MicroHorror

It was Sunday when it happened. At 6:30 a.m. my life imploded. Blood and air seemed to be sucked out from my body in shock.

He stood on the doorstep, a sly smile lurking on his lips. “Hi, Diane.” Rain pelted down onto his parka.

I sagged against the door jamb. He reached out as if in support. “Don’t touch me!” My voice, low and fearful, seemed to echo around my brain.

“Aren’t you going to ask me in?” I shook my head. He grinned. “What about the neighbors?” I looked around but it was too early. All curtains were drawn shut.

“I thought you were dead,” I said, standing aside, trying to gather my thoughts.

“Ghosts don’t get wet.” He walked past me, heading straight for the kitchen.

I followed Sam and watched him assessing the state of the place. “Neat and tidy as usual,” he commented. “Did you get counseling for your Obsessive Behavior problem?” I didn’t answer. He grinned again.

I stood with my back against the sink while Sam took off his parka and draped it over a radiator. There it dripped tiny drips onto the floor, but I quelled an urge to take out the mop. “What do you want?” I asked as he settled himself down on a chair.

“Money,” came the blunt reply. When I remained silent, he went on. “Accident, they said, after that floater turned up wearing my clothes.” I clenched my fists, letting my nails dig into the palms of my hands. “Of course, after you pushed me off the cliff, you must’ve expected my body to turn up sometime.”

“It did, three weeks later,” I said, my voice hoarse.

“Ah, but it wasn’t my body, Diane.” He stood up, held out his arms, “Look, it’s me!” then sat down again. “Lucky the tide was high. I got carried around the headland and managed to scramble up onto the beach.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Where’s that tea? Remember, four teaspoons of sugar. No milk. A good slug of whiskey.” I turned and put the kettle on and as I went through the familiar motions, he explained in a loud voice as he wandered out into the hall and into the sitting room, “So I thought if they find a body wearing my clothes, then you’d get a payout from the insurance.”

I gave him the mug of tea when he returned to sit down. “You were taking a risk,” I said. “Dental records could’ve given you away.”

“But the poor bloated face was mangled. Remember the inquest? A boat’s propeller, they assumed?” I nodded, appalled. “I got this homeless guy drunk. Made a mess of his face. Nicked a car. Drove to the very same spot you shoved me off. The sea and fish did the rest.

“Any cake?” I shook my head. He slurped greedily at his drink and said, “Make me a bacon sandwich. You’re a dab hand at that.”

Like the bad, old times, I did as I was told. Then, just as I was about to serve it up to him, Sam keeled over into a heap onto the floor. Later, after I severed his limbs and head from his torso, I put all his remains into an old freezer out in the garden shed. Then I came in and scrubbed down the kitchen with pure bleach and rinsed off with hot soapy water.

Something strange was going on at the Middleton Funeral Home. Behind the moss-covered brick and the dark curtained windows the corpse of John Paulson was shivering back to life.

Dr. Belmore, the Necromancer, a man who could raise the dead, checked the restraints holding the body–he didn’t want this one to escape like the last one. He had never found out what had happened to the revived corpse of Mark Scranton after he (it?) had jumped from the embalming table and bolted out the back door. It had been the fifth time that the Doctor had attempted to practice his necromancy skills to raise the dead. The first four times had resulted in disappointing failure, but this time it had worked! At first he had been ecstatic about his accomplishment, but when Mark Scranton’s undead body ran out the back door, his ecstasy had turned to panic. He was unprepared for how quickly the cadaver had become reanimated. Now the thing was loose.

Dr. Belmore had learned the dark art of necromancy from a voodoo priest in Haiti. He had studied with him for over five years. When he returned to America the Doctor had devised a plan… he would open a mortuary, use his necromancy skills to bring the dead back to life, harvest their undamaged organs, sell them on the black market, and become filthy rich.

Scranton had been killed in a terrible car accident that had torn off half his face and had crushed most of his internal organs, but his right kidney was still viable and Dr. Belmore had a buyer for that kidney.

