Haunted MTL Original – Among The Flayed – Ben Spencer
Among The Flayed by Ben Spencer
Mygento sold their agrochemical seed steroid under the trade name “Sorocom,” but after a year on the market, a period in which it turned most farmers who used it and most people who ate the food they produced into shambling lepers, the FDA pulled it and declared a National Health Emergency.
It was too late for twenty thousand or so families and the counties they lived in throughout the midwest, 55,000 square miles of which––roughly the size of Iowa––was quarantined by the Army and the National Guard. Second Amendment supporting militias who had guns to spare and recruits eager for action helped patrol the borders of the containment zone.
In the common vernacular of middle America, Sorocom came to be known as “The Flayer,” and victims of its horrific side effects came to be known as “The Flayed.”
This brief history of Sorocom is running through my head as Rex is driving us down some unnamed access road in a wheat field, away from a pack of the Flayed that found us hiding in Ted Johnston’s hayloft with a dozen others.
Rex puts the old diesel truck into third gear. It belches out black smoke, obscuring the rearview. Looking through the oily cloud, I see the Flayed disappear.
But they’re still coming. They’ll never stop coming.
Rex did what he always did when he got into the truck. No matter how many unhealthy life choices he made––junk food, whiskey, chewing tobacco––Rex always buckled his seatbelt.
“Where do we go?” I ask. “What do we do?”
Rex holds his side. Maybe a stitch from sprinting to the truck. We barely made it. Rex was pulled out of the truck by one of the Flayed, but managed to unholster his revolver and blow its head off before the others got to him.
“We buy our time, Cherry,” he says. “We survive.”
I love that Rex still calls me by my pet name despite the chaos. He started calling me Cherry shortly after we started dating, a year before we got married. It’s a reminder that things were normal once.
Rex downshifts to pull around a hairpin turn. The wheels of the truck skid before finding traction and the rear end fishtails in a plume of dust.
I still wonder how we escaped the fate of so many thousands of other families. We speculated that the chemical properties of Sorocom that caused some peoples’ flesh to shed from their bodies were unstable. It was as if the drug had discretion. It picked and chose its victims, but without any logic that I could make sense of.
Staring at the ceiling at night, I often wondered if it would have been better to be among the first wave of people who’d become flayed. The transformation looked agonizingly painful. But I always imagined it would have been better to get it over with, better to be spared from witnessing the horrors of this new world.
Three farmhouses ago, I saw Eustice Jones’ husband Bill became flayed before my eyes.
I mark time by “farmhouses” now. The days and weeks started blending together not long after cellular service ceased, and I lost track of time.
On the run, we’d occupy a farmhouse, be discovered, and leave. Occupy a new one, get overwhelmed by the Flayed, and relocate. Each cycle constituted one “farmhouse.” In truth, “days” and “weeks” didn’t matter anyway, because it felt like we’d been on the run for years. I’d counted eighteen farmhouses so far, so many that I forgot who they all belonged to.
When Bill Jones became flayed, it started with his face. We were eating dinner, laughing and smiling and remembering the world as it used to be. Then Bill’s face turned into a frown. Working as a part-time nurse before the world fell, I’d seen my fair share of stroke victims. That’s what it looked like––that Bill lost control of the muscles in his face.
Eustice, his wife, asked what was wrong. And as Bill tried to answer, looking just as stunned as the rest of us, the skin from his face slipped off of the muscle that gave it shape, leaving a blood-red mask. Within seconds, the same thing had happened to the rest of his body. Within a minute, he’d killed three of us.
My attention comes back to the cab of the truck, to Rex, my last beacon of happiness and hope. He’s holding his side. His eyes are watering––no, he’s crying.
“I love you, Cherry.”
He upshifts, fourth gear, speeding faster down the road. The speedometer hits forty miles per hour. The truck rumbles across the hard-packed earth.
Rex’s face changes into a frown. The same frown I saw come across Bill Jones’ face.
“Rex, you’re scaring me.”
His face sags. The stroke. His skin becomes slippery, elastic. Then it starts to fall off onto his lap.
“Jump out of the truck Cherry,” he says, his jaw a sickening crimson. “I’m not going to slow down, I’m going to crash it. I won’t let it happen to me.”
