MicroHorror

It was May and the rough winds did shake the buds of Castroville’s artichokes. That beautiful member of the thistle family was empurpling all of Monterey County, and we were in for horror. It was 1948 and the world was speeding up–already we had seen Gandhi shot, the Big Bang proposed and the formation of the Hell’s Angels and it was only May. But we didn’t know about the dangers of Cynarin. The Italians knew, because they made Cynar, artichoke liquor, but they didn’t tell us. Maybe they were still missing Mussolini.

We just knew we had to get Americans eating these damn artichokes. If you can grow artichokes and most of your fellow Americans have no damn idea what an artichoke is, money is not flowing your way. So we would whet the appetites of our countrymen with cavalcades and county fairs. We had it all–horses of course–can’t have a cavalcade without horses; it would be etymologically incorrect. We had etymological correctness in those days, and the Bomb. We had artichoke ice cream, yellow and lovely, and we had Norma Jean. She was the prettiest thing to have ever come out of California (even if she did have six toes on one foot). She was to be our first Artichoke Queen.

And we had Cynarin. It’s the naturally occurring drug in every artichoke. It stimulates bile production, or in layman’s terms it makes everything taste better. Professor Whit Bissell Frankenstein had refined a pure Cynarin pill that would instantly make all things seem tasty. He intended to market his little purple pills as Savorin.

The big day came, as is the disappointing habit of big days. The cavalcade made its way down Merritt Street, and we all threw purple artichoke blossoms beneath the horses’ hooves, then the silver and black uniforms of the Condors, then Dr. Frankenstein’s flatbed truck. His lovely daughters with their magenta hair tossed out sample packets of Savorin. People began popping the purple pills like candy as visions of artichoke-derived wealth danced sugarplum-like in their heads. Bile began flowing, hunger growing, and a strange rumbling sound arose from the stomachs of the Castrovillians.

Then we saw her. Norma Jean Baker.

Beautiful like pure sex and vanilla ice cream, surely like the flesh of the apple that the Serpent had offered Eve. Sweet smelling like the gamy scent of your first girlfriend’s vagina, like a perfect Thanksgiving dinner, like Chanel No. 5. Our pupils dilated, our nostrils flared, thick strings of saliva hung from our chins like lead foil icicles on Xmas trees. And we became wolves, locusts, vampires, and piranhas. We ran to pull her out of the open car. We tore her flesh, sank our teeth into the white skin, cracked her bones, and sucked out her eyes. She became almost a red mist over us all. We may have eaten a few of the horses that followed as well.

Hours later, as the Savorin wore off, we knew we had screwed up the artichoke festival. We would permanently. It was Dr. Frankenstein’s fault. We grabbed torches and stormed his laboratory that night. He told us not to fear. He told us to send him the ten most beautiful high school girls, and erase their records.

He cut and sawed and he stitched. They screamed, and we turned up our radio and listened to Peggy Lee’s “Golden Earrings” and Perry Como’s “Ramblin’ Rose.” He made her. Marilyn Monroe. The combined beauty and sex of all American women. No one need ever know that we had eaten Norma Jean. He warned us that the model would not last long. It would doubt its identity and eventually end its life.

It is our shame and our glory.

For years I have known there is no way to quiet Margarette’s screams but I continue to try in spite of myself. She is a strange child given to irrational fears and I accept that but I always feel there must be some way to bring her peace. I try everything. I bring her presents: big stuffed bears with marble eyes, dolls to dress and pamper, a colorful jack-in-the-box I found at an antique shop. I read her stories: “Goldilocks and The Three Bears,” “Harold and the Purple Crayon,” “The Little Prince.” I sing her songs that I remember from my own sad childhood, songs my mother made up just for me.

I admit that sometimes I get angry and yell at her. “Why do you have to be this way?” I’ll shout. “Can’t you just act like a normal kid?” Eventually I will calm down and apologize. I know that it is not her fault but I only have so much patience. “I’m sorry, baby,” I’ll finally say. “I know you can’t help the way you are.” Then I will feel like a heel and sing her another song in hopes of calming her down.

I once heard her singing and it lifted my soul. It was a somber tune but a tune nonetheless. Her voice was soft and sweet and I wondered what kind of demons had attached themselves to such an undeserving and innocent mind. I looked down at her and she peered dimly into my eyes. It was the first time she had looked at me directly for months. “Aw, baby,” I said. “It’s gonna be all right.” But as soon as I finished speaking the howling started once again and I rushed into my bedroom and closed the door behind me.

