I Love Halloween

Scott loved Halloween very much. He remembered having such fun as a child with people in his neighborhood doing their best to frighten everyone with masks and haunted houses. But it was the jack-o-lanterns that brought it all together. That was the symbol for Halloween itself, what he thought was the greatest day of the year, and his was the only house in the neighborhood that didn’t have one. He started his search just the day before Halloween looking in pumpkin patches all over town, trying to find what would make the absolute perfect jack-o-lantern. Sadly, the day was coming to an end and his search for the perfect pumpkin was fruitless. He felt so beaten by this and began his journey home with his head hung. Then there it was on the side of the road, the perfect jack-o-lantern waiting to be made and place on his steps. He was overcome with joy as he brought it home and placed it in his kitchen, staring at it carving out what will be it’s new face in his mind. The perfect image came to him, it was the classic jack-o-lantern with the triangle eyes and nose and crude crescent mouth. That was the image that represented Halloween to him and that was what he was going to do. He went looking through his fathers old tools and found a keyhole saw, the perfect tool to carve the perfect jack-o-lantern. Sawing, sawing, sawing, he removed the top and started to hollow out the inside. Sawing, sawing, sawing, he carved out the triangles for the eyes and nose. Sawing, sawing, sawing, he carved out the jagged teeth and mouth. There it was, the perfect homage to Halloween, the perfect jack-o-lantern. Scott placed it on the steps leading up to his porch, placed the lit candle inside and then replaced the top of the poor woman’s skull, completing his perfect jack-o-lantern. He took a few steps back and with a smile from his childhood he said, “I love Halloween.”

The Lingering Scent

Just a short one today but It explains a little more on one of the characters in Heart Broken
A very handsome man named Aaron, had just returned home from a late night meeting for the local magazine he writes for. Like most others like him, he just wanted to have a snack and relax on his couch. As he entered the kitchen he caught a whiff a strange odor. It was a rancid stench that made him gag a bit. “What is that?” he asked himself, “And where the hell is it coming from?” He tried to keep his apartment tidy because he never knew when guests would be coming over and was just a clean person in general. With this foul smell, this emanating stink coming from the kitchen, who know what they would think. His first reaction was to check the sink. There were no dishes in it so he put his nose close to the drain to see if that was the cause of the offending odor, but there was nothing. He then moved over to the refrigerator to see if maybe something had gone bad or somehow fell out. He opened the door and sniffed around, inspecting every empty shelf for some kind of smelly residue, but again there was nothing. He even went so far as to move the refrigerator to see if maybe something fell under or behind it without him knowing, nevertheless it was spotless. A thought occurred to him, maybe some smelly man broke in to the apartment and was waiting for his chance to strike. He checked every room, every nook and cranny, any place that could possibly conceal a body. He checked behind the shower curtain, under the bed and even his closet but the smell, that horrible smell was coming from the kitchen. He returned there to investigate further, looking under the counter and table, in the cupboards and cabinets but they were all immaculate. The only place left to check was the oven. “No it can’t be,” he said to himself, “I haven’t used the oven in weeks.” Aaron crept over to the oven wrapping his fingers around the handle, slowly pulling the door down. “Well,” he told himself, “It’s not coming from here.” Then he pulled the door all the way down and the rancid smell filled his nostrils. His mouth filled with bile as tiny roaches scattered off of a woman’s putrid head sitting atop one of the oven-racks. Aaron ran to the living room to collect himself and when he finally caught his breath, his phone rang. “Hello?” he answered. It was an old friend of his that seemed to notice he was breathing heavy, “What’s wrong? You sound out of breath.” Aaron replied, “Roaches, oven, head! I must have forgotten a head in the oven and now I have these filthy little disgusting roaches running around my apartment! ….Oh, you want me to meet this girl at The Written….Amy … Sure, I’m free. I’ll be there soon.”

