MicroHorror

It all starts when your alarm clock breaks. It’s a cheap one, so you don’t bother with repairing it and just replace it. You don’t throw it away, just because you’re quite thrifty, or because it served you for so long. Anyway, you put it in a closet and forget about it.

Then, some weeks later you are cleaning your apartment and stumble on the clock, ticking as if nothing ever happened to it. You check the alarm mechanism and it works perfectly as well. However, it no longer plays a nice melody, screeching like a bat instead. You wonder how the hell it started to work all of a sudden, but it doesn’t keep your mind for a long time. Since you already bought yourself a new alarm clock, you just throw the thing away with the rest of the garbage.

A month later your old TV set gets borked. You’ve been so busy lately and so tired by the evening, you don’t call the repairer for a few days. Then one day you come home and hear the static noise from the TV room. Yes, it’s your TV, working. You switch some channels and it shows them good. However, sometimes it switches channels randomly against your will, or the sound distorts, but it’s rare and okay–since you didn’t have to pay for a repair. You’re amused and scared a little, but shrug it off as one of those things you just can’t explain. The old clock doesn’t come to your mind yet.

One morning your refrigerator is all leaky. It’s dead. It’s Friday, and your fridge is almost empty, so you decide to call for repair on the weekend. Actually you remember how your TV returned to life, so you hope that when you come back from work your freezer will be alright.

It’s not, however. But as you get up that night for a cup of water, you freeze in a mix of fear and wonder. Your fridge door is open and the little lamp inside shines brightly. That might be okay if there were no shadows of the little men walking on the shelves of the freezer, wielding what appear to be little screwdrivers and other tools. You see that for just a few seconds and then the fridge door shuts loudly. You stand there for a minute and open the door then. The refrigerator is empty, of course. And it works now, miraculously.

You could tell yourself that you had a hallucination, but you know it’s not true. And the fridge does work. Well, sometimes it shakes violently in the night, and sometimes your food smells strange, but the smell is so vague you learn not to notice it at all after a few days.

You decide not to tell anyone. Of course you will just get laughed at. And maybe those little useful men will go away if you tell someone. You don’t want that, since that old junk you got with the apartment is starting to fail you. Yes, they don’t seem to make stuff back into mint condition, but still–it’s free repair!

You enjoy these free repairs as other things (like a pipe, or an electrical outlet) break and get repaired in a day or a few.

Then you catch a bad cold and are confined to your bed. The TV quickly gets boring so you resort to your favorite radio station. You couldn’t do that without those little repairmen, since the radio went dead right before you got sick. You thank them, wondering if they can hear you.

You fall asleep and when you wake up in the middle of that night, you can’t move. As your eyes adapt to the darkness, you see little men standing on your chest. They’re not very small, like you thought, about eight inches high. And one of them holds a very big drill in his hands.

You can’t even scream as you watch yourself being fixed.

Deep in the woods Robert took a moment to lean against a tree and catch his breath. Pulling the sled through the snow had been hard, exhausting work.

The wind, which had turned and begun blowing out of the west, suddenly stiffened, carrying with it the promise of more snow. Soon his tracks would be covered. If he didn’t hurry, he wouldn’t be able to find his way back to the highway.

He tightened the hood of his parka against the cold and checked his watch.

“Dammit. Do you know it’s two-thirty already?”

The lady on the sled didn’t reply.

“Well, all right, maybe we’ve time for a smoke, but try to understand, Jenny, I have to get back to the highway before dark. At my age, I just don’t see as well as I used to, you know.”

Robert snapped open his pocket and withdrew a pack of cigarettes. He offered one to the woman.

She shook her head back and forth.

“Suit yourself.” Robert lit up and took a long drag on the cigarette before continuing. “Do you remember this place, Jenny?”

The woman glared at him.

“It looks different now, doesn’t it? What, with the leaves all gone and the trees bare the way they are. The snow makes it pretty, though, I think. Look, Jenny. See how it hugs the trees and the branches, covering them on just one side. So delicate. So beautiful. It’s almost as though someone had painted them that way. Still, it’s nothing like it was last summer, is it? You do remember last summer, don’t you?”

The woman lowered her eyes.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Jenny. Did I embarrass you? Did you think I didn’t know? That I didn’t know what you and Douglas did here? How the two of you made love–wild, passionate animal love–without any respect at all for our relationship? Oh, Jenny, do you have any idea how much that hurt me?”

The woman struggled to respond, but the strip of duct tape, stretched tightly across her mouth, muffled her pleas.

