A Wrinkle in Blood – A Chilling Horror Story by Alex C. Telander
A Wrinkle in Blood
By Alex C. Telander
It began with a wrinkle.
Madeleine was looking into the small makeup mirror. She’d turned forty-five just days ago. Had been doing her best to stave off the wrinkles with a growing collection of creams. And now it’d all gone to shit.
“What the fuck!” Madeleine yelled at the mirror.
She checked in the bigger mirror and there it was right across her forehead: this cavernous wrinkle that had not been there yesterday. Gray and ugly. The fucking Grand Canyon plastered right across her face.
“Ow!” she said as she touched it. It felt like a sharp knife had been drawn across her forehead. She was going to cover it up with foundation, but that wasn’t an option now. She’d just have to deal with it.
She caught the chyron on the TV as she hit the power button: MYSTERIOUS DEATHS PERPLEXING.
Things got worse.
On her lunch break, as she was tossing the wrapping to her sandwich she saw a new wide ridge of wrinkle on her arm.
For the first time she felt fear zap through her.
Something wasn’t right. But she couldn’t deal with it right now.
When she stripped off her clothes to shower that night, she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and screamed. New wrinkles all over her body now. Like they were contagious and multiplying. All ugly gray, some oozing blood.
Madeleine moaned with despair as she got into the shower, then screamed again under the hot water, this time in pain. She had to turn the water down to almost cold before she could bear it.
She took Advil and an Ambien then got into bed. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to fall asleep; her body was on fire. What the hell was wrong with her? Sleep eventually took her away from this nightmare of a day.
The nightmare didn’t end.
Madeleine awoke in a level of pain she’d never experienced before. There was sharp discomfort and soreness on the outside of her body, but internally something was very wrong too. Her organs ached. The fact that she could feel them individually seemed impossible. Left kidney. That was her right lung? It was either a heavy ache, or a sharp pain, or something else that just felt very wrong. Her heart. Her liver? And that was her right kidney she was pretty sure.
It was 2:31am. The Advil had worn off.
Madeleine mostly fell out of bed, then dragged herself slowly into a standing position. She awkwardly pulled on clothes: sweatpants, t-shirt, hoodie. Went into the bathroom and screamed at herself for a third time. Something had clawed her face with new wrinkles: one across her cheek, the other reaching down from the corner of her mouth and under her chin.
She pulled her hood up, yanking the cords tight. The roughness of the material against her cheeks felt like nerve endings being rubbed raw.
She took more meds.
Should she call an ambulance? She needed to go to the emergency room. She got her phone, purse and keys and made it into her car. Sitting down was both a wonderful release and an aggravating discomfort. She got on the road and was sort of okay for a little while. Fresh air and not moving much she guessed.
The ER parking lot didn’t look too busy. Thankfully. She went from icy night air to stuffy warmth as the automatic doors opened. She gave her info and her weird symptoms to the receptionist behind the glass. The person did their best to hide a shocked look, but Madeleine still saw it for what it was. She was hideous.
She sat hunched over, not even wanting to mess around on her phone. The TV was broadcasting the news: dead bodies showing up all over the world. It went over her head.
It felt like two hours later when they called her name. Looking at the clock, it’d been twelve minutes.
A medical person asked her what was wrong and she gave the bizarre series of events that were the last twenty-four hours. They did better at hiding their surprise. They took blood, a urine sample, checked her vitals.
She was sent back out into the waiting room. She wanted to be anywhere else. She wanted to not be in agony. She wanted to be fast asleep. She wanted things to be normal.
The news droned on about bizarre deaths.
This time it was under five minutes. They called her name and she was given a cubicle with a curtain for privacy. She asked for help and moaned while they slowly got her into a hospital gown. The nurse was a pro, giving no reaction that she looked like some kind of freak and was probably the last of her kind. Before long she was in bed with a warm blanket. It was thick and rough and would’ve been iron wool on her skin had she not been wearing the hospital gown. Also the warmth was really helping. The nurse said the doctor would be in soon and then someone would be in to do an EKG and then she’d be taken to do a CT scan. Madeleine wasn’t paying much attention because she was already mostly asleep.
