MicroHorror

“Nothing I could do about it… It’s hopeless,” Charlie complained in agony under the blankets. “I’m a lost cause, Terry.”

I looked at my long-time friend as we sat there in his obscure living room. He had kept the blinds closed through quite some time now. The apartment was a mess and the stench was so intense that I had to cover my nose with my shirt occasionally and breathe in through my mouth.

“You should see the doctor, Charlie. It’s gotten worse, hasn’t it?” I asked the wrapped-up pile over on the couch. The blankets pulsated in a shiver.

“No! No doctors! If you bring a doctor in here, Terry, I’ll never forgive you. I still get around… Can’t go outside anymore, though, but I can live with that.” He ran short of breath. Since the last time I spoke to him there was a change in his voice too. A change that scared the living piss out of me! His voice had gotten deeper, more nasal and snarl-like.

“You ought to just go away. Leave me alone from now on. You can’t save me… Please, I’m begging you!”

It was painful to see him like this–not to mention the speed and increase of the transformation. It was horrifying.

I remembered the day three weeks ago when it all began. Charlie had called me on my cell phone, sounding both afraid and euphoric. He wasn’t making much sense as he rambled on about “changes,” “magic” and “the fluid in the jar.” So I rushed from campus to his apartment. He was sweating like a dog when I got there, grinding his teeth and gesticulating wildly, his hair pointing in every direction. He talked extremely fast, using a very private kind of logic that made him sound on the verge of a psychosis.

“Terry, Terry! Glad you’re here. Come on in, there’s something I’ve got to show you!” Today, I wish he had never shown me what he did…

“What is that?” I asked when I saw the brown jar on the table in the living room. His eyes shone with enthusiasm.

“Indescribable. I’ll show you.” He started walking over to the table.

“Where did you get that?” I went over beside him, leaned forward and looked into the jar. A thick, clumpy and green mass floated around down there. It smelled like rotting fruit. Charlie pulled up his left sleeve and put his hand into the jar, penetrating the surface of the moisture.

“Watch this…” he said in a hoarse voice, eyes bulging out of their sockets. He kept his hand in the bubbly moisture for a few seconds and then hauled it up.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake… My God, no! Charlie, what have you done? What is it in that jar?”

He just looked at me, holding out his left arm so I could see where his hand had been. Now it was… gone, invisible.

“Don’t worry. Hand will reappear in five or ten minutes. Magic, huh?” he said with a mysterious grin on his face.

“You’re crazy, man… That’s madness! What is that fluid in that jar, Charlie?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what’s in there. I found it behind the complex yesterday,” Charlie said and stared hypnotically at the jar.

A thump over by the couch dragged me out of my memories. Charlie had fallen or crawled down on the floor. He moaned. It was a disgusting, gurgling sound. His head appeared over the edge of the table. I pulled back on the chair. The voice was now unrecognizable.

“Terry… for… God’s… sake…”

Charlie’s face was all covered with some sort of green, mold-like fungus. Clearly it was spreading fast. There was no doubt in my mind about what I had to do. I reached in my jacket pocket and pulled out the borrowed .38 and pointed it at the thing over by the couch.

“Sorry, Charlie. May God forgive me,” I said and pulled the trigger.

I sat on the dock every day. I enjoyed the breezes off the lake, like the solitude of the water. My pole and my tackle box sat beside me. Inside the plastic container, I kept a school of minnows; also, I brought a small container into which I planned to put worms when the bucket emptied. With the water warm below me, I took off my shoes and put them by the yellow bait box. My feet fell into the liquid. They chilled immediately, and I wiggled them quickly and happily.

I took a minnow from the plastic container. Like my feet, it wiggled like it wished to flap in the water and stay there. A blot of blood oozed from the fish when I hooked it. The minnow didn’t fight as badly as I thought. Truthfully, it didn’t fight as badly as I hoped. Casting a lengthy line, I threw it into the lake. It landed as far from me as I could hurl it. Soundlessly, it plopped into the liquid. A bite jabbed the line. Another took my ankle; it nearly pulled me into the water.

Recently, my mother had offered a gift to my friends and me. She had taken everyone to the water park. One problem had existed which my mother hadn’t planned. I had never learned to swim. My brother had understood it at the park. With a slimy hand on my ankle, I had stood painfully; I couldn’t break the hold. With the pressure of his fist, I had jumped off the small platform into the shallow end. Then he had laughed while I had paddled helplessly. Finally, I had stood upright, with my face red and my limbs sore.

