HauntedMTL Original – Expiration Dates – Erik C. Martin
“Expiration Dates” by Erik C. Martin
“Mmm. I think this is the best coffee I’ve ever drank,” Heck said.
His wife of a month, Cassidy, smiled. “You said the same thing last Saturday.”
“And I’ll probably say it again next Saturday.”
Heck took another sip and waited for his cinnamon raisin English muffin to toast. The house smelled like morning.
Cassidy opened the fridge. She pulled out the guacamole, checked the label, and chucked it into the trash. She did the same with a yogurt.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Cleaning out the refrigerator before I shop. They were expired.”
She took out his milk.
“Not that!”
“It expires today.” She opened the jug and poured the milk into the sink. “Sorry. I don’t want you getting salmonella.”
His muffin popped up more burnt than he liked it. “I was going to have cereal.”
“Use my milk,” she said as she checked the Dijon mustard.
“Your milk is lactose free.”
“It’s good.” She tossed out half a bag of tortilla chips.
“The milk wasn’t even past the date. And you know those dates don’t mean anything. They’re just suggestions. Food is good long after it,” he made finger quotes, “expires.”.
She shook her head. “I’m not going to eat bad food. That’s how you get sick.”
A third of a bottle of ranch dressing went into the trash, now dangerously full.
###
Monday. Cassidy asked Heck to stop at the grocery on the way home from work and get a can of beets for a salad. He’d driven up to Alpine to see a new client and needed gas. The mountain roads were empty. He drove ten miles before he saw a gas station. He could tell the building was supposed to be white, but years had turned it mottled gray. The parking lot held not a single car. But a sign on the door proclaimed they were ‘OPEN’ in big red letters. Good enough! Heck pulled in, hopped out, and whipped out the plastic. Black electrical tape covered the credit card reader.
“Darn it. Making me go inside like a schmuck,” he said to himself.
A bell dinged above the door. A white-haired man wearing sunglasses sat behind the counter reading a newspaper, an actual newspaper! He never looked up when Heck entered. He was so still he might have been asleep. He might have been dead. The store smelled like week old hotdog water and burnt plastic. Heck spied an aisle with canned food and other gas station groceries. He shrugged. It couldn’t hurt to look.
Green beans, lima beans, mixed veggies, corn, aha…beets!
Heck grabbed the lone, dented can. Not the usual brand. No big deal. Canned beets were canned beets. Thinking of Cass, he glanced at the date.
“Yowch.”
Well, they weren’t that expired. Easily within the Heck margin of error. He had his markers in his work bag and a steady hand.
It would be simple to make that six look like an eight…
He took the can to the register. The old man looked up from his paper. Heck saw the headline–OBITUARIES. The man took the can in his bony fingers and glanced at the label. He looked at Heck over the top of his sunglasses and smiled, revealing teeth that looked like grains of brown rice.
“Anything else?”
“Twenty in gas.”
The man rang it up, smiling throughout like he had just remembered the most amusing joke.
###
Heck tried not to grin while Cassidy ate her salad. The doctored can had passed muster though she had remarked on the off-brand.
“These better not be from Wal-Mart.” She fingered the dent, frowning.
He assured her they weren’t. She thanked him for stopping at the store.
His own salad had no beets, no broccoli, no celery, or cucumbers. It was lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, and croutons, basically a cheeseburger minus the meat.
After dinner he helped Cassidy clear the table and clean the kitchen. He was drying when she caught him smirking at her.
“What is so funny?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“Come on, spill it!”
“Okay. I played a little joke. I’m not sure how funny you’ll think it is. Those beets you ate, they were totally past their expiration date.”
“What? No, I checked.”
“I changed the date with a marker. Pretty good job, huh? They were fine. You ate them and never noticed.”
She threw the sponge into the sink, splashing him with suds.
“You ass!” Cassidy stormed out of the kitchen.
