1942, as the Second World War raged, a Portuguese coal miner in Pennsylvania collapsed and died. He was one of Grandma Winter’s boarders from the Old Country. Since he had no relatives in America, Grandma arranged a proper Catholic burial.

His body was laid out in Grandma’s parlor. On the evening of the wake, friends arrived, prayed, and pondered their own eventual return to dust. Women in black mourned in high-pitched, wailing voices.

“What’s a wake, Mommy?” three-year old Billy asked, as they headed for Grandma’s house.

“A party. But without cake and ice cream.”

They passed a house where boy scouts were placing a coffin onto the front porch.

“What’s that?” Billy asked.

“Hitler’s coffin.”

“What’s a Hitler?”

“The name of a very bad man. He started the war.”

“The war my daddy went to?”

“Yes. The boys are collecting money for our soldiers. People give them a nickel so they can hammer a nail in Hitler’s coffin.”

“What’s a coffin?”

“A box they put bad people into.”

“If I’m bad will you put me in a coffin?”

“No. I would never do that.”

They ran into Billy’s twelve-year-old cousin, Carl.

“Hi, Aunt Emma. Where you going?”

“To the boarder’s wake. How about you?”

“I’m going to the movies.”

Emma took Carl aside. “I couldn’t get a sitter for Billy. And I don’t want him to see a dead body in a coffin. It might give him nightmares. If I give you twelve cents for his ticket, will you take him? He’ll be nice and quiet. He loves the movies. He sat through Bambi and Fantasia without making a sound. I’ll even give you some pennies to buy candy. ”

Carl agreed.

Emma never thought to ask what was playing.

Wishing to spare Billy from the sights and sounds of a dead man’s wake, Billy’s mom inadvertently consigned him to something worse. Showing that night were two of Universal International’s most intense horror movies. Both featured Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolfman.

Billy was so shocked by the hideous images, he forgot to eat his candy. The sight of Dracula lying in a coffin petrified him. He screamed along with everybody else when the vampire drank people’s blood.

The Wolfman looked like Billy’s uncle—until the full moon rose. Billy cringed when he saw on ordinary man transforming into a hairy beast.

The Frankenstein Monster drew the most screams. His head was flat. Screws protruded from his neck. He roared ferociously and strangled everybody who crossed his path.

After the show, Carl took a very frightened three-year old to Grandma’s. Once inside, Emma covered her son’s eyes when walking him through the parlor. She didn’t want him to be shocked by the sight of a corpse in a coffin. But she didn’t block his ears. To him, the women who wailed over the dead Portuguese sounded like the women who wailed over the victims of Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolfman.

Because his mom was staying over to help Grandma cook for funeral attendees, Billy was taken upstairs and put to bed. He kept looking around nervously, saying “Franken-stink…Franken-stink.”

Emma didn’t grasp what he was saying. She figured a bedtime story would settle him. So, she told him the story of the three little pigs that were gobbled up by a big bad wolf.

She left when Billy fell asleep.

Sometime later, he woke up and scampered down the dimly lit hall to the bathroom. While he was on the toilet, air raid sirens sounded signaling a blackout drill. To Billy, they sounded like screams he heard at the horror movies.

The town’s entire electrical power was turned off from a central switchboard. When the bathroom turned pitch black, Billy cried out. That’s when he saw Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolfman moving toward him. His screams pierced the entire house, shattering the frayed nerves of the mourners.

Stumbling through the darkness, Emma hurried upstairs. But it was too late. The monsters had already ripped Billy’s psyche apart.

A patrolling Air Raid Warden heard the commotion and ran into Grandma’s house to investigate. A doctor was called. Questions were asked.

Carl ran away and hid for two days.

* * *

In 1992, Billy, now known as Dr. William Winters, was about to give the keynote address at the International Robotics Association convention. He had a dynamite speech, fantastic visuals, terrific stage effects. At the point where he’d have the audience completely captivated, three of his company’s most advanced robots would enter and dance a ballet.

Nobody except Billy’s wife knew he was tottering on the edge of nervous collapse from overwork.

“And now, members of the Association,” Billy said to the audience, “I present the most amazing robots in the entire world.”

Lights dimmed. Spotlights focused on the stage. Three robots appeared and began to dance gracefully to tremendous applause.

Suddenly, a power failure darkened the room. Women’s screams jolted Billy’s raw nerves. Though the screaming stopped, they kept repeating in his head. Trembling, he found himself fighting an overwhelming urge to run for his life.

Somebody shined a flashlight onto the stage. The robots were no longer dancing. Now one had screws in its neck. Another was turning into a bat. The third howled as hair covered his face and arms.

When power was restored, Dr. William Winters was gone.

They found him in a fetal position in a closet, muttering, “Franken-stink…Franken-stink.”

On the way to the hospital, he fell into a catatonic state.

Failing to revive him to normalcy, psychiatrists tried insulin shock. Though the effects would be temporary, he’d become lucid enough to communicate with them for a few minutes.

When they injected Billy, he sat straight up in bed.

“You’re in a hospital,” a doctor said. “Can you tell us what happened?”

Billy muttered something, then went unconscious.

“What did he say?” asked a doctor.

“Strangest thing I ever heard: If only the Portuguese hadn’t died.”

