MicroHorror

Nerissa fled along the cemetery slope, sandals clacking on the stone path and bangs flicking in her eyes. The light from behind lit the way better than David’s flashlight, but she could hear the ghouls pushing from the ground. She halted at the gate and turned. David had told her that neither spirits nor the reanimated could pass through the gate. She backed towards the canal’s edge.

The blazing figure of light glided to the threshold, wafting as if carried on a gentle breeze.

“Ready?” David called from the boat.

Nerissa glanced down. “I can’t see a thing.” She looked over at the mossy wall again. The figure was dressed in billowing white and gold robes, a smile on its delicate face as it crested the fence.

“Did you find her?” David shouted. Nerissa could hear him yanking on the outboard’s starter cable.

“Just a moment.”

“Don’t be fooled.” Another pull. The motor wasn’t starting.

“That’s why I brought you,” Nerissa called.

The face was so beautiful, so soft and fine. It was hard to believe this vision had been Courtney. Nerissa remembered her face as shriveled and lined. How could this slight and fragile wonder be that same soul?

“They’ll be coming up soon,” David called. “If you did the herbs and hexes and the spell right.” Another yank and the engine spluttered.

“She’s here,” Nerissa said. “So I did it right.” She didn’t mention the ghouls were already coming. Courtney slowed over the fence, unable to cross. Nerissa took a step forwards. Courtney’s robes floated like gossamer webs.

From the graveyard something howled.

“Aw, crap,” David said. “You did screw it up.”

Courtney smiled, drifted just a little closer, still not over the fence.

“Sister,” Nerissa said.

Courtney opened her mouth and whispered.

“What?” Nerissa said. She took another step towards the wall.

“Nerissa?” David called. “Get in the boat.”

Nerissa took another step. Courtney’s face was so translucent, glowing from within. “Can you forgive me?” Nerissa said.

Again, Courtney’s whisper was inaudible.

Nerissa stepped closer. There were others behind, coming to the wall.

“Hey,” David said.

Nerissa glanced back, saw David clambering over the concrete canal edge. She reached up for Courtney. “I’m sorry this happened,” Nerissa said.

The others were coming over the wall. It had been the only way to find her spirit.

“Crap,” David shouted.

Courtney reached out, her bright fingers like filaments in the night. Nerissa lifted her own hand.

A shotgun blast ripped past her.

“Down!” David shouted. He fired again. This time one of the ghouls tumbled from the fence, broken body thudding to the ground.

Courtney pulled back, shock and surprise on her face. “Sister,” she whispered.

“I was stupid,” Nerissa said. “I didn’t mean it to happen.”

David fired again. “We’ve got to go.”

Courtney looked at the fallen. “Nerissa,” she whispered. Her face became serene again. “It’s all right.”

More were coming over the wall and David grabbed Nerissa’s arm. “I hate these amateur hexes,” he said. “Too easy to make about everything reanimate.”

He fired at a woman and she collapsed. Courtney shrieked and shivered.

“Courtney!”

Courtney shimmered. “It’s okay, sister. It’s okay now.” She began to dissipate. “Okay.”

More were coming. Nerissa realized that the shaking body on the ground was wearing the engagement ring Courtney had been buried in.

David fired again. He threw Nerissa into the boat. He fired once more, then jumped in after her. Some of the ghouls were at the edge. David engaged the engine. Nerissa saw one fall into the water as David steered them away.

“Let’s not do that again,” David said.

Nerissa thought about Courtney’s final smile. “We don’t have to.”

A soft mist hugged the ground and hung in tatters from the trees. The soft smell of death and rot ruined the sweet smell of grass. The early morning air was damp with the exhalations of the forest which began a mile away. The birds sang, their early morning song trilling above the shattered corpses, some of which were no longer still.

“My God, man,” the captain murmured. His bushy mustache trembled in outrage. “My God, that’s grotesque.”

“Yes, sir,” answered the sergeant. His dull eyes registered no surprise or shock. His first taste of battle had been at Antietam. The captain was young and fresh. He’d joined the lines right after Sherman captured Atlanta.

A young soldier with half his lower jaw missing, his battle tunic crusted with dried blood, stumbled toward them. The sergeant waited until it was nearly within arm’s reach before firing his pistol into its forehead. Its legs collapsed and it fell in a heap, its hands twitching.

