MicroHorror

How long have we been on this goddamned plane!? I can’t even remember when the Captain said we left the terminal! I swear if this kid behind me doesn’t stop screaming I’m going to… UGH! He’s kicking my seat again! I should say something to his parents. They obviously don’t give a crap. Maybe his father would care if I slammed my foot in his face! And I can’t tell who’s worse, sitting here stuffed between a yeti and a yuppie. Mister smelly, hairy wrestler keeps shoving his elbow in my gut trying to get his big melon low enough to look out the window. Then I have Biff the day trader yammering on his Motorola about his new Porsche even though the hostess asked us to turn off all cell phones and electronics. OH GREAT! Now the brat behind me is watching another freakin’ Barney DVD at full volume and Biff has just kicked it up a notch to show who’s got the bigger brass balls. My arms have fallen asleep because both of these jerk-offs are hogging the armrests in their assault on my sanity. I’d completely freak out but that guy in front of me has been giving me the evil eye since I sat down. He’s projecting the “don’t worry, I’m not an Air Marshal, make your move” vibe and imagining all the ways he’d like to punish me for bumping his seat even though it’s because Biff and the yeti keep knocking into it and I’m just trying to sit here and not lose my cool. I’ve had to use the bathroom since I got on this damned thing and I’m trapped. MAN! What is this fucking Sasquatch looking at out there!? There’s nothing to see! Wait… seriously, there’s nothing out there. Is that fog? It’s just perfectly white out the window. I don’t even see the wing. And now Porsche boy is talking even louder! How does a human voice get that loud!? It’s starting to hurt my ears and my headache is getting worse. Now Captain Howdy is telling us it’ll be another hour before we can taxi out to the runway and wait some more! GOD when will this end!? We still have a… actually I have no idea how long this flight is supposed to be. I think I have a connecting flight out of Boston or something I’ll most likely miss. I can’t even remember where the hell I’m going. Am I going to my parents’ in Florida or am I on a business trip? Will Biff please shut the fuck up!? I’m going to shove that cell phone up his ass in a minute. My iPod is dead, I lost my book, and I’ve read this stupid Airline magazine ten times already. I wish they would at least bring us some water. OOOFFF! “Hey, watch it!” Stupid Sasquatch guy just leers at me and keeps looking out the window at the nothing which is freaking me out pretty badly right now. Now that brat is KICKING MY SEAT AGAIN! And those sing song rhymes are driving me crazy! And Mister Air Marshal is glaring at me again because Biff kicked his seat while crossing his legs and kicked me in the knee to boot! My back is killing me, I just need to stretch or something. Where the hell are we!? How long have we been on this goddamned plane!?

He longed for a good night’s sleep. Not even a night, really. Four hours. Four unbroken hours where he could close his eyes, rest his tired body and let his brain shut down for a bit. He didn’t think it was a lot to ask. He also knew it was impossible.

He started to think back to when he would rest all night and wake up refreshed… When was that? Three years ago? Jeez, it was almost four! Could it be? The days and nights all ran into one another now, one endless blur of working all day, finding food, preparing it… And the cleaning. The endless cleaning. It seemed to him at times that there were bodily fluids everywhere. It seemed to him that no sooner did he clean up after one “accident,” there were more. Always more. And then, inevitably, he would fall asleep. Sometimes in the middle of things, sometimes when there was still work to do. Rarely did he ever plan on going to bed anymore; he just fell asleep wherever he was.

And then there were the noises at night that would wake him. Footsteps. Screaming and wailing. The moans. There were nights he thought he would go mad.

Two years after it all started he went to see his priest.

He told them the twins would settle down in a few years.

Eric’s gone. I can’t stop my hands from shaking, and my heart feels like it’s on fire.

I’ve locked myself in my quarters with the last rations of food I could find. I doubt I’ll need them. Whatever’s out there, the door won’t hold. Four inches of steel. Might as well be made of paper.

Eric. I saw him dragged away. He was screaming.

