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Holiday Horrors: From Your Secret Santa

12/20/2015

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It's that time of year again, that joyful time when the ghoulies and ghosties begin to feel just a wee bit neglected, and once again, Fiona and I have taken it upon ourselves to bring a few holiday chills to those who seek them!

Check back with us throughout the season for more bite-sized holiday horrors. Or, if you can't wait for more, check out last year's entries.

Previously on Holiday Horrors: Season's Greetings, The Man Who Loved Christmas Specials

For this week, we bring you...

Picture
Holiday Horrors:
 
From Your Secret Santa
 
By F.J.R. Titchenell

Erica tried not to be disappointed when she opened the filing cabinet and found the second gift labeled, “To: Erica. From: Your Secret Santa.” It was obvious at a glance that this one was a book.

It wasn’t that Erica didn’t like books. Idiots didn’t like books. The problem was that people who didn’t like books also tended to assume that books were like chocolate bars, all alike and guaranteed to make her happy if they came in promisingly shiny wrappers.

Books were more like lingerie. Personal and transformative, with fickle and unpredictable ways of fitting.

No one here at work knew her well enough to buy either of those things for her. At best it would be something she’d already read, at worst, some boring or insulting knockoff of something she’d already read that the giver would expect her to give an opinion on when the thrill of keeping the name drawing secret wore off in January.

The first gift, a heavenly soft scarf with candy cane stripes, wasn’t the kind of thing Erica would ever have bought for herself, but that was exactly why she liked it so much. It was the kind of thing she would have given a passing, wanting glance as she passed it in a storefront and then told herself to stop being silly.

This one time, it was hers.

Deciding that she could always steer the conversation to how spot-on that gift had been if the giver ever asked her for a review of this one, she tore the wrapping paper back from the cover of the book and gasped.

This was perfect. Whoever had given it couldn’t possibly know how perfect it was, with the fairy on the cover, her dragonfly wings held at just the angle Erica remembered, ready to take flight.

It had been Erica’s favorite as a kid, her one loyal friend back in the bad days when everyone had avoided her, always waiting for her in the seldom-frequented middle school library, ready to whisk her away to fairyland for a stolen hour.

It was only after she’d left the school that she’d realized she didn’t know the book’s name. She could recite plenty of the passages within word for word, but that hadn’t been any help in her attempts to track down a copy of her own.

Once she’d gone so far as to go back to the school and ask to be let into the library, so she could check what combination of words she’d gotten wrong in the title. Some half-listening administrator had brushed her off with a quoted rule about who had access to the familiar old building and a small, superior smile for each admission of what this children’s book meant to her.

Erica flipped open the cover, hoping to savor a paragraph or two before anyone discovered her not working, and her excitement turned cold.

Oakville Middle School, said the label inside the flap. She turned to page twenty, where the Geranium Elf was introduced for the first time, and knew before she saw it that the little heart she’d covertly added to the margin would still be there.
This wasn’t just the same book she’d been missing for the past decade. It was the same copy.

“Don!” Erica shouted, dashing around to the boss’s office. She stopped in the doorway, book held out in front of her, deciding how to justify her panic. “I need to know who my Secret Santa is,” she said.

Don’s look of weary expectation turned to impatience. When she didn’t retract the question, he chuckled, “Did you miss the ‘secret’ part of the concept?”

“Mine is creeping me out,” said Erica. “I need to know.”

“You got something threatening?” he asked, with a small trace of concern, probably for what legal liability he might have if she said yes.

“...Not exactly,” Erica had to admit.

“Something obscene?” Don guessed.

“No.”

Don relaxed into his chair, his over-gelled hair making a scratching noise against the headrest, and Erica knew she’d never recapture his attention now.

“Monica has the names,” he said with a shrug, and Erica resisted the urge to curse. Monica had called in sick that morning. “You can see if she’s willing to let you cheat tomorrow.”

“No, I can’t,” said Erica immediately. “I’m gone tomorrow.” The guardedly confrontational look on Don’s face made her suddenly nauseated. “I am gone tomorrow,” she repeated.

“Chris is gone tomorrow,” Don corrected her. “He was the first to get his plans to me.”

That was a flat-out lie, Erica knew, but knew better than to say so.

