Chronic Horror

CW: The following story contains instances of Abuse, Body Hatred, Blood, Gore, ableism , and Gaslighting which may be too much for some beings to endure. Listener discretion is advised.

{Intro Music}

This is Queer Ghoul. An anthology of short queer horror stories written and produced by me, Adriana Oister, pronouns she/her and they/them. 

With various tales of horror, suspense, mystery, and science fiction, I in the role of “The Narrator”, will introduce you to a diverse set of characters each of whom trapped in their own hellish landscapes, and teeth-clenching nightmares.

{Intro Music slows down…then picks back up}

Monologue: In a matter of minutes I’m going to present to you a story which is very much real. Maybe not to you, but to many who have lives filled with daily struggles, pursuits for answers and remedies, and feel as though they are trapped in a body that doesn’t work as it should. Not much more of an intro is needed than that. Please, keep an open mind, and an open heart, and you’ll step away with a point of view you perhaps haven’t considered before. I now present to you…CHRONIC HORROR.


Chronic Horror

The door to the upstairs bathroom sprang open and knocked into the wall as Lauren staggered inside. She clung to anything hanging onto the walls, sending towels and items crashing to the tile floor. Her legs shook, as did her body and hands as she placed them on each side of the ceramic sink. Sharp pains ran through the center of her chest, and throbbed behind her eyes as her blurry vision stared into her doubled, spinning, reflection in the mirror. She winced when the light from the glass bounced into her pained brown eyes, dark circles underneath them. The pain that exploded from the base of her skull felt as though someone had stabbed her with two long swords, and the blades pierced right through her head, and had split each of her eyeballs in half down the middle.

She took hard, labored breaths. None of them felt pleasing against the pain which built from the chest and rose up into her throat like a scorching flame. Her stomach lurched. She gagged, heaving into the sink. Dark red splotches dotted its white base.

            She threw her head back. Her jaw extended itself wider until she heard a pop.

            Fingers with short nails scraped against the enamel of her teeth. A fist came after. The hand oozed in blood, stretching itself out of her mouth. It flexed its fingers and grabbed for the air.

            Lauren tried to scream, the cries muffled by the wrist and hand. Thin streams of tears seeped out of her stunned eyes.  She let go of the sink, but only for a moment. Her legs were not strong enough to support her on their own. They trembled. She gripped her unsteady hands even tighter to the sink. 

The hand turned itself around until its palm faced Lauren. It launched itself on the side of her face, along her cheek and neck. The fingers dug into her skin. 

Lauren raised her right hand and grabbed onto the hand, pulling it. It only pierced itself deeper into her face.

            Lauren spun around away from the mirror, and grabbed onto the walls towards the door. She made it into the hallway and she clung onto the wooden railing. She heard a voice calling out to her from down below the staircase.

            “Lauren? What’s wrong?” Her wife asked.

            Lauren was unable to answer. She rushed herself to the top of the staircase, her hands clasped to the railing and turned white. A tingling shot up her spine, and rushed to the pain in the back of her skull, where a sharp force jerked her backwards. She lost her balance on the first step. Her body crashed down on each of the steps as it rolled without control, electric pains coursed through her body, and the hand in her mouth retreated back into it.

When she made it to the bottom, her body laid still.

Her wife screamed.

Lauren rested her stiff body along the soft fabric of the sofa, although she felt far from rested herself. Her eyes were still aching, and a honing sound like a radar bore inside her ears. She fluctuated between being hot and cold, and she covered her flushed face with her weak, shivering hands.

Her wife, Margaret, came out of the kitchen and handed her an ice pack. She sat on the coffee table a glass of water on a coaster and two pain reliever pills from an off brand. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take from you.” She said.

Despite knowing that none of these solutions could ease her, Lauren still took the pills and pressed the ice pack down onto her throbbing right eye.

Margaret glared down at her. “This has been going on for months, and I’m sick of it. You’ve been to doctor to doctor, test to test. Each of which costs thousands of dollars, and not one can find what’s wrong with you. I’m telling you, it’s all a waste of money, because there’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Margaret, please.”

“No, enough of this. I’m the one that’s had to go out and work while you lay around putting on a show. This is all it is, a show that you put on in your head.”

“It’s not in my head.” Lauren sat up. “I’m in pain. I can’t walk. Something is wrong with me. You’re supposed to be supportive.”

            “Suck it up Lauren. Get up, move around, and go back to work.”

Lauren clenched her aching jaw and rose herself off of the couch. The blood rushed to her head and intensified the dizziness. Her legs wobbled.  She held onto the back of the couch as she took a few short steps. “I can’t do this right now with you again.”

“I’m not going to leave this alone. I can’t do this with you anymore. It’s all in your head. You worry about things too much, that’s what your problem is. You just think there’s something wrong with you. It’s all in your head.”

Lauren wanted to speak more, to tell her wife about all the horrid things she felt, to fight for herself. But she had no energy to do so. She was drained.

“For someone who can’t walk, you’re sure making a getaway now.”

She fell to her knees, the pain was burning back up her throat and into her jaw. She cradled herself. “Please, stop.”

“No, I’m not going to stop!”

            “Please, I’m begging you to stop.” The last word only coming out as a whisper.

            “Get up Lauren!”

            She didn’t answer her, she couldn’t. Her face turned red as her breaths were short.

            “I said get up!”

            Silence.

            Margaret let out an annoyed sound. She stormed forward and grabbed firmly onto Lauren’s arms, pulling her up off the floor in a forceful manner.

Electric tremors quaked down Lauren’s arms as she wailed. “That hurts!”

            Margaret ignored her cries and dropped her against the couch’s armrest. “Sit down and look presentable. You’re acting like a child.”

Both of them paused as a creaking sound reached their ears. 

Lauren and Margaret turned and noticed the front door had been unlocked. It was opened and left slightly ajar.

            “You must have left the door open.” Margaret said.

            “You know that’s not possible. I haven’t gone near that door since my last doctor’s appointment a few weeks ago.”

            Margaret felt something crawl over her shoe. It was slimy and ran up her ankle.

            She looked and saw a tiny bright green lizard cock its scaly head and flick its circular eyes in her direction. It slowly blinked at her. It raised one of its webbed and clawed feet up off her skin and into the air, as if daring her to make the first move.

            Margaret screamed and shook her ankle. The lizard jumped off of her and sprinted across the carpeting and towards the hardwood floors.

And it stilled and looked up like an obedient dog at a woman who wasn't there before.

The older woman whose body stayed balanced with the aid of her silver cane, warmly smiled with pink lips at the tiny creature as it crawled its way up to the handle of her cane and onto her pale finger. She stuck out her wrinkled wet tongue, and aligned her finger with it like a bridge as the lizard padded itself into her mouth, and Margaret watched the body of the lizard as it passed through the woman’s throat.

She audibly gagged but the woman paid her no mind. Instead she tucked a few gray locks of her hair behind her ear and moved towards the couch and Lauren. The woman’s face was devoid of wrinkles, except for the crow’s feet in the corners of her shadowy blue eyes. A large black leather bag was strapped over her shoulder.

            “You must be the poor young woman I’ve been hearing about.” The woman said to Lauren as she sat beside her and placed a hand softly on her back.

The touch from her hand jolted Lauren’s back and caused her to bolt upright. Lauren looked at the woman. Her face was still dimmed in a red hue, her brown hair disheveled. “Hearing about?”

Margaret’s face was stuck in a permanent scowl. “What is this all about? Who are you? How did you get in here?”

“ I heard it through the grapevine at the local hospital of a woman who they think seems to be an enigma. But most doctors are enigma’s themselves. They seem to forget along the way that their patients are human beings and not machines that they send home after their appointments. I’m Vanda Mallick, and I thought I could be of help to you.”

“That’s nice of you in this day of age to make a house call, but there’s no point. There’s nothing wrong with her, and I don’t feel like also paying you just to do tests that are going to say I’m right.”

            Vanda glanced over at her. “I’m free of charge.” She said, turning all of her attention back to Lauren. “Sweetie, do you believe there’s something wrong with you?”

Lauren nodded.

            “Well, that proves it to me. Now the key is figuring out what that wrong is. I suggest you go back upstairs and rest for a few. The other Mrs. Underhill and I will talk a little bit, and I’ll bring up for you something to eat and drink. I know it must be hard to eat when you feel nauseated but we still need to get something in you, and you need to hydrate.” Vanda stood up, helping Lauren stand as well with the aid of her cane.

“How did you know that I’m Mrs. Underhill?” Margaret said.

            “I figured you were the lovely wife.” Vanda’s eyes rolled. She dug her free hand into her large bag, and pulled out a folded up cane for Lauren. “How about you use this?”

Lauren looked between the woman’s kind face and cane, and her wife’s sour expression. “I’ll be okay going back upstairs, I’ll hold on to the railing like I always do.” She said as she slowly made her way over.

            “Are you sure? I don’t want you getting hurt.”

            Margaret waved her off. “She’ll be fine. She fell down the steps earlier and she’s still alive.”

            “She fell down the steps?” Vanda asked, a hand on her chest. But Margaret didn’t reply.

Both of the women watched her go up step by step until Lauren disappeared behind the bedroom door on the top level.

Vanda faced Margaret, who was staring at her nails. “Look, Miss Mallick I presume? It’s nice that you came here, but you looked at her yourself, she’s fine. Every Doctor we’ve been to couldn’t find anything wrong. It’s honestly a waste of time to keep going on with her act. She just needs to move instead of sitting around all day.”

“Just because someone looks fine, doesn’t mean that they are.” Vanda said. “Just because a doctor can’t find anything wrong doesn’t mean that there isn’t. Sometimes it takes years to find a diagnosis. I believe your wife, that she’s in pain, and it’s a miserable road to follow, especially when you’re on it with miserable people. You can act the way you are Mrs. Underhill, I doubt anything I say will change you, but I’m going to figure out what’s wrong with your wife. All I request in return is some respect, cooperation, and just an ounce of compassion.”

 “I should kick you out of my house.” Margaret said.

“You wouldn’t have much luck in doing so. You wouldn’t have been able to stop me from coming in, and you would never be able to stop me from staying. Now, I suggest you go into the kitchen to make her a meal, something easy for her to chew and swallow, and we’ll both go and give it to her upstairs when it’s ready. And if you continue to cross me, I’ll have to retrain myself from doing something to you that we both may regret.”

Vanda and Margaret sauntered up the staircase. Margaret held in her hands a bowl of food and a drink in the other. She looked down at Vanda’s cane as she pushed off on it with each of her steps upward. “What do you need the cane for?”

“I know what’s going through your mind Mrs. Underhill. I don’t need your approval to validate whether or not I need a mobility aid. But if you’re so curious, I happen to have a chronic condition. Some days I need it, some days I don’t. Today just happens to be a day in which I do. That is all.”

 “What do you think you’re going to do to help Lauren that million dollar hospital equipment can’t? Shove a reptile down her throat? Or maybe you’re going to give her a rat that you just happen to have in your bag?”

They reached the top. “Having a heart will be one. Not sending out dreadful bills will be another.”

“That doesn’t answer my question. You still haven’t even told me what you are. Normal people don’t just show up in people’s houses and eat lizards in front of company and threaten them.”

Vanda ignored her, and knocked on the bedroom door. “Lauren?”

No response.

Margaret tapped her foot. “She’s probably sleeping. Just wake her up.”

Vanda pushed her ear into the door. Through the wood she heard muffled shrieks and the flapping of hands smacking down on a mattress.

She pushed the door open.

Lauren was sprawled across the bed. Her body jolted. Her bloodshot eyes were in tears. A long arm and a hand had thrusted themselves out of her jaws. The skin was dripping with red and left blotches on the bed as the hand’s fingers curled around Lauren’s neck like a collar, and squeezed.

“Stay out here.” Vanda closed the door in Margaret’s face, and locked it.

Margaret placed the food and drink on a nearby stand and yelled and banged against the door, but no one paid her any attention.

Vanda opened her mouth, and slid two of her fingers down into the pit of her throat. When she found what she was looking for, she squeezed her fingers together and pulled them back out. They trickled in saliva as the small green lizard dangled in the air by its tail in Vanda’s grasp. “You know what to do.” She let go of its tail, and it sprinted to the bed.

Vanda rested her cane against the wall, and moved to Laruen’s side. She placed her large bag down onto the bed’s fabrics. “You’ll be okay, in one second Lauren.” She wrapped both of her own hands around the one on Lauren’s neck, and pulled at it. 

It didn’t want to let go.

The lizard sprinted to the top of her bag, and popped it open. It pushed its little body inside as it made its way through the plethora of bottles, small boxes, and other contents inside. It poked its body out of the bag a few seconds later, dragging a bottle larger than it with its tiny mouth. The glass bottle’s contents were a liquid of murky yellow with globs of green that clung to the sides. The lizard cocked its head at Vanda.

“Thank you.” She said as she reached for the bottle. The lizard pulled the cork off from the top as she took it. She doused the base of the arm in the concoction, and watched it run down the skin and down into Lauren’s mouth.

The hand ripped itself away from Lauren’s throat, and the arm slipped back inside her mouth. Her jaw cracked as it snapped itself back in place.

Lauren sucked in a sharp breath, her hands massaging both sides of her face.

“You’re okay right now. You’re okay. Slow your breathing. I don’t want you hyperventilating. It’ll make it worse.” Vanda said as she pulled out a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at the blood on Laruen’s face. 

The lock on the door popped, and Margaret rushed inside. “Who do you think you are to lock the door and tell me not to come into my own bedroom? I want you out of here!”

“Stop screaming, your wife is having a flare up.”

“She’s fine.”

“She isn’t!” Vanda snapped, and she stopped herself from saying more. She took a deep breath, composed herself, and faced Lauren again. “Sweetie, are you feeling better?”

Lauren looked at her with glassy eyes, ignoring the lizard that decided to relax itself on her knee. “Whatever is in me, it’s trying to kill me. I’m dying.”

Vanda shook her head. “You aren’t dying, it’s not trying to kill you.”

“I don’t believe you. I can’t. It’s too painful, it has to be trying to kill me.”

“I promise you. It’s not.”

“How do you know?”

Vanda pursed her lips. “Because I’ve seen this before, I know what’s happening.”

Lauren sat up in the bed. “You do?”

Margaret leaned against the wall and crossed her arms.

Vanda brushed her pinkie across the scales of the lizard. “I know what I have to say isn’t easy to hear, yet I don’t think there is an easy way to state such things.”

“Please just tell me what’s wrong.”

            Vanda took a shaky breath. “You have another person living inside of you.”

Lauren’s throbbing eyes widened. “What?”

Margaret mumbled. “Oh my God, now I’ve heard everything.”

“It’s true. Believe me, I know how insane it sounds, but that is what’s causing you all of this distress. For the longest time, the person inside of you was dormant, nobody could possibly guess what caused it to awaken. But it did, and it’s not trying to kill you, it’s only scared, afraid, terrified. Your own body is trying to fight them, it doesn’t recognize this other person trapped inside.”

“So, if what you’re saying is true. Then you should know how to cure it, right? You put that stuff on them, and they disappeared, so there must be something you have that can cure me.”

            Vanda stared at her with a soft expression. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but there’s no cure.”

Lauren’s face sunk. “No, there has to be.”

“You will battle this person from within for the rest of your life.  Some fights, you will win. And there will be others, where they win over you.”

Margaret snapped her arms back at her sides, and marched up to the two on the bed. “Now wait a minute, this is outrageous!” She said, “You have no medical degree, and clearly you don’t to be going around and claiming such nonsense! I’m telling you for the final time, nothing is wrong with her, it’s only in her head. She needs to go outside, she needs to go for walks, she needs to go back to work. That’s what’s going to help her.”

“I’ve heard enough from you!” Vanda pushed herself off the bed, and grabbed for her cane. “I don’t want to hear anymore from you about what you think is going to help your wife, because your comments are unhelpful in of themselves. I’ve known plenty of people like you Mrs. Underhill, and the words that come out of your mouth come from both the places of witlessness and fear. The knowing that at any moment, we’re all just one bad accident or medical issue away from our bodies being who we are to who we were.”