I believe the poor child’s mind is haunted. She is not well. When I first saw her I was certain she was perfect; I swear I have never witnessed such an angelic youth. I am at the end of my rope. I must find a solution to this child’s crazy fears before my own life is entirely consumed by my attempts to ease them.

Suddenly it hits me. It must work. I turn the handle to the basement door and climb down into the shadows. The room is musty as usual and I kick the dirt off my shoes at the bottom of the stairs to keep the floor clean. An unfamiliar smell drifts into my nostrils, an odor of freshness through the stale air, and I take it as a sign that I have made the right decision. I get down on my knees in front of the deep pit and gaze down at the child. She looks just as beautiful as the day I took her from the yard outside of her house. They stopped looking for her over a year ago. “I can’t do this anymore, baby,” I whisper. “The creatures in your mind are going to take me over too.” She screams without reason but I expected that. I take down the cleaver from its place on the wall. She will soon be quiet.

October 31, 1962

And so this will be my last entry. I am tired. Years it seems. Years. For years I have diligently kept this journal and now I am tired. They have beaten me at every turn but I have finally figured it out. Without my words they are nothing. Without my thoughts they are undone. They enter my mind through my musings and once inside are free to play. I will host their games no more. I am finished. I have won!

November 1, 1962

And so this will be my last entry. I am tired. Years it seems. Years. For years I have diligently kept this journal and now I am tired. They have beaten me at every turn but I have finally figured it out. Without my words they are nothing. Without my thoughts they are undone. They enter my mind through my musings and once inside are free to play. I will host their games no more. I am finished. I have won!

November 2, 1962

And so this will be my last entry. I am tired. Years it seems. Years. For years I have diligently kept this journal and now I am tired. They have beaten me at every turn but I have finally figured it out. Without my words they are nothing. Without my thoughts they are undone. They enter my mind through my musings and once inside are free to play. I will host their games no more. I am finished. I have won!

November 3, 1962

And so this will be my last entry. I am tired. Years it seems. Years. For years I have diligently kept this journal and now I am tired. They have beaten me at every turn but I have finally figured it out. Without my words they are nothing. Without my thoughts they are undone. They enter my mind through my musings and once inside are free to play. I will host their games no more. I am finished. I have won!

November 4, 1962

And so this will be my last entry. I am tired. Years it seems. Years. For years I have diligently kept this journal and now I am tired. They have beaten me at every turn but I have finally figured it out. Without my words they are nothing. Without my thoughts they are undone. They enter my mind through my musings and once inside are free to play. I will host their games no more. I am finished. I have won!

On September 2, 1988, Billy woke at exactly 7:45 in the morning with an enormous smile spread across his face. He leapt out of bed and scrambled into the kitchen, stopping briefly to tap one of the ten balloons hanging from the ceiling in the hallway. “Happy Birthday, baby,” his mother shouted. “Ten years old! You’re into double digits now! Are you ready for your birthday breakfast?”

Birthday breakfast was a longstanding tradition in their family. You could have absolutely anything you wanted to eat, and it was always ice cream. Not just ice cream but an ice cream sundae. Not just an ice cream sundae but the biggest ice cream sundae you could conceive topped with fudge sauce, marshmallow fluff, peanut butter, Hershey’s Kisses, sprinkles, piles of whipped cream and anything else you could dream up. The idea was to build a monster you couldn’t possibly finish. His mother looked him over. “My baby’s getting old!”

Every year she wrote a birthday poem and taped it to the back of his chair. This year it read:
Billy Billy ten years old
Full of life and oh so bold
Dad and me glow bright as pearls
Thinking of all you’ve brought to this world

At 4:30 in the evening Billy wore a knock-off Stetson hat. There was a big plastic sheriff’s badge pinned to his vest and a gun strap hanging from his hip, six-shooter cap gun and all. He was ready for his “Old West” birthday party. “Ya look good, Champ,” said his father. “Ya ready to lay down the law?” Billy grinned as his father wrestled him to the ground, held him briefly and then flipped over in submission allowing Billy to pin him down. “Ya got me!” he said. Billy squealed with joy, “I’m taking you to the slammer, mister!”

