Flash O' Lantern: 13+ Stories Page 3

  "Lazy piece of—"

  Phelps got out of the car and approached the mower. Not far away he saw the freshly dug grave. He went over to the hole and saw Arnold's face in the hole locked in a smile. The rest of his body was covered in dirt except for his fist sticking out of the dirt. Still alive, he shook his fist.

  "What the hell are you doing in there?"

  "Read the grave stone," Arnold said, laughing. "Read it."

  Phelps read the grave marker epitaph. NOW IT'S YOUR TURN.

  Phelps saw the shadows and turned, gasping. Hordes of the undead closed in, ripping and tearing his flesh. They pushed him to the ground, pounding his skull into a gory mess over another headstone that read: PAYBACK'S A BITCH.

  The dead dug Arnold out of the dirt. They weren't there to kill him, he realized, they were there to join and assist. He was grateful that a few of his new dead friends would help him with Martha next.

  October 18, 1931

  Thomas Edison—creator of the ghost machine?—dies

  In popular culture Thomas Edison is famous for inventing the phonograph and light bulb, but in paranormal circles it is widely believed he also created a ghost machine. Edison is quoted as saying: "I have been at work for some time building an apparatus to see if it is possible for personalities which have left this earth to communicate with us."

  Upon Edison's death no schematics or prototypes for such a machine were ever found. Whether or not he actually created this bizarre device, he was clearly fascinated with being able to scientifically prove, or disprove, the ability to speak to the dead.

  Edison's approach to the paranormal remained scientific until the day he died.

  Let's check in on Raynor and see how science is treating him . . .

  Almost Human

  "Interesting," Raynor, the taller of the two scientists according to the name badge, said, "we give the subject food in a ceramic bowl and he breaks it. If we give him a plastic bowl he doesn't even try."

  "You've tried other types of bowls?" Janzen asked. This seemed to be Raynor's superior. "What about steel, wood, glass?"

  "Anything breakable and the subject will try to break it. One time it used pieces as a weapon and tried to cut me."

  "I see you've noted violent tendencies."

  "Very aggressive. It is less aggressive when we put it outside. If he sees the third planet from the sun it agitates him."

  "The subject's home world, makes sense."

  They keep talking about me as if I'm the animal, thought Duke Mitchell. This reminds me of the movie Planet of the Apes, only my captor isn't a monkey.

  Duke's ship had been on a long range exploratory mission and when he'd been woken from cryogenic sleep he was in a cage while they poked and prodded him. Some alien world.

  Only the aliens looked human except for two disturbing differences.

  "See it eyeing us," Raynor said, pointing. "I wonder what it's thinking?"

  "Check on it in the morning," Janzen replied. "Goodnight, Raynor."

  "Goodnight, Janzen."

  Duke watched it happen again. He'd seen the transformation dozens of times and it still scared him. Raynor stood in place while its skin turned color from tan to ash-gray. Sometimes, like tonight, it would face Duke with eyes locked in place and mouth agape as it changed.

  The statue watched Duke in the cage with its unsettling, frozen gaze. He wondered how long it would be before they'd do the same to him as the others on the ship? How long before their hunger took over?

  October 20, 1882

  Actor Bela Lugosi born (died of heart attack in 1956)

  Bela Lugosi, the most famous Count Dracula was born October 20, 1882. Some believe there will never be a more creepy and fitting Dracula than Lugosi. The last part of Lugosi's storied acting career ended on a tragic note. Lugosi was a broken man who had become addicted to morphine while dealing with a war injury. His last film was the abysmal Plan 9 from Outer Space by Ed Wood.

  Edgar Allan Poe and Bela Lugosi at the end of their lives shared similar financial woes. Frank Sinatra who didn't know Lugosi personally provided some aid and Ed Wood wanted to give Lugosi the much-deserved and needed star treatment.

  Let's check in with a much lesser known Count named Count Wadsworth . . .

  Count Wadsworth

  Counting consumed Wadsworth.

  He loved counting with a gold pen in a gold spiral notebook. He didn't like using computers because they were too easy to hack.

