MicroHorror

Hank Jones drained the beer can. Tommy looked set to toss him another tin from the cooler by his bunk. Hank held up a hand to say he didn’t want another. He wasn’t much in the mood for celebrating; the extent of their actions had begun to kick in. Hank crawled beneath his blankets not knowing whether sleep would find him. The boisterous noise from his bunkmates didn’t help him much. Soon the length of the day and the beer made them all turn in. Hank listened to the beer snores. Each would handle their guilt, if they had any, in their own way. This first night, they’d mostly decided to use alcohol to anesthetize their thinking.

It moved. Hank saw it. The only light was coming in from one of the barrack windows. But he could see it. A shadow crept along the wall. Hank strained his eyes to see who was up, someone no doubt going to use the head, probably Larry; he pissed as regular as a pregnant woman did. Hank couldn’t see anyone. Yet the shadow kept moving. Another joined it, and another. They slid over the walls, spilled about the floor. Hank held his breath. No one else noticed, all sleeping in alcohol’s chokehold.

The detached shadows waltzed about, and around, all of the bunks. Running midnight hands over the blankets as though trying to wake the cocooned creatures of slumber. One shadow had skated over to the foot of his bunk. Its shape creased at an odd angle as it worked its way onto his coverings. Hank yanked his feet up like he was a kid again and was having nightmares about the toe-monster that bit off exposed digits. That act was like bait to the other shadows. They swarmed to him. Hank could smell the shadows, could taste them in the air, a crude metallic taste.

They, the shadows, were so many as to create a secondary blanket. One that rose towards him as though they were the tide and his face was the shore. He couldn’t scream, couldn’t move. He chose to hold his breath like a child who thinks it will get them something they want. The blackness worried at his face. It made a sable scarf about his throat. It rose higher, like a raven kerchief, that of a bandit. Higher still, causing Hank to close his eyes. He could feel their presence now, as well as smell their tainted existence. The shadows felt hot to the touch. Superheated darkness that worked at his face, whispering away his hair. Eyelids bald and blistered clenched shut and welded by the horror’s tasks. Hank didn’t want to open his mouth, knowing that it would be flooded by the shadows to burn his insides with fire. However, scream he did, and for all that he was worth.

“Wake up, man, fuck, no, what the fuck!” Hank could hear voices. Recognizing them as people he relied upon with his very life. They were worried voices, like those that linger at the result of a hit and run. “Christ, Larry, look at his face, what the fuck done that? Jesus H. Christ, that’s just wrong, man, so fucking wrong!”

Hank never saw again. His face was a tattered mess that was nearly as bad as he felt inside. Hank was glad of only two things. Blindness meant that he didn’t have to see shadows anymore. Also, it meant that he didn’t have to fly no more. He’d been a part of dropping Little Boy; his trauma meant that he would have nothing to do with helping to drop Fat Man on Nagasaki.