MicroHorror

Paul set his Styrofoam cup on the kitchen table and poured himself coffee. Black. He settled in a chair with a sigh. Kenneth and Alvin sat around the table. Alvin snored softly. They were both his classmates in med school. Kenneth, currently in his second year of residency in orthopedic surgery, looked up from a magazine. He still wore his scrub suit. Small bloodstains peppered the blue fabric.

“Morning, Kenny. Busy night?”

“You bet,” he answered, setting the magazine on the table. People. “Did a below-the-knee amputation last night.”

Paul’s eyes widened, and for a brief moment, he felt envious. “Really? How’d it go?”

Kenneth leaned closer, obviously eager to share his experience. “I had trouble with the tibia at first. Patient had significant blood loss, but I transfused two units of blood and increased the IV rate. He’s going to be okay.”

Paul raised his cup in congratulations. “My man!” He sipped his coffee and imagined the caffeine working its way through his body. He nodded in Alvin’s direction. “What happened to Sleeping Beauty?” Still snoring, Alvin’s head was on the table, his face hidden behind folded arms. The top of his head looked like a furry gopher’s ass.

“You mean Alvin? He performed an exploratory laparotomy a few hours ago and then decided to do an appendectomy.”

Paul grinned and shook his head in disbelief. “You guys have been busy.”

Kenneth chuckled. “Practice makes perfect.”

Alvin mumbled something in his sleep. His head continued mooning them.

Paul drained his coffee and stood up. “Well, I gotta go. We’re still on for tonight at Oxen’s, right?”

“So long as you’re buying.”

“I thought it was Alvin’s turn to buy drinks.”

Kenneth returned to his magazine. “His. Yours. Doesn’t matter to me.”

Paul laughed. “See you later, then.”

“Good luck with the operation.”

The AC hummed softly, filling the room with cool air that was most welcome. The basement was well lit but far from ideal. The patient–a homeless bum sans left leg and appendix (courtesy of Kenny’s BKA and Alvin’s ex-lap)–lay on the makeshift operating table.

Last night, Paul had decided to do a nephrectomy, the complete removal of a kidney. The bum lay sedated, unconscious. Just another nameless face off the streets. They’d need a new patient soon, though. Paul wouldn’t be surprised if this one died intra-operatively.

To become a successful surgeon, one needs skill. To obtain skill, one needs practice.

Practice makes perfect.

Paul lowered the scalpel against the patient’s skin. The instrument gleamed for an instant, catching the light from one of the overhead bulbs. The blade parted the skin and underlying layers effortlessly.

Paul began whistling a tune. He was pretty sure it was Alvin’s turn to buy drinks tonight.

Rey sat quietly in the living room sofa. Off in a corner, a stand fan hummed an unfamiliar tune, dutifully circulating the stale air. All the lights were off except for a small Morano lamp which threw long, dark shadows against the walls. A cigarette perched precariously between his lips. Rey raised a small flame to the tip and inhaled, turning the tobacco leaves an intense, angry orange.

The Zippo snapped shut with a sharp metallic clink. Pocketing the lighter, he drew another breath and exhaled a stream of smoke. He held the filtered Camel between his index and middle fingers, grayish white smoke rising like a charmed serpent.

His father died two decades ago when Rey was only seven. Lung cancer. Not a pretty picture. His father was a chronic smoker and consumed close to two packs a day. As seasons passed, Arnold Mayer had found it harder and harder to breathe. During his final year, he required a constant supply of oxygen, and it was necessary for him to wear a face mask attached to a portable oxygen tank. He had lost so much weight, he was hardly more than skin and bones, a living corpse.

Rey took a final drag and crushed the remaining stick in an ashtray brimming with ash and cigarette butts. He reached in his pocket for the lighter, lit another stick, and tapped ash in the tray.

He coughed. The fit lasted a few seconds, and he almost dropped the cigarette. When it was over, he cleared his throat and spat blindly in the gloom. Smoker’s cough. He had it big time. He put out the cigarette in the ashtray, laying it to rest among its carcinogenic brethren. His knuckles accidentally brushed against another cigarette butt, and it fell off the table and onto the carpet. It continued rolling as if its intentions were to flee. Finally, it came to rest beside an upturned palm.

