MicroHorror

“She’s gone.”

The night supervisor informed me as I gazed down at the body of one of my residents who was under my care. Sorry, one of my residents that used to be under my care.

“I know that–I knew that the minute I walked into the room. I could smell the death smell when I walked into the corridor. Could feel it. She’s been gone for a fair while before either you or me got here and you know that, too. The question is–why didn’t anybody notice until now?”

I worked for Monetary Nursing Home which was named aptly after the town. I’ve worked in the same nursing home for ten long years, and never in my life had I seen neglect such as this–a body that would’ve been dead for two days–lying unnoticed by the staff of the home. I had been off duty for two days–got told that everything had been fine during that evening when I came back on duty–with the only exception that Myrtle–the resident that was now dead–had been unusually quiet for a resident that was usually loud.

Now I knew why Myrtle had been unusually quiet.

“I don’t know why nobody noticed, Anne.”

The Supervisor told me, and I watched as she brushed Myrtle’s gray hair back.

“It could’ve been a many number of reasons–they didn’t have time–Myrtle had been quiet and they thought it’s better to leave sleeping dogs lay–unexperienced nurses nursing–frightened nurses who were too scared to look at them–any number of reasons.”

I looked away from my Supervisor, not trusting myself to speak at that moment, and started to pile up the dirty linen clothes I had used before to give Myrtle one last bath. I don’t know why I did it, seeing as how she had been dead for a couple of days–but standard procedure had been drilled into me from the very first day I started working in aged care. This is was what you did when a resident died–gave them a wash and laid them out before the family started to arrive. I nearly let all the linen go back on the floor when I heard my Supervisor talk.

“Those reasons won’t wash when the police get involved, though.”

I didn’t want to look at my Supervisor at the moment. So I dumped the linen into the linen skip, trying to gather my thoughts. It was neglect, plain and simple. As a nurse, you were always trained to check on every resident–just in case they had fallen out of bed, or were flat on their face–times had changed, and I wasn’t liking the new way of nursing. I needed out.

In the early hours of the morning, everything was happening at lightning pace. The manager had come, the family after the manager, then the police, plus the coroner. The coroner had ordered the body to be placed in the local morgue, so they could deem the extent of the neglect. News vans from several news broadcasts had also come–which prompted the Mayor to come down to the nursing home.

As I gave my statement to the police, I turned my head to listen to the Mayor speak, and spotted a translucent figure hovering near him.

“After finding a badly neglected, decomposing body, I am, until further notice, shutting Monetary Nursing Home down.”

I smiled as some justice finally came for Myrtle. I was glad that she was there to hear the words that were badly needed. The translucent figure floated away from the Mayor and made its way over to where I was sitting. Myrtle gave me a smile and she pointed upwards to the welcome sign that greeted guests as they came up the driveway of the home. I looked up at the sign and read:

“We’re always watching.”

“Shhh!” Jen hissed at Bree, who caught her stupid nightgown on something in the dark. Everyone else was still but her, and Jen would have slapped her, but she was across the room. If Stacy woke it would be ruined. They all hated Stacy. And tonight was supposed to be special.

Huddled in the bathroom earlier, everyone held hands and chanted for Bloody Mary, Stacy giggling hard to fit in.

“Mary went to our school five years ago,” Jen intoned. “She was kidnapped, wrapped in a blanket…”

“And then she was buried alive,” Bree added, while the others pretended to shudder a bit, just like they’d practiced. Right after they’d finished rubbing the blanket in all kinds of dirt and putting it in the cellar with the trunk that was just the right size and had a good, solid lock. They weren’t going to hurt Stacy, of course. Not really. Not much.

In the basement Jen could hear Bree stumble again, and she wanted to kill her. She was so sure stupid Bree would wake Stacy, she came flying up the stairs drawing a bead on her in the corner with her back turned in that hideous ripped blue thing. And Jen was so mad she didn’t notice the lights were on and something bright as nail polish covered the walls.

A glove that wasn’t a glove lay staining the carpet and pointing to a tiny ball in the middle of the room. A ball with a spot the same hazel shade as Bree’s eyes.

It wasn’t Bree wearing Bree’s nightgown. It turned around, but then the lights went black, and the only thing Jen saw was Stacy sleeping deeply next to the others, who were not sleeping at all. A terrible smell wafted over as it glided in close, and Jen heard:

Shhh.

