A Halloween Treat

[spacer]

quorthon said:

Now, you guys have weirdified my story so much that when I actually get it up here it'll be a boring let-down!! AAaahahhagggghhghghhh...hh...hhh...gghh.....gh....*cough*

OK, but you have to choose which version you like the best.
Arrrgghhhh

[Quorthon]

While typing this thing up, I realized just how juvenile my writing style was back then. It's actually pretty humerous now. Too bad, I guess. Well, here it is! The Quorthon Classic from his High School Days!!


“Parasite”
Circa 1995


Harvey Williams would be going home in a couple days. He had been camping for about a week and had plenty of mosquito and tick bites to prove it. A day before he left, he found another nature trail (he spent most of the trip eating and hiking on the trails). He thought he’d been on all of them until he saw this new one. After following it for about fifteen minutes, he came to a spot with “No Trespassing” signs laying on the ground, they were mostly buried under grass and leaves, so they were hard to notice. He saw none of them, but there was a partially buried barbed wire fence which came down obviously a long time ago. The top of the wire fence came up to his shin and was covered with rust. Most of the fence was covered with long grass and tall weeds. Looking up from the fence, he noticed a cave a short distance away. Harvey stepped over the fence and went to the cave.
Inside, he noticed that the cave went back a long way and was black in the distance. He also noticed a small path heading slightly downhill into the darkness. He glanced back at the fence and the trail leading through the trees back to the camp. He turned back to the cave and continued to walk further down into it and heard what sounded like dozens of tiny feet running around in the dirt. Something fell on his left shoulder, moss and webs from the ceiling of the cave. He brushed it off. He tried to find out what was running around when a raspy voice with a faint accent yelled:
“Hey! Hey you! Vat are you doing on my property?!”
“What…?” Harvey said, shocked at the sudden appearance of this strange person.
“Vat are you doing here?!” she screeched at him. She appeared to be some kind of gypsy-person. She also appeared angry. “This eez my property! You have no right being here! Get out!”
“I didn’t know this was your property! I…”
“Fool! Can’t you read? Re you blind?! There are signs saying ‘no trespassing!’ Since you claim to not have noticed them…”
“I didn’t notice them! I only saw the fence…”
“And you still trespassed? For this I shall put a curse on you! And it vill cause you to lose all four of your limbs!”
She blabbed some sort of language at him. He still looked shocked and a little scared of this crazy lady with too much make-up. He started running away while she was blabbing. He stumbled over the very top part of the barbed wire fence. After he got to camp, he packed up everything and left early. He thought the crazy lady would come after him with the cops. But she never did.

* * *

When he arrived home, he noticed his mailbox was gone. He went outside and put up a new one, he always had a “spare.” He thought the cops had caught the kids making and delivering letter-bombs. He wondered who opened his mailbox in order to set it off. Probably the other kids who should be arrested. They stole people’s mail then sold it back to them. When he got to his house, there was a note on the door stating that he was to be sued for injuring a postal worker with a letter-bomb. The note stated that it was an illegal attempt at trying to stop the kids who normally stole his mail.
It had been a very long day and an equally long drive from the campground, which he left at about one-thirty. It was now ten-thirty.
“Unpack tomorrow,” he said to himself. And went to bed.

