MicroHorror

We’d been diving the wreck of the Prie Dieu for two seasons, cradling up gold coin, copper, brass, precious china, some displaced bone. It was a painstaking task and not without incident–Perry, for one. He was an experienced diver I’d known for years but we all get a little rattled down there sometimes and when he told me about his little… episode… I was dismissive. “We don’t even know whether the ship’s bell is down there but you find it for me and I’ll give you a big hug–make you feel all better.’

“I’m telling you I didn’t hallucinate. I heard what I heard.”

The next day they found the ship’s bell but Perry was lost retrieving it. He got caught up in some tangled mass on the seabed and they couldn’t get him free. Then a shark appeared out of nowhere and… There was a lot of stuff like that going on.

Curtis swore he saw a face staring at him from a porthole. I suggested it was his own reflection.

“I damned well know a diver when I see one!”

I suspect he’d been down too long, wanting to “finish the job,” but he was adamant it wasn’t psychosis and left the dive.

We brought up the last timbers to be desalinated, water replaced with preservative resins. The Prie Dieu was a hull again. But the trouble didn’t stop there. Very soon, visitors to the museum started reporting things. Children had seen men climbing the rigging. There was no rigging–just men climbing midair. Women heard screams from below deck though there was no deck, just a Perspex sheet to show where it would once have been. We had grown men shuddering with fear at the cries of sailors long lost to the sea.

I’m a skeptic. I don’t belief in all that hoo-ha but to keep the peace we encased her in a display cabinet, soundproof, specially built, with all her artifacts displayed around her, bell, coins, skeletal remains–the lot. We even got a priest to come along and bless her.

Then last week: “There’s people screaming in the Prie Dieu display.” The attendant seemed quite distressed so I went along. This time I saw for myself–the display tank filled with water, a man desperately trying to get out, bubbles rising from his hair and clothes, drowning before our eyes, pleading for help, his eyes wide in terror.

With horror, I realized–it was Perry.

Someone from behind me grabbed a fire extinguisher and flung it, shattering the tank. But there was no water. Nobody inside the tank. No visitors screaming. No attendant. Just the wreck of the Prie Dieu and me and hideous, hideous laughter.

Orson’s teeth sank into the raw flesh and he ripped a strip from the bone. He chewed on a piece from his favorite section, the shoulder, but something wasn’t right. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it but there was definitely something in the flavor that wasn’t sitting well with him. Nevertheless, he continued feasting.

He looked across the table at his brother. Claude was cheeks deep into a lower leg. He held it across his face, the toes pointing to the ceiling, and was gnawing left to right as someone might eat an ear of corn.

“It tastes a little tangy to me, Claude,” Orson proclaimed at last, mid-bite.

“Well, I think he was from Texas,” replied Claude, still eating, the bloody smear stretching up to his eyeballs.

Claude had fetched the chap earlier and had done all the butchering himself. He wasn’t much for brains but he was good at bringing home the bacon, and even better at carving it up.

The tangy flavor in Orson’s maw intensified and soon it was like a sour mash.

He looked again at Claude. The burly man didn’t seem to be affected. He ravaged his meal; splatters of gore were accumulating all over his shirtless coveralls.

“You should really use a bib,” said Orson. He was starting to feel sick.

He looked over his shoulder to the butcher’s table. The man, who apparently hailed from Texas, was stacked up in pieces. The meat cleaver used to hack him to bits was stabbed down into the center of the carving block.

Orson looked to the side of the pile, directly at the severed head. At once he spit the wretched meat out from his mouth. The face gazed at him with a sly grin. The eyes of the Texan blinked once, then gave him a little wink.

“Claude, you idiot! This one’s a zombie!”

“What a pretty child,” people used to comment when Antonia was little, and she’d flutter her long eyelashes in response.

Now Antonia, knowing that she still remained beautiful, sat at a table at yet another wedding surrounded by guests and above the sounds of voices. She detected a faint smell of decay.

Though her expression appeared serene, unreasonable anger bubbled up inside her. She frowned across the table at a portly man stuffing a profiterole into his mouth. Then he helped himself to another. Antonia felt nauseated. The man looked across with a bemused expression as if he wondered what he’d done to offend such a lovely wedding guest.

