MicroHorror

The sea is quiet after yesterday’s storm. The shipwreck was the stuff of nightmares and I marvel that I survived unharmed, although I did lose every stitch of clothing. I see a tiny isle in the distance but this current carries me away from it. I wonder if any man made it there to safety. Regardless, I am alone. On the horizon is a beacon of hope–our sister ship, the Imp, in full sail. But she is still so far away.

I have no doubt the helmsman–the lovesick fool–daydreamed us into this disaster. All he could talk about was his girl. Well, damn him and his love that waits across the sea! I hope his rotting, bloated carcass washes up at her feet!

A fin breaks the surface at twenty yards. Shark? No, no, no! Not with rescue in sight! Getting out of the water on this small piece of wreckage is impossible. In dread I watch the fin slice through the water and slip behind a half-submerged barrel. A creature rises from the sea and… what’s this? A woman? A mer… no! It can’t be! Yet there she is. By all that is holy, the legends are true!

She swims the barrel closer and pulls herself further from the water as long, kelp-green hair clings to her shoulders and cascades over her chest. Gentle curves hint at what lies hidden beneath the tresses. I venture a smile. She returns a grin, lips parted slightly, but moves no closer.

Her head swivels quickly to the side. What attracts her? Gray fins, and no doubt this time they are sharks. With a splash my new friend is gone and bloody turmoil erupts thirty yards away. I cry out in terror as the sea heaves and panicked sharks leap from the water. She is fighting them!

I look and the Imp is within a mile. I’m going to make it! And I have this charming, heroic, mysterious being to thank. I am in awe of this creature and her ability to keep the savage sharks at bay. Oh, the tales I shall tell to mingle with those of the other old salts. My fear vanishes and I whoop in exultation!

She swims back beside the barrel, rising out of the water to her waist. Magnificent breasts glisten as water drips from erect nipples, no hair concealing them now. That remarkable grin returns as she breathes deeply. I feel the beginnings of an erection. I can’t believe the effect she has on me. I have to laugh; though in grave danger I find myself contemplating the sexual possibilities to be enjoyed with this creature that probably isn’t even human. Ah, I’ve been too long at sea.

She submerges silently. Moments later I flinch as she takes hold of, then releases, my erect penis. Startled, I inhale sharply. She is cold, cold as the sea. My erection fades as she surfaces ten feet away. She studies me intently, just like a… Oh my dear God, no! I’ve been so enamored by her human-like charms that I failed to notice the eyes. They contain no warmth. They are the eyes of a fish, the cold dead eyes of a predator. The smile that endeared her to me is not a smile at all, but the grimace of a sea creature too long out of the water. In the wink of an eye her beauty fades. She hasn’t been fighting sharks to protect me–she has been laying claim to me. Her lips curl back to reveal a beak like a parrot fish, a beak designed to tear flesh and crush bone. She utters an ugly, croaking sound before she slips beneath the waves.

I see the Imp clearly now.

It is so close.

But not close enough.

She is coming.

“Guests are always surprised when they meet Mother’s collection. You see, she has these dolls which are… different.”

“Dolls?” said the policeman, sitting up, and letting his pencil drop.

Leaning back in my armchair, I clasped my hands behind my neck and smiled as I thought how little police know about life… and food

As I thought about food, my stomach rumbled and salivary glands worked overtime. Oh, yes, Mother always produced a meal to be savored, devoured and remembered–one reason why I was still single at forty-five and living at home.

The Guest House might be in the hills, by a lake, a long way from main roads, but we had enough visitors to cater for our needs.

“Nothing really, only they are unusual coming from Africa. I only mentioned them because I remember the fat one you say is missing…”

“Richard Swail, sir,” said the policeman.

“That’s right, nice man, very friendly. Joked a lot, ate a lot, and drank even more, but loved the dolls.”

“No problems, then, yet he has vanished. Disappeared into the proverbial thin air.”

Easing myself out of the armchair, I walked across to a decanter sitting on a silver tray with some cut glass tumblers. Pouring out some of my favorite Bowmore whisky I closed my eyes and sniffed deeply, letting the tangy smell waft up my nostrils.

I took a sip, rolled it round my mouth, savoring the taste as the expensive malt sent its fiery sensation down my throat as I swallowed. Smell and taste: what a combination, even more so when applied to food.

