MicroHorror

Martha lay on the bed, squirming in pleasure as the coarse brush worked its way down her back and into the cleft between her buttocks. Her reverie was interrupted by Frank’s muttered imprecation:

“Shit. I’ve run out. Need to get another jar. Back in a mo.”

As he padded out of the room and down the stairs, she closed her eyes and waited for him to return. The honey daubing had become as much a part of their lovemaking routine as the birthday blowjob, and their shared enjoyment of something that seemed exotic to them served to maintain the mystery in their relationship. Even so, she did sometimes wish that Frank would do more of his share of the cleaning up afterwards.

In her relaxed state, she almost didn’t hear the muffled cry from the kitchen down below followed by the sound of something being dropped on the floor. She stirred slightly.

“You okay?” she shouted. But she heard footsteps ascending the stairs, so all must be well. She lay down again and waited.

The next thing she knew was that she was being licked, up and down her back, side to side, so thoroughly that there can hardly have been any honey left. Then she felt the first bite. Just the tiniest little peck on her butt.

“Ow!” she said, giggling. “Stop that!”

She stopped giggling when it occurred to her that Frank was clean-shaven, and whatever had nibbled her had a substantial amount of facial hair–or, now she thought about it a bit more, facial fur. Before she could turn around to see what it was, she felt the second bite dig deep into her, and she began to scream. Her screams continued to echo through the moonlit night until the third bite finally silenced her.

Twenty feet away, snow crunches underfoot. I shift my weight, adjust my back against the freezing birch tree. I catch a glimpse of its emerald eyes and veins in the dark. I must move fast to keep up with this creature.

Three years ago, the Day Breakers severed us from our sunlight habitats, hoarding the daylight hours. Now, we only see our city by lamp and firelight. At daybreak, we bolt our doors and windows, and they do likewise at sunset. Depression and insomnia haunt many of us who cannot adjust to the endless dark, but not me. I have learned to love the night.

Consider this evening. When I walked to the woods, I admired our snow-blanketed corner of the city. The long-necked streetlamps beautifully illuminated the icy cobblestone with their yellow-orange glow. The lamps are bent and twisted around each other, arching this way and that, a jungle of wild lights that cast the oddest silhouettes. In their glow, shadows separate and merge, as if they are spindly demons attacking each other. Tonight, one of my shadows slashed the other’s throat, and as I stepped into a spot of darkness, the shadow grasping its neck sank its teeth into the other’s stomach. I have never witnessed such eloquent silhouettes during the day.

Even the walls gating off the Day Breaker’s community are a nightly sight, pasted with frosty swirls. In the streetlight, several of the sparkling patterns resemble faces screaming in agony and remorse. Some of us believe they are the death expressions of the beasts we hunt in this very woodland.

I hear the creature breathing but cannot see it among the dense birch trees, starlight struggling to brighten the snow. Good thing I have my snout about me. The creature emits the most unnatural stench of putrid flesh, a feature no thanks to us.

I accidentally scrape my nails against the tree, and the breathing falls silent.

This Day Breaker has been one of the more challenging. It called my bluff when I spread chicken entrails over the thinly frozen pond, ready to bury the starving beast in a watery grave. It stopped just before stepping on the ice and knowingly gazed in my direction. Perceptive devil.

But as formidable as the creature has proven itself, the night and the cold wear on, slowing the creature’s movements and judgment, placing me a mere twenty feet from it.

The Day Breakers once made for fine game. They were smart and deceptive, even killed a handful of us. But what is a handful compared to the hordes of them we’ve slaughtered? Soon fear conquered their fight response, and most of them sat and lamented when we dumped them in the woodlands. Field mice offered a better hunt. The Day Breakers became weak and fragile, useless in every respect. That is until Pok, an abomination even among us, began injecting the captured Day Breakers, testing various concoctions on them, making them fiercer, stronger, animalistic. Pok never hunts them—his ancient, sore-ridden body won’t allow it, but we managed an arrangement.

I creep on all fours like the wolves we believe to be our true ancestors. Not fifteen yards away I see the creature’s pale flesh slouched against a fallen log. A smarter breed than the last but still too easy. I snap a twig and the creature spins around, jagged teeth exposed, flesh taut to its skull. Good. I want it to know the thief of its last breath, that I am one of those exiled to the night.