Singing Thoughts

My name is Kevin Holt and hopefully I have found a way to die before this is read. I have no idea what I am but it must have something to do with my father, whoever he is or was. I can’t be around people, I can’t lead a normal life and I can’t die. My thoughts are dangerous and I just can’t seem to control them. The first incident that I can remember, happened when I was in high school. My writing teacher said I didn’t have an imagination and the first thought that came to mind was her breaking her leg. She tripped on the chair right in front of me and ended up with a compound fracture, she almost lost her leg. How’s that for imagination. She had it easy if you ask me, I never saw her again because she had to take medical leave and school would be out by the time she returned. I started to notice bad things happening to the people around me that just couldn’t be explained. I remember this one kid bumped into me then shoved me while we were walking down the stairs, like it was my fault. He was an asshole but still, I had never seen someone’s spine come out of their neck like that. And that was the problem, that’s what I was thinking when he fell down the stairs. The poor kid died instantly.
Things started getting weirder, like on the last day of school. I loved science, but not my teacher. Before the last bell rang he decided to do a little sendoff experiment that involved some kind of flammable soap bubbles. It might have turned out alright except he had to throw my name in there saying I could never be as bright as the flaming bubbles he had created. Well, needless to say, the students were sent off traumatized. The teacher caught on fire and his head inexplicably popped like one of the bubbles and showered the student in the front of the class with little burning chunks of Mr. Chambers. I know it’s bad but I still think that was kind of funny, well now that I’ve been desensitized to all this. Things got worse when two of my friends came over. We were talking about video games on minute and the next, a blue light passed through my room and splattered them against the wall. What was left of them was comparable to what you might find in a chum bucket. When the cops came, they had scoop them up into little Jake and Erick soup baggies. That’s when the real trouble for me began.
Of course I was taken in for questioning and they put me in this little white room without windows that had a camera up in the corner. They asked some pretty stupid questions like were we playing with explosives and planned on making a bomb or something. I got bored and imagined that the roof collapsed. The roof never came down but the officers that were in there were crushed by some kind of invisible force, it was terrifying to watch at the time. I can remember every snap, crackle and pop there bones made. I freaked out and ran home crying. My mom, she was great, she wasn’t worried that I just left a police station and had blood on me, no, she wanted to know why I was crying. When I tried to tell her, a random thought entered my mind, and my mother was cut in half. I panicked and tried to imagine her whole again but it wasn’t working, I even tried to push the pieces back together. The cops kicked down my door and they were pissed, they had their guns drawn and everything. The realization that I was the cause of all this got to me and I wanted to die. When I was ordered to lay on the ground, I instead lunged at them, figuring they were trigger happy thinking I somehow had the super strength it would take to crush the officers back at the station. I heard the loud bangs as they opened fire and welcome the rounds I took to the chest, but it wasn’t what I expected. They didn’t hurt as they entered my body, I felt the pressure but there was no burning, no stinging, no holy shit I have a big ass hole in my chest kind of pain. It was more like getting hit with a stream from a dollar store water gun. They looked at me like I was the devil, one of them screamed something and ran while the others kept barking orders at me. I don’t think they knew what the hell to do. They should have run off with the other guy because none of them made it. It started with a trickle of blood coming from their mouths, then led to coughing up gallons of blood. While they were coughing, a thought entered my mind, it was the saying, to cough up a lung. It was one of the grossest things I had ever witnessed. They started gagging then began to throw up random organs it seems. How the hell can you throw up your kidneys? I just wanted out of there before I started vomiting too. When I left the house I saw the officer that ran, hiding behind his car door with only his gun exposed. I had to start singing to keep my mind occupied long enough to get away from him, he survived by the way.
It became difficult to go shopping for food while I was on the run. One poor guy at a gas station sneezed and his head exploded, all I wanted was a microwave sandwich. I figured I deserved to starve to death and stopped eating for a while, again, nothing. I didn’t feel hunger anymore but missed the taste of food. I started thinking, this not being able to die thing just might have something to it. I made my way to the Grand Canyon and got to see sights that no one else has. When I was on the top of the canyon and wanted to see something at the bottom a little closer, I jumped. It felt great, for a while it felt like jumping out of a plane without a parachute, the rush, the thrill, without a doubt it was great. Then more and more tourists would show up and it became harder and harder to avoid them. Those around me took a vacation they never came back from. I remember I must have spent a whole month climbing then jumping, climbing then jumping, trying to punish myself for all that I have done.
The singing only helped so much but it was my thoughts that can’t be controlled. My only option was to go as far away from people as possible and I did just that. I moved to northern Canada where most couldn’t handle the cold and where I had no luck in freezing to death. On my way up there, I must have been hallucinating because I swear I saw zombies running around. I couldn’t be sure because as soon as they got close my thoughts ran wild and they were dog food. I don’t know how long I’ve been up here trying to isolate myself from the world, the sun rises and sets very differently way up here. I can’t tell from my reflection either because I stopped aging somewhere in my twenties. All I know is that I’ve been here for a very long time. It’s been getting warmer around here and I’ve been noticing houses being built in the woods where I stay. I do my best to avoid them but, they just keep popping up. Just the other day, I was exploring and there, at the edge of a cliff was an entire city. People are spreading out way too far for their own good so I decided to take a stroll through town and make sure my sanctuary stays preserved.

