Happy Halloween!

 

On All Hallows Eve,

the blood will spill,

toes will curl and

screams for Candy will

punctuate the night.

 

Ghouls and monsters,

will harvest organs to

feast upon and Demons

will steal souls,

and maybe eat some candy corn.

 

An empty candy dish,

as horrific as the empty

eye sockets of shambling

zombie, in search of

delicious brains.

 

Halloween puns will

shock us, Shirley Temple of Doom

and Cereal Killers, One Night Stands,

and Nudists on Strike, will

haunt our perfect grammar dreams.

 

The sidewalks filled with

costumed horrors and

un-costumed terrors alike,

strolling about, seeking fulfillment

of their lust for sweets.

 

Nightmares spilled on

porches and steps,

up to doorways separating

the enchanted realms of realistic fantasy and

fantastical reality.

 

To be broken only by

a knocking spell and

the magic incantation of

“Trick or Treat”,

for something good to eat.

 

Happy Halloween!

May all your terrors be fun.

You’re Horrors genuine.

And the candy satisfying

the hole in your Boo-tiful soul.

 

The Wild Woods

 

The wild woods bristled

with ancient excitement,

as the trees settled into

their long silent slumber,

an Autumnal rest.

 

The roots, interconnected

across the forest floor,

sharing their slow dreams

of Springs and Summers

yet to come.

 

The trees skirted in

beautiful piles of orange,

yellows and burnt brown leaves,

in a ballroom of natural

delights.

 

The tree, bare,

stretching out knobby

tendrils towards the darkened

October sky. A teasing chill

blustering through the branches.   

 

The forest alive with color,

in the midst of hibernation,

electrifying imagination and

deathly allegories which humans are

so prone to entertain.

 

The trees only know,

in their secret language

what true horrors time

can cause. They know the

scent of impending terror.

 

An owl, hoots,

preparing for the night hunt,

in the empty limb of its treetop

abode, claws dug deep into the

bark.

 

A howling wind, rattling

the sleeping skeletons of the trees,

into the terrors of our own

limited imaginings and

pedantic paranoias.  

 

The woods,

wait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's Live!

 

The stairs creaked,

the floorboards groaned,

doors slammed,

windows rattled,

unknown footsteps in the attic.

 

Jumping at the gust of wind outside

as Autumn leaves rustled past in a swirling torrent

of Summer blasphemy.  

“Damn it,” Melvis shouts, as his nerves

are threadbare.

 

Flashlight beam quivering in

his shaking hand as he makes his

way through the old house.

He never should have bet those

other teenagers that he could spend

the night in the creepy Anderson place.

 

The decaying corpse of the famous

mansion, on the edge of town,

where old man Anderson killed his

family with a hatchet, as legend has it,

and hung them up in the wine cellar.

 

The house, amplifying his every footfall,

as he creeps through the house,

livestreaming on his phone,

trying to be cool, so his friends

don’t think he's afraid.

 

“Hey guys, it’s your boy, Melvis,” he says.

His voice, pretending to be brave, as he turns

the corner into the former music room,

where a rotting piano sits, ready for a

ghostly concerto to play.

 

A thud in the dark corner,

the dark, impossibly dark,

had there ever been such darkness,

“Yo, that’s really dark ya’ll,” he says,

as his livestream followers start

losing interest and start watching something else.

 

“Noooo,” screams Melvis, dropping top his knees.

But it’s too late.

No one cares. No one is watching.

The Horror.

The.

Horror.

 

It's Campin'

 

                Jimmy twisted the bottle cap off his eighth beer.  He flicked the bottle cap into the campfire. It clinked against the large burning logs before disappearing into the flames. Jimmy took a long drink of beer, smacked his lips happily and belched under his breath. 

                “ ’Scuse me,” said Jimmy.

                “You’re gross,” said Connie, “I could smell that over here.”

                “Hey, I tried to be cool about it,” said Jimmy. He lit a cigarette and blew the blue smoke up into the night sky. The smoke mingled with the campfire smoke and embers as they drifted up toward the stars.

                 “It’s fine. It’s campin’. We’re living in the wilderness now,” said Mac.

                “We’re only like, 25 minutes outside of the city. I wouldn’t exactly call it the wilderness,” said Jennifer.

                “Hey, killjoy, stop nit-picking,” said Mac.

