MicroHorror

Brandy was not a fine girl like they said. She had desires, burning and unholy. She spent many nights listening to their tales of the sea swooning for the one. Yes, he brought her gifts and spoke honestly. Her green eyes gleaming with jealousy as he spoke of his true love. How could she compete?

She fingered the locket dangling between her breasts as she served them whiskey and wine and listened to their stories. She refused to hide like the others did when their ships were spotted on the horizon rolling in with a mass of fog. The townspeople called her a fool. They were right. They called her other things too. She didn’t care. She couldn’t stay away from him. They didn’t understand. There was something about him as she gazed into his one good eye and longed to feel his one massive hand on her body. The stories lured her in even more. Heathens of the sea they were, wicked and lovely.

Sometimes they didn’t come for months and Brandy would walk the lonely streets of her town dreaming of what it would be like. It was easy for her to ignore the port master’s head on a stake at the landing and it was easy to ignore the parson nailed to the cross at the harbor. The seagulls made a sumptuous meal of the men, marksmen in their own right swooping in to pluck an eyeball and tear flesh.

Brandy stared into the open ocean watching the waves rise and fall. She inhaled deeply. Oh, how she did love the salted, fishy air. She loved the sea as much as they did and longed to be with them, with him. But she was a woman, bad luck, and they were from a different time. She recited the tales they told over and over in her mind and smiled when the idea struck her. She would prove her worthiness once and for all. The big, hairy man would be impressed. She was certain of it.

She watched and waited and as the man on the stake and the man on the cross were nothing but bones they came. This time she hurried to the docks instead of opening the tavern. With a machete in one hand she was poised to show them just what she was made of.

The ship rolled in with a shroud of fog, the moonlit, ratty sails blowing in the cool wind. The breeze carried their haunting seamen songs to shore. A throbbing in her loins erased any fear of pain. She caught sight of the ship one last time, sized up the distance and with one fell swoop of the machete chopped off her left hand. Picking up her hand she heaved it the best she could. It landed on the deck of the ship with a wet thunk. She rushed back to the bar and bandaged her bloody stump. They would have to take her now. She had won the game they spoke of so often.

She cried when he thanked her for the bloody gift that now hung around his neck and told her what a fine girl she was but after all, his life, his love, his lady was the sea.

Kate, Kate, Kate and Apple sat at a trendy French eatery discussing what the world is coming to. The sun always shone for the Kates and Apple. Weather was of no consequence for them. What was of consequence would be their important humanitarian topic of the moment.

Kate looked in her compact. “Did you know the Japanese are killing whales?” The other Kates looked from their compacts and Apple tore her interest away from her new twelve-inch, three-thousand-dollar sparkly shoes. Concern filled their eyes like the silicone that filled their breasts.

“Oh, no,” Kate said. “The poor whales.”

“We should do something,” Kate said. They all shook their heads.

The man in the top hat standing behind her took his shiny straight razor from his tuxedo pocket, grabbed her by the hair, pulled her head back and gave her a clean slice on her neck from ear to ear. Blood spilled on the concrete floor and over the black marble table top pooling around the Kates’ and Apple’s white latte mugs. Gruffly he pulled her from the table and threw her to the floor. Five seconds later another Kate appeared.

“So what should we do?” Kate said.

They all looked at each other. Apple put a finger to her sculpted lips and tapped. Kate looked at Kate who looked at Kate. They all put their finger to their sculpted lips and tapped.

“I got it!” Kate said. “Let’s protest.”

They looked from one to the other. The man wearing the top hat picked a white linen napkin from the table, wiping his blade clean, and placed the napkin back on the table. He grabbed Kate by the hair, pulled her head back and gave her a nice, clean slice across the neck from ear to ear, tossing her to the floor. Soon another Kate sat down.

“How do we do that?” Kate asked. Some internal clock sounded and they all took their compacts out and gazed at their reflections. The waiter refilled their no-fat lattes.

“We must go to Japan,” Kate said.

“Yes, of course,” Apple said with forced admiration and nodded her head.

The Kates’ cell phones rang and they each answered, listened for a second, spoke for five minutes and hung up. The man in the top hat wiped his blade on Apple’s white silk blouse, moved to behind Kate, grabbed her by the hair, bent her head back and sliced her neck from ear to ear, shoving her from the chair. Soon appeared another Kate.

They all spoke at once. “I’ve been accepted!” They laughed. “You too!” Kate said. Apple stared down at her shoes.

“Oh, Apple. Don’t worry. I’m sure you will be in soon.” The Kates gathered their too-large five-thousand-dollar purses. Kate leaned beside Apple’s ear and whispered, “We will learn the mysteries of the Universe. And you will too, for ten thousand dollars per level.”

