Stained, a Short Story by Jennifer Weigel
Fred moved into the apartment in early September. It was a simple place, not much to write home about. Still, he tried to tout the benefits of being on his own to Lily, requesting her to visit as soon as she was able, but he knew the six-hour drive away from the city would be a hurdle to overcome and she was still immersed in her studies.
Mostly the apartment was just barren and devoid of any life or personality. Other than a large long-dead stained patch over the toilet that the landlord assured him had been taken care of and that looked old, the rest of the apartment was just a white blank slate. It was too bad Lily and he couldnât add color to the canvas of this home together. Give it time, he thought. Itâs part of the plan.
He had finally found a reasonable job and taken it. The competition here was not as harsh and he felt his skills were more in need in the backwash anyway. The city was pretty progressive but he didnât have the 2-3 years under his belt that he needed to make anything of himself. Not yet anyway. But there was a desperate shortage of therapists and counselors rurally. He could make the biggest difference here. Still, it was going to be awful lonely. He sighed.
The next few months dragged on. Lily and he talked and texted constantly. He had begun to make a little bit of a name for himself, especially helping those struggling with addiction. There was a large need; group therapy only did so much, and not everyone fit the standard mold for treatment. Fred considered the limitations of the deeply religious community influence which impacted the groups even more than where he had come from. He tried to provide alternatives to those who were turned off by this.
Lilyâs first visit was over the long Thanksgiving weekend. She had wanted to come sooner, but there was a major exam over the previous holiday and she couldnât get away. Still, they were grateful for the time that they had, and they made sure not to waste it.
After the first night of unbridled passion after the three-month hiatus from physical contact, Fred found himself called to the bathroom at 3 AM. As he stood at the toilet, something caught his attention.
Drip.
He hadnât bothered to turn on the overhead light, not wanting to wake Lily, and he couldnât make anything out in the darkness.
Drip.
He looked down but the dim light revealed nothing. He filed it away in the back of his mind to take up with the landlord in the morning and returned to bed.
The next morning, Fred studied the toilet. There were indeed some dark brown spots on the floor beside it. He was certain they were not of his making. they almost looked like old dried blood. He looked up and was taken aback. The stained region was fresh, and it had grown. The musty smell of old decay began to set in. And it was dripping.
Drip.
Lily stared at the stain. Something about it seemed to upset her even more than it should have. She was unnerved and didnât want to linger in its presence. Then again, women are always more squeamish about these kinds of things, Fred considered to himself. There was something rather offputting about it though, especially given how quickly it had sprung to resurrected life.
Drip.
The landlord was of little help. A prudish elderly man, he sized Lily up as soon as he showed up, glancing back and forth between her and Fred. âYou know youâre not supposed to have guests unannounced,â he declared.
âMy apologies,â Fred answered, trying to mend the rift in the weighted air between them. âThis is my fiancĂ©e Lily. Sheâs here for the long weekend.â
The landlord raised an eyebrow. âLong weekend, eh? Just remember, thereâs a two-week limit on how long any one person can stay without their being on the lease. And I donât change my leases. Keeps things quiet around here; Iâm too old for any drama.â He bowed his head slightly to Lily in a well-rehearsed gesture of gentlemanly propriety and turned towards the attic door at the end of the hall.
The landlord allowed Fred to follow him upstairs. It seemed the door in the ceiling that led to the attic was unlocked or that the landlord didnât bother with it. There were only two units up here and no one would have reason to go up there. Fredâs only neighbor, a diminutive middle-aged woman named Debra, kept to herself; he suspected she couldnât even reach this door if she wanted to. And the landlord lived downstairs alone. It was just the three of them. So there was no real need to lock it.
They made their way over to the corner above Fredâs apartment. The musty odor grew stronger as they approached but there was no evidence of anything being amiss. The roof was intact. The insulation was clean. The attic was dry and dusty as was expected. The landlord shrugged. Iâll put a coat of Killz over it. Thatâs all I can do for now. My daughterâs cooking for the holiday; they pick me up at 10.”
The smell of wet paint masked the stain but Lily wasnât convinced. âI dunno about this place,â she said, shuddering.
âItâs only a six month lease,â Fred said. âItâs up in February. Weâll get a better place after that, someplace we can share. Together. Iâll have a better lay of the land by then.â
âAlright I guess,â Lily glanced again at the ceiling.
Over the weekend, the staining emerged slightly from beneath the drying paint, like rust creeping through to oxidize in the exposed air. It restabilized at about the point where it had originally been, when Fred had first moved in. Lily left and went home. The musty smell subsided and the stained patch dried to a dull muted distant discoloration. Fred shrugged it off to the Killz and to time and went on about his life. He had bigger things to worry about.
Lily returned over the December holidays. The semester was over and exams were in; she was free for the week between Christmas and New Years. The end was becoming clearer every day. One more semester and she was done, and Fred would be a half-year closer to the three-years experience he needed for them to move backâŠ
About half a day into her week-long stay, the stain reemerged from its dormancy.
Drip.
Although it had seemed like a blessing at first, unfortunately the landlord was away for the week. So was the neighbor Debra. Fred and Lily had the place completely to themselves.
Drip.
Fred went to the local hardware store and bought a gallon of Killz so he could recoat the stained region himself, but it kept bleeding through, more and more forcefully as the days swept by.
Drip.
On day four, the stain began to cascade down the wall in the corner, pooling at the floor and threatening to overtake the bathroom corner. The smell of decay became pervasive, as if a squirrel or a rat had died deep within the wall someplace.
Drip.
Lily was horrified and did as much as she could to avoid the bathroom. She even began making twice-daily trips to the grocery store to use their facilities, using the apartment bathroom only when no other options were available.
Drip.
âWe canât stay here,â Lily sobbed. âItâs disgusting.â
âI know. Iâm sorry. Itâs a small town,â Fred exclaimed despairingly. âThe nearest hotel is an hour away and I have clients lined out and group on Tuesday. I need to be here for them. The holidays are a rough time and I have two people on suicide watch as it is.â
He checked the attic again. Nothing. He applied yet another coat of Killz. He even put down towels to sop up the seepage, knowing full well that said towels would need to be destroyed later. But nothing helped.
Drip.
On the sixth day, Lily rose from bed at 2 AM desperately needing to go to the bathroom. Her constipated innards were a mess from the constant stress of trying not to go and the floodwalls were coming down. She had no choice. She ran into the bathroom and leapt upon the toilet in the darkness, trying not to wretch as her slipper caught in something sticky that had enveloped the base of the commode.
Fred woke to Lily screaming. He ran into the bathroom and flicked on the light but she wasnât there. There was no sign of her. Just the gooey stain-soaked corner leached up against the toilet. He looked up at the ceiling and noticed that it was bulging. The ceiling was stretched taut over a lump and it was moving… Something was trapped in there!
Fred raced up to the attic. The area above the toilet was obviously swollen, almost to the point where it appeared transparent. A vague female silhouette scraped at the outgrowth to no avail, a shadow flickering away to darkness. Fred darted over to the form. It was oozing sticky pus-like sap, hardening as it began to recede back into the attic floor. He tore at the form, flinging insulation and shouting. âLily!â
The bulge continued to dwindle and grow more and more faint. The stickiness subsided. The insulation became drier chaff that dissipated to dust as it was flung. As the bulge withdrew into the attic floor without a trace, Fred raced downstairs again.
His apartment was quiet. Too quiet. The stained patch in the bathroom had receded to its seemingly long-dead dormant state. There was no sign of his fiancée or of the horrors they had borne witness to over the last two days. Everything was static.
For another horrific tale of living conditions gone awry, check out The Portal here on Haunted MTL. And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigelâs work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
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 Weigelâs 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. Patrickâs 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 donât know how you managed to find me after all this time. We havenât been the easiest to track down, Monty and I, and we like it that way. Though actually, youâve managed to find me every St. Patrickâs Day since 2022 despite me being someplace else every single time. Itâs a little disconcerting, like Iâm 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 hutâŠ
Anyway as Iâd mentioned before, that Scratchers was a winner. And Iâd already moved in with Monty come last St. Patrickâs Day. Hell, heâd 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 Montyâs 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 didnât want to let on he was sitting on a gold mine as he knew theyâd 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 livinâ 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 âem. Itâs like he has radar for bad cars. Calling them lemons would be generous. At least itâs not high maintenance women who wonât 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 wouldnât know, Iâve 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 isnât all that itâs cracked up to be, and it doesnât work like in the movies. I wasnât bitten, and I generally donât bite unless provoked. He says technically Iâm a wolfwere, to which I just reply âWhere?â and smile. Whatever. Itâs the little things I guess. I just wish everything didnât come out as a bark most of the time, though Montyâs gotten pretty good at interpretingâŠÂ As long as he doesnât 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 livinâ the dream. There arenât all that many rabbits out here but itâs quiet and the locals donât seem to notice me all that much. And Monty can run around and make like heâs gonna have some kind of sighting of Bigfoot or aliens or the like. As long as the pantryâs stocked itâs 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 alreadyâŠ
If you enjoyed this werewolf wolfwere wolfwhatever saga, feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigelâs work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.