BACK WHERE I BELONG by Dorothy Davies

Dorothy Davies submitted Back Where I Belong to TKnC quite some time ago. I wickedly held on to it, and she graciously agreed for the story to be included in the Hellicious Halloween showcase.

Dorothy is an editor, a prolific writer of horror short stories and author of frank historical novels. 

Her tale creeps and crawls, twists and trembles. Scrape forth...


BACK WHERE I BELONG by Dorothy Davies

It’s dark in here. Too dark for me to see anything. I’m restricted in my movements, why can’t I sit up, move my arms about, lift my head ... and what is this strange silky stuff I am lying on? What is this hard pillow I am resting on...

I don’t like this. Any of it. Not one single tiny miniscule scrap of it. Something's wrong and I want to know where and why and how and what and I want to know now. Not tomorrow, or next week, or next year, but NOW!

TALK TO ME!

Nothing. It’s as if I’m in some kind of box...

I am, aren’t I, in some kind of box. A coffin, to be precise.

What else is lined with silky stuff and holds my arms and legs and body in a rigid position where I can’t move around and...

But I’m not dead!

Hold on, think this one through. Sensibly, logically, one step at a time.

I was...

Where?

In my car. Right. First step, in my car. Driving from/to?

Work. I remember. Driving from work, after a long day. Tired. Trying to keep my eyes open. Remember ... some idiot cutting in front of me and me too tired to react quickly and I smashed into him. I remember nothing else.

So, did someone declare me DOA? If so, I’ve been a long time waking up, there would have been an autopsy – hold on – can I feel – yes I can – and then a funeral and they don’t happen very quickly and –

I guess I got buried, because I'm not burned up and ash and scattered somewhere or left in the bottom of the incinerator or stuffed into someone else’s urn.

But you see, I am NOT dead.

I need to get out of here. So, how do I get out of a) the coffin and b) the grave...

By sheer hard work.

Wow, that was hard work too!

Oh hell. I have been dead longer than I thought. The headstone’s in place already. No, not already, look at the date, look at the date ... I've been dead a year. A whole long empty wasted do-nothing year.

But I look all right, what I can see of me, anyway. Not much rotting going on here, feet still got shoes on and nothing leaking out of the seams. The socks don’t feel soggy either, so ... the feet must be intact. Right? The legs, let me look at the legs, tug up the trousers, well, would you look at that, pink flesh and blue veins and come to think of it, what about the hands which did the tugging? Well, would you look at that, too, all my fingers intact and heavens, she buried me with my wedding ring, too! I thought she would have had that off me and sold it immediately. Or do I do my cheating wife an injustice...?

Right. Head. Hmm, seems intact. Eyes, yes, nose, definitely, mouth with teeth, yes, and at least now I can say I will never have toothache again, hallelujah! Ears? Yes, I have ears. Hair? Longer than I normally have it but who’s arguing about a small item like that?

Looks me as if I'm pretty well intact. Not bad for my age, as it happens. My age plus one year – obviously lying around underground does wonders for the body. Look, no paunch. That’s the death starvation diet for you, works every time. I might market that, when I get myself back into civilisation.

And the bitch’s house.

Now, let me orientate myself.

This is the large new burying ground, so my home is – several miles away. Well, I obviously can’t drive there, and equally can’t hire a taxi either; there is no money in these pockets.

Hold on, you fool, you’re not thinking straight.

Would you, after a year underground? Asleep?

No excuse. Come on, think! How did you get out of the coffin and the grave?

By thought.

Precisely.

Now think yourself at home.

Ha! Is it that easy, I ask myself... there is only one way to find out... isn’t there?

And here I am walking up the path. She’s made a few changes, that black-hearted wife of mine. The flower beds are all shrubs, no colour, no charm. Where’s the central rose bush gone? Pride of my life, that was. What’s a conifer doing in its place?

The door’s a different colour. I preferred the green, don’t like this – this wishy washy blue. That’s not a colour for a front door, that doesn’t say ‘look at me, I am proud to be the entrance to this home.’ This one says ‘I am all delicate pastels and femininity and be kind to me.’

I will, when I get in.

Sudden thought, no one appears to have seen me yet. Was I lucky or am I invisible? I will find out when I-

Shocked look, smashed dishes, hand over mouth, eyes like saucers – I thought that was a stupid expression until I saw her eyes go as big as saucers when I walked into the (disgustingly yellow) kitchen.

‘You...’

‘Me.’ I don’t think I have a voice, leastways I didn’t hear anything. Telepathy, perhaps, because her eyes got even bigger, if that was possible and it had to be, because they did.

Stop it with the foolish thoughts.

‘It is you.’ She’s shaking head to foot, nerves, fright, love? Never the last one, never, never. I know my wife and a lot of memories are creeping back. Well, I’ve only been out of the grave for – how long? Half an hour? Taking me a little while to get myself together. Only natural.

Let’s think about the reason I was so tired and couldn't react properly in the accident. Let’s think about the flask she gave me to take to work, the drink which tasted just the tiny bit wrong, think about the look of sex she carried from time to time when she hadn't been with me. Think about the lies ... oh the lies ... I uncovered from time to time without her knowing.

Think about how she'll react when I say the next words to her.

And smile.

‘Darling, I got tired of lying in the grave. I decided to come back where I belong.’

____________________________

BIO: 

Dorothy Davies
Author and editor.
Amor Vincit Omnia


Check out my websites: www.oneinspecyal.com and www.circle-of-light.co.uk

SMASHING PUMPKINS by Gill Hoffs

She's a mystery to TKnC and Hellicious Halloween - and don't we love a mystery, yet she's a talent we need to read more about. Gill Hoffs is a writer from Warrington in England. She is also a contributor to the incredible Lost Children: A Charity Anthology project started by Thomas Pluck in the US and Fiona Johnson in Scotland. On my knees, Gill.

Her story for our Hellicious Halloween showcase Smashing Pumpkins spirals down witchety pathways until we fall across something far more sombre and macabre. Listen up...


SMASHING PUMPKINS by Gill Hoffs

Pumpkins aren’t supposed to bleed. They’re not supposed to cry, either. But this was Hallowe’en…

When Jenny scooped soft innards from the pumpkin she felt no sense of unease. No chills, no jitters, and certainly no sense of foreboding assailed her as she scoured the thick orange skin with a spoon and listened to Hallowe’en Hits Vol. 3, tapping her slipper on the kitchen floor. It was a grey day, the sky thick with drizzle and falling leaves, but nothing out of the ordinary, nothing unusual for this time of year. 

Singing along to ‘Thriller’, not quite hitting the high notes but not caring about it either, she thought about what was for dinner later and tried not to look too hungrily at the tub of lollipops and chocolates meant for visitors tonight. One would lead to two would lead to a trip to the Co-Op for replacements and a plague of spots for the rest of the week, and she fancied neither.

It was when she took a knife to the smooth curve of what was to be its face that things changed. Not just her no-chocolate resolve; everything. She’d decided on a cat theme this year, had little paper ears all ready for the lid, and was trying her hardest not to cut through the narrow pupils when a tear slid down its face.

Jenny was not a nonsensical person, she had no time for ghosts and if something went bump in the night she went to sleep certain of a logical cause for it. But the drop of water dribbling down onto the worktop gave her pause. Especially since it was followed by several more in quick succession, the water puddling at its base.