“Don’t they look happy?” Antonia glanced to her right to meet the gaze of an elderly lady she’d not noticed before.

“Who?” she asked.

“The happy couple.” The old lady indicated her head towards the top table.

“Suppose so,” Antonia agreed. “But you’d think the bride could’ve lost some weight before her wedding. She resembles a large meringue in that awful dress.”

“But the bride’s content, and so is the groom,” the elderly lady pointed out.

God! How I hate these dos, Antonia thought, picking up a glass of dessert wine and, after taking a sip, studying a middle-aged woman sitting next to the portly gentleman. Why are people so ugly? she mused.

“You’re not married,” the elderly lady said.

She turned to the speaker with shrivelled, deeply wrinkled skin that covered an almost skeletal but strangely familiar face. As she did so, Antonia caught the scent of her own signature perfume mingled with that same smell of decay. Bloody hell, she thought with disgust. Must change my perfume pronto.

“No!” came her abrupt reply. “Are you?”

The elderly lady shook her head. “In my youth I was–what they term today–an ‘It girl.’ With wealthy parents to indulge me, I spent years partying, going on holidays and meeting beautiful people.” She paused. Shrugged. “The only man I fell for left me at the altar. Said he couldn’t put up with my selfish, high maintenance lifestyle anymore.” She smiled a sad smile. “He went on to marry a voluptuous lady with, I’m told, a great sense of humor.”

Antonia froze in her seat as if an insult had been directed at her and the elderly lady said, “I know you, my dear. I know you better than you know yourself.”

Who does this bloody old bat think she is? Antonia inwardly fumed but, for once, didn’t utter her thoughts.

There was a loud rap from the top table. The best man stood up and greeted the guests. The elderly lady rose too and hobbled towards high, mirrored doors that reflected back all two hundred guests sitting around oval tables adorned with flowers.

“Incontinent bitch,” Antonia muttered and, turning to the male guest seated on her right, asked, “Who was that woman?”

He bent forward to look in the direction where Antonia was pointing. “I can’t see anyone,” he said.

“Are you blind? There was an old lady sat next to me.”

The man frowned. “You’re the only elderly lady sitting here. Are you a relative of the bride? The groom?” He smiled a benign smile.

Antonia’s throat seemed to close up. Getting to her feet, she walked shakily out of the room amid the sound of laughter and, as she did do, she caught her own reflection in those high, mirrored doors and saw her that her face had wrinkled deeply, her hair appeared steely grey and thin, and her once long, elegant fingers were deformed with arthritis. Urine trickled down from beneath her skirt into a puddle at her feet.

With a loud screech of fear, Antonia frantically glanced back into the room to meet two hundred shocked faces staring back at her.

Eddie and Isabel sat on their favorite bench in the park. The bench overlooked a large pond. Wisteria hung over the pond, the lilac flowers stretching down towards the water, as if trying to caress the surface. They sat, hand-in-hand, and soaked in the view. Eddie played with his wife’s wedding ring, spinning it round and round her finger.

“I kept all the newspaper clippings,” Isabel said. “The first one was ‘Aging cure is Fan-Tab-ulous.’ I thought it was amusing.”

“Very amusing,” Eddie agreed.

“Did you read the one the other day? Made it sound like Judgment Day was coming, or something,” Isabel asked.

“Now, you know I don’t read papers anymore. They paint such a negative view of us these days,” Eddie said.

“Us? You make it sound like we’re an elite crowd. There’s millions of ‘us’ in Europe alone.”

“Millions, that’s a lot…” his voice faded at the thought of them all.

A young woman walked by. Seeing the couple on the bench, she quickened her step, giving them a pitiful look as she passed.

“We had a choice and we’ve had fifty extra years because of it,” Eddie called after her. “These youngsters just don’t understand,” he said to his wife.

Isabel smiled at him. He looked not a day over fifty, but the last birthday he had celebrated was his one-hundred-twenty-fifth.

