Category: Halloween

After the boys whacked Rico, they put him in the trunk and drove off.
Nobody saw Rico ever again.
The cops brought in the boys and gave them the third degree.
But they never said anything, and the cops had to let them go.
The cops followed them for a while, but they didn’t lead anywhere.
Over the years, people claimed they knew where Rico was, dead or alive, but nothing ever panned out.
Rico became a punchline and a bit of trivia, then faded from the headlines and memory.
Now, when you mention Rico’s name, the kids say “Who?”

I love estate sales.
Other people shop for barely-used appliances. Or jewelry. Or odd knick-knacks from their travels.
Clothes, well, that’s a bit too personal.
So is a bed. A bed frame is fine, but a bed? No.
It’s rare to find home movies.
The family usually keeps those or throws those out.
But every now and then, there’s a can of film in a projector or a tape left in a VCR.
I watch them all, and get an idea of what they were like when they were alive.
Before I killed them.
After all, I love estate sales.

Who doesn’t like Andy Anderson?
With his wide smile and red pinstripe suit and straw hat.
Marching down Main Street with a big grin and a firm handshake and a “How do you do?”
Kissing every baby and handing out cigars.
“I’ll clean up this town!” he shouts. “Vote for me!”
The next day, Andy’s body was handing from a lamppost.
His tongue pulled through a hole through his neck.
Columbia isn’t too far away to send this town a message.
“Nothing to see here,” says the chief of police, a fresh wad of hundred dollar bills in his pocket.

Clutching his head, a searing headache, a migraine of migraines.
“Jeremy Blake the Fourth.”
Jeremy repeated that in the darkness.
Shadows, then lights, shapes came together to form a white room.
One moment, he had been in the scanning center.
A flash of light, and then darkness, and the massive pain in his head.
He looked at his hands, flexed his fingers, and clutched his head to squeeze out the pain.
“This one’s corrupt, too,” said a voice. “We’ll scan again.”
Jeremy’s pain vanished, along with Jeremy, and another Jeremy appeared in his place.
“Jeremy Blake the Fourth,” he said.

From the moment he knew of his existence, Detective Hargreaves knew he was AI.
Why would a singularity of billionaires and trillionaires upload a mere cop?
And why would they even need him?
Tracking down corrupted uploads for scanning and repair, why did they try to run?
He always found and caught them.
Why go through the charade at all?
Just access their file, templock it, and make the needed fixes.
Hargreaves shrugged and felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Overthinking things again?” said another Hargreaves.
He nodded, templocked himself, and waited for the cleansing sensation of the data repairs.

Willy and Billy were identical twins, born to a nice Catholic couple.
They were raised in the church, baptized and taught all they needed to know.
They were good kids, and Willy and Billy never had anything to confess.
They didn’t even pretend to be the other twin to fool people.
“This is just too good to be true,” said Father Williams.
So, he tried to get them to snitch on each other.
But they had nothing to say.
“I guess they’re perfect then,” said Father Williams.
He tossed a coin to determine which to sacrifice for the Dark Mass.

You remind me of the dead.
They were once alive, and happy.
Then something changed.
Something always changes.
Life is change.
When change stops, when nothing changes, life itself stops.
And death is there.
Death is always there, when nothing changes anymore.
When you say you don’t want to change, you are saying you want to be dead.
The dead don’t change. They stay that way forever.
Oh, we might tell your story and stretch the truth.
A little. Or a lot.
But that’s not change.
That’s the truth, rotting away, just as you rot.
In the hands of death.

The Hairomatic is a brilliant device.
Put it over your head, push start, and it styles your hair perfectly.
You can choose from a dozen preset styles, or add more stylepacks with a subscription service.
Hackers modified the encryption locks to allow third-party hairstyles.
Dark Web sites offered thousands of styles.
Search a television show or movie, yeah, I want that style… and three minutes later, it was yours.
Hairomatic made billions, but there were the lawsuits.
Error-correction algorithms didn’t always prevent accidents.
And more than one customer found themselves scalped.
And the bald ended up with shattered, mangled skulls.

Massacres spread across the continent, across the ocean, and the new lands.
The Bishop-Prince, they call him Hexenbrenner: The Witch Burner.
In one town alone, hundreds of women captured, tortured, and burned.
And then, his greatest triumph.
The capture of The Witch Queen.
She cast a curse upon the Prince.
He took it as her confession, and tied her to the wooden stake himself.
The townspeople brought the kindling and laid it at her feet.
She laughed as she burned, and a thick black smoke spread from the town center.
People, clutching their throats, unable to scream, suffocating in waves.

Halloween before a major election is never fun.
The stores sell masks of the major candidates.
People go to bars in their costumes, get drunk, and a fight breaks out.
Or some kid goes door to door, someone says something snide, and the parents have at it.
At least Thanksgiving comes after the election, so the family can come together and be thankful that it’s over.
Until someone brings up the loser… or the winner.
And that explains the rise of electric knife “accidents” across the country.
Pass the rolls… so I can stuff one in your big fat mouth.