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“Revenge of the Roses” by Linda M. Crate

He called them his roses. The girls that he slaughtered. Their remains were never recovered from the swamp. He only kept the bones of their pointer fingers as a souvenir and these he kept so well hidden that even his wife didn’t know about them.

She was a trucker so she wasn’t always around which made it easier for him to abduct these homeless teens and prostitutes. Especially when he lived out in the middle of nowhere.

He grinned nastily, leering outside at the little pocket of yard he had that wasn’t surrounded by swamp. Devin Cox read in the paper that morning that the parents of his first victim he had taken had just passed on. Wasn’t that a shame? At least they wouldn’t be lonely when they got to heaven, he thought.

Devin had ninety nine roses so far. Today he was planning on make it one hundred.

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His wife, however, had surprised him insisting that she was home for the weekend. Devin felt sheer annoyance at this fact, but he hid it well.

Their grown children never came to visit as they were too busy building lives of their own so he was rather used to being alone. He couldn’t understand why Melinda had to screw that up for him.

“You seem upset, is everything okay?” Melinda asked.

“Just a shame. That girl that went missing thirty years ago…her parents died today. I can’t help but think what I would do if something happened to our daughter.”

“Oh, how awful! Maybe they’ll find her…for the sake of her siblings. They seemed rather distraught that she disappeared. It was right when we moved out here, remember?”

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“I do,” he answered. “But it’s been thirty years, Melinda. I doubt they’ll find her.”

“Maybe not,” Melinda sighed. “I’m not feeling well, so I think I’m going to spend some time reading, okay, honey? You wouldn’t mind that, would you?” she asked.

“Oh, no. I’ll go to the store and buy something for you…?”

“No, no, I’ll be fine,” she laughed. “I’ll be fine.”

Devin grinned. “All right.”

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She mistook his evil grin for a mischievous one. “I said I wasn’t feeling well, Devin. Not now,” she chuckled.

“Of course, I’m sorry,” he remarked, but he wasn’t sorry in the least. Devin thought that there was no more fitting a crown than making his wife his 100th rose. Not his last, of course, because there were so many years that he still had left…but she ought to be remembered in some way, right? To be his hundredth flower was more honoring of a title than to be his first, he thought.

Devin considered waiting until his wife was on the verge of sleep before concocting this horrible cocktail that would end her life. He wasn’t sure what he’d do this time. Sometimes he liked to strangle them but other times he liked to stab, and he never used a gun because it would leave too much of a mess.

He learned that the second time he had gone about this nasty business. He had just narrowly escaped being arrested. They pinned her death on the boyfriend although they’d never found the gun.

Devin made sure they never would, either, when he tossed that gun at the bottom of the swamp.

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He sat in his chair as he waited, blinking as he snored himself awake. When had that happened, and what had woken Devin up. He glanced over at an ethereal being who didn’t speak. She just glared at him.

He rubbed his eyes, and she was gone.

Ah, that was nothing. Just a trick of the mind. Well, he’d be damned if that would deter his plans for the evening.

“Devin,” a voice whispered.

It reminded him of that girl that had died thirty years ago.

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Now is not the time to be cracking up, Devin, he thought aggressively to himself. He shook his head, clearing his mind of that girl and her blonde hair. The way she had screamed when he bit into her leg hard enough to make her bleed. The way her blood tasted when he licked it off his knife after slashing her throat. He had disposed of her body in a different swamp than the one he was so accustomed to now. No one had ever found her.

She had looked a lot like his wife except her eyes were blue instead of brown. They had the same freckles, the same pale skin, and almost the same smile. The girl had said something to him that had set him off.

Devin could still remember her smug smirk. “Men were just put on this earth to serve women,” she had said. She was just teasing, but it reminded him so much of his wife and her insistence that she was always right that he flew off the handle and he had decided she had to go then and there.

Oh, how she had screamed! He relished it even to this day. She didn’t even know what kind of monster she woke in him, that foolish girl.

Devin smirked again.

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“We’re going to knock that smirk right off your face.”

Devin looked around. Who or what was that? He shivered, rubbing his arms. This was getting a little ridiculous. Why was he getting so spooked? Obviously, he was still having some weird dream. He needed to get over it. Otherwise he’d miss his opportunity for his hundredth kill. He wasn’t about to allow that to happen.

He walked into the bedroom where his wife was still sleeping. Devin knew that he had to act quickly.

Any wrong move and she could instantly wake. He wasn’t going to allow that to happen. He looked at the bed-sheets and blankets and thought of a horrible idea. He could smother the life right out of her. Shouldn’t be too hard, right, considering he was stronger than she was.

“Ninety nine roses is far too much for you,” hissed a voice.

