MicroHorror

It did not take a while for Neil to make out the ghost, the one who would soon replace him, in the corner of his living room.

The ghost had all the makings of him, down to the mannerisms and the mole at the side of the neck. It ate with him, went to work with him, and rode beside him on the bus. He could not do anything about it. Neil grew weaker as the thing grew stronger.

Once, he tried to stab it with a kitchen knife. It was half-man, half-ghost then, so there was very little bleeding. It did not die. It disappeared for two days and came back unscarred and undaunted as ever. Now, the ghost was almost human and could no longer materialize at will. Soon, Neil would disappear forever when the ghost was completely human.

Burning a ghost was impossible. Exorcism was only for multiple-personality disorder cases. There was nothing else to do.

Neil’s office manager, the policeman who lived next door, Mr. Grundy at the drug store, the milkman, and his older brother Ted in Nebraska–they had all been completely replaced. Neil could see it in their changelings’ eyes: the gloating, the taunting before the still unclaimed men with a ghost’s inevitable immortality and immunity from any injury or sickness.

These days, nobody wanted to talk about the hateful, hateful ghosts. Every one fought his own battle to keep his body from being replaced.

Next time he saw the ghost who was trying to get close to him so that it could simulate all the right configurations and steal what was left of his symmetry, Neil would try to tackle it and wring the bastard’s neck provided it could not disappear as quickly as before.

Besides, it was already almost human. There was still a chance he could kill it before it was too late.

With so many rivers at hand, drowning now ceased to amaze him. So he learned how to use the rope. It did not give him much pleasure, but he took what he could and moved on.

Red-faced and squatting before the remains of his last victim, he was caught a century ago. His captors cut off his bloody hands which were smeared with the torn flesh of the newborn he had devoured. Then they cauterized his eyes with a welding torch.

Torture was inflicted one day at a time, but nobody dared kill him lest he would be reborn in another time and place where no one could recognize the mark of the beast on his wrist where his pulse was.

They called him Jack, and he was never left alone since.

People from around the world flocked to the small town of Bardenstan, where Jack’s prison cell was located. He could be viewed through a wide porthole after paying twenty dollars to the Ticketmaster at the gate.

Three physicians worked round the clock to nurture him with an IV feed, to check his vital signs, and to administer the torture which was televised twice a week during primetime. He was flogged, sodomized, castrated, scalded, etc. All in the name of peace.

His screams of pain comforted the world. It was recorded and played on the radio. Children were lulled to sleep by it. Parables were written about him.

Everybody felt safe.