Haunted MTL Original – A Sense of Justice – Omar ZahZah
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Published
4 years agoon
By
Shane M.“A Sense of Justice” by Omar ZahZah
Sometimes I wonder if part of what draws people in to a good ghost story is a sense of justice. Of course there’s a lot of chaos ghosts can wreak. No denying that. But sometimes, also, the ghosts can be more powerful than the living bodies they inhabited in one important way: they can finally realize the revenge they were too powerless to claim in life, maybe because the victimizer was too powerful socially, politically, or whatever else.
I know this was the case with my father.
I don’t know much about his life before he was a cop—we never talked about anything, and my first major goal in life was to get out of that house as soon as possible—but he was definitely one of those people who personified their job, if that makes sense, and in all the wrong kinds of ways. He enforced “the law” with a gun and baton outside, day and night, and when it came to “order” in his house (my mom and I were never credited with much of anything) he wasn’t shy about using his hands—knuckles, fists, palms… that’s pretty much all I’m going to say about that. But I think it’s enough to give a pretty good image of what life with him was like.
I’ve wondered about this a lot. You know, sometimes, I get to thinking about how informal personal relationships are, and what that can mean for how you treat people. After all, once the courtship is over, the mask can come off. You don’t need to do much work on yourself, especially if, like my father, you came from a world where your wife, like your child, is your property. The family’s been wooed, the house moved into, and that’s it—the trap snaps shut.
Maybe for these reasons, it’s not totally accurate to connect his home life to his work life—maybe the senses of entitlement were different, I mean—but I as I grew I couldn’t help but think, even as I was slowly learning how to exorcise my internal impressions with words, that someone who could treat his wife and son in the way he did would be a terrifying force to come across while he was on patrol.
There was never a time when I wasn’t afraid of him. Even during the morning, when he was supposedly at his most vulnerable because he was technically still groggy and coming to, I couldn’t stand to be near him. I can still see him now, sitting at that tiny kitchen table with the rose-patterned table-cloth in his sleeveless cotton shirt and underwear, always wearing the gaudy gold watch (a gift from his father) and dog tags from his army days he never took off, slowly slurping his black coffee and pawing at the paper. Eventually, he would light his first cigarette, and the stinging smell and fumes of the tobacco would blur into the scent and steam of the coffee (I can’t stand either cigarettes or coffee to this day.) No matter how quiet I was, how far I stood away or how small I tried to make myself, he’d always eventually look up at me, standing there in my pajamas and bare feet and, like a great evil demon with all that smoke and steam coming out of his nostrils, mouth, smoking hand and coffee cup, holler at me to get the hell out.
The thing about fiction is that you get to reduce people into caricatures. Human beings are typically complex, and made up of contradictions. So in expressing all this about my father now, I’m self-conscious about how it comes across. And, perhaps against some better judgement, I’m trying to find some empathetic moment, some selfless gesture, to balance all this out. But I just can’t. Maybe sometimes, reality can operate like fiction, after all. Or maybe that’s how it comes across to us.
Even the paper he didn’t read much. He was usually looking for some reference to a case he worked, some incident he was involved in. He was obsessed with that. Some nights he would bring his buddies over for beers, and all of them would laugh so hard they would get to screaming over pictures of the prostitutes they’d start handing around. Sometimes he’d call for me to come down (it was supposed to be my bedtime, but that, like any other boundary me or my mom would try to uphold, never mattered when he was drunk.) He’d show me one of the photos, and if he didn’t like my response, I’d get a backhand across the mouth, which would inspire a new wave of laughter from him and his friends. I remember falling asleep with the blood on my lips still wet and waking up to it dried on my pillow the next day.
It was more than just the photos, too. Especially back in those days, cops didn’t get questioned for much of anything. They were always the “respectable” ones in a court of law, no matter what the charges were, and it felt as though the judges and the local press tried to outdo one another when it came to fawning over the boys (and yes, back then it was always the boys) in blue. We certainly didn’t have anything like the internet today.
And that’s the truly terrible thing: it didn’t matter what my father or one of his buddies on the force was accused of. To this day, I get sick thinking of some of the charges. I can’t even bring myself to name them here, because it feels futile; he always got off scot-free, even—you might say especially—when it came to shooting down civilians, and civilians of color, to be more specific. His testimonies might as well have been written down in the Bible, because the word of a white cop against a Black or brown individual or family was received as though it came from heaven on high. He was untouchable, and he acted on it every day.
