MicroHorror

You were always so forthright. So sure of yourself and your desires. Everything you set your mind to turned to gold.

How could I not fall in love with you?

I still remember the first time I saw you, calmly extending your arm to knock the man who had snatched my purse on his back. The way you pressed your heel to his throat, the power of the punch you delivered to his jaw, sending the petty thief into the lands of unquiet slumber and then so smoothly pulling out your cell phone to call the police. You barely took notice of the crowd forming around us; the bevy of congratulations heaped upon you for standing up for the right a distant echo as our eyes met.

“Are you okay, ma’am?” you asked. I looked you in those deep, murky brown eyes and I was lost forever. At that moment it was clear–there was no turning back.

Your courtship was so gentle, so proper and respectful. Every second was a heaven unparalleled by any other experience in this world. Even as you tenderly rebuffed my carnal advances I knew it was out of a deeper emotion than I could fathom.

“Janine,” you said, those lips forming around my name in such a way as to liken to a word of mystical properties. “I need to see inside you first. I–I can’t yet. Not this way.”

I’ll admit, at first I was hurt. Decimated, actually. But in time I came to understand, to know the real you. Especially after I stumbled into the storage room in the basement. “Go down and get some more nails,” you said as we worked on replacing the loose boards in your porch. I realize now you had it all planned from the beginning. You were just waiting until I was ready and this was to be the final test.

And here we are.

I know the straps are for my protection. It would be horrible to have the instinctual urges take over and cause a slip. No, it must be perfect. Nothing can keep us apart after this.

As the blade slips between the layers of my flesh I crow with delicious joy, incalculable ecstasy. There is the hint of puzzlement in your eyes, but all will be made clear soon. This moment, so perfect as to be the culminated will of fate, come at last. You will look within me and find what you have been looking for, I’m sure of it.

The confusion already begins to flee from your eyes; your frown melting upwards, knowingly. You look inside at last.

I am yours forever.

If you have found him, it is probably too late for you. He sits on a park bench at night under a flickering street lamp, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses, a large book open on his lap. A cane rests beside him, confirming that he is blind.

His lips move as if he is mouthing the words as he reads, one finger tracing a path from the top of the page to the bottom. He does not turn the page. You notice that he is not looking at the book, but at a point slightly above it. You try to follow his gaze and then you remind yourself that he is blind, so what can he be looking at?

If you are lucky, you walk away and forget that you saw him. But if you are curious, you watch his lips, trying to figure out what he is saying. You realize that he is whispering aloud and you move closer, leaning in until your ear almost touches his mouth.

He says, over and over, “Do not read the book.”

You look down and see that the pages are blank. But as his finger moves, a name appears beneath it. It is yours. And now, you are his.

Tami Trah created Silhoutopia to help those less fortunate than herself. Just by applying her warm hands she could reduce fat without the need for surgery except that the TV people preached an alternative that threatened her little existence and when they visited her corner of Yahtopia she let them have it.

“Don’t eat croc!” she ranted. “That’s all you people say. Don’t eat croc! Don’t eat croc! Where’s that going to leave me?”

The TV people looked at each other. That evening Tami’s interview was dropped when Yahtopia’s second best crocodile wrestler was eaten alive. There would be no chat show for Tami, no book signings and ultimately no fame. Tami buried her disappointment in Silhoutopia performing several smoothings, non-invasive lipo and a couple of bluntings.

One night she returned home and switched on the TV. Elad Doofer was branding his toes with foreboding symbols while the leading professor of crocodile wrestling, Yeltram the Second, was demonstrating croc submission.

“Respect the croc,” chanted Yeltram. “And the croc will respect you.”

Next day in Silhoutopia Tami found herself injecting large volumes of capillary constrictor into the subcutaneous fat of Melanie Lettuck.

“I watched the program,” said Melanie, wincing. “And I won’t eat croc meat ever again.”

Her targeted tissue became tumescent, just ready for Tami’s heat lamp, an adapted sun bed that cooked the blubber out of people.

“A diet of raw vegetables!” boasted Melanie. “It’s the only way to achieve longevity!”

Tami positioned Melanie Lettuck on the flatbed. “But I like nothing more than a hot juicy Mr.-Croc-in-a-Blanket,” she said.

Melanie Lettuck sat up and removed the cucumbers from her eyes. “Mr. Croc is an industry based on cruelty and greed. Now switch that damned thing on. Please.”

Tami wound the blubber setting to ten and retreated with the usual reassurances. The heat intensified and Melanie Lettuck screamed. Tami Trah backed into the door, pushing her hands into her mouth. No one in Yahtopia heard Melanie scream.

