MicroHorror

“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.

Hailey sat in her room alone at night, long past the time when good children slept.

The house was quiet, her whispering parents asleep by the glow of a mute television screen. And in her room, six-year-old Hailey felt worlds away from them.

She sat up with the covers pulled up to her chin.

Tonight, the shadows were thick. They moved like smoke, with fingers and eyes that stretched wide.

The shadows had teeth that shined in the dim moonlight.

And tonight, the shadows insisted on talking.

No one else could hear them. This was something Hailey learned the many times that she called for help. No one else could see them. But she knew they were real.

The shadows told her of things that would happen. They told her the night her next door neighbor died. They told her about the storm that destroyed a row of houses a few miles away. The shadows knew many things.

The shadows told her of her parents’ quiet desperation, and that they were thinking about sending her away.

Hailey put her hands on her ears. She did not want to hear more.

The shadows had no mercy.

In the past weeks, there had been a string of counselors, therapists, whatever Mom called them, that came to see Hailey. The shadows made their thoughts bare to her. How strange, the minds of adults, filled with silly things that were hard to understand. Mostly, she felt their unease. Such a beautiful child. So intelligent. But disturbed.

That particular word, disturbed, came up a lot.

The shadows said it was a nice word that meant crazy. Dangerous.

In the stillness, in the dark, the shadows screamed.

When she could stand no more, she pulled a box of matches from her bedside table. She had been saving them just for a night like this one. The only thing that scared the shadows away was fire.

So she lit the matches, one by one, and threw them to the floor.

As the smoke started to curl upwards, she reveled in the clean scent of it. She knew the consequence, but couldn’t stop herself. She had to make the shadows be still.

Yet, Hailey knew. One more fire like this, and her parents would send her away.

She only hoped that there, the shadows could not reach her.

The dream always starts the same. She does the same thing each time.

She stands in the front room of the house. It’s so hot that the air doesn’t move, even with the fans turning overhead. Now and again a bit of breeze comes in through the window, but it feels like a breath of heat from the oven.

One day, I’m going to move into a house near the ocean, she thinks to herself. One day, I’ll buy a place with air conditioning that works past the winter.

The hands of the clock show three o’clock.

Because of the heat, the front door stands open. The screen door is so dark that at first she does not realize someone is standing there. She hears the knock, and sees the man through the dusty mesh of the door.

She squints her eyes.

He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He runs his hands through his hair.

She opens the door, blinking at him in the harsh sunlight.

“Yes?” she blurts. He smiles awkwardly, as if he needs to apologize for something he hasn’t said yet.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you, ma’am.” She catches a trace of southern accent. His blonde hair is short and spiky. “Please, I was wondering if I could use your phone. My car broke down a ways down the road and I need a tow truck. This darned cell phone,” he takes it from his pocket. “I swear it’s not good for anything.”

She pauses. She is alone, and the next house isn’t for miles.

If his car is really down the road, she surmises, he will have to walk miles before getting help. In this heat, it could easily be the death of him.

“Please…?” he asks, sensing her hesitation. He widens his blue eyes. She finds herself staring at his impossibly long lashes.

“Come in,” she says, stepping aside.

He comes in, and she walks back to the kitchen with him. She shows him where the phone is.

And this is the part of the dream that becomes hazy.

Somehow, the kitchen seems dark. The blinds are shut. He says nothing.

Somehow, he is very close to her, and she can hear his breathing.

His hands are cold when he touches her. He touches her arm, and this is a delicious thrill, like having her hot skin stroked with ice.

Now she moves towards him, and his arms come around her. “Darling,” he whispers. He laughs, softly, intimately. They are old friends, aren’t they?

“Give me, darling,” he whispers. “Just a little drink. I won’t hurt you. But I need you to quench me.”

He touches her neck, sweeping back her hair.

His cold lips are sweet. She closes her eyes and thinks of cool things, like pools of water and the taste of ice cream on her tongue.

When she comes awake, she does the same thing each time.

She is lying on her couch. She is all right, except she is hot, and a little dizzy. She will sit up in a moment, and when the room stops spinning she will make her way into the kitchen for a glass of water.

She will stand at the sink and run some cool water into a cloth to put to the side of her neck, where she feels a strange, somehow pleasant tingle. She will close her eyes and feel a chill flow through her body. She will not notice the faint trace of blood on her neck.

The rain pounded a hollow drumbeat on the roof.

Justine closed her eyes again, knowing that sleep would not come.

If there had been anything else to do, she would have gotten up. But the electricity had been off for hours, and it was, after all, the dead of night. There was no reading to be done in this darkness, no phone, no internet.

She was shut off from the world.

Or at least, any part of it that she might have wanted to access.

Route 71 had been washed out by rain; that much she heard on the radio before the battery finally died out. And with that road gone, no one was getting through to return her power.

For fall, this was normal weather. Mudslides and sudden rain storms.

She sighed and turned over. There was a strange energy in the air. She felt it. Almost like the smell of ozone after lightning had cut through the air.

