MicroHorror

“Can you feel it?” Dante asked.

Chloe stood very still for a few seconds and then said, “Yeah, it’s definitely coming.”

Dante looked at the house. “Should we try to warn them?”

“We could try, but they’d probably misinterpret us. Then they might become overly concerned about how we’re acting and lock us inside.”

Dante looked down. “Good point. It’s just that they have treated us so well.”

“I know, but we’re not really rescuers. Leave that to the dogs. You can hear them starting to bark already.”

Dante looked around at the place he had lived for so long now. “I’m going to miss it.”

“I know. But we’ll find some nice people more inland. We’re pretty and tame. A good home will take us in. Now come on. The tidal wave will be here soon, and flooded land is no place for two cats.”

Okay. It will be easy to judge me, I know. But I have a situation to deal with, so I have to sort out my thoughts. It all started six years ago.

We’d just bought our new house, and it was perfect. It had four big bedrooms, a rec room downstairs, and you could have placed two of the buildings my old apartment was in on the lot. Needless to say, I had visions of gardens and rosebushes dancing in my head. Getting the septic pumped seemed like a minor detail. It turned out to be the biggest of complications and the freakiest thing I’ve ever known.

The previous owners said it had been done two years ago but couldn’t produce a receipt. It was a little soon, but my husband and I agreed we should be cautious. I called the guy, and he showed up at our front door the next morning, a middle-aged man with a scruffy beard. I was home alone.

“Good morning, ma’am. You called to have your septic pumped.”

“Yes, I think the tank is buried in back.”

“All righty. I’ll pull the truck around and have a look.”

He did. Curious about the process, I watched as he used a metal rod to locate the tank. He then dug a hole and pulled off a concrete lid.

He immediately started coughing, violently, like an old smoker or asthmatic. He went about his work without seeming to recover. He hooked up his long hose and pumped out the filth. He unhooked the hose, reset the lid and refilled the hole. I met him out back with a bottle of water and his check.

“Thank you,” he said between coughs. “I don’t know what’s come over me. Maybe I’m allergic to something back here.” He looked around, with his expression a mixture of physical discomfort and incredulity. I wondered if he were thinking what I was thinking. What could possibly be in my backyard or in my tank that was different from all the others he had visited?

When he turned to look at me again was when I thought I saw something. It was something kind of hard to describe. It was just that look you sometimes see in people’s eyes, like they’re seeing what’s in front of them but so much more. I told myself it was my imagination.

I thanked him, and he thanked me again. He left, and I basically stopped thinking about it after a couple of hours. That night, his face was on the news. Evidently, he went home that afternoon and killed his family. He then went to the mall of a nearby town and opened fire on strangers until police showed up and killed him.

Okay, here’s the part where you can judge me. Cops and reporters showed up at my house, a lot at first and then less and less as time went by. I basically told them that he pumped the septic and nothing strange happened. I didn’t mention the coughing or what I saw in his eyes. I kept telling myself that these things didn’t matter anyway, that they had nothing to do with what he did later that day. I really just wanted to be left alone and to start planning my gardens and what I was going to put in the rec room and so forth.

Well, here’s my dilemma. That was six years ago, as I said. They recommend you get the septic pumped every three or four years. I keep finding excuses to put it off. My husband is about to make the call himself.

Yeah, that’s right. I never even told him. I haven’t told anybody. I just don’t want to risk what might happen to my backyard, and I don’t want the reporters coming back. It’s going to have to be opened up again, though. What am I going to do?

“Why haven’t they attacked your house?”

The stranger on his couch was a young woman with black hair. She was pretty, but David didn’t care. He was just glad she was human.

He looked outside at the destruction and listened to her talk with a nervous voice.

“Some of the roofs have holes in the top, like they ripped them open and…”

She stopped, but he knew. He remembered watching through the windows as his neighbors were taken, twisting and kicking, into the sky.

“They overturned cars. There’s smoke everywhere. Why haven’t they attacked your house?”

“Why didn’t they attack you?”

