HMTL Original Series: The Dead Life – #23
Last time, Dani and Jimmy discussed plans regarding the storage yard’s future. They also spoke briefly about Edgar’s recent scouting project. This week in the Haunted MTL Original The Dead Life, we catch up with Edgar and see what he has been up to – and how useful an ax can be.
This is a serialized novel of post-apocalyptic zombie survival. Learn more about the story and setting at the series hub and take advantage of a complete list of installments.
Day 25
Edgar had been scouting the district office for a couple of days now. The entire premises was locked up, and all gates had been padlocked shut in a hurry except for one rolling gate that had nearly been demolished by a school bus that had burst through. The tires were shredded now, and unmistakable brown trails of dried blood marked the dusty yellow surface and the windows inside. Behind one of the brown streaks, there was motion… one of the undead was still wandering inside, seemingly pacing up and down the aisle, content with its small domain.
Despite his size, he had managed to stay low on foot, crouching and crawling between vantage points around the block and always warily turning his gaze around. When these creatures were not alert and moaning, they ran eerily silent. He had nearly had a close call as he crawled past the front office and not seen a ghoul walk out from between a pair of abandoned sedans. That had been the first day of scouting, and it had rattled him so much that he shouted and alerted a few more in the area. He had fled back to the storage lot for safety, and he and Bob had picked up the trio of stragglers that had followed from within the safety of the metal gate.
Edgar would not make such a mistake again.
Based on Edgar’s observation, the only point in and out that was walkable was the busted rolling gate, but that area also had a pair of wandering ghouls in addition to the ghoul within the bus.
It was manageable, but what concerned him most were the sounds he had heard from inside, echoing out between the building of the district campus. Periodically there was shouting and the clanging of pipes and slamming doors, punctuated by a series of moans from the ghouls.
Edgar was unsure of the disposition of the survivors, but the clamor was great, and he was sure it was more unknown people he was willing to deal with on his own, especially given the incident with the police car.
The good news was that the patterns the ghouls seemed to follow were aimless but also felt almost regular, as though they would reach some boundary, invisible or not, and reverse course. Today would be the day he would test that and work his way into the district grounds to see what he could find.
He came in low, practically on his hands and knees, following along the side of the bus, out of sight of the closest ghoul. When he was close enough, he squeezed himself under the bus. If it hadn’t been due to starving, he would have been unable to do that, he thought. It was a small comfort. He shuffled quietly on his belly under the bus, toward the front, and watched desiccated feet shuffled back and forth; the sticklike legs were in tattered slacks, and one foot was socked but without a shoe.
He watched the ghoul’s motion until it came close enough. He pulled a small camping hatchet from the back of his pants and grabbed at one of the legs, tugging hard. Instead of dragging it under, the leg snapped off, and the ghoul fell to the ground.
“Fuck,” he whispered. He scrambled out from under the bus and grappled at the waist and back of the ghoul as it trashed. With an overhead swing, he brought the ax blade to the back of the skull, cracking it open before the ghoul made a sound. Pausing for a second to see if it was done thrashing, he scrambled to his feet to the other side of the bus, peeking out from the front, wary of any movement.
That hadn’t gone as planned. Edgar glanced down at the tire of the bus, noticing it was shredded and not an easy fix. He wondered what the possibility was of replacing it but realized where he was in relation to the bus. Sure enough, Edgar stood in front of the open door. He couched and held silent for a moment. The ghoul inside must have been in the far end because there was no sign of it.
He took his ax blade and tapped the handle at the first step, crouching against the side of the bus. The wait was long for the ghoul to spill forth, enticed by the sound. When the creature arrived, it tripped down the stairs, crumbling into a dusty, rotten heap. Edgar pinned it down on the ground with his knee on its back and gave it a couple of violent thwacks with the blade.
The facility would take a long time to clear at this rate. With no ghouls in sight, and his exit seemingly opened, he pushed forward, taking a low run toward the first building, which appeared to be the bus depot.