Listless, she rose from bed and made her way to the kitchen.

She was able to find a glass along with the stash of bourbon from the cupboard. This was not her usual drink, but on a night like this libations seemed in order.

She had the glass to her lips when it happened.

A lightning strike filled the windows in the living room, so blinding that it was for an instant as bright as day. The form of a man stood out, a black shape as malleable as a pool of tar.

Not outside the window. Inside.

His knee… or where his knee should have been was resting against the edge of her couch, as if he’d been sitting there just a moment before.

The glass shattered against the floor. Another lightning strike and this time thunder rattled the sky.

She blinked.

She didn’t see anything.

Stepping carefully, she tried to avoid the glass. She thought she’d gotten away from it cleanly when she felt a shard press deep into her tender flesh. Now her unwanted visitor was only one of her problems.

Hopping on one foot, she made it into the bathroom. She was able to remove the bit of glass. She bled for a while. Sitting on the edge of her bathtub, she held the towel over her foot, applying pressure for what seemed like a long time.

She listened to the sounds of the house.

Stillness. More rain drumming on the roof.

It had been years since she’d seen a ghost, and she was wondering, why now? Why tonight of all nights? Her gift was also a curse.

Clearly, there was nowhere to hide.

She hobbled into the bedroom, and sat there. She breathed in deep, trying to control her fear. And once she had calmed herself, he appeared.

The form came up from the ground, a shadow peeling itself from the floor to become whole. And once it was whole, it took a human form.

“It’s been a long time,” the man said, “since we’ve come to you.”

She shook her head. This spirit, she knew. He’d haunted her many times before. He called himself her Guide. “I hoped we wouldn’t see each other. What do you need me for?”

He sighed. “We’ve had this talk before, haven’t we? You want to know why the dead seek you out?”

She wanted to know a lot of things. Why she could go for months, even years without seeing the dead. But she said nothing. He knew her well enough to see what was in her eyes.

There were others coming now, forming from the ground as the Guide before them had. Their dead eyes beseeched her. Some outstretched their hands. Others groaned. Soon they would fill the room.

“Justine,” he said softly. “I know it’s not what you would have chosen. But you must realize why they come. They don’t like to be alone.”

The man handed the bride a champagne glass. She raised it and drank merrily.

“May I have a dance with the bride?” he said.

The man was tall and good looking, with dark hair and brown eyes. He looked to her vaguely familiar, but she could not place him. He could have been one of the cousins of her many bridesmaids, or a brother of her classmate. She just couldn’t be sure.

But as he extended his hand to her, he smiled. He seemed harmless enough.

And it would be disrespectful not to allow him to have this one dance with her, wouldn’t it?

She looked around and saw her new husband in a corner of the room, laughing with some of his groomsmen. He was too far away for her to catch his eye. She realized that the man had taken her hand and was gently steering her to the dance floor.

Zasha caught a glimpse of herself in one of the overhead mirrors. She almost did not recognize herself in all the finery. The wedding gown held every ounce of her body in place. Her bare shoulders and arms were the only things that were not constricted. Even her hair was done up with a tiara in the front, the veil spilling from the back.

The partygoers were loud and happy. She sighed as the man swept her up in a casual embrace and started to dance with her to the slow music. He hummed softly, his voice a smooth baritone.

“I assume you’re a friend from my husband’s side of the family?” she said lightly. And she lifted her head, punctuating her words with an almost businesslike smile.

“Oh, I’m afraid not.”

“Do you know my Father?”

His smile was gentle. The kind of smile you’d give a child who doesn’t understand you.
“No. I’ve come for you.”

Now she was feeling truly alarmed.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Just as she was about to pull away, he turned her in his arms and pressed his lips to her ear. “I’ve come here for you, Zasha. I gave you a little something. An antidote. You’ll see; it will start to happen soon. When they die… and they all will die… I want you to come to me. I will be on the only ship left in the harbor.”

He let go of her and ran out the door.

She ran behind him, as best she could in her dress. And when she felt hands pulling her backwards, she nearly screamed.

It was her husband, Matthew.

“Zasha, where do you think you’re going, woman?” he teased. And he kissed her mouth and held her tight. The crowd clapped and screamed in approval at their display of affection.

She said nothing. It seemed insane. As the night wore on, more dances, more kissing, more wine, she was almost able to put it out of her mind. Soon the time came for Zasha and Matthew to return to their bungalow for the evening.

In the room, they drank more. They made love and afterwards stared through the window to the stars out on the shore.

Zasha only noticed the masthead of a single ship as she drifted off to sleep. But by then it was too late.

When she woke, Matthew lay still beside her.

Too still.

She cried and screamed and called his name. But he was dead.

She left the bungalow and began to search the island, looking for help.

And there was no one. Every single person she came across was dead. Some in the streets. Some in their beds. When she reached the banquet hall she screamed. Some of the people had fallen at the very tables, looking almost as if they’d fallen to sleep.

But they were not.

She turned towards the harbor, remembering the words of the stranger. Only a single ship was docked there.

And she knew he would be waiting for her.