“I have a flight tomorrow,” she protested.

“I’m sorry,” said Don with more irritation than sorrow. “I’m going to need you to stick out the week, get us through the rush.”

“I don’t even know what it would cost to change my flight!” she said, beginning to approach pleading. “And that’s if I can get another flight this late before Christmas!”

Don held her gaze. “I’m sure it would cost enough to make you glad to have a job,” he said.
 
#
 
There was nothing for it. Erica arrived at work the next morning, fuming, at around the same time she should have been lifting off toward home. She’d brought along the book to show Monica, in the hope that it would help convince her to reveal the list, but that hardly seemed important now. She had considered taking the opportunity to give another Secret Santa gift of her own before she left, but thinking about giving Secret Santa gifts had reminded her of the bad days for some reason, so she stopped.

She was vaguely aware that she’d put in more than the expected effort already, and it was better not to give unnecessary thought to things that upset her once they were done. Even the doctors had said so.

When Erica stormed into the office, Monica was already at her desk, frozen pale and holding her phone in front of her as if undecided on what she wanted to do with it.

Erica followed her gaze to a round bundle of wrapping paper hanging from a huge Mylar balloon bouquet. Something reddish-brown and noxious-smelling was dripping from it onto the carpet.

“To: Erica. From: Your Secret Santa,” said the tag.

“Don’t touch it!” said Monica when Erica reached out.

“It’s got my name on it,” Erica said dimly, though what she meant was, It can’t be what it looks like.

But it was. Erica knew the moment her fingers tore through the paper and into stiff, over-gelled hair, before the rest of the wrapping split open and Don’s head rolled under a shrieking Monica’s chair.

“Who was my Secret Santa?” Erica asked urgently.

It still couldn’t be what it looked like. It was Don’s head, yes, but the thing from the bad days couldn’t be back. Erica had gotten rid of it, with talking and pills, and with holy water and spells, and it was gone from inside her.

“I was checking,” said Monica’s quavering voice, “but I must have made a mistake when I made the list.”

She turned her monitor, the better to crush any denial.

Chris’s name next to Jennifer’s.

Monica’s next to Lance’s.

Erica’s next to her own.

For more horrors from F.J.R. Titchenell and Matt Carter, find us on Facebook and Twitter, or check out our other works!

FJR: Facebook, Twitter, Books.
Matt: Facebook, Twitter, Books.

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Holiday Horrors: The Man Who Loved Christmas Specials

12/13/2015

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It's that time of year again, that joyful time when the ghoulies and ghosties begin to feel just a wee bit neglected, and once again, Fiona and I have taken it upon ourselves to bring a few holiday chills to those who seek them!

Check back with us throughout the season for more bite-sized holiday horrors. Or, if you can't wait for more, check out last year's entries.

Previously on Holiday Horrors: Season's Greetings

For this week, we bring you...
Picture
The Man Who Loved Christmas Specials
 
By Matt Carter


The man loved Christmas, even if it didn’t particularly love him back. Even though it always came with memories of his parents’ death (a car crash while picking up a Christmas tree when he was seven, very fiery, very bloody), it was the one thing he looked forward to most every year. There was joy, there was laughter, and most importantly, there was family.
No real family, no blood family, but an even better kind, because while he may not have had family, he had his Christmas specials.

On TV, everyone was perfect. Everyone was happy. Nobody would call him creepy, or weird, or ignore him. They would let him into their homes welcomingly, and he could pretend, if just for a little while, that he was one of them. Laugh at their jokes, listen to their stories, and life would be good for a little while.

He had a full calendar of them, nearly one every night for the last half of December. He would decorate his living room to match each one, every detail, every ornament, every dish using the same recipes as the family on TV. The rest of his three-bedroom house may have lacked any color, or even furniture save for necessities in the bathroom and kitchen, but as long as he had his specials, none of that mattered.

The kitchen timer dinged. He cooed enthusiastically, pulling out his ham and slicing off a few good pieces onto his plate that already was piled high with mashed potatoes with gravy and butter, squash and green beans.
He checked the time on the microwave, even though he didn’t need to.

He had this down to the second.

Right on time.