Robert crouched down and took hold of the woman’s hand. He spoke in a soft, soothing voice, “Please, Jenny, don’t be afraid. They say it’s a very peaceful death, you know. Not much different than drifting off to sleep, really. After a while, when the hypothermia sets in and your body starts to grow numb, you won’t even feel the cold any more. Really, I think you’ll find the whole experience to be quite pleasant. Quite pleasant, indeed.”

Robert stood up and ground the stub of his cigarette into the sole of his boot. Tiny red embers flared brightly for a moment, then fell harmlessly upon the snow and turned to black.

“Well, my dear, I’m afraid our time is up. I really must be getting back to the car now. Douglas is preparing a very romantic dinner at home this evening. My, but he does hate it so when I’m late for his quiche.”

It’s dead of night and the house is silent. The hallways and the rooms are pitch black, but yet, a very tired, unhappy, and disturbed mother does her chores. She cleans and cleans the kitchen floor until it has that glorious shine and until she loses the feeling of wanting to scream. The cloth in her hand slides across the hard floor, making noisy squeaking sounds as she rubs with all of her might. She sometimes thinks the cleaning is the only thing that keeps her sane. Her marriage is a joke, her career came down in smoke. Her life is one big damn mistake!

She has a six-year-old son, but she’d be lying if she said that she loved him. Most mothers view their children as their pride and joy, but with the boy constantly screaming, constantly demanding, and constantly reminding her of her irritating husband, she views the boy as something from Hell. Some might say that she’s a terrible human being, but does anyone care that her life has been so cold and unkind? She would never hurt the child, but she sometimes wishes that he would just cease to exist.

Just as she is finally finishing her chores and heading upstairs, she suddenly hears the boy in his bedroom throwing a fit. He is squealing loudly like an annoying piglet and she knows that he couldn’t be quieted. She doesn’t want another sleepless night, so she’s going to ignore the screams, close the kid’s door, and lock it. Her hand is on the knob, when she sees a shocking sight.

Eyes red of burning fire and fangs of a thirsty vampire, an unknown man has the boy in his arms. Getting ready to escape, this demon man is standing in the window and the boy is screeching for his mom. It’s obvious that her son is going to be kidnapped, but she isn’t taking a step. She just watches as the small boy squirms, blubbers, and suffers. The man sees her, but he isn’t concerned, for somehow he knows that the boy being taken away is what she desires the most. The man then jumps out of the window and disappears into the shadows, as the boy is wailing all the while. At first, the mother just stands there, stands there in disbelief. She isn’t afraid or panicked. She is relieved. Then, as she closes the door forever, there is some sick laughter in her throat and a demented smile on her face.

In the beginning, distorted bubbles spun behind the lids of Martha’s closed eyes. Then they merged and grew into a perfect, transparent whole.

The head of a man, with a black moustache, turned within this transparency, his mouth moving as if in silent appeal.

Now, every day, Martha tries to keep her eyes open. All night long, she watches TV, afraid to sleep.

“Go away,” she tells the man whenever she lets her eyelids droop. “Leave me alone,” and at her frightened rejection, he appears to weep.

This lunchtime, she sits on a park bench weary and deprived of rest. Children play. Mothers chat amongst themselves. Trying to absorb this normality, a movement distracts her. She turns her head.

“Go away,” she whispers to the man now sitting beside her. He leans towards her, his mouth opening. Martha jumps to her feet.

Then he emits a loud gurgling sound, and Martha lets out a scream. Blood, from his gaping mouth, erupts like a rose bursting forth into full bloom.

“Call an ambulance,” she shouts to the small crowd of startled onlookers. Mothers call to their children. “Please!” she begs, but they shepherd their offspring out through the park gates.

Terrified, she glances back to find no trace of the man that haunts her, apart from a bloodied white rose that lies on the place where she’d recently sat.

Father’s skull sat atop the bones and ashes in the pit, and it seemed to smile at me with its tobacco-stained teeth. Next to that was Grandfather’s lower jaw and Aunt Linda’s petite thighbone.

Mother let my sister Mallie touch the remains, but Mallie lingered too long. She wasn’t paying attention, and the little shadow snakes crawled from the pit and into her body through places I won’t mention.

Mother dragged her from the shed by the hair and whipped the demons out of her. She kept calling Mallie a whore, even after her dress was soaked in blood from the lashings. Mallie was nearly a grown woman, and she didn’t cry.

Later, lightning burned down the shed. Mother said the Light was angry. We cried for days, but then things got better. We cleaned the charred wood out of the pit and rebuilt the shed, making it bigger to show our defiance.

