Custom Night spooks

Michael’s return to consciousness was a long, drawn-out affair. Hazy memories of a siren and sudden, sharp pain in his chest floated around in his mind. Slowly, he became aware of his surroundings. He was in his room, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, completely still.

Confusion swirled around in Michael head. How had he gotten home, away from Circus Baby’s? No matter how much he wracked his brain, the answer wouldn’t come forth. Still trying to force the memories to the forefront, Michael sat up in bed, ready to start his usual morning routine.

At least, he tried to.

Panic set in when his muscles failed to so much as twitch, but he forced himself to calm down. Sleep paralysis wasn’t exactly common, but it wasn’t unheard of either. All he had to do was ignore the feeling of being trapped in his own body and wait it out. A bit of lying in bed would do him some good. Maybe he could get his thoughts together.

That same panic returned moments later when Michael’s limbs moved of their own accord. He shifted around before clumsily sitting up in bed. Michael was terrified. A prisoner in his own flesh. As his body went through the motions of preparing for the day, uncoordinated and in a routine completely different from his own, Michael struggled. Harder and harder he tried, but no amount of willpower was enough to return control of his own body to him.

Michael felt the floor beneath his feet. He saw the cream-colored walls of his home. He heard the rumble of cars passing by and the chirps of birdsong. He could perceive all of this, yet he could act on none of it. Additionally, Michael was becoming aware of an uncomfortable sensation beneath his skin. Itching, squirming, writhing. From the corner of his eye, he spotted it. Tendrils of something, crawling in his muscles like a hive of insects. Hardened lumps, stretching his skin to the point of nearly tearing.

As his body stepped out of his house, Michael mustered up one last surge of effort, desperate to regain control of himself. It wasn’t enough. Michael felt the corners of his mouth turn up in a smile. No, an imitation of a smile. The way his lips peeled up was more like a grimace than anything else.

The neighbors were waving now. How were they not noticing the unsettling grin of something that was only pretending to be human, the unnatural walking of something unused to controlling his limbs?

Michael was unable to fall asleep that night. Neither was the creature inhabiting his flesh. Instead, it had spent the night pacing around his house in the dark, flailing his limbs at random, growing accustomed to moving. It spoke with his voice, too. A perfect mimicry. The only problem was that it didn’t use his vocal cords to do so. The sound echoed from deep within his body, and the creature practiced matching the movement of his lips with the words.

The second morning went very similar to the first. Michael looked on, an involuntary observer. The entity that had assumed his life crawled into bed and held itself still when dawn broke, apparently trying to mimic the lifestyle of a normal human. There it laid until the sounds of life reverberated through the windows, at which point it got up and began its morning ritual.

The short break had not done Michael’s body good, however. The period of stillness had finally allowed rigor mortis to set in. Michael knew then, without a doubt, that he was dead, a spirit bound to his own corpse, shackled to it as it was manipulated at will by its puppeteer.

A tingling feeling was beginning to spread from his fingertips, Michael noticed, a sensation of pins and needles. With it came a slight discoloration of his skin, and an odor that was both sickly and sweet. If the thing piloting Michael’s body noticed its shell was rotting it made no indication. Rather, it greeted the world warmly, more naturally. Again, his neighbors noticed nothing.

It wasn’t until the third day that anyone became suspicious. Michael’s skin had gained a yellow-green tinge, one that all but screamed illness. The neighbors still greeted his corpse with kindess, but one in particular was showing concern. Michael couldn’t remember his name – couldn’t remember any of their names, in fact – but a spark of hope grew in his chest. Michael knew he was beyond saving, but the hope that his body’s thief could get caught invigorated him.

Late that night, memories emerged, trickling back. While his body’s inhabitant practiced its humanity in the silence of his darkened house, Michael remembered. Getting tricked by the amalgamation of machinery that Baby had become. A jarring impact and the snapping of bone as he got scooped. White-hot agony when what used to be Baby squeezed inside of his mangled body and manually removed what the Scooper couldn’t, like he was a human jack-o-lantern.

Dawn broke, and Michael fourth day trapped in his own body began. The wiry endoskeleton that he now knew was in control once more went through the motions that morning, as it had every morning previous. Brushing his teeth, making his gums bleed because it had not yet grasped the amount of force necessary. Getting dressed, apparently unaware that people wore shirts. Cooking up a breakfast and discarding the stale remains of the previous day’s, as it did not eat.

The scent of decay clung more tightly to Michael’s body than it had before. Although still predominantly green tinged, his skin had faded to brown where there had once been yellow. His vision was going bad, too. In the mirror Michael had glimpsed incredibly bloodshot eyes, which had grown unfocused and cloudy as though they were made of glass.

Even the neighbors, overly friendly and optimistic as they were, knew enough to recognize that something was wrong. They looked on him as though he were a leper. Only one of them still waved cheerfully. Michael recognized him. He was too friendly a man, always hosting barbecues and house parties and inviting everyone on the block. No matter how many times Michael declined, he would be back soon after asking again.

Regardless, by the fifth day, even that neighbor could ignore the signs no longer. The animatronic’s wires had left Michael’s body one large bruise. Angry purple splotches covered him from head to toe, a result of muscles torn to shreds. Small gashes and rips in his skin from overzealous movement of cold metal under colder skin leaked brown sludge, Michael’s blood long since dried out. The sensation of pins and needles, a symptom of dying nerves, was replaced by a strange numbness, but a terrible agony existed even deeper than Michael’s skin, anchored to his very soul.

That night, Michael wished he could scream.

People were hiding in their homes, staring out of their blinds at the monstrosity shambling down the street on the sixth day. It was undeniable now that Michael was a corpse, one that still walked amongst the living. Michael himself was feeling incredibly cramped. He felt simultaneously like he was going to burst from his skin and like he was getting compacted to a small size. He was not a claustrophobic man, but terror still gripped his unbeating heart.

The mechanical monster within Michael apparently realized that it could use him no longer. Michael had pondered from within the prison of his mind the possibility that the animatronic would stay inside of him until he rotted completely. What would happen next? Would he finally pass on to an afterlife? Would he be doomed to haunt his own remains for all eternity? Was his spirit entwined with the animatronic, forcing him to watch helpless as it hopped from person to person? Perhaps then he could have a companion.

Michael discovered the answer to his questions a week after he was “killed”. The streets surrounding his house were completely empty. As always, his body slowly limped down the sidewalk. Back hunched, jaw hanging open, limbs bent at awkward angles, he was a terrifying sight. The artificial mind controlling him walked over to a sewer grate. It stopped and held still for a few long moments, and then it began to vibrate.

Rotten limbs twitched violently and sporadically. Michael’s jaw began to stretch, wider and wider, until it dislocated with a wet pop. Jagged metal curled inwards, first from his fingers and toes, then from his arms and legs. A heavy weight settled in Michael’s distended stomach. Then, with a flash of sunlight reflecting off of metal coated with dried blood, the animatronic shot into the sewer.

Michael laid on the sidewalk, crumpled up like a discarded coat. He was fully aware, filled with despair that he would not pass on, that he was forced into this awful existence.

A certain phrase wormed its way into his mind, repeated over and over. Michael stood up.