The building was a small outbuilding combined with what appeared to be a large carport meant for bus maintenance. There was no sign of a wandering ghoul, so he ducked into the small office that seemed to operate as a dispatching area. The place was a wreck, but there were no signs of life except for some smears of blood on a table. Peering out from the office, he saw the prize of school buses. There were three parked in a large lot, and there was a lone bus in the bay that was mid-operation. Other busses had been out on the job when the place had gone into lockdown. But the remaining three were just what he was hoping to find if they were still operational.
He turned his attention back to the small room. There were a couple of computers on desks, a couple of phones, a small table and some chairs. Little else, but he checked behind the desks anyway. He was surprised to catch sight of a minifridge but then realized what was in there had probably become little more than sludge.
Curiosity won out, however, and he crouched down, opening the door. The scent of rot punched him in the face, nearly knocking him onto his ass, but the sight of a sealed can of cola won out. He snatched the can up and slammed the refrigerator shut, gagging all the while.
After a few moments where he could collect himself, he studied his can of cola. It had picked up a little odor from the fridge’s contents, and he ineffectually attempted to wipe away any grime on his pant leg.
He turned the can over and saw it was a diet soda. He grimaced at the idea of a diet soda but also realized there wasn’t much of the stuff left in the world.
He checked the label, and sure enough, it was good. He cracked the tab and took a sip of the sickeningly sweet cola. Content, he took it down in a series of huge gulps.
He finished the last sips and set the cat beside him. There was no sound coming from anywhere outside of the office. He rose to his feet, glanced out the door, and made his way to the closest building, which seemed to be some sort of administrative spot. He kept his creeping, crouched movements and went to a glass doorway. He noticed that things had been piled up against it on the other side, serving as a barricade. There was just enough room near the top of the door for someone to look out from. Edgar kept out of sight and approached the door, placing his ear to it.
Sure enough, there were voices.
Raised voices.
Shouting.
Gunshots.
“Fuck, fuck.”
Edgar scrambled away from the door, falling over a couple of times, dashing his way back toward the garage area.
Sure enough, dreadful moans seemed to echo all around, and the sound of muffled gunfire from inside continued to pick up. He ducked around the corner into one of the bays and watched as shattering glass scattered over the walkway where he had just been, and office furniture and boxes tumbled out with a pair of people.
Edgar watched as they ran for their lives, a man and a woman. Both were thin. A third man spilled out of the same doorway and fruitlessly pulled a revolver trigger over and over. Out of ammo, he picked up his pace like a crazed beast and overtook the woman grabbing her by the hair and throwing her to the ground.
Edgar saw him climb on top of her and club her with the revolver; the other man, who had been running from the gunman, whipped around to come to her aid.
Edgar threw himself out from behind the wall of the garage and ran toward the scene as the two men struggled over the woman, but four ghouls had begun approaching them from behind some parked cars.
“Watch out!”
Edgar waved and cried at them, but the two men played out their drama, ignorant of him. It was too late; the ghouls converged and fell upon the struggling men, tearing them apart.
Edgar watched in horror as greasy fingertips slashed at the gunman’s neck, and hot blood burst. In a second, another pair of hands grabbed at his scalp and began pulling out clumps of bloody hair. The other man hadn’t been as fortunate with two ghouls falling upon him and sinking rotten yellow teeth deep into the neck and shoulder. Edgar was shocked at how strong and quickly the monsters moved at the prospect of fresh flesh.
Each man was stripped of skin and tissue by teeth and fingertips. Edgar had never seen the things feed. He felt like he was about to vomit, but Edgar swallowed down the acidic bile that rose in his throat and cautiously approached the group to see if he could at least help the woman.
The ghouls were distracted by their eating frenzy, and the sounds of the men’s screams masked Edgar’s heavy steps. As he was within a few feet of the gruesome scene, he noticed the woman moving. Her face, however, told a different story and amounted to little more than a bloody bowl. The revolver had smashed her nose and teeth, and she was drowning in her blood. Her gargles terrified Edgar. He had nearly drowned once himself, but that was at the beach.
He closed the gap between them and, tears in his eyes, brought the ax’s blade down on her face, smashing what was left of her head into three wet chunks. He cried as he put her out of her misery and, when finished, whirled around and smashed at the skull of the closest ghoul.
