MicroHorror

I retched hard and the man spewed forth and crawled away. But that was days ago, on the beach in the moonlight. I can remember raising my eyes to look at him. I had been bent double, my hands at my knees, a line of saliva hanging from my mouth like a silver thread. I could see the hate in his eyes as he turned to look back at me: this man, this man who strangely, staggeringly, I had sicked up there in the sand. He had always hated me, but now he hated me more. He did not like this air, this wind. He stood shivering, looking at me spitefully as though to suggest that by ridding myself of him I had dealt him some injustice. The whiskey bottle still in my hand, I tossed it after him and he fled into the dark.

Now he had returned. He was standing on my doorstep. If only I’d known that it was his shadow floating up my garden path. If only I could have heard in his knock that which I knew in his voice: that slow, sinister quality that so revealed him. But I had thought him gone for good and hurried to answer the door. “Coming,” I even called, brightly.

Opening the door, I stood for one moment completely still. I stared at that face, that grin, before impulse told me to slam the door, bolt it, and step away. I stood in the hall, my hands pressed to my face, my eyes fixed on the shape that moved beyond the door’s mottled glass. I started when the letter box opened with a rattle, and looking down I saw two cold eyes peering at me through the gap. At first they were lit with pure hate, but this gave way and turned to something pleading.

“Brother,” said a low, childlike voice from the other side of the door. “Let me in. Please let me in. I’m cold.”

“Go away!” I said. “I don’t need you!”

For a few moments the eyes peered in at me, again with a weighty hatred. Then the letterbox was dropped shut. I saw him upright beyond the glass. He was going away.

Falling back against the wall, I stood shaking with relief. What he wanted I could not imagine; I was only glad he’d gone. But thinking this, I jerked suddenly upright. What if he hadn’t gone away? What if he’d gone, in fact, around the back, to the kitchen door that I had left unlocked?

I ran. I ran down the hall. In the kitchen I flew to the door, seized the key already in the lock, and turned it. I was laughing as I rested my head against the wall. A silent demented laughter that shook my whole body.

“Too late, brother.”

All humor sank in me. Turning, I saw him perched on the work surface beside the cooker, there in my white, bright kitchen. In one hand he held a whiskey bottle and he was drinking straight from it the way he’d always liked to. I looked into his eyes. These eyes. These eyes so familiar, for they were my own. Here was a face I saw every day in the mirror. Here was my own smile, twisted with menace.

“I’m not your brother,” I said.

The man across the kitchen cocked his head. As his grin broke apart in a laugh, he reached forward and plucked a knife from my rack on the wall.

“Where are they?” he asked. “The wife you beat? The kids you terrorized? The dog you kicked? Have they all left you, even poor Rover?”

“THEY ARE OUT!” I almost screamed. “It was you that did those things! All you! I am better without you! I am good! I am kind! I am reborn!”

“No,” he said, sliding down from his perch and showing me the glinting blade in his hand. “I am.”

• Copyright: © 2009 Tim Jeffreys

“I’ll always love you,” he tells her.

Of course, there’s no reply. He wonders what has brought about this confession. Maybe it’s the noise he hears, a shuffling sound from all around. He reaches in the dark for his matches and, with trembling hands, strikes one off. What he sees in the moment before the flame burns low and dies he does not like at all.

“Help me,” he pleads with her, knowing she can’t.

As he tries to shift position, pain shoots along his leg. He has to bite down on the scream. The things he saw were sleeping. He does not want to disturb them. For a few seconds he rolls, his knuckles pressed against his lips. The ground beneath him is hard and slippery. He can hear another sound: drip, drip, drip.

Stilling himself as the pains subside, he listens again for that first sound, that sound like the fluttering of great wings. He knows from what he saw in the match light that he is surrounded. They cover the walls with their bodies. Do they dream? He finds it ludicrous to be thinking such things. But what would they dream of? And what could inhabit the nightmares of something apparently born of his own?

He does not know. All he knows is that he must stay still and be very, very quiet.

Suddenly he hears a voice. He hears his name called to him from above. It echoes down the throat of the well to the place where he lies. It’s her. She’s back. He knew she would return. He feels a wave of relief go through him, but then he’s aware of an increase in the shuffling sounds that surround him.

They stir.

Silently, he pleads with her. Please be quiet, love. Get me out of here, but don’t make a sound. You don’t know what’s down here with me.

Unknowing, she hollers that she’s brought help.

A flock twitches its wings.

A man’s voice joins the girl’s, louder still. There’s humor in it. If only they knew! The man asks, laughing, how he managed to fall into a well. The man tells him they’ll have him out in no time. The man has too much to say, too loudly, and the creatures are waking now.

His hands scatter to the ground in search of matches. He finds the box, is about to light one when he halts and freezes, turning his head slowly in the dark.

Very close to him, he can hear their breathing.

Voices from above tell him they’re throwing down a rope.

It’s too late. He wants to tell her he loves her again, despite this, despite everything, but he doesn’t even have time to scream.

• Copyright: © 2009 Tim Jeffreys