“Maybe she’s one of those who thought it un-Godly,” she suggested. She twisted her wrist to check the time: 4 p.m.

“It’s about to start,” she said.

“Why did they have to just stop?” he asked.

“According to the papers it was the strikes. That and the food shortage. People had had enough.”

Eddie frowned, the lines around his eyes deepening. They continued to deepen and stretch, like a spider’s web across his face.

“Did they even do experiments? Probably, but I bet they didn’t care. Bloody governments, cover everything up these days.”

Isabel went to reply but something caught in her throat. She coughed deeply, heaving her lungs, and spat a load into her cupped hands. Several teeth were stuck into thick globs of saliva and blood. She stared at the sticky mess, and then threw it to the ground.

“No one trusts scientists anymore. Not after the fertility disaster,” she slurred.

Confused by her speech, Eddie turned to her. Horror filled his eyes.

“Oh, my poor Isa,” he said, bringing his hand up to stroke her face. His shocked look deepened as he saw his own hand. Only minutes ago it was plump and sturdy, now the skin hung from frail bones, liver spots popping up as he looked.

“Why is this happening?” he said, his own words now slurring together. Tears pricked Isabel’s eyes and she could only shake her head. They both turned to look back at the pond.

She heard her husband’s breath straining. Her own heart was beating hard, trying to keep life in the fast decaying body. She tried not to look but couldn’t help glancing round as Eddie’s head lolled forward onto his chest and his sunken eyes closed. His jaw dropped into his lap, then onto the floor, shattering. His chest rose for the final time.

Please forgive us, God, she thought. She closed her eyes and let herself slip sideways.

Across the pond, a middle-aged couple sat on the grass, their arms wrapped around each other. Tears streaked their faces as they watched in horror what would be their own fate.

“I’ll find another way for us, darling,” the man said. The woman nodded and pulled him closer. They watched as the wind blew the dust on the bench away.

Sleeping, dreaming, waking–there was no rest for Susan Soght after the strange disappearance of her husband Simon. He haunted every moment of her every day. He was gone and yet not; no closure, no funeral, no real goodbye. No insurance payment either though he’d spent all his working life in that field. He’d always been away a lot–but this was different. She received little sympathy for what was hardly perceived as loss. There was plenty of avoidance from neighbors, friends–even family. There was suspicion around town. Whisperings.
 
Whisperings there were at home too. Whisperings and shadows. Black shadows where shadows should not be. Shadows grey on sunlit afternoons. Shadows and whisperings in the swift twilights of that hopeless spring. There were shadows that moved from tree to tree, wall to wall, chair to chair and shadows that flitted across floors, around doors and always in the corner where he sat–a shadow.
 
Their grown-up children came and went like shadows too–needy shadows always wanting something but ultimately leaving her alone; yet not alone–bereft, confused.
 
She imagined him sitting there, in the very chair in which he’d disappeared, sitting there open mouthed, finger pointed in accusation. She sold the chair, got rid of all his clothes. She bought a new car. One that was–more viable. Once in the night, she suspected he was lying there beside her. She’d felt the sheets, cold yet crumpled, move. After that she took to sleeping in the spare room; sold the marital bed. And yet it seemed he would not wholly disappear.
 
In the attic there remained now one small case. A small brown case filled with fading documents. It echoed an apparent faded life; receding memories of flesh once solid, warm and real. Susan opened it with trepidation. She picked up a sheaf of dead leaves fallen from an old exercise book. The writing was in Simon’s hand but far from faded to her vision now, it shone most vibrant from the page in turquoise ink:
 
in cobalt blaze
there,
there you stood
aloof, alone,
and I
in breath-struck silence gazed
upon
a heav’n to be attained.
 
Alas there was nothing in me,
nothing
to retain your love…
 
The letters swam. Before the children, before so many dull years of insurance sales and hurried meals in cold cafes always halfway from somewhere, home. Before all that–before the wraithing process had begun–Simon Soght had somewhere been a poet. Gradually but irrevocably fading as his dreams; reality took him–as reality is wont to do.
 
There lay the photograph of her she’d thought was lost; her auburn hair (now in reality faded) tied back in bow of velvet blue. Before the children, before years of cleaning, scrimping and scolding, she had been a beauty. Susan fell to her knees. If only she had known. If only she could mourn… But no tears came–just a chill and inevitable certainty that Simon was not gone. And she could not bear it.
 
Nobody saw Susan Soght leave the house that day. She drove out to the spot from where he’d phoned–that last time he’d wanted to be home. There must be a drive-through burger booth nearby–but she saw none. Then her telephone rang. Her eldest wanting something done, no doubt.

“Hello–are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here,” she said. And with those words she saw a bright, clear sign–turquoise. The burger joint was right along the road.

“Simon?” she said.

“Yes, Susan–it’s me.”

“Oh, Simon, I’m so sorry…”

“You’re here now…”

“We’ll be together now?”

“Of course we will.”

And now she saw him standing in the road. And as she approached and he became clearer, so she disappeared from normal view.
 
You could not have witnessed that meeting, unless, of course…
 
Perhaps you were once a beauty or a poet too… for only wraiths are welcomed at a Ghost Burger Bar.

You like to play but the cyber playground is cold and dark and there is no one there, angel.

I’ll take a torch to light my way home. Shed words to mark my foot print. Are they following me? They will find me soon, baby.

Look out for the gingerbread house, honey. It looks so warm, inviting. Click on the mouse and come in. There are good things to eat and a soft bed for you to rest in. Drink me. Look at you grow and blossom.

Are you fat enough yet, angel? Give baby the bone he asks for–then tell him it wasn’t you.

The clock is ticking–counting down the minutes of my life. Honey, I can lose days–click again–lose my mind.

Lose your soul, angel? That is an alien concept. Come in! Slip on the masks you wear beneath your skin. Here there are no boundaries–here you can be most truly yourself. Say hello to your new friends. You have quite the collection. Pinned like flies–your trophies.

Some of us have two faces or more, baby. Smile–are you ready for your profile picture? You can be anyone, girl or boy, the one or many you never dreamed. You can change the color of your face or we can change it for you. Isn’t that better? Too much reality hurts.

I can stop this any time I like, honey. All I have to do is shut down. Click and click again. Find the key and open the door, baby. Told you I can stop this.

Not now.

Not when we’re having such a good time.

Not yet.

Follow me? Adorable! She laughs, he cries, she bleeds!

Look out for the wolves, baby. What big teeth they have. They are tracking you on silent paws. They bring you flowers and a cake on your birthday. They smile as they eat you from within, honey. You spill yourself to sate their hunger, but it will never be enough. They are caught in the web and the cyber soul has sucked them dry. They will never let you go.

Wake in a hundred years, angel. See the grey in your hair and the lines on your face, honey. Shed the avatar like last year’s coat and look at you, baby. This never gets old. Remember me?

Who are you?

Who am I?

Don’t you know?

Don’t cry, angel. Don’t break the screen. It is only a mirror of your soul. See the flies trapped in your web, honey? Look how many they are. See the things you have become.

Remember dreams? They are all we have when the lights go out and the world is dark. Who will you feed on now?

Am I cold? Are you hungry?

Baby–feed on me. I love you.

Don’t break the glass!

One hundred me and all of them are you.

A hideous howl carried across the yard and into the farmhouse, waking John from his uneasy sleep.

Stomping into his boots and grabbing the shotgun that slept permanently beside his bedpost, he flew downstairs and into the moonlit yard out back. For too many mornings he’d awoken to find his poultry murdered, their heads torn clean from their bodies, giblets and hen’s feet and all kinds of scaly, feathered body parts strewn across the pens. For too many mornings he’d awoken to find his inherence bloodied and broken in the back yard. For too many mornings he’d awoken with a stinking hangover and no idea how he was going to keep the place going. A poultry farm wasn’t much good without any poultry; he’d never been much of a thinker, but he knew that much for sure.

Tonight was going to be different. Tonight he’d catch the culprit hen-handed. Tonight he was prepared.