A few nights after the Scranton incident, Dr. Belmore was working and thought he had heard faint scratching on the embalming room door. Like something wanted in. He had rushed to the door but found nothing; just a bone chilling wind whipping him in the face. It was just the wind, just his imagination, just his paranoia.

Unfortunately his first “patient” had escaped and Dr. Belmore had no idea where he (it?) was. While he could raise the dead, he still hadn’t learned how to control them once they became undead.

Now John Paulson was on the embalming table ready for harvesting. Dr. Belmore had already called his black market connection. The collector would arrive within two hours. Dr. Belmore would have to work fast, but he was an extremely skilled surgeon and even though his work required him to work alone, he was confident that he could complete the work quickly. Once the deal was done he could get to his sinful passion of breaking bones and sucking out succulent bone marrow. Raw, human bone marrow was like candy to the Necromancer.

Then… there was a knock at the door. His collector was early! Damn it! He still had to remove and pack the heart. Dr. Belmore removed his surgical gloves with a frown and went to the door.

A solitary figure stood in the doorway. “You’re early, but come in, sit down.” The figure stepped through the doorway into the bright light of the embalming room. “My God!” gasped Dr. Belmore. He gagged at the terrible stench that burned his nostrils. The half-exposed jaw bone moved grotesquely as if trying to speak, but only an awful sloppy wet gurgle came out. Its tongue lolled out the open side of its face twisting and turning like a slimy, bloody snake. The Doctor stumbled backwards. An icy shudder shot up his spine. His eyes became wide with astonishment and horror. It wasn’t the organ collector–it was Mark Scranton!

The thing that had been Mark Scranton seized Dr. Belmore’s left arm and with supernatural strength began to slowly tear it off. The Doctor screamed in agony. He screamed for mercy as his joint popped and his muscles and tendons began to tear away from his shoulder. He saw a pulsating fountain of rich, red blood where his arm used to be before his world went dark.

“Hey, it’s late!” chided his wife from the kitchen. “Better catch some sleep. You’ve got some serious competition in that writing contest tomorrow.”

Jerry stuffed the bloody axe into his golf bag in the hall closet, using his stocking cap to cover the crimson blade. He called over his shoulder, “What competition?”

The eyes were white and soggy, like melted snow. They pierced through him with colorful blasts of brightness. About twenty white pupils expanded ferociously to stop him escaping. He slowed down until he eventually stopped sprinting. The eyes disappeared but he got this creepy feeling that they were still watching at him. He was dead scared. Who was going to help him now?

“What do you want from me?” He could see them again. He suddenly got this strange urge to rip his soul from his body and offer it to them. He was frantically trying to stop them from taking over his mind. He started to claw at his body, desperately trying to stop the creatures crawling inside the particles of his skin, like little soldiers on battlefields.

“You.”

The forcedness of their replies frightened him. The harmony of their voices, echoing way after they had spoken, sent chills all over his body and his skin began to peel and bleed from all his frenetic scratching and from the putrid poisonous gasses radiating from their body heat.

“Why me?”

“Just you.” They echoed once more and their lips no longer moved. Then they vanished into thin air and his skin stopped smoldering and was now covered in blisters and he was drenched in wet sticky slippery liquid.

The next day he sensed them lingering in the dark, in his tiny room, waiting for him, peering at him; his skin stung and itched like sharp needles boring into it, leaving a multitude of tiny holes behind.

“We want you.” The voices sounded real enough but he couldn’t see their faces.

“Go away!” His skin was on fire and he felt as though it were melting. The intensity of the pain made his body shudder and he started to scream. They refused to go away. They were studying him, gawking at him. Their world was dark and yellow with many things that others couldn’t see but him, they tell him. They were in his room, still–oh so still–no more movements at all. These things–these aliens from beyond. He couldn’t stand the thought of not knowing where they were hiding, so his fear propelled him to call them, challenge them to show themselves. They preferred to keep scrutinizing him, stopping him from moving with the rhythmic motion of time. He loathed not knowing who they were. They told him that he is human and that he is on a planet called Earth. They couldn’t give him full control of his own mind. They refused to show themselves to anyone, until that person’s life span had expired. He was going crazy with all their watching and silence and waiting for him to slip up, so that he existed no more.

