HMTL Original Series: The Dead Life – #9
Day 16
Dani stepped toward the gate, gun drawn and peered through a gap in the metal. There was some motion from something but it wasn’t quite clear how many somethings it was. She took a step back, looked over the gate, and turned her attention to Jimmy and Edgar, both looking slightly panicked. They certainly weren’t lying about being followed, that was clear.
“Guys, get in the car,” Dani said.
The three darted over to the Cadillac. Dani throwing herself behind Edgar, the driver. The car smelled heavily of weed.
“Gotcha,” Edgar said. He turned the ignition. She winced at how loud the Cadillac was.
Dani tapped on the back of Edgar’s seat and pointed behind them. “You need to come along the side here. We can’t let these things see us through the fence.”
The Cadillac reversed and made a three-point turn down the outermost alley of the Family Storage. In moments they approached the office and saw that Bob had laid a ladder against the unit. He waved them over.
The trio stepped out of the car. Bob pulled a wrinkled finger to his lips and Edgar cut the ignition.
“Dani,” Bob gestured with a thumb over his shoulder, “take a look. Just don’t step into the open.”
Dani made her way toward the door of the office that opened into the storage unit and peeked around the corner. She could see several of the undead who were now reaching through the fencing.
“How many?” Jimmy asked.
Bob leaned against the concrete frame of one of the units. “Sandy counted twelve. Got her watching upstairs.”
Dani approached the ladder and looked it over. “What is the plan, Bob?”
“Well, we can get a couple of us up on that roof to make some noise and be in view of those things.”
Dani nodded, “we can then pull them around the corner.”
Edgar chimed in, “that’d pull them off that front gate. These things are really fucking dumb, we can just send them walking.”
“Since I need her here with me to coordinate, you two guys, I want you up on that roof.”
Jimmy took a step back. “Why us?”
Dani crossed her arms. “Because you brought them here.”
“Fair enough,” Jimmy replied.
Bob and Dani held the ladder steady for Jimmy and Edgar. Once the pair were on the roof, Bob gave them a thumbs up. The two men began to shout and wave their arms on the roof of the row of units. Dani edged toward the fence and watched as a pair of ghouls took notice and moved toward the noise.
“This is fucked, man” Jimmy whined. He had a bad feeling about this whole thing. There weren’t supposed to be people here.
“Just do it, we’ll get our shit later and we’ll go,” Edgar said, flapping his arms.
“Dude, they have this place locked down, what if they found it?”
“It’s my unit, they can’t take my stuff. That’s against the law.”
Edgar continued shouting and stomping, pulling the undead along the side of the facility, his arms flapping awkwardly all the while. Jimmy did the same. He felt ridiculous.
“I don’t think those rules apply anymore” Jimmy muttered to nobody in particular.
Bob looked up toward the kitchen window and saw the whiteboard. Sandy has scrawled a large number three. He could work with that. The guys up top looked like idiots, but they were smart enough to duck away from the ledge so that ghouls lost track of them when they reached the corner of the property. The crisis had been averted. Well, one crisis. They were still trespassing. He had some questions for them.
“Danielle, help me move this ladder,” he asked.
“Why?”
“We don’t know what these guys want. We can keep them up there until we are sure they’re not here to fuck around with our safety.”
Dani grabbed one side of the ladder. She looked at her old friend. “You think this has to do with the drugs we found.”
Bob glanced at her and said nothing. He simply grabbed the other side of the ladder, pulling it from the unit.
Thank you for reading the ninth installment of the Haunted MTL original series, The Dead Life. Please share your thoughts about the story with us.
Continuing our AI journey from last time exploring Little Red Riding Hood herself as the Big Bad Wolf… All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
How very… Phantom of the Opera predatory… this is definitely not what I had in mind. Maybe something more cutesy?
Ugh. Maybe not.
Wow, that seems like such a cop out, cropping off the head so you don’t have to depict it. And I don’t want to lose the Little Red Riding Hood reference completely.
So no surprise there, I knew that was too many references to work.
And we continued to devolve, join us again next week for the final installment to see how this ended… And again, if you want to catch the last AI art journey, you can find it on Haunted MTL here. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
And as promised in Big Bad Poetry, we shall embark on our next AI journey, this time looking at Little Red Riding Hood. I had wanted to depict her as the Big Bad Wolf one and the same, although maybe not so big nor bad. But it just wasn’t happening quite as planned. All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
So I actually like this even better than my original vision, it is playful and even a bit serene (especially given the Sinister style). The wolf is just being a wolf. It’s quite lovely, really. But it wasn’t what I had in mind, so I revisited the idea later to see if I could get that result…
Well, that’s not quite right…
Yeah more of the same…
And as you can see this is starting to devolve quickly. Join us again next week to see how this continued to develop… And if you want to catch the last AI art journey, you can find it on Haunted MTL here. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
So considering my recent revival of a wolfwere and his Lucky Days and Nightmarish Nature’s hostile humanity, it seems we are due for a visit from Little Red Riding Hood, or perhaps even Big Bad himself… Here’s a poem on the subject by Jennifer Weigel.
Over the river and through the wood
flashed the fleet-footed Red Riding Hood
on her way to her “grandmother’s” house.
When running past, who should she see
but just one of the little pigs three
cowering like but a tiny mouse.
“But my dear piggy, what do you fear?”
Red Riding Hood asked as she slunk near,
teeth hidden under a sheepish smile.
The nervous small pig looked up in fright
and decided that Red was alright,
missing the subtle clues by a mile.
“The Big Bad Wolf, that horrible beast
upon the other wee pigs did feast!”
the last little pig said with a squeal.
Red Riding Hood laughed with a great growl
and threw back her heavy long-robed cowl,
in a vast terrifying reveal.
For she was really the wolf Big Bad
hidden beneath the cape that he had
stolen from Red Riding Hood at point.
“And now I’ve caught you too my pretty
and surely t’wouldn’t be a pity
if I gobbled you up in this joint.”
T’was then the wee pig leapt to his feet
And cried, “Big Bad Wolf, I shall defeat,
for I am no ordinary swine!”
The little pig also wore sheep’s clothes
spun in spells every woodland witch knows;
Old Granny herself was quite divine.
“Now give me back my granddaughter’s cape,
before I grab you by your ruffed nape
and send you pig-squealing down the road…”
The wolf dropped the cape and ran, that cur,
but Granny was swifter and hexed his fur
and the wolf she turned into a toad.
Thus the moral of this story goes,
when in the woods, no one really knows
what sheepish sheep’s clothing is a ruse
that big bad wolves and old witches use.
So this is actually an intro to my next AI art journey with NightCafe which developed from me not getting the results I wanted (Little Red Riding Hood herself as a wolf). Here’s a preview with Eric’s versions as he is much more literal in his prompting than I am, but where’s the fun in that? 😉
Prompts (from left to right) in Dark Fantasy style, executed Aug. 1, 2023:
Bipedal wolf in Red Riding Hood’s cloak
Bipedal wolf in Red Riding Hood’s cloak close up portrait
Bipedal wolf in red cloak close up portrait
Feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or on her writing, fine art, and conceptual projects websites.
