MicroHorror

Julia hated this place. It always reminded her of a haunted house: big, gloomy, draughty and old. It probably was haunted; people died here every year. Her beloved grandma, at 106, would probably be next. At least Julia wouldn’t have to visit after that.

The spring flowers and birds that had been evident seconds ago were now nowhere to be seen or heard. This fact made her shiver as she rung the ancient doorbell. All around the world continued, cars drove by, the wind rustled through the trees. Around the building, everything seemed dead. Detached from the world, much like the occupants.

Julia walked down the draughty hallway to the common room where a familiar sight awaited her. Zombie-like geriatrics lined the walls, all sat in cushioned hard-backed chairs, all staring inanely into space. It was both scary and depressing at the same time. All of these zombies had once been full of life, just like she was now.

She spotted her grandma in her usual seat by one of the three televisions that no one watched. Quickly walking over to her, Julia kept her eyes averted from the other room occupants. After saying hello she carefully hooked her arms under grandma’s armpits and helped her up. She would take her out to the visiting room, where it was lighter and they could have some privacy.

Settled on a pink sofa, grandma pulled the same thing as always from her green cardigan pocket. “This coin is what brought me and your grandfather together,” she declared fondly, passing the half crown to Julia.

It was a lovely story, told with real emotion. Her grandfather had purposefully dropped the coin by grandma’s feet to start a conversation. They had courted for months then married the following spring. After the story Julia watched as her grandma’s hands dropped into her lap and her head lolled backwards. Initially shocked she’d witnessed her dear grandma passing away, Julia relaxed as the light purr of her snores reached her ears.

Not knowing what to do, Julia got up and wandered around the room. She walked to the window and looked out onto the seemingly endless grounds. She shuddered as she noticed a dark shadow thrown across the grass and flowerbeds. It was nothing except the shadow the vast building cast with the sun behind it, but it still unnerved her.

A loud bang from somewhere unnerved her further. She quietly slipped over to the door and peered out into the hallway. There was a man pushing a trolley towards the kitchen. She was just about to return to grandma when something fell out from the side of the trolley. Julia involuntarily gasped–it looked like a shriveled arm. Julia ducked back inside the room, fearing she had been seen, or heard. Quickly getting ready to leave, Julia didn’t hear him approach. The kitchen knife slid into her chest like butter. Collapsing, blood pooling around her, she had one thought.

Grandma wasn’t next after all.

I hate the well-meaning criticisms from “helpful” friends. I hate the rejection letters. They always say the most stupid things. My parents tell me that it’s been long enough, I tried to have a successful writing career, but it hasn’t panned out. They say it’s time to get a real job.

My wife says that my childhood was too happy, and I haven’t experienced enough in life, which is apparently the fucking key to writing a good story. She told me I needed to have more life experiences. She even decided to give me the life experience of being left for the mailman. What a kind gesture.

Luckily, I fixed my writing dilemma. Well, Joan and I fixed it together. She helped me by just being herself, a lying whore, who by the way has gotten so fat that I’m no longer attracted to her anyway. The fat pig.

She came by to get her things yesterday, and I was waiting for her. She entered the house and immediately started an argument. She kept on and on, so I hit her in the mouth as hard as I could. It felt so good that I just kept punching. I realized this was the life experience I needed. I studied the horror on her face, trying to capture every single detail as she fought back, screamed, cried and begged me to stop.

I forced her into the bedroom, and located my practically new hunting knife. I used it to cut her throat as deep as I could. She never let me go hunting anyway; I might as well get some use out of it. The look and smell of her blood was incredibly vivid, and different. It didn’t come out the way it’s often depicted in films. Instead of flowing smoothly, it was more sporadic and uneven. It sprayed out with each heartbeat. There was so much information to use! Joan was right; I just needed some life experience.

I pulled my soul out of my body.

Pulling one’s soul out is not an easy thing to do. I had to first bait it, with prayers and healthy food and good deeds, like helping the little old woman (they’re always little and old, aren’t they?) carry her groceries to her car because the acned, freckled teenage boy who was supposed to do that was out smoking pot behind the grocery store.

I know because I sold it to him.

