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“Seriously, you’re an arsehole,” Kate cuts in behind me, watching me with Subject 205.

“No, no!” I exclaim, half-disappointed that she didn’t congratulate me on my ingenuity, “You just don’t understand my parents. It’s just…they know something is up with me and they’re…not…understanding when it-”

“You are taking a janked-up dude over your parents house instead of telling them about us,” she cuts in. Even though that’s basically what I’ve done, it hurts to hear her say it like that. Like I’ve replaced her. Which is insane. I would never do that. 

“No,” I try again, “It’s not like that. They just won’t accept it-”

“Right,” she says, flatly, “Let’s get back to work…Dr. Kostyshyn.”

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She is royally pissed, but she just doesn’t understand the dynamics of my family. She doesn’t understand that I’m actually saving her.

“Yes, Dr. Wright,” I quietly answer and realize that I’ve put a strain on our relationship.

We work in silence for the rest of the day.

***

Subject 205 is ready. I straighten his tie again and slick back his hair. He stands, quiet, not really reacting. He looks slick. Appealing. Even handsome.

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“How are you?” I ask, mostly to gauge his reactions.

“Very well, thank you,” he politely answers and forces a smile.

“Are you ready?”

“For dinner?” He asks.

“For dinner.” I conclude with my own tight smile.

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“We are dating,” he softly says, as if to himself.

“Yes,” I answer quickly, but feel the awkwardness settle on my heart. Kate hasn’t come back home yet. She left work without a word and I didn’t have the heart or gumption to call her. I’ll sort it out later.

“What do I like best about you?” He asks and it takes me by surprise.

“Oh, uh…I guess my eyes.” It’s an easy and vague enough answer.

“I like your eyes,” he says and stares at me for a few seconds too long and too intensely.

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I make sure to have the kill switch in my purse before we leave.

***

“Merry Christmas!” Mom exclaims, then sees 205 behind me, “Oh, how handsome, Ginny! What’s your name, sir?”

“Greg.”

“Oh, lovely, come in. Please! Come in out of the cold.”

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“I like her eyes most,” Subject 205 says abruptly and my stomach sinks. 

“What was that?” Mom asks, looking over to me.

“He meant nothing by that. Did you, Greg?” I nervously grit my teeth around the words. Maybe this was too soon for him. He has only been reanimated for three days. I’ve only reconditioned him for two, and prepped him for one. Maybe it just wasn’t enough time.

I try not to panic around my frozen smile. 

“No,” he blankly says, “I meant nothing. Sorry.”

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When she goes to put our coats away, I grunt at him, “What was that?”

“Sorry,” he pauses, “I don’t think I’ve done this before.”

“What? Dinner? Christmas?”

“Family…”

My mother comes back before I can say anything, but I can feel his words as my brothers join us and we all settle down for dinner. There’s laughter. There’s awkwardness from 205 that they mistake for anxiety with meeting them, or just a general “off-ness” that they usually associate with me. There’s ham. There’s wine. There’s my brothers and their pale, skinny wives.

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But it seems empty without Kate. 

‘I’m new to this, too, 205,’ I think, wistfully. I’ve never had someone that I was this thoughtful towards. I never had someone that I had an inkling to even share my family with, or vice versa. 

I feel a little sick when I wonder who I’m hiding from who. Maybe Kate was right. Maybe I just didn’t want her to get close. As much as we undertake the experiments we do, the blood we’ve spilled, the hearts we’ve literally ripped from chests, having her sit beside me at this mundane table, surrounded by the people I love and yet fear…it’s overwhelming. 

I’m being ungrateful and childish. I’m being “chicken-shit”, as Kate would say. Just because I know what they’d say, how they’d react…

It’s two lives I need to keep cleanly separate, even if it hurts. 

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“Her eyes,” I hear 205 say, “Her eyes. Just eyes. That are hers…Eyes. Brown, I think, no certainly. Her brown eyes…”

Oh Jesus Christ.

I snap out of my thoughts and see my family closely watching 205 as he’s starting to sweat profusely. One sweat drop rolls down his cheek into the gravy boat that he’s holding with an iron grip. 

Fuck me.

“Hey, honey,” I sweetly prod, “How about we talk in the kitchen for a sec? Just a quick sec-”

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“I was kicked out,” he says, blinking as if suddenly aware I was there. Yeah, this was way too soon for him. I was an idiot. 