Perhaps it was an unusually wet pumpkin, she reasoned, it’s certainly a damp day. Maybe I’ve bruised a patch inside, yes, that’s it. Better for it to leak now than when there’s a candle in there, or it’ll never stay alight. And if there’s not a pumpkin in the window, shining with the hope of Hallowe’en, then she’d be left with the whole tub of candy to herself, and not a child to share it with.

She took her time on the nose, trying to get the curves right, then cut narrow slits for whiskers, three on each side. She’d chosen well, this one was the best of the patch, smooth, round and a deep reddy orange. The farmer was an old friend, glad of her help in the fields now and then. He always said she must have green fingers, holding her hands a little too long as he pretended to check; wherever she dug or sowed the plants came up greener, bigger, more lush than they had before. It meant she got her pick when harvest came.

Finally she carved the teeth. The fangs fringed the mouth with menace, and Jenny smiled at the snarl, thinking of the reactions of her little visitors later. Then it bit her…

She banged the pumpkin up and down on the counter with a scream, pushing at the heavy gourd until it let go. Red dripped off the edge of the work surface, spattering on the lino floor. There were deep incisions in the pads of her fingertips, and tear marks around them where she’d ripped them pulling free.

It spat at her, blood speckling the front of her blouse as she clenched her injured hand and stared. When it spoke, her jaw dropped open in disbelief.

It had the voice of a child, a young, angry child. One that she recognised.

“Why did you-" but at this Jenny had run from the room. It screamed and squealed, more noise that she recognised, but it wasn’t till she found the cricket bat by her bed that she considered her return. Screaming herself, she walloped the pumpkin with the bat, her hand throbbing with pulsing pain. Smashing it to a seething pulp, it was a little while till she realised it was her voice still screaming. Calming down, she knew she had to go.

Fingers bandaged, blouse changed, pumpkin mush left to simmer on the stove, she drove out to the farm. Her farmer friend must have been busy, there were perhaps a dozen on the roadside display, including happy faces, angry faces, vampires, and more bloody cats. Parking in the layby rather than approaching the farmhouse as usual, she got out, cricket bat in hand. Maybe she was going nuts, but she couldn’t risk making another mistake.

When they saw it was her, they screamed. Boys, girls, it was hard to distinguish amongst the screams and the rage. The bat was heavy, her fingers sore, but she took a deep breath and started.

“Where’s my mum and dad?” squealed a cat.

“Why did you take me?” screamed a vampire.

“Why did you leave us out he-“ she managed to shut an angry face up.

It was hard for Jenny to hear the siren over the screams. At the trial, she pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. The police officer who saw her smashing pumpkins as he headed back to the station for his tea mentioned hearing screams, but chose not to mention in his report that he believed them to be from murdered children. Attributing them to Jenny, apparently mad with guilt, seemed the most sensible course of action. Especially when they dug up the patch to find out what made her fingers so green and the produce so big.

Twenty little trick or treaters, skeletons and costumes showing bright in the light. Twenty girls and boys. Twenty little bodies showing signs of Jenny’s cricket bat and teeth.

When Jenny choked on pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, nobody was at all surprised. The warders who sourced the ingredients least of all…

____________________

Bio:

Gill Hoffs lives in Warrington, England with her husband and 4 year old son though her mind wanders all over the place. Her work has won several prizes including the Crimson Skull competition, and is available widely online, and in print. 

Check out her website http://gillhoffs.wordpress.com/or email her at: scottishredridinghood@hotmail.com

WHAT FATE IMPOSES by Patricia Abbott

Glimpses - I have had - of Patti Abbott's writing over the last few years. Her fiction is dark, strange and beguiling. I urge you to check the long list of Stories on the Web on her blog, Pattinase. She is also a mine of information about what is going on in Pulp Fictionland where crime, noir and horror overlap.

Patti's Hellicious Halloween story What Fate Imposes stitches American folklore together with a disturbing and chilling tradition. This is a tale of Craft, told with craft...


WHAT FATE IMPOSES by Patricia Abbott

“I’d just as soon get started early. Never like being out late on Halloween.” Clara Muir finished wiping the last dish. The air was redolent of supper’s goat stew. “I never will forget that time….” Catching the look on Anna’s face, she stopped.

Letitia made her final microscopic stitches, nodding without hearing her sister.

It was a log cabin quilt and one of her finest in a number that didn’t bear counting.

Although her blue eyes were still strong, her fingers had grown crippled. Each week another bag of her fragile fabric, some centuries’ old, found its way to the church resale shop.

“Can’t help but think that’s too fine a piece of needlework to cover a squalling infant,” Anna said. She always said exactly this when Letitia pulled the needle through the three layers for the final time.

“They’re meant as a keepsake, you ninny. Who’d think of allowing a child to destroy a work of art?”

So far - and far was a long time ago now - none of the parents in Shelterville had allowed this to happen. Not wanting to tempt Fate, the proffered birth quilts were quickly put away in the cloth bag they came in. Few were opened a second time.

Rituals were to be observed even when they made no sense.

Every child was treated to both a quilt and a visit from the Muir sisters three nights after the child’s birth. Few families greeted the sisters with less than complete dread. Books, family heirlooms, fabric, baked items usually festooned the hall table on their arrival. Sometimes one was taken; other times the sisters’ aquiline noses turned up.

“It’s not like we have any choice,” Letitia said. “We are obliged to pay a visit.

Required even.”

Yet this responsibility did not greatly trouble them. It was the sole reason for their existence, truth be told.

“I took special care with this quilt, knowing baby Matthew would be the Fenwick’s only child,” Clara said.

“And their child for no more than a few minutes.” Letitia mumbled as she looked in the closet for a tape measurer. “There it is!”

Her sisters looked at each other with unblinking eyes. It was difficult to get worked up after all these many years.

“Just a little time, you say. Ah, then,” Anna said, looking for her scissors. “Save us another visit. These legs grow stiffer every day.” She hung the large scissors on a lanyard from her neck.

The three women crept outside to Bumberry Road, which was strewn with red and golden leaves. Anna, prone to ankle sprains, looked fearfully for the hidden acorn or fallen branch. With linked arms, save for the bag with the quilt inside tucked under Clara’s arm, they made their down. Boys on bikes, mothers with strollers, the first children coming outside in their Halloween costumes and cars coming home from work, skirted the trio. It had always been like this and the sisters rarely noticed. Having each other, there was little need for the company of mortals.

The Fenwicks lived in a gatehouse near the bottom of the hill. There was no choice but to open the door to the Muir Sisters, which they did. The quilt was handed over, the baby admired if the Muir Sisters’ indifferent way could be called such.

It didn’t do for them to get too attached to the children - especially one so fated.

“Time for the prognostication,” Clara said after some tea had been sipped, after the quilt had been admired and put away. “No sense postponing it.”

“Wait a minute,” Brent Fenwick said. “You came to our house on Halloween and didn’t say “Trick or Treat? Doesn’t seem right.”

The three sisters knew he was stalling, but being polite if nothing else, they shrugged and in unison uttered the words. “Trick or Treat.”

From behind his back, Mr. Fenwick pulled out a burlap bag. “Treat!”

