Haunted MTL Original – Lucky Break – Hyten Davidson
“Lucky Break” by Hyten Davidson
There’s different kinds of opportunity in the world, or so I hear: some knock sweetly on your door, some slam into a pole. I listen for the first, but dream of the latter. Either way, I am always welcoming to whatever type of opportunity my mother loved to remind me was “out there.”
In my dreams I run from a man that looks like Agent Smith from The Matrix, but at the last second— when I’m trapped in the basement and he’s almost got me— something else happens. I suddenly find a trap door, or miraculously the house sets on fire and I escape in the smoke and confusion. It’s too perfect to recognize as being a random opportunity perfectly presenting itself, but you don’t realize that until you’ve already woken up from the nightmare and are back where you fell asleep against the cool vinyl kitchen tiles.
I haul myself up and move toward the window in the family room where the old Christmas tree is hunched to turn off its lights. Out the window, the empty street waits for me like that tree in that forest who wonders if it still makes a sound when there is no one around to hear it fall. I bear witness to the night.
After I wake up from a nightmare I always like to take a dead-of-night walk through my neighborhood to relax, loose and free in my kimono and slippers, even on a mid-February night.
My neighborhood is quiet, which means it’s full of secrets. Bright streetlights but dark houses. I’ve lived in my split-level home for thirty four years now, even after my parents died off, and yet I have no idea who lives in all these rows of houses. But at least they don’t know me either.
I really do need to “get out more” like my mother constantly nagged, but rather if only to stir more rumors and legends about myself. It’s a fantasy to think of the neighborhood kids pointing at my parents’ house and crying “The crazy witch lives there!” Maybe even get the neighborhood moms to whisper about me being a “New Age Spinster.” But then again, no one wants to be alone and forgotten all the time. Even witches and spinsters want a love connection.
One person I did know in my neighborhood was a classmate of mine in elementary school— Jason P. Jason got a D.U.I while on a thirteen hour trucking job and had to move back into town with his parents a few years ago. He was tall and lanky, with chipped teeth and a droopy eyes.
Tonight he looks different I think to myself as I watch him stumble out of his dark blue Volvo, the front of which is wrapped around a streetlight. I watch him teeter into the street, spitting and sputtering to himself. He grabs chunks of his salt-and-pepper hair in panic once he looks back at the mess he’s made. Same as our 4th grade teacher when Jason choked in class from shoving too many marshmallows down his little gullet I muse to myself, Oh Jason what have you done??
This might have been the perfect meet-cute— I rescuing Jason, bringing him home to tend to his wounds, promising to keep our little secret of what happened to his car.
Instead, I retreat behind a bush. Jason flicks his head up and down the street to see if anyone is around. Don’t worry, Jason. Everyone’s inside their cozy homes committing their own dark deeds. No one saw you.
Jason stumbles away and jogs past my bush then off around the corner back to Mommy and Daddy’s house. I guess it wasn’t meant to be.
I emerge from behind the bush back onto the empty street. I look over at the car, a Volvo 240 DL; it’s right back turn signal still flashing. The engine in my own brain starts to kick and the wheels start turning.
BLINK-ER. BLINK-ER. BLINK-ER.
My heart beats in tandem with the car’s mesmerizing blinker. It’s giving me the green light.
I approach the vehicle slowly…as to not scare or disrupt the precious moment. The driver’s side door is still open. Don’t mind if I do.
I sit down in the driver’s seat, still warm. The dashboard is lit up like a small Christmas tree, its little glimmering lights glowing through the fabric of the air bag. I lay my cheek down against it. It’s surprisingly soft. I poise the rest of my body accordingly— right foot on the brake, left slipper thrown off, hands draped down in my lap. I throw my glasses onto the dashboard…then take them back. That doesn’t seem right. Gently, I put the lens in my mouth between my teeth and crunch down hard. Now broken, I frame them back on my face then lay back down on the bag. Then I wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And start to dream. In my dream, I’m waltzing down the streets of my neighborhood in a flapper dress and little heels. The street lights are chandeliers. The road is black velvet carpet. In my embrace is a handsome gentleman — like Jason but taller, more stoic…maybe more-so like Agent Smith. Someone my mother would approve of. I see myself in the reflection of his early 2000s sunglasses, a jolly, smiling lady with not a single scratch mark on her face.
Agent Smith’s voice is like a low siren.
“Ma’am?” He asks in a two-tone pitch, “Ma’am, can you hear me?”
Then….the dream is gone. Always gone, like a nasty one-night stand. But the sight in front of me was nearly better…a sweet-faced boy with chunks of freckles on his cheeks is caressing the back of my hair.
I glance up at him, flapping my eyelashes like big butterfly wings, as he grabs the radio attached to his shirt pocket. “Say something. Be friendly.” My dead mother’s voice rings in my ears.
“Hi.”
“Yes, she’s responsive.” To me, “Ma’am have you been drinking tonight?”
“No, but I’m down if you’re free after this?”
The look on his face informs me this was far too strong a come-on. Two young women appear behind the boy, with a stretcher.
“Can she be moved?’
“She’s conscious, so I think we’re clear.” My mystery man states.
His brute strength seizes me by the shoulders— I might argue a bigger come-on than my comment but that’s fine— and hoists me out of Jason’s car and onto the stretcher, facing up to the night sky.
“What’s your name?”
“Where do you live?”
“Where did you come from tonight?”
It’s like Friday night at a bar, surrounded by flirty singles desperate to get to know me more.
“Who me?” I flirt back.
See, Mother? I can go out and meet people.
Hyten Davidson is an emerging writer currently based in Chicago. Her stories have been published in New Reader Magazine, The Maine Review, and Cat on a Leash Literary Review. She’s also a screenwriter, having won the Scaffolding Magazine Best Short Screenplay Award at The Shortcut 100 International Film Festival, the Best Screenplay Award at The South Shore Film Festival, The Indie Horror Film Festival Best Short Script Award, among other accolades. For more, visit www.hytendavidson.com.
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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Liam Moran
January 8, 2023 at 12:49 am
Very engaging piece. Concise, direct, has a rattling, jaring narrative, that almost shakes you through the end, and at times provides that nice tongue in cheek humour. Loved it through and through, and especially enjoyed the ending. Would be interested in reading more of the author’s work. Hyten Davidson, if you ever publish a book/short story collection/whatever, please send the name of it my way.