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He half-expected it to be his wife, but it was not. A pale girl with black hair glared up at him. She looked small enough to be a girl, but she had been a grown woman and a mother. Her only crime was agreeing to get in his car.

“SHUT UP OR YOU’LL WAKE HER UP!”

“Devin, what’s going on?”

“Nothing, Melinda, just go back to sleep.”

“Are you all right, Devin?”

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“I’M FINE!” he roared.

“There’s no need to shout at me for simply asking a question,” Melinda said, grumpily. “Maybe next time don’t walk into a room shouting at yourself if you don’t want people to ask if you’re all right,” she snapped.

“I never asked for your attitude, woman!”

“Nor did I ask you for yours,” Melinda retorted.

“Just ignore him and walk through this door,” came another voice.

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“Who, who are you?”

“No one that will harm you. Our business is with your husband.”

“My husband?”

“He murdered us.”

“Murdered?! Devin?!”

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“I did, and I’ll kill you, too, Melinda,” Devin shrugged.

“We won’t let you do that.”

“Ninety nine roses is too good for you.”

“Go through the door.”

Melinda disappeared through a door that Devin couldn’t open. He wanted to thunder after her, and get his hundredth rose.

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“WHERE DID YOU TAKE HER?!”

“Somewhere where you cannot harm her.”

“Yes, somewhere where she will never have to fear for her life again,” another woman answered.

He saw that he was surrounded by many ghosts. All of them must of been the women that he had killed through the years.

Devin felt the hair on the back of his arms and neck stand on end. What was going to happen to him?

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“We won’t let you die without suffering first.”

“Wait, what? Ghosts can’t kill people.”

“Maybe not with our hands but we can still kill you,” sneered one of the women.

“Yes, we can still kill you,” they crooned in unison.

“No, I won’t be killed by a bunch of women!”

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“Why is it so offensive that we’re women? You don’t seem bothered by the idea of us killing you, but the idea that we’re women. You perceive us to be weaker, don’t you?”

“Of course you are! Everyone knows that.”

“We’re the ones that birth the children, deal with periods and menopause, and have to deal with hormonal imbalances whilst expected to be strong as a horse, have the face of a young girl, and be expected to perform in bed whenever our husbands should have want of it. Women shouldn’t still be fighting for their rights!”

“But because of misogynist pigs like you, they are!” chimed in another voice. “Women are people. Not property or objects, and we certainly weren’t put on the earth for your entertainment. We have hopes, dreams, and ambitions of our own.”

“We won’t allow you to collect another rose.”

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Devin scowled, glaring at all the ghosts around him. This was some great delusion. It had to be! Yet every time he pinched himself, nothing happened. It was as if he was rooted to this reality even if he didn’t want to accept it was truth. What was going on?

He ran, but one tripped him with his a nail which tore up his sock and caused his foot to bleed. He fell, smacking his face off the hardwood floor.

Another hit him upside the head repeatedly with his wife’s knitting needles.

Yet another ghost whistled so shrilly that he felt as if his ears were about to explode.

“Stop it! Have mercy!”

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“We’ll have as much mercy as you showed us: none!”

The horrible cackles that followed afterwards made his ears ring so loudly that it thundered after him as he attempted to crawl out of the room. One of the ghosts knocked over a pitcher of water from his wife’s bedside counter, drenching his hair and face.

Then suddenly there was nothing. Devin blinked. Had they given up on him? Was his haunting finished? He didn’t know.

All he knew was that he must be losing his mind. He used the edge of the bed to pull himself up on, and saw that his wife wasn’t there. The door she disappeared into was gone, as well. Crawling towards his face was a black spider.

He yelped, killing the beast with one of his wife’s shoes that was handy beside the bed stand. It, too, was covered in water, and it was hard to grab onto, but he had managed the feat of smashing the beast. He had always hated spiders. They were gross and creepy no matter what anyone said about their benefits to the environment, he couldn’t abide by them. Bats could eat the insects as far as he were concerned. Blast those confounded creatures!

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There was a humming he heard, and he blinked, slowly pulling himself to his feet. He followed after the humming sound hoping it was something that he could make stop because it was making him feel uneasy.

It was coming from the kitchen.

All of a sudden a frying pan came and hit him in the face. As he was falling from the impact of the blow he grappled with the table cloth managing to successfully pull all the contents of the table off as he fell. A chair hit him square in the chest after he had fallen hard on his back.

“Hello, Devin.”

“I think the small potatoes are baked, it’s time to hit you were it hurts.”

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Devin blinked catching a knife in mid-air before it could hit him in the groin. These ghosts were no joke.

“I don’t deserve this.”

“Yes, you do.”