Letitia peeked inside. “Hair,” she pronounced with a snort. Her sisters laughed politely. “Hair from an goat, I believe.” Pieces of it escaped the burlap and floated near her nose. She sneezed obligingly.

“We stopped taking hair in return for a different fate when Letitia turned to quilts.” Clara looked at them with something approaching kindness. “It only worked once or twice, you know. No one cares for hair blankets now.”

The three sisters stepped forward together and looked into the cracking fireplace. “The boy—“

“Say his name,” Mrs. Fenwick cried. “How am I to know you have the right child if you don’t even say his name?”

“Matthew Fenwick.” Clara said, “It is my sad duty to inform you that Matthew will die before the log in that fire burns out. Its final embers will signify the end of his days.” Anna rattled the scissors at her neck.

“You mean right now,” Mr. Fenwick exclaimed. “Within the next hour? I never imagined it could be this soon. No one warned us….”

“It doesn’t happen often,” Clara said . “It’s a large log so perhaps…”

“It’s the dying embers and ash that signifies his life is extinguished,” Mrs Fenwick interrupted with a strange light in her eyes. But perhaps it was the light from the fire.

Clara nodded.

Mrs Fenwick pursed her lips and before anyone could react, she picked up the pail of water that sat by the fire and doused the log. “No embers,” she said as the smoke washed over them. “No ash either. Just a smoky, charred piece of wood.”

Coughing from the smoke, the sisters looked at each other. Finally, they shrugged and headed for the door. The Fenwicks watched until they turned the bend in the road and started up the hill.

To be on the safe side of prophecies and fate, Mr Fenwick placed the sodden log in a bird bath filled with water, thus ensuring it could never be relit.

_____________________

Bio: Patti Abbott blogs at http://pattinase.blogspot.com/

HALLOWEEN LOVERS by Phil Ambler

What is it about so many horror writers that they are nicest people you could ever wish to meet? Phil Ambler fits that bill, yet the weekly drabbles he posts to The Feardom's Prediction Challenge and elsewhere are chilling in the extreme. Indeed he recently won the challenge with Host - one of the darkest pieces I have read in a long while.

Phil brings fear and romance to Hellicious Halloween with his tale Halloween Lovers. This is his second outing on TKnC - and we're glad he's back.

HALLOWEEN LOVERS by Phil Ambler

We both stood there in the kitchen, staring silently at each other as the candles flickered around us. Her face was as beautiful as I remembered it, pale as a porcelain doll with those big, doe like eyes of hers so full of longing and sorrow. She wore the same gingham dress which she had worn on our first date in October 2007, a black jumper draped over her alabaster shoulders.

She had smiled coyly at me that evening when I had told her how pretty she was as we walked in the silvery moonlight. I had joked that I would see her safely back home, past all the hellacious Halloween monsters wanting to drag her back to their foul and fetid pits. We both knew that I would end up in her bed that night but it was nice to have the excuse to hide behind.

It was a year later to the day that I proposed to her. Logs crackled in the open hearth and the living room was adorned with candles casting shadows across its length. I had sat on the sofa, a bundle of nerves, rehearsing those specially chosen words as I waited for her to get home. She had walked through the door dressed in a sexy little witches outfit, all black lace and fishnet tights. She took one look at me sitting there with that little red box in my hand and fell upon me, her sweet, full lips plastering my face with cheap black lipstick. I never even got to ask her the question.

We married the following year on 31 October, when else, in a castle in Scotland. It was perfect. It had been a beautiful autumnal day, the trees laden with golden leaves as the sun painted an umber sky which shimmered in the crystal clear waters of the loch. Some people said we were condemning ourselves to a lifetime of misery marrying on Halloween but we didn't care, it was superstitious nonsense to us; we had each other and nothing else mattered.

I wonder what might have happened if we'd married a day later.

Things changed between us. Little things which we'd laughed at beforehand grated on the pair of us. We started arguing over stupid things, who did the washing up, whose turn it was to cook, how much I was drinking. I started working late, going out to the pub with my friends or just on my own, anything to avoid going home to her. And then one day I hit her.

She left me on our anniversary. One day she was there and then the next she was gone. People sympathised with me, offered me their support, but they didn't know the truth of the matter and I wasn't about to tell them.

I spent a year trying to get her back. At first I didn't know how I was going to do it. All I knew was that it was all down to me and there was no-one else to blame. I went to specialists who helped me to understand that and what I had to do to get her back. I spent hours pouring over books until I knew the exact words that I would use to be able to see her again.

So here we were now; just the two of us staring at each other in what had been our kitchen waiting for one of us to break the silence. It was appropriate that it was on Halloween, our anniversary; it would not have been possible on any other day. There was no other day of the year I could have persuaded her to come back over to me. We had lots to talk about. We had to talk about what happened. I had to tell her how much I missed her. I had to tell her that a day didn't go by that I didn't think about her. Most importantly I had to apologise. I hadn't meant to hurt her. It had been the drink. I had to tell her how sorry I was. She had waited up for me the evening that she left me. When I got in she had thrown our anniversary meal at me, turned to charcoal from sitting in the oven whilst I was out drinking. If she had just gone to bed things would have been different but I couldn't stop myself. I hadn’t meant to make her leave me. If she hadn't shouted at me she would still be here. If she hadn't hit me I wouldn't have killed her.

And so we stood there staring at each other.

_________________________

BIO: Phil Ambler is a writer from the South East of England who prefers to write on the darker side of life. Phil's short story Well has been published on Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers and he currently has several finished shorts he is trying to find a home for. Follow Phil on Twitter @phlambler.

MNF by Absolutely*Kate

Absolutely*Kate tells me she is a TKnC virgin. I find this impossibly hard to believe having read her work and listened to her incredible words - and believe me - you really do have to listen.

Kate's Hellicious Halloween story MNF is yet another unusual theme for the showcase, as I'm sure readers will agree. Please welcome her in, and open your ears as well as your eyes - for this is the unique voice of Absolutely*Kate...


MNF by Absolutely*Kate

Monday night's mood was intense in the press box. The Zagwars wanted to impose their wills on the Bravens defense. Brutally so. Blood and gore and more so. But some force was blockin' customary urge o'rage. I saw it. I felt the opposite energy. I was there in the sticky heat of Florida's juiciest Stadium with 67,483 fans who I sensed drank it in too. I tell you it was more than the ol' calendar turning edges to edginess, ending October midst week#8, the Halloween NFL scene. Somethin' just out of reach was spooking everyone. Oxymoronically, I felt it. Jim Flynn, next to me in the sound booth, dazzling his Blackberry with a frenetic performance like he was inches to goal in OT, was cussin' on 'bout heebie jeebies o'bad vibes all night. My bud Hank Jenkins down the line? Hell, he shot me the What the Fuck more 'n five times in the second-quarter. It's the look you see when you never saw somethin' comin' that you still see. That's about how it shook down that night. Well, how it shook me up that night, is more like it.

~ ~ ~ 

Night started like any Monday Night Football game starts. Home team arrives. National media coverage and camera crews set up. Vendors vend full force, shooting silver bullet Coors into the stands - the stadium gets jazzed. There's more than just good natured gridiron goin' on when the Zagwars' testosterone puffs and struts prime time. Decibels raise. Cheerleaders' cleavage dips far beneath any semblance of the Mason-Dixon line. (I dated both Jenny Mason and Dottie Dixon once or twice and they made an art form of that line.)

