MicroHorror

The sky was a sickly pale yellow. Twilight came early, which meant there was no time to waste.

The men worked in teams, moving through the rows of headstones with grim determination upon on their faces. One of the older men, a man named Sully, told the others that this would mark the twenty-fifth year he’d performed this ritual.

The preacher came, and his prayer was brief. With bowed heads the men listened, hearing the words often read from Psalms. The blessing was more for the living brethren than the dead. It was fortification for the job at hand.

When the preacher was done he went back to sit down in his car, an old silver beater. He did not go anywhere.

It was unspoken, but his very presence made the men feel twitchy. He sat in his car with the windows up, Bible in hand. No one wanted to think they’d need his services again.

Sheriff Drake stood just beyond the graveyard. Rifle in hand, eyes shaded by dark glasses, he waited.

It was almost like a dance: the men performed, working in sets of two. One took a list of all the names as the other applied the mixture to the top of each grave. It was a simple formula, but as miraculous as any drug: one cup of sand, one cup of water, one cup of salt.

Sully’s wife mixed up the brew into a paste the might before, as she had every time the full moon was coming, for many years. Grandma Sully had done it before her, and perhaps three or four other unfortunate Sully brides before that. There were specific instructions that at least one cup of the mix be placed onto each grave, smeared onto the dirt. They used an old measuring cup and patted the paste down with a shovel.

The Sheriff removed his glasses and looked skyward. The sky grew a shade darker, as if something large had passed before the sun.

He tensed, and pulled the safety off of his gun. .

It happened, not every moon, but often enough, that the men missed a grave, or that the moon rose too fast for them to complete the task. Maybe a drop less of the salted earth was placed, one drop too little to stop the Rising.

Sheriff Drake heard a dull keening, a moan, and the unearthly crunch of something rising, pulling itself from the ground.

Drake yelled for his men to fall back, and they did as they were told. Forming a line at the entrance of the cemetery, the policemen drew their guns.

As the Undead rose, Drake and his men shot them back down to the salted earth.

It was dark, and he sat in front of the computer screen, barely awake.

The lights were out. Somewhere on the street outside, headlights swept past his living room window.

He’d been sitting like this in his office since four thirty, the beginning of twilight.

It was now past six, and he had not bothered to get up and put on the lights.

Having worked on an advertising proposal for the better part of the day, he was exhausted. Stretching, thinking about the leftover pot roast still in the fridge from the night before, he stood and yawned.

A pop-up came on screen:

Sarah13705 has sent you a message.

That’s strange, he thought. Sarah should have left work by now and was most likely making the slog through traffic back to her apartment. It was rare that she ever sent him an instant message, anyway. Usually she just called or sent a text.

He clicked on the box and opened the message.

Are you home? it read.

He sat down and typed in his answer: Sure. Are you coming over tonight or what?

It took a moment for the reply.

Actually, I am sending a delivery over to you. Make sure you get it. I purchased some naughty things for you.

His mind began to race with possibilities: lingerie, toys? One never knew. Sarah always appeared to be this buttoned-down rich little Daddy’s girl, but she was full of surprises.

No hints? he typed back.

No. You have to wait and see.

You’ll just have to wait, baby.

The doorbell rang, and he signed for the package. It was fairly heavy, all wrapped up in a glossy red box. As the delivery man pulled away, he turned on the lights and closed the door behind him.

It took a few minutes for him to unravel the paper. Finally, he had a little black box in his hand, not much bigger than the size of a hat. He opened it, and there was a letter inside.

The front said “I love you,” in Sarah’s slanted handwriting. There was an arrow and the words beside it: turn over.

The back read “Too bad you don’t love me, too.”

There was a bunch of tissue in the box. He suddenly felt dread. He reached under the paper carefully and felt cloth.

In his hand he lifted a little lace bra. The smell of perfume still clung to the fabric.

His face turned red. This was not Sarah’s.

There seemed to be something else in the box, something much heavier. He reached in and felt the edge of something metallic.

