MicroHorror

The flagellum has done its work and the man’s back is a single open wound. What is left of the muscle flexes and tears itself afresh as the wretch writhes and twists in agony. Two soldiers of the duty Century cut him down from the whipping post and throw him onto his back on the stony ground. A thin shriek like steam from a kettle is all the sound a throat raw from screaming can make.

The man’s arms are pulled to either side and lashed to a roughly cut timber weighing over a hundred pounds, the patibulum. His head and neck are now forced forward by the baulk lying across his lacerated shoulders. The soldiers kick him to his feet. Half crazed with pain he staggers this way and that under the crippling weight as the soldiers drive him, like a beast, along the path to the place of execution.

Unprotected, his bare feet are lacerated by sharp rocks and leave a bloody trail in the dust. A few idlers follow the group and throw stones at the man’s back, causing clouds of insects to rise briefly from the mangled flesh. One youth runs forward with a goatskin of water to tempt him, but the Centurion in charge of the detail knocks him aside, breaking the boy’s nose with his fist.

After an interminable time laboring under the morning sun the group arrives at the stipes, the vertical post to which the patibulum will be fixed. The man is thrown on to his back once more, but already half-dead and delirious from his injuries he barely stirs. Soldiers cut the ropes binding his arms to the cross-piece but then drive thick, square nails through his wrists and into the wood. Fierce new pain runs from fingertips to neck and the man’s eyes bulge in horror.

It takes eight soldiers, four on either side, to lift the patibulum and its burden into position on top of the stipes where dowels locate it centrally in place. As his weight tears the sinews and nerves in his pierced wrists the man vomits and thrashes about tormenting his bloody back against the rough timber and dislocating his shoulders and elbows. So extreme is his suffering his tongue protrudes between his teeth and he bites it in two; blood pours over his lip as he howls.

The soldiers step to either side of the stipes to avoid staining their tunics with the blood and bile and from this position force the soles of the man’s feet against the post and nail them in place. A square of wood under the nail’s head ensures he cannot pull his feet free. Desperate to relieve the agony in his arms the man pushes down on to his spiked feet and then flops back again with a wail. There is no relief.

Now begins the slow, hideous descent into death. Hung from the arms, air can be drawn into the lungs, but not easily expelled. Each breath is won at a terrible cost as the arms or the legs or both must lift the body and move it against the rough wooden post to which the blood and serum of the raw flesh has clotted. The sun beats down relentlessly on the naked skin and the dehydrated body tortures itself still further with blinding headaches and crippling cramps. Flies gather to feast on the blood running down the back and legs and become a heaving black mask over the man’s face where such sweat as remains is mixed with blood from burst vessels in the eyes and nose and from the ragged and swollen remains of the tongue. Eventually, the body stops moving and the dreadful torment is finally over.

The soldiers march away. There is nothing for them to do and they have no interest in such a familiar spectacle.

One man, nearby, squats and waits. After dark, he will release his son, Dismas, and take him for burial.

Something wasn’t right; Gwendolyn knew that much. She couldn’t describe the feeling precisely. In her young, six-year-old life she had never felt anything like it. Although you knew in your heart that something was wrong it could still feel right. Feel oh so right… Her cheeks blushed as the October wind stirred her pretty blond hair. Brown leaves twirled and blew across the lawn as if they were disturbed by some invisible force.

Over the horizon dusk had approached like a grizzly hand. Gwendolyn always had a strange feeling in the dusky hour because it seemed as if the world went into cramps and closed in on humans like narrowing walls. The world simply produced a far more intense scale of claustrophobia when darkness fell. At least to Gwendolyn… She shivered standing there on the porch-steps listening to the brushing sounds of the crops in the field near the house. It wasn’t just the cold wind that sent chills through her bones; it was also these husky sounds from the wavering crops. And, oh, my God, that voice…! Twitching and laughing and shrieking.

She knew she had to act fast if she wanted to avoid getting caught in the process by her dad. Gwendolyn turned around on the porch where the white paint had crackled and looked at the jack-o’-lantern. It stood there with the lit, looming grin beside the front door. The light inside it flickered and carved unsteady shadows on the wooden beams.