  Wadsworth sat in the room surrounded by piles of gold. He stopped trusting banks after the great crash of 2015. He'd already begun moving his vast fortune from cash back into gold after the financial troubles at the turn of the century.

  The phone rang, interrupting his counting.

  "Daddy?" said Larissa. When she called him "Daddy" it could mean only one thing. He cut her off.

  "Not a penny. Get a job!" He hung up. Wadsworth's ex-wife Laura anointed Larissa their chosen one. His only offspring should receive his gold when Wadsworth passed on, she said. Wadsworth divorced Laura shortly thereafter. Despite paying the vampire lawyers, the Dracula judge sank his fangs into Wadworth's gold.

  He reached the last row when something bit his finger. He pulled it back seeing blood ooze from the tip. He leaned and saw a line of a mouth in the bar of gold.

  "What the—"

  "If you want to keep us," said the gold bar, "You must sacrifice something you love."

  "But I only love you," Wadsworth replied.

  "A finger will do. Choose."

  Wadsworth could count without a pinky. He lowered his pinky toward the gold mouth. It opened its gold jaws and chomped his pinky. Pain rushed through Wadsworth's body.

  The next day the gold monster wanted more. And then more the next. Wadsworth realized too late that his gold was a vampire too.

  * * *

  A week later the crime scene investigators counted Wadsworth's jewelry. Gold chains, necklaces, crosses and rings he'd worn were all that remained. In his will, Wadsworth left all the gold to...himself.

  The estate vampires swooped in last.

  October 25, 1993

  Vincent Price died the same day

  of the year Halloween (1978) debuts

  Vincent Price, the man with the classic horror voice, died on October 25, 1993. He was born in 1911. October 25 is also the day in 1978 that John Carpenter's Halloween first showed in theaters.

  Price's voice was unmistakable and could be enjoyed in both horror movies and radio throughout his life from the late 30s to 90s. Michael Jackson used Price's narration in his dark, catchy tune, "Thriller." Famous producer Quincy Jones said Price did his "Thriller" part in only two takes.

  Price starred in several Edgar Allan Poe adaptions: House of Usher (1960), The Pit and Pedulum (1961), Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven (1963) and more. Price played the villain Egghead in the Batman TV series.

  Price had a playful side too which could be seen at times, like when he appeared on The Muppet Show and was bitten by Kermit the Frog or the numerous gameshow appearances he made using his signature horror voice.

  Bobbing for apples is a fun Halloween activity that is begging to have something go wrong...

  Bobbing

  Joyce didn't want anything to do with the apple bobbing tub. She'd read the Agatha Christie book Hallowe'en Party and knew she shared the name of the character in the story found drowned in an apple bobbing tub.

  She was next in line at the tub. The girl that emerged from the bobbing tub with the biggest apple would be going to the Halloween dance with Tommy.

  Tommy was quarterback for the Sabers and looked the part. Muscular shoulders and arms, short-cropped blond hair and blue eyes. He stood next to a cage in the room with a hamster running on a wheel, smiling as the teenagers dunked and then presented their apple to him to weigh on the scale. He had the jock swagger.

  "You don't have to do this, Joyce," Eleanor said. She wanted to go to the party with Tommy more than any other girl in the room.
When the bell sounded bing! Joyce was supposed to dunk her head.

  Bing!

  Joyce's palms were sweating. The record apple belonged to Eleanor and weighed 253 grams.

  Joyce hovered over the tub for a long time before shaking her head. She didn't want to go with Tommy anyway.

  "It's ok, Joyce," Tommy said cockily. "Watch me snag the biggest one."

  He dunked his head in the tub with hands on the side of the tub. He started shaking all over, hands clenched blood-red. The girls struggled to free his head from the tub. When he emerged the water had iced around Tommy's head making him a human freezer pop. His eyes stared ahead and mouth was wide with a large red apple. Yes, the biggest one.

  Somebody grabbed a hammer and started chipping the ice away. They were too late. Tommy's only date now would be with the morgue.