Like today, the killings that my father or one of his buddies took part in would lead to demonstrations. Unlike today, though, there was nothing to counter the local media’s demonization of activists. And since my dad and his buddies usually ended up being the police detail assigned to those actions, my mom and I would usually be regaled by stories about all the “skulls I’d cracked today,” usually replete with poisonous slurs.
I don’t really remember when the activity started. I wish I could pinpoint a trigger of some kind, but even all these years later, I really couldn’t tell you what it might have been. As far as I know, my father was never held accountable to a single thing he’d done in his life, which only seemed to inspire him to become more vicious in his violence, more confident in his cruelty.
But all the same, strange things started happening. And they began with me.
One night—I must have been about twelve at the time—I had just finished brushing my teeth and was about to climb into bed, when I saw something startling: my dad’s gun was sitting, upside down, with the muzzle pointed in my direction, in the center of my bedroom floor.
Now, there were only two places that gun would have ever been in my house: next to my father’s bedside, or possibly in his gun-safe (though he usually just kept that for show—he preferred having his gun on or near him as often as possible.) The last place it should have been was anywhere near me. And it’s position on the floor was, to put it bluntly, impossible; what was holding its balance? Why didn’t it fall?
Nevertheless, there it was.
Believe it or not, though, as ominous as it was to have that gun facing me, what scared me more wasn’t how the gun had gotten there, or whatever it was that put it there or was holding it in place, but what I was going to do with it now that it was here. If I took it back to my mom and father’s bedroom, there was no way they would believe it had just magically shown up and turned itself on its head all on its own, and my father had beaten me for less.
I climbed into bed and turned out the lights.
Next morning when I woke up the gun was gone, but any relief I might have felt was short-circuited when I heard my father roaring in anger. I ran downstairs to see him raging at my mother, who was on the floor, crying, and trying to back away. I’ll never forget how big his eyes were, how he kept yelling and, while my mom cried, raised his gun to her face and pulled the trigger.
So many things seemed to happen in the split second between his finger squeezing the trigger and the internal firing pin striking the cartridge primer: I, who was usually so terrified of my father I could barely say so much as a word to him, screamed out for him to stop, and my mom wailed and put her hands in front of her face, turning her head away. But what was also bizarre was what happened next.
Nothing.
The gun just let out a hollow click. This seemed to surprise my father, who turned his attention to the gun in his hand and began to take it apart. Meanwhile, I ran down to my mom. Our gazes were temporarily diverted in our mutual embrace, our tears, and our trembling so sharply from fear and relief that it felt as though we were one giant bush whose thin, nervous branches were being shaken back and forth by a mischievous kid.
What brought our attention back to my dad was his question: “Did you do this?”
We looked up to see the gun dismembered, an emptied magazine in his hand.
It wasn’t what he asked, but the way he asked it: it was hesitant, confused. As unsympathetic as my father was, even he couldn’t escape the fact that neither me nor my mom knew how to use that gun, much less take it apart. He was the only one who could have taken the cartridges out, and he was the last person who ever would have done such a thing. He turned and left us to go to the kitchen, shaking his head.
A few nights later, something similar happened. I’d just finished brushing my teeth and was about to climb into bed when I was a series of rounds arranged in a spiral shape on my bedroom floor. I knew these were rounds from my father’s gun. And just like before, I was more afraid of my dad than whatever seemed to be messing with his gun, so I turned out the light and went to sleep.
Sure enough, when I woke up the next morning, the rounds were gone, and when I made my way downstairs my dad was drinking his coffee, smoking his cigarette, and reading the paper, the pages crinkling and the smoke and steam blowing this way and that. But this morning, as he took his last sip, he began to sputter and gag; the retching and gagging sounds continued, tears and saliva ran down his face, until, finally, he was able to spit up whatever it was in the coffee that was tormenting him so onto the rose table-cloth.
A round.
It sat there, wet, sleek, and gleaming with spit under the weak kitchen light. And that’s when my dad slowly looked up and saw me. He was too dazed to be able to scream at me like he usually did, but the rage in his eyes flashed at me all the same, and I ran out of there.
And I knew just what it was, too: he was even angrier that I’d seen him in a moment of fear, confusion, and vulnerability. It was like catching him with his pants down.
Things continued on like that for some time, with objects going missing and then turning up in unexpected places. He beat the hell out of me when he found his badge in the toilet. Of course he wouldn’t believe it wasn’t me.
The activity not only continued, but it escalated and eventually peaked with my father’s death. He’d been shot in the head with his own gun, and forensics confirmed that there was no mitigating, suspicious circumstances, but I’ve still never been able to fully believe it was suicide. Even if he died by his own hand, I can’t help but feel that something helped him along.
