The Morbs
PART I: LUST AT FIRST SIGHT
Sometimes, just a look can tell you everything you need to know.
I remember it happening in slow motion. The way the warm yellow light caught his eyes and twinkled in each pupil. My attention drifted to his gray hoodie and the bulge in his matching baggy sweats. He couldn’t be much more than 21, if that. I’d never seen him at the bars or clubs before, so, all evidence suggested this beautiful stranger was new to the scene.
It was early October 2007. We didn’t have smartphone apps to find and identify each other. We had to do it the old-fashioned way, prancing about the usual gay hangs and trying to make a lust connection with a few subtle mannerisms and gestures. You could do that at Queen’s Grocery on 9th Avenue, but that was risky; back then, you had just as much chance of attracting a gay basher as you did your future ex-boyfriend.
Down the street from Queen’s was the gay café, Dazzler, and next door to it was an independent video store called ReAction Video. There, you could find everything from queer coming-of-age films to mainstream blockbusters on VHS and occasionally on DVD. And then, there was the porn. That’s where I was when I caught my beautiful stranger’s eye. I suddenly went flush with embarrassment. I’d seen him select the new House of Wax remake while he caught me scanning the latest offering of straight soldiers-gone-gay.
“Oh—I heard that was good!” I exclaimed, hoping the stranger wouldn’t notice the “Adults Only” sign that labeled my aisle. I truthfully hadn’t heard anything good about the movie. But icon Paris Hilton, heartthrob Chad Michael Murray, and crazy, bloody horror slasher fun—How could it not be good?
The stranger weaved past paper cutout Halloween decorations and approached me with a welcoming smile. “Me too,” he responded. “Yours doesn’t look so bad, either.”
I blushed, smiled, and noticed a shirtless Brazilian stud on the DVD in my hand. “Oh, this—I was just … looking.”
“Same,” he said with a flirtatious smirk. And that was it. We were off to the drag races.
Danny was his name. He was only 19, and, as I suspected, he was new to our growing queer community. Danny had moved to Denver from Kansas to be with an older man he’d met online earlier in the year, but things hadn’t worked out, so they’d been turbulent roommates at best ever since.
I also introduced myself, Mikey, as a 21-year-old who was college-bound in the spring but lived with his parents on Capitol Hill in the meantime. When we learned we didn’t live too far away from each other, we resolved to walk home together. Danny was quick to rent House of Wax, and then we departed into the night.
The conversation was brief, but we covered a lot of bases, including things to do in Denver, our favorite places to waste time, and which bars were likely to serve him without an ID. As it often did when flirting with a stranger, one thing led to another, and our discussion heated up. Before we knew it, we discussed positions, fetishes, curiosities, and more. I won’t go into detail, but the cover art for House of Wax inspired parts of the list. Don’t look that up. Just … don’t.
Alas, two young, horny guys looking for a place to hook up in the middle of the night while neither had an ideal living situation is a tale as old as time itself, so we brainstormed scenarios with our other heads.
PART II: GRASS STAINS
As we entered Cheesman Park from the west, Danny suggested we detour under the blanket of trees. Though I was no prude and could think of a dozen less conspicuous places where I’d traveled to pound town, I was hesitant to just flop it out at Cheesman Park. Not that others hadn’t done it before; not only did all of my friends have at least one Cheesman hookup story, but men of the night could be spotted on a park bench if you showed up at just the right time. Still, I don’t know. With my awareness of Cheesman Park’s history, the whole idea just seemed … disrespectful.
Danny, the newbie, hadn’t heard much about the place, so I thought it only appropriate to fill him in while strolling through it on a spooky October night.
“This used to be a cemetery, but not all the bodies were recovered and moved before becoming a park,” I explained.
“No shit? That sounds like a horror movie.”