The attraction it had on her was indescribable. As soon she locked her eyes on the sharp-toothed, grinning face some transparent power field sank upon her and blocked everything else out. She gazed long into the pulsating, triangular eyeholes. The voice which had only been a whisper before intensified into a deep, blurring roar like fire catching on.

She remembered the day before when she and her dad carved the pumpkin in the kitchen. It had been fun and a late afternoon filled with laughs. At that time this… thing had only been a… pumpkin; something completely natural and safe. But now it was something more… something dark. Gwendolyn looked at her toes, embarrassed at her own thoughts. Even though it had this dark, intense magnetism it was all the same so… beautiful. The most beautiful thing she had ever seen. For the first time in her life she truly loved someone besides her mom (who died when she was three), dad and their dog, Sully.

Her dad was still not in sight. Quickly, she picked up the jack-o’-lantern and ran towards the cornfield. With the orange sculpture in her arms she rushed through the cornrows without looking back. The warmth from the surface of the jack-o’-lantern oozed into her palms and sowed an unknown, almost surreal, calm in her body although she ran along.

By the far end of the cornfield the old Ferris wheel at the abandoned carnival ground rose to the gloomy sky like a sad, forgotten iron mastodon.

As the cornrows ended she rushed into the carnival ground where nothing much was left besides the rusty, creaking Ferris wheel and a battered shed. Trips to the carnival came into her head like echoes of the past.

At the foot of the Ferris wheel she stopped, still holding the grinning head in her hands, and looked up at the big wheel where the gondolas swayed on their hinges. She knew she had reached her destination. A short gasp escaped her as the Ferris wheel began turning slowly. Flakes of rust fell to the ground; the gondolas cried out in high-pitched tones. The wheel stopped and she saw the black shape sitting in one of the gondolas.

“I’ve been expecting you,” the shape said in a strangely moist and musk-like voice. She climbed into the gondola and the wheel began turning.

Gwendolyn sensed a smell of burnt coal and sulfur. Below the old Ferris wheel the cornrows cackled.

“And the Lord banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, and did set an Angel with a fiery sword at the gate. And the serpent looked at the Angel and said, “So, what do you want to do now?”
–Genesis 3:23(½)

Quaestor Godwin sat back in his padded chair and sighed. He really would have to be getting on with his day. The coffers of the church would not grow themselves, after all. The monk took a deep breath, and squeezed his eyes shut. He exhaled slowly, and smiled.

“That was exquisite, darling woman. Inform your husband that his slights against Mother Church have been forgotten, and in fact…” He gave a shudder of pleasure. “You have procured for him one less year of atonement. Does that please you?”

In response, the young cook’s wife just raised her streaming, red-rimmed eyes, and said nothing.

“Leave me. I have the work of the Lord to do.”

She needed no further coaxing, and ran from the room, as though Satan himself might be at her heels. Godwin allowed himself a small chuckle. It was a dreadful burden being the town’s sole link to the Almighty, but he thought that there were some benefits. He rose then, and straightened his cassock. Time to do his Good Works.

His first visit was to Duke Geoffrey, a man as infamous for his wickedness as he was for his fear of Hell. Godwin had collected an enormous sum from him over the years, and as long as the farms kept producing, he could count on a steady stream of income from the “Duke of Sodomy.” He’d often thought he might like to try that act himself with Anabella, she of the cheeky husband and chaffed kneecaps.

It was to his great surprise that the Duchess Felicia met him at the gate herself.

“Dear Lord in Heaven, you heard our prayers.”

Godwin tried to keep his air of aloof power, “We had planned to meet on this day, did we not, milady?”

“Indeed, Brother Godwin, but something has happened. It is horrible. Words cannot describe; you must come.”

Were it any other family, he would have refused, but to turn his back on the family that had built his fortune would be foolhardy to say the least. He made up his mind. “Lead on, Duchess.”

The Duchess opened the way, and Godwin entered the house. The door slammed shut, crushing her nose, and barring her from entering.

“Hello, Brother Godwin.”

A man’s voice, but not the Duke’s, seemed to be coming from everywhere, and nowhere. The house was freezing, though it was midday outside.