He flew into a rage, striking any head he saw in a pile, and after a few moments and a couple of near bites, had brained every single one of the ghouls and the men for good measure. He instinctively grabbed the revolver and absentmindedly pulled the trigger, hoping at least a single shot was left.
Still nothing.
He tucked the gun into his pants and noticed the commotion had begun to pull in a few stragglers. He sighed and ran for the administrative building, hoping he could find a way to wait out the storm.
Did you enjoy this installment of the story? How do you think the system they opt for regarding supplies will work out for them? Let us know what you think and what supplies would be your zombie apocalypse necessity.
The Dead Life is a Haunted MTL original fiction series.
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I thought about featuring some sort of Father Nature bit for Father’s Day, but having already explored Perilous Parenting I decided to focus on more creepy insects instead. Because we love creepy insects here at Haunted MTL. Thus, I present Assassin Fashion, featuring the Assassin Bug…
Fashion Plates
Now I don’t know about you, but my first thought after snagging my prey and slurping out their dissolved innards is that I totally want to wear the dried up husk of their now lifeless body. Like that necklace made of nothing but shrunken heads. That is some first-rate fashion right there, and no one would dare to say otherwise lest they want to become a part of the dead-flesh coat… And this is exactly what the Assassin Bug does. Like a spider, it stabs its unsuspecting prey, turns it into a giant protein shake inside of its insectoid shell-glass, sips it out, and then attaches the corpse’s carapace to its ever growing collection atop its back.
Aside from being totally badass, these nightmarish embellishments serve a number of additional functions. They help the Assassin Bug blend in among its prey, masking its own odor and helping it to appear as a mass of insects that belong in or near the nest (especially among those more social networking creepy crawlies like ants and termites). In fact, it may even draw the attention of those clean up crews seeking to bury their dead, luring them in to become part of the body snatched horde. And the horrifying additions also act as a sort of armor and potential decoy for other predators like lizards and birds, who can end up with a mouth full of dead bug bodies rather than a bite of juicy Assassin Bug.
Kissing Sucks
And Assassin Bugs don’t just carry around one or two dead bodies, they may totally pile them up, as well as use other insects’ and plants’ secretions to their own advantage. Here’s a cool video from Deep Look that shows a partnership some Assassin Bugs have with Tarweed, keeping moth caterpillars from eating all of its flowers so that it can itself reproduce and spread.
Fortunately humans are too big to be susceptible… Or are we? There are also parasitic Assassin Bugs known as Kissing Bugs or Vampire Bugs that feed on mammal’s blood at night; they even act as a vector for other parasites that can cause disease years after feeding, which are associated with Chagas disease and are transmitted to mammalian hosts when the Assassin Bug poops while feeding and the host animal smears the poop into the bite when itching it.
So here’s a pencil drawing I did of a dead bug I found (I had a whole series of these back in the day). I hadn’t at the time known what it was, but it turns out to be an Assassin Bug. I wonder what its fashion sense was like…
So remember, if you want to be at the forefront of creepy horrific fashion, just look to the Assassin Bug for inspiration. If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:
This time on Nightmarish Nature we will again explore some of the more fetid fungi and plants, this time focusing on those that imitate rotten flesh in order to attract flies. Among the best known of these are the Stinkhorn and the Corpse Lily or Corpse Flower. The Language of Flowers be damned, literally…
Fungi
Many of the fungi in the Stinkhorn family erupt in mushrooms that reek of rotten flesh and sprout from a white sort of egg sac in various forms, the common type being a phallus like structure with a white body and olive head. The Beefsteak fungus resembles, well, a cut of beef oozing blood. And some mushroom bodies of the Clathrus genus bloom in elaborate lattice structures or devil’s tooth and devil’s fingers that resemble terrifying alien beings. These odoriferous fetid fungi grow in decaying wood material and use their stinky attributes to attract flies and other insects which will then spread the spores from their fruiting bodies. They truly look like something out of an outer space or aquatic nightmare.
Plants
Some plants also utilize pungent putrid odors to attract flies and other insects, in part to aid in the pollination and dissemination but also to attract insect matter for their own needs, to absorb the insects for valuable nutrients that they cannot otherwise obtain. The largest flowers in the world bear many of these characteristics, also being among the stinkiest. And some pitcher plants mimic rotten flesh to attract flies upon which they “feed”.
The Titan Arum of Sumatra and Indonesia is a plant that over time produces a huge flower somewhat resembling a calla lily but larger as the plant body stores enough energy to do so. While Calla Lilies are often used to symbolize rebirth and resurrection and can be associated with death, often in a funerary setting, the huge Titan Arum does more than that, strongly mimicking decaying flesh in order to attract flies. These flowers can grow to almost 8-feet tall and bloom for only about three days before wilting; they are a huge draw at botanic gardens when flowering because of the rare nature of the event and the remarkable presence that the flower has, in both size and smell. The US. Botanic Gardens has a page devoted to this plant here, where you can even track previous blooms.
Another noteworthy flowering plant is Rafflesia, a parasitic flower native to Indonesia and Malaysia that feeds on the liana vine and grows from a sprouting body bud into a huge flower over the course of five years. Its flowers, once finally formed, can grow to almost a meter across and resembles something out of a horror film. These too smell of death and decay to attract flies in order to cross-pollinate. You can learn more about these unusual plants on this video from Real Science here.
If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:
So, as you may have noticed, we have a special fondness for spiders here on Nightmarish Nature. Well, they are kind of the spokes-critters for horrifying animalia, perhaps because they are so freakishly different from us. Or maybe it’s because I find them a little disconcerting for all that I try to take the “you mind your business, I’ll mind mine” approach, at least if they stay outdoors. Or just because I really like to draw spiders for all that I prefer not to find them sharing my home (though I’ll gladly take spiders over other bugs or mice or larger critters who didn’t get an invite).
Anyway, this segment is devoted to the largest Giants Among Spiders, as if you didn’t have enough to worry about already. And the top place is contested based upon body mass or leg length. Most of these are tarantulas, which globally take top place among the large arachnids.
Goliath Birdeater Tarantula
The Goliath Birdeater Tarantula of South America is the biggest brute of spiderdom, weighing in at over 6 ounces. They build funnel burrows and are known to eat birds (although rarely), mice, lizards, frogs, and snakes, but largely any big insects including other species of spiders. They have urticating barbed hairs that they fling at would-be attackers as an irritant to escape. And people even eat them after they singe the bristles off. Here’s a National Geographic video showing this spider in action, in case you wanted to see a giant spider take out a mouse.
Giant Huntsman Spider
And with the longest legs, we have the Giant Huntsman Spider of Laos, with a leg-span of 12 inches. Their legs have twisted joints and they move in a crab-like manner, which furthers their impressive appearance. ‘Cause they’ve got legs, and know how to use ’em. They prefer to live in underbrush and cave entrances. These are like the big relatives of their Australian cousins, which we’ve all seen online and developed a healthy aversion to.
Brazilian Salmon Pink Birdeater & Brazilian Giant Tawny Red Tarantulas
Next we have two more South American species: the Brazilian Salmon Pink Birdeater, which boasts one-inch fangs, and the Brazilian Giant Tawny Red, believed to be the longest-lived spider with a lifespan of up to thirty years. Both are in the tarantula family and have urticating hairs, a word you probably never read much before today unless you are in the hobby. So apparently South America is not the best travel destination for you if you struggle with arachnophobia, though I suspect you’d figured that out already. (I wouldn’t recommend Australia or Southeast Asia either.)
Face Size Tarantula
And finally the Face Size Tarantula, which has a very terror-inducing name reminiscent of the Face Huggers of Alien-glory. Anyway, these spiders have an 8-inch leg-span and live in India and Sri Lanka. They look kind of like big hairy wolf spiders with stripey legs, sometimes with pink and daffodil coloring.
If you enjoyed this eight-legged segment of Nightmarish Nature on Giants Among Spiders and their larger than life kin, please check out past segments:
