MicroHorror

Warburton fingered the grisly trophy McMillan set before him. Matted hair felt coarse under his touch, the skin leathery like cured beef.

“The Waitiki Balumbi Chief gave me that, in New Guinea,” McMillan said. “Taught me the secret of making shrunken heads. Quite a complex process.”

Warburton peered closer, a shiver of revulsion running through him. He stared at the thing’s lips, sewn together, eternally silenced. “Can you show me?”

McMillan noted the eagerness in Warburton’s eyes: the same cocky enthusiasm from their days at the Sacramento Snitch. Warburton had challenged him for his scoop on the Deliverance-style ambush of extraterrestrials lost in backwoods Tennessee. The flip of a coin. Heads, Warburton; tails, McMillan. Two out of three fell in Warburton’s favor.

“Of course.” McMillan smiled. “Thought you’d never ask.”

Task complete, McMillan admired his new prize through its glass case. He grinned at the morning newspaper, Warburton’s picture gazing incrimination back at him from the front page.

“Two heads are better than one,” he said with relish.

It was 1:00 in the afternoon and the officers had just left the home of a devastated mother. Her ten-year-old daughter had been missing for two days. The last place she was going was to the candy store. Lastly, she described her daughter as a fun-loving girl who loved chocolate and candy bracelets.

With temperatures soaring well over one hundred degrees, the familiar song of the ice cream truck made the officers smile with relief. The officers stopped the truck, saw a sign that said “New Flavors and Toppings Weekly,” and ordered bowls of the week’s newest flavor.

The men got in their car, said how great the chocolate ice cream with candy toppings was, and attended to finding clues to where the tasty (oh–I mean missing) girl could be.

“How were the auditions?” my wife asked when I finally dropped down beside her in bed.

“Horrendous,” I replied. “So many silly genre stereotypes–I laughed most of them off the set.”

“I vant to suck your blooood,” my wife teased.

“Exactly!” I chuckled, not really amused.

“No, really. I vant to suck your blooood,” she persisted.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I turned to face my wife–who wasn’t exactly my wife. There was something… “Ahhh!” I cried as she attacked my neck.

“You weren’t the only one holding auditions today, my sweet,” she murmured, right before I joined her in eternity.

The scene opens with a tracking shot of the girl stumbling along the street wrapped in a blanket and…

“Cut! What the hell is this crap? Who wrote this? Steve! Get over here! Steve, listen to me. This is garbage! What did I tell you all? Monsters, monsters and more monsters! And a blanket! TITS AND ASS TITS AND ASS! Get back to work! And ACTION!”

The scene opens with a close up of the terrified girl, her breasts spilling out of her low cut and torn top. Her shorts are filthy and torn and she’s walking along…

“Cut! WALKING? I want her running, bouncing, jumping! Damn it! ACTION!”

The girl is running along the street and from behind there is a horrifying growl as a mutant and deviant beast leaps off the rooftops. The girl screams! “Help! There’s a strange mutant-looking thingy in a rubber suit and I think he’s broken his leg?”

“CUT! What is this? What do mean he’s broken his leg? I can’t believe this! Doris! I need my pills! NOW! Okay, people. This just sucks! I’m a famous director. Why am I here? What did I do to deserve this? Will somebody shut him up! It’s just a broken bone! Amateurs, a bunch of freaking amateurs! Who’s the stunt backup? Where’s the backup? Time’s a-wasting here. Time is money! MY MONEY! Move it! And ACTION!”

“Help me! Somebody help me! A monster has crept behind me. He wants to eat me. And here I am, helpless and alone. My tight fitting clothes are falling off and showing my heaving breasts and my tight bottom. Help me!”

The mutant monster grabs the nearly naked girl and bites her. His poison goes to work quickly and renders his victim unconscious. The disgusting and slimy beast slings the girl over his shoulder as the camera zooms in on her dangling breasts and exposed cheeks. He lumbers off to his lair where he commits vile and unspeakable acts upon her pale flesh.

“Cut! That was great, people! Excellent! Take a break and we’ll reshoot from the top in ten. Go team! And bring that stunt man, the backup, I wanna talk to him.”

The crew scatters while a lackey goes to find the girl and the monster. What he finds horrifies him and he runs screaming back towards the set. Behind him looms the stunt monster, dripping with fresh blood and gnawing on a bone.

The monster roars! “I am Real and Embodied! I am hungry!”