* * *

He woke up in the middle of the night with a painful itch on his left shoulder. He dug and scratched at it, but stopped immediately as his shoulder was filled with more pain. Turning on the light, he glanced at his shoulder as it blinked at him. A small blue eye, slightly larger than a quarter was staring back at him. He jumped back, frightened, and ran the back of his head into the corner of the nearest wall, and was knocked unconscious.
Harvey awoke around eight-forty-five, and he awoke with a throbbing headache. Feeling the bump on his head, he realized it had been bleeding. Turning around and glancing at the corner of the wall helped him remember a little of the night before, but he still didn’t remember the eye. The wall had dried blood spattered on it where his head hit. He stood up and went to take a shower.
After he took off his shirt, he glanced at his left shoulder, screamed and fainted. From his shoulder down to his elbow, his entire left arm was covered with blue, blinking eyes.
Harvey woke up again at one-fifteen, p.m. He remembered his shoulder and his arm. He looked down slowly, cautiously, and noticed dozens of small blue eyes going from his shoulder down to about four inches past his elbow. He was frightened yet again, but didn’t pass out. He just layed on the bathroom floor for about half an hour thinking about where the eyes came from. He concluded, finally, that it had to be one of two different things. Either God existed and truly hated him or something he had done or space aliens kidnapped him in the night and did some sort of weird experiments on him. He ruled out both reasons though. What did he do that God would hate? Aliens couldn’t have kidnapped him, he was no hillbilly. They are some of the only people that get kidnapped anyway, and wouldn’t he remember seeing large pinkish heads with big black eyes at one time or another? The weirdoes on the TV show, “Sightings,” could always remember what the little Martians looked like. He couldn’t remember seeing one.
Harvey spent the most of the remainder of the day thinking about the eyes and the crazy gypsy lady. What if the eyes had something to do with her? But they couldn’t because she said something about all his limbs falling off, nothing was said about any eyes.
At about nine o’clock he put down the book he was reading and switched on the TV. The remote fell from his left hand. As he looked at his arm in shock, his eyes opened wide, his mouth fell open. His arm was covered with dozens of dozens of eyes, which now reached all the way to his finger-tips.
“Oh my God…” he said, “oh my g—“
His arm began to twitch wildly, it shook and jerked around in a great pain. He screamed and clasp his right hand on his aching left wrist. He screamed again. The pain was horrible, excruciating. His arm popped out of the socket with a sickening sound. He yelled louder than he ever had before, then the pain left. His teeth were clenched and painful. He was covered with sweat. There was little blood, both the arm and the shoulder socket area closed up before much blood could be lost. The arm was silent. The eyes twitched and blinked. Then it began to hop, twitch and jerk around violently. It leapt a few inches off the floor for one final hop, when it hit the floor, it broke apart, all the little eyes began to run around. Each one had a tiny body with four tiny legs. They were running everywhere.
“Time to call that crazy old gypsy,” he said.
He took the phone book, looked up her name and dialed. The phone rang once, twice, then was answered.
“Hello?” An unfamiliar voice.
“Hey… um… My name is Harvey Williams. Are you that gypsy lady that put a curse on me for trespassing?”
“Oh. It’s you. Yeah, I remember you. How’d you find my number?”
“You were wearing a necklace with your name on it. I looked up your name and called.”
“I suppose you’re wondering were my accent and shrill voice went. They were fake. Why’re you calling?”
“That curse you put on me… Can you please stop it? My left arm fell off! Lady stop the curse! Please! And tell me why eyes grew on it! You never said anything about eyes!”
Silence.
“Madam Zeena? Are you there?”
“Yeah. Forget the curse. It…”
“You stopped it?”
“No. You kids are all so gullible now-a-days. Curses don’t exist. I used it to scare you away from my property. Your arm fell off because of the eyes. They grow in some part of your body, say like your arm. They break off that part of the body to leave. But they won’t kill you. Nope. If the parasites kill the host, they die, too. Bye-Bye!” She hung up.
“Wait! You—“ He slammed down the phone.
Harvey thought about calling back, but figured that he wouldn’t get anything from her and never did make another call.

* * *

Around Madam Zeena’s house was well more than 50,000 eyes running around and screaming. She sat down on the chair next to the phone. She glanced at the end table where the phone was, then opened the drawer on it. She took out the handgun, pointed it at the side of her head, thankful it was always loaded. Every eye screamed in unison, all of them felt the pain that “Zeena” got when she pulled the trigger and died. She didn’t have to suffer anymore.

* * *

Harvey looked at the dozens of blue eyes. They were staring at him. The first one that appeared on his shoulder was the biggest. He seemed to be the leader. He stepped on it, crushed its tiny bones, then screamed in pain. His body ached heavily as he felt the pain that the eye felt when it was stepped on. When the pain went away (in a half hour or so), he decided not to step on anymore eyes.

