MicroHorror

I hired the man just before leaving for Florida. He was recommended by a friend. I had my reservations when he pulled up in a Ford F150 pickup, right taillight missing, windshield cracked and badly in need of a wash. However, my friend had said he was the best so I invited him in.

We toured the greenhouse, discussed his knowledge of exotic plants and went over his fees.

He assured me of his qualifications but I felt I was missing something. I handed him the greenhouse key and the pass-card to the front gate anyway, letting my doubts dissipate like the cloud of carbon dioxide from his muffler as it left my drive. I had a plane to catch and business to conclude.

Standing in the greenhouse this morning, I wished I’d been more thorough. I knew there was trouble when I saw the F150 parked in the rear of the drive. The greenhouse door was open and several pots were broken on the floor. His Oakland Raiders cap lay near a coil of bloated, grayish pink roots, their texture that of hairless, newborn rats. One shredded knee-high rubber boot lay just beyond it. There would be some explaining to do. I wonder if my friend knows a good cleaner. Good help is so hard to find.

Brad walked carefully upon the old dock, his feet clumping against the wood. He liked coming to the dock. It gave him peace to gaze out over the water. Brad usually ate his lunch with his feet dangling off the edge while listening to the gulls squawking above. He peered over the edge expecting to see the same rotten pilings emerging from the blue water. Instead, Brad saw a human body floating in the water.

It took him a few moments to register what he was seeing. It was a male body floating face down with a huge white spike sticking out of his back. Curious, Brad got down on his hands and knees to take a closer look.

As he bent down the water began to churn and swirl around the body. Suddenly a huge mouth from a sea serpent burst from the water and bit Brad in his abdomen, pulling him into the water.

Now Brad was used as the bait.

“Of course I feel fine,” Rick Jerith moaned as the doctor poked and prodded his body for the umpteenth time in the last two days. His irritation from feeling like a lab rat was beginning to show through every word he spoke. “I really don’t see any need for this, Doc.”

Doctor Maisan, a small, soft-spoken man in his early sixties, continued with his examination. His fascination with his patient’s unique and thoroughly unprecedented situation drove his tireless efforts to unlock what had actually happened two days earlier.

“I’m going to require a urine sample,” Doctor Maisan stated in a sterile tone. “And perhaps another blood sample as well.” He glanced up at his increasingly annoyed patient. “If that’s all right with you, Mr. Jerith.”

Rick glared at the doctor. “Fine,” he grumbled through clenched teeth. “Whatever. Just make it quick.”

Doctor Maisan could hardly contain his excitement. His good fortune of being the one and only doctor in the tiny, isolated town of Newsbury, Michigan was almost too good to be true. Of all the towns, in all the counties, he, Dr. Coleman A. Maisan, practiced in the one place where a young man actually rose from his casket during his funeral and announced he was not dead after all. He himself had pronounced the man dead after examining him thoroughly and now here was the same man sitting in his office claiming that he felt perfectly normal.

“How many more tests do you have to do?” Rick asked. He was starting to get hungry and wanted nothing more than to head back to his little disorganized house and lose himself in various television channels. “I know what happened to me was really weird, but I feel fine. In fact, I feel great.” He flexed his large arms to emphasize his point.

“I know, I know, Mr. Jerith,” Doctor Maisan replied quietly while selecting a large specimen container from a drawer. “But I need you to fill this up for me, if you would.”

Rick glared at the plastic cup. “That thing is huge. How am I supposed to fill that up?”

“Just do the best you can, please,” Doctor Maisan said with a smile. “And then we can discuss your situation a little.”

Rick frowned. “I already told you what happened. I was working on my roof and I slipped coming down the ladder. I guess the patio cement broke my fall.”

“Yes. I believe you broke your neck. I examined you myself.”

Rick just shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I did, but I feel great now. Look.” He swung his head back and forth, twisting it in all directions.

Doctor Maisan nodded. “Yes, yes, I know. It’s perfectly normal now.” He set down the needle he was preparing. “Rather fascinating, I might add. No sign of damage whatsoever, not even any bruising.” An expression of worry crossed his weathered face. “To be honest, Mr. Jerith… I’m baffled.”

