MicroHorror

The trenches were abandoned now and the guns silent. All that was left were the bodies of men from both sides lying in the oozing mud, colored black by untold gallons of spilt blood. Some soldiers were barely out of the trenches when they were shot; others had run bravely into the hail of bullets that must have rung around their ears, before falling.

The courage of these young men was beyond my comprehension and, in truth, not my concern as I walked between the corpses that littered the ground. Mud stuck to my boots making progress difficult, and under normal circumstances I would have been far from such a scene of devastation–yesterday as the battle raged, I was hiding in the forest some five miles back–but today was too good an opportunity to miss. It was my chance to gather some trinkets.

I searched each body for anything I could sell. Some men only had cigarettes or chocolate in their pockets, but they were marketable products nonetheless. Others had envelopes which I opened hoping to find money, but usually they just contained letters or photographs that I just let fall into the quagmire beneath my feet.

Now and again a man would groan as I rifled his pockets, obviously not quite dead, but this did not deter me from my task. If they moaned too loudly, a boot to the face soon shut them up again.

To my left was a crater of sorts and I hoped there would be rich pickings from the men killed in the explosion that caused it. Slowly I squelched my way over to its rim and looked down. The morning mist stopped me from seeing just how deep it was, but I was able to see a flash of silver a few feet into the crater. It looked like a cigarette case and would be my greatest prize today if I could reach it.

Carefully I edged into the crater and immediately fell, getting a mouth full of mud as I did so. I tried to stand, but slipped again, sliding past my find. I dug in my feet and clawed the mud with both hands to stop myself sliding further down the steep side of the hole. I eventually steadied myself, but feared that to move just a fraction would send me careering deeper into the pit.

So, I began to call for help at the top of my voice until I was hoarse and tears streamed through the mud that caked my cheeks. It did no good; the place was deserted.

The cold gnawed at my bones and I knew I would have to do something, or perish. I could still only see mist below me, but assumed it would just be a few feet to the bottom, so released my grip and let myself slide down the inside of the crater.

At first I traveled slowly, but quickly picked up speed. I couldn’t believe I’d not reached the bottom and, fearing it would be too big a climb when I did, tried to stop myself again. But I was traveling too fast, the side too greasy and steep, and I just kept falling. Then I realized I was no longer in a hole, but plummeting into blackness, into a void.

I fell for what seemed an eternity before I realized with absolute terror where I must be going and the fate that would await me. And as I tumbled, one thought more than any troubled me.

How evil, how despicable, do you have to be, before you are taken to this place while still alive?

Dark brown, made of stiff felt, its top flaps open like a mouth when he walks. Mostly, though, he sits and fiddles with the things people bring him, and at those times it sits faithfully on the floor at his feet.

It was the first thing I saw when I woke up, still lying on the pallet they used to carry me in, the pallet that now serves as my bed. It had been a normal day for me on the streets, scraping fruit from stalls, pick-pocketing… and then from nowhere came a hackney carriage. Horses’ hooves trampled my body into a complicated tangle, a twisted contortionist’s knot.

The Specialist repaired me. He repairs anything that hangs on the edge of life. He takes out his equipment and pokes, prods, yanks, rips and tears back into place. Then he knits and splinters, sewing everything into a new skin quilt. He plucks meticulously at the still forms brought to him until they move again.

While he works he stores pieces in the hat. When it’s time he opens the lid of the hat, takes out a part and sews it on again. One day he put an eye in the hat and forgot to take it out. He put the hat back on his head and the eye stuck in his graying ponytail. It seemed to grow roots there, sticking, and then slowly dissolving over several weeks into black goo.

Sometimes after a session he doesn’t use the things stored in the hat. He takes them out and preserves them in ice, using them later on something else. Or, if they are not needed soon enough and start to decay, he petrifies them in jars, stacking them on shelves around the room.

