MicroHorror

Nurse Kilpatrick left work at five a.m. He had no reason to stay. Carmody was sleeping peacefully now and the sun would be up soon. His shift began at nine but the end had become discretionary. Carmody was self-medicating these days and so much calmer. Rational conversation was frequent. Kilpatrick didn’t know whether he liked a rational Carmody. He missed his stories, no matter how farfetched.

“You’re one of them, aren’t you!”

“…it needs neuroplasts to survive.”

The atypical tranquilizers had worked wonders but sometimes Kilpatrick couldn’t resist leading Carmody on–extracting more information. It was malpractice, really. He’d watched over Carmody for years, watched him wash and open the blinds and windows. Then Carmody would stand there in his natural form and wait–for them. “So cool the air. So fresh the day! So full of possibility.” He intoned it like a poem. Then: “Such release–such release!”

Carmody was seventy but sometimes he looked so young and excited that Kilpatrrick envied him.

“Tell me about them, Carmody.”

Carmody’s face would light up and his eyes would scan the heavens.

“They’ve taken my brain and nothing can hurt anymore.”

And Kilpatrick almost wished he was right.

Kilpatrick left the morning pills beside the bed. He took the luxury of a walk across the grounds before signing out. At this time of the morning wildlife abounded–the last of the bats, the first of the birds. There was light enough to see by. It was an alien environment to most people but he felt at one with it. Sometimes he felt like he almost understood Carmody. Early morning geese honked their greeting and a flock as free as–as Carmody flew over. This was Kilpatrick’s other world and where he belonged. He was a poet here–a bard! His spirit sang its affinity with the dawn. Such release! Every new day was the edge of some horizon. He breathed deeply like he could fill his lungs with light.

The sun rose up behind him, illuminating the sleeping town. But something was wrong. Its light was too blue–intensely blue in fact. He could hear the way Carmody would tell it. “Red shift–outgoing. Blue shift–incoming! Nobody’s ever believed me but they will when they come–and I’ll go with them. You can come too. You’re one of them, aren’t you…”

Kilpatrick spun around. The source of that blue light was not the sun. It was centered on Carmody’s place. He should have adhered to the protocols. He should have stayed a while longer.

Now he ran. He ran towards that artificial sunrise with all the capacity his unaccustomed lungs would allow. He felt his hair bristle and his skin prickle with energy. He felt afraid–no, not afraid, excited, exhilarated.

“I’m coming, Carmody!” he yelled. “Wait for me!”

The light was shifting to red. He felt himself pulled, elongated–tilted away from gravity, at odds with the axis of the Earth, wholly outside its spin. The thing that greeted him was no longer Carmody and he knew that that day’s sun would never rise.