“Come to hear my sins?” There was a gleeful malice in the tone, and the monk looked behind him. Hanging in midair like a macabre puppet was the Duke, eyes rolled up to the whites, blood running from a dozen self-inflicted wounds.

“Welcome, holy man.” The thing mocked him.

“I… I cast you out, demon.” Godwin had to take control. Was he not the servant of the Almighty? “The Lord God of Hosts commands you!”

Braying laughter was the reply. Underneath, Godwin thought he could hear the screaming of the damned. “I think not, Quaestor. Remarkable as it seems, I am closer to God than the likes of you. God requires evil to give himself purpose. I serve that purpose, and who, pray, do you serve?”

The monk felt hot piss soak the front of his cassock.

From the top of the stairs then, a new voice. “Go AWAY!”

The Duke-thing growled in surprise. A red-haired girl, tiny in stature, looked down at them. “God HATES you. Go AWAY. Give me my DADDY back.”

The demon shrieked. The walls shook, and pottery shattered. “God wants you GONE.”

The Duke collapsed to the ground, trembling. In a minute, he was still, breathing heavily. Godwin turned to the girl. “My darling child…”

She snarled back, “He doesn’t like you much, either.”

I.

William Crouchley stood outside the crumbling wall marking the entrance to St. Sepulchre-Without-Newgate, watching the last of the workmen pack their tools for the evening. Crouchley was clutching his own set of tools: wooden ones, not metal, so the sound wouldn’t alert the night guard. The sun had almost set over London. The church and the workmen were only shadows, their long, black figures set off by the gaslights which had been set around to light the renovation.

Crouchley listened as the voices got farther away, their heavy footsteps fading into the night. Without the lamps, it was almost completely black now. The only light was a dim glow from the nearby prison. He took a look around one more time and then ventured into the graveyard. It took him most of the night, but his spade finally hit something hard, making a soft thud as wood hit wood. He pried open the lid of the coffin. The stench was strong, and he tied a kerchief around his mouth and nose to keep from fainting. The woman’s body was soft in his hands, and she oozed thick liquid, which he wiped on his black trousers.

Crouchley stuffed the swollen corpse into his long bag, quickly tying up the end. Not a bad night’s work, he thought. This body should fetch good money for the surgeons needing a dissecting dummy. He heard footsteps in the distance. Peering over the edge of the grave, he saw a policeman walking with another man, presumably on their way to Newgate. Crouchley held his breath for a moment. The two men did not even pause at the cemetery gate. He let out his breath and began the walk to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.

II.

Mr. Booth had not been happy.

“Wha’ is this coopered old thin’?” he demanded, after opening the sack. He pulled out the woman’s hand and waved it around. It flopped back and forth, making a sickly slapping noise. “I can’t ’ave this, take ’er back,” Mr. Booth said, shoving the lump to Crouchley.

Two burly men came through the door, smelling of strong liquor. One of them snarled at Crouchley.

“Got a new one fer you,” he said, thrusting out a dirty sack, remarkably smaller than Crouchley’s load.

The other man smiled. “It’s a baby, fresh too,” he said, in a deep, lazy voice.

Mr. Booth took the sack and looked inside. He smiled briefly, before closing the sack. “Al’ight,” he said. “Sack-’em-up, gentlemen.” He took some coins from his pocket and tossed them to the first man. “That’s two pounds each.” The men nodded and left the room.

Crouchley stood, sheepishly holding out his hand.

“Well, you ol’ codger, ge’ out of ‘ere,” Mr. Booth said, dropping four shillings onto the floor.

“Four bob?” he asked, looking at the small coins. “’S that all? I brought ye a missus, just buried today, like ye wanted.”

“Ye brought me un that’s good ’n rottin’,” he said, turning his back to Crouchley. “Bring me a fresh un, and I’ll give ye more.”

III.

Crouchley stood close to the window, just beneath the open latch. Thank the stars it had been a warm night. The young woman inside blew out her candle. Crouchley put one hand in the window and then the other, pulling himself up quietly.

She barely even made a sound as he crept past her bed, his spade raised above his head.

He peered over the edges of the whitewashed cradle. The sleeping angel had the same red curls that framed her mother’s face. She opened her eyes and cooed at him, stopping Crouchley in his tracks, but only momentarily. A fresher one, he thought. He shook off his terror and brought the spade down quickly and aggressively.