How I crossed that line though isn't tonight's glory story. Actually, that one would be a helluva lot easier to spiel my guts on as I knew what I went in for and what the score was, but this one - damn, this one's tough to figure, hard-pressed to report on.

You see, though thousands of screaming visitor fans were lined up when the Bravens stomped en masse through spiky wrought-iron gates to the stadium locker room, the excitement subdued. Players came in with heads huddled low, 'neath voluminous silvery black jersey hoods. No eye contact. Most sporting earbuds or headphones plugging them into zones a world away from their current fan base. Zombie like. Opposite energies.

When the game got goin' there was plenty of action on the playing field, yet negative yardage. Opposite energies again. Go figger. Not so much defensive/impressive as some mighty intangibles we were all jawin' eerie about upstairs. Me? I'm Jimbo Ray Jordan, vital voice of WFLO and I still can't rightly speak about what happened that night.

From the befuddled Zagwar's rookie quarterback to any penny-ante sports hack, word spread from the 50-yardline on, there were 13 men on the field - at numerous occasions. When refs' yellow flags eradicated monster moshpits of mass destruction tinted Zag-orange and silvery-black, the count showed a solid eleven. No penalty, no first-downs. Opposite energies.

Brutality brandished by brazen Bravens excruciated weirdness. Bonecrunching, gut-stomping crazed tackles, facemask-twisting, eye-gouging, even biting to beat the band. And the band was playin' loud. Enough blood slashed the red zone to dub it true.

Pocket presence? Pass protection? Nah. Muddled O-line men muttered from stretchers, demoralized and demolished. Never saw the fast faces looming under shadows of hard-hitting helmets. Yeah, lotta ugly in that Halloween game. Tricks? Plenty. Treats? Fagettaboutit!

~ ~ ~ 

It was the radio in my primo teal metal-flake Camauro, that better acquainted me with haunting truths. Peelin' outta the parkin' garage just about midnight, blowing a g'bye kiss to sweet little Millie's tollbooth, I got the signal coming in on local AM Sports Jive. Wanted to glean how juggernauts and knuckleheads butted heads post-game. Instead - still a pickle of a puzzle why nothin' made it over the wireservices or net when we were in Ogroveco Stadium, but the sad skinny that came down was . . . well, I really hate to have to tell you foks, but it was the Bravens' team plane. Yep. Came down in a ravine. Crashed down and crushed up like the end of a Crest toothpaste tube no one wanted to take a turn with anymore. Playbooks, coaches, tight ends, free safeties, reinforced helmets, dangling heads, firm shoulderpads, squashed shoulderblades, jostled jock straps and what squished in 'em were strewn over and under like bad odds in Vegas through matted, tangled, crimson underbrush. No pride there for them boys who'd been signed this season from Alabama. No pride, no prowess, no life for the boys signed on from any Big 10 or Eastern Conference leagues . . . no more, no how, no way I'm sorrowed to say. Every darn vestige of a divisional championship team flying high, now - grounded, lifeless, tragically cut from prime glories, lifelong stories. Report dubbed it a freakish accident. They had good weather comin' off the Coast - then a gaggle of geese, ironically in a classic red zone scoring V-formation, had entered airspace on a downwind. Feathered impressions clogged visions and all attempts to regain control from the tumultuous downward spiral. Opposite energies, I tell you. 

Rest in peace brave Bravens. 


ETA and proclaimed TOD by first EMTs on the NFL horrific crash scene were simultaneously three hours before gametime. The game? Oh yeah, the game ended in ignominious slaughter.

Some say the Zagwars never had a ghost of a chance.

Word on the astroturf was the debacle in N'awleans, NFL week #6, made some psychobabble fans more than usual sick. There was bad voodoo that they do comin' down, spinnin' round. I don't mess wit' dat stuff. Opposite energies of good football and bad magic aren't reality TV. This is prime time baby.


But then, who were - those guys?


This is Jimbo Ray Jordan, vital voice for WFLO,
saying, "G'nite Sports Fans . . . Everywhere."

© Absolutely*Kate

October, 2011 

_____________________________

Bio: Absolutely*Kate AUTHOR AND PROMOTER . . . WITH PIZAZZ

ABSOLUTELY*KATE believes in believers, shadows of noir and moxie. World needs more moxie.

Showcasing AT THE BIJOU ~ "Where Writers' Raves are Readers' Faves", she creates virtual theatre for enticing the mind as authors centerstage. Sailing soon HARBINGER*33, heralding 33 stellar authors, 3 stunning artists and 3 scintillating authenticators, with 33 salutes fore and aft, midst - Aye, 33 ports o'call. . . . Percolating ~ THE ESPRESSO*CAFE ~ a robust brew of Author Promotion in Motion.

BOOKS?

Absolutely*Kate, mighty proud in crimewriter crowd of GRIMM TALES. Fairytales take a shadow's turn - not the usual suspects. Releasing ala editor John Kenyon & Untreed Publishing. Predicted hit in any parade.

EBook Alerts! "HOLY MOXIE!" + "IF THE GUMSHOE FITS" in edit/design/pizazz stage.

Anticipation-Sensations!

Three novels in creation ~ where Detective Nelle Callahan and Ziegfeld Girls plug holes, dance showstoppers - enhance hard-boiled and soft-hearted. Meanwhile, the butcher, baker, cocksure candlestick maker and an Einstein timetravel tale trips the lights fantastic ~ THE VILLAGE SMITHY, excerpting AT THE BIJOU.


HOLY COLLABORATIONS! { in the dazzling works }

Cowboy-surfer HARRY B SANDERFORD and Absolutely*Kate knuckle 1-2 punches in ~ SWEET CHILI PHILLY. Get ringside baby ~ it's a November knockout.

Insightful Irish/Frisco scribe KEVIN J MACKEY and Absolutely*Kate stir social political foray in ~ THE 1976 SOCIETY.

Daunting noir/crimer AJ HAYES throws fedora into the shadowy ring with Absolutely*Kate for sultry espionage high jinx in ~ SPY-SIDE ECONOMICS.

LINKS:

NOVEMBER GOES NOIR ~ AT THE BIJOU http://at-the-bijou.blogspot.com/ ABSOLUTELY*KATE WEB-SPLASH O'PIZAZZ http://about.me/AbsolutelyKate

PICK YOUR OWN PUMPKIN by Chris Allinotte

Whenever I start reading a story by Chris Allinotte I'm on the edge of my seat, not knowing if I'm going to jump up in terror or fall off laughing. Often - it's both. Chris has a great talent for combining gritty crime with poignant emotion; graphic horror with murderous humour.

When we received Pick Your Own Pumpkin for the Hellicious Halloween showcase I clapped like a girl. This story introduces two characters to TKnC that visitors and contributors to my blog's weekly flash fiction challenge The Prediction will be very familiar with.

Ladies and Gentlemen - meet Milton and Blackwood...


PICK YOUR OWN PUMPKIN by Chris Allinotte

"Can we get some more light out here?"

Milton tried again to get the attention of the uniform who was sitting in the passenger seat of his car. The man's face was ash pale.

"Officer?"

