MicroHorror

As Billy hobbled to the locked front door, his bowed legs trembled as if faltering under the weight of his massive chest and thick, stubby arms. He turned toward his parents, who watched television from the couch.

“Out. Billy wants go out.”

The blaring television drowned him out, however. Billy rattled the doorknob and stomped his feet.

“Billy wants go out, now!”

Marla, his mother, calmly laid her knitting in the basket. She slipped the thick needles into her apron pouch and glanced at her husband. “I believe it’s my turn, dear. You took him this morning, and I appreciated the extra hour of sleep.”

As she started toward the door, he returned to his paper. “Well, be careful. You know how on edge the town is after the recent killings. Are you certain you don’t want me to go?”

“No, I’ll be fine. I just always hoped to see the day when he could take a walk alone without our fearing something might happen.”

“I know, love. But you know how his brothers and sisters were.”

Billy tugged on her arm as she retrieved her coat from the closet.

Marla gave her husband an acquiescent nod. “I know, but I feel so guilty thinking of the alternatives. We were supposed to be a family and it just isn’t fair.”

She buttoned her coat and Billy clapped his gnarled hands, emitting a gleeful moan.

“Are you sure you can still handle him?”

She grabbed a lengthy leather leash from behind the door and attached it to Billy’s waist harness.

“Yes, he seems to be less intense when I’m with him.”

Billy hurried down the sidewalk, straining at the leash. His steamy breath rose into the crisp night air.

The deserted street lent a sense of comfort and she hoped for an uneventful night. Too often, Billy sensed a passerby’s discomfort, and controlling him became difficult.

Upon reaching the river, they followed a path along the swift moving water. Marla, used to his impetuous energy, yanked at the leash with her strong hands, slowing him down.

“Billy, don’t make Mommy be rough with the leash. Slow down, okay, baby?”

He uttered a guttural moan, and stopped on the stone levee. Marla draped her arm over his shoulder, and they watched the moonlight sparkle on the water.

Rapid footsteps suddenly echoed from the darkened river path. Billy tensed and spun around. Before Marla could react, he emitted a ferocious growl and pounced on a shadowy figure bounding out of the darkness.

Mustering all her strength she yanked at the harness, hollering, “Billy, no! You stay!”

After several violent headshakes, Billy released his jaws. The jogger lay in a pool of blood, his throat ripped open and lower extremities twitching involuntarily.

Tissue dangled from his teeth as Billy flashed a bloody smile. Tears streamed down Marla’s face. Although he seemed proud of protecting his mother, she knew it only meant he was hungry.

She led him down a set of steps to a boat dock. After securing the leash to a dock post, she removed a large handkerchief from her pocket and wet it in the river. She held his angular jaws in her hands, and wiped the blood from his face.

Contented, he smiled and sat with his legs dangling over the dock. Marla knelt behind him, kissing the back of his head as she reached into her apron.

“My poor Billy, I am so sorry for how you were born. Nevertheless, Daddy and I will always love you.”

He had been the youngest, and tonight the killing would end. A tinge of relief tempered her anguish as Marla slammed the knitting needle into the base of his skull. Billy grunted once and fell forward.

She gave him a gentle push into the water face first. He surfaced once, sputtering and choking before disappearing into the watery darkness.

“Sleep, baby, go to sleep,” she said, through her tears. “Your brothers and sisters are waiting for you.”

“Edward, there’s something under my bed and I’m scared,” Jenny cried over the phone to her fiancé. “I called Daddy to come over, but he couldn’t help.”

Although her voice trembled with anxiety, he calmly replied, “Come on, baby, you’re twenty-one years old, and engaged to be married. You need to let those childish fears go.”

“I know, but it’s the same feeling I got when I was a little girl, except worse. I really need you to come over. Please, Edward? I need you.”

Edward rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock. It was just shy of two a.m. He had slept a little over two hours.

“All right, if it will make you happy.”