The Body Farm

By

Clayton J. Gibbs

“You will all get equal training from this exercise,” Headmaster Currin explained to the eight FBI cadets sitting neatly in a circle by the edge of the woods. “You’ll have an hour to find the bodies in the woods, figure out how they were murdered and make your sketches. I will break you up in pairs. Stay with your partner and keep close to the opening out here.”

The cadets rose to their feet, were assigned their pairing and entered the dark woods, with flashlights creating cones of misty light. The November chill was brisk and harsh on their lungs, but might help them to detect their bodies by smell alone. God knows that the bodies at the Buffalo Body Farm forensic training facility were most definitely not fresh and had been decomposing in the elements for several months, some, several years.

“This reminds me of a game we played when I was a kid,” John Evans told his partner Marie Gardner. “It was called ‘Ghouls in the Graveyard.’ The ‘ghouls’ went out and hid and you had to go find them. When you did find them, they chased you back to base,” he further explained. Marie shuddered.

“Let’s hope that’s not the case here,” she said and laughed. “I’d hate to see a mostly rotten cadaver get up and chase us.” John chuckled and they both headed along an eastern ridge, their flashlights bobbing ahead, creating spider-webs of black shadows through the old and dying black elms.

John and Marie were both equally glad to have each other for partners. They were both top students in the FBI academy and so far the academy had been extremely unforgiving. This particular exercise would test their forensic skills and get them into their last week of training.

“I see it!” John exclaimed running ahead. Marie followed, squinting to catch a glimpse. Sure enough, there beyond the threshold of her dimming LED light was what appeared to be the heel of a shoe. The body lay, facing away from them, face-down. They both approached, and then hovered above the body, each on one side. Rubber gloves snapped on as the flashlights were held in their teeth, the light showcasing what appeared to be a fairly decomposed corpse.

“Appears to be a male, mid-twenties, dark slacks, blue windbreaker, brown hair which is mostly gone,” Marie spoke into a tape recorder. “There is a small hole in the lower back, possibly a ballistic entry wound.” John removed a leather billfold which was protruding from the rear right pocket of the corpse. Before he could open it, Marie began instructing him.

“Turn the body over so we can get a look at the wound from the other side,” she told him. He nodded and they both turned the body from John’s side. It was lighter than expected, but the frost had tried to keep it glued to the ground. When rolled over to the face up side, they both noticed leaves had stuck to the body in several places. They also noticed the windbreaker had three letters over the left breast pocket. They were: FBI.

“What?” Marie exclaimed, wiping leaves off of the lettering. Below it was a single word: Cadet. John began leafing through the billfold.

“Henry David Kissinger, FBI student, 2003,” he read after discarding several other business cards.

“This has got to be a joke,” Marie reflected. “Why would they use a student?”

“Because,” a low voice said from behind them. John and Marie trained their lights on Headmaster Currin, who was stepping into their clearing, his own light bright in their faces. “Bodies are so hard to come by.” And into the night rang two dry shots, not long after followed by six more, just as dawn was giving light to the eastern edge of the Buffalo Body Farm forensic training facility.

On her sixteenth birthday Debbie Hanks climbed the hill behind her house in the dark just before sunrise. The morning was chilly but not cold. She walked easily up the modest hill despite the high grass gone to seed that clawed at her pants. At the top she spread a blanket, its dark pattern a gift from her departed grandmother, under a large black oak tree. Then she sat, cross-legged, a fifth of Wild Turkey whiskey in her hand, and waited for the sun to rise.

“How dare you,” she said. She could barely make out the shape of her house far below in the dark. “How dare you touch your daughter that way.”

He’d taken her the day before. He’d gotten drunk and raped his own daughter in the same bed he slept with her mother. He’d raped her then threatened to kill her if she ever told. She’d showered three times but still felt dirty, then stayed in bed and pretended to be sick, her vision haunted by visions of his hair, his grey hair. She hid her face when her mother came into the room. She couldn’t face her mother after that. Not then, not all night.

The sky began to lighten. Debbie unscrewed the bottle and smelled the whiskey inside. It smelled like her dad’s breath but different, sweeter. But under it she could still smell gasoline. She smelled her hands. Yes. Gasoline. She recapped the bottle and tried to clean the smell from her hands using dirt and the blanket.