There’s so much talk about haunted houses, but the smallest objects can have the most devastating impacts, too. My dad, who was physically the biggest man out of anyone he knew, as well as symbolically the biggest authority to all who were under his jurisdiction, personal or professional, had been undone by the tiny sabotage of some of the smaller items that made up his aesthetic of power. To this day, I can’t help but think that there is more than a little poetic irony in that, and probably the most comprehensive justice for all of those who were unable to claim it in life.
Omar Zahzah is a Palestinian American activist, writer, poet and horror enthusiast whose work has appeared in various publications. Omar holds a PhD in comparative literature from UCLA, with the subject of Omar’s doctoral thesis being the ways in which African American and Arab American activists and writers use literature as a means of contesting racialized state projects of policing and surveillance.
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Original Creations
Familiar Faces – A Chilling Tale of Predatory Transformation by Tinamarie Cox
Published
14 hours agoon
February 6, 2025By
Jim PhoenixFamiliar Faces
By Tinamarie Cox
For the past three months, Maggie had planted herself on the same bench in the northwestern quadrant of Central Park at six a.m. every morning. Placed beside her were always a brown paper bag and a paper coffee cup, both clean and empty. She did not require food and drink in the same manner as humans but needed to keep up appearances and maintain the illusion. Sitting here like this, Maggie appeared to be like any other New Yorker enjoying the cooler hours of the early summer mornings and a deli-bought breakfast.
As the joggers on the Great Hill Track passed by, Maggie studied their skin. She looked each perspiring body up and down carefully, determining collagen levels and the elasticity of their dermal layers. There was a wide range in age, but younger was preferred. She favored flesh in its prime and in good health. The better condition of the hide meant the tissues would last longer. More time for enjoyment and less time spent hunting.
Maggie, the name that had belonged to the skin she was currently in, had given her a long and pleasurable five years. But her stolen flesh had begun to pucker as of late, thinning and loosening, and starting to droop on its harsh frame. It was time for a change in coverings. Maggie’s delicate apricot coating was nearly spent.
New York City was the perfect place to acquire new skins. Becoming someone new and blending in was effortless in the twenty-first century. There were millions of hosts to choose from and all in different colors. The variety drew her, and the ease of attaining a human casing kept her lingering. A hundred years of stalking and acquisition in this city, and she hadn’t felt any exigency to leave it. One person missing out of millions was a drop of water in Earth’s ocean. She drew no suspicions.
Time had only made the process simpler for Maggie.
Naturally, her skills improved as she moved from body to body. She had made mistakes in the beginning. Been too violent with the first few when she should have been more clever. She hadn’t expected such a mess. Hadn’t known there was so much blood and viscera inside a human body.
But she had been so eager to try. So excited to keep going. To test her limits. Go beyond what she had once thought she was capable of.
Practice made perfect. Switching bodies became seamless.
And there were other factors, too, that allowed Maggie an inconspicuous lifestyle. Population growth was major, inevitable with the humans’ devotion to sexual pleasure. Humans seemed challenged when it came to controlling their desires, much less their reproductive abilities. She felt it was the greatest disadvantage of the species. To be so tightly bound to sex and rearing the inevitable offspring.
She couldn’t consider using a human during their infancy or adolescent years. Children were too helpless. Despite the soft suppleness of their skin, being commanded by another adult was unappealing. Maggie was fully grown and had left her nest ages ago.
The way society chose to isolate itself behind its technology also benefited Maggie. Whatever flashed on their handheld screens determined the next fad and the newest trend, which consumed their attention. It seemed humans could not be without their electronic devices, as if they were an extension of themselves. An enthusiastically consumed distraction from the realities of the drudgery of the human world.
Maggie had spent the last several weeks on her perch in Central Park keeping up to date on the latest social interests by watching TikTok videos on her cell phone. Many of the clips were centered around humorous topics, which she hated to admit she found entertaining. And some of the video creators poured their life stories and struggles into the camera for the whole world to see. Maggie liked these videos best. She adopted the histories and backgrounds of the TikTok users for the real-life conversations she participated in.
With the recorded stories committed to memory, she could stir up feelings of pity, compassion, or even lust in her listener. Their emotional responses made her feel more human. Continued the deception. Ultimately, it distracted her conversation partner from asking other, more troublesome questions. Like why the alcohol they were drinking wasn’t making her tipsy.
