Quarantine Monster Short: Yule Cat

The night of Christmas Eve was the dominion of Jólakötturinn, the Yule Cat. The massive shadow cat would travel village to village, devouring any child who had not received new clothes for Christmas, a sure sign they were naughty throughout the year.

Picture by PBS, found on Bored Panda

This year was a little different. Because of the sickness spreading through the human world, nobody was going out. They were spending all of their time home in their most comfortable clothes so there was no need to buy new ones.

By the eighth village, Jóla, the Yule Cat, could barely move. It had eaten so many children that it had completely lost the taste for them. The thought of even seeing another child made it nauseated. It didn’t want to come near another one until next Yule, and it wasn’t even sure if that was far enough away.

Disheartened, Jóla laid down in the grass on the side of the road, unwilling to even enter the next town to wreak its traditional punishment on the children who had been naughty. Jóla was just falling into a doze when one of the Yule Lads raced by, causing a ruckus. Jóla opened one eye to glare at him and he stopped.

“Jóla! Why are you sleeping in the grass? You are supposed to be eating all of the children who were naughty and did not get new clothes. Christmas Eve is for the Yule Cat!”

Jóla grimaced at his loud voice and jovial laugh. It just wanted to sleep until it wasn’t so full.

“Jóla!”

The Yule Cat’s ears flattened as it opened both eyes to glare at the Lad. “I am too full to move. I cannot eat any more children. They will have to go unpunished this year.”

The Yule Lad rubbed his chin, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “There are other ways to punish children.”

Jóla raised its head. “What do you mean?”

The Yule Lad grinned. “You can play tricks on them like my brothers and I do! Come, help me. I will play tricks on the adults and you can punish the naughty children!”

Jóla was beginning to like the sound of tricks. It sat up and gave the Lad its full attention. “What kind of tricks?”

The Yule Lad shrugged. “Lots of things. I like hiding their possessions, putting potatoes in shoes, tying their sheets into knots, opening their paddock gates so their animals escape, things like that.”

Jóla’s head drooped a little. “I can’t do any of that. I don’t have hands.”

The Yule Lad shook his head. “You can do other things! Like knock stuff over, push things under their beds, nudge windows open.”

Jóla jumped to its feet. “I will do it! Let us go!”

The Yule Lad took off running for the next town, Jóla jogging along behind him.

The Yule Cat was the size of a house so while the Yule Lad could creep in through windows and doors, Jóla had to use magic to enter without tearing down the whole building.

At the first house, Jóla put its head through the wall to look around for something it could do. It knocked over a glass of water and nudged a single shoe under the bed. In the next house, it ripped up the curtains with its claws and pushed a bunch of things off a table.

It chewed on books, shredded newspapers, scratched furniture, shed on the rugs, yowled loudly, and knocked over anything it could find.

Jóla began to enjoy itself. It wondered why it had not thought of playing tricks centuries ago. It still ate one or two children in each village to keep its reputation, but it spent most of the night thinking of better and different tricks to play.

In one especially naughty child’s bedroom, Jóla managed to cough up a hairball the size of a grown adult. That would surely keep the child in line in the coming year.

At the last house before dawn on Christmas morning, Jóla tried to think of something new to do. It was a large town and it had done most of its tricks two or three times already and wanted to do something special.

“Hurry, Jóla! The sun is rising!” The Yule Lad yelled as he skipped out of town.

Jóla thought for a few more seconds, then its face split into a giant grin. It carefully nudged the bed with the sleeping child around so it was against the opposite wall, then disappeared into the fading darkness.

The Yule Cat could not wait for next Christmas Eve.

I Got Covid

Sunday, November 8th was a hot, windy day, reminiscent of a Nebraska August, not November. My windows were open, my cheap ass not wanting to turn the air conditioner on. The weather reports said a cold front was moving in that night.

All of this is important, trust me.

I woke up with a headache and thought my head was going to explode considering the amount of sinus pressure I had going on. I stopped taking my allergy meds two months earlier when I ran out so I figured I’d just suffer through the day and if they didn’t go away with the cold front, I’d get more meds on my way to work. I was also super sore all over. I chalked it up to the cold front and me being old. Weather changes always made my knees ache, what’s a few more sore body parts?

I didn’t really feel better Monday morning but I was still thinking it was just a bad case of allergies, maybe a sinus infection if I was unlucky. Went to work and carried on like normal.

Still felt crappy Tuesday morning when I woke up so I stopped on my way to work and got some allergy meds and a thermometer. In the age of Covid, you can’t be too careful. Come lunch time, I noticed I couldn’t really taste my Cheetos but I could taste my sandwich without a problem so I figured it was just because I was stuffed up. Got home from work and decided to make sausage, potato, and cabbage soup.

Because soup fixes everything.

I realized when I was cooking the sausage that I couldn’t really smell it. I also couldn’t taste the sausage I tried.

Oh. No.

I checked with Test Nebraska and the soonest I could get tested was Friday. I emailed my boss letting her know that I’ve been feeling sick and I just lost taste and smell and that I couldn’t get tested until Friday. What did she want me to do?

She emailed me back that I could get the rapid testing done at work. She added the HR gal in charge of testing in on the email and she got me set up with an appointment 9am Wednesday morning. I’d go straight to the testing, wait in my car until I heard back, then we’d go from there.

Y’all, I had the original testing done earlier in the year where they basically tickle your brain through your nose. I can’t tell you which one is worse. The rapid test I did, she vigorously swirled the swab around at the back of my nose in one nostril, then did the same thing in the second. I had tears in my eyes and the need to itch inside my face.

The nurse said my results would be done within the hour so I drove over to the garage under my building and waited. 20 minutes later, she called and she didn’t even have to say the words and I knew.

“Hi Katherine? This is Jane from the rapid test… I’m sorry, you tested positive.”

I sighed, thanked her for letting me know, hung up, and burst into tears. Once I could see again, I started letting everybody know. Texted my family and my best friend. Texted the people I spent a few hours with the day before my symptoms showed up. Emailed my boss and the higher ups at work to let them know my results. Texted two of my coworkers.

Everybody was so kind. My coworkers packed up my desk and brought my equipment to the garage so I could work from home during my quarantine. My friends and family immediately asked me what I needed and if they could drop anything off for me. My heath-nut sister (I say that with love) started doing research and found a bunch of things that I could do that might help stave off the worst of the symptoms. And then she sent me a bunch of stuff to keep me well supplied in the two weeks I’d be locked up.

It was one of the darkest times in my life and my loved ones rallied to let me know I wasn’t alone.

At some point during my isolation, I decided I
wanted a dragon onesie so I ordered one. It doesn’t
quite fit but it was good enough for a picture

I ended up getting the whole laundry list of symptoms: head and chest congestion, head ache, severe tiredness/lethargy, abdominal cramping and diarrhea, joint pain, loss of taste and smell, loss of appetite; but I never did get a fever.

Some things to not eat when you can’t taste:
· Scrambled eggs
· Yogurt
· Peanut butter
· McNuggets (the crunchy outside was delightful, the gooey breading between the crunchy and the chicken was repulsive)

Things to eat when you can’t taste:
· Toast
· Soup
· Things you don’t like but are good for you (for me, it was the seaweed in miso soup)

Thankfully most of the symptoms are gone now (my taste and smell are still pretty spotty but gradually coming back) and life has somewhat returned to pre-isolation state.

My whole office went work from home the day after my positive results. My work friends blame me, which probably isn’t totally off base.

I managed to work the whole time I was sick (I did take a day off to rest), which is not something I recommend. There were 2-3 days that the only time I was awake was when I was at my desk and I probably should have just let myself sleep and heal.

I had about 8-9 days of actually feeling horrible before it started getting better, think the worst flu you’ve ever had and add like 12%. The first time I washed my hair after testing positive, wore me out, like I got winded and dizzy. I had to lean against the shower wall until it went away. That’s how much it took me out.

I still don’t know where or how I got it. Apparently, severity of symptoms can indicate amount of exposure and since mine was a mild/moderate case, I’d say I got it from random contact, either at work or my apartment building since I don’t go anywhere else.

I was doing things right. I wore my mask all day at work (except when was eating or talking on the phone) and anytime I went into a business, I washed my hands or used sanitizer, I avoided large groups and limited the places I went, and I still got it.

I was exceptionally lucky. It could have been so much worse and I pray for those people who were not as lucky as I was.

I’m not going to sugar coat it. It sucked. Really bad.

Wear a damn mask and wash your damn hands.

Going MIA

 I fell off the face of the earth.

I mean, not really, but it sure has felt like that the last couple of months. I don’t know if you know this, but it’s kind of a dumpster fire out there.

I wish I had a great reason like I was kidnapped by Somali pirates while sailing on a yacht worth more than most countries’ GNP and the UN just negotiated my release.

Or I became a long-haul trucker.

Alas, neither is true. Life just got the better of me… and I signed up for Hulu.

Some things that have happened since my last post in September:

1)      Ate in a restaurant for the first time since March

2)      Visited my family for Labor Day

3)      Broke my car a couple of times

4)      Judged entries for an anthology

5)      Had two short stories accepted for an anthology

6)      Had a short story rejected by a magazine

7)      Read/listened to a bunch of books

8)      Learned a whole bunch about death, dead bodies, and the American death industry

9)      The high school speech team I help with started back up

10)  Stayed in a Yurt

11)  Drank far too much wine with my sister and bestie on Halloween

12)  Got Covid and had to quarantine for 2 weeks

13)  Spent Thanksgiving alone

14)  Discovered the Mandalorian

15)  Made a flat Christmas tree out of an inverted trellis, garland, and lights

It's a bit scruffy and only half the lights work
but it turned out better than I expected with
my limited craft skills

That seems like a lot of stuff to be doing during a global pandemic but I’ll remind you, that’s over 2 months and most of that stuff can be done from the comfort of my apartment. Man, are we all getting our money’s worth out of our rent/mortgage this year.

I’ll go more into some/most of these in individual posts, just wanted to let you all know that I’m still alive.

Latin mass but not in the good way

When I was a senior in high school, my dad got a job with a company that sent him to manage a hog farm in O’Neill, NE, over two hours from where we lived. So he got a tiny apartment to live in during the week and come home on the weekends.

To some, this might seem weird, but he had been traveling with his previous work weekly for years, getting home late Thursday or Friday, so it had become normal for us.

One weekend, my mom and I decided to drive up and spend the weekend with him in O’Neill. I think there were some sort of city festivities going on to make the trip a bit more exciting. One thing my parents were interested in was attending the Latin mass that was going on that weekend.

For me, growing up in the Catholic Church well after the Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II, (the conclave that changed mass from the traditional Latin to the language of the country where it was happening, it changed a bunch of other things, too, but that’s the one that matters to this story), I was excited to experience mass how it was when my parents were children.

Dad spent the morning before mass telling stories about being an altar boy and stumbling his way through mass in a language he didn’t understand. They had cheat cards for the altar boys so they knew when to respond and what to say until they got a new priest at their church who was old school and did away with the cards, demanding the altar boys learn the responses without assistance.

Since it was vacation, I didn’t bring my regular church clothes with me. Or maybe I just didn’t bring a nice coat. All I remember about my attire is that I was wearing pants and a bright yellow Wayne State College hoodie because it was still chilly in the mornings. We rolled up to the old, white church that looked like nearly every other country church built at the end of the last century. We noticed most of the men wore suits, or at least ties, and most of the women were wearing hats.

Strange but not alarming.

Until we got inside.

All of the women were wearing dresses or skirts and those who weren’t wearing hats had a scarf, handkerchief, or lacy thing on their heads.

This wasn’t just a special mass in Latin for the city festivities. This was an actual traditional Catholic Latin mass by a parish that didn’t recognize Vatican II.

For those who don’t know, it used to be required for women to cover their heads while in church. I’m not sure of the reason because this was well before me, nor do I know when that was done away with. It might’ve been also at Vatican II or just gradually went away. I have seen some women who keep to the tradition but it is largely not done anymore.

I have never felt more out of place at a Catholic mass before, and I’ve been to one in Mexico in gym shorts and a sweaty tee-shirt after touring Mexico City all day in June.

Dad worried the collar of his button-down shirt, wishing he had worn a tie, meanwhile mom and I sat there in pants with heads uncovered, me in my bright yellow hoodie. Dad suggested I put the hood up so my head was at least covered. I didn’t. I thought that would make me more obvious than keeping it down. Plus, Mom would still be bareheaded and we gotta stick together.

Dad was the only one of us who went up for communion since he was the only one “properly” dressed, but we made it through without being struck by lightning or glared at.

To be honest, I didn’t look around at the other petitioners so I don’t know if we got glared at or not. I just tried to be as inconspicuous as possible while looking like a traffic cone and avoiding eye contact.

Overall, it was an experience I’m glad to have had. I learned a bit more about the church I grew up in and what mass looked like when my parents were kids. After Vatican II, most churches pulled out the huge ornate altars that filled the front of the church because mass was to be more inclusive for the congregation (another reason for the language change). Now, the priest spends less time facing the altar and more time facing the parishioners and there's no need for the fancy when simple would do.

Super fancy altar

  

Simple altar of a modern church

I’m all for new experiences, but I usually like to be better prepared for them. Since our little adventure in the traditional church, I’ve learned that in a pinch, a tissue and a bobby pin make a great head covering when nothing else could be found, so do with that what you will.

Author’s note: If I’m wrong about any of the Vatican II stuff, please forgive me, I’m doing basically zero research and going off my spotty knowledge.

Rough Morning

I had a rough morning Wednesday.

Horrible cramps woke me up at 2:30 which is always pleasant. Ladies, you can attest. Once I finally fell back to sleep, I snoozed my alarms so much that I woke up a half an hour later than I usually do. That’s fine, still enough time to make it to work by 7. Left my apartment about six minutes later than I usually do but still in good shape.

Alfred, the day I got him and set off a
whole stream of mechanics visits

Got into Alfred, my car, and turned the key in the ignition.

Click.

Noooooo.

I turned the key again.

Click.

Took the key out, prayed to the car gods, and tried again.

Click. 

The lights on my dashboard came on, the alert messages scrolled through all their possibilities, the dome light was on, but the radio wasn’t working.

I cussed a few times, gathered up my stuff, and headed back into my apartment to figure out what to do next.

First thing: email my boss to let her know I would be late, if I made it at all.

Second thing: call Dad.

Yeah, I am a 34-year-old grown-ass woman whose first thought when shit goes sideways is to call her father. I’m not ashamed.

His response: “I can’t do anything about that.”

Me: “I know, just tell me what to do.”

I rolled through all of Alfred’s symptoms, all the while praying it was just the battery because I figured any other answer was going to be super expensive to fix.

He asked if the car was in park. Considering I’ve turned my car off without it being in park exactly twice before (shut up, it was years ago and I was young and dumb), I was hoping that was the answer. I went out and checked. No, that wasn’t the answer, car was in park. He suggested I try starting the car in neutral. No idea what that would do but Dad said to try it so I tried it. Didn’t help.

His diagnosis was that the battery was dead (thank goodness!). His advice: call AAA to get a jump and take it to Auto Zone, O’Reilly’s, or someplace like that and get a new one.

I checked opening times and every place opened at 7:30 am. At this point, it was 7:10 am and I decided to wait and call places to make sure they’d install the battery for me and how long it would take. I also researched battery prices to see how much this latest episode of Alfred breaking would cost.

7:35 arrived and I called the closest place, Auto Zone. Yes, they would install the battery for me and it would only take 10-15 minutes.

“Perfect! I’ll call AAA for a jump and be right there.”

Thank you, Mom, for the Christmas gift that keeps on giving.

Called AAA, the helpful lady said somebody would be out to me by 9:20 to help. Odd time but I’ll take it.

I wandered around my apartment for 20 minutes, trying to decide what to do to kill the 1.5 hours I had when my phone rang. It was the AAA service guy. He asked some additional questions about what my car was doing, I rolled through the symptoms again, and he said he’d be there in 15 minutes.

Hooray!

It was 8:00 by this time. I was an hour late for work, my anxiety was at an 11, and I was still praying to the car gods that it was just the battery. I texted my coworkers to let them know the situation and I killed the rest of the time by terrorizing Toothless and stalking the service guy on the GPS map they texted me.

When he was two minutes away, I gathered up my purse, lunch bag, and mask and headed out to my car. I popped the hood and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

The crappy thing about living in an apartment complex is that GPS always takes people to the wrong entrance and they get lost, never to be seen or heard from again.

When I was beginning to despair of ever seeing the service guy, he finally pulled up, dug out all his gadgets, and got to work. I tried to be cool but one way I control my anxiety is by getting as much information as I can so, I asked as many questions about what he was doing and battery stuff in general as I dared. He was super nice and answered my questions, offered advice, and gave great battery post cleaning tips. (You can use Coke to clean the corrosion off your battery posts but don’t do that in the summer or you’ll get ants.)

My battery was in fact dead. It had a bad cell and that wouldn’t allow the starter to function. He offered to install a new battery for me for free, I’d just pay for the battery.

Did you know that AAA service people carry extra batteries in their trucks and will install them for you?? I had no idea. I wished I knew before Wednesday morning. I would’ve called them as soon as I hung up with my dad instead of wasting almost an hour for stores to open.

Yes, please and thank you. Put that sucker in there and save me a stop at Auto Zone.

So, he scrubbed the corrosion off the wires that connect to the battery with a wire brush, pulled out the old battery, and dropped a new one in there. He got everything hooked back up and told me to try to start up the car.

Click.

Nooooooo.

He looked around at the engine, trying to find the answer. Messed with the wires connecting to the battery a bit then told me to try it again.

Click.

“That’s the starter.”

My heart, my stomach, and my spleen dropped into my shoes at the three words I was hoping to not hear.

I sputtered out “You’re thinking my starter is bad, too?”

Him: “It sounds like it’s not turning over but even if it was going out, it should still start with a brand new battery.”

I was picking up what he was putting down. My old car, St. Jude, named after the patron saint of lost causes and desperate cases (the car was well named), had a bad starter that wrecked a new battery the day before Thanksgiving. In the snow. Good times.

If you don’t know, I have terrible luck with cars. Some is my own damn fault (RIP Minerva) but a lot of it is just bad circumstances. I’ve very familiar with cars not starting, cars just randomly stopping on the road, flat tires, blown tires, and the check engine light.

He pulled a can of something out of his truck and removed the wires on the battery, sprayed the posts and the wires with the stuff, then connected it all again.

“Give it another try.”

One more prayer to the car gods and I turned the key.

IT’S ALIVE!!!

Words tripped over themselves as I tried to express my gratitude to this car wizard and his magic spray can.

I then confirmed that the starter is, in fact, not bad, it was just a connection thing and he reassured me that I’m good to go.

I paid the good man, thanked him a million more times, texted my coworkers to let them know that I was headed to work, and set off.

Pulling out of my apartment parking lot, Alfred let me know that my left rear tire was low on air.

That’s it, ya’ll. I’m marrying a mechanic.

Quarantine Monster Short: Paranormal Prankser

 Sharon sighed in disgust as she took in the kitchen. Every cupboard and draw was wide open. “When did Peter start leaving the kitchen like this?” She glanced upward toward his second story office, shook her head, and started closing everything.

Three weeks into the pandemic lockdown, and it was the longest uninterrupted time she and her husband had ever spent under one roof before. All of the little irritating things he did were starting to increase in annoyance. Sharon took a few deep breaths to quell the rising anger, refilled her water bottle, and headed back up the stairs. “Peter, next time you open every cupboard and drawer in the kitchen, can you please close them when you’re done?”

“What?” Peter yelled through the open door but didn’t look up from his computer.

“Close stuff when you’re done in the kitchen.” Sharon repeated as she passed the doorway.

Peter jerked back when the overhead light went dark. “Hey!” He glanced up at the intact bulb, then over to the switch. There was just enough light streaming in from the hallway to see it in the off position.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Why’d you turn off my light?”

“What?” Sharon yelled from the bedroom.

“Why’d you turn off my light?”

“I didn’t touch your light!”

Peter rolled his eyes and slowly got out of his chair, stretching out the kinks with a groan and toddled over to flip the light back on. “It didn’t just shut itself off and she knows I can’t work in the dark. It hurts my eyes,” Peter muttered as he retook his seat.

The ghost in the doorway threw its hands in the air. “Come on! What do I have to do to get you people to react?!” It pulled the office door shut with a slam.

Peter jumped. “Dammit, Sharon! Why’d you do that?” he yelled.

“I didn’t touch your light! You don’t need to slam your door about it!” Sharon’s voice grew louder and faded as she passed the door and went back downstairs.

Peter harrumphed and put on his headphones, hoping some music would help him get some work done.

The ghost poked its head through the door to glare at Peter before following Sharon to the first floor. It watched her bustle around, moving laundry from the washer to the dryer, pick up forgotten dishes in the living room, and load them into the dishwasher before starting out. She pulled the trash bag out of the can and headed out to the garage.

Opening the cabinets and drawers in the kitchen hadn’t been enough to spook the humans. Peter and Sharon had always managed to blame the ghost’s tricks on each other but never confronted each other so they hadn’t figured out that it was something else causing the turmoil in the house. When they started spending all of their time at home, the ghost hoped they were finally going to figure out it was there but they somehow still managed to blame the other for the ghost’s pranks and it wasn’t happy about it.

The ghost wandered over and opened the dryer just enough to stop it but not enough that the door was visibly open. It also knocked the broom over so it fell across the garage door. Now, if somebody tried to come in through it, the broom would wedge against the washer and the door wouldn’t open. The ghost headed back to the kitchen, thinking that doing the drawer and door trick a second time might be enough to send Sharon and Peter over the edge. It also dumped most of the milk down the drain, leaving a tiny bit left in the carton, and put it back in the fridge.

The ghost strolled around the ground floor, looking for more tricks to play on the couple. When it couldn’t think of anything else to do, it headed for the stairs. Just then, Sharon tried coming back into the house from the garage. The door hit the broom and caught, slamming the broom into the washer with a lough bang.

“What the hell? Peter!” Sharon yelled.

The ghost smiled and continued up the stairs.

Peter walked through the ghost on his way to the kitchen and shuddered at the sudden cold spot the ghost created. He heard the banging coming from the laundry room and went to investigate. Seeing the broom across the door, he reached for it, right as Sharon tried opening it again, effectively pinching his fingers.

“Dammit, Sharon, hold on a minute!” He growled as she shook the pain from his hand. He cleared the broom and opened the door to glower at his wife who matched him glare for glare.

“Why’d you lock me out?” Sharon yelled.

“I didn’t lock you out! The broom was blocking the door. You probably knocked it over when you went out. Be more careful.” He stomped out of the laundry room. “Speaking of careful, I think you broke my hand.” He walked into the kitchen for ice and noticed everything open. “What’d you do in here?”

Sharon followed him in and her mouth fell open. “You opened everything back up after I yelled at you for doing it earlier?! Was this what you were doing while I was locked in the garage?”

“Why would I do any of this?” Peter asked as he shoved things shut on his way to the freezer. The no-slam cupboards and drawers denied him a satisfying slam, increasing his irritation.

“I don’t know! Why do you do anything?” Sharon screeched as she stomped up the stairs, only to discover the ghost had been busy.

There was toilet paper all over the upstairs, like somebody had grabbed the end of the roll and just wondered room to room, leaving piles and trails where they went.

“Peter!” Sharon screamed.

Angry grumbles accompanied Peter’s heavy footfalls on the stairs. “What now?” He stopped, just behind Sharon, his mouth hanging open at the sight. “How did you have the time to do this? You just got up here,” he marveled.

“I didn’t do this!” Sharon growled, turning on her husband. “You did! We can’t waste toilet paper like this. There’s a shortage! Roll this back up!”

“You think I did this?” Peter was stunned.

“Well, it wasn’t me! Who else could’ve done it?!”

“Finally!” The ghost crowed in victory as he slammed every door in the house shut.

The couple screamed.

Quarantine Monster Short: No Children Allowed

“The older ones aren’t too bad… What am I saying? Of course they are. They sulk most of the time but when they make noise, it’s loud and grating. The little ones are the worst, though.” The ghost kept up the mumbled tirade as it paced in the attic of the old Victorian it had called home for the last forty years.

It passed through the boxes, furniture, and studs of the unfinished wall as it paced. Sheets rustled and dust bunnies ran in the faint breeze it created, but otherwise its passing went unnoticed.

It had a need, a drive, to interact with the human tenants of the house but five things were stopping it from its traditional role.

The children.

The ghost paused its pacing when footsteps raced passed the door at the bottom of the stairs that lead to its sanctuary. The children weren’t allowed in the attic alone and that rule gave the ghost a safe haven in the otherwise terrifying house.

The sound of glass breaking and screaming filtered up from the upstairs study. The ghost poked its head through the floor to see what the little monsters had done now.

A tall floor lamp was laying on its side on the floor, its antique glass shade was splayed around it in a rainbow of shards. The two middle children were screaming at each other, deciding who deserved the blame for the latest mishap. The ghost jerked its head back into the attic when the youngest child toddled into the room. The two-year-old had a way of staring at the ghost that was unnerving and it avoided the smallest human whenever possible.

The ghost resumed its pacing, trying to figure out how it could go back to its haunting ways while avoiding the children.

It didn’t notice the tiny footsteps on the stairs until it was too late.

The tiny, redheaded toddler stood at the top of the stairs with a blanket draped over her shoulder and jelly smeared across her face. She stared at the ghost.

If it still had skin, it would’ve jumped out of it. The ghost froze, unsure what to do. After a minute that felt like an eternity of being stared at by the child, the ghost frowned. “Can you actually see me?” the ghost asked before slowly shifting to the right. The child’s eyes followed the ghost’s movement. The ghost glided behind the toddler, hovering over the stairs.

The girl turned around, her eyes never leaving the ghost.

It shuddered, fully creeped out by the small human. It raced away from the girl and hid behind a tall stack of boxes in a corner of the attic.

It waited, hoping the child would leave the attic and it in peace. The sound of something scuffing against the dusty floor had the ghost turning around.

The toddler had found it.

“Stay away from me!” The ghost yelled before dropping through three floors to the basement. It crouched in a dark corner, trying to recover from its encounter with the little girl.

It froze when it heard the sound of tiny feet stomping down the wooden stairs. “No…” It turned.

The small human was silhouetted in the doorway.

Quarantine Monster Short: Happy Bigfoot

This was actually the first monster short I wrote when I decided to start this project. Just a happy, little Bigfoot.

Picture from Disney's A Goofy Movie

In a sunlit meadow, somewhere in the forest in the Pacific Northwest, there is naught to be seen or heard but nature.

Bigfoot dances through, tossing wildflowers from the bouquet he holds while he sings Born Free in his head.

He skips over to the first human he has seen in weeks, a stunned hiker standing at the edge of the meadow. Bigfoot hands them the rest of his bouquet and gently pats them on the head.

Their knees buckle under the force of the pat.

Bigfoot spins around them and dances off into the forest.

Quarantine Monster Shorts: Hangry Vamp

I fully intended to post this yesterday but for some reason I felt that separating the cat food that Toothless likes from the food he doesn't like, piece by piece, was more important. Cat parent life.

Enjoy!

Hangry Vamp

“This is getting old.”

Vivian didn’t look up from her book as Marco unceremoniously plopped down next to her on the bench. She just raised an eyebrow as she turned the page. “Get used to things getting old.” At Marco’s extended silence, Vivian sighed and closed her book. Setting it on the bench between them, she turned to study her friend.

He tended to dress along the romantic Goth lines with his all-black ensemble: lace cuffs on his shirt, black-on-black brocade vest, trousers, and knee-high leather boots. The one thing that kept him from being mistaken for full Goth was his golden blond hair. A little too obvious for their kind but the world glanced past Goths more now than it used to.

Her own look leaned more toward punk with her biker boots, jeans, Iron Maiden tee, and leather jacket. After centuries in corsets, dressed, and various other restraining clothes, Vivian reveled in the freedom of her modern wardrobe.

“What, pray tell, is getting old?

Marco glared at her for her droll tone. “The humans.”

Vivian rolled her eyes and picked up her book. “That’s what they do.”

“Would you stop lecturing me?!” Marco exploded, his voice cut through the night and startled birds from the nearest trees.

Vivian’s eyes widened minutely and she put her book back down. “I don’t feel like that was warranted,” she said, her tone even.

Marco ran a hand through his hair as he tried to get his temper back under control. “I apologize, Viv. It’s been a while since I fed, I —”

“You’re hangry!” Vivian laughed.

“I’m what?”

“Hangry.” Vivian laughed again as Marco glowered at her. “Your hunger is making you angry, so ‘hangry’. When was the last time you fed?”

Marco leaned back, counting on his fingers. “Two weeks, I think.”

Vivian’s humor dissolved into concern. “That’s not good. You’re not old enough to go long stretches between feedings. You have probably another couple of days before bad things happen. Why have you waited so long?”

Marco rolled his eyes and spread his arms wide, taking in all of Griffith Park. “There aren’t any humans around to feed off of. They’re all behind locked doors. And the few that are out avoid people like the plague.”

“It is a plague, but this one is much cleaner than the Bubonic.” Vivian shrugged off Marco’s wide-eyed stare. “You knew I was really old.”

Marco shook his head. “No, not that. It’s how you commented on the cleanliness of this plague vs. Bubonic when I am in a crisis right now!”

“Oh my god, dramatic much?” Vivian stood, tucking her book into her bag and pulled Marco to his feet. “We will find you someone to feed on, if there aren’t any rule breakers out, we can find some bagged to tide you over.”

Marco made a face. “I hate the bagged stuff. So many preservatives that make it taste fake and it’s so gross cold. Microwaving it makes it stale. Who knows where the person’s been. You —”

Vivian slapped the back of Marco’s head to stop his list of grievances with donated blood. “Beggars can’t be choosers. You’ll take what I give you because I don’t want your hangry ass making noise and risking us all.”

Marco fell into a sullen silence as he followed Vivian through the park to her car. “Have you fed on somebody who as sick?”

Vivian glanced up at him with a smirk. “Worried about catching it?”

Marco shook his head. “Just wondered if they taste different.”

“Oh, yeah, they do. Kind of… musty.” Vivian frowned, looking for a better word. “Kind of like a closed basement: kind of damp, maybe a bit of mold, a little earthy. A taste that’s better in cheese, not blood.”

Marco made a face.

Vivian reached up and patted his shoulder. “We’ll try to find a healthy one for you. The people who have recovered from it still taste a little off, so watch out for them, too.”

They reached Vivian’s blood red Barracuda and climbed in. The engine roared to life as she took them out onto the open road, going twice the speed limit without fear of accident or police.

“So, why haven’t you eaten?”

“I told you, nobody is out and those who are, scurry away from other people faster than a vamp can run.”

“So.”

“So?”

Vivian swept her hand through the open window. “Chase them.”

“Chase- Viv, we aren’t animals hunting our prey.”

“That is exactly what we are, Marco, and if you had waited much longer to feed, you would’ve done it without thought. The hungrier you get, the more humanity you lose. Don’t let yourself go more than a week again. Keep bagged on hand if you have to.” A shadow crossed Vivian’s face that had nothing to do with the streetlights they passed under. “Decades ago, I knew a vamp a little younger than you who tried to go a month without eating. We found him in an elementary school. He had gotten twenty or thirty of the little buggers before we got him stopped. It took a lot of money and fast talking to keep the humans from suspecting.”

Marco’s white complexion took on a gray hue. “What happens if I get that bad?”

Vivian took his hand with a kind smile. “I’ll rip out your heart.”

Introducing: Quarantine Monster Shorts

I don't know if you've noticed, but 2020 has been kind of insane. Pandemic, murder hornets, coin shortages, and meth gators just to name a few have been flooding news sources and social media since March. A random conversation with my best friend about the water in the Great Lakes clearing because of decreased shipping started a project about a very important topic: 

What are monsters doing while the are humans locked up?

So, to help keep myself sane during the dumpster fire that is 2020, I have been trying to answer that question in a series of short stories. They range from funny to sad, ridiculous to bittersweet, covering a wide range of emotions that humans and monsters are feeling during these uncertain times. 

My end goal is to release an anthology of them but I thought it would be fun to share a few of them with you here on The Blank Page. The first one will be posted next Tuesday, August, 11th.

I have lucky 13 stories completed and have ideas for more so this project will keep me busy for a while. I'll let you know more about the anthology when I have a better idea of what I want it to look like.

Some of the monsters featured in the shorts:

Ghosts

Vampires

Big Foot

Witches

Nessy

Cats

Gremlins

and more... 

Picture from Metro

I want to thank my friends in the Central Nebraska Writers Group who have been giving me feedback on my monster shorts for the last 6+ months and giving me more ideas to keep the stories going. 

If you have any monsters that you would like to see featured in the Quarantine Monster Shorts, please comment below or email me at katherine.wielechowski@gmail.com.

Make sure to follow me on facebook, Katherine Wielechowski- Author so you know when new posts go up.

Stay safe, wash your hands, wear sunscreen, and don't forget to take a towel. Love, Katherine

Poem: We are the Tired Generation

We are the tired generation

Not millennials

Not snowflakes

Not you damn kids

We are tired

Tired of being told we can't or we won't

Tired of being told we're wrong

Tired of being told we're unskilled

Tired of being the hopeless while being seen as the helpless

Tired of being told we killed this industry or that product

Tired of being told we're the ruin of this country

Tired of being unheard

When it was you who failed to teach

It was you who failed to lead

It was you who failed to train

It was you who failed to care

It was you who made us helpless and hopeless

We are the inheritors of a wrecked economy, drowning in debt and in hate

We were expected to do as you did without knowing that what you did doesn't work anymore

You tell us to grow up, take a stand, fight for what we want

But when we do, you tell use to sit down, be quite, mind the status quo

Now we say the status quo doesn't work for us

You fight us, fight for how it's always been done

Instead of listening to how we want to see our future, you tell us to live in your past

You had your chance to be teachers, instead you chose to be anchors

So now we say, sit down, listen, and learn from us

You've had your future, it is time for us to have ours

We are the tired generation

And we will rise

Cat, peanut butter, and working from home

I just had to clean peanut butter off my desk, my carpet, and my cat. How is your morning going?

 

This is the early morning text I sent my family and friends this morning.

This is my "I forgive you" face

 

What happened:

 

I was logging into my computer, getting ready to start working for the day with my breakfast sitting on the desk next to my keyboard (toasted blueberry bagel slathered with peanut butter) when Toothless decided to jump onto my desk.

 

Right onto the bagel.

 

I grabbed him and, in the scramble, the plate and half of the bagel ended up peanut butter side down on the floor, the other half stayed on my desk with a perfect pawprint in the peanut butter.

 

I wasn’t quite sure what to do with Toothless. I didn’t want to set him down somewhere and risk him spreading the peanut butter all over my apartment so I locked both of us in the bathroom, put him in the sink, and turned on the water.

 

For somebody who is always so curious about the wet sink and enjoys standing in it after I wash my hands, he was hella not happy to be in it with the water running. He kept trying to escape while I was trying to clean out as much of the peanut butter as I could, using hot water in the hopes it would cut through the oil in the peanut butter while trying to not burn him or me.

 

Funny story: peanut butter doesn’t come out of long cat hair.

 

Halfway through this mess, I was wishing I had grabbed the Dawn out of the kitchen to help with the peanut butter removal but I didn’t trust Toothless to stay put if I left to go get it. Plus, I didn’t know if I could keep him still long enough to get the Dawn on him and then rinsed out. Having a pissed off cat is one thing, having a pissed off cat with a mouth full of dish soap is a completely different can of worms.

 

So, I got as much of the peanut butter off of him as I could, grabbed the bath towel I use for my hair because I couldn’t reach any others, and got him wrapped up in it. Toothless hates being burrito wrapped because it usually means he’s getting his nails trimmed so that was fun. Took him back out to the living room so I could sit with him in my lap as I finished toweling him off.

 

As soon as I let him go, he stood in the middle of the living room and did his version of yowling (he’s a very quiet cat so his yowling is the same as a normal cat’s standard volume meow), then retreated to the corner to start licking himself clean.

Scruffy tail from this morning's shenanigans

 

It was 45 minutes straight of listening to him groom across the room from me.

 

Forty. Five. Minutes. *eye twitch*

 

Then, he went in my room to continue the process, before coming back out to the living room to lick some more.

 

The cleaning process of this wasn’t over for me, either. I grabbed a bowl and filled it with hot water and Dawn, then scrubbed the peanut butter out of my carpet. Thankfully, it’s brown so it blends right in. Tossed the bagel (sad face), cleaned the peanut butter off my desk, and returned to work.

 

One of the bad things about the whole situation is that the bagel was still warm from the toaster and the peanut butter was in a near-liquid state so when Toothless landed on it, it splattered all over. I found a couple of drops on my computer monitor almost 2 feet away from the crime scene.

 

I ended up bleeding, Toothless ended up looking like a half-drowned rat, I had cereal for breakfast, Toothless got a bunch of peanut butter and a sink bath. His tail still looks terrible, but he’s napping in his cat tree and all is right with the world.

 

So how was your day?

Four Horsemen Novel Excerpt

With everything being a dumpster fire right now, I thought it was the perfect time to share an excerpt from 1-800-Henchmen: Four Horsemen, since, you know, the world's ending. Enjoy!

“Meet the Four Horsemen: War, Pestilence, Famine, and Death.”

“Do they have real names?” LeRoy frowned.

“I’d imagine they do, but we could not find anything anywhere on the planet that reveals them.”

“What do we know?” Ray asked, studying the pictures.

The first one was a picture of War, -the woman Ray had found on the footage that had started their search. She was short and stocky with chin-length black and red hair. She had a tattoo on her neck that curled from just under her jaw down into her shirt. The picture looked like it was a mug shot from a prison in a third-world country and War was not happy to be there.

The second, Pestilence, was a man who greatly resembled War except he had white streaks in his long black hair and multiple facial piercings. The picture was from a security camera taken in a train station somewhere and showed Pestilence glancing covertly over his shoulder, a laptop case clutched tight to his chest.

The third picture showed a handsome blond man in a black-on-black-on-black power suit. Famine had been photographed stepping out of a black Maybach sedan in front of what looked like a country club somewhere tropical.

The fourth was of a beautiful blond woman with her hair pulled back severely from her face. Death was in a sharp charcoal suit, heels, and had large jade jewelry on that should have ruined the professional outfit but somehow enhanced it. She was standing in front of a steel-and-glass office building with a phone pressed to her ear and a briefcase in her other hand.

“Very little, actually.” Gibson sat down and gave his team a rueful smile. “This picture was from when War was captured in Russia after leading an attack on a government building in Moscow. She is a combat expert and a fairly popular mercenary. Very few people have been able to best her, and the only reason she was captured in Moscow was because she was drugged by a person on her own team. Even then, it took three Russian soldiers to take her in.”

Nikolai bristled at the thought that a small woman could get the better of his countrymen. “I will show her.”

Gibson chuckled. “Pestilence is War’s brother. As far as we can tell, they were born in Eastern Europe somewhere but spent a significant amount of their lives in the US. He is a ghost in the system and one of the best computer hackers I have ever seen or heard of. He is probably the reason the Four Horsemen don’t seem to exist. It’s tough to completely erase somebody from every computer system in the world, but a good enough hacker could do it, given enough time.”

“He better than you, cap?” Alfie asked with an impish grin.

“Yep.” Gibson’s eyes glittered dangerously. “But that’s not going to stop me from trying to bring him down.”

“Those are some crazy eyes, you got there.” Alfie leaned back with an exaggerated leery expression on his face.

Gibson shook his head and turned back to the pictures. “Famine is the idea man. He is the one who makes the plans and oversees execution. He creates relationships with powerful people in banks to get information about computer systems, layout, et cetera and then uses that information to make his plans infallible.”

LeRoy scoffed. “No plan is infallible.”

“La Grenouille Bouché would know,” Ray teased.

“Last, but not least, is Death.” Gibson cut them off before LeRoy could retort. “She is the one who gets the impossible information. No one seems to know how she does it. Even the people she has worked over can’t explain it. They just know they gave her the information but they can’t remember what kind of coercion she used. She works closely with Famine on the planning process.”

“What’s the plan?” Nikolai asked.

“What the plan normally is: direct confrontation, divert catastrophe, capture the bad guys.”

“Make the AOJ look good,” Ray muttered.

“We leave for London on Thursday morning. Let’s get prepped.”

Find the rest in 1-800-Henchmen: The Complete Series on Amazon.