“Uh, no, you’re not kicked out-”

“My father…said he hated me…”

“Uhhh.” That is my voice, my tone, but I have no idea what to say. 

“Greg,” mother interjects, “What’s wrong? Your father kicked you out tonight?”

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He wipes his sweating forehead and…some skin peels off with it. Perfect strips of muscle shine, glossy and wet, from the torn flesh.

I am stuck, pinned in the moment, utterly not knowing what to do. Panic freezes every artery. I cannot move, or even breathe. 

“Oh my God,” one of my brother’s wives says and takes out her phone to record. I snap out of my stupor when I see her phone. 

“No, put that away-” I tell her, but I feel the cold, clammy hand of 205 on my wrist.

I spin around to see his skin flapping open, like a loose page in a book. This was a bad idea. Worst idea. Such such a bad idea. 

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“It’s because,” 205 calmly tells me, “Because I’m gay.”

Yeah, seriously, honestly: fuck my life right now. All of it. Just fuck it to kingdom come. 

“What the hell is happening?” my father finally speaks up.

I look to all of their blanching faces, squished in confusion and disgust. Familiar faces, now twisted and gaping from this horrific scene, turns my stomach. I feel like I’m going to vomit.

“Uh….I…uhh…”

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“Is this a joke?” my mom snaps suddenly, cheeks blushing with anger, “Is this some kind of school project? To bring over a gay person? To parade around this weirdness? During our holiest of days?”

I’m just at a loss. I don’t even know how to respond.

“That’s really poor taste,” my older brother says, crinkles his nose.

“I…uh…no, that’s…”

With that, 205 abruptly passes out, sliding right into the bowl of mashed potatoes before crashing to the floor. 

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Roger Whitaker’s Christmas album plays in the background, without pause or hesitation. 

I am alone in this chaos.

***

“Yeah?” Kate sighs, answering my phone call on the third ring.

“You were right.”

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“Yeah, I know, but what about?”

“Um…so…205 didn’t really…work out.”

“That’s a shame,” she blandly replies.

“Um…yeah…so,” I take a breath because I’m on the verge of just losing it, “Um, yeah…and actually…you’re not welcome to my parent’s house…”

“Huh?” That actually gets her attention. “What do you mean?”

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“Well…I’m not so sure…that I am anymore, either…”

There’s a moment of silence, then, “Where are you?”

“At the lab…I’m trying to piece 205 back together,” I try to laugh, but a tear finally loosens and falls down my nose.

“I’ll be there in fifteen,” Kate resolutely answers.

“No, no,” I tell her, rushed and embarrassed, “It’s Christmas. You enjoy it.”

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“I’m coming over. I’d rather spend tonight with you and your janked-up beard boyfriend than doing anything else in the world,” she says, tongue-in-cheek, before softly adding, “I’m sure you had a wild night.”

“Oh,” I struggle out a laugh through my restrained tears, “You have no idea…”

I hang up, waiting to spend our first Christmas together. Listening to the gentle hum of the fluorescent lights, I wistfully smile and carefully begin washing the mashed potatoes out of 205’s hair.

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When not ravaging through the wilds of Detroit with Jellybeans the Cat, J.M. Brannyk (a.k.a. Boxhuman) reviews mostly supernatural and slasher films from the 70's-90's and is dubiously HauntedMTL's Voice of Reason. Aside from writing, Brannyk dips into the podcasts, and is the composer of many of HauntedMTL's podcast themes.

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1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. Jennifer Weigel

    December 18, 2020 at 9:13 am

    Family itself is all-too-often the actual freak show… 🙁

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Original Series

Nightmarish Nature: Horrifying Humans

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So we’re going out on a limb here in this segment of Nightmarish Nature and exploring one of the most terrifying, most dangerous, most impactful species to walk this planet. I’m talking about us of course. Sure, as humans, we may not seem all that horrific to ourselves, but to many other creatures we have been a force of nightmares.

Humans male as drawn by Jennifer Weigel
Humans male as drawn by Jennifer Weigel

Why are we terrifying?

Humans are among those species that engage in massive modifications to our environment to serve our needs, like beavers who dam rivers, elephants who eat all of the new growth scrub to keep the savannahs tree-free, and so on. Yeah, all creatures have some impact on their surroundings, but some take it up a notch, and we do so at an order of magnitude higher still. And we have gotten so good at it that we have managed to exist and thrive in places that would otherwise be inhospitable. We are outwardly adaptive and opportunistic to the point of being exploitative. We are the apex predators now.

