MicroHorror

The football team owner glared at his marketing director.

“I need to fill twenty thousand empty seats in that stadium or the game will be blacked out,” he bellowed. “I need that TV ad revenue!”

The marketing man thought about it. His face lit up.

“How about putting zombies in those seats?”

It was a wonderful idea on paper, but the players soon realized that the combined moaning and groaning of twenty thousand zombies was even more distracting than the blaring of those infamous World Cup vuvuzelas.

On the other hand, the moaning did eventually drown out the screaming.

We stabbed at the earth with wooden spades, each stone-choked scrape of dirt echoing through the churchyard like the devil gnashing his teeth. November had thrust upon us the very worst kind of night for a resurrection–cold and still, lacking even a wisp of fog to cloak us. A full moon prowled overhead, silvering our breath in the frozen air.

I had debts, of course–what other circumstances could have reduced me to this, labouring in a pit beside the loathsome blacksmith Talbot, breathing his stench of ale and burnt hoof? Doctor Campbell would pay four guineas for our grim harvest, Talbot had said, promising me a quarter-share. Without it, I might as well have been digging a grave for myself.

Little Maisy Jennings had been laid to rest only that afternoon, the poor wretch succumbing to a black fever of disputed origin. The prospect of snatching one so young from the Lord’s embrace perturbed me greatly, and my hands shook with more than cold as the soil piled up around us.

We struck the casket. My heart pressed at the root of my tongue as Talbot cleared the last of the dirt and instructed me to prise open the lid. Maisy’s father, fearful of body-snatchers, had purchased a fortified coffin; Talbot had fitted the iron bands himself, and no doubt charged a premium price for having done so. As planned, the sham hinges separated with little more than token resistance.

Talbot clambered out of the grave to fetch sackcloth and rope, whilst I heaved aside the lid. Maisy lay on a bed of lavender, head to toe in white. The light of the moon and my fevered imagination could almost have convinced me she merely slept–and I half-prayed she would awaken, releasing us both from the nightmare into which I had been so reluctantly ensnared.

A twig snapped above my head. I straightened up, ready to curse Talbot’s leaden feet. But at the pit edge, instead of the lumbering blacksmith, I found myself staring into the sallow, bearded face of a policeman, his eyes fixed upon me. I near yelped in terror. The constable raised his whistle to his lips, ready to alert the town to my terrible endeavours. But a sickening crack! split the air, and he toppled sideways. In his place stood Talbot, eyes wild, breath surging from his nostrils, his spade broken mid-shaft by the collision with the hapless lawman’s skull.

Doctor Campbell met us at an unlit door at the back of the college. He accepted Maisy’s body without a word, leaving Talbot and me to divide our reward in the shadows. The blacksmith headed into town, muttering of liquor and whores. I wandered the back streets, lost and aimless, my guinea burning a hole in my fist. Everywhere I looked, the same ghastly image loomed from the darkness–a perpetual recurrence of the moment when, as the earth rained down upon him, the policeman’s eyes had flicked open.

It sounded like the sea. So she imagined, having never left Oklahoma. It came in waves, making the treetops sway and the leaves flicker, a soft rising and falling like a never-ending whisper.

Hope sat on a bench in Filson’s only park, a small square ringed by shops with the town offices at one end, a dull bronze statue of a soldier at the center. Her twin sister Faith sat beside her, both little girls swinging their legs slowly and holding hands.

“It’s quiet,” said Hope.

Faith nodded.

A tendril of breeze spiraled down from above, ruffling their hair and blowing a windshield flier across the fresh-cut grass. Hope loved that smell.

Nothing moved on the streets, no cars or farm trucks, no folks passing by to say hello. No squirrels played chase-me games up and down the tree trunks, and the branches above were silent in the absence of birds.

“I miss the sounds.”

Hope looked at her sister and squeezed her hand.

“I miss Mommy and Daddy.” Faith’s eyes welled up again, and so did Hope’s.

“Me too.”

