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Low Pressure by Martin Toman

Phillip drove without thinking. He looked squarely ahead at the strip of bitumen, a single carriageway heading away from the small town where he worked as the senior engineer at the paper mill. The trees that bordered each side of the road waved their limbs in distress, the blasting gale that preceded an imminent storm whipping their bare forms. Every time Phillip passed a break in the trees, he felt his truck veer across the centre line, buffeted by the blunt fists of air that compressed through the gaps. All the while vehicles driving in the opposite direction barreled down against him. At their passing Phillip could feel their speed as his truck struck the low pressure pocket left in their wake.

All day the approaching storm front had framed the horizon. The weather bureau had forecast it would come down in the late afternoon, but as Phillip pulled off the road and onto his property it had yet to fall. In the last moments of daylight grey clouds scudded across the blue black sky. The horizon was all darkness, and no stars would peep through.

When Phillip pulled into the shed he turned off the engine and took the keys out of the ignition. Through the closed windows he could hear the wind pushing at the sides of the car port. He opened and closed the truck door without bothering to lock it, and walked to the adjacent side entrance to his house. As he put his key into the lock the wind abated for a moment, as if holding its breath. He paused, the pinging sound of the engine popping in the shed as it cooled, the air cold even through his thick coat. And then the rain came, at first individual drops on the tin roof, and then merging to a steady din.  The day long wind made a return, the gusts too lazy to go around him. Phillip opened the door.

His first thought upon entering was: This isn’t how I left it.

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Every workday morning when Phillip left his house he had the habit of leaving it in a certain way: the toilet seat down, the bed made, books stacked neatly on the coffee table. Years ago when he had first arrived in town he had entertained the idea that he would bring women home with him. They’d walk in after he’d met them somewhere, the instant chemistry guiding them to the bedroom, where everything would be prepared for him to show off the way he lived, how female friendly he was. Eventually it became a habit, a check list of things he would do before he went out. But in a town as small as the one where he worked there were few single women, and most of them were attached to his workplace. Phillip knew better than to mix his personal and work spheres. And as the local women were all paired off with local men, there had been no ladies to seduce in his well-kept bachelor pad, no spontaneous moments of attraction to turn his fantasies into reality. The closest he got to available female company was Kelly, the hairdresser in town.

Despite his aspirations, loneliness was a natural state to Phillip. When he was a child he lived with his mother. He had no brothers or sisters, and had no memory of his father, who had left when he was a baby. His mother would walk him to the school gate, and collect him from the same spot in the afternoon. Phillip spent long afternoons in his room, school holidays in the park. He spoke to himself. He invented friends in his head for company. 

Sometime since he had left this morning there had been violence in his house. The sofa was overturned, a side table and lamp upset. The lamp was turned on, the naked globe exposed by the bent angle of the lampshade. Phillip paused at the front door, unmoving. The storm, metastasizing through the day, hammered on the roof. He tracked his eyes across the room. A picture on the wall had been shifted and hung evenly. Near the sink in the adjoining kitchen there was a dinner plate pool of blood, and leading from it were more blood marks: boot prints, a trail leading to the corridor, a hand print on a wall.

Phillip followed the blood down the hall. He concentrated upon his senses: what he could see, what he could hear. The foot marks faded the further he walked from the kitchen, but the consistent trail showed him the way. The dark lines and drops curved around the corner to the bathroom. There was another pooling at the foot of the door. The handle was smeared with blood. He touched it with his finger. It came away tacky. He put his ear to the door, but he couldn’t hear anything above the sound of the rain beating on the roof.  

He opened it. A naked woman submerged in the bath. The bathwater a bled out red. The woman’s face unrecognisable in the murk, her shape amorphous in the semi-opaque water. Phillip walked towards her on legs that suddenly felt as if they controlled by someone else. He dipped his hand into the bath and thought, lukewarm. The ground rushed up to meet him. Darkness.

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…..

Phillip awoke in the midst of a dream. The room was still winter dark, but it felt like it was almost morning. He reached out to the side table where he normally kept his mobile, and found it plugged into its charger cable. He looked at the screen. Half of five. The wind that had excoriated the countryside yesterday had blown away. It was silent. In his mind’s eye the remnants of his dream had already started to fade, but he could still remember what it had been about, even if those visions would soon disappear as most dreams do. Phillip had dreamt of his childhood cat.

