Angels Meeting in the Hallways by Jennifer Weigel
Trigger warning: This story contains content related to school shootings, including some very graphic scenes, which I know can be hard to process, especially with how politicized and mainstream this news has become in the United States. Please do not continue reading if this topic is too much for you; take care of yourself first and foremost.
The kids huddled under their desks. After all of the drills they were used to the routine. But no one was whispering or snickering this time; it was for real. The children did their best to stifle sobs to little avail. Teachers stationed themselves where they could provide whatever protection they could afford, wary and keeping lookout. They were all trapped, unable to act, waiting to be rescued. A few brave individuals texted the outside world, trying to minimize any light or sound or vibrations from their smartphones that could alert the shooter to their presence.
The shooter was older, having come to the school to make a point about something. The kids and the teachers werenât sure what the point was or why they had been dragged into it, but apparently whatever the shooter had to say was going to be driven home with a semi-automatic barrage of bullets claiming innocent lives. If this was a publicity stunt, sadly it was working. All of the news stations had showed up; it was making national talk everywhere. People were paying attention.
The shooter rounded a corner, surprised to find a lone boy out in the open facing away, no more than six years old… a sitting duck. The brown-haired bronze-skinned child absently paced, as if completely unaware of the danger he was in. His hair was neat; his clothes were tidy. He didnât seem to have any sense of upheaval about him at all. He was clutching a stuffed giraffe, dragging it gently along by the tail. He ambled down the hallway at a snailâs pace, one foot in front of the other. The giraffe bobbed along behind.
The shooter opened fire. Nothing happened. The boy didnât cry out, nor fall, nor bleed, nor turn to face the aggressor. He continued walking slowly and methodically like a robot, watching some distant point down the hallway where flickers of light caught specks of dust. They glimmered between the smoldering haze of disarray and the illumination peeking in from the tiny skylight windows. Time seemed to slow and pause. The scene was bathed in yellow warmth, but cold from the presence of death. There was a rift growing between the two figures, disconnecting them but binding them to one another.
The shooter shouted a string of profanities at the boy before firing again. And still nothing happened. The boy kept moving towards the faraway point upon which his eyes were fixated. The shooter began to run towards the boy but could not close the gap between them. Lunging towards the child didnât help; the distance grew with each and every footstep, the hallway widening like a yawn. The more the shooter struggled to near, the more the space between gaped open threatening to swallow them both.
The shooter began to veer to the side but no matter what he did, the boy somehow remained in full view with his back turned, seemingly unaware. Frustrated, the shooter shifted further, perhaps to kick in a nearby door to hunt other quarry, or to find a different approach. But the scene remained fixed; no matter where the shooter stood, twisted or repositioned, the hallway continued to stretch out in front towards the boyâs back, always angled away.
Finally the boy paused. The giraffe dropped from his hand to the tile floor at his side. As the stuffed animal fell, it melted into the floor and vanished into just another part of the scenery. A voice echoed forth from the boyâs small frame, not the diminutive and naive voice of a child but the divine and booming voice of a god. âWhy?â
The shooter, still driving towards the child, stumbled slightly, taken aback.
The voice bellowed forth again, âWhy do you kill?â
The shooter glanced left and right before taking a deep breath and stammering sharply in equally resonant tone, âNo one will listen. They do not understand the threat. It is for the future of humanity.â Bolstered, the shooter continued, fear permeating every word, âThese kids, they just keep pushing. They are turning the world towards evil with their irreverence. They do not follow the true path. Why? Why do you question?â
âHumanity has no future here,â the boy answered. âWe have lost the path awhile ago; how long we cannot tell.â
The child turned to face the shooter, a glow radiating from his small frame, making it impossible to make out his features. At first it crept along the periphery of his silhouette but slowly it began to overtake him as he became more and more visible. The light bathed everything in its path, erasing all to its unspecified energy, white and hot and crackling with electricity. The hallway dissipated, tile and brick and securely locked & barred doors giving away to the white nothingness. The light crept further and further into the shadows towards the shooter.