“Thank you, honey,” she said. “I feel much be–”

The phone clunked as though it hit the floor.

Edward heard a commotion, followed by Jenny’s panic-stricken scream, “Oh, God, no. Please! Edward, hurry!”

The phone went dead. He scrambled out of bed and raced to his car in his pajamas. He sped toward Jenny’s condo, which was fifteen minutes away.

Edward reached for his cell phone to call the police, and then remembered he left it on the night stand. He ran stop signs and red lights, hoping a cop would stop him, but had no luck.

Scenarios of burglars and rapists played over in his mind. He had always warned her about taking a ground floor condo, as it was easy to break into. Then again, he thought, perhaps another emergency arose she couldn’t explain.

He recalled how Jenny once related her intense fear of the dark when she was a little girl. She swore she heard growls at night, and would wrap up like a cocoon beneath the covers.

“Daddy!” she would scream.

He would rush into her room, search it and then scream, as if some horrible creature was dragging him under the bed.

Then, her father would peek over the bed and laugh. That infuriated Jenny to the point she couldn’t control herself. After calming her down, her father would tell her a bedtime story and kiss her forehead.

“Nighty-night, princess,” he’d say, turning on a nightlight. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

Edward skidded to a stop in front of Jenny’s condo, and sprinted up the sidewalk.

“Jenny! Baby, where are you?” he hollered, barging through the front door, and running to her room.

“Oh my God!” he shouted, as he stepped into the room.

Blood splattered the walls and floor, and the furniture was smashed and scattered as though there had been a struggle. Jenny’s torn and bloody nightgown lay on the floor.

Edward’s voice trembled as he called out, “Jenny, where are you, baby?”

He glanced under the bed, and jumped back as a cockroach scurried out past him.

Something rustled in the closet, and Edward spun around. He thought he heard something like quiet whimpering behind the door.

“Don’t worry, Jen, I’m here, baby,” he said, cautiously opening the closet.

Edward stepped back, horrified and speechless as her father’s body lay on the closet floor in a mangled and bloodied heap.

“I called and he came, but he couldn’t help,” a guttural voice behind him uttered.

“Jen?” he said, and turned.

Jenny, however, had already lunged at him, teeth bared and growling. “And you can’t either!”

A grotesque mass of bulging muscle and tissue contorted her body. She contorted her face in a hideous scowl and snapped her jaws around his larynx. A vicious growl echoed through the room as she whipped her head back and forth, and ripped out a large chunk of muscle and tissue.

Through blood-smeared lips, she continued, “I always said something was hiding in the dark, but no one listened.”

A few minutes later, Jenny’s anxiety faded. She turned on a night light and crawled into bed.

After curling up in a fetal position, she whispered softly, “Goodnight, princess. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

Martha stood at the stove in her witch’s outfit, stirring a large stewpot.

“Sheila! Willy! Hurry up!” she called out. “If you don’t hurry, Halloween will be over.”

She cackled delightedly when her two children walked into the kitchen. Willy was dressed as a hunter, and Sheila as a she-devil.

“Do we look scary, Momma?” Sheila asked, lifting her mask.

Martha nodded, and felt a lump form in her throat. “Just look at you two. It just doesn’t seem possible you’re old enough to finally enjoy Halloween as it’s meant to be.”

“Momma,” Willy said, “we’ve been waiting for this night ever since you explained what it was all about.”

“Yeah,” Sheila interjected. “Especially after all the scary stories you told us about when you were young. I hope we can do some of that scary stuff and get lots of tasty treats.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will,” Martha said, gently cupping Sheila’s chin and lifting it toward her. “Listen, you little she-devil, you go out and get all you want, but I want you and your brother to be home by nine.”

She handed Willy his hunting knife, and Sheila her pitchfork. Then she gave them each a king-size pillowcase to carry their booty in.

After ushering them to the door, Martha said, “Now, look both ways before you cross the street, stay in the shadows, and stay together. And remember what your father always said about being careful with strangers.”