“It’s the revenge of the roses for everything and everyone you took from us!”

“You deserve to die.”

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He was suddenly reminded of his father who had grabbed him by the scruff of his neck once and uttered those same words.

“BE QUIET, YOU STUPID HUSSIES! YOU DESERVED TO DIE! LEAVE ME ALONE! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE AND GET OUT OF MY HEAD.”

“No,” was the simple response given by all those voices in unison.

He felt as if his head might explode.

Managing to get back on his feet again Devin ran as fast as he could back to his room, and locked the door. He put his back to the door, panting hard.

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He felt the knife slam into his heart from behind, he looked down at his chest where blood blossomed like a flower on his chest. He noticed that it was forming in the shape of a rose.

“The hundredth rose,” one of the ghosts mocked scornfully. “May you rest in pieces but never in peace.”

Their was mocking laughter in his ears. As he laugh dying he felt tears falling from his eyes, but his arms were too heavy to wipe them away. Everything was fading into cold blackness. A void without a name.

Linda M. Crate’s works have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies both online and in print. She is the author of six poetry chapbooks, the latest of which is: More Than Bone Music (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, March 2019). She’s also the author of the novel Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Books, June 2018) and two micro-poetry collections. Recently she has published two full-length poetry collections Vampire Daughter (Dark Gatekeeper Gaming, February 2020) and The Sweetest Blood (Cyberwit, February 2020).

Linda M. Crate, author.

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Original Creations

Beyond the Veil: Video Script by Jennifer Weigel

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I wrote this script for Beyond the Veil awhile back, exploring the bond between two twin sisters, Edith and Edna, who had lived their lives together. There was a terrible car crash and someone didn’t make it.  The other is trying to contact them beyond the veil…

Spirit Witch altered doll sculpture by Jennifer Weigel
Spirit Witch altered doll sculpture by Jennifer Weigel

Beyond the Veil Setting:

Two women reach out to one another individually in a séance setting.

One sits on one side of a dining table.  The other sits at the other side.  Each studies a candle just beyond her reach; there is darkness between the two candles.  The long table is barely hinted at in the interstice between the two but it is clearly present.

The camera is stationary showing both in profile staring through each other.

The women are both portrayed by the same actress who is also the voice of the narrator, who is unseen.  All three voices are identical so that it is impossible to tell which of the two women the narrator is supposed to represent.

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Both women are spliced into the same scene.  They are together but apart.  The two candles remain for the duration of filming so that the two halves of the film can either be overlapped (so that both women appear incorporeal) or cut and sandwiched in the middle between the candles (so both women appear physically present).  It is possible to set the scene thusly using both methods in different parts of the story, with both women seemingly flickering in and out of being, both individually and apart.

Script:

I. Black, audio only.

Narrator:

I was riding with my twin sister.

We were in a terrible car crash.

The car drove over the median and rolled.

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It spun off the road where it caught fire.

There was smoke everywhere.

My sister didn’t make it.

II. Fade in to the long table with two lit candles; flames flickering.

Two women are just sitting at either end.

They stare blankly through each other.

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Call and Response

                        Edith: Now I’m trying to contact her…

                        Edna: …beyond the veil.

Simultaneous:

                        Edith: Edna, do you hear me?

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                        Edna: Edith, do you hear me?

Together (In Unison):

                        If you hear me, knock three times.

Narrator:

Knock.

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Knock.

Knock.

Call and Response:

                        Edith: I miss you terribly.

                        Edna: I miss you so much.

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                        Edith: Do you remember…

                        Edna: … the car crash?

                        Edith: We rolled…

                        Edna: … over the median.

                        Edith: There was fire.

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                        Edna: There was smoke.

                        Edith: I could hear the sirens.

                        Edna: They were coming…

                        Edith: … to rescue us.

                        Edna: But they were so far away.

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                        Edith: So far…

                        Edna: … away….

Simultaneous:

                        Edith: Are you okay?

                        Edna: Are you hurt?

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Together (In Unison):

                        Knock three times for yes.  Knock once for no.

Narrator:

Knock

– pause –

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Knock

  – pause –

 Together (Syncopated):

                        What’s it like, on the other side?

– long pause –

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   Simultaneous:

                        Edith: I miss you, Edna.

                        Edna: I miss you, Edith.

  Together (Syncopated):

                        It’s so lonely here.

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 Call and Response:

                        Edith: There’s no one here.

                        Edna: I’m all alone.

                        Edith: Without you…

                        Edna: …the spark of life…

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                        Edith: …is gone…

                        Edna: … so far away.

                        – pause –

Together (Entirely Out of Sync):

                        It’s so dark.

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III. Fade out to black

Narrator:

I was riding with my twin sister.

