MicroHorror

“A fine portrait indeed, sir. And so your ancestor Roderick would have won, but for a magnanimous gesture?”

“It would appear so. He had drawn first blood and the matter might have ended there–should have ended there.”

“But the challenger would not hear of it?”

“That’s right. Suddenly he proclaimed it a fight to the death. Roderick had no such wish or intent. He had only accepted the challenge as a gesture to satisfy the older man’s sense of honor and now here was that same man, wounded and yet still determined to shed the blood of his rival.” De Bere leaned over and filled the other man’s glass.

“This is an excellent claret.”

“It is from my own vineyards–an exceptional year. I’m glad you approve, Racine.”

“So Roderick lost the fight but retained the vineyard?”

“By no means. He did not lose the fight.”

“But you said he did not prevail.”

“Nor did he. He tried reason, to persuade his foe that there were less… final ways of settling their dispute. He even put up his sword. But the other man attacked him from behind.”

“From behind, you say?”

“Precisely. Hardly the actions of a gentleman.”

“Quite so. But in that case he must surely lose the fight.”

“Ah, but that is the meat of the tale. The fates intervened.”

“How so?”

De Bere leaned forward, clearly animated by the story. “I have heard it told so many times and still it thrills me in the retelling. Roderick tripped on a vine root before the stroke fell. The challenger stumbled and fell over him as he lunged forward in his murderous vehemence, and all at once the sword flew from the blackguard’s hand, upward into the air and, as he lay winded on the ground, it pierced his own deceitful heart. No vine has grown since, where he fell. The soil bears a black stain. I can show you the place.” He drank deeply.

“No need. I have seen it.”
“You have the advantage of me, sir?”

“I thank you for your hospitality but now I think it is time to finish what our great grand-cestors started.”

“What?” De Bere stood to his feet.

“You never utter the name of the man who brought that righteous and justified challenge ’gainst Roderick De Bere. Perhaps you do not know it?”

“It has been considered bad luck in our family for three generations to pronounce the name of… of…”

“Augustine Malevola? The name dropped like bad blood between them.”

“And you?”

“His great grandson, Justice Malevola Racine, oh yes. The fight was not over a woman, as you have been taught. Nor was Augustine the person who attacked from behind. It was all done for land. It was for the disputed vineyards and for settling an age-old family rift that went farther back than even these two could remember.”

De Bere began to be afraid. He had no weapon, no wish to fight and even less wish to die. “You said you come… to finish this?”

“Yes. I bear you no personal grudge. I see no reason for us to be enemies just because our ancestors were greedy and foolish men. I have my own rank and standing. I need no other’s.”

DeBere breathed again.

“Only this I ask; that you no longer perpetuate this story–this lie. Augustine Malevola was a good man–a family man with a loving wife who mourned him deeply though she never knew his fate, for he was buried here, where he was murdered.”

“I…”

“Yes, murdered. But we shall say no more about it if you will agree to this.”

“The story, truth or not, will die with me.”

“Then let us just drink a toast in this good wine: to new formed friendships and old disputes laid to rest.”

De Bere filled the glasses and such was his relief that he did not he notice Malevola’s sleight of hand, nor the bitter taste of death.

“Should have worn wellies.”

“Pardon me?”

“Wellington boots.”

Derek swung round but the only other person in the allotments was an elderly man. He was seated three across, one down, under an apple tree with his hat down over his face, dozing. It was that kind of day–humid after thunderstorms.

“Bill always wore wellies.”

“Who’s there?”

Derek was getting really annoyed. He looked through the perimeter hedge but there was no one. A sudden breeze chilled him.

“Oi, mister!” A boy screeched his bike to a halt by the picket.

“Oh, so you think I should be wearing wellies, do you?”

“I never said aught about wellies… Are you taking over from Bill?”

“That’s right.”

“It’s just he asked me to look after the key to the shed ’til someone took over. It’s been two year.”

“What shed? Why didn’t he come himself?”

“Dead.”

“Ah.”

“Bill Wellies.”

“What’s all this about wellies?”

“It was the old man’s nickname, that’s all. Never knew his real one. Best allotment around, though.”