Rick laughed. “I’ll tell ya something really strange though, Doc. I feel better now than before I had the accident… much, much better.”

Doctor Maisan smiled nervously. “Have you had any other changes worth noting, such as sleeping habits or a change in appetite?”

Rick’s smile grew wider. The sterile white glow from the light fixtures reflected off his eyes. “Nope. Still sleep like a baby, and my appetite… is… ahhh. My appetite…”

A cold lump formed in Doctor Maisan’s throat. “Yes, Mr. Jerith? What about your appetite?”

“My appetite has changed a little now that you mention it, Doc,” Rick slurred, thick drool cascading down his chest. “Lately I’ve had this huge craving for… brains.”

He stared into the mirror tilting his head up, then right, then left. The skin on his jaw was a little tight and there were too many lines now at the corner of his mouth. Some sagging under the cheek bones was occurring as well. His jaw clenched briefly. This just wouldn’t do.

“It might be time for a makeover, Mr. Bellson,” he said to the face staring back at him.

He opened a drawer under the vanity and halfheartedly fingered through the dozens of bottles of gels and creams. Lotions for dry skin. Treatments for wrinkles and sun spots. Skin tone, revitalizing pastes and every manner of foundation and highlighter.

None of them would do him any good. This was the part he hated.

He removed the sandy brown hairpiece and placed it carefully on a metal tree behind the toilet. Reaching into the back of the drawer, he pulled out a box of latex gloves. Starting at his jaw line he began to feel for the seam. Slowly, as if uncrimping the edges of a pie crust, he began to loosen the skin and roll it back. His fingers worked deliberately, kneading then peeling the flesh over cheeks and brow and finally his forehead, until he was able to pull the last of it back from the skull like a hood.

He glanced briefly at the limp mask of flesh before casting it into the plastic-lined garbage pail below the sink. The whites of his eyes had an unearthly glow against the red and pink striated muscles twitching on his face. With a sigh, he turned around and bent down to the small refrigerator behind him. He opened it and looked inside. Carefully smoothed out on a manikin head was an unblemished, pale-skinned face. He reached inside to remove it from its perch.

“Hello, Mr. Reggante,” he whispered as it slipped into his spidery fingers.

“Lights out,” Larry announced, surveying the converted warehouse. Forty cots covered the floor, each one occupied by a huddled form. The building was a sea of mismatched clothes and ragged blankets.

He flipped the light switch, dousing the sallow fluorescents and consuming the room in darkness. There were a few random mutters, but they subsided and the sounds of deep breathing and light snoring soon took their place. Industrial-sized heaters hummed in the background, their soft red glow invisible from the doorway.

Larry stepped outside and lit a cigarette. He’d started the Homeless House, as it had come to be called, almost two years ago–the best way he could think of to help those less fortunate than himself. In the beginning he’d had sponsors–several local businesses that had wanted their names in the paper. But over time they’d dropped off–like a one night stand, they got their publicity and moved on. Not wanting to close the House, Larry had to find another way to finance it before he went broke and his wife threw him out on the street. Wouldn’t that be ironic, he thought.

He took a long drag and stared down the street. Abandoned buildings lined the road on both sides, giant football players ready to charge each other at the snap of the ball. Larry wondered–as he did every night–why he didn’t just shut the House down and let the homeless fend for themselves. He was keeping them out of the cold, but at what price?

A tall silvery shadow slid out of the darkness beside him. The figure coalesced in the moonlight into a well dressed man with long black hair. Larry ignored him and took another drag. The man pressed something into Larry’s trembling hand and gave him a conspirator’s smile. The pointed tips of his canines caught the moonlight, reflecting it like twin beacons.

The man entered the shelter, locking the door behind him. Larry stuffed the crumpled bills into his pocket and shuddered. He snubbed out his cigarette, then plodded up the street.

“Stay alert, men,” the captain said on the loudspeaker as they sailed off the coast of Africa. “This place’s a haven for Blue Beard’s pirates.”

Blue Beard pulled Captain Paddock back from the loudspeaker in a chokehold.

