HMTL Original Series: The Dead Life – #9
Day 16
Dani stepped toward the gate, gun drawn and peered through a gap in the metal. There was some motion from something but it wasn’t quite clear how many somethings it was. She took a step back, looked over the gate, and turned her attention to Jimmy and Edgar, both looking slightly panicked. They certainly weren’t lying about being followed, that was clear.
“Guys, get in the car,” Dani said.
The three darted over to the Cadillac. Dani throwing herself behind Edgar, the driver. The car smelled heavily of weed.
“Gotcha,” Edgar said. He turned the ignition. She winced at how loud the Cadillac was.
Dani tapped on the back of Edgar’s seat and pointed behind them. “You need to come along the side here. We can’t let these things see us through the fence.”
The Cadillac reversed and made a three-point turn down the outermost alley of the Family Storage. In moments they approached the office and saw that Bob had laid a ladder against the unit. He waved them over.
The trio stepped out of the car. Bob pulled a wrinkled finger to his lips and Edgar cut the ignition.
“Dani,” Bob gestured with a thumb over his shoulder, “take a look. Just don’t step into the open.”
Dani made her way toward the door of the office that opened into the storage unit and peeked around the corner. She could see several of the undead who were now reaching through the fencing.
“How many?” Jimmy asked.
Bob leaned against the concrete frame of one of the units. “Sandy counted twelve. Got her watching upstairs.”
Dani approached the ladder and looked it over. “What is the plan, Bob?”
“Well, we can get a couple of us up on that roof to make some noise and be in view of those things.”
Dani nodded, “we can then pull them around the corner.”
Edgar chimed in, “that’d pull them off that front gate. These things are really fucking dumb, we can just send them walking.”
“Since I need her here with me to coordinate, you two guys, I want you up on that roof.”
Jimmy took a step back. “Why us?”
Dani crossed her arms. “Because you brought them here.”
“Fair enough,” Jimmy replied.
Bob and Dani held the ladder steady for Jimmy and Edgar. Once the pair were on the roof, Bob gave them a thumbs up. The two men began to shout and wave their arms on the roof of the row of units. Dani edged toward the fence and watched as a pair of ghouls took notice and moved toward the noise.
“This is fucked, man” Jimmy whined. He had a bad feeling about this whole thing. There weren’t supposed to be people here.
“Just do it, we’ll get our shit later and we’ll go,” Edgar said, flapping his arms.
“Dude, they have this place locked down, what if they found it?”
“It’s my unit, they can’t take my stuff. That’s against the law.”
Edgar continued shouting and stomping, pulling the undead along the side of the facility, his arms flapping awkwardly all the while. Jimmy did the same. He felt ridiculous.
“I don’t think those rules apply anymore” Jimmy muttered to nobody in particular.
Bob looked up toward the kitchen window and saw the whiteboard. Sandy has scrawled a large number three. He could work with that. The guys up top looked like idiots, but they were smart enough to duck away from the ledge so that ghouls lost track of them when they reached the corner of the property. The crisis had been averted. Well, one crisis. They were still trespassing. He had some questions for them.
“Danielle, help me move this ladder,” he asked.
“Why?”
“We don’t know what these guys want. We can keep them up there until we are sure they’re not here to fuck around with our safety.”
Dani grabbed one side of the ladder. She looked at her old friend. “You think this has to do with the drugs we found.”
Bob glanced at her and said nothing. He simply grabbed the other side of the ladder, pulling it from the unit.
Thank you for reading the ninth installment of the Haunted MTL original series, The Dead Life. Please share your thoughts about the story with us.
So here is our last installment of our AI journey exploring the idea of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad wolf being one and the same. All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva. Feel free to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this exploration if you missed them.
A non sequitur I know, but I couldn’t resist. If you picked up where we left off you’ll get it.
Seriously?! Again with the cropped off head cop out…
Finally! That was a journey. And not even worth the result, in my opinion.
Anyway, here is a bonus montage I made out of a bunch of additional Red Riding Hood prompts for an article that never happened…
Prompts for Montage:
1.) What if Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf were one and the same being?
2.) Her wolf face peering out of her red cloak, fangs dripping with the blood of another victim, lost in the forest and never found.
3.) Little Red Riding Hood closes in for the kill, lunging from her red cloak, her wolf fangs dripping with blood.
4.) I am Little Red Riding Hood. I am the Big Bad Wolf. I am coming for you.
5.) Howling within, the rage sears forth from the red cloak, discarded in the deep woods. Red Riding Hood succumbs to the lycanthropy.
6.) Heaving breaths. Dripping blood. Red Riding Hood is not what she appears. She is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
7.) Her red cloak masks the fangs hidden below the surface.
8.) It starts with a long sighing breath. Waiting. The wolf within stirs.
9.) Red Riding Hood trembles. She succumbs to the lycanthropy.
10.) The wolf bursts forth from within. It takes over Little Red Riding Hood’s mind, her body, her being.
11.) Red Riding Hood howls. She is ravenous with hunger for blood. The wolf within has taken over. Mind, spirit, body. She feasts on the blood of the moon.
12.) Big Bad Wolf Red Riding Hood ravenous blood moon feast
13.) Blood moon beckons. I. Little Red Big Bad Riding Hood Wolf. Freedom howling night curse.
14.) Beware. Bewolf. BeRedRidingHood. Betwixt. Beyond.
15.) I pad quietly as the forest dissolves around me. Red Riding Hood and Wolf, one and the same.
16.) Wolf within howling dark recesses of the mind, Red Riding Hood lost
17.) Red Riding Hood HOWL wolf bane true existence polymorph within-and-without.
18.) Red howl Riding Wolf dark existence brooding within
So thank you for joining us on another AI art journey. You can still catch the last AI art journey on Haunted MTL here. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
Continuing our AI journey from last time exploring Little Red Riding Hood herself as the Big Bad Wolf… All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
How very… Phantom of the Opera predatory… this is definitely not what I had in mind. Maybe something more cutesy?
Ugh. Maybe not.
Wow, that seems like such a cop out, cropping off the head so you don’t have to depict it. And I don’t want to lose the Little Red Riding Hood reference completely.
So no surprise there, I knew that was too many references to work.
And we continued to devolve, join us again next week for the final installment to see how this ended… And again, if you want to catch the last AI art journey, you can find it on Haunted MTL here. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
And as promised in Big Bad Poetry, we shall embark on our next AI journey, this time looking at Little Red Riding Hood. I had wanted to depict her as the Big Bad Wolf one and the same, although maybe not so big nor bad. But it just wasn’t happening quite as planned. All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
So I actually like this even better than my original vision, it is playful and even a bit serene (especially given the Sinister style). The wolf is just being a wolf. It’s quite lovely, really. But it wasn’t what I had in mind, so I revisited the idea later to see if I could get that result…
Well, that’s not quite right…
Yeah more of the same…
And as you can see this is starting to devolve quickly. Join us again next week to see how this continued to develop… And if you want to catch the last AI art journey, you can find it on Haunted MTL here. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
