Haunted MTL Original – The Difference – Beulah Vega
“The Difference” by Beulah Vega
An old man drinks at a varnished bar, gleaming oak, and cedar polished to the point of reflection. He uses the slight gleam to bounce artificial moon-beams across the top of his glass of seasoned scotch.
The backroom in stark contrast to the old man’s elegant domain is filled with sorority girls, and selfie sticks. The annual International convention of the Tri-Betas has again come to his home town. The girls in the back are rowdy, drinking underaged whiskey to match their years. The women who fill the front of the bar are sedated perhaps a little leery. They have been to this convention in this town before. Now older, matrons, they smile a little at the hijinks of youth, but also weep a little of the loss of their own as they down vodka like it was water, neat with no hint of irony.
The man bides his time. He has bought some rounds for some of the girls and some of the matrons. They thanked him and remarked about his resemblance to their grandfather. He smiled beatifically at them and saluted them with his glass as they cheered back with pink cosmos, and lemon drops, drinks with enough sugar to hide the pain.
A young woman that he had not noticed before detaches from a group of the rowdies. She approaches him and flashes an all-American smile. He notes the long, toned bare legs that end in a pair of New Zealand Sheep Herding boots. He does not need the ancient Greek letters on her oversized hoodie to tell him that she is a beta. Although the ample proportion immediately under the letters makes him glad that he has a reason to look.
He smiles back at her, gently, as if she may be as skittish as the nymph she resembles. Can I buy you a drink miss?
She nods and orders a sour apple martini with extra vermouth. The bartender looks at her and at a slight nod from the old man makes the drink, extra vermouth, and a little bit of the white powder that is always kept behind the counter of this man’s bar.
The bartender hands her the drink and looks away, no knowledge that she drank it, means no knowledge that he had anything to do with it.
She takes the drink and turns to thank the old man.
“You know, you remind me of someone.” She says
“Your grandfather?” He asks allowing a thick accent cloud his normally razor clear speech.
“No, maybe, I’m not sure”, she answers non-committedly, then “Have you been here a long time?”
“Aye,” the man replies, “I remember the very first Tri-Bets convention here.
“That was forever ago”, the nymph says then realizing the rudeness of such a statement, “I mean you must know everything about this town being here so long. That’s what I meant.”
A glint of anger awoke in his eyes, but he smothered it quickly as she took the first sip of her drink.
“I Do.” He said nodding in approval as she finished her first sip without any hint of suspicion.
“I have a question then.” The nymph said as she sat her glass down. “Why does this town have two huge cemeteries across the street from each other?”
The old man grinned, “They don’t dear.”
“Yes, I saw them when we were driving in.”
“No,” the old man said patiently, “There is a cemetery and there is a graveyard. They are not the same.”
She flicks her ashy curls away from a lightly powdered face. She leaned closer so that he could smell her scent, Foxglove and Morning Glories, and asked, “What is the difference?”
He chuckled low, his eyes darkening with greed. “I can tell you dear, or I can show you if you’re not scared. But first, finish your drink.”
She looked at him once with suspicion, but nodded her head and downed the drink in one gulp.
The old man had to make some preparations. It was lucky for him that he lived above the store, so to speak, and as he helped the groggy girl to the service elevator in the back, not one of the now well-libated girls or women interfered. By the time he had helped her to his couch, she had fallen into a deep sleep. He looked at her sleeping, barely breathing. He almost decided that she should be spared, but he looked at her hands. They were almost translucent, the blue on the veins accentuating them like authentic china. Her fingers were long and supple, and they ended in perfectly groomed fingernails, whose French manicure only accentuated the point of the nail.
He really had no choice he knew. Her hands were so perfect, they were a collector’s item, and he was the top collector in the world. He looked up at his mantle place where he kept the cream of the collection. These he would never sell, no matter how much he was offered. Her hands would go in the center.
His preparations were soon completed, and he lugged the still sleeping nymph to the freight elevator that would open into his garage. The crossroads were not far, but there was no need for excess exertion. Plus her hands may get damaged if he were to accidentally drop her.
So it was as the evening transformed to full night, that the young girl awoke to find herself alone with the old man. She was sitting in a chair in the middle of the crossroads. Her hands were laid upon a small board balanced on her lap. Board and hands were lashed to her thighs, making it impossible for her to stand.