The man looked up, seeming to finally hear.

"P-Power's out. We radioed for them to bring the big Kliegs and Gennies out, but they're twenty minutes away."

He put his head down, hands gripping the dash. "Jesus, detective. You ever seen..."

"Yeah." Milton nodded, grim. "This one's up there though." He ran a hand through his hair. "But it's all the same crime. Dead is dead."

The officer didn't answer, so Milton crossed the barnyard to revisit the grotesque wall of jack-o-lanterns. Window dressing or not, the killer had gone to a lot of trouble. There were three rows of ten
pumpkins, stacked one on the other, each carved into a goofy grin, sinister smirk, or - most chilling to Al - shock and surprise. Through the little "o" mouths of these last, he got a clear view of the pieces of Mrs. Edna Chalmers inside. The foot stool sized pumpkin that held her head was of the "surprised" variety. A big, wooden handled meat fork was jammed savagely into the side.

Inside each gourd was a chintzy, flickering LED light. Blue, purple and red light glittered off the pools of blood that were overflowing the hollow mouths of the pumpkins. It was the only light in the place.

"Quite the spectacle, huh?" asked Blackwood, coming around the sign that gave the entire scene a hint of black comedy: 'Don't miss our Famous 'Punkin' Chunkin!'

"Yeah," agreed Al. "Anything in the house?"

Blackwood nodded. "Yeah. There's signs of a struggle in the kitchen. Lots of blood in the living room. That's probably where it happened." He looked over at the patrol car. "Where's the kid that called it in?"

"They took him home. He was scared shitless."

"That we'd charge him with trespassing?"

Al stared at John for a moment. "No, John. By the thirty-one pieces of farmer's wife that are oozing onto the ground."

"Oh," said Blackwood. "Right."

John Blackwood was a brilliant investigator, and could deduce huge amounts of detail from the tiniest clue - but his social skills were strongly lacking. Milton thought that it was precisely this low degree of empathy that made John so effective when investigating the sociopathic crimes they'd built their reputation on. Mostly, though, it drove Al crazy.

Running down the line of pumpkins with his flashlight, Blackwood asked, "All the pieces here?"

"Yeah," said Al, "From what I can see. You ready for the old man?"

"He's still here?" Blackwood turned to face his partner.

"Yeah. Out in the barn." replied Milton. "The meds did their best, but he got away on them.

"Alright," said Blackwood. "Let's see what we can get from the body before they take him away."

"Fair enough," said Milton. "Damned flickering is giving me a headache anyway."

They walked toward the barn, following Blackwood's flashlight beam.

"You're quiet tonight." said John.

"Just thinking," replied Milton. "I told the uniform not to get freaked by the details. It's murder. Murder happens every day."

Blackwood stopped. "It doesn't though, Al. Not like this." He looked back at the pumpkins. "For a man to go to such lengths - this was building up for a long while. This wasn't a momentary loss of control."

Inside the barn, which had been turned into a makeshift apartment, there was a ratty looking yellow sofa, a small television, and three large garbage bags. The smell of pumpkin was overpowering. Three battery powered lanterns created a harsh circle of white light near the sofa. Mike Thurgis, an EMT who had been on scene with John and Al more than once, waved them over.

"It was thirty-seconds too long," said Mike. "Me and Rashid had him back for a second, but the damage was done. We're waiting on the ME to come and call the time."

Al looked past Mike to the body on the floor. "He say anything before he went?"

Mike went pale.

"Yeah," he said. "Matter of fact, he did."

Blackwood had his pad out. "Okay - what did you get?"

 "He said Peter Peter. Twice - just like that- Peter Peter." Turning around, the EMT looked in the stall too. "Then he started laughing. That was the end of it. He choked on his own blood, and we couldn't get him back."

Al moved around the others and crouched by the body. The man was wire-thin, but his limbs were ropy with sun-hardened muscle. Blood was drying in dark splotches across his swollen, blue-tinged face.

"What are these blood spots here?" he asked Mike.

"I'm not a dick," said Mike. "You tell me."

The medic lifted the farmer's shirt. Milton exhaled sharply. The man's chest was covered in hundreds of tiny circular scars. Blood was congealing over two of these.

"The meat fork," said Blackwood.

"Yeah." Al agreed. "Seems like Edna'd been poking at her hubby for quite awhile, too. Old Peter here probably just had enough."

Blackwood burst out laughing.

"What? What is it John?" Al stood up.

"You may be a sick bastard, but you've got a sense of humour," said Blackwood, bending down to address the corpse. He looked over at Milton.

"Think about it, Al. All of it."

Al did. After a moment, he shook his head, unable to suppress his own uncomfortable grin. "Sick fuck," he muttered.

"What the hell are you guys talking about?" asked Mike.

Blackwood nudged the body with his toe. "All we have to do is write this one up. Think Hollis would appreciate the short version?"

Milton shook his head. "No."

Mike started to object again, Al held up a hand. "It's like this, Mike:

Peter Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had a wife but couldn't keep her,
He put her in a pumpkin shell..."

Blackwood finished, "And there he kept her, very well."

_____________________________

Bio: Chris Allinotte lives in Toronto, Canada, with his wife and children.

His work has been featured in many places online, and recently in the anthologies "Novus Creatura" and "Creepy Things".  You can check out more about Chris' stories at his blog http://chrisallinotte.blogspot.com

THE MONKEY TREE by Sean Patrick Reardon

The first time I encountered Sean Patrick Reardon's fiction - on TKnC as it happens - I knew this was a writer with a very unusual voice. Since then I've discovered that he appears to invest so much emotion in whatever topic or genre he is tackling that I for one, come away quite dumbstruck.

Sean's Hellicious Halloween contribution The Monkey Tree can't fail to touch your heart. Let's climb...


THE MONKEY TREE by Sean Patrick Reardon

“Good evening old boy,” The voice proclaimed, sounding like that of an elderly Englishman.

“Who’s they-ah?”  Thomas replied, with a tinge of a Maine accent.

“Tis I, Sir Alistair Oakwood, your neighbor of more than eighty years.”

“I don’t know anyone by that name, the only thing I see is the oak tree.”

“Then it appears, by your acute sense of deduction, you have solved the mystery my good man.”

“Hello, Mister Oakwood.”

“Is that all you can manage to say to such an ardent sidekick? After all, I have known you since your infantine beginning in the year nineteen-ten, when I was but a young strapping lad of some twenty years.”

“I’m sorry sir. As you can imagine, I was very startled after all these years of silence, to hear a voice.”

“Indeed, and I certainly understand your astonishment. Now that you know who I am, I am under the assumption that your surname is Monkey, as that is all I have ever heard bandied about when you were the subject of conversation.”

“I do not mean...to laugh...at you Alistair. My amusement comes from your misunderstanding of my...name. It is actually Thomas Edwin Coppinger. Monkey is a name that a young boy gave me many years ago. And from that day on, I was only known as the Monkey Tree.”

Their conversation and laughter continued, until the sun started to stir from its daily hibernation.

“Isn’t this splendid Alistair?” Thomas waited for a response, but none came.

***

The landscape had repainted itself into a grand morning. The sky was flawlessly blue without even the hint of a blemishing cloud and the soft breeze stirred the mild, late October air. It was a glorious day that would surely segue into a perfect night for trick or treating.