They waved goodbye to Apple and as they sashayed down the sidewalk the man with the top hat followed. He saw the other man who wore a top hat take position behind Apple. He shook his hand.

“Good luck, Man. I hope you have better luck.”

Soon Apple was joined with her friends Plum, Apricot and Jupiter to discuss deeply the human condition.

“Girl, you got somethin’ right here.” Becky pointed a rotten finger from her remaining hand to between her front incisors and burrowed her head back into the fat girl’s stomach.
Bre-Bre threw the broken femur from which she sucked the marrow to the floor. “This skinny skank tastes like shit.” She scratched at her only tooth.

“I told you, bitch.”

“Whatever. Did I get it?” She smiled.

Becky looked up. “Shit.” She reached in the fat girl’s stomach, retrieved her eyeball, licked it and plopped it back into her socket. “Yeah, you got it.”

“Oh my god! Becky, that was disgusting,” she said and scrunched her nose. “God damn, you smell, too.”

“I do?” Becky lifted her arms and sniffed her pits.

Bre-Bre shook her head. Becky fumbled through her purse and brought out a bottle of Chanel Number Five, spraying herself accordingly. She dropped the bottle back in her purse and with tremendous effort rose to her feet.

“Fuck, we gotta go, Bre-Bre!” She pointed to the stairs.

“What?”

“Billy! He ain’t happy with me.”

“Ah, shit. Bitch, why’d you have to eat his dick?”

“Slut, there ain’t no bone in a boner. Not all I ate either.” Becky licked her bottom lip. Her top lip Billy had. “Nothing but meat and juices.”

Lumbering down the hall Becky pushed Bre-Bre. “Faster, you slow bitch!”

“Puta, we can’t go any faster.”

“Ah now, Tilly, she don’t mean no harm.”

Robert held Tilly close. “Don’t cry now. She’ll take good care of you. You’ll see.”

He wiped the tears from her face.

“Go ahead. Do it.”

“Alright, momma.” Robert stood up, unfastened his overalls, let them fall to the floor and pulled off his underwear. He looked back at momma one more time before he climbed on top of his girl. He was glad he had a girl that wasn’t his sister or cousin or his momma like it used to be.

As he entered her he said, “Momma just wants her a normal grandbaby this time.”

Her first thought was, why the hell was it so bright in here? She groaned as she wedged her head under the pillow pulling it tight around her. It didn’t stop the nauseating headache from taking over. With the blackout blinds on her windows it’s never this bright. Her second thought was, why do I feel like I’m on fire? She looked under the covers at her skin. No, she wasn’t on fire but her skin burned. Felt like she’d been in the sun much too long with no sun block. She did not recall lying out in the sun lately. Which brought her to her third and most important thought: what the hell did I do last night? Like so many times, she drank until she blacked out. There’s no telling what she did this time. She sure hated the morning-afters. Not just because she physically felt the abuse she put upon herself but because of the stories she would hear. She should have learned by now but no. She just kept on. It’s a wonder she’s allowed in public anymore. It’s a wonder her husband allows her to leave the house without him. Jesus, I’ve got to stop abusing myself like this, she thought. She licked her lips. They felt chapped and she barely had enough saliva to wet them. She tasted metal. Metal? Am I bleeding? She licked her lips again and worked up enough saliva to allow it to linger on her tongue for a better taste. Yep, blood. Probably from my chapped, cracked lips.

Let’s see. She met her friends at the usual bar. They played pool, darts and did shots of tequila. Off each other’s bellies? Oh no, not tequila. She chastised herself. How did she let herself do that? She had been so good. She’d stayed away from it for a few months. Not since the last episode. It didn’t stop her from drinking but at least it kept her away from tequila.

She and her friends were pretty lit, she already in and out of the blackouts. She wondered where she went during the loss of consciousness. She wished she just went to sleep. No, couldn’t be that lucky. She had to misbehave. There was a man they hadn’t seen before and a limo. Yes, that’s it. They went with the man in the limo to another bar. Another bar but it wasn’t a normal bar. The name was cool–The Dungeon–and it didn’t open until two in the morning. They didn’t serve liquor. Then why the hell were they there? The strobing blue lights. The seductive music pumping through large speakers. Oh yeah, it was a vampire club. She and her friends laughed their asses off but thought it would be fun to go. Make fun of these idiots and their fake fangs and pale skin. Flashes of crazy orgy bloodsucking writhing black red pale bodies; laughter, no laughter; thoughts not fake. Can’t be. She brought her hand to her mouth and felt her larger and much, much sharper than before canines.

“Shit,” she said. She rolled over and shoved her husband’s shoulder.

