Short Horror Story: Phil's Final Prediction

The following is my response to this week’s Macabre Monday prompt (ominous omens). Thanks to Shaina Read, Jon T, and John Coon.

---

Photo by Ralph Katieb on Unsplash

Phil’s Final Prediction

Watching the Groundhog Day ceremony on TV was an annual tradition in the McCarthy household. As a child, Kathiann’s imagination had been enraptured by the idea of a groundhog predicting the weather. If a groundhog’s shadow (or lack of one) could forecast the weather, what else could it signify?

It had been the bitterest disappointment of her young life when she learned that Punxsutawney Phil’s predictions did not correlate with actual weather patterns. But time had passed, and in passing, healed the open wound of disillusionment. There was a part of Kathiann that believed Phil to this day. She was about to learn how large a part it was.

Kathiann and her wife, Maria, snuggled up together on the couch to watch the television as the ceremony began, just like any other: members of the Inner Circle delivered brief, cheerful speeches, clad in the traditional tuxedos and top hats. One retrieved Phil from his labeled stump and displayed him to the delighted crowd. All was as it should be. But when it came time for Phil and the Inner Circle’s president to confer, the groundhog sniffed around atop the stump for a few seconds before exploding.

Blood and viscera rained down on the Inner Circle. The president was splattered in the face with matted clumps of bloodied fur. One of Phil’s eyeballs was projected right into his mouth. He swallowed reflexively, then vomited up the eye and his stomach contents. Several men fainted. Everyone was shrieking and flailing around.

Kathiann watched, slack-jawed. The venerated Punxsutawney Phil had exploded on the day, on the very minute, that he was meant to predict the weather. This could mean only one thing.

“Can you believe that?” Maria asked, turning to Kathiann with tears in her eyes. “Someone must have fed him an explosive or something. Who would do that?”

Kathiann gripped Maria’s wrist. “That’s not it at all. Don’t you understand? The world is ending!”

###

At school the next day, half the kids in Kathiann’s seventh-grade class looked traumatized. The other half whispered eagerly about the videos they had watched on social media, capturing the explosion from different angles.

“That’s enough,” Kathiann said sharply. “Listen up, everybody.”

The class went silent.

Kathiann took a deep breath. “A terrible thing happened yesterday,” she began.

“Yeah, terribly awesome,” Bradley stage-whispered to his friends. Kathiann gave him the stink eye before continuing.

“The explosion was a terrible thing,” she repeated. “But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about what the explosion means.”

A few students in the class looked around at each other with quizzical expressions. Clearly, their parents had kept them in the dark, leaving it all up to Kathiann to explain.

She tried to keep her voice steady as she said, “It means that a cataclysmic apocalypse is coming. Does anyone here know what those words mean? Cataclysmic? Apocalypse?”

Olivia raised her hand. “Apocalypse means, like, a thing that wipes out the planet?”

“That’s correct.”

The students went unnaturally still as Olivia’s words registered. Then they all started talking at once.

“Like the dinosaurs, Mrs. McCarthy?”

Bradley chimed in. “No, like Fallout! So cool!”

“Are we all going to die?” Olivia asked, hyperventilating. “Am I going to die?”

Kathiann tried to calm them down, but the class was fidgety and disruptive for the rest of the period. The next class she told reacted no better. Some students seemed to understand, some thought it was a game. She encouraged them all to talk with their parents to prepare.

Later that night, Kathiann’s phone buzzed with a call from Principal Kyle Morris.

“Tell me you didn’t tell classrooms full of kids that we’re all about to die,” Kyle began the conversation.

“Well, I didn’t put it like that.”

“Kathiann,” Kyle sounded exasperated and concerned. “What were you thinking? That is totally inappropriate. Possibly insane.”

“I’m not insane, Kyle. Didn’t you hear about Phil?”

Maria walked into the living room and mouthed the words, Who’s that?

Principal, Kathiann mouthed back.

Maria lingered, listening.

“Of course I heard about Phil,” Kyle was saying. “I’ve heard about Phil from maybe fifty upset parents because you said Phil’s death means the end of the world.”

“And it does.”

“That’s…are you feeling okay, Kath?”

“I’d be feeling a lot better if the world weren’t ending soon.”

Kyle’s voice was grave. “I can’t have you coming into work like this. Take some time off. With pay. We’ll find a substitute. In the meantime, maybe talk to someone?”

“You’re suspending me?”

“Don’t think of it like that. Think of it like a well-earned vacation.”