I asked him once what was his favorite repair? Frogs, he replied. Not many people bring frogs. They bring in beloved dogs and cats, not willing to let them go just yet. Or sometimes a lame horse or cow, their daily bread and butter. But we have a pond in the garden and he goes to fetch frogs from it. Some of them are healthy and he snaps a leg anyway. He watches the broken frogs travel around the worktable like rowboats with only one oar. After the repair he likes to stroke and hold the clammy bodies as if he were winding them with a key, and then he lets them go free, bounding away into the garden until the next time.

Since he fixed me I have never left this house, never looked again on the London crowds, walking bleary-eyed from the smoggy yellow air, their bodies weary from factory work. People would stare at me on the outside. Besides, he feeds me with those he can’t repair and it’s warm and dry here. There are no police cudgeling me to move along, dirty beggar!

Over the years he has become slow in his work. He needs a monocle. He completes fewer subjects. Some he can’t get to in time, and we stack them outside the back door for scavengers. Then when the stack is too high I go out and bury the rest when he asks. His meager sentences are reduced to single words, hums and clicks.

This morning is the fifth morning in a row when he hasn’t woken. He lies still like the others.

Each day I pick up the scalpel and the hooks and hover over his gut, not sure where to slice, where to tinker. He has never apprenticed me. The stench is like a fish market at the close of day.

Tomorrow I will throw him out.

People are still bringing those needing repair. Dogs wheeze and hiccup, their tongues leaking drool onto the worn worktable, clogging up the eyes in the wood with their blood. Cats lift up their mewing heads from rigored bodies.

I put on the hat and pick up the tools and make an incision.

Bong… Bong… Bong… Bong… On the twelfth gong of the bell, my ears ring. I awake to the silence of the world. The sky is pewter gray.

Where have the birds gone? Even their nests lie bare. Trees shed their brown leaves coffined in the snow. No squirrels, no bark of dogs. Only the plaintive howl of a blizzard wind. I say to myself, Wake up! Even this is too surreal for dreams. But I am not asleep.

***

The phone ring-tones on the other end, Surely she must be up, muted bells echo into dead quiet. I swig last night’s tepid beer to wash the raunchy taste of stale cigarettes from my mouth. I forego the shave and head for Julie’s.

The country sky is now darker, I see the horizon, and the tall buildings loom out from its own kind of charcoal gray. The valley is full of New Year’s smog hugging ground. There, the cars swarm as ants, seem stuck in yellow amber head to abdomen trailing the sweet asphalt. But as I near, I sense the stillness–cars, trucks, immobile; trains frozen in tracks; barges on the river drift into bridge pylons. I can drive no farther than Fourth and Main. I walk to the nearest car, then to the next, and to yet another. Every driver is mummified, and stiff as crash-test dummies stuck to steering wheels; the passengers, too. People litter sidewalks as fly pupae on spoiled meat.

In downtown stores and high rises, the same scene: the now dead, cocooned and strewn all over the place. I think there must have been an alien invasion. One by one, I see each mummied thing poof as dandelion spores to the wind.

I find Julie, or what used to be her, wrapped in some Styrofoam-like shit. A semblance of her face presses through the smoke gray casket impervious to my touch or my prayers. She disintegrates to gossamer dust.

I am alone, too scared to scream. And my cries would go unheard.

***

The midnight moon falls below stark trees. I sleep again wishing only for her. When I wake, the morning sun is glazed in snow. It glints off the dust of what is left of my world… and Julie. The dead bells chime again; I suppose they toll for me. I hear a voice boom through the wasteland calling me by name saying,

In the beginning, the earth was formless and void. Your generations shall be as countless as the stars and the grains of sand, even the dust beneath your feet. And I shall bring forth a woman for you, and you shall call her Eve.

Feeble candlelight challenged the growing darkness. A savage electrical storm wreaked havoc with power lines, neon-green lightning overloading transformers that exploded in showers of vivid blue sparks.