Slowly, carefully, he brought his plate into the living room and set it on the TV tray next to his recliner. The flute of apple cider he’d set out earlier still bubbled, while the crackle of the fireplace filled the room with a nice, warm smell.

After doing a quick once-over of the room to make sure the decorations were perfect and the presents were properly placed beneath the tree he’d chosen for the night (Noble Fir, almost tall enough to touch the ceiling, star on top, hand-made popcorn strings, classical ornaments), he went into the closet behind the recliner and pulled out the sweater with the ‘TAYLOR’ tag pinned to it. It was a crazy, ugly sweater, but the fun kind of crazy and ugly, the ironic kind that everyone loved these days.

Especially the Taylors.

The Taylor Family Christmas Dinner was one of the specials he looked forward to the most. The Taylors were all-American. Father Chad and mother Diana with three grandparents between them (two hers, one his) and four kids, teenagers Nikki and Rudy (adopted), ten-year-old Hayden and four-year-old Brenda. They were perfect, and loving, always with warm smiles and great stories and even cheesy jokes from Chad that’d be perfect in any dad joke book.

Smiling giddily, the man pulled his TV tray forward, took a sip from his cider, and turned on the television.

It was everything he hoped for. Dinner had just started, and as always the man got lost in it. He could hear himself congratulating Nikki for finally making the cheerleading squad and Rudy for being in the running for a prestigious scholarship. Brenda tried telling some jokes her dad taught her, and though she rarely remembered the punchlines, everyone oohed and aahed appropriately, as you should to a girl as cute as her. Hayden, mischievous as ever, threw a green bean at Grandpa John, but with a smile, Chad was able to firmly and politely stop the boy and get him to apologize. Everyone laughed at their silly sweaters, though the man knew his was probably the best. Soon they would bust out some party games, and Chad would show off his stuff at the piano while they all warbled Christmas songs, and the night would end sublimely.

The only thing the man hadn’t accounted for was the empty chair, but it was a surprise he didn’t mind in the slightest. He knew the seat was for him, and he knew just how he’d see the family, and he knew-

The doorbell was ringing. This was a surprise. Who the heck interrupts Christmas dinner like this? No, no, it’s ok, this can still work, this can-

The man who the empty chair was for finally showed up. Almost an hour late.

Uncle Ned.

Tattooed and swaying and clearly drunk with some bleached-blonde strumpet on his arm who might’ve been the only thing holding him up straight. He wasn’t supposed to be here, he was disowned, this wasn’t a very special episode about reconciliation, this was a Christmas Special, and he would ruin everything.

It’s ok, it’s ok, they can still fix this, maybe this is one of those kinds of specials, where the holidays bring everyone together, he hasn’t ruined anything yet…

Then he ruined everything. Not when he dragged a chair across the hardwood of the dining room, scratching it up, so his strumpet could sit with him. Not when his strumpet lit up a cigarette and started using inappropriate language. Not even when he accidentally spilled a bottle of cider across the ham, or when he asked if Nikki would show off her cheerleading outfit.

No. It was when the man realized that he clearly hadn’t brought a present.

That was too much.

The man felt ill. The food tasted like ash in his mouth. The plate, the sumptuous feast he’d cooked to be like the Taylors, it might as well have been writhing with maggots.

In a disgust flavored with fury, he grabbed it and threw it into the fireplace. His breathing became ragged and his vision blurry.

No, no, you can fix it. This isn’t over. This holiday can still be saved.

Thinking fast, the man grabbed a burlap sack from his closet and shoved all the presents beneath the tree into it. Then he grabbed a couple spare crazy sweaters from the closet and tossed them in the sack. They were his size, too big for the plan, but they would do.

Then he grabbed his kit.

Mustn’t forget the kit.

Stepping outside, the man trudged down the sidewalk, snow crunching beneath his feet, the icy air chilling his scalp through his thinning hair, thinking with every step:

You can fix this. You can fix this. You can fix this.

Two houses down and across the street. The pocket knife from his kit opened the latch to the side gate easily. He checked his phone, watching the feed of the special, knowing where everyone was. Ned had left, but was still in the house, the back guest bathroom, cleaning gravy off his tank top.