She smelled her hands again. Dirt smell. A good smell. A clean smell. She uncapped the bottle again and drank a swallow. It burned. It burned and cleansed, burned and cleansed. She took another swallow, another cleansing swallow. The distant sky began to turn orange, began to glow.

Below, the first wisps of smoke rose from her house, his house.

“Die,” she said and held the bottle out like a toast. “Die badly.”

Flames began to lick out from the edge of the roof. Flames red-orange like the sunrise. Flames red-orange like the whiskey. Flames that cleansed.

Debbie stood. She drank the whiskey again. It didn’t burn her throat as much this time. A little spilled across her sleeve.

Below she saw her mother run out the front of the house. Her mother was in her night clothes. Her brother appeared next. Together they stood outside the house and pointed and screamed. Her brother screamed for his dad. Her mother screamed for the man who beat her. Screamed and wailed for the life of that evil man.

Debbie drank again. She remembered grinding her mother’s sleeping pills into her dad’s nightcap. She remembered him drinking it. She remembered wanting him dead. Debbie held the whiskey bottle up again. The sun just broke the horizon. Blinding. Bright. She used the bottle to shade her eyes.

Sirens sounded in the distance.

Debbie smiled. “Cleansed,” she said. She toasted the dawn. “To a new day.” She drank again then let the bottle hang in her left hand. She watched the house burn. Her house, their house, his house, him. She watched and after a while muttered bitterly, “Happy birthday.”

Cars zoomed past on the highway, and Manner moved on the sidewalk, feeling empty. He hated the world and usually liked to focus inside himself, but he couldn’t do that today, couldn’t be inside right now, because he had done something very bad. He looked across the highway, at the trees, trying to feel some sense of being alive or at least a sense of peace, but he found nothing there. He looked ahead, at the cars pulling into business establishments, and found nothing there either.

Then she appeared out of thin air. They met on the sidewalk. He reached out to touch her arm, but his hand went through.

“I’m merely an image,” she said. “Let’s walk.”

They did walk, side by side.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said.

“Of course,” she responded. “I’ve taken my image from your mind, you know. I am your guardian angel.”

He laughed gently. “I’ve not seen you since I was a child, not even in dreams.”

“I’ve been with you the whole time, just not in the same way. I’ve tried to nudge you here and there by placing the thoughts you needed in your head, by affecting your conscience.”

“I’m not always good at listening to my conscience.”

“I know.”

They walked on. He wanted to look at her, but he was too ashamed. She had been with him all this time, watching him. He hated to think any being knew all that he had done.

“Why are you here now?” Manner asked.

“Because your path is compromised,” the angel responded.

“Compromised?”

“Yes, compromised. I took the word from your head. It is how you would describe it.”

“Oh.”

He thought of what compromised meant to him. It meant altered in a very negative way.

“Is there something I can do?” Manner asked.

“Yes,” the angel responded. “That’s why I’m here, to make sure you do it. Look directly ahead, and tell me what you see.”

He looked up the sidewalk. “I see a woman in a car, pulling out of the gas station lot.”

“Yes. Now really look at her.”

He did. The woman seemed focused on traffic at first, but then she seemed to notice him. She smiled and held her stare.

“She’s pretty and seems warm,” Manner said. “Is she here to help me?”

“Yes, but she does not know it. Keep looking at her. Really focus.”

He did. She continued to look back at him. He liked what his guardian angel was showing him. He felt a slight sense of hope.

“Keep focusing on her,” she said.

He was getting closer. The woman rolled down her window.

“Keep focusing on her,” said the angel. “She’ll focus on you. Neither of you will notice the truck.”

He did notice the truck, but it was too late. Apparently, its driver didn’t notice him. Manner was hit and taken under the vehicle.

The next thing he knew he was standing on the sidewalk next to his guardian angel again. The woman in the car was screaming. The truck screeched to a stop. The sounds were dulled, though.

“Your path was compromised,” his angel said. “It was the only way to help you.”

“But the girl?”

“Just a distracter. All the paths from what you had become led to bad places. You’re much better off now.”

“Why does this place exist?” asked Jacob through the night.

“You will see,” replied his grandpa.

The lighthouse beam illuminated the beach and a patch of the ocean with green light.

“There’s no dock. There’s not even a village on this island. Why would a ship come here?”

“Hush and watch!”

“I won’t! Who are you to tell me what to do? I’ve never even known you. You just show up at our house and my parents so willingly…”

“Look now!”