“Now, tell me what you did with the Zenyatta booty!” Blue Beard hissed. “And enough with your curse talk! I ain’t buyin’ it!”

Gagging, Paddock grabbed a handful of Blue Beard’s flesh, and squeezed hard. When Blue beard shouted, Paddock dropped to the ground and broke free.

Blue Beard dove out the door of the Captain’s nest. Paddock followed but was too late. His nemesis had already reached the water and was swimming toward shore.

Several men ran to the captain’s headquarters with swords drawn.

“What happened, Captain?” one asked.

Captain Paddock pointed to the water. “Blue Beard was after our loot, again.”

“That scoundrel!” another griped. “Ya better swim away, ya vile dog!”

“Captain, what are we going to do?” another man asked. “This is the third time since we picked up that chest off of Zenyatta that someone has come after it. You think we got spies aboard?”

“No telling.”

“What about the booty, have you got at it yet?”

“I wish I had, but I still have not been able to get the chest open.”

Golt, the newest man picked up in Zenyatta, stepped forward.

“You said that before, Captain. I for one am beginning to doubt it.”

“All are welcome. I’ve said this before. But, if this is the chest that Count Stricker left behind after the raid of Zenyatta’s kingdom, then this may be the work of the snake curse.”

Most of the men stepped back, shaking their heads. The only one who stepped forward was Golt.

“You think you’re on to something here, do you?” the captain teased. The other men smirked at one another, nodding their heads to the captain behind Golt’s back.

“I’ve got nothin’ to lose, and if your lyin’ I’m gonna take your loot, ship, and your men.”

Captain Paddock stepped aside and let Golt lead the way down the steps to his quarters.

Golt ran to the chest.

“You may want to think this out, Golt,” Paddock said.

“Think… about… what?” Golt said, struggling to unlatch the lock.

“The curse, of course,” Captain Paddock said.

Golt removed a knife and wedged it into a seam on the lid. He rammed it in with a few hard blows and had successfully stuck it in the box to the hilt.

“Now, with some slicin’ I’ll peel this open like a skull,” he bragged. “To hell with your curse!”

Captain Paddock leaned against his bureau and dug at the grime under his nails with a knife as Golt proceeded.

“Ain’t you gonna stop me, Captain?” he asked, smiling.

“Oh, no, Golt, I can clearly see you are a clever man not to be denied his fate. Please, continue.”

Golt glared at Paddock. “As soon as I finish with your phony curse, I think I’ll get to workin’ on your pretty little head.”

“Oh, I doubt that, Golt,” The captain said without looking up from his nails.

Golt paused as though he considered whether or not he should take the captain’s abuse. He returned his attention to the chest. As he peeled open the lid, a green-and-red-striped boa latched on to his face and coiled around his body. With each breath Golt took, the snake squeezed tighter until his face had turned utterly blue and blood trickled from his nose and mouth.

“Nice work, Curse,” Captain Paddock said as he leaned over the snake and scooped a handful of jewels. “Nice work, indeed.”

I stand waiting faithfully
For battle to begin
I glance in his direction
He gives a furtive grin

Blood will flow this day
The ground weeping red
For when the moon rises
Enemies will be dead

The time is almost here
My hand gripping spear
Soon forces of the good
Will belong to Xiere

I yearn to stick my blade
Into an angel’s heart
My hands are aching
To tear their wings apart

My master lays his hand
Upon my metal helm
I shiver at his touch
For he will rule this realm

I charge upon the field
My voice is raised in glee
My sword slashes into
Each pure soul I see

Blood sprays upon my face
I lick my splattered lips
Bodies drop before me
I carve them into strips

Our battle will be won
It’s time for them to fall
Perhaps they should have known
Evil conquers all

He staggered for an eternity then paused to rest. He glanced back.

Had he lost them?

He peered back between the gnarled limbs. He couldn’t see them.

He listened to the falling branches crunching to the coppery ground.