Disabling the security system with the press of a button on his phone, the man silently entered the back of the house, quiet as Santa Claus himself. Pulling the cheap plastic Santa mask that fit uncomfortably against his glasses and thin moustache and the collapsible baton from his kit, the man covered his face and entered the guest bedroom, his bag of gifts trailing behind him.

Uncle Ned didn’t see him at first, too focused on cleaning his top, but when he did, he nearly screamed.

A baton strike to the back of the legs quickly silenced him.

“Be like the mouse. Don’t stir, don’t stir…” the man whispered soothingly.

Ned didn’t want to be silent. He wanted to fight. He wanted to keep ruining the evening. The man showed him the error of his ways with a strike to the ribs. Another between his shoulders, then two more to his lower back, nothing that would leave marks, nothing that would ruin the evening, but enough to take him to the floor, gasping and moaning in pain.

The man spoke, sternly but politely, “This is a special night. A beautiful night. And you and your lady-friend are ruining it. I’d tell you to leave, but that would ruin it even more, so I am going to give you a chance to fix things.”

He pulled out the bag so Ned could see, “In this bag are two sweaters. I apologize for the ill fit, but you gave me little time to improvise. You and your lady-friend will wear them like everyone else. You will go back to dinner. You will make amends and apologize for your rudeness. You will make this evening special and wholesome as it is supposed to be. You will then give out the gifts in this bag to everyone in the family. They are nice gifts, things they want, things you can’t afford, so it will do much to mend this evening. You will be a hero, and this will be a magical celebration of Christmas. Do everything I’ve said, and you can leave this dinner in peace when the night is over. Don’t, and I will find you no matter how far you may travel and I will start cutting pieces off of you and feeding them to your lady-friend until no one would ever want you at a Christmas dinner again. Do you understand?”

Fearfully, Ned nodded, rooting through the bag and pulling out a sweater.

“Good boy. Now remember, smile, and be jolly. It’s Christmas time!” the man said, quickly exiting the bathroom. He could hear Ned weeping, which he took for a good sign, because that meant Ned would play ball.

On his way out, the man quickly checked the batteries in the cameras he’d planted in the guest bedroom and back hall. The back hall ones would need a refill soon, but should last the night, long enough for him to come back and put in more before Christmas morning.

The thought of them opening the presents he’d given Ned brought a tear to the man’s eye. They were supposed to be from him (though they all said From Santa Claus on the labels), dropped off on Christmas Eve. They would confuse the family, but they would be a Christmas miracle all the same. Now they would be from Ned, but with luck they would be enough to buy his way back into their hearts.

Quickly, the man ran back to his living room. Out of breath and wheezing, he turned the TV back on in time to see Ned, now clad in a sweater (and handing one to his strumpet), reenter the dining room. He apologized for his behavior, and started handing out gifts to everyone. Chad hugged him, and the kids cheered appreciatively at their new toys and electronics. Everyone started eating again, and soon there were games and songs and everyone, even Ned and his strumpet, were all smiles.

The man breathed a sigh of relief, heating up some leftovers and enjoying their taste again. The night was saved, and the Christmas special ended as they all should, with everyone hugging and expressing their love for one another, making the man cry.

He only turned off the TV when they all went to bed for the night, and with that, he started putting everything away in the boxes marked TAYLOR.

It would have been a bittersweet experience, if it weren’t for the boxes marked MARTINEZ the man knew would come out tomorrow.

They really knew how to put on a special.





For more horrors from F.J.R. Titchenell and Matt Carter, find us on Facebook and Twitter, or check out our other works!

FJR: Facebook, Twitter, Books.
Matt: Facebook, Twitter, Books.

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Holiday Horrors: Season's Greetings

12/6/2015

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It's that time of year again, that joyful time when the ghoulies and ghosties begin to feel just a wee bit neglected, and once again, Fiona and I have taken it upon ourselves to bring a few holiday chills to those who seek them!

Check back with us throughout the season for more bite-sized holiday horrors. Or, if you can't wait for more, check out last year's entries.

For this week, we bring you...
Picture
Holiday Horrors: Season's Greetings

By F.J.R. Titchenell

The card and gift shop overflowed with holiday spirit, hung all over with green tinsel and red velvet bows, with battery powered dancing snowmen and reindeer up front to welcome customers, demo versions of the ones in the boxes artfully arranged under the two sparkling synthetic Christmas trees, framed with tufts of kaleidoscopic paper, as though they had just been gleefully unwrapped.

