The Eighth Deadly Sin or Who Makes The Rules Around Here Anyway?

 

Post A Day Prompt: Eighth Deadly Sin

It was something to think about: If you could create the Eighth Deadly Sin what would it be?

I felt like a kid in a candy store.

People do so many idiotic things that you could nail them for. I mean where to start?

Okay. Deadly Sin should do what it says. If you commit this sin the consequences are going to be deadly. Plus you’re for sure going to Hell.

So if I could pick a new one I’d stay with the theme. It’d have to be something people do at least one of every single day : wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.

Ok. Here it is.

Laughter.

If you laugh you go to Hell. Do not pass Go. Do not collect 200.00

 No more laughing when your trying to belittle someone and that laugh, that smile is just one more knife for you to stick in their eye and twist. No more laughing at jokes or movies or happy memories.

And if you do. Boom. You’re in a cuddle puddle with demons. And not the cute ones like they have on the TV show Supernatural.

And if you think so- I’d agree: Yes indeed that is twisted and mean.

But isn’t that what the Deadlies are? Don’t we all get angry?  Love to eat too much ( Hello Christmas and Thanksgiving ) Aren’t there days when you just don’t want to wear anything but yesterday’s t-shirt and your favorite ripped up jeans or sweatpants? And on those days when you’re not fitting into your favorite outfit  don’t tell me you wouldn’t  sell a kidney to look like someone on tv.

It’s okay. We’ve all been there.

Seriously. Who decided to make being human not just a sin, but a deadly one?

But this is my blog and my post and my response to the prompt and I have made Laughter The Eighth Deadly Sin.

You just laughed at that didn’t you?

Uh Oh. Uh Oh For You To The Max.

It Sneaks Up On You

Halloween is my favorite time of the year.

Not the holiday itself exactly.

I love Autumn, I love the Winter. I love the crunchy leaves. The cold dark mornings and the biting cold evenings.

I love considering the possiblity of those things that can happen when Spring comes.

But in the mean time.

Winter.

I read the classics during the winter. Dickens mostly. This year I’m going to read start off with David Copperfield. Last year it was Great Expectations, but then I moved on to Through The Looking Glass, A Journal of The Plague Year and Turn Of The Screw.

On Monday I’m going to my favorite bookstore in Pioneer Square ( it’s a small independant store and the owner actually talks about books and writers with you) and pick up my Winter reading.

And then later this week I’m going Halloween Shopping.

I like to get that done before October.

Because once October hits, I want to celebrate and enjoy each and everday leading up to the night itself.

I want to read and write and listen to hours of Mozart and The Midnight Syndicate

I want to enjoy scary movies and take in some not so scary ones.

That’s the thing about the holidays and life in general. It will sneak up on you and be down the road before you know it.

So make it count. Every moment.

 

Floaters

 

 

 

Down the street from where I work is the waterfront.

It’s interesting for a variety of  reasons.

Like there’s a couple of mummies in one place, a great fish and chips place in another and did I mention the mummies already?

Hands down one of my favorite things to do is to stand there, looking out at the water and when there’s a small group of people eating snacks and taking selfies I’ll turn to a friend ( this only works if someone I know is there ) and say

” So you know what they have to do here every morning?”

No my friend will say on cue.

” The City has to get out here early and look for floaters.”

” What’s that?”

” You mean who. They’re dead bodies. See the tide comes in and they get pushed up here and wouldn’t you know it?” There’s always a tourist looking down and there’ll it will be. A big juicy floater. Hitting the dock. I heard when they hit the piling it makes a weird knocking sound. Anyway. It’s bad for business. So the City gets out here early and fishes then out with a big giant hook

” Oh my God. That cannot be true. ” my friend will say.

I take a quick look around and at this point my little audience-and there always is one because people are nosey and eavesdroppers by nature. Anyway the little crowd is clearly on my friend’s side and I can tell the image of a bloated water-logged corpse being fished out of the water is something they can’t unsee- unless of course they can convince themselves that this is absolutely not true.

” Well they can’t walk out. They’re dead you know.”

” You made that up. It’s not true.” My friend will say for the little group.

” Fine it’s not true.”

” Really? It’s not true. You were just kidding. Admit it.”

” Sure. ” I’ll say clearly not meaning it. ” I’m just kidding. Really.” I’ll say as unconvincingly as possible. ” Just kidding.”

 

Halloween Comic Day YAY!

You know what other fruit or vegetable gets mad at the drop of a hat?

Pears.

Just FYI.

 

The Party You Are Trying To Reach

A week after his wife, Leah Frost ran over a dog- wich was actually a euphemism between husband and wife for ‘the woman you hit with your car and dragged for almost a mile down a gravel road’  Sal Frost was nearly driven to running over and dragging his wife down a gravel road when Leah  started to hear the ringing phone.

Sometimes the phone- which she said had one of those oldfashioned ringtones- and not one of the new ones that you could download on your cellphone that sounded like chickens or maniacal clown laughter or something by Mozart- rang while she was in the bathroom washing her hair, or when she was reaching for a carton of cranberry juice out of the cooler at the grocery store and sometimes it seemed to come from right beneath her feet when she was in the kitchen pouring herself another glass of wine ( which she did a lot of since she ran over ‘the dog’)

On these occasions, if he was around she would grab his arm and whisper frantically ” can you hear it Sal? Can you hear that phone ringing?

After the millionth, it could have been the billionth time for all he knew at this point, Sal looked at her with a look that shouted, “if I hear about that phone one more time…just one more time Leah I’m going to put you in the same ditch with that “dog”…do we understand each other? Are we clear on that?

They did understand each other. Perfectly. So instead of saying anything about a ringing phone Leah’s eye would twitch like crazy and on some occasions the entire left side of her face would twitch and Sal would glare at her and she would not say a word.

He didn’t care if that drugged out dingbat he was married to went into a grand mal seizure as long as she shut the hell up about that ringing phone.

“Really Sal? “He would ask himself as he would watch his wife  standing by the mail box or smoking one of her several packs of cigarettes a day.

Did you really sign up for this?

And when he considered his wife’s talent for scoring a smosgasbord  of pharmaceuticals on a monthly basis from one of her several Doctors  that had in all probability led her to running over ‘the dog’ and he wondered…

What the hell was life going to be like when she hit 70 in a few years? Would hitting the big seven-oh slow her down? He thought not. In Leah’s universe there was still plenty of time left to run over ‘dogs’ or overdose on whatever the hell she was taking that week and would she do it in the privacy of their home?

Oh no.

She’d probably do it at the Opera like last time, or at the art museum like the time before or the three or four times it happened at poetry readings. For God Sakes.  Who the Hell OD’s at poetry readings?

His wife. That’s who.

Sal looked up and wished he had the nerve to walk into her bathroom and start opening bottles in her medicine cabinet and start throwing the contents back into his throat until what was left of his life was burned out of his bones once and for all.

After one such thought- and there were several like that around the Frost household now days Sal was outside when he heard…faintly from the back yard a phone ringing.

Not one of those new ringtone that sounded like robots or singing birds or cats meowing.

It was an old-fashioned ringtone it was deep and rich and trilled as it ended, briefly before starting back up again.

He walked slowly to the back of his house and he could hear it- it was louder but not by much. He walked all the way to the fence line and there…it was louder here.

It was coming from the house next door.

The old abandoned house next door with among the other messages and spray can artwork on the walls was something written on the ceiling. It said,

” We’re so cold here.”

But he could hear it ringing now, it was non-stop and it was so loud.

So he walked into the house through a side door that led into a kitchen with a sink and a wooden chair in the center of the room and one the window ledge there was of course…

a phone.

And it was ringing.

The wires were neatly coiled next tot the phone and  the receiver was off the cradle and yet…it was ringing Sal noted with wonder.

Sal walked over to the phone lifted the receiver to his ear and a calm, cool women’s voice asked hin if he would accept the charges.

” Wh-what?”

” Person to person call from Riversleigh Manor to Mrs Leah Frost, will you accept the charges?”

” Who is this? “

” Sir. I have a person to person call from Riversleigh Manor to Leah Frost. Will you accept the charges?”

Sal looked around the kitchen, could see the writing on the ceiling in the next room and the phone, the dead phone sitting on the window ledge in front of him. ” My, my wife isn’t here. This isn’t our house. I…I…”

” Sir. I have…”

” Fine I heard you. But how can a house be calling my wife person to person?” It occurred to Sal nobody should be able to call into a dead line and nobody should be able to answer it. But at this point Sal wasn’t tracking those little details.

” Sir I have a person to person call from Riversleigh Manor to Leah Frost. Will you accept the charges.”

Sal nodded. ” I mean yes sure. I’ll accept the charges.”

” Thank you sir. Riversleigh you may proceed with you call.”

Sal never saw the face of the person who rammed their fist through his back and into his ribcage. Never felt the hand yank his heart out and let it fall to the dusty floor.

And Sal was way beyond seeing anything anymore when  a small foot, a woman’s booted foot stepped on it.

” I’m sorry Riversleigh.” The Operator said over the dead receiver. The party you are trying to reach is no longer on the line. Shall I try again?”

And then a voice, neither male or female, cool and dry whispered over the line.” No. No that’s fine. I’ll try again later. Only next time I do believe I’ll call direct. “

Senza Fine

Photo By: Ostephy

ONCE upon a time

a little old lady who smoked too much and drank too much and swore too much  met  the Devil on the path that led into the deep dark woods behind her house.

It was just before sunset when she saw the Devil, who did indeed have horns and eyes like a wolf’s and a head of long black hair that smelled faintly of tomatoes leaning against a Maple tree covered with flaming red and orange fall leaves.

Her name was Enid Oddworte and the Devil didn’t tell her its name but the Devil fancied Enid. She felt it in her dry aged bones. So it didn’t matter to Enid what its name was.

All she cared about was that in all of the world  the Devil wanted her kiss.

But everyday the Little Old Lady said no.

“Why would you want a kiss from me?” she asked in her wine  soaked voice as she took a long hard drag off of her cigarette. Then she  blew a thin line of smoke over her shoulder and tossed her thin dark hair out of her watery dark eyes and smiled.

It was not an honest smile.

The Devil shrugged and it’s tail twitched from side to side, just like a cat’s. ” I don’t know Enid. I just know what I want. And what I want is a kiss from you. I would give up Hell, I would give up trying to get back into Heaven I’d do anything for a kiss from you.

Enid, who was usually a little drunk on her nightly strolls would walk away leaving the Devil with nothing more the  the scent of unfiltered cigarette smoke and expensive perfume.

And it’s heart-because the Devil did have one. Sort of. Would ache just a little at the sight of her carefully picking her way back to her house in her platform shoes.

Then one day Enid said yes.

Yes she wanted a kiss from the Devil.

So she kissed the Devil’s slightly warm lips and the heavy scent of her cigarette smoke filled the woods behind her house and the smell of tomatoes and dark wet earth chased it.

Then the Devil put it’s hands on Enid’s shoulders and it pushed her back.

It’s Wolfish orange eyes blazed and she could see herself in them, burning.

Enid looked up at the Devil and whispered, ” I’d give it all up for you, if you asked.”

The Devil asked. ” What would you give up for me Enid?”

” My soul, my heart my life. I want this moment with you to last forever…”

” Mio ” the Devil said. ” My name is Mio Andira. And you Enid are my true love. I can deny you nothing. Nothing. If you want this moment to last forever. It shall. For you my love.”

And because The Devil- whose name is Mio Andira, was good to its word -Enid’s moment with her one true love on the trail that led into the deep dark wood has lasted forever.

You can see it for yourself- every day just after sunset- you can see Enid unable to leave the trail- unable to go back to her house or forward into the deep dark woods.

She is rooted to that spot, the very same spot where Mio Andira declared its love to Enid.

But she is not alone.

 She has two things with her…because indeed Mio loved her-  she has his kiss that still burns just a little on her lips and the endless scream- the one that started when her true love promised her forever

and gave it to her.

It Ended Here

 

When I was little my  family told story about a girl who used to live in my Great Grandmother’s House.

She disappeared one day, the story goes, and the neighbors were sure her Mother had something to do with that and that her Father was the one who buried her in their basement.

That’s why my Great Grandmother got the house so cheap, that story apparently drove the price down.

In addition to the neighbors who insisted that there the story was true  didn’t mind sharing it with anyone who was thinking about buying the house did as much as put a toe on the property.

Here’s the thing about my Great Grandmother- should put her toes wherever the heck she wanted and so my Great Grandmother bought the house- for next to nothing despite the story –  and as the years went on my family would talk about how they should really dig around down there to find out once and for all if that story was true.

My six year old self used questions about the girl.

 What was her name? What grade was she in and did she like cats? Did she like McDonald’s french fries and of course…

” Is she a ghost?” I used to ask hopefully.

” No. ” I was told

” But she could be buried down there, right?”

” Could be.” I was informed.

Just before she unexpectedly died I was over at my Great Grandmother’s house. I was in her sitting room playing these little glass animals you used to get for free in boxes of Red Rose Tea when I had a great idea.

Why don’t I just put the little animals back on their shelf and go dig that girl up? I’d never seen a real human skeleton before and I figured this was my last chance to see one- it was an odd feeling but I remember just knowing I wouldnt’ be back again.

So I put one of the little animals ( it was a dog ) in my pocket for company and headed to the pantry where the door to the basement was.

I went into the kitchen and opened the basement door and was halfway down the dark  stairway to the basement when I remembered to turn the light on.

So I ran back up the stairs and straight into my Great Grandmother.

” What are you doing down there? ” she asked.

” Nothing. ” I said with disappointment.

” You were going down there after that body, weren’t you.”

” Well…”

” Your going to break your neck running up and down those stairs in the dark. I don’t want you going down there again. Am I making myself clear? Those stairs are dangerous.  You could get yourself killed running on them like that.”

I stared back at her and didn’t answer.

My Great Grandmother’s eyes, which were green and I swear to God they glowed like a cats, took in the look on my face.

She walked to her kitchen table, pulled out a chair and carried it to the kitchen window that overlooked her backyard.

” Come here. “

I walked over to the chair and she lifted me up and stood me on it. Then she pointed to a small group of her favorite rose bushes that she had planted years ago just after she moved into her house.

I looked up into her face.

” Now stay out of the basement. Mind me. Those  stairs are dangerous.”

I hopped off of the chair and before I could ask she said, ” Yes. It took a long time.”

My Great Grandmother died a little while later. I still have that little glass dog. And her house was actually moved years later. I guess it was some kind of architectural wonder. I can’t remember if it was because of who built it but it had something to do with it being built to look like a ship inside- which was true.

The basement I assume was filled in when they redeveloped the property and put two new single story homes where her beautiful Victorian styled home used to be.

But the Rose garden is still there.

Be It Resolved 2014

Some people make New Year’s Resolutions.

I make Halloween Resolutions like:

1. Watch at least one Halloween movie a day. Two a day on the weekends

2. Write something Halloween related daily in October

3. Take a dance class…just because

4. Vist at least 4 Haunted Houses in the month of October- and it’s not all fun and screams, I have to write stories about them.

So that’s what I hope to accomplish for Halloween.

Let’s see how it goes.

amm

It’s A Girl Thing

If you want to write about Monsters you have to understand people.

So if you’re into death and darkness and strolling through cemeteries deep in thought ALL BY YOURSELF then in my opinion, the scariest thing you’ll pull out of  head is a booger from your nose.

If you’re lucky.

I get the entire I’m a writer and I need to be alone with my thoughts, all I know is that it doesn’t work for me.

When I write I know I’m going into solitary confinement- so I spend as much of my time when I’m not writing out there in the world- checking out art, the symphony, consuming huge quantities of Gelato ( bless you inventor of Gelato, bless your dear sweet soul ) and just hanging around with my friends and family.

I love the process of writing, I love putting words on a page and telling a story or sharing my thoughts and what I really enjoy is that this is the one thing in my life I do and have done because I love to- I never asked permission ( am I a writer, do you think I’m any good? etc etc etc ).

So if you want to write I’d say try to do what I do- jump on in, don’t worry about what other people think and enjoy your life.

Then set aside some time to write and send as many characters as you want to the Morgue or Hell or into a creepy abandoned house.

Oh.

And the Gelato thing.

Do that too.

amm

 

And Best Horror Film Of 2014 Is…

Giant Mutant Spider Dog!

YAY!

Other films by

SA  Wardega

With All Of My Heart…

I love you with all of my heart…or what’s left of it after that silver bullet  thing…

I’ve Been Waiting

It’s been a long time till October and I’m dieing to get back to work.

Now.

Where is that shovel… I mean pen.

Sleep

Pompeii

There’s A Wolfman At My Door

Wall Art-

Pioneer Square

Seattle, Washington

Indeed It Is

From The Zone….

Hi Honey…I’m Home…

and to celebrate my return to My Bridge ( and gasp…actual writing ) here’s an  interview with the Rod Serling.

amm

411 From The Twilight Zone

Death is not sexy.

There is no such thing as a beautiful corpse.

It should not be used as a fashion statement.

And to paraphrase a line from this story, if it makes you laugh you belong in a cage.

 

Four years after the Civil War, a university professor, Dr. Benjamin Ramsey (Patrick Bergin), performs an appendectomy on a patient named O’Neill, who dies seconds later. At that moment, Ramsey notices a severe skull fracture O’Neill had endured twelve years earlier. Since no one could survive such an injury, Ramsey travels to a mysterious island to seek answers from Dr. Jeremy Wheaton (Jack Palance), who used to experiment with tissue regeneration, which might explain how O’Neill survived his skull fracture. As soon as the two doctors meet, they discuss O’Neill and how Wheaton decided to play God when he revived the dead people who now roam the island. Ironically, later that night, Jeremy Wheaton, the man who brought the dead back to life, dies himself. Instinctly aware of this, the living dead arrive and attack Ramsey, for whom they blame the death of Wheaton since on the island, nobody dies. The next morning, it’s revealed that Ramsey managed to survive the ambush, just as the boat that brought him to the island arrives to take him home. Before leaving, however, he finds a note from Wheaton’s niece, who reveals that she was dead, too, until her uncle revived her. With this shocking truth, Ramsey decides not tell his colleagues in the university what happened, knowing that no matter how hard people try to live forever, they must die.

Magic From The Twilight Zone

If you love a good story- then watch this- because THIS is how the magic happens and nobody could tell a story like Rod Serling.

A Day In The Life of A Former Baby Monster

Today on my bus ride home from work, I started to cough- the flu is going around , so that probably explains why the people who did turn around to see who was hacking their lungs up looked a little angry, even a little scared and very put out.

Sure.

My parents met by chance in Hawaii in 1963 just so I could sit behind YOU and make you sick.

Twonks.

Still, I busted into my purse and downed some Cold and Flu gel caps and lucky for me I stopped coughing. The guy sitting across from me, that’s about the time he started to cough and it was more than a few people who turned around and probably more who forced themselves not too.

I must confess here, I faked a cough just to see what would happen and if looks could kill I’d have been dead and buried out on I-5 in not one but several shallow graves.

So as I sat down to write tonight I went over that little moment because I knew I was going to put it into my writer’s notebook and as I started to write it occurred to me that little snapshot in my life reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode called, “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”

This episode was written by Rod Serling and briefly the storyline goes like this:  On a peaceful suburban street, strange occurrences and mysterious people stoke the residents’ paranoia to a disastrous intensity.

I’m going to let you in on a secret.

The first time I saw that episode that story scared me. it gave me nightmares. When it turned up on tv again a short while later I left the room. It creeped me out. It wasn’t the Aliens or the spaceship that scared me. I understood that kind of monster.

What scared me were the human monsters.

It was that look on the characters faces that terrified me- the viciousness, the desperation, the anger .

Today on my bus ride home, I saw flashes of those looks, but I’m not a little kid anymore. I’m an adult. I write ghost stories, I worked in a funeral home. I wasn’t scared. I was amused.

This is how Monsters ends: On a hilltop some distance away, two aliens observe the panic, explaining to the other that mankind is very easy panic, and that they can just as easily turn on the other, which will make domination over their species by the aliens rather easy.

It’s true.

Today I learned a cough can make people turn on each other.

And one little cough can make a monster.

And Whatever Walks There…

In about nine days I’ll be leaving for New Orleans- so if you do the math, you’ll see I’ll be there a day before Halloween and I’ll have a few days down there after.

I’m going in part because I have been told there are a few cemeteries and a haunted house or two around New Orleans that you can check out. Oh. And do you know they have some knowledge of Voodoo and Jazz about town too?

I know…how cool is that?

The other reason I am going is because of something called the Toxic Baby.

I can’t explain exactly why the Toxic Baby inspired me to pack my notebook and pens and my favorite pairs of  t-shirts and jeans and hiking boots and head to New Orleans over Halloween. But it has and you can read about it at the blog I’ve dedicated to my trip HERE. I’ve got a few posts up to sort of move the blog along,  so if you’d like to check it out, please stop by! I’m posting there daily now will through the rest of my trip.

amm

( click the picture to get to my blog, Searching For The Toxic Baby )

“…and whatever walked there, walked alone.”

Tis The Season

 Do you think God knew what He was doing when He created woman?  I really wanna know. Or do you think it was another one of His minor mistakes like tidal waves, earthquakes, FLOODS? You think women are like that? S’matter? You don’t think God makes mistakes? Of course He does. We ALL make mistakes. Of course, when WE make mistakes they call it evil. When GOD makes mistakes, they call it… nature. So whaddya think? Women… a mistake… or DID HE DO IT TO US ON PURPOSE?

Daryl Van Horne

Witches of Eastwick

 “When I was a child there were many witches, and they bewitched both cattle and men, especially children”

“When witches go riding, and black cats are seen, the moon laughs and whispers,

‘tis near Halloween.”

Who Is The Fairest

Magic mirror on the wall 

Who is the fairest of them all?

I was out shopping for my Halloween pumpkins because as you know nothing says Halloween like

sticking a butcher nice into a perfectly formed  amd otherwise lovely looking vegetable and carving it into a unatural shape, right?

Well, this year I saw something different sitting in the pumpkin bin at my local grocery store.

Something odd, something strange something that nobody wanted to touch.

Except for me, because you know I don’t mind the odd and macabre.

Anyway, sitting there on top of a bunch of smooth round golden orange jack-o-lanterns in waiting was a Warty Pumpkin.

It’s affect on people was a wonder.

Nobody would touch it.

I heard one person wonder to a sales clerk and a couple of other customers if the warts would spread to other the pumpkins and would her other plants catch whatever caused the warts?

Were the warts caused by bugst they wondered. Could it be a  fungus they asked each other.

All I know is after hearing all that chit-chat

I bought one.

Heck I’d have bought two  but I wanted this little charmer to stand out on Halloween night and you know….

I’m pretty sure it will.

Vampire Soul

A few months ago I was sent a link from my Vampire aficionado friend to a facebook page about a Vampire movie.  He had all sorts of questions about the film like it’s story line and production. Why ask me about a Vampire story I asked – the only vampire stories I really get into are folklore and those vampires don’t have an awful lot to do with their modern counterparts.

“Well, because they’re shooting it near your hometown,”  was the short answer.

So I went over to the page and not only discovered a vampire movie was going to shot right in the county I live in-fans were already interacting with the characters via Facebook– they were sending in artwork  inspired by the movie or just adding pictures to the wall that went along with the storyline.

What do you know, I thought about this story in process…it’s alive.

Property of V. S. Films LLC

I learned from the VS website Vampire Soul is a comedy/horror film about Vampires “who have walked among the living undiscovered until one woman’s desire to be a mother leads to another family’s revenge.”

I loved it- these women aren’t computer game inspired female characters- I get it, the entire drive to have a family, to protect your family, the lengths we go to when it’s threatened? That’s a human story. Of course if you throw in vampires and one of the vampires can do this to another character when she gets mad?

That’s a story with bite- lots and lots of bite.

Property of V. S. Films LLC

All kidding aside-

Vampire Soul is a local production, it’s using local talent, and not only will it bring jobs to our state- on a local level it can open the door for other productions and allow other talents to be seen and heard. As a writer who has lived in Snohomish County for almost my entire life I know we have a large pool of creative people and how great would it be if they could live and create in the community that in one form or another inspired their work?

I think that’s great and it’s an effort I am very happy to support.

Vampire Soul is asking for contributions- and if you make one you can get some sweet perks- and why would you do that? Even for a sweet perk? Because it’s a project with heart.  Here’s a note from Jessica Soss; CEO and Producer of V. S. Films LLC on the Team website:

“Vampire Soul: Hidden in Plain Sight” is a comedy horror that will be dedicated to Katie Gillette. She was a young girl who has touched the lives of many people, including my own, with her selflessness and willingness to help young actors achieve their goals. As she lay dying of Cystic Fibrosis, she asked her Mother, Christy Gillette, to open “Performers House” to help continue her work. Performers House is a Non-Profit Organization dedicated to helping actors, of all walks of life, gain the skills and contacts needed to work in the film industry. VISIT TEAM PAGE HERE

So go on, invite the Vampire in…it’s not like it will hurt or anything.

Property of V. S. Films LLC

:::Vampire Soul Links:::

Vampire Soul Website

HERE

Vampire Soul On Facebook

HERE

TEAM VAMPIRE SOUL

HERE

::: Very Cool Update:::

Producer Larry Estes is “running the show” for Jessica’s film. Larry Estes was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the Entertainment Business by both Entertainment Weekly and Premiere Magazines. In November of that year, he was the subject of a profile in the New York Times Sunday Business section entitled “Hollywood’s Quiet Godfather of the Offbeat Film.”

Vampires Have Feelings Too!

Trick or Treat?

Printable Halloween coloring pages: Disney Halloween, jack-o-lanterns and more HERE

Do you know who Carl Grimes is?

:::from Wikipedia::::

Carl Grimes is a fictional character from the comic book series The Walking Dead and is portrayed by Chandler Riggs in the American television series of the same name.

In the comic series, Carl begins as a normal and innocent child, only to gradually devolve into a murderer with a cold primal mentality. As of July 2012, he is one of the longest living survivors, alongside Rick, Andrea, and Sophia.

Time To Danse

::::From Wikipedi::::

Dance of Death, also variously called Danse Macabre (French), Danza de la Muerte (Spanish), Danza Macabra (Italian), Dança da Morte (Portuguese), Totentanz (German), Dodendans (Dutch), Surmatants (Estonian), Dansa de la Mort (Catalan) is an artistic genre of late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one’s station in life, the Dance of Death unites all. The Danse Macabre consists of the dead or personified Death summoning representatives from all walks of life to dance along to the grave, typically with a pope, emperor, king, child, and labourer. They were produced to remind people of the fragility of their lives and how vain were the glories of earthly life.^[1] Its origins are postulated from illustrated sermon texts; the earliest recorded visual scheme was aa now lost mural in the Saints Innocents Cemetery in Paris dating from 1424-25. :::

Lil’ Devils

things that are wrong

These are things that are not right.

And that’s why they are oh so very perfect.

amm

Clowns.

They are never a good thing.

Too many teeth you know.

Things in jars.

I marvel at the mind that thought to shove something in a jar and put it on a shelf.

It’s so….hands on…

Open Graves

because they leave one with the urge to put something into them-

don’t they?

The Family That Plays Together…

So when I was a little kid, I named all of my dolls and stuffed animals after the characters on the TV show  “ Dark Shadows”

I used to make up little stories about my dolls and animals and they really did take on a  life of their own.

And by far- the most dark and wicked of them all was my stuffed Snoopy Dog with a broken neck- he was named  Barnabas and of course because he was one of the undead and bad- really bad. Snoopy aka Barnabas   managed to escape from my room every night and he ended up on my sister’s bed or in my brother’s sock drawer or on my Dad’s chest when he woke up in the morning and once he even made a surprise appearance at a funeral and he ended up on  coffin in the chapel just as the family arrived for the service

That one cost me, I lost him for a weeks after that one.

And yes, as a matter of  fact…it was worth it.

I had years and years of fun with my toys and looking back on it now, I can see how those games fed  the imagination that would shape me as a writer.

The downside. Well. It took me a while to see that there was one because there wasn’t a down side for me.

It turned out my rich imagination was a down side for my sister.

My sister- for years we teased that poor woman about this unnatural fear she had about her Baby Alive doll. She was convinced that it wanted to kill her.

In my defense I told anyone who would listen that I had nothing to do with that notion.

Besides.

Ask my headless dolls and my Snoopy with the broken neck  what they thought about ” Baby Alive “

That doll was wrong…very, very, very

wrong

Olden Days

There are writing prompts for teachers designed to help students focus on their schoolwork during the month of Halloween. I read that students are so  distracted by candy and costumes that they check out and it’s hard to hold their attention in class.

I can believe that.

When I was a kid me and my friends started planning for Halloween sometime towards the end of September and by Halloween we were out of our minds withe excitement and that was BEFORE we downed all that sugar.

But I wonder- do kids really get that excited over Halloween anymore?

I know that for a while  going to the Malls and trick or treating was a big deal – but it was THE MALL. People sent their kids into stores to trick or treat cashiers. I know that some of my friends who worked at the Malls when this started thought it was fun.  I thought it was sad. I thought it was the end of Halloween.

When me and my friends went out on Halloween night it was cold and it was really very dark because the neighborhoods I lived in were packed with evergreen trees and not  packed with a lot of street lights.

I remembered that the  leaves seemed to die and fall Halloween morning and I remember how satisfying it was when they would crunch under your feet as you raced along the sidewalk and across streets to houses with pumpkins that had been carved without the help of stencils and pumpkin carving tools that look like surgical instruments except for they are orange and made out of plastic and those things are small and …and they’re made out of PLASTIC for goodness sakes.

Anything made to carve and cut a Halloween decoration  needs  to be made of well sharpened stainless steel because nothing beats getting to use  THE BIG KNIFE  to carve a Halloween pumpkin – especially if you’re a kid and your Dad let’s you hold the knife as he guides it through the pumpkin’s flesh and all on your own he let’s you scoop out the insides with your Mom’s favorite soup ladle.

Me and my friends  agonized over days trying to decide what we wanted be for Halloween

 When I was really little the costumes were old school- we had those plastic masks that came in boxes with a matching plastic costume- I always wanted to be a dog or a princess…bet you didn’t see that coming did you?

One year I was Casper The Friendly Ghost my Aunt Sharon helped me pick it out. I’m pretty sure I only got it because she loved Casper and I wanted to make her happy. However-I was mortified the entire night.

Even the nifty Trick or Treat Bag she made for me didn’t  help me feel better about the sad situation I found myself in.

 Ghosts as far as I was concerned were not friendly. I figured if a real ghost saw me it would die- again-laughing  when it saw me.  The next year I refused the Witch costume when my Mom pointed it out at the store  because I thought witches were real too and what would happen if I got mistaken for one?

I could get burned at the stake or hung and not only would I be dead I wouldn’t get to eat my candy.

However one year I did give in and let myself get put into a  Vampire costume because I was sure they weren’t real. Plus it was a boy’s costume and I liked that because I got to wear my boots with my costume.

Do kids go through that Drama anymore?

I mean, how thrilling is t to go to the Mall and trick or treat the lady who sells cheese and sausage gift baskets? The cashier at the shoe store or the guy at the camping gear store? And don’t get me started on Green Halloween and Healthy Halloween snacks and Harvest Festivals where you can’t dress up like the Devil but you can dress up like a clown or a scarecrow.

I wouldn’t trust the person who made that one up, I’ll say that outright. That is a weird call.

But I wonder.

Just before Halloween, on their way home from school,  do kids still point houses that could be haunted? Gardens where someone could be hiding dead bodies that are being turned into Zombies and was that sound you heard the night before spaceships from Uranus ( yeah, well- we weren’t always serious when we discussed monsters ).

Or do they talk ( on cell phones ) about computer games where you know for sure you can find haunted houses or Zombies or Space Aliens.

So I wonder- do kids really get  distracted from their schoolwork  by Halloween?

I hope so.

I really do.

How My Light Is Spent

 

Delarious Mandusa and Quash Mowers  work in a Funeral Home and they had great stories ( that they made up ) for how it was they came to be Grave Diggers that had nothing to do with reality but they were great stories.

The problem was nobody ever asked.

Delarious guessed that people assumed he dug graves for a living because of his name and Quash guesses that the fact he had born with a parasitic twin attatched to the top of his head ( his parents had named it Lawton ) that was removed a few months after they were born- was his reason for working at the Cemetery.

But those weren’t the reasons- and the story about finding graves with their names and dates of  birth as the dates of death on the hundred year old headstones wasn’t even remotely close to the truth.

The Grave Diggers with the colorful lives and equally colorful names became grave diggers because of a girl named Harley  Sandeen.

Years ago, when Delarious and Quash were kids they lived next door to each other and one day a little girl with big brown eyes and tangled brown hair moved into the   Bronson  House across the street.

Her name was  Harley Sandeen and she collected bugs, comic books and bubble gum.

She chewed it out of eyeshot of her Mother who wouldn’t allow Harley to chew gum because Harley’s mother said that the gum would wear Harley’s teeth down to stumps and then where would she be in life?

” I guess I’d be living somewhere with stumpy teeth and a tree full of chewed up bubblegum.”

Akela looked down at her daughter and said, ” Harley, why on earth would you stick your chewed up gum on a tree?”

” That’s how I get bugs for my collection.”

” Oh  Harley. That’s just awful.”

” I know, but look at it this way Mom, if anyone ever decides to collect bug’s legs they’re not going to care if I have a mouth full of stumpy teeth. They’re just going to be glad I was a bubblegum chewer.”

So Harley continued to chew bubble gum, which when she snapped it between her teeth was as loud as gunshot and she also bought comic  books once a week at the 52nd Street Best Mart which is where Delarious and Quash met Harley.

” The world is full of comic books and they’ve only got six titles here- can you belive that? And look only one scary one ” she said to them as they stood behind her waiting for their turn at the spinner rack.

” We don’t collect those- we collect the Archie Comics. My friend had a parasite twin attached to the top of his head, show her Quash. ” Quash took off his hat so that Harley could see the top of his head which was flat and angled to the left.

” That is amazing.” Harley sighed.

” Yeah. We got plenty real weird in our life. “

” Oh. Did you have a parasite too?”

” No, I’m Delarious Mandusa.”

Harley’s mouth fell open and her gum fell out and stuck to the front of her t-shirt. ” You got named after the guy who found the Flying Dutchman?”

” He was my Granfather.”

Harley pulled the gum off her shirt and popped it back into her mouth.

” You guys are the coolest human beings ever.”

” You’re a pretty cool human too, ” Quash who was falling in love with Harley right then and there in front of the comic book rack said.

And Harley laughed.

So Harley and Quash and Delarious grew up together and goofed off together and on the day Harley’s family sent her away to go to school in ” the old Country ” they made one last trip to the empty building where they first became friends.

The comic book rack was still there and Harley told them, ” you just wait. One of these days you’re gonna see one of these things full of books and comics by Harley Sandeen.”

” What? I thought you were going away to learn the family  business.” Quash said.

” Yeah. Then I’m going to write about it. I figure I better get something out of being sent out to the middle of nowhere to learn how to find dead people. Geeze. Like that’s hard. “

” I thought your Mom said that wasn’t the hard part- she said the hard part was killing them.”

” Blah blah blah.” Harley said.

” But you don’t have a choice- right? I mean, you’re family hasn’t ever done anything except for-” Delarious mimicked  putting a stake to his heart with one hand and with the other pretended to pound it in with a mallet.

Harley pulled a green square of bubblegum out of her pocket and tossed it into her mouth. ” Yeah. But I think there’s more to life then chasing around pale people with pointy teeth and bad breath. It ain’t like the movies guys. Those things are so dumb that they still haven’t figured out that if they don’t want to be found they need to quit putting their real names on their tombstones. You know what’s worse? I’ve got to go to the other side of the world and get a college degree to learn about them.

Geeze, all my family has to so is rent me some movies and buy me a stack of comic books- they’d save themselves a ton of money and they’d save themselves the embarrassment of the sucky novel I’m going to write about them based on the Santa’s Village Incident.”

” The Mountlake Mall will probably never get another guy to do the Santa thing at Christmas and forget getting anyone to dress up like elves in this town again.”

” Yeah. Well. That  entire deal was a train wreck just waiting to happen.”  Harley  said  and like the good friends the boys were they agreed.

It was about four years after Harley’s second book was turned into a movie that Quash and Del decided to chase after their own dream- and that dream involved the smell of fresh cut grass and heavy machinery.

So instead of chasing after ghosts, or going out of your way to make sure that the world never found out that the parasitic twin that was removed from your head was alive and screaming in silence in a jar in a museum basement and that it was still growing – Harley’s friends took her advice.

And in case you’re curious.

Yes she did write about their story and their friendship and she dedicated the story to

Del And Quash.

One Night

One night

I set out on a trip all by myself.

I didn’t have a map or a ticket I didn’t know where I was going.

But I went alone.

And I was alone.

For a very long time.

Towards the end of the trip I heard someone walking towards me-

and then I heard someone breathing

just around the corner from where I was walking

all alone.

And then I stopped.

” Someone there? “

I asked.

No one answered.

” Hey!  Is someone there? ” I called a little louder.

The breathing stopped and the footsteps came towards me-

from around the corner and I closed my eyes tight and put one foot in front of the other and then I flew towards the breathing and the footsteps and the voices that cried out:

” What the hell was that? ” came the voice from behind me and then below me as I took to the darkness above ” What the Hell was that! “

and not a knife in sight….

:::It’s about Pumpkins Today:::

I wrote this story a few years ago- the characters were based on me and my Grandma Ginger and goes a long way to show where I developed my idea of ‘funny’ –  it’s  also one of my personal favorites:

::::A Pumpkin Carvers Story:::

” How did you get so good at carving pumpkins? “

” Practice.” Enid told her Granddaughter as she delicately put the tip of her butcher’s knife against the side pumpkin’s blank face. ” Lots and lots of practice.”

She pushed the knife into he pumpkin’s flesh and as she broke the skin she told Aubrey, ” I love that smell.”

” That pumpkin smell?”

Enid looked over the pumpkin and said, ” That what?”

” That pumpkin smell.”

Enid shrugged and then pulled the knife up and dropped it down into the pumpkin in one clean motion after another.

Instead of answering her Aubrey, Enid hummed.

When she was finished she put her knife down and wrapped her fingers around the pumpkins stem. She took a breath, closed her eyes and smiled as lifted and  heard the pop and rip as the top of the pumpkin’s skull came away in her hand.

Enid opened her eyes and sighed and then  she answered her Granddaughter. ” No. I don’t mean that smell. I mean that other smell.”

” I can’t smell anything except for Pumpkin.”

” Really?” Enid said, ” You can’t smell that?”

Enid set the top of the pumpkin’s head down and she reached for a large wooden spoon and plunged into the pumpkin and began to scrape it out.

” Go ahead. Take a sniff. You really can’t smell that?”

Aubrey leaned over the pumpkin and sniffed.

” What is it? What should I be able to smell?”

As Enid  stood up she picked the knife up off the table and said  to the back of her Granddaughter’s neck:

” Why. The Fear of course.”

I made this e-card at Spookathon.Com

This was a fun site and I’d say give it a whirl because it was easy to navigate and in the end the picture I created was the Bee’s Knees.

PS. To  save the picture I had to go all the way through and create the card- and if you want there are other options for your artwork, like creating games and puzzles.

Photo: extremepumpkins.com

I hope you enjoyed the treat today…now on to the next part.

bwahahahahh

amm

Oh.No.Just.No

A GRAVE DIGGER’S EPITAPH

Hooray my brave boys

Lets rejoice at his fall.

For if he had lived

He would have buried us all.