And I ran. Like a coward. Turned and ran. Didn’t even try to help him.

I can still hear him screaming. My heart is pounding. Maybe I’ll have a heart attack. Anything’s better than what’s coming.

Emma awoke bathed in sweat. She’d had the dream again where the man with the misshapen face and stealthy, lopsided gait was advancing on her, preparing for the kill. She sat up in bed and ran shaking fingers through her sweat-soaked hair. She could no longer bear the idea of staying in the house. She climbed out of bed and shivered. The room was freezing. Why had she been sweating?

She swallowed back tears as she took one last look at Jack’s pillow. How was it possible that her precious husband had mysteriously disappeared while running a simple errand? And yet that’s exactly what had happened, a mere three weeks ago. The house felt empty as she descended the stairs, mopping sweat from her face with the arm of her nightgown. As she crossed the kitchen threshold, an eerie feeling came over her. She felt as though someone was watching her, someone with sinister intent. She didn’t like it at all.

Grabbing her car keys, she headed out, dressed in only her nightgown and slippers. She navigated the darkened roads, slowing down as she passed the town lake, and staring at the mist that rose romantically from its surface. There were some who claimed this lake was haunted, but she herself didn’t believe it. In fact, she would prove it to herself right now, by taking a stroll around the path that surrounded the water and bordered the neighboring forest.

A shiver coursed through her as she exited her car. It was colder outside than she’d thought. Her nightgown provided little protection against the harsh wind, in spite of which icy sweat trickled down her forehead and into her eyes. Feeling self-conscious, as though someone was still watching her, she peered into the darkened forest, and then across the lake, although she could barely see anything through the thick mist. There was no reason to be afraid, she told herself as she followed the path around the lake. The ground was frozen and she almost fell several times. And then she heard it, the sound of someone calling her name.

“Emma. Emmaaaaaa…”

She froze, unsure of what to do. She forced herself to take a deep breath, and comforted herself with the following words: “I didn’t just hear that. It’s impossible.”

She smiled then, and even laughed, until she heard her name again:

“Emma. Emmaaaaaa…”

Once again, she froze. Now she heard the unmistakable sound of leaves shuffling in the forest, followed by the snapping of twigs. As she stared, a man emerged through the leafless, overhanging branches of dead trees. Terrified, she found herself unable to move as he advanced upon her in his awkward, lopsided gait. He stood before her now, the stench of rot wafting from his clothes, a malicious gleam shining in his eyes.

And now the sweat began in earnest, flowing from every pore of her skin. She screamed as the man tilted his head back and emitted a laugh so hideous that Emma felt herself being electrified by the chills that ran through her spine. She looked down at his claw-like hands, caked in what could only have been dried blood.

“No.” She screamed. “Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo…”

She couldn’t tell whether he’d pushed her or she’d fallen of her own accord, but the end result was the same. The mist over the lake parted and as she sank within its icy depths as one more mystery the town would never solve. This lake would never reveal its secrets, she knew. Jack was waving to her beneath the water’s surface and she made her way toward him, relieved to be free of her earthly existence.

Colm was soaked through and his satchel was heavy, otherwise he’d never have taken the shortcut his mother had warned him against–through the fairy field.

He entered the field through a hole in the hedge. It was a big wide field and he reasoned that if he stayed right in the middle on the trodden path, he’d have time to run away from anyone suspect. Anyway, he could see the housing estate through the hedge and he was twelve years old now. It wasn’t as if he was a little kid.

The rain continued steadily and a thick fog filled the space between the hedges on three sides and the tree line. Colm ploughed on. He should reach the gap at the diagonal any minute now. The road home always seemed longer in evil weather. But this was not just evil weather. He couldn’t find the exit. He walked up and down the length of the hedge. Still he couldn’t find it. He patrolled the entire field boundary. There was no sign of the way he’d come in, either. As he walked, a green light grew in the middle of the field, glowing golden at the centre, and expanded towards him.