* * *

After about two days, his left leg, covered with eyes broke off letting more eyes go to live almost freely. They couldn’t live without him, he was the host. They raided his cupboards and the fridge. After the eyes were two days old, they grew tiny mouths so they could eat. They also seemed to communicate by screaming in different ways. The screaming became highly annoying, but Harvey couldn’t leave the house, his right leg fell off a couple days later followed by his abdomen. He could still breath just fine. Movement seemed impossible, he could only use his right arm to do so. The eyes were growing on his right arm as well. He wished they would all just leave, he wanted them to leave him alone and to go pester those stupid mail-stealing brats. He got his wish.
When he crawled (which is all he could do) to his front window one afternoon, he saw the kids stealing his mail. It’s not nice to steal cripple’s mail, he thought. He yelled and yelled. They never heard him. They were down at the end of his driveway and he was yelling through sound-proof glass (put in because of the nearby airport). He stopped yelling, some of the eyes were outside. His arm made a small jerk. The eyes crawled on the kid’s bare legs—they were wearing shorts. Right arm made a little jump. Infect them, he thought, infect all five of the little-- His right arm started to jump, jerk, and shake constantly, painfully. He saw the eyes slip quietly, gently, unnoticed into the boys’ flesh. They took his mail, ran off, and never noticed the eyes crawling inside any of them. He barely saw them get infected, he didn’t see them run off. He was laying on the ground in pain as his right arm ripped off, hopped around, then shattered and all the little eyes ran off to join over two hundred other eyes, running, screaming, and eating. They ate people-food, rat-poison (which had no effect on them), and the mice running around in the house.
“I’m going to starve to death,” he said to himself, “I’m gonna die.” He couldn’t care less.
His upper body finally (covered with eyes) broke away from his head and part of his neck. It thumped around for a few seconds, then finally borke apart sending dozens of eyes running. His head was laying on the floor, immobile, and dying. His windpipe split in two in an area where it was supposed to be solid. Two of the eyes, the biggest two, put their mouths on the ends and breathed. They had to keep the brain and the rest of the host alive, they needed the host to reproduce. Since the eyes inhaled carbon dioxide and exhaled oxygen, it wasn’t hard to breath into the windpipe and keep providing the brain with oxygen. Harvey slipped into a coma for four days while his body grew back. The parasites couldn’t kill the host, they needed him.

* * *
As soon as Harvey’s bones strengthened, he went downtown and bought some groceries, refilled his fridge and cupboards with over a hundred dollars worth of food. He poured an entire box of Cheerios on the kitchen floor. All the eyes came running and began to eat. In half an hour, all the Cheerios were gone. He figured, he might as well feed them. They obviously weren’t leaving. They provided Harvey with oxygen, which didn’t make them all that bad. He never noticed before if the little monsters ever had to go to the bathroom. He’d never seen anything that could be some of their left-overs. He thought, maybe, they were housebroken somehow and that’s why they were sometimes outside. If they did do their job outside, it didn’t matter.
About two days after he left the house to buy food, the eyes were growing on him again. This time they didn’t start on his left shoulder, this time they started growing on his right leg. The next day his leg fell off and more eyes were born. The left leg and right arm were also infected. It was happening faster this time, it was also more painful. Harvey felt a lot of anger toward the eyes. He crawled to his bedroom closet. His left leg became painful and it started to shake and jerk around. He opened the closet door and took out his .22 rifle. The left leg started to tear off. He loaded the rifle and sat against the wall. His leg tore off, there was more blood this time than last. The mature eyes with mouths ran up and began to drink it. The leg hopped around, split, and sent more eyes running around the house. He put the barrel of the gun under his nose, he set it at an angle so the bullet would go directly to his brain.
“It’s time to end my suffering,” he said.
His right arm was about to come off.
“Good-bye you little fucks!”
Then he pulled the trigger.

FIN!

[frankenjohn]

Actually, it was a good story.

[Quorthon]

Thanks, man. Though I'm aware of how poorly written it is. I typed up my old document word-for-word and only repaired some of the worst punctuation.

[spacer]

Man, What a story it is!!!
Original, ingenious idea!
Fresh style.
A story is cohesive and logical.
It's thrilling. Suspense. Attention grabber!
Makes you read it.
The ending kicks butts!
Nothing to mock up, really!
I've seen and read lot's of sci-fi stories which were said to be good and were much worse in comparison to your stuff.
No dick licking here, I'm just being honest.
Punctuation is the least important thing, the content is what matters.

