HMTL Original Series: The Dead Life – #18
Day 17
By the time Dani’s cart had clattered onto the asphalt her forearms were aching from having avoided the cart spilling down the grass and dirt embankment. She rolled the cart forward and bit and pried her hands from the handle. A rush of blood began to circulate in her now slack arms and she nearly yelped from the sudden pain.
“Damn it.”
Edgar was idling nearby, having turned the car around. He rolled down the driver’s side window and leaned out. “You two start going. We’ll ride behind you and give you some cover.”
Dani glanced at Jimmy. He had already begun to push the cart down the street, which rattled terribly. The siren was long gone, so the loudest things around were the shopping carts and the Cadillac.
Dani grimaced and pushed her cart forward, with enough speed to catch up to Jimmy. He began to pick up the pace, not quite a jog, but close enough. Dani picked up her pace too. Edgar pulled the car out of park and it began to roll forward, slowly.
Dani glanced behind her, just past the Cadillac, towards Esplanade. Sure enough, dozens of ghouls had begun to converge on their position, their hellish moans carrying on rotting, stinking wind. She nearly gagged at the smell.
They had cleared about half of the block when the ghouls had caught up to the Cadillac. The car bought Edgar and the women protection, but greasy, shredded fingertips would slap and break on contact with the body.
Dani and Jimmy were pushing as quickly as they could, but the ghouls were surprisingly fast now, as though the stimulation whipped them into a frenzy.
Edgar glanced into the rearview mirror, past the exhausted Mary and her daughter out to the street behind him. The bulk of the ghouls were far enough behind it wouldn’t be a problem. The ghouls that had cut across the parking lot, however, had managed to stumble onto a shortcut. By Edgar’s count, he had about four ghouls right on top of his car. They couldn’t get in, and the windows were rolled up. They were fine – but until he could lose them he didn’t want to risk them coming close to the shopping carts.
Edgar dug around with a free hand at the back of his pants and drew the Glock he had hidden on him. He hadn’t separated from it since he and Jimmy had joined the group at the storage yard. He wouldn’t give up his gun for anything.
He placed the Glock on the passenger seat and glanced back. The girl – Alicia, was it? – she hadn’t noticed, warily eying the rear passenger window. She flinched when an oozing palm slapped at the glass.
He would need to pick them off, somehow, but he couldn’t drive and shoot. He looked through the rearview mirror and watched two of the ghouls fall to the ground. Now there were three.
He laughed a bit and turned his attention back to Dani and Jimmy ahead of him. Out of impulse, he scanned the area, a habit from driving back when the world had traffic.
Dani and Jimmy had passed an access road. A narrow lane between a building and a mobile home park with cracked asphalt full of potholes. Edgar glanced down the lane and saw a pair of ghouls stumble out – Dani and Jimmy hadn’t seen them. The ghouls took lurching steps toward the Cadillac.
“God damn it,” Edgar muttered.
The Dead Life is a Haunted MTL original fiction series.
I wrote this script for Beyond the Veil awhile back, exploring the bond between two twin sisters, Edith and Edna, who had lived their lives together. There was a terrible car crash and someone didn’t make it. The other is trying to contact them beyond the veil…
Beyond the Veil Setting:
Two women reach out to one another individually in a séance setting.
One sits on one side of a dining table. The other sits at the other side. Each studies a candle just beyond her reach; there is darkness between the two candles. The long table is barely hinted at in the interstice between the two but it is clearly present.
The camera is stationary showing both in profile staring through each other.
The women are both portrayed by the same actress who is also the voice of the narrator, who is unseen. All three voices are identical so that it is impossible to tell which of the two women the narrator is supposed to represent.
Both women are spliced into the same scene. They are together but apart. The two candles remain for the duration of filming so that the two halves of the film can either be overlapped (so that both women appear incorporeal) or cut and sandwiched in the middle between the candles (so both women appear physically present). It is possible to set the scene thusly using both methods in different parts of the story, with both women seemingly flickering in and out of being, both individually and apart.
Script:
I. Black, audio only.
Narrator:
I was riding with my twin sister.
We were in a terrible car crash.
The car drove over the median and rolled.
It spun off the road where it caught fire.
There was smoke everywhere.
My sister didn’t make it.
II. Fade in to the long table with two lit candles; flames flickering.
Two women are just sitting at either end.
They stare blankly through each other.
Call and Response
Edith: Now I’m trying to contact her…
Edna: …beyond the veil.
Simultaneous:
Edith: Edna, do you hear me?
Edna: Edith, do you hear me?
Together (In Unison):
If you hear me, knock three times.
