MicroHorror

It was just after lunch on Easter Sunday and Jenny and I were sitting in the kitchen, relaxing after the tiring task of setting up the neighborhood egg hunt earlier that morning. Our twin boys had donned their swimming trunks and gone back out to get a “giant secret egg” that they’d seen in the marsh at the edge of the park during the hunt. Of course none of the parents had hidden anything in the marsh, but we figured there was no point in telling them that if they wanted to go play for the afternoon.

Suddenly, Terry raced into the house covered in sludge and marsh plants, and clutching a cantaloupe-sized green and yellow egg. He was white as a sheet and breathing raggedly.

“What have you got there, and where’s your brother?” I said, cutting off Jenny before she could yell about the tracked-in swamp muck. The boy looked panicked, and I worried that his brother might have become somehow stuck in the marsh.

He looked at me wildly, then noticed the egg as if he’d had no idea he was holding it and flung it away from himself as if burned. It cracked against the wall and then splattered on the floor with a sickening wet crunching sound. A fetal green something kicked and gurgled hideously in the ruined mess of egg before making a wet screeching sound and lying still.

Jenny had started to make a stuttering gulping sound, as if she couldn’t decide whether to speak or gag. Terry had fallen to his knees and was sobbing uncontrollably. I was trying to gather myself to do… something, when an object smashed through the living room window and came to rest just outside the kitchen. It was a long object, mostly obscured by a covering of stringy water weeds. One end of it was ragged red and slowly dripping crimson liquid, on the other end, just visible under the obscuring scum, was a red children’s sneaker.

The implications of that sunk in gradually. Everything had taken on a very surreal aspect and seemed to be moving slowly. Idly, I realized that I could hear wet footsteps slapping across the carpet as something moved toward the kitchen out of my sight. I was vaguely aware of Jenny screaming and Terry scrambling behind the counter in a panic. The whole house was filled with the scent of wet and plants and decay. The smell of the marsh. And mixing with that was the rising coppery odor of blood, from a source that was moving closer.