The man carried a pack of mysterious jangly things and eyed her hungrily as she looked up at him.
“What are you doing?” She asked as he started removing scalpels and blades from his bag.
“I am answering your question,” He said, and then as if teaching a freshman philosophy class he took his place in front of her with, of all things, a laser pointer. “Now, my dear”, the old man said pointing the laser to his left. “To the west is a cemetery. It is new and shiny. It is not sacred to anything. No gods receive offerings here, no immortal souls occupy this land. It is really a travesty,” he continued, “You see, the new mounds of dirt beside freshly dug graves? Do you feel the expectancy of that place? It is because the ground there is hungry. It has been waiting to feed since the first hole was dug, but those holes will hold caskets of steel that do not decompose. Those worms will go hungry trying to gain nourishment from embalmed flesh and cosmetically reconstructed skin. The beetles will lack entry into eyes, and lips, and buttocks that are plugged, glued and sewn shut before ever leaving the mortuary.
This then is a cemetery. It is marked by well-manicured lawns not rightly fed by festering flesh, but instead with store-bought manure. It is not being emptied and rejuvenated by the natural rot of man. This is a monument to immaculate non-decay, so much that even the souls are trapped in those steel caskets, and cannot escape to walk the earth or breach the nether.”
He stopped to look at her making sure she had followed his points. She looked frightened, so he reassured her before moving on, “Don’t worry my dear. You and I have nothing to do with that place.
He then pointed his laser pointer to his right, before she had a chance to reply. “Now over here to the East, is an ancient church, itself decaying in peace. The last rites here were given more than a hundred years ago. The last time the church fed its hungry ground was long enough ago that nothing remains, but the odd piece of jewelry, and a coin or two rejected by old Charon out of hubris and spite. This then is a graveyard, my dear. A holy, sanctified place where the dead go in and do not remain forever, in halted decay. Here the dead rot back to the base elements that will allow the rest of us to flourish. Here, no souls are locked in steel and concrete tombs. And here, He said pulling the largest knife from his pocket. The graves naturally empty themselves, leaving space for those of us who like to plant by moonlight.
So saying he quickly struck down and severed her hands from her wrists. A dark liquid gushed out, and he quickly wrapped the hands in an ice pack before turning back to the girl. She was not dead and strangely not even passed out, he found this refreshing and cut the ropes from her thighs so she could walk toward the church under her own power.
She did not cry. “shock” he thought. He knew that she would bleed out before she reached the hungry earth behind the old altar, but the farther she could stagger, the less distance he would have to carry her. She stumbled and moaned as she slowly moved toward the church, he was always right behind her, the knife ever at her back.
Finally, the young nymph reached the open ground, and as he was about to be merciful and end her suffering with a quick slash at her pretty throat, she walked over the open grave. She did not jump, or take extra-large steps, she walked on the air above it.
She turned as he emitted his first scream. Her perfect hands now reattached she held them out to him as if to help him over the hole, and away from the 20 hands reaching up from the empty grave pulling apart flesh and bone, and tendon. Away from the hands that were severing his extremities, a sharpened fingernail load at a time. Away from the 20 hands, each with a sorority ring, on one of its decaying fingers, and rotten joint, that he had last seen in their jars on his mantle not an hour ago.
In desperation and panic, he reached out to her beautiful hands, and for a moment all stopped. She came close to him again, her fragrance of all that was beautiful, but poisonous filling his nose, and chest, and lungs. She leaned in to whisper to his still intact ears” You were right, you know. Cemeteries are not for us, who occasionally need to escape the confines of our graves.” And so saying her hands dropped away from her wrists and he fell into the hungry earth, where 22 hands now finished the horrific job that had been started with his first screams, as the beetles and worms, waited for their finest meal in years.
Beulah Vega is a poet and theatrical artist living and working in California’s Bay Area. Her work has been published in “First Leaves”, and “Before They Were Cool” (Weasel Press). Her poems have also been performed as part of the Bay Area WTF festival in “Heroines, Harpies, and Harlots: A Woman Speaks”. She specializes in work that gives voice to those traditionally marginalized in literary arts.
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.