  October 29, 2004

  Saw first hits theaters

  The movie Saw first hit movie screens on October 29, 2004, ratcheting up the cringe factor in the shock torture horror genre. Saw introduced mechanical madman Jigsaw putting victims through a series of elaborate, disturbing self-torture devices in order to reach safety or death. The plot to Saw was intricate and spanned seven movies, all having theater releases the Friday before Halloween.

  Financially, this has been one of the highest-grossing horror franchises in history with the Saw films raking in more than $1 billion. On July 23, 2010 Guinness World Records awarded it as the "Most Successful Horror Series." There is a comic book called Saw: The Rebirth and two videogames (Saw: The Video Game and Saw II: Flesh & Blood, both by Konami and available on the Xbox 360, PS3 and Microsoft Windows). Despite the action figures, music albums, figurines, novelty items, Halloween costumes and more there has been no Saw novelization as of this writing.

  Can widespread interest in Saw be attributed to some devious inner entertainment desire for enjoying the pain of others? Whatever the answer, Saw explores self-mutilation and human torture on a level few other films have matched.

  Readers might want to see Summer's boss, Collingsworth, meet a horrific end . . .

  Can't Bear To Finish The Job

  Summer wasn't sure what she hated more about Wednesday nights at work: closing with her lecherous boss or vacuuming under all the beds. After the last customer left, Collingsworth dimmed the front showroom lights and stared at her working the vacuum cleaner. There was a spooky gleam in his old, wrinkled eyes.

  "Don't forget under the bunk beds," Collingsworth said and Summer thought she saw his gnarled tongue work over his gums. Collingsworth had dentures and would play with them from time to time, even when talking to you. Sometimes he'd clack them together. It was one way to know when he was nearby, simply listen for the clack-clack-clack.

  Summer's friends at college told her she should report Collingsworth for sexual harassment. The Mattressville employee handbook spent pages on the subject. Summer was ok with Collingsworth as long as he didn't touch her.

  "On it," Summer replied and headed to the kid's bed area. There were three displays of bunk beds. The red one with the brown teddy bears with brown eyes bothered her the most. Customers didn't like it either. Despite not selling it over a month, Collingsworth refused to move it.

  She vacuumed around the bed and then hesitated reaching underneath. Ever since being a young girl she was scared of the dark under the bed. She would keep her feet double-wrapped in the blanket at night. She didn't like the dark under the bed.

  Clack-clack. "Finish the job," Collingsworth ordered. "Underneath." He was standing about ten feet away and Summer knew what he was doing. Watching her bend over. He enjoyed watching her bend over, the pervert.

  She sighed as she leaned over and looked under the bed. One of the teddy bears was underneath the bed. As she reached for the bear, its head moved.

  She yanked her hand back out.

  "What the—"

  "Something wrong?" Collingsworth asked.

  "Under the bed," Summer said, pointing. "The bear moved."

  Clack-clack. "Come on, now." Collingsworth kneeled and reached under the bed. He pulled the teddy bear out and showed it to her. He even punched it in the nose. "See? Nothing." He dropped the bear on the bed and sat beside it, knees over the bed. She was still on all fours, the vacuum cleaner in one hand. The position was uncomfortable.

  "You know, Summer." Collingsworth put his brown-spotted hand on her shoulder. "There's going to be an opening for assistant manager soon. Mister Garvey is heading to corporate." He started to stroke her shoulder and she moved away, showing her discomfort.

  "I'm going to be busy with college. I don't think I'm a good fit for the job."

  "Then maybe there's a better job for you..." Collingsworth grabbed her and threw her to the bed. He climbed on top of her. She tried to fight him but he weighed over twice as much. She could feel the bulge in his pants.

  "No! Get off me!"

  "Yes, get off, yes!" Clack-clack. He moved in, tongue wagging for her mouth and foul breath.

  She turned her head and noticed the bears were no longer on the bed, including the one Collingsworth hand thrown there a minute before.