The dead hooker stared at him, mouth gaping in a frozen scream. Her eyes were wide and bulging. The left one was bloodshot. The telephone cord he’d used coiled around her neck like black goth necklaces several sizes too small.

Rey stared at her eyes, that expression on her face. With trembling hands, he reached for the Zippo again.

Lung cancer was the least of his worries.

I live in a cocoon of darkness, but I have grown accustomed to it. Jostled around as my world trembles, the rumblings and muffled sounds intrigue me.

The man’s laughter is almost musical. He is happy; he has been promised many things. He tells me I will grow up to be a king, that the whole world will grovel before me. Those who oppose me will be consumed by flame. The heavens will choke on ash and smoke, and the air will never taste as sweet. I kick in eager anticipation. Father will be proud.

Months later, I see light for the first time. A man in white holds me up to a woman and says, “Congratulations! It’s a boy.”

Halloween was the busiest time of the year.

“Three… two… one… We have lift-off!”

Victor watched behind the two-inch-thick glass as the shuttle roared into space, trailing a river of white smoke. He sipped his coffee. This was the third launch of the day. Two hundred passengers per trip, excluding the pilots.

Busy, busy, busy.

Someone cleared his throat, and Victor turned around. It was Andy.

“Any news?”

“Our guys from Houston called. They need a full shuttle ASAP.”

“Any problems?”

“None. Everyone’s itching to get off the port.”

“Get to it, then.”

Andy nodded and left, and Victor returned to his coffee.

Only a select group of people could see ghosts, usually ghost hunters, sensitives, and mediums; the vast majority didn’t even believe in their existence.

If only they knew where ghosts really came from.

Victor looked on as more specters boarded the next shuttle.

Busy, busy, busy.

Eric’s gone. I can’t stop my hands from shaking, and my heart feels like it’s on fire.

I’ve locked myself in my quarters with the last rations of food I could find. I doubt I’ll need them. Whatever’s out there, the door won’t hold. Four inches of steel. Might as well be made of paper.

Eric. I saw him dragged away. He was screaming.

And I ran. Like a coward. Turned and ran. Didn’t even try to help him.

I can still hear him screaming. My heart is pounding. Maybe I’ll have a heart attack. Anything’s better than what’s coming.

Mary hated Halloween. More accurately, she hated what Halloween did to her. She remembered it like it was yesterday: Twenty years ago. Dressed like a fairy. Mrs. Jennings opening her door, a tray of brownies fresh from the oven. Other kids shoving. Losing her balance and falling butt-first on a pumpkin.

“Hey, look at Mary sitting on a pumpkin like it’s a throne.”

“Must think she’s a princess.”

“A pumpkin princess!”

Then came the laughter. No one bothered to help her.

The doorbell rang.

“Trick or treat!”

The pumpkin princess held out her poison-laden treats and smiled.

“Help yourself, kids.”

It was the hottest summer we’d had in over five years. On our way home from school, Tommy and I found one of Mr. Mansilla’s horses lying dead on the dirt and baking in the sun. It stank something fierce. Tommy did the craziest thing and jumped on the poor beast’s belly, and we laughed ’til we cried.

We walked on and came across two mounds. One big, one small.

“You boys stay away from those mounds!” Mr. Mansilla hollered. The old fart was acting crazier than a rabid wolverine on crack.

We sat round the dinner table for supper, listening to the radio. The sheriff and his deputies still hadn’t found the mother and child who’d been reported missing for days. Pa grumbled and said the sheriff couldn’t find his dick if it got caught in his fly.

Night came, and the sky rumbled like a hundred chariots. Rain pelted my bedroom window and quenched the thirsty earth. I slept through the downpour, dreaming of dead horses and the mounds in Mr. Mansilla’s field. One big, one small.

We woke up the next morning. The rain had washed the world of grime and filth, and the air smelled cleaner.

That was the day the sheriff found the bodies. One big, one small.