Elise does a pole act with ghosts.
They were the ghosts of strippers who worked at the club when it burned down a few years ago.
It’s really popular, gets lots of headlines, lots of tips.
But it’s not like Elise can take the act on the road.
The ghosts can’t travel. They’re focused on the location where they died.
The owner rebuilt the club so that the new main stage is where the old dressing room was.
Where the girls died, locked in there.
Don’t tell them what happened. They might want revenge.
Or worse yet, refuse to perform.
Murder mystery games
Janey loved murder mystery games.
She bought every set in the world.
Every weekend, she was roping her friends and family into them.
She got a side hustle as a playtester and reviewer.
“Maybe you should write one?” said her friends.
So, she looked over all the games she’s run and wrote her own murder mystery game.
She sent out invitations, put together the setting, and…
The guests arrived to find Janey dead on the floor.
When the game was over, the guests gave it rave reviews.
Publishers bought the rights. A best-seller.
Even if Janey didn’t write a follow-up.
Halloween eternal
Every Halloween, Michael Meyers walks around the neighborhood in a William Shatner mask and brutally murders people.
The neighbors gather together and form a mob and burn his house down.
Or they set a trap, which goes wrong, and ends up killing most of them.
Someone clever, like Jamie Lee Curtis, ends up catching Meyers and wounding him or killing him.
But, somehow, he comes back the next Halloween.
All the while, William Shatner goes around in a Michael Meyers mask, killing people.
But nobody stops him.
Not even Jamie Lee Curtis.
Or someone in a Jamie Lee Curtis mask.
The lei murders
The Lei Strangler left a lei around their victims’ necks.
Which would have made sense in Hawaii.
But this was Vermont. In Winter.
These weren’t cheap plastic lei.
These were handmade lei with real flowers and string.
No, they didn’t strangle the victims with lei.
The strings were too fragile. they’d break easily.
And the lei were draped over the victims’ necks post-mortem.
Because the flowers were so fragile.
There were a dozen murders over the course of a month.
And then they stopped.
The police never solved the crime.
Or all the weird maple syrup murders in Hawaii, either.
Murderpiece
Charlie’s parents warned him about getting an art degree.
But he didn’t care. He grabbed top honors, and he joined the police force.
Charlie’s specialty was drawing chalk outlines around victims.
“Wow,” said a detective. “The pastels bring out the tragedy.”
Charlie’s outlines were so good, rich people arranged murders in their mansions to get an original Charlie.
The local art museum planned an exhibition by massacring two dozen of its patrons in a gala.
A New York art critic wrote a glowing review, and Charlie moved to Manhattan.
I hear Law and Order is planning a series around him.
Weekly Challenge #861: Remote
LISA
A Sunday Drive
I was up front next to Dad.
It wasn’t a treat to be there, there was just no room in the back. My head juddered against the car window as I stared out, wondering what my friends were doing with their weekend. The city with its lights, traffic and bustle turned into country lanes full of so much green and sky. I felt I never wanted to blink again.
We stopped. It felt remote. Rabbits ran across a field full of little yellow flowers. Dad shouted at me to help drag the mattress out the van.
Then we went home.
RICHARD
Halloween
Putting aside the remote, and futile hope Halloween might be cancelled this year, he resigned himself to the annual onslaught of irritating kids, traipsing over his lawn to demand sweets, with dire warnings of repercussions, should he fail to deliver.
Grimly, he mused that any other night of the year, or if the rules were reversed and he was the one making threats to children, the authorities would, no doubt, take a dim view of such behaviour.
Halloween… He hated it.
Still, he’d get his own back on them at Christmas.
Santa grinned nastily, and poured himself another Jack Daniels.
LIZZIE
“The remote is not working. I cannot change the colors. What? We always change the colors. Summer, Autumn, Wint… Why not? But we just need a new remote. Well, you’re the Creator. That’s your job! Mine is to change the colors. OK, whatever.”
No Autumn this year.
Then, he sneered.
“No help from above?! OK, then. I’ll be God for a season!”