“It inspired a few for sure. But it’s said there are still three thousand bodies—complete and partial—still remaining. And not just this park, but the surrounding areas, too. The Botanical Gardens, some mansions—and where we’re walking this very second.” Danny’s eyes bulged and surveyed our path. Then he looked at me, incredulous, for any hint I may be pulling his leg in any way. But there was no such tell because I wasn’t making it up. The former cemetery beneath our feet surrounded Denverites in all directions, and many, like Danny, were none the wiser.
As I spoke, the temperature seemed to drop. Goosebumps raised beneath my windbreaker, and I could hear a slight tremble in my voice. It shouldn’t be this cold for another week or so, but then again, this was Denver.
This new information compelled Danny. “We should do a ghost hunt! I’d love to run a blacklight through this place.”
“You’ll find a lot of DNA with a blacklight here, but it won’t be from corpses …”
Danny laughed, then steered the conversation back to us leaving our own DNA all over the park.
“I don’t think we should talk about this anymore,” I mused aloud. “I don’t really believe in supernatural stuff, but I’ve heard that if you get the attention of the dead, the dead are quick to repay it.”
I thought I’d had the last word on the matter, but Danny was very persuasive; he caught me off guard, spun me behind a large tree, and gave my mouth something to do other than recite scary stories. We locked lips for only a few minutes, but it was enough to throw any hesitance I felt out the window. A moment later, a jogger breezed past us, so we stifled our desires and carried on through the park.
Soon, we spotted an area behind a dumpster that looked promising, albeit disgusting, and decided against it when a filthy man under a blanket grumbled something to us about cigarettes among discarded medical needles.
Danny and I found a quiet spot near a park bench, but just as we approached it, a cop car rolled by. My heart raced at the thought of having to explain to my upstanding Christian parents that I got caught with my pants down with a stranger while strolling through a haunted park, so I intended to ask Danny for a rain check instead.
I started to plead my case, but before I could even get the phrase “rain check” out of my mouth, Danny’s tongue tunneled its way inside, and in the blink of a drag queen’s eyelash, I’d forgotten all about my inhibitions. Wondering what other talents that tongue might have made my boxer briefs tighter, and a second later, we were rolling around on the grass and exploring each other’s clothed bodies like an aggressive TSA agent who woke up mad at the world.
Danny pulled my hair. I nibbled on his earlobe. At that moment, we were animals, squeezing and grinding each other without restraint. I don’t know what got into me, but my emotions spiked significantly. He lifted my shirt, and I lifted his. My jeans were yanked down, followed by his sweats, and then—I stopped.
“What is it?” Danny asked, catching the puzzled look on my face.
“I thought I saw something. Like, watching us,” I warned.
Danny’s head popped up and scanned the area. “I don’t see anyone. You’re probably just spooked from all the ghost stories.”
“I dunno,” I argued. “I saw people in the shadows, behind those trees.” As I pointed, I caught another silhouette in my peripheral—this one by the dumpster. “There! Did you see it?”
We looked in every direction, but we didn’t see a soul. Aside from the whooshing of constant Colfax traffic in the distance and the cold breeze occasionally rippling through Danny’s thin plastic video store bag, the park was eerily silent.
“The only thing big enough to cast a shadow that big in this park is waiting for you to give it some attention,” Danny whispered with a smirk. He gyrated his hips so I could see something stiff flopping around beneath his boxers, in case I hadn’t caught his innuendo. When I failed to object, Danny pushed me back to the grass and continued his seduction.
Things were about to escalate beyond the PG-13 threshold when they got a little too rough for my taste. Fingers yanked my hair to the ground so hard I thought strands of my Auburn mop may have been missing. “Oww!” I yelped.
“Sorry—I didn’t—” Danny began, only to be cut short by a pained groan of his own. His hand quickly shot from my nip to the small of his back. “Shit, dude. I think you drew blood!”
I gasped when Danny raised his shirt and twisted around to see the bloody scratches on his back. “I didn’t do that!”
Danny pierced me with his steel gray eyes, which told me he was likely no longer in the mood for this impromptu public dong-swap, but just as his lips parted to speak —
CRUNCH. CRUNCH. CRUNCH.
