapleton said he found it on the far end of the pasture, and it reversed direction after only a second or two, so that it once again stood upright.

How do we know that’s what he really saw? It’s possible his eyes were only playing tricks on him. He’d been drinking heavily of late and had just recently turned to hair of the dog to ease his hangovers. His drinking was starting to spill over from one day to the next, poisoning his wife and daughter by proxy.

But it wasn’t just the upside-down cow. The Mapletons claimed they found another cow split in half down the middle, its two parts separated by no fewer than fifteen feet. They saw cows presenting impossible abilities.

Cows that disappeared and reappeared. Cows that seemed to move backwards. Cows that briefly doubled before snapping together again.

They tried to convince their neighbors, but it was a hard sell.

Who would believe in interdimensional cows?

At least that was the theory Mrs. Mapleton favored. She trusted her intuition. On the other hand, Mr. Mapleton thought they’d been cursed or were being somehow haunted. Which is why Mrs. Mapleton grew fascinated by the cows while Mr. Mapleton grew ever more irate the more she talked about them. She didn’t care that no one believed them. She only wanted to be with the cows, examine them, understand them.

He only wanted to escape.

A kind of falling away is what happened. Not an argument. Mr. and Mrs. Mapleton simply turned away from each other.

None of them really knew what was happening.

Not until Anya went for a swim.

Such good stuff in this short story! Secure your hardcover copy of CHROMOPHOBIA HERE!

Thanks for reading, and thanks for the support!

In the meantime…