Old-timers of Granville peeked through parted curtains. Brave ones ventured onto porches to gaze in awe at the violently churning dark green clouds overhead. It was the strangest weather in memory. It was the color that scared people–the green clouds and lightning, the green-tinted air.

Sammi Jewel dug through the overflowing junk drawer hoping for more candles but came away with only a half-dead flashlight with a dim yellow beam. Though only four PM it was gloomy and oppressive outside the house and dark inside.

Her twin six-year-old boys were giddy with excitement. Scotty and Brandon knew adventure when they saw it. Stormy weather, candles, and a big box from their new TV. Sammi sighed with relief. Two terrified kids she didn’t need.

She hugged herself. The air was alive with a pulsating energy that tickled the hair on her arms and raised goose bumps. She imagined swarms of tiny invisible spiders were crawling on her and resisted the impulse to brush them away.

She peeked in at her boys and marveled at their imaginations. They crawled giggling inside the box with their teddies and closed the flaps.

“Captain Scotty here. Time machine ready!”

“Ready!”

“Date?”

“1830!”

The box rocked and Sammi smiled.

Sharp cries of alarm erupted from within, followed by a flash of jade-green light. Then silence.

Sammi gasped, rushing to the box. She called tentatively while opening the flaps with trembling hands, “Boys?”

Empty. Sammi inhaled sharply and frantically searched the room. They must have slipped out unseen, but how?

There was another flash of green and giggles from the box. Sammi looked in and screamed. “Where have you boys been?”

The boys were confused. “In the box, Momma.”

She shook her head. “I looked and you weren’t…”

“Teddy!” Scotty shouted. “Where’s Teddy?”

“Let’s go get him!” Brandon cried. Hunkering down they closed the flaps, chanting, “1830, 1830, 1830…”

“Teddy!”

The box rocked. Green light flashed.

“No!” Sammi cried.

Flaps pulled open revealed the box was empty. Sammi screamed and looked frantically about the dimly lit room for her sons. Another flash of green startled an anguished cry from her. “God in Heaven! What’s going on?”

Brandon jumped from the box, dropped a teddy bear and ran to his toy box, screaming all the while, “Indians! Indians, Momma! The Indians got him! The Indians!” He quickly fished out his toy bow and four rubber- tipped arrows and ran back to the box. Sammi grabbed for him but he ducked and pulled shut the flaps, screaming, “1830! 1830! 1830!” Green light pulsed. Sammi screamed until her throat was raw and bleeding.

By four-thirty she was insane. Her husband arrived home at five to find his wife sitting in the box, rocking to and fro, mumbling “1830, 1830…” while clutching a blood-stained teddy bear.

By six, rays of sunlight peeked through dissipating clouds that ceased their violent churning and either melted away or moved off. The air lost its green tint and all that remained of the strange storm was the memory of it.

In Granville they still talk about it–the strange weather and the disappearance of the two boys–as if the two events were inseparable.

Sammi shuffles aimlessly in the asylum, tears falling freely from haunted eyes, mumbling endlessly about “’Indians” and “1830.” At times Sammi’s eyes brighten and she smiles an odd little smile. If she tries hard she can see her twin six-year-olds, two bright little meteors streaking through time. But when she reaches out to them they shimmer and fade, as does her sanity. The light in her eyes dims and once more she is lost.

Summer was ending in Whitechapel, but that meant no difference to me as I prowled the night. By the few flickering lights that fended off the darkness, I stared at every person I passed. Some returned my look, but most ignored me while possessed by their own needful demons of drink or hunger. Yet each tired, dirty face shared a shimmer of fear that I could smile at taking credit for.

I kicked at the debris which littered the filthy, narrow streets that I roamed. An abandoned newspaper’s headline screamed of my murderous activities and offered a reward for my capture. That about gave me fits of the jollies. I knew this neglected, grime-soaked section of the city far better than any of the coppers who wouldn’t even dare travel some of its darkest streets alone. They gave me no reason for alarm or even to hurry at my work. And my work must be done, for I am a man of honor who always pays his debts.

I knew she would be the one at first sight. She stood swaying at an intersection illuminated by a storefront’s gas lamp, a night’s drinking already affecting her. Her dull colored clothes were shabby, especially worn at the fur collar and cuffs. The straw hat balanced artfully on her head was decorated with black beads. Its brim cast a shadow over her blue eyes and worn face.

Glancing about I saw no one save an old sailor shuffling away at the end of the street. I reached into my pocket and gripped the cool handle of my knife. Swiftly I approached her and smiled reassuringly as I said hello.

She stepped back, eyeing me oddly. Perhaps her instincts overcame her drunkenness and she realized she was but prey. I released my knife and took hold of the coins in my pocket.

“I’m in need of friendly company,” I said softly as I offered her the money. Her distrust of me vanished. With one hand she took the coins as the other grasped my arm. Her fingers stroked my shoulder as she commented how lovely the material of my coat felt. Then she grasped my hand and led me into the alley.

“Let’s have a bit of privacy in the dark, dearie,” she muttered, the alcohol apparent on her breath. As we walked in the filthy alley, I reached back into my pocket and fondled my knife. My heart beat quickened in anticipation of the kill and plunder.

My heart stopped as I saw Lord Mantly’s cards. No matter how good my hand, his was always better. I sank back in my chair and finished the last drop of whiskey in my glass.

“Barsons!” Lord Mantly called. “We can’t allow our guest an empty glass.”

As the aged manservant attended to my glass, I gazed at the stuffed animal heads that adorned Lord Mantly’s game room. He had taken these trophies while in India. But the lion’s head had come at a cost: Lord Mantly’s left leg. Yet he still had a hunger for trophies, and the trophies that I brought him he kept hidden in his private den.

“Another game?” Lord Mantly asked.

“I’ve no money left to wager.”

“Then let’s play for other stakes. What did you bring me last time… a uterus?”

I nodded.

“Well, this time the stakes for your wager will be… a uterus and kidney for me if you lose. Agreed?”

I nodded.

One day I would win and then I would do some traveling.

Lord Mantly began to deal the cards as I reached into my pocket to touch my knife for luck.

My hands are stained with blood–Mother’s blood. He took away her body and left me here. I’m cold.

It all began two weeks ago, when I saw Mother sad for the first time. I thought it was a happy occasion, but when I showed her my first blood, she wept the entire night. Father, although he didn’t weep, wasn’t happy either. They said we should hide it for as long as possible, while I wanted to shout it out loud and start looking for a husband. I was a woman. That night, the women of the village met and whispered until dawn. I knew it was wrong, but I hid so I could listen. They talked about Reverend Brady’s private sermons and they talked about me. They shuddered.

The next Sunday, the reverend told me he would have a special sermon for me in his cabin after the sun set.

Mother tried to kill him when he had me naked. Now I’m sitting surrounded by her blood and I can hear him coming. He’s coming satisfied and content, but he doesn’t know that I still have her knife.

Is the present secure?

Affirm.

You’re sure because…

Affirmative. How many times, Starski?

And you remember the greeting?

We come in peace. Still sounds a bit overdone to me.

It’s what they like. It’s what they want to hear.

Yeah, whatever… Are you getting any readings? We’re within one light year.

Negative. I’m receiving noise but no communications.

We come all this way. Suddenly it’s like they stop transmitting.

Not suddenly. I mean we’ve been traveling towards the telemetry so it’s been getting closer all the time, but even so I haven’t seen any coherent communications for the past several hundred light years. They may be covert but…

So we abort?

Aren’t you curious?

***

Okay, we’re here. Scan for the bipeds.

Negative scan.

People of planet Earth, we come in peace. I repeat, we come in peace. What’s going on down there? Maybe we should just take a look.

Negative. I’m reading high levels of toxins.

Life forms?

Arachnids.

Spiders? Well, that does it. I hate spiders!

Agreed.

What do you suppose happened?

My guess is it just took us too long to get here. We missed civilization.

Yup. Looks like they wiped themselves out.

***

What now?

Go home, I suppose.

You do realize that by the time we get there…

Shit, you’re right. Centuries will have passed. Nobody we knew will be there any more. They may never even have heard of Starski and Bach… Look at all those points of light out there, Bach. Amazing, isn’t it?

Yes, it’s a beautiful sight.

I didn’t mean that. I meant the vast horror of it–that no matter where you look, you’re looking into the past.

Time. You mean it’s all about time. All this space and there’s no future in it.

So you think maybe we should just go on out there? Do a little prospecting?

Why not? We still have the present.

Miriam stared at her reflection in the cracked mirror. Though time had transformed her appearance, she remained unchanged within. She turned her head, scrutinizing her sagging skin and the dark, puffy bags beneath her eyes. Her bones cracked as she grabbed her silver hairbrush and ran it through her long, tangled hair, turned white as chalk. She paused to remove wads of dead hair from the brush, after which she applied clumps of makeup to her face. Lastly, she ran a tube of red lipstick over her lips, smearing half her face in the process. Well, she reasoned, there was only so much a girl could do, wasn’t there? She stood, adorned in all the glory of her faded dress, and headed out.

At five minutes past the hour, Miriam entered the ladies’ club. She ignored the disapproving stares of the other guests, reminding herself that Jealousy could be as corrosive as battery acid being poured into a person’s soul. She chose to focus on the task of flicking spiders off her dress. Her living arrangements, sadly, made it hard to keep her wardrobe fresh. She closed her eyes and envisioned her former self: extravagant, elegant and poised. Oh, how people used to admire her.

“She’s horrible! When did she buy that dress, in 1942?” Their voices came to her unbidden.

“Doesn’t she know when to leave?”

Miriam pressed a water glass to her lips, slobbering liquid over the front of her dress.

“Miriam, dear.” An old friend approached her, extending ring-embellished fingers.

Miriam reached out her hand, a study in angular bones and lumpy knuckles.

“How long has it been?” the woman asked ominously.

“Seven years,” answered Miriam. She disengaged her hand to pluck a loose tooth from her mouth. “Oh, bother,” she whined.

“I suggest you leave, Miriam, before you make a further spectacle of yourself.”

“But I’m bored,” whined Miriam. “I’ve nothing to do with my time.”

“Still, dear, it’s time you moved on.”

The woman wandered off through the crowd, leaving Miriam alone at the table, vulnerable to the horrified stares of onlookers.

“Her time has come and gone,” people were saying. “Can she not see?”

A waiter held his nose before depositing a plate of appetizers on her table and then running away. She stuck a fork into a puff pastry and raised it to her lips, mashing it against her mouth and crumbling it over her dress. As she brushed off the front of her dress, it began to disintegrate.

“I really do hope her clothes stay on,” voices wafted over. “We’re not ready for a creep show.”

Miriam stood and hobbled toward the door. She might have made it had not her ligaments and joints given away, at which point she collapsed in a heap of flesh and bone.

“Oh, God, call the janitor.”

“While you’re at it, tell the manager. Next time, they shouldn’t let her through the door.”

“You’d better believe it; she’s already half past Neverland.”

They returned her to her mausoleum. While others in the cemetery remained dead, Miriam entertained other plans. Hours passed into days. From decomposition, she recomposed. The cycle was complete and she raised herself up from a cold stone slab. As she stared into the cracked mirror of her mausoleum, the memory of her former beauty weighed heavily upon her soul. She could not accept that time’s machinations had drawn her in and brutally spat her out into the dust. Anger burned within her; how dare the members of the ladies’ club demean her. Little did they know that beauty could be resurrected.

