HMTL Original Series: The Dead Life – #12
Day 17
Lunch consisted of a single chunk of canned meat split five ways, a box of crumbled crackers, and some tea that was brewed outside by Sandy. This was the most any of them had eaten in what seemed like days.
They sat in silence for a while, in the “conference” room. It wasn’t anything else beyond an office with a large table just behind the front counter of the storage office. Once upon a time, it had served as a meeting place for the employees, back when Dani’s parents were still in California. Since then it had become a storage room, and since the arrival of Jimmy and Edgar, it had become a dining room, of sorts. The irony was not lost on Dani. The room took on new life after the death of the world.
Sandy broke the silence. “Does anyone want another glass?”
Edgar looked up from his crumbs. He had wet his thumb to pick up the stray remains of crackers. He held out his glass. “Please,” he asked.
Sandy took his paper cup and filled it with the last of the tea. “I have a couple more brewing. The last of my mix.”
Edgar took the small cup and took a large gulp from it. Jimmy sipped at his tea, contemplating.
Bob wasn’t at the table, instead, he was near the door, carefully looking over the makeshift repairs of the glass door. Only one of the doors had shattered, but that was still a large hole to fill and a couple of bookshelves laden with heavy boxes of books had done a lot to reinforce the cardboard and plywood. In truth, it was mostly cardboard and it made Bob nervous. The RV in front of the entrance was an extra layer of protection, but what he needed, he said, was plywood, maybe more shelves, and boxes too.
Danielle sat at the table, finishing up the last bite of cold meat. She stared at her now empty plate, still hungry, still miserable. Had it been worth it to stick around? There was safety here, sure, but it was all relative, and safety seemed like a misplaced luxury when the hunger pangs started. They needed food.
She coughed. “I think we need to go on a supply run.”
Bob turned his gaze toward her and nodded. He rose up from his seat near the door and took a seat at the table. “I think you’re right. We should do it today. We still got light out there” he added.
Jimmy nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Let me help. Saw a couple of stores nearby. We can hit them all.”
Dani shook her head. “It’s too risky to hit multiple places right now. We’re in no big hurry. We need to get the most out of one place and then regroup.”
“What do you think,” Bob asked.
Dani wiped at her forehead with the heel of her palm, a habit she’d inherited from her dad. There were a number of options all within a couple of blocks. There was a Market Bros. just down Acacia, and down Lyon there was a drug store, one of the huge chains that had a little bit of everything.
Dani looked over at Sandy. The older woman seemed lost in thought.
“How are we for medication,” Dani asked.
Sandy peered around for a moment and shook her head slightly, aware enough to answer the question. “We don’t have a whole lot. We only had a basic first aid kit here and even that was mostly empty. Other than that Bob and I have our prescriptions and personal medications, I assume.”
Edgar lit a blunt. “Don’t forget about all that dope you got from us.”
“I don’t do that garbage,” Sandy sneered.
Edgar shrugged. “Your loss, Mama.”
Sandy glared at Edgar, who was near twice her size and weight. Jimmy punched Edgar on his arm, making him drop his blunt.
“… Hijo de puta,” he muttered as he picked up his blunt from his lap.
“Respect, Edgar. We’re guests.”
Edgar picked up his joint from the table and took a big drag as he stood up and bowed his head in Sandy’s direction. “My apologies.” He slumped back into the chair.
Dani grabbed a legal pad that sat at the center of the table and began scrawling some notes. She thought out loud as she wrote. “I think Jimmy, Edgar, and me -”
“I,” Jimmy corrected.
Dani cast a furtive glance at the tall redhead and grunted. She continued, “Anyway, we can hit the Wellman’s about a block down. Provided the place hasn’t been cleaned out we should be able to get food and medication there.”
Sandy glanced at the trio. She then gave Dani a pointed gaze, a warning gaze. “Are you sure, Danielle?”
Dani didn’t have time for Sandy’s paranoia. “I’m sure. We’d better get going now.”
She rose to her feet, and Jimmy stood up nearly as quickly. Edgar rolled his eyes, took a huge drag off his blunt, and begrudgingly rose out of his chair. Dani handed Bob the legal pad as she passed by his side of the table. He placed his hand on her hand as he grabbed the pad. It was a reassuring gesture and Dani gave Bob’s hand a squeeze.