“Yes, Momma,” they replied in unison.

“Good. Now go out and have fun. We’ll eat when you get back.”

Martha stood at the door, and watched them cross the street and ring the neighbor’s doorbell.

“Trick or Treat! Bodies or Meat!” they hollered.

She stepped back inside, remembering when she was a girl, and all the fun she and her friends had practicing their version of the old pagan ritual of All Hallows’ Eve.

Three hours passed, and the children hadn’t returned. Martha paced the floor anxiously, wondering if she should go look for them. But the two kids finally returned at midnight.

“Where have you two been?” she screamed as they opened the door. “I’ve been worried sick something happened to you.”

“We’re sorry, Momma,” Sheila said. “But we were having so much fun, we couldn’t decide who to bring home.”

The two children stood before her with their pillowcases bulging, and their faces and clothes matted in blood.

“Oh, my God! Just look at you,” she said, wiping the blood from their faces with a washcloth. “You’ve been nibbling!”

“Just on the pirate,” Willy said.

“Well, I hope you didn’t spoil your appetite.”

“We didn’t,” Sheila replied. “I’m starving.”

“Oh, Momma, we had a wonderful time,” Willy exclaimed. “We saw pirates and princesses, and hobos and cowgirls. There were so many different kinds; we didn’t know which ones you’d want.”

“That’s right, Momma,” Sheila said. “We wanted to bring back one of each, but they would have been too heavy to carry. So, we cut up a little fat pirate, and a princess. Can we put them in your Halloween stew?”

“Well, this recipe only calls for a princess,” Martha said, “so we’ll freeze the pirate and cook him on a cold winter evening.”

Willy and Sheila watched excitedly as Martha emptied their pillowcases on the counter. After separating the body parts, and examining them to ensure none were tainted, she added the little princess to the stew.

There were people in this world who were mean, she told them. And, on Halloween, mean people sometimes handed out tainted treats to make kids sick.

Even though Willy and Sheila munched on some of their Halloween booty while they were trick-or-treating, they’d built up an appetite. The kids ran upstairs to wash up, eager to taste the princess in their stew.

Harry sat in his recliner watching the evening news. He’d broken his glasses two weeks before, and had to lean close to see the screen. Clutter and the stench of rotting food and soiled clothing permeated the room. He picked up a hard dinner roll from the TV tray beside his chair and gummed it, softening it with the saliva in his toothless mouth.

“You know, Bertha, the worst mistake I ever made was marrying you,” he said loudly. “All you did during our entire marriage was bitch, bitch, bitch about what I wear, how I act, and what I say.”

Bertha sat in a chair across the room from him, giving him a blank stare as though totally uninterested at what he had to say.

“You’ve never cooked or cleaned worth a damn and just look at this place. It’s a pigsty. If I could move about better, I’d clean the damn place myself.”

Their cat lay nestled in Bertha’s lap, kneading the folds of her house dress with its paws and purring loudly. It slipped its head beneath her hand, looking for comfort. The faded sunlight shining through the dirty window accentuated the wrinkles permanently etching
her pale face.

“See, and now, you show no interest in talking to me. All you do is sit there like a damn bump on a log and stare at me with that shit-eatin’ grin of yours. I’ve had it. I’d move out if I had the energy.”

Harry always knew when she was angry with him, because she wouldn’t talk to him. She’d just let her eyes bore through him knowing it would anger him even more.

His legs shook as he rose from his chair and stumbled to the kitchen. Dirty dishes lay piled up in the sink and flies buzzed around the overflowing trashcan.

“Dammit, woman!” he shouted. “Can’t you keep this place clean? We got flies and maggots all over the place.”

Harry maneuvered through the clutter, and poured himself a cup of cold coffee. After warming it in the microwave, he returned to his chair. He didn’t notice Bertha slump forward when he bumped her chair. A few minutes later, Harry took his eyes off the TV and glanced over at her.