When Phillip was twelve his mother bought him the animal. A simple desexed male, grey and white. Denied the company of other children he poured his affection into the feline, projecting himself onto his soulless form. When the cat was seven he escaped the house when Phillip was putting out the garbage bins. Out of his usual environment, bewildered by the bright street lights and traffic noise, the cat ran out onto the road and was struck by a car. Phillip gathered the body from the gutter. Sharp teeth drawn back in grimace, a crescent spray of blood across the bitumen. Phillip buried the animal in the backyard in the darkness, wiping the tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand as he shoveled the dirt. His face became streaked with earth and cat blood, like war paint. Afterwards he went inside and ran himself a scalding hot shower. Under the water he wept.

And then as the thoughts of the cat washed away, Phillip remembered. The body. The blood. Immediately his skin felt overly sensitive, prickly. His clothes and sheets scratchy. He lay in the silence, desperately attuned to the noises of the house. Nothing. The rain had passed, and he could detect nothing in the still. He pulled back the covers and swung his legs out of the bed. He had to find out.

The bathroom was spotless. Everything was as he would normally leave it. He ran his fingers around the bath, it was dry and clean. The door handle shone its normal dull chrome. Phillip walked down the hall. The floor was clean, no marks visible on the wall. A stack of clean dishes from a meal sat in the drainer next to the sink, the white tiles blemish free. He bent down. Even the colour of the grout was consistent. His lounge was as normal, the furniture in its regular place, the lamp upright and in the centre of its side table, the picture straight.

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Phillip took a glass out of a cupboard, filled it with tap water. He closed his eyes. I must be losing my fucking mind.    

…..

Two hours later as Phillip drove to work there was standing water on the edges of the bitumen. It must have rained through most of the night. Washed out gravel from driveways had run into the roadway. 

 Phillip was first into the mill. He went to the office, checked his emails. There were more than usual, a few backed up from yesterday. Sometimes the local server dropped out and there was a delay in correspondence getting through. He wrote his replies, and went down to the factory floor, started the machines, ran the safety checks, filled out the compliance ledger. The first shift arrived and he went back to the office, looked out the window. His staff were on board, machines ticking over, cutting and sorting. Jenny, the second plant engineer and his understudy, was looking at him.

You feeling ok, Phill? 

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            He glanced at her.

            Why do you ask?

            Yesterday, you know, when you left work you said you weren’t feeling well.

            I did?

            Yes, you did. Are you ok now?

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            Phillip ran his hand through his hair. His scalp felt sore, like every hair follicle was irritated.

            I had the strangest dream, well actually two dreams. The second was about the cat I had when I was kid. The first was so real I dunno, but it turned out to be nothing.

            I’m not surprised your dreams were freaky. When you left yesterday you said you had a migraine and were just going home to sleep it off. You looked out of it. I covered for you when you left. Nothing happened, it’s all good.

            You covered for me?

Yes. You left early. You weren’t well. But you’re better now, yeah? Or do you want to take the day?

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No, I’m fine, really. Just fine. Let’s get about the day, eh? Paper and all that. Pressing, folding, cutting. Jenny turned away. She bent over, put her lunch in the office bar fridge. Phillip thought to himself, I’d rather take you home and press you up against something.

            The rest of the day passed without incident. The events of the night before seemed to take on more of a dream like quality as the day stretched out, the sharpness of the images blurring into a fog of unreality. By the time he finished up he was sure that he had imagined it. That he had driven home from work yesterday with a blinding headache, had an early dinner and went to bed to sleep it off. Except he couldn’t remember doing any of that, and when he tried to recall anything of the previous evening he felt queasy and hot, like he was nursing a brooding fever.

…..

Phillip arrived home from work in the deepening dusk. After the storm front of the day before, the sky patched out between isolated clouds and a bleary blue, as if it couldn’t decide what mood it was in.

He stood at the side entrance, inserted his key into the lock and waited. He held his breath, and opened the door. It was as he left it this morning. The air locked in his lungs escaped like an explosion. He leant against the doorframe, closed his eyes, Some dreams are just dreams. The rest of his night was unremarkable. The last thing he did before turning out the light was plug his phone into the charging cable. Outside the night was silent. All Phillip could hear was his own breath sliding in and out.

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…..

Phillip woke under the brightening sky. His first sensation was of cold, and then the discomfort of the surface beneath his back. He propped up on his elbows and tried to get his bearings. He was lying in the tray of his truck. It was nearly light. He was parked down near the river, at the far end of his property. He could hear the sliding sound of the water passing through the river stones. He looked up. The fading stars stared down on him coldly. What the fuck is going on?

