Category: My stories

It’s not correct to call the creature Frankenstein.
Nor is it correct to call the creature Frankenstein’s Monster.
The truth is, the creature measured exactly one on The Frankenstein Scale.
Dr. Frankenstein created a unit of measurement.
With zero representing something completely harmless and one representing something that was as scary and dangerous as that creature.
Now, if you had two identical creatures, they would not necessarily measure two on The Frankenstein Scale.
There may be some inefficiencies and overlap, resulting in a score less than two.
Or, they may cleverly work together, resulting in a score greater than two.

Jeff and his friends built a haunted house every Halloween.
They challenged themselves to make it creepier and scarier every year.
One year, an evangelical Christian group built a “Christian” haunted house.
Instead of ghosts and goblins, they showed the evils of abortion, divorce, drug use, and gay marriage.
So, Jeff and his friends built a new haunted house that showed the evils of Christianity: child molestation, fringe cults, denial of women’s access to health care, and protesting the funerals of solders.
Across the street, Abdul Mohammed laughed and PayPalled another hundred bucks to his friends in ISIS and Hamas.

You know the tale of the boy who cried “Wolf!”
It was written by Aesop after he was found with the mutilated corpse of a shepherd boy.
“He was torn apart by wolves,” he told the police. “He’d jokingly cried wolf once too many times, nobody believed him, and so nobody came to his aid when he was beset by wolves for real.”
The police wrote this down, and sent Aesop on his way.
Aesop walked down the road, stomach full of the boy’s blood.
His story had worked.
And it would work again the next time he grew hungry.

Want to be famous for a little while?
I’m a casting agent.
No, I don’t work for the studios.
I work for Dr. Midas Goldman.
He’s a magician with dead celebrities, making up their ravaged corpses for their last performance.
But sometimes, they’re too far gone, even for him.
That’s where I come in.
I bring in body doubles, he dresses them up.
You get the spotlight and a thousand bucks.
We need to knock you out, though, but we’ll bring you back.
Haven’t lost one yet.
Just don’t put it on your resume.
Or we bury you for real.

The next full moon is on February 14th.
Valentine’s Day.
John’s got a choice to make.
Tell his girlfriend that he’s a werewolf, or miss the most important night of the year.
Well, that and Christmas.
Oh, and her birthday.
He’s been a werewolf for years, and he’s never come up with a solution for this.
“I gotta work late.” doesn’t quite cut it on the weekend.
So, he picks the lonely ones. The ones without family.
The ones who won’t be missed when they vanish.
He buys the flowers, the card.
And knocks on her door.
“Hello there!”

My brothers made the best Halloween props.
They started with amazing costumes and haunted houses.
But one year, they built a little brother in a wheelchair.
It was so lifelike. But they made it developmentally challenged, like Timmy on that South Park show.
Big head, crippled spastic body. Only barking out a few words.
They took it Trick or Treating in a Batman mask.
“BA-MA!” the thing slurred.
Parents humored it, said how cute how special. Gave it candy.
It was humiliating!
This year, they’re re-engineering me into an animatronic Wolfman.
When they’re done, I’ll tear their throats out.

The Horror of Baker Hill hasn’t actually killed anyone.
Oh, there’s been lots of deaths up there.
But they’ve all been accidents.
Kids falling into ravines.
Heart conditions. Suffering asthma attacks.
Once you get to know him, The Horror is actually a decent guy.
He collects old baseball cards. And newspapers.
And chainsaws. (None of them actually work.)
What’s with the bone pile?
Well, he loves his pets so much, when he loses them, he tries his best at taxidermy.
But he’s not very good at it.
So, leave him alone.
And go back to your camp.
At Crystal Lake.

The vending machine
In the break room
Has so many slots
With chips, peanuts, and gum
But the best slot
Is Forty-Seven
It has all the candy bars
And chocolate goodies
It’s the Best of Halloween
You don’t need to dress up
Or ring a doorbell
Or say “Trick or Treat!”
Or go to more houses
Or share with your younger brother
Or let Mom inspect your candy
(Which really is to let her take the good stuff)
Put in a dollar
Push a button
And you get candy
Sweet candy
Wonderful candy
Forget saying “Happy Halloween!”
Say “Happy Forty-Seven!”

We call Derringer’s gun a derringer.
We call Zomboni’s ice resurfacer a Zamboni.
Why not call the monster a Frankenstein?
It’s all about branding, right?
Besides, why would he call it “The Creature?”
You can’t trademark “The Creature.”
If cheap Chinese knock-off creatures flooded the market, wouldn’t you hold out for a true Frankenstein?
I remember getting a build-your-own Frankenstein kit for Hanukkah one year.
Spread out over eight days.
But there was a misprint in the scroll, and we had to send it back.
After that, I got socks and underwear.

After the angry mob burned down Victor Frankenstein’s castle and lab, Igor the lab assistant was left homeless and unemployed.
Despite years of job experience, he had no formal training or academic credentials.
And his only reference died in the fire. Not that he could have used that reference anyway.
He got a job at the church as a gravedigger’s assistant.
Old habits die hard. Igor kept digging up fresh graves instead of digging new ones.
“Put them back,” said Father Gunther.
Igor started a flower garden, and he sells flowers to mourners.
“Yes, master,” he says, wrapping some lilies.