Holding the dock, I fought until my ankle lifted. Without the light of daytime anymore, I went down to the shoreline, and tried to look for the intruder who broke my solitude. Waving the flashlight, I found nobody. My brother probably took my leg and pulled it, like he had below the bridge at the park. With my light, I looked but I couldn’t find any footprints. Only animals had pressed their feet near the edge–a lot of animals, actually, had left tracks, which had already filled with black liquid.

Walking back to the dock, I tripped on a knotty vine and fell into the lake. My head submerged; liquid filled my nose and mouth. As a fish would on land, my body flopped inside the wide spirals of water that surrounded it. Weeds floated by my eyes, and I could feel my stomach fill with muck. An ugly sight warned me that I didn’t struggle alone. Although my brother hadn’t, someone had indeed pulled my calf.

A blurry blue spot looked like a fish eye. Only, it stared steadily; it didn’t swim or bob. Naturally, fish didn’t get that big by my house. A fluffy bushel of hair waved below the water. Around the shoreline, the brush looked sticky, bloody. Small flies jumped off the mud and buzzed loudly; a mess of insects bounced off the shiny surface.

Grabbing a root, I pulled myself back. I found a foothold and a place for my hands to yank my body to the surface. Although I didn’t die, I could have; briefly, I believed I did. As I walked home, with my body jittery and my throat scratchy (I still coughed loudly), I realized that I should take lessons on how to swim properly. With the lake by my house, it could keep me alive.

In my haste, I forgot my pole. When the sunlight shone, I went back to retrieve it. When I did, I found a smelly sunfish hooked to my line. Like the body below the dock, it too had lost its fleshy meat and had decomposed to its empty bones. I took the bait box, ran quickly, and never enjoyed the solitude again.

I once heard that hell is a state of being where one is unable to understand or comprehend the world around him.

Life didn’t start out bad for me. After finishing high school with average marks I caught some breaks, as I graduated from business school with a degree in accounting, worked at a few boring jobs, and then went to work for an internet startup which offered antiques online. All twelve employees were rich within a year, but one thing eluded me: that someone special in my life.

When I met Valerie she was working as a cocktail waitress in a downtown nightclub. Her bubbly personality added something new to my life. I started out by taking her to dinner, and the more time we spent together, the more we grew to like each other. Eventually, I was able to admit that I loved her.

I was at the front door of her apartment with a rose in hand. After knocking for a few seconds, another man answered, and I saw Valerie in the background with a little bit of nothing on. I rushed into her apartment and when I reached her, I saw nothing a wicked grin on her face.

“Turn around!” he said.

As I turned around, the man had a gun in his hand. Within seconds, I was on the ground and covered in blood. As I took my last gasp of air, I saw her laughing at me.

Valerie was on easy street, because I had left my love nearly everything I had. But I just wouldn’t go away. In fact, I stayed right in the apartment. When I woke up, I was right by the bed.

Valerie and her guy were in bed talking. They discussed knocking me off and she mentioned they’d been together for three years. I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t. I attempted to exit through the front door, back door, even through the windows, but there was some invisible force which kept me locked up.

Was it hell? Yes, I was up twenty-four hours a day, as I no longer required sleep. I also had to watch the two lovers as they bought a new car, decorated the apartment and went on numerous shopping sprees.

After a week, things changed. I was in the kitchen and heard him tell Valerie to shut up. I slipped through a crack in the door and found that he had her at gunpoint.

“Goodbye,” he said.

Then he pulled the trigger and she fell to the ground. He watched with glee as she took her last breath. He wrapped up her body and placed it in the closet and then left. I never saw him again.

I turned around and saw her staring at me with a face covered in fright and blood.

“Jacob,” she said. “Where are we?”

“You lied to me.”

She tried to leave the apartment in every possible way but couldn’t. I only laughed. After her failed attempt, Valerie looked at me with a sense of fright on her face.

“I always wanted to be with you forever,” I said.

“I… I never wanted to be with you,” she said. “When will we get out? I want to get out.”

“We all think we have it figured out.”

As the days turned into weeks, she started crawling around on the floor like an infant, trying to escape, and couldn’t, but neither did I.

We were stuck together. There was too much lying and distrust to ever build a relationship. We’d both passed through the world with no one to love and found out it wasn’t a birthright.

We did nothing for the next several years but put up with each other.

“Shut up!” she said.

“You had to make alternate plans on who to spend your life with,” I said. “Now you live with your choice.”

“Shut up!”

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.