“The moment I set foot here, someone said I should be wearing wellies. Was it you?”

“No. Beats me. Any road–here’s the key, there’s the shed,” and he whisked off on his bone shaker between the lots.

There was indeed a shed. Strange he hadn’t noticed it. It looked pretty rickety and Derek thought, as he tramped over the tussocks of grass and weeds, that it wouldn’t take a key to get in. He’d put up a new shed, a spacious shed. One where he could have a quiet pipe. He peered in at the window. It was too dirty to see. He inserted the key in the rusty padlock. It opened easily and the door creaked outwards.

“Unbelievable!”

The shed was stuffed with wellies: green ones, blue ones, black rubbery-looking farmyard ones, a pair with daisies on, red shiny wellies with elasticised tie tops, bright fireman-yellow wellies, wellies with a picture of Bill and Ben the flowerpot men on the sides–wellies! They were stacked in pairs on shelves all around the walls and on the floor. Spider-Man wellies hung on string from the apex of the roof.

Curiously, there were no tools–hoe, spade, fork–zilch. Derek looked at the size of the first pair to hand; tried one on. It fitted. Sporting the shiny red wellies, he stepped back out onto the shambles that was the lot.

Now it wasn’t overgrown at all. It was full of runner beans in bright red flower, tomatoes ripening; there was a strawberry patch all strawed up and with fruit ready for picking. He stooped and picked one. It was deliciously sweet.

“See–told you you needed wellies.” The old gentleman had joined him on the lot.

“How’d you get here so quick?”

“See you plumped for the red ones.”

“You’re…”

“Bill’s the name. Bill Wellies.”

“But you’re…”

“Dead. I know. No excuse for slacking, though. Now don’t you worry about a thing. We’ll help with everything. Soon make a gardener out of you.”

“We? Who’s we?”

“SOGGY–Society of Gardening Ghosts. It’s okay, lads–he’s not scared, you can show yourselves.”

A team of spirits appeared, wielding spades, hoes, rakes, chicken wire.

“We’re all specialists in one type of fruit, veg or flower so you can’t go wrong. Roy here likes roots, Bernard’s brassicas and Doc does dahlias, don’t you, Doc?”

Seventeenth-century dahlias, Derek thought, by the look of his garb.

“You likes dahlias, Derek, doesn’t you?” said Doc, grinning toothlessly.

They swished past him and some of them through him and came back, each wearing wellies from the shed and arguing the finer points of manure.

“I’ll just let you get on then, shall I?” said Derek. All he’d really wanted was peace and quiet and a place to smoke his pipe.

“Can’t do that,” they said. “You’ve gone and chosen your wellies now!”

And that’s when he noticed, too late, that Sydney had a scythe.

(For the girls at East in Morpeth)

It was close to closing time.

“Just be aware, madam, that this one has an inner slip.”

“Thank you,” I said calmly and pulled the curtain across. “I don’t expect it will fit, but…”

“Our sizes are quite generous, madam.” She smiled sweetly but I knew…

Generous for stick insects, I thought…

It was Wedgwood cotton; you know, the kind that’s cool and creamy and pale, dairy-maid cheesecloth and meant for summer–the perfect dress for such a hot day. I just knew it would have a soothing, fresh linen feel so I whipped off my clothes down to my underwear and slipped it over my head.

It was like being underwater, swamped by a sudden wave of frothy white. I could see the light above but I couldn’t get there. Between me and the light, a swathe of thin white cotton veiled the way. So I pulled upwards on the neck, back over my head to examine the inner workings.

“How are you getting on in there?”

The assistant was blond, slim, attractive. I couldn’t possibly admit…

“Fine.”

Once more I put my arms inside the dress. I could put them straight up through and out the neck. Carefully I lowered the opening over my head. It was like being wrung in a mangle. Something was twisted so the dress wouldn’t pull down and the more I pulled the tighter the twist became. I tried twisting it in the opposite direction. It didn’t work. Not only that but now I couldn’t get the dress to come back up over my body and the thin strip of silky connective ribbon threatened to strangle me. I swear this damned dress is haunted. At last a twist in the direction of spin loosened the garment’s grip and I was free.

