MicroHorror

Freddie wept. Around him, in that damp darkness, his terrible sorrow echoed at the loss of his partner, children, grandparents, aunties and many cousins.

Freddie, only days earlier, having left his domain in search of larger, warmer premises for his ever-extending family, had returned to find furry bodies twisted in their final hours of agony.

Stunned, he squealed in disbelief and horror at the sight of those pathetic corpses lying amongst the remains of blue, poisoned pellets, and after his tears had dried, he spent the rest of his days gnawing at wood, a demented mouse crazed with grief and fury.

Then a week later, Freddie, exhausted, let out a long, anguished screech that reverberated around the cellar’s dank walls, and from above the sound of running feet reached him.

Suddenly, the cellar door flew open. Footsteps came pounding down the steps, and as those feet pounded, the staircase collapsed sending splinters of gnawed wood flying about like shrapnel in all directions.

Above the noise of destruction, a man’s terrified scream filled the dark space, resounding off crates, two old TV sets and a defunct refrigerator as he lay paralyzed from the neck down, unable to stop Freddie chewing at his fleshy face.

“A penny for your thoughts?” he asked his silent wife for the third time.

Picking up a butcher’s knife, she sliced open the top of her head and, when all her thoughts tumbled out, she demanded he gave her the penny.

Sitting at a table for six, the man, dressed as a clown, waited for his guests to arrive, and a bottle of Claret glowing a sultry red seemed to invite the clown to partake in the fullness of its sumptuous body.

Reaching out a white gloved hand, the clown poured a generous measure into a goblet. “Sir.” The head waiter approached. He looked worried, glancing at his watch. “Your booking was for 7:30. It’s now well past nine.”

The clown, hurt and rejection concealed behind the colorful daubing on his face, replied, “They will come.” The waiter moved off, his expression doubtful.

Taking a long drink, dribbling red wine down his painted yellow chin, the clown wondered whether he should go ahead and order for himself but rejected the idea, having eaten too many lonely meals in the past.

“Fancy dress?” Mandy had tittered when he’d issued his birthday invitations, the week before.

“Haven’t been to a fancy dress in years,” Freddy said.

“Should be fun,” Jason replied, winking a bushy eyebrow.

And Dotty giggled, her small pink mouth squeezing out the words, “I’ve always wanted to dress up.”

“Do you think the restaurant would allow fancy dress in their establishment?” Elaine had asked.

He assured his work colleagues that he’d checked and it was all right.

Draining his drink, the clown refilled his glass, and as he drank, he thought about his colleagues, recalling their numerous past pranks at his expense but, over the years, he’d considered their behavior just high jinks without any intention of malice.

Now, watching other diners chat amongst themselves, the truth hit him and he began to laugh, his laughter growing into manic cackling and, as his cackling rose to fever pitch, people stopped eating.

But the clown, unaware of the hush, snatched up a fork and began scraping at his face. The waiter, dashing across, asked the clown to leave. The clown, ignoring the request, guffawed and kept on scraping, scraping, scraping.

A chef appeared, yelling at the clown but the clown kept laughing, his blood drip, drip, dripping down onto a white tablecloth.

When two policemen arrived, the clown stopped laughing and began sobbing. Hurrying towards the clown, they came to a sudden stop, gazing in horror at a wailing bloody face with its one empty eye socket.

Freda loved to hold Halloween parties. At the age of thirty-two, three times divorced and achieving three generous divorce settlements, she had plenty of money to spend on extravagant affairs and, as she supervised the caterers making preparations for a grand buffet, she confided to Elaine, her PA, that she already had her eye on husband number four.

Elaine gasped when Freda mentioned Jonathon Bliss, a rich divorce lawyer. “He’s engaged!” she exclaimed.

Stepping out through French doors onto a large, Romanesque patio, Freda laughed as she tipped three kilos of Granny Smith apples into a Jacuzzi the size of a small swimming pool.

“What are you doing?” Elaine asked, watching those apples bob about like green-headed babies.

“We’re ducking apples tonight,” Freda told her and casting a glance of disdain at her skinny companion, added, “Hope you’re wearing decent underwear.”

Blushing, Elaine stared into the Jacuzzi. “I’m afraid of water,” she said.

“That’s not water,” Freda scoffed. “That’s best Chilean wine.”

Then voices behind announced the arrival of her guests so there was a lot of air kissing to be done.

Jonathon Bliss, after telling Freda how beautiful she looked, introduced her to his fiancée Ruth. Freda smiled a smile of derision and asked, “Didn’t I see you working in Bellingham’s Specialist Fruits, this morning?” Ruth nodded and mentioned, in a timid voice, that she owned the shop and the apartment above.