There was no question this time. Someone or something was watching us.
Danny and I sat up for a better look. And there it was, emerging from the shadows and into the cloudy moonlight in front of us: a soggy gray rabbit hopped across damp leaves to spy his half-naked visitors.
I redressed quickly, as I’d had enough close calls for the night. If I tried my luck any further, that reluctant phone call to my parents from the nearest precinct would be inevitable. Danny had a different reaction; he laughed hysterically. I don’t know if it was his unnecessary fear or mine that he found so amusing, but I wasn’t hanging around to find out. I stood up, pulled up my jeans, tightened my belt, and turned around to book it across the park.
“Wait—Don’t go,” Danny protested.
I made it about a yard away before I heard Danny trip over the sweats around his ankles and faceplant behind me. I rolled my eyes and continued on at a brisk pace until he called out.
“Mikey?” There was something weird about his voice. It quivered now, and not just from the cold. It wasn’t the confident, borderline cocky cadence his voice had carried thus far. This was fear.
I spun around to see Danny sprawled out on the rigid muddy ground, limbs extended like an ‘80’s fitness guru demonstrating some sort of stationary jumping jack. His head tilted up to see me, but even that was a strain for Danny. From where I stood, it looked like he’d succumbed under the weight of multiple unseen interlopers despite his best efforts to escape.
“Mikey … Help! I can’t move!” Danny exhaled through chattering teeth.
I took a step toward my paralyzed paramour, but another CRUNCH echoed nearby. Our new rabbit friend had met the same misfortune as Danny, only his fate (thus far) was much worse. The bunny’s tiny little limbs began to pop and crack beneath the weight of his unseen attackers. It squeaked in misery as its bones were ripped asunder and dragged beneath the dirt. The rest of the poor furry little bastard’s body was quick to follow.
Danny screamed for his life. Whatever unseen forces stalked us had dug out a man-sized hole in the ground from the inside out. Danny was dragged into it by centuries-old skeletons, and invisible fingers clawed at the dirt to bury him alive. I wanted to help him, but I froze—not from the specters, but due to my own fear and disbelief of all that transpired.
Adrenaline finally kicked in and pushed me a step closer to Danny’s fresh grave, but I was not exempt from this ambush; I felt invisible hands tugging at my shoes and shoelaces, so I jumped back instinctively and raced away as fast as my toned, tanned, well-groomed legs could carry me. It didn’t take long till our attackers revealed themselves. As finger bones poked through the earth all along my path, I realized they were not the intruders after all. We were.
Everything blazed by in a blur, but I still noticed that none of the partial hands attempting to snare me were alike. Three fingers were here, another finger there—and all different sizes, ages, and levels of decay. Voices emerged with each bony puncture, traveling up from the ground and through my spine. I felt like I’d been surrounded by a world of disembodied foes.
“DON’T LEAVE US!”
“WHERE BE MY ARM?”
“YOU DON’T BELONG HERE!”
“MEATER!”
Streetlights flickered and faded like a dying flashlight purging its last sparks of life. I ran north, or maybe south—It was so dark I couldn’t determine which way was which—and the howling wind pushed me back every time I’d chosen a definitive path. I could no longer see the pavilions in the distance, and no cop car, derelict, or jogger would come to my rescue now. Enveloped in darkness, I started to doubt I was even still in the park.
My eyes started to adjust to the dim moonlight, but what they revealed to me offered no comfort. I could see people in the distance watching me—and I use the term “people” loosely. They looked human in shape but wore old-timey clothes. Their faces were pools of nothing, but the direction of their hats and wide Victorian dresses confirmed that all eyes were on me. Even more unnerving than the strange supernatural perimeter forming around me was that their feet didn’t touch the ground. They hung just inches above the grass and hovered in my direction as though to see what I would do next.
And then, a cry.