“Any use?… Call if you need help.”

In your dreams, beanpole.

The only way to get in, it would appear, was to go in arms first. This time I made sure the inner slip was entirely in line with the dress. I looked down through. I looked up through. There was no one in there–nothing. It was as empty as a magician’s casket.

“Right,” I said with renewed determination. I raised the garment above me with both arms wide apart and in line with the sleeves. In this way the dress ought to slip down over the head as a natural consequence of the arms drawing into the sleeves. It worked–at first.

But the slip contrived to cling to my body and as I pulled the dress down, it protruded out of the head hole and covered my face. I couldn’t get at it now since my arms were outside of the dress–out and up to the sides like a Frankenstein monster. My head was so thoroughly encased in the ectoplasmic white cotton the only sounds I could make were muffled and indistinct. The head hole was blocked. The skirt fell over me like a tent. “Hemph,” I called. “Hemph!”

A sharp pain crumpled me. It was in my back, then my head, as if some evil had slipped inside me. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.

It was the dress or me.

I became the Hulk. I heard seams rip and cotton tear. I flung my shoulders wide, hit out and recognized the sound of splintering glass. I wrestled the dress to the floor. And that is how she found us, the dress and me, engaged in mortal struggle. And she tried to make me pay, pay for the damaged dress, the wrecked changing room, the broken mirror. Bad luck. Very bad luck for her.

I expect they’ll find her tomorrow, tied up in the back of the shop with that malevolent dress. She may survive the night but I don’t give much for her chances. That damned dress is evil, you see… haunted… I’m sure of it.

When I got up yesterday morning, I’d vanished. I know that’s weird and nobody was more surprised than I but when I looked in the mirror I wasn’t there. My hands and feet felt real. My boobs were intact. It was just that I had no presence anymore.

My bed had been slept in. The sheets were warm so I thought I hadn’t died. I did my usual ablutions, got on with my day, but it was strangely empty.

I don’t normally bother much with people but something’s not right. If you can see this message, please respond.

The ship looked like a huge breast implant, more a jelly dome. It had landed in the dustbowl of Europe which had begun to bloom and green up all around it. Pools of pure water had formed and an oasis of clean atmosphere amid the surrounding pollution–a bubble of pristine air. Clearly the aliens were possessed of some amazing powers or technology.

The chosen spokesman, Justin Savant, was the rarest of men, a renowned scientist, a man of faith and a diplomat. At six foot eight, he cut an impressive figure. That didn’t prevent him from feeling small as he entered the air envelope. A strange rippling sensation gave him the impression his mind was being probed. They probably already knew his grandmother’s name and what he’d eaten at lunch. He acquired the strongest impression he was dealing with a solitary being, that the ship and creature were one.

“You are a representative of the species Human, I understand.” The voice was all around him and also in his head–little point in subterfuge here.

“We need a new environment, sir. It seems you have the skill…”

“Don’t ‘sir’ me. Of what kind?”

“Nitrogen, oxygen, gaseous mix. Like this, I guess…”

“You do not even understand the concept.”

“I am one of the leading sci–”

“You describe merely an atmosphere. Your view is limited. There is much more entailed.”

“We realize we’d need forests to soak up CO₂ and maintain oxygen levels–”

“Limited.”

“Nuclear waste dumps dealt with and a new power source to sustain humanity…”

“Humanity–limited, limited.”

“Life, is what I meant–apes, leopards, tigers, whales…”

“All mammalian, I note.”

“It goes without saying we need fish, birds and insects too.”

“Does it?”

“Some insects, anyway…”

“Bacteria? Viruses?”

“Well, the useful ones…”

“Useful to you. You do not mention the problem of the great petrochemical gyres choking the oceans. And it’s not as if the pollution ends in your atmosphere. Your planet is surrounded by a debris field. We find pollution on every planet you’ve touched and some of your junk is now interstellar. Then there’s the cacophony of sound and light interference you emit. You irritate everyone around you.”

“We were unaware there was anyone around us.”