I eyed the dark oak door to my right and smiled briefly, knowing what sat in silence in the other room. Pity Mother wasn’t present, she’d be proud of the way I was handling the intruder into our privileged life.

The policeman consulted his notes, then stared at me, hostility obvious.

“We know his last call on his mobile was after breakfast from here, driving straight to his office. Seems to have vanished, his car with him.”

I poured myself another whisky, walked to the oak door and listened. I thought I heard rustling from within. My stomach rumbled, and a glance at my watch confirmed it was time to eat again.

How lucky I was, having such a brilliant cook as my mother, and weren’t we lucky in having…

“Can I look ’round the house, sir?” asked the policeman, interrupting my thoughts.

“Why not go in there first?” I stood aside and let the policeman enter and smiled as he caught sight of the occupants in the dimly lit room.

The floor was bare dark wood, and the only furniture was a long settee, with four sitting figures.

Each was about four feet tall, made of crudely carved wood, with shrunken heads that had gaping mouths still full of teeth that had been chiseled to points. Wisps of hair still adorned the heads, and colorful blanket-type clothing covered the bodies.

The policeman’s face had gone white, and beads of sweat appeared. I could smell his fear and see his terror.

“Bloody ’ell,” he whispered, “those heads look real.”

“They are,” I said. “Taken from enemies during battles and treated to make them shrink and not rot.”

“Do your guests meet them?”

“Oh, yes. Gives them quite a shock.”

I watched him walk towards the far wall, and smiled as four shrunken heads turned and eyes, now blazing with life, stared at his back.

Quietly leaving the room, I locked the doors. Time to let Mother know that fresh joints would soon be ready for cooking. Her African servants were most efficient butchers

I wandered into the kitchen and thought about the mouthwatering meal she would cook with her subtle choice of herbs and spices. I had already decided on the wine when a short scream momentarily disturbed my reverie.

For a moment there I felt like I could’ve killed my son. That’s how angry and helpless I felt.

I didn’t see the accident happen; I’d been pruning the lilac bushes. He’d probably been daydreaming when he pushed the lawnmower over his baby sister’s hand. The spinning blades had severed it right off. I wondered how much of it had made it into the clippings bag intact.

“Stop gawking and call 911!” I shrieked so hard my voice cracked. I wrapped my thumb and forefinger around Marnie’s wrist as tight as I could. Kenton took one look at the blood and crumpled on the lawn. Marnie howled in my arms. The trees loomed over us and vindictively waved their branches at the spectacle.

I wanted to make a tourniquet with my shoelace but had no idea how I’d manage the feat without Marnie bleeding to death. At that moment a guy in a rusty black pickup skidded to a halt in the alley behind us. He threw open the passenger door.

“Get in! I’ll take you to the hospital!”

I didn’t recognize the guy, but we were six blocks from the nearest hospital and I realized it’d be quicker than waiting for an ambulance that hadn’t even been called yet.

I looked at my son. Kenton had partially recovered and was crawling toward the house. I ran to the pickup and jumped in, never taking my hand off Marnie’s wrist. She had quieted but looked deathly pale. He slammed the door and ran back around to the driver’s side.

“You got your wallet, man?” the stranger asked, as he floored the accelerator. Confused, I nodded. Then I realized they’d ask for my ID at the ER.

He spun the wheel and the truck sped up the street–away from the hospital.

“What the hell!” I shouted. “My little girl needs to get to the emergency room!”

“Not before you pay me for the ride.” The driver stared straight ahead.

“Christ, man! Are you nuts?”

“Don’t piss me off or we might just keep on drivin’.”

“I can’t let go of her wrist! She’s barely hanging on as it is!”

“I’ll stop at the first ATM I see.”

I thought about trying to jump from the vehicle but realized the stranger behind the wheel had me at a massive disadvantage. I couldn’t gamble with my daughter’s life. My tongue almost stuck to the roof of my mouth as I finally asked, “How much do you want?”

He glanced my way and sneered. “How much do you got?”

Myranda held her mobile phone close so he could see the pictures but Pete wasn’t really paying them much attention.

“My mother, Prisca. My father, Apatos, hiding behind a newspaper as ever… Did I mention the dogs?”

