MicroHorror

I visited one of those Halloween stores, one of those places that are like holes in the strip-mall all year long until October. From then they become kitschy one-stop shops for all things holiday, whether Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas. But on this occasion I was on the hunt for Halloween decorations. Wendy had asked me to pick up something “creepy.” She’s more into that stuff than I am.

A woman with some kind of European accent came from behind the checkout counter to offer her overemphatic help and guided me to the décor area. There were the usual items–police tape, foam headstones, life-size figures of deathlike characters, but what struck me were two plastic sheets hung on a wall side by side. Measuring about three feet by five, they pictured two huge spiders, bodies the size of footballs, against a plain orange background. One of them with eight outstretched legs, the other appearing perched and dormant. I felt like a kid, unable to tear my eyes away from one of the most frighteningly cool things I’d ever seen. I imagined them in our windows at home. I imagined Wendy’s reaction. It didn’t even cross my mind to look for alternatives.

“They are new,” the woman with the accent said from behind, startling me out of my trance. I hadn’t even realized she was still there. “Very popular this year,” she said.

“I imagine they are,” I concurred. “I’ll take these.” I flicked a pointed finger back and forth between the two spiders. The woman hummed satisfactorily.

“Very good,” she said.

She took a packaged set off one of the hooks to our left and set out to lead me back to the checkout. As she did, she dropped a plastic Bic lighter and it bounced and clicked against the hard warehouse floor. As I leaned down to retrieve it for her I couldn’t help but notice a nasty scar on the back of her right calf. It looked fresh, deep. She turned and caught me lingering, lighter in my fingers but eyes fixed on her leg.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” she said. “Had accident while preparing shop.”

Wendy was even more impressed than me, marveling at their realism. She began to push her point a bit far, however. Over the next couple days she swore to me that she saw them fidget or jerk slightly. Nonsense, of course. Childish attempts to freak me out, and given her sense of humor, it didn’t surprise me. But her acting was more convincing than usual, obnoxiously so, and I took none of it seriously–that is, until she tore the two sheets down from the windows.

“What did you do that for?” I demanded.

She was plainly upset, even outright terrified. She was throwing them away, she said. The spiders were moving. They were coming to life. Still pushing her joke. Still futilely trying to scare me, only now going ridiculously far. After more than an hour of contentious back-and-forth, I finally got them reinstalled. Wendy wasn’t happy about it, but maturity won out. I admit, I did wonder whether she was kidding or just losing it.

We always leave the bedroom door open when we turn in, but now she wanted it closed. She was scared, she said. More nonsense. I wouldn’t stand for it anymore. I reopened it just a crack while she was in the bathroom brushing her teeth so she wouldn’t notice. My own form of nonviolent protest. We shut off the lights, slid under the covers and kissed goodnight.

I’m awake now. It’s 3:16 a.m. I know because my head is turned toward the alarm clock, pressed against the pillow. Something sticky and firm over my skin. Overlapping layers of opaque strands. The bedroom door has been pushed wide open, and turning my eyes I can see two football-sized shadows with sinewy outgrowths moving in calculated motions. One directly above, another on the far wall. Wendy is screaming. She hadn’t been joking after all.

What time do they say is the Soul’s Midnight? Two o’clock? Three? It had to be as late as that when I woke from my dream, my eyes somewhere between open and closed, my mind somewhere between dimness and darkness. Between gray and black. My bed felt softer than most nights, my body heavier. But my soul felt lighter somehow, slipping out and away.

My dream had been of smothering, a terrible stifling, but not drowning. The weight pressed down, but not from within, from somewhere outside, resting on my body. My shoulders and my neck. The pressure from my dream, the pinch, it lingered in my waking state like a needle deep in the pink flesh of my mouth, numbing. And it seemed to be emanating from the round form that hung like a shadowy harvest moon on my lower left-hand side. As my eyes cleared I could distinguish thin blue, wavering stripes running over its surface like rivers. Like veins. It hung perfectly still as my turned eyes fixated on it, strained at it. It was the source.

The source of the pressure, of this floating feeling, the sensation that began to succumb to tingling. My fingers and toes, followed promptly by my arms and legs. I could feel my heart beating quickly in my tightening chest as the moon remained at the bottom of my eyes. I was moving closer to the black, drifting away from the struggle for consciousness. Then the moon rose suddenly and I saw a pair of black lips hanging apart. They revealed a pair of needle-like teeth protruding from inside, dripping with a wet black, forming beads at the points and dripping off. They fell thick and warm on the skin of my face and chin.