“Hey,” she said. He didn’t move so she shook his shoulder again and again. The blankets fell away from his face and his open eyes stared at the ceiling.

She looked at him. He was a little blue.

“Mark?” She shook him again.

“Mark?”

“Oh, God.”

She wedged her head back under the pillow as tears flowed down her face. Guess I really won’t be drinking tequila anymore.

“Oh, Maggie, why’d you do it? Why?” Rod sobbed.

“You shouldn’t have went back home,” Maggie said.

“God, Maggie, I was collecting my books. You know I have to get on back to school.”

“Do you love me?”

“Of course I do. You know I do but why, Jesus, why?”

“I told you not to go.”

“Maggie, I’ve got something to say to you.”

“Yes?”

“I couldn’t have tried any more.”

“Sure you could have.”

“No, Maggie, I gave you everything. Everything! I wish I’d never seen your face.” Rod walked to the window and opened the curtains.

“Stop! Shut those damn curtains. You know I can’t stand the sun.”

He looked at her and thought the sunlight certainly showed the fine lines around her mouth and eyes. And the deep lines on her forehead. The rays even played tricks with gravity as her bosom seemed to sag and the pooch of her stomach was more pronounced. Rod shut the curtains more for himself than for her, slid to the floor and put his head face-down on his folded arms.

She walked over to him and ran her long red fingernails through his mass of blond hair. “You don’t mean that. You know you can’t stay away from me. And you haven’t given me everything yet.”

“I can’t. I just can’t give it to you. You’ve already wrecked my bed. I’ll never get the blood out of the mattress.” He knew he didn’t believe what he said. He was hooked. She had him. It was just something about her, in his eyes she was everything.

“That’s only the beginning if you don’t give me what I want,” she said.

He looked at the large gaping hole in his chest. He wondered how he still lived when his heart was gone. She ripped it from his chest as he lay sleeping in his own bed, in his own home with his parents nicely tucked away down the hall.

He didn’t even scream. He had not felt too much. Just pressure. It was more seeing it than feeling it that hurt and tormented him.

“Look,” he said, looking up at Maggie, “you have my heart. Let’s call it even. Just go and leave my soul.”

“Oh, Rod,” Maggie chuckled, “you amuse me.”

She bent down, kissed his head and floated from the room. He heard the front door open and close. He hopped up and looked out the window and watched as she put the hood of her gown over her head, walked to the end of the street and vanished.

He gathered his father’s pool cue, his guitar and some clothes. She was right. He couldn’t stay away and he knew where to find her, too. The same place where she first lead him away from his home. He would go to her, he knew, and he would give her his soul. He opened his parents’ bedroom door and told them goodbye and that he loved them. They were sitting in bed reading the paper and drinking their morning coffee. They hadn’t found his body yet. They probably didn’t even know that he had come home.

As he walked out the front door, he shook his head and thought for the millionth time that he wished he had never seen her face.

“Henry!”

“Henry! Hurry! They’re coming,” Helen said.

“Helen, I’m trying to watch my show,” Henry called from the living room.

Helen ran into the living room eyes wide, face flushed and looked her husband in the eyes. “Henry, it’s the posse.”

Henry jumped up and said, “Shit!”

“What are we gonna do? You know how these clowns get!”

“I know, Helen, I know.” He held up his right arm with the missing hand.

“How do they know?”

Henry hitched his only thumb to the left. “Trikeman. He told. That bastard! I’ll get him! He always leaves his tricycles in the driveway. I’ve never told on him before but if he wants to play then we’ll play.”

“I’ll take the blame this time but you gotta stop doing stuff without permission.”

The doorbell rang. Helen and Henry looked at each other and Helen opened the door. Red curly haired, white faced, red nosed, impossibly large red frowned mouths, blue triangle eyed men dragged Helen down the walkway to their tiny car.

Henry grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat in his favorite chair in front of the TV and waited for Helen’s return. He heard the front door open. Helen walked in and held up her bandaged right hand. They had only taken a pinky this time. She handed Henry a piece of paper.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Henry Bozeman:

It has been brought to our attention that you are in violation of the Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions for Clownatopia Glen Clown Owners Association Article VI, Section III that states:

“You may not alter, add, remove and/or change anything, anything at all on your property without prior written consent from the Clownatopia Beautification Committee.”

You have 24 hours to remove the birdhouse from your backyard and off the property.

Consider this your first warning. Penalties are as follows:
First – Pinky from right hand
Second – Right hand
Third – Wife’s Dignity
Fourth – Bludgeoning by not quite ripe tomatoes

Sincerely,
The Beautification Committee
Clownatopia Glen Clown Owners Association, Inc.