What I saw next haunts me to this day, and it still appears in my most terrible nightmares. The torso of a disembodied boy crawled toward me, bawling in pain. I couldn’t discern his age, as the flesh on his face had mostly decomposed, exposing layers of tissue and teeth. His jaw clamped shut, scraping the teeth he’d just grown in and presenting the ones that would never emerge positioned above them. In retrospect, it saddens me to know that the lamenting child will never find peace.
I hurdled fingers, bones, corpses, and shadows like I was on the track team from hell until the moonlight illuminated a park bench ahead. I felt the slightest relief as the sidewalk took form with every inch I got closer. My legs cramped, and my lungs burned in the cold, but I bounded forward until I reached the street. As soon as I cleared the curb, I went limp and rolled to a stop on the icy pavement’s double yellow lines. After I caught my breath, I dragged myself up and spun around toward the city. I didn’t bother to glance back at the park. Instead, I launched myself eastbound, homeward bound, and found my second wind along the way.
Despite my escape from Cheesman Park, I didn’t feel any safer. The cold wind still battered me, but not just through my skin—through my very soul. It felt like I was centered in a sniper’s crosshairs, and he, or she, or they, were just waiting for a clear shot to finish the job. The hair stood firm on the back of my neck, and my other senses heightened. My footsteps had echoed off of the frost during my race for survival, but they became doubled somehow. They came from behind me.
I realized I was far from alone.
I saw nothing behind me and nothing ahead. But something caught my eye from one of the neighboring mansions. Silhouettes leered from windows, from the rooftops, and some from
the lifeless yards themselves. I cried out, concealed my head with trembling arms, and eventually reached my front door.
I was relieved when I entered home and saw my dad sitting on the couch, watching a late night sci-fi movie. I put on a brave face like it was just another day in the gayborhood, but I could see it in his eyes—Dad saw my flush, sweaty face and quivering lip and must’ve known something was wrong. Noting the concern in his eyes, I lied, telling him I’d gone for a run, was tired, and was going straight to bed. He didn’t question it, and I was careful to snatch my mother’s bible from the bookshelf without him noticing.
That night, I buried myself in my blankets and prayed every prayer I could find. I even made up prayers for good measure. I wasn’t religious by any means—and I’m still not—but I like to believe someone heard my prayers because, somehow, I survived the night.
PART III: PAST DUE
I saw some “missing persons” flyers for one Daniel “Danny” Abbot over the next few months. The police didn’t take it very seriously. The “gay scene” was such a cesspool for drugs and back-alley sex back then that a queer party boy transplant taking off in the middle of the night and disappearing for a few months was to be expected every once in a while. But it wasn’t a few months. To date, it’s been 17 years, and no one here even remembers Danny.
I went off to college in California the following spring and only came back to visit family during the holidays. My age has almost doubled since my date with Danny, but not in my nightmares. There, I’m still 21, and Danny follows me wherever I go.
“Wait, don’t go,” he whispers. It’s probably the guilt I feel for leaving him. Or is it? Needless to say, it was hard for me to hook up with anybody for a few years. Not impossible,
obviously—I’m still a horny gay man—but it was difficult nonetheless. When you watch a hookup savagely dragged to hell, or the spirit realm, or—wherever he went—PTSD is bound to be part of the fallout.
Last fall, I visited my family for Thanksgiving weekend. Rather than take up space at home, I opted to stay with my friend Darius in his Cap Hill apartment. Darius is the life of the party, and I never get much sleep around him, but regardless, he wanted to pick up some groceries to make me a grand carb-loaded breakfast fit for a princess the next day. He said he’d make the works: eggs, bacon, avocado toast, and big, fluffy, golden chocolate chip pancakes. This is classic Darius. He’s a top, obviously, but I was on vacation, so who was I to protest such a feast?
As we pranced out to his Volkswagen, I had a sudden urge to take a walk, so I suggested it. Darius thought it was an odd request for such a frosty night, but he is always up for an adventure, so he retrieved his reusable grocery bags and his most flamboyant scarf from his apartment, and we set out on an adventure toward Queen’s Grocery. I’m sure it sounds like I was looking for trouble of the supernatural variety, but I assure you I was not. It was more that I needed to know if I was crazy, or if I had somehow misinterpreted details from the night I met Danny. I spent years trying to convince myself I was drugged, or that it had been a trick of the light or a prank—anything I could imagine but reality.