She looked down, but not as if ashamed, just in thought. “Three of us came to the area to camp. We were probably among the first to see them, so high on the mountain. Big black things with wings and talons. They took my friends. I was the last one. I hid in the tent. I think deep down I didn’t expect it to work. Then I heard their horrible screeches for several days, but they never attacked. Luckily, I’d had my pack on me when I went in the tent. I had energy bars and water. I rationed it and did okay. Then, today, the screeches stopped. I came out and walked down to where my van was parked. The other cars were overturned with broken windows, but mine, like your house, was untouched. I thought I was blessed, maybe I had a guardian angel. I drove down the mountain and onto the highway. I spotted this addition and noticed your intact house.”

David stared at her van, which sat alone his driveway.

“Orange is a strange color for a van,” he said.

“Orange is my favorite color. Oh.”

“Yeah.”

She smirked. She had it figured too. “My tent was orange, like your house.”

They were in his dining room, eating microwave pizzas.

“I’m surprised you have electricity.”

“The winters can be rough here. I have a generator.”

They were antsy, listening. Would the things return?

“Why orange?” she asked. “Why would they be afraid of it?”

“I don’t know that they’re afraid. Maybe they didn’t want to completely destroy our civilization, so they decided on an arbitrary way to select a small group of survivors.”

“Yeah. I guess that makes sense. And maybe they’re gone now to the next planet and won’t come back.”

That night, they slept in separate rooms. Then the screeches came from overhead. David sighed. He was soon more than disappointed, though, because they seemed to be circling his place. Then he was mortified when there was a loud smacking sound and his house shook. His guest ran into his room and jumped into bed with him. She pulled close.

It happened several more times before the sky grew quiet.

“What do we do?” David asked.

“I don’t know. Let’s just stay here.”

Before the things had come, David had lived alone. He was a fifty-year-old divorcé and hadn’t shared his bed with a woman in years. It was nothing like he thought it would be. He’d not wanted anything more than to cuddle. His guest got up first the next morning. He heard her scream.

Nowadays, David kept his shotgun under the bed. He grabbed it before he rushed out. He found her in the living room, looking out the window, pointing.

“They saved us for something else,” she whispered.

David moved up to the window and saw the giant eggs the things had dropped.

“They’re only around your house.”

Each one was half in the ground and about the size of a Volkswagen Bug.

“They didn’t get your truck,” David said. “Maybe we can run.”

“No,” she whispered, but not in answer to his question. “They’re starting to crack.”

David cocked the shotgun, but it didn’t matter. The things that came from the eggs were too fast, and they had no aversion to the color orange.

“What are we?” she asked.

“We are now the form we assume by an ancient hex,” he replied. “The curse was levied on the ancestors of the one who made me.”

“When you were in Ghana?”

“Yes, my child, while I toured Africa, and she found me as I found you.”

She could see only a flickering light, and it was only when he spoke. “How long will we be this?”

“We must be captured to be set free. Now come be close to me.”

She did not know how to move, but she found she could. She willed the movement of this strange body, and then felt what was like wings fluttering and moved close to the light.

Children’s laughter came through the night.

“Who are they?” she asked.

“They are the ones who will capture us. Now stay very close, so that I might guide you.”

She waited and listened. The laughter grew louder, closer.

“Do I flicker when I speak, as you do?”

“Of course, my child, but not as bright. They might not even see you. That is why you must stay close and be captured with me.”

He began to chant. It sounded like gibberish and she realized he was doing it to make his light glow brighter. A feeling like being in a vacuum overcame her. A metallic sound preceded cheers of joy. The night seemed to move by.

“Have we been captured?”

“Yes, my child. Now you must resist the urge to speak again, and you must be very still. They will take us to their home and think that we are dead and discard us.”

She knew she was supposed to be quiet, but she had one last question. “What do we do then?”

He laughed. “What we do then, young adze, is cease to be fireflies, rise into our immortal forms and drink the blood of those who have set us free.”

Okay, Candy, my dearest sister, I think I’ve got you this time. I’m a physician and know how to make one thing look like another, so I should be able to pull this off. I can make murder look like an accident.

You always were the clever one. I remember my first T-Ball game. I was the only girl on the team. Five years old and up to bat. Hit that ball over everybody’s head and rounded the bases. Turned and looked to the bleachers, hoping to see the smiles on my parents’ faces.

But that’s not what I saw. You made sure of that. You started coughing and sneezing so bad Mom and Dad rushed you to the hospital. I had to ride home with Aunt Sally.