He pulls up his shirt, showing me a deep gash in his side.
One of the Flayed bit him before he managed to get into the truck.
Suddenly, everything that made Rex the man I fell in love with, over beers in a smoky pool hall, slips away. The flesh sheds completely from his face. Now, Rex is reduced to a grinning skull covered in shiny red sinew. And he becomes terrifyingly aggressive like they all do. Like I’ve seen a hundred times before.
Rex releases the steering wheel. He lunges for me. I close my eyes before it happens, but hear a sharp click as Rex’s seatbelt locks him in place. His jaws snap. He’s like a rabid dog. He pulls against the seatbelt, but the stringent automobile safety standards keep him locked in place.
The tears come, pouring from my eyes. I remember everything that made Rex and I happy. Even though we’d never been able to have children––even though three pregnancies had ended in miscarriage – we’d started a family, just the two of us. And we’d been happy.
Rex’s foot is locked against the gas pedal. The speedometer reaches sixty. I think of trying to stall the truck, to stop it somehow. If I jumped out at this speed, no matter how soft the field, I’d be injured or killed. And if I happened to live, the Flayed would catch up to me, like they always do.
Rex is still restrained by his seatbelt, struggling ferociously against it. My hand closes around the gear shift. In his calloused, farmer’s palm, Rex––this monster that used to be my husband––grabs my wrist and brings my arm to his mouth. I pull away before he manages to bite it. I reach and try to downshift again, but Rex grabs my arm, pulls it to his mouth with extraordinary strength, and snaps just as I manage to slip out of his grasp.
In this final, vicious struggle for life, I’m reminded that it won’t end well. None of this was ever meant to end well. There will be no federal relief. Waiting for the government and the army is not an option, because they are not here to help us––only to keep us contained. Only to let all of us become flayed. We die after twenty-four hours. Once everyone’s dead and gone, then they’ll come in to clean up the mess.
I wonder if God has a plan for me, or if my Christian religiosity has been a lie I’ve told myself for thirty-three years to believe that there is a plan, that there is meaning. That there is something, rather than nothing.
If I live in a Godless world, one without Rex––is that world worth living in? How many more farmhouses, now, by myself? How long until I’m flayed? What will the change feel like as the skin falls from my face? Will I remember who I was? Does our sanity depart as we become flayed? Are we trapped inside a body that is not ours? Do our souls live on, or do they, too, depart?
As these questions cross my mind, I make my decision. Death has the final word in any scenario. Dictating how I meet it is my last act of free will.
Rex’s foot has continued depressing the accelerator. We’re humming along at eighty-five miles per hour.
The wheat shines in the moonlight––a translucent amber blur.
I look into Rex’s eyes. I see a flicker of blue color that made me fall in love with him. It aids my decision.
“Goodbye Rex,” I say.
I unbuckle my seatbelt. I grab the steering wheel. I close my eyes and pull it towards me as hard as I can.
Before everything goes black, I feel the truck lift from the ground. I open my eyes. We’re flying over the moonlit wheat field, which––if there were still people to harvest it––would be nearly ready.
The moon fills the cab of the truck.
I close my eyes again. Gravity pulls the truck down to earth.
Ben Spencer lives with his wife and two beloved Boxer dogs in Washington state, where he works as a writer and content strategist for a tech company. Ben is currently at work on his second novel, a young adult horror story and homage to H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.”
Here’s another view of Heaven in this twisted little afterlife story from Jennifer Weigel, titled All That Remains. Trigger warning: religious themes, suggestions of rape & murder.
I didn’t remember dying. I only vaguely remembered the thread of my life being weighed at the pearly gates. And now, here I was, in awe of the splendor of it all. I looked at the Heaven all around me. Everything was light and love. The sunlight sparkled off of the hills and valleys of the clouds, casting everything in a gossamer glow. Angelic faces shone with mirth and merriment from their depths. It was the most beautiful visage I had ever seen.
Until he showed up.
“Hey there, glad to see you made it,” Sebastian said. His words slithered off his tongue, just as they had during the trial. “I’m here to serve as your guide, to show you around Eternity.”
