MicroHorror

It’s all over the news; two boys walked into their high school and gunned down ten people. Students. Teachers. No care for social status. The two boys wore trench coats and listened to heavy metal, perhaps even worshiped the devil.

The next day the jocks apologize to the goths. The popular girls flirt with band nerds. Everyone’s nervous, being overly friendly to avoid something like that from happening at their school. No one’s going to be picked on this year.

The two boys shake hands with the president, their mission accomplished. Phase one of Utopia is complete.

She had been accused of being a false god. Someone, somewhere, had found proof that she had been born. Ishtar sighed. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She was tied to a stake, about to be burned alive for her crimes. Ishtar looked around, reddish eyes taking note of the people surrounding her. Men held torches, their wives huddled together whispering blasphemies. Her faithful virgins wept at her feet, next in line to be executed. Ishtar adored her followers. She adored this world. But as with all things, it must eventually come to an end. The men came forward, lighting the pine straw and wood at her feet. She glared at them through a curtain of black hair.

“Back to the drawing board,” Ishtar said to them with a smile… then she destroyed the world.

“Trick or Treat!”

I’ll give you a trick.

“Smell my feet!”

Now where did I put that key?

“Give me something good to eat!”

Ah, here it is!

I held up a finger, too excited to speak. The kids, all dressed up as ghosts, stopped their song, waiting to see what kind of goodies I had. I unlocked the cage and came back to the door.

“Trick,” I said with a smile. I moved aside as my husband burst through the door. The kids tried to run, but it was too late. A werewolf was much faster than sheet-clad kids.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to take candy from strangers?” I growled.

The boy on my front porch, wearing a Jigsaw mask, looked up at me. I knew that he was the one who smashed my pumpkins last year.

“Trick or treat,” he said again, and I dumped a handful of candy into his sack. He skipped down the
driveway to his smiling parents.

I looked into the candy dish at my homemade chocolate candies.

Would his parents still be smiling when they woke up in the morning to find their heathen-child dead?

The knife gleamed as I shoved it through the tough outer skin, cutting a hole wide enough to put my hand through. The insides squished in my hands, the soft membrane getting under my fingernails. It would take forever to get that stuff out; it always did.

Thirty minutes later I was done. I put the crookedly smiling head on the table with the rest. I sat back, smiling at my creations. It was only on Halloween that I could get away with this. I reached into the bag under the table and pulled out another human head.

His breath caught in his throat. The woman at the bar next to him was beautiful. She curved her full lips into a smile.

“You want to go somewhere more… private?” she asked, her velvet voice filled with longing.

The moment they were outside, she pressed her lips to his. He felt his lust and desire, his life, slowly being sucked out of his body by the woman in his arms.

“What are you?” Joseph breathed. Darkness was coming for him.

“Damned,” she answered, her reddish eyes never leaving his.

He died seconds later, in her deadly embrace.