“Great job! You’re fantastic and so realistic! Whatever I’m paying you, I’ll double it! All right! Break over! PLACES! And ACTION! Hey! Monster man, what are you doing? Hey! Stop that! Let go of me! STOP! HELP!”

The Director screams.

Fade to Black

Calvin was one of the good guys; at least that’s what the citizens of Rock Lake always said. He coached Little League, taught Sunday school, volunteered at the local animal shelter, and could be counted on 364 days a year to help any neighbor in need. His birthday was the exception, the one day of the year that he set aside for himself. This year was the big four-oh and he had something extra-special planned. While humming Happy birthday to me, Calvin fired up the chainsaw and then turned his attention to the whimpering Girl Scout tied to the chair.

He sat in his chair and waited. She said she would come and he did not doubt it. She’d come for his roommate earlier and had taken him. Away. He knew it was only a matter of time.

He fidgeted. He wasn’t scared; he just didn’t want to go. But he couldn’t tell her that. She wouldn’t have listened anyway—he’d seen her take plenty of others. Friends and acquaintances passed every so often. Most of them with smiles on their faces. He could never understand that. Where they were heading just wasn’t someplace he wanted to go.

You’ll see him again, she had said, laughing, when his roommate left. I know, he’d tried to respond. I know!

He soon heard footsteps; they were coming nearer. She was coming back like she said she would. For him.

“Time for supper, Mr. Grossman,” the aide called out, bubbly as ever. “Shall I take you to the dining room now?”

He grunted. What choice did he have? He’d had a stroke the previous year and couldn’t walk or talk. So the aide wheeled him down the corridor. He would see his roommate again as promised, at dinner. After all, she said she would come.

One of the toughest parts of Officer Tancredi’s job was getting normal people to believe the unnatural. It was a deeply-held belief that fathers loved their children, but that was not always the case. Tancredi needed years to understand the meanness of some souls, so he understood when others couldn’t believe it either–or more correctly, couldn’t let themselves believe it. Tancredi was assigned to investigate Callista Jones, age seven. Callista was coming to school with bruises. When asked, she said a ghost gave them to her. Tancredi knew what was really up when he visited Callista’s horrible house. The slovenly father drank during the day. His wife had bags under her eyes big enough to hold eggs. The place felt desperate with tension, like a bear trap. Tancredi had the father arraigned on child endangerment charges. Dad blamed a ghost, too, conveniently, and said it abused all of them. No one wanted to take responsibility. Callista’s bruises and black eyes continued, even though dad was separated. Damn shame: the mom was in on it, too. Tancredi arranged a restraining order for the mother as well. Normally, Callista would be thrown into foster care. But that would hurt Callista worse than her parents, Tancredi felt. Instead he arranged for an aunt and uncle to move into the house. This would give Callista the continuity of her old home in her life. Yet the bruises continued still, and Callista now refused to speak about it. She knows the ghost story isn’t playing, Tancredi thought. This poor little girl is abusing herself now just to keep her parents out of trouble. Scarred kids like this have a hard time trusting adults after their abusive parents. Tancredi would bend over backwards to help Callista, but not until she stopped lying to him about the ghosts.

The individual ingredients of the Tuesday special Chicken Murphy were the same as the distributor had always delivered. Chicken breast, assorted peppers, Italian sausage, angel hair pasta, and the same white wine sauce made at the Somerset Diner for the last decade. The man who put it together on that Tuesday, Maurice, had been a sous chef for going on ten years, and had made Chicken Murphy a dozen times before for the Somerset. The diners that Tuesday were even that same mix of table-for-one regulars, families out for a night, and late-shifters out for a 9:30 PM lunch hour. But when the first customer tucked in that night, he began praising its virtues as he shoveled the pasta down his mouth and ordered a second helping. Others heard him, and ordered it. With their first taste, a craving began in them, born of Maurice’s white wine sauce and sausage and peppers. Every customer ordered at least two servings of Chicken Murphy, if not three. Soon Maurice ran out of the prepped food: the night manager made him mix a new sauce and quickly dice up peppers. The voracious customers, full to bloated, continued to shove it down their throats from the plate, and from the floor where one order had spilled. Eaters began throwing up Chicken Murphy: that, too was consumed off the floor. Maurice resorted to coating turkey burgers in white wine sauce over elbow macaroni: no other suitable ingredients were left. Customers only left after they toured the kitchen for proof the Chicken Murphy was all gone. Most camped out in the parking lot, returning at 6 AM for breakfast, then waiting for the delivery truck to resupply chicken breasts and peppers. They returned for years, always striving to enjoy that wonderful meal again.

I press all the buzzers at once. Three people buzz me in at once. I stroll confidently down the first floor, close to the wall, my dextrous right hand giving each doorknob a quick twist. They’re all locked, and I jaunt up the stairs to the second floor. All locked, as I wear my what-floor-was-she-on-again face for those who see me. On the third floor I find an open door, but it’s deadbolted. On the fifth floor I turn, and it clicks, and I walk in like I own the place. Time for breakfast: you’ve got some eggs and bacon, which I fry up with your stale rye for toast. I rummage through your DVDs until I find a decent movie, and watch some special features. I look through your underwear drawer, and take a trophy. I linger in the wonderful bathroom, like an archaeologist, piecing together the fragments of your lifestyle based on medications, accessories, and hygiene. I use your toilet. I try out your bed: unmade, with your perfume still clinging to the sheets. Just to be an ass I lick some spoons and put them back unwashed. Lunch is take-out Chinese: I tell the delivery girl, who knows you but not me, that I’m your cousin. I leave you some leftover lo mein. After changing your alarm settings and unplugging your VCR, I hide in your closet for half an hour, hoping you come home. You don’t, and I get bored. So I leave, locking the door behind me. That night, you’ll wonder what sort of gremlin exists inside the dryer in the basement that eats only the left sock.

“Ghost in the graveyard!” Alicia called, pointing at Erin.

“Aww, man!” Erin cried breathlessly. “I didn’t think I was going to make it. Everyone back to base!”

“We’re already back! You’re just slow!” Brian yelled over the hedges. “Hell, I didn’t even go anywhere; I just hid on the other side of this bush while all of you stomped off.”

“That’s not fair!” Erin whined, “You’re supposed to go hide.”

“I was hiding. You didn’t see me, therefore I was hiding. Duh!” Brian was promptly punched in the arm.

“I’m not stupid!” Erin hit him again for good measure.

“All right, you two, get a room.” Matt said while wrapping his arms around Alicia, who giggled as he pressed his mouth against her neck.

“Look who’s talking, you horndogs! Let’s get this game going.” Alan was pacing back and forth with nervous energy.

“Aw, you’re just excited that Erin will be chasing you.” Matt said maliciously.

“Dude! What the hell?” Alan was not amused, having pined for Erin for the last semester but never quite having the courage to fess up to it. He looked at her nervously to see her reaction.

“And I might just catch you!” Erin said, digging her fingers into his ribs. Alan stifled a squeal as he convulsively pulled away but lent back into her.

“All right, all right, let’s get going, guys,” Brian said, jealousy rising in him. He tried to subdue a glare towards Alan.

“Okay, okay, I’ll start counting.” Erin leant over the gravestone designated as home base and began to count loudly.

As he started away, Alan glanced back at Erin and gazed at her shapely ass hoping he’d be fortunate enough to be closer to it later that night. As he turned and started for a mausoleum, he noticed Brian ducking behind the bush next to Erin. His own jealous twinge made him reconsider running so far but he snapped back to the game realizing she was already counting off eight. He let loose one last burst of speed heading straight for the mausoleum.

“Ghost in the graveyard, Alan!” Erin yelled, running after him.

With a horrible crunch, Alan stopped dead in his tracks having the wind knocked out of him and felt a terrible pain in his chest. He looked down to see his blood trickling down the iron fence he was now impaled upon. He couldn’t breathe and his vision was beginning to blur.

“Gotcha!” Erin said, pinching his butt.

Alan’s body convulsed at her touch but he couldn’t say a word. His mouth gaped like a fish, unable to draw breath, unable to find the strength to pull away from the spikes buried deep in his chest. Erin poked her head around his shoulder and screamed. Alan looked into her eyes pleadingly, then fell limp.

Alan saw himself hanging by the fence, his friends surrounding him. Matt sprinted off toward town. Erin and Alicia were in tears and Brian was peering at his chest from the other side of the fence now. He watched the ambulance arrive and the paramedics take his vitals, then shake their heads and eventually pull him from the fence with a sickening pop. He watched the police asking his friends questions and reprimanding them all for being out in a graveyard at night. Then he watched as Brian put his arm around Erin, trying to console her with an ever-so-subtle smirk on his face. He then saw Brian look back and forth around the graveyard to make sure no one was watching. Then Brian looked right at him as he drifted over the gravestones and mouthed the words “Ghost in the graveyard,” smiled, and then walked away.