Haunted MTL Original – Hoard – Brianna Ferguson
“Hoard” by Brianna Ferguson
I cherish no illusions that this account will find me alive when the sun finally does come up, but I must write down what I have seen. This wild place has already taken so much from me, I cannot allow this, too, to die in the muck and filth of this lonely frontier town.
It began only this evening. One of the men at Molly Parker’s boarding house had just come back from a week’s sojourn around a northern bend in the creek. There were nuggets out that way, he’d said, bigger than any yet discovered so close to the town. Men warned him of the curses and traps laid that far north by the hostiles still refusing to share their land, but he went anyways. Honestly, none thought too deeply on the matter. Men get desperate and wander off every day out here. One fewer men means two fewer hands sifting the silt and bog for what might be your ticket home.
While he was gone, Ma took sick. I found her on the floor beside the fire, clammy to the touch, eyes blank and staring at the ceiling. She was mumbling something about how we should all atone for the sins we have brought to this land, or The Punishment would come. She kept saying that–The Punishment–as if it carried meaning of a particular nature not just to herself but to anyone within earshot. My mother was a righteous woman, but her righteousness came from a love for our Lord and saviour, never from the fear of punishment that awaits those who do not heed the Word. The doctor said it was a fever and to keep her bed away from the rest of us.
Not two days later, Ma passed in her sleep, and the man from Parker’s House came back with empty pockets and a fever of his own. They took him to the boarding house, but one look at his sallow skin and sunken eyes and Miss Parker ordered he be taken away. ‘I’ve enough of a struggle as it is without his cursed soul comin’ down upon me,’ she could be heard hollerin’ from the other end of town.
They took him to the Church of the Charitable Brothers and gave him a space behind the lectern to sleep and recover his strength. His feet were rotten near to the bone, and a doctor was ordered to amputate them. Foot rot is a common plague for the men of these parts, but to hear the doctor describe it, it was as if the flesh had been eaten clean off his toes, leaving naught but splintered, white fragments of bone for him to walk home on.
I was at home with the chaplain, arranging Ma’s service when I heard the first of the screams. It being Saturday, we took it at first to be naught but the usual weekend revelry to which our countrymen were so inclined. A moment later, though, the sound of gunshots drew our discussion out into the yard to see what the commotion could be.
Women were screaming and men loading shot with clumsy, half-frozen hands. The church was half-burnt already, belching smoke and flames into the night sky. I looked about for the bucket chain that always attended such fires, but there was none.
“Why aren’t they putting it out?” I shouted to the priest, as if his knowledge could exceed my own, having been similarly occupied until a moment ago. But he offered no explanation. He just stared with his jaw agape and his eyes as wide and full of terror as if he were looking into the bowels of Hell itself.
“The church,” was all he said.
“Yes, I know, but–” I let it go and ran towards the inferno. Whatever help the man might have offered on Sundays apparently did not extend to emergencies such as this.
As if in apology for the fire, a vicious rain kicked up from above, pounding the buildings and all assembled in the streets with frigid, furious fingers. A cheer went up among those assembled, but a few men nearest the building were shouting and waving their arms as if to push everyone back.
“Get away from here!” I heard one of them shout. “It’s not just the fire, there’s a man in there! A demon!”
“‘Tis true!” Another man shouted. “I saw him with me own eyes! He weren’t right, he–”
A beam fell behind them, taking with it the holy cross stationed above the door. A shower of sparks exploded behind the men and raced to disappear into the air as the cross caught fire and began to burn.
And that’s when I saw him, stumbling from the smouldering ruin of our house of worship. His hair had been burned from his scalp, as had most of the clothes on his body. His skin was melting in impossible, waxy rivulets from his jaw and the tips of his hands, landing with a hiss in the flames. His legs, cut clean away only that day, were half-height, bearing him forward as if he were on his knees. Yet still he came towards us, as if the cuts and the flames hurt not the least, and the only impediment to his egress was the fallen beams barricading his path.