Then the mouth fell away, out of view, and was replaced by two red eyes. There were no whites in them, just a solid deep red. Setting suns. They stared into me. They pulsed with a heat that made my forehead perspire. My heart began to slow. I began to fade again. My eyes closed.

They reopened sometime later, it could have been seconds or hours, and I could see the face was gone. The window was open, the curtains fluttering into the room, and now a bird loomed around the ceiling. A huge, black bird. As my eyes sharpened one last time it was not a bird at all. A bat. Its wings flapped with a steady assurance of escape. They eyes were red. They stared into me. The source. Then the form turned and disappeared between the curtains into the night as drops of my blood slid over the skin of my face and dripped to the pillow. My eyes began to close again. No, not my eyes, my mind. My soul. It lingered near the black, struggling for the gray, and then was consumed by it.

The wheel was slippery in his ten-o’clock-two-o’clock death grip, his palms soaking it in sweat. He held on for dear life, utterly focused on his steady left turn like a NASCAR driver. He wouldn’t compromise even one hand to change the radio station as the sound of Sting’s voice overtook it with one of his least favorite Police songs. There’s a little black spot on the suhhhhhn todaaaaaay. Off to his right, past the empty passenger seat, was a picturesque view–a postcard image of Colorado mountains and cloud-laced, purple evening sky, but Jake didn’t want to see it. Not one bit.

Kevin had told him he’d be driving through the mountains, and at one point he’d arrive at a stretch known as “The Rail,” but that’s all he’d told him. And Jake knew why. Because Kevin knew how he reacted to heights… the color draining from his skin, turning almost translucent as his muscles tensed almost to the point of immobility. He’d almost fainted on a ski lift for God’s sake, and now he was clinging to a Colorado mountainside at dusk on a two-lane highway with the tenuous grip of spinning rubber tires that was far too insecure. His front right tire wasn’t even twenty feet from the cliff that was hundreds if not thousands of feet up, and he felt he was being pulled toward it. Slipping. May as well have been thousands for all he cared, on “The Rail.” He understood now, perfectly, why it was called that, because it was rail-goddamn-thin.

He could sense the extraordinary colors of the crystal clear sunset, but he dared not turn his head. Even if he wanted to, his petrified neck wouldn’t allow it. Then he was slapped with a horrific blindness as a bright white flooded his eyes, reflecting from the rearview. He clenched his eyelids and opened them in a desperate squint, struggling for focus on the road, on his turn. His grip tightened. A car was coming up behind him with its brights glaring.

“Sonofabitch,” he groaned, the slits of his eyes struggling to see the road. He managed to lift his right hand off the wheel and waved it frantically, urging the car to pass. It tailed him closely for far too long. Slipping. “Come on, come on,” he pled, his panicked voice wavering, his hand gesturing more and more violently. Finally the car turned into the next lane to pass and the headlights receded, leaving tattoos of floating white spots on his eyes.

Jake turned his head unconsciously and saw that it was a long, jet black car. A Lincoln or a Caddy maybe. It hovered next to him and seemed to veer toward the center line. Toward him. His head turned from the car back to the road, then back to the car, and it seemed to be veering even closer now. Close enough that he could’ve leaned out his window and grabbed the passenger side door latch. “Hey!” he called out as his eyes popped. There was no one driving the car. There was no one in the car at all. It veered closer, then bumped, then pushed. “Hey!” Hey, stop!” It pushed again and Jake’s head spun to the right, out to the distance, to the tremendous, overwhelming height. He jerked the wheel fiercely to the left, at the attacking car. He tried to scream, but couldn’t, his breath stifled in his throat. His instinct was for defense, for preservation, but the terror flushed it all away like a tidal wave. Slipping. There was another jarring bump and he saw the metal railing that lined the cliff smash under the force of his bumper, splinters exploding into the air.

They hung for a second or two, and then trailed Jake’s car as it plummeted in a free fall toward the ground hundreds if not thousands of feet below.

The tree was evil.

Just as they said.

She and her parents had moved to Lyons Grove when she was seven, after her father got a position at Curtis Laboratories. She’d been wearing red and white checkered skirts and white collared shirts at Divine Grace Catholic school ever since.