They said you had asthma, and oh, how you could get what you wanted after that. I remember when I broke my leg playing football with the boys and couldn’t move from my bed for a few weeks. That was fine, because Mom sat there and played games with me and read me stories. That was until your inhaler all of a sudden stopped working. And, of course, a lack of air takes priority over a lack of mobility. Mom went to the hospital with you, and I got Grandma, who couldn’t see to read and didn’t like to play games.

A time I like even more than that was when I took up drama. I got to play Juliet in the year-end production. I was so excited, right up to the point you developed your agoraphobia and couldn’t leave the house. You developed panic attacks right about the same time, gasping for air, turning purple and passing out. You looked so pathetic, and, of course, the only thing that kept the attacks at bay was having both Mom and Dad nearby. They got to watch my play on tape, but I doubt they heard much with you wheezing away in the background.

That’s not it. There’s much more. With the agoraphobia still alive and well, they missed my valedictorian speech. They were on the way to my college graduation when you made your first suicide attempt. The second came when I graduated from med school. Then there was my wedding, where you became so emotional you once again managed to stop breathing and had to be rushed to the hospital.

Well, Candy, you’ve thwarted my attempts at love for the last time. Yesterday, I brought my first child home from the hospital. Mom and Dad are on their way to meet him, and I’m sure you’ve got something in mind.

But this time, I’m a step ahead of you. As I said, I’m a physician and I know how to make a murder look like an accidental death. And since Mom and Dad have always thought the worst that could happen to a person was for their child to die, they’ll have to ignore whatever you come up with and stick around to console me.

The cat scratches on the basement door. I’ve been waiting for this. I whisper to your mind.

“You worked hard at the hospital today.”

You’re on the couch, feet propped up, trying to watch television, trying to relax. You can’t release the tension, though, because you can’t ignore that sound, that constant scraping of claws on wood. You can’t hear me like you hear the cat or the sitcom, but you can hear me in a different way.

“The baby will probably wake up crying tonight, and Sheela will take forever to get to it. Then, when she gets up, you know she’ll leave the door open so light comes in and won’t let you go back to sleep.”

Your heart thumps, and your breathing quickens. Your muscles tighten, causing you to sense the pain in the back of your neck. The scratching seems louder.

“Of course, when you get back to sleep, the hospital will call to say one of your patients is crashing.”

At this point, you can’t even hear the TV. You try to ignore the noise, but you can no more ignore that than you can ignore thoughts about the patient complaint from two days ago, the one your colleagues assure you won’t amount to anything but that remains trapped in your mind nonetheless.

“You’ve busted your ass to get to where you are. And you still toil everyday. Yet you have to sit here in the four-bedroom home you pay for and be discomforted by a cat your money rescued from the shelter.”

You clench your fists and shake a little.

“Sheela wanted the cat. Then she wanted the baby, and demanded the cat remain downstairs. Now the cat won’t stop scratching at the door, and she says you should just ignore it. She can ignore it, because her small mind doesn’t notice that much. She doesn’t understand that it’s not so simple for you.”

You stand up, but you’re not sure why.

“Sheela and the baby aren’t here right now. Why not do what you want to do?”

You rush toward the back of the house, to the basement door. I have you now. You grab the knob, give a crazy laugh and shout, “Here I come!”

You open the door. The fuzzy, orange cat is on the top step, looking up at you. You snatch it up, then pull it back in one hand.

“Yes! Do it! Teach that damn cat a lesson it won’t forget!”

Your hand starts to go forward, but stops. You stand very still for a few seconds, then take in a deep breath. You move the cat in front of you and hold it with both hands.

You gently laugh and speak to it in a way that is sickening to me.

“What’s wrong, buddy? You lonely?”

You walk with the cat held close to your body so that it purrs. You take it to the bottom of the stairs, show it where its food and water are.

“See. It’s nice down here.”

You get down on the floor and throw little cushballs for it, pull a string, think nice thoughts about getting the cat a friend to play with.

I’m so sickened I have to go upstairs to be away from you.

Sometimes I think of leaving, but I know I won’t. Your mind is like a trap, and I know once I get a good grip on it, you won’t be able to get me out. I just have to make you throw that cat one time, or maybe kick it, to make you feel the pleasure of violence. Then I’ll get you focused on that neighbor kid who plays his bass too loud, or maybe your wife, who has lost interest in sex, or maybe that baby that screams at night.