Sharpe picked himself up and kept going. Up ahead the pine trees began to thin a little. Further along he saw a clearing and burst out into it. He let out a strangled scream as a thick putrescence invaded his nostrils with terrible force. He gazed in disbelief at a meter-high pile of bodies–all adults, stacked in a crude tangle of arms and legs like discarded store mannequins, all in varying states of decay. It looked as if they had been prepared as part of some morbid, human bonfire. He bent over and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the spongy ground.

Then he heard the sound of crunching branches and whirled around. From every direction the mass of children emerged into the clearing, closing in, surrounding Sharpe again. This time there was no way out. None of them spoke a word. Sharpe looked helplessly into each face. They regarded him with unearthly stares with no trace of emotion. The children suddenly parted like the red sea. A little boy appeared through the gap. A sizable chunk was missing from his head. Blood was still oozing from the gaping wound.

What was meant to be a scream came out as high-pitched squeak as Sharpe’s voice cords failed him. This was the kid he had hit with the car.

The boy looked at his friends and then stepped back. A little girl suddenly moved in and swung her wicket stump with a force a small child simply shouldn’t possess. It connected squarely with Sharpe’s skull. The wicket exploded into splintery shards. Sharpe screamed and fell to his knees, holding his head.

Another child brought a hunting knife down, striking the soft middle-aged flesh between Sharpe’s shoulder blades. He screamed again. Another boy with a hatchet swung it like a pro baseball player, chopping into Sharpe’s rib cage with a spurt of crimson. He gurgled a strangled, agonized cry.

Now that the attack had begun, the children advanced on Sharpe in a swarm. They pounded, stabbed, chopped, hacked and sawed at his flailing limbs despite his pleading cries as his punctured lungs collapsed. All he could do was wheeze, hoping for oblivion.

Finally, he pitched forward and fell flat onto his face, dead long before the children had finished their merciless slaughter. A large pool of blood spread beneath Sharpe’s lumpy mass of broken bones and hacked limbs. Something that used to resemble his head was now smashed into pulpy lumps and splintered bone. The children finally began to disperse, most of them spattered with their victim’s blood, melting into the pine forest until they all disappeared. The remaining five children picked up what was left of Sharpe and tossed the pieces onto the growing mountain of rotten adult bodies.

In the dystopian industrial future of Europe, ghouls, far from being the graveyard shades of old tales, travel proudly in their stretch limos and live in their high rise apartments.

You’d be surprised how little the poor and ultra-wealthy meet. The rich live in their own little world just beyond ours. A world just behind steel and glass. A world where the rich only meet their own kind. I guess their arrogance is our only saving grace. The only thing that saved the world, if you can call this saved.

No one really knows who released the plague. A retrovirus. Something probably from the old Chinese war factories before it split into the present-day states, each trying to hold on to their newfound wealth. The plague changed them. After, they could only feast on the living. No zombies, that’s crap from the movies. They’re still human, if you want to call them that. Bad breath, bad attitude, the world is still their plaything. But now they can only feast on living flesh. Anything else they just vomit right back up. They’re spending their money all on finding a cure, but sometimes I think that they like it a little too much. After all, they’re still doing what they’ve always done, surviving off the lives of others. But like anyone, they can get bored of the same thing all of the time. “Fast food” from donors and the recently dead. So these epicures of their fellow man have us. We acquire their sweet meats, to order.

Hawaiian with natural blond hair? Tall order, but we’ll find them. Bodybuilder who likes to pickle himself with too much vino? Gotcha. Life is cheap. Most people are scum. But children? No way, but some agencies don’t care. They’re out there and they will get anything you want, for the right price. But us? We have standards.

Here at SG Limited (Soylent Green. A private joke. It doesn’t matter, no one reads anymore.) we fulfill any request no matter how strange. Oh, our employees, you ask? How do you get into something like this? Something so… wrong? What’s wrong anymore? Like I said, people are scum. They’ll kill you just as soon as look at you. And this… profession? Somebody is gonna do it, why not get paid for it and do it right?

