MicroHorror

The vice principal heard the fire alarm, and ran to get his clay pot. The middle school students shouted in delight, spilled out into the hallway, and filed down the fire stairs. The vice principal ran to the boy’s gym, where a gym teacher was confronting what had once been a student. Like all secure middle schools, gym teachers forced the students to take showers. They watched for boiling runoff water. Today, one of them saw it. The gym teacher pulled the fire alarm, and hurried the uninfected kids safely outside. He then tried to tackle the steaming kid, but the kid had begun sprouting flame. Fire ran down his back, edging down his limbs. Smoke leaked form his mouth and other orifices. The vice principal saw the scene, turned on all the showers, and aimed them best he could toward the burning kid. The kid retreated in a corner, hissing. The vice principal held the clay pot to the kid’s hissing mouth, and began reciting the Latin spell. The hissing and smoke grew more pronounced. By the end the vice principal could barely breathe to say the words. But he finished the spell. The boy screamed one last time, and the spirit was forced into the clay pot. The vice principal filled the pot with water and slammed a wide cork on it. Crisis over. The kid was dead, but he had been dead as soon as the spirit first sunk its teeth in. Why did they always go for children? The school would be notified that this student had moved out of the area. The vice principal walked back to his office, the filled pot growing colder in his hands. At least this wasn’t a public burden to bear: the students still thought these were false alarms.

Father Rollo had all the crosses removed from his church in Asunción, and drained all the holy water. He wanted to help they who needed him most, and they who needed him most were burned by these items. This did not mean that they could not be good Catholics, just that it would be more difficult. The other priests in Asunción thought he was risking his life. Father Rollo agreed; but this was his calling. The first midnight mass only brought one soul, a scared unshaven man. Father Rollo performed the entire mass in the bare church just for him, preaching a homily about resisting the body’s temptations. He gave the man the body of Christ, and then the blood of Christ. The body of Christ was just a wafer, but the blood of Christ was not wine but real human blood. A like-minded nun had donated it. The one man left, spiritually and physically nourished, able to go about his life without succumbing to sin. He came back the next night, and brought a friend. The next night there were five of them. Father Rollo has to ask the entire convent to start donating blood. Within a month there were hundreds attending the bare-walled church. The papers wrote about the miraculous drop in Asunción’s crime rate. Father Rollo was overjoyed at the success of his program–yet he prayed he never ran short of blood.

Why should Susan wear a watch? She didn’t need her own personal time zone. Between wall clocks, the clock on her computer monitor, her cell phone, and bank displays, Susan had a dozen ways of getting the time, not the least of which was asking the hottest guy in the room if he had it. She didn’t need some ticking bracelet on her arm. Finding the time was like a hidden picture in Susan’s life. Right now, for instance, as she was waiting in line at the bank, she saw a wall clock behind the teller desks, and could also see the big digital clock outside. Wow, they were way off: the two clocks said 3:36 and 7:15. And it was lunchtime, so it should be 12:30 or so. She glanced at the wristwatch of the short guy behind her in line. 10:53. What was going on? Susan got to the teller, who then apologized and said they closed strictly at 5:00 PM on Fridays. Out the bank windows, it was unexpectedly night. Susan’s hair was suddenly brown: she dyed it blonde last week. The short guy now had two weeks’ growth of beard. Out the bank window the sun was rising. One teller’s hair was falling from his head like leaves from a shaken tree. Susan ran to the bank’s front door, but it was locked for the night. She ran to the side door, but it was locked for a bank holiday. Customers continued streaming in, wearing sun dresses and parkas, holding beach blankets and Christmas shopping. Susan began to scream. No one noticed. Everyone else glanced at their own watches, going about their mornings and evenings and weekdays and weekends, literally having no time for Susan.