The pain was still very much there letting her know something was dreadfully wrong with her body, so she never fell fully asleep. The doctor didn’t show. Someone came in to give her an EKG, attaching all these sensors to her. They had an actual look of terror when they saw her body covered in these ugly gray wrinkles. The pain from each attached sensor was excruciating. She actually yelped as each one peeled away. Then she reverted to her stuporous state until another person came in saying they were taking her for a CAT scan. Her bed became a moving gurney. As she was wheeled to the equipment room she wondered if she was dying and this would be her last night. Then she was back. She didn’t really remember what happened, other than constant pain.
Another semi-conscious period then the doctor finally showed up, turning on all the bright lights. She squinted at him and didn’t like what she saw in his eyes. He was fucking terrified. His voice was shaky. They were going to order more tests. They were going to give morphine for the pain. They didn’t know what was wrong with her, but she would be staying until they had a diagnosis and could help her.
It made her feel a little better. Half an hour later she was on the morphine drip and that helped a lot. It was six AM now and the sun was coming up. They brought her breakfast which she was able to eat. She turned on the TV as she ate.
Something very bad was happening in the world. All over it actually. People were dying and no one knew why.
Madeleine felt a dread begin in her that she didn’t think she was capable of after the night she’d had. Hadn’t she seen something about this earlier? They were collapsing in the street, while driving, while flying, while just being anywhere. Collapsing into a puddle of human goo and not much more. Like someone had dropped a handful of clothes into a bloody puddle. There were photos, lots of them. Then there was video, with a blazing red warning that what she was about to see would be extremely disturbing. Then she watched a person being filmed stop and start screaming, slowly collapsing, then falling to the ground, then . . . that was it. They were dead. They were pretty much gone. Nothing human left.
Madeleine lost her appetite. The nurse came in to take her food away and take her vitals. Her eyes had a look of terror.
“What the fuck is going on out there?”
The nurse just shook her head. She was too scared to speak. She left abruptly.
Madeleine switched channels, but most of it was news and they were covering what was apparently the end of the world. People dying in the tens of thousands everywhere. It was happening too fast for anyone to react, to try and figure out what to do. Some of the puddles of blood had been scraped up and transferred to hospitals and labs, but there was nothing to work with. It just made no sense. It was so random. Anyone could suffer at any time.
No one was safe.
Madeleine could feel herself shaking now. It made what was going on with her seem trivial. Unimportant. But they still hadn’t given her any answers. She hadn’t seen the doctor in hours. Was she going to end up like one of those . . . puddles?
She didn’t have a fucking clue.
At least no one else did either.
She tried to sleep. The food and morphine helped her doze for a few hours. A loud scream ripped her awake, her heart thumping in her chest. It felt like it was just outside her room, but she couldn’t see anything. Then she heard people coming, lots of voices. They were there for a few minutes and then moved away.
Had the hospital just had its first case?
Madeleine, now very much awake, turned the TV back on. It was still the same. The reporters all had this look in their eyes now: they could be next, any one of them, and nothing could be done about it.
She started shaking again.
On the overhead speakers she heard someone calling a CODE BLUE. She didn’t know what it meant, but it couldn’t be good. Ten minutes later, there was another CODE BLUE. A short while after that another scream. Someone yelled doctor! only it didn’t sound like they needed the doctor, it sounded like . . . like it’d been a doctor. Another CODE BLUE.
Madeleine pulled her knees up under her chin. Wrapped the blanket around her like a protective shawl.
Everything was so fucked.
She put her head down and started crying.
The blanket had no problem absorbing her tears.
It ended in silence.
The hospital was very quiet now. Only the occasional medical person passing by, usually needing to get somewhere fast. The doctor had stopped by a while ago. Scared the crap out of her. Suddenly he was there, ripping the curtain aside. He’d looked drawn and haggard, like he didn’t know if he would ever sleep again. He told Madeleine they still didn’t know what the hell was wrong with her. She shouldn’t be alive. The wrinkles were everywhere inside her body. In all her organs. But they didn’t seem to be affecting her that much. The doctor didn’t understand how. As he turned to go, he stopped and looked back at her, at the morphine drip.
“I could open it all the way,” he said. “It’s a nicer way to go.”
She shook her head.
He turned and crossed into the hallway then began screaming like an animal that had been crushed under a car. Madeleine watched her doctor fold down and compress into a pool of blood right in front of her. A long time later someone came to clean up the mess. There was a long bloody smear left on the floor.