[Quorthon]

spacer said:

Man, What a story it is!!!
Original, ingenious idea!
Fresh style.
A story is cohesive and logical.
It's thrilling. Suspense. Attention grabber!
Makes you read it.
The ending kicks butts!
Nothing to mock up, really!
I've seen and read lot's of sci-fi stories which were said to be good and were much worse in comparison to your stuff.
No dick licking here, I'm just being honest.
Punctuation is the least important thing, the content is what matters.

Sir, I do believe you exaggerate. Honestly, I'm a bit embarrassed as to how poorly written it is. I've been wanting to do a proper re-write, but haven't found the time... I started two art projects last week that I haven't finished yet!

[spacer]

Sir, I do believe you exaggerate. Honestly, I'm a bit embarrassed as to how poorly written it is. I've been wanting to do a proper re-write, but haven't found the time... I started two art projects last week that I haven't finished yet!

I don't exaggerate I wrote what I thought.
I repeat punctuation is a minor thing.

Tell us more about these art projects.

[Quorthon]

spacer said:

Sir, I do believe you exaggerate. Honestly, I'm a bit embarrassed as to how poorly written it is. I've been wanting to do a proper re-write, but haven't found the time... I started two art projects last week that I haven't finished yet!

I don't exaggerate I wrote what I thought.
I repeat punctuation is a minor thing.

Tell us more about these art projects.

Mmmm.... mmmm... nnnoooooo....

Complements and me generally mix very poorly. Someone tells me something I did is good or cool or what-have-you, then, ego boosted, I dive headlong into doing something profoundly crappy. Perhaps when I finish with the picture I'm working on now, I'll scan it and post it up here to be sneered at and loathed...

And I realized what I liked about frankenjohn's story that I couldn't put my finger on before--the "matter of fact" manner in which it was written reminded me of Stephen King's work. (example) "I was walking outside to smoke and saw a hideous monster stroll by, acid dripping from the slowly dissolving head landed in my coffee and I wasn't amused. Outside Bill walked over and said... (conversation about clouds ensues)" That always makes me do a double take when I read stuff like that! I think, "wait, what the hell did that say, did I read that right??"

[Pulpmariachi]

I liked both stories.

I don't know, where both supposed to be kinda off-humor funny.

Frankenjohn's, which was great, mood and everything, was so over-the-top at the end. His poor parents! His hand! How will he ever write again. The blood! The violence!

I'm not big on horror movies so...is this a common thing? It seemed like...I'm not sure. Everyone's saying Stephen King (who I HAVE read so there), so I guess I'm concur.

Do you concur?

What, it's obviously like that.

So you concur?

(Shrug)

Quorthon's story was pretty good too. It got creepy right there at the end. I liked how he fainted about thirty-five times in the beginning.




I should've concurred.

[frankenjohn]

ANOTHER STORY:

The Bite
By John Tummino

Waking up, I noticed I had overslept. My clock read 8:18 AM. I usually woke up around 5 AM. I had set my alarm last night. Why hadn’t it gone off?
I got out of bed and rolled up my blinds. It was a foggy morning. The street was like a graveyard in a horror movie: still, quiet, and spooky. There was no sign of life.
I walked down the hallway into my parents’ room. To my surprise, it was empty. But I saw their car in the driveway. I ran to my little brother’s room and he wasn’t there. I looked in the kitchen. No note or anything saying they left. There were no clues pointing to the fact that they had ever gotten out of bed. I panicked.
Running to the telephone, I called my good friend T.J. Potter. Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring. Finally, I heard Mrs. Potter’s voice saying, “Hello! Sorry we can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave your name, date, and number and we’ll be sure to get back to you by the end of the day!” I hung up. Then, I threw on my flip-flops and went outside.
It was cold out. Very cold, especially for the middle of July. I was shaking, partially from the cold, partially from fear. I was a worrywart. There was no denying it. My friends constantly teased me. Said I couldn’t “let go.” Ahhh, screw them now.
Walking down the street, I felt lonely. I could only imagine if I was like…the last man on earth. I shivered.
“Think positive, you idiot!” I said quietly to myself.
But did it really matter how loud or soft I spoke? No one would hear me because no one’s here…or is there? My question was answered instantly when across my line of view came a severed hand, which was tightly clasping a cell phone. Judging by the looks of it, it looked as if someone was trying to call for help but got dismembered in the process, but by who…or what…?
Then something I wasn’t expecting happened. I heard the polyphonic ring tone of the cell phone. It was the generic Cingular ring, so I assumed the hand belonged to a middle aged person. I decided I’d puck up the phone to see who was calling.
“Hello?” I quietly said.
“Hello, Mr. Safragees? This is the 23rd Street Wachovia Bank in Detroit. We’re calling to inform you about—“
“I’M NOT MR. SAFRAGEES! I KNOW HIM, BUT I’M NOT HIM! MY NAME IS JORDAN MOREAU, AND I’M THE ONLY ONE LEFT IN MY TOWN! PLEASE CALL THE POLICE! I NEED HELP—“
“If this is a prank—“
I burst into tears.
“PLEASE! THIS IS NOT A PRANK! PLEASE! PLEASE!” I screamed.
“Ok, we’ll call the police! Just stay calm!”
I hung up. I was still crying.
I had always thought of the idea of living on an island to be better than on the mainland because everything was much more quiet and peaceful, but now it was too quiet and too peaceful. And now I had to wait for a police boat to show up. I mean, living on Lake Erie and all, we’re so close yet so far from the mainland. Hopefully someone was still alive.
I walked back to my house and went inside. I was hungry. I wanted to eat, so I got out some Lucky Charms. As I sat in the dark, I pondered what the hell could’ve done this. Aliens? A Satanic cult? I mean, what makes an entire town disappear overnight? I was so confused. I needed more sleep. So I got into night clothes (in the morning) and want back to bed. I was asleep in an instant.
While asleep, I had a really weird dream. I dreamed that all the citizens in town were running slowly into the fog. From what they were running from, however, I don’t know. In fact, I didn’t have enough time to know. It seemed like I had only been asleep for ten minutes, but it had been exactly two hours. The clock read 10:30 am. I looked out of the window. No sign of any life. I got out of bed, when I heard a noise in my family room. I tip-toed in to find a leg hanging over my sofa. I felt confused. How did it get there? I crept towards it and I pulled it.
“OUCH!” screamed the person to whom the leg belonged.
I screamed and fell down, hurting my butt. I got up, rubbing my sore ass. A shadowy figure got off the ground and walked into the kitchen. The light hit her face and I instantly recognized who it was.
“Nina Ventresco...” I said.
“Jordan Moreau…” She said.
“Well pick my bones clean…”
I was incredibly surprised. I would’ve never thought someone else had made it. For the first minute or so, we just sat there. Then, she burst into tears and squeezed me.
“Oh Jordan, it’s terrible.” She cried.
“Shhhh. Everything’s gonna be alright…” I lied.
“Oh, I woke up, and it left the house, and it flew away, and everyone ran away and—oh!” She rambled.
I broke the embrace.
“What’s ‘It’?”
“It’s ‘It’.”
“Describe ‘It’ for me.”
“Well…it was big, brown, and it had red eyes.”
“Sounds like something out of a horror movie…”
She gave a soft chuckle. I was glad she did.
“I called for help a while ago.”
“Really”
“Yeah. I’m waiting for them to arrive.”
“Oh.”
Silence.
“So, ummm…,” Nina started, “Do you wanna come back to my house? It’s bigger.”
“Sure.” I answered.
This time, I put on my shoes and went out with Nina. Her house was right down the block. We were walking real fast and looking in all directions. Then, I saw the hand again. But it was in a different position. Something else must have touched Mr. Safragees’s hand.
“Umm, Nina? Did you, umm…touch that hand?” I asked.
“God, no!” She exclaimed.
I decided I had to get rid of it. It was creeping me out, yet I was compelled to stare. I quickly snatched it up and noticed that inside the palm was a round mouth. It loudly hissed and then dug into my arm.
“AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
Nina frantically tried to pry the hand of my arm.
“GET OFF ME, NINA!!! FOR GOD’S SAKES!!!”
Nina finally pulled it off me and threw it on the street, where she proceeded to step on it. She finally killed it. I was bleeding like crazy. I ran into a headlong rush I bolted for Nina’s house. I saw it and banged into the door. It was open, so I rushed in and slammed into the kitchen counter. I howled in pain. I ran upstairs into the bathroom where I soaped up my wound and warm water over it, which felt relatively good. Nina was panting when she reached me.
“JORDAN, ARE YOU OKAY???!!!” She roared, using up her breath.
“Yeah, I should be fine.” I assured her, and I wasn’t lying. However, it was mere speculation.
She heaved a sigh of relief. I dried it off with a towel and slowly walked over to the couch, where I sat down.
“Do you wanna put some ice on it?” She asked.
“Yeah, sure, whatever…” I sighed.
Nina got some ice and wrapped it in a towel and gave it to me. I put it on my leg.
“Ahhhh...” I refreshingly expressed.
Nina decided that it being 11 that we should have a little meal so she took out some potato chips. We sat on the couch while eating them and discussed childhood memories. Ahhh, those were the good old days.
Then, I yawned. I needed some more sleep. I didn’t know why, but I was about to find out. After going to bed, I heard me.
“Hello?” I called out.
“The time has almost come.” Answered a voice from nowhere.
“Who is this?”
“I shall begin to possess and overrun. As you have already seen and heard of my minions.”
“WHO IS THIS???!!!” I angrily cried.
“You are changing. Soon you will be one of us…”
Then I woke up. I was sweating like crazy. Nina was at my side, wiping the sweat off my forehead. I looked crazily in all directions. I didn’t know what to do. I was completely scared. Knee deep in a large pool of fear.
“Wha-wha-what ha-pp-p-end?” I panted.
“You were having a terrible nightmare.”
“How could you tell?”
“I was in the room.”
“Why were you in here?” I asked her.
“I was looking at your hand.”
“My hand? My hand, wh—“
I looked at my hand and I saw a big black dot on my palm. Then I remembered about the hand in the street. Could mine be turning into one of them? My questioned was soon answered as the hole exploded open revealing a mouth containing sharp teeth. Then, my hand fell off and ran away. It opened the door and out it went, into the fog.
My wound instantly grew a bat-like claw. I grew another from my other arm. Then I grew wings and turned brown. My eyes turned red. I stretched out big. I basically turned into a bat. I instantly bit Nina and then flew out the window. She screamed and ran outside toward the local marina.