The new friends thought about each other and what they would talk about, if they ever got the same chance they had under the cover of darkness.

Neither of them questioned why they were graced with this special ability. They just appreciated and reveled in it. They hoped when evening came, the magic would return.

***

By mid-afternoon, the weather had taken an unexpected, drastic turn. The sunless sky was dominated by layers of ominous, coal-black clouds, mixed with a hodgepodge of dark, silver disruptions. A raw, penetrating wind added to the gloomy pall that had overtaken the land.

From the front yard of Thomas’s lot came a steady, piercing, BEEEEP, BEEEEP, BEEEEP sound and within minutes, the large truck came to a stop twenty feet from him.

 Two men got out it and stared up at Thomas. Both wore thick leather gloves. The larger of the two men held a rope and a saw, while the other maintained a steadfast position at the base of the truck.

The larger man wrapped the thick rope around his waist, slung the saw over his back like a troubadour, and started his ascent up Thomas’s body, climbing limb by limb, until he reached the upper most section.

He paused momentarily to look at a makeshift platform made of wood and nails that traversed two of the thick branches. He noticed the initials T.E.C. followed by 1972 were carved into the wood and 1983 was written in what looked like red marker.

“You all set up there?” The man on the ground yelled up to his partner, while holding tightly to his end of the rope.

“Yeah, let’s do this,” He shouted.

Both men secured their industrial ear muffs. The man in the tree wrapped his legs around Thomas and pulled the ripcord on the saw, bringing it to life.

***

Alistair could only watch in a palsied, state of shock as each piece of Thomas’ defenseless, vulnerable body was lacerated, severed, and fell to the ground. Alistair’s soul ached with the thought of the suffering and agony that was being inflicted on his new friend.

The butchering continued as Alistair’s feelings of anguish transformed into complete detestation toward the assassins. If he just had the means, he would deliver the ultimate retribution to repay this gratuitous act of savagery.

When the executioners finished, confident that the death sentence had been meted out appropriately, they stood among the carnage of sawdust, severed limbs, needles, and pinecones.  The smaller man walked toward the truck with the Grim Reaper’s tools of their trade.

The big man stood gloating in the morbid remains, preparing to light a celebratory cigarette. As he raised his head from the match, his facial expression slowly transformed from one of satisfaction to astonishment. He stood motionless and mesmerized as if in a trance.

His mouth involuntarily opened and the cigarette cascaded end-over-end as it fell to the ground. He tried to speak, but could only muster a few unintelligible words.

The smaller man turned and caught a glimpse of his silent partner and the blank stare on his face.

“Hey, what’s going on? Are you alright?”

The big man raised his arm in a slow motion and pointed toward Alistair. The small man looked to the spot where his partner’s finger pointed, and his face reshaped itself into a slack-jawed expression.

Both men stood, frozen like ice sculptures, and stared at Alistair as all his leaves started to fall from his branches, like he was being disrobed by the most ferocious winter storm. All of his beautiful, six pointed leaves that minutes before were a colorful mix of orange, yellow, and green, had turned brown, crisp, and lifeless.

The men were left standing in a knee-deep pile of mortified brown leaves as the final one fell and drifted to the ground, like the last tear from an eye whose source had been exhausted by sadness. Both men, still unable to move, were unsure of what had just happened. The silence was broken by a cracking sound, that within seconds, became an ear-splitting eruption as all of Alistair’s limbs came crashing down in a thunderous detonation, crushing the two men’s bodies.

____________________

BIO: Sean Patrick Reardon is the author of the crime thriller novel "Mindjacker". He's blogging at: http://seanpatrickreardon.blogspot.com

TOBY’S LAST HALLOWEEN PARTY by Keith Gingell

Another tale that tickled our festival fancy a while back was this mafia-style treat from Keith Gingell. Keith allowed us to hang on to Toby's Last Halloween Party for the Hellicious Halloween showcase and we're so glad he did.

A very different celebration, and a party to die for...


TOBY’S LAST HALLOWEEN PARTY by Keith Gingell

The Mercedes limousine coasted to a halt at the entrance of the largest privately owned Georgian mansion in Virginia. Its flawless panther-black coachwork reflected the flickering light of five hundred Halloween lanterns lining the path to the great house. The last of the guests, Don Castelvetrano and his family, had arrived.

Toby De Havilland, dressed in a white tuxedo, hurried toward the car. He spread his arms wide to greet its emerging occupants. One by one he kissed the cheeks of his guest’s daughter, two sons and bejewelled wife. To each he whispered, “Bouena sera.”  He approached the Don, hugged him briefly then stepped back.

“Don Castelvetrano. Il mio più ospite d’onnore.” Toby bowed his head and added, “Ho una spledida serata prevista per la tua famiglia.”

The Don nodded; his fleeting glance at the house sufficient to indicate his impatience to get his family out of the chilly fall air.

Toby noticed the glance in an instant. “Penso che dovremmo andare all'interno.” Snapping his fingers in the direction of his waiting guards, he motioned them to escort his ‘honoured’ guest into the house.

After checking the Don was suitably impressed by his surroundings, Toby stepped up to the limo and tapped on the passenger window. The glass slid down without a sound. 

“Make sure those fucking assholes never make it back to Palermo.” He dropped a bulging brown envelope on the seat beside the chauffer. “You’ll get the rest when the job’s done.”

Toby De Havilland ran his life this way. He’d done this as long as he could remember. In his early days he did the jobs himself, and enjoyed the work. He’d carved his way to the top: literally. Eliminating troublesome competitors using any means available – an art in Toby’s hands. Now he ran a legitimate business empire, but he still kept in touch with those who provided the funds. They loved him because he was meticulous. He was clean and therefore useful. They used him. He used them. It would stay that way all the while Toby De Havilland was beyond suspicion.

Inside the house, surrounded by the opulence of original Georgian colours and antique furnishings, Don Caselvetrano, along with all the other glittering guests, enjoyed attentive service. Attractive waiters and waitresses ghosted around, offering glasses of various wines and exquisite canapés from antique silver platters. The De Havilland Halloween parties, one of the highlights of the social calendar, were always well attended. Everybody wanted to go, but nobody dared ask how their host made so much money.

The spacious reception hall hummed with party conversation, most of it about what surprise Toby had planned this time. Every year he came up with a new distraction, each one more extravagant than before. The room hushed when Toby entered the reception hall with a beautiful girl dressed as a witch on each arm. The crowd parted as they made their way to the large, exquisitely carved, dividing doors at the end of the room.

The girls broke away and took their places behind Toby. He faced his guests and addressed them in a clear voice, “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls … witches and vampires,” he waited for the ripple of polite laughter to pass. “Tonight we are going to return to our childhood. We are going to partake in the ancient tradition of bobbing for apples.”

The crowd murmured, some with excitement, some with confusion. Toby held up his hands and waited for silence. “But, my friends, this is no ordinary country apple dip.”

He gestured to the girls to push the great doors apart. Behind them stood a long table covered in fine white linen. Five large silver punch-bowls sat side-by-side in the centre of the spread. At each end of the table, twelve unopened bottles of Champagne. Five small baskets filled with pink and cream striped apples lay on the floor in a carefully arranged display.