More time passed. Madeleine thought she was the only one left now. In the hospital. Maybe the world. She felt something new in her body: a vibrating of her skin that went deep, all the way to her soul. She was very scared. She slid out of bed, shakily standing. Her body wobbled, starting to compress.
Madeleine closed her eyes as she felt herself fold down to the ground and end . . .
Madeleine opened her eyes.
She was staring into her bathroom mirror. Her face was clear. Her skin perfect. She took off her robe, revealing her naked body. There wasn’t a single wrinkle on her; not a blemish or mark anywhere.
She was perfect.
What if ours weren’t the only reality? What if the past paths converged, if those moments that led to our current circumstances got tangled together with their alternates and we found ourselves caught up in the threads?
Marla returned home after the funeral and wake. She drew the key in the lock and opened the door slowly, the looming dread of coming back to an empty house finally sinking in. Everyone else had gone home with their loved ones. They had all said, “goodbye,” and moved along.
Her daughter Misty and son-in-law Joel had caught a flight to Springfield so he could be at work the next day for the big meeting. Her brother Darcy was on his way back to Montreal. Emmett and Ruth were at home next door, probably washing dishes from the big meal they had helped to provide afterward, seeing as their kitchen light was on. Marla remembered there being food but couldn’t recall what exactly as she hadn’t felt like eating. Sandwiches probably… she’d have to thank them later.
Marla had felt supported up until she turned the key in the lock after the services, but then the realization sank deep in her throat like acid reflux, hanging heavy on her heart – everyone else had other lives to return to except for her. She sighed and stepped through the threshold onto the outdated beige linoleum tile and the braided rag rug that stretched across it. She closed the door behind herself and sighed again. She wiped her shoes reflexively on the mat before just kicking them off to land in a haphazard heap in the entryway.
The still silence of the house enveloped her, its oppressive emptiness palpable – she could feel it on her skin, taste it on her tongue. It was bitter. She sighed and walked purposefully to the living room, the large rust-orange sofa waiting to greet her. She flopped into its empty embrace, dropping her purse at her side as she did so.
A familiar, husky voice greeted her from deeper within the large, empty house. “Where have you been?”
Marla looked up and glanced around. Her husband Frank was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, drying a bowl. Marla gasped, her hand shooting to her mouth. Her clutched appendage took on a life of its own, slowly relinquishing itself of her gaping jaw and extending a first finger to point at the specter.
“Frank?” she spoke hesitantly.
“Yeah,” the man replied, holding the now-dry bowl nestled in the faded blue-and-white-checkered kitchen towel in both hands. “Who else would you expect?”
“But you’re dead,” Marla spat, the words falling limply from her mouth of their own accord.
The 66-year old man looked around confusedly and turned to face Marla, his silver hair sparkling in the light from the kitchen, illuminated from behind like a halo. “What are you talking about? I’m just here washing up after lunch. You were gone so I made myself some soup. Where have you been?”
“No, I just got home from your funeral,” Marla spoke quietly. “You are dead. After the boating accident… You drowned. I went along to the hospital – they pronounced you dead on arrival.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Frank said. “What boating accident?”
“The sailboat… You were going to take me out,” Marla coughed, her brown eyes glossed over with tears.
“We don’t own a sailboat,” Frank said bluntly. “Sure, I’d thought about it – it seems like a cool retirement hobby – but it’s just too expensive. We’ve talked about this, we can’t afford it.”
Marla glanced out the bay window towards the driveway where the small sailboat sat on its trailer, its orange hull reminiscent of the Florida citrus industry, and also of the life jacket Frank should have been wearing when he’d been pulled under. Marla cringed and turned back toward the kitchen. She sighed and spoke again, “But the boat’s out front. The guys at the marina helped to bring it back… after you… drowned.”
Frank had retreated to the kitchen to put away the bowl. Marla followed. She stood in the doorway and studied the man intently. He was unmistakably her husband, there was no denying it even despite her having just witnessed his waxen lifeless body in the coffin at the wake before the burial, though this Frank was a slight bit more overweight than she remembered.
“Well, that’s not possible. Because I’m still here,” Frank grumbled. He turned to face her, his blue eyes edged with worry. “There now, it was probably just a dream. You knew I wanted a boat and your anxiety just formulated the worst-case scenario…”
“See for yourself,” Marla said, her voice lilting with every syllable.
Frank strode into the living room and stared out the bay window. The driveway was vacant save for some bits of Spanish moss strewn over the concrete from the neighboring live oak tree. He turned towards his wife.
“But there’s no boat,” he sighed. “You must have had a bad dream. Did you fall asleep in the car in the garage again?” Concern was written all over his face, deepening every crease and wrinkle. “Is that where you were? The garage?”
Marla glanced again at the boat, plain as day, and turned to face Frank. Her voice grew stubborn. “It’s right here. How can you miss it?” she said, pointing at the orange behemoth.
“Honey, there’s nothing there,” Frank exclaimed, exasperation creeping into his voice.
Marla huffed and strode to the entryway, gathering her shoes from where they waited in their haphazard heap alongside the braided rag run on the worn linoleum floor. She marched out the door as Frank took vigil in its open frame, still staring at her. She stomped out to the boat and slapped her hand on the fiberglass surface with a resounding smack. The boat was warm to the touch, having baked in the Florida sun. She turned back towards the front door.
“See!” she bellowed.
The door stood open, empty. No one was there, watching. Marla sighed again and walked back inside. The vacant house once again enveloped her in its oppressive emptiness. Frank was nowhere to be found.
So I guess it’s goodbye for now. Feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
Today on Nightmarish Nature we’re gonna revisit The Blob and jiggle our way to terror. Why? ‘Cause we’re just jellies – looking at those gelatinous denizens of the deep, as well as some snot-like land-bound monstrosities, and wishing we could ooze on down for some snoozy booze schmoozing action. Or something.
Honestly, I don’t know what exactly it is that jellyfish and slime molds do but whatever it is they do it well, which is why they’re still around despite being among the more ancient organism templates still in common use.
Jellyfish are on the rise.
Yeah, yeah, some species like moon jellies will hang out in huge blooms near the surface feeding, but that’s not what I meant. Jellyfish populations are up. They’re honing in on the open over-fished ocean and making themselves at home. Again.
And, although this makes the sea turtles happy since jellies are a favorite food staple of theirs, not much else is excited about the development. Except for those fish that like to hide out inside of their bells, assuming they don’t accidentally get eaten hanging out in there. But that’s a risk you gotta take when you’re trying to escape predation by surrounding yourself in a bubble of danger that itself wants to eat you. Be eaten or be eaten. Oh, wait…
So what makes jellies so scary?
Jellyfish pack some mighty venom. Despite obvious differences in mobility, they are related to anemones and corals. But not the Man o’ War which looks similar but is actually a community of microorganisms that function together as a whole, not one creature. Not that it matters when you’re on the wrong end of a nematocyst, really. Because regardless what it’s attached to, that stings.
Box jellies are among the most venomous creatures in the world and can move of their own accord rather than just drifting about like many smaller jellyfish do. And even if they aren’t deadly, the venom from many jellyfish species will cause blisters and lesions that can take a long time to heal. So even if they do resemble free-floating plastic grocery bags, you’d do best to steer clear. Because those are some dangerous curves.
But what does this have to do with slime molds?
Absolutely nothing. I honestly don’t know enough about jellyfish or slime molds to devote the whole of a Nightmarish Nature segment to either, so they had to share. Essentially, this bit is what happened when I decided to toast a bagel before coming up with something to write about and spent a tad too much time in contemplation of my breakfast. I guess we’re lucky I didn’t have any cream cheese or clotted cream…
Oh, and also thinking about gelatinous cubes and oozes in the role-playing game sense – because those sort of seem like a weird hybrid between jellies and slime molds, as does The Blob. Any of those amoeba influenced creatures are horrific by their very nature – they don’t even need to be souped up, just ask anyone who’s had dysentery.
And one of the most interesting thing about slime molds is that they can take the shortest path to food even when confronted with very complex barriers. They are maze masterminds and would give the Minotaur more than a run for his money, especially if he had or was food. They have even proven capable of determining the most efficient paths for water lines or railways in metropolitan regions, which is kind of crazy when you really think about it. Check it out in Scientific American here. So, if we assume that this is essentially the model upon which The Blob was built, then it’s kind of a miracle anything got away. And slime molds are coming under closer scrutiny and study as alternative means of creating computer components are being explored.