It made a sick crack against the infant’s skull.

The mother stirred in the bed beside him, but did not wake up.

Crouchley clutched the warm bag against his body. Mr. Booth will be happy tonight, he thought.

I.

It had been a difficult winter. The biting cold had brought famine and illness to Roanoke, but the wind was perhaps the worst of it all. The hard, fast gusts of air destroyed any will to live. The sickliest died first, their corpses turning blue-black with ice. Those that were left–the once-burly men and the stronger of the women–now looked pale and dangerously thin, their features drawn long with hunger. They had no strength to bury their dead.

II.

They call me many names. Yehasuri. Widjigo. Wisakedjak. Skin Walker. Some call me Trickster or “The Flatterer,” as if these happy little monikers will protect them from my true nature, my avenging spirit. I am not the jolly little gnome they portray me as in their dances and songs. I am something much, much worse.

III.

The Croatan boy, at thirteen hardly a man–though they named him one–heard the wail first, a sound so loud that it could rattle your brain inside your skull and so terrifying that it would haunt you the rest of your days. Then came the footsteps breaking through the brush in the woods, coming closer and closer every day. The tribal leaders met, and needing to pacify their increasingly terrified people, they put the boy out of their lands. He would be a good sacrifice for the wood spirit, they said, since he heard the cry before anyone else.

It was not long before the boy heard his name whispered from deep within the forested land.

The transformation was quick but not painless. His limbs grew long and thin, and grey-white fur covered his body. Sharp yellowed fangs descended from his gums, hanging over his dark lips. They ached in his head; he bit his lips in agony, sending a deluge of blood from his mouth and streaking his matted fur with gore.

IV.

A young woman saw him first. She was clutching her half-dead child in her arms, desperate to give him the warmth he needed, if she could give him nothing else. She was too weak to resist the yellow-eyed monster hurtling towards her, though he was too quick for her even if she had been strong and healthy.

The rest of the hunt was just as easy. An entire village–men, women, and children–gone in less than half a day.

The nearby tribe waited and listened to the cries of the pale-faced colonists with a resolute indifference, knowing this was the price of the sin of cannibalism.

The boy, satiated, used his razor-sharp talon, now dripping with meat and tendons caught underneath his fingernails, and carved a single word into the tree to mark his victory: Croatoan.

In the poor soil atop the ridge scrub pines grew twisted and deformed, making an eerie silhouette against the darkening sky. Upon the ridge was the beast.

Warm breezes wafted up the heavily forested slope carrying telltale scents of what lay hidden in the river valley below. There was the musky scent of deer. An overwhelming urge to hunt moved the creature down the slope when suddenly there was a new odor, one of burning wood mixed with another tantalizing scent–that of flesh being charred. It sniffed audibly with flared nostrils to locate the source. It moved toward it.

***

Through the steamed-up windshield Sue gazed up at the crescent moon, thinking, “How many hands does he have, anyway?”

“Todd,” she said, “do you realize there are Americans on the moon? I mean right now,
this minute?”

Todd glanced upward. “Groovy. Now where was I?” He unsnapped her jeans.

“Todd!” The AM radio was playing “Hey Jude” again. Sue wanted to just sit back and listen. She sighed, “The Beatles, men of many talents; Todd, man of many hands.”

“Come on, Sue, they invented that pill for a reason.”

“Uh-huh. The hamburgers are burning.”

“Hamburgers?”

“You know, the 69-cents-per-pound hamburgers. The ones you made a scene about to the store manager.”

“It was robbery! And gas went up to 32 cents!”

“But I’m worth it. Now check the burgers.”

Jerking upright when the windshield caved in, Todd caught a two-inch-long claw in his forehead as four gigantic fingers clamped the base of his skull and squeezed unmercifully. The beast pulled and swiveled, jerking Todd through the shattered glass, sending his shredded body cartwheeling across the river, his crushed skull spewing blood and brains.

Sue barely had time to scream. A monstrous back and massive shoulders silhouetted against the night sky were all she saw. Glass from the shattered windshield continued to fall, sparkling proudly in the faint moonlight. The thing turned. As its eyes met hers she mercifully fainted.

