Haunted MTL Original – Victim #2: The Dickhead – J.M. Brannyk
“Victim #2: The Dickhead” by J.M. Brannyk
Morgana woke up first and already showered, smelling like soap and desperation, when she roughly shook me awake. In the darkness, the flecks of green in her eyes reflected back my own sweaty, terrified face. I blinked and tried to gather where I was and what was going on.
“We need to go soon,” she whispered, even though we were the only ones in her room, “Can you survive without a shower?”
I cracked my bones back into order and sat up slowly like an old man in the morning who had forgotten what he was supposed to do that day. It was feelings that trickled back instead of thoughts. I had a vague sense of urgency and horror that stuck in my dry throat. The urgency became stronger as she helped lift me to my feet and murmured, “Alex, go get your EMT bag. Hurry, please!”
As I stumbled to my room, I felt guilt and more exhaustion. Anger swooped in, but never landed, just circled above me. Each step made me more tired. I pushed things around for my bag before finding it on the kitchen counter. I shed my clothes and put on new ones that weren’t exactly clean, but didn’t smell like a few people had died in them, including me.
When I stumbled back into her room, she pulled me out and dragged me with her.
“We have to go now,” she hissed and her hand clutching my wrist was so tight, I knew that each finger was busy bruising my wrist. I didn’t argue since I was just trying to keep up mentally and physically. My feet were flying out in a flurry just to keep up, like a little kid being pulled and stumbling over his shoelaces and his own stupid feet. The huge bag on my back encouraged gravity and my own awkwardness to crash into the cement. The only things keeping me up were my sleepy determination not to break my face on the ground and Morgana’s insistence that I keep following her.
Morgana led us to some sketchy areas. I tried to be as quiet as possible, but my lungs cried for air and my muscles cried for a comfortable chair and to never be moved again. Nothing eased or soothed the aching, even the wind was nearly rejected by my lungs. Graciously, she propped me up on a wall and said quickly, “Stay here. Just play along.”
She spoke so fast, my brain finally caught up when she went into the slimy mouth of a bar. I rested against the muddy brick wall, closing my eyes and hoping that my bag wouldn’t get mugged from me. The cruel combination of standing and the cold air woke me up. As soon as my mind began to defog, I realized what we were doing and my hands started to shake. I sloppily kicked against the wall to expend some nervous energy.
At any moment, she would have a bloody stump that used to be a person that, in some magic way, I needed to make back into some semblance of a human.
When she walked out with a living human with all his parts and pieces, I overclocked my anxiety. This wasn’t in my head plan. I didn’t think I had to see victim #2 as a person, especially a douchebag with his arm around her, like he owned her, marking his fucking territory, when I’m the one who was building her a goddamn van and came out in the middle of the night to save his ass. The least he should have done was show me some damn respect. I was fuming.
“Is that him?” The asshole scoffed and he was the kind that had the gelled hair, white teeth, unstained shirt, and matching pants. A hypocrite and worse, a bully. His large brown eyes sized me up in a second and any pride or respect that I may have had in his mind was instantly deleted, and all that was left was the impression of something softer than a fart and less noticeable.
I didn’t even feel like saving this prick.
“Yeah,” she smiled to me in a very forceful, very play-along way, “That’s my boyfriend.”
“No wonder he wants to watch someone fuck you,” he laughed and she playfully punched him.
“Hey, he’s a great guy–“
“Just not enough to satisfy you, huh?” He flirted in front of my fucking eyes.
I have been insulted before. I probably have an honorary degree in it at some college. I have had my girlfriends stolen before (usually by my oldest brother) and I’ve dealt with it. But to be put in an awkward position by my girlfriend to where I’m belittled to my face, under the pretext that I was going to watch a smegma-sucking panty-gobbler bone her against a filthy wall while I stood in wonder and wished to be half the man that he was — yeah, that’s a fucking no.
But I didn’t leave because, bottom-line, I’m a pussy and even more so, I’m passive-aggressive. There would be a time when I’d be angry, sullen, and sulky — where I could jab little barbs into her until I felt better about myself and she felt worse about herself and we could break even. I didn’t need to be like that asshole, I didn’t need to feel better than someone else, didn’t have to step on them to get my jollies. I just have to feel at the same level.
“Who said that you could satisfy me?” She teased and walked over to kiss me quickly, whispering in the cover of my lips, “Just do this. One time. I need it now.”
I kissed her back, not possessively, because I knew what was coming, what was mine, and what the next day was going to bring. The angrier I became, the cooler I felt, until it was a very thin line of hatred directed his way as he started sucking on her face.
She played along, but she wasn’t toying or charming like she was when we were in bed and half-naked, with my lips almost smiling and her mouth floating closer to mine. There was a different kind of sexual energy between them, but, at the core, hers wasn’t sexual at all. It was frightening. I knew I was seeing her at her worst as she pushed him hard against the wall, hard enough to jar him.
“Woah, baby, be–“, he tried to laugh off what could have been a concussion, but her mouth latched onto his and refused to let go.
My stomach rolled over and my nausea grew as I watched her lips pull back and mark a messy trail from his face to his neck. The ruby lipstick smeared wildly across his skin in bloody little footprints. The closer she came to his neck, the faster my heart trembled, keeping a step in front of her mouth. My legs threatened to give under and I reached out to brace myself against the wall. The moment was getting so hot and close, my mouth filled with excitement, tingling against my gums and stiff jaw.
And then it happened.
