April Fool’s Day, a story by Jennifer Weigel
What happens when witchcraft leads to the most terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day?
The alarm started blaring. Ugh. Kit rolled over and looked at the clock. Crap! It was already 8:45 and she needed to be at work at 9. She was certain to be late. Why didn’t the alarm go off at 7 like it was supposed to?
Kit leapt out of bed and raced to the bathroom. She rushed to the sink and splashed cold water on her face. She didn’t have time to do anything else so that would have to do. She glanced up at the bathroom mirror and was taken aback. Her dark eyes rested upon a gaze she didn’t recognize, icy blue eyes staring back at her. The pale reflection seemed as surprised as she was. They stared and blinked at one another in silence.
Kit reached towards the mirror, left hand extended. The mirror girl reached back with her right. Both withdrew quickly and continued staring blankly. They reached towards each other again, fingertips meeting beyond the surface of the cold still glass.
There was no time for this.
Kit hurriedly emerged from the bathroom shaking her head. She must be imagining things or still partially dreaming somehow. The clock smirked at her from its perch on the nightstand. 8:45. The time didn’t fully register because of the sense of urgency. She reached in the closet, grabbed some clothes and slipped them on. She ran into the main room, snatched the waiting purse from the table by the door, and slipped out into the hallway.
But wait.
This was not her apartment. This was not even her apartment building. The hallway was dingy and full of warm yellow light that reflected off of every dust particle drifting through the air. Where were the overhead fluorescents? Kit was immersed in heavy dark wood paneling, not the usual outdated blue and white striped wallpaper that typically greeted her. She looked down at herself.
The clothes she wore were not her own, they were loose fitting hippie garb, flowing in an informal array of mismatched patterns and textures. They were not at all professional by legal secretary work standards, and certainly nothing Kit would have owned.
Kit turned the key in the lock. She eased her way back inside the apartment to stand beside the table. She looked at her purse. It was about the same size and weight as she might have expected but it was just a simple purple velvet tote bag with gold fringe and beads hanging down from the bottom. It was not leather or imitation designer, and it bore a hand-embroidered star emblem. She slid the bag back onto the small table.
What was going on?
Kit looked around. The apartment was full of plants and crystals and candles. An unassuming black cat sat in a far window surrounded by greenery, its amber eyes fixated on Kit. The cat had a grumpy, impatient air about it. It coughed, emitting a deep hollow sigh from the depths of its throat before it spoke.
“What the Hell?” it asked.
Kit leapt backwards into the table by the door. The cat meowed at her and jumped from its perch to circle her legs twice before trailing over to a small silver bowl. The cat emphatically sat down beside the bowl as if to draw attention to the action itself. It meowed again and looked at the nearly empty dish. “Well, aren’t you going to feed me?” it exclaimed.
Kit looked around. The cat idly washed its paw, still staring at her. It meowed again and pawed at its food bowl.
Kit didn’t own a cat. Or plants or crystals or candles for that matter. Her apartment was very sparse. But everything was otherwise where it should be. The table by the door, the purse, even the layout of the apartment; if she closed her eyes and went on intuition, anything of importance was exactly where she expected it to be. And yet nothing was the same.
Kit traced her steps back into the bedroom. The cat followed, meowing insistently. The bed, the nightstand, the clock, even the crooked closet door were perfectly matched to Kit’s own. But otherwise everything about this place was different.
There were black lace curtains hung in sweeping motions reaching into the bedroom and not just in the window, which was lined with small ceramic birds. The bedding was silk, like Kit’s own, but it was a dark burgundy wine color with a huge gold and green brocade comforter whereas Kit’s bedding was white and grey. Yet, when Kit closed her eyes again, it all aligned perfectly with where she expected things to be.
“Seriously WTF?!” the cat shrieked. “I’ve been waiting FOREVER.”
Kit plopped down on the corner of the bed. She realized she was still clutching the small velvet bag. She was sure she had put it back, and yet here she was holding it. She rifled through its contents and came upon a student ID from a college she had never heard of. It boasted a picture of a diminutive fair blonde woman labeled April Schlemiel, Witchcraft & Wizardry, University of Feyfaerie Pass. The photograph was a perfect match to the woman that had stared back at Kit from the mirror.
Kit threw the bag and the ID to the floor. She looked at the clock. It was stuck at 8:45. It was a standard digital clock just like hers, with the same blocky red numbers on a mirrored black background in a boxy black housing, the kind you could buy pretty much anywhere. Kit fixed her gaze upon it, since it was the only familiar thing about this strange place. She didn’t realize she had fallen back onto the bed and drifted off to sleep only to be greeted by a resounding howl.
Kit awoke with a start and looked around nervously. As her focus returned, a pair of amber eyes came into heightened detail glaring down at her from above. The black cat loomed overhead.
“My breakfast, April! What about my breakfast?” the cat yowled. Under its breath it murmured, “How’d I wind up a fool’s familiar, anyway? I should have paid way more attention in class instead of just reading Witchcraft for Dummies.”
The burgundy sheets, the green and gold comforter, the black lace curtains… all came back into clarity. The cat encompassed much of Kit’s field of vision, seemingly larger than before, now almost cougar-sized. Its head was as big as Kit’s. It spoke again, “April, you are testing my patience. My kibble chalice is nearly empty…”
The cat had arranged several candles in a star around Kit and was lighting them one at a time by flicking its tail from one candle to the next. It seemed unperturbed at the tail tip of its fur being singed. As it lit the last candle, it flicked its tail into a cup of water sitting beside the bed. “Now, April!” it screeched.
Kit rose and stood beside the bed, not of her volition. Her body willingly traipsed through the bedroom and into the main room where it stopped to stoop over a large metal canister. Her hands acted on their own accord, prying open the lid from atop the bin and using the small silver ladle inside to scoop cat food into the silver bowl.
“That’s better,” the black cat spoke as it sidled up beside her and began eating. Kit fell to the floor in a puddle as she again regained consciousness over her body. “Seriously, do we have to do this EVERY morning?” the cat remarked between bites. “It gets tiresome, you know.”
“Where am I?” Kit asked the creature.
“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten… Again!…” the cat snapped, stealing a sideways glance at Kit. “Wait, you’re not April.”
Kit shook her head ‘No’ and stared at the creature.
The cat gazed at her. “Not again. Crap, this happens every year at this time. Is it that day already?” The cat leapt onto the table by the door and rummaged through the velvet bag, which had somehow returned to its proper perch. It pulled out a small calendar. “Sure enough, it is,” the cat exclaimed.
“Damn it, April, every single year since you screwed up that… Oh, never mind,” it sighed. “Alright, we can set things right again.”
The cat turned to Kit and studied her intently. “I don’t care who you are or where you came from, but do exactly as I say and we can get you home. If you botch this, you could wind up in limbo forever.”
Kit nodded ‘Yes’. Her eyes grew wide.
The cat led her back into the bedroom and nosed the candles into a wider star pentagram centered on the bed. “Now, sit in the middle of the circle,” it directed.
Kit climbed into the bed and perched herself atop her knees in the middle of the circle.
“Not like that!” the cat remarked, “Cross-legged.”
Kit corrected.
“Now focus on the clock and close your eyes. Keep focusing on the clock.”
Kit looked at the clock, still locked at 8:45, shut her eyes, and chirped, “How am I supposed to focus on the clock with my eyes cl—“
“Silence!” the cat growled. “You just see it in your mind. You know it’s there. It hasn’t changed.”
“Now, place your hands palm up on your knees. Keep focusing on the clock.”
Kit had no idea what the cat was doing. She could hear it slipping around and every once in awhile felt its fur brush past. The room began to smell of lavender, burnt cloves and patchouli, among other scents that she couldn’t recognize at all. The cat was wailing some low throaty growl as it circled her. Kit began to raise an eyelid.
“I told you to keep your eyes shut!” the cat snapped. “Seriously, just keep focusing on the clock.”
Kit saw the clock in her mind, the red blocky numbers stuck at 8:45 when the alarm had gone off. It hadn’t seemed to move at all from she had first gotten up to rush to work. It was always and still 8:45. The numbers etched themselves into her mind.
Kit woke with a start. She was back in her apartment, clutching her grey silk sheets and grey and white striped comforter. There were no black lace curtains or ceramic birds or plants or crystals or candles. And there was no sign of a cat anywhere to be found. The clock read 8:45.
Kit abruptly got dressed to leave, grabbed her actual purse in its faux designer glory from the table by the door, and called in to let them know she would be running a bit late. She breathed a sigh of relief as she made her way down the wallpapered corridor to the leasing office where she put in her month’s notice that she was going to move as soon as possible and that she would forfeit whatever remained of the month after she got out, before she hurriedly headed off to work. Her landlord shook his head as he watched her drive off, “Why can’t I keep anyone in that unit after the start of April?” he muttered to himself.
Please check out another of Jennifer Weigel’s witchy works from a previous figure modeling session on Haunted MTL here.
And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s 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 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.