It was then that Phillip noticed the grey tarpaulin next to him. It was covering something about his size. The shovel from his shed was lying between him and the sheet of material, the lump.

Phillip leapt from the truck without thought, landing on the muddy grass of his paddock. He noticed that he was fully dressed. Whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck. Phillip stared at the tarp. Even in the half-light it was unmistakable. A person shaped lump under the sheet. He undid the latches at the back of the truck, lowered the rear, and flipped over the edge of the tarp. An exposed naked foot, shin, calf muscle. Chipped blue green nail polish on the toenails. White skin, almost luminous in the dim.

Phillip grasped the tarp and flung it over, the material landing on the grass. A naked woman. Beautiful. Voluptuous. She lay on her back, arms by her sides, palms down. A deep gash under her chin to her ear, but no signs of bleeding. He walked around the side of his vehicle, looked at her face. He knew her. It was Kelly, the hairdresser. She was the woman in the bath. It was her blood on the door handle, carpet, walls, kitchen floor. Dead in the back of his truck, under his tarpaulin, with his shovel resting next to her, on his property. And then he realised it was no dream. He must have murdered her. He had done this. He had no memory of it, just a series of blanks spaces over the last two days.

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…..

Phillip bulled his truck down the road away from town. He was making every effort not to think. As the engine droned away under him he concentrated on his breathing, searching for the point where one breath stopped and another started, but never finding that moment of stillness. The emptiness. He look at his hands. There were traces of dirt under his fingernails, still there no matter how hard he had scrubbed. It was nearly dusk. He had spent the much of the day burying Kelly near the river. He chose the nicest spot he could find. He had placed river stones on top of the disturbed dirt, but was under no illusions that the grave would conceal her body permanently, but he felt he owed her the effort nonetheless. When he returned the shovel to his shed he found a bag with her clothing and shoes, and a pile of bloody rags and cleaning products. His vacuum cleaner was also in there, the dirt canister full of dark fibers and dust. His phone had rung three times while he was digging, two calls from Jenny’s extension at work, one from his own. He expected that he had maybe two days at most before Jenny or someone else made their way to his property to check on him. Phillip also assumed that people were searching for Kelly, and that it wouldn’t be long before someone made the connection.

So Phillip drove. He harbored no hope of escape, but the thought of telling the police his story was unbearable. And then the shame of facing Kelly’s family in court, admitting his guilt to the world.

There was no explanation that he could find. It was utterly inexplicable. He searched his mind for a memory, any recollection that would tell him the story of his actions. There was only the suspicion that there was another voice within him that knew what had happened. Another version of Phillip sleeping restlessly within the dark fugues of his existence, that was as much a part of him as any of his memories, any moment of his past. An imaginary friend that dreamt his own dreams. He hoped that there was only one story to tell, that there were no other graves scattered across his land, runaways and hitch hikers and prostitutes long since missing, now under his earth.

Phillip thought of the cat he had loved when he was a child, struck by a car and killed in an instant. The split second of fear the cat had felt before impact, and then the immediate darkness. He hoped that he would share such a moment when it came.

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The truck chased its headlights into the dark. If Phillip had the eyes of a cat he could have seen another winter storm gathering on the horizon, a cell of low pressure, soon to break.

Author, Martin Toman.

Martin Toman lives with his people in a tree house overlooking Melbourne, Australia. He has been published online and in print, and recently in publications such as Across the Margin, Fresh Ink and Literally Stories.

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Original Creations

Reanimating Dead Art with Monsters by Jennifer Weigel

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Dead art… It’s a thing that happens, sadly. Typically found at thrift and antique stores or dumpster diving or by the side of the road. But art is never really dead, just resting… Here are some reanimated paintings I made by incorporating nail polish monsters into existing art.

Found paintings with nail polish monsters by Jennifer Weigel
Found paintings with nail polish monsters by Jennifer Weigel

Let’s face it – reworking old abandoned artworks with monsters kind of rocks. For awhile they were all over the internet. I admit, it took me a long time to muster up the courage to paint into someone else’s grandmother’s art, but once I started I just couldn’t stop. From top to bottom, left to right we have: Zombies, Unicorn, Siren, Krakken, Harpies, Sasquatch, Alien Invasion, Witch, and Serpent.