They sat that way for a while, staring out at the park, their tears turning pink as they tried to understand. They didn’t want to think about the people lying on the sidewalks, slumped over steering wheels in motionless cars. Didn’t want to think about their little house three blocks away, just past the intersection with the blinking yellow light and the Dairy Queen that closed just after Labor Day. Daddy in the front yard by his grass fertilizing machine, Mommy on the floor of the small living room with a spilled glass of tea.

Faith started coughing. So did Hope.

Filson, Oklahoma was quiet all over. The big trucks by the grain silos were still, the high school gym with its orange and blue decorations for Homecoming was silent. Only a couple of small oil wells chugged slowly on at the west end of town.

Faith covered her cough with her hands like mommy had taught her, seeing crimson droplets on her palms. Hope’s chest rattled and she leaned against her sister’s shoulder, her eyes glassy.

“Do you think Jesus will be here soon to get us?” Faith asked.

Hope didn’t answer. She was already gone.

High above the waving treetops of Filson, a large aircraft left a lonely white contrail across a cornflower blue sky. Serious men and women aboard Air Force One spoke with authority and confidence about biological warfare and acceptable losses.

Faith’s body shuddered with coughs and she put her arm around her sister, their heads touching.

“Good night, Hope.” She closed her eyes.

And the wind kept on.

He never knew her name. And he had never answered for his crime.

Rusty Lerner, “Deuce” for sixty-one of his seventy-three years, was a bum, a drunk whose weakness had caused the death of an innocent. He supposed it was an old story.

His clothing was shapeless and faded, his coat stained and torn, sneakers ripped. He didn’t mind that his approach made women hold their pocketbooks tighter, or that his body odor could empty a subway car–at least until a transit cop emptied the subway car of him. He cared about the paper-wrapped bottle of oblivion in his coat pocket.

“Jesus forgives,” Deuce muttered, tucking his chin against a cold night breeze as he shuffled up a Bronx sidewalk. It was a bad neighborhood but no one bothered him. One look told anyone interested he had nothing worth taking.

He reached his destination and pushed between the gates of a chain link fence. The demolition had only recently begun and the site was quiet, any security guard sleeping warm in a car somewhere.

“Jesus forgives, and so should you,” he told the wind, climbing over rubble to reach a cleared spot near the crane. Its derrick rose silently over the partially demolished apartment building like a finger emphasizing Deuce’s proclamation. He was sick of her, sick of not sleeping, of seeing her in doorways and corners. He could no longer awaken to her chill, dead touches on his cheek in the night.

In 1975, Deuce had worked for the Starlight Circus, a traveling show which moved up and down the East Coast. He’d had one job, tending the elephants and setting up the rides. He’d been drinking especially hard that year and he’d had a temper. The old bull named Johnny was as irritable as Deuce, shitting in freshly mucked stalls, getting pushy with his trunk, and giving Deuce that evil glare from his runny red eyes.

Deuce didn’t take shit from elephants, so he tormented him with an electric prod any time the bosses weren’t around. Johnny got mean. They got mean together.

He sat on a piece of broken wall and sipped from his bottle, shivering at the friendly burn. “Wasn’t me that done it, you know,” he told the darkness.

So maybe he’d had too much to drink that night, and maybe he hadn’t done such a good job tightening the belts that held the seats on old Johnny’s back, the ones where the kiddies could ride if their parents coughed up three dollars. But it was her goddamned shrieking that done it, that Little Miss in her pretty white dress, holding a balloon and smacking old Johnny’s head while she squealed.

She was the one set the old bull off.

The seats fell, kiddies spilling every which way, and old Johnny going into a stomping rage before someone brought him down with a rifle. Those kiddies got out with some bruises and pee in their undies, except for that Little Miss with her white dress. She was stomped just as flat as you please.

Deuce snuck off that night and never looked back, except to read the papers. The Post’s headlines screamed RED CIRCUS! The Starlight Company went out of business, and Deuce’s life became what it became.