“Typical! But perhaps fortunate for us! Otherwise you might have tested your weaponry too. You are like children. You think others will clean up your mess; someone will wave a magic wand and all will be well. The environment you truly need is one of open inquiry leading to knowledge and balance, a nurturing of respect for life in all its rich variety. Instead you come to plead mainly for the survival of your own kind. That egocentricity is what created the problem to begin with and it would do so again.”

“But without your assistance…”

“Your species will die. However your planet will recover. It takes tremendous effort to breed environments worthy of life. I like to ensure all my creations go to a caring home. I did not come here to deliver you from yourselves. I came to issue a warning and to try to understand. Now I do. You are too many. You are incapable of self control or of looking after an environment. Perhaps it is not too late for you to grow up but grow up you must. I will watch with interest and I may return–or not.”

The jelly dome dissolved around Savant, leaving no easy fix and only a small Eden.

Nurse Kilpatrick left work at five a.m. He had no reason to stay. Carmody was sleeping peacefully now and the sun would be up soon. His shift began at nine but the end had become discretionary. Carmody was self-medicating these days and so much calmer. Rational conversation was frequent. Kilpatrick didn’t know whether he liked a rational Carmody. He missed his stories, no matter how farfetched.

“You’re one of them, aren’t you!”

“…it needs neuroplasts to survive.”

The atypical tranquilizers had worked wonders but sometimes Kilpatrick couldn’t resist leading Carmody on–extracting more information. It was malpractice, really. He’d watched over Carmody for years, watched him wash and open the blinds and windows. Then Carmody would stand there in his natural form and wait–for them. “So cool the air. So fresh the day! So full of possibility.” He intoned it like a poem. Then: “Such release–such release!”

Carmody was seventy but sometimes he looked so young and excited that Kilpatrrick envied him.

“Tell me about them, Carmody.”

Carmody’s face would light up and his eyes would scan the heavens.

“They’ve taken my brain and nothing can hurt anymore.”

And Kilpatrick almost wished he was right.

Kilpatrick left the morning pills beside the bed. He took the luxury of a walk across the grounds before signing out. At this time of the morning wildlife abounded–the last of the bats, the first of the birds. There was light enough to see by. It was an alien environment to most people but he felt at one with it. Sometimes he felt like he almost understood Carmody. Early morning geese honked their greeting and a flock as free as–as Carmody flew over. This was Kilpatrick’s other world and where he belonged. He was a poet here–a bard! His spirit sang its affinity with the dawn. Such release! Every new day was the edge of some horizon. He breathed deeply like he could fill his lungs with light.

The sun rose up behind him, illuminating the sleeping town. But something was wrong. Its light was too blue–intensely blue in fact. He could hear the way Carmody would tell it. “Red shift–outgoing. Blue shift–incoming! Nobody’s ever believed me but they will when they come–and I’ll go with them. You can come too. You’re one of them, aren’t you…”

Kilpatrick spun around. The source of that blue light was not the sun. It was centered on Carmody’s place. He should have adhered to the protocols. He should have stayed a while longer.

Now he ran. He ran towards that artificial sunrise with all the capacity his unaccustomed lungs would allow. He felt his hair bristle and his skin prickle with energy. He felt afraid–no, not afraid, excited, exhilarated.

“I’m coming, Carmody!” he yelled. “Wait for me!”

The light was shifting to red. He felt himself pulled, elongated–tilted away from gravity, at odds with the axis of the Earth, wholly outside its spin. The thing that greeted him was no longer Carmody and he knew that that day’s sun would never rise.

Dort stood atop the pile of bodies like a demon dressed in blood and held aloft the feather of a Dydow bird.

Dort! Dort! Dort! bayed the crowd

This was triumph. This was the way of the ancestors, the path to light.

Dort! Dort! Dort!

He raised his arm and the crowd hushed. “Show me our enemies,” he called to the assembly. “Show me any who oppose our sacred traditions.”

Dort! Dort! the cry resumed.

Once more he lifted a hand. This time the head of an Eebro showed its grisly grimace to the crowd. The Eebro and Dort looked strangely akin. They had two arms, four legs, two horns just like the Dydoans but the wide mouth and pink eyes announced to all that this was an Eebro.