It was cold outside for early spring. His whisky-breath came white on the crisp air. Thankful for his fur-lined jacket, he raced around the back, to where the chickens lived. Their restless clucks carried through the night, an undertone in the back of his mind, grating, warbling, irritating.

He hated those clucks. He hated them almost as much as he hated the hens themselves, as much as he hated his father for insisting on the whole venture in the first place.

“Chickens are the future, John. Everybody likes chicken. With chickens, you will always have food on the table, always be able to provide for your nearest and dearest.”

John grunted through his stubble, another breathy expiration on the air, and picked up his pace. How wrong his father had been. He could barely provide for himself, let alone any bird he might have shacked up with, in a different life. Nobody liked chicken anymore, in this day and age, not with all the fast food, the celebrity diets and fancy cappuccinos.

And the worst part, the biggest kick in the balls, the only food on his table was his own bleeding chicken.

The frantic rattle of the mesh fences. He could see them, shaking across the yard. And something at their base, a shadow, black and misshapen beneath the light of the full moon. Was it a dog? He didn’t care, was shooting at the chickens as much as their attacker. The smooth barrel of his gun felt cool against his rough fingertips, solid and dependable. He hefted the firearm, skidded to a halt not a dozen meters away, took a steady aim.

The creature, dog, whatever it was, froze at the fences, turned and fixed him with a piercing stare through eyes as yellow and luminous as the glowing moon itself. For a moment he lost himself to the monstrous visage of the beast, as it threw its snout to the night sky, claws still embedded in the thin mesh fence, and uttered another long, protracted howl.

For one moment, John thought he knew the creature’s pain, its anguish, the unfettered turmoil that undulated from its all-too-human throat into the night.

Then he blew its tortured face off.

After that night, the chickens stopped dying. Not that John cared, when it came down to it. Besides, things were looking up. Forget the cappuccino coffees, the processed burger meat; he had new produce for sale.

The Great British public, they couldn’t get enough of his Lean Lancashire Spring Moon Sausages.

I put my children in the lake but they came back. They miss me. I watched them crawl up to the house, their waterlogged bellies dragging in the dirt. Red mouths hanging open. Sunburned skin blistered and flaking. I saw their eyes, empty and yellow. My love for them is unbearable.

It is all I can do to keep the world from wrapping its wicked tentacles around them now. I’ve made each new clothes. I wove soft fiber and pulled coarse thread. When the needle slipped into my fingertip I peppered the fabric with my blood. It is my gift to them. I’ve made their beds and opened the doors. I wait for them quietly and imagine their wet embrace. Their spongy flesh weeping onto mine. It makes my skin tingle.

My children are hiding. They’ve taken to the trees. They cling like sloths. They moan. I am going to find them and take them home. We will fill our pockets with stones and I will hold them to my breast. We will be together and this time, as the water fills our stomachs, we will weep with joy.

To me it was just a case of history repeating itself: innocence in both instances. Opening the big box by the tacky, artificial Xmas tree. Lifting the lid on true meaning of Christmas, religion no longer existing, like Santa, and my mother.

Inside the box, the BIG doll lying in a nest of pink and white tissue, with tinsel in her hair. Called her Mary (Mary–merry Christmas–get it? said Dad–dead now.)

A beautiful doll laid out in all her finery, frills and flounces, like a spoiled brat–all mine. When I lifted her perfectly formed though rather stiff body her eyes flew open, and she called me “Mama,” claiming me as her very own. She was a walking, talking miracle, whereas I was slow at doing both.

Growing–serious. Time to put aside toys for awhile, for a period of mourning–womanhood threatening. Mary lay neglected, in her box, buried in the cluttered spare room, and the past–and when I next came to see her, on verge of nostalgia and tears, she would not speak to me. Batteries’ deadly acid eroding in her back like rotting innards, a mess of brown blood, like mine. I did her talking for her, putting words in her mouth–expertly, in time.

Don’t know what all the fuss was about when I wanted to play with that other, BIGGER doll laid out in all her finery in the big box. The doll’s skin more waxy than Mary’s plastic skin, and less natural. Roses colored like waxed apples painted in her cheeks, lips scarlet–like violence. Fake flowers in her hair, the hair like nylon to the touch.