He sat in the quiet and pulled at his bottle. It was here, thirty-five years ago, when this was just a field full of circus tents. “Jesus forgives and so should you. Now you leave me alone, Little Miss.”

A red balloon drifted across the rubble and came to rest at his feet.

Deuce saw her standing beside the crane, cold and white, and his breath caught as he heard a metallic click overhead. His old drunk’s eyes looked up to see the wrecking ball dropping swift and silent through the night.

It crushed him just as flat as you please.

And a red balloon floated away.

They ended up finding Janice nearly a mile from the ranch. She was lying on her right side, with a series of odd incisions crisscrossing her left. She was missing an eye, most of her jaw, and her tongue. Her anus was cored out and there was an odd, almost antiseptic smell in the air. Since she weighed over eight hundred pounds, they couldn’t push her over to see what she was like on the other side, but they could clearly see there were no tracks around her for three yards.

All of this, of course, was disconcerting to April–but nowhere near as much as Carlos’s response.

“Eh,” the old rancher said with his accent. “These things happen.”

“These–Carlos, this is wrong. They violated that poor animal.”

“Yup,” he said mournfully. “Sure did.”

“Isn’t this–isn’t this bizarre?”

“Nah. Last time was the sheep. Found ’em in the trees.”

“But–”

“Don’t bother–no one else will.” He walked in that slow gait to the pickup. “C’mon. Got the living to tend to.”

He admonished her not to tell anyone about the mutilated cow–“Attracts the undesirables,” he flatly said–but she had the “investigative researchers” out by that afternoon, while the scene was still fresh. They took their measurements and asked about lights in the sky. And how about unmarked helicopters? They shook their heads in disappointment but assured her such phenomena as this were commonplace. They snapped a few pictures and scribbled in their books and never once asked Janice’s name.

On their way out, they bumped into Carlos, who only raised his eyebrows instead of his voice. When they asked about the possibility of extraterrestrial involvement, he merely shrugged. “Only alien you’ll find, boys, is the one you’re lookin’ at.” April had to hurry them along to their SUVs before any more damage was done.

She found herself staring at the scars on her hand and midriff as they fought; it helped keep the tears at bay. She had come highly recommended, he was saying, but she had the tendency to just not let things go. “The story of my life,” April said, laughing mirthlessly.

“Could tell that,” he said.

“They wronged her,” she said for the seventh time, looking him in the eye.

“Sweetheart,” he said after a pause, “world runs on wrong. Gotta accept that.”

“No. I don’t.” Her tone was more defiant than she intended.

“Gonna die, then.”

There was a mutual agreement somewhere in there that she should pack her things and mosey on to the next job. She did so as quickly as possible, the tears finally breaking as she fumbled with the zippers on her luggage.

In retrospect, this was how she started to begin to forgive the world.

Night is always the best time to visit the cemetery, for it is clearest only in darkness–when all is in silhouette–that everything here is a part of the same, grave shadow. That shadow lies not only over the stones and the land, but interpenetrates and is their very being, a formlessness that their appearance by light can only struggle to decay into. Alone in the breathing blackness, you may still see your hand in front of your face, but can certainly feel the weight of it, its unmistakable presence. Yet you may think that you feel yourself becoming a part of that great, empty shade. You are not alone.

In this graveyard, a whitish mist drifts around your feet, aimlessly at first. You may watch for a minute, two, three… ten, uncertain how you can even still see it without moonlight. Through slowly swirling mesmerism it patterns itself into a white mask, the shape of a skull, worn by a shadow’s outline in human form.

It seems to promise, “There are answers here, if only you would listen…”

You might obey, but hear nothing. Not even your own breath seems to sound as it passes in and out of you. Even your heart beats inaudibly, if it still does. After a moment, you ask if you should be hearing anything at all. Your voice is weak, scarcely a whisper if it actually makes words.

“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” the spirit asks in a voice as barely audible as your own. “When have the dead ever made noise? We only want to sleep, you know…”

A tiny gust in the fog, and the mask tilts curiously. “Have you ever been underneath a cemetery?”