As he reached the road, several men fired their guns. The explosion was deafening, erupting so close to my ears. I saw that several shots hit him square in the chest and head, by the way he twisted backwards, as if slapped. But they did not stop him. He kept coming at us, bellowing this terrible moan. As long as I live, I shall not forget the sound that came from that man. As if all the demons of Hell were arranged in a chorus and told to raise their voices to an unholy A minor.
The crowd backed slowly away, but the streets were only so wide, and there was only so much space to fill. One of the women standing downhill turned suddenly and began to run. The man jerked to the side, watching her go, and then, with an unholy pace of which I would not have thought him capable, he raced after her, throwing sparks from his clothes as he ran. Some of the sparks landed in the grass outside the other buildings, and began to light.
But it was not those early signs of our town’s destruction that drew our attention. Standing quite helpless and frozen where we were, we watched as the man from the church threw himself upon the woman like any hungry predator upon its prey.
The woman shrieked and fell to the earth in a fiery swirl of skirts and pantaloons. The man upon her back had ceased moaning and instead taken up the desperate, insane chomping and biting sounds of a frenzied pack of wolves dismantling a fallen quarry.
The woman’s shrieks subsided within seconds, but it was an eternity to those listening. Flesh was torn from bone and tossed aside in the mindless feeding frenzy the man now brought against her body.
In a breath it was over, and the man rose to a standing position beside the woman. Another shot was fired at the beast, but it was as ineffective as its predecessors.
The man stared at us through unseeing eyes. His face dripped blood and flesh as the unearthly white of his skull, now fully exposed, shone in the moonlight.
He fell, then, flat on the ground as if leveled by some divine hand.
No one spoke. No one moved a muscle.
The woman beside him lay quite still, dribbling warm, steaming blood onto the muddy street around her.
A man broke from the crowd and took a few cautious steps towards her. I could make out in the flickering light that it was our Baker, Mr. Thomson. No one seemed to notice or care that two more buildings had begun to smoke and burn. The rain pounded our bodies, as if angry with us. Our hair and clothes hung about us in damp sheets, pouring off of our bodies as the burnings man’s flesh had done only moments before.
Naught five steps had the baker taken towards the woman and man lying dead in the street, when the woman began to stir. Not as a sleeping, broken body would stir, though, but abruptly and with great purpose. Leaping to her feet, the woman turned towards us with blank and crazy eyes. Her jaw was broken, and it hung slack, a few inches too low. She was rigid, jerking here and there to take in the burning buildings, the rain, and us, as if seeing all for the first time.
She bellowed, then, with a sound at least as unholy as anything that had sprung from the burning man. Then she ran towards the baker. The man hardly had taken a step when she landed upon him and tore out his throat. His screams were silenced as quickly as they came, though his arms and legs thrashed desperately as he tried to throw her off.
Most of us still stood where we’d been, completely transfixed by the scene unfolding before us. Though I could hear some in the back beginning to pull away, running desperately towards whatever shelter might exist that could keep these demons out.
A moment later, the woman leaped from the man and dove towards another woman near the edge of the crowd. I didn’t wait to see what happened to her, but I could guess by the screams, and the sickening snap of bones being broken.
As I reached the edge of town, I turned back in time to see the woman’s first victim rise to his feet as she had done only a moment before.
My mind was all white with panic as I reached our house. Pa wasn’t there, but I didn’t expect him to be. He would have been at the river all day, and in the pub for the remainder, eager to spend the spoils of whatever flakes he’d found.
I grabbed a lantern and a quilt and stuffed them into Pa’s satchel. The screams were so loud outside my door, I held my breath waiting for the door to burst inwards and all the demons to spill into my kitchen. But none came.
I peeked outside at the desperate mob down the street. Men and women fell upon each other in shrieking, writhing piles of flesh and fear as the rain turned the streets to mud, but seemed to ignore the burning buildings. Six buildings, I could see, were now ablaze, and the whole of the town was illuminated with ungodly clarity.