“You know, if you’re so tired, why don’t you go to bed?”

Harry slowly rose and lifted her from her chair. She felt quite a bit heavier than he remembered. He carried her into the bedroom, barely able to hold her in his arms.

“Good Lord, woman,” he said, laying her lifeless, decaying body in the bed. “You smell terrible, too. Take a bath when you get up, will you?”

“What the hell is that?” the Boeing 737’s first officer asked, spotting the wall of black storm clouds dead ahead.
 
“Looks like we’re flying into a nasty storm,” the pilot replied. “I wonder why we didn’t catch it on radar.”
 
“I don’t know, but it looks like we can’t avoid it.”
 
The Boeing 737 was cruising at 45,000 feet when the ugly storm cloud seemed to devour it. Sudden turbulence buffeted the plane violently, stalling both the port and starboard engines. The cockpit and cabin, as well as the interior of the plane, turned pitch black as all electrical systems failed.
 
The plane, however, seemed to continue on course in darkened silence without losing altitude. The pilot and co-pilot glanced at each other incredulously before the plane listed right and began what felt like a swirling descent.
 
Passengers screamed hysterically, and a few bent down in their seats with their heads between their legs, assuming the crash position. The flight crew frantically worked the controls, trying to re-ignite the engines and regain control. Suddenly, the plane leveled off, and all was calm again though still completely dark.
 
Then, the screech of crushing metal ripped through the plane as the bulkheads collapsed inward. Passengers heard what sounded like a loud belch, accompanied by a pungent odor that smelled like burning metal. Then, the plane and passengers began to disintegrate as acid ate away at metal and flesh.
 
Outside the plane, a black, gelatinous creature scraped a two-hundred-foot-long tongue across its leathery lips. After picking a slice of sheet metal from between two teeth, the alien creature maneuvered the cloud cover a few thousand feet lower to another flight path. It again opened its huge mouth to await a second course.

Some nights, I’d hear the Curdles munching and gnawing on something in the back yard. I called them the Curdles because my stomach curdled whenever I heard them. I’m sure you know the feeling of a twisting stomach and nausea after eating something that didn’t agree with you.

I never saw them, though I always knew when they’d been around. The following morning after hearing them, I’d awaken early and hurry to the window overlooking the back yard. Sure enough, carcasses, blood, and fur were scattered about the yard.

I’d sneak out and dispose of the guts and gore to keep my parents from discovering them. If I told them about the Curdles, they wouldn’t have believed me. And then, the Curdles would blame me and come for me.

The Curdles first targeted neighborhood pets. When a neighbor’s pet went missing, he’d wonder who or what had taken it. I knew, but couldn’t tell.

Kids in town avoided old man Jensen. He’d offer them candy and toys to come into his house and play games. Then he’d try to coax them into doing things they’d been taught were wrong.

But the police got involved when he disappeared. Volunteer search teams searched the surrounding fields and woods. They searched the swamp along the Great Northern Railroad tracks leading north to the Twin Cities, but found no trace of him. I knew they wouldn’t; I’d already cleaned up the mess.

After the searchers moved on I buried Jensen’s remains in the swamp. I say remains because he’d been gutted and dressed out like a deer during hunting season.

Some kids playing around the old grain mill at the edge of the swamp found Jensen, covered with lime and buried beneath a pile of grass and branches. The volunteers couldn’t figure out how they missed him.

Although parents forbid their kids from going to the mill, finding the old man’s remains provided too much fodder for gruesome stories. School kids countywide made nighttime visits to the woods.

My friend Stevie and I built a secret fort underground, in the woods near the old mill. We built a trap door and covered it with a weedy patch of sod. The walls were fortified with stolen wood scraps, and scrap carpet covered the dirt floor.

I hid out there whenever I wanted to be by myself or I thought the Curdles were coming for me. We’d built it sturdy enough that the search teams walked right over it and never knew it was there.