Maggie toggled between the app and observed the passing joggers. She stealthily snapped pictures of potential skin donors for later deliberation. She had noted their schedules and made her friendly face visible during their routines. She looked up, met their gaze, smiled, and angled her head cordially. Every few minutes, she reached into the paper bag standing upright by her lap and brought an empty fist to her mouth, pretending to eat breakfast and drink coffee.
Some mornings, she’d daydream about the first days in a fresh costume, how silky and soft the flesh was. She liked to run fingers along the new skin, feel how well it hugged the bones. The sensation made the human lungs feel heavy, the heart race, and the mouth water.
No part of her donor went to waste.
Once fitted into a new disguise and acclimated to its nervous system, the previous host served as a first meal. Consciousness didn’t return to the shell. The brain was ruined by her invading connectors and the gray matter disintegrated with the disentanglement. Like pulling a weed out of the ground after it had infiltrated and rooted deep into a garden bed.
The defunct flesh made an exponential shift into the decomposition process after being evacuated. Technically, the carcass had started decaying the moment it was put on. Be it delayed or negligible so long as the body’s systems remained minimally active.
The putrid smell that accompanied a rotting body drew attention. Evidence caused questions and investigation. And even this creature had to eat sometimes. Of all the mammals, the taste of human was second to none. Without a doubt, human surpassed in flavor compared to her littermates.
On other observation days, Maggie thought about the instances when young, hormone-driven bodies ensnared her in conversation with the single goal of engaging in mating rituals. She found these human practices amusing, not sharing the same desire or need for such companionship.
Coupled bodies pounding genital areas, sharing fluids, and flesh becoming hot and sticky from the exertion was overall, unappealing. However, Maggie learned the importance and the rules of these games during her adventures among the humans. Though, she did not gain the same level of satisfaction from sexual acts.
Her top priority was to remain innocuous. She paid no favor to a particular gender. Or lack thereof. She appreciated the modern sense of fluidity between sexes. The notions of male and female and fulfilling sexual needs had changed greatly in the last hundred years she had spent amidst people. She had learned that bodies fit together in multiple ways. And Maggie knew how to please any partner no matter the skin she wore.
She had gotten better at determining if a mate would become too attached and return to her with more serious intentions. Relationships complicated her lifestyle. Partners asked too many questions and wanted to be involved with everything. She could not explain to a human how slowly rotting, sagging flesh walked amongst the population. Being solitary and independent was required.
Maggie preferred to migrate across the boroughs only when necessary, like when she adopted a new disguise. Previous acquaintances noticed the change. Memories and personality were lost when she implanted herself. But after a few hours of investigating the old life, she knew who needed a goodbye to be satisfied. And which places not to haunt. These lessons had been learned the hard way at the beginning.
It wasn’t difficult to find a new apartment when she needed one. Some neighbors were nosier than others. Maggie didn’t have much on hand to pack and move. She kept enough belongings to make an apartment look lived in. And the keepsakes she was genuinely fond of remained in a storage unit.
She learned to save certain items after discovering antique shops. Some humans were willing to pay puzzling sums of money for old things that no longer served anything more than an aesthetic purpose. A lengthy existence inhabiting many lives had allowed her to accumulate a monetary cushion.
As the freshness of Maggie’s skin wore out, she felt like antiquity. Something shabby and spent, and only admired as what it used to be. The lingering memory of something gone and nearly forgotten. A word on the tip of your tongue. She didn’t like to feel as though she was fading.
Each morning, she studied the creases deepening on her hands and around her eyes. She pulled at the lines circling her throat. It took more effort to keep her mouth from frowning. She found her reflection off-putting. It hadn’t surprised Maggie why flirtations and pleasure seekers had decreased over the last several weeks. Her body looked disgusting.
Humans were shallow creatures. Wrinkling and dulling skin combined with thinning and lifeless hair was unattractive and deterred their mating drive. And it was this decrease in attention that brought Maggie a sense of urgency to find replacement tissue. She had grown to enjoy being noticed for her beauty and sexual appeal. But adamantly denied she possessed human vanity. She just wanted to feel good about herself. There wasn’t much else to her drive.
Beautiful skin made Maggie feel powerful.
Maggie was eyeing male flesh for this hunt. The last twenty years had been spent in female coverings. Before that, her costumes were alternated between the sexes. When IT first began acquiring human skins in New York City, it had sought males exclusively. Back in those early days, you had to be male to do what you wanted. No one questioned a man’s late hours or odd habits. A hundred years ago– when IT had still been something crawling and slithering and observing the human species in the shadows– it seemed a woman was more of a thing than a person. And IT had been tired of being a thing.
Before IT was Maggie, there was Ananda, and before her was Shyla. She only remembered Molly because of how short a time her skin had lasted, a mere year. She had judged Molly’s skin all wrong, or rather, it had deceived her. A century of lives and dozens of names had blended together in parts. What IT had originally been called escaped its memory. The point was to experience life, not remember the vehicle.
Christopher passed her bench for a fourth time that morning. Maggie gave her next potential covering a small smile. He had finally taken notice of her earlier in the week, stealing brief glances at her during each of his eight daily laps around the loop. He looked young enough for her predilection, and in satisfactory health.
She loved the way his tanned epidermis stretched over his pronounced cheekbones. How taut it was across his firm abdominal cavity. And how the flesh around his defined biceps glistened with perspiration in the morning sunlight. He was a fine human specimen. She was fairly certain Christopher was the one.
Her hearts synced into a quick rhythm with her sudden excitement. She fidgeted on the bench as she envisioned slipping into new skin. Shedding this expired hull and feeling the brief freedom from a body’s weight. Severing the aged links that bound her to a moribund marionette. She licked her lips as she thought about making a satisfying meal out of this faithful body she was currently in.
Maggie wanted to wear the Christopher costume as soon as possible. She imagined the strength in his well-maintained and robust body. What the ripples in his muscles must feel like when his feet pounded against the asphalt during his run. How easily she would be able to command adoration with his coy smile. The way lovers would worship the powerful way she’d use his hips.
Decision finalized, Maggie hid her phone away in the back pocket of her shorts. She put the unused coffee cup in the empty brown bag and crumpled them together for the trash can. The wait for Christopher to make his next lap was almost too long. She leaned forward on her bench, staring down the jogging path. Eyes only for him as others passed her by.
When Christopher returned to view, Maggie grinned and angled her head at him. She shifted on her perch, impatient for him to meet her gaze. When their eyes locked, Maggie felt her nerve endings pulse and the human heart lurch. This level of anticipation was better than sex. The barbs holding her inside Maggie tingled.
It was time to seize the moment.
She gave him a little wave with a shaky hand. Then, she patted the place on the bench beside her that was vacated by the fake breakfast.
Christopher slowed his pace, his interest engaged, and paused his morning jogging routine through Central Park to speak to a familiar face. He sat beside Maggie, his mouth open and catching his breath, and rested his arm along the top of the bench.
“Finished your breakfast fast today?” He stretched his long legs out in front of him and Maggie traced them with her eyes.
“I have a confession to make,” she began, flapping her eyelashes at him.
“Do tell.”
He leaned in closer and she could smell the salty trails of sweat dripping down his perfect skin and mixing with his pheromones. He was easily hooked. His scent made her mouth water. Made her buzz inside Maggie. He was a fine choice.
“I was too nervous to eat it this morning. I was hoping to meet you more formally today.” Maggie pressed her pink lips into a crooked smile and raised one of her shoulders aiming to convey shyness in her flirtation.
She formulated a new plan. The details arrived like lightning in her head. She’d do things a little differently this time. She’d play all her cards right and take him to bed first. Part of her ached to feel him inside this body before putting him on. She didn’t understand where the urge had come from, but she decided to obey it.
What was the point of living if not for a few indulgences here and there? Experiment once in a while? Evolve the methods? A hundred years of slipping from body to body needed to stay interesting.
She wasn’t becoming more human.
IT could never be human.
“Well,” he held out his hand to her, “I’m Christopher. It’s nice to meet you…?”
“You can call me Maggie,” she answered and accepted his handshake. His skin felt better than she imagined. A wave of delight coursed through her. A wide grin crept across her face.
Christopher was hers for the taking.
Predator and prey were united at last.
Original Creations
Womb, Revisited: a Graveside Poem by Jennifer Weigel
Published
5 days agoon
February 2, 2025Here’s a graveside pantoum poem from Jennifer Weigel…
The earth enfolds me in her embrace.
I can smell the dirt and water and decay.
This homecoming is a welcome change.
I am wholly surrounded by teeming life.
I can smell the dirt and water and decay.
All smells of mold, mushrooms, and musk.
I am wholly surrounded by teeming life.
Microscopic organisms abound all around.
All smells of mold, mushrooms, and musk.
This is both comforting and disconcerting.
Microscopic organisms abound all around.
I am becoming one with their still energy.
This is both comforting and disconcerting.
For it is the natural progression of things.
I am becoming one with their still energy.
Here within my grave, I shall rot away.
For it is the natural progression of things.
This homecoming is a welcome change.
Here within my grave, I shall rot away.
The earth enfolds me in her embrace.
Ok so that graveside poem was maybe a little more in than out, but whatever. We all go back to the Earth Mother eventually… 😉
Here are a couple more posts of graveside photography: Part 1 and Part 2… and another poem + photo combo. And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
Original Creations
Arctic Horror – A Chilling Tale of Survival and Terror by Nicole L. Duffeck
Published
1 week agoon
January 30, 2025By
Jim PhoenixArctic Horror
By Nicole L. Duffeck
“Arliiiii.” The figure before him groaned. “Arliiiii.” Jung Kook could have sworn it was his own voice, echoing back at him, but that was impossible. The wind all but stole your voice before it had a chance of reaching your companion standing mere feet from you.
Jung stopped short, conflicted between being euphoric over finding Arli and confused at this sudden development. “Arli? What’s going on? Are you ok?” Jung asked, his words coming out in a jumbled rush.
“Arliiiii?” The thing before him mimicked the question.
Some primal part of Jung’s brain took over before the conscious part of his mind could make sense of what his body was doing. Before he knew it, he was running for the habitat door. Behind him, he could hear a shuffling as the thing followed him, its breath seeming to rattle in its chest.
Fourteen hours earlier
There’s a certain horror in not knowing what comes next: When you’ll get your next meal, your next breath of fresh air, the next time you’ll feel the sun on your face, the next time you’ll feel someone embrace you. That was the downside to any Arctic expedition: the instant insanity of endless night, of deadly cold, of breaths that turned lungs to ice, the isolation of snow and silence, the strain of ears to catch a sound other than the omnipresent howl of wind and scouring ice.
That night (or was it day? It was impossible to tell when the body and brain were in a perpetual state of darkness) there was a sound, or maybe the memory of a sound. A soft keening, moaning sound that could have been the wind or a wounded animal or any number of things. Whatever the source, it set Jung Kook’s nerves on edge, shredding his sanity in nearly imperceptible increments.
Wondering if he was finally succumbing to the white madness, he poked his head out of the thermal blankets and looked at the digital clock on his bedside table. The red lights displayed that it was nearly seven in the morning; time to get up and perform the morning systems check. There was at least that: the comforting routine of checking the weather measuring instruments, the environmental systems that kept him and the other scientists alive in a climate that was hellbent on killing any living creature that hadn’t evolved to exist there over the course of several millennia. As it was, Jung was the only living human at the Z-037 outpost, the others having left four days prior to beat the storm; the same storm that was preventing the relief team from coming in. Jung had stayed behind to ensure the continual running of the research station and, if he were honest, to hang onto the gossamer-thin hope that Arli was alive somewhere, out there, in one of the outbuildings and had just had to ride out the storm. The logical, scientific part of him knew that wasn’t possible; that Arli had fallen into a glacial crevice or succumbed to the elements after having gotten turned around in one of the many whiteouts that would hit with little to no notice.
More than likely, the sounds he was hearing were a combination of guilt, hope, and despair manifesting in the form of the white madness. Regardless, Jung kicked his feet out of bed, heedless of the thermal blanket he had been wrapped in falling to the floor. The ambient temperature of the habitat was still uncomfortably low since the inhabitants weren’t expected to be out of bed for another fifteen minutes. Resources were scarce out here, making rationing and frugality a matter of life and death.
Jung donned his heaviest sweater, hat, winter outer pants, and opened the door to his quarters. The first thing he noticed was the oppressive silence of the module he had been calling home for the past three months. Having only been alone for four days, he hadn’t grown fully accustomed to there being no other signs of life. Even if all the other personnel were sleeping, there were still the sounds of snoring, breathing, talking in their sleep, or simply absorbing the cacophonous stillness. The suddenness of the Z-037 bringing itself into day mode made Jung jump. The lights came on to their full brightness, the HVAC turned up a few levels bringing it from a low white noise to a full hum and, most importantly, the coffee machine began brewing.
Jung made his way to the kitchen and took a few sips of too-hot coffee before moving on to the brain of the hub. The control room was insulated between four walls of thick steel and kept environmentally stable with its own climate control, powered by its own solar panels and backup generator. Jung took his time checking the instrumental readings, the surveillance footage, and the habitat’s artificial intelligence. Everything was running as it should, but Jung was reluctant to leave the control room; there was something comforting in being in front of screens, even if all they were doing was showing him the vast, white expanse of the snowfields, unbroken only by the UN’s outbuildings, a few snow machines, and an all-terrain utility vehicle.
The silence and unbroken view lulled Jung into a sort of waking torpor, his mind wandering to Arli and the last time they had seen each other. They had been arguing about what Jung couldn’t remember—that’s how trivial it had been. Arli had gone against the weather recommendations and stormed out into the ice fields, stating he needed to check on the penguin population he was there to observe. That was the last Jung, or anyone, had seen of Arli. Shortly after leaving, a massive windstorm blew across the plain; stirring up ice and snow, blinding any creature that was unfortunate enough to be out in it.
A noise pulled Jung from his reverie; a low, faint keening, the same sound that had roused him from his sleep. He scanned the CCTV screens, looking to see what the source of the noise was. At first, there was nothing on the monitors except the vast expanse of the plains. Just as he was about to stand and walk away from the desk, he saw it: A small corner of what looked like blaze orange; the same color of clothing the crew wore for outerwear, the best chance they had of being seen in a whiteout. He could dismiss the sounds as nothing more than the wind or a lost and starving arctic fox but the scrap of cloth – that couldn’t be discounted. Since there was no one else but him and the countless dead explorers who’d come before him at the base, the only rational explanation was that Arli was out there, alive and trying to find his way back to the base.
Jung jumped up from his chair and ran to the antechamber that would lead to the outside. There, he hastily dressed for the tundra, forced the door open, and stepped out into the violent gale.
Strung from the habitat and anchored in place at intervals using lead pipes was a blaze orange cord, now frosted white from snow and ice. For a moment, the rational science brain whispered that he had just seen a flash of the cord and not a sign of Arli struggling to get home to him. Jung pushed the thought away and fought his way forward against the hurricane-force winds.
Above the howl of the wind, Jung heard the keening sound again. Louder, despite the weather. He could just make out a single word, his name, “Jung,” being cried out against the storm. He knew, with the certainty of a man who’d heard the voice a million times, that he was hearing Arli call for him, calling to him for help.
Jung’s lungs and heart nearly burst. Arli was alive! He knew Jung was there, coming to him, coming to find him and bring him back to warmth and safety. Fueled by blind determination, Jung tried to quicken his pace, but the elements persisted in slowing him down; all he was doing was wasting energy and calories, both of which needed to be rationed. He needed to be logical, clinical if he was going to get himself and, more importantly, Arli, back to safety.
Jung forced himself to slow down, to get his bearings and trudge calmly and methodically through the drifts of snow and blinding wind. With one hand, he held fast to the guideline and, with the other, he prodded the ground with his walking stick. Chances were, Arli was using the same cord or, worst-case scenario, he was unconscious in one of the snowbanks. If the first, they would meet somewhere along the line. If the latter, the walking stick would issue the tactile warning that there was an anomaly beneath the waist-high embankments.
The going was slow, and the cold was taking its toll on Jung. His feet and hands were beginning to go numb, and his eyelashes, beard, and mustache were crusted in ice, creating an all too persistent time clock, telling him he couldn’t stay out of the habitat much longer. His heart insisted he go on but the logical part of his mind urged him to be rational; if he succumbed to the elements, both he and Arli would be lost to the Arctic.
As if the universe finally started to care, the decision was made for him in the form of the guideline running out; he’d reached the end of the camp without finding any signs of Arli. It was time to go back and get out of his ice-encrusted gear and warm up. He could check the surveillance cameras for signs of Arli and make a plan to find him and bring him back.
Feeling downtrodden but bolstered by having an actionable plan, Jung found his way back to the habitat, discarded his outerwear, and brewed a cup of coffee before settling down in front of the monitors. There was nothing to see except for the omnipresent white of the landscape; even his footprints were all but swallowed up by the flurry. There was certainly no way of seeing if Arli was still out there unless he was upright and moving. Jung found that highly unlikely; he’d been missing for four days now. Unless he found shelter and food, he’d be weak from the elements and hunger…or worse. Jung shook his head, refusing to fall into the depression the flash of orange had pulled him out of. He’d find Arli, they’d get out of this godforsaken place together and spend the rest of their lives in a warm place.
Station protocol was that researchers only go outside once a day; even if they felt they’d warmed up to normal body temperatures. There was too great a possibility of the heart and lungs being damaged from the cold and the person not being aware of it. Despite being the only person there, Jung still followed protocol, the need to follow a structured pattern and adhere to the rules. The monotony and predictability staved off insanity thus far, it would have to continue.
Part of that routine was the midday systems check, reading the instruments, checking the life support systems, and reaching out to the main base with his status and the status of the station. The rhythm was soothing and allowed his mind to wander, that is, until a low noise pulled him out of his stupor. It was faint, just like the keening and, like the keening, it was persistent. Jung rose from his chair and walked quietly in his stocking feet, walking back and forth across the room, trying to ascertain where the noise was originating from. There! A sort of scritch, scritch, scriiiiitttccchhhh sound from the outside of the habitat. If there were any trees in the vicinity, he’d have thought the sound was being created from a branch scratching the walls but there was nothing of the sort on this barren plain. The sound was far to faint to be that of a moose or other wild beast. “Arli.” Jung whispered to himself. Arli had found the habitat! He was trying to locate the door in the blinding whiteout.
Jung ran to the surveillance room and flicked through the various screens, trying to find the right cameras with the correct angles that would show the outer perimeter of the habitat. In his haste, he’d skip over some cameras and double up on others. Jung forced himself to slow down once again, be methodical and check the cameras carefully. In the frame of Camera 3, he saw it, the proof he needed: Fresh boot prints. Arli was out there! He was certain of that now.
Rules be damned, he donned his dripping wet outerwear and hurled himself out into the weather. Rendered stupid with hope and love, Jung didn’t wait for his snow goggles to acclimate to the temperature change before charging in the direction of Camera 3’s view. He rounded the corner of the habitat and, in through the hurtling snowflakes, saw a shadow standing about eight feet in front of him. Through the fogged-up lenses of his goggles, Jung could just make out the blaze orange of the outerwear the field scientists wore. “Arli!” Jung cried out, tears of happiness and relief freezing on his face.
“Arliiiii.” The figure before him groaned. “Arliiiii.” Jung could have sworn it was his own voice, echoing back at him but that was impossible. The wind all but stole your voice before it had a chance of reaching your companion standing mere feet from you.
Jung stopped short, conflicted between being euphoric over finding Arli and confused at this sudden development. “Arli? What’s going on? Are you ok?” Jung asked, his words coming out in a rushed jumble.
“Arliiiii?” The thing before him mimicked the question.
Some primal part of Jung’s brain took over before the conscious part of his mind could make sense of what his body was doing. Before he knew it, he was running for the habitat door. Behind him, he could hear a shuffling as the thing followed him, shuffling, its breath seeming to rattle in its chest.
Jung slammed into the habitat door and fumbled with the handle as the thing stalked closer. Finally managing to get his numb, gloved hand to cooperate, Jung crashed through the door and slammed it shut behind him and, he could have sworn, he felt the hot, putrid breath of the thing on his skin.
Breathing heavily, Jung leaned against the door, trying to get his wits about him. That thing was Arli, he was sure of it but, also, positive it wasn’t Arli, at least, not the Arli he knew, the Arli he loved. What happened to him?
“Arliiiii.” He could hear his voice coming from outside the door followed by the scritch, scritch, sriiiiiiitcccch of, what he now knew, to be long, yellow claws.
Arli ran his gloved hands over his face, only realizing then that he was still wearing his outdoor gear when he jammed the goggles into the bones of his cheeks.
Checking again that the door was secure, Jung disposed of his outer wear, leaving them in a wet heap in the middle of the floor. Not caring that he was numb to the bone, he made his way to the surveillance room and brought up the camera for the front door of the habitat. There, he saw, hunched over itself, wearing tattered, blaze orange outerwear with the Z037 insignia emblazoned on its chest, the emaciated form of what had once been Arli. Arli had been a healthy, robust man and the thing that was scratching at the outside of habitat had ashen, papery, torn skin. Its lips were gone, in their place was chewed, ragged flesh. The thing had a stump where its tongue should have been. The tattered clothing revealed open, oozing wounds that wept despite the sub-zero temperatures. As he watched the Arli Thing, it tore a chunk of remaining flesh from its upper thigh, shoved it in it’s mouth and gnashed it with its teeth then swallowed it, the only trace left behind was sinew that clung to its teeth and a smattering of gore in the corners of its mouth.
Jung could taste the bile rising in his throat and heaved his coffee onto the floor, not caring about the mess. He needed to get out of there or he’d be the next gore in Arli’s teeth. He grappled with the comms system, finally getting it keyed up. “Z037 in distress! Z037 needs emergency assistance. Send help NOW!” He hollered into the microphone.
At first only static met his ear then, very lightly, he heard a keening, gargling “Arliiiiiii.” Jung dropped the mic and jumped back from the desk. Slowly, he turned. The thing that had been Arli was standing there, mere feet away and blocking the only door out.
The last coherent thought Jung had as the thing bit into his face and tore the flesh from his eye socket was that he had finally found what had happened to Arli.
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