MicroHorror

My little brother had a small party for his ninth birthday. A few of his friends from school were there, eating cake and ice cream in the back yard. Dad hung a piñata from a tree branch and they hit it with a broomstick until it spilled candy onto the grass. I wasn’t invited.

I paid my little brother a visit late that night. “Hello, Danny,” I said.

He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. “Huh? Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Danny. Your big brother Tom.”

“I don’t have a brother!”

“Ssh! You’ll wake up Mom and Dad!”

“Where are you? I can’t see you.”

“I know, Danny. I’m talking inside your head. Nobody can hear me except you.”

“Huh?”

“I’m dead, Danny. I died before you were born. On my ninth birthday.”

“What happened?”

“We went to Splashdown, the big water park in Clarksville. It’s not there anymore; they closed it and tore it down. All of my friends were there. I went down the big slide, and into the pool at the bottom. My bathing suit got caught on something, I don’t know what, down there right at the end of the slide. I fell down, and I got trapped under the water. I tried to get up, but people kept coming down the slide and landing on me. I couldn’t stand up. I couldn’t breathe. Nobody came to help me– I guess they didn’t know I was in trouble. I drowned, and I died.”

“Wow… uh… did it hurt?”

“Yes, Danny. It hurt very much.”

“So… uh…”

“Yes?”

“Why didn’t Mom and Dad ever tell me about you?”

“They wanted to move on. They blamed themselves, and even though they couldn’t admit it, they wanted to forget about me and have another kid. So they had you. It’s funny– you were born exactly one year after I died. We have the same birthday. For your ninth birthday, you got cake and ice cream and a piñata. For my ninth birthday, I died. That’s not fair.”

“What do you want? Why are you here?”

“Oh, Danny. I thought you’d be smarter than that. I’m here to get what I deserve. I want what’s rightfully mine.”

“Huh?”

I woke up the next morning, yawned, stretched and got out of bed. I went downstairs. Mom and Dad were in the kitchen. Mom smiled when she saw me.

“Good morning, Danny! How does it feel to be nine years old?”

I smiled back.

“Good morning, Mom. Good morning, Dad. I feel great. What’s for breakfast?”

Dear Santa,

Everybody says you’re not real, but I know you’re real. I’ve been extra, extra good this year, and I can’t wait for Christmas.

I don’t have anything fun to play with here. Back home I had all kinds of great toys, but I don’t have anything fun here. I’m bored.

I want some knives just like the ones we had in the kitchen back home. They were really nice and shiny and sharp. I had so much fun playing with my mom and dad and sister. That was a really fun day. But now I’m here, and I don’t get to play with anything fun anymore.

There’s no chimney here, but I know you can get in anyway to give me my presents. I’ll even take my pill and go to sleep, because I know you don’t like people to see you. I’ll even hide the dessert from my dinner tray and save it for you. Thank you, Santa.

Love,
Billy Watson, age 9

P.S. If you can’t bring me the knives like I want, can you bring me a puppy? I know I’d have lots of fun playing with a puppy.

Mitchell was lost in the woods, and he wasn’t happy about it. What had started as a simple afternoon’s hunt had turned into a two-day expedition. He must have dropped the compass when he took that tumble over that loose rock earlier. He even tried the old trick of following water downstream, but the creek only tumbled into a small crevice and disappeared from sight. He wasn’t worried, though; he was an experienced outdoorsman, and the weather was cool and pleasant. He’d find his way back to civilization eventually. No, what really bugged him was the fact that the hunt, his whole reason for coming out here in the first place, was turning out to be a disaster. He hadn’t seen a single thing worth shooting at, not even a squirrel, since yesterday. He crested the top of a hill.

Mitchell stopped, blinked, and stared. He’d started to think that he was the only living creature in these woods for miles around, but there, below, in a sun-dappled clearing, was a blue nylon tent. The blackened remains of a firepit lay a few yards away, and a tin coffeepot rested beside it. Two folding chairs completed the tableau. Campers! By the looks of things, they’d left their campsite for a hike, and would be back any time now.

Cheerful now, Mitchell descended into the clearing. He hid behind a tree, put on his mask, drew his machete and waited for the campers to return. It looked like this hunting trip wouldn’t be fruitless after all.

