MicroHorror

There’s a sucker born every minute.

Eyeballing the hunched-up geezer with the ’70s wardrobe, the saying was dredged up from the muck of Mark’s subconscious, lit up like the mile-high distraction of Time Square’s obnoxious lightshow.

Mark had come to the Square that spring night for the only reason he ever did: it was a goldmine of tourists stuffed with cash and plastic.

He first spotted the geezer under the yellow blaze of McDonald’s arches–back bowed, knees a mess, eyes bleeding panic for the family ahead of him. Blonde daughter of about forty, Mark reckoned, twin granddaughters maybe ten. No husband or father present, and as the reigning patriarch, Gramps was in over his head. Clothes hung on his body like sheets on a towel rack, while a telltale weight bulged from the back pocket of pants that drooled over his shoes like tar.

Mark rode the crowd with a practiced confidence, reading movement before it happened. The space between Mark and his target was erased by feet, then inches, and finally the prize was in his hand. Holes he left behind were quickly packed with new bodies.

Mark hopped the subway at 42nd and rode it to Central Park north, never looking at his cash until he was aboveground. Clamped between the jaws of a gold clip, the stack was as thick as a plank. Even better: every bill was a Benjamin.

Hands greased by excitement, Mark slipped into the park, wet spring scents clinging to the trees and gardens. If he could just–

What felt like a torpedo smashed Mark’s thoughts to pieces, throwing him to the grass. Above him the sky was a riot of grey clouds. Approaching footsteps made the ground shiver. Still gripping the cash, Mark’s free hand scrambled for his blade.

Too late.

A shoe stamped down, and the spongy snap of the break in his arm reached his ears a second before pain exploded.

He tried to scream, but his throat was squeezed shut.

A man’s face blotted out the sky. “Give it to me.”

The cash vanished from Mark’s palm, and he squinted into the dark, seeing details–early thirties, thick coils of hair, eyes black pits dug out of his head.

“You know who I am?” asked the attacker, and Mark saw he was grinning. Freakish incisors protruded over his lower lip.

The intensity of the stare was like the eyes of the old man he’d robbed from. No, not like them. These were them. Yet new youth had erased the lines in his skin, and fresh muscle had ironed out the wrinkles in his clothes.

But how?

“You’re lucky I’ve fed,” the attacker said, as if Mark had asked the question aloud.

Mark thought of the family the old man was following. Not his family after all, but one unaware of the monster gobbling up the space behind them, the intensity in his eyes borne of hunger.

The vampire’s face and shoulders vanished, and Mark found he could finally scream.

• Copyright: © 2010 Stephen Hill

“Huh,” Phil muttered. Considering he’d just ripped his cock off, he was surprised by how calm he felt.

It’s not that detaching his dick during his daily wake-up round of tug-the-pretzel didn’t concern Phil on some level, but a pleasant, boozy numbness had just smothered him from head to toe. Any feelings of pain or anxiety had been flushed faster than the gruel spilling from his ragged wound onto the bed sheets.

Phil remembered the pillow talk of a blond pharmacist he’d banged last year. Before she’d finally swallowed his hammer, she’d talked about shock triggering the body’s production of “reasonably effective” pain-killing hormones. Reasonably effective? If he had them to thank for his current state of relaxation, thought Phil, his hormones had to give heroin a run for its money.

Through numbed indifference, he stared at the meat in his hand, wondering how something so familiar had become unrecognizable. As his johnson drained, its shape warped and flattened, turning his rigid bone into a bloodied sandwich bag. From its severed base, blue veins sluiced between his fingers like pasta through a colander.

The alarm clock wailed from the nightstand, and Phil slapped it off with his clean hand, almost knocking off an unopened box of Trojans he didn’t recognize. Should have picked up some band-aids instead, thought Phil, and surprised himself with a chuckle.

There was a watery belching sound from the hole in his lap, and the smell of copper wafted up his nose. Still no pain, though, and any memory of last night was obscured by a thick belt of fog. Besides the Trojans, the only clue was an obnoxious trail of crumpled clothes. Stabbed by darts of morning light, it wove a drunken path from the door to the bed.

Must have been a bender with Greg and Derek, Phil figured, and–right on cue–his iPhone brayed from the floor. He flung his hand over the side of the bed and snagged it off the carpet. “Talk to me.”

“Dude,” Derek began. His vocal cords sounded like they’d been attacked by a belt sander. “Are you calling in sick or what?”

“Considering it,” said Phil.

“And what about last night? Have you considered that?”