  Collingsworth's eyes lit up and he started to shake. Something was pulling him off her. Summer felt his grip on her slacken as he was pulled off her and down the side of the bed.

  "Help...me!" He said, as blood filled his mouth and spilled out the corners. His teeth started to fill with a river of blood and pour out of his mouth, splattering and spitting on her light blue shirt. Summer put her hands to her face as something underneath the bed kept ingesting him like a boa constrictor.

  As more of him was pulled beneath the red bunk bed, the sound of his teeth clack-clack-clack one last time and then CRACK! as the upper half of his body was bent at a 90 degree angle. Half his body was eaten under the bed and the other half at the side of bed with his hand limp on her knee.

  She screamed, kicking his torso aside. She rolled off the bed, turning only to see the last half of Collingsworth disappear beneath the bed. Blood was everywhere.

  She climbed to her feet and ran for the door. She saw bears on every bed in the store. Brown eyes fixed on her, watching.

  The bears' mouths moved in unison with voices that sounded like broken glass being mixed in a bag: "Finish. The. Job."

  She stood frozen in the showroom, eyeing the vacuum cleaner. The bears wanted her to finish vacuuming. After seeing what they—was it them?—had done to Collingsworth, she unfroze her legs and moved toward the vacuum.

  As she started to kneel to touch the vacuum, she saw Collingsworth's false teeth on the handle. Clack-clack.

  * * *

  The policemen came out of Mattressville shaking their heads. Yellow crime scene tape had been drawn around the store entrance and discomfort filled the air. Summer sat in the ambulance in a catatonic state, eyes staring forward. When she did speak it was something unintelligble about teddy bears and vacuuming.

  Inside two cops were checking out the gore around the bunk bed. "Don't think she has the strength to do what was done in there."

  "A human didn't do this," said one of the investigators. "Wild animal, maybe."

  A young policeman with a bald head picked up a teddy bear on another bed and looked at it. He thought he noticed a red stain near its mouth.

  Outside, Summer blinked and whispered, "No." They wouldn't stop until she finished the job. She had vacuumed under every bed except the red bunk bed. She couldn't do underneath the red bunk bed. No. She couldn't.

  Finish. The. Job.

  Inside, the policeman smiled and said to the bear: "So, did you see who did this?"

  "Yes," The bear said, opening its mouth with Collingsworth's bloody teeth—clack-clack—and started eating the policeman's face.

  October 30, 1938

  The War of the Worlds radio adaption airs

  On Sunday October 30, 1938 the radio delivered one of the most horrific stories ever: mankind was being invaded. While Martians might seem more humorous tha
n horrifying today, they were scary back then. With no internet, no Facebook, no Twitter, the radio was the medium to deliver news, and on this day in history, the news was that aliens had invaded earth.

  An ingenious trick before the treat of Halloween, and narrated expertly by Orson Welles's Mercury Theater Group. It was adapted from the science fiction novel written 40 years before by H.G. Wells and broadcast as if it was a real news bulletin. Instead of using Victorian England as the setting, Welles had one of the writers, Howard Koch, change the location and time to present day New England.

  The hoax worked in part because the people in The United States were already tense from the possibility of World War II breaking out and fatigued from The Great Depression. The news bulletins and breathless commentary played on the fears of the nation.

  Whether or not aliens exist remains an ongoing fascination and fear for many people. If aliens do exist, to what extent are they visiting earth? And, assuming aliens do exist, are their intentions for mankind helpful or harmful? The SETI project has been harnessing the power of distributed computers attempting to detect intelligent life outside Earth since 1999.

  Fear of the unknown remains.

  Let's forget other planets and focus on Earth. There are still many unknown areas here, particularly in the ocean which covers over 70% of the planet. What lurks beneath the surface?

  Elaina is wading knee-high in the ocean when she discovers something . . .

  The Remdee Gate

  If the boy hadn't kicked over the sand castle Elaina spent most of the day building, she never would have found the swirling blue hole.

  She cried to momma who hugged her with one warm arm while reading her book. Despondent, Elaina waded knee high into the ocean and that's when she discovered it.