âI follow the path of righteousness,â the shooter shouted, âIt is for our own good.â
âThere is no path of righteousness,â the light beamed as the boyâs form dissipated into its all-encompassing presence. âSalvation knows only grace.â
The way that both voices lingered and echoed in that now expansive space would send chills up the spine of even the most stalwart. Something about the discourse was immeasurable and otherworldly, outside of the realm of human understanding, timeless, eternal⊠True. These were indeed the words of angels, or of devils; the difference between them not always as easily discerned as one might wish.
The light eventually enveloped both the boy and the shooter completely before erasing all; everything was absorbed. The two became one and the same. They vanished together in a flash, leaving an empty hallway and a discarded stuffed giraffe, the only remaining evidence of their presence in that time and place.
Time passed. Minutes dragged on for what felt like hours. An hour plodded along like days on end. Slowly, doors began to open from the periphery. Teachers emerged and took in their surroundings before finally calling forth their charges. Once an orderly exodus of the building was complete, with all parties reconvening at their designated safe zones, police combed the building. Neither the shooter nor the boy could be found anywhere. Perplexed by the absence of the shooter or their body, a manhunt was called but yielded nothing. No one knew to look for the child who was not there.
This story is a reflection upon the poem Call Me By My True Names by Thich Nhat Hanh. I first encountered his writing when I was working through some of my own struggles, trying to come to a place of radical acceptance and compassion, and I found some of the concepts to be very difficult because they reflected so much of my own hurt back at me. The anger was not serving me well and the fire within my heart that it fueled was not allowing room for growth, forgiveness, compassion or acceptance, and this took away my own power to heal.
There comes a point when one must release, to recognize the oneness of all of it, bound together by space, time and circumstance. This is a difficult and bittersweet place to be in, and I recognize that this story may seem ill-timed or improper given so much pain that is happening now in relation to the topic at hand. The timing of acceptance and coming into compassion differs from person to person and the paths we travel are winding and are not always clear, nor driving to the same ends. But that is why I chose to explore this, because it is in this most raw and vulnerable state that we come to those decisions of how to respond, of the people we choose to be… It is here that our human nature resides: good, bad and ugly. This is, in my mind, one of the greatest strengths of horror writing.
And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigelâs work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
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 Weigelâs 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. Patrickâs 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 donât know how you managed to find me after all this time. We havenât been the easiest to track down, Monty and I, and we like it that way. Though actually, youâve managed to find me every St. Patrickâs Day since 2022 despite me being someplace else every single time. Itâs a little disconcerting, like Iâm 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 hutâŠ
Anyway as Iâd mentioned before, that Scratchers was a winner. And Iâd already moved in with Monty come last St. Patrickâs Day. Hell, heâd 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 Montyâs 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 didnât want to let on he was sitting on a gold mine as he knew theyâd 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 livinâ 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 âem. Itâs like he has radar for bad cars. Calling them lemons would be generous. At least itâs not high maintenance women who wonât 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 wouldnât know, Iâve 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 isnât all that itâs cracked up to be, and it doesnât work like in the movies. I wasnât bitten, and I generally donât bite unless provoked. He says technically Iâm a wolfwere, to which I just reply âWhere?â and smile. Whatever. Itâs the little things I guess. I just wish everything didnât come out as a bark most of the time, though Montyâs gotten pretty good at interpretingâŠÂ As long as he doesnât 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 livinâ the dream. There arenât all that many rabbits out here but itâs quiet and the locals donât seem to notice me all that much. And Monty can run around and make like heâs gonna have some kind of sighting of Bigfoot or aliens or the like. As long as the pantryâs stocked itâs 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 alreadyâŠ
If you enjoyed this werewolf wolfwere wolfwhatever saga, feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigelâs work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.