I lunge at the creature and before the next star can wink, I crush its back, ending the attack swiftly, avoiding any damage to its flesh. Scarred hides are bad for business. Pok and I can’t sell blemished Day Breaker pelts for full price, and they are in high demand this year, especially the warm and durable ones we claim to have; forecasters predict this winter will be the coldest yet.

Virgilio Hollero, a wealthy 50-year-old Filipino businessman, was making preparations for a journey to Capiz. A resident of Manila, it was way farther than he would have traveled. Somehow, he felt he’d be successful putting up a sardine factory there.

He checked himself in the mirror, noting how plump he was. At 5’2” he was overweight at 160 pounds with graying, thinning hair. When he smiled, though, he looked like a kid.

He walked to the back of the room where a reproduction of Marc Chagall’s Birthday hung. Lost in thought, he stared without seeing the painting, something his wife had acquired even before they got married. He never told her, though, that this artwork scared him. He thought the woman in a panic; her eyes were large saucers, while the man’s eyes were deep set and unreadable. Her lover, though undeniably handsome, had no arms, was twisted and deformed. To plant a kiss, his serpentine neck was bent at an impossible angle. He was suspended in midair.

Virgilio broke the spell and hastily flipped the painting to reveal a built-in safe. Inside, he fished out the ring. He held it up, watching as the green gem sparkled in the early afternoon sun. The emerald was very expensive, but he thought it well worth it.

His wife had told him that wearing such a ring would protect him from witchcraft. Virgilio was not a superstitious man but he’d heard far too many unnatural stories about Capiz to chalk it up to chance. He also packed a .45 in the bag.

There was no direct route from Manila to Capiz. It took two plane rides to reach a neighboring airport. He was pleased he made arrangements for his friend Cesar to pick him up from the airport. Even so, the long journey was over rugged terrain. The roads were not cemented nor asphalted, pockmarked by numerous crater-like holes and exacerbated further by frequent monsoon rains. The countryside, though green and verdant on both sides of the road, became monotonous and lulled Virgilio to sleep.

“Hey, Pareng Ver, we’re here.” Cesar nudged his friend’s shoulder. Virgilio slowly opened his eyes, stood up and stretched. Virgilio looked up at the imposing house, Casa Mia. His first thought was: haunted house. The mansion was well over 50 meters away from the main road and sat on a hectare of land with a dark canopy of trees all around. The imposing structure was three stories high, of dark brown wood.

Virgilio, his body on automatic, roused himself from sleep to pour himself a glass of water from the bedside table. He looked at it now, assured that the .45 was there. Suddenly, he felt a sliver of fear growing in his mind; felt more than saw that he was being watched with malicious intent.

He glanced at the open window. His eyes grew wide, his body now fully awake. There floated a woman in white, impossibly suspended three stories high. Her eyes were bloodshot red and murderous. In a panic, he grabbed the gun and shot at her.

In seeming slow motion, he saw her rapidly hover away, dodging the bullets. But just as soon, she started moving towards him. She came closer to his face and grabbed his head. Then, everything went black.

When he came to, he saw the concerned faces of the whole household, crowded all around him. They had heard both the gunshots and his screams, and found him unconscious on the bedroom floor. He explained as best he could but could not, for the life of him, expound further.

No one could explain why he was suddenly stricken with an inexplicable fever; pain and chills wracked his body. Several times, he bleakly thought he was going to die. In a week, though recovered, he was pale and rail-thin at 130 pounds. On the way to the airport, he decided not to not push through with his Capiz business.

David hangs up the phone, closes his door and the light goes out.

I pad downstairs, slump into the sofa and swig my beer. He needs to ace next week’s finals or he’ll be doing make-ups all summer and I want him earning some tuition working for Lonnie at the board shop in Sausalito. At least he’s finished with Leeza’s crazy witchcraft thing since she fled down to Arcata.

“He gone to sleep?” Maria asks from the kitchen. She’s packing lunch for her shift at the hospital.

“I guess. He hung up.”

“I told him fifteen minutes on the phone.”

“Yeah.”

“He plays Warcraft or something, I think,” she calls. “He’s tapping the keyboard.”

“Yeah, but he’s gone to sleep.”

“I can hear him now,” she says.

I listen. It’s vague, but not tapping. More like a soft drum set, someone playing an opening jazz shuffle. “What’s he doing?”

“I gotta get going.”

“Yeah, I’ll go check.” Damn kid.

In the kitchen I kiss Maria’s cheek. Rain’s started, the drops driving against the kitchen windows.