I felt out of myself, like watching from the screen of my computer. His eyes grew wide and threatened to pop, his face flushed and the veins rose to the surface, clawing their way up. His mouth opened wide, but only short puffs of breath passed through. His hands tried to push her away, but she clung on. I couldn’t see her face, just the whites of her hands as she held him tighter by the back of his skull.
He moaned quietly and his legs slowly bent. She kneeled with him and they landed softly on the ground. He moaned again and his large eyes were glassy and wet.
I couldn’t watch any more, but could still hear him wriggle against her and gasp out. I pulled out a freshly rolled cigarette that I had hidden in my jacket and lit it. God, I needed something that night to ground me and tell me it was going to be fine. It was either the forgiving arms of vodka or the jittery push of nicotine and the cigarette was all I had.
I listened to an empty can of beer roll away, pushed by the momentum of his spastic jerking. His breathing jutted painfully into the alley, becoming uneven, and promised to collapse the whole thing — each lobe of the lungs just caving in under each breath. Her mouth sounded busy and when he quieted down, I could hear the long suction smack of her lips sucking up his blood. I puffed away and soon, I was pulling out the last cigarette I had hidden, and thrusting it in my mouth. I moved it side-to-side with my tongue to distract myself.
“I’m done,” she wetly announced, snapping her head away from his neck, and darted away from him.
He hit the ground in a damp thump and didn’t move. There was a moment of tension between us as I looked to her smeared face and she painfully ripped her eyes away from the contact. Each sound was amplified in the alley and each step I took sounded like the drum solo of a very distracted and inexperienced drummer. As I rolled him over, each tap of her heels made my heart flinch briefly. His face was lifeless and with hesitation I started to work, opening my bag as quickly as the zipper could open its enormous mouth.
As I dug my fingers into the guy’s neck, finding the artery between the slick meat of his shoulder, I began to feel sorrier for him. He was an asshole, but he was essentially innocent. He was gullible and his lust was his downfall, as it’s been mine so many times before. The more I fought to save something left of him, the more I felt like I should have been the one in his place, We were so different from each other – I had gone to bars often to make an ass of myself and maybe get laid by someone even more pathetic than me. When you’re drunk, you have more freedom to be the person you’re not. You have an excuse to be whoever the hell you want to be – whether that’s a cocky son-of-a-bitch in that guy’s case, someone more interesting and fun in my case, or someone who can control the world in my brotherâs case.
The alcohol was working against him physically. If he hadn’t had so much to drink, I wouldn’t have been sweating into the poor guy’s ripped-opened skin, hoping that he would stop bleeding.
Morgana was good – keeping her distance from me. I hardly knew she was there. I could concentrate without interruption of being asked how long it was going to take or to hurry because someone was coming. She calmly watched from a rare shadow by a dumpster. Finding a cove away from light, I heard her lean against the wall and inhale deeply.
“We need to call someone,” I said, finally pulling back and setting him against the wall.
“They would track us,” she murmured behind me.
“Not if I jam the call,” I answered and threw her a rag to clean up with. It wasn’t pretty, still smelled like grease, but she used it as soon as she caught it.
“Will he be ok?”
“No, not if someone more…professional doesn’t come soon.”
“Oh,” she sighed out and even the one syllable broke into two under the weight and gravity of the mention of death. I wanted to hug her and say stupid things I couldn’t ever mean, but I wouldn’t mean them, so I didn’t do it. I didn’t want to give her false hope.
“Where do we call?” She asked.
“I’ll call,” I told her and lifted the bag to her, “Take this and go home. I’ll be there later.”
“I want to do something,” she said, her teeth not quite biting her lip, but holding it, and I felt somehow better just watching that sign of restraint. “I don’t like just waiting around.”
“You’ve already done enough,” I told her and–no, no, I didn’t mean it like that at all. But as soon as I said it, she yanked the bag and walked away.
I stood gaping at my own stupidity — she didn’t look back. She walked with purpose and pain.
And I was all alone to deal with the dying dickhead.
J.M. Brannyk lives in constant duality, like a tossed coin, but is steadily adjusting to the movements. They study geology and other nihilistic interests. Surprisingly, there’s a romantic side that’s hard to kill.
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 Weigelâs 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. Patrickâs 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 donât know how you managed to find me after all this time. We havenât been the easiest to track down, Monty and I, and we like it that way. Though actually, youâve managed to find me every St. Patrickâs Day since 2022 despite me being someplace else every single time. Itâs a little disconcerting, like Iâm 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 hutâŠ
Anyway as Iâd mentioned before, that Scratchers was a winner. And Iâd already moved in with Monty come last St. Patrickâs Day. Hell, heâd 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 Montyâs 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 didnât want to let on he was sitting on a gold mine as he knew theyâd 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 livinâ 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 âem. Itâs like he has radar for bad cars. Calling them lemons would be generous. At least itâs not high maintenance women who wonât 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 wouldnât know, Iâve 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 isnât all that itâs cracked up to be, and it doesnât work like in the movies. I wasnât bitten, and I generally donât bite unless provoked. He says technically Iâm a wolfwere, to which I just reply âWhere?â and smile. Whatever. Itâs the little things I guess. I just wish everything didnât come out as a bark most of the time, though Montyâs gotten pretty good at interpretingâŠÂ As long as he doesnât 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 livinâ the dream. There arenât all that many rabbits out here but itâs quiet and the locals donât seem to notice me all that much. And Monty can run around and make like heâs gonna have some kind of sighting of Bigfoot or aliens or the like. As long as the pantryâs stocked itâs 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 alreadyâŠ
If you enjoyed this werewolf wolfwere wolfwhatever saga, feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigelâs work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.