                “Sorry,” said Jennifer, “just miss my bed, and bathroom, and slippers, and food that doesn’t taste like charcoal.”

                 Mac poked at the campfire with a long stick sending orange embers up into the overhanging tree branches.

                 “Careful, you don’t want to start a forest fire,” said Jennifer.

                 Jimmy rolled his eyes at Mac. Jimmy took another sip of beer and another long drag on his cigarette. Mac poked the fire again and sent more embers flying.

                 Jennifer just stared at the fire. She sighed heavily.

                 “You know that Jimmy and I have been coming out here to camp since we were kids, right? I mean, if you didn’t want to come with us you should have said so,” said Mac.

                “What the hell does that mean,” asked Jennifer, “What does he mean Jimmy?”

                 “Don’t drag me into this,” said Jimmy, “I like having a sexy woman in my tent.”

                “Thank you, sweetheart,” said Connie, “Now stop drinking so much and love me.”

                “Not just yet baby. We’ve got to wait for the wolf-whistler,” said Jimmy.

                 Jennifer stood up and faced Mac. She was wrapped in a chic serape and was clearly not enjoying camping. “Well,...” she said to Mac, hands on her hips. This conversation had been stewing all afternoon. It was time for it to bubble over.

                 “Babe, listen, I’m sorry. It’s just that, you don’t seem to be enjoying yourself very much and it’s something that we, me and Jimmy, look forward to all year so it’s just like, bumming me out you’re not enjoying yourself,” said Mac.

                 “Well then, maybe next time I won’t come,” said Jennifer. She flipped the serape over her shoulder and stomped away towards the tent she and Mac were sharing.

                 “Aw baby,” said Mac as he chased after her towards the tent.

 

                “She does not like camping,” said Connie.

                “It’s pronounced ‘campin”,” said Jimmy, “There’s no ‘G’ at the end of campin’.”

                “Shut up and kiss me you wilderness nerd,” said Connie.

                 Jimmy smiled and flicked his cigarette into the roaring campfire and leaned over towards Connie. They had a quick peck on the lips.

                 “You taste like a sexy ashtray,” said Connie.

                “Just how you like it,” said Jimmy.

                 Jimmy leaned back in his folding chair and looked up at the starry night sky. He took another sip of beer. Connie poured herself another glass of wine and tucked her feet under herself on her chair. She pulled the blanket over her knees.

                 “Jimmy, what did you mean when you said we had to wait for the wolf-whistler,” asked Connie.

                 Jimmy slowly looked away from the sky and back at Connie. She looked lovely in the firelight, blonde hair peeking out from under her cute little beanie hat. He eyes were icy blue in the firelight and Jimmy felt something he hadn’t felt for her in a long time, something like love, but not quite. A desire.

                 “The wolf-whistler. It just this thing. This silly thing Mac and I used to do. When we were younger,” said Jimmy.

                “Well, what is it? What’s so silly about it,” asked Connie. “Are you guys running around naked, howling at the moon?”

                 Jimmy smiled and he reached into his pocket and took out his pack of cigarettes. He offered one to Connie but she refused. He lit the cigarette and took a long drag. He exhaled into the campfire.

                 “You wouldn’t like it. It’s just something silly. I mean, it’s not that I’m not proud of it, it’s just... well, I don’t think you’d get it,” said Jimmy.  

                “Oh my god shy boy, just tell me already,” said Connie.

                 Jimmy sighed and took another sip of his beer. He took another drag on his cigarette.

                 “Are you sure you want to know,” asked Jimmy.

                “Yes already,” exclaimed Connie.

                “The Wolf-Whistler is this old hermit like man. Maybe he’s some sort of ancient God really, but we don’t know is name. He comes out this time of year from the woods and… well anyway, we owe him a sacrifice. So, Mac and I, well, we oblige him,” said Jimmy.

                 There was some rustling by the tents but Connie didn’t notice it really. Something in her head just pushed it off as Jennifer and Mac just fooling around, maybe making up.

                 “What are you talking about,” asked Connie.

                “Well, you see, for years now, hundreds of years actually, Mac and me have been taking women up to this very spot with us and murdering them. Once we have the women completely skinned and drained of all their blood, we make an offering to the wolf-whistler, who then grants us immortality,” said Jimmy.

                 “What,” asked Connie, “You’re kidding, right? Well it’s not funny.”