Grendel the mixed terrier sniffed at the lip of the Erie Canal, and began barking. A new smell. Did something drink from there recently, Jacob Brummelmann wondered? The best part of Brummelmann moving to Clyde, in upstate New York, was the ability to take Grendel out along the famous canal’s banks. Sometimes he’d see kayakers, but usually the long stretch of water and trail would be his and Grendel’s alone. Grendel loved to run around, no leash, and smell every inch of canal he could. Brummelmann had second thoughts about leashing Grendel, since there had been pet disappearances in Albany two weeks ago, and Syracuse this past week. But he couldn’t deny Grendal the joy of freedom. Brummelmann would just keep an eye out for dognappers. Or bears. Grendel continued barking at the canal lip, now adding growling and even snarling. Brummelmann had never seen Grendel like this before. Grendel’s barking suddenly stopped, and he bolted back toward Brummelmann. A white tentacle surged out of the still water and lassoed Grendel to the ground. The dog began whimpering, and within seconds he was dragged over the lip of the canal. Brummelmann ran to the water’s edge, where he saw bubbles and blood rising from under the water… and then nothing. Brummelmann could make out a white form under the water, the entire width of the canal, slowly traveling up the canal, due west. Brummelmann figured the pet disappearances would be in Rochester next week.

It took the UN, and the help of every country in the world, to build the space elevator. A thick 100-mile spool of steel cable was launched into space, where it was latched into a space station in geosynchronous orbit. The cable snaked, foot by foot, down into the atmosphere. It reached the surface just half a mile from the elevator bank/spaceport built on the Egyptian shore of the Mediterranean. The cable was carried to the awaiting elevator shaft and latched in place. Within weeks the first cylindrical elevator, nicknamed the Space Doughnut, was ready for liftoff. Dignitaries from all 194 countries were crammed into the 200-seat, airtight car. The car (and now the space station) was powered through electrical wires weaved into the cable. Gears fit cogs into special grooves in the cable, and the elevator started cranking away. The journey took three days. There were happy live broadcasts the first day, but those soon began broadcasting in an unknown language. Then the broadcasting stopped altogether. Flybys of the Doughnut saw no movement in the windows. Did the Doughnut lose compression? The rest of the journey occurred in radio silence. The Doughnut arrived at the space station, and docked automatically. It read as properly compressed. When the airlock was established and opened, the space station crew saw a chamber full of 200 corpses. They had beaten each other to death, bare-handed. Messages were written on the walls in blood, each one in a different, unknown alphabet. There were several audio recordings of the dignitaries after they lost radio contact, but all the audio was just babble.

How ungrateful was this band? Who exactly did they think they were? Mr. Farthings, their humble manager, had only given the band the unheralded chance to perform after their premature deaths, and you’d think he was holding them hostage. If they got past security, within the hour they’d each get a bullet in the head. They wouldn’t be happy with that, now would they? No, no, no. So Mr. Farthings was their friend, the only friend this group of degenerates had. There’d be moss growing on them, if it wasn’t for nice Mr. Farthings, beetles nibbling their flesh. They got to perform all their favorite songs, the songs that made them famous, the songs still in their brains despite their medical conditions. Mr. Farthings asked for nothing, just a small percentage of ticket sales, much less than any promoter with similar challenges. Plus he cared enough to be discrete about the band’s collective overdose from that bad batch of heroin. Modern audiences weren’t nearly as forgiving nowadays. They would want this whole band to be in rehabilitation, and exactly how long until someone tried to take a pulse? This band should thank Mr. Farthings, play their songs, then retire to the bus for the night. Good thing those reinforced prison buses are cheap. Plus it made such a bold statement: after so many years, this band’s still not ready to behave. Mr. Farthings had some luck here. The band’s behavior was so bad while they were alive, no one yet noticed anything off-character now when one mauled the occasional roadie. And if they wanted to drag groupies off and have a bit of rough business with them? Well, that’s what the groupies were here for! Rock and roll will never die.

“So how are we today, Mr. ibn-Sadr? Good. Look, I know how we all get in these tight situations from time to time, but you’ve got to stay away from torches! There might not be a river to jump into next time. Now these new bandages are doing their job, so in a few days we’ll be able to be remove–wait, never mind. Sorry about that, Mr. ibn-Sadr, force of habit. We’ll add some fresh cloth bandages to match up with–I’m sorry, I need to go. Nurse! Bring a crash cart! We’ve got a GSW to the left paw! No, nurse, left FRONT paw, not left rear! Let’s see the wound. Okay, wound is bubbling green, but patient is not melting, repeat, not melting! This guy got lucky. The bullet must only be silver-coated. Prep this guy for surgery in OR one! We’ve got get that bullet completely out before the full moon wanes and this guy’s back to healing at human levels. Cancel my plastic surgery, nurse, that guy can live with the cross scar on his cheek one more night. Wolfman Jack here is critical… OR One’s not available? Tentacle reattachment? Okay, OR Two… Another tentacle reattachment? Exactly how many squidmen were hurt today?… Wow, that’s one big squidman. Fine, I’ll take OR Three, assuming that guy’s not stretched out in three theaters? No? Just the two? Good. Okay, OR Three, then. Prep the room doggie-style. No silver, no wolfsbane. And bring the shackles in case this guy wakes up before surgery’s done!”