Now he understood. How Sarah had been overly sweet, making him pot roast and calling him every few hours, smiling, but her eyes boring holes into his back every time he wasn’t looking. This routine had been going on for the better part of a month.

Just how long had she known he was cheating?

He heard a tick… one… two… three.

He tried to toss the box, but it bounced off the wall and landed at his feet.

The explosion rocked the whole street.

“You don’t seem to understand,” Elena Paulson insisted. “This does not belong to me.”

The woman stomped her foot, grinding her heels against the pavement to make her point. She would have wagged a finger at him too, the parking attendant thought in amusement, if she had not been wearing a diamond nearly the size of his head. They were in front of Marty’s, one of the trendiest restaurants in LA.

He shrugged and held up the keys. “Miss, I am sorry you seem to be having an unpleasant day. But this is the car that you drove up in. Perhaps you’re thinking about one of the other cars you left at home? The Porsche, or the Bentley?”

“You arrogant little prick,” she shot back. “Do you know who I am?”

She actually lifted her sunglasses a little, to give him a peek at her face.

“Miss Paulson, you come here every Wednesday and most Saturday nights. Yes, I know who you are.”

“I did not drive here in that car.”

“Miss Paulson,” he said in his kindest, lowest voice. He put the keys in her hand and gently squeezed it shut. “Let’s speak softly, shall we? A scene here on the street in front of the restaurant and the paparazzi will be all over it. They have abused you enough in the press, haven’t they?”

She seemed shocked. For a minute he thought she might just slap him. Instead she took a little step back, nodding her head affirmatively. Sadly, what he said might have been the kindest words anyone said to her all week.

“Now,” he whispered. “Miss Paulson, I realize you’re overwrought. But you must calm yourself. You gave me the keys thirty minutes ago and went into the restaurant. I took it around the back to park it. And I noticed something was wrong with the taillight. Miss Paulson, I looked in your trunk. There was a dead body in there.”

Elena Paulson was quiet. She shoved the dark glasses back over her eyes. She was trembling, just a little. He knew now she’d listen to whatever he had to say.

“Now, you don’t have to worry about that body anymore,” he told her, his eyes narrowing. “And you should not feel bad about it. You know, you weren’t the only client Wally stole money from. I’m surprised half the city is not after him. It’s people like him that give everyone a bad name.”

She shook her head. “What about my car? DNA evidence…”

There was an edge to her, which he liked. She was working the angles like a good businesswoman. He knew she had it in her. You didn’t get to the top of the music industry without some hardness in you.

“You need not worry about that. We’ll take care of it. Think of this car as being on permanent loan from the owner. We keep it around just in case… one of our clients might need help.”

“And what do you get out of this? How do I know I can trust you?”

“You’ll just have to go on faith.” He grinned. “There won’t be any traces of Wally to find. Our chef has great knowledge of how things should be prepared.”

She rocked back on her stilettos, almost falling over. “Excuse me?” she choked.

“Come now,” he said. “I own the place, and my son manages it. We’re a family outfit. Now, you did kill the man, regardless. You’re not going to get all high and mighty and vegan, are you? Because if you said anything, to anyone, your dirty little business would be out.”

Wally had been an awful boyfriend: a lie, a cheat, and a thief. But she didn’t know how she was going to feel about him being served up as someone’s dinner.

She got in the car, fighting the urge to be sick.

“If you’re squeamish,” the man said, “you may want to skip the prime rib on Saturday.”

The elders never talk about it.

Like veterans back from war, their days and nights are filled with visions they cannot forget. No one dares speak of the days before the Great Darkness.

As our Father told us one night, when it was quiet and there was just the family gathered around the firelight, people are too busy bowing to the new monsters to worry about the old ones.

Back in the days of the War, before the world went dark, they believed we were the only creatures that existed on Earth. Other than the animals, man was alone on this Earth.

Where do the Others come from?

We started calling them that. It was the best way to describe them. Their faces aren’t… right. Their limbs are overly long, and they walk in a sort of slumping motion. Their eyes are huge, with teeth that look like they belong in the mouth of a shark.

You can smell them coming.