The air shifts coldly, like laughter.

“Then I must show you,” the mist whispers. The specter takes you by the hand–its touch is a cool, inviting breath on your skin–and leads you down to a tunnel you never before noticed.

Some part of you knows it is too black to see anything down here–certainly your hand is gone now, but not its weight. Yet you feel you can see everything in becoming dimness yourself, dimmer… dimmer, but though all is dark you still are not yet a part of that darkness.

The rough bricks of narrow, descending walls sigh silently. The weight of the world, this indifferent earth that cannot shrug off an insect or burrowing worm, has bent them all into crooked lines. The dry, powdery floor of the tunnel awaits nothing, undisturbed even by the intrusion of your footsteps. A skeletal hand peeks incuriously out from under some debris. Unburdened from duty or purpose, the bones lie, splayed fingers reaching for nothing.

And it is inside that the spirit in its misty mask lifts away, shutting the mouth of the tunnel before it dissipates entirely. The hours that follow–finally in total darkness under the cemetery–may frighten at first, but only if you think of the light. Consider not dawn in its irritation or the hectic buzz of tomorrow’s day. Focus instead on the weight of the hands you cannot see, on the disappearance of that burden as your body, at last, turns to shadow.

“Gentlemen, face front.”

Over the ancient PA system, the detective’s voice was tinny. Harsh fluorescent tubes on the ceiling glared, cold and irritating.

He was hungry. Hadn’t had a bite in over twenty-four hours, and he could smell it on himself.

Smell the stale booze and rank cologne on the four others lined up with him.

Tall, short, fat, thin. Black, white, Hispanic.

Was the suspect a male human being? That’s what the cops must have asked before putting this lineup together.

They hadn’t a clue. Not the two detectives seated beyond the glass partition–the one reeking of bourbon, the other nicotine and Clarets. Nor the pale, anemic woman seated between them.

The woman. She was the one. The one who had seen the monster, and lived to tell the tale. The one who had escaped. The one they hoped would lead them to the Grinder.

The Grinder, who had avoided capture for nearly a decade, and committed thirty-seven separate acts of murder… that they knew of.

The idiots in this precinct would never find him. Or the Reaper. Or Smokin’ Joe. Or–what was that other one’s name? The Hammer of Zion, that was it.

The cops in this town. Showed more imagination in their choice of nicknames than they did in pursuing the serial killers that sprang up here like weeds.

Amateurs. All of them.

One thing was certain. They’d never catch the Grinder.

“All right, gentlemen.”

The detective’s voice, over that tinny speaker again.

“You’re free to go. Sign out with the duty sergeant on your way out.”

Seemed to take an eternity for the line to shuffle out of the room and into the main hall of the precinct. He scribbled something illegible on the desk sergeant’s blotter, and stepped out of the building.

By then the woman was over two blocks away. About the same distance he’d seen her from before. Panicked and disheveled, as she fled the Grinder’s lair. And he’d had his last decent meal.

Two blocks. Even at that distance–his vision and other senses were especially keen when he was hungry–she looked and smelled pretty tasty.

She couldn’t have seen him. Still. He didn’t like loose ends.

A snack between killers, then.

He smiled as he strolled off in pursuit.

Grace stared at the crystal-clear spike of ice. It dangled precariously outside of her bedroom window, hanging down from a loose gutter her dad had meant to fix but never got around to. It was the biggest icicle she’d ever seen, twice the size of the one Jenny and Alyssa had knocked down the previous year on their way home from school. She still remembered how the ice snapped loose from the tree branch with just the slightest nudge.

That icicle was big, but this one, eroded down to an unusually sharp point at its tip, was bigger.

Grace crawled out of bed to get a better view of the icy formation outside her window. She studied it through the glass, noting how her reflection in it was slightly distorted: her short black hair was longer, flowing gently around her pale face, and her eyes had a bluish tint to them, unlike the dark hazel that they normally were. There was also a feral beauty in her face.