Beyond were the aisles of cards for all different occasions, relationships and tones, though presently more than half were a medley of seasonal color.

Delia had spent the last month and a half hoping to be struck by some perfect inspiration for what to get her dad and sisters for this first Christmas when she would finally be able to buy presents with her own money.

This inspiration had, with a week left to go, so far failed to materialize. Nothing she’d found had said “dad” to her, or “Leslie,” or “Bree,” but she thought it would be difficult to leave this store without something that at least said, “Merry Christmas.”

The only employee present was a woman a little older than Delia, who stood leaning against the checkout counter, glaring listlessly at the floor. She didn’t look up when Delia entered. Delia likewise ignored her and wandered down one of the warm, inviting aisles that made it hard to imagine that either glaring or listlessness could be possible within them.

She pulled out the first card that caught her eye, a glitter-encrusted one in the shape of an ornament that seemed likely for Leslie.

“You decorate my life,” said the inside.

Not quite.

The next one contained a generic “Happy Holidays.”

A dirty version of the lyrics of Jingle Bells in the following one made her giggle, but it couldn’t be read aloud over a family breakfast.

When she moved to put it back, it hit against something that must have fallen into the card rack from the shelf above.

She pulled the cards forward to look at the little wind-up elf figure. It was also dusted with glitter, though of a finer texture and in less intentional-looking patches than the cards. With a mechanical jerk, a last bit of wind-up energy let loose by the disturbance, it raised one plastic arm and puffed out a cloud of the glitter over the card Delia had been trying to replace.

Delia moved the elf to the top of the display and tried to shake off the card. The glitter spreading across the surface changed the colors, until hidden letters became discernible, between the re-written lines of Jingle Bells.

“I want you to think I’m cool.”

The elf moved with another clockwork noise, and Delia looked up at it. It moved again, half a jolting step, and the noise it made sounded curiously like a word.

“Run.”

When Delia made no move, the elf raised its arms in the closest thing to a gesture of exasperation that its stiff little joints could manage, and shot a cloud of its glitter into her face.

Through her coughing, blinking, rubbing efforts to clear her eyes and throat, the groaning steps of the elf along the top of the rack toward the door unmistakably sounded out,
“The sparkle may save you.”

When Delia’s eyes grudgingly opened, everything was iridescent and tinged with peach and purple. She steadied herself against the rack, knocking a few cards to the floor. Similar hidden text on them was clearer now than the unhidden as she gathered them up.

“I don’t know you well enough to know how not to offend you,” said one.

“I’m hoping you’ll ask me for spiritual advice,” said another.

“I hope everyone likes cats,” said the next.

Another said simply, “This card is shiny.”

In spite of the burning in her eyes, Delia smiled at the thought of how much Leslie would like the hidden text version of that one, and then watched, transfixed, as more words formed. The more she thought about her sister, the clearer they became.

“I love you.”

Whatever the elf had blasted her with was making it possible to see, at a glance, what the cards were saying, and therefore the perfect card for anyone.

Delia flicked excitedly through the racks, searching for the next card that would reveal exactly what she meant to say when she held it and thought of either of the others.

“I’m masking my contempt for you,” she quickly put aside.

“I don’t remember your face.”

“You’re just another bank client.”

“I hate you.”

“I hate this.”

“My soul is dry.”

“I’ve been fed on by a thousand sheets of cheap cardstock and I can’t do it anymore.”

“Let me die.”

Delia looked warily up at where the elf had run off from, frozen in place. “The sparkle may save you,” it had said.

A few of the dancing snowmen, still in their boxes, were scattered in the aisle behind her. They had definitely not been there before. The purple-peach tinge of her vision made them look unsettlingly unlike snowmen.

With a few off-tempo notes of Carol of the Bells, the nearest snowman did not dance, but picked up the card she had set aside at the front of the rack, the one with “I love you” in fading letters on the front. It looked up at Delia, and its sewn-on coal mouth widened its smile.

She took a panicked step backward, away from that smile, tripping over the boxed reindeer that had taken its place behind her.

