  Horror/Scary
This week: Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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Welcome to this week' edition of the WDC Horror Newsletter, where we strive to make you feel a need to lock your windows, draw tight your shades and, whatever you do, keep away from the door.
I think that true horror is accomplished by slowly getting into your brain. The old way is much more scary.
Sergio Aragones
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Greetings, insightful writers. As writers of horror poetic and prosaic, we peel away the carefully constructed layers of skin reveal for our readers what lies (sometimes literally) at the core of mundane reality's onion. For example, the other day, I got off the morning train and queued up to exit the terminal en route to my day job. The customary posse of drones shuffled among us worker bees, their knees knocked together, open sneakers snagging wavering paths in the greasy concrete floor. One androgynous specimen appeared to list my way, downcast eyes focusing not on my bag, but the bandaid covering the papercut on my thumb. Did he smell the symbiotic battle between my white blood cells and the bacteria destroying painlessly the wounded skin to make way for new, healed flesh? I stuck my hand in my pocket and stepped up my pace to gain the door to outside, following the call of seagulls hunting breakfast. Seagulls, coming in from the Lake, did they know something? Perhaps the scent of decaying fish off shore, an easy breakfast serving? Akin to the Zombie whose clutches I had escaped?
Okay, the guy was likely just trying not to trip over his 'fashionably' dooping sagging cargo bottoms, but I find my version more fun to contemplate, and by way of excuse, I had only one cup of coffee to start my day. Consider, however, the zombie in history. Yes, Night of the Living Dead in the 1960's brought to general common awareness, albeit sensationalized, a chemically induced mortal mutation.
A zombie is a reanimated corpse or mindless human being in popular folklore. The life form has its origins in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which tells of laborers being controlled by a powerful sorcerer by use of special potions introduced into the blood through a wound. The practice of thus 'reviving' the recently deceased with a powder or potion concocted from sea creatures native to Africa and the Caribbean goes back at least several centuries. The natural hosts of the base for the potion, numbering amng them parrotfish, some toads, several species of octopi and crabs, secrete a toxin to deter predators.
Think about it, 'deter' predators, not kill or maim - elemental behavior control? The bokor (Voodoo sorcerer) was able to extract this toxin and introduce it into a sentient mortal, thereby reducing his/her ability for cogent behavior and thus obtain control over the reanimated person's soul goes back centuries. And, like other folk 'medicines,' modern science has followed suit by extracting and naming the biotoxin, 'tetrodotoxin,' and using it to block the action of specific nerves and treat migraines, heroin withdrawal, and even cancer. (i}see, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrodotoxin.
Considering the scientifically proven efficacy of this 'treatment,' although zombies may not necessarily stagger about seeking to crush skulls and eat brains, they do not feel pain as readily as the rest of us, so they can take more damage to their bodies while they in turn 'infect' those they wound by introducing the toxin into their victims' blood, creating a fresh resource for their own desire to maintain their pain-free state of being.
Now, as I departed the train station, I more likey encountered not a post-apocalyptic flesh-eating zombie, but a psychological zombie. In the latter half of the twentieth century, psychiatry jumped into the mix, challenging the chemical basis for the existence of 'zombies,' postulating instead the link between social and cultural expectations and compulson, to override initiative and the expression of will. Consider the German storm troopers of WWII, mindlessly marching in obeisance, how similar to the group-think manipulated by the 'idol of the week.' Personally, I think I'd have a better fighting chance against the one reaching for my flesh with a slobbering jaw.
Now, I hope you've enjoyed this exploration of zombies, and if you see one, keep your distance, and live to tell the tale in prose or verse.
Keep Writing!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading |
I hope you enjoy (in the safety of your well-lighted home) some zombies biological and psychological envisioned (and created) by members of our Community. Do let them know with a response or review{e;smile}
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If you'd like to join in battling (or helping to create) a post-apocalyptic zombie outbreak
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Up for a challenge? Test your zombie's strength in verse or prose
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Have an opinion on what you've read here today? Then send the Editor feedback! Find an item that you think would be perfect for showcasing here? Submit it for consideration in the newsletter!
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I'd like to share some comment on my exploration of ghosts by our members, do check out their portfolios for some more great reading
Submitted By: KimChi 
Great newsletter, Kate! I like the mixture of exposition and pretty prose showing the energies people leave behind in their objects.
Fascinating stuff, well wrought.
Thanks for writing, and for your comments. We each leave a bit of ourselves in everything we create, be it a sidewalk, a chair, a story or poem Keep writing!
Submitted By: beef
hi there kate. i'm fairly new to this site and just starting to push ahead with writing fictional mainly horror based stories. i love the work of stephen king (i'm sure i'm not alone here!)and would love to bring my work up to this level! I do get fairly good ideas but struggle to right the full story at the moment and usually get sidetracked and start on something else. i have written a couple of short stories namely 'the shelter' and 'the last carriage' and i'd love if you could have a quick read and see what you think. read 'the guardian' in your portfolio and absolutely loved it. want to try and get this sort of tension and plot twist into my own work.
i look forward to reading more of your stories and would really appreciate your opinion on mine
cheers
Welcome to WDC! I find it helpful to my muse to have something lurking in the corners to go back to when I get stuck in a plot or can't rhyme or un-rhyme a verse. I know where I'm starting and how i want to end, so I'm trying to just write it and go back and edit afterwards, filling in the visceral details in one or another of them as they make themselves known to me, sometimes in the most common or unlikely ways, from a chance comment or review. Keep Writing! We'll keep reading{e;smile}
Submitted By: Jaye P. Marshall
Thank you for another fascinating newsletter. I love stories of the paranormal, supernatural and all that stuff.
Thank you for featuring my story, "The Old Kirsch Place". I appreciate it.
Thank you for writing. I'm thankful that you enjoy our newsletters, as we enjoy reading your story Keep writing!
Submitted By: drifter46
I did a survey of sorts recently about people who were afraid of clowns. What I discovered is that there are a number of those folks hiding in the closet. What I also discovered was that masks and dolls fall into the same category. I've been pondering a story or two dealing with those fears but I didn't look at that in the same light as you presented in this newsletter. It's opened up a whole new realm of thought for me. Thanks for giving my muse a nudge.
The dolls have faces; the masks are faces; people make faces; as infants, our first interaction is with face ... intriguing comparison you'v'e started. My muse now nudged as well. Thank you! Keep Writing!
Submitted By: Spooky, Cute & staiNed 
Hugs Kate! Great newsletter, I enjoyed it alot. and Thank you for including Endless Nights, does this mean I will see you enter?
Thank you for writing, and for offering the challenge ~ I'll work up the nerve, but until I do, I'll enjoy the great reading there in the relative safety of my lamplit room.
Thanks for this brief respite in your virtual homes. Until we next meet,
Keep Writing!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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Horror/Scary: May 27, 2009 Issue [#3065]
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