Heck started to go after her, but stopped himself. He had learned that if he chased her now, they would end up in a fight. The trick was to wait fifteen minutes before starting the apology process.
He picked up a plate and started to scrub. After a few minutes, from the living room Cassidy yelled, “I feel dizzy! There was something wrong with those beets!”
“It’s in your head. You were fine until you knew they were old.”
She didn’t say anything. He ran hot water over the skillet and scraped off food with a plastic spatula. From the bathroom, the unmistakable sound of retching.
She’s making herself sick. The drama! This might take more than fifteen minutes.
THUD!
What the hell?
“Honey?”
…
“Sweetie?”
Nothing.
Heck put down the sponge and went to the bathroom.
Cassidy was sprawled out on the floor: foamy crimson rivulets ran out of her mouth and formed a small puddle on the white tile. The toilet was filled with red liquid.
Is that from the beets?
“Cass! Are you okay?”
She was not okay. Cassidy wasn’t breathing.
“Oh my God. Cass, hold on!”
Phone, where was his phone? Living room.
“I’m going to get help!”
He ran to his phone. His hands shook but he managed to dial 911. He nearly forgot his address but stammered it out to the dispatcher.
“Hurry! She’s not breathing.”
The dispatcher said something, but Heck hung up, oblivious. He hurried back into the bathroom and rolled his wife onto her back.
What do I do? Rescue breathing…how does it go? Check her airway.
Cassidy’s eyes popped open. They were blood red.
“You’re alive! Thank God!” He leaned in to hug her. Her mouth opened and he caught a glimpse of jagged teeth.
She lunged for his throat. He jerked back and she missed the major artery. Sharp teeth sank into the meat above his clavicle.
“Ahh! Get off!” She clung to him like an animal, but he finally pushed her off and scrambled to his feet. She snarled at him from all fours. Hand pressed to his bleeding wound, he retreated into the living room.
Cassidy stood stiffly, like someone shaking off the rigor of sleep. Head down, she charged. Heck ran, right out the front door slamming it behind him. Cassidy screamed on the other side, a sustained, frustrated wail. She pounded against the door so hard it rattled in the frame. Doorknobs had become a challenge.
He was half a block away. The bite throbbed. Suddenly dizzy, Heck staggered and held a tree to steady himself. Sirens in the distance, getting closer.
A wave of nausea ripped his core. He vomited onto the sidewalk, dark red and foamy.
The End
Erik C. Martin writes books for YA and middle-grade readers, but loves to write short stories of various genres for adult readers. Erik is a member of SCBWI and the San Diego Writers and Editors Guild. He lives and writes in San Diego, CA. Originally from Cleveland, OH, he still carries a snowbrush in his car.
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…
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.
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.
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.
Call and Response
Edith: Now I’m trying to contact her…
Edna: …beyond the veil.
Simultaneous:
Edith: Edna, do you hear me?
Edna: Edith, do you hear me?
Together (In Unison):
If you hear me, knock three times.
Narrator:
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Call and Response:
Edith: I miss you terribly.
Edna: I miss you so much.
Edith: Do you remember…
Edna: … the car crash?
Edith: We rolled…
Edna: … over the median.
Edith: There was fire.
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.
Edith: So far…
Edna: … away….
Simultaneous:
Edith: Are you okay?
Edna: Are you hurt?
Together (In Unison):
Knock three times for yes. Knock once for no.
Narrator:
Knock
– pause –
Knock
– pause –
Together (Syncopated):
What’s it like, on the other side?
– long pause –
Simultaneous:
Edith: I miss you, Edna.
Edna: I miss you, Edith.
Together (Syncopated):
It’s so lonely here.
Call and Response:
Edith: There’s no one here.
Edna: I’m all alone.
Edith: Without you…
Edna: …the spark of life…
Edith: …is gone…
Edna: … so far away.
– pause –
Together (Entirely Out of Sync):
It’s so dark.
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.
There was smoke everywhere.
I didn’t make it.
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.
And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