When they walk through the factory where I work, all the people grow silent, knowing what will soon happen. The smell of ashes cloys to them, as if their skin is made of it. Their speech is a language that does not use tongues, but is a scraping, clicking noise emanating from their throats and the grinding of their teeth.

One only prays that they do not speak to you.

There is usually a human that they keep with them, a female, who can translate their orders. None of us are sure how it is that she can understand them.

They walk around in black uniforms, caps pressed against their heads, grasping whips in their hands. Just in case someone gets out of line.

It is rare that anyone does.

We are taught from childhood that humans are not to make eye contact. They often wear dark glasses. Once, by accident, I saw one of the Others take his sunglasses off and polish them. His eyes were almost like a human’s. But there was a red cast to them. And a stillness, an emptiness that was not normal. It reminded me of the cold, steady eyes of a snake.

The Others walk through our cities, with guns and knives to keep us quiet and compliant. Making and enforcing the law is their realm alone.

Those that do not obey are never seen again.

I am here and now. I have existed forever.

I have lived so long that it’s come to the point that I cannot even fathom all of my own past. I can tell you this: there was a beginning. When the world was young, so was I.

I may have been alone on the shore when the sea was new. I remember feeling a part of the air and the wind, how the water that cooled me was a new sensation. I was a part of it all, a being that was corporeal, but knew no difference between itself and the outside world.

For decades I was carried on the sea into this confusion that humans call the modern world. Time is nothing.

I will always be.

If I could touch you, I would, because it’s been so long since I have…

When was the last time that I did? It’s hard to remember. But you’re a human man; my touch may kill you.

What name did they give me? I know they called me Mara. I sang songs. I drew men to me. How perfect they were for all of their imperfection.

How their eyes light up when they see me. Upon that moment, I am their ideal, full of life and irresistible; I am what they have waited for all their lives, the thing that they cannot resist. No two men ever see the same woman when they see me.

But they will all tell you that I am the most beautiful woman that they have ever seen.

How many of them dived into the depths for me? How they kissed with abandon, as I pulled them down into the water, sucking the last breath of their lungs into my mouth?

In those moments, the last of their lives, I drew in all of their essence: their life, their need, their pain. To take this is the depth of ecstasy. They give, and their vision of me flows away as does the last of their spirit.

My soft arms turn cold and hard, made of bones and not the softness of skin. My long hair tangles them into a mass of dead seaweed.

My song is the first of the sea, the last of the sea, what all men that sailed in ancient times grew wise enough to fear.

I am Siren.

“What would you like to do tonight?”

We were standing on the rooftop together. Below, the city was alive with bright lights and the noise of traffic rushing by. This had always been my favorite time of the night, the time just after twilight when the darkness infused the air with feeling of newness.

There were empty bottles of wine on the table behind us, along with a candle that now burned low, pouring the scent of sandalwood into the air. We were the only people on the rooftop, an intimate space for two.

Morgan was smiling at me, barely concealing how much he wanted to laugh. It made me angry, though I knew the feeling would not last for long.

“Liylah…? You didn’t answer my question.”

“I know.” It was hard to concentrate. I wondered if this was an effect of the wine.

The traffic, voices, noises of the people below blended into a miasma of sound.

He moved so that he was behind me, and put his arms around me, pulling me against his chest. “You can’t just listen to all of it; the noise is too much. Learn to tune it out. That should be your first lesson,” he whispered. “It is not about concentration. It’s about not opening yourself up to it.”

“Stop,” I whispered. And the sounds flowed away, at first, just lower, and then, they were gone.

“Very good,” Morgan said. I felt oddly like a child learning the alphabet. He kissed my cheek. “There are many things you’ll find yourself able to do now. Just don’t have fear. Center yourself, be confident. It’s the fear that can kill you, not the things that you’re afraid of.”

I heard what he was saying, but I was not really listening. It felt like his words came to me across a long distance, disjointed, unreal.

I remembered him standing in my apartment, how he kissed me. Was that the last time we were together before tonight? That seemed forever ago.

Why couldn’t I remember?