—
© 2009 Michael A. Kechula

Michael A. Kechula is a retired tech writer. His fiction has won first place in seven contests and placed in six others. He’s also won Editor’s Choice awards four times. His stories have been published by 124 magazines and anthologies in Australia, Canada, England, India, Scotland, and US. He’s authored a book of flash and micro-fiction stories: “A Full Deck of Zombies–61 Speculative Fiction Tales.” eBook available at www.BooksForABuck.com and www.fictionwise.com. Paperback available at www.amazon.com.

I couldn’t take it, I kept telling myself, one more night and I’d go insane.

Get yourself together, damn it! It’s just a dream, a goddam dream…

Every night it begins the same… Lying on my back, safe, sane, warm under my covers despite the chill in the air, breathing gently, easily, glad to be at rest. And then the panic begins to set. And then my heart pounds. And then my blood races, tearing through my veins like a tidal wave of morphine, tearing through my body like microscopic madmen on the loose. And then the pain — the terrible pain — as cell by cell my veins stretch wide, my insides shift and churn, and I lay helpless, unable to move, unable to stop the change.

Every night, it’s the same…. Once the blood rushes, once my veins pop, my muscles transform, hardening, tightening, morphing deep within…then my skin toughens, bulbous and blazing like some burning primeval beast.

It’s only a dream, I tell myself. Relax — it’s just a dream!

After the skin, it’s the bones — the most painful part of all — and I try not to listen as the bones snap and twist and torque, and although I have not the slightest strength to move, my position always changes to the whim of my mutating bones; sometimes they turn me over on my chest, sometimes they force me on my face, and on one particularly awful night, my bones flung me across the room.

Once the bones stop shifting — and sometimes they shift for hours — my transformation is nearly complete…. It’s just my jaw, my teeth, my nose…. Then once the foam fills my mouth and the blood floods my eyes, the change overtakes my brain. The blood stream over my eyes is always the last thing I remember.

Eleven nights I have endured this dream: the twisting and the turning and that horrible, burning pain…the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as my body rages its war within.

Eleven afternoons I have awoken to dread, hours past my alarm’s ring, drenched in terrible sweat…a grown man sobbing from a stupid, goddam dream!

It’s been nine days since I have been to work, a week since I left my apartment.

My boss has been calling every day. “Just checking in on my number one seller.”

“I will be better tomorrow,” I assure him. Day after day, I assure him. Yet I am never better tomorrow.

My girlfriend has started to call me ten, twelve times each day. “Maybe it’s time you saw a doctor.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t sound fine. You don’t sound fine at all.”

“You worry to much.”

“And you don’t worry enough…not about things that matter. My four o’clock just cancelled. I’m gonna bring you chicken soup. Orange juice…. Hot tea…. Like your mother used to do.”

“My mom never did any such thing.”

“Well, now you’ve got a girlfriend that does.”

“Don’t, Lisa. I’m fine.” What the hell was I going to tell her? That I wasn’t sick at all…that her boyfriend was cracking up, that I was hiding from the world because of some stupid, mind-fuck nightmare? “One more day. If I’m not better by Friday, you can make me anything you want.”

“One more day. Please feel better.”

“I kind of do already.” But I didn’t feel better at all, and my head was pounding and my temples were tight and everything was drenched with sweat. The thought of doing anything — of bathing, of eating (though my stomach panged with hunger), of getting out of bed — was more than I could bear…and I lay there, staring straight ahead, the crazy patterns of the cracks and bumps in the ceiling looking more like ghostly faces hour after hour. Then once again, I fell asleep.

And my heart began to pound.

And my blood began to race.

And once again I lay helpless as my blood vessels opened wide and my flesh distorted its shape…. My skin thickened like a rhinoceros hide then bubbled with blisters and pus…. My bones crunched and crushed against each other and I once again endured this hell — and then woke up in a pool of sweat, sickened and spent and alone.

Suddenly there was a knock. I would have jumped had I had the strength.

“You haven’t answered your phone all day.” Lisa opened and closed my apartment door. “You’ve really got me worried.”

I tried to respond, but nothing came out — too weak and hungry to speak. I was embarrassed to have her see me so frail despite the hopes and fears we have shared.

“Chicken soup,” she announced as she approached my bedroom door, “just what the doctor or-” The moments she saw me she let out a scream — and she, and the bowl, spun up into the air. She fell to the ground with a thud, then lay in a puddle of soup, shards of glass on top of her body, shards strewn across the floor.

WAKE UP, I tried to shout — but no words came out at all. HELP, I choked in vain.

I watched for hours, Lisa lying on her face. Did she faint? Is she dead? There was nothing I could do! Until, at last, the dream overtook me — and the blood began to flow and the bones began to shift and the fangs slid out from my gums…. And one more night I endured this torment…. Until, at last, I awoke this afternoon, sick and spent and drenched in thick, hot sweat….

But the sweat…it’s bright red…

And Lisa’s head lay in my arms, her torso near my desk….

I’m not hungry anymore.

And all I can do is stare at the ceiling, weak, helpless, alone, and wait for my bones (and my hunger) to overtake me once again.

—
© 2009 Andrew Rothkin

Andrew Rothkin is primarily a dramatic writer, as well as an actor and stage director/producer. He has had numerous plays produced in New York City, several of which became award-winning productions. While there has been a lot of industry interest surrounding at least one of his screenplays, none have as yet been filmed. Andrew is also a poet.