Stevie stopped coming to the woods after I told him about the Curdles lurking there and in the swamp. He was going to tell, but I made him promise not to. Then Stevie disappeared, and I knew the Curdles had gotten to him.

Then, kids venturing into the woods seeking Jensen’s ghost began disappearing, and the FBI was called in. Shortly after they began investigating, they found me in the fort.

I’d gotten one of those terrible headaches from thinking about the Curdles, and hid out at the fort. I heard the FBI when they walked over the roof. An agent probing the ground with a pole hit the plywood roof through the sod.

They dug until they broke through the roof, which collapsed. I retreated to another room where they found me covered in blood. Stevie’s rotting corpse hung from the ceiling, gutted and dressed out.

I swore Stevie was killed by the Curdles, and that I’d brought him to the fort to keep them from harming him. But no one listened to me.

How did I know it was the Curdles? When they dragged me away in this straitjacket, that feeling in my stomach returned. The Curdles were watching from the woods, waiting for their chance to grab me.

As a matter of fact, I’m getting that feeling again. The Curdles are coming, so I’d appreciate it if you would release me. We need to find a place to hide.

Jerry arrived at his blind date’s house an hour early. They’d met in an online chat room and decided to meet. He wasn’t exactly as he’d represented himself in his profile, and hoped she wouldn’t be disappointed.

For starters, he’d always lived at home with his mother, but she’d recently died. He didn’t have a condo, was forty-one and balding, and not twenty-six with thick bushy hair. Additionally, he wasn’t a lifeguard, even though he could swim and once saved a kitten from drowning in the huge birdbath Mother kept outside her kitchen window.

Jerry sat in his car, nervously smoking a cigarette. He glanced in the rearview mirror, and gave his face the once-over for any zits. As he did, he thought he caught a glimpse of Mother sitting in the back seat. He looked again, but she wasn’t there.

After checking his breath, Jerry stepped from the car and walked toward the house. His stomach tumbled, and he wondered if his mother would have been displeased.

After all, she’d always tended to his every need. But then, he remembered, Mother was gone now. He felt a lonely void in his life, and knew it was time to get out and live a little.

He rapped on the door, and it swung open immediately. A matronly looking woman wearing a brightly colored dress and heavy makeup stood before him, grinning ear to ear.

“Hello,” Jerry said, “I’m Jerry, here to pick up Carla.”

“Hi, Jerry; I’m Carla,” she said, appearing surprised. “You look just like you described yourself online.”

He did a mild double take, and replied, “You, too.”

Okay, he thought, he had it coming. She certainly wasn’t the young cheerleader she said she was. But she did look a lot like his mother, and that felt comforting.

Carla grabbed her sweater, and Jerry escorted her to the car. They went to a movie and later stopped for a bite to eat. He found her as easy to talk to as his mother was.

Carla fawned over Jerry the entire evening. When they returned to her house, he awkwardly leaned over to kiss her cheek. She put a hand against his chest, and pushed him back.

“Uh-uh, buddy. Not yet,” she said.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jerry said, hanging his head in embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to be so forward. It’s just that I had a really good time.””

“Me too,” she said. “But that’s not why I stopped you.”

“Well, why then?”

“Because I don’t want the neighbors to see us out here. It’s not right.”

“Oh,” he said. “I understand.”

“Good, then come into the house with me, right now!” she snapped.

She sounded just like Mother. Jerry followed her inside. Carla shut the door, and pulled him into the folds of her dress. She couldn’t keep her hands off him, and soon they were in the throes of passion, doing everything the way Carla demanded, which Jerry didn’t mind.

She pampered him quite differently than the way his mother pampered him, but oh, it felt so much better.

Jerry spent the night. The next morning, he walked to his car, rubber-legged and gratified to the point of dizziness. Carla demanded he move in with her so she could take care of him. Just as he always had with Mother, Jerry obeyed.

On his drive home to retrieve his belongings, Jerry glanced at the back seat in his rearview mirror.