Before she could get her weight onto her hands to sit up, the deer clamped its mechanical jaws onto her sweater sleeve and the thin skin of her wrist and forced her hand flat against the rack of cards. The fear brought on more thoughts of her family, and the words spread out over the fronts of the cards across the rack, radiating out from her hand.

“I love you. I love you. I love you.”

Possibly the elf’s glitter had gotten into her ears, because dimly Delia could understand the lyrics hidden in the tinkling notes of the dancing snowmen’s version of the carol, playing endlessly for the passing foot traffic outside.

“Love for sale here, love for sale here.”

Delia looked across the store at the lone clerk who still had not moved from her post, at the lifeless, joyless expression on her face, and understood that it would, in a matter of seconds, match her own.


For more horrors from F.J.R. Titchenell and Matt Carter, find us on Facebook and Twitter, or check out our other works!

FJR: Facebook, Twitter, Books.
Matt: Facebook, Twitter, Books.

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Holiday Horrors: The Stroke of Midnight

12/30/2014

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In this season of warm and fuzzy good cheer, we year-round-Halloween folk feel a certain responsibility to offer a few winter chills to those like us who seek them.

After all the fun we had bringing you scares from Prospero all October long, we couldn't resist concocting this series of festive flash fics of fear.

So check back with us throughout the season for fresh, bite-sized of holiday horrors!

Previously On... Holiday Horrors: Black Friday, What the Movies Don't Show, What's Eating Mall Santa, Where Gran Hides Her Presents
, Bindley
Picture
The Stroke of Midnight

By F.J.R. Titchenell

My family’s business isn’t so terrible, really.

I get that I’m going to be doing it forever. I can live with that.

It’s only the pressure that sometimes gets to me, and the overprotectiveness, having to be around that all the time.

That’s why I’m here, at a New Year’s Eve “party” in some club I’ve never been to, full of people I don’t know, after a three drink equivalent cover charge, watching the clock run down, trying to decide how close I’m going to let it get before I call Ester.

We work New Year’s, every year. That’s why they were all so against my getting out to celebrate it even for a couple hours, and probably why I’ve always wanted to.

I didn’t have much of a plan when I got here. A few fantasies about meeting Prince Charming’s eyes across the crowded room, dancing until I almost lose track of time (but not quite), and getting to see those eyes turn disappointed and determined to find me again somehow when I tell him I have to run.

Instead I’ve spent most of the night sharing a table with a woman who might be named Cheryl or Sharon or Sherry, it’s hard to tell through the music, who’s been doing her best to help me understand with the help of gestures exactly how she got stood up here.

She’s probably the person here I have the most in common with, except she had a date at the beginning of the night.

I’m not sorry when a new Prince Charming (well, maybe not prince, more a Duke or Marquis Charming), graciously allows her to whisk him onto the dance floor and I steal the nearly untouched glass of champagne he brought her to seal the proposition.

I’m almost at the bottom of the glass when I realize something’s wrong.

This isn’t the steady increase in the warm dizziness the other drinks have been compounding. All at once, the club begins to swirl in luminous molten lava shapes.

Shit.

I’m barely tethered to my body by long elastic bands, but I manage to maneuver it onto its high-heeled feet and toward the nearest door. The lights are a thick, near-solid that I can barely swim through but which fails to support me, and the music coaxes me in deafening sparkles to just dance, just dance.

I consider for a moment trying to warn Cher-something about the man she’s dancing with, but I can’t see them anywhere in the magic eye kaleidoscope of the dance floor, and if I don’t find Ester while I’m as conscious as I am, he’ll be the least of anyone’s worries.

Somehow I get myself through a door, by guessing that the middle one I can see is the real one, end up in a gossamer white bathroom and check my phone.

When did it pass eleven thirty?

After three tries chasing down the pulsating symbols with my thumb, I unlock the screen and return the most recent call. Ester answers on the first ring.

“Where the hell are you?”

It’s 11:40 before I can answer, and I’m pretty sure the echoes of her question aren’t all in my head.

“At the glitter pony. I need you to meet me.”

I have the name of the place wrong but close enough for her to get it right.

“I’ll be right there,” she says. “Be out front.”

“I’ll try.”