Jellies are the Wave of the Future.
We are learning that there may be a myriad of uses for jellyfish from foodstuffs to cosmetic products as we rethink how we interact with them. They are even proving useful in cleaning up plastic pollution. I don’t know how I feel about the foodstuff angle for all that they’ve been a part of various recipes for a long time. From what I’ve seen of the jellyfish cookbook recipes, they just don’t look that appealing. But then again I hate boba with a passion, so I’m probably not the best candidate to consider the possibility.
So it seems that jellies are kind of the wave of the future as we find that they can help solve our problems. That’s pretty impressive for some brainless millions of years old critter condiments. Past – present – perpetuity! Who knows what else we’d have found if evolution hadn’t cleaned out the fridge every so often?
Feel free to check out more Nightmarish Nature here.
Continuing our junkyard dawg werewolf story from the previous St. Patrick’s Days… though technically he’s more of a wolfwere but wolfwhatever. Anyway, here are Part 1 from 2022, Part 2 from 2023 and Part 3 from 2024 if you want to catch up.
Yeah I don’t know how you managed to find me after all this time. We haven’t been the easiest to track down, Monty and I, and we like it that way. Though actually, you’ve managed to find me every St. Patrick’s Day since 2022 despite me being someplace else every single time. It’s a little disconcerting, like I’m starting to wonder if I was microchipped way back in the day in 2021 when I was out lollygagging around and blacked out behind that taco hut…
Anyway as I’d mentioned before, that Scratchers was a winner. And I’d already moved in with Monty come last St. Patrick’s Day. Hell, he’d already begun the process of cashing in the Scratchers, and what a process that was. It made my head spin, like too many squirrels chirping at you from three different trees at once. We did get the money eventually though.
Since I saw you last, we were kicked out of Monty’s crap apartment and had gone to live with his parents while we sorted things out. Thank goodness that was short-lived; his mother is a nosy one for sure, and Monty didn’t want to let on he was sitting on a gold mine as he knew they’d want a cut even though they had it made already. She did make a mean brisket though, and it sure beat living with Sal. Just sayin.
Anyway, we finally got a better beater car and headed west. I was livin’ the dream. We were seeing the country, driving out along old Route 66, for the most part. At least until our car broke down just outside of Roswell near the mountains and we decided to just shack it up there. (Boy, Monty sure can pick ‘em. It’s like he has radar for bad cars. Calling them lemons would be generous. At least it’s not high maintenance women who won’t toss you table scraps or let you up on the sofa.)
We found ourselves the perfect little cabin in the woods. And it turns out we were in the heart of Bigfoot Country, depending on who you ask. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never seen one. But it seems that Monty was all into all of those supernatural things: aliens, Bigfoot, even werewolves. And finding out his instincts on me were legit only added fuel to that fire. So now he sees himself as some sort of paranormal investigator.
Whatever. I keep telling him this werewolf gig isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, and it doesn’t work like in the movies. I wasn’t bitten, and I generally don’t bite unless provoked. He says technically I’m a wolfwere, to which I just reply “Where?” and smile. Whatever. It’s the little things I guess. I just wish everything didn’t come out as a bark most of the time, though Monty’s gotten pretty good at interpreting… As long as he doesn’t get the government involved, and considering his take on the government himself that would seem to be a long stretch. We both prefer the down low.
So here we are, still livin’ the dream. There aren’t all that many rabbits out here but it’s quiet and the locals don’t seem to notice me all that much. And Monty can run around and make like he’s gonna have some kind of sighting of Bigfoot or aliens or the like. As long as the pantry’s stocked it’s no hair off my back. Sure, there are scads of tourists, but they can be fun to mess around with, especially at that time of the month if I happen to catch them out and about.
Speaking of tourists, I even ran into that misspent youth from way back in 2021 at the convenience store; I spotted him at the Quickie Mart along the highway here. I guess he and his girlfriend were apparently on walkabout (or car-about) perhaps making their way to California or something. He even bought me another cookie. Small world. But we all knew that already…
If you enjoyed this werewolf wolfwere wolfwhatever saga, feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.