When the screaming stopped Tami opened the lid. The blackened skeleton reminded her of a barbecued Mr. Croc. She snapped the bones and dropped each piece into a drum she’d salvaged from the back of Mr. Croc’s. She loaded the drum, drove to the Croc Bone Center and deposited the contents.

Tami’s next victim was Agi Yucca followed a week later by Drot Eever. They all marched to the press without a care and no one came looking for them. Perhaps they lived alone, thought Tami. Perhaps they had no friends or relatives. But Tami wanted Melanie Lettuck’s friends. She penned an advert.

“Silhoutopia! Vegetarians Now Catered For!”

She went to bed and stared at the ceiling but she couldn’t sleep. First there was the occasional knock and then a double knock and then a whole salvo of knocks. She looked at the ceiling and remembered Elad Doofer’s ominous brandings. Maybe Melanie Lettuck was coming back to haunt her. She smiled because she didn’t believe in that gibberish and even if it was true she would enjoy cooking her all over again.

Then a single drop of water fell on Tami. She didn’t have time to switch on the light. The ceiling gave way and scalding water from a ruptured pipe killed Tami instantly. Elad Doofer was first on the scene. Yeltram was second. The TV people gathered with their cameras rolling. They found it difficult to stand in the liquid driven off Tami. Her blubber oozed and Elad Doofer stared into her bloated translucent skin.

“Can’t you see them?” he hissed.

“Such a happy occasion,” added Yeltram, his maxillary jaw bone chattering.

I have plunged deeper into the pit of nightmares than could be reached in a lifetime dreaming. My whole life I have given to the pursuit of the obscure and the forbidden. I have journeyed into hallowed crypts and neglected lands, scoured ancient tomes and stolen their guarded secrets. I have traded ghastly things for the darkest knowledge and chased many mysteries. I speak in dead tongues and write with dead alphabets. I have gazed darkly into the past and unearthed many of the hideous treasures banished there.

In every deep corner of the Earth I have pursued fear. I chased it into the cobwebbed catacombs of Paris, deep into the wretched crypts of Egypt, across the valleys of ancient dead Sumer, crawling through the boarded-up tunnels of the blackened American cities, dug into the mass graves of war and plague, and kneeling in the de-sanctified churches where ghoulish rites are performed on their sacrilegious altars.

I have documented unspeakable rituals and unutterable curses. I have channeled the tortured souls of the dead and communed with the wrathful gods of the old Earth. I have beheld the deepest black of the universe. Again and again I have flung myself into the labyrinths of terror, searching.

I have done all of this and yet, at the end of it all, on my deathbed, I face the most immutable of all terrors. All that is dark and horrible in the world I have sought, and I find it only here at the end; I dreadfully fear that I may have wasted my life.

Jessica looked at the calendar and her stomach twisted a wave of nausea through her. The next day was circled with a thick, cruel red mark–an omen of evil in her otherwise miserable existence.

“Mother’s coming to visit,” she grumbled unhappily to her cat, patting her gently on the head, “Oh boy, Lovey, I’m just leaping for joy right now.”

The cat mewled and Jessica forced herself out of her chair, shuffling to the bathroom to step on the scale. The numbers made her heart sink and she sat on the toilet lid with her face buried in her hands.

It was a tragedy. She bitterly imagined the reaction of her glamorous mother when they met at the airport the next night. She would reel at Jessica’s appearance: the bulges of fat she swore she would be rid of, the double chin and flabby face and jowls covered in acne and scabs that should not be there. Jessica knew that her mother would bring nice, small clothes in her projected anticipation of the results she expected from her daughter, only to be hideously disappointed when she waddled up to her for a hug.

Tears stung her eyes as she pictured her mother’s delicate, made-up face and heard her voice thick with frustration and maybe even hatred; however, Jessica took comfort in knowing that no matter how much her mom ranted and insulted her it was no match for how much Jessica loathed herself and the internal agony it caused. There was absolutely no justification for Jessica’s corpulent physique; if she was a strong person then she would have been able to fulfill her promise.

It had been three years since she last saw her mother and the guilt and shame she felt were unbearable.

Slowly, Jessica stood and went into the kitchen. Sunlight poured in through the window over the sink, brightening the dark pit of her weakness into a cheerful room that had once been her dream kitchen. Now, plants languished on the sills and pantry moths flitted in excessive clouds. Bags of nuts and dried fruits that she had stored on top of the fridge that had been the start of some past “natural foods diet” attempt writhed with thousands of young maggots feeding upon the remains before crawling up the walls to cocoon themselves in the corners of the ceiling, or in the crevices of the rubber seals of the fridge and freezer.