***

Flashing lights and radio chatter filled the picnic area.

“Eaten,” a deputy said. “Flat eaten!”

Sheriff Harris barked, “Deputy Riker! Get a blanket and cover that… that thing!”

“It’s not an ‘it,’ sheriff. That’s Sue Erving, or what’s left of her. The car is Todd Posner’s. Wonder where he is?”

The sheriff fought to keep his supper down. “Grizzly attack, maybe. Probably dragged the boy off somewhere. But hell, there haven’t been grizzlies around here for decades.”

“Maybe one just passing through?”

“No. Check the spacing of the claw marks on the roof. No bear has a paw that big.”

Another deputy shouted from near the river, “Sheriff, look at this!”

He looked where the deputy indicated with his light. There in the riverbank lay a trail of enormous human-like tracks sunk into the rocky soil.

The deputy nodded. “Whatever it was went into the river. Bear looking for salmon, maybe?”

Harris shook his head. “No. Whatever made these walks on two legs and has a seven-foot stride. Get casts. Good God, they look twenty inches long.”

The deputy had a very uneasy feeling. “God in Heaven, Sheriff, what happened here tonight?”

He shook his head. “Other than the obvious, I don’t know.”

“The obvious?”

“Yeah, whatever it was was huge and powerful… and hungry.”

They felt a sudden chill while gazing into the dark undergrowth on the other side of the river.

The Earth continued on its endless journey through the icy cold of space. The creatures of the night resumed their calling. One of the most momentous days for America was about to pass into history, leaving in its wake three very confused law officers.

The trenches were abandoned now and the guns silent. All that was left were the bodies of men from both sides lying in the oozing mud, colored black by untold gallons of spilt blood. Some soldiers were barely out of the trenches when they were shot; others had run bravely into the hail of bullets that must have rung around their ears, before falling.

The courage of these young men was beyond my comprehension and, in truth, not my concern as I walked between the corpses that littered the ground. Mud stuck to my boots making progress difficult, and under normal circumstances I would have been far from such a scene of devastation–yesterday as the battle raged, I was hiding in the forest some five miles back–but today was too good an opportunity to miss. It was my chance to gather some trinkets.

I searched each body for anything I could sell. Some men only had cigarettes or chocolate in their pockets, but they were marketable products nonetheless. Others had envelopes which I opened hoping to find money, but usually they just contained letters or photographs that I just let fall into the quagmire beneath my feet.

Now and again a man would groan as I rifled his pockets, obviously not quite dead, but this did not deter me from my task. If they moaned too loudly, a boot to the face soon shut them up again.

To my left was a crater of sorts and I hoped there would be rich pickings from the men killed in the explosion that caused it. Slowly I squelched my way over to its rim and looked down. The morning mist stopped me from seeing just how deep it was, but I was able to see a flash of silver a few feet into the crater. It looked like a cigarette case and would be my greatest prize today if I could reach it.

Carefully I edged into the crater and immediately fell, getting a mouth full of mud as I did so. I tried to stand, but slipped again, sliding past my find. I dug in my feet and clawed the mud with both hands to stop myself sliding further down the steep side of the hole. I eventually steadied myself, but feared that to move just a fraction would send me careering deeper into the pit.

So, I began to call for help at the top of my voice until I was hoarse and tears streamed through the mud that caked my cheeks. It did no good; the place was deserted.

The cold gnawed at my bones and I knew I would have to do something, or perish. I could still only see mist below me, but assumed it would just be a few feet to the bottom, so released my grip and let myself slide down the inside of the crater.

At first I traveled slowly, but quickly picked up speed. I couldn’t believe I’d not reached the bottom and, fearing it would be too big a climb when I did, tried to stop myself again. But I was traveling too fast, the side too greasy and steep, and I just kept falling. Then I realized I was no longer in a hole, but plummeting into blackness, into a void.

I fell for what seemed an eternity before I realized with absolute terror where I must be going and the fate that would await me. And as I tumbled, one thought more than any troubled me.

How evil, how despicable, do you have to be, before you are taken to this place while still alive?

Dark brown, made of stiff felt, its top flaps open like a mouth when he walks. Mostly, though, he sits and fiddles with the things people bring him, and at those times it sits faithfully on the floor at his feet.