Jacob looked to where Grandpa pointed. In the ocean, not far from the shore, stood a man. The man inspected himself then turned to them. He hurried through the water.

Grandpa left the lighthouse porch. Jacob followed. They met the man on the beach. He was clothed only in raggedy shorts and his skin was crinkled from the water. He spoke with the excitement of a child.

“I’ve been roaming over the sea. I saw your light and was attracted to it. I found this body. It’s been so long. Do you have food so that I might taste again? Do you have drink, anything at all?”

“Yes. It’s all inside,” Grandpa said. He knelt in the sand, pulled a key ring from his pocket and unshackled the man’s leg. Jacob had just noticed the shackle. Its chain went into the ocean.

Grandpa stood and said, “Come.”

The man didn’t hesitate to follow Grandpa. They all moved to the lighthouse door, where Grandpa used another key.

The man looked at Jacob. “I can’t believe this. Alive again. I won’t waste it this time. This time, I will truly live.”

Grandpa opened the door. “Inside are dry clothes. I will fetch you something to eat.”

The man walked inside. Grandpa shut the door and locked it.

Terrible screams came from inside, causing Jacob to shake with horror. They were gone in a few seconds, and the light went out.

“So many screams,” Jacob said.

“Yes, one added every night.”

“So tortured.”

“Yes, and trapped forever.”

There was suddenly a glow. This time, it wasn’t from the lighthouse, though. Grandpa had lit a lamp. He unlocked and opened the lighthouse door, set the lamp and his key ring on the porch, went into the lighthouse and pulled out the body of the man.

“Is he dead?”

Grandpa smirked. “Every night. Take the lamp, so you can see.”

Jacob hesitated, got the lamp and followed Grandpa as he dragged the man across the sand. Grandpa replaced the shackle on the man’s ankle.

“There’s no need to take him out; the tide will do that part of the work.”

Jacob gasped at what he felt. “Grandpa! There’s something binding my leg too!”

“Yes. You can’t see it, but you can feel it’s there. It will go once you know you can’t escape anyway. The light will come on tomorrow. You know what to do.”

With that, Grandpa moved down the shore.

“Wait! I don’t want to!”

Grandpa laughed. “Who would? A woman will happen upon the island one day. She will feel sorry for you. I suggest you accept her hospitality. You’ll visit her grandchild when he’s of age. The keys are on the porch.”

“What if I don’t do it? I can’t leave, but I can refuse to cooperate.”

Grandpa laughed again. “Then the lighthouse will take your soul next.”

“He’s a living doll, just perfect,” Kathryn said.

“How do you people manage to get all the luck?” Jill asked.

“Be patient,” Kathryn said. “You’re bound to get a new guy soon on that floor.”

Both women were riding down in elevator car number 6. It was nearly 7 PM and the number of occupants in the building at that hour had greatly decreased. Kathryn worked for Gunn Financial Services on the forty-eighth floor and Jill worked for the city’s large firm of Grisham, Cato, McMahon, and Myers on the forty-ninth. They’d met several years back and had been good friends since that time. Occasionally they had lunch together. The striking building they worked in, Mercer on the Park, was the envy of half the office workers in the city.

Kathryn was headed for her car in B3, the third underground basement floor, while Jill would exit at the main entrance of the building, o the street floor.

“Just love those shoes,” Kathryn told Jill. Jill wore red leather pumps, charcoal nylons, a black skirt and belt, black blouse and a necklace of marble-sized red balls.

“I was so lucky,” Jill said. “You know, nobody else in the world wears a 5.”

“Forty,” Kathryn guessed.

“Forty! I never would’ve bought ‘em,” Jill laughed. “I don’t earn that much.”

“Twenty-five, then.”

“Keep going,” Jill said.

“Okay, I give up.”

“Thirteen. Only thirteen dollars,” said Jill.

“C’mon, you’re lying,” Kathryn said.

Jill shook her head. “Believe what you want,” she said.

Just that moment the elevator stopped. Street floor.

“Take care. See ya tomorrow,” Jill said, exiting the car.

“Lunch next week, right?” Kathryn said.

“Tuesday,” Jill said, waving, without turning around.

The elevator car continued descending. It reached the basements but did not stop at B3. Kathryn immediately wondered why it hadn’t and pressed the button again. There were six basement levels in all. The car headed for B6. There the car stopped, but the doors did not open. Kathryn didn’t press the open button. Figured she’d go back up to B3 then press it. Crazy machine, she thought. When did one ever work perfectly?