I can’t believe I’m doing the splits. A forty-year-old man is not supposed to do the splits for the first time.

Makes me wonder what else I can do.

Let’s see. Here’s how the process works. I find the pain in me, look at it, go to the location of the discomfort, look at the sensation from within the sensation, and the pain sort of melts.

That works in the physical, but will it work in the mental? I guess I’ll just have to try. So, where’s the pain?

A few months ago. We’re separated, just to get some perspective. I’m staying with my parents. She texts me, tells me she has a confession to make, then forces me to pry it out of her. She says, “I had sex with someone in November.”

Okay, still sitting in the splits, feeling the torment of my wife’s words. I close my eyes, look at the hurt. It floats out in front of me, like a gas. I expect a battle. No, it just leaves.

Odd. Maybe that was too easy. After all, sex is just sex. That part didn’t hurt too bad. But then I asked her why.

“Because he gave me what I wanted.”

Here comes the inadequacy. I look at it. It brings its questions for me to answer. I ignore the questions and just look at the pain. It’s brown somehow. It hangs out, takes longer to go away, but eventually dissipates, like smoke into a massive sky.

Wow! I don’t feel so bad. In fact, I feel calm, kind of nice. What else?

We work through the affair from November. I’m still willing to try. I’m still at my parents’ house. More pain is delivered.

She pauses. My heart feels like it will explode. “Yes,” she says, but not in a guilt-ridden voice, but with the sigh of a love-stricken person.

I look at the associated feelings. That’s strange. They’re violet. Somehow, they don’t stick around long.

Wow times twenty! This trick is magic. But there’s no way it would work on that night, the night of the aftermath. Well, maybe. Let’s give her a go.

I lie in the makeshift bedroom of my parents’ house. A thousand miles away my wife is with her new boyfriend. How many Benadryls have I taken? Somewhere between twenty and thirty. Is that enough to kill a man? I hope so. I’ll just fall asleep and die. Nope. Here comes the nausea. Here comes the hammering heart, the cold sweat. Every time I close my eyes, I can’t breathe. Here comes the image of her with him, kissing him, while I die.

Out in front of me, it’s like a red smoke, billowing, but not dissipating, constantly replenishing itself. I repeat the whole suicidal sequence, remembering it all from beginning to end, see myself get up in the morning, vomit sticking to my skin, my chest tight, but alive. The smoke is less intense. I repeat again. I can see through the smoke. Then it dissipates to nothing.

Un-freaking-believable!

I’m going to be okay. When she asked me to come home, I thought I’d never feel this way. After all, he’d dumped her, and she’d made me her second choice. With all of her newfound faithfulness and love, I still couldn’t recover. Now I think I can. I can overcome the pain. The feeling is rapturous.

I wish I hadn’t killed her an hour ago. I feel just horrible. I want to forget about her face, and the way it looked while dying, about the knowledge that we’ll never be together again. I know I can’t handle the associated feelings?

But wait? Maybe I can.

So, she’s in the shower and I walk into the bathroom with a knife. I open the…

“It started with my wife. She works nights.”

“I know. I watch you.”

He hesitated to say more, not knowing what she wanted him to do.

“Continue,” she said.

“She called and yelled at me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter why, really. She just yells sometimes. Then I felt like smoking. So I walked to the gas station. The attendant yelled at me because my shoes were wet. I left with the little cigar, but it didn’t taste good. A car drove by and honked. Somebody shouted something and flipped me off. I’m pretty sure I didn’t even know them.”

“Then what happened?”

He didn’t understand. Didn’t she know all this already? Still, he continued. “I felt like I just needed something. I got on the computer and played poker, just to chat with the other players, maybe feel human again. But even they were rude. I felt hexed.”

“And then?”

“And then I took several Benadryls and chased them with three beers. I just wanted to be out of it.”

“Did it work?”

“Yes and no. Yes, I was out of it, but sleep was no escape. I dreamt of the day my dad told me I was stupid. I dreamt of the time we were at the restaurant and my mother told me I looked retarded when I ate. Then I woke up.”

“And then?”

“And then I heard you whispering. But this time I wasn’t afraid.”

“So do you understand?”

It took only a few seconds to piece it together. He knew what she had shown him. “I’ve heard you before at night, but I’ve always been too afraid. My fear drives you away.”