Then one day, like a wind blowing cold air in the open daylight, they were gone and the taunting haunting voices disappeared. Strangely, he felt so alone on this planet called Earth, trying to survive mankind’s rules and regulation. Each day he had to learn the rules to stay alive.

The kitchen phone rings. A scream cries out from the basement. A window on the back door is broken; glass shards rest in the sunlight, ignored. A note is taped to the refrigerator door. It reads: At the Elks. Sloppy joes for dinner. Back by bedtime. XoXo.

The scream in the basement grows quieter, muffled by a sleeve. It smells of marijuana smoke down there, though the joint’s already gone out underneath the toppled ashtray. A camcorder is placed on the coffee table. Bare, brown feet scuff against shag carpeting and a pair of black leather boots. The phone stops ringing.

The bare feet stop scuffing and start cringing. A pillow is gripped tight. The boots stomp. The bare feet fall limp. The pillow is lifted and tossed aside.

Clothes are removed; some are put back on. The camcorder is shut off. The boots clomp up the stairs. The bare feet stay still. The door with the broken window hangs limp on its hinges, creaking slowly with a sunset breeze.

The phone line in the kitchen rings again. The machine picks up, and a voice calls out, shrill and angry that nobody’s home to answer.

James stood on the freshly dug pile of dirt beside a substantial hole in his back yard. His son, Bobby, was in the hole with a shovel, his arms going like windmills.

“What you doin’, son?”

Bobby wiped his sweaty brow on a sleeve and looked up from the hole. “Diggin’.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“Then why’d ya ask?” Bobby said impatiently. He couldn’t understand adults. What did it look like he was doing?

“Okay, smarty pants, there is a seven-foot-deep hole in my backyard and I’d kinda like to know why. Can you help me out here? What are you looking for? Treasure? Fish worms? China?”

“The monster that ate Billy.” He resumed digging.

James saw his hunting knife attached to his son’s belt. “Oh, you and Billy are playing. Where is he? And why do you have my knife?”

Bobby stopped digging. “For crying out loud! I told you, a monster ate him!”

“Okay, young man, come up here. You know better than to talk to me like that.”

“But Pa!”

“Now.”

“I gotta find him!”

“NOW!”

Bobby headed for the stepladder he borrowed earlier from his mom. James saw bloodstains on Bobby’s arms and worrisome scratches on his face and neck.

“Bobby! Are you hurt? What happened to you?”

“We was diggin’ for gold, Pa. It got him. It tried to get me, too.” He started up the ladder.

“What got him? Are you just pretending? Don’t play games with me, Bob…”

A dark tentacle-like thing probed through the bottom of the pit. Before Bobby could react it attached a plate-sized suction cup to his face, pulled him off the ladder and into the hole at the bottom of the pit.

Bobby’s mom came up to the pit, being careful to avoid the flying dirt. “Hey! In the hole! I need my ladder back. Bob… James? Uh, lose your car keys? What in the world are you doing?”

“Digging.”

“Digging for what? Treasure? We could use some.”

“The monster that ate Bobby!”

There was movement at the bottom of the pit.

Late in the night prior he had beaten the animal senseless. Then he found the dead deer. He could only take one back. He imagined the boar unseamed, the human child to spill out like eucharized horridness, and retched a fascinating yellow drool upon the black ground. He chose the boar and hid the deer.

They didn’t reach the new house until late at night. Through the car window, Maddie watched the rows of houses fly by–the same two-story homes with the same mailbox and neatly manicured lawn.

“What’s the house number, Mommy?”

“1715,” answered Mommy. She took a turn into a cul-de-sac and the boxes piled in the back seat pushed Maddie against the car door.

1715 Meadowhill Court. That would be her new home.

“This should be it,” said Mommy, pulling into a driveway.

The house’s only distinguishing feature was Daddy’s truck parked on the curb. For a moment, Maddie thought she saw a shadow flash by one of the upstairs bedrooms.