After her guests had eaten, Freda led them outside, saying, “It’s Ducking Apple Time,” and stepping out of her designer dress, like a refined stripper, she displayed an exquisite body adorned in brief, sexy lingerie.

Tipsily, her guests undressed and, one by one, climbed into the Jacuzzi. “No hands!” Freda told them. “Keep them above your heads.”

Laughing, they dipped their heads into bubbling wine, snorting and gasping as they tried to catch those elusive apples. Then Freda jumped up and down, an apple clenched between her teeth.

“Take the first bite,” Ruth said. “It’s said you’ll get what you richly deserve.” Surprised by the meek suggestion, Freda happily complied.

Later, after her guests had gone, Freda, reclining on her water bed, wondered what Jonathon saw in mouse-like Ruth but her wonderings came to an abrupt stop when painful scratching began in the depths of her stomach.

Minutes later, the scratching traveled upwards and, in horror, she saw her flesh writhe from pelvis to chest. Screaming, Freda fell off the bed but the black creature, shooting out from her mouth, slithered after her, its jaws extended to easily accommodate her limbs, torso and head.

“A penny for them?” he asked for the third time in ten minutes. So, picking up a butcher’s knife, she sliced open the top of her head and, when all her thoughts tumbled out, she demanded he give her that penny.

A marble angel stands at the head of Arthur Fletcher’s grave. In her hands, she raises a birdbath to the heavens while, close by, a bulldozer flattens the council-run cemetery to make way for a new housing project.

Amid the noise of destruction, men wearing hardhats throw debris into industrial skips. Unseen, the angel grows taller and taller.

Beneath the angel’s feet, Arthur Fletcher stirs, his skeleton shifting with new growth that has slept inside his rotting flesh for over twenty years.

Green slime pulsates. Amoeba-like creatures hatch out. Hundreds of corpses, agitated by external activity, awaken and writhe in many old graves as yet untouched by demolition.

Rapidly, these creatures grow. Tentacles take shape. Heads the shape of footballs enlarge. Hungry mouths yawn into cavernous pits and when the bulldozer draws nearer, the angel meets the startled gaze of its driver.

Suddenly, the birdbath smashes through the windscreen. Decapitated, the driver’s head falls from the cab into the mouth of the first emerging Grunchling. Then the cemetery erupts and thousands of its species slither out from their dark nesting places.

Frantic, slithering on green slime, workmen, trying to escape, are sucked up by those immense, blubbery mouths and fresh white bones spew out on top of older, grayer ones.

Minutes later, their eating frenzy ends and the Grunchlings move en masse towards the town where, outside the Council Chambers, demonstrators hold up placards, chanting, “Save our local cemetery.”

She said Jane was a liar. She said the Devil would take her soul. She told her that one day, when her daughter grew up, she would grow a Pinocchio nose.

Her mother lied.

He said she was his little girl. He said she was his queen. He told Jane that she was his one and only.

Her father lied.

Zak said she was a crybaby. He said she was dead ugly too. He told her that she was a cuckoo in the nest.

Her brother told her the truth.

At night, Jane curled up into a ball. Through the dark hours after he’d left, she clung onto her teddy bear. By day, she crept about the house. Sometimes she’d hide but always her father would find her in the cupboard under the stairs.

Last September, she told her mother. Her mother screamed and hit her for telling such wicked lies. After her confession, her parents huddled together on the sofa and if he caught Jane watching, he’d give her a big smile.

Today, at dawn and on her fourteenth birthday, she barricaded her family inside their bedrooms. Then Jane called out, “Come and get me!” Moments later, three doors bashed against heavy furniture piled up outside their doors.

“Let me out!” all three started yelling. Laughing at their angry pleas, she put a lit match to a taper already dipped in paraffin.

Suddenly there was a whoosh of flames gobbling up a paraffin path. The sizzling blue carpet turned black. Seconds later, flames leapt up to the ceiling. The lampshade exploded showering orange rain down onto banisters and stairs.

Dashing outside, Jane stood on the front lawn listening to her family’s desperate cries. And while she stood there waving up at their faces, Fred and Alf, her favorite garden gnomes, laughed so much Jane thought they might fall off their toadstools.

They say, at night, damned voices call out from the centre of Pevril Woodland. But it’s daylight, and Jake, running along dappled paths, laughs while his friend Sam counts up to one hundred. As Jake runs, his feet sink into decades of mulch and small dead things while all around him there is a deafening silence, but he’s unaware of that and his mute, half-human watchers.

On reaching the count of one hundred, Sam sets off, following the same paths until he reaches an oak tree where ten centuries have gouged a large hollow deep into gnarled wood. Peering inside, looking into musty depths, he sees his friend tumbling, tumbling downwards, chorused by ten thousand screaming voices.