In the fall, Uncle Tim started praying to the Light, and Mother had to silence him. She cut his throat when he was sleeping–with Aunt Julie by his side.

One night, Mallie visited the ash pit to play with Aunt Linda’s slender thighbone. She was so entranced she didn’t notice the little shadow snakes crawling up her dress again until it was too late. So many got inside her that she grabbed an axe and killed two chickens and a pig. It took days of beatings to get all the demons out.

Mother said Mallie was at the age when our lord from the flames would make her his own. Mother called some people she knew and we gathered in the shed around the pit. She passed out handfuls of ash, and we rubbed sacred symbols on our bodies. Then we drank wine mixed with goat’s blood and danced for hours. We let the shadow snakes crawl inside us. Thunder rumbled in the sky, but we ignored it.

Shadows crept over the walls of the shed, and the earth groaned under our feet. Aunt Julie gave herself to some of the men, while cursing and laughing at poor dead Uncle Tim who’d always been a devoted husband to her. Mother brought in a chicken, bit off its head, and drank from its neck. She spit the blood all over Mallie, and laid a crown of woven snakeskin on her head.

Mallie lay down on the floor. The room wheeled around me. I wasn’t sure if I’d drunk too much wine or if I was going into a trance. One of the men crawled toward Mallie like a dog, his face covered in ash and drool running from his mouth. I knew what he wanted, and I kicked him in the head. He shuddered and lay still.

Their faces stretched out long and the room spun faster. Something huge was standing over Mallie. I gagged on the stench. Two fiery eyes gazed down at her, and insects dropped onto her belly and crawled over her flesh. Things squirmed in the darkness beneath those eyes–a mass of corruption, rot, and creeping forms.

Then flames erupted in the ceiling. The shed had once again been struck by lightning. Too drunk or possessed to escape, everyone was burning except me. I ripped Mother’s sacred medallion from her neck and dashed outside, where I went to sleep contented.

When I awoke, it was a cold morning. The shed had burned down completely, and everyone had perished with it. I poked their remains down into the ash pit, and cleared away the burned wood and coals.

I stood before the pit and smiled, clutching Mother’s medallion. Her skull sat next to Father’s. I touched her forehead and a little shadow snake crawled out of her mouth, but I shooed it away. I had the power now, and I would rebuild the shed. I shook my fist at the sky to show my defiance.

Yesterday, I arrived in this nowhere desert town. I found an oasis called Harry’s Bar. I drank hard and fast and got a long-lasting buzz.

I left, checked into a motel, slept, and woke up this morning. I made a long-distance call to my ex-girlfriend. She hung up on me. I walked around town and killed time until Harry’s Bar re-opened.

After midnight, I was still in Harry’s Bar, slowly drinking Johnnie Walker Red and dreaming of young beautiful women in bikinis when the two young men at the other end of the bar got into an altercation and almost killed each other. I sat on my stool and watched. Then the tall muscular blond with dark blue eyes pulled out a knife on the shorter guy. Both men were probably in their mid-twenties, pumped up on testosterone and macho bullshit. And someone was gonna get hurt.

Abruptly, I stood up and hurried toward them. “Stop!” I cried out.

The blond man turned toward me, smiled sardonically, and brandished the shiny knife. “You want a piece of this?”

He stabbed me three times before I lost consciousness. They say he strolled out of the bar with the other guy by his side. At the local hospital, they operated on me and saved my life. Afterwards, I stayed there three weeks.

Now, I’m back on the streets. I’m searching for the blond guy. I’m gonna kill him.

I travel from town to town. My wounded body is healing. But my rage is devouring me. At night, I look in the mirror and see a twisted face of hellfire. When I fall asleep, I’m back in Harry’s Bar and the fellow is sticking me with his knife. Blood is gushing from my chest. I’m dying. I wake up screaming.

I enter Paradise, a small town about a hundred miles from where I got stabbed. I’m hungry and thirsty so I look for the nearest bar/restaurant. A local guy gives me directions and I find the place easily. I park my car and saunter to the bar.

Above the entrance is a neon sign flashing Harry’s Bar. Am I going mad? I enter, clutching a .38.

He’s there, in the back with his buddy. And I’m sitting on the stool in the front. He takes out a knife and my alter ego rushes toward him.

I follow. “Stop!” I cry out.

The bum lunges at me with his knife and cuts me. With one shot, I blow his head off. Then I black out.

I wake up at the hospital again. (Or is it a prison?) In a few days, I get out of bed and stagger to the bathroom. I look in the mirror and shriek: “Who am I?”

Inside the mirror, the blond guy with dark blue eyes gazes at me. He smiles wickedly.