I read on the internet that you can tell once the soul is properly baited and ready to be caught because you will get a warm fuzzy feeling inside you and it will be confusing because it won’t have anything to do with sex or alcohol or a really large gulp of too hot coffee.

The next step, once I felt this accurately described warm and fuzzy feeling, was to pull it out. I sat down on the toilet seat, spread my legs like a man, and tilted my head back and opened my mouth wide and flared my nostrils. I reached up with my right hand and stuck it inside my mouth, all the way down until I caught the first fluttering of my soul inside me. Souls are soft and warm to the touch, so it was easy to distinguish between the soul and the other interior organs.

When I pulled it out, there was a pain inside, like the ripping off of an old band-aid under which the wound is still raw. I relished the feeling. It made me giggle.

My tools were all set up for my first soulless adventure: razors and drugs and pornography and large bottles of self-hatred and low self-esteem, which were sold together online for the sale price of only twenty dollars.

I pulled my soul out of my body, sat it down, and said to it: “Watch.”

No one present was prepared for the vision who was the last to arrive. She floated in on a gossamer cloud of blue chiffon and lace. Her skin was as smooth and clear as alabaster; her wavy raven tresses cascaded to her waist. All eyes were upon her as she effortlessly glided slowly across the room. No one spoke as she took a seat. She smiled ever so charmingly as she surveyed the assemblage with her emerald green eyes.

All the young men lined up in hopes of having the first dance with her. Selecting the tallest among them, the woman waltzed so gracefully that the other dancers ceased their gyrations so as to view perfection. She twirled about, her feet barely touching the floor. The dance over, the man led the woman to her seat and collapsed into the one next to her.

Again the male attendees lined up before her. This time she chose the shortest one. The next dance was a fox trot. As the couple swept around the floor, their speed increased alarmingly. Moments later, the man crumpled to the floor, never again to rise. The woman then latched on to the handsomest young gallant as the band launched into a brisk tango. He, too, fell to the floor, where he remained.

One by one, the woman grabbed hold of a young man, dancing each to his death. The other women stood stunned. With no men left, the vision glided over to the French doors and vanished into the night.

Carolyn felt the time even though she hadn’t looked at the alarm clock yet. Her body clock told her that her session of warm comfort and enticing dreams was nearing its end. A cold trip to the bathroom was what awaited her, and after that a redundant morning routine consisting of hair, a bad cup of coffee, and a boring ride in her 185,000-mile Toyota to her dead-end job. Lifting the fleece blanket off her body, she moaned as the dry chill of the darkened bedroom smoothly washed over her.

“Another day in paradise,” she whispered to herself.

In the kitchen, a sterile-looking newscaster droned on and on about the past day’s events: a 747 crashed off the eastern coast, killing sixty-nine; the price of crude oil was expected to top $140 a barrel; a house fire in Wabash Valley claimed the life of a young woman.

Carolyn shook her head in disbelief. Nothing but bad news. It seemed the whole world was going to hell. There’d be no need for a killer virus, or alien invasion, or doomsday asteroid. Mankind would be able to end the world all on its own.

Carolyn finished her cup of lukewarm coffee, and shuffled out the door.

It was a warm day with hardly a cloud in the sky. It was enough to instill envious images of tanning on a beach or sitting outside a downtown café sipping a cold margarita into the work-weary minds of rat-race slaves. And Carolyn was no exception. She watched the beautiful landscape rush past the car’s windows as she motored along.

While adjusting the radio something caught Carolyn’s eye in her rearview mirror: smoke. Her eyes darted between the road in front of her and the swirling column of jet-black smoke behind her. It seemed to be coming from The Hill, a recent development project of lower scale housing.

And then a strange sensation overcame her. She tried to ignore it, but it was insistent.

She felt warm. Too warm. Panic gripped her, and she immediately flipped on the A/C in a desperate attempt to cool down.

And then another feeling hit her, one of helplessness and resignation. She felt like a light switch being switched off. Or more accurately like a dimmer switch, slowly, gradually sliding down until the light surrendered to darkness.

With each passing second, Carolyn lost more and more of herself to the unnatural feelings. Her car rolled to a noisy stop, gravel on the shoulder crunching under her tires as she tried to focus on the familiar scenery outside the windows. Her purse fell off the seat, and spilled most of its contents across the floor. She gazed down at her belongings.