Sabertooth cowering as drawn by Jennifer Weigel
Sabertooth cowering as drawn by Jennifer Weigel

We have forced many creatures into extinction, intentionally and not, and have sped up these effects enormously. The National Audobon Society chose the egret as its symbol after it made a comeback from being hunted to near extinction, and it was one of the lucky ones. Many weren’t so lucky, especially if they came in direct conflict with humans, such as wolves and the big cats who were in direct competition, or those who were really specialized in really specific niche circumstances that we pushed out of the way. And this is in only a very very limited scope of our earth’s history, and has since been even more ramped up with industrialization.

Humans female as drawn by Jennifer Weigel
Humans female as drawn by Jennifer Weigel

But humans aren’t all bad are we?

Depends on who you ask… We have created all sorts of incredible opportunities for some species too. Take mice for example. And coyotes. And kudzu. And a whole host of animals whom we’ve domesticated, some of whom wouldn’t have continued to exist otherwise or certainly wouldn’t exist in anything resembling their current forms. And the most massive extinctions occurred long before our arrival, when the earth was still forming and underwent rapid catastrophic changes and swings, decimating critters as they were trying to get a foothold. Nothing is constant except for change; that has always been true.

Wolf begging for cheezborger drawn by Jennifer Weigel
Wolf begging for cheezborger drawn by Jennifer Weigel

So it isn’t my goal to get all eco-con​scious and environmentalist here. Just that I feel if we are going to explore some of the more terrifying aspects of nature, we need to look in the mirror. Because if a consensus were taken right here, right now of all living beings globally as to what is among the most terrifying creatures among us, I’m sure we’d appear on that list.

If you enjoyed this closer-than-kissing-cousins segment of Nightmarish Nature on Horrifying Humans, please check out past segments:

Vampires Among Us

Perilous Parenting

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Freaky Fungus

Worrisome Wasps

Cannibalism

Terrifying Tardigrades

Reindeer Give Pause

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Komodo Dragons

Zombie Snails

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Original Creations

Werewolf-ing It Well, Part 3 by Jennifer Weigel

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Continuing our junkyard dawg werewolf story from the previous two St. Patrick’s Days… Here are Part 1 from 2022 and Part 2 from 2023 if you want to catch up.


Werewolf transformation digital art by Jennifer Weigel
Werewolf transformation digital art by Jennifer Weigel

So apparently it really was my lucky day at that suburban gas mart last St. Patrick’s Day. I got the mother lode of all Scratchers. I hit it big time. I had no real idea of what that meant, but it looked promising. Maybe I could get a Cadillac to tour Route 66 AND a cabin in the woods… But who was gonna drive?

Now apparently you can’t just cash these things in at the register. You have to mail them in or something. Why does life have to be so complicated? Anything involving those good for nothing mailmen has to be rigged or part of some larger conspiracy, I’m sure. But I pocketed my prize and made some plans. I couldn’t rely on old Sal not to just pocket my prize for himself; he wasn’t the sort that would let me have my dream. Or even understood that I had dreams beyond just chasing rabbits (though those are the best).

The next full moon I whined and howled at Sal to take me in to work with him. Sal just patted me on the head. Didn’t even offer a treat or nothing. Seriously, I had to get out of there, this suburban situation was the pits. I couldn’t do another year of it, watching my life tick away. So, when that didn’t work, I gently grabbed my Scratchers ticket like I was retrieving a very important slipper and slunk over and hid in his truck under that ratty blanket he kept in the back.

I managed to creep into the junkyard office and hide there while Sal was sleeping on the job. Those mastiffs nearly ratted me out, but fortunately they were chained up, and they weren’t all that bright anyway. Just growled a string of profanities at my cur form, like I hadn’t heard that before. Anyway, I waited it out and before long I heard Monty’s car pull up, rattling like the dilapidated Honda Civic held together with duct tape that it was. Sal’s truck pulled off, spitting gravel and exhaust in its wake as always.

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Dusk was setting in and I could feel the change starting. Nothing to do for it, guess I’d just have to run with it then. Monty had settled in as usual, watching bad porn and staring off into nothing. He still smelled like day old jelly donuts (the kind you can get a whole bag for $1) and coffee, as usual. Good boy Monty, how I’ve missed you and the occasional stale donut, even if it wasn’t a cookie. I approached him from behind and coughed.