Jessica took a long knife from the sink; old pizza cheese and sauce were thick and crusted along the dulled, rusted edge. She refused to look at anything else.

Lovey mewled again and sat next to her dishes; a cockroach sorted through her food bowl and caught her attention.

Jessica wasn’t ready for her mother’s visit. The house wasn’t ready either.

Nothing was ready and there was no more time.

Jessica gripped the plastic handle of the dollar store knife and went into the bedroom. Silently, she disrobed and stood in front of the sliding closet door that was a full length mirror, hating her reflection. Rolls of fat dripped in layers like pale, pitted, sweating, cottage cheese frosting.

There was no more time…

With tears collecting in the corners of her eyes, Jessica grabbed a roll of fat from her stomach and starting slicing it away like gyro meat from a spit.

“Should have worn wellies.”

“Pardon me?”

“Wellington boots.”

Derek swung round but the only other person in the allotments was an elderly man. He was seated three across, one down, under an apple tree with his hat down over his face, dozing. It was that kind of day–humid after thunderstorms.

“Bill always wore wellies.”

“Who’s there?”

Derek was getting really annoyed. He looked through the perimeter hedge but there was no one. A sudden breeze chilled him.

“Oi, mister!” A boy screeched his bike to a halt by the picket.

“Oh, so you think I should be wearing wellies, do you?”

“I never said aught about wellies… Are you taking over from Bill?”

“That’s right.”

“It’s just he asked me to look after the key to the shed ’til someone took over. It’s been two year.”

“What shed? Why didn’t he come himself?”

“Dead.”

“Ah.”

“Bill Wellies.”

“What’s all this about wellies?”

“It was the old man’s nickname, that’s all. Never knew his real one. Best allotment around, though.”

“The moment I set foot here, someone said I should be wearing wellies. Was it you?”

“No. Beats me. Any road–here’s the key, there’s the shed,” and he whisked off on his bone shaker between the lots.

There was indeed a shed. Strange he hadn’t noticed it. It looked pretty rickety and Derek thought, as he tramped over the tussocks of grass and weeds, that it wouldn’t take a key to get in. He’d put up a new shed, a spacious shed. One where he could have a quiet pipe. He peered in at the window. It was too dirty to see. He inserted the key in the rusty padlock. It opened easily and the door creaked outwards.

“Unbelievable!”

The shed was stuffed with wellies: green ones, blue ones, black rubbery-looking farmyard ones, a pair with daisies on, red shiny wellies with elasticised tie tops, bright fireman-yellow wellies, wellies with a picture of Bill and Ben the flowerpot men on the sides–wellies! They were stacked in pairs on shelves all around the walls and on the floor. Spider-Man wellies hung on string from the apex of the roof.

Curiously, there were no tools–hoe, spade, fork–zilch. Derek looked at the size of the first pair to hand; tried one on. It fitted. Sporting the shiny red wellies, he stepped back out onto the shambles that was the lot.

Now it wasn’t overgrown at all. It was full of runner beans in bright red flower, tomatoes ripening; there was a strawberry patch all strawed up and with fruit ready for picking. He stooped and picked one. It was deliciously sweet.

“See–told you you needed wellies.” The old gentleman had joined him on the lot.

“How’d you get here so quick?”

“See you plumped for the red ones.”

“You’re…”

“Bill’s the name. Bill Wellies.”

“But you’re…”

“Dead. I know. No excuse for slacking, though. Now don’t you worry about a thing. We’ll help with everything. Soon make a gardener out of you.”

“We? Who’s we?”

“SOGGY–Society of Gardening Ghosts. It’s okay, lads–he’s not scared, you can show yourselves.”

A team of spirits appeared, wielding spades, hoes, rakes, chicken wire.

“We’re all specialists in one type of fruit, veg or flower so you can’t go wrong. Roy here likes roots, Bernard’s brassicas and Doc does dahlias, don’t you, Doc?”

Seventeenth-century dahlias, Derek thought, by the look of his garb.

“You likes dahlias, Derek, doesn’t you?” said Doc, grinning toothlessly.

They swished past him and some of them through him and came back, each wearing wellies from the shed and arguing the finer points of manure.

“I’ll just let you get on then, shall I?” said Derek. All he’d really wanted was peace and quiet and a place to smoke his pipe.

“Can’t do that,” they said. “You’ve gone and chosen your wellies now!”

And that’s when he noticed, too late, that Sydney had a scythe.

Life sign readings remained negative as the two men made their way through the strange, ruined Martian settlement. Doorways yawned into dark, angular structures.

“It’s all so empty, sir. It gives me the creeps,” said the young scientist.