Toby stepped to one side, allowing his guests a clear view. 

“Tonight, my dear guests, you will be bobbing for Bardsey apples; the rarest apples in the world, floating on a sparkling bed of Perrier-Jouët; the most exclusive Champagne in production.”

The girls got to work: one expertly popped off the corks, while the other filled the punch-bowls. A young man dressed as a vampire tipped the contents of a basket into each bowl. The carefully choreographed operation took less than three minutes.

Toby stepped forward while the servants spirited the empty bottles and baskets away. With a flurry like a conjuror, he pulled a pure white lobster bib from his pocket and tied it around his neck.

“My dear guests. As your host, I claim the right to be the first to snap an apple.” 

He turned around and placed his hands behind his back. A waitress appeared with a white ribbon and tied it around his wrists. He approached the centre bowl and bent over it, while the crowd applauded.

As he lowered his face into the punch-bowl, Toby smelled the sweet aroma of apple mingled with fermented grapes, and felt the cooling effect of thousands of miniscule Champagne droplets caressing his skin. His heartbeat increased. This was the only unrehearsed part of the show, but his ego told him it would be easy. Closing his eyes against the stinging droplets, he opened his mouth and attempted to catch an apple. It slipped from his grasp and bobbed away.

He realised, although he’d arranged for the apples to be small and for the liquid to be shallow, it wasn’t going to be simple. Taking a deep breath, he wrapped his lips around an apple and pushed it under the Champagne until it was trapped against the bottom of the bowl. He sunk his teeth deep into its fragrant flesh. Triumphant, he tried to raise his head out of the liquid, but the apple stuck on the bottom, it seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. Champagne flooded into his nose. Instinctively he tried to spit the apple out, but it stayed put. The more he opened his mouth, the deeper inside it seemed to go.

He became aware of a hand caressing the back of his head gently, but firmly holding him down. Champagne gushed into his mouth through his nose stinging his throat. He started to feel dizzy. A voice came to him. The sweet voice of a little girl, “Toby … Toby. It’s Sara, your sweetheart. Don’t you remember me? Let me sing our song, my sweet love.” She sang to a childish tune:

“Toby, Toby. My sweet love.
You were sent to me from Heaven above.
You’ll be my man, I’ll be your wife.
Together we’ll be, for all our life.

Toby, Toby, I love you so much.
I long to grow up and feel your touch.
The bond we have, no one can sever.
We’ll be lovers for ever and ever.”

As she sang, the misty image of a beautiful child appeared before Toby. Recollection came to him. Sara. That soppy girl who followed me everywhere when I was seven. He remembered the Halloween party at his parent’s farm forty years before. The apple bobbing had finished, and all the other kids were in the house eating pumpkin pie. Toby hated it, and escaped outside to the darkening farmyard. Sara followed him, singing her stupid song. He regarded her with disgust. Together forever? No Way!

He spotted the big tub. “Let’s bob for apples,” he suggested. “Just us two.”

Sara giggled. “Yes my love, let’s.”

“You first.”

Toby remembered watching her dip her milk-white skin into the tub, and how he pushed her head down, holding her under until she stopped moving. He tipped her body completely into the deep tub to make it look like she’d fallen in. He recalled how he ran into the house screaming: shamming terror. I found Sara in the tub! She must have fallen in. She’s not moving. I’m scared Mamma. She’s not dead is she?

Toby tried to struggle free of the ribbon around his wrists, but as he tugged it tightened. Someone was pulling it taut. Sara spoke to him, her voice distorted and echoing, “I’ve come for you my love. I’ve waited a long time for this moment, but at last you are mine. I’ve grown into a woman, but I’m still a virgin, saving myself for you. Look at me Toby!”

He recoiled from the apparition forcing its way into his mind. He saw the beautiful head of Sara attached to an old woman’s naked body. Her large breasts, flat and flaccid, hung almost down to her stomach. The skin of her bony body blackening with decay. The cloying stench of rotting flesh raped his senses.

Sara thrust forward and pulled him to her with strong arms. 

“Make love to me Toby. You are mine forever.”

Toby screamed, as he felt his spirit snap free from his body. The spirit couple drifted high above the mansion into a dark void; Toby locked in Sara’s embrace struggling wildly, his face contorted with terror.

--------------------

The guests watched their host and chuckled as he dipped his head into the champagne. Their jovial mood changed to concern when, after five seconds, they saw his body stiffen and convulse. He jerked back and crumpled on the ground, sending the punch-bowl and its $12,000 contents clattering to the floor.

A man ran forward and knelt next to Toby’s body. “Call 911,” he shouted. “I think it’s a heart attack.”

During the confusion that followed, Don Castelvetrano sidled up to his eldest son. He covered his mouth with his hand.

“Are you sure the nerve gas in that snake’s champagne bowl is untraceable?”

“Absolutely signore.”

“Your girl did a good job. Make sure she gets the money De Haviland gave the chauffeur after you garrotte him.” 

The Don turned to leave, but hesitated. “The girl. What is her name?”

“Sara, signore.”

___________________________________

BIO: I have been writing fiction for about five years, firstly as a hobby, but now I am getting serious about it. I have stories published in Volumes 3 and 4 of Radgepacket and one in the newly released Volume 5. I also have a couple of stories on the Radgepacket website.

BLOODY TRUCE by Erin Cole

Regular TKnC contributor and serial jangler of our nerves Erin Cole delivers unique horror - always. Erin's contribution to Hellicious Halloween Bloody Truce is no exception and we're really excited she took the time to take part in our dark fiction showcase.

Zip your mouth, check your brakes - and enjoy...


BLOODY TRUCE by Erin Cole

Anger, the snag in the nylon of our marriage.  Car rides were only a catalyst, and tonight, we fought like the monsters we were dressed up as.

“You never told me about this party.  I always find out at the last minute.”

“I told you last Monday,” he said.  “Before you left for work.”

A made-up line.  “Liar.”

“God, you’re a bitch.”

“And you’re an asshole.”

The thread unraveled further, despite our efforts to get along.  We loved each other … didn’t w—PERSON IN THE ROAD!

“Nick!  Watch out!”

“Shit!”

Her face flew at me.  Eyes wide.  Mouth agape.  Palms extended to stop what she couldn’t. Her body smacked the windshield.  Glass splintered outward in a circle.  Her face split open. Thunder clattered above us—bones breaking.

The car stopped.  The night ruined and still unfinished. 

“Oh my god!”  My insides squirmed like earthworms.

“Fuck!”  His hands beat at the steering wheel.  “Great!  We are going to prison.”  Vehement eyes turned on me.  “This is ALL your fault.  You distracted me from the road.”

“You’re the one that started the fight.  And you were the one driving!”

“Bitch.”

“Asshole.”

He stepped out, slammed the door.  Reluctantly, I followed.  The air smelled like an upturned, river rock. 

Nick opened the trunk and grabbed a flashlight.  He walked behind the car into a thick, black night.  His pirate costume scratched with each step, a sound that out in the middle of nowhere, tapped dark thoughts.

The flashlight waved cold-blue light across the road.  Nothing, yet.

I looked for a broken form in the ditch.  Blood pressure=145/111.  I had to pee.

Nick’s head was a pendulum.  “Where is she?”

“Maybe in the ditch?”