Monty nearly leapt out of his skin. He blanched as if he’d seen a ghost before he managed to find his voice. “Shit, that wasn’t a dream,” he stammered, pointing. As he realized I meant him no harm, he regained his composure and even offered me a day-old jelly donut, which I accepted gratefully. I think he could tell that my tail would have been wagging if I’d still had one at that time.

“Lucky, what in all of hell are you doing here?” he asked, eyes still wide as saucers. “And for Christ’s sake, put on some pants.” He offered up the spare uniform that still just hung from the hook behind the door. I guess in my fervor to talk to him I’d forgotten to dress. Oops.

Werewolf transformation digital art by Jennifer Weigel
Werewolf transformation digital art by Jennifer Weigel

“Monty, old friend, I need a favor,” I barked. I handed him the Scratchers. His eyes grew wider.

“Shit, where’d you get this?” That’s a lot of money,” Monty exclaimed. “They’ve been looking for the winner of this one…”

“I’d stashed it in my hidey spot under the place where the carpet peels up after I got it… It’s our ticket out of here,” I retorted. “You don’t think I want to spend the rest of my days laying around suburbia with tightwad treat-skimping Sal do you?”

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“I suppose not,” Monty quipped. “But what’d you have in mind?”

“You and me, we could get a cabin in the woods, live off the land. Get out of this shit-hole. Hell, you could even get a real car, one of those big-boat Cadillacs with the wide tongue-lolling windows…”

“Um, you could do a lot more than that with this, but I catch your drift. And I want out of this hellhole too. But, like…? I mean, you aren’t gonna bite me or anything, or get all weird.” Monty fidgeted like he did when he was nervous. “I guess I knew but didn’t want to admit it – dude you’re a freak show.”

“Gee thanks. Trust me, being a dog is better any day except that you can’t drive or get your own treats and crap,” I retorted. “And if was gonna bite you I’d have done so a long time ago. It doesn’t work that way, anyway. Seriously, you don’t believe all that werewolf mumbo jumbo on Netflix too, do you?”

Werewolf transformation digital art by Jennifer Weigel
Werewolf transformation digital art by Jennifer Weigel

Monty shook his head tentatively. “I don’t really know what to believe. I mean, I guess I always knew you were like this, but I didn’t let it sink in.”

“Well, get over it and help me get my dream cabin,” I snipped. “Seriously don’t just stand there gawking all night; I put on clothes and everything. I only have tonight.”

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“You mean before you turn back into a dog?” Monty asked.

I nodded, still licking the jelly off my lips.

“But I thought werewolf changes happened every full moon,” Monty asked.

“I do, but these Scratchers change like the wind. We gotta cash in quick,” I growled. “And if you try to turn on me, I’ll hunt you down. That’s OUR ticket outta here.”

“No, no, I get it,” Monty said. “I’ll make good on it, I promise. I can follow up on the ticket first thing tomorrow; it says to mail it in or go to the courthouse or something. I’ll figure it out… I guess you can stay with me until we get it sorted, but you have to be really quiet about it. I’m not supposed to have pets in that crap apartment for all that a little dog hair would be an improvement.”

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Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.

Check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s writing here at Jennifer Weigel Words.

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Lighter than Dark

LTD: The Firing Squad

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So you’ve just gotten the pink slip.

Work is letting you go. Amidst all of the layoffs, you just didn’t make the cut. Well, I’m sorry to say, but it behooves you to go quietly. And quickly. Because you don’t want to stick around for the Firing Squad…

In fact, if your HR department is outsourced to one of those Eldritch contractors like so many are nowadays, get outta dodge NOW. Like seriously. Leave the lunch you brought in the fridge; leave the personal items in and on and around your desk. Hell, leave your coat and purse if you are not near them. You can get new ones. Maybe one of your ex-coworkers can help you retrieve your stuff later. Because you need to get out while the getting is still good.

The Firing Squad is coming.

And if they so much as see a pink slip anywhere in your immediate vicinity, it is complete and total annihilation…

Ready Aim Fire...  The Firing Squad appears digital art by Jennifer Weigel
Ready Aim Fire… The Firing Squad appears
Wing Shot...  The Firing Squad takes aim digital art by Jennifer Weigel
Wing Shot… The Firing Squad takes aim
Sharp Shooter...  You're a goner! digital art by Jennifer Weigel
Sharp Shooter… You’re a goner!

I warned you… Those Eldritch contractor HR departments mean business… It’s like going to the Library. Or making Jell-O.

Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.

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