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Oh come on, you call that a scary story? This one will truly shake you to the core. Now, a friend of a friend told me this happened to her second cousin. Tragic stuff. 

*** 

‘Seriously? Bloody Mary?’ Samantha laughed. ‘Can’t think of anything better?’ 

‘Why, are you scared?’ Daphne playfully raised her eyebrows. Samantha’s face dropped and Daphne immediately knew the right button had clicked; no one wants to be called a chicken at their own sleepover. 

‘You wish. Who’s up for this then?’, Samantha looked at the other three girls, her eyes burning into each one. The choice was simple – either do what the popular girl wanted or become a social piranha. Neither of them wanted the latter. ‘See Daph? We’re all brave girls here.’ 

‘Never doubted it’, Daphne’s face never faltered but her voice betrayed annoyance. Winning against Samantha was a challenge she liked to take on, and yet never won. All in the name of friendly rivalry.

‘Right, so I assume you all know how this goes?’ Samantha said when the girls trailed after one another into the bathroom, handing each of them a candle.

‘We need to call her name three times?’ Michelle, one of the girls, said. 

‘I thought it was nine’, Claire, the other girl, countered. 

‘It’s obviously thirteen, bad number and all’, Angie, the third girl, rolled her eyes. 

‘It varies’, Daphne spoke before Samantha could. ‘But the number that appears most in different versions is five. Since we have the right number, who doesn’t each of us say it once?’ 

‘Surely it would work better with all of us saying it together’, Samantha said while lighting the candles. When she got to Daphne’s, there was a moment of hesitation. ‘Or are you afraid it will actually summon her?’ 

‘Together it is then’, Daphne smiled, the candle casting shadows on her face. Samantha turned away and squeezed herself in the between Michelle and Angie so she’d be right in the middle. The girls arranged themselves in a half circle in front of a square mirror, their elbows just about touching. 

‘Alright ladies, shall we?’, Samantha stared each one down, Daphne being the only one to return the look. ‘What’s with the long faces? It’s just a stupid urban legend’, the other girls laughed but the sound fell flat. ‘Everyone on the count of three. One… Two… Three’, there was a second of silence that seemed to stretch out to eternity. Then Samantha’s lips parted as she spoke, with the others following just a fraction behind. 

‘Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary’, Samantha stopped to catch a breath, the others trailing after her. ‘Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary.’ 

Silence. The girls looked at the mirror, the only thing staring back being their reflections. 

‘Well, of course that wasn’t gonna do anything’, Samantha giggled. ‘Alright ladies, I don’t know about you but I could use some Ryan Gosling-’ 

There waa a crack and all the candles simultaneously blew out, bringing the bathroom to total darkness. Michelle shrieked and dropped her candle, splashing hot wax everywhere. 

‘What the hell!’, Angie shouted. ‘You got wax on me, you idiot!’, she ran towards the sink. 

‘Calm down, I’ll get first aid’, Samantha went to the door and turned the knob but it didn’t open. ‘What the-?’, she jiggled the door to no avail, then turned the lock but nothing happened. ‘Who jammed the door?’ 

‘You came in last’, Daphne almost whispered. Just as she said it, multiple things happened all at once. 

The lights flickered as the mirror shattered, causing the girls to go into chaos. Angie backed away covering from the shards and bumped into Michelle, who screamed and slipped, bashing her head against the bathtub. Claire backed up against the wall and covered her eyes from the lights which now resembled a club rave scene. 

‘God, she’s coming for us!’ Angie shouted as the lights turned off for the last time. Something cracked and tumbled, followed by a scream that seemingly came from underground. After that, silence followed, but there was no comfort in it. 

The lights turned on. Angie and Claire looked up. Michelle rubbed her head, a bump already forming on it. It took a moment for the three to register the visual in front of them. 

Samantha lied on the floor, painfully still, glassy eyes staring at the ceiling. There was blood all over, stemming from the wound in her chest. Daphne was looking over her, as if in a trance. 

‘Daphne?’, Claire whispered and very carefully stretched out her arm to poke Daphne’s shoulder. Seemingly awakened, she looked down and after a drawn out moment, her face twisted into anguish.

‘Oh god’, she whimpered. ‘It was her! Bloody Mary! She did this!’

Angie looked at her, head tilted. 

‘Was it?’ 

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1 Comment

  1. Jennifer Weigel

    August 25, 2022 at 8:23 am

    When seeking a body to possess, always find that most willing to support your cause… no sense in wasting precious energy…

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Original Series

Nightmarish Nature: Just Jellies

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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.

Ooze on in for some booze schmoozin' action
Ooze on in for some booze schmoozin’ action

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…

Fish hiding in jellyfish bell
In hiding…

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.

Jellies in bloom
Jellies in bloom

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…

Jellies breakfast of champions
Jellies breakfast of champions

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.

Vampires Among Us

Perilous Parenting

Freaky Fungus

Worrisome Wasps

Cannibalism

Terrifying Tardigrades

Reindeer Give Pause

Komodo Dragons

Zombie Snails

Horrifying Humans

Giants Among Spiders

Flesh in Flowers

Assassin Fashion

Baby Bomb

Orca Antics

Creepy Spider Facts

Screwed Up Screwworms

Scads of Scat

Starvation Diet

Invisibles Among Us

Monstrous Mimicry

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Original Series

Lucky Lucky Wolfwere Saga Part 4 from Jennifer Weigel

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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.

Faerie Glen digitally altered photo from Jennifer Weigel's Reversals series
Faerie Glen digitally altered photo from Jennifer Weigel’s Reversals series

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…

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.

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.

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Original Creations

Costumes – Figure Modeling Highlights with Jennifer Weigel

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You’ve seen me as Theda Bara, a Witch, and a Necromancer already (as well as Cleopatra, Elvis, and Andy Warhol) but here are some more fun costumes I’ve worn while figure modeling for the Friday morning art group at Hutchinson Art Center. The group is switching to Saturdays but hopefully I’ll still be able to make it in from time to time… Life’s a circus, or maybe a magic act in a shamanic ritual with Holly Hobbie… At any rate – beam me up Scotty, I have your missing spaceship part…

Some Costumes with Jennifer Weigel figure modeling
More Costumes from Jennifer Weigel figure modeling

Yeah yeah, so none of that was really all that terrifying. Just another time warp in all honesty. At least there’s still some residual Rocky Horror vibes to be found, but then again, there usually are with me when I get into the identity based costumes.

But in follow up and in the spirit of so much of my other randomness, here’s a music video for Everything Changes by Eytan and The Embassy. Check it out if you want to see some more fun costumes in an immersive homage montage experience unlike any other. (If the video doesn’t load, just follow the link here.) See how many artists you can recognize in this quick change setup. Ready… Set… Go!

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