MicroHorror

“Nothing I could do about it… It’s hopeless,” Charlie complained in agony under the blankets. “I’m a lost cause, Terry.”

I looked at my long-time friend as we sat there in his obscure living room. He had kept the blinds closed through quite some time now. The apartment was a mess and the stench was so intense that I had to cover my nose with my shirt occasionally and breathe in through my mouth.

“You should see the doctor, Charlie. It’s gotten worse, hasn’t it?” I asked the wrapped-up pile over on the couch. The blankets pulsated in a shiver.

“No! No doctors! If you bring a doctor in here, Terry, I’ll never forgive you. I still get around… Can’t go outside anymore, though, but I can live with that.” He ran short of breath. Since the last time I spoke to him there was a change in his voice too. A change that scared the living piss out of me! His voice had gotten deeper, more nasal and snarl-like.

“You ought to just go away. Leave me alone from now on. You can’t save me… Please, I’m begging you!”

It was painful to see him like this–not to mention the speed and increase of the transformation. It was horrifying.

I remembered the day three weeks ago when it all began. Charlie had called me on my cell phone, sounding both afraid and euphoric. He wasn’t making much sense as he rambled on about “changes,” “magic” and “the fluid in the jar.” So I rushed from campus to his apartment. He was sweating like a dog when I got there, grinding his teeth and gesticulating wildly, his hair pointing in every direction. He talked extremely fast, using a very private kind of logic that made him sound on the verge of a psychosis.

“Terry, Terry! Glad you’re here. Come on in, there’s something I’ve got to show you!” Today, I wish he had never shown me what he did…

“What is that?” I asked when I saw the brown jar on the table in the living room. His eyes shone with enthusiasm.

“Indescribable. I’ll show you.” He started walking over to the table.

“Where did you get that?” I went over beside him, leaned forward and looked into the jar. A thick, clumpy and green mass floated around down there. It smelled like rotting fruit. Charlie pulled up his left sleeve and put his hand into the jar, penetrating the surface of the moisture.

“Watch this…” he said in a hoarse voice, eyes bulging out of their sockets. He kept his hand in the bubbly moisture for a few seconds and then hauled it up.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake… My God, no! Charlie, what have you done? What is it in that jar?”

He just looked at me, holding out his left arm so I could see where his hand had been. Now it was… gone, invisible.

“Don’t worry. Hand will reappear in five or ten minutes. Magic, huh?” he said with a mysterious grin on his face.

“You’re crazy, man… That’s madness! What is that fluid in that jar, Charlie?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what’s in there. I found it behind the complex yesterday,” Charlie said and stared hypnotically at the jar.

A thump over by the couch dragged me out of my memories. Charlie had fallen or crawled down on the floor. He moaned. It was a disgusting, gurgling sound. His head appeared over the edge of the table. I pulled back on the chair. The voice was now unrecognizable.

“Terry… for… God’s… sake…”

Charlie’s face was all covered with some sort of green, mold-like fungus. Clearly it was spreading fast. There was no doubt in my mind about what I had to do. I reached in my jacket pocket and pulled out the borrowed .38 and pointed it at the thing over by the couch.

“Sorry, Charlie. May God forgive me,” I said and pulled the trigger.

• Copyright: © 2009 Morten Carlsen

Something wasn’t right; Gwendolyn knew that much. She couldn’t describe the feeling precisely. In her young, six-year-old life she had never felt anything like it. Although you knew in your heart that something was wrong it could still feel right. Feel oh so right… Her cheeks blushed as the October wind stirred her pretty blond hair. Brown leaves twirled and blew across the lawn as if they were disturbed by some invisible force.

Over the horizon dusk had approached like a grizzly hand. Gwendolyn always had a strange feeling in the dusky hour because it seemed as if the world went into cramps and closed in on humans like narrowing walls. The world simply produced a far more intense scale of claustrophobia when darkness fell. At least to Gwendolyn… She shivered standing there on the porch-steps listening to the brushing sounds of the crops in the field near the house. It wasn’t just the cold wind that sent chills through her bones; it was also these husky sounds from the wavering crops. And, oh, my God, that voice…! Twitching and laughing and shrieking.

She knew she had to act fast if she wanted to avoid getting caught in the process by her dad. Gwendolyn turned around on the porch where the white paint had crackled and looked at the jack-o’-lantern. It stood there with the lit, looming grin beside the front door. The light inside it flickered and carved unsteady shadows on the wooden beams.

The attraction it had on her was indescribable. As soon she locked her eyes on the sharp-toothed, grinning face some transparent power field sank upon her and blocked everything else out. She gazed long into the pulsating, triangular eyeholes. The voice which had only been a whisper before intensified into a deep, blurring roar like fire catching on.

She remembered the day before when she and her dad carved the pumpkin in the kitchen. It had been fun and a late afternoon filled with laughs. At that time this… thing had only been a… pumpkin; something completely natural and safe. But now it was something more… something dark. Gwendolyn looked at her toes, embarrassed at her own thoughts. Even though it had this dark, intense magnetism it was all the same so… beautiful. The most beautiful thing she had ever seen. For the first time in her life she truly loved someone besides her mom (who died when she was three), dad and their dog, Sully.

Her dad was still not in sight. Quickly, she picked up the jack-o’-lantern and ran towards the cornfield. With the orange sculpture in her arms she rushed through the cornrows without looking back. The warmth from the surface of the jack-o’-lantern oozed into her palms and sowed an unknown, almost surreal, calm in her body although she ran along.

By the far end of the cornfield the old Ferris wheel at the abandoned carnival ground rose to the gloomy sky like a sad, forgotten iron mastodon.

As the cornrows ended she rushed into the carnival ground where nothing much was left besides the rusty, creaking Ferris wheel and a battered shed. Trips to the carnival came into her head like echoes of the past.

At the foot of the Ferris wheel she stopped, still holding the grinning head in her hands, and looked up at the big wheel where the gondolas swayed on their hinges. She knew she had reached her destination. A short gasp escaped her as the Ferris wheel began turning slowly. Flakes of rust fell to the ground; the gondolas cried out in high-pitched tones. The wheel stopped and she saw the black shape sitting in one of the gondolas.

“I’ve been expecting you,” the shape said in a strangely moist and musk-like voice. She climbed into the gondola and the wheel began turning.

Gwendolyn sensed a smell of burnt coal and sulfur. Below the old Ferris wheel the cornrows cackled.

• Copyright: © 2009 Morten Carlsen