“But…” I stammered, looking at my feet. I still felt repulsed by him, couldn’t stand to look him in the eye. I wanted to strangle him, but I managed to tamp that feeling down by averting his gaze. “How did you get here?”
“I accepted Christ into my heart, just as you did. Isn’t it beautiful?” He grinned. His red hair bobbed up and down as he nodded. “Forgiveness is a blessing.”
“One you didn’t deserve,” I muttered under my breath, unsure of the proper etiquette or protocol for engaging with others in this place, or just how and why he would ever have been forgiven for his sins. “Where is my daughter?”
Sebastian frowned. “I’m sorry to say she never accepted Christ into her heart, and so she isn’t here,” he answered.
“What?” I seethed, anger bubbling from where it had roiled just below the surface. “How can this be?”
“Look, I don’t make the rules,” Sebastian spoke.
“But you’re here. And she’s not. No thanks to you!” My voice trembled as it rose.
“I understand your frustration. But it is what it is,” he replied.
“You’re the one who killed her!” I yelled, no longer able to contain my fury. No one else seemed to notice, too wrapped up in their own afterlives to care.
“Yes, but that was before. And I paid for that with my own life. In the electric chair. Your justice was served,” Sebastian said.
“I know, but…” I sighed. “Why isn’t Julianne here?”
“Like I said, she didn’t accept Christ into her heart as we did. It’s that simple,” Sebastian reiterated. “We just went through this.”
“Don’t you regret that?” I asked.
“Regret what? That she hadn’t accepted Christ? How would I have known? And it wouldn’t have mattered at that time, anyway – I was a different person then. Regret is an interesting concept; I never really did get it.” Sebastian pondered aloud. “Even after I became a Christian. I suppose I knew I’d done wrong as far as anyone else was concerned, that I acted from a place of selfishness when I raped and killed those girls… Inner turmoil. Let’s call it inner turmoil. But that was in the past.”
I began to hyperventilate. This just couldn’t be happening. My beautiful daughter, her golden blonde hair and blue eyes forever etched into my memory. My baby girl, so sweet and innocent and naïve. She never should have hitchhiked that ride. If only I’d known what she was up to… She hadn’t even seen her sweet sixteen, she was only fifteen and a half at the time of the assault.
“It doesn’t matter now. Had Julianne accepted Christ into her heart, she’d be here with us now. She did nothing else wrong,” he continued, interrupting my reverie. “I suppose then I’d have done her a favor.”
“Wait. What?!” I asked, obviously fuming.
“I know now that she hadn’t. But I would have had no way of knowing that then. And it was before I converted,” he went on. “If I regret anything, it’s the two that came after.”
“After what?” I harped at him. “After my daughter! You killed four more girls since then.”
“No,” he whispered. “After I accepted Christ. I slipped up. I tried; I really did. But my needs weren’t being met and I found ways to justify it at the time.”
“You disgust me,” I spat. “How can you even consider yourself a Christian?”
“I am no less so than you at this point, considering where we are,” he replied. “We are both here now, are we not?”
“I suppose, but still…” I answered, taking inventory of my surroundings. I was sure I’d been granted admittance into Heaven, that I passed the test. I vaguely remembered having done so, and walking through the pearly gates. Was this all an illusion?
“I am a true Christian, as you are,” Sebastian continued. “Just as I’m still a Scotsman no matter how I take my tea. Shall we begin our tour?”
He reached out to me, palm extended in a gesture of grace. I wasn’t wholly sure of where I was, which version of Eternity I’d landed in. Everything about this place was still so glorious, peaceful and serene. And yet…
If you enjoyed this story, please feel free to check out Heaven (based on the Talking Heads song) and Angels Meeting in the Hallways. And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
I have recently begun exploring Fibonacci poetry and penned this as a consideration for the Lovecraftian terrors while considering that Kansas was once an inland sea. It is also based on the beloved and enigmatic painting of Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth.
She
stares
ahead;
the landscape
yawns ever further
spanning the distance between us
and that deep unthinkable unknowable abyss.
This plain was once an inland sea,
a vast ocean filled
with terrors
beyond
our
ken.
Time
stands
still for
none of us.
It marches towards
our inevitable decay.
Our fragile flesh succumbs to the horror of the void,
cradling our fallen progeny
and yearning for home.
