MicroHorror

It took him a while to find you. His cops hunted for motive, evidence, all the things the D.A. talked about during Wilson’s trial.

He showed you grainy black and white photos. Blood-drenched walls, mutilated bodies; you kept your legs crossed to hide your excitement. He paced in front of the jury, talking about method, alibis, everything you needed to know. You saw how the D.A. got Wilson.

The cops traced the pictures you took. So what? It was sweet!

There’s still your trial. The D.A. will show more police photos. He’ll even show yours, the color pictures. He really doesn’t get it.

One of the guys on the jury will avoid your mistakes.

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The gray room was small, as in a bathroom, small, with no windows and only one door. I was crowded in there with my knees pulled up to my chest in the straight-backed chair. It wasn’t totally uncomfortable, and yet, miserably so. I watched the technologically-advanced-for-clarity television tuned to the killing station. Today it was killing Irish. Didn’t matter anymore who was being done in, the faces all melded together after a while. I was Irish too, so what?

It was weird how the broadcasters knew if you watched their shows long enough, the urge to kill would come. They say it’s different for a girl, but I can’t quite believe it. I know the feel of warm blood flowing through my fingers will be sweet. The feel of a human heart in my hand, impossibly powerful.

I’d have no trouble killing. I knocked on the door to be released.

A small peephole appeared, and surprised, I looked through it. From afar I could see a man approaching. He had longish gray hair and gray eyebrows, almost white. He had a hatchet and it was not news to me that I was going to be his next victim. Only I wouldn’t let him kill me. It wasn’t me who was to die. That was the whole purpose of the killing channel wasn’t it? To teach me how to kill?

Or was it? Was it to teach me to be numb so I could understand how to die?

The man finally arrived outside and he listened by putting his ear to the door. I stepped all the way back as far as I could until my back was against the far wall. It sounded as if he was sniffing the air. What was he smelling for? Fear? Urine?

I felt the tension grow as he waited and I waited. Then the pounding began, and I jumped. His voice boomed through the wood, vibrating me to my core.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

The television flickered to life and I took my eyes off the door.

Life is like that. One slip, and you’re a goner.

She was dreaming. She had to be.

Something was inside her head, trying to get out. She could feel it scratching and pawing inside her brain. Somehow, she knew it had been there for years, incubating. And now it wanted out.

Two evil little claws broke through her skull and ripped her head open like tissue paper. A foul-smelling imp, black as night save for two emerald green eyes, climbed out of her head and took its first breath. Moonlight fought its way into the bedroom through closed curtains, and the creature sucked it in, making the room darker merely by its presence.

The tiny demon turned to her nightstand and picked up the lamp, ripping the cord out of the wall. All she could do was turn her head and watch as it stepped over her chest and lifted the lamp above its puckish head. Without hesitation it raised the lamp high in the air and brought it down on her sleeping husband’s face. Again and again it raised the lamp and smashed it back down, until bone and skin, cartilage and tissue, were nothing but a damp pulpy mess.

The gremlin dropped the bloody lamp and turned back to her. She hadn’t so much as screamed. Its eyes locked with hers and she stared into its ancient, eternal soul. Then it opened its mouth wide like a snake, needle teeth glistening in the moonlight, and swallowed her.

She woke with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed. Sweat poured down her face and soaked her faded nightgown. She sank back on her elbows, heart pumping wildly, and an icy chill spread through her body when her left elbow touched something wet and sticky.

Large iridescent tails flashed amid the swell of an incoming wave. I counted five, then spotted a sixth. Vibrant-hued scales–purple, orange and red–dazzling in the sunlight, darkened to a blur as they streaked beneath the aquamarine surface of the Pacific toward shore like a homing torpedo.

I blew a shrill warning-whistle first, then used the bullhorn to call all swimmers to shore.

As people fled screaming, these ghastly fish fed. Possessing human torsos, arms and heads they emerged from the sea, hunted on the beach. Their shark-like teeth shredded flesh, crushed bone.

Sated, they retreated into the surf, dragging away a solitary corpse.

Cowering inside the lifeguard shack, peering out, I counted twenty-two patches of ruby red sand.

Commotion in the garden beyond the dining room window caused Marshall to look up from his breakfast. When he did, the skinny, male photographer with spiked black hair froze. The youth’s eyes widened with shock and horror.

Their gazes locked.

Marshall quaked with rage. Damn them!

His good eye twitched and the fire-melted flesh along the right side of his ruined face began to itch. He stretched a stiff finger on his clawed good hand toward the window, certain the paparazzi weasel had snapped his photo. A phrase of mumbled Latin escaped his lips.

Marshall’s wrath flowed outward.

Outside, the youth dropped his camera. He flinched and screamed. His exposed flesh blistered, blackened and split. Charred completely, he exploded as ash.