Henry Frankenstein couldn’t concentrate with Ingrid behind him. The warm flesh of her bosom and the cold steel of her Luger pressed into his back. The Ratzis had kidnapped Henry to his ancestor’s castle to build Hitler an unstoppable super-soldier.

“Macht schnell!” shouted the blonde. “For ze Fuehrer!”

Henry pulled the lever. Millions of volts leapt into the creature on the slab.

The creature stood, roaring.

“Destroy the Nazis! Her first!” cried Henry. The creature advanced on Ingrid.

“Vas? It vas supposed to serve ze Fuehrer!”

Henry smiled. “I may be a mad scientist, but I’m an American mad scientist!”

March 17: Hey, everyone. Thanks for supporting TheFontMonger.com; I’ve been getting some great feedback about the last few fonts I’ve made. Anyway, I’m sorry I haven’t updated in the past few weeks, but I’ve been busy working on a fantastic new font. I based it on a hand-written book I found way back in the university stacks; it was in Latin, I think, so I couldn’t read it, but I loved the letterforms. I’m really proud of this one, and I think you’ll enjoy it, too. I called it Ghastly, and you can download it from the directory right now. Check it out!

March 22: This is fantastic! Nearly a thousand downloads of Ghastly in only five days! I can’t believe it! I’m glad you’re all loving it so much.

March 25: I’m really sorry about this. I’ve had to take Ghastly out of the directory; I think it’s doing something weird to my system. Every time I open a new Word document, Ghastly shows up as the default font. It’s even been showing up in Internet Explorer. I’m going to poke around in the code and see what’s going on, and I’ll get the font back up as soon it’s sorted out. In the meantime, if anyone else has been having problems, please let me know.

March 30: Oh, jeeze. I can’t apologize enough. Please, if you’ve downloaded and installed Ghastly, delete it now! I’m starting to have these blackouts, and every time I wake up, there’s a fresh document on my monitor. I swear I’m not typing these; I can’t even read them! They’re in the same language as that old book, and of course it’s always the same font. I don’t know what I did, but frankly, I’m scared.

And speaking of those documents that keep showing up, does anyone know what Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn! means?

“It is well known,” said Professor Vanderwijk as he ducked to avoid a flying teacup, “that poltergeist activity is the result of restless spirits possessing furniture and other objects. But what happens—” he jumped over a small rug that was attempting to trip him— “when those occupying spirits displace the souls of the objects themselves?”

“The objects’ souls, Professor?” said Brian, the younger of the old ghost hunter’s two assistants. A flock of knives circled the chandelier in a worrying fashion.

“Of course. Take, for example, that end table beside the chaise lounge. Or, perhaps I should say, that end table that is rapidly hurtling towards the far wall… oh, my.”

“Well, it’s firewood now,” said Janey, Vanderwijk’s other assistant. “What was it?”

“Eighteenth Century, I believe,” said Vanderwijk, raising his voice to be heard over the chandelier, which had begun shaking its crystals into a frenzy. “Possibly from the reign of Louis XV. Is it any wonder that an object exposed to so much history would start to develop its own personality? It might form very strong opinions indeed. Brian?”

Brian didn’t answer. He was on his hands and knees beside the chaise lounge. He stared forward, seeing nothing, and was perfectly still.

With a few final clicks, Randy added Pink Floyd and the Doors. The perfect playlist was complete.

Dave edged towards the door. “Yeah… I don’t think I’m up for this today, guys. Thanks, though.”

“You sure?” said Becca, perched on the edge of Randy’s bed. “It’s really good acid.”

Dave sighed. “It’s just… well, I’ve done acid once before, and… I had a bad time.”

Randy turned, furrowing his brow. “What happened, man?”

“Well, I tried it at home, a couple of years ago. I’d gotten it at a concert the night before, but I was afraid to do it there. So I dropped the tab at home, and tried to relax and enjoy it, but these… centipedes started coming through the walls! It was horrible.”

“You were alone? No wonder you had a bad trip!” said Becca.

“Yeah, man,” said Randy. “You should never be alone your first time. Now, c’mon. I’m here, Becca’s here, we’ve got good music, I’ll put something nice on TV… It’ll be great.”

Dave scuffed his toe on the carpet. “Oh… all right.” He sat down on the bed next to Becca.

