HMTL Original Series: The Dead Life – #3
Day 14
Danielle Kim immediately took several steps from the gate and raised her crowbar into a batter’s stance. She whipped around, scanning the area for the undead. Her breathing grew rapid as she counted them off.
One. Two. Three. Four.
There was one across the street behind her, approaching from the back parking lot of a strip mall. To her left was a pair; one stumbled toward her on the grass and the other was strapped into a car, the seat belt restraining it. The last of them approached from her right, stumbling through a chainlink fence that was partially demolished, meant to seal off a vacant lot. There were at least three that were going to move in on her position from the inside of the complex as well, she had spied them earlier. She had to be fast.
She sprinted across the street toward the ghoul that was furthest out, giving herself a little room from the others in the vicinity. The bastard seemed familiar, but she put that aside and moved a running charge with the crowbar trailing behind her. She took an upward swing within range of the ghoul. The crowbar connected to a fleshy grey chin, knocking it onto his back. Fat, rotten fleshed jiggled and open sores split open. Blood spilled out around the corpse and rot splashed over Danielle’s sneakers and jeans.
Bile wrenched up her throat and she stumbled away, coughing, sick from the smell of the writhing body of the fat, rotten man who was struggling to rise from under his collected weight. Dani turned to see the other two mobile creatures were beginning to move toward her, moaning. It was as though they had only just recognized that she had changed locations.
These things were slow, only having crossed most of the street. She could use that.
She turned back to the fat one and raised her crowbar above her head and she took a few steps towards it. Her momentum carried from her feet to the tip of the crowbar as the forked end wedged itself deep into the eye socket. After a shuddering twitch, the corpse stopped moving. She removed the crowbar with a sickening squelch and turned her attention back to the two ghouls. Shards of bone dislodged from the impact ripped away from the shattered socket.
She marched toward the ghoul toward her right, the one that had worked its way through the fence. What clothes remained on it had been torn on the fence and most of its shirt dangled listlessly off a twig-like right wrist. She opted to repeat her earlier strategy. She hit him in the chest, caving the ribs in and sending him spinning to the ground. Dani took a deep breath and placed the full weight of her foot on the corpse and swung the hooked end of the crowbar into the gnashing head. She struck it three times before it stopped moving.
She stepped over the corpse and turned around to see the last shambler had gained on her surprisingly quickly. She stepped backward, carefully, in order to give herself some breathing room.
She went into a batter’s stance and waited. The creature nearly stumbled over the corpse of its undead compatriot, finally simply stepping on it, sinking into a rotting stomach cavity. When the monster was close enough she took another swing, instantly crushing the skull of what was once a wisp of a woman.
Danielle walked slowly toward the car that had the trapped creature and pulled a screwdriver from her belt loop. She stood a few feet back as the creature gnashed its broken teeth and reached out with gore-caked, shredded hands. Watching the movements carefully, she found an opportunity. She grabbed at matted hair and held the head as still as she could. She nearly retched as she felt loose skin shift on the skull.
Within a moment, the creature stopped moving and hung silent with a screwdriver wedged deep into an eye socket.
Danielle turned back to the gate and hooked her crowbar on the edge. The first of the undead in the complex had rounded the corner and stumbled slowly toward her direction. They were a couple of hundred feet away. No need to panic. She took a deep breath and tried pulling the gate forward, but again, the gate was stuck.
She studied to the gate, looking it up and down, and noticed that the upper wheel was not in the groove. She lifted and pushed it into place and began to laugh as the gate slid along the track rattling slightly. Systematically… that’s how she needed to approach this new world.
Dani flicked some wet gore from her crowbar as she walked back to her car and sat back in the driver’s seat. The engine turned over with little fuss and she drove out.
She stopped the focus and pulled over just outside of the gates to the Oakwood Apartments. Leaving the engine running, Danielle walked over to the ghoul that had the screwdriver still jammed into the eye socket. Crouching, she braced herself on the car and pulled the screwdriver out with a sickeningly wet pop. She flicked away the gore, something she was beginning to feel was instinctual at this point, and walked back to her car. She tossed the screwdriver onto the passenger floorboard and shut the door.
Everything was going as planned. Everything would be okay.
She drove off, taking a last look at her the complex as the only survivor of Oakwood Apartments.
Thank you for reading the third installment of the Haunted MTL original series, The Dead Life. Please share your thoughts about the story with us.
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.