Maddie helped Mommy by carrying a box labeled CDs and ringing the doorbell. The chime reverberated through the house, its quiet music echoed by the sudden sound of footsteps, which grew louder and louder until the door swung open, revealing Daddy.

“I was just assembling the dining chairs,” he said cheerfully, taking the box from Maddie and kissing Mommy on the cheek. “Come on in.”

While her parents unloaded Mommy’s car, Maddie explored the house: the living room stacked with boxes; the kitchen, where Daddy had already assembled the dining table; the bathrooms that smelled like paint. She ran upstairs, peeking into the master bedroom before skipping down the hall to the next door: her own bedroom. Her heart thudded with excitement as she examined the room. She maneuvered around boxes, opened the closet door and flicked the light switch on and off, on and off.

“Don’t do that, Maddie,” said Mommy, “you’ll kill the lights.” She held a sleeping bag. “For today, we’re all going to sleep in Mommy and Daddy’s room. We’ll go to Ikea tomorrow and pick you out a new bed.”

A brand new bed, just for her. She took the sleeping bag from Mommy and followed her back down the hall. Just as they reached the master bedroom, the door to Maddie’s room slammed shut.

Maggie jumped. “What was that?”

Mommy frowned. “Oh, Daddy probably just left the window open. It’s a bit gusty tonight.”

Maddie fell into an uneasy sleep, drifting in and out of strange dreams and the sound of Daddy snoring. Her eyes flew open when Daddy gave a particularly large grunt, and then she heard the hurried whisper: “Maddie.”

She sat up, wide-eyed. “Hello?”

“I’m in your room.”

Maddy bit her lip. She glanced at her sleeping parents, unease crawling up and down her spine.

“Maddie,” murmured the voice again, and a warm sensation spread across her skin. Her body got to its feet, and she tiptoed out of the room.

Her bedroom door was open a crack. She peeked in and saw a dark shadow hovering over the boxes.

Her heart thumped, but she cautiously pushed the door open wider.

“Don’t be afraid,” whispered the shadow. “I won’t hurt you.” The shadow flew around the room, illuminated by moonlight. “I just want to be your friend.”

Enticed, Maddie opened the door further, taking her first step into her room. She barely felt it as the shadow flew into her, covering her little body like a tight-fitting suit.

“Maddie, come down and set the table,” called Ashley. The kitchen overflowed with the scent of homemade cooking. Ashley added a little pepper to her sauce before yelling again, “Maddie!”

Her daughter came thundering down the steps. “What do you want?”

Ashley frowned, noting the sneer on her daughter’s face and the strange tint of her skin. “Don’t you use that tone with me, young lady.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Her mother put her hands on her hips. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you these days, but your behavior needs to stop.”

Maddie smiled, and Ashley almost took a step back as a hint of something stirred behind the little girl’s eyes. “Oh, you’ll find out, dear Mother. You’ll see.”

The demon Aeshma whispered. And I listened to the voice that sounded like the rustling of long dead leaves, the words seeming to emanate from the very molecules of the air itself. A million raspy voices from a single entity that filled the room and caused my eardrums to quiver with its resonance. And yet my parents slept on. Unaware of my shadow falling over their bed, oblivious to the glint of moonlight off the blade of the knife.

I thought of the cat lying on my bedroom floor, its blood tracing a nine-pointed star around its lifeless body. I could picture the black candles flickering light and shadow across its matted fur, could almost smell the aroma of incense, thick and sweet like the overpowering fragrance of flowers clustered tightly into a funeral home. And I thought of Michelle standing in my brother’s bedroom, her own knife in hand, listening to the demon whisper as well. Soon, we would hold the power of life and death in our hands; we would become King and Queen of the new, dark world. All of Aeshma’s promises would come to fruition with the completion of one simple act.

My father snored and rolled over in his sleep so that he was now on his back with the sheet tucked snugly beneath his chin. I watched his chest rise and fall, envisioning where his heart would be. My aim had to be precise, my stroke quick and complete… a true King could not afford to hesitate at the moment of his crowning glory.

“Soon,” Aeshma whispered in the darkness, “so very soon.”