A lump protruded from Illham’s forehead. It was the biggest blemish he ever had–and it was growing. It numbed his forehead. He kneaded the growth–and it squirmed. The movement was grotesque, even with his forehead numbed. Was this a nest of insects? The growth moved, downward, sending a tendril to the bridge of Illham’s nose. Illham clawed at it, beat his own face to stop it, but this growth did not stop. Illham’s whole face grew numb, his vision blurry. The growth reached Illham’s upper lip, at which point it began to peel back Illham’s face. The pulling sensation was enough to make Illham retch, even without it producing pain. His face was peeled, his skin stretching unnaturally, until it crested his head and slid down the back of his neck like a hood. Illham put his hands to his bloody, faceless head, his hands registering soft and wet sensations. The numbness was reaching Illham’s spine, down his entire body. He was paralyzed, unable to even position his body in a way to stop this… shedding. His torso was peeled, and then the skin in his arms and hands. Then his midsection, his privates, his legs. Illham tried to close his eyes to the horror, but he did not have eyelids. Only after all ten toes were shed did Illham regain movement. And with that movement came pain, the pain of losing one’s entire skin. Illham collapsed, screaming, the dirt sticking to his bloody body. With his lidless eyes, Illham watched his stolen skin stand itself up, still wearing Illham’s clothes. The skin now looked exactly like Illham, aside from empty eye sockets. The skin winked one of these empty eye sockets at Illham, slid sunglasses on, and walked away.

Jacques put his shackled hands to his wife’s beautiful face, and gave her a final kiss. He was to be executed in moments. This was his last time with Yvette, and he wanted it to last. It was a long, slow kiss, the kind that came from years of marriage rather than the initial passion of youth. Yvette’s lips did not respond much, but from the shock of the morning’s events, Jacques was not expecting them to. He had twelve good years with Yvette, before all of this madness started. At least he was permitted to see her one last time, however monstrous the circumstances. Jacques opened his eyes, look at the shock and fear in Yvette’s expression, and closed them again. This was better if he could pretend, just for a moment, that he was not about to die. The crowd cackled; they thought this moment was comical. Jacques was just trying to go to his death with a happy memory. The guard kicked Jacques, muttered for him to stand up. Jacques gently removed his lips from Yvette’s. He looked in his wife’s eyes one last time, knowing they would see each other in the next life very soon. Then he put her head back in the basket, and walked to the awaiting guillotine.

Every month, Vasily led his team on did a multi-day trip deep in a Caucasus mountain cave. Vasily seemed to schedule most of these trips in the middle of the week, but this time it was over a weekend, so there was a big team. Seven different drops made a combined 900 meters of vertical length, and Vasily hoped to find even more vertical depth this trip. During the team’s lengthy descent, Vasily proclaimed that he loved the feeling of being deep under the earth. It was eternal moonless night, he shouted. This happiness was smashed when a loose rock hit Vasily on the shoulder. His clavicle was broken, and there was a chance of spinal damage. A special stretcher was in the cave just for an injury like this, and Vasily was strapped to it. The team immediately planned Vasily’s trip back up. He insisted that he not be hauled out so quickly, that he didn’t mind staying down in the cave a few extra days for a rescue that didn’t exhaust his team. The team would hear nothing of it, and began hauling the stretch up the pits. Vasily screamed no, don’t take him out, leave him down here! The team quickened their efforts, rigging pulleys and belay lines for the next ascent. They worked without sleep, only with Vasily’s continual protest. Vasily was hauled up the initial 200-meter drop just 14 hours after the accident. Volunteers up top, working under a brilliant full moon, hauled the load up to the edge. The team was shocked by the sight of Vasily. He was fighting at the restraints, snarling, almost tearing his way out of them. He had also turned into a wolf.