The first thing that caught her eye was her wallet. It was splayed open, revealing her driver’s license. She always hated her picture on the card. And below her picture was her address: 7401 Marian in bold, black lettering.

7401 Marian? Where was that? Was that where she lived? Why couldn’t she remember?

A glance in the rearview mirror revealed the rising pillar of black smoke again. But now it was closer, only a few hundred yards behind her. She could smell it too, an acrid, charred stench with a hint of burning flesh mixed in.

Was the fire spreading?

No, it wasn’t the blaze that was moving. It was her. She was steadily being drawn backward toward the inferno.

A peaceful revelation overcame her then, peaceful despite the dreadful realization that came with it.

7401 Marian was her address. It was where she lived. It was where she died.

A house fire in Wabash Valley claimed the life of a young woman.

Why hadn’t she realized it before?

A house fire.

The fire that she couldn’t escape. The fire that was pulling its own back into its deadly embrace. The fire that she had become a part of.

Carolyn closed her eyes as her car slid into the flames.

“Who do you think he is?” Cindy asked.

“Don’t know,” Anne replied, “but he sure looks weird.” She pointed at the boy. “See? Look at the way he’s sitting. We should try to talk to him. Maybe he’s sick or something.”

The two girls inched forward, cautiously at first, but when they saw that the boy either didn’t notice them or simply didn’t care, they increased their tempo, skirting through the knee-high brush at a slow sprint.

The small boy sat perfectly still as the two young girls approached. He neither acknowledged their presence, nor ignored them.

Anne looked back at Cindy, who despite her attempts of acting brave, was still lagging behind.

“Come on, let’s go,” she urged. “He might run away. Then we’ll never know who he is.”

When the girls reached the boy they halted, as if suddenly realizing the strange predicament they were in. They didn’t know him, where he came from, if he was sick or injured, or most curiously why he was sitting in the middle of an empty field without so much as a bottle of water. And furthermore, it was quite warm outside and the boy had no protective clothing on to shield him from the sun.

Anne knelt down and studied the boy’s face up close.

“Hello? Are you okay?”

No response other than an occasional blinking of the eyes.

Cindy crouched down next to her friend. “Is he is even alive?”

“Of course he is. Can’t you see he’s breathing and blinking his eyes?”

Cindy leaned in closer. “I guess you’re right. But why won’t he answer us?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t understand English.”

Cindy rolled her eyes. “Well, we gotta do something.”

The boy sat as still as a statue as the two girls mulled over what to do. He heard every word they said, but still did not move.

“Can you feel that?” Anne asked while suddenly straightening up.

Cindy felt something as well, something that wasn’t quite right.

Anne bent down close to the boy.

“It feels cold,” she said quietly. “Something feels cold.”

Cindy took a step back. Suddenly she did not want to be too close to the boy.

“Maybe it’s the wind.”

“It’s not the wind. It’s something else. And it seems to be coming from him.”

Cindy started to cry. Her intuition was warning her to get away from the small boy, but she hesitated…

For a few seconds too long.

Both Anne and Cindy felt the cold begin to creep into their bodies. Suddenly neither could move, or even scream. They were paralyzed where they stood.

“Anne? What’s happening?”

“I don’t know. I can’t move. And the cold, it’s terrible. How can it be so cold?”

The girls looked at the boy. His expression was changing into something darker, more feral, hungrier. They watched helplessly as his lips began to part, revealing a black void from which emanated a biting chill unlike anything they had ever felt before. And from within that black chasm also came a sense of depth with no end.

Anne tried to scream, but her throat was frozen.

The boy started to jiggle. Slightly at first, then with more force. Soon he was shaking violently, his stringy brown hair on top of his small head flailing around like rabid snakes scrambling for prey.

And then a slit appeared between his eyes. At first it was only an inch long, but gradually it grew, lengthening down his nose, through his still gaping mouth, and into his chest, effectively slicing him wide open.

Anne and Cindy stared in horrified disbelief as the small boy, who they had thought needed their help, opened up into a yawning cavity with no discernible limit to its depth. And they were powerless to stop the pull of the icy vacuum that was sliding them closer and closer to the hole.

And deep within the cold bowels of the hole, clinging to the trembling gloom, the creatures waited for their latest victims.

