MicroHorror

Amy put down her popcorn bag and nudged Jane’s arm with her elbow. “You hear that? I hate it when people make noise while I’m watching a movie.”

“Yeah, totally,” said Jane. “Sounds like someone’s crying. And it sounds like a guy.”

While the couple in Broken Hearts gazed at each other with adoring expressions, Amy and Jane looked around the theater for the noise-maker. But they only saw two other women with boyfriends slouched deep into their seats.

“Not them, they’re asleep,” said Amy.

“Heh, they’re embarrassed to be at a chick flick,” chuckled Jane.

“At least they’re quiet. This other guy is really annoying me.”

The crying sound stopped.

And then started again.

Irritated, Amy peered into the darkness until she saw a dim shape move two rows in front of her. The shape leaned forward into the flickering light thrown from the screen, revealing a shark-like creature with a long, sinewy body covered with fins and tentacles.

She gasped. “What is that… thing doing here?”

The creature clutched a lacy handkerchief in a claw-tipped fin, dabbing its slobbering, jagged-toothed face. “The movie poster promised that hearts would be broken and ripped apart!” it bawled. “But these humans remain intact! And the ‘meet cute’ scene was incredibly clichéd.” It leaned back and growled. “Well, I’ll just have to make my own happy ending.”

Jane and Amy screamed as the creature ripped out the chair next to it and took a large bite from the cushion.

The shark creature fixed them with its large, inky eyes, and then placed a tentacle over its chewing lips. “Shh! No talking,” it hissed. “I hate it when the main course makes noise while I’m eating the appetizer.”

 Arwyn limped across a blasted landscape lit by a dying moon. He had reached the land of Tamar, a far desert that lay empty under a sullen sun save for the bones of those wanderers foolish enough to enter. An amulet, purchased from an old witch with several silver coins, protected him from the unceasing winds, freezing nights, and the buzzards that flew above him in the pale sky in ever-tightening circles. His knapsack had fallen away and his boots became tatters, but he pushed himself forward to reach the ancient castle that glimmered in the distance.

For inside the castle was the only copy of Manfred the Mad’s infamous book, Visions of Tamar. Anyone who dared to read the spells within would either become the most powerful leader in the world, or perish on the spot, so charged were their powers.

Arwyn drew ever nearer, not caring about the danger. He had paid the witch many more silver coins to learn that Manfred was his ancestor on his father’s side. The book was rightfully his. With its powers, he would rule Tamar as an immortal and cast dark spells of enchantment across the land and the lands beyond.

“It is my destiny,” he muttered to himself through parched lips.

Weeks passed until he arrived at the castle’s door, an enormous, moldering slab of wood carved with the strange runes of a forgotten language. It opened in silence to reveal a tall man with a hooded black robe wrapped around his gaunt frame.

“Welcome, Arwyn,” he intoned. “You are indeed Manfred’s worthy successor. Follow me.”

Arwyn walked behind the figure through long, dank corridors lined with moldy flagstones and vast, chilly rooms with sunken floors. Pale wraiths peered at him with dark eyes from behind crumbling columns and beneath rotting furniture.

The guide drew back a faded tapestry hanging. “Here is the treasure you seek.”

Arwyn cried in triumph at the sight of the black leather-bound book resting on a stand. A weak light emanated from its gilded edges, a dark gold cloud in which faint shapes swirled. But as he turned the crumbling pages with shaking hands, he saw that the book was blank. No texts, no illustrations, only dull yellow parchment.

“Why?” he whimpered.

The guide pushed back his hood. Arwyn screamed as he beheld the terrible gaze of Moluthar, the trickster demon.

“This castle is Tamar,” said Moluthar. “Or rather, what is left of it. After Manfred created it, he went mad and used the spells for his debauched pleasures. Most of Tamar disappeared but the castle and the wastelands remained. But before he died he cast with my assistance one last spell for a descendent, equal in his lust for power, to come and succeed him.” The demon held up a small bell of tarnished silver. “So rule Tamar and its ghosts you shall, for all of eternity.”

As the hideous sound of the warped bell resounded in the room, Arwyn’s feet became rooted to the cold marble floor. His eyes darted around in his immobile face, searching for help. But the only thing he heard was the laughter of Moluthar, which no mortal can hear and remain sane.

Alistair sliced through the thick vine with a machete. But instead of falling, it lashed back and wound itself around the explorer’s waist.

“Why do you cut us?” hissed an ancient, buzzing voice. The vine hoisted Alistair upwards until he was several feet off the ground.

“I heard the life-giving gold of Eldorado was buried here,” he gasped, struggling.

The vine tightened its grasp. “It was,” it hissed and raised Alistair up another foot. “How do you think we became so strong?”

It hurled the explorer to the ground where another, more slender vine then seized him by the throat.

The skeleton crawled across the damp ground, its eye sockets glowing with ancient, long-cherished revenge.

A man appeared in the fog, brandishing a shovel. The skeleton flung up an arm bone and snapped its creaking jaw.

“You’re not going anywhere, Old One,” said the sexton.

The skeleton probed the man’s leg with a sharp finger bone and then pushed itself into the sexton’s body. The man’s own skeleton crumbled into a fine dust within his body as the Old One settled into its new host.

The sexton walked across the foggy graveyard, his eyes glowing with ancient, long-cherished revenge.