Her bones poked through the disintegrating layers of her dress as she stood and stumbled from the mausoleum. She made her way to the ladies’ club on palsied legs. An event was taking place that she was determined to attend, be she dead or alive.

In the dark, Annabelle Dubrois felt along the bathroom wall. Her trembling hand switched on the overhead fluorescent bulb. It showered harsh candescence onto her head. She gazed in the mirror at her splotchy countenance and cursed her thinning hair and mousy mouth. Bruised shadows pooled beneath her eyes, hurt by what they witnessed. She had never been beautiful and with each passing year she became less attractive and more invisible to men.

“No wonder no one wants me; I’m hideous.” She smiled a fake camera-cheese-grin and examined her yellow teeth, grabbed the toothbrush and squeezed minty-blue paste onto its bristles then scoured her teeth until her gums bled. She spat into the basin and watched liquid, crimson flowers bloom and swirl in a ballet down the drain.

Her pet lab, Beaux, nuzzled her bare calf. She kicked him away without a glance. “Leave me alone, Beaux, get.” She heard him whine as he retreated to the hall and sat as if waiting his turn for the ladies’. She looked down at him. “I’m sorry, boy. Mama’s just upset.” She went to him and crouched down, nose to nose. “You’re a good boy.” She stroked his head with one hand and wiped her tears away with the other. He lifted his snout and licked her cheek. “If you didn’t love me, I wouldn’t know love at all.” She buried her face in his furry neck and wept.

Prozac had not managed to roust her out of this depression. She’d been taking it for two months and didn’t feel any better. None of the antidepressants worked. They were ploys for pharmaceutical companies to make money off people who were in a desperate state of mind. The only effective drug the doctor prescribed was a sleeping pill, Ambien. Annabelle relied on those pills to lure her mind away from self-hatred and lull it to sleep. She enjoyed sleeping. She wished she could sleep forever. It hit her. Mabye I should sleep forever.

With renewed energy in her step, she scurried to the bathroom medicine cabinet and retrieved the Ambien. Beaux trailed after her and whimpered by her feet. She dumped the entire bottle of candy narcotics into her palm and counted. There were eleven pills. That should be enough. She slapped all eleven to the back of her throat and filled a glass with water, gulped them down, then turned her head and said, “Ahhh, it’s done.”

She sat on the bathroom rug and leaned against the tub. Beaux curled up beside her and rested his head in her lap. She petted him gently until she fell asleep.

A slurping tongue lapped her cheek. She heard Beaux whimpering loudly in her ear. He pawed her mouth and barked. She couldn’t respond. He dug his nails into her skin and ripped her lower lip. She tasted blood and felt the hot fingers of pain pinch her lip. Beaux licked the blood from her mouth and growled. His licks were followed by teeth, biting into the pulpy flesh of her pout. She was paralyzed. She wanted to scream out as Beaux’s canine incisors tore pink, living tissue away. She heard him smack and swallow as he devoured her silent lips. When will I die? I should be dead already!

His drooling hunger moved to her nose. The stench of his dog-breath filled her lungs as he gnawed the tip of her nose. She didn’t know why he was attacking her face. She thought maybe he knew how much it had offended her. Dogs were sensitive and perceptive. Her cheek burst into flames of excruciating pain and then her mind went blank.

Annabelle awoke in the hospital with bandages covering her wounds. Doctors gathered around her bed and discussed her options for a face transplant. They said she would be the first person to undergo such a procedure. In her mind, she thanked Beaux as she watched her hand sign the surgery permission forms.

Mom returned from the kitchen with empty eye sockets. “That shriek was just the cat,” she said, then sighed at my shocked expression. “Did I eat the eyes again? Damn, they taste just like the internal organs. Well, I’ll be more careful this time.” Her jaw dislocated and out shrieked a quivering, crimson-suckered tentacle.