“Survival of the fittest, Edgar,” said Oderson. “That’s what you’re seeing here.”

His assistant shook his head. “I don’t know, Doctor. That seems like a callous way to look at it; the Martians, I mean …”

Oderson cut him off, “Survival, Edgar. Humans are the dominant species, and we’ve earned the right to prosper.”

“But we destroyed our own planet, sir.”

Oderson cocked an eyebrow. His assistant was bordering on impudence, but he decided to defeat the argument rather than simply pull rank.

“Edgar,” began Oderson, speaking as one would to a child, “Human intellect designed the O₂ factories that made colonization possible; ergo, we are the dominant species.”

The young assistant was gaping at him. He’d obviously been reading the propaganda sheets from the Eco-twits on Hoight1.

Enough was enough. “Had the Martians evolved, they would have been able to cope with the change in atmosphere. As it stands, they’re dead, and we are standing on the richest new colony planet in a hundred years.”

Edgar’s voice quavered, and behind his face screen, Oderson could see the beginnings of tears.

“Two billion life-forms obliterated, Doctor,” he moaned. “To imply that it was their fault somehow …”

“…is exactly how Pop-Control sees things, Edgar. Stop! We’re here.”

Oderson stood at the top of a shallow valley. Lying exposed before them on the scrub were thousands of glimmering gems of all colors and shapes. Despite numerous probes and tests on the surface, there was still no explanation for the phenomenon. Oderson and Johnson were the first humans to see it, and they would hopefully solve the mystery. Regardless, thought Oderson, there’s nobody left to argue about us claiming the lot.

He stooped and picked up a ruby the size of his fist. It felt lighter than expected, not like stone at all. Who cares? he thought. It was worth a fortune.

Without warning, the stone exploded into a mass of jointed legs.

It skittered once around his palm, then sank dagger-like fangs deep into his fingers. The pain was immediate and he went to his knees, swearing.

The field came alive with precious stones scuttling and rasping toward them. Sapphires became giant scarab-like beetles. Diamonds sprouted wings and wicked looking stingers, taking to the air to form a beautiful, deadly cloud. Here and there, clusters of jewels revealed themselves to be immense unnamable insect horrors. The sound of clicking legs and mandibles was deafening.

Cockroaches, thought Oderson, like cockroaches after the nuke.

Edgar fell to the ground, glittering, screaming, and dying.

Large, skinny-legged opal mantids began to claw their way up Oderson’s leg. He slapped at them, and his hand came away studded with tiny onyx ant-things that were already sinking their pincers into him. He cried out and tried, like Edgar, to get away. The swarm surged, as if sensing his desire to flee, and he was covered from the waist down in beautiful, multifaceted death. Trying one more time to get away, he lurched forward, and slipped on the scrabbling things at his feet. He went down, and was instantly engulfed.

As the bugs started to eat him, Oderson’s mind detached. His consciousness started to float above his body. There was no more pain, even as the creatures began to devour his insides.

Staring up at the Martian moon, pale yellow against the darkening sky, he thought again about the survival of the fittest. This time, he thought, we lost.

The remains of the dog–old Mrs. Waverly’s Yorkie, went missing last week but it was a snappy, yappy little thing so nobody cared–went slithering into the bin. Bobby’s mother tied up the black plastic with choppy movements and shaking hands.

“Wait till your father gets home,” was all she said.

Since she wouldn’t look at him, Bobby went inside and locked himself in the bathroom. His father said that the eyes were the windows of the soul, that you could see all the important stuff there. His father knew everything, so it had to be right, but Bobby was struggling with it. He tried his best, like he did with all his father’s lessons, but it wasn’t coming easy. He needed more practice.

He stared into the bathroom mirror, holding his eyelids open with his fingers, so that he could have the widest possible view of his own eyes. He needed to make the most of it, because they were likely to be black and swollen shut by the time his father was finished with him.

Could he see fear there? He thought maybe he could, after all.

Because there were rules about the conduct of experiments, about the scientific method. Bobby’s work sometimes didn’t meet his father’s standards of neatness or efficiency, but he was trying hard at it. He’d even hoped he might get to upgrade from dogs and cats this year. But now he’d broken the first, the most sacred rule of all:

Don’t get caught.

Got talking to an old bloke on the bus; well, he did the talking–she just sat, at his side, miles away, pretending interest. Was comfortable with her own company this time of day, before the loneliness and boredom kicked in, forcing her to talk to her semi-retired husband Bob. She didn’t have a job; went up town, same time every day, for a routine coffee, and to waste her benefit–on ornamental teddy bear collecting.