The now ascending elevator failed again to stop at B3. Instead, it continued upward. Then it left the basement area and began the climb through the higher floors again. Kathryn realized she’d pressed the buttons for ten or twelve floors. Many lights were on. Maybe that had “confused” the machine. She didn’t care. And she didn’t care which floor it stopped on. She just wanted out quick. There was always the stairs. She’d take those. Up or down, whichever. She remembered the emergency stop. Red. She pressed that button but nothing happened. Suddenly, the car went completely dark but it didn’t stop moving. Up and down, up and down, up and down. Later, in her desperation, Kathryn panicked upon the realization that the car had been up and down the entire building more times than she could count. She remembered swearing never again to work another day in that building before she blacked out.

I need to vacuum the house, it’s been three weeks and the dust is making me sneeze but I hate you too much to open the closet door. I am afraid of what I might do to you. I don’t worry anymore about what you might do to me.

There is a bird in the corner, it looks at me through one broken eye, the tiny bloodshot redness aching and hurting. I prop it back up sometimes but it always falls back down. I don’t understand. I don’t want it to be hurt, I want it to fly away but it’s cold and it’s hard. I think it’s tired.

…and if I let you out you might start asking questions. But then maybe that’s a good thing, perhaps you can help me. But, I’m not afraid of you, don’t go getting ideas now. I’ll chain you up so you can’t move and maybe we can have a chat, a nice civil chat. It always makes me scared when you thrash like that, struggling and that noise, hurts my ears, I’ll just lalalalalala if you do and put my hands over them so I cant hear you.

I woke up earlier and I felt my heart tick tick tick so fast. My eyes felt popping large in my head but it was ok, I had a good look around the house and I couldn’t find a thing wrong, everything was in its place but I still don’t know what to do about you, you down there, thudding and banging in the closet. I wish you’d stop, I just want to cry and I want to hit things, really hit things. I screamed at the bird this morning, just after watching television, a quiz show about food. I screamed at it. I want it to help me but it won’t. I don’t know what I’ve done, oh, is it safe now?

I’ve made a decision. I want you to go, I need you to leave. I am afraid, I lied about that earlier. I think I may have done something wrong. I don’t think you can help me after all. I think it’s your fault. Really, that seems like the right answer, makes sense doesn’t it, after all, if it wasn’t for you… but the bird told me.

I think the bird is dead. It told me that you did it. I didn’t think so at first of course, we know each other so well, yes? I was angry with the bird. I told it to not be so suspicious of people, especially you, then I went outside and I mulled it over. I was in the post office lining up to pick up the pension when it all suddenly made so much sense. Who else could it be? Of course the bird was right! You always hated him and now, well, now he’s dead. It’s not a coincidence is it? Maybe you always hated me.

So that’s how I made the decision.

I am paralyzed by pain, palsied by your poison; you hateful thing, slick and dank, sweating furiously in my under stairs closet. I can’t hear you right now but I watch the ceiling undulate as I lay on the floor and I feel a little sick. I found the kitchen knife that we thought we’d lost last Christmas earlier today. It was in the washing machine. I must be getting old and daft.

I will open the closet door soon when I stop shaking and crying. I know that I need to do this. It won’t take long but it’s probably about time anyway, it’s been so long since we talked, I mean really talked so what does it matter? And well, you did kill the bird after all, he told me so.

His blood-painted teeth flashed in the moonlight. He bellowed at the moon in a frustrated rage. He took another life. Albeit an insignificant vagrant this time, it disturbed him all the same as the others. The life would not be enough to sustain him. One is never enough.

A waft of a breeze caught his feral interest. He glared through a bay window at a family playing board games together. His stomach growled and twisted in response. There was no stopping him from advancing on them now. He hoped they had silver and the nerve to end his horror.

Blake watched the young woman walk the city street. She reminded him of his other prey. She peered into an alleyway. Evidently she was lost.

Blake stepped out of his van and followed her for a block. She teetered as she walked. Blake’s heart fluttered. She must be drunk, he thought. She was going to be even easier than the others. She turned into another alleyway. The time had arrived.

Blake flipped open his knife blade. He grabbed her shoulder and turned her violently. Her expressionless, undead eyes met his just before she bit his throat with a moist crunch.