Colm found himself sitting by a fountain in the shopping mall. It was full of shiny coins that people had thrown in. Why did people just throw away money like that? He rubbed his face with his hands and felt a hint of stubble.

“Are you all right there, Colm?” asked the security guard.

“Aye, only where am I?”

“You’re in the Braid Centre. Are you okay?”

“And who are you?”

“Come on now, Colm, sure you see me every day. Michael. Michael Duffy. We were in the same class all through school.”

Colm looked at the tall man in front of him, who bore little resemblance to his old school friend. “No, you’re not,” he said.

“Well, I was this morning. Maybe you’d better get yourself away on home, Colm. And dry out.”

Colm followed the exit signs to a door. He could see the trees of the park. This was the wrong exit. He went back in the opposite direction and found another door. Stepping out, he found himself enveloped in a green mist.

“Father. Father Colm?”

“What the devil…?”

“Father, we’ve been looking for you all over,” said Cecelia Rea.

“Is it me you’re talkin’ to?” asked Colm, looking around for another addressee.

“Surely you haven’t forgot? You promised you’d give the St. Patrick’s Day blessing to the people carrying the pot of shamrock to the top of the mountain for charity. They’re waiting for you to go with them, so they are.”

Colm looked at his hands. They were the hands of a middle-aged man, not a twelve-year-old boy. He covered his face with them and a vague memory stirred of sitting in a shopping mall by a fountain, of trying to find his way out of a field, and of a thick green mist swallowing him up.

He looked at Cecelia.

“How long has this church been here?” he asked.

“Why, Father, ever since they pulled down the old shopping mall–twenty years at least. Before that it was just a field, I’m told.”

“Just a field–aye,” he said ironically. “And I’ve been here all that time?”

“Yes, Father, ever since I was a wee’un.”

A shopping mall, then a church, it made sense–two perfectly sound commercial ventures.

“Maybe it’s time to move on, then,” he said.

They wouldn’t abduct a priest, would they? He said a prayer and crossed himself just to be sure.

Outside the main door, it was a bright St. Patrick’s Day morning. He could see the houses and the trees in the park. Colm breathed the clear air in deeply. Maybe later on he’d pay a visit home.

There were three of them following me now. I never saw them all at once, but I knew there had been two before, and this new one was bigger, but scrawnier, than either of them. Hell, there could be ten of them by now. The way they moved silently between the sparse bits of cover in the gloom, I was never entirely sure that they were still there at all. That was probably more because of delirious optimism than anything, though.

I stumbled over a rock in the darkness and jolted my injured leg, and a few more drops of blood spattered to the ground. I kept thinking if I could avoid doing that for long enough, they’d get bored and leave. More delirious optimism. I’d been walking since early afternoon, and so far I don’t think I’d gone more than ten minutes without spilling at least a few drops of blood. And that was before it got dark. I cursed.

I cursed my luck at having slid in that patch of soft sand at the top of the ridge. I cursed the jumping cactus I’d landed on at the bottom. I cursed the damned coyotes following me. Mostly though, I cursed my own stupidity for going mountain biking alone in such a remote location. It was a cold comfort that the cactus that had so grievously punctured and lacerated my leg had probably saved me from more debilitating injuries. It had given me the chance to be dinner and a show for the coyotes.

My vision swam and I stopped for several seconds until the dizziness and nausea passed. The exhaustion and blood loss were getting to me. I probably had dehydration and a touch of septic shock, as well. If I sat down to rest I probably wouldn’t be able get up again. Plus, the coyotes would take it as an invitation.

Sudden dizziness overtook me, and I collapsed. For the first time, I could hear their pawsteps. Either they were much closer than they’d been before, or they weren’t sneaking anymore. Crazily, I wished a cougar would come to finish me; it would be nicer to be eaten by something that would have at least had the balls to jump me while I was still standing.