My Cursed World and it’s Doomed Characters

Just a few thoughts on finding out that I really do live in my own world.

I feel kind of bad for the people in the world I write about because eventually, they are all doomed. Their deaths and traumatizations could be adverted if they only knew what I knew or could look a few pages ahead, but they are just people I dreamed up so again, they’re doomed. A lot of the stories intertwine with each other, something I didn’t do on purpose, it just kind of came out that way. For example the man Harold, from Purrsia, came from the town of Staff. (Staff will be its own story soon) There Harold’s son was possessed by a watcher demon. He cut off his son’s head with the blue knife that left part of the demon behind and weak creating the demonic version of Darren in Without Eyes which took place in the town of Staff. The other part of the watcher demon stayed with the head of Harold’s son which he buried by a tree on what he thought was abandoned land with an empty farmhouse. That’s the farmhouse from The Moment Tree and it was the demon head that gave the tree it’s power. Staff is also mentioned in Chuck, a story that will only be in Darkened Beauty V1 #2 of my monthly short story collection. In Chuck, he and his dead friend Darrel are called out to the town of Staff but choose not to go once they see all the demonic activity going on from afar. Chuck also mentions Josh who is the lead in one of the books I’m working on. One of the more dangerous beings in my stories is TAH. He was created before there was light and in the world I write, the older, the stronger. He is VEE OU TAH’s husband in Viotta and MAK TAH’s creator in Cruel Young. The Dream Giver was introduced in Wish Four, he was one of the last created before light. He was also the one who gave Harlan the power he has in Bone Deep and will been seen more in the future. Another character worth mentioning is Karla ‘Kills’ Smith, she was in Without Eyes, constantly taking pictures but put the camera away to console her neighbor in Purrsia. Damon also has a very small part in Purrsia yelling “Fuck You” from across the street to Gabe for saying their music sucks. Now in Heart Broken, Aaron was offended when Amy asked if he was a vampire. This is because it my world, they are not handsome or beautiful. They are short and hairy, and sound like valley girls from the 80’s, I don’t know why, I just dreamed them like that. Well these valley girl vampires are revealed in Dark Dreams where they make a deal Larry in order to get fresh “unscrubbed” blood. The vampires will reappear again in a later story only they will be on Earth and not in the Void. I plan a return of the man with the bowler hat and his big ass demon dog creature thing that likes to eat people. Also in the works, Sean from Viotta will end up with ties to Harold and the town of Staff.

No Dead Zone

This is something I wrote about 20 years ago and It’s more humor than horror. I was only 15 and at that time this was as funny as I got.

The sound of a police car siren filled the air as the blue and red lights lit up the highway. The car the officer was chasing finally turned on his turn signal and pulled over. The police officer picked up his ticket book and headed over to the vehicle in front of him.

“Sir, I need to see your license and proof of insurance please.” The man just sat there and did nothing so the officer leaned him over and pulled out his wallet. “I’m going to run a check on your license so just sit tight.” The man again did nothing. A few minutes later the police officer came back. “Well, it seems everything came back ok. Do you know why I pulled you over?” The man fell over in his seat. “The reason I pulled you over is, it is illegal to drive dead through this part of the highway sir. This is a No Dead Zone, I’m going to have to write you a ticket.” The officer hands the man a pen and the citation. The man once again does nothing. The officer puts the pen in the dead mans hand, just then his hand falls off. Shaking his head the police man picked up the dead man’s hand and proceeded to make an X for his signature.

Placing the man’s hand back on his lap he says, “Alright sir you better get that hand looked at, it could get infected. Now you have a nice day sir.” The police man stood there for a few moments while the man again did nothing, then reached in through the window and put the man’s leg on the accelerator. As the car drove off the officer thought to himself “I’d like to see him try to get out of this one.”