Sammy had been going to her new school for only two years but her mother had already become a nasty piece of gossip among the kids with her addictions to Virginia Slims and Popoff vodka, and her father’s job allowed him almost no time at home. Sammy didn’t dare take her friends to her house after school. She would save herself that particular humiliation. A staggering, mumbling drunk haranguing her friends or passing out. As a result, she and her friends spent a lot of time outdoors, in the parks, baseball fields and forest preserves. Bethany was the best of the few friends she had. She had a big, fluffy dog that never left her side and seemed to shed a pound every time it moved. His name was Sidney. Bethany would bring him with on their little after school hangouts and he always proved to be a good playmate, even though he would send Sammy into one sneezing fit after another.

One day in early fall, the leaves just starting to bleed yellow and orange, Sammy and Bethany strode one of the forest preserve paths with Sidney lumbering between them. The sun was hidden behind dark patches in the sky and a fine, almost imperceptible, mist hung in the air. It blanketed them with the exhilarating sense of the changing seasons. As they walked, they realized they were coming up on the dreaded “turn,” where the white tree stood. The monster tree. The one that looked like a great bucket of white paint had been spilled over it. The older kids spun tall tales about how it had eaten up some kid like ten years ago and now no one would go near it. The grown-ups won’t even cut it down, they’d say. They were all apparently too scared of it as well. The girls came to the turn, and stared at the tree. Its trunk was a light brown but was overtaken with pure white bark as it climbed. Its smooth, leafless limbs dangled in the air, with random knobs that looked like joints bulging in witch’s fingers. “Well I don’t know about you, but I’m scared,” Bethany quipped, and they giggled. Then there was a scratching sound, something stirring in the branches, but not even a breath of wind. Sidney started to bark and seemed to leap amid the branches, then vanished. A high-pitched gasp, a crushing sound, then nothing.

“Sidneeey!” Bethany cried out, and reached both her arms into the branches. As her fingers pried into them Sammy’s eyes froze as the branches raised up as if on a hinge, or a jaw, and hovered over Bethany. There was a dark red passage leading into a tunnel of darkness, like an open throat. There was even a huge dangling bulge, like the one that hung at the back of her own throat like a boxer’s speed bag. It was even darker red than the surrounding walls, with white spots of what looked like her Elmer’s glue drizzling down. The branches thrust down, all at once, and bit into Bethany’s lower back. Her legs fell flat against the dirt as the rest of her, above the waist, vanished. A spray of cold blood speckled Sammy’s face, hair and clothes. The tree’s mouth opened again, and bit down with force. Bethany was gone except for one shoe that had come loose.

No one believed Sammy. Not her parents. Not the doctors. Not the nurses who brought her meals, in this awful place her parents had put her in. She could still feel the blood on her face, and her hands. But the tree was the killer. It ate her friend and her friend’s dog.

Teddy liked to set fires. Everyone knew this. There had always been somethin’ wrong with that boy, and Ed, with sinewy patches of blistered skin over the left side of his face like cobwebs, knew it only too well. His left eye was a smudged, dull grey, but it used to be just as deep and blue as the right one. That is, before the fire. The fire that killed Teddy’s Momma. She was a beautiful, sweet, wealthy woman with one dead husband, one six-year-old boy, one huge prairie-style house and two hundred acres worth god knows how much. And Ed somehow found his way into her heart, makin’ himself husband number two.

But her goddamn boy! Some people say the crazies run in the blood like black hair or hazel eyes, but who knew for sure? Durin’ the summer of a few years back, when the cicadas covered the streets, the trees, the roof of the house, and every other patch that was just too damn bare, he saw what Teddy would do with ‘em. He’d torture the poor things, pullin’ out their legs and wings, and then crush ‘em under the garage door. Then, when that didn’t quite stir him anymore, he tried the runnin’ torch. That’s what he called it. He would catch stray cats and light ‘em up with some kerosene and a match, and turn ‘em loose in the yard to see how far they could run before finally stopping. Said he’d read how some Roman emperor had done the same thing to people in the olden days, for fun. Whoever that sick bastard was he sure put a buzz in Teddy’s bonnet, ‘cos it made him ask himself why not try that with a kitty or two?

All the town folk knew he wasn’t right, and all their kids were scared of ‘im. None of ‘em ever came over to play. His teachers would ask him “How’re things at home, Teddy?” They were always so damn nosy, and he would always tell ‘em what they wanted to hear. Momma and step-daddy have been fightin’ again, and this time step-daddy used the belt, he’d tell ‘em. For a while they made regular visits to the house, interrogatin’ Ed, and always believin’ Teddy. “Does he ever hit you, Teddy?” they’d ask him. And he’d tell ‘em “Nope, not me, just Momma.” Ed lost count of how many times he had to tell the boy to keep his fool mouth shut, but Teddy would still shoot it off like some damn ambassador of truth.