He painted all the houses red. The fences became bright orange and the stones of the pathways golden.
People smiled, amused.
He spread his wings, waved and smiled back, proud of the village he was in charge of.
SERENDIPIDY
There’s no Internet, no mains power or gas, and a septic tank collection, once a month.
The only access is a dirt track, and the nearest settlement is two hours’ drive. I’m well off the beaten track, away from prying eyes.
People wonder how I can live in such a remote location, and honestly, it’s not that easy. I struggle with loneliness and the nights are long and dark. I’ve frequently considered moving back to civilisation and friendly faces.
If I could, I would. But, I can’t.
I have to live out here, because otherwise, people would hear the screams.
NORVAL JOE
Linoliamanda folded her arms and frowned. “Yes. It is coincidence that my father opened a store in this remote, out of the way town at the same time you claim someone is plotting to capture Billbert. Anyway. I think you’re just making that up.”
Billbert laughed and rolled his eyes. “Really Linoliamanda, believe her. It’s the Knights of the Roundtable, or something.”
Fire could have flashed from Sabrina’s eyes. “It’s the Dark Knights and they’re really dangerous.”
Linoliamanda’s eyes went wide. “The Dark Knight? You mean, like, Batman?”
Sabrina’s face turned dark and fat raindrops began to splatter around them.
PLANET Z
A remote is useful if there’s more than an arm’s length between you and a device.
Televisions, cable boxes, ceiling fans.
That kind of thing.
My Dyson fan on the nightstand by the bed has a remote.
So, you’d think the remote would be useless, since I can turn on and off the fan directly.
The problem is, you have to use the remote for oscillation and speed
And the timer, which I never use.
Problem is, the remote is tiny, and easy to lose.
So I replaced the Dyson with a cheap normal fan.
And it works just fine.
Mr. Goldie
Mindy hated her new pet goldfish.
Her parents put the bowl in her room, saying “Goldie will watch you while you sleep. Say good night to Goldie, Mindy.”
And she did. And went to bed.
The next morning, Goldie’s fluttering fins looked different.
Mindy was trembling. “Why is Mr. Goldie…”
“Different?” interrupted her mother. “Goldfish do that naturally.”
Her mother had checked on the sleeping Mindy. And Goldie.
The fish was floating, dead.
So, her mother replaced Goldie.
Why was Goldie dead?
Not naturally.
No, Mindy had killed the hated Goldie.
Left his corpse floating.
AND NOW HE’S ALIVE AGAIN!
Take me to the river
River Phoenix picked the wrong place to go trick or treating.
Instead of going door-to-door for candy, he went to John Frusciante for a four day drug binge, dying of an overdose outside the Viper Room.
Johnny Depp closed the club every Halloween out of respect.
Okay, he was twenty-three, a little old to go trick or treating.
But he was far too young to take a ride in the pine box derby.
Think about that the next time you complain about a sugar rush from a bag full of candy or brain freeze from drinking a milkshake too fast.
Campfire stories
Kids sit around the campfire and tell ghost stories.
So, ghosts sit around the campfire and tell kids stories?
Yes. Yes they do.
They tell stories about kids doing horrible things, and then horrible things happening to them as a consequence.
Like casting a spell in a cemetery and getting eaten by zombies.
Or tormenting a black cat and the cat’s witch owner turning them into frogs.
Not to mention kids who steal other kids’ candy on Halloween and getting sick and dying from the poisoned candy.
Which is how they became ghosts.
Sitting around a campfire, telling their stories.
I don’t know kung fu
My brother took karate lessons for one week.
My parents were so cheap, they cut an old ratty white bathrobe down to his size.
The instructor turned him away and made them get a real karate robe.
So, for Halloween, he was a karate master, despite the white belt.
Eyebrow-pencil mustache on his lip.
I was given the white bathrobe.
“Two karate masters.”
The next year, he wore some other costume.
And I got the karate robe hand-me-down.
Well, more like “You will wear this and like it, you ungrateful shit”
To this day, I can’t watch Brue Lee movies.