It was the first thing I saw when I woke up, still lying on the pallet they used to carry me in, the pallet that now serves as my bed. It had been a normal day for me on the streets, scraping fruit from stalls, pick-pocketing… and then from nowhere came a hackney carriage. Horses’ hooves trampled my body into a complicated tangle, a twisted contortionist’s knot.

The Specialist repaired me. He repairs anything that hangs on the edge of life. He takes out his equipment and pokes, prods, yanks, rips and tears back into place. Then he knits and splinters, sewing everything into a new skin quilt. He plucks meticulously at the still forms brought to him until they move again.

While he works he stores pieces in the hat. When it’s time he opens the lid of the hat, takes out a part and sews it on again. One day he put an eye in the hat and forgot to take it out. He put the hat back on his head and the eye stuck in his graying ponytail. It seemed to grow roots there, sticking, and then slowly dissolving over several weeks into black goo.

Sometimes after a session he doesn’t use the things stored in the hat. He takes them out and preserves them in ice, using them later on something else. Or, if they are not needed soon enough and start to decay, he petrifies them in jars, stacking them on shelves around the room.

I asked him once what was his favorite repair? Frogs, he replied. Not many people bring frogs. They bring in beloved dogs and cats, not willing to let them go just yet. Or sometimes a lame horse or cow, their daily bread and butter. But we have a pond in the garden and he goes to fetch frogs from it. Some of them are healthy and he snaps a leg anyway. He watches the broken frogs travel around the worktable like rowboats with only one oar. After the repair he likes to stroke and hold the clammy bodies as if he were winding them with a key, and then he lets them go free, bounding away into the garden until the next time.

Since he fixed me I have never left this house, never looked again on the London crowds, walking bleary-eyed from the smoggy yellow air, their bodies weary from factory work. People would stare at me on the outside. Besides, he feeds me with those he can’t repair and it’s warm and dry here. There are no police cudgeling me to move along, dirty beggar!

Over the years he has become slow in his work. He needs a monocle. He completes fewer subjects. Some he can’t get to in time, and we stack them outside the back door for scavengers. Then when the stack is too high I go out and bury the rest when he asks. His meager sentences are reduced to single words, hums and clicks.

This morning is the fifth morning in a row when he hasn’t woken. He lies still like the others.

Each day I pick up the scalpel and the hooks and hover over his gut, not sure where to slice, where to tinker. He has never apprenticed me. The stench is like a fish market at the close of day.

Tomorrow I will throw him out.

People are still bringing those needing repair. Dogs wheeze and hiccup, their tongues leaking drool onto the worn worktable, clogging up the eyes in the wood with their blood. Cats lift up their mewing heads from rigored bodies.

I put on the hat and pick up the tools and make an incision.

Bong… Bong… Bong… Bong… On the twelfth gong of the bell, my ears ring. I awake to the silence of the world. The sky is pewter gray.

Where have the birds gone? Even their nests lie bare. Trees shed their brown leaves coffined in the snow. No squirrels, no bark of dogs. Only the plaintive howl of a blizzard wind. I say to myself, Wake up! Even this is too surreal for dreams. But I am not asleep.

***

The phone ring-tones on the other end, Surely she must be up, muted bells echo into dead quiet. I swig last night’s tepid beer to wash the raunchy taste of stale cigarettes from my mouth. I forego the shave and head for Julie’s.

The country sky is now darker, I see the horizon, and the tall buildings loom out from its own kind of charcoal gray. The valley is full of New Year’s smog hugging ground. There, the cars swarm as ants, seem stuck in yellow amber head to abdomen trailing the sweet asphalt. But as I near, I sense the stillness–cars, trucks, immobile; trains frozen in tracks; barges on the river drift into bridge pylons. I can drive no farther than Fourth and Main. I walk to the nearest car, then to the next, and to yet another. Every driver is mummified, and stiff as crash-test dummies stuck to steering wheels; the passengers, too. People litter sidewalks as fly pupae on spoiled meat.

In downtown stores and high rises, the same scene: the now dead, cocooned and strewn all over the place. I think there must have been an alien invasion. One by one, I see each mummied thing poof as dandelion spores to the wind.

I find Julie, or what used to be her, wrapped in some Styrofoam-like shit. A semblance of her face presses through the smoke gray casket impervious to my touch or my prayers. She disintegrates to gossamer dust.

I am alone, too scared to scream. And my cries would go unheard.

***

The midnight moon falls below stark trees. I sleep again wishing only for her. When I wake, the morning sun is glazed in snow. It glints off the dust of what is left of my world… and Julie. The dead bells chime again; I suppose they toll for me. I hear a voice boom through the wasteland calling me by name saying,

In the beginning, the earth was formless and void. Your generations shall be as countless as the stars and the grains of sand, even the dust beneath your feet. And I shall bring forth a woman for you, and you shall call her Eve.

Feeble candlelight challenged the growing darkness. A savage electrical storm wreaked havoc with power lines, neon-green lightning overloading transformers that exploded in showers of vivid blue sparks.

Old-timers of Granville peeked through parted curtains. Brave ones ventured onto porches to gaze in awe at the violently churning dark green clouds overhead. It was the strangest weather in memory. It was the color that scared people–the green clouds and lightning, the green-tinted air.

Sammi Jewel dug through the overflowing junk drawer hoping for more candles but came away with only a half-dead flashlight with a dim yellow beam. Though only four PM it was gloomy and oppressive outside the house and dark inside.

Her twin six-year-old boys were giddy with excitement. Scotty and Brandon knew adventure when they saw it. Stormy weather, candles, and a big box from their new TV. Sammi sighed with relief. Two terrified kids she didn’t need.

She hugged herself. The air was alive with a pulsating energy that tickled the hair on her arms and raised goose bumps. She imagined swarms of tiny invisible spiders were crawling on her and resisted the impulse to brush them away.

She peeked in at her boys and marveled at their imaginations. They crawled giggling inside the box with their teddies and closed the flaps.

“Captain Scotty here. Time machine ready!”

“Ready!”

“Date?”

“1830!”

The box rocked and Sammi smiled.

Sharp cries of alarm erupted from within, followed by a flash of jade-green light. Then silence.

Sammi gasped, rushing to the box. She called tentatively while opening the flaps with trembling hands, “Boys?”

Empty. Sammi inhaled sharply and frantically searched the room. They must have slipped out unseen, but how?

There was another flash of green and giggles from the box. Sammi looked in and screamed. “Where have you boys been?”

The boys were confused. “In the box, Momma.”

She shook her head. “I looked and you weren’t…”

“Teddy!” Scotty shouted. “Where’s Teddy?”

“Let’s go get him!” Brandon cried. Hunkering down they closed the flaps, chanting, “1830, 1830, 1830…”

“Teddy!”

The box rocked. Green light flashed.

“No!” Sammi cried.

Flaps pulled open revealed the box was empty. Sammi screamed and looked frantically about the dimly lit room for her sons. Another flash of green startled an anguished cry from her. “God in Heaven! What’s going on?”

Brandon jumped from the box, dropped a teddy bear and ran to his toy box, screaming all the while, “Indians! Indians, Momma! The Indians got him! The Indians!” He quickly fished out his toy bow and four rubber- tipped arrows and ran back to the box. Sammi grabbed for him but he ducked and pulled shut the flaps, screaming, “1830! 1830! 1830!” Green light pulsed. Sammi screamed until her throat was raw and bleeding.

By four-thirty she was insane. Her husband arrived home at five to find his wife sitting in the box, rocking to and fro, mumbling “1830, 1830…” while clutching a blood-stained teddy bear.

By six, rays of sunlight peeked through dissipating clouds that ceased their violent churning and either melted away or moved off. The air lost its green tint and all that remained of the strange storm was the memory of it.

In Granville they still talk about it–the strange weather and the disappearance of the two boys–as if the two events were inseparable.

Sammi shuffles aimlessly in the asylum, tears falling freely from haunted eyes, mumbling endlessly about “’Indians” and “1830.” At times Sammi’s eyes brighten and she smiles an odd little smile. If she tries hard she can see her twin six-year-olds, two bright little meteors streaking through time. But when she reaches out to them they shimmer and fade, as does her sanity. The light in her eyes dims and once more she is lost.