“What’s this, kid?”
“Some rough plans. You’ll keep watch?”
“We’ll keep watch,” Bob nodded.
Sandy looked miserable at the idea of leaving the relative safety of the building. Regardless, she trudged out the door after everyone else.
The side gate’s rattle as Bob dragged it open was like a thunderstorm. Everything was so quiet now that the rattle of the gate probably carried a significant distance. Ghouls would be attracted to the sound, he figured.
Gate open, Bob stepped aside as the Cadillac drove through. Dani sat in the back seat and gave Bob a short wave. He was glad he’d had her tuck another gun into her jacket. He wasn’t suspicious of the two men, but he also knew better than to be unarmed in any situation. He’d learned that much in ‘Nam.
The Cadillac drove into the street and made a left. They were on their own now.
Bob slid the gate shut and took a length of chain and a padlock to it. Content with the security measures, he stepped into the nearest unit on the lot and took a seat in one of the salvaged lawn-chairs. Sandy sat impatiently in the golf cart, stewing.
Bob placed the legal pad on the TV-tray next to his chair. He looked it over and noticed there were a lot of notes in tiny, cramped handwriting. He’d expected Danielle’s writing to be tidy. Why he expected that he didn’t know. He’d just assumed, maybe because she was Korean, he thought. The notes seemed scattered, but he saw where she was heading with them. There were some good ideas. He’d need to talk them over when she got back. Maybe over some beers. He should have asked her to grab him a six-pack if she could.
He leaned back in the chair and stared out of the unit and down toward the other end of the property. He was already feeling tired but didn’t want to risk sleeping and being caught off guard.
After a few minutes of silence, he asked “What do you think these things are, Sandy?”
Sandy glanced and shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe some kind of mutant or something?”
“Like those old sci-fi movies?”
Sandy stared at the gate. “I guess. I don’t know. I generally don’t believe in that stuff but God works in mysterious ways.”
Bob leaned forward in his chair. Now this was interesting. “Y’all still believe in God after all this?”
Sandy smiled, albeit faintly. “Of course I do. God is why I have survived,” she replied.
Bob scratched his chin with a chipped thumbnail. He hadn’t really considered the existence of God much, at least since his late-twenties which were spent knee-deep in rice paddies and being shot at by the Vietnamese. Sandy was maybe thirty years younger than him and hadn’t had the pleasure of such experiences. Her position made a bit more sense, taking that into account.
“Y’know, it’s probably some sort of chemical thing,” he suggested. “Lotta weird stuff tested by the government over the years. Probably some experiment gone wrong. Bringing back the dead like that.”
Sandy shook her head. “They’re not dead.”
“Excuse me?”
Sandy dusted the top of the steering wheel of the cart with her palm. “The only way the dead could rise is at God’s hand, and I don’t see God in any of this.”
Bob rolled his eyes. Of course she was a zealot. Fuck.
Sandy stepped out of the cart and began to pace a bit. She didn’t seem to enjoy being idle here in the open. She was on the wrong end of 50, now and her curled hair had gone unmanaged for weeks. She still carried a little bit of that middle-aged spread. She was noticeably beginning to shrink in other places, though.
Though perhaps she had always been small and he’d failed to notice.
Bob leaned back in his chair. “These things, they remind me of a movie I saw when I was on leave back in the war. Might have been ‘68? I was home for a bit and I had no girlfriend, no real family besides a drunk-ass daddy and I had money to burn.”
Sandy stopped pacing.
“Anyway, so I could have done something really damn stupid with that GI money but I just decided to go to the movies, right? I was back in New York and there was a theater that ran a few movies together for one price. You go there and spend hours watching shit and eating popcorn. Good times.”
“What was the movie,” she asked.
“I don’t remember the name, but it was something with Vincent Price as the last man in a world surrounded by these vampire freaks. They were smarter than these dead shits we are dealing with, but I definitely see some similarities now that I think about it.”
“How did the movie end?”
“Vincent Price died. I guess that’s the only ending that would make sense.”
Sandy took a seat back in the golf cart. She leaned over the steering wheel. “No more happy endings,” she muttered.
Thank you for reading the twelfth installment of the Haunted MTL original series, The Dead Life. Please share your thoughts about the story with us.
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.