MicroHorror

Drip, drip, drip…

Frank Beauchamp had had enough. The constant drip from the bathroom had been keeping him awake for the past forty-five minutes and he had to do something about it before he lost his mind.

Pulling himself out of bed and sliding into his sweatpants, he switched on the bedside table lamp so he could navigate his way around the brass bed. Crossing the room to the en-suite, Frank fumbled for a few seconds, found the light switch and blinked rapidly as the fluorescent bulbs stuttered into life. Waiting for his eyes to adjust, he made sure that the bright light hadn’t disturbed his still-slumbering wife. When he was satisfied that she was still sleeping peacefully, he closed the door and examined the taps.

Drip, drip, drip…

Reaching out to tighten the hot water tap, Frank caught a faint whisper. He listened for it again but heard nothing. He carefully opened the bathroom door slightly to see if perhaps Mary had been talking in her sleep but she seemed calm and serene, the sheets rising and falling with the rhythmic flow of her steady breathing. Pulling the door shut again, Frank shook his head, dismissing the sound as possibly the pipes and went back to attending to the taps.

No sooner had he put his hand back on the tap than the ghostly whispers started again. This time, however, he could make out the words…

Help me…

Snatching his hand away from the tap once more, Frank issued an involuntary whimper and backed away from the basin. Did I hear what I think I heard, he thought, or am I just fucking dreaming? He peered into the mirror and was shocked to see the fear and panic in his own face–what in the hell was going on?

Regaining his composure–and some degree of sanity–he thought about the shock he had seen in his own eyes. He had considered himself to be a reasonably level-headed and mature man, intelligent and worldly, but this had shaken him badly. Approaching it logically, he knew…

Help me…

Startled once more, Frank barely registered that the dripping had stopped and that a steady stream of water was now filling the basin. Staring into the deepening water, mesmerized, he could see that there was no plug in the bottom of the sink and his mind raced to try and make sense of how this was possible. He watched in disbelief as the water continued its path ever upward until it was almost at the lip of the basin, about to overflow. Frank lunged for the tap, trying to twist it frantically but to no avail. The handle wouldn’t budge…

Help me… help me… help me…

The water began to pour onto the floor of the bathroom, soaking Frank’s bare feet within seconds. He scrambled for the rack where the towels were kept, trying desperately to stop the water from flooding into the bedroom. As he reached for the towels, he suddenly retched. A smell so vile, so disgusting rose to meet his nostrils, a smell he could immediately place but not understand. Doubled over, the stench getting worse by the moment, Frank lost his balance and toppled over in the middle of the bathroom floor, cracking his head on the bath on the way down, his body covering the small drainage hole…

Help me, help me, help me…

A crimson tide oozed over the sink. At first, it started as a trickle but before long, the trickle became a flood, and the deluge of inky redness began to cover Frank as he lay on his back, unable to move. The red flood filled his every orifice, choking him, cutting his air supply, quickly causing him to suffocate on the blood. As one last gasp of air exited his lungs…

Help me…

I notice it immediately. There is something quite different about this House of Horrors. All the usual motifs and banal imagery are gone from the façade; it is modest and unembellished. Entering, I expect to see the usual ghouls and goblins, but instead, darkness greets me; silhouettes of flames flicker across the walls and the hiss of steam escaping from a valve greets my ears. Rounding a bend, I come face to face with a giant projector screen with images of the Holocaust; a defiant Hitler and Stalin shaking hands, both grinning in a most evil way; death camps–unbelievably emaciated human forms, their voices begging for mercy or death; mounds of the dead uncovered by the Allies, removed from pits and laid out in rows for identification–all flashing across the screen, accompanied by chilling screams and barking German soldiers. I run from the room in sheer despair, knowing that the truth of history is far more repulsive than anything man can dream up.

“What say you, are you guilty of witchcraft, of which you are suspected, or not?”

“No, sir, I say before God, before whom I stand, that I know nothing of witchcraft.”

Angela Bassett became aware of her family history very early in life. She had overheard the whisperings and mutterings between the adults in her life and had been aware of her unorthodox upbringing. Throughout her formative years at school, she had developed an interest in that family history. It was during this time that she discovered, albeit accidentally, that she possessed certain abilities, abilities that could harm those around her when provoked. This had shockingly come to light when a fellow student had been harassing her in class. In the quickest of motions, Angela had thrown her right hand up, palm out, and her tormentor suddenly, and without warning, had burst into flame.