***

By 12:15 PM, a police boat had pulled up at the marina. A large group of cops came out onto the dock. When they reached the end, they saw a girl sitting there.
“Excuse me, miss,” One of them started, “But, uhhh, what happened here, exactly…?”
The girl pointed toward the fog and out of it came a gigantic swarm of bat creatures and hands. They charged at the cops and bit them all, before disappearing into the fog as fast as they came out of it.
The cops, not knowing what hit them, rushed back to the boat, started it, and began at a fast pace towards the mainland.

[Pulpmariachi]

Frankenjohn, I do love how your stories are written. It's like you would tell them over tea in the garden rather than at a campfire.

[spacer]

This time you haven't murdered your parents alone.
Instead you've treated everybody equally including you.
This story is very good, much better than your previous one, more mature. The story's cohesive, quick narration, you're good storyteller, nice twist at the end, no empty talking, informative dialogues, some scenes promising a decent sex ;D, introducing a female who is natural, classy, ominous ending.
You won my vote
When did you write this story?

[frankenjohn]

This story took much time to ponder and went through a couple of major changes. I'd say maybe I started writing it a week and a half ago.

Glad it's liked.

[frankenjohn]

Look out for my next story, a modern take on Rumplestilkskin, only bearing the common trait of our aforementioned friend.

[Quorthon]

frankenjohn said:

Look out for my next story, a modern take on Rumplestilkskin, only bearing the common trait of our aforementioned friend.

Wasn't that a movie with Sigourney Weaver and Sam Neill?