I turned and ran north along the road, away from the fray. The town had never been home to me, but it had been my residence these last eighteen months, and to see it descend into such fiery confusion and calamity was, I’ll admit, almost too heartbreaking to behold. Not the least of which being that it was the only establishment for fifty miles in any direction, and were I to survive the night, I would need to start walking.
The bush was thick, but I didn’t want to be seen on the road. Surely the residents of the ruined town would take to the roads when the easy prey was exhausted, and I didn’t want to give my body too easily to their ravenous need.
I picked my way as quickly as I could over the rocks and fallen limbs, but after a while I could go no further, and I made my way down to the creek to walk in the water. I recoiled at the hideous cold of the water, but it was by far the most level of places to walk, and I was getting tired.
The current crept steadily upwards as I made my way along. The rocks were slippery and I lost my balance more than once, but I pressed on; with the horrors behind me still so fresh in my mind, what choice did I have?
Naught ten minutes later, though, a particular fall brought my head beneath the surface, and I lost my footing. I tumbled backwards perhaps a hundred yards before smashing against a log jam. As I kicked to gain purchase, my right foot became lodged between two boulders, and I felt a sickening crunch as the current pushed me sideways and snapped my ankle like a twig.
I howled in pain, but thankfully my head was still beneath the surface of the water. I’d no idea as to the auditory acuity of the devils back in town, but surely they wouldn’t have heard the submerged shouts of a drowning girl.
I loosed my ankle and struggled towards the nearest riverbank. My satchel, as if by some miracle, had not come undone, and I had a lantern to see by once it had dried out a bit.
A rocky overhang no longer than my own body jutted from the mountainside, and it was beneath that overhang that I dragged my broken body to wait out the night.
The seconds ticked incessantly onwards, pecking at my damp flesh like hungry mosquitoes. I listened with all my strength, partly to draw my attention away from the pain in my leg, and partly to listen for the ravenous horrors that were once my countrymen.
Every second that passed had me believing I could hear them coming, but none appeared.
I dug in my father’s satchel for food or tools or anything useful, but found only a damp piece of parchment, a pen, and a pot of ink. Whatever the next day was to bring, I could hardly imagine it would be pleasant for me.
I blew softly on the paper, praying for it to dry. The breeze had begun to pick up, as it usually did just before sunrise, but even through the rattling leaves, I could hear limbs cracking and voices moaning. They were distant, but undeniable.
I don’t know what value this written account will hold for anyone who finds it. I can’t imagine anyone making it this far north without first being accosted by the demonic men and women who once waved good morning to me and sold me bread and eggs. I hope the lust for gold dies down and people cease to come this way, but I can’t imagine it will. The need for wealth is a deep one, and I can easily imagine wave after wave of fodder making its way up here to meet its messy end and add bodies to the hoarde.
Perhaps the natives of this area will find this account first, but I doubt it will hold much value for them. We speak different languages, them and us, and I can’t see this paper serving any purpose beyond tinder.
Oh Lord, I can see them now–three men and a woman staring at me from across the water. They seem unsure how to cross the river. They keep falling in the current, but they’re still coming. I can’t think of a way to stop them. I’ve searched the surrounding area for anything to defend myself and have found only a sharp stone. If it were a rabbit descending upon me, I might have had a chance. But these demons are a far cry from rabbits. Perhaps just as mindless, but capable. My God, are they capable.
I beseech You, oh Lord, to save my soul. I offer my love and apologize for all my sins. I apologize for the sins of my countrymen, and I beg that you might forgive our kind. If this to be the final reckoning, I suppose my words hold little value. What else can I do, though, but plead? I can’t reverse the whole course of our hunger. But you made us, after all. You made us hungry.
Brianna Ferguson is a poet, short story writer and music journalist from British Columbia. Her writing has appeared in various publications across North America and the U.K. including Minola Review, Jokes Review, and Outlook Springs
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.