Dealing with the Devil: October Series by Jennifer Weigel, Part 1
Here I am, kicking off a new series for October 2022 in celebration of fall. Last year, you were invited to join us for Total Monster Makeover. This year brings yet another adventure, this time hosted by none other than the Devil himself… Enjoy this short story and additions over the course of the month.
It was an uneventful autumnal Thursday. I was raking for the third time that season to clear the tendrils of brittle plant detritus that kept sidling over from my neighbor’s knee-deep leaf pile of a yard. A gaunt silhouette of a bearded man wandered by, walking a dapper white Westmoreland Terrier. The dog circled three times and pooped before proceeding to bury the evidence by flinging yet more leaves onto the steaming pile with rapid sweeping motions of his hind feet in a grandiose orchestrated dance. As the dog-walker bent over to scoop up his spoils, the dog stared at me intently and winked, amber eyes gleaming from behind his furry facade. It was not a friendly kind of a wink, mind you – more one of those somewhat sinister I-know-something-you-don’t winks. Then the dog opened its mouth and addressed me.
“My dear Jonathan Menkhir, it is a pleasure if I dare say so myself.”
Taken aback, I stared at the dog. The gaunt man stood unmoving like a statue, caught perpetually in his hunched position firmly gripping his unappealing prize, eyes staring unblinkingly ahead. The dog cocked its head to the left quizzically and spoke again.
“Surely you heard me, fellow Jonathan. What, have you never seen a talking dog before?” The Westie’s yellow teeth flashed an unnervingly wide toothy grin.
“You… you can talk…” I muttered, letting loose my grip on the rake handle. The rake fell to my side releasing a spurt of leaves upon its pillowed landing.
“Why yes, my dear lad, and so much more…” The dog’s eyes twinkled. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Beelzebub Lord of the Flies, Abaddon the Destroyer, Lucifer the Shining One…”
I just stood there, motionless and unresponsive, soaking up my circumstances. I can’t believe I’m talking to a dog, I thought. The words the dog spoke fell haphazardly along the wayside of my mind because they were meaningless in comparison to the messenger, at least in that moment, and they didn’t fit my image of how the devil would appear.
“You would probably best know me as Satan.” The dog sat pointedly and smiled, eyes still fixated on me. He had a proper air about him and seemed almost noble but in a forced snake oil salesman kind of way. At least, insomuch as a Westmoreland Terrier could seem both gentlemanly and conniving.
I finally found my voice buried deep within my throat and coughed up a response. “Oh, OK, I guess. So what brings you to these parts, um, Satan?” It wasn’t the best-articulated thought, but given that I had suddenly found myself talking to a somewhat prim and proper small purebred dog claiming to be the devil, that wasn’t surprising.
The dog stood and wagged its tail. “I wanted to make you an offer, my dear Jonathan. ”
“I am not interested in bargaining with the likes of yourself, Satan,” I retorted, surprised by how clearly the words fell from my lips and how quickly I seemed to adjust to the fact that I was talking to the devil as a small white dog as if it were nothing extraordinary and this was just another mundane Thursday afternoon. I guess I was better rehearsed in this comeback than I’d expected, having neglected the faith in my adult years after leaving many of my childhood fears behind.
“Come now, I know your heart’s desire, and that would be to see your dear Chloe again.” The devil dog wagged his tail again. “I can make that happen, you know.”
Chloe, my mind flooded back to the love of my life, my high school sweetheart, my college pen pal, my beautiful bride who had died nearly two years ago due to complications with the pregnancy. We had met through theater, having played opposite one another in Fiddler and becoming inseparable after. We had only been married for a little over a year after finishing college and moving into this house together when she had become pregnant with our first child, a little girl we had planned to name Abilene. It should have been the happiest time of my life, but it had been ripped from me prematurely. There wasn’t a day that passed without my thoughts returning to my beloved Chloe, I missed her with all my heart and soul.
Seemingly reading my thoughts as they overflowed my eyelids and trickled down my face, the dog grinned again. “Why yes, dear Jonathan, you can be with your beloved Chloe again.” His tail wagged even more feverishly.
Shaking my head, I spoke. “No. That you cannot do. Do not tempt me with your lies.”
“My reputation is unearned, my dear fellow. I mean you no ill intent.” The devil dog cocked its head to the left again. “If you wish to see your dear Chloe again, all you need do is come with me.”
“What, to Hell?” I asked, offended at the mere implication that my precious Chloe was doomed to such a dreadful place. “What do you take me for?”
“Not to Hell, my dear Jonathan, to Purgatory,” the dog stated matter-of-factly. “It hasn’t been that long since her passing and the decision is still being weighed, as one might expect. We request your… input… on some matters.”