Darius and I walked along the park but didn’t enter. I hoped that seeing a quiet, serene Cheesman, sans shadow people, ghosts, goblins, and creepy crawlies, would put my mind at ease. The neighborhood had changed significantly since I left. The cute gay café had been renamed a few times over the years, and the video store went the way of the male romper. In fact, the whole country was a different place since that fateful night. Gay marriage legalized, finally. A community where we were more comfortable being our true selves. We use the front door when entering gay establishments–and straight ones, too! And Gen Z—don’t even get me started on Gen Z—but they’re going to change the world. We’ve made progress, and it’s all around us. As for my night with Darius, I got my wish; the trip was uneventful, and things were as “normal” as could be. Without incident, Darius and I snatched up our thicc gurl treats at Queen’s and sauntered back toward home base. But, as we walked along the park, I felt that unnerving chill again. Something drew my attention
to an area behind a park bench like a magnet or perhaps like a bloodhound. But it wasn’t anything I saw or smelled that drew me closer. It was an instinct.
“What’s up?” Darius asked.
“I need to check something …” My voice drifted off as I gravitated into the park without even realizing it. I crept around the bench and saw something nearly forgotten protruding from the ground. As I closed in, just yards from the anomaly, I recognized it—a relic of decades past. It wasn’t a coffin, nor fingers of forgotten folks. It wasn’t even a used condom, though there was never a shortage of those around the park. No. It was a video cassette tape, still in its case. House of Wax, to be specific.
As quickly as I entered the park, I backpedaled and got out just as quickly. I could see my breath in the chilly November air, but I knew the equinox had nothing to do with it. What I’d seen nearly 20 years ago was real. The only thing that could have chilled me to the bone more than reality would be calculating the late charge House of Wax would’ve accumulated over the years had ReAction Video not gone the way of … well … all video stores.
My eyes watered from the fear but froze in their sockets almost instantly. I shivered beneath two layers of sweaters and one layer of sensitive goosebumps. My lips parted to speak, but no words made it to the surface. And they didn’t need to. Darius saw it in my reaction. He didn’t need to ask or say a thing. My eyes said it all.
Sometimes, just a look can tell you everything you need to know.
My eyes watered from the fear but froze in their sockets almost instantly. I shivered beneath two layers of sweaters and one layer of sensitive goosebumps. My lips parted to speak, but no words made it to the surface. Instead, the only sound I heard was the crunch of leaves behind me. It was Darius.
“Is that … a video tape?” Darius asked, creeping toward it with a cheesy grin. “Of all the things to find in this park … ”
“No!” I screamed.
That image of Danny, being helplessly dragged into the earth by the dead, filled my mind. And, before I’d even realized it, my hand clenched around Darius’ with the intensity of a Swiftie in mid-Tweet. Darius stopped and let his eyes drift down to see my fingers trembling around his. Our eyes locked. We stared at one another in a stunned silence; I was every bit as surprised about this revelation as he was.
“Just trust me,” I warned, “it’s not worth it.”
Darius shrugged in confusion, then nodded.
We jogged out of the park and headed back toward his apartment. A few yards later, we heard light footsteps trailing behind us.
“Wait—don’t go,” we heard.
Darius glanced back, but I didn’t. Didn’t have to.
“That’s weird,” he started.
“Ignore it. Just keep walking.”
Darius eyed me suspiciously, but he didn’t bother to question me. My eyes said it all. He likely saw the pure terror in my sleepless eyes and knew it was a whole thing.
Sometimes, just a look can tell you everything you need to know.
Jai Wilde’s THE MORBS is a runner up for OFM’s Suspect Press Takeover issue. For more queer fiction, click here.
