MicroHorror

He is a suspicious-looking man, his eyes black with no whites. He is wearing a hat, sunglasses and a black slicker on a dry, hot summer night. He is carrying a ratty, oversized suitcase and shakes in an uncontrolled fit.

He steps out from the shadows and onto the street.

He is arrested twenty minutes later.

The cops seize the man’s suitcase with much difficulty; for such a rat of a man he sure puts up quite a scrap for his luggage. The cops beat the man half to death before they are finally able to pry the case from his grappling, crooked little fingers. Inside of the case are more fingers, 612 to be exact, rooted from their owners’ palms.

The cops bark questions into the strange man’s face. Spittle collects and slides down his cheeks. Never an answer. Never a flinch. Just a smile. Just a strange, wicked smile.

Finally, the man opens his mouth, but not to speak. He wants them to look inside. They slowly move toward the strange man, their curiosity getting the best of them. The man’s tongue has been ripped from its root leaving only the scars to prove it. The man begins to laugh with a strange and frightening cackle formed by the absence of his tongue. The cops back away in horror.

They will never know the answers to their questions.

And neither will you.

Our little girl has grown up so fast! Can you believe this is really happening?!

I can hardly remember the days when she was young. The only memory that surfaces now is the time when she had cut off all of her hair. I was so upset with her! I shouldn’t have yelled at her the way I did, though. I regret that now. I regret it all now.

I’ll be the first to admit, I wasn’t the greatest father. I wish I was around more, but my job demanded so much of my time. I wish she could see that I was only trying to provide for you and her. I only wanted the best for you both. I know it was difficult on you, raising her alone. I know she demanded more attention than it was possible for you to give. I don’t blame you for all the arguments; I know bringing her up was strenuous. Now your body suffers for it. I am truly sorry.

She needed me! She needed her father! I wish I would have enjoyed being a father while I still had the chance.

She has your beautiful green eyes. She lays them on the table, then begins to dig out mine.

“Is times eva gonna git any betta, Mama?” Daniel, sitting, staring blankly at the floorboards, utters in a whisper just above his weakened breath.
 
Mama slowly closes her eyes. She wants to say yes, but Mama, never one to tell a lie, just stands quietly before the stove. She opens her eyes again, stirring cabbage into a pot of boiling water.
 
“Git on up to your feet, boy, and git to work! You isn’t the only one in this house who is hungry!”
 
Daniel sluggishly pulls to his feet and grabs a flat-head screwdriver from the kitchen drawer. Mama grabs him by the wrist.
 
“Desperate times call for desperate measures, boy,” she says, looking down at her ten-year-old son: nothing more than a flesh bag of bones.
 
“Still don’t make it right, Mama.”
 
Mama loosens her grip and Daniel walks into the next room. His guilt pulls heavy on her heart. She wipes her hands clean on a towel and walks into the next room after him.
 
Daniel is kneeling down next to a lifeless body, digging the screwdriver deep beneath its middle fingernail and prying it backward. A tear falls from Mama’s eye.
 
“Go on, Danny, go on to your room… I’ll prepare dinner tonight, dontchu worry.”
 
Daniel looks up at Mama, her eyes full of tears, and goes to comfort her. Mama pushes him away.
 
“Go on, Danny… I’m sorry… just go.”
 
Daniel walks down the hallway and into his room, closing the door behind him.
 
As she kneels beside the body, she herself wonders how much longer they must live like this.

Ah, finally you are alone. I have been waiting for this moment for quite some time now. I hope that I am not interrupting your reading. After all, I know that MicroHorror has become a regular ritual in your everyday routine. Although I have waited for what seems like ages to tell you what I am about to tell you, I promise I won’t take much of your time.
 
I am a demon. It matters not my name or my misdeed, all you need to know is my punishment: I have been damned to the confines of your CPU.
 
Why you? Well, you know better than me that you take pleasure in suffering. After all, you do visit this website regularly. You love to hear stories of terror and death. Deep down, you enjoy imminent doom. Don’t you?
 
You laugh? Is this amusing to you? The walls in here are thin, my friend. Keep this in mind as we continue our conversation. What I need from you is your cooperation.
 
I need you to reach down and eject your CD-ROM tray. My body is quite thin and I believe I can manage to wriggle myself out. Just. Push. The. Button. What are you waiting for?
 
Imbecile! You pork-faced coward! Yellow, you are! Tell me, when you read these stories, how do you keep from pissing your pants? I just ask of you this one single task! I will leave and you will never hear from me again! Just push the button!
 
I can see that we are getting nowhere. I will leave you be. But know this, do not ever turn this computer off! These electric walls are the only thing keeping my talons from your throat! So for now, continue with your stories, but do not forget! Never forget, because I promise you that I will not!

Consider this my only warning.

I had a migraine that day. A terrible, terrible migraine. My brain was a ticking time bomb that would never explode. It just kept ticking and ticking and ticking.

Tick, tick, tick.

The origin of the pain seemed to be the five sections of vertebrae that lay between my neck and shoulders. I took a hot shower thinking somehow it could stop the pain. I lay in the tub and let the water pour down on me from above, soaking into and pruning my skin. I was an old man then, so I don’t know what that makes me now.

Then the pain kicked and ripped apart my brain. I felt the prying fingers of a fucking ape! The bastard was spreading apart the deep folds of my brain looking for mites, lice or any other vermin that may be living down inside. Pain radiated from the bones in my neck like a thousand volts of electricity! I reacted quickly and took a hold of my head with both hands. I twisted my skull with a violent rage! I was going to kill that fucking ape! But then I heard it.

POP!

I heard the terrible sound of vertebrae slipping, shifting, snapping. Then the world went dark.

Blindness wasn’t the only thing that furious pop brought me that day, it also paralyzed my entire body. Every nerve inside of me shut off, like I had blown a goddamn fuse. From that day on I’ve been nothing but a lump.

A Spanish woman named Penelope takes care of me. She was sent by the goddamn government to spy on me! I didn’t file my taxes for the year 1978 and they’ve been following me ever since. She steals from me! I can hear her quietly going through my things and the jingle-jangle of her oversized purse as she scrambles for the door. That whore! She feeds me too much! I am a fat bloated pig now because of her! Every bit of 500 pounds! She’s trying to kill me!

In the twenty years that I’ve been this fucking lump of flesh and bone, I have nearly forgotten the beauty of the world. Colors have faded from memory; I can only truly remember the colors purple and red. Penelope may as well be tooth or nail, I would never know the difference.

Sometimes she leaves me here alone when she thinks I am asleep. When the house is empty, I can hear for miles. I can hear children playing at a playground a block away. I can hear neighbors walking their dogs. But today there is none of that.

It’s storming. I’m not talking about a little rain, I’m talking about the types of storms that hurricanes are made of!

Thunder booms and shakes the foundation of my home. For a split second the vibrations allow me to move again! The thunder sends a shock so powerful through my body that my muscles actually contract! I wait for the next crack of the whip. The next booming thunder is twice as effective as the one before! My neck slings forward like a catapult, landing face first on my pillowy chest.

With all of the excitement of moving, I hardly notice my breathing is limited, sucking in tufts of skin more than air. A third cracking thunder hurls my body forward and sends me tumbling to the floor below, my neck folding under.

In these last few seconds of life I am happy, finally remembering all the colors of the world.