“My God,” the captain growled. His face was white. “Why do they rise?”

“I don’t know, sir,” the sergeant answered. “Don’t let them get too close. They will attack you and bite the ever-loving bejesus out of you.” He pointed across the field. “Look. There must be a hundred of them. We have to leave now, sir.”

A crowd of shattered soldiers, all dead, staggered in a line toward them. The rising morning breeze carried their scent. The battle had been yesterday afternoon, so the corruption was not yet overpowering, but it made the sergeant feel dirty. The captain fought back his gorge. He was not yet used to the smell of human rot.

“I’ll raise a squad of men,” the captain vowed. “This is an abomination. These men must be put back down.”

“No, sir,” the sergeant answered. “If I may, sir, I would strongly advise against it. In another hour, there will be a thousand of these unfortunate dead men walking about. It’s best that we leave now.”

“But what about them?” the captain asked. His red-rimmed eyes rose above his white face. Outrage fought nausea in his breast and he thought he must either scream or vomit until something ruptured.

“Leave them,” the sergeant answered. “The birds and the coyotes will finish most of them. The rest will meet their ends near about.”

“It’s not right,” the captain said, wiping a dirty sleeve across his mouth. “They were men once.”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant answered. “If we stay any longer, we will join them. With all due respect, sir, I am leaving now.”

The sergeant turned and strode toward their mounts. The captain stood a moment longer watching the company of dead men struggle forward. He shook his head and muttered a vehement curse. Then he turned and trotted after the sergeant.

Overhead, large black turkey buzzards wheeled in the sky. They settled lower and lit upon the marching dead. The dead men flapped their arms uselessly against the carrion birds.

The sergeant turned in his saddle for a last look. He saw the dead staggering about in circles, overwhelmed by the birds flapping their wings for balance. A corner of the sergeant’s mouth twitched in what might have been a smile in other circumstances. He twitched the reins and turned his back.

He closed his eyes as the sun’s crimson glow stretched out and flowed over him. Reaching out, he willed it to him; encompassed in its warmth, he allowed the flames to consume him. It would be okay. It would burn everything away.

What was wrong with his mouth?

He opened his eyes. He was beneath the surface of the water; he was falling deeper away. As the water flooded into his mouth and lungs, he kicked his feet back and pushed up through the heavy rippling water to penetrate the surface. His head struck the ceiling, and for a moment he was choking as the water splashed around him.

The attic window.

There were only a few inches of air between the ceiling and the water. But he could see the blue sky through the window. There was hope now. He just needed to get out into the open air.

Struggling to keep calm, he clutched the handle on the window and twisted it open. He threw open the window. He was instantly met by a cold wind; eagerly, he drew in a deep breath. He gripped the sides of the window frame and pulled himself up into the open.

He climbed onto the roof, swung himself over so he was straddling the ridge. He couldn’t believe he was free. With an exhalation of relief, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes for a moment. He didn’t want to open them again, but he had to see how bad it was. He had to know.

First he looked down below him. The water had reached halfway up the roof. It wasn’t going any higher; he was sure it wasn’t going any higher.

Reluctantly, he looked around him. There were bodies floating in the water–there were too many to count. But he wasn’t alone. He was relieved to see a scattering of other survivors on some of the rooftops in the area. Further in the distance there were high-rise flats–surely they would have gone higher to save themselves. He felt some comfort in knowing that there were others in the same situation. If the water stayed at this level, they might all survive this. They just had to wait it out.

“Look at the water!”

A man’s cry in the distance. He was compelled to look at the water again. He could only see the bodies at first. But then he caught something a few feet deeper. At first he thought they were just objects reflecting the sun. But then he realized these reflections were moving steadily and deliberately in circles.

And they were now rising to the surface.

Their forms were transparent and flowed easily through the water like liquid; shifting constantly as they moved, they kept on reverting back to a flat, round shape–tentacles grew out of the shapes and momentarily probed the air before they sank back into the liquid forms. There was no limit to the size they could reduce or expand to; using the water as camouflage, he could see how easily they could reduce themselves to nothing–hide until they chose to reveal themselves.

They were coming to the surface to feed. Stretching their forms, they reached over the dead bodies in the water. Through the transparent forms, he saw the corpses melting away. He saw the creatures growing red as they fed on the bodies.

Some of them were just below him. With a sick revulsion, he realized they sensed his presence as tentacles darted out of their forms and searched the air in front of him. But they weren’t doing anything. Why?

And then he saw.

An enormous wave in the distance was moving rapidly towards them. As it moved nearer, it grew in strength and climbed higher than the multi-story buildings; the buildings were crashed to pieces as the wave passed. The world around him grew dark with its approach. The creatures waited.

He closed his eyes.

We thought we had forever, but the war ended it all. Jonathan left with a promise to return, so I waited, and hope filled the emptiness inside. I roamed the empty rooms of our home, feeling the echo of happiness from our life together. Time seemed to stand still, but the reward of our future consoled my pain.

The approaching dust on the road signaled the return of our loved ones, and the town gathered to welcome our war weary. Soldier after soldier passed by, their uniforms tattered, their horses near exhaustion. I watched until the lines ended, and hope abandoned me. I remember little since that day. Sanity has a way of protecting itself against the sword of grief, so the missing memories feel like a gift, not a curse.

Footsteps now haunt my life. They echo throughout our home like claps of thunder rolling across the sky. At first, I was elated at the sounds. It had to be my beloved, escaping the barrier of death to return to me. I would wait, listening as the steps grew closer, but fate has a cruel sense of humor, and they would never reach me.

Now, I fear the footsteps. I know they will come, but I’m powerless to stop the approach, powerless to stop whatever demon is chasing me. Tonight, the dread in my heart seems unbearable. The fire has long died down to embers of cold light, but I dare not stoke it. If the sound is evil, I fear even my breath will draw its attention.

My heart sinks as a chorus of footsteps fills the air. They are heavy, and the stairs crack under the pressure. The approaching thud in the hall shakes the room. The door handle jiggles as the footsteps strike the floor just outside the bedroom then stop. They have never been this close before.

A crack from an ember succumbing to the extinguishing flame breaks the paralysis holding me. The door swings open, and a breeze flows through the air. I turn and see a shadow now crouched before the fireplace. Panic wells inside. I scream, but the sound fails to escape my lips. As the room illuminates, the shadow becomes clear. A man is tending the fire, his hair cropped in a strange manner, his clothes awkward in appearance. He rises and walks towards me. I close my eyes as he walks through me.

No! Please, let this be a dream.

I gaze about the room, looking for pieces of my life. The portrait of our wedding, Jonathan’s greatcoat that I kept close to his dresser—all gone. I’m surrounded by the unfamiliar set about the home that I once shared with my love.

The stranger drinks from a wine glass and settles into bed, unaware of my presence. I beg for the gift of ignorance as the protective barrier around my sanity collapses and clarity takes over. I fight the memories, but they overwhelm my being. I remember the tears as the gash in my soul consumed me, emptiness as I lived a life without him. I remember the hope that we would be together again as I stepped off the cliff to the jagged rocks below, then despair as death itself kept me from Jonathan.

I still exist, though existence is not victory, it is torture. Morning will be here soon, bringing nothingness until the night calls to me. But the nothingness doesn’t last. It teases me with ignorance until the lingering sense of dread returns and the footsteps haunt me.

Life is cruel… death is unmerciful… only nothingness brings peace.

Dear Vernon,

The winter in London isn’t as cold as I thought it would be. I am torn between feelings of loneliness and exhilaration at the same time. Loneliness, I feel, because I miss you, dear brother, and exhilaration due to a certain young man who arrived in our society recently.

His name is Jacques Reinhardt, quite a French first name. He is a handsome young man, and his green eyes have the hearts of all the matrons and their daughters aflutter. With his dark hair and feminine lips, he might’ve as well come out of a Renaissance painting, and his musky scent never fails to find my nose.

I know what you’re going to say, Vernon, and I disagree with you already. No man can ever be more handsome than my brother. Hush now, for this letter isn’t all about the said young man’s face. There is more to it, and I think you will find it very interesting.

By chance, I entered an antique shop three days ago. It was a dusty old place, filled with treasures waiting to be discovered. I looked around their little trinkets, you know how much I love to bring something pretty to delight our mother. When I saw a small miniature perched on an oak dresser, I almost dropped the dragonfly brooch I was holding. I am quite sure that, by now, you’ve guessed whose miniature it was.

I inquired about it, feigning interest. The owner said that the miniature must’ve been done almost fifty years ago. Can you imagine that, dear brother? A fifty-year-old miniature, but the man in it hasn’t aged a day! Miracle of miracles!

Now, at this point, I believe you’ll start accusing me of having a feverish imagination, but am I not the most rational of all your sisters? Am I not the one most likely to keep calm and return order? Well, then, believe me for my eyes told the truth. There was no doubt about it. It was Monsieur Reinhardt in the miniature.

As fate would have it, Jacques Reinhardt became one of my dance partners in the next ball I attended. He was the perfect gentleman, well-versed in the etiquette of modern society. I tried to move in time to the music, but I could not take my eyes off the man. The scent of musk was coming off him quite strongly. How was it possible that he looked the exact same way fifty years ago? Had he discovered, perhaps, some long forgotten fountain of youth?

“Are you ill, madam?” he had asked, seeing the perplexed look on my face.

“Oh, do not mind me,” I said.

At that moment, I was deciding whether to reveal my discovery of the miniature or not. My curiosity was itching to be satisfied, yet I was afraid of crossing the polite boundaries of society. In the end, my curiosity won.

“I encountered a miniature yesterday,” I said, flicking my eyes around the room, “and it was quite an impressive likeness of you. However, the owner said it was fifty years old. Why, I had thought, this is quite a marvelous coincidence. Don’t you think so too, Monsieur Reinhardt?”

Now, brother, I am about to reveal the moment when I truly believed for the first time that it really was Reinhardt’s miniature. After I spoke, Reinhardt blanched, and, when our dance finished, he bowed and walked away from me as fast as his legs could carry him. In fact, he left the ball completely. I looked for him, but he was nowhere to be found. Don’t you think his behavior quite suspicious?

I must end this letter now, brother. The wind has become frosty, lashing angrily against the window. The fire has also gone out. I am finding it hard to write now by the light of a single candle. I may be wrong, but I think I smell Reinhardt’s musk in the room.

Yours truly,
Louisa

Oral cancer had taken her mouth, but not her appetite. The sludge from the hospital didn’t set right on her stomach. She needed the good stuff, even if she couldn’t taste it. If she’d had her blender she could have kept the bones in, but this made-in-China piece of crap got caught up on skin.

She’d have to burn the mailman’s clothes and clean everything up; somebody would be looking for him soon. She poured the red goop into her port and her stomach settled. If she’d had a mouth still she would have smiled.

On the table, I took off the blanket that covered my body. Quietly, I stood by the table. A set of bulbs lit the room to where I could look at the floor and find proper clothes. No shirt or jeans were wrapped around my frame. I couldn’t remember if I had worn them earlier. Sweats and boots sat by the door, into which I slid. With pinpricks in my thighs and biceps, I winced. Someone had poked me to take blood out, or perhaps to put a little back. With the fact that I indeed lived, I just wished to leave. And I did, through the window, into the forest, towards the highway.

Above me, the trees rustled loudly. Animals poked their eyes through the leaves and back to the safety of their homes. I walked cautiously; I could fall easily on the leafy field, which crackled like ceramics below my feet. A slight patter of rain dribbled onto my head. My sloppy hair matted tightly to my skull. I walked into darkness, with the lowly cries of birds and the throaty bellows of other animals about which I chose not to think. A furry mouse, or what I perceived as a mouse, dropped from the skeletal branches and collapsed onto my back.

A thick talon bit my arm; it broke my artery and kept fluid from my hand. Like my fingertips, my palms weakened. A blue shade swept over my hands, on the tops that I could see. My veins bulged in ways they never had before. Only, a rat didn’t land on my back. I turned, looked through slit eyes, and found a male of at least thirty on my pelvis. He pinned my arms to the muck and put my face in the slippery pile of what could’ve come from any number of animals. If I could’ve pinched my nose, I would’ve; a thick and foul smell brought waves of bile into my throat. When the person spoke, the sickness subsided briefly.

“I watched you leave the hospital,” he said. When I tried to talk, he pushed my mouth into the smelly mess with his pistol. “I keep people locked inside the hospital. I do bad things to people who escape. I enjoy my work immensely.” He bent down to speak to me or to smell me. For all I knew, he tried to kiss me. “I like male blood a lot. No blood tastes like blood from a male body.” With his pointy teeth, he bit my neck.

As if electrocuted, he reeled, spat bitterly, and leaped off my back. Gagging, he said, “I want male blood. Obviously, you just look manly. Maybe the animals will enjoy you.” With those words, he put two bullets below my shoulders, by my spine, yet not in my head.

As he walked back to the hospital, I turned my head. “My blood would taste like male blood if I had blood in me.” I remembered that I had fallen asleep in my girlfriend’s house with a lump of lead in my belly, and had apparently died by a jealous husband–only to have other fluid pumped into me for the funeral. “My body doesn’t have blood in it, male or otherwise. I live with embalming fluid in me. Thankfully, my type doesn’t mix with yours.” With a laugh, I said finally, “Nobody’s bullet will keep me down anymore. Any revenge will suffice–and I know where you work!”

To quiet my mind, I punched the wall until my knuckles bled. Finally, I sat in the small stool jutting from the blocks and began to write. As honestly as possible, I had to tell the family of my bride that I apologized for her murder. I hadn’t wanted to hold that blanket around her neck until her lips had turned purple and her body had quivered erratically, but I couldn’t help myself. She had bedded a friend of mine, like a hooker who had very little regard for any particular male. I had worked with Cameron for years and should’ve for many more. Would any married man have behaved differently?

My “friend” talked about the birthmark around Stacy’s milky thigh. He spoke like an athlete who never practiced but had still won a major trophy. She always refused to show her legs publicly; she always wore swimwear infrequently. Although she always denied it, her mark always wobbled my knees and pumped my blood; apparently, they had to Cameron’s, as well.

Looking at the bloody hunks of knuckle on the wall, I formed words like a small child would; apologies didn’t blurt easily. Somehow, they’d always come in court; before a judge, I’d speak like a juvenile delinquent who’d confess at Christmastime. In jail, I squinted a lot and shook my fists.

With the pencil between my lips, I looked at the stool beside me. When the cell had housed upper and lower bunks, two had been built. Alone, I didn’t need it, but I still became happy for it. When light blew through the cloudy window into my room, I looked at a mess of silky black strands. They shone brilliantly. They billowed as they would off a lovely angel. Statically, they lifted off a blue egg, with a bumpy nose jutting between two empty eyeholes; pulled by wires, the flower-petal mouth belonged to one person alone. Grown off her nape, the orb grew into an ugly image of Stacy.

I believed in tricks, not apparitions. When Stacy addressed me, I hesitated. My eyebrows lifted numbly. She looked at the paper and pen on the small table. “Everyone’ll read that letter. It won’t be mailed; it won’t have to be mailed. My family will realize that you just blew your top like a baby with a broken toy. Probably, they’ll forgive, like me.” Onto the ratty blanket she put her feet and tied her black shoes. “They’ll read your letter in the local paper with photos of you and me.” Confused, I pricked my head and rubbed my eyes with sweaty palms.

Quickly, I dove into an empty black ocean that had no shoreline. Worse, I couldn’t swim. A voice echoed inside my head; the chirpy tone didn’t belong to Stacy yet still did. “People always find ways to die.” A chilly breeze drove my body back. My soul toppled towards the fiery realm that nobody should visit. Once there, I found people who hurt for thrills, hourly. Only, time didn’t exist; just endless abuse did. Before I looked at those evil black eyes (a spirit I hoped my wife would never meet), Stacy spoke. “Somehow, they always do.”

I never heard another female voice. People had always used the proper word when they spoke about this place. I dropped into Hell, and I would never leave.

Before the butcher knife comes down, I try talking with The Monster.

“Please,” my whisper is like fingernails shredding on cement. “Don’t do this.”

This time, The Monster talks back.

“Do what?” She says. Her face is right against me–the bone-white of Her flared cheekbones sunken into the milk of mine; the gleam of horns and fangs my crown; Her eyes everywhere, eating my vision.

“Don’t hurt.”

“Hurt is inevitable, Ava.” I feel the caress of Her breath beneath my hair.

“Why?”

“Hurt makes the world go round,” She tells me. The knife seems that much heavier. “Hurt informs appetite. Appetite creates action.”

“Why this, though?”

“Why what?”

“Why kill?” I swallow. Is it my shivering that makes the knife shine so? Is it Hers? Is it something else?

“Because the hurt has to end.”

“End?”

“There has to be an end to all that hurt.”

“Through murder?” It sounds insane. Or maybe I just wish it was. The Monster is as clean and smooth as the butcher blade as She answers.

“So long as there is life, there is pain. There is the lie of self-definition. There is the injustice of appetite. There is suffering.

“Suffering?”

“Loss. Loneliness. Longing.”

And She is so right. I felt so alone. Among my peers, under my parents, against the gulf of my future.

Not now, though. Not in this moment–in the perfect neatness of this ending. Not with Her.

I don’t even bother to claim I don’t want this.

“Is this the only way?” I ask Her.

“This is not just the only way. This is how.”

There is so much trembling now. The Monster soaks it into Her sidereal calm. There is no distance between us. Her face is not just in mine. It is mine. Her breath; my breath. Her eyes; my eyes. Her way; my only release.

“I just want the hurt to end,” I whine.

“Yes,” She says, soft and certain as any mother ever was.

“I just want it to end for everyone.” I feel so much shivering now but the knife is smooth and easy and still as fate.

“Yes. Everyone.”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone.”

She means it. She is certain. Her breath blows through me like that of stars. She is certain.

I am too.

I bring the knife down. It enters the neck of the girl I have pinned below me and it goes through the base of her skull as smooth as an exhalation until it exits her mouth.

I don’t know her name. I just know it doesn’t matter now. I know that’s all that matters.

I know my name. I am certain.

I am The Monster now.

My father always told me never to be satisfied with what I had in this life. It was important to get ahead, he always said. As many times as I heard him say it, though, I have to admit I never paid much attention until he was screaming it while I was on the receiving end of a beating.

He’d take off his belt and make a loop out of it and grab it at either end. Then he’d yank the loop flat, making a cracking sound like a bullwhip. That sound always got my attention. That and the cowboy belt buckle shaped like a horseshoe. It left wedge-shaped red gashes on my back.

You see, my father didn’t have much himself. He tried to make a living out of sharpening scythes and mowers and such for them who took care of the lawns for the summer folks out by the point on Hilton Head Island. But as the years went by, there was less and less need for his services until finally he became a lawn cutter himself. It was a step down, he always said, but he prided himself on having the sharpest shears and mowers on the Island.

So, when I say my father beat me, don’t judge him too harshly. He was just trying to do what was right by me, even if it meant I might resent him until I got old enough to understand what he was going through. He wanted me to know that getting ahead required hard work and sacrifice.

I started my own storage business by putting fifty dollars down on an abandoned warehouse on the north side of the Island. Turns out a lot of the summer folks had more junk than they knew what to do with. Putting it all in storage was just the trick. And I was just the man to help them. I opened up a lot of warehouses over the years, and I did pretty well.

In the lean times I’d sell the contents of a warehouse right out from under the noses of the rightful owners. Then I’d burn the warehouse down for the insurance money. Sounds awful, I know, but it was all just part of getting ahead.

For example, take Cousin Buford here. He caught on to my little insurance fraud scheme, and tried to blackmail me. I keep him right here in the warehouse in this hat box. Look here. I’ll pop open the top. See how his eyes are bugged out and his mouth slacked open? That’s how he looked when I came at him with my father’s scythe. I’d open the plastic bag for you, but he’s still mighty ripe.

This shelf here? Over the years I’ve had a lot of partners who tried to cheat me and keep me down. So, all I could do was try to get ahead. Or heads, in this case. I keep them in pickle brine. I’d take one down for you, but my back is a misery these days.

And my father? I always promised I’d retire him. And one fine day in August that’s exactly what I did. He’s over there in that black pail filled with kitty litter.

Now you seem like a nice feller. But I can’t have state inspectors snooping around my warehouses finding things they aren’t supposed to find. So you just sit there and I’ll be right back. Oh, you can struggle against that tape I tied you to the chair with, but it’s the same stuff I put over your mouth. It’s pretty tough.

You may hear a snapping sound when I come back. It’s just something I like to do with my father’s belt. It’ll all be over soon.

Nothing personal. Just another day of getting ahead.