The party was a mixture of Billy’s friends, donning a child’s vision of western gear, and extended family members doing their best to share in the spirit of the evening. At 6:00, after everyone had their fill of pizza, Billy heard his mother yell from the den, “Everyone come quick, there’s a fire in here!” He knew exactly what that meant but he feigned horror and ran into the room where his Mother held a cake adorned with little cowboy and Indian figurines and eleven candles burning brightly–always one extra candle for luck. “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Billy, happy birthday to you.”

By 7:30 the last of his friends were gone and only a handful of his family members remained chatting lazily in the dining room. There were shreds of wrapping paper strewn about the floor and Billy played with a fire truck he had been given by his buddy Daniel. He pushed it along the carpet down the hall and turned the corner into the living room where he ran the truck into his father’s foot. His gaze trailed up his father’s leg and met his eyes, strangely bright, and he was suddenly taken by the man’s size. His hair brushed against the ceiling. Billy stood up.

His mother was by his side looking down at him sadly. “I’m so sorry, baby,” she said. Billy cocked his head to one side. “But Mom, the party was great.” She held her fingers over her eyes. “I know, baby; I know it was.” Her hand fell away from her face and Billy’s legs began to tremble. Her eyes glowed green and her brow was full of swollen tumors. “It’s gotta be fresh, Margie,” his father said. “I know, Mike,” she replied. Billy couldn’t move. His father reached over; his hands were scaly and white, his fingertips bloated and pulsing with blood, his nails cracked and drawn into his flesh. His tongue hung over his lips as he tore off a piece of Billy’s ear and sucked it ravenously. Billy heard a faint grumbling in their stomachs as his family closed in slowly around him.

Thirty years ago Joe Junior and I were the best of friends. Everyone called him “Lefty” on account of a strange bone disease which weakened his right leg causing it to bow and forcing him to heavily favor his left when walking. The same damn disease caused parts of his skull to expand and he became increasingly disfigured over the years. When I last saw him his head resembled an enormous fleshy pumpkin. It was a landscape of gnarly hills and uneven craters. In spite of it all he was a sweet kid with a soft voice and angelic eyes.

His parents moved away when he disappeared and I had all but forgotten about him until he showed up at my door one rainy Tuesday evening standing perfectly erect. I squinted in disbelief then reached out to run my palm over the crown of his head. “Lefty?” I asked. “Not anymore,” he said.

Inside I poured bourbon over an ice cube and sat down while Joe dried himself in the bathroom. My wife, excited by the prospect of meeting someone from my childhood, had immediately insisted that he join us for dinner and spend the night. When Joe returned he stood over me grinning and the chandelier bathed his skin in a soft light. He had the glow of a boy in the heat of youth. “Lefty… um, Joe, What…?” I couldn’t get it out. He just smiled and I swear the glow grew brighter. “We’ll talk at a more convenient time,” he said. He wasn’t eager to explain himself and I was too awed to demand explanation. I figured it would all come out in time; perhaps in the morning the strangeness would settle into comfort and we would talk.

Even with the bourbon it took me hours to fall asleep that night. Under the covers I finally realized the effort was useless and got up to pour myself another drink. I sat in my big leather chair knocking the rocks against the inside of the glass and watching as they shrunk, leaving a thick trail in the auburn liquid. My skull seemed to tighten around my brain as I tried to make sense of it all. The room appeared uneven. Halfway through my fourth drink my head loosened and I felt a cocoon of warmth grow around me. I watched the hour hand on my mother’s old clock slide over the number 1 before I was swathed completely in my stupor and fell into a deep drunken sleep.

I woke with a start and through the slumber in my eyes gazed at the clock. It was nearly 2:30. My head was foggy and the room seemed to sway and throb with my pulse. There was a rustle coming from my bedroom, like hordes of beetles crawling over one another. I swung the door open and my eyes grew wide. They were all over her, plump wet critters with hundreds of legs and long arched beaks, horrible bugs of some sort tearing at her skin as she writhed erratically on the floor. I covered my mouth and dropped to my knees, frozen. Their damp black shells glistened in the moonlight as they burrowed under her flesh and climbed into her mouth. Her arms swung wildly but she was silent. Suddenly her stomach shot up and she let out a barely audible gasp then dropped still.

The sound of the creatures pulling themselves out of her limp body was sickening and I was suddenly aware of their pungent odor, like pounds of dry aged beef, like piles of oysters rotting, like death. They scuttled toward the darkest corner of the room and it was then that I saw Joe, his mouth open wide, his sweet eyes tightening with anticipation as the little monsters moved up his torso and crawled down his throat bringing him what they had taken. Before I lost consciousness I became unusually calm, enraptured by the sight of his increasingly luminous skin.