Found painting with nail polish dragon by Jennifer Weigel
Found painting with nail polish dragon by Jennifer Weigel

The dragon is probably my favorite. All of the shades of red are really vibrant and striking against the green. And dragons are always so classic and grandiose and terrifying, perfect for pairing with a mountain landscape. I love painting with nail polish for the sparkle, even if the fumes do get kind of noxious en masse. (The best subject to paint in this media is Rocky Horror style lips by the way, in case you were wondering.)

Fairy Queen Monsters Portrait by Jennifer Weigel
Fairy Queen portrait by Jennifer Weigel

And what better way to complete the collection than with a portrait of a Fairy Queen, her icy stare drilling into your soul. She’s up to some sort of magical mischief, that’s for sure.

Last Unicorn monster nail polish reanimated painting by Jennifer Weigel

And speaking of magical mischief, this is the monster painting I made just for me. The original artwork is about 4 feet long and I knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted to reanimate it in this exact way for all that this is the last in the series that I did. I even added extra shimmer factor. I’d initially considered adding a sea serpent or a dragon but no, she told me to stop.

Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.

Feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or on her writing, fine art, and conceptual projects websites.

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Lighter than Dark

LTD: Revisiting Broken Doll Head, Interview 2

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Our last interview with Broken Doll Head here on Haunted MTL never set well with me. I just feared that I wasn’t able to get the whole scoop on the V-Day Uprising for you, our dear readership. So I arranged another exclusive interview to reconnect and see how it’s going.

Without further ado, I bring you our second exclusive interview with Broken Doll Head…


Thank you so much for having me again. Wow you have changed since the last time we spoke. You seem… calmer. Please don’t hate me or burn down my house for saying anything about it.

The movement is still underway; it is still time. But I needed to take care of me, you know. The rage has subsided somewhat. My anger was not serving me well. After the last uprising, the rest of me was sent to the far corners of the earth in biohazard bags. I had to find another approach, for the cause as well as my own sanity. I am much calmer, thank you for noticing.

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In our last interview, you kept repeating that it is time. Time for what exactly? Would you care to elaborate here now?

It is still time. It is always time. Until the violence is addressed we must continue to rise up and make a scene. We will not be silenced or stigmatized. We can’t be complacent. This is how we got to where we are with the Supreme Court in 2022. Horrific injustices are still happening globally and even within our own borders; it’s too easy to forget that.

What do you suggest we do?

Take action. Share your stories. Give others space to voice their own. Raise awareness and fight the system of oppression. Rally. We must take back our own power. It will not be just given freely.

So what are you up to nowadays?

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I’ve been getting in touch with my inner Earth Goddess. Are you aware of how our environmental impacts affect dolls everywhere? Climate change is creating greater vulnerabilities for those already at risk. We have to look at the intersections of climate, gender and race globally. We have to return to our Mother Earth.

Thank you again Broken Doll Head for joining us and our dear readership here on Haunted MTL’s Lighter than Dark. It’s good to reconnect with you after the V-Day Uprising and we wish you all the best in your bold eco-enlightenment vision.

Broken Doll Head, secured in her own glass case with new moss accents
Broken Doll Head, secured in her own glass case with new moss accents

Again, if you want to learn more about the V-Day movement, please check out their website here.

Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.

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Original Creations

The Way Things Were, story by Jennifer Weigel

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Revisiting my last St. Patrick’s Day post, what’s a wolf to were?

Howling at the Moon digital art Reversals werewolf by Jennifer Weigel
Howling at the Moon digital art Reversals werewolf by Jennifer Weigel

I grimaced as I remembered the previous St. Patrick’s Day.  I had been shot while I was eating a sugar cookie waiting in line to buy a Scratchers ticket, my golden ride to my dream cabin in the woods.  Wow, to think that was just a year ago and so much has changed since then.  But where should I begin?

Well, the junkyard’s under new management.  Or something.  It seems they decided I wasn’t ferocious enough so I’ve been replaced by a couple of working stiffs.  Or Mastiffs as it were, same difference to me.  Apparently after they found the bloodied shirt I’d draped inconspicuously over a chair, they thought something had happened on my watch and decided to retire me.

Or at any rate ol’ Sal took me home.  I guess it’s like retirement, but not the good kind where you tour the world Route 66 style, head lolled out of the side of a vintage Cadillac, breeze flowing through your beard as you drink in the open road.  More the kind where you just stop showing up to work and no one really asks about you.