You’ve almost made it to the end of the finger spiders here at Haunted MTL! Because I made A LOT of unfulfilled requests for a spider out of fingers, I will continue this snarky little AI art series with NightCafe and Canva through the month of September… In case you missed out, here are the other parts of this series:
Images: Overall design aesthetic of fashion / design advertising spread in muted tones with four AI art rendered images of spiders, built spiders, and spiders on hands, with any given number of legs on spiders and fingers on hands as you’d expect from AI interfacing at this time. Prompts used from top left to lower right include: hand that is a spider; spider legs as fingers; fingers becoming spider; spider all fingers.
Text reads: Creepy Crawlies Finger Spiders Keep Trying! Yeah, I’m sure you don’t remember being bitten. Because of the ways they warp time and space, and the natural chemical reactions involved, the AI art generated finger spiders’ bite isn’t typically felt. They are still attached to you, feeding… You have to get them off… Keep trying!
Images: Overall design aesthetic of fashion / design advertising spread in muted tones with four AI art rendered images of spiders, built spiders, and spiders on hands, with any given number of legs on spiders and fingers on hands as you’d expect from AI interfacing at this time. Prompts used from top left to lower right include: spider leg fingers; spider made out of hand fingers; hand spider picking banjo; fingers as spider playing banjo.
Text reads: Creepy Crawlies Finger Spiders That’s All Folks! Well, I guess that’s that then. It’s been nice knowing you. Enjoy your new form. Nothing left for it but to play the banjo…
All of the AI art images used in this series were generated on Thursday, June 13, 2024. If you want to see more freaky spiderness in art here on Haunted MTL, check out Bitten and Soul Catcher. More AI art graphic narratives from Jennifer Weigel have explored Little Red Riding Hood and Into the Deep Woods. Oh, and the Tiny Brain Computers exploration. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
We just can’t get enough of spiders here on Nightmarish Nature… so here are some more creepy spider facts for you to consider, outside of the giants, eating and mating habits, and wasp predation as previously mentioned in this series. Plus the finger spiders have taken over the whole of the month of September, so strap in because they’re here too – no goofy drawings this month just more terror unleashed in the form of AI art, courtesy of NightCafe.
Spiders Are Baby Mama Machines!
Spiders can lay hundreds and thousands of eggs in their egg sacs at a time. And when they hatch, all those tiny baby spiders can balloon, flying to new homes on airborne strands of silk as if raining from the sky… So if you suffer from trypophobia and are weirded out by large quantities of clustered small and tiny objects (especially when they are alive and moving) you may want to steer clear of these little bug bombs.
Spiders Are Athletic Archdukes!
Jumping spiders can leap as far as 40 times their body length. And wolf spiders can run up to 2 feet per second. In movement, spiders have four feet on the ground and four in the air at all times. And they have six knees on each leg for a total of 48 knees – that’s a lot of potential kneecapping, I’d try to take them down a different way if I were you…
Other Interesting Factoids
Spiders are on every continent except Antarctica and there are over 40,000 identified species of them. All spiders produce silk for all that they don’t all make webs, since some prefer to live on the move or ambush from hidey holes. There is a known species of herbivorous spider, the Bagheera Kiplingi, but most are carnivorous or omnivorous. And the longest lived spiders can survive for 40+ years.
If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:
Wow, you’re still with us… So, taking it from Part 1 and Part 2 of this saga, we’re still knuckle deep in finger spiders here at Haunted MTL! Because I made A LOT of unfulfilled requests for a spider out of fingers, I will continue this snarky little AI art series with NightCafe and Canva through the month of September…
Images: Overall design aesthetic of fashion / design advertising spread in muted tones with four AI art rendered images of spiders, built spiders, and spiders on hands, with any given number of legs on spiders and fingers on hands as you’d expect from AI interfacing at this time. Prompts used from top left to lower right include: fingers spider; fingers as spider; fingers as spider legs no hand; spider out of fingers.
Text reads: Creepy Crawlies Finger Spiders What You Get! This is all on you… You let the terrifying AI art generated finger spiders in the house and then let them crawl on you. When you turn into a spider, that’s all your own doing. Leave me out of it.
Images: Overall design aesthetic of fashion / design advertising spread in muted tones with four AI art rendered images of spiders, built spiders, and spiders on hands, with any given number of legs on spiders and fingers on hands as you’d expect from AI interfacing at this time. Prompts used from top left to lower right include: spider hand; fingers as spider legs; spider hand fingers; spider as fingers.
Text reads: Creepy Crawlies Finger Spiders Look I’m Sorry! I wish I could help. I really really do. Keep scrubbing at it even if your flesh falls off. It’s really your only hope now. You’ve been bitten and there’s not much to do for it now.
All of the AI art images used in this series were generated on Thursday, June 13, 2024. If you want to see more freaky spiderness in art here on Haunted MTL, check out Bitten and Soul Catcher. More AI art graphic narratives from Jennifer Weigel have explored Little Red Riding Hood and Into the Deep Woods. Oh, and the Tiny Brain Computers exploration. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