The door to the Wisconsin hunting cabin shuddered as the buck threw himself against the weathered gray boards.

“Hurry up,” Harvey yelled as his brothers dragged the heavy pine table across the floor. They upended it and shoved it against the door, then dragged one of the bunks over to brace it.

“I’d have sworn I hit that thing,” Mike said, panting.

“You did,” Bob said, wiping sweat. “Right through the rib cage. I saw lung blood on the snow. No mistaking that red.”

“That thing should be dead,” Mike said.

Harvey peered through the window, glad it wasn’t any bigger than a manhole, but thinking of ways to plug it anyway. “I think it is,” he said.

“Don’t give me that rural superstition crap,” Mike said, hiding behind his suburban house and his engineering degree like he always did when he was scared.

A banshee howl echoed through the clearing, and instinctively, Harvey grabbed an end table and covered the opening. Two thumps hit, followed by more screams and hissing.

“What the hell is that?” Bob asked as he threw his shoulder behind the table.

“That tomcat you warmed up on this morning,” Harvey said. “Both halves.”

“Here,” Mike said, returning from the junk drawer with a hammer, an assortment of nails and a couple of spikes they used to climb trees. It took a bit, but they secured the window.

“I’ve heard of this,” Bob said, nursing the thumb that had gotten in the way of the hammer.

“You thinking of Minong?” Harvey asked.

“Prentice, too.”

“Drop the spook stories,” Mike said. “It’s just some new form of rabies, not some revenge of the hunted.”

“It’s not hunting,” Harvey said. “Road kill, meat markets. The guy at the pet cemetery still won’t talk.”

“So why haven’t I heard of it?”

“Because it’s not logical and it’s not happening in a city,” Bob said.

“Just the day of the full moon, right?” Harvey rubbed his hands together. “We can last that.”

A second thud joined the first at the front door, followed by the crash of the chopping block and the bug light.

“Must be the doe from yesterday,” Bob said. “How’n hell’d she get out of the tree?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Harvey said. “We’d better make sure it’s clean in here, though.”

Mike grumbled, but he helped build the fire, and systematically, they burned every piece of meat in the refrigerator, every bite of jerky and the contents of two cans of steak and potato soup. A cracking noise above the mantle drew their attention. Grandpa Andy’s stuffed musky gnashed its teeth and struggled to free itself from its mounting board. The fish, a bearskin rug and a beaver pelt decorating the wall fed the flames, gagging them with the stench of burned fur.

“Damn, if it’s not like killing the old man all over again.” Bob wiped a tear that might have been from smoke.

“Now what?” Mike asked.

“Grab something to eat and wait it out,” Harvey said.

“They’re not going to take the ax and chop through the wall?”

“They’re just animals, Mike.” Bob shook his head. “It’s not like they get any smarter.”

It was almost cozy, sitting around the fire, eating beans out of cans–always careful to flick the bacon into the fire. After they broke out the schnapps, dozing came naturally. It was Mike’s gasps that woke them.

“It’s the wool shirt,” Bob said and pushed out of the chair, only to fall as his leather boots sliced his calves, severing his tendons. Harvey’s fingers flew to his tightening belt. The pressure on his gut grew, as did a steady whine in his ears, so loud he couldn’t hear Mike’s breathing anymore.

“No,” Bob forced out between moans.

Harvey looked up. A black cloud hung in the air, squeezing around the ill-fitted door. The mosquitoes had found a way out of the bug light’s catch tray. They descended, well-practiced in the taking of blood.

Illustration by Sarah Clarke

Opening the door, I paused on the threshold sure there was someone standing in the half-gloom waiting.

This is a cold place crouched in the shadow of the Ben, the outside haar seeming to follow me in.

I coddled the Rayburn to life with the paper I’d read on the train and went to fill the kettle from the burn. The cloud slunk low concealing jagged peaks as I scooped the kettle across the water, holding it by its blackened spout. A late dragonfly hovered then zigzagged away, its metallic blue a flare amongst all the brownness as I hunkered on the spongy bank. A shadow undulated across the peaty surface and a face that wasn’t mine stared out. Letting go of the spout, I sprang up and met a woman’s gaze on the opposite bank as the kettle gurgled down into the murk. She was old and stooped, carrying a crook which she upended and fished into the burn.