“Tonight, everything is new again,” he said. “For both of us. Just know this: fear is dangerous. The only way to control it is to go forward. Into it.”

He went oddly still, and so did I, my body registering that something was about to happen.

I did not realize that he had pushed me until I was falling through the thick air. The lights and the noise and the smells of the city were racing, coming up to meet me. I tried to scream but there was no time. My mouth was open and the air was rushing down my throat, so fast that I thought it would strangle me before I ever hit the earth.

Stop, stop, stop.

Those words were my only prayer.

The air slowed around me. I was still moving, but much slower.

I closed my eyes. Surely this is hell, I thought.

I would plunge to my death in slow motion…

I opened my eyes.

I was standing on the street, unharmed.

My body felt hot, energy and fear and something new pounding through my veins.

Morgan was there, with his arms crossed, his dark eyes shining. “That’s my woman,” he said. “I am sorry I had to frighten you. But how else to make you believe what you are now?” he said in a whisper. “This disorientation, it does not last for long, but you will be this way for a while. You’ll lose time. I will protect you.”

My eyes widened with realization.

The memory of a kiss that was not only a kiss… but a bite.

The sweet wine, so thick, too rich to even taste the taint of copper beneath it.

Morgan’s touch, and the electricity I felt when his skin touched mine…

He confirmed my fears with his words.

“Liylah, tonight we will feed. No more being a halfling. You’re a vampire.”

We take your memories, bits of them at a time.

If your blood is your DNA, your heritage, the living personification of all you are, then your memories are the core of your soul. At least blood can be replaced.

I have done this procedure dozens of times over my many years at the Center, and it is a new experience every time. It always fascinated me.

They brought a man in from the barracks in the middle of the night. It was clear that they’d already started the process, had gone past the point of interrogation. His head was dripping wet, from the snow outside. His chest and feet were bare. He shivered uncontrollably. The two soldiers had a hard time keeping a grip on his cold, wet skin. His thin pants were soaked all the way through.

“What did you do all that for?” I asked as they strapped him into the chair in the lab.

“He’s a Resistant,” one of the soldiers spat, tightening the restraints around the man’s arms.

“Doesn’t look that way,” I said. He wasn’t fighting anymore. Certainly he was too cold to do much of anything. “It doesn’t matter; you should have brought him here first. I can handle even the most stubborn Resistant. What you’ve done now will set me back. His body temperature has to be regulated.”

“You’re going to warm him up?” the second soldier asked, indignant. I suppressed a chuckle. It couldn’t have been pleasurable for this lieutenant and his comrade to fight this man in the snow.

“As I said, this should have been your first stop.”

I turned to my table then, preparing the tools that I needed. The soldiers left us, arguing in whispers between themselves.

My patient lay very still, with his eyes closed. Trying to block out what was happening. I did not blame him. He did not know of the pain that was coming.

For the moment, he would have comfort. My assistant brought in what I instructed: heated blankets, a thermal shirt, a towel to dry his hair.

As she prepared the patient, I read through his history.

There wasn’t much to it. He’d been brought here for crimes against the state, which could mean anything. More than likely it meant he was a worshipper of the Old Religion, a blend of mysticism and animistic faith. He had many aliases, but the one that seemed most prevalent was the name Jared.

Sometimes, he went by Jack.

It sounded familiar to me, distantly.

I closed the folder and asked my assistant if she was ready. She gave a sidelong glance at the man. I could tell she found him attractive. According to what I read he was only twenty-five. That would make things go easier: the longer the store of memories, the harder to erase, and the longer the process.

“Yes,” she replied softly. “Yes, he’s ready.”

We began.

He was injected first, with a drug to stimulate brain activity.

Another drug was administered to keep him immobile.

Eyes propped open, a machine was brought down over his face to shine a light, keeping his head still and his eyes focused on the screen before him.

It took a while to connect into his thoughts. It’s odd to say, but it was like he was on… a different frequency, one might say. At first, the images were blurry and hard to understand. This is the way many Resistants are. They do not conform to the usual stimuli. I was able to break through and get a good connection to him.