                 Mac appeared next to the campfire. He had wrapped Jennifer’s serape around his waist, but was otherwise naked and covered with blood.

                 “We never said it was supposed to be funny,” said Mac.

                 Jimmy cleared his throat and exhaled another plume of smoke.

                 “I did say it might be silly,” said Jimmy as he tossed his empty beer bottle into the woods.

                “You said it was silly?” asked Mac.

                “Yeah, sorry. I was not sure how to tell this one. I think I actually like her,” said Jimmy.

                “Oh. Well. A little late for that now right,” said Mac.

                 Connie tried to get up from the folding chair but her legs had fallen asleep so she tumbled out onto the dirty ground in front of the fire. In the distance she could hear branches cracking through the woods and a low howling.

                 “He’s coming,” said Mac.

                “Yeah. Sorry sweetheart,” said Jimmy.

                 Jimmy grabbed her by her sweater and pulled her up just as the trees overhead parted with a chilling crack.  

 

Honesty in the End

 

                “Well that doesn’t seem right at all,” said Jerry. 

                He was looking up toward the sky, watching a green glowing mass slowly descend towards the Earth’s surface. He spit into the high grass to his right and wiped the edges of his mouth with his flannel sleeve. The high grass bristled in the afternoon breeze and was the only sound Jerry could hear. 

                “Yup, that ain’t right at all,” said Jerry as the Sun was slowly blotted out of the sky. The blue Autumn sky turned dark as some strange pitch swallowed the light. 

                Jerry started backing down the long dirt road towards his farm. The winds picked up and swirled in bursts through the harvested fields and across the roads. Fall leaves skittered across the road in hurried masses.  Jerry could feel a slight rumbling in the ground as he started to run up to his front porch where his wife Mavis was clutching the porch post, peering up at the darkened sky. 

                “What is all that ruckus,” asked Mavis.

                “It’s the end of the World I think,” said Jerry, “We’ve got to get down to the storm cellar I think.” 

                Mavis looked back up to the sky and shook her head and made the Sign of the Cross. 

                “It’s because of all the liberals,” said Mavis, “God’s coming to punish them and their wicked ways. A final reckoning of all their mis-deeds, fornications, homosexuality, baby murdering and worship of false idols like the social media and CNN. Praise Jesus.” 

                “Mavis, now don’t be that way. You know that the good book says to ‘judge not lest ye be judged’,” said Jerry. 

                “I’m sorry Jerry. It’s just that, I don’t want to have to pay the price for their misdeeds. I’ve lived a good Christian life and I can’t believe the world is going to end before we even had a chance to really do any living. All we’ve been doing is working this farm for the last 23 years and what do we get for it. A damn Apocalypse,” said Mavis. 

                Jerry pulled Mavis from the porch and started leading her around the side of their modest frame home. The winds picking up as they walked, blowing hot air all around them. 

                “I hear you Mav, it’s just, when it’s time…it’s time,” said Jerry. 

He pulled open the storm cellar doors. The sky rumbled and the green glowing object in the sky was now engulfed in the flames of entry into Earth’s atmosphere. 

“Let’s get in the cellar here and perhaps God will find us worthy of sparing,” said Jerry. 

He pulled Mavis by her right arm as he stepped down the old cellar steps. She shrugged him off. 

“I can do it myself thank you Mr. Handsy. Don’t think we’re going to be getting all cozy down there. I’ve a right mind to kick you out and force you to be a cursed surface dweller,” shouted Mavis. 

“Yes ma’am,” said Jerry as she climbed down the stairs past him. 

Jerry closed the cellar doors behind her and latched them into place. He closed the additional storm shutters he’s installed last Summer as well. The cellar was quiet and dark. 

“Did you remember to put the batteries down here,” asked Mavis as she fumbled in the dark for the lantern. “I don’t know how many times I told you about the batteries.” 

“I did. They’re to the left of the big beef jerky boxes and the feed bags,” said Jerry. 

Jerry could hear Mavis’ heavy breathing as she searched for the lanterns. Which she did find and switched on, bathing the cellar in hot fluorescent light. 

“Are you alright Mavis,” asked Jerry.

“No, I am not. I am very mad that if this is the end of the World then I feel like we got cheated,” said Mavis. 