“Turn right at the next junction,” the voice said and, obeying her sat nav, headlights danced off high untidy hedges on either side of a narrow track as her car bumped over rough ground. Then the car mounted something solid and came to a stop, front wheels spinning.

With a yelp of shock, Lisa turned off the engine. Darkness. Silence. Lisa moved. The car rocked. A strong smell of petrol reached her. She struggled to release her seat belt, imagining herself being engulfed in flames at any moment. Panic rose. She pressed down on the release button once more, and it released with a click. Opening her driver’s door, the car swayed like a boat on choppy water. She leant out and her fingers found solid, grassy ground.

Lisa rolled out and down a short incline. Getting to her feet she stood still. There were no lights. No stars. The sound of the sea roared above a high wind that buffeted her body. She knew there were cliffs close by. They were the reason she’d come when she booked a week’s stay in a holiday cottage.

“Wonderful walks along coastal paths,” the brochure had read. “Seclusion and comfort.” She’d needed a place to chill out after a year of stress and hard work.

Now her eyes made out a black hump before her: the hump she’d rolled down. She scrambled up, aware that both her right shoulder and ribs hurt. Nothing broken, she knew from her experience as a staff nurse at Benton Children’s Hospital.

Then, above the noise, she heard a bell. The bell kept ringing–it sounded like a bicycle bell. “Lisa Stanhope?” a boy’s voice called.

“Yes,” she called back.

“Follow me,” she heard him say. Lisa peered into the darkness and saw a small bobbing light ahead of her. “Just follow the light and the sound of my bell,” he told her.

Five minutes later, he stopped and the bell ceased its incessant tinkling. “You’ll be fine now.” The boy pointed down to a hamlet nestled under a hill. “Your cottage is the second one on the right.”

“Thank you so much,” she said to her young guide. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you. What’s your name?”

“Thomas Scott,” he replied and, getting on his bike, rode off.

The next day, after her car had been hauled off the grassy hump and towed to the local garage, Brian the proprietor said, “You’re a lucky lady. You were just inches from rolling over the cliff edge.”

“I’ve got Thomas Scott to thank for saving me,” Lisa said.

Brian’s red face paled. “Couldn’t have been him.”

“That’s the name he gave me,” Lisa told him.

“Thomas Scott died about two years ago,” Brian told her. “He took a shortcut coming home from Scouts on a stormy night. He and his bike went over the cliff. Poor kid was on life support for a week in Benton Children’s Hospital.”

“Is there another Thomas Scott living around here?” Lisa asked, but already knew the answer before the garage owner shook his head.

“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” she swoons.

I nod slightly and smile, not looking at her, unfocusing my eyes. It gives my smile a melancholy touch and my eyes seem sad and knowing. Girls like her dig that.

I wrap a strain of her hair around a finger. It smells faintly chemical, freshly dyed ink-black for the occasion.

“I so know how you feel. Alienated. Lonely. You’ve seen so much.”

I touch her hand, look at her, close my eyes slowly. “I know that you do,” I say with a fake posh accent. She knows fuck-all.

Taking her hand up to my lips, kissing it gently. “You’ve got a beautiful ring.”

Cheap silver. An ankh, of course. They’re all such clichés. Pretty little shallow chavs with an attitude. So boring, they’re doing my head in.

“Richard…”

Isn’t my real name. Not Richard, not Julian, Edward or Rupert, nor any other of the upper-class twat names I go by on nights like this. But “Oi. I’m Brian from Liverpool” just doesn’t cut it with these lasses.

“I’d love to… kiss you?”

She trembles a bit, stretches her neck and I rip her throat open, so deep her head almost comes off, let the geyser of blood fill my mouth, fill me.

Now honestly–a few years ago, when the Elders came up with that idea of publishing vampire romance fiction, I thought they were gone batshit crazy, if you’ll excuse the pun. But Holy Vlad on a stick, did this stuff work out. Gone are the days of hunting. Nowadays the food just begs to be eaten.

He was pacing up and down the grocery stores aisles again, his palms sweaty and his mind tumbling over itself. Tom had loved Cheryl since seventh grade, but she didn’t know Tom. She had never paid any attention to him, the shy and awkward loner far beneath her social stratus. Organic produce gave way to a bakery and the delightful smell of fresh cooked bread as Tom continued his long slow walk around the store that would culminate at the checkout stand.