I managed to roll onto my back, and stared up at the sky. The night sky was beautifully clear, a crescent moon shining among thousands of stars. I remembered the majesty that I had come out here to see in the first place. Then I closed my eyes, and resolutely tried to become unconscious before they started.

“You know those old zombie movies? Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, that kind of stuff? Most of them were actually allegories about consumerism and bourgeois sensibilities. The zombies were supposed to represent the mindless greed of Middle America.”

“Seriously? I thought they were just supposed to be B-movie crap for a cheap thrill.”

“Well, some of them were. Plenty of people started making crappy zombie flicks when they saw that they could make a quick buck off of them. Most of those were just about violence, gore, and spraying gallons of blood everywhere. The ones that people remembered ten years later all had some sort of deeper message though. It’s ironic, really.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, everyone always pointed to the ‘deeper meaning’ when it came to zombie films and claimed that it was the messages about consumerism, classism and greed that really defined the walking undead. When it came right down to it, though, real-world zombies turned out to be completely about violence, gore, and spraying gallons of blood everywhere.”

Jason hated these trips to the country. Even with a bonus and a percentage of what he sold the trips were taking their toll. He had been invited to dinner that night. Alicia. 35, tall, raven-haired and full lips. How could he pass all that up? And yet he was going to have to. If, by some freak chance, he did make it back home in time he was too damned tired to be in any mood for love.

He hit the steering wheel with one hand then turned the stereo up with the other.

As he neared the outer limits of the city, the sun had just set. The horizon was a dwindling glow of pale orange and the first stars were twinkling, almost hidden in the sun’s final rays. He turned his headlights on, illuminating the “Black Spot” sign–indicating a particularly dangerous part of the road. He paid it no mind and maintained a speed that was a full fifteen kilometres over the limit.

Suddenly a voice screamed in his head “Mine!” and the steering wheel was spun with a force so powerful that it sent the car spinning across the four-lane highway. Jason grabbed the wheel and with white knuckles and a pounding heart he managed to steer the car back from the edge of the road. Fighting the urge to slam his foot on the brake he eased the pedal down instead and finally the car came to a stop. His shirt was saturated and his forehead was dripping sweat, despite the fact that it was a late autumn evening. He felt giddy and was having difficulty getting his breath back, but after a few minutes of huffing and puffing he finally felt ready to continue on his way.

“Mine!” he heard a man’s voice shout and again the steering wheel was snatched from his grip, though as the car had barely had time to start moving Jason quickly regained control.

His hands wrapped themselves like vices around the outer rim of the wheel. His foot went hard and then light on the accelerator; he couldn’t decide whether he should get the hell out of there or take things easy.

Then he noticed the willowy, cloudy figures beginning to appear at the side of the road.

“Mine!” screamed a female voice inside his head.

“Mine!” shouted a man’s voice.

The steering wheel was being wrestled from him, but he refused to relinquish his grip on it. He refused to let whatever it was these things were get the better of him and send him crashing into a tree.

“Mine!” boomed a deep voice as the steering wheel was again given a sharp tug.

The car swerved into the oncoming lane. Jason held his breath as his eyes scanned the highway ahead. For a moment he imagined that he saw a set of headlights and he gritted his teeth waiting for the impact, but the lights were ghostly figures, tearing towards him through the growing darkness.

“Mine! Mine! Mine!”

The voices screamed and clamoured inside his head. He wanted to press his temples, press the voices out, but his hands were kept busy on the wheel.

A woman’s pale face appeared at the windscreen and as she opened her mouth to scream the flesh fell from her skull and was sucked into the night by the g-force of the car.

“Mine!” she shrieked, and then Jason felt the sharp sting of a palm across his face.

He screamed as his car veered off the road and crashed headlong into a giant eucalyptus tree. The force of the impact sent him flying through the shattered glass of the windscreen. He heard the snap of his neck, some other-worldly laughter and a brief spray of stars exploded in front of his eyes before darkness consumed him completely.