Jerry nodded and looked up at the floor boards above his head. He could hear them groaning ever so slightly. Although he wasn’t 100% sure that it wasn’t also Mavis groaning in concert. 

“I mean, you work in a mine shaft for ten years, get enough so we can get a loan from a bank to buy a farm which took us years and years to get right. I left my school dreams of my seamstress shop. We try to have children but God doesn’t bless us in the family way, but we persist and we build a life together, give to the church, pray with the Johnson’s when their Sally got hooked on the opioids, buy Christmas presents for the orphans down by Bodega Bay School district, and this…this is our justly heavenly reward. To die in this cellar while some rich fornicator will probably survive whatever this is so they can continue to fornicate and sin while we’re buried under this dreadful old house,” said Mavis. 

“Seems like that’s the way the Lord wants it,” said Jerry as he felt the support joists shudder. 

The house was shaking and the ground was trembling. Dust and dirt was sifting up into the air and Mavis shooed it away. Jerry went to the cellar window and peeled back the thin silver foil he’d put over the glass so long ago, Y2K he thought, and peeked through a thin sliver out toward the side yard. The sky looked to be on fire as clouds seemed to be in a roiling boil, thrashing about in high winds and what seemed like great plumes of flame. 

“Ugh, that’s powerful,” said Mavis as she pulled her shirt up over her nose. The air smelled charred and acrid. 

“It’s not looking too good out there,” said Jerry, “I don’t think we’re going to make it.” 

Mavis folded her arms and plopped onto one of the cots Jerry had put down. She huffed and blew the hair off her forehead. 

“Of course we’re not going to make it. Why would we, the good people, make it,” rhetorically asked Mavis. 

Jerry re-sealed the window and sat down next to his wife. He put his arm on her leg and pat her gently. 

“Mavis, I hate you. I’ve hated you for years. You are a cruel woman, bereft of compassion, honesty and empathy. You are demanding, spiteful, and a sincerely ugly person. I’m actually sorry I have to die in here with you and I can only hope upon the resurrection I won’t have to be harnessed to such a wrathful and hateful woman,” said Jerry. 

Mavis leaned in towards Jerry and put her head on his shoulder. 

“Jerry, you’re an impotent coward who never once took any initiative. You’d rather masturbate in the woods than touch me. You smell bad and your general hygiene is akin to some sort of troll mixed with a sasquatch. I hate when you eat, breath and spit. I hate that I wasted my life with you. If we become undead zombies, I hope we won’t know each other, and if we do, I hope I can spear myself in the head” said Mavis. 

Jerry pulled Mavis in closer and kissed her on her neck. She squeezed his hand. The walls of the cellar burst into flame and the house dropped on top of Jerry and Mavis.

A Romance

 

A Cemetery romance,

blooming among the wild weeds

and mossy peat of a shadowy,

decaying plot.

 

A Corpse-ship of unholy love,

under a blood red moon,

through barren tree limbs and

gnarled branches, clawing upwards.

 

Circling bats overhead,

screeching sonnets of passions

defiled by lust and greed.

Cutting against the starless sky.

 

Wind howling coldly,

swirling the last scattered Autumn leaves

in twisting whirlwinds,

scratching at the damp gravesite grasses.

 

Graveyard iron gates,

hollowly clanging on rusty hinges,

like a knocker to Hades gate,

and the Devil’s due.

 

A name carved in granite,

etched in marble,

raised in cement,

lamenting love lost through ages.

 

Rose petals withered and dry,

fallen in scented heaps

under the long-forgotten monikers

of those beneath.

 

Fragrant is the sorrow,

in which they dance,

wrapped in mist and dust,

each night embraced.

 

A cloaked figure,

silhouetted in black,

frozen in love with the

midnight scene.  

 

This Isn't Over

 

I really love October for the glut of scary stories out there. It's really my favorite time to write something horror related. So I hope you enjoy this silly little cliche piece of gory horror. Please enjoy and I hope I can do a few more this month!

This Isn't Over

                Reggie sat on the edge of the ambulance bumper. He was trying to hold still as he sipped his coffee but he was shaking too much. The coffee was too hot but he was too numb to notice as it spilled over his hand and dripped onto the gray blanket draped over his shoulders. The night was quiet but altogether too loud.    

                The ambulance and police car lights flickered on the surrounding houses. The strobe effect was making Reggie nervous. He tried to catch his breath and hold still.  The whole night seemed to be a series of flashes in his mind and he had trouble making sense of it all. Too many flashes. 

                A pair of black dress shoes crunched the leaves in front of Reggie. He looked up at the slender man standing there. A large bronze badge hanging from his neck over an old neck tie caught Reggie’s attention. 

                “So, whose blood is that,” asked the detective.               

                Reggie tried to answer but all he could do was shake and spill a little more coffee. 

                “Listen,” said the man, “I’m Detective Orie and I just want you to tell me what you can about what happened tonight. Just take your time and tell me what you can.” 

                Reggie nodded and cleared his throat. He wiped his cheek and looked at the blood on back of his hand. His friend’s blood. All his friends. All their blood. Reggie dropped the coffee cup to the street and buried his face into his hands. He began to sob. Deep breathy sobs echoed through the neighborhood. 

                Detective Orie looked over to his partner and shook his head. His partner, nodded and told the ambulance driver to take Reggie out of there, to the hospital.  The EMT helped the sobbing Reggie into the back of the ambulance. As they got him seated, he looked up at Detective Orie and managed to say, “It’s not over.” The doors of the ambulance slammed shut and it took off towards the rising sun. 

                “What was that about,” asked Detective Teria as she watched the ambulance maneuver through the crowded street.

                “I’m not sure,” said Detective Orie, “This is a pretty bad one for sure.” 

                Detective Orie and his partner headed toward the house where the massacre had happened. They ducked under the classic yellow police line/crime scene tape. Detective Orie always felt that was so cliché but it was just a part of the job. 

                They stepped through the front entrance of the three-story home into the foyer. In front of them were the badly mutilated bodies of a young man and woman. Detective Teria looked back over her shoulder to take a quick fresh breath before venturing further. The tile floor was drenched in blood and they had to step around it gingerly. The Crime Scene techs had placed a piece of plywood stretching from the front door to the bottom step that led upstairs. It kept their feet out of the blood. 

                Detectives Orie and Teria looked up the carpeted stairs where two young women were sitting in puddles of blood. They were sitting back to back, dead, positioned on the stairs, leaning against each other. Set up in a macabre display. 

                “Jesus,” said Detective Teria. 

                They stepped around the bodies in the foyer and worked their way down the hall where yet another body was. A large man, in a football jersey, was apparently impaled by a beer keg, the spout protruding from the middle of his chest.  Beer was still slightly dripping from the spout. 

                In the kitchen, there was blood spray and spatter all over the walls, the table, the chairs and appliances. The kitchen knives were all out of the knife block on the counter. The knives were sticking out of cabinets and the door frame. The next body was found shoved into an ironing board pantry. It was so crushed the Crime scene team thought it wasn’t a whole body. 

                “Have you ever seen anything like this,” asked Detective Teria. 

                Detective Orie shook his head no. He’d been to war. He’d been a cop for 15 years. Nothing in all that time was as terrible as this. 

                “So, the new is reporting that one guy did all this,” said Teria.

                “How’d the news get that info,” asked Orie. 

                Detective Teria shrugged and tried not to look at the crushed body in the ironing board pantry. She shuddered. 

                “We’ll have to get a statement from that survivor. But one guy doing all of…this? That seems hard to believe. I mean, what kind of psycho barges into a party and just does…this? It’s just not something I am prepared to think about,” said Detective Orie. 

                “Excuse me, Detective,” said one of the Crime Scene Techs, “you better have a look at this security footage.” 

                The detectives followed the tech to a home office off the living room. The tech had the monitor cued up to an image of the house’s back yard. 

                “You’re not going to believe this,” said the tech. 

                The detectives huddled in front of the screen as the tech pressed play. 

                “Dear God,” said Detective Orie as he watched a hulking mass of a man trudge through the yard holding a giant scythe. The man had some sort of mask over his face, a rabbit or a lion perhaps, the video was too grainy to make out. The man in the video stopped in the yard and pointed up at the camera before trudging into the house.  He re-appeared in the yard a short time later trudging back the way he came. He was carrying a head in his hand like one would carry a bowling ball.   

                   “Great,” said Detective Teria, “One guy. One massive guy with a giant scythe. Holding a human head.  Shouldn’t be too hard to find right?” 

                “Maybe the kid was right,” said Detective Orie, “Maybe this wasn’t over.”