Laughing lightly she landed the filled kettle at my feet and unhooked her crook from the kettle’s handle.

“Lucky you were passing,” I said.

“You wouldn’t have dropped it if I hadn’t.” She turned away and was gone. I stood a few moments listening, but all that I heard was the unending water and echoing bellows of deer in rut. Walking back the way I had come, for company I whistled a song my father had taught me.

The peeling cottage door stood ajar, damp footprints curved into the kitchen. I entered as slow as a stranger, finding the old woman seated beside the stove–legs akimbo, her crook propped against the mantelpiece. I clanked the kettle on the hob where it hissed at first, and then I asked, “Would you like a cup? Tea? Coffee?”

“Tea would be grand.” She twisted to one side, retrieved a bottle from inside her clothing and bumped it down on the table. She tipped a generous measure into each mug as I placed a chair in front of the hearth and joined her facing the stove. We sat sipping in silence and then both flushed and spoke at once. We stopped and started a few times until I persuaded her to tell first.

She replenished our mugs, folded back into her seat and told me my life so far. I listened with the ears of someone who has just heard their own voice on a tape recorder. I wanted her to continue, but I also didn’t. She stopped, pulled herself from the chair and went outside. I lit candles, placed them in the empty wine bottles Connor and I had drained in the spring. And I waited. At first I thought she had melted into the haar and was nothing other than my imagination, but the half-filled whisky bottle stood proud as my witness.

A mouse darted across the soot-spattered hearth as I heard a rustling scrape in the hallway.

She came in clutching a bunch of dried broom, the empty husks of seedpods rattling.

In the heat of the August sun, before he went, Connor and I had lain naked in the ferns listening to the seedpods exploding.

She split the bunch into two and sweeping the floors we laughed as if exorcising our demons. We swept the whole house down from the attics, across the landing and down the stairs, gathering balls of dust, dead spiders, mouse droppings. Back in the kitchen, I went to place the kettle back on the heat; when I turned round she was gone. I laid my head on the table beside the empty bottle and wept like a hungry lamb calling for its mother.

Jonah reined in his horse and climbed down to get a better look at the girl. Her body was lying next to the road. He reached into his saddlebags for a wineskin and pulled the stopper. After a bit of cold water on her face, she jerked awake and tried to crawl away from him.

He tried to settle her down as he said, “Just hold on there, lass. I’m not gonna hurt ya. My name’s Jonah. What’s yours?”

Her eyes were wide with fear, and she whispered through a bone-dry throat, “I’m Marissa. I was being chased by a gang of men when I fell. I was just too tired to get up.”

Jonah stood up and looked around. He could see a group of horsemen with torches coming their way, and he made his decision.

He mounted the horse and held out his hand.

“Come on, Marissa, there’s a band of horsemen comin’ down the road, and I wouldn’t want to leave you here alone.”

She smiled gratefully and took his hand, climbing onto the horse behind him.

She put her hands around his stomach as he kicked the horse into a trot.

“Thank you for helping me, Jonah, but you should have kept on riding.”

He was puzzled for a moment, but the truth suddenly came crashing down on him. He tried to turn in the saddle to force her off the horse, but her hands locked into an iron grip around his waist, forcing the air from his lungs. A moment later he felt her teeth tear into his neck, and he knew nothing more.

Marissa threw the mangled carcass into the road and forced the horse into a gallop. She had a lot of ground to cover to get to the next town.

So you and the rest of the gang get drunk and laugh about poor Bob being committed last week, and yet you wonder to yourself about it. Wonder why Bob went screaming mad and wonder why the psychiatric hospital was so overcrowded when you visited him.

As you walk home from the bar along the canal path, wading through the piles of colorful dead and dying leaves, you notice that the trees all around you are dropping leaves by the handful even though there is absolutely no wind. The leaves hit you, bounce off and land on the piles with a satisfying little crunch. Such a nice sound.

But wait, what is that second sound you hear after the leaves stop falling, that ever so faint skittering sound, so much like tiny claws burrowing into the musky safety at the bottom of the piles?

You walk home a little bit faster, feeling itchy from the leaf storm, and decide to take a shower. It doesn’t help and you still feel like bugs are crawling up your legs, your arms, your back. You smack at those places and you scratch all night until you finally give up and go to sleep.