“Mine!” laughed the spirit as she ventured back to the side of the road to claim her next trophy.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, the stumpy demon looked like a child, or would have if the severed head hadn’t been in his lap.

Tucker licked his lips as he approached. He was thirsty; God was he thirsty.

“Why do you come?” the demon asked him, smiling as it caressed the hair of the severed head as if it were a kitten.

Tucker shook his head. He didn’t know why he had opened the door, why he had passed through into hell. He had just wanted to… “I just wanted to see.” His words echoed off the walls of the dark room. Tucker looked around. What walls? What room? No, it wasn’t an echo but a mocking reiteration of things lurking beyond his sight.

“See what?” The demon’s voice sounded harsh and cruel. It tossed the head over its shoulder, and for a moment, Tucker caught a glimpse of something monstrous jumping forward to catch the head in its giant mouth before it vanished back to the darkness.

“I wanted to see what awaited me.”

The demon laughed and sounded like a pre-puberty boy. “I fear you performed the wrong ceremony then. This is not the world of the afterlife. This is the world of the ending life.”

“I don’t…” Tucker shook his head and abandoned the question.

“It’s simple,” the demon said. “Souls don’t come here after they die. They come here to die. Easy as that.”

“Then this isn’t hell.”

“Hell,” the demon licked its lips, “is whatever you dread.” Again, the demon licked its lips. “This is hell to some.” He was thirsty. “The other worlds could be hell to others.” God he was thirsty. “But you will never see them. This is where all journeys end.”

Tucker looked around. He could see the masses now that surrounded him. It was a wall of flesh. Eyes and mouths of every size opened and closed. Hands were reaching for him. Were his eyes adjusting, or were they getting closer? He opened his mouth to speak but could not. His throat had been slashed. A moment later, he felt his head being ripped off. There was no pain, not like he imagined, just a horrible sound and a pulling feeling.

He was turned to face his headless corpse as the savage mouths pulled at it tearing it like a pack of dogs. Giant tongues lapped up the blood as it hit the ground. Tucker watched this, still wanting to cry out, still wanting to speak, but the air to do so was in his lungs, and his lungs were already consumed.

“There, there,” the demon said. “The worst part is already over.” He felt a hand patting his hair. “Now it is just a matter of waiting for the next one to come along.” The demon turned Tucker’s head to face him. They met eye to eye. “I just hope the next one isn’t so God-damn thirsty.”

Crimson droplets of blood pooled on the edge of his nose and slowly dripped into the palm of his cupped hand. The sight of his own blood had always intrigued him, made him realize that he was in fact mortal, a man and not a machine or a reflection. He tilted his head back and the blood trickled down his throat. The taste of blood always reminded him of a medium rare steak, which in turn reminded him of his father’s barbecue.

He turned and looked at the three girls staring at him. He must have looked the part, the monster of destruction. He stumbled to his feet and held his palm out so that they could see it. The tallest of them began to cry. He had been fooled by tears before. The first to cry was often the most desperate to live, the most dangerous. She would have to be first. He licked the blood off his hand. “You’ll have to do better than that!” He bent over and picked up the book he had been hit with. He flipped it open. “It is said that any book, when opened to a random page, will tell you everything you need to know at that moment.” He looked at the page and read aloud. “Add a tablespoon of chutney, and place the salmon in the oven.” He closed the book and casually tossed it over his shoulder. “Sounds like it is telling me to cook your little asses and eat you.”

The tall girl ran at him and kicked at his testicles. He closed his knees in time to block the impact. He grabbed the little bitch by the hair and spun her around until he held her back tight against his chest. He held her sweaty cheeks with his fingers. The other girls began to beg him to let her go. He masterfully shot his arm out straight in front of him. It was all in the wrist. The girl’s neck snapped and her body went limp in his arms. He laid her down with great care. These were beautiful young girls. He wanted them preserved as best as possible. The other girls were now beyond the screaming stage. He pulled the scissors from his back pocket and raised them to his lips. He kissed each blade softly. This is where things got messy.