Cringing in fear, Grace felt weak and disoriented. She backed away from the window, never taking her eyes off the icicle. It had grown a little from when she had first noticed it earlier, undoubtedly due to the trickles of water streaming down from its base and refreezing.

The moonlight lit the room, casting a looming shadow of the icicle across Grace. She felt violated by it somehow, as if it were leaking into her bedroom. But she wouldn’t let it in.

Eventually sleep crept into her body, overtaking her in its calm embrace. She drifted into past realms that she cherished: birthday parties, playing in her sandbox, the first crush she had on a boy, her first kiss. The memories all danced around in her head like children vying for the attention of an adult.

And then she slept.

Grace rolled over and focused her groggy eyes on the alarm clock. 7:24 a.m. stared back at her. With lazy effort she slid out of bed and planted her bare feet on the floor. Instantly a chill swept over her body. She glanced over to the window, as if somehow trying to attach the cool draft to the large icicle that had been there since the night before.

And it was still there, only bigger. Its streamlined shape was much more pronounced, the tip hanging a full three and a half feet below its base.

And it was sharp. Very sharp.

Grace watched it, again noting how her reflection was distorted slightly. But although it was, she still appeared beautiful. Her face was smooth–a complexion befitting a professional model–and her hair was full and glossy. She stepped closer to the glass, marveling at her newfound looks. Another draft of cold air blew past her.

And then the thought drifted into her mind as if someone had planted it there, allowing it to take root and spread out, urging to her listen.

Why not go outside and get some fresh air? Just think how pretty you’ll look in the icicle’s reflection up close. You’ll be more beautiful than anyone else.

Yeah, maybe she would go outside. It would be really nice to see how she’d look in the icicle up close.

Slipping on some clothes, Grace ventured out of her bedroom. Behind her, hanging above her desk, the pages of her puppy and kitten calendar fluttered when the air conditioning kicked back on. All of the days for July were crossed off up to the twenty-second, the previous day. But Grace didn’t notice as she walked past her desk. The only thing she was concerned with was reaching the icicle.

And outside the bedroom window the icicle shuddered with excitement. The tiny arteries inside it pulsed with blood, pumping it from its base to its tip. It leaned forward slightly, tapping the glass, causing a thin crack in the pane.

The icicle then bent back to its original position and waited for Grace.

I’ve made my decision.

Over the course of my life I have gathered much knowledge. I have striven to better this world that I share with so many others. I have donated both time and money to humanitarian causes. I have delved into spreading religion and love for my fellow man, and patience for those–shall we say–less inclined to behave in a civilized manner.

I also furthered the eradication of several fatal diseases through my exhaustive research into splicing antibodies to achieve greater saturation. My monetary donations added whole new levels of awareness to numerous strains of viruses, some quite virulent.

I helped stabilize political unrest in more than half a dozen third-world countries. I was instrumental in the ousting of certain despots and leaders of Communist parties. The peace between the Mid-East and the United States has been largely attributed to my efforts.

My unique ability to connect with different species of wildlife, most notably the Usumara Baboon Spider (native to the dry regions of Eastern Africa) and a small, unassuming bird called the Pitohui from the New Guinea sub-region, have saved many from extinction. The means of interpreting the creatures’ intent, and in some cases their thoughts, was deemed miraculous by some, witchcraft by others. I myself do not fully understand how I do it.

And through all these accomplishments one singular thing has remained firmly planted deep within my soul: my faith in mankind. And with this faith I was able to successfully wield my determination to help those around me whenever and wherever I could.

But…

I lost my faith. Whether it was due to the thieves who broke into my house, rendering my legs useless with a well placed bullet, or the corporate bulldogs bent on my professional destruction, I’m not sure. Or perhaps it was the trashing of my image and all that I stood for and the inevitable backlash that spun off from it. People suddenly wanted nothing to do with me.

Or maybe, and I am deeply saddened to think this way, it was God Himself who averted my eyes from the light, cursing me with misfortune and misery. For it seemed to me that He decided to top off my problems with a final, dark twist: terminal cancer.

And so, as I sit here alone in my small house with only a few flickering candles separating me from total darkness, I ponder what was, what could have been, and what still might be. I do my best to ignore the chills that I feel, but it is a cold that bites deep with its promise of gloom.

My weary gaze swings over to a large window on the far side of the room. The glass has a thin crack stretching down from the top of the frame. I realize that all I have to do is tap on that crack to get it to shatter completely, thus allowing access to the outside world… and all its unsuspecting population.

The ornate glass vial rests next to my hand. It is sealed with a thermally expanding stopper of my own design, which will open only with a precise application of liquid nitrogen, administered through a pressured syringe (again, my own design).

The thing in the glass tube stares at me with its baleful eyes, red blobs of gelatinous evil which curdle into its syrupy pulp, sloshing up against the sides of the container. It forms a rudimentary mouth which mechanically goes through the motion of speaking, mouthing the words: We have a deal. Fulfill your end.

So, as I stated earlier, I have made my decision, although the bargain I made leaves me little choice. I will release the thing from its prison. I will begin Armageddon. I will unleash the End of Days. And as I will surely be its first victim I will take my thoughts with me, greatly saddened by the fact that I still had so much to offer the world.

My name is Gavin Walker, and if you’re reading this, Clay, then something’s happened to me, and if you’re reading this, Kathy, I love you, baby. I wish I could take the time to give you a detailed account of the past few days but I have to leave soon.

Today’s August 30th, 2011. This all started ten days ago, on August 20th–my nineteenth birthday. My girlfriend, Kathy Roche, bought me a camera for my birthday. It was a beginner’s device, but to me it was perfect. I’ve been getting into photography, and Kathy got me my own camera so I would stop “borrowing” hers. She’s a sweetheart like that.

So I tried this camera out, but it’s not like normal cameras. It takes photos, sure, but subtle things are off, like furniture placement or time on the clock. You’d have to see it for yourself. Right now I have several dozen photos printed out, and they’re strewn across the apartment floor. I’ve been studying them and I figured out what they’re showing me. More on that soon.

Back to the story–that evening, after I tried it out and saw that it was acting strangely, Kathy took it back to the store to return it. I wish she hadn’t. When she came back, she was crying. Now, I think she had been playing with the camera on her way to the store and had seen something. Once she calmed down, she told me that she had to leave town, go stay with her parents for a while to “figure things out.” She begged me to not leave the apartment for any reason. She also gave me the camera back. Turns out the store she bought it from was closed. Some derelict robbed the place, killed some people in the process. He got away, too. The police are looking for him now.

Back to the camera. The photos it takes show things. Like, things that haven’t happened yet. It’s hard to explain, but I started trying to figure out how far into the future it can photograph. I took pictures of my mailbox downstairs and, after several tries, I confirmed by the dates on the mail in the photos that the camera can see either one day or ten days into the future. Each photo is one or the other. Sounds crazy, I know. Please believe me.

Now, after photographing the mailbox again today, I saw two strange things in one of the pictures. First, I saw my friend Clay reading mail out of my mailbox. This is ten days in the future, right? So I know I won’t be here. Then I saw that he had a newspaper with him, opened to the obituaries, dated September 8th. Kathy’s name was printed. It said she dies when some derelict with a stolen gun and a stolen car holds up the gas station she’s buying snacks at.

That means she dies within the next ten days. I don’t know how, but I have to save her. I’m heading over to her parents’ place, where she’s staying.

Another thing is, in his hands Clay had a wrinkled paper with a picture on it, as well as what looks like a letter from Kathy. I could barely make out the picture but I recognized that it showed an intersection near the edge of town, near the store where Kathy bought the camera. It also shows a blurry figure lying in the street, probably dead I presume. There’s skid marks on the curb, like someone had hauled out of there in a hurry, as well as blood and police everywhere.

This all sounds crazy, but all I know is I have to save my girl. I’m heading to my car now. Picking up a gun on my way out of town. I love you, Kathy.