“Yes.”

“But this time I wasn’t afraid. I hated this world so much that anything unworldly was welcome.”

He lay there in awe for a few seconds, before speaking again. “I’ve been asking you to come and help me for so long, but I had to get to a state where I welcomed you before you could show. How did you do it? How did you make all those people be mean to me?”

She smiled. “The only one I affected was your wife. That got you to a dark plane. The rest fell into place.”

He thought for a few seconds. “So there really are different realities that we travel between.”

“Yes, and now that you’ve finally got me here, you just have to decide where to go next.”

So many memories stirred. “And what of vengeance?”

The disembodied voice laughed. “There are many places for that.”

I’m really going to do it this time. I’m breaking the habit. I’m resisting the temptation. I’m through.

Please, look at me. You now I can’t handle it when you don’t look at me.

I’m sorry. And I know you’ve heard it all before. I know last time I said it was the last time and then I did it again. But you have to understand how hard it is to quit. It’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do. I tell myself to resist the urge, and I fight. I really fight, with all I have. But the more I fight, the more I want it. I did what you said. I just tried not to think about it. But the more I tried not to think about it, the more it haunted me, until I found myself doing it again.

I’ve even tried to take up other interests to get my mind off of it. I play chess online, and I’m pretty good. I work crosswords and I’m not bad at that either. But then it invades my mind, and I can’t concentrate on those things. There’s only one thing I can do.

But I’m telling you, this time, it’s going to be different. Please, look at me. I don’t want you to hate me. I know because of what I’ve done, we can never be together again. I can accept that. But I can’t handle the thought of you hating me. Do you want to see me cry? Do you want to see me beg? Do you want to see me kill myself?

Ahh. There it is. There’s my girl. Come here.

You feel so good. And you look good too. You deserve the best, and that’s what you should get. I’m going to do whatever it takes to quit this time. This time, I won’t track you down and kill whatever man you’ve run away with. Now let’s go hide just one more body, and I promise this will be the last one.

Like so many people are, I am attracted to you. They see your strands of golden hair, see your silky skin and flock to your beauty. They see your kindness to the poor, to the old and to children, and they raise you up like a god.

I am not like them. I love you for a different reason. I love you because your spirit shines. I know they can’t see it, but I do.

Of course, people like you never notice me. You’re too caught up in a world you see as beautiful, beautiful like you, like your spirit.

So I have to adore you from a distance, ever wishing to talk to you, to travel with you, to help you in some way, but realizing it’s a waste of time.

I wish to break away from the grip you have on me. But I can’t. You are just too amazing.

I whisper your name. I say things to bring you to me. I tell you not to be afraid, that I’ll never hurt you, and I’ll never let anything hurt you, but you have to come to me.

You don’t hear. You can’t hear. Only the lonely, the desperate, will ever hear the likes of me. But the lonely and the desperate don’t shine like you.

Then, one night, I see you cry. Something has come over you, and I don’t know what it is.

You’re sitting at the vanity, head down. You think you’re alone in the room, but I’m there, scheming, seeing my chance. I move right up to you, but you still don’t notice me there. I whisper in your ear.

“This cannot be fixed. It’s terrible, and you will always feel this way.”

You sit up straight, look into the mirror.

“The only way out is to end it.”

You stand. I can’t believe it. It’s working. You speak, giving knowledge, the fuel I need to drive you.

“Damn it, Paul. Why did you leave me?”

Yes, Paul. He shines too. He’s your boyfriend. At least, he was. I whisper.

“He won’t come back. He’s stopped caring. There’s only one way to make him care again.”

You turn your head and look right through me like I’m not even there. I see where you’re looking.

“Yes. It’s the only way. Hurry! Do it now! Hurry!”

You move to the sliding door, walk out on the balcony, look over the rail. You place your face in your hands and cry some more. Your will is so strong. Now, just this once, mine is stronger.

“You can’t go on without him. You can’t live without him. It’s the only way.”

You get up on the rail, close your eyes, let yourself fall.

I’m to the bottom before you are, waiting, watching you descend. Your body lands on a car, smashes its roof, sets off its alarm. Nearby, women scream. You get up. Your spirit shines even more now. You look at yourself, seeming to notice the glow for the first time. Then you notice me.

Welcome.