Bird Songs

I found a program that plays bird songs.
It is very relaxing. And it has a timer, so I can play it at night to lull me to sleep.
I could let it play all night long, but that would mean that the bird songs would play while I sleep.
And I’d dream about the birds.
Hundreds of birds.
Thousands of birds.
Millions of birds.
Birds all around me, singing.
And hungry.
Hungry for anything.
I run, but the birds are fast, and they attack me.
I wake up screaming, covered in bloody scratches.
Did I roll over the cat?

Landing

When the stewardess asked me to turn off my electronic devices and put my tray table back up, I refused.
“I want to keep my tray table down!” I growled. “And I want all of my electronic devices on!”
So, we couldn’t land. And we stayed in the air.
After an hour, the other passengers got mad. One tried to turn my stuff off while another shoved at my tray.
“No!” I yelled. “No!”
They subdued me, and then the plane landed.
At the gate, federal agents were there to arrest me.
Which is why I didn’t want to land.

Will Work For… Food

The guy’s sign said WILL WORK FOR FOOD.
“Any good at raking leaves?” I asked.
He nodded.
Turns out, he was really good at it. He raked the front and back yards, and bagged everything.
“Well done,” I said. “What do you want to eat?”
He sank his fangs into my neck and drank my blood.
I almost laughed at the cleverness of his sign. After all, he had done work for me, his food.
Somehow, I managed to jam the rake handle through his chest to kill him.
Thank goodness I didn’t ask him to mow the lawn, too.

KFC

Have you ever noticed that you never see werewolves eating Kentucky Fried Chicken?
I suspect that one of the eleven secret herbs and spices is wolvesbane.
I’m pretty sure that one of the others is garlic, although that has nothing to do with why vampires won’t eat Kentucky Fried Chicken.
First off, vampires are snappy dressers, and fried chicken is greasy and disgusting.
And secondly, vampires drink blood. They do not eat fried chicken.
This would not stop either a vampire or a werewolf from eating a KFC employee, of course.
So don’t forget your silver bullets, cross, and hairnet.

Ghost Stories

Long ago, we used to tell ghost stories around the fire.
But now that we’re all dead and burning in Hell, we tell ghost stories in the fire.
The same stories. Over and over.
I suppose all stories are ghost stories when you’re a ghost.
Especially when the demons go around with whips to flog those ghosts telling happy stories, or stories about really good meals or memories.
You never get used to the flames. An impressive feat, really. Acclimation and desensitization never set in.
Hotter and hotter, while the ghost stories get duller and duller.
Here comes the whip.

The Witch

Gertie the Witch insisted on mixing potions from memory.
“I don’t need my spell book!” she’d screech at the Fire Department. “I’ve still got it all up here!”
He’d tap her forehead.. and noticed that her pointed hat was on fire.
The moment the firemen left, she was back in the kitchen.
Eye of bat…
Tongue of newt…
…or was it the other way around?
Her handwriting hadn’t been the best, even in her good days. And years of smoke damage had left the contents of her supply closet a grimy, sooty mystery.
I call dibs on her magic broom.

Greater Than Less Than

Some people learned that the greater than symbol is an alligator that eats the bigger number.
Other people learned that the less than symbol is an arrow that points at the smaller number.
My second grade Math teacher, Mr. Henson, taught us both.
“It’s up to you to decide,” he said.
The next day, when we arrived at school, there was a bloody trail leading into Mr. Henson’s room.
The room was a ghastly horror.
Last night, an alligator had broken into the school, and when Mr. Henson arrived, the beast attacked and ate him.
We all pointed and screamed.

The Abyss Above

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”
Gromsch the Troll put down the dead paladin’s battered copy of Nietzsche, and for a while, he stared at his blood-soaked talons, opening and closing them.
“I fight heroes,” Gromsch muttered. “Will I become a hero?”
The paladin’s corpse did not answer.
Gromsch shrugged, slowly stood up, and crawled out of his cave.
The sunset and clouds were beautiful tonight, the most beautiful he had ever seen, and he wiped a tear from his eye.
And the Heavens above gazed back into him.

The Devil Is Near

When the Devil is near, radios and telephones pick up nothing but static.
WiFi, too.
He likes to go to Starbucks, just to mess with the hipsters on their Macbooks and iPads and iPhones.
Of course, the same thing happens when you go into a tunnel. Radio waves have a hard time getting through all that rock.
Before you start screaming “THE DEVIL!” over and over, check to see if you’re in a tunnel first.
If you’re in a tunnel, relax. You’re in a tunnel. It’s not the Devil.
Unless, of course, the Devil is in the tunnel with you.

Mummy Fighters

Allison filled the super-soaker with holy water.
Joe grabbed a pair of hand mirrors from the drugstore.
Ed has a hammer and a fanny pack full of wooden stakes.
Sally looked at them all and growled.
“We’re hunting mummies, not vampires!”
She lit a torch. “You know? Fire? Mummies hate fire?”
The others shrugged. “But we get paid more for vampires.”
Sally smirked. “You guys are idiots.”
She pulled out her cell phone and called the client. “My team’s gone nuts.”
The client hung up on her, and called the asylum.
“Four for pickup,” he said. “And bring silver bullets.”