MicroHorror

Crashing waves to the right of me, thunder to the left, in front of me lie only earthquakes but behind me only… death.

Throughout all this turmoil and pain, I seem to find only one thing that keeps me sane: the one thing that’s keeping me sane is the pestilence and turmoil and pain. So I turn around and await my fate which is my only salvation.

I fought to return, one step at a time, from the ancient vaults that coil around London‘s dark heart. Sword and flame have taken dozens of my tentacled adversaries, creatures whose masters howl in the darkness between Space and Time.

The mill-owning Satanist and Member of Parliament, Joseph Slater, retained me to procure a volume of arcane writing buried with the court magician John Dee.

Through converse with the Rat People, I located the internment in the deepest vault.
It was the work of seconds to tumble the fungus-crusted coffin from its webbed alcove, to shatter on the flagstones. My head reeled; the Elizabethan was not in the repository.

Sense prevailed; I was cheered to find the volume among the splinters. Black and heavy, with a strangely smooth leather binding. I traced the knife-carved title, N-E-C-R-O-N-O-M-I-C-O-N, and shivered. I wrapped it in silk lining torn from the coffin. Only the thought of Slater’s fee kept me from bolting.

The corpse-pale monstrosities lay ambush, attempting to seize me in their ichorous tentacles. Hours of blood later and here I am, at the exit. Blocking it is the tall form of bearded John Dee. His eyes shine like red coals.

My hand refuses to grip the sword and the torch flame is growing smaller, as if starved of air. I have one hope. I will set fire to the book, let it drop into the vaults. He will need speed to save it.

Halloween was the busiest time of the year.

“Three… two… one… We have lift-off!”

Victor watched behind the two-inch-thick glass as the shuttle roared into space, trailing a river of white smoke. He sipped his coffee. This was the third launch of the day. Two hundred passengers per trip, excluding the pilots.

Busy, busy, busy.

Someone cleared his throat, and Victor turned around. It was Andy.

“Any news?”

“Our guys from Houston called. They need a full shuttle ASAP.”

“Any problems?”

“None. Everyone’s itching to get off the port.”

“Get to it, then.”

Andy nodded and left, and Victor returned to his coffee.

Only a select group of people could see ghosts, usually ghost hunters, sensitives, and mediums; the vast majority didn’t even believe in their existence.

If only they knew where ghosts really came from.

Victor looked on as more specters boarded the next shuttle.

Busy, busy, busy.

I arrive too late to save the idiot in the suit, who, cowering underneath a cement bench, is attacked by the throng and ripped to shreds. I however yank his screaming girlfriend out of harm’s way with one hand and, with the other, start blasting at the ones coming after us. We turn a corner. Another corner. Jump over a decaying, legless zombie, unable to get at us, but still gnawing at the air. I kick open a door, close it behind us, and we’re momentarily safe.

We sit down across from each other and I notice she’s a pretty blonde and, by the looks of her fancy suit, likely well educated. Though she’s also probably pretty dumb, if you know what I mean. She tries to catch her breath as I rip into her. “You executive types,” I say, her breasts heaving up and down, up and down. “All smart with numbers and investments, but not much brains when it comes to zombies. In case you haven’t heard, Wall Street is on lockdown.”

“I know,” she says.

“Those days are over, honey.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

I then take pity on her, tell her it’ll be fine. But I speak too soon as, behind her, from the other room, one with half a face looms over her. I reach out, grab her hand, pull her toward me. Simultaneously, I cock the shotgun, let the sick ghoul have it. The other half of its face flies off in a shower of gore.

She’s on top of me now, trembling, her fingers digging tightly into my arm. I try to push her off, but she clings tighter. “All right, all right,” I relent. Through a small crack in the wall, I can see that night is dawning on New York. “We’ll stay here tonight.”

“Thank you so much, she says, over and over. Her bosom nestles closer.

Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah. The sound of a siren, or worse, goes off. I wake up, disoriented.

“You idiot,” I hear. “You fell asleep on the couch again.” I look up, see her, my stinking wife, and her big ass, shuffling around the kitchen. The blonde is gone. Shit. “So, do you think you might try to get to work on time today?”

I look down in my hand. The shotgun’s also no longer there, replaced by the game controller. Damn, I think, if only. “Yeah, yeah,” I respond begrudgingly.

I get up, go into the bathroom and start the shower thinking of all those repulsive men in suits I work for, the ones without a clue; and of being locked in that cold, dank computer room all day. “The horror, the horror,” I mumble to myself as I pick up the soap…

After setting my partner straight about the money, I drove a few states over, holed up in a cheap motel.

Saturday, I ventured out with a bottle to sit by the pool, where she was sunning herself.

Got another one, she asked–and I threw her a cigarette.

She said her name was Gilda.

Johnny, I said.

She said she was 20. She said she was from Tennessee. She said she was a singer but for now worked at a steakhouse. She said she was bored.

I gave her a sip and she said she liked my eyes.

I said there was a brochure in the lobby for an alligator farm; that I’d like to see that; that she could come.

Sure, she said.

At the farm, I told her how these things’ve been around for millions of years; how they’re killing machines. I pointed to a long, mean-looking one and said if there was no gate there, and it was hungry, it would eat her right now–and no amount of conversation would change that.

Wow that’s scary, she said, as we walked back on the path through some woods.

They don’t care if you’re human; if you have brothers or sisters; kids to take care of; nothing.

Oh, Johnny, she said. She said lots of things.

You know, I said, I’m just like that alligator there.

She looked at me, giggled, and said, oh–no you’re not Johnny.

Are you calling me a liar?

No, Johnny.

’Cause I don’t lie.

I didn’t say…

And nobody calls me that.

It would have been better if she begged, though I guess when I grabbed her by the neck, it finally got her to shut up long enough to realize that, like I said, I’m no liar. Eventually she stopped squirming and kicking.

See, I said, as I dragged her by the arm up the path, deposited her behind a tree…

You know the old song by Roy Orbison, right? “In dreams I walk with you, in dreams I talk with you, in dreams you’re mine?” Well, sometimes dreams are all we have, all we can cling to.

About a year and a half ago, I found myself utterly confused about my life, most specifically my love life. Here I was with the absolute dream man, the perfect guy, the one who really did make my hopes come to fruition, and I’m pushing him away. I’m making it impossible for him to love me, and I can’t figure out why. The doctors gave me this pill and that pill, said keep taking them and everything will be fine, but… I just stopped feeling human.

I keep taking the pills, each day, gradually taking more and more in the hopes of feeling again, of being loved and loving this wonderful man, but the more pills I took the less I wanted anyone near me. I ran away almost every weekend, because I was convinced that he knew I was de-evolving and that eventually, I’d just stop being at all. But I always came back to him, because I hoped against hope that he would help me feel again. Anything, I’d take any feeling at that point. I couldn’t explain it to him, how I felt, because I was afraid he’d hate me. Everything I did, the pills told me he’d hate me. I wondered if maybe I was this way regardless of the pills, so I stopped taking them around the time he had had enough of me. So now I can’t even tell him I’m human again. Thus, I retreat to my dreams, where he’s always mine. Where I can always hold him, kiss his beautiful face, and where he believes my declarations of love. The orderlies talk to me every day, the nurses beg me to come back, my family cries and cries, but it’s not enough.

Everyone is waiting for me to wake up, but I won’t. Not until my dreams come true.

The Cliché Thief grinned at me with tobacco-stained teeth as his hunchback assistant pinned my arms behind my back

“Ah,” he said, “yet another prize for my collection.”

“I am no cliché,” I shouted.

“Oh, but you will be,” he informed me. “I can turn anyone–or anything–into a cliché. Take him to the cells, Ygor.”

And I was marched down a long, winding corridor littered with clichés: a detective in a trench coat and hat; a burned-out drunk who became a hero and saved his town; a woman who was going to wake up and find that she had dreamt the whole thing…

Then I was flung into a cell. There was but one way out: a loose grille leading to an air vent.

“Damnation!” I cursed, “I’ll have to escape by a blasted cliché!”

And so, piling a stack of metaphors against the wall, I climbed up to the grille and started loosening the bolts.

The rats cast shadows in my dreams. At night they come out to play. I hear their voices in the dark and I listen. In the morning they are gone. They are creatures of nightmare who shun the daylight

They are secret, swift and deadly. They scurry across the floor searching for prey. Their tails stir trails in the dust and the floor is patterned with paws. Last night they left a dead cat by the gate. They are always hungry and they are growing sleek and fat.

I put out sacrifices to appease them – scraps from the larder, morsels of cheese and slivers of ham. My mother is angry–she knows I steal the food. I tell her sometimes I wake in the night and I get hungry. She brings me milk in a glass at bedtime and tells me, “sleep well.” I look at her and her face blurs like a stranger and I wonder if she is one of them. She kisses me and says goodnight.

I close my eyes and the rats skitter across my eyelids. I cry out but the fear rises in me and all that comes out is a thin despairing squeak. I cough like I am choking up fur–spitting out bones. I wonder if I open my eyes and look in the mirror–whose face will I see?

My whiskers twitch and suddenly I feel very small.

It seemed silly, but for as long as Jeff could remember, he had been afraid of the dark. He had many dreams of the “light eaters,” little gremlins that would latch onto light bulbs and suck the light out of the room, getting dimmer and dimmer until the blackness engulfed him, allowing the bigger, nastier creatures to move towards him in the darkness.

He told himself that it was just a dream, yet every night, since he was a child, he knew his only protection was to run into bed and pull the covers over his head. Every child knew that… covers over the head were protection from any monster.

As Jeff got ready for bed that evening, he felt that something was amiss. He was more jittery than normal as he brushed his teeth in the bathroom. He thought he saw a small movement out of the corner of his eye, then, as the fear started to permeate his being, the lights started to dim. Jeff spun around and saw what he had feared: a small creature, latched onto the light bulb on the ceiling of the bathroom, its small head turned towards Jeff and smiling with a toothy grin.

As the horror of realization started to sink into Jeff, he made his way toward the bathroom door, grasping at the doorknob in almost a blind panic. Deep down, he knew that if he made it to his bed, and pulled the covers up over his head, whatever was waiting for the darkness to engulf him wouldn’t be able to reach him.

With terror welling up in his throat, Jeff ran down the hallway towards the bedroom; all the lights in the small apartment were getting dimmer now, and were down to the glow of flickering candles as Jeff rounded the corner to his bedroom.

Jeff stopped in his tracks, as the last thing he saw before total darkness enveloped him was his bed linens disappearing underneath the bed towards a pair of large, glowing green eyes.

I walk into the room, look around. No one is there. Just me. So I wait. My mind wonders, and yet I wait. I hear voices, but when I look around, no one is there. I have to wonder at that time is it my conscience speaking to me? I hear complete silence.