The first image was a small boy, holding his arms out. “Daddy!” he yelled with glee.

I froze as the next image moved into view.

My own face, some twenty years ago. I picked up the little boy and held him in my arms.

My own memory had been modified when I joined, years before…

A tear fell from my eye. I had not remembered my own son!

Mr. West, you’re going to kill me. I know it. Wait a minute; let me tell you what happened.

I was on Mills Road, getting ready to cross over on the bridge. I had the headlights on. I saw something flash past me where the side of the road meets the woods.

You know, I thought it was a dog. I saw feral eyes, reflecting the light. I had the windows up; I shouldn’t have been able to hear a thing. But I swore I did hear it.

A growl.

I sped up a little bit as I entered the bridge.

Well, that there is when it happened.

The inside of that tunnel was dark, and tonight, even the headlights seemed not to cut through it.

I felt the impact… the windshield cracked but did not break. That scream, I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I have never heard nothing like it.

I realize it was wrong to keep going. I stopped once I cleared the bridge and had gone down the road a piece. I had to get somewhere I could see.

I got out my flashlight and a blanket my wife keeps in the trunk. And I took my gun. I’m not sure why, but in these parts a man is going to reckon he’ll need a gun more often than not.

I saw him, just before I got to the bridge.

It was your son Johnny, Mr. West.

All bloody he was, and naked as the day he was born. I thanked God I had that blanket, the boy was shivering so. It struck me as odd he’d be naked, but he was hurt bad.

So I put that blanket over him. I wanted to move him, but I was afraid that it might make things worse. They tell you if someone has broken bones you can hurt ‘em bad if you twist them, pull them the wrong way. I figured I’d done enough damage already.

And then I remembered. I left that damn cell phone in the car.

I just stood there, starting to lose it. Could I risk going back to the car? What if somebody hit him? It’s a lonely road, but you never know. One of the Remus brothers might come rolling through, drunk as hell, and hit poor Johnny.

You and I both know, Mr. West, a drunk Remus ain’t stopping for nobody.

I was just trying to get this figured out when it happened.

Sweet Jesus, the boy was screaming, and now he was trembling. And right before my very eyes, he started to change. His limbs were getting… longer. His body was darkening with hair… I saw his face change, change into something not human. It was something with teeth. Something with claws…

He stood, and when he did, he was a good two feet above me. You know, I ain’t no little man. And I have never had to look up at something like that before.

He growled again, this time loud enough to almost burst my eardrum.

I swear, Mr. West, I have been a hunter all my life, from the time I was knee high to my daddy’s rifle. I pulled the gun out and I shot him.

He kept coming at me, I kept shooting him.

Now, I apologize for them silver bullets, Mr. West. That’s my wife Louise’s fault. She heard all the stories about us having wolves around here, I had no idea she’d changed out my regular shells for silver bullets.

I understand if it had been regular bullets it would put him down for a bit and he’d have healed up just fine by morning. I swear I’m sorry about Johnny, I didn’t mean to harm your boy, he was a good kid.”

“You said it,” the werewolf groaned. “Johnny was a good boy. Don’t fret, my other sons aren’t home yet. I’m not greedy,” the werewolf said, slavering. “We believe in sharing.”

My angel told me what needed to be done.

He summoned me to the forest. As dark the night was, the moon cut a clear path for me to follow into a clearing. I counted this as a small blessing. When I reached the end of the trail the angel stood there, with his foot on a stone.

His eyes were fire. He told me in a voice that was so clear, so loud, that I should come to him.

I had never seen the likes of him before. He was beautiful. His frame was that of a soldier: tall and thin, wiry, muscular. His hair was light. And his mouth, rounded and soft, smiled at me. There was a form of brightness behind him. The light was so bright that it hurt my eyes, but I could see they were wings.

He said come, and I came, even though everything inside of me told me to turn away.

He handed me a shovel, and told me to dig. A treasure would soon be revealed to me.

Not knowing what to expect, I did as instructed. I dug until he told me it was enough.

By then, the sky had begun to lighten. The dark would soon pass into morning.

I paused. He took the shovel from my hand, and tossed it away.

He touched my hand as he did so, and the feel of his flesh made shivers run through me. So bright and beautiful he was that I had expected his touch to be heat. Instead, it was the deepest of cold.

He bent near, and a draft of his icy breath touched my cheek. I stood, unable to move. And he pulled me to him and kissed my mouth.

His kiss was ecstasy; I felt as if I were floating, my heart beating too fast. He pressed himself hard against me. Beneath my half closed eyelids, I looked into his face. I saw the light of his eyes turn into pitch black, like crude oil spreading through water.

I stumbled backwards, trying to get free of his grip. And I fell into the shallow pit that I had dug.

“Mmmmm,” he growled, the low, guttural sound coming from deep in his throat. He licked his lips. “So very sweet, you taste. You must ask, if an Angel should tempt you into the woods, one important question. What is his name?”

My peripheral vision was shrinking, until there was nothing but him, his bright wings and his now black eyes. I knew the answer, but I could not help myself from asking.

“What is your name?”

He smiled, and the terrible beauty of his face was all coldness, like his breath, like his mouth, and emptiness like his eyes.

“Dear one. My name is Death.”

I can’t feel you anymore.

I woke this morning and felt the absence of you. It used to be that I was more aware of you than my own breathing. Your thoughts ran a sort of wavelength beneath my own: a form of wordless background noise. That is the way that I remember it, as far back as I’ve known you. This empathy is part of what bound us together from the beginning.

I know you so well. I know your routine.

Sometimes, I’d count your footsteps as you crossed the kitchen floor above me.

You had to have your morning coffee with a cigarette. You like eggs and bacon, toast thick with butter.

I miss the sound of the radio playing. I miss that song that comes on every afternoon. It’s an old rock song about standing in the darkness and not being forgotten.

I can relate.

It’s only been two weeks I’ve been here, but it feels so much longer. I may not have been the perfect wife, but I loved you fiercely. I told you from the beginning that I was different.

And you knew that, didn’t you? We have known each other since we were little more than children. Surely an ordinary woman could not read your mind.

You loved me back then, didn’t you? We spent our teens together and married young. Somewhere in this basement, I still have our wedding album.

We were happy back then.

That was before you realized the truth.

I trusted you. And I shouldn’t have.

You never minded at all when I worked my abilities to your benefit. Mind control is such a subtle thing. A little push here, a tug there. Make that banker give you a loan for your construction business it should never have qualified for. Make your rivals meet with unfortunate accidents that caused their deaths. Who would think anything of it? Yours is a dangerous business anyway, isn’t it?

I could do with a simple suggestion what you could not accomplish for years on your own.

I think what happened to your brother was too much. His blood was thicker than anything I had to offer you, wasn’t it? How many times can I apologize? All I can say is that he came after me, and I am your wife. Some boundaries should not be tested. Yes, I killed him. I made his heart stop. There was an artery, with just the slightest defect which he’d had since birth. And with a little push, the quickest of thoughts, I was able to make it collapse.

To everyone, it was a tragedy, the natural death of a man in his prime. I am sorry for the pain this has caused you. Your brother got what he deserved.

I saw how you stared at me during the funeral. You knew.

So, you put me down here, in the basement. It was to protect everyone from me, you said.

Who, my darling, did you think would protect you?

I never imagined, with all the love between us that I could hate you. Life shows us things we cannot imagine.

Yesterday morning, I closed my eyes and thought of you. I pictured you sitting at the kitchen table, eating your eggs. And I imagined what it would be like if your throat started to constrict. How your eyes would widen because you couldn’t swallow.

It will take another day or so before they find your body slumped over the table. They will find me locked in the basement. I will tell them how stricken with grief you were, and that you locked me down here for two weeks.

That much won’t be a lie.

Maybe, if you hadn’t been alone, I could have helped you. Maybe if you hadn’t locked me away in the basement, you wouldn’t have choked and died on your own gall.

It’s over now, my darling. I wish you peace. Better yet, I promise it. You won’t forget me.