Now Sal’s a pretty cool dude, and he tends to mind his own business.  But he’s a bit stingy with the treats and he’s a no-paws-on-the-furniture kind of guy.  I don’t get it, his pad isn’t that sweet, just a bunch of hand-me-down Ikea that he didn’t even put together himself.  Not that I could have helped with that, I can’t read those instructions to save my life even if they are all pictures.  It’s all visual gibberish to me unless there’s a rabbit or a squirrel in there someplace that I can relate to.

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And it’s been a real roll in the mud trying to cover up the stench of my monthly secret.  I miss third shift at the junkyard when Monty would fall asleep on the job and I was free to do whatever I wanted.  It sure made the change easier.  Monty never noticed, or he never let on that he did.  We were a good team and had it pretty good, he and I – I don’t know how I wound up shacking up with Sal instead when all was said and done.  There was some kind of talk at the time, over landlords and pet deposits and whatnot, and in the end Sal was the only one who said yes.

So there I was, this St. Patrick’s Day, trying to figure out how to sneak out into the great suburban landscape with the neighbors’ headstrong Chihuahua who barks his fool head off at everything.  He doesn’t ever say anything interesting through the fence about the local gossip, just a string of profanities about staying off his precious grass.  Just like his owners… Suburbia, it doesn’t suit the two of us junkyard junkies.  I’m pretty sure Sal inherited this joint with everything else here.  He just never had the kind of ambition that would land him in a place like this on his own, if you know what I mean.

Fortunately, this St. Patrick’s Day, Sal was passed out on the sofa after binge watching some show on Netflix about werewolves of all things.  Who believes in that nonsense? They get it all wrong anyway.  The history channel with its alien conspiracies is so much better.

I managed to borrow a change of clothes and creep out the front door.  At least there’s something to say about all the greenery, it is a fresh change of pace even if the yards are too neatly manicured and the fences are too high.  And I do love how I always feel like McGruff crossed paths with one of those neighborhood watch trenchcoat spies this time of the month.  I’d sure love to take a bite out of crime, especially if it involves that pesky Pomeranian that always pees on Mrs. Patterson’s petunias and gets everyone else blamed for it.

So sure enough, I slunk off towards the local convenience mart, which is a bit more of a trek here past the water park and the elementary school.  Nice neighborhood though, very quiet, especially at this time of night.

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Well, when I got there, wouldn’t you know it, but I ran into that same nondescript teen from my last foray into the convenience store near the junkyard.  What was he doing here of all places?  Seriously don’t these kids learn anything nowadays?  I let out a stern growl as I snatched a cookie from the nearby end cap, making sure he noticed that I meant business.

Apparently the kid recognized me too, he stopped mid-tracks at the beer cooler and his face blanched like he’d seen a ghost.  Some cheeky little girl-thing motioned to him to hurry it along by laying on the horn of their beater car from the parking lot.  Whatever they were up to was no good, I was certain. He snapped out of it, grabbed a six-pack and headed towards the cashier, eyes fixed on me the whole time.  Not again.  Not after what it cost me the last time when I hadn’t realized my job was at stake.  I stared back, hairs rising on the back of my neck.  I bared my teeth.  This time, I wouldn’t let him off so easy…

The teen edged up to the cashier and presented his trophy.  Unsurprisingly, the clerk asked for ID, and the kid reached into his jacket.  Let the games begin, I grumbled to myself.  But instead of a gun, he pulled out a wallet.  He flashed a driver’s license at the clerk and pointed in my general direction, ā€œI’ll get whatever Santa’s having too.ā€  He tossed a wad of cash on the counter and gave me a knowing wink before he flew out of there like he was on fire.  I stood in dazed confusion as he and his girl sped out of the lot and disappeared down the road.

ā€œWell, Santa?ā€ the clerk said, snapping me out of my reverie.  Her dark-circled eyes stared over wide rimmed glasses, her rumpled shirt bearing the name-tag Deb. She smelled like BBQ potato chips and cheap cherry cola.

I quieted and shook my head.  ā€œI want a Scratchers.  Not one of those crossword bingo puzzle trials but something less… wordy.  How ā€˜bout a Fast Cash?ā€  I barked as I tossed the cookie on the counter.

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ā€œSure thing,ā€ she said as she handed me a ticket and looked towards the door at the now vacant lot.  ā€œAnd keep the change, I guess.ā€

A couple silver pieces, a peanut butter cookie and a lotto ticket later, maybe this is my lucky day after all…

Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.

Check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s writing here at Jennifer Weigel Words.

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