HMTL Original Series: The Dead Life – #1
Day 14
Danielle Kim sat quietly against the wall, staring at the bloody remains of her neighbors. It had been two days since the broadcasts online had stopped. Yesterday, radio broadcasts about safe zones began to vanish throughout the day. Any broadcasts since were intermittent and only conveyed fears, prayers, and screams for help.
She hadn’t bothered listening to the radio today. At the time she was too preoccupied with the sounds of struggle in the apartment next to her. She didn’t really know her neighbors that well. Now she found herself staring at the blood that pooled around the corpse of… was it Julie? It might as well have been Julie, now. Danielle had spoken to her a handful of times in the five years that they were neighbors. Most of those conversations came after the apocalypse.
After the sounds of screaming and heavy thumps against the wall had suddenly cut out, Danielle left her quarantined apartment. She had stepped onto the walkway and saw the stone steps that lead up to the second floor were still demolished, and that no ghouls had managed to make it up.
The second floor only consisted of two apartments, built above the two apartments below. In a panic a week earlier, after a horde of ghouls caught the woman who lived below her. Julie’s boyfriend, Danielle didn’t really know his name, had smashed the stairs with a large hammer. Julie and Danielle had done their best to fight off the ghouls who attempted to climb up at the time.
It was far too late for the neighbor below. Between the heavy thuds of the massive hammer striking the stone steps were the bloody, gargling cries of her dying moments. Julie had attempted to climb down, to help, but Danielle held her back. Since then, the three of them had locked themselves away, hiding from the ghouls and hearing the periodic scream until the screams stopped coming.
Danielle turned her attention from the demolished stairs to the other apartment and saw that the door was open. She had knocked lightly but heard nothing from inside. She had decided then to step inside.
Julie was already dead. Her boyfriend was on his knees, his face buried into her face. Sitting here now, Danielle didn’t remember making a noise, but she recalled the boyfriend looking up at the time, his eyes pale and unblinking. Between his teeth was a chunk of Julie’s cheek.
He had turned. When had that happened? When did he get sick?
It was hard for Danielle to remember now, but she must have stumbled back to her apartment and grabbed something to defend herself. In the present, Danielle looked around the living room and saw the volleyball trophy she had grabbed, tossed away. The marble corner was caked in hair, blood, and brain matter. She turned back to see her handiwork. Next to Julie’s body was the boyfriend; his skull caved in and his arm thrown over Julie. A parody of a sleeping couple.
Danielle began to sob. Everything had fallen apart. She felt like a fool for not having fled somewhere, anywhere, sooner. He was making arrangements, he said. It was his idea to stay isolated and to get out together “at the right time.” She foolishly followed his idea. Idiot.
The sobbing continued until Julie began to stir. Danielle watched the fingers of the dead woman begin to curl and drag across the carpet. The first stirrings of something horrid being born.
The internet was right. Danielle hadn’t wanted to believe it. The dead were returning to life and attacking the living, forced to wander around in an undead daze.
She rose to her feet and made her way to the trophy. She wouldn’t let that fate befall Julie.
Danielle plunged the corner of the trophy into the temple of Julie’s skull. Soon the rasping moans fell silent, and again, the trophy was discarded across the room.
It was time to leave the apartment complex.
Thank you for reading the first installment of the Haunted MTL original series, The Dead Life. Please share your thoughts about the story with us.
I don’t really know when or how I got to this shindig, but it’s been the most awesome party ever. Last thing I recall, I swerved to avoid hitting a deer on the highway, but now here I am. And I’m running into people I haven’t seen in forever, including my best friend from junior high school, David… We’d fallen out of touch ever since my family moved halfway across the country from Providence, Rhode Island. Hell, I heard he was really sick, like REALLY sick – cancer or somesuch, but he looks incredible. Glowing. So I guess the rumors were wrong.
David’s a real hottie now, with his brooding dark eyes and brown hair that sort of swoops over his right eye. And he’s really into me, it’s written all over his face. Plus, we’re blissfully chill together. It’s not like we have to say much of anything, especially with my favorite band playing on the radio, Talking Heads piped into all of the rooms in unison. When we first ran into each other, we were both joyfully surprised, and the awestruck silence never really wore off as we continue to drink one another and the party itself in. Everything here is just so dreamy, it’s unreal.
Just like heaven.
There’s a little kitchen with an island and we’re toasting champagne and cutting up this huge sheet cake that’s part white, part, chocolate, part yellow. I even got a corner piece of the white cake covered in icing roses, and all pink so they won’t stain my tongue weird colors! In fact, there’s no blue or black icing at all. The message on the cake is a little weird, just a reminder You Are Loved, but it brings all the warm fuzzies all the same. It’s almost too pretty to eat, but damn is it some good cake – perfectly spongy and not to dry. It’s all just so sweet.
Truly heaven-ly.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” David asks.
“Yes. Everything is so perfect, I never want to leave,” I reply. “This is the best, most exciting party ever.”
“You don’t have to go anywhere,” he replies. “We can just hang out here and have fun forever.”
We wander back out into the front room with our cake and champagne, which never seem to be depleted. I have a nice buzz from the fizzy alcohol, but am not feeling especially tipsy or out of it. Just warm – I can feel it rising to my cheeks. We adjourn to the sofa, which has been left vacant as if waiting specifically for us.
Heaven sent.