Tom couldn’t remember a time where he hadn’t been in love with Cheryl. He knew today she would finally understand that, how deeply he loved her, and the idea made him even more nervous. He had never worked up the backbone to truly approach her before. A few words here and there in the hallway, a smattering of conversation back and forth when she’d asked him for help with homework, but as far as making any real progress towards expressing his undying devotion to her grace and beauty, nothing.

For three years after high school, while she had been away at university, Tom had planned. He had been so desperately in love with her, and so inadequate in every other way, that he knew he would have to devise the perfect way to get her to notice him. To know that she meant more to him than anything in his life ever had.

He was passing past the fish now, rounding a corner that would lead him past an aisle of sauces and cheese. The checkout stands were directly ahead. He did his best to smile. He was getting a bit frightened, a bit nervous about the whole stupid plan. Steeling his nerve Tom placed one hand upon the comforting weight in his pocket, the item that would finally enable him to express his devotion. Then he plastered the widest smile he could across his nervous and sweating face. Mechanically he walked the last few steps to her checkout register.

Cheryl smiled back at him, but it didn’t seem very genuine. Mostly she seemed bored. “How are you doing today, sir?”

“It’s okay that you don’t know me, Cheryl. Because I love you.” If he had tried to say anything else the words may have frozen in his throat. He would probably have muttered something, quickly purchased an energy drink and left in a rush. But it happened exactly like he imagined it would.

She didn’t know him, had never truly seen him before, Tom now knew. It was just as bad as he had always imagined it. He really did need to take drastic measures. For love, he thought as his heart fluttered and his hand sunk into his pants pocket.

The hunting knife, long and unadorned with a pragmatic wooden handle, had been his stepfather’s. He had never been allowed to use it as the knife wasn’t for “faggots.” Tom knew his stepfather wouldn’t have this much courage, wouldn’t have this much love in his heart. Tom was proud of himself as he raised the knife to his neck, and trying as hard as he could to keep smiling, stabbed the knife to its hilt into the soft flesh and began to saw.

Cheryl screamed, her eyes locked in horror upon Tom and he knew that he finally had her. She would never forget how much he loved her.

“After I died,” said seven-year-old Cassie, suddenly free of cancer and wild in the eyes, “there was this big red sky with a huge head floating in it like… like the moon, only super close. It was an old man, like a wizard, with sharp teeth a thousand feet high, and gray lips and no hair–not even eyebrows–and his eyes were all white, too, and they looked sleepy.”

The little girl bounced on the hospital bed, feet dangling. She tilted her head and pinched at her blond hair, which was already starting to regrow. She couldn’t wait to get her pigtails back.

“And he, and he drooled a lot too,” she went on, “like waterfalls that fell forever. And there were white fuzzies that floated into his mouth. It was a black mouth, except in the back where it glowed orange.”

She paused, clawing thoughtfully at her gown. Her blue eyes danced along with the memories as they came rushing back.

“Oh yeah, and there were all these tiny, funny-looking heads going around the big head like… like meteors. They were spinning and going around and laughing. They were so happy!”

“Mm-hm,” said the doctor, distracted as he went back and forth between charts, X-rays, and blinking machines. “Go on.”

“Then the wizard head talked, but not with his mouth though. His mouth stayed open the whole time like a stinky cave. But all the words went right into my head like, um, like tel-e… tel-e-pathic?”

“Telepathic–yes,” replied the doctor, scratching his head over an X-ray.

The girl stood up on the bed and stretched. Her spine cracked quietly. “Guess what he said?”

“I don’t know, honey. Tell me. What did the wizard say?”

The little girl’s cheeks reddened. “He said if I want to, I can live to be one hundred years old!”

“That was nice of him,” said the doctor with his back turned.

The little girl giggled and reached down for a scalpel, her thin shadow stretching across the man’s white lab coat. She bent her knees and leaned forward, swaying from side to side like a parakeet about to fly out of an open cage.

“I just have to keep my promise first,” she said flatly, raising the scalpel over her head.

“Oh yeah?” said the doctor, remembering how much he adored little girls. “What’s that?”