My voice seems to take forever to reach the phone.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ‘YOU’LL TRY’?” she demands.

I start describing my symptoms and the circumstances that led to them, and she identifies the drug by its scientific name, which sounds like it starts with a K, but it’s hard to tell between her more familiar cursing.

“You do understand what happens if we don’t complete the ritual and line the next year into place?” she rants. “You do realize there won’t be any more new years, or any more parties for anyone, including you?”

Of course I realize it. It is my one stupid job in the whole universe, the one that only requires two seconds of blinding agony a year and ends existence as we know it if it’s not done.

Needless to say, it’s not a job I applied for.

Ester says something about her and Edgar coming to find me so we can all join hands by midnight, and I don’t know if it’s my senses or the way time itself unravels toward the edges that make her words run parallel to the phone being back in my pocket.

There’s a window set high in the ceiling. My body does that elastic thing again, and it’s 11:48 when I start standing and already 11:54 when I reach the wall and determine that the window both painted shut and not adjacent to the outside.

It’s probably about 11:58 when Cher bursts in, leaning so heavily on Viceroy Charming that her feet drag along the floor.

My knees launch the rest of me away from the source of the K-champagne, fingers scrabbling at the top of the nearest stall wall for a place to hide and toppling headfirst over it. My jaw collides with the tiles, and I realize dimly that I would hurt tomorrow, if there were a tomorrow.

Beyond the half open bathroom door, the partygoers cheer to a clock that must be slightly fast but not fast enough, “Happy New Year!”



For more horrors from F.J.R. Titchenell and Matt Carter, find us on Facebook and Twitter, or check out our other works!

FJR: Facebook, Twitter, Books.
Matt: Facebook, Twitter, Books.
0 Comments

Holiday Horrors: Bindley

12/28/2014

0 Comments

 
In this season of warm and fuzzy good cheer, we year-round-Halloween folk feel a certain responsibility to offer a few winter chills to those like us who seek them.

After all the fun we had bringing you scares from Prospero all October long, we couldn't resist concocting this series of festive flash fics of fear.

So check back with us throughout the season for fresh, bite-sized of holiday horrors!

Previously On... Holiday Horrors: Black Friday, What the Movies Don't Show, What's Eating Mall Santa
, Where Gran Hides Her Presents
Picture
Bindley

By Matt Carter
My wife and I had an agreement when it came to Christmas. She would do all the shopping, I would do all the decoration and cleanup. It worked out for everyone this way, really. She was insanely competitive and knew how to find good deals. I knew how to put things in and out of cardboard boxes and garbage bags. Win-win really.

It’s not that I didn’t take any pride in what I did. I made sure everything looked good. Our door had a wreath, our fireplace had its stockings hung with care, our mantle decorated with greens and lights. The first floor had been taken over by Christmas decorations, all centered around the six-and-a-half-foot Noble Fir tree that took place of pride in the middle of our living room. Decked out in ornaments, lights, strings of popcorn and about ten boxes of tinsel, it was a sight to behold if I must say so myself.

The kids loved it, of course, not that they wouldn’t have been happy with whatever I put up because it was Christmas, but I tried to make it right for them. We never really did much for Christmas when I was a kid, so I guess you could say that I was trying to overcompensate and make sure they had the most Christmasy Christmas possible.

Christmas morning was great. They woke up at four-thirty, hyper and jumping up and down on our bed, telling us that Santa had come. They practically dragged us downstairs to show us the mountain of presents beneath the tree and the bites that Santa had taken out of the Oreos they left on the coffee table. Presents were torn open, there was much cheer and pictures taken of fond holiday memories. They played for a few hours, then passed out (because hey, that’s what happens when six and seven year olds wake up at four in the morning), and while my wife brewed another pot of coffee I cleaned up all the boxes and torn wrapping paper.

If only that were the last of the cleanup necessary.

See, that’s the problem they never tell you about going all-out on decorating, that eventually you’re going to have to take it all back down.

I think I did that pretty responsibly too. Every night after the kids went to sleep, I’d take a little bit down, box it up and hide it back in the attic or the garage. It got to the point that they barely noticed a thing was missing until all I had left to take down was the tree.