“He’ll be fine,” Maria says. “We’ll be fine.”

“Yeah,” I mutter. “We’ll be fine. Have a good night.” I take the back stairs and from the landing I can see a maelstrom of rain like heavy dark sleet. Sleet in May? It doesn’t feel cold. I press into the glass. The ice balls hit the path and scuttle off like spiders. Strange weather.

I hear the fridge close, then Maria zipping her bag.

At the top of the stairs I push David’s door. From downstairs I hear Maria scream. In a hoarse whisper David says, “Leeza,” then his door slams. Maria screams again.

I fly down the stairs, spinning on the landing. I catch a brief glimpse of the sleet now bunching on the outside sill. Furry with beaded eyes. I take the bottom flight in two leaps.

Maria is leaning against the back door. She’s surrounded by a writhing mass of fur and eyes and claws and teeth. More of them are flowing in through the narrow gap and she’s slowly being pushed back.

I stomp over, kicking the furballs aside. Some of them latch on with teeth and claws and I stumble. Maria shudders and the door opens wide. They flood in, swamping her. I lurch back, grab the phone from by the fridge and punch in call-return, wondering if it works from a different extension. I hear it ringing. Once, twice. Maria’s hand reaches through the morass and I wade towards her, but the current of them forces me back. Someone answers the phone.

“Leeza?” I say. David had called her.

“Mr. Baker? Why… oh, you’ve got Skitters. Don’t let them in the house.”

“They’re already in the house,” I say. Maria is struggling to her feet, but the flow isn’t slowing.

“We had a fight,” Leeza says. “He said he had some old spells to use if I didn’t move back.”

“I thought he broke up with you?”

“No,” she laughs. “Oh, they’re in the house?”

“I’m bleeding.”

“Hold out the phone, I’ll fix it.”

I turn the phone and Leeza makes a high-pitched whistling. The waves of fur subside, drifting away like dandelions on the wind. I go to Maria, slumped on the floor, breathing in gasps. “I’m okay,” she says, sitting up. “Scratched, bruised, but I’ll be all right.”

“You better check on David,” Leeza says. “He will have been in the center.”

“Thanks,” I say and see David standing at the bottom of the stairs, bleeding, his clothes shredded.

“They went out the window,” he says. “And kept coming and coming.”

“Let me speak to him,” Leeza says

I pass him the phone then help Maria up.

“Okay,” David says to Leeza. “Okay, yes. I understand. One condition? Okay, I’ll see you soon, then.” He clicks the phone off. “Lonnie’s place, then.” He says to us, nodding. “For the summer, then head on to Berkeley.”

“Good,” I say, and Maria smiles at him.

“Man, that thing’s really scary.”

Jose looked up at Carl, who was staring at the brick wall on the side of the road. The writhing, flesh-colored body of a worm was painted on it, small black hairs sprouting all over it, entering one painted black hole and exiting into another. “That thing’s everywhere,” he said shortly, as he went back to his work on his car. He had little patience for Carl’s panic attacks, now more than ever. One of his car’s tires had blown up, and he had to work fast so they could get going as soon as possible.

Carl shivered. “Where do you think its head is?”

“I don’t know,” Jose said, “and I don’t care. Dude, what’s wrong with you? You’ve been jumpy as hell–”

“Wouldn’t you be, after what happened?” Carl said. “We killed that girl–”

“So?” Jose snapped. “No one saw us. Besides, it wasn’t our fault we hit her. She just appeared out of nowhere–”

“But I can’t forget the look on her face,” Carl said. “Her eyes. It was as if she was looking right through us and she was going to let us pay–”

“How the hell is she going to do that now? She’s dead. I checked.”

Jose got up and returned his things back to the car. He climbed back into the driver’s seat. “Nothing’s going to happen,” he said as they drove along the road. “Even the cops won’t get us. We’ll be fine–”

Carl gasped suddenly, startling Jose out of his tirade.

“There it is again! It really is freaky, man.”

Jose glanced out the window, and true enough, a few meters away, he could see the worm, still painted on the same brick wall that lined the road. “I told you, Carl. It’s everywhere. Kids these days have a lot of time on their hands.”

Carl exclaimed a few seconds later, “There it is again!” His voice lowered to a whisper. “Jose. This is crazy, but maybe it’s… following us?”