I remembered when Michelle and I first found The Book in my grandfather’s attic, how the wind almost seemed to sigh through the cracks in the walls when we opened its cover. The pages felt warm and oily and the words and symbols almost seemed as if they were floating slightly above the paper. At that moment, the unfolding of our destiny had begun; looking back, I understood there was no other way this could have played out.

My mother and father had eventually found The Book, of course. I suspect they were searching through my room, expecting to find drugs or a hidden bottle of whiskey. Anything that would explain the sudden change in my behavior and the slump in my grades.

When I came home that day, they were waiting for me in the living room. I remember them yelling, something about how they didn’t want this sort of trash in their home and how they raised me better than that. To be honest, however, the sounds of their anger had been almost been entirely drowned out by Aeshma’s voice reassuring me that this changed nothing. And it hadn’t. They had taken The Book, but by then it was too late. Michelle and I had already committed the ceremony to memory and begun gathering the essential supplies.

“It’s time!” Aeshma hissed. “Do it, human, do it now!”

I raised the knife over my head and tightened my grip until my knuckles were white and throbbing.

“Do it! Do it!”

At that moment, my father bolted upright in bed, slinging the sheets from his body. He was fully dressed and held a small pistol in his hand. A pistol which was aimed directly at my head. I stood like a man frozen in time, my mind reeling and confused by this turn of events.

My mother was now also sitting up and I noticed the smirk that had crept across her face.

“Do it, honey,” she said. “Do it for your Queen.”

I became aware of The Book, clutched tightly to her chest. From down the hall, I heard Michelle laughing and calling out.

“I did it, Timmy! I did it! I really did it!”

My father cocked the pistol with his thumb and smiled.

“Goodbye, Timothy. We have no room for a Prince in our Kingdom.”

And then the demon Aeshma laughed.

“May I have the honor of this dance, darling?” Taking her gloved hand in his, he wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted his bride to her feet. On the moonlit terrace, he held her close, feeling each rise and fall of her chest as they moved to the music of Haydn.

The sound of a horse and carriage faded in the distance.

“I am happy to be your husband, holding you in my arms on this most auspicious night.” He pulled her closer.

“It is interesting that we should end up together after so many suitors came knocking at your door.”

Her hand brushed his neck.

“I know, darling. I know.” He kissed her lips.

“Shhhhh,” he said, silencing her attempt to speak. “I just want to hear the beat of your heart.” The room swirled around them, blending in with the night.

“That evening seven months ago when we met at the Governor’s Ball, the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew this was meant to be. When you tossed those flowing brown locks, the movement sang to me.” He twisted a strand of her tousled hair in his fingers.

“You were with your prince, remember? The tragic carriage accident left you a maiden again and even though you tried to push me away, I stayed by your side to see you through your loss.” He smiled.

“My persistence paid off. Knowing I was the sole heir to my wealthy uncle’s estate won your father over.” He dipped her. “We were destined to be together.”

As he waltzed her around the balcony, her head drifted to his shoulder. “There, there. It has been a long day.” He nuzzled her neck. “I know you are exhausted. Shall we retire to the bedroom?”

She let out a long deep sigh.

“Me too.” He scooped her up, cradling her body, and carried her over the threshold. They glided down a dark hallway to the master suite. Dim light from the fireplace glittered off rose petals sprinkled across the floor. She looked at him with intoxicating, deep green eyes, as he laid her down on the pillows.

He walked to the chest of drawers, removing his bow tie and ruffled silk shirt. “What your father did not know was that my uncle has been dead for years, and alas, I gambled away his fortune.” He saw her reflection in a mirror over the vanity. “The pauper I used to impersonate him was very convincing, was he not?” He turned.

His bride’s eyes were wide with horror. The sedative he’d given her had nearly worn off.

“It will all be over soon.” He knelt on the bed next to her. The surgical blade glinted in the light of the fire.

A tear trickled down her face. She tried to speak, but her lips were crudely sewn shut. He moved the dowry in the leather satchel to the side, raised the razor high above his head, and finished the task.

“Thank you for–the dance.”