Smiling, Becca reached into her pocket and pulled out squares of blotter paper inside a plastic bag. They each took one and placed it under their tongues. Randy turned on the Cartoon Network.

About an hour later, Dave looked up. “Okay, I think it’s starting to kick in. I’m feeling… something…”

Randy screamed. Becca screamed.

The centipedes were coming through the walls.

The screaming didn’t last long.

It was horrible.

The starlet collapsed in the lobby of a hotel in the Bahamas. Half an hour later, her publicist was on every news channel, informing the world that she had died.

I didn’t watch the news. I was upstairs in my room at that hotel, logging on to eBay. Bidding was hot on my auctions of her memorabilia. Autographed photos were going like hotcakes at $200 a pop. The old issue of Playboy with her as the centerfold was selling briskly at $150 for a copy. Even the novelty bobbleheads from her short-lived reality show were going for a decent $50 apiece.

Satisfied, I closed my laptop and started packing. I had to be back in the States before the inquest, and I had a lot of work waiting for me, shipping out all those collectibles. I wanted to get it all squared away before I met the next pseudocelebrity on my list, on vacation in Hawaii.

At this rate, I’ll be a millionaire before the year is out.

The drifter wandered onto campus on Christmas Eve. A few students remained despite the break, and laughter streamed from the windows of the Phi Delta sorority house. The very notion made the drifter’s stomach churn. All those girls, defiling the birthday of our Lord with their obscene music, and their frilly underwear, and their faces painted like whores… something would have to be done.

An unalarmed hardware store equipped him with hammers, pliers and other delightful instruments with which to carry out the Lord’s will. By sheer luck, the drifter also encountered an unsuspecting Salvation Army fundraiser, whose Santa suit would serve to conceal his identity.

As the evening wore on, the merriment inside the Phi Delta house showed no signs of abatement, and the drifter could stand it no longer. In the back of the house, he found an unlocked window. The drifter pried it open with ease, and entered.

From the kitchen, he could see the girls’ party in the living room. It was worse than he had imagined. They wore nightgowns which barely concealed their bodies, and they were dancing! Selecting a hatchet from his sack, the drifter advanced.

The girls turned to face him, surprised. Then a redhead smiled. “Hey, look, it’s Santa!”

“Santa!” cried a brunette. “What did you bring us?”

“Let’s find out,” said a blonde.

Later, as the girls licked the last of his blood off their fingers, they agreed that the visit from “Santa” had made this the best Christmas ever.

I know a lot of kids don’t think it’s cool to like high school, but I disagree. Good old Wintersburg High is great, and there’s no place else I’d rather be. I have lots of great friends here, and I’m really grateful to my teachers for everything they’ve taught me.

Let’s take Coach Maxwell, for starters. He’s the best football coach in the state, and everyone knows it. Yeah, he runs us ragged at practice, but we’ve made it to the state championships six years in a row! You can’t argue with success. Go Wildcats!

But I don’t want you all to think I’m just some dumb jock, so I also wanted to say thanks to Dr. Burneigh. She teaches biology, and she’s one of the best, most interesting teachers I’ve ever had. She’ll answer any question you have in class, no matter how dumb it is, and she’s always patient. And I’m not just mentioning her because I want an A for the semester, either!

Mr. King, our drama teacher, is also terrific. He says I’m a natural actor, and he always encourages me. You know, it’s interesting to learn about the history of all the plays, but I love the improv exercises most of all–they’re lots of fun, and they teach me how to think on my feet.

But as everyone knows, school isn’t supposed to just be fun. It’s supposed to teach you skills that will help you succeed in real life, and that’s the biggest reason that I’m so grateful to all my teachers. Like, when I’m talking to girls, I need to seem real sincere and convincing, and I have Mr. King to thank for that. They really believe that my arm is broken, and I need help carrying stuff! Of course, once they’re inside the van, I usually need to overpower them, and the credit has to go to good old Coach Maxwell for helping me develop the strength and stamina I need. And then, when I’m all done and I’m ready to cut them up and take my souvenirs, well, let’s just say that things would be a whole lot messier if it weren’t for all the anatomy I’ve learned from Dr. Burneigh. She’s the greatest.

I love my high school. It’s where I learned everything I need to know.

Go Wildcats!