Jose said nothing. He had to admit that he had never seen these drawings of that worm this close together before, and he had passed through this route hundreds of times now. Maybe–

“Don’t be stupid,” he managed to snap at Carl, and at himself. “It’s nothing. Now shut up, I mean it.”

Carl obeyed, but even so, Jose still noticed the paintings of the worm throughout their drive: not only on the wall lining the road, but also on a bridge they drove past, and once, on a billboard, painted over an actress advertising a new line of men’s underwear.

He dropped Carl off at his apartment, and headed to his flat himself. He was already inside the elevator, on the way to his floor, when his cell phone rang.

It was Carl. “What, man?” Jose shouted, exasperated. “Seriously, you–”

“Jose, the head, the head–! It’s–”

Carl uttered a single, choked sort of cry, and the line went dead. Dead–it was an ominous word, Jose thought suddenly, feeling a chill that seemed to creep under his skin. He let out a sigh of relief when the elevator chimed and the doors slid open.

Then he stopped in his tracks, staring at the walls around him.

For on them were hundreds of paintings of the worm, entering one black hole and exiting another in endless succession. He ran all the way to his flat, and went straight to his bedroom, locking the door behind him. He backed against his bed, shivering violently.

A sharp pang of pain made him cry out and turn around. He realized, too late, that on the headboard of his bed was painted the face of a worm, its scarlet eyes glaring at him. When he started to run, the painting moved–the worm opened its mouth, revealing a full set of large, and incredibly sharp, teeth.

He did not even have time to scream.

2 AM and we were ten miles out of town. We were speeding down this little country road. Screaming out the windows, music drowning out all our rational thoughts, and my foot was flooring the gas.

Suddenly there was this creature in my headlights. It was tiny and if it wasn’t for the stark contrast of its pale flesh, we wouldn’t have seen it at all. To me, it looked like a corpse was dragging its upper torso across the road by its arms. I squinted trying to make sense of the creature in the bouncing headlights.

“Shit! Look, it’s a possum!” slurred a voice from the back.

Maybe my imagination was a little too drunk off the excitement. Because dragging corpses didn’t exist. Possums existed.

“Quick, man, let’s hit it!” There was cackling in the back seat.

My foot was already addicted to the speed. It didn’t need any more incentive to speed up. I swerved toward it roughly, dropping a tire onto the shoulder.

At the last moment, the creature jumped up on my windshield. My heart and my screams got caught in my throat and I reflexively hit the brake. For a moment, I could’ve sworn I was looking directly into its eyes. The possum’s. I thought it was going to come through the windshield after me. Some sort of last revenge, but instead it just bounced right off and the glass held without a crack.

“Aw, jeez!”

“Did you see how far that thing flew?!”

My brakes were screeching. All my passengers were leaning out the windows searching for the wrecked corpse. So far, I was the only one who noticed all the splatter on my windshield.

“Woah, that thing had a lot of guts in it!” someone finally noticed.

“Are you sure that was just a possum?”

“How am I gonna get all this crap off my windshield?” I asked the most superficial question I could think of because I was still a little shaken by those eyes.

A shallow laugh. “Oh yeah, good luck! It’s all nasty!”

I restarted the car and someone turned up the radio, even though no one ever turned it down in the first place. There was blood trickling everywhere. It was sick to look at and I didn’t have a choice but to shrug off my jacket and wipe away some of the grime just to be able to see. I dropped it in the middle of the road.

I was driving more carefully now because it was getting worse and worse to see through the windshield. The gore was becoming streaked everywhere and collecting in thick globules.

I was beginning to taste bile in my throat when I suddenly felt a damp droplet on my arm. I looked and immediately rolled up my window.

“Geez, look at it all,” mumbled my friend on my right. I didn’t look, but the others did.

“We must have hit the thing worse than we thought; look, there’s splatter even on the back door!”

At that point, I turned on my windshield wipers. The wipers would sweep off the blood leaving smudged red tinted streaks, but almost instantly, more would seep in to cover my window. I clicked my wipers as high as they’d go. It was like driving through a rainstorm. As fast as my windshield wipers would wipe the blood away more would cover its place. Everyone in the car had gone quiet. The wipers were beating almost as loud as the radio.

“I can’t see,” I finally admitted to the rest of the car.

“Then pull over!”

The engine gave its last sputter, I hit the brake, and blood flooded through the pedal. I gasped and pulled my left foot up as it soaked through my shoes.