Narrator:
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Call and Response:
Edith: I miss you terribly.
Edna: I miss you so much.
Edith: Do you remember…
Edna: … the car crash?
Edith: We rolled…
Edna: … over the median.
Edith: There was fire.
Edna: There was smoke.
Edith: I could hear the sirens.
Edna: They were coming…
Edith: … to rescue us.
Edna: But they were so far away.
Edith: So far…
Edna: … away….
Simultaneous:
Edith: Are you okay?
Edna: Are you hurt?
Together (In Unison):
Knock three times for yes. Knock once for no.
Narrator:
Knock
– pause –
Knock
– pause –
Together (Syncopated):
What’s it like, on the other side?
– long pause –
Simultaneous:
Edith: I miss you, Edna.
Edna: I miss you, Edith.
Together (Syncopated):
It’s so lonely here.
Call and Response:
Edith: There’s no one here.
Edna: I’m all alone.
Edith: Without you…
Edna: …the spark of life…
Edith: …is gone…
Edna: … so far away.
– pause –
Together (Entirely Out of Sync):
It’s so dark.
III. Fade out to black
Narrator:
I was riding with my twin sister.
We were in a terrible car crash.
The car drove over the median and rolled.
It spun off the road where it caught fire.
There was smoke everywhere.
I didn’t make it.
I had planned to actually turn this into the video for which it was written, but quickly discovered that my plans for recording required a space that was too drastically different from my new house (and new large gaming table) and that my vision for filming could not be well-fully executed or realized. So now it exists as a script only.
And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
Yeah yeah, the insects tend to get ALL the attention here on Nightmarish Nature. But honestly, this one takes the beefcake. It’s the New World Screwworm Fly, and it’s as terrifying as the name suggests. And they aren’t limited to the Americas, there is an Old World version as well, as they can be found pretty much anywhere tropical or seasonably suited.
Revolting Little Buggers
The Screwworm Fly is a parasitic fly larvae that burrows into its host to feed, named because it seems to screw deeper and deeper into the flesh over time. This process is called myiasis and do NOT look it up online, you WILL regret it. They blur those images out for very valid reasons, trust me (and not because of pornographic content). And these maggots will continue to burrow en masse, rather than staying put as a botfly larvae would.
Do Not Do an Image Search on Screwworm Myiasis, Like Seriously – You Will NEVER Unsee That
The female Screwworm fly lays her eggs on an open wound or orifice of her chosen host… And not just one egg or a couple of eggs, no – hundreds, even thousands of them. Let’s let that sink in a bit, shall we? Or screw in as it were. Although any warm-blooded animal is a prime target, cattle are a fly favorite, costing millions of head of cattle to this sick and disgusting horror annually. And if beef isn’t on the menu, Fido or even yourself might be.
The Great American Worm Wall
In fact, this particular feature here on Nightmarish Nature is so terrifying that the United States has made agreements with all of Central America, even including countries that do not generally share its interests, in order to create a “Great American Worm Wall” to prevent them from spreading back into the United States. I’m not going to go into all of the creepy and juicy details of this bizarre science fiction freak fact, you’ll just have to watch it here on Half As Interesting’s YouTube channel.
Essentially, the Worm Wall is a complicated byproduct of scientists studying radioactivity on the flies’ maturity as well as the flies’ sexual lives and using this information against them to nearly eradicate the species and banish it from much of its former range. So, Peter Parker, if you thought everyone was messing with your love life before, be glad you weren’t bitten by a radioactive Screwworm.
If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:
Like I said before, I’m really getting into the spirit of the season this year. So reconsidering The Mourners yet again, and haunting the faith a bit, I decided to share a poem that I wrote thinking about All Hallows Eve as a preview of more things to come this month of October.
On Becoming Hallowed
Holy. Holy. Holy. Light the candle. Chant the hymn.
For now the veil between the living and the dead grows thin.
Fingers held to lips in silence; lies beneath their skin.
Family found, ancestral ghosts return to haunt their kin.
Skeletons in closets, grotesque yearnings trapped within.
A bleached and bony face flashes a slightly knowing grin.
It’s not the shadows but the darkness that we fear therein.
Bless this Church whose saintly bodies live and dwell herein.
Unto Death, they claim to sanctify our souls from sin.
Those familiar faces shame; this fight we cannot win.
Come what may, they betray. Pray/prey and heads will spin.
Forevermore and evermore to nevermore… Amen.
I thought this poem really captured All Hallows Eve, in some of the same sentiments as the movie High Spirits, which I loved almost as much as Beetlejuice back in the day.
And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