Most people on this bus travelled free, being pensioners: she had her bus pass for her disability–sickness of the mind. She kept this fact to herself, and was quite upset as nobody seemed to question her age–taken it for bloody granted she was theirs. She said nothing; on nodding terms with most of the people on this bus taken every day.

He seemed to like the sound of his own voice; just as well, because, what with the babble of the travelling rabble, and the creak and rattle and bang of the deathtrap bus, she could not hear what he had to say for herself. He nattered on. She grinned and nodded, panicked when he asked her to elaborate her answer; had to say “pardon?” at least three times, so he’d yell at her as if she were deaf or daft: she’d say basically what he wanted to hear.

Was on the bus every morning, the little old man saving her a seat next to him. She was getting used to listening to him, answering him. Straining to hear, heard he was in the army in the Second World War, that he did not get on with his children who lived far enough away, and that he lived alone. Poor bugger. Empty nights, empty days–empty house.

That first Monday morning, when he wasn’t on the bus, she wondered… This was the day he collected his pension… Two weeks elapsed and she did not see the little old man. Recalled the last time she’d seen him he’d seemed to be short of breath–death hovering? over her head. She began to ask around if anyone had seen him recently: they shook their heads. She didn’t know where he lived–did not want to, truth be known–but she knew he lived on his own. At last she told a man she thought to be his friend she was a bit worried not seeing the old man. “Haven’t seen him myself; I’ll knock on his door.” But he gave her no answer. A week later he told her, “Still haven’t seen him.” Seemed unconcerned. “That’s it,” she thought, “he’s dead.” She said nothing: kept her fear to herself.

Lying, warm, next to her husband Bob: dear old Bob, in bed–she imagined the old bloke all alone–lying putrefying on his (would be for some reason she thought kitchen) floor. He’d be a hell of a mess by now. Gave her idea to write a story–zombie or ghost. Hoped someone would pay him a visit, before he visited her. Someone brave enough to knock on his door and question the silence–rescue of a sort: the body disposed of, to decompose deep under ground, in peace, with dignity and well away from her and her conscience–guilt buried.

She coughed and spluttered as she woke to an almighty stink. Her husband farting–smell much worse than that: talk about bowels of Hell! He must be ill. Felt ill herself–dry retching. Stretched out her arm, to find he was not lying next to her. Must be in the bathroom–could do without a bloody mess.

“Bob!” No answer. “You all right?”

The reply came from a vague shape standing in the darkness at the foot of the bed.

“Bit bloody late for concern now, isn’t it?” The voice a hoarse, rasping whisper, distorted.

She shuddered.

“Bob?”

“Bob?”

“Bob!”

From when she was little, as far back as she could remember, time picking up speed. Looking forward to Christmases, distance between them getting shorter–as she grew, counting months, weeks, days towards this time of year, and birthdays, even after time of month caught up with her–unawares. Counting. Her mother saying the girl was wishing her life away. Time racing, passing by quicker and quicker; even when the girl started to become alarmed at its rapidity.

Eagerly anticipated milestones rushing towards. Another term and she’d be in the second, third, fourth year at school. Couldn’t wait to lose her virginity, to catch up with the other girls her age, whose boasts were idle. Dying to leave school, planning and scheming way to top. When she was at work, counted the hours towards weekends and holidays, and nights out–and then, anxious to get back to the grind.

Budding sexuality: an old letch of a man, down dark alley, deflowering her, and setting her on the road to many other–notches on bedposts–sexual experiences. Ticking all the boxes–that was what her life was about.

Trapped a man into marriage, when time–was right–passing faster days and nights. Next on her list, was to have a child: something to look forward to.

In another dead end job, kept staring at the clock, counting minutes away to her dinner, willing time to elapse. Lapses of concentration got her fired, given the sack. Lay awake at night, mind and time racing towards light, looking forward to bed the following night only to lie wide awake again–wide open.

Her heart starting to pick up speed. Pounding in her chest, as she paced up and down in the rain, unable to sit still. Panic attacks. Pulse rapid, was sent to a hospital for the mind–heavily tranquilized: no help. Pretended to take the pills, palmed them into the pocket of her dressing gown. Her heart hammering–afraid– nails in her coffin. Taking all the tablets at once–but sick–went on to live–on suicide watch–overwound, stopped. And nothing dramatic happening. Her heart simply giving out.

Alone in dense, silent darkness enveloped and filled up with–but not totally in the dark. Anticipated being born again, to parents who would not treat her well. Would put her through hell, so that in the end, she’d be glad to die at the age of five. What next? Whatever next?

And inside the body bag, once again the watch ticking–time bomb waiting–to go off.