Beth was never close to her grandmother, who lived alone in a house out in the woods. When she died, Beth moved into the house for a week to clean it up for possible buyers. There were cans of Alpo in the cabinets, and two bowls marked “SKIPPY” on the back stoop. Beth filled one with wet food and another with water, and in the morning they were empty. Feeding a dog was easy compared to sorting through twenty years’ worth of neglected bills and correspondences. Somewhere in here was a will, which was nothing more than a formality. Beth’s mom Wendy–stuck on the West Coast–would inherit it all, and probably have to pay back taxes. Grandma’s habit of putting copious notes on sticky notes that had lost their stickiness didn’t help. Most of the notes were reminders to herself to go into town and buy more food for Skippy. There wasn’t a single vet bill for Skippy, so he was probably rabid out there. The poor old woman had a few saltines for herself to eat, but a year’s supply of dog food. One day Beth brought the can outside, but forgot to open it. The next day she gave Skippy two cans, to make up for it. Beth eventually figured out Grandma’s organizational system, and tracked down the long-lost will. It said that she had no real assets but the house, and that the house should be sold. The proceeds would go exclusively to Wendy, Beth, or whoever was willing to take on the responsibility of Skip, her other child. Skippy was special, the will said, and liked the outdoors.

One two help four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve please help fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twenty-one twenty-two they’re taking the threes twenty-four twenty-five twenty-six twenty-seven twenty-eight twenty-nine look around you look at how few threes there are anymore it’s not numerology it’s not a coincidence it’s not advanced influence the numbers we use were not created by us they are living things they exert more power over us than most of us can begin to fathom the threes are going underground we are not advanced enough to understand why but the world will crumble if we try to replace it with another character and it will crumble if we move to base nine and there isn’t a third choice there won’t be a third anything anymore forty forty-one forty-two you’ve been warned forty-four forty-five

Troy worked as an Assistant Afterlife Coordinator. His boss, Terry Peters, was the Afterlife Coordinator to Charles Babbage, who died in 1871. Troy filled in paperwork and set up meetings with manufacturing executives. At night he took coursework with two mediums and a channeler. As an assistant, he had never been allowed to talk to Charles Babbage, and had not once been asked to share an idea. Troy wanted to make a real difference, one that he couldn’t do typing triplicate copies of the Quarterly Ectoplasm Usage reports. He was all set to be promoted to Babbage’s Afterlife Coordinator when Terry left to coordinate a more modern soul, like Alan Turing or Frank Gilbreth. But Terry Peters made a lateral move in the afterlife communication world: he died. Troy was promoted to Afterlife Coordinator, all right, but he coordinated for Terry, not Babbage. Terry Peters was a worse boss dead than alive. He wanted his papers spread everywhere, since he had no corporeal form to flip through them. He wanted a hundred phone calls, where Troy acted as an auditory surrogate. And he expected Troy to maintain the dawn-to-dusk dedication of one not bound by mortal demands. Troy asked for a transfer, but Terry refused it. Troy tried to quit, but Terry gave him a company car, and more money. This was Troy’s life. One night, he drank too much coming home from an 18-hour day, and crashed his car. The next day, he started as the Afterlife Liaison, a special position newly made. It was essentially the same job, except 24 hours, 7 days a week. He reported to Terry Peters.

“Mr. Guttierez? Mr. Guttierez? Over here, please. Mr. Guttierez, my name is James Harmon, I’m with the State Department of Corrections. I have good news for you. Your sentence has been overturned. I can… Mr. Guttierez, please, try to focus, I have a lot of these to deal with today. Your death sentence by lethal injection has been overturned by the State Supreme Court. The death sentence is now unconstitutional in this state. Under the ipso facto precedent of last year, it is also retroactive. You have been chemically resuscitated. Congratulations. Now, that’s the good news. There is some other news. First, this is not a waiving of responsibility. You are still responsible to serve out your time for the state, and that has been reduced to a life sentence. Also, there is a good chance the Supreme Court will overturn this ruling, and you would have to be put to death again. Mr. Guttierez, over here, please. It’s all written down for you in this document. Please sign here that you’ve received it. Now, the chef has prepared a special first meal for you. Sausage and peppers frittata and bacon and toast. I believe that was your last meal as well. Don’t eat too fast: you probably won’t be able to keep much down for a few days.”

Miss Prissy, as everyone in the whole town had called her for seventy years now, was a great spirit during the Depression years. All day she cleaned and dressed for Mister Philip at the butcher store. “I have butchered my share of animals but I have never put one to death,” she said with pride. “They come to me deceased.” Then, after Mister Philip fell asleep in the evening with his Gazette and brandy, she served anyone who was hungry from their back porch. Sharecroppers, farmers, unemployed. She even served the coloreds, yes she did. Those without a place could stay in her barn, which stopped the wind but not the cold. “Food’s food, and men’s men,” she said. A few times vagrants robbed her of her plates, this nice lady who couldn’t hurt a fly, and once her kitchen was raided. But Miss Prissy didn’t stop her generosity, and kept the town’s downtrodden in their original belt notches. Even during the freeze of ‘34 she had warm bowls of hearty stew always at the ready. When she died in ‘39, the police found nine skeletons in the basement. They weren’t decomposed. They were butchered. Frostbite on their hands and feet showed they all froze to death, probably in the barn. “Men’s men,” she had always said, “and food’s food.”