“I don’t need a vacation.” Soon, she would be taking a permanent vacation.

“Agree to disagree.” Kyle hung up.

“What was that about?” Maria asked, eyebrows raised. Kathiann sighed and summarized the conversation. To her surprise, Maria wasn’t sympathetic. “You did what? Are you nuts? I would be furious, too, if I were a parent!”

“Sweetheart, this is important. Why isn’t anybody listening to me? The world! Is about! To end!” Kathiann’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know how long we have. This could be our last week together. But it’s so much worse if you don’t acknowledge it.”

Maria stared, open-mouthed. When she spoke, her voice took on a mechanical tone. “You’re scaring me, Annie. I think you really need to start seeing Dr. Batista again.”

Openly crying, Kathiann bowed her head. If she couldn’t even convince her wife of their impending doom, who could she convince?

###

“Mom, Dad, listen to me. I’m not crazy or off my meds or anything like that. We all saw Phil explode. That doesn’t just mean no shadow, it means no possible chance of shadow. We have to face it: the apocalypse is coming.”

Kathiann stood in her parents’ living room, pacing in front of them while they sat on the couch, looking up at her, aghast.

“Oh, Kathiann,” her mother sighed. “Not again.”

“This isn’t like last time,” she protested. “I told you, I’m on my meds.”

“All of them?” her father asked.

“Yes,” she snapped. Why were they interrogating her about her meds? Why wasn’t anyone listening to her?

“Honey,” her mother soothed. “What happened to Phil was the result of a sick prank. I know it was upsetting to watch. Maybe it would help if you talked to—”

“I don’t want to talk to Dr. Batista!” Kathiann’s parents winced at the volume of her voice. She tried to soften it. “I mean, I will talk to him,” she conceded. “If it will make you happy. But it would make me happy if you took this seriously.”

Her father shrugged helplessly. “What would you have us do?”

“Believe me,” she said. “That’s all I want.”

She could tell from the look they exchanged that they didn’t.

###

“It’s good to see you,” Dr. Miguel Batista smiled through his webcam. “It’s been about a year, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Kathiann said. “I’d say it’s good to see you too, but I have something to tell you, and if you’re like everyone else, you’re not going to believe me.”

“What’s that?”

“Punxsutawney Phil’s death wasn’t some sick prank. It was a prediction that the world would end soon. I don’t know how soon, but surely before next Groundhog Day.”

She paused, gauging Dr. Batista’s reaction, but the man was good: he kept his face neutral.

“It makes perfect sense if you think about it,” she continued. “Normally, to predict the weather, Phil either sees his shadow or he doesn’t, right? So if neither happens, what does that mean? It means he was predicting a future without weather. No future, that is.” She took a breath. “Do you see?” Her voice had a pleading note to it. It said Please, let somebody believe me.

But of course he didn’t. “I want to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me. Are you still taking all of your medications?”

Kathiann groaned. “Nobody believes me. Why doesn’t anybody believe me?”

“This isn’t the first time you’ve claimed the world is ending,” Dr. Batista reminded her gently.

Her cheeks burned. “That was different. That was before…before I knew. Before I was put on meds. But if I’m on meds now, and I am, then that means you should believe me. Right?”

“I think it means we need to reassess your medications.”

Kathiann buried her face in her hands. The world was going to end, and she was the only one who knew. The only one who cared. She had never felt so alone.

###

Six weeks later, Kathiann was nighttime shopping for some new clothes and feeling better. A little ashamed at how she had reacted to Phil’s death, but the paranoia had dissipated. She’d returned to school and scheduled monthly sessions with Dr. Batista. She’d also apologized to Maria and her parents for worrying them, which everyone said wasn’t necessary, but she always felt the necessity of it anyway.

Now she browsed the racks for deals, enjoying the freedom of having a future. She was shifting through hangers of blouses when the lights in the store went out. There were scattered shouts of alarm, then small rays of light coming from various phones.

“Isn’t there a backup generator?” someone complained. “It’s so dark.”

“It’s dark outside, too,” someone else said. “Look, no lights on anywhere nearby.”

“Must be a grid outage.”

Kathiann had frozen. The moisture in her mouth evaporated. Her skin went cold, then hot. Her heartbeat stuttered.

The apocalypse had begun.

“Does this mean the clothes are free?”

#

---

Writing without a paywall is important to me, but writing is work. If you enjoyed this post or found it helpful, I would be honored if you would consider donating.

Tip Jar