We were in a terrible car crash.

The car drove over the median and rolled.

It spun off the road where it caught fire.

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There was smoke everywhere.

I didn’t make it.

Close up of sculpture
Close Up of sculpture

I had planned to actually turn this into the video for which it was written, but quickly discovered that my plans for recording required a space that was too drastically different from my new house (and new large gaming table) and that my vision for filming could not be well-fully executed or realized. So now it exists as a script only.

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.

And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.

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Original Series

Nightmarish Nature: Screwed Up Screwworms

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Yeah yeah, the insects tend to get ALL the attention here on Nightmarish Nature. But honestly, this one takes the beefcake. It’s the New World Screwworm Fly, and it’s as terrifying as the name suggests. And they aren’t limited to the Americas, there is an Old World version as well, as they can be found pretty much anywhere tropical or seasonably suited.

Warm weather woes...  Screwworm fly sipping a boat drink out of a coconut with a text bubble "Take me to the tropics."
Warm weather woes…

Revolting Little Buggers

The Screwworm Fly is a parasitic fly larvae that burrows into its host to feed, named because it seems to screw deeper and deeper into the flesh over time. This process is called myiasis and do NOT look it up online, you WILL regret it. They blur those images out for very valid reasons, trust me (and not because of pornographic content). And these maggots will continue to burrow en masse, rather than staying put as a botfly larvae would.

Do Not Do an Image Search on Screwworm Myiasis, Like Seriously – You Will NEVER Unsee That

The female Screwworm fly lays her eggs on an open wound or orifice of her chosen host… And not just one egg or a couple of eggs, no – hundreds, even thousands of them. Let’s let that sink in a bit, shall we? Or screw in as it were. Although any warm-blooded animal is a prime target, cattle are a fly favorite, costing millions of head of cattle to this sick and disgusting horror annually. And if beef isn’t on the menu, Fido or even yourself might be.

Too many maggots...  Showing one is maddening enough.  One screwfly larva with text bubble "I just keep on digging" and caption Multiply this by at least two orders of magnitude (regarding quantity not size).
Too many maggots… Showing one is maddening enough.

The Great American Worm Wall

In fact, this particular feature here on Nightmarish Nature is so terrifying that the United States has made agreements with all of Central America, even including countries that do not generally share its interests, in order to create a “Great American Worm Wall” to prevent them from spreading back into the United States. I’m not going to go into all of the creepy and juicy details of this bizarre science fiction freak fact, you’ll just have to watch it here on Half As Interesting’s YouTube channel.

Essentially, the Worm Wall is a complicated byproduct of scientists studying radioactivity on the flies’ maturity as well as the flies’ sexual lives and using this information against them to nearly eradicate the species and banish it from much of its former range. So, Peter Parker, if you thought everyone was messing with your love life before, be glad you weren’t bitten by a radioactive Screwworm.

If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:

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Vampires Among Us

Perilous Parenting

Freaky Fungus

Worrisome Wasps

Cannibalism

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Terrifying Tardigrades

Reindeer Give Pause

Komodo Dragons

Zombie Snails

Horrifying Humans

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Giants Among Spiders

Flesh in Flowers

Assassin Fashion

Baby Bomb

Orca Antics

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Creepy Spider Facts

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Original Creations

On Becoming Hallowed, All Hallows Eve Poem by Jennifer Weigel

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Like I said before, I’m really getting into the spirit of the season this year. So reconsidering The Mourners yet again, and haunting the faith a bit, I decided to share a poem that I wrote thinking about All Hallows Eve as a preview of more things to come this month of October.

Mourners drawing by Jennifer Weigel, graphite on paper
Mourners drawing by Jennifer Weigel

On Becoming Hallowed

Holy.  Holy.  Holy.  Light the candle.  Chant the hymn.

For now the veil between the living and the dead grows thin.

Fingers held to lips in silence; lies beneath their skin.

Family found, ancestral ghosts return to haunt their kin.

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Skeletons in closets, grotesque yearnings trapped within.

A bleached and bony face flashes a slightly knowing grin.

It’s not the shadows but the darkness that we fear therein.

Bless this Church whose saintly bodies live and dwell herein.

Unto Death, they claim to sanctify our souls from sin.

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Those familiar faces shame; this fight we cannot win.

Come what may, they betray.  Pray/prey and heads will spin.

Forevermore and evermore to nevermore…  Amen.

Mourners drawing by Jennifer Weigel, graphite on paper
Mourners drawing by Jennifer Weigel

I thought this poem really captured All Hallows Eve, in some of the same sentiments as the movie High Spirits, which I loved almost as much as Beetlejuice back in the day.

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.

And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.

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