Margaret avoided eye contact. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You are-“ Vanda felt a tingling slither over her spine. Her fingers tightened around the handle of her cane. “You are-“ She stopped and found that she was unable to continue speaking. Her mind went blank. She began to feel like she was suffocating from how hot her body had quickly become.

“Miss Malick? Miss Malick?” Lauren watched the lizard leave her knee and sprint to its master. It crawled up her pant leg and tunic and stilled at her shoulder.

Vanda closed her blurry eyes, and pulled her head down. Her hand sprawled out and covered her face.

Margaret walked closer to the woman. “What’s going on?” She knitted her eyebrows. 

Vanda didn’t respond.

“Answer me.” Margaret said.

Vanda’s jaw snapped, her head yanked backwards. A purplish body with a shriveled head burst out from her mouth and leaked fluid down onto Vanda’s clothing and to the carpet below. Its bulbous black eyes were fused shut. It raised its blood red arm and in one swift motion grabbed Margaret by the neck. 

Vanda placed her weight onto the cane. She pulled the body’s arm, trying to get its hand to release its victim. However, it wouldn’t let go. It didn’t wish to. 

Until Margaret’s eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she fell to the floor with a loud thump.

The arm and the body belonging to it retreated back into Vanda. She swallowed, taking a few breaths before turning back to Lauren. “She’ll be fine. It’s been one of those days for me, I think you can relate?” She tapped the lizard on its head.

Lauren considered her for a moment, and turned her head towards her unconscious wife. She saw Margaret’s eyes flutter open, but her body stayed still, except for her chest which rose and fell. Lauren’s eyebrows furrowed. She gritted her teeth. “Do you think I enjoy this life? Do you think I choose to stay home day after day, and never step foot past the doorway? I want to work again. I want to be able to go to dinner parties and plays and concerts and dates. I wish I could get on an airplane right now and travel anywhere and everywhere. But I can’t, and that’s not by choice. It’s not by choice! And it’s not in my fucking head!” She stopped to take awkward breaths, tears flowed out of her inflamed eyes. “I did everything right. I went to school, I got a good job, I got married, I bought a house, I took care of my wife so she could have anything she wanted, and this still happened to me! Why me? Why did this have to happen to me? I did everything right! I did everything I was supposed to! I have no future! I’m destined to only stay in one place for the rest of my life, with the only signs of time passing being the moon and the sun rising and falling outside my window, and my body only growing weaker. I’m nothing! Nothing! My life is meant to be nothing more than pain!”

Tears dribbled down Vanda’s own eyes. “That’s not true!” She said as she sat next to Lauren once more, holding her hand in hers. “That’s not true! You have a future! I know what it’s like to be in your shoes. I know what it’s like to be terrified and to mourn. I know it looks bleak, but that’s only because of where you are now. You will fight this person inside of you for the rest of your life, and it will cause you pain, but that doesn’t mean your life is over. The moon and sun you watch out of your window, they radiate their bright lights over you. You must cling to those streaks of light, for they are signs of hope. Hope is one of the most powerful things you can hold on to when you feel you have nothing else left. You need to grip it tightly, for it’s going to help you each step of the way.” She wiped at Lauren’s tears as the lizard scurried back over to Lauren and laid itself on her belly. “There isn’t a cure, but there’s treatment. It’s all trial and error and a process, but it’s still something. It’s still hope. My coven helped me when I first got my diagnosis. I spent many months in of itself going through remedies and side effects. They even gifted me my little friend here, Idina. She helps me when she can.”

Vanda turned to her bag, and dug around, pulling out the folded cane, and let each ligament snap into place until it was complete. “It’s not an easy journey by any means. But I’m here to help you through it. I only need you to decide for yourself to take that first step.” She stood up, holding out the cane to Lauren.

Lauren stared at the cane for a few long moments.

She grabbed for it, placing her weight on it as she slowly got herself up off the bed. Idina moved to her shoulder.

Vanda smiled and threaded her arm with Lauren’s.



{OUTRO MUSIC}

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Until next time, thank you for listening. And please remember dear friends…Keep loving. Keep fighting. Never give up hope.