“No.”

“Raptor, Stego and Carny. Aren’t they sweet?”

He gave them a glance. They were of that variety of fluffy small dog that he particularly disliked. “Very cute. Pity about the red-eye…”

“It’s not terribly good as a camera,” she said, quickly closing it down. She blinked to adjust her contacts.

Stego–must be a pretty confused mutt, he thought

Pete wasn’t about to pop the question quite yet but he took the invitation to meet the family as encouragement. God, she was gorgeous! He liked her teeth when she laughed–neat, sharp. “What will you have?”

“Steak. Rare, please,” she added for the waiter. “I just hate it when they spoil good steak, don’t you?”

“Absolutely.” He ordered chicken and spent most of the meal staring at her–except when she caught him looking. It was heartening to meet a girl who relished her food.

“About Saturday,” he ventured.

“You’re still coming…?”

“Yes. I was just wondering what to bring. For your mother, I mean.”

“Flowers, if you like–not roses, though. Mother doesn’t like thorns. Waste of good blood, she says.”

He laughed. “You never call them Mum and Dad…”

“No.”

He didn’t pursue it.

Armed with a bunch of deep red carnations, Pete rang the doorbell. He could hear the dogs yapping inside and being shooed away from the door. He was somewhat relieved not to be greeted by the mutts. Myranda looked more mesmerizing than ever in deep purple velvet which clung to her figure and gave her usual pallor an alabaster quality.

“Welcome.” Myranda’s mother, a striking woman who looked too young to be her mother, clutched his arm and ushered him into the lounge. “Blood red carnations. How nice!” But she was eyeing Pete, not the flowers, which made him slightly uneasy. “Sit,” she said.

There were no chairs, only low, soft leather beanbags, but it would be rude to refuse and so Pete folded his legs as best he could.

“Father will be down in a minute.”

“Myranda tells me you live all on your own.” Her mother was direct and effusive.

“Yes, I have a flat near…”

“No family?”

“No close family, no.” There was something about her eyes…

“Well, then… How very nice to have guests. Myranda, I’m sure it’s okay to let the rest of the family in now that Peter has settled.”

The dogs came bounding towards him as soon as the door was opened–little, white, bouncy, mustachioed mutts with pink eyes. Pete overcame his aversion and held out a hand. In an instant, the smallest snapped at him and bit a finger clean off. He looked on horrified, strangely detached, as it commenced to chew the digit just like a munchy.

Such was his sense of shock that for a moment Pete didn’t notice the lack of appropriate reaction from his hosts. Nor could he stand up immediately because his legs had gone to sleep.

“Here, let me see that,” said Myranda and he allowed her to grasp his injured limb. She raised it, sucked at the stump and then her sharp little teeth bit down hard on the next finger. She tossed it to another of the dogs.

By the time this latest shock registered, Prisca was standing over him too with a look of barely concealed lust. Pete summoned all his will, all his strength. Myranda had him by the wrist and was about to bite off another of his fingers.

“No!” he yelled. He struggled free and made for the door.

Apatos filled the doorway. Seven feet tall he stood, grimacing, with rows of sharp, lacerating teeth, reptilian jaws, red eyes. Pete turned. Two red-eyed women and three little dogs with bloodied maws stood slavering with expectation.

“Going somewhere?” said Myranda.

Drip, drip, drip…

Frank Beauchamp had had enough. The constant drip from the bathroom had been keeping him awake for the past forty-five minutes and he had to do something about it before he lost his mind.

Pulling himself out of bed and sliding into his sweatpants, he switched on the bedside table lamp so he could navigate his way around the brass bed. Crossing the room to the en-suite, Frank fumbled for a few seconds, found the light switch and blinked rapidly as the fluorescent bulbs stuttered into life. Waiting for his eyes to adjust, he made sure that the bright light hadn’t disturbed his still-slumbering wife. When he was satisfied that she was still sleeping peacefully, he closed the door and examined the taps.

Drip, drip, drip…

Reaching out to tighten the hot water tap, Frank caught a faint whisper. He listened for it again but heard nothing. He carefully opened the bathroom door slightly to see if perhaps Mary had been talking in her sleep but she seemed calm and serene, the sheets rising and falling with the rhythmic flow of her steady breathing. Pulling the door shut again, Frank shook his head, dismissing the sound as possibly the pipes and went back to attending to the taps.