“Remember the Eebro have no word for God,” exhorted Dort.

A cheer went up for their leader. Every hero-soldier’s chest brimmed full of patriotic pride.

From then on the skirmishes along the border became bloodier and more frequent. The emblem of the Dydow bird flew over many an Eebro town, its crimson feathers a sacrilege to the vanquished.

At the waning of moons, before dawn, Eebro swarmed over the northern ridge. They had their pride too and many scores to settle. Their weapons were swift and brutal.

Dort stood before the mound of bodies, his head bowed. Nothing but severed limbs, bloody torsos, contorted faces many of which he recognized–barely. He turned to the people. He saw only dashed hopes, broken hearts, crushed lives.

Dédé and I had been locked in this cycle of retribution for years. It started as mere rivalry but Dédé saw it as something more, it seems.

“You know this boy is no good, my nurse told me. I know the family. They are no good. You stay away from this boy, Maurice, you hear?”

I heard all right but there was only one school in our village and only three classrooms in our school and we just happened to be the same age. He got me into plenty of trouble. My father taught me to turn the other cheek.

My father was a minister. He didn’t believe in all that mumbo-jumbo and he made sure I didn’t either.

“They can’t hurt a true child of the Lord,” he’d say.

Dédé took what he wanted. It was the way he was taught to behave. You see something, you want it, you take it. If you can’t get it by normal means, threats and bullying, you go to the gris-gris and make a spell. When Dédé wanted my pet puppy he just took it. When he wanted my bike he had the witch doctor sacrifice the puppy. I saw its little body drained of blood, discarded in the alley at the back of the hut as I rode past. The horror of it stopped me in my tracks. I forgot about my bike and ran home to father though I knew father would preach forgiveness. He’d get me another puppy, a newer bike. It didn’t seem like a solution to me. Dédé had his wish.

All my youth I cowered to Dédé and he called me crétin–never by my name. But when he tried to take Leilah he was unprepared for my reaction. I loved Leilah, body and soul, and could never bear to think of him with her. So I went to his house with a machete and I waited in the dark lane.

And later I found myself in the gris-gris market. Parts for sale. Tongue dried, bones desiccated, heart sliced. I kept the penis in a jar by my bed. The Voodoo doctor says it will improve my performance but Leilah is all I need and everything to me and as a true child of the Lord, I don’t believe in all that mumbo-jumbo.

I followed him in. I knew he was here. This is a very short tunnel. I would have seen him exit–only I didn’t. At the moment I entered, all sound of battle ceased. I stopped dead in my tracks because of the silence–the emptiness. It was the emptiness that stilled me.

A soldier does his duty. I had killed many times, had looked in the face of the enemy as I killed. I had never felt futility ’til now. Whoever was victor here, whoever perished, no one would ever know the truth, for we were in the midst of battle.

I cowered against the shadow of the wall. Perhaps he was lying in wait. I had come in from the brightness and so he would have the advantage. I held my breath to hear his. There was nothing. I crawled forward a pace, two paces, towards the grey parabola of light. Inched forward ever watchful, to where sunlight sliced the shadow.

There was no penumbra. I never in my life saw such a sharp divide.

I made to advance cautiously into the cobbled courtyard. I could see the ordnance-pocked red brick of the wall and the barrack with its blank windows. There should be weapons trained on me. There should be a defense–yet all was quiet.

I held my hand out into the light where it could be seen. Still the blank windows stared back in silence. And when I looked down my hand was not there. I snatched it into the shade and it reappeared, solid and cold to the touch. Gradually I protruded it again. Its disappearance caused me to retract sharply. I tried to step out but with the same result and quickly brought my leg, I hoped, back in.

I paced within the shadow, rested, paced again. I have seen others come and go in the courtyard out there but heard no sound but the sound of my own pleas sinking into nothingness and the pad of my own feet on the dank earth. Behind me there is only utter darkness, no sign of the way by which I entered here–nothing left of the pursuit or chase. Before me this seeming apparition of a place plays out a tale in which I have no part. Emptiness and silence are my doom.

