HMTL Original Series: The Dead Life – #15
Day 17
The “office” was just a small box of a room, not built into the original construction of the pharmacy but rather a prefabricated addition. It was ugly, too, the walls made up of plywood treated to look like it was made of boards, and the frames being exposed metal. It was a cramped, thin-walled cube slapped into a musty warehouse.
There was no sound as Dani had approached and she had begun to grow nervous. Had the ghoul wandered out into the store, or was it lying in wait? What about the door out to the back alley? Had it pushed its way through, somehow. The lack of knowledge irked her. The lack of control quickly became the worst part of the apocalypse.
She paused at the door of the office. Things were quiet and the inside was darkened. The door was ajar, slightly, and a foul stench wafted out from the crack of the door and the frame. She didn’t approach closer, or dare put her face near enough to look through.
“Is it in there?”
The quiet voice of the teenager behind her made Dani practically jump out of her skin. She whirled around and saw the teen standing here, cringing slightly. Dani furrowed her brow and wildly waved her free hand to shoo the girl away. She acquiesced, her eyes wide.
Dani took a step closer to the door and rest the point of the fireplace poker against it. She gave it a brief shove, but the door didn’t move inward much. Something was blocking it.
Shit. Shit.
She tried again, giving it a harder push, but the resistance was so great the tip of the poker slid across the plywood and hit the frame with a clang. Danny retracted her weapon and took a step back, listening. Something began to move inside and in a moment the door clicked shut.
“Did it just close the door?”
Dani turned back at the girl. She shook her head. “Not on purpose… these things are dumb. Really dumb.”
“So it can’t get out?”
Dani shrugged as she gazed at the office. “Probably not, but I still need to get in there,” she turned back to the teen, “you should keep an eye on your mom for a few minutes. I’ll take care of this.”
The girl trudged away as Dani turned her attention toward the office. The first step was to open the door, but now there was definite shuffling going on behind it. Within an instant, a bloody and rotted hand slapped against the thing pane of glass that served as a window and then the rest of the ghoul rolled into view.
It was thin, most of these things were, and skin hung loosely from its torso. The shirt was once a blood button-up, but now it was mostly dull and grey with deep brown stains down the neck and chest. A moldy green and brown striped tie hung loosely from the creature’s neck. The face, or at least what hadn’t slid off from the skull, had the faintest trace of a mustache and the top of the head had thin patches of hair. On the hip was a walkie-talky in a holster.
The ghoul was far enough from the door she could open it and then step back to regroup. She grabbed the doorknob and gave it a turn, only for it to rattle ineffectively. The office was locked. Of course. What were the options? She watched the ghoul trace her movements at the window. It slapped at the glass which rattled loudly given the quiet of the storeroom. It wasn’t strong glass at all but breaking glass was noisy. She scanned for a key nearby but saw nothing. There was no choice in the matter.
That is when she heard the click of the doorknob.
The ghoul was still at the window, far enough away from opening the door, but somehow the knob had turned. Not missing a moment, Dani kicked the door open. It slammed against the wall and the ghoul, who had been tethered to the knob by a lanyard and keyring, flew back into a filing cabinet and collapsed into a heap. Dani took two huge steps into the darkened office and put all her weight into driving the poker deep into the ghoul’s eye socket. The ghoul flailed a bit as the poker stirred the brain matter within the skull and after a few moments of vigorous stirring, it was now completely still.
Dani dutifully pulled at the poker from inside the skull, but it became wedged on bone, likely the orbital of the skull. She gave it another tug, but still no motion. Annoyed, she placed a foot on the former manager’s chest and grabbed the handle with both hands. After a mental count of three and a deep breath, she pulled with all her might.
The poker ripped free from the skull, arcing a trail of blood. brain and shards of bone in the air as she lost her balance. The poker traveled full speed back behind her and shattered the tiny office’s window. Noisy cracking and splintering echoed in the storeroom. The poker’s hook lodged itself on the frame and rocked violently before clattering on the plywood floor. Dani studied the window, and just beyond she saw the teen who was overlooking the chaos. Gore dripped down the shards of glass that still remained lodged in the window frame.
“Gross,” she said.
Edgar stood near the front of the store staring out at the parking lot. His cart was as full as he could arrange. Anything that seemed edible or not damaged beyond being safe to eat was piled in, There was no ordering to the stacks, and he’d considered going through and making his assemblage less chaotic. Ultimately, it didn’t matter.
Beyond the parking lot, he noticed a gas station kitty-corner from the pharmacy. The place had clearly been hit by people for whatever gas they could find. Was there any more left? he wondered. What had really caught his attention, however, was the sight of a ghoul tangled up in a seatbelt, attempting to escape the opened door of a sedan. The bastard didn’t have enough sense to unbuckle the belt or even twist its own body in such a way that it could free itself. It simply would extend itself and the belt as far as it could go before the belt automatically retracted, pulling it back into the car, violently. Each time a limb or its head would bash against the frame, at least from what Edgar could see from this distance.
Eventually, Edgar figured, the thing would eventually saw itself free from the car from the constant friction of the belt.
“Fuckin’ crazy,” he mumbled.
“What is?”
Jimmy rolled his cart toward the door, not full, but still, a fair amount of medical supplies rattled inside.
“Those things. I’ve been watching this dumb dude across the street trying to get out of a car.”
Jimmy set the cart aside and squinted into the distance. “How the hell are your eyes so good?”
Edgar shrugged. “How are yours so goddamn bad.”
“You saw my glasses got smashed, right, asshole?”
Edgar smirked. Jimmy paused a moment, staring into the distance, and then huffed.
“Fuck it. Gonna grab some pairs from the pharmacy, I think there may be a couple left.” He whirled around and made his way from the front entrance, “be back in a minute.”
“Make sure they look good, some nice bifocals, maybe,” Edgar said.
He turned to see Jimmy walking into the darkness, his arms raised above his head, his middle finger higher. His friend vanished into an aisle. Edgar turned back to the entrance and continued to watch the ghoul. It snapped back again, the back of its head smashing into the door frame in what seemed like a black mist. It slumped behind the door for a moment. There was no movement and Edgar wondered if it had finally bashed its own brain in.
A moment later, a familiar figure rose up from behind the door, wriggling, and thrashing. After some struggle it finally untangled itself from the seatbelt, taking strained, wobbling steps from the car door.
“There you go,” Edgar muttered.
The ghoul hit the curb of the gas mart and smashed into a wall, scrunching up like a sack of rotten meat and sliding down the surface.
“Hey, are you Edgar?” asked a whispered voice.
He glanced to his side at a teenage girl, her brown hair was a tangled mess. She looked at him and shrugged. She made her way to one of the shopping carts in the corral and started to pull it loose from the others.
“Dani said you can help carry my mom to the car.”
The Dead Life is a Haunted MTL original fiction series.
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.