“Mother, I know you can hear me,” he said. “I know you promised you would always take care of me. But Carla is a wonderful girl, and I’ve decided to let her take care of me from now on. I hope you don’t mind. You don’t, do you, Mother?”

His eyes were riveted on the rearview mirror as though awaiting her response. Then he thought he heard his mother laugh, a split second before plowing head-on into an eighteen-wheeler coming the opposite way.

Sanchez el Diablo stood in the shadows off Avenida Revolución disguised as a beggar boy peddling chewing gum to the tourists. The border town’s heavy traffic afforded him the luxury of reaping ripened souls, rather than lurking in hospital corridors harvesting the weakened souls of the dying.

He targeted those arriving by cab, knowing they’d come to Tijuana to satisfy their own lust. Sanchez approached a balding, pale-skinned American who’d stepped from the El Diablo strip bar, and tugged on the man’s shirt.

“Señor, señor! You buy gum?”

The man knocked Sanchez’s hand away. “Beat it, kid.”

“Please, señor, buy some gum for my sick mother.”

“No, I said scram!”

The man weaved his way through the crowd, attempting to elude the pesky beggar boy.

“But, señor, I will find you a girl,” he said, following close behind.

The man stopped. “You’ll what?”

“Find you a girl,” Sanchez whispered. “Follow me.”

“The man smiled. “How much, little amigo?”

“For me, señor, five dollars American. For the girl, maybe twenty dollars.”

“Well then, lead on,” the American snickered. “But if you’re scamming me, I’ll cut your little heart out. Comprende?”

“Yes, señor,” Sanchez replied. “I will take you to the woman of your dreams.”

He led the American down a dirt alley. Women, old and young, fat and skinny beckoned him from darkened doorways, but the boy shooed them away. The American inhaled the stench of something rotting, and hesitated.

“Hold on there. Where are you taking me?”

The boy replied, “Do not worry, señor; it’s just a little farther. It will be better then, I promise.”

They reached a yard surrounded by a high stone wall. The boy unlatched the gate, and they stepped inside to a meticulously trimmed courtyard of deep green vegetation and flowers. The heavy scent of gardenias and jasmine relaxed the American.

“Wait here,” the boy said, disappearing into the tan stucco hacienda.

A short time later, a beautiful, dark-haired señorita, wearing a multihued skirt and a blouse gathered at her coffee-colored shoulders, stepped through the doorway.

The American stood dumbstruck as she parted her scarlet lips, and blew him a kiss.

“You have come for me, señor?” she asked in a sultry, lilting voice.

The American nodded.

“Am I what you have desired?”

“You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen,” he said, taking her hand.

He pulled her close and nuzzled her neck, inhaling the intoxicating sweetness of her perfume. Her breasts pressed against him and he trembled. She laughed, and pulled away.

“In due time, señor. First, we must discuss terms.”

“Yes, of course,” he said, reaching for his wallet.

She pushed his hand back. “Not now, señor. I will give you all you desire, but when we are finished, I will take what I think I am worth.”

“Agreed,” he said, wondering if she really that stupid or just a naïve maiden who was new to the trade. He certainly wouldn’t pay her more than he’d paid the others.

She led him down a dark hall to a comfortable and cool candlelit bedroom. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. She turned and stroked his hair.

“Are you ready, señor?”

He could barely contain his excitement, as he said, “Take me, my Mexican goddess. I am yours.”

She pressed her lips against his. She dug her long fingernails into his back, ripping at his skin, and his passion turned to fear. He opened his eyes, horrified as she morphed from señorita to beggar boy and then Sanchez el Diablo.

Sanchez sucked the life from the American, whose lifeless body slumped to the floor. Feeling satiated, he dumped the American onto the rotting corpses replacing the gardenias and jasmine in the courtyard.

The American’s soul would keep Sanchez alive a while longer. After locking the gate, Sanchez transformed himself into a Federale, and strolled up the alley. After all, he had to keep the tourists safe from banditos.