MicroHorror

Samhain, nearly midnight:

The gravestone glows like pale bone under the moonlit sky.
Her belly bulges with the seed of her lover, ripe and ready. Her hands glisten with his blood.
She stands, immersed in both worlds, between both worlds.
She tosses the shovel and climbs down, pulling the dirt down atop her.
Her son will come with the dawning new year,
If he can dig his way out.

It’s Halloween, so I know they’re out there.

Like every year, in the shadows, waiting for me, ready to scare me.

Last few years I tried to go around. I ran SO hard, SO fast. But they almost caught me.

This year, mom wants me not to go.

But I’m going to.

I’m not scared anymore. I’m not.

The blade is cold and solid in my trick-or-treat bag.

I’ll show them who’s scared of who.

Mommy said there was no such thing as monsters. Mommy was wrong. The Monsters shot Mommy while she screamed downstairs. Timmy had heard her screams stop, even as his younger sister squealed in terror in one of their arms. They had shot Timmy too… at least everyone thought they had. Who’d have thunk those Happy Poppy books could stop a gun? Timmy didn’t. When the bullet struck the book and drove it into his chest, he thought he was dead. People always die when they get shot, no matter what the movies say. That’s what Daddy said. Guess he was wrong too. He shot one of them back… Timmy heard the Monster laugh… (oh god! That laugh…) It was the same voice that said something about “only the innocent one will work…” Wasn’t Timmy innocent? Couldn’t they have taken him instead of little Cindy? Was this about cute little Mary Smith back in 5th grade? (oh Jeez… Mary… I’m so sorry…) Please, Timmy thought as the grinning Monster left and the frowning one pointed her shiny gun at him. Please let her go… Take me! I’m 15, she’s only 7. I’m a much better worker, Daddy says so. All she’ll do is cry a lot. Hear that? She’s started already. Please, take me! Please? It’s me you want. I’m the one you want. The Monsters always take the bad ones. I’m the one that was Bad. Not her. Please? Not her… Please?

…

They found her body in an empty building after the riots had started to calm down, finally. Timmy cried for three days straight while hiding in a burned-out building, after hearing the news.

…

Mommy was wrong. Maybe she lied when she said there were no Monsters. Maybe she just didn’t know. Or didn’t remember, having worked so hard to convince Timmy and Cindy that they didn’t exist except in stories made to frighten people. But no matter why, or how, Mommy was wrong.

The Bad People were all around you. The Monsters walked among everyone. Timmy could see them now… He knew. The Monsters were real. And he would not be afraid of them again.

Lawrence stabbed the “Stop” button on his tape recorder with a nicotine-stained index finger and absentmindedly rubbed his forehead with his left hand.

Fuck all, this made no sense.

Two months ago, his sister Laura shows up in the county morgue, the victim of a brutal murder. The prime suspect was her shit of a worthless husband. Lawrence had warned her multiple times that he was just like Martin (Father, you mean?). Schizophrenia coupled with multiple compulsive and disassociative disorders, classic sexual predator. And Laura had fallen right into his world of shit like she’d been born into it, mostly because she had…

But… I mean… Fuck! How could he have done that to her? How could anyone even remotely sane have done that?

The idea that Harold had molested and abused little Sarah almost made Lawrence sick to his stomach, but it was unfortunately no surprise. Even less surprising were Sarah’s pervasive and insistent denials of Harold’s involvement in her mother’s death. Lawrence wanted to dismiss her claims of a monstrous Boogeyman as a classic denial syndrome. (because there’s no Monster like Daddy Monster, right?) But how the hell could Harold have done that with two broken legs? Or even at the height of his strength? The facts just… damn it, they just didn’t make any damn sense.

But the D.A. didn’t need to mention all that to send Harold screaming like a lunatic off to his spot on death row. So Sarah came to live with her closest blood relative.

Good ol’ Uncle Larry.

Only Sarah called him Larry now. His buddies had called him that before he got on The Wagon. His first wife had also, but she was just as dangerous as the whisky she kept flowing to Lawrence. The second and third knew him only as Lawrence, the emotionally distant and controlled psychiatrist and recovering alcoholic. Work had become his new drug, and neither woman liked being analyzed the way Lawrence would.

So what the fuck did he know about raising a child? Nothing, that’s what. He sure as hell hadn’t received any nurturing as a child. But then, he’d gotten out… Right? He broke the cycle and knew how to look for the signs. He was certain that he would not let that seed take fruit in him. Sure, everything ever written about medical or psychological ethics said that self-diagnosis was the ultimate form of self-delusional narcissism. But Lawrence could avoid that trap. He could help Sarah. He could find out what really happened for her. He could help her get closure. Help find the Truth.

No matter what the cost.