MicroHorror

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.

Shadows follow time. Have you ever watched them as they move across a room, across a field, cast slanting rainbows through glass? Have you? I have. A day of shadows is indiscernibly slow. I have watched them very closely and with dread for I know what it is they do. Many think that shadows are driven by time. They are not.

It happened the night Button died. I looked at her little broken body in the hospital. I watched the hours tick by and the angles change until there was no more light to see by and even hope darkened. When they switched that machine off, a shadow crossed my heart, a darker shadow than I had ever known, a thing of hatred and rage–a vengeful clamor that would not be silenced. It was a shadow in deep shade, a pit of blackness within the dark, bitter and slow–so slow it clung to the floor and demanded my attention.

As I watched, it took form, lifted itself up onto the wall, wavered before my eyes welled with tears and held me still in my sorrow and despair.

“What would it be?”

I didn’t really hear a voice. It was more like a breath exhaled.

“What would it be?”

“What?” I asked.

“Your will. Speak it,” breathed the shadow.

I felt a sob rise in my throat, stifling the words I thought to speak.

“Speak it.”

“That bastard should die!” I said. “That damned driver should die for the death of my child!”

“You will this?” said the breath. “You would see it done? And in your turn you would aid others?”

In that moment revenge was all my heart, was all my soul, was all I had. But the shadow needed me to speak the words and it drove me on.

“You will it…?”

“I do will it,” I said, “with all my heart!”

What happened then was as a dream. I saw the man enter a cell. His head was hung with remorse but I felt no pity. He lay on the bed. My little girl did too but she breathed no more. He stirred suddenly and looked around him as if he caught a glimpse of… something. I witnessed the approach of many shadows and his eyes grew round with terror. They crawled velvet black across the floor and he recoiled, drawing away to avoid their pall. He called out but his voice was muffled by this darkest of clouds. They pooled around his feet and crawled upwards paralyzing him slowly from the feet up with icy cold, fearful fingers, reaching his torso, then his throat. He screamed horribly as blackness filled his eyes. I saw them there inside him, the shadows, filling his whole being. They turned his flesh to blood and rendered him lifeless on the floor.

I found myself once more by the bedside of my beloved daughter but the moment I beheld the innocence of her face, I knew I had done a great wrong in her name.

Half a century I watched the shadows creep until they came for me and I became one with them. I had learned their discipline. Shadows are not driven by time. They are outside of it. Eternity is their plaything. But they are not permitted to act alone. They must await the summons of a vengeful heart and exact from it a terrible price. Yet there are always those willing to pay. God help me, I cannot warn them for the promise binds me and all darkness is blind.

Mayor Crouch ho-ho’ed like Claus himself as he threw the switch that lit up the town. A million sparkling lights reflected off his chain, playing on his three chins. A sudden cascade of sparks enveloped him. They fizzled and zizzed and the mayor danced until he was blue and his arms hung limp at his sides. Women and children screamed in terror. Anyone who jumped on the podium was repelled by shocks. The mayor’s lifeless corpse lay singed on the marble floor and the tree twinkled just like any normal tree, innocent as you please.

Now, nobody liked the mayor. He was a mean- spirited exhibitionist, but public execution is brutal and that’s what this was. They put it down to a feedback surge but I was sure it weren’t no accident. It was me installed them circuits. Besides, I’d seen a mean look come over that tree… its green got real dark and its lights, livid bright just before… I was giving that tree a wide berth.

Some days later I caught sight of a tramp hanging around by the grotto. I didn’t need to smell him–I could see he hadn’t washed since last Christmas and since most folks was ignoring him, he decided to help himself. I had to hand it to him, he was subtle too! He snuck a hand inside this woman’s bag from behind and whipped her purse quicker’n you could say Kringle! Just as quickly the tree responded. A bolt of electricity laid him out colder than a leftover ham. I wasn’t the only one saw it, but nobody was saying nothing ’cos stealing from folks at Christmastime’s just plain nasty. Plus I didn’t fancy gettin’ the wrong side of that tree! Next day the newspaper reported, “Two More Christmas Tree Deaths.”

As Christmas approached the tree got bolder. It zapped four people in one day. One was a spoiled child who persistently made his mother’s life a misery because she couldn’t afford the particular toy he’d set his greedy little heart on. Another was a charity collector with real sticky fingers. The manager of one of the largest stores, “Now Offering Free Credit and Nothing to Pay until Next Christmas,” didn’t make it to work that morning neither. Its final victim was a Santa. I never found out for sure why he got it but you betcha he was up to no good!

By Christmas Eve it was obvious that these incidents were not the result of some electrical fault but I guess nobody had the guts to admit it and nobody wanted to try and switch that tree off. I pretended to have a look at the switches and wiring, which was my job, but I talked to the tree the entire time.

“I ain’t gonna hurt you, buddy. You just stay calm and I’ll say there’s nothing wrong, which there ain’t… but tell me, aren’t you Christmas trees s’posed to be all soppin’ over with good will to all men?”

That’s when it spoke.

“Good will to all men of good will,” it said (in a kind of a deep green voice, you understand).

There was something about its tone set my nerves a-janglin’. I could feel its bristling electrons all around me and my hairs stood on end. “I ain’t never wished no ill on nobody!” I urged, cursing my own curiosity and hoping all the negatives didn’t spoil my defense none.