Out there in the courtyard where time passes, soldiers have mustered, people walked, children played. Now visitors troop in and out in strange garb. The sun appears and disappears; the cobbles are washed by rain. Only here there is no time. I am cut off from all that moves on. I alone remain–questioning.

Where did he go, my mortal enemy, my best friend? Did he go to her? Did he go to Eloise–my Eloise? I used to hate it when I thought of that but now I am the houseguest of futility. I have learned all I can from anger and despair. I only know that I did not kill him and he did not kill me and for that I am glad. And now it is my hope that they lived long and happily.

Wait–is that a different shade of grey I see? A penumbra? Might I just reach out a little way into the light? Please, God, just a little way… just a little way into the light…

Myranda held her mobile phone close so he could see the pictures but Pete wasn’t really paying them much attention.

“My mother, Prisca. My father, Apatos, hiding behind a newspaper as ever… Did I mention the dogs?”

“No.”

“Raptor, Stego and Carny. Aren’t they sweet?”

He gave them a glance. They were of that variety of fluffy small dog that he particularly disliked. “Very cute. Pity about the red-eye…”

“It’s not terribly good as a camera,” she said, quickly closing it down. She blinked to adjust her contacts.

Stego–must be a pretty confused mutt, he thought

Pete wasn’t about to pop the question quite yet but he took the invitation to meet the family as encouragement. God, she was gorgeous! He liked her teeth when she laughed–neat, sharp. “What will you have?”

“Steak. Rare, please,” she added for the waiter. “I just hate it when they spoil good steak, don’t you?”

“Absolutely.” He ordered chicken and spent most of the meal staring at her–except when she caught him looking. It was heartening to meet a girl who relished her food.

“About Saturday,” he ventured.

“You’re still coming…?”

“Yes. I was just wondering what to bring. For your mother, I mean.”

“Flowers, if you like–not roses, though. Mother doesn’t like thorns. Waste of good blood, she says.”

He laughed. “You never call them Mum and Dad…”

“No.”

He didn’t pursue it.

Armed with a bunch of deep red carnations, Pete rang the doorbell. He could hear the dogs yapping inside and being shooed away from the door. He was somewhat relieved not to be greeted by the mutts. Myranda looked more mesmerizing than ever in deep purple velvet which clung to her figure and gave her usual pallor an alabaster quality.

“Welcome.” Myranda’s mother, a striking woman who looked too young to be her mother, clutched his arm and ushered him into the lounge. “Blood red carnations. How nice!” But she was eyeing Pete, not the flowers, which made him slightly uneasy. “Sit,” she said.

There were no chairs, only low, soft leather beanbags, but it would be rude to refuse and so Pete folded his legs as best he could.

“Father will be down in a minute.”

“Myranda tells me you live all on your own.” Her mother was direct and effusive.

“Yes, I have a flat near…”

“No family?”

“No close family, no.” There was something about her eyes…

“Well, then… How very nice to have guests. Myranda, I’m sure it’s okay to let the rest of the family in now that Peter has settled.”

The dogs came bounding towards him as soon as the door was opened–little, white, bouncy, mustachioed mutts with pink eyes. Pete overcame his aversion and held out a hand. In an instant, the smallest snapped at him and bit a finger clean off. He looked on horrified, strangely detached, as it commenced to chew the digit just like a munchy.

Such was his sense of shock that for a moment Pete didn’t notice the lack of appropriate reaction from his hosts. Nor could he stand up immediately because his legs had gone to sleep.

“Here, let me see that,” said Myranda and he allowed her to grasp his injured limb. She raised it, sucked at the stump and then her sharp little teeth bit down hard on the next finger. She tossed it to another of the dogs.

By the time this latest shock registered, Prisca was standing over him too with a look of barely concealed lust. Pete summoned all his will, all his strength. Myranda had him by the wrist and was about to bite off another of his fingers.

“No!” he yelled. He struggled free and made for the door.

Apatos filled the doorway. Seven feet tall he stood, grimacing, with rows of sharp, lacerating teeth, reptilian jaws, red eyes. Pete turned. Two red-eyed women and three little dogs with bloodied maws stood slavering with expectation.

“Going somewhere?” said Myranda.