MicroHorror

1. Waiting until the last minute to buy a costume.
2. Using cheap candy.
3. That hokey-looking scarecrow I put in the yard.
4. Letting one of the children escape alive.

• Copyright: © 2007 Nathan Tyree

Last year they smashed all my pumpkins. The year before that they kicked over the cardboard graveyard. Three years ago they tore the bats and witches from the old Elm in front of my house. This year they won’t get the chance. If they take the candy from my bowl they’ll die slowly. If they refuse, the ax should do.

• Copyright: © 2007 Nathan Tyree

Evers took aim. The figure ringed in the circle of his scope moved along the strong axis, left to right, and Evers breathed in and held. His finger applied the least pressure necessary. There was no sound as the projectile exited the rifle and crossed the terminal distance between Evers and his target. The figure fell. It became a pile on the ground. Then the figure began to fade. It became momentarily transparent, then vanished.

Evers took aim on the next.

Then the next.

Soon the street was empty.

Evers switched from the sniper rifle to grenades. He had thirty-seven in his inventory. He flung two down into the street before jumping off the edge of the roof. He hit the street and rolled. Pools of blood were still fading before vanishing and a bit got on his shoe. He left faint blood prints as he ran down the street and around the corner. In the distance Evers could hear sirens. He opened the door of a waiting car, threw the driver out and sped away, remembering to avoid the water.

***

Sergeant Tolliver climbed from his car and surveyed the waste. Their were bodies littering the street. Blood was everywhere. There were shoeprints marking the direction the killer had fled. Tolliver rubbed his hand across his mouth and turned to one of the uniformed cops already on scene.

“What the fuck is this shit?” Tolliver asked.

“Looks like we got a sniper, Sarge. We think he was on that roof up there,” he said pointing two stories up. “We got no witnesses, obviously.”

“Son of a bitch must be crazy to do all this,” Tolliver shoved his hands into his pockets and took a second look around. The carnage was overwhelming.

***

Evers entered his apartment. He changed clothes. He knew that he’d be safe. The cops would forget about him now.

• Copyright: © 2007 Nathan Tyree

Hurley scooped up a handful of dirt and sifted it through his fingers. The soil was fine and rich and moist. This year he’d finally make a crop. The tomatoes would grow well in this. He began to plant. After an entire day in the sun he was done. His clothes were soaked through with sweat and he could feel the distant threat of a sunburn in the offing. It was worth it, though. Looking over the rows of plants he was glad that he had gone through all of the preparation over the last few months. Satisfied that he had done right, Hurley slept through the night.

When he awoke it was with a sense that he had forgotten to do something. He was halfway through his shower when it hit him: there was still one in the basement. He hadn’t processed the last of them, which meant that the garden hadn’t been ready. There should have been twelve of them, chopped up and mixed with the soil one per month for a year. Somehow he had neglected to do the last one. It had been his excitement at being ready to plant. Perhaps it wasn’t too late, he thought.

Hurley found the drugged boy in his basement and chopped off his head with the old ax. That done, he tossed the head in a steel drum with the others. They were useless. Then he dismembered the rest of the body. It took hours to get the bits small enough. He gathered all of it up into a double-layer garbage bag and carried the wet mess out to the garden. Hurley fell to his knees and began slopping handfuls of the boy into the dirt around his plants. He kneaded it into the topsoil, pushing and squeezing to get the mix right. As he worked he started to weep that it was probably too late. It would be another year without tomatoes. He was still on his knees weeping and working the remains into the rich soil when the policemen arrived.

• Copyright: © 2007 Nathan Tyree

Channel 19

Some sort of black slime seems to be covering the lens. Either that, or the cameraman has applied a horribly scratched and grease-smeared filter. Whichever, the scene is near impossible to see clearly. The only thing that we can be sure of is that this is a static shot of a small room with a single chair in the middle. Beyond that we are in the dark. A sudden jump cut gives us a view of the same room. The image is clear now and the chair holds a pretty young girl, naked, tied securely. Her eyes are alive with terror. A large hooded man approaches with a serrated blade and begins to slice.

CLICK.

Channel 36

A gray man in a white suit is thumping his fist on a pulpit. He insists that the world will not be safe until a) all the homos have been killed and b) all abortionists have been killed. He also mentions, in passing, that God needs money.

CLICK.

Channel 47

Three zombies on long chains are ripping a screaming little girl to pieces.

CLICK.

Channel 52

A corporate shill pretending to be a newsman is lying about the situation in the Middle East.

CLICK.

Channel 68

An attractive girl who was almost a star last year, but faded fast, is talking about the benefits of a new pill that will make your cock bigger and harder.

CLICK.

Channel 77

A government shill pretending to be a newsman is lying about the President’s new plan for rounding up heretics.

CLICK.

Channel 83

Lesbian sex. Wait… yes. Lesbian sex.

CLICK.

Channel 84

Two shirtless men face each other. They hold a boxing stance. Instead of gloves they are wearing large metal rings with sharp spikes on each finger. They begin flailing their fists into each other’s flesh. Droplets of blood impact the lens, obscuring the view.

CLICK.

Channel 96

The President’s latest National Security Chief (the last one was hanged for treason) is insisting that the nation is not about to go to war with some small Mideast country that most Americans have never heard of. In fact, he states, the nation has always been at war with that country.

CLICK.

Channel 99

The picture is out of focus, and the camera lens looks dirty, but it is just possible that in the corner of the frame there is a man being raped by trained dogs.

CLICK.

Channel 108

Pastor Hank DeSavey of the First Patriotic Church of God of the Apocalypse (FPCGA) is demanding that all patriotic, God-fearing Americans rise up against the left-wing conspiracy to smear the good name of our President (who, it is implied, may be the second coming of the Messiah).

CLICK.

Channel 19

The hooded man is doing something to the girl’s head. She seems to be dead now.

CLICK.

Channel 83

Lesbian sex. We settle in for the night.

• Copyright: © 2006 Nathan Tyree