Anyhow, I lived to tell the tale. The tree let me be. It set me down gentle as a baby on the marble floor and told me to step well back.

“See you ’round,” it said.

Then, so help me, it rose on a plume of streaky colored lights, right up through the roof of the mall and into the starry sky, just like a rocket!

‘See you ’round.’ It’s somewhere for sure! Could be in a mall near you.

Gee, thanks, straight bourbon, please. Cheers! And Merry Christmas!

She was so beautiful–so very, very, beautiful. What father would not do all he could to protect her? And so Dioscorus built a high tower and forbade anyone to enter except for himself and one maidservant.

Barbara grew more beautiful year on year but only her father saw it. He was determined that none should sully his daughter. The slobbering youths he saw outside his walls were all unworthy of her charms. He only… only he could love her as she deserved.

She escaped once but was discovered and brought back. Found by some good shepherd and penned.

Susanna brought her food and comfort and also a catechism and told her that her father was wrong to keep her thus locked up for his own pleasure. Dioscorus found the book and was furious for he was a committed pagan. He forbade her to pray.

But when he went away on business, Barbara had a third window put in the tower to represent the Holy Spirit. She swore it was a miracle sent from God. Did she really believe or was this the only voice she could put to her despair?

Her father’s fury now reached greater heights. He denounced her. She was imprisoned once again and this time at the mercy of strangers. Perhaps Dioscorus suspected she was no longer his alone. Sent before the prefect of the province, Barbara was condemned to burn.

Her gaolers had never seen such beauty and they swore that when they’d tried to burn her they found she would not burn. Every time they tried their torches would extinguish, so they said. And so once more she was kept alive. Surely another blessed miracle…

At length she was released back to her father who decided to carry out the death sentence himself. He took Barbara up to a high mountaintop and there he hacked her head off with his sword.

On the way down the mountain, God struck the pagan sword with a lightning bolt. Thus it is told did Barbara become the Saint of all who work with fire or explosives, because she would not burn, while her father was consumed by fire.

***

One might perhaps observe it was a pity God wasn’t “ahead of the game.” Then again perhaps the making of saints just excuses the worst excesses of man and has nothing whatever to do with God. At any rate Barbara’s story is no longer considered authentic and so the 4th of December is no longer her official saint’s day.

Who knows the brief brutality of the life that Barbara led?

One thing I have discovered. You excavate the story. You examine the finds. Sometimes you hear the distant echo of a scream. But history and legend are written by the victors. Thereafter it’s the archaeology of interpretation.

Not everybody gets to be a ghost. It requires strong motivation and iron determination to haunt whatever it is you intend to haunt possibly for centuries. It is certainly within one’s power to frighten people but that is not usually the sole purpose of the uneasy spirit. It is considered bad form. Such souls are shunned by those of us who truly walk the paths of shadow. This is not merely my lot. I remain by choice, as does every ghost. The Powers allow us to linger only at extreme persuasion.

I am–was–very much attached to the house. Generations of my family had been born there; lived, loved, died there. The fabric of it was infused with the history of our lineage–our “house,” if you will.

Randal, Randy, my great-great-grandson by all accounts, had a different view. He inherited just few years ago. I was at his father’s bedside as he passed over, as I have been there for all my sons’ sons. Tried to persuade him to stay here with me–not to abandon our heritage to his wastrel son–but he would not listen.

“I’ve always known you were there,” he said to me.

I knew then he could see me and recognized my presence. He’d been an affable child and I used to pay him visits in the night but I’d never shown myself openly. Sometimes when he was older, he used to stop and listen intently when I was in the room and I felt he knew me and I, him.

“My parents thought I had an overactive imagination,” he laughed.

“So stay with me now. Help me protect the house.”

“Sorry, Great-Grandfather,” he said. “I want to be at rest. Don’t you?”

And his spirit departed.

Well, this Randy started knocking walls down, renovating, rebuilding, putting windows where they had never been. Something called a loft conversion. He destroyed my attic, threw out my things and moved some harlot into my home. I could hear them knocking about at night. Disgusting brat! Whore! There was no sanctity of wedlock and no promise of legitimate heirs in this… this… My house had become a brothel!

I tried to scare them–something I abhor. It didn’t work. He thought a ghost would “put value on the old place.” There was practically nothing of the old place that I could recognize. Anyway, when, by his words, I knew he intended to sell, I took the ultimate step. I showed myself. I took corporeal form and summoned my gravest tones. “You will not sell. You will die before I let you sell!”

I don’t know why I said that. I couldn’t bear his smug expression a moment more. He looked vaguely alarmed for a moment, and then do you know, he looked at me and said, “Are you a genuine ghost, old fella?”

“I am.”

“Ooooh, not half scary!” he said and he guffawed.

They both laughed at me–laughed! That was when I knew I meant it.

Now I preside over charred remains.

It gives me no great satisfaction to have put an end to the family line. I lost control and with it, everything I valued. The Powers recalled me to review my spiritual status. I asked to remain a while, to contemplate what I have done and its consequences, though it torments me. I have been lessoned by young Randal, his father, his father’s father. I see now what I should have seen long ago. There is perhaps wisdom in letting go of the past.

Randy saw me clearly as his soul departed. I made sure he did. And I can tell you–he looked frightened then. But that is not the image that haunts me. No, what I can never forget is the confusion in his eyes. Why would anyone choose this living death?

There is nothing left for me to cling to. Yet I cannot let go.