When you wake in the morning, you are not refreshed. Although that creepy, crawling feeling has left your body, now your ears itch. Deep inside. Like they were full of water, only they are not. You spend the entire day hitting your ears, trying to shake out the nonexistent water, you try to scratch inside using cotton swabs and the eraser ends of pencils. You even eye the scissors on the desk, but then shake that though off, although by dinnertime, you are eyeing them again.

The itching is driving you crazy. Now the feeling of tiny creatures crawling around is firmly entrenched in your head. You want to scream; instead you drink half a bottle of vodka and pass out.

The next morning you wake up fine, the clogged itchy feeling is gone and when you clean out your ears there is a slight crusty residue on the Q-tip. Yuck!

Life is good, at least for a couple of days. Then the noises start with the sound of minuscule eggs cracking open. Then small chirps and clicks begin, and grow louder, so loud in fact that you can’t hear anything else.

And that itchy, crawly feeling begins again, but this time it’s in your brain. You wish that you had reached for those scissors the other day and now it’s too late because all you can do is hit your head against the wall, harder and harder, screaming all the while.

The only thought that filters through all the noise and itching is that now you understand why the mental institutions are so full when the leaves fall and you hope that whatever is inside your brain is hungry. Hungry enough to have a fall feast and put you out of your misery.

When it awoke it gazed lazily through the gaps amidst the leaves. It could hear the shrill yipping of ten urgent animal voices, but their owners were nowhere in sight; all it could see were its usual prey, the mute cockroaches, centipedes and lizards that wandered about on the rough cement of the yard. By instinct it stayed absolutely still, taking care not to disturb the pile of leaves that served as both shelter and camouflage. Once the unsuspecting prey had wandered within its reach, it shot out fibrous tendrils from beneath the leaves and paralyzed its prey with a swift-acting poison. It relished the slow act of digesting an immobilized victim. The juices of surrendered flesh, frozen in a state of permanent shock and fear, enlivened every fiber of its carnivorous being, more so if the victim had struggled or fought before the poison set in. Lately, however, it had grown weary of its steady diet of strong-willed cockroaches and sly lizards. Compared to the heady rush of warm blood from a still-pulsing heart, the cold juices of an insect or a tiny reptile were bland and unappealing.

It had gotten its first taste of warm blood by a stroke of good luck a few days before. A wary little sparrow had landed a few feet away from the leaf pile; it hopped about on tiny clawed feet, pecking stale bread crumbs off the dry cement. It maintained a safe distance between itself and the leaf pile, as if it was aware of the invisible eye-stalks watching it forage for food. However, the leaf pile stood absolutely still, and there was a large, tasty morsel several inches away from the leaves… It hopped closer, all senses alert, agile wings poised for flight at the slightest sign of movement. There was none. The large bread crumb was only a few inches away. It hopped once, twice, thrice–

Fibrous tendrils shot out from the leaf pile. The startled sparrow spread its wings and tried to fly away, but it could barely hop off the ground. Spasms jerked its wings in a grotesque parody of flapping as it quickly lost its control over its paralyzed wing muscles. Its heart beat furiously for a few tense seconds before coming to an abrupt halt.

Somewhere in the depths of the leaf pile, a ravenous creature was exulting from a dying sparrow’s adrenaline-spiked blood. After disposing of the shriveled corpse, it eagerly awaited other warm-blooded animals, its tendrils trembling slightly from barely contained excitement.

For days it waited. No sparrows landed near the leaf pile; no sparrows landed anywhere on the cement within its range of vision. Every day it could hear the yipping of animal voices–full, throaty, vivacious voices, from bodies much larger than the unfortunate sparrow’s. It threw away half-consumed lizards and completely ignored cockroaches. Its fibers and sinews hungered for warm blood.

Just as its hunger had reached an unbearable peak, it saw a densely furred little dog dart from an open doorway; the animal voices had grown louder, as if protesting the dog’s escape. It yipped excitedly as it dashed from one corner of the yard to another, sniffing and marking its newfound territory with abandon. It was unaware of the eye-stalks underneath the leaf pile that eagerly following its movements.

A cockroach skittered in front of the dog; the dog followed, trying to snap up the cockroach. The cockroach, terrified, headed straight for the cover of the leaf pile and disappeared beneath the leaves. The dog, still sniffing, approached the leaf pile cautiously; it began to bark in its shrill, urgent voice, but the cockroach failed to reappear. The leaf pile was absolutely still. The dog slowly inched forward.

Beneath the leaf pile, a multitude of fibrous tendrils sprang to life. They shot forth, impatient, bloodthirsty, ravenous for the kill.