The smell of burnt flesh and singed hair was present in the classroom for years to come. The carpet had needed to be replaced.

The police and arson squad who investigated could find no cause.

Abigail Battest, Indeated and arraigned for the Crime of fellony by Witchcraft Comited on the bodye of Martha James. Evidences being Called and sworne in open Court Matter of fact Comitted the Jury.

The Jury find Abigail Battest guilty. Sentence of Death pased on Abigail Battest.

Signed William Stoughton, Chief Justice, Superior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize and General Gaol Delivery, 1693.

Angela had discovered the truth of her family while in journalism school. The shock of discovering that members of her family had been hung as witches in the Salem trials had sent shock waves through her.

She had also discovered that the land that was in their possession at the time had been confiscated by the Crown and used for their own purpose. This land, she discovered, was now the home of the Salem Crown Court, named in honor of the very man who sat on those trials, William Stoughton. He was also the man who had had the chance to exonerate her family in the early eighteenth century but never did. Apparently, they were not wealthy enough to pay for such clemency.

Not all the condemned had been exonerated in the early eighteenth century, and so in 1957, descendants of the six people who had been wrongly convicted and executed but who had not been included in the bill for a reversal of attainder in 1711, or added to it in 1712, demanded that the General Court formally clear the names of their ancestral family members. Abigail Battest was not on that list.

Chief Justice Gregory Stoughton III entered his chambers to find a young woman inspecting his plaques and certificates mounted on the wall.
“Can I help you, young lady?”

“I have come to you, sir, to avenge the evil deeds your forefathers committed upon my family during the witch trials. I have discovered that your family has been holding people’s names to ransom, only clearing them from the Witch Lists when they pay you enough cash to keep it quiet. This will now end. I will not beg, nor plead. I will serve justice.”

Without warning, slithering down from the rafter like a snake, a noose appeared and slipped itself quickly around the Chief Justice’s neck. With a sudden tensing of the rope, Stoughton was pulled directly toward the ceiling, his face starting to turn crimson as he gasped for air, eyes bulging in fear, trying to wedge his fingers between the rope and his neck.

“I thought you said they weren’t witches,” he gasped, frantically kicking his legs as the final death throes began to overcome him. Finally, all was still except the creaking of the still-swinging rope.

Angela stared up at the man, dispassionately, before speaking for a final time.

“They weren’t.”

After hooking up at Donny’s Nightclub and a few drinks, we decided to find someplace a little more private. I followed her directions for ten minutes and we found ourselves alone in the ruins of an ancient mausoleum. The wrought-iron gate had been seemingly torn from its hinges; maybe it was just the years of decay.
 
Her alluring, youthful gaze and come-hither whispers shook any doubts from my mind. Her unblemished skin shimmered as she removed the heavy outer coat she had been wearing and revealed a stunning little number: black cape with red lining, a tight-fitting black corset with a black belt and large gold buckle–she wouldn’t have been out of place as a picture on a teenage boy’s bedroom wall. 
 
Holding each other fiercely, whispering empty sentiments of love and lust, I suddenly began to feel the blood pumping hard. Sweat broke across my brow and that tingling sensation in my skin was enough for me to realize that this night was not going to end favorably for one of us. 
 
Caressing my cheek with one of her long, blood-red nails, she gently tilted my head back, preparing for the time-honored tradition–all in the name of increasing the Army of the Underworld, keeping her youthful looks and feeding the hunger that she undoubtedly craved to satisfy from the very beginning. 
 
See, all my life I have known that I was different. I suffer, if that is the right word, from Hemavampirism. It is a gene in the chemical make-up of my blood that not only allows me to “see” vampires, to see through their mortal shells to the blackness within, but it also makes me immune to the coup de grâce of the vampire–when my blood mixes with that of the undead, it has the opposite effect: that is, that my mortal blood rushes into them and causes them to return to a mortal state and age appropriately. 
 
After collapsing to the ground once her teeth had pierced my skin (this process always saps a lot of energy from me), I place my fingers over the wound to stop myself from bleeding too much, turn my head away from what will be a most horrific final few moments for her… I know what will happen and can not bear to watch: her youthful figure will completely change and she will age suddenly and irreparably…. 
 
I can almost hear the sigh of recognition from her as I lie here, knowing that another is dead but that there will always be more.