MicroHorror

Up this way, they had told him, was a country pub with a decent stout. He needed stronger than that, after a day of trying to get any sort of sense out of the locals. A strong malt whiskey, by preference. The night was already blacker than ink as he stumbled his way down the road.

The soft sounds of a female voice drifted from the riverbank. His skin prickled. After a moment, he left the road, shiny black leather shoes slipping on the wet grass. He pushed his way through the undergrowth until he saw her, a pale brown-haired woman crying to herself at the water’s edge.

“Are you okay?” His voice was muted by the mist. She did not respond, dipping an old stained shirt in the water and wringing it out as her tears splashed down.

“Hey? You all right?” He felt silly; she was alone, in the dark, crying. Of course she wasn’t all right. He glanced at his watch, quarter to eleven. The pub would probably be closing soon. He cursed under his breath and stepped towards her.

“Listen, can I do anything?”

She turned towards his voice, long hair falling into her face.

“Ah, so it’s you?”

He looked at her, beautiful blue eyes framed by the dark strands of hair, typically Celtic and very beautiful. She shouldn’t be out here alone.

“Me what?”

“That I was sent to warn.”

Christ, she was some sort of nutter. Figured. If he didn’t get out of here soon, he was going to miss last orders, not that this god-forsaken pub would have any decent whiskey anyway. It would be a relief to get back to London where weirdoes like this at least got locked up for their own safety.

“I dunno what you are talking about; listen, want me to walk you back to the village?”

She seemed not to hear him. He felt a slight chill as her voice echoed softly against the trees.

“His hair was dark, his eyes were brown, his face was cold. He looked without seeing, thought without dreaming, touched without feeling, spoke without hearing.”

“Okay,” he interrupted. “I’ll leave you to it.” He backed up, taking one last look at her before turning and rushing back to the gravel of the road. Sod it, she wasn’t his problem. If he was quick he’d still get a drink.

She remained motionless while the brakes screeched, blinking as the dull sound of his body landing on the bonnet was followed by silence. She heard the car door slam, urgent voices and then finally a siren. She looked at the bloody shirt in her hands.

“Looked without seeing, walked without watching, died without living.”

The banshee drifted back to the water’s edge and hid herself in the rushes, at peace again until the next one came.

The screen blared as I sat and waited for my two quarter ounces of machine-killed, machine-pressed, machine-warmed beef. There were wars and rumors of wars. Floods and waves, fires and winds swallowing and gnawing on the timbers and foundations of lives. And I asked why should it be so?

A fly alighted on a red drop of something across the table. Through some facility of the oracle I can’t claim to understand I could see it clearly, alive and up close. It was every bit as monstrous to me as I would have been to it if it could see me beyond its bottle-cap hundred-eye blur. Black-bodied, hairy for grasping to things, but with wings like a clear poem and eyes like oil scum rainbows. But before it vomited all over the piddle of hypothetical tomatoes, corn syrup, and red #29; before it could pour acid and enzymes out the hole below its eyes to transform a little piece of my world into an external tendril of its stomach it paused. It put its little chitinous, hoary, black paws together to rub out a prayer before its meal.

What would a fly pray for? It would not plead its polite thank yous, its soul too small to dream of gratitude. It would not threaten us or think of its kin, some manner of insect jihad to replace and supplant us. No, the flies pray for paradise. A place of bounty. For heavy bellies to spew eggs and the maggots to grow fat and numerous and squirm in wriggling white tides as the setting sun. A land where all the holes and pipes reverse and spew excrement and blood. A world that will rot forever and ever amen.

If they don’t pray with our earnestness, then at least they pray more reliably. What they may lack in sentience they make up in numbers. My burger and fries were brought to me, and I gave thanks as up and down inside me all manner of gland and pore leaked all manner of fluid so I could eat. If this world was the middle path between their heaven and ours, then I should rejoice that we had it so good.

I am old; I’ve existed for so long I can’t even remember where it all started. I was here long before Father Time wrote the first words in his endless book. I taught Death how to send his first soul through the great loop. I raised Mother Earth from infancy into womanhood. When she bore her daughter Gaia I helped her plant the stream of life.

But I grow tired; it’s hard living so long. I hope that one day it might end. I’ll be ready long before that day reaches me. I’ll be around long after the one God goes away and all the others after him turn to story. I’ll see Father Time make his final entry and close his endless book. I’ll be the one to send Death through the great loop. My hands will lay Mother Earth and Gaia to rest in their precious soil. I often wonder who will lay my remains to rest after I’m gone because I am certain of only one thing. I am old.

The task is finished; your moist body is lolling beside mine. I’m satisfyingly filled with your effort. Having served your purpose, I now fill your indigo river of veins with venom. I observe your jolting, then slight trembling; your final movements before the paralysis cages you within yourself. I gorge myself on your succulent remains. Digesting on a moonless night, I anticipate the time when my womb will also become engorged.

It is a humid August morning and I can hear the discordance of the pealing wind chimes that hang outside our back door. The cicadas, roasting in the morning heat, add crackling hisses to the unconventional composition. I listen keenly as I slip my cool cotton socks over my bare feet. My white slippers are patiently waiting for me besides the door; I slip into them, slide the door open and descend the nearby staircase.

My mother is in the doorway at the back of the house, near the chimes. She has a slightly upturned mouth painted the color of a red camellia. Her shiny black hair is neatly combed, the long strands untangled and moving gently in the muggy breeze that is coming in from outside.

Mother smiles down at me with her unchanging mirthful expression. Her neck is at an angle, causing her beautiful head to hang off-kilter. Her empty black eyes do not blink. Her toes are slightly off of the ground, grotesquely joyful with their petal pink polish. The cord that she is strung on lets out a groan, barely perceptible over the song of the cicadas. As tears burn my eyes, the wind chimes play a disjointed dirge.

As a young girl, I would run through the winding streets of Gion with a sinister hannya mask over my face. I merrily slithered into the despotic role of the jealous female demon and chased my acquaintances with maniacal glee. The cicadas would hum in the midday heat as my sandals slapped against the ground in hasty pursuit of prey. When my revelry was over, I’d return my beloved mask into my mother’s lacquered cabinet. As a woman, I can no longer distance myself from the role with such ease. Although my countenance is that of a painted doll, envious rage has putrefied my innards. I stalk him through the shadowy alleys of Gion, illuminated only by the occasional paper lantern. I wonder if the dull clop of my wooden shoes reaches his ears. Fixation… my unattainable desire… at what point did I turn into the devil?

Kaleb ran under the hot sun. Already shedding his coat and tie, he was sweating.

Surrounding him was a huge city. Buildings after buildings. Streets after streets. Vehicles sat quietly, while corpses sat in the seats with their mouths ajar. The passengers had been burned alive from a holocaust that had scorched the city, as if an incinerator had roasted their living flesh that had once wrapped around their bones.

All of what was left here now was death.

Except, of course, Kaleb’s little hunters.

Off in the distance screams came, rising and falling.

Kaleb’s legs ached.

His back protested.

But he had to run to stay alive. Live to see if he could remember something. Anything.

That was another part of the terror: Where was he? How did he get here?

Something–or someone–had blocked out his memory of arriving here. He couldn’t remember a damn thing except walking down a sidewalk, through double glass doors, and saying “Good morning” to…

Who? Who did he speak to?

No memory came back, merely slipping down into the caverns of his skull where his brain’s fingers couldn’t reach.

Sprinting down another street held more vehicles with passengers. One in particular had two, plus the skeletal remains of a child still being cradled and held close to the breast. Both had their mouths ajar.

Kaleb’s lungs swelled, feeling as if they would burst out of his chest. His throat was raw. The run was wearing him out, but he knew that he had to press on if he wanted to find a way out of this place. A gutted body lying face down, two streets back, wearing the same business attire as Kaleb reminded him of that.

Out of nowhere, he was knocked down; his bones beneath his flesh felt the impact.

The attack came from only a child, but the fact that he wore a headdress and the skin of a dog over his naked body was terrifying. Unsettling.

Two holes, torn away above the snout where the dog’s eyes had originally sat, now held the child’s deep blues.

The child raised his head, screamed, and pointed.

Getting up, Kaleb tried to get away. But halted.

Another had appeared. This one was also draped in a dog skin, even with crusted blood on the fur.

That child raised his head and screamed; the skin on his throat contracted.

Within seconds, four had circled around Kaleb.

Suddenly one of the dog-children attacked, bringing him down on the pavement; while the others followed the lead and piled up on the prey. The stench of urine and feces rose to Kaleb’s nostrils, making his stomach churn.

His first attacker sat on top of him face to face, opened his mouth wide, and revealed razor-sharp fangs that grew from his gums.

Somehow Kaleb managed to push him off, fight off the others, as the outcome soon ended in death for his hunters.

Now, he was back up.

Almost escaping, almost getting away, he was trampled by a female dog-child that came out of nowhere. Even being knocked back down, he was able to rise back up and make a connection into the little jaw with his fist–feeling the snap of bone, just as the little hunter ran towards him.

Again, he was up and running.

And heard more screams.

Finally, he saw hope: a ladder that ran straight up into a hole cut out in the air.

But it held darkness inside.

That was all he could see.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

And he didn’t know where it would take him. But he knew that he couldn’t just stand here and decide whether to take the chance and climb up, or become a large feast for the dog-children.

So he quickly climbed up, and God only knew where it took him.

Red murder tonight. Red filled his eyes, thundered down his spine and through his veins, seemed to blast from his mouth every time he exhaled an overheated breath. Tonight, he knew it couldn’t wait anymore. A nervous tension tingled in his hands, a whirlpool of confused emotion brushed aside by excitement at his imminent satisfaction. Not his satisfaction–satisfaction for the deadly machine inside of him. He had been born with a purpose, and the generous Lord Almighty had blessed him with The Machine.

Red murder tonight. Everything smelled red. The Machine.

I remember that morning being the last time I felt good—like wholesome, straight A’s, washed-behind-the-ears good. I lay there for several minutes with my eyes closed—before the headache set in. I recall red glowing beneath my eyelids as the sun warmed their outer surface. I wish I’d taken a moment then to silently scorn all the teen mothers, the drug addicts, and the unemployed vagrants of the world for this was the last time I’d feel that my moral fiber was any greater than theirs. Oh, to have savored those final moments of self-righteousness!

A dull ache throbbed behind my eyes. My pupils contracted as the light seemed to scorch them. I’m sure I don’t need to go into detail for you to recall the sensation of a really bad hangover—for that is exactly what I felt lying prostrate in that strange bed in the middle of God knows where.

What’s weird is I had no premonition, no feeling of impending doom like I’d always heard people in situations such as mine would have. I guess I could consider the moment that I wiped the sleep from my eyes and felt the stickiness on my face as one of foreshadowing, but the headache that I mentioned discounted any chance of realization.

In fact, it took quite a long time to register that my forefinger was gliding across the puffy bags beneath my eyes. Gliding? I caught a whiff of the faintest coppery smell before I saw the cherry red which titivated my fingertips.

I ran to the mirror to discover a sight straight from the cover jacket of Carrie. Encrusted around my hairline was the same red goo that streaked my face where I had disturbed it only moments before lying in that sun-drenched bed.

I searched my memory for an explanation, but nothing came to the fore. Cocktails in a black satin dress, then nothing. Rien.

I studied the crimson crescents under my fingernails as I listened to sirens sounding in the distance.

“A curse I place upon your head, to last until the day you’re dead,” she rasped. “With each dollar that you take, a bite of flesh you will forsake, and for every dollar that you give another moment shall you live.”

“That’s great, ma’am,” Charles responded. “You have two days to vacate the premises, or I’ll have the police remove you.”

She slammed the door in his face. Charles Thorton grinned to himself; he was actually glad that the building caretaker hadn’t done the eviction. The old fortune teller had been a hoot. A week from now her shop would be part of his new Cineplex’s parking lot. Charles went home and slept the sleep of those without a conscience, which is to say well.

“Thanks for the new computer, boss,” his secretary said venomously, the word “boss” sounding like an insult. “It’s a great Secretary’s Day gift.”

He’d just walked into his office, and Jessica was already being entertaining. Her “gift” was an upgraded system he’d gotten free from a deal with the supplier, and they both knew it. She’d spend all week transferring files and installing programs to get it caught up with her old one, too. He was thinking of a clever retort when he felt a sharp pain in his hand.

“Uh, sir, you’re bleeding,” Jessica said, trying not to sound happy about it and failing miserably.

Charles ran to the bathroom to check his wound. He washed the small but deep puncture on his hand, and then looked up at the mirror. Whatever Charles possessed that passed for a heart, it stopped.

Perched on his shoulder was a creature that, except for having scales instead of feathers, appeared to be a vulture. It had slouching shoulders, a long neck, and a sharp, hooked beak beneath sharp, yellow eyes. A mop of greasy hair hung around its head in strings, like a wig of rotten seaweed. A gold collar on the apparition’s throat was connected by a chain to another collar around his own neck. Charles shut his eyes, hoping it was just a hallucination. It wasn’t. That trick had never worked with his ex-wife either.

“What is this?” he whispered.

“This is the demon what’s chained to yer fool neck, do I need to draw ye a wee map?” Its voice was like a raven that had eaten something that didn’t agree with it.

“B–b–but… I d–don’t… w–w–why?” Charles fumbled, his childhood stuttering problem making an unwelcome return.

“Old hag glued me to a right prize, she did.” The thing sneered. “The curse, ye stone-wit sack o’ owl vomit! The curse binds us! If ye become wretchedly good an’ generous ye get me lifespan added t’ yer own. If ye don’… Well, by the look o’ yer midsection I’ll be needing t’ diet ‘fore I can fly again. Ol’ hag can claim she bettered the world whichever way it goes.”

“Y–you’re going to e–eat me if I d–don’t change my ways,” Charles whimpered.

“No, I’m goin’ t’ show ye what Christmas was like when ye were wee. Of course I’m eatin’ ye, ye thunderin’ halfwit. It’s all here in the contract the ol’ hag tricked me inta.”

“Contract, you say?” Charles replied, feeling altogether himself again.

The old fortune teller stumbled through the jumble of boxes which contained her life. She knew who to expect at the door. They always wanted to bargain.

“Come back to plead already, have you? Couldn’t even wait for a respectable hour of the morning to beg an old woman’s forgiveness?”

“No,” Charles Thorton replied cheerfully. “The curse is all taken care of. I happen to know the best contract lawyers in the field. I actually came here to introduce you to my new business partner.” A man with slumped shoulders and a beak-like nose stepped out of the shadows. His overly greasy hair was combed neatly and he wore a fine suit. The model executive.

“He’d love to have a chat with you,” Charles grinned.