“She was wearing white.  She shouldn’t be that hard to spot.”

We walked to where we turned onto the road.  Nick shined the light back at me.  “She’s gone.”

“She couldn’t be.”  The window was a web of broken glass, her face smashed.  “Are you sure she didn’t get … thrown further?”

Nick passed by me and found the tire marks in the road.  “I don't get it.  She’s not—”

“BEHIND YOU!”

Nick jerked around.  The woman in white stood in front of us. Blood stained her face and neckline.  Her hands were bent and broken.  Her mouth crusted and dirty. 

She grabbed Nick, moving with unnatural speed.

“Nick!”

Teeth like a shark’s ripped into his jugular.  Blood spurted.

“Oh, god!”  I turned and ran.  Down a deserted road.  His screams sickened me, made my bones akin to rubber sticks.  Awful sounds … cracking, gurgling, slapping.

I'm so sorry, Nick.  You’re not an asshole.

I kept running.  Arms pumping like a train piston.  Fairy wings flapping.  Pulse=heart attack range. 

That woman … what was she?  What did she do to Nick?

I was getting tired.  Fire in my lungs.  Fairy slippers slipping.  Then light poured behind me.

"Emma!  Wait."

Nick's voice.  I stopped and turned around.

“Nick?”  It was him.  Limping, but still alive.

“Nick!  Are you okay?”

“Emma, I’m all right.”

“But I saw…”

“Come here.”

“Where’s that woman?”

“I took care of her.”

“Took … care of?”  What do you mean?”

He shined the light so I could see his face.  Bloody.  Dirty mouth.  Teeth like a shark’s. And he was wearing his eye patch. 

“Emma, you’re not a bitch either.”

___________________________

BIO:  Erin Cole writes dark fiction from Portland, Oregon.  She blogs about it here: www.erincolelive.blogspot.com

CONFESSIONS OF A JACK-O-LANTERN by Harris Tobias

Harris has been very patient. We've been holding on to Confessions of a Jack-O-Lantern for ages - but all in a good cause. It's the story that inspired the concept of a TKnC Halloween special and so gave birth to this week's horror showcase - Hellicious Halloween.

This story turns the cards on the traditional pumpkinfest. So when you raise you knife later today to slice and gouge - listen to the voices...

CONFESSIONS OF A JACK-O-LANTERN by Harris Tobias

I started life like any garden variety pumpkin—a seed, a blossom, a bee on a flower. I soaked up the sun and sucked nourishment from the earth. I grew round and fat. One by one my siblings were removed until I had the vine to myself. I was fed a special diet and I grew enormous. I was a competition pumpkin destined for the blue ribbon at the county fair.

I don’t know what the boy who raised me used for plant food. It must have been some special mixture of his own invention. It had a strange result. Instead of making me grow in size, I grew aware. My plant fibers became more like nerves and, before the season was through, I could think and feel almost as well as you. I couldn’t speak or see but I could feel the sun on my skin and the rain washing over me. I could sense the days getting shorter and the nights cooler. Eventually frost nipped my vine and the growing season was over. I had grown large but I wasn’t in the same league as the real heavy weights. I must have weighed around eighty pounds. A good sized squash. The biggest pumpkin at the fair that year weighed in at 370 pounds. No blue ribbon for me.

Instead, I was taken to a place where hundreds of my kind were gathered. Bins filled with pumpkins were picked through by eager hands, admired for their shape and size, then sold for purposes unknown. Being as large as I was, I was kept in a special area. Lined up with the other big pumpkins, waiting for a customer to come along and purchase me. It took a few weeks but eventually I was rolled onto the back of a truck and taken to a suburban house a few miles away. There I was rolled across the front lawn and given a prominent place on the porch. I thought I would end my days watching the children play on the lawn and the traffic beyond. I was mistaken, fate had something else in store for me. Here’s where my story takes an unhappy turn.

I don’t suppose you’ve ever been carved. It’s not an experience I’d recommend. Being stabbed repeatedly is bad enough but carving large holes into one's body is especially cruel. Under the supervision of an adult, four demon children began the ordeal. First they cut a large opening in my head. I couldn’t begin to describe the pain that caused. Sawing deep into my flesh until the roof of my skull was pulled free of my body was pure agony. I was close to fainting but my ordeal had only begun. Despite my torture, happy laughing hands pulled on my stem, removed the top of my skull with a yank. It made a sucking sound. I screamed silent screams and passed out but did not die.

Then those same dirty little hands entered my body, diving up to their filthy elbows into my guts. They dug out handfuls of my insides until I was a hollow shell. It was like being pulled apart by jackals. The pain of that hollowing was beyond description. Think of how you’d feel if your lungs and liver were pulled out by demons and you’d have some idea of what I felt. If I could have screamed, I’d have screamed long and loud, but I couldn’t scream, I had no mouth. At least not yet.

Worse pain was yet to come. My tormentors were not quite through with me. A different knife was stabbed into my side repeatedly. In and out, in and out several times until two large triangular holes were sliced into me.The pieces were removed leaving me with crude approximations of eyes. The burning, searing pain of those cuts stay with me to this day. The cutting out of eye holes was so cruel and almost more than I could bear. 

But the ordeal wasn’t over, more slashing ensued and another large piece of my flesh was brutally removed for a nose. A nose. What did I need with a nose? If I had any blood, I’d have bled rivers of it, gallons of it. But I couldn’t bleed. I couldn’t even move. I couldn’t beg them to stop. I had to stand there and take it. Oh the pain, the terrible pain. Did they have no pity? I could never do that to them.

By the time they finished sawing a huge jagged opening for a mouth, I was almost beyond caring. They sawed a crooked toothy rictus which gave my butchered face an evil grin. I looked almost as angry as I felt. My innocence was lost. Was this the reason I grew fat and round and wholesome? I could have fed dozens but instead I was turned into a caricature of a human face, an effigy of a head? For this I was tortured and killed? If I could bleed, if I could scream, if I could run away I might have saved myself but I could do none of those things. I was a dumb thing, a vegetable. I shouldn’t blame the children, but I do.

When I thought there was nothing further they could do to me, they found one more painful indignity for me to endure. The children placed a lighted candle inside my head. It burned, oh how it burned. It hurt with a steady smoldering pain that never let up. Think of a fire in your brain. Imagine your brain slowly cooking and you have some idea of how I spent my last few days. I’m sure I glowed splendid and frightening, but I cooked from the inside and I died.

My pain and suffering were at an end, but I could still think. As my spirit drifted away from the burnt, rotting thing I had become, it should have achieved peace. It should have returned to the earth like all vegetables to be re-cycled and reused. But that peace too was denied me. For while my body did indeed return to the soil, my spirit did not fade. My consciousness continued and it seethed with bitter resentment. I became an angry spirit seeking revenge. Revenge on those ignorant humans who abused me so. Especially on the children, I hated them all.

And so I wait for spring and another growing season. I hang over the pumpkin patch like a black cloud of anger and pain. Maybe I'll slip into a pumpkin seed and grow and fruit again. Maybe my fruits will again become the grinning face you call a jack-o-lantern. Maybe. Only this time I'll be ready. This time I'll bite back.

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BIO: Find Harris Tobias at http://tobiash.podbean.com and http://harristobias-fiction.blogspot.com