We knew they’d be despondent if they saw the tree go down, so my wife took them out to the mall for some post-holiday clothes shopping and left me to take it down and out to the recycling center.

It was kind of sad, taking it down. It was that one last bit of the holiday that we still had to hold onto before getting back to the real world. When I pulled down that first handful of tinsel and tossed it into the trash, however, I realized one thing I wouldn’t miss about this season.

Bindley.

Bindley was a six-inch tall wooden gnome, with a jaunty red and green pointed hat, a high collared, furry suit, and a beard that reached down beneath his ample belly. His smile was wide and his blue eyes sparkled, and his one outstretched arm pointed out to his side at nothing in particular.

And I absolutely hated him.

My kids wanted an Elf on the Shelf this year, but since we couldn’t find one, I got a deal from one of my neighbors on Bindley, who was supposed to be some new equivalent made by one of those companies specializing in handmade toys. Since I needed it on short notice, I said sure, why not.

And from that moment on, I hated it.

According to the instructions, Bindley was supposed to move around your house, always pointing out to kids reminders that Christmas was on the way, and at first, I played along. I’d ignore his smirk, his eyes that seemed to follow me everywhere, that pointing finger always drawing attention to what I’d set up and how it didn’t match up to what other, better, dads could do.

But the kids loved him and searching for him, so I did my duty and moved him around.

Well, most of the time at least.

Bindley had a bad habit of popping up in weird places that I know I didn’t put him, like in the medicine cabinet, or in my glove compartment. Always pointing at me, always staring. My wife or kids had to be moving him, like some kind of joke, and I couldn’t say anything because I didn’t want to break the illusion of the holiday.

But I was looking forward to packing him away for the season.

I pulled him out of the tree and set him down on a nearby bookcase. I should’ve thrown him out, but the kids would remember next year. Maybe say you just lost him…

After taking down a few more ornaments and packing them away, I looked back to Bindley.

He was pointing at me and the tree. Staring. Smiling like there was some private joke that I wasn’t in on. I knew I must’ve just set him down that way, but it still gave me a start.

“What’re you laughing at?” I joked, trying to smile it off.

He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t say anything. He was just a toy gnome. But still he pointed, and for some reason I couldn’t quite explain, I felt compelled to look at what he was pointing at.

I pulled away a handful of tinsel, revealing a surprisingly empty section of the tree. It had been full when I bought it, and I’d kept it really hydrated, so this shouldn’t have been a problem. Pulling more tinsel aside, I probed deeper.

Then I saw it.

There was a bulge in the trunk, about the size of a softball, looking almost like a wooden tumor with a glossy sheen over it.

I looked back at Bindley, “So this is what you’re laughing at? That I got a funky tree?”

Still no answer, just staring and pointing and laughing.

Reaching inside, I made to tap the bulge. My fingernail barely scratched its glossy surface when it softly ruptured. Thousands of tiny, writhing insects poured out, scuttling down the tree and my arm. All at once they seemed to start biting me.

I screamed, pulling away from the tree, watching as my blood started to drip onto the ground. I pulled at the bugs, trying to scrape them free and only succeeded in covering my other hand.

I stumbled, falling to the ground. Looking close in one last moment of lucidity before they started burrowing deeper and climbing further up my arms, I could see that they weren’t insects, not quite.

They were miniature gnomes, all with tiny, pointed hats and even tinier, sharper, teeth and claws.

Bindley looked down at me from the bookshelf, pointing down at me and smiling down at us like any proud father would.

Before blood loss and their teeth took me for good, I couldn’t help but have one last, crazy, thought.

Guess I’m not going to have to clean up the tree after all.


For more horrors from F.J.R. Titchenell and Matt Carter, find us on Facebook and Twitter, or check out our other works!

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Holiday Horrors: Where Gran Hides Her Presents

12/21/2014

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In this season of warm and fuzzy good cheer, we year-round-Halloween folk feel a certain responsibility to offer a few winter chills to those like us who seek them.

After all the fun we had bringing you scares from Prospero all October long, we couldn't resist concocting this series of festive flash fics of fear.

So check back with us throughout the season for fresh, bite-sized of holiday horrors!

Previously On... Holiday Horrors: Black Friday, What the Movies Don't Show
, What's Eating Mall Santa
Picture
Where Gