  Horror/Scary
This week: THIS IS HALLOWEEN Edited by: W.D.Wilcox  
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Bring To Life Tired Old Halloween Characters
What can you do with old stereotypes like ghosts  , werewolves, zombies  , vampires, and witches  ?
My answer is . . . PLENTY!
Think outside the box. Be creative. Turn it around. Do it backwards. Change everything.
A ghost who doesn't know he's a ghost; a werewolf with no hair; tell a zombies side of the story; a vampire with no teeth; a witch in love. All these plus a gazillion more.
Your job as a writer (if you choose to accept it) is to give your reader something totally different, something they hadn't thought about before until you wrote it.
Here's my attempt at rehashing a scary old witch story . . .
Something Horror This Way Comes
The Old Witch giggled and hummed an insane melody as she sat squat upon a large boulder: Her arms hung between her legs, her back hunched forward, her grease soaked hair dangled like knotted twine. The air was frigid and the little puffs of her tragic breath became something surreal.
She sat sentinel for hours, thinking her long, lunatic thoughts, and then shaking her head, she stood stiffly, her aroma drifting on every cold downdraft of air. It was an oily, sardonic odor, as bitter to the nose as the aroma of something long since dead and ripe. Wiping the spittle from the corner of her wrinkled and scarred mouth, she shuffled back to her dilapidated hut making nefarious plans. “The thirsty ones shall be first,” she cackled, “and they shall all pass from this time.”
She lifted the latch to her moss-ridden door, hearing the familiar sound of wood scraping against wood. Once inside the heat of the room exploded against her chilled skin as she breathed in the poison atmosphere of smoke, filth, and the sourness of unwashed flesh. She stoked the fire beneath her giant cauldron, and then stirred the pot with a thick black-stained ladle. When she scooped up some of its yellowish paste bubbling inside, she blew on it, then gave it a taste.
Her stomach instantly became a lead ball that seemed to expand until it filled her from crotch to Adam's apple. Her eyes pulsed in their sockets. Her mouth tasted like excrement. Her gut lurched and her body ached.
The lead in her belly liquefied and gurgled. She slid from the pot and landed on her knees, hanging her gaping mouth over the floor boards. At first there was nothing. Then everything clenched and she ejected what looked like a gallon of yellow phlegm.
Instead of dying, she threw up again. A pint instead of a gallon this time, but it burned something terrible. The next one was a dry heave. Wait, not completely dry; thick streams of mucus hung from her lips like cobwebs, swinging back and forth. She brushed them away, and weakly stood upon wobbling legs.
"That's pretty good," she clucked, "but it still needs a little more kick."
Stumbling over to an open cupboard, she searched its shelves. "Aha!" she exclaimed, latching onto what looked like a jar of rotted frog floating in its own juices. Dumping the hideous mess into the cauldron she cackled again. "That outta do it," she said. "I'll just let that steep overnight."
She slept heavily.
As the darkest part of the night crept into the room, the Old Witch awoke from a dream worse than bad. In the dream she had looked into her cauldron to find it full of black widow spiders, thousands of them, all entwined and gorged with poison and pulsing in the moonlight. They came streaming out, pouring over her hands and scurrying up her arms. "Oh," she exclaimed, pressing her hand to her breast to calm her beating heart. "What an exciting dream!"
She readied herself for the trip into town, filling a large bottle with her tasty mixture. It was Halloween and she did a crazy-dance down the hill with the darkness as her partner.
~*~*~
Dylan Thomas also awoke from a terrifying dream. Shortly past three o'clock in the morning, he thrashed awake, sat straight up in bed, and heard himself whisper, "She'll kill us all."
The house was dressed in gloom.
He fumbled for the lamp, switched it on.
He had the bizarre but unshakable feeling that something hideous and horrifying had been hovering nearby. Trembling, he got out of bed, switched off the light and went to the window. The night was silent, deep, and peaceful. If something had been out there, it was gone now.
The feel of the dream was still with him. It was as if something unspeakable still squirmed along the back of his neck, writhing within his skull, a horrifying parasite that had chosen him for a host, worming its way into him, and laying its eggs in his brain.
He entered the bathroom and got another glass of water. It had a pungent smell and burned going down. Then he heard the sound of something knocking on glass. At first he thought it was the window, until he heard it again come from the bathroom mirror.
He flipped on the light.
The mirror was sweating, glistening. As he reached to touch it, the entire wall bulged toward him, as if it were a membrane against which a great and terrible mass was pressing insistently. It throbbed repulsively, like an enormous internal organ in the exposed and steaming guts of a prehistoric monster.
He ran from the room.
Dylan was over the edge of hysteria. He scrambled for the front door assured that whatever was coming out of the wall was sure to be right behind. As he jerked the door open something was filling the doorway, bigger than he was, something beyond human experience. It was simultaneously insectile and arachnoid, squirming yet jittering, a tangled mass of spider legs and roachlike mandibles with fangs and claws and multifaceted eyes, a thousand nightmares rolled into one. It burst through the door, seized him, pain exploding from his sides where its talons tore at him, until he screamed --
-- a night breeze.
That was the only thing coming through the open door.
Dylan stood in the doorway, shuddering and gasping for breath, his entire body as cold as a corpse.
The creature that had attacked him was gone as if it had never existed. It had not scuttled away or scurried up some web; it had simply evaporated in an instant.
He eased the door shut, and leaned against it, as all the strength went out of his legs.
Dylan hugged himself and shivered so hard, his teeth chattered.
He threw up in the toilet, twice, then rinsed his mouth. The face in the mirror was the most horrible he had ever seen.
"What is happening to me?" he whispered. "It's gotta be just a dream."
But it had not been just a dream. The nightmare had followed him into the waking world.
Dylan remembered reading somewhere that madness favored darkness, but light was the kingdom of reason.
He turned on every light in the house.
And here's the rest of the story . . . "Something Horror This Way Comes"
UNTIL NEXT TIME,
willwilcox
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| | Possession (18+)
In an asylum for the criminally insane, a young orderly discovers true possession...
#1028269 by W.D.Wilcox |
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DEAD LETTERS
LJPC - the tortoise 
Casts her spell:
Hi Will! I loved your story, and you did a great job of showing how to set the scene, introduce the character, and escalate the tension. Awesome! 
~ Laura
Quick-Quill 
Comments:
Loved the story and you are perfectly correct in the dissecting of the story.
Ẃeβ࿚ẂỉԎḈĥ 
Cackles:
Gee, thanks, Bill! Now I have to go read the "rest of the story" ... Oh, the horrors that await. Great Newsie, by the way!
Boo! and Happy Halloween to you!
Ash
Plugs:
Thank you for picking
"Invalid Item"
A story of revenge for Screams!!!! contest
I have already received one review because of your newsletter.
Thanks,
Ash
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Horror/Scary: October 28, 2015 Issue [#7287]
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