No sooner had he put his hand back on the tap than the ghostly whispers started again. This time, however, he could make out the words…

Help me…

Snatching his hand away from the tap once more, Frank issued an involuntary whimper and backed away from the basin. Did I hear what I think I heard, he thought, or am I just fucking dreaming? He peered into the mirror and was shocked to see the fear and panic in his own face–what in the hell was going on?

Regaining his composure–and some degree of sanity–he thought about the shock he had seen in his own eyes. He had considered himself to be a reasonably level-headed and mature man, intelligent and worldly, but this had shaken him badly. Approaching it logically, he knew…

Help me…

Startled once more, Frank barely registered that the dripping had stopped and that a steady stream of water was now filling the basin. Staring into the deepening water, mesmerized, he could see that there was no plug in the bottom of the sink and his mind raced to try and make sense of how this was possible. He watched in disbelief as the water continued its path ever upward until it was almost at the lip of the basin, about to overflow. Frank lunged for the tap, trying to twist it frantically but to no avail. The handle wouldn’t budge…

Help me… help me… help me…

The water began to pour onto the floor of the bathroom, soaking Frank’s bare feet within seconds. He scrambled for the rack where the towels were kept, trying desperately to stop the water from flooding into the bedroom. As he reached for the towels, he suddenly retched. A smell so vile, so disgusting rose to meet his nostrils, a smell he could immediately place but not understand. Doubled over, the stench getting worse by the moment, Frank lost his balance and toppled over in the middle of the bathroom floor, cracking his head on the bath on the way down, his body covering the small drainage hole…

Help me, help me, help me…

A crimson tide oozed over the sink. At first, it started as a trickle but before long, the trickle became a flood, and the deluge of inky redness began to cover Frank as he lay on his back, unable to move. The red flood filled his every orifice, choking him, cutting his air supply, quickly causing him to suffocate on the blood. As one last gasp of air exited his lungs…

Help me…

This is the epic tale of how I hunted down and eradicated the infamous lickwags, ancient demons that subsisted by licking words off pages. The loss of knowledge to mankind by these insatiable spirits is immeasurable. I cry to think of it. But now I can report that the lickwags will never again impede civilization. They are gone. The following three volumes, ten years in the writing, my life’s work, are a testament to the truth of this statemen

“Zombies?”

“Yeah, come look.”

Brett followed his co-worker down their cubicle aisle, past the break room, and over to the plate glass windows which surrounded DigiOne. It was 4:55 p.m., and the setting sun cast long shadows across the snow-crusted company grounds. A moaning, groaning, mob of shambling bodies filled the parking lot, disregarding even the “reserved” parking spaces.

“Holy crap, Jenkins. Those are zombies, all right.”

“What are we gonna do?”

Brett pressed his nose to the window, his exhale fogging the glass. He watched as one of the zombies turned about in a slow circle, hands in the air, as if he were doing the Hokey Pokey. Another zombie walked round and round a red SUV, trying each door handle as he went. No luck–she was locked up tight.

“I don’t know,” said Brett. “The boss has PTO today, right?”

A continual wave of moaning seemed to leak through the glass, the sound of a thousand confused bodies looking for brains to munch.

“They look cold out there,” said Jenkins, fidgeting. “They’re all in bare feet.”

“They’re undead, Jenkins,” said Brett. “They feel no pain whatsoever.”

Jenkins was an idiot. Cold? Unbelievable. Would his co-worker feel sympathy right up until the point when probing fingers stabbed into his earholes, trying to rupture his skull membrane? Probably. Jenkins was the kind of guy whose e-mails contained that stupid “notebook” visual for a background. How retarded was that? You felt complicit to his idiocy when replying, because your own e-mail then contained the same stupid notebook background.

Brett didn’t put up with that nonsense. He would start a new message whenever Jenkins e-mailed him, one free of any background settings. Then Brett would copy the complete original text, and paste ’er right into the new one. Bingo, no stupid notebook background.

“Well, we should probably call security…” said Jenkins, trailing off. His face was pale, sweating, and his voice had taken on a wavering tone.

“I think somebody already did, look.” Brett motioned over to his right, where a circle of zombies surrounded a navy blue lump in the snow. A gold badge twinkled serenely in the light of the setting sun. DigiOne security guards carried handcuffs and flashlights, what a joke. How was a guy supposed to escort a terminated employee from the premises (or disperse a mob of zombies, for that matter) without a firearm?

Ridiculous.

Brett considered the feeding crowd, mildly surprised. He wouldn’t have guessed the guard’s brains sufficient to feed one zombie, actually, let alone a dozen.

The rest of the undead milled about the parking lot, hungrily. They were waiting for the end of the work day, obviously, when three hundred unsuspecting DigiOne employees would venture out to their cars.

Jenkins looked at his watch nervously, then back out to the parking lot.

“Gosh, Brett, I really have to go… I’m supposed to meet my wife at Gabberts to pick out new drapes.”

Brett looked at him, annoyed. Jenkins would go out to his car like a fool, then have his brains eaten by a roving pack of zombies. Who would be forced to handle his accounts after that happened? Three guesses, and the first two don’t count.

“Fine, go.” Brett snorted, then turned and walked away from the plate glass window. He poked his head into the break room as he passed, and said casually:

“Watch out tonight, guys, zombies are pretty thick.”

Three men from Finance grumbled, looking at their watches. Fine. If they wanted to be fodder for the undead, so be it. Everyone in the company was stupid, Brett decided.

He made his way through his cubicle aisle, and sat down in his chair with a sigh. January was such a depressing month.

The life of a submariner is one bereft of privacy or dignity. The air stinks of human odors and there is no place to stand where you are not touching another fetid male body. Men sleep next to each other in tiny bunks and the toilet is a pipe in the floor. There are no secrets.

On this trip, one man had a secret–in his perception, a minor one. He’d lied to the doctor. He was asked whether he’d been in contact with any wild or feral animals. He had been bitten by a bat. It was just a little cut and he didn’t think he wasn’t worried. It was just a little tiny cut.

But soon the little cut became a festering abscess. The doctor drained it of a sickening pus, the stench of which turned the stomachs of a dozen men. The worst should have been over, but was not. He was infected with an antibiotic-resistant superbug and it was eating away his flesh.

He was in trouble. Anyone who causes himself to be incapacitated can face a court martial and since he lied to the doctor, he would likely spend the next year in a military prison. He was furious. He didn’t blame himself. He blamed that stupid doctor. The doctor didn’t drain it right. The doctor should have shot him full of antibiotics when the abscess first formed. Or something. He was in agony and didn’t feel like thinking rationally. The abscess grew fast enough to watch the swelling and had to be drained by the hour. His body was now little but an incubator for the revolting disease that had taken over.

Furious with his doctor, he lashed out. He attacked the man and cut his flesh, rubbing pus into the wound. He fled. The doctor rushed for a shot of antibiotics and found the cabinet empty. He had stolen them.

Security was called. He used the same tactic against them, smearing putrefaction in their eyes and mouths. His mind broke. Snapped. He ran through the submarine, assaulting trapped people. He needed only to scratch, rub, and run away.

Despite the packed quarters and the total lack of privacy he was able to blend into the homogeneous crowd of stinking, exhausted men. He liked to go for the eyes. There, the infection would set in fast. He would sneak up behind a guy and scratch his eye with a pus-covered finger. A guy would bump into somebody in the corridor, and two days later his eyes would be rotting out of his head.

He was finally apprehended when he was too sick to move, but that wasn’t the end of it because he had smeared disease on every surface he could reach. And worse still, some of the men who had been infected through cuts, who could still see and had some limited movement, became mad with panic. They saw inevitable doom and were enraged at the lack of medical treatment. They began to spread the infection as well.

The sub declared a medical emergency and headed to rendezvous with a surface ship. But it was getting harder to keep the thing running. It’s an extremely complicated machine. The simple task of surfacing requires a coordinated effort by numerous people. Seamen were being trained to do jobs they had never done before, in the hope that they would make it to the rendezvous. It was looking like they might not. The man had targeted essential staff, and by rubbing pus in their eyes he had temporarily blinded them. Even if their bodies were destined to win the fight, the inflammation would leave them unable to function in the mean time.

Soon, the sub was adrift. A handful of people struggled, blind, to get it to the surface but a crucial person passed out. The sub descended to the ocean floor. Rescuers found nothing but corpses bloated with pus, their faces contorted in expressions of heart-wrenching agony.

Put in a bar, step on the pedal, pull out the bar with a metal hook.

Put in a bar, step on the pedal, pull out the bar with a metal hook.

Put in a bar, step on the pedal, pull out the bar with a metal hook.

Put in a bar….

That’s my job. Every day. Day after day. Nothing else. It numbs my mind and drives me insane. Nothing ever happens here. We’re no better than the machines we operate. They hire us because we’re cheaper than steel and more expendable.

Sometimes things go wrong. It went wrong today. It feels so good to see something different in this hellhole. Everything was all gray, everywhere, but now it’s red and I get to see what was inside my hand. I picked it up and I was moving the fingers around and watching the tendons that hung out. I never realized that fingers are really a kind of pulley system.

When I first started here I found bits of stuff in the machine, pieces left over from the last guy who had my job. Now I’m the one who’s leaving a part of myself behind, for the next generation to see. These remnants of flesh, embedded in the gears of the punch press, are my legacy: the final artistic statement of my career.

I am finished now. I will never work again. The remainder of my life will be wasted scraping by on a meager handout from worker’s compensation. Everything that have I dreamed of I must now let go.

In my life I have feared monsters and demons, witchcraft, malice, murder and war. I have lived in the shadow of terrorism and, before that, the threat of a nuclear holocaust. I have cowered in a forest stalked by wild predators. I have dreaded meeting the gangs that patrol my neighborhood.

Never did I realize that the most sinister threat was not one of malice or predation but of indifference. The greatest danger was that cold, predictable machine at work. It has torn me to pieces. I will survive. But only in the sense that I will still be breathing.

If I slip and fall, if I faint, if this accident becomes a little more severe, it will be better for my son.

I will leave behind a greater legacy than my predecessor. I will leave behind my mind, crushed into the crevices of the drive gear. The safety shield broke and they have not repaired it yet. It is so inviting.

Goodbye.

Through the cracks, dark water swirls. I move and the swing bridge stirs beneath my feet. Wooden planks creak as if woken from a lifelong sleep.

I step towards the middle and the bridge sways. “Swim, sis,” I can hear him saying while gripping my ankles. He swings my body in time to the bridge’s motion, singing, “Swing, baby, swing.” Terrified, hanging upside down, my eyes look at a torrent of winter water crashing over boulders only yards from my face.

He’d taken me by the hand and led me over dunes, through high hawthorn to this brooding place. In the near distance, jagged ruins of a castle edged the top of silver birch like a gray, disintegrating crown. He said he was taking me to see the Fairy Queen that lived in the castle. He said she’d grant me three wishes, and while we walked, he told me to consider those wishes very carefully.

The memory of that day is etched upon my mind and, as time has passed from childhood, young womanhood and into middle age, that memory still haunts my daily thoughts.

“You’ve got three wishes, sis.” I can still hear his cruel tone as if it’s the same cold November morning. Above the sound of rushing water that had coursed and still courses its way down from hidden hills, he kept chanting, “Come on, tell me your first wish.”

I sobbed and pleaded with my brother to lift me back up onto the bridge. “It’s a dunking, maybe drowning or three wishes.” He laughed, his laughter breaking with puberty.

I squirmed and continued to plead and he said I looked like a fish dangling on a hook. “Three wishes, little sister. What will they be?”

“I wish you were dead!” And as I uttered that wish, terror engulfed me. Stomach cramps curled knots inside my belly. Then I felt his hands winch me up from ankles to knees, to thighs until I sat panting and weeping on these planks that now creak beneath me.

On the way home, he told me not to tell my parents. It was only a game. Tell them that the bruises on my legs were due to falling off a wall. Subdued and frightened, I agreed. Months later, my brother was sent away to boarding school after smothering our pet dog. Then he went on to university and I hardly saw him after those unhappy days.

Now, in my hand I hold the urn that contains his ashes. My brother died in prison while serving a life sentence for killing his wife and daughter.

“Swim, brother, swim,” I say as I empty the urn and watch those gray particles that once were his body and bones engulfed by hungry water. “Swim for your bloody life, Simon.” I cry into the icy wind.