The brakes were shot. I didn’t know how, but they were gone. I couldn’t see; I couldn’t stop; I looked around at my friends and they all had the eyes of that creature before I’d hit it.

In the depths of the oceanic valleys there still was heat and light.

The heat came from fissures in the Earth’s crust, ever spewing forth lava and bubbling plumes of smoky gaseous fume that tunneled upwards through the long cold night of stilly waters.

The light emanated from creatures that few had ever seen and none had encountered; creatures which lived by their own light and feared no darkness. Electric flashes in the blackness heralded a shoal of swimming LEDs. Sudden white, a whiplash here; darting blue, a flash there; vermillion–changing–pink, a streak at the edge of perception. Neon, yellow, green, darting hither and thither beneath the Great Pacific Gyre.

The Sun that had once blazed no longer ruled the sky. It penetrated dimly mother-of-pearl clouds. Slowly it had carried on its work of photo-degradation upon the surface of the polymers left swirling on the waters and the corpses left strewn upon the land, but it was weak now. No fish surfaced to taste its rays and no animal basked in its radiating glow. The Earth lay under a dead blanket of thickened atmosphere, sick with poisons and all infertile.

Then came the day; that day that was bound to come, when the creatures that lay beneath rose from their ocean beds, close enough to the dark belly of the great petrochemical soup to taste its potential. Vast coils of plastic-coated wires, holographic interfaces, computer circuitry, components still intact within their plastic cases and yet sufficiently exposed for exploitation by those who could jolt them to life. The beings from the deep made their home there among those unnatural weeds and scales, among the flotsam of man’s legacy to Earth.

Gradually they built around them bodies, of indescribable intricacy and size, activated by elements from a trillion different machines and protected by a slurry of polymers, acetates and vinyls. Their glistening bodies shone as they took form and rose clear of their surroundings and they were given life, not from above but from below, from electric ocean depths that man had barely known and from his technological imaginings.

One by one, brand new creatures lurched onto empty continents to seek out the fills they knew must exist there. They towered over the landscape, striding a hundred meters at a time. They ventured forth upon the land of their creators and saw the devastation mankind had wrought. And the Techno-polymorphs saw that it was good.

Illustration by Sarah Clarke

The elders never talk about it.

Like veterans back from war, their days and nights are filled with visions they cannot forget. No one dares speak of the days before the Great Darkness.

As our Father told us one night, when it was quiet and there was just the family gathered around the firelight, people are too busy bowing to the new monsters to worry about the old ones.

Back in the days of the War, before the world went dark, they believed we were the only creatures that existed on Earth. Other than the animals, man was alone on this Earth.

Where do the Others come from?

We started calling them that. It was the best way to describe them. Their faces aren’t… right. Their limbs are overly long, and they walk in a sort of slumping motion. Their eyes are huge, with teeth that look like they belong in the mouth of a shark.

You can smell them coming.

When they walk through the factory where I work, all the people grow silent, knowing what will soon happen. The smell of ashes cloys to them, as if their skin is made of it. Their speech is a language that does not use tongues, but is a scraping, clicking noise emanating from their throats and the grinding of their teeth.

One only prays that they do not speak to you.

There is usually a human that they keep with them, a female, who can translate their orders. None of us are sure how it is that she can understand them.

They walk around in black uniforms, caps pressed against their heads, grasping whips in their hands. Just in case someone gets out of line.

It is rare that anyone does.

We are taught from childhood that humans are not to make eye contact. They often wear dark glasses. Once, by accident, I saw one of the Others take his sunglasses off and polish them. His eyes were almost like a human’s. But there was a red cast to them. And a stillness, an emptiness that was not normal. It reminded me of the cold, steady eyes of a snake.

The Others walk through our cities, with guns and knives to keep us quiet and compliant. Making and enforcing the law is their realm alone.

Those that do not obey are never seen again.

“Did you hear about the Wilson boy?” Jenny Blane asked, just to keep from being bored while waiting in line outside the hospital.

Norma MacTailor, Jenny’s friend, said, “I heard he found one of those egg things and thought it was candy. I heard he put one into his mouth.”

A woman in line behind them leaned in. She wore an apron dusted with flour. “I saw the poor boy when they took him away. I saw a bloody bandage wrapped around his mouth. He moved like it hurt like hell, you know, flailed his arms about. Too bad he couldn’t scream.”

Norma held up a sack of candy. The bag had a jack-o’-lantern on it. The name Gail was written on it in permanent marker. “I got this away from my youngest daughter before she could eat any. I heard about the egg things on the radio and drove to find her. I tell you, I feel real lucky.”

The line moved a few steps.

Jenny held up her bag of candy. “My Johnny ate a few pieces. But, thank the Lord, there were none in ones he ate. I’m sure glad the hospital agreed to X-ray all the candy.”

“Yeah, thank the Lord,” the woman behind said.

The man in front of them turned. He had a big bandage on his cheek. “One of them got me,” he said. “That’s why I’m here, to see a doctor.” He pointed at his cheek, a large spot of blood in the center of the bandage. “And I swear they do hurt like hell. I mean really like hell. My wife burned it out of my cheek with one of those little torches. You know, the ones used to make that fancy custard.”

“Ouch,” Norma said.

“Yes, ouch,” Jenny agreed. “Your kid bring one home in Halloween candy?”

“No kids. I’m okay. It’s my wife, you know. She can’t have kids. It was in a box of Cheerios we bought at Walmart.”

Jenny thought about that. She looked at Norma. “You know,” she said, “maybe we should head back home. You know, just to check.”

“Wouldn’t hurt,” the man said. He rubbed the bandage on his cheek. He winced. “Them egg things might have gotten into more than just candy.”

“Yeah,” Norma agreed with a nod. She had already pulled her car keys from her purse. “Just to check.”

Jake Stagger leant on the wheel of his Caterpillar mini ’dozer and watched the funeral party from a distance. It was practically always the same group of people, and he’d come to know them well in his time filling in graves. Jake popped a Kingsport cigarette from a rumpled pack and flamed up as the mourners stood in a black moon around the fresh grave in the distance, heads bowed and hands clasped. He recognized the widow immediately; she always stood out like a snowball in a coalmine. Face as white as death, almost luminescent behind the obligatory oversized sunglasses. Always dressed completely in black, the only thing that ever changed was the height of the hemline and the exposure of the bosom, according to the widow’s age. This one was approaching middle age, a respectable dress falling below the knees and just a hint of speckled cleavage.

Next to her were the children. The eldest son looked, as all eldest sons at funerals did, angry as a hornet’s nest. No sunglasses for this one, he wanted the world to see the rage and resentment in his eyes. His tie was crooked and hastily made, his long black coat seemed to billow behind him like a still from a Hong Kong gangster movie, and he was just waiting for someone to offer the wrong words of condolence so he could explode like a grenade.

Jake stubbed out his cigarette and checked his watch. Almost time now. He did a quick scan of the rest of the funeral party. The disinterested and distant family members who were only there out of genetic duty, staring at their shoes and tapping fingers against legs. The close friend who could barely stand, shaking like a baby kitten on a cold day. He’d be drunk in a couple of hours. The work colleagues attempting to look respectful and sad but not quite pulling it off. They had probably already cleared the dead man’s desk and taken him off the payroll; this was just the last in a list of annoying corporate chores.

The coffin was in the grave (five feet deep minimum for adults, two feet for babies and young children) and the porcelain widow tossed a handful of dirt into the hole. This was when it always happened, Jake thought, and he sighed, knowing what was coming next, crossing himself and spitting onto the ground.

And there they were. No-one could see them but him; he put that down to the years he had spent in this very situation, becoming attuned to the low frequencies and vibrations of a burial. They came clambering out of the grave, all claws and eyes, tiny little black creatures that resembled crabs without shells, pointy and sharp all over like a child’s drawing. Jake called them Choosers, and he watched as they pulled themselves from the dirt hole and started to scurry and trundle towards the mourners. Here it is, thought Jake, the moment of truth.

The Choosers, about a dozen of them, clicked and scratched their way over to the angry son. The first Chooser used its pincers and climbed the son’s pants, pulling itself up the side of his leg, over the belt, and then using the messy tie it scuttled up his chest and settled at his throat. The rest quickly followed, swarming up the son’s clothing and all falling still in different places over his body.

The funeral party started to disperse, Jake’s cue to fire up his digger and push mounds of earth into the grave. He watched the son as he walked away, the hideous creatures hanging from every part of him, knowing he was the next in line to die, not even speculating as to how it would happen as he had seen this way too many times. Jake started riding towards the grave, knowing that one day the Choosers would come crawling out of a hole and cover him from head to toe. And he’d see.