“I’m possessed!” I screech.

Tomorrow, we’re gonna take the long walk down Death Row. At noon, we’re gonna sit in the Chair together and get fried. We killed the Good Samaritan.

I wake up screaming. I’m back in Harry’s Bar, clutching a slick glittering knife. Am I dreaming? Do I wear the black shroud of guilt? Or am I a ghost of a ghost?

In a little town called Paradise, I wander in a dark wasteland from which there is no escape.

Sticky floors again. More blood. That meant that the bundles we saw scattered in the shadows used to be humans. Like us.
 
My foot struck something that moved. I stifled a scream (it’s not manly to shriek–plus it alerts the zombies) and jumped. I flicked the flashlight on and saw a giant rat sprint away, sharp claws scraping the concrete floor. His flight caused a sudden rushing and for a moment the floor looked alive as it writhed and hundreds of rats sprinted towards the back wall. They seem unaffected and are not lacking food.
 
In the beam I saw two bodies, slumped together. Rotted. Both had head wounds. Someone had been here, I thought. I did a sweep and saw other bodies slumped and unmoving.
 
“Watch it, dumbass,” Tony said. When he turned toward the stairs I lowered my gun and pointed it at his back. I pretend shot him, then winked at Mabel.
 
Mabel hated these forays more than I did. She claimed her hips hurt. And the guns were too heavy. And she couldn’t carry as many supplies as the younger ones. But we all had to do our bit, Tony said. So he made us come out to search for food, and this time, find a more secure place to live.
 
I think he brought Mabel and me out because he could run faster than we could. If there was trouble, he could leave us behind to be devoured while he got away.
 
We were on the first floor of a warehouse by the airport. It was three stories high and we were heading to the third floor to see if it could be barricaded to prevent entry, but still allow us to get out if needed. Tony remembered it from before. “I used to pass it and it’s solid. So tomorrow we’re going.”
 
Tony wanted to check it out. And what Tony wanted, Tony got. He was physically the biggest in the house, and he kept the guns. He doled them out for the forays, but once back at the house, he kept them in his room. He had his own room. We slept in the main part, together. But there was safety in numbers, even if one number was a dick.
 
I thought of our safe house now. John was probably reading, taking advantage of the daylight. Sue was making dinner. Donnie was sleeping, as teenagers like to do.
 
But we were here. Heading into a dark stairwell to seek what? Another open barricaded area to survive in?
 
The gunshot startled me and I dropped my gun. It went off and the bullet ricocheted off the wall, zipping around the room. Mabel screamed and shot her gun and a sudden volley of gunfire rang down the stairwell where Tony had started his ascent. He fell with a thud and staggered into the room where Mabel and I stood frozen, collapsing at our feet.
 
Another gunshot rang out and I backed up.
 
Tony was dead. I grabbed his gun from his hand, then went through his pockets, grabbing keys, his wallet, two knives, another pistol, some protein bars, a chocolate bar (liar!). I quickly removed his shoes looking for anything hidden and found a wad of cash. Useless, but I took it–and the shoes. I listened but heard no footsteps and no more gunshots came down. Mabel was crying and hugging her gun.
 
“Is he…?” she asked.
 
“Dead? Yes.” But no head wound.

He’d be coming back.
 
I left him. Tony was always yelling about something, and one of his rules was SAVE AMMO.
 
So I did.

Dr. Henry Peppersmith felt a sharp pain in his forearm. Before he could grab it, the arm fell to the white linoleum floor of his laboratory. His blue-gray eyes grew to quarter size. He tilted his silver-colored head forward, and it fell off of his beefy shoulders. It rolled a couple of times, then rested on its double chin. He gawked up at the rest of his hefty-sized body. “Damn,” he cussed, licking his lips. “That old gypsy said that this would happen.”

He thought of the gypsy as his left arm dislocated, and fell to the floor in front of him. The gypsy’s smile was wary, showing a set of crooked yellow teeth, when she said, “Dr. Peppersmith, there will come a time when your world will be crushed and then you’ll fall to pieces.”

Dr. Henry Peppersmith blinked his eyes briskly, trying to wake himself from this dream. But this was no nightmare. This was real. As real as his divorce from Mary, that became finalized yesterday. And now he was falling apart.

Literally.

His left knee buckled, dislodged and fell sideways. “This is all Mary’s fault!” he huffed. “Stupid bitch! She’d complain nonstop about me putting my work before her! Well, that’s horseshit! I bought her everything that she ever wanted. Nice house. Fancy cars…”

His whole right leg came loose from the hip, and his body came crashing to the floor in a thud. The torso gave away at the waist upon impact, and left a total of seven pieces.

He stared at them in horror, confusion and panic. “I was an outstanding doctor,” he said to his body. “Now, I’m just a human jigsaw puzzle.”

He tried to move his fingers. They still worked. He moved his legs. They still worked. Everything worked. This made him smile slyly.

“I need some needle and thread,” he said craftily, while his arms gathered up his body. “I’ll show Mary and that old gypsy, too! That I can rebuild myself.”

His whole body rolled in unity and hit the side of a table. His forearm clawed its way up. It went on an exploration for supplies. Once it found its desired items, it returned to the edge and dropped them down to the floor.

Then Dr. Henry Peppersmith proceeded to stitch his body back together. He laughed like a mad scientist and repeated the phrase, “Gonna stitch me up. Find the bitchy Mary and the wretched old gypsy. Chop ’em into little pieces, and see if they can rebuild themselves. Like me, the good Doctor Henry Peppersmith.”

The pond was frozen deep, snow brushing and wisping off the top, a brittle chill in the air.
 
“My dog, I’ve lost my dog,” the silver-haired old lady said.
 
Nearly evening, light dipping away, grey dusk stepping in.
 
“Can I help you at all?” I shouted. I was on the other side of the pond. My own Jack Russell, Beckett, bounding up and down in the frosted grass.
 
She continued to search first to the side of the pond, then she tracked back to where the little wooded area began, then abruptly she turned left until she found the path into the woods. She would walk a few meters, call the dog’s name (I couldn’t quite hear what she said), then come back and make her way to the side of the pond before starting over.
 
I shouted again. “Excuse me, do you need some help?”
 
“My dog, I’ve lost my dog.”
 
“Yes, I know. Do you need some help? Ahh, I tell you what, I’m gonna come round and see if I can help you look.”
 
She didn’t say a word, just carried on back up the track shouting the dog’s name. It was about fifty meters straight across to the other side and I figured that if I went left, although I’d have to duck up a little into the woods, it would be quicker than going right and walking the long way around. I turned up the path and Beckett followed.
 
I could still hear her calling but no sign of the dog yet. I also caught occasional glances of her through the trees, large shock of silver-grey hair catching the last rays of the sun and her red dress and black shawl rippling in the wind. She must be pretty cold, I thought. But there she went, back and forth, calling the dog’s name. By now I could almost understand what she was saying. It sounded like her dog’s name was Dylan but there was something else, other words I couldn’t make out. I kept on walking and Beckett followed.
 
We had to head further into the woods than I had previously thought. Night was settling in quite firmly and our path became quite dense. I could still hear the old lady but she was getting very faint, after a while nothing at all. I stopped and fished a small flashlight from my bag. By the time we reached the clearing about five minutes later, we could see nothing, nobody there, no dog, nothing. I walked around the area she’d been looking. Beckett just sat and flicked his tail around on the cold pebbles.
 
Nothing. I crouched by Beckett and lit a cigarette.
 
“Guess she’s gone, eh, boy? Looks like Dylan came back.”
 
The evening wind calmed and the moon peeped out from the clouds. Such a beautiful place. I closed my eyes and inhaled the smoke deeply. I heard a cracking noise and everything within me began to creep, my skin tightened, my heart beat fast, my eyes shot open, in my ear like whispering ice, “Thank you for finding me a dog.” I flung my fist back angry, adrenaline roaring and I jumped to my feet looking around in all directions, ready to fight, wanting to scream.
 
Nothing. I calmed down, deep breaths, my heart beginning to drum more slowly. I was sweating. Still nothing. My imagination? Perhaps. I shook another cigarette out and lit it. I called for Beckett but I couldn’t see him. Called again, still nothing. Called and called. I trudged toward the edge of the pond, then I backtracked a bit toward the wooded area, then I turned left toward the path we’d come down, then I moved back toward the pond, maybe he’d gone for a walk around the edge of the pond, no, still nothing. I walked back toward the wooded area.

Waking up in Connecticut is odd, even though you’ve been doing it for two months since leaving Manhattan. But this morning seems different somehow. Hungover, ready to heave, you slide across the bed that is wet and smells like blood. Where is your wife? Kids already at school?

Your feet find the floor. You stagger to the bathroom. Afterward, you study your face in the mirror. Not bad, you think, not bad at all. Still the fox. Things go well, better than you expected.

Moving to the country is working out, even though it is much like the recurring dream you told, and warned, your old therapist about.

The meddling bitch asked too many questions. And when she said “See you next week,” you just gave her that new eerie smile of yours.