Phil could tell Derek was smiling. “No fucking clue what happened,” he sighed.

“Oh, so now you’re going to try and tell me you don’t even remember the zombie?”

Phil paused. “Zomb–?”

“Hey, no shame,” said Derek, cutting him off. “If I was into them, that zombie would be the first one I’d fuck the shit out of.” He hawked up what sounded like a fistful of phlegm. “That is, as long as I double-bagged my unit with a pair of those raincoats you picked up.”

Phil’s eyes swung back to the box of Trojans, sealed tight and forgotten, then down to the floor. The sun now exposed not only the heaving wrinkles of his clothes, but an ugly dress, worn and faded. Splashed with a flower pattern the color of puke, it twisted around the corner of the bedroom door in a mangled snarl. One sleeve was rust-stained and shredded. Black scars scorched the other.

“Uh, you still alive there, buddy?” asked Derek, and Phil hung up. The trail didn’t end at the bed, he realized. At the bed was where it started. Where it ended was his apartment’s living room. He’d just come back to get some sleep.

After all, there was only room on the couch for one.

The fog soon returned, wolfing back every memory in his infected brain. Engulfed in numbness for good, Phil found he didn’t care at all.

• Copyright: © 2010 Stephen Hill

The baby was grinning at him. Finally.

Garth had been waiting for it for seven weeks. Through sleepless nights that had him gripping the bottle like a dagger when his wife’s tits were tapped, through the shrieking and the blubbering, and through the shit that exploded from his kid’s ass like a spray of wet buckshot–finally, a smile. It didn’t make everything worth it, but at least a smile was something. “Hey, June!” he called out. “June, check this out!”

Jasper’s grin widened, pink lips parting above the crease on his chin. Garth felt the warm flesh of the baby’s cheek through the rough grain of calluses riveted to his fingers. As his thumb tracked down the baby’s face, it left a soupy smear of grease, dirt and dung. Sure, his wife wouldn’t like it, but tough shit. He didn’t exactly like shoveling down overcooked macaroni after roasting in the chicken barn for twelve hours. Yep, and even though the pasta was as soggy-soft as his wife’s post-pregnant ass, she still set his place with a steak knife. A steak knife. Un-fucking-believable.

He leaned into the crib and cooed, tracking filth over the baby’s perfect sphere of a head. With the only light seeping into the baby’s room from the hallway, the grime almost looked like hair. The dimples in Jasper’s chubby cheeks deepened with an even bigger smile, and his blue eyes gleamed. Incredible.

“Oh, you like your new lid?” said Garth, painting the rest of Jasper’s scalp with muck. “You like the toupee Daddy gotcha?”

He knew this couldn’t keep going. The kid was a bawler, and it was amazing he’d lasted five minutes without crying out. Still, while he was quiet, why not have some fun? Besides, when Jasper went into brat mode, his wife would be there to put out the fire. June was a crappy cook, but–no matter how tired she got–she still knew what was good for her. A year back he’d had to yell for her twice, and had quickly made it clear twice was unacceptable. Crystal clear.

He hadn’t had to yell out a second time since.

Garth’s fingers stroked Jasper’s other cheek. Wiped almost clean, they now left only faint traces of oily brown. I guess you only get half a beard, he thought. “Quit while we’re ahead, right, ya little monster?” Garth said, and kicked one leg of the crib, making it shake.

The baby’s grin broadened into something so huge Garth burst out laughing, and Jasper laughed right along with him. Oh my god, he loves it, thought Garth. He loves his new look, and he loves his daddy. “All right then,” he said. “You ask for more, you got it.”

More was the stuff he squeezed from under his fingernails–greasy, grimy chunks of black crud that smelled like fresh turds dunked in gasoline. He figured some of it had been there a couple days, but it mashed up nicely between his fingers, and left a streak along Jasper’s supple cheek like fresh tarmac choked with pebble. “Now we’re done,” Garth murmured. “Now we’re finished.”

But Jasper’s head rolled to one side, and his soft doll’s fingers clamped onto his father’s thumb with an insistent, needy strength. He’s really holding on, thought Garth. For the first time, really holding on. “We’re not done?” Garth asked, delighted. “You’re really not do–”

Garth recognized the blade an instant before it stabbed through his neck, cutting off his words as neatly as it hacked through his windpipe. When his wife twisted the handle, blood like black ink drenched the tiny fist that hung on tight.

A steak knife, thought Garth. Un-fucking-believable.

• Copyright: © 2009 Stephen Hill