The house itself reminds me a lot of my childhood home. Same avocado 1970s décor. Same wood paneling. Same orange and brown stripey floral motif sofa, though this one isn’t near as scratchy as I remember that fabric being back in the day. And the cushions have just the right amount of fluff – you don’t sink too far as you sit on them. It’s all just so warm and inviting and strikes all of the nostalgia chords in my heart for simpler times, when David and I would just hang out.
He smiles as he wraps his arm around me. Feeling safe, I lean my head on his shoulder as we watch the sun set over the far horizon from the bay window in the living room. The scene is a spectacular picturesque pink and purple show streaked with light and just the right number of wispy clouds to draw out the colors as the fading sunlight shimmers behind the silhouetted evergreen trees. It would make a wonderful painting. Absolutely breathtaking.
Straight out of heaven.
I glance over from the sunset to meet David’s gaze. My eyes lose themselves in his, falling into a soft focus. He is just so dreamy. His skin is clearer than I remember. And his brown hair is still so perfectly flipped over his right eye in a cute coy way that doesn’t seem at all out of place. I admit I had a crush on him in junior high, but it was nothing like this. This is that fantasy on steroids. Beyond my wildest dreams. We lean towards one another and he whispers in my ear.
“May I kiss you?” he asks sweetly, the scent of champagne and cake wafting from his warm and inviting lips.
“Please do,” I sigh.
Our lips meet, slowly at first. Tenderly. The trepidation soon dissolves and the kiss becomes more intense, harder and then wet and sloppy, tongues exploring one another in the dark recesses of our joined mouths. I close my eyes and succumb to the moment…
I seem to have arrived at a really happening house party. And there are people here I haven’t seen for years, including my best friend from junior high, David! We’d fallen out of touch since the move and I heard he had cancer or the like, but I guess the rumors were wrong…
Here’s the song Heaven by The Talking Heads that inspired this creepy little story. If for some reason the YouTube doesn’t load in window, follow the link here.
And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
Happy holidays! Where has this year gone??? Santa and I can’t believe it’s Christmas already, but I did manage to make you all a card again… Gotta keep with tradition or something. (Santa says I’m not thinking big enough…)
And to everyone celebrating other holidays and the solstice, may you have a blessed and wonderful season as well, I’m sorry I don’t do cards for that but I tend come from what I know, which appears to be inappropriate Christmas kitsch. Just like you’ve come to expect from me, I’m sure. Since that seems to make the rounds of all the holidays. 😉
Card reads Happy Holidays jingle bell jingle bell jingle bell rock!!! From You-Can-Jingle-My-Bell Santa and Jennifer Weigel here at HauntedMTL.
Image features a vintage doll (probably Merlin or Gandalf or the like) now dressed as Santa in a handmade Victorian style cloak with matching hat. He is holding his coat open to flash the viewer with a jingle bell ribbon hanging intentionally at his crotch.
This Santa was from a series of altered dolls I did back in the day, exploring different less appropriate takes on Jolly Old St. Nick.
As gifts, I present the other three…
Happy holidays and have a wonderful winter!
If you want to check out more of my altered dolls, I have posted several to Haunted MTL here:
So, now that it’s getting cold, here on Nightmarish Nature we’re going to talk about a different kind of terror – the starvation diet. It’s winter, and food is becoming ever scarcer, so many creatures will slow down to conserve energy. Let’s take this a step further to the sleep of the damned… But I’m not talking hibernation, or settling in for a sort of long winter nap version of seasonal affective disorder on steroids. No, I’m talking hummingbirds.
Sugar Rush
Hummingbirds are about the polar opposite of what you’d think of when you talk about inactivity. They’re more the picture-perfect speed demons. And yet, due to their crazy high metabolisms and constant need to refuel by consuming all the nectar and insects they can get their little beaks in or on, they have near death experiences on a regular basis. Even during the summer at night whenever the temperature falls too low. It’s like all their systems have to go offline for a bit just so they can survive.
Energy Suck
Essentially a hummingbird burns so much energy that he can die in less than eight hours of not eating. The little sugar daddy needs another fix just to keep going. This lifestyle is a far cry from the Energizer bunny. Essentially he has to enter a torpor state in sleep so he doesn’t succumb to his own starvation diet. Not every time, but when the temperature drops or food is scarce.
A hummingbird in torpor may, by all accounts, appear dead. He can be frozen in place, his tiny feet clasped rigidly around a branch as if rigor mortis has sunk in. He can be cold to the touch and unresponsive. He can face upwards, unmoving, breathing and heart rate slowed to near indiscernibility. He can even be hanging upside down, oblivious to the world. In fact, the hummer’s heart rate can reduce to almost one tenth of his waking state, and his temperature can drop by ~5o degrees Fahrenheit (~ 30 degrees Celsius).
Miracle Mavericks
Honestly, as shown in this article on Journey North, this ability to exercise such fine control over metabolic rate on a nightly cycle makes the hummingbirds more marvelous than terrifying, switching between cold- and warm-blooded. And they are very well-adapted to their eating regimens, especially given their diminutive size. But such is the cost of burning so much energy to keep going without much room to store fuel. Like I said, a strict starvation diet.
If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:
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spiritsails
September 5, 2019 at 5:45 am
Heck yeah! Looking forward to more. 😀
Deft Beck
September 6, 2019 at 1:01 am
Quite a good start, eager for more.