Category: Halloween

Remember me as I was, before the madness took me.
All the memories we shared. The things we did.
Those are all gone now.
What’s left, please don’t let it hurt you.
This is not me. This is something else.
Something sick, and evil.
And it can make you sick and evil, too.
Bury it somewhere, no matter how much it screams.
Or how much it begs you to stop.
Bring a shovel, duct tape, a machete.
And a sleeping bag. Or heavy blanket.
Whatever it takes.
Don’t let it touch you.
And, please, God, don’t let it bite you.

Leland’s mother liked to say “out of sight, out of mind” a lot.
She was also blind. And she was often out of her mind.
Some of it was the booze and pills, but insanity ran in Leland’s family, and he was sent off to live with relatives.
And then sent off to foster care when those relatives went missing.
Did Leland kill them? The police investigated, but couldn’t prove anything.
They never found the bodies.
People have a habit of disappearing around Leland.
“I don’t mind them at all,” he says.
And he smiles through the prison cell bars.

Every night in the dormitory, there’s a pillow fight.
No, it’s not coeds blowing off some steam.
It’s some nasty fighting between the ghosts that haunt the building.
Sometimes, it’s so bad, the house master has to call the campus police.
A pair of exorcists enter the building, and after a few minutes, the noise ceases.
“Why can’t we get rid of those spirits for good?” asks the headmaster.
The exorcists shrug. “You’d have to tear the building down,” they said.
Besides, exorcism costs the same as bug extermination.
Compared to building a new dormitory…
The headmaster writes another check.

According to the witness, we’re close to Ted’s neck of the woods.
If we walk that way, we’ll be at Ted’s foot of the woods.
On the way, we’ll pass his hip of the woods, his knee of the woods, and his ankle of the woods.
Did you bring the body bag?
Good. Snap plenty of photos before you mark the spot and bag up the remains.
Be quick about it, because there’s wolves in these woods, and they’ll drag off anything we don’t get before sundown.
Man, they sure did a number on this Ted guy.
That poor bastard.

Dr. Laslo Martin came to the facility with the best of references.
But his solution to everything was a lobotomy.
They complained to the state until they ordered an investigation.
Dr. Martin caught word of it, and the next day, he had the other doctors lobotomize him.
About an hour after the procedure, everyone began to get sick.
Patients. Doctors. Nurses. Staff. Guards.
Everyone was vomiting blood.
Dr. Martin had poisoned the day’s meals in facility’s cafeteria.
When the investigators arrived, slipping on the foulness on the floor, they found him blankly standing by a window, whispering incomprehensible meaningless mumbles.

I woke up, tied to a chair.

The bounty hunter loaded a bullet into the pistol, spun the chamber, and cocked the hammer.

He pointed the gun and me and pulled the trigger.

Click.

“How much do you lose if you bring me in dead instead of alive?” I said.

“Ten thousand,” he said.

Click.

“That’s a lot,” I said.

I felt a searing pain in my chest.

And then… the twisting and knotting of my flesh as it healed itself.

He loaded a silver bullet.

But by then, I had already torn the ropes and leapt for his throat.

Give a kid a marshmallow, and then tell them that if they don’t eat it while you’re out of the room, you’ll give them two marshmallows.
This is a famous test of delayed gratification.
I remember the studies. I remember the psychologist standing over me, holding out the marshmallow.
“I don’t like marshmallows,” I told him.
“Well, what do you like?” he asked me.
It took three orderlies to pry my hands from his throat.
Oh, how I love to strangle scientists.
I guess I didn’t want to wait for him to bring a second psychologist for me to strangle.

When Grampa sees an ugly girl, he says “She must have been beaten with The Ugly Stick.”
Which, back in his day, was a real stick.
The City Uglifier would go from door to door, beating girls with The Ugly Stick until they were ugly.
These days, there is no more City Uglifier. The position was eliminated due to budget cuts.
The Ugly Stick is on display at City Hall, in a locked glass cabinet.
However, it’s not a very secure lock, because occasionally, you’ll see an ugly girl.
Grampa puts a finger to his lips, says SSSSSSSSSH!, and winks.

There’s only so much blood a vampire can drink.
There’s only so much darkness a vampire can see.
There’s only so much forever a vampire can take.
They walk out to the beach, strip off their clothes, and lie down to wait for the sun.
Others hammer stakes into their own hearts. Or they ask their servants to do it for them.
“Make me immortal,” some will ask.
But the vampire knows better. The vampire knows that it’s not a gift, but an endless horror.
So, they kill their servants, walk to the beach, strip off their clothes, and wait.