Take Abraham there. He’s our net-rider. He does the searches for the… “acquisitions”. He does this because he makes sure that kids don’t get taken. That and he prefers to target people who really deserve it. Ask him some time about that photo he keeps on this computer’s desktop. It’s his kid sister. Some of those Baron Samedi slime broke into their house a few years ago and made off with her. It was back when the plague was fresh, people were scared, and they didn’t have a recovery system to strip the recently dead for eats. After things quieted down and these rich bastards started wanting special takeout, he wanted to make sure things were done right. Oh, and you’ll notice that there aren’t any more of the Baron Samedi gangs around anymore. Abraham started a net rumor that all that mystical crap they did made them “brain food”.

Oh, you want to know more about me? Well, I’m afraid I do this because I really don’t have any choice. You see, I like my fare fresh and bloody too. No, don’t worry. Just like it says on the net, the plague goes non-communicable after awhile. Everybody is safe. No, I was a bodyguard for this rich bitch. She and I were an item. I guess I caught it from her while it was still viable. Naw, I don’t snack on the produce. But I’ll tell you, sometimes I do get a hankering for some fat Mafioso types or lean Yakuza. Steeped in all of that coke, booze, and high-class food.

Them’s good eatin’.

Jeff and I were watching TV one lazy Saturday afternoon when suddenly a giant insect crawled into the room. It shined a silver color, had eyes of the purest black and resembled a five-foot-long grasshopper/lobster hybrid. It was moving very slowly. I estimated that with it being about ten feet away, it might take the vermin over an hour to reach us.

“Oi. Do you see that, man?” Jeff said, apparently just taking notice of the creature. “What do you reckon should be done about that?” He hardly seemed worried, but it was still a question that had to be asked.

Some time passed and the program we were watching came to a close. I looked over to check on our new house guest. I saw that it had halved the gap between us.

Jeff nudged me. “I’m going to the kitchen, you want anything?” I glanced back at the creature. The route to the kitchen would take him right by that thing.

“No. I’m all right. Thanks though.” Jeff got up and walked in the vermin’s direction. It slowly turned its head to peer at him with those dark eyes, but could not change its direction fast enough and soon enough Jeff was past him. I sighed in relief.

“Hey, Jeff.” He stopped, not more then three feet from that monstrous insect. “Doesn’t this seem a bit familiar?” I asked him.

“Familiar? How so?”

“I think I remember reading about something like this in a book once.”

“Something like what?”

I stared at him dumbfounded, and indicated the creature.

“Oh, right. Well what did they do about it in the story?”

“I think they killed it with an apple.”

“Like a food allergy?”

“No, not so much. I believe they hit it with an apple.”
“Right. Just a moment, then.”

Jeff returned with an apple in one hand and a beer in the other. We gathered next to our slow moving vermin, and I watched as Jeff tossed the apple at the creature’s face.

It became lodged within the creature’s black eye. A dark fluid resembling ink flooded from the wound. It dripped deep into my carpet. As I began to contemplate how I would get that stain out, the creature’s mouth shot open and out came the loudest, most high-pitched shriek I have ever heard.

Jeff and I were forced to put our hands over our ears. It only lasted a matter of seconds, but the effect upon us was strong. Our hands dropped to our sides. They were covered with blood that no longer felt welcome inside our heads. Jeff stumbled a little, and then fell altogether onto the floor. I soon followed.

After a few minutes we regained consciousness. After some struggle we were able to speak, but seemed to be paralyzed in every other capacity. We were helpless now. The creature inched closer. There was only about a foot between that horrible insect and Jeff’s feet now.

“What do we do now?” Jeff asked me. “What happened in the story?”

“I don’t know. I cannot seem to remember. I hope it ended better then this, though.”

After this we decided to remain silent. In fifteen minutes the vermin had closed the gap and slowly began to devour Jeff. It took him almost two hours to eat his legs. Jeff screamed in pain and agony. Apparently the paralysis did not provide the luxury of blocking out pain.

I pleaded with Jeff to remain quiet, but his blood curdling screams never ceased until he died an hour later. The creature turned its attention to me now. I believe I’ll have at least ninety minutes before it reaches me. And all I can think of are Jeff’s screams of agony. I’m terrified. I can’t take my eyes off the creature that means to eat me alive.

“Kafka’s Metamorphosis! That’s what this reminds me of.” At least I figured that out.