Christina,
hurry
back.
Now.
It
could
happen
anywhere…
The farmhouse beckons
from its horizon vantage point,
thousands of blades of grass groping like tiny tendrils.
The ancestors grasping at straws,
hoping to evade
inevitable
collapse,
their
loss.
Stars
fall.
Panic
sounds beyond
our comprehension.
Their silent screams fall on deaf ears.
We cannot interpret their guttural languages
or understand their diminutive cries
this far from the tide.
Slumbering
depths still
snore
here.
The
ebb
and flow
roil and churn
with water’s rhythms,
caress the expanse of grasses
covering this now fragile and forsaken ocean.
The landscape gapes and stretches wide,
reaching to grab hold
of her dress,
earthbound.
Lost
her.
I hope you enjoyed this jaunt through Christina’s World into pure terror. Feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website. Or go on a trip to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.
So what better follow up to Invisibles Among Us in Nightmarish Nature than Monstrous Mimicry? Further exploring the leaps that critters will go to in order to eat and not be eaten. This time we’re focusing on those creatures that want to intentionally be mistaken for one another.
Insects Pretending to Be Insects
This is a pretty common subgroup in the mimicry set. Featuring such celebrities as the Viceroy Butterfly, which looks an awful lot like the Monarch. Why? Because everyone knows Monarch Butterflies taste nasty and cause indigestion. Duh? Though it appears the Viceroy took further cues from this and is not all that tasty in its own right either. Dual reinforcement is totally the way to go – it tells predators not to eat the yucky butterflies regardless. But some bugs go a bit further in this, imitating one another to seek out food or protection. Various wasps, spiders, beetles, and even some caterpillars impersonate ants for access to their nest or because ants aren’t as appetizing as their buggy counterparts to much of anything outside of the myrmecophagous crowd (as shared before, here’s a fun diversion with True Facts if you have no idea), though some also have nefarious plans in mind. And similarly, the female photoris fireflies imitate other firefly signals luring smaller males to try to mate with them where they are instead eaten.
Kind of Weird Mimicry: Insects Pretending to Be Animals
Moths are pretty tasty, as far as many birds and small mammals are concerned, so several of them find ways to appear less appetizing. Using mimicry in their larval form, they may try to look specifically like bird scat or even like snakes to drive away predators, with elaborate displays designed to reinforce their fakir statuses. And once they emerge as moths, they continue these trends, with different species flashing eye spots to look like owls, snakes, cats, and a myriad of other animals most of their predators don’t want to tangle with. But other insects pretend to be larger animals too, with some beetles and others producing noises often associated with predator, typically towards the same end – to deter those who might otherwise eat them.
Animals Pretending to Be Animals
Similarly some animals will mimic others. Snakes may resemble one other, as seen in the Milk versus King versus Coral Snakes and the popular rhyme, Red with Black is safe for Jack or venom lack, but Red with Yellow kills a fellow for all that it isn’t 100% accurate on the Red-Yellow end (better to err on the side of caution than not – so assume they are deadly). Fish and octopuses will imitate other fish for protection status or to conceal opportunistic predatory behaviors. And lots of animals will mimic the sounds others make, though Lyrebirds tend to take the cake in this, incorporating the vocalizations into mating rituals and more.
Really Weird Mimicry: Animals Pretending to Be Insects
Some of the weirdest mimicry comes out in animals pretending to be insects or small fish, where a predator will flick its strangely formed tongue that looks like a fish or water nymph to draw in more tiny critters that feel safe with their own, only to find themselves snapped up as dinner. Snapping turtles are notorious for this, disguising themselves in the muck to make their big asses less obvious and reinforce the ruse. Even some snakes do this.
Weirder Still
Then there are things that pretend to be plants. Like orchid mantises. Or sea slugs that look like anemones (some of which eat anemones and have stingers to match). I mentioned a few of these in the Invisibles Among Us segment last time, because some are highly specialized to look like very specific things and others just aren’t. Essentially, nature loves to play dress up and be confusing and adaptive. It’s like Halloween year round. And who can really argue with that?
Here’s a fun video from Animalogic exploring some of these themes. And feel free to check out more Nightmarish Nature here.
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