That worried Ed for a while, after the fire, after Teddy’s Momma died in the fire, but just Momma. Now he’d keep his mouth shut, and so would she! Finally! All it cost Ed was a little burnin’ on his face and one mussed-up eye.

Teddy always liked to set fires, and even more, he liked to talk about it. Ed asked him about it once, and Teddy turned out to be a damn expert on the subject. Take the gas can, make a trail through just the right areas of the house, drop the match in just the right room, and you can figure which rooms’ll go up first, and which’ll be next, and which’ll be next after that. The whole thing went up like a tinder box. She was finally gone, and all it cost was some burnin’ on his face and a mussed-up eye.

Would people suspect him? Or Teddy? I wasn’t even home, I was bicyclin’ through the woods, doin’ jumps on the dirt trails, Teddy said. But Ed assured ‘em all Teddy was home with him and Momma. They were asleep when the house went up, and he had just barely made it out alive. And when he got outside, Teddy was standin’ there, watchin’ the blaze, a big smile on his crazied face. Who wouldn’t believe that?

Teddy was the one who liked to set fires.

Everyone knew this.

Stephen shifted the car into park, killed the engine and pushed the door open. Finally home. As he climbed out he drew in a deep breath of bitter, metallic air and as if a trigger had been depressed in his throat, a sudden cough choked out. The dark comfort of his bed hung in his mind. He was almost there. It was waiting for him.

The path from the lot to the station was short, but it was naked, isolated. He hated walking it at night. But even worse was the crossing, having to wait for a sluggish freight train to finally pass. He shoved his balled fists into his pockets and started down the path, his rapid steps clacking against the cement. The wind was hard, stinging his face. His bed was warm and soft. He was almost there.

Then he heard something, almost imperceptible, something approaching from behind. He cocked his head, barely catching a faint light in the corner of his eye. A train was coming! He sped his pace, jogging into the icy wind. He had to make it to the crossing! Before the arms came down, the lights blinked on and off red, the clanging bells started digging at his ears!

The train was soon over his shoulder, and racing past with a roar. Then he heard the ringing bell and saw the faint, distant red lights pulsing in the distance. He reached the station; the windows were dark and empty. There was no one, only a thick cloud of mist hanging above the platform, an unnatural green unlike any fog he had ever seen. As he continued toward the crossing, the mist seemed to dissipate, and then vanished altogether.

He stood at the crossing, his body trembling. The wind tore at his face, his eyes wet with tears. He wasn’t alone. He could feel it. A vague presence was looming behind him. He turned slowly and was stunned to find a large, black dog next to the road, dangerously close. How had he not noticed it before, and where had it come from? With no owner at its side, it stared at him, its open mouth panting cold billows of smoke. A crippling wave of terror pulsed through him. It just stood, staring into him, its eyes the same green as the mist.

Stephen turned, staring into the distance, which promised nothing less than an endless procession of train cars. He whipped his head back around to the dog, and found it still lingering, unmoved. He couldn’t stand it any longer, the wind, the stinging cold and now these two green, ominous eyes staring at him. The tunnel! There was an escape in the tunnel!

Without turning away from the animal, he took pensive paces back, to the staircase leading down to the tunnel, burrowed beneath the tracks. He turned for just a moment, gripping the handrail, and when he turned back, the dog had disappeared.

The tunnel was bright, the lights emitting a soothing warmth. The white plaster walls curled into a shallow, arched ceiling. It was claustrophobic. The sound of his steps on the wood floor boomed in his ears, the roar of the train reduced to a whisper. He could see the steps at the other end, leading up to his freedom, his escape from the presence, the mist, the dog.

Then there was something else, perfectly perceptible this time, the echoes growing louder! Heavy and quick, coming up behind him! Steven spun around as the face of a man, ghostly white and garish, lunged at his! The eyes shone like red bulbs of light, mouth flashing a row of jagged yellow teeth. The presence, the mist, the dog, all of them had been him! He thrust his face at Stephen’s neck, the jagged teeth tearing into his flesh. Stephen heard himself cry out as they tore across like razors. The white walls, jets of blood sprayed across them, and then they turned to black.