I tried to lift her, wanting to get her out of her box to play with me. She slumped forward, and draped herself heavily around my shoulders, as if she were pleased to see me, glad of my support. Weight almost having me over (again–and again). I managed to ease her back a bit, trying to look into her shut eyes. Her face all smeared. Lipstick and rouge looking like blood without the wet glistening. Pushed her, heaved her off me. Her heavy head lolling on its rubbery neck, and hanging at a strange angle. Had to let her lie–down, let go eventually; but for now I held her half in and half out of box, her ill-fitting place; as she leered at me I fell forward. This doll was not as well made as my Mary. This doll had big clumsy stitches in her throat. Managed to lay her uncomfortably down, not flat, hanging over the sides of the box.

The roomful of people, as one, seemed to hold its breath, as if peering over into an abyss of madness (theirs, not mine). In the deathly silence only the doll spoke. Mourners dropping like flies around the corpse, as I threw a scare into them, throwing my voice–of doom, betraying its maker.

The night my grandfather died, the wind howled in the trees and shutters rattled angrily. It seemed he was venting his fury at the prospect of death, as he struggled to stay alive. He’d lingered for days. Initially we’d all gathered round his bed, but the work of the farm must go on, so now we took turns to sit with him.

At thirteen, I was old enough to engage in this ritual together with my older brothers Tom and Joshua. Our parents were long dead, and if Tom, the eldest, hadn’t married Sarah, my life might have been a lot worse, in many ways. The timid, shrinking woman Tom had taken as his bride did not take part in the vigil. The fact that she was seven months pregnant didn’t enter into it–since no quarter was ever given in this joyless household–it was simply that she wasn’t considered family, more a useful addition for cooking, cleaning and breeding.

That night, during my watch, Grandfather suddenly stopped breathing. My heart leapt in anticipation. Was it finally over? There’d be no tears shed; we were all terrified of him, though Tom liked to pretend he wasn’t.

I leaned forward to detect any vital signs, but then his claw-like hand grabbed my wrist and his evil eye, the one with a black flash jaggedly dissecting the icy blue iris, flew open, fixing balefully on me. Terrified, I snatched my hand free. He leered at me, then closed his dreadful eye as his breathing resumed a steady rattle. I stationed my chair further from the bed–I would not be fooled again.

I heard a commotion downstairs, voices, slamming of doors and footsteps running from the house. I dared not leave the bedside, and I thought I saw Grandfather smile. Within moments, Joshua came upstairs.

“What’s happened?” I whispered.

“Sarah’s in labor,” he said. “Tom’s gone for the midwife. You’d better go to her.”

I went downstairs, where Sarah lay moaning on a mattress in the corner of the room. She was drenched in sweat, glistening in the flickering light of the flames from the fireplace. I’d helped deliver lambs and the occasional calf, so I knew enough to assist in the delivery but I prayed that Tom would return with the midwife soon.

Eventually he reappeared, letting an icy blast into the airless kitchen. The midwife shook her head, but rolled up her sleeves and shortly after a boy was safely delivered. Sarah passed out at the moment of giving birth and never regained consciousness. She died at midnight.

We’d never been close. The only thing we’d shared was our crippling fear of my grandfather, and she’d greater cause than I to fear him, for reasons of which we never spoke. Nevertheless, I cried as I regarded her face, grey as the calico mattress beneath her.

Tom appeared unmoved. Joshua came downstairs.

“I think Grandfather’s died,” he said, his eyes huge in his pale face. “He just smiled and stopped breathing.”

Tom went upstairs. Joshua joined me beside the crib after glancing furtively at Sarah’s lifeless form in the corner.

“The baby came too soon,” I said, stretching out a finger to touch the tiny pink hand.

Joshua peered into the crib. “He’s very tiny,” he said. “Perhaps he won’t survive.”

The baby gripped my hand tightly and his eyes flew open, glaring at me. I saw, with a start of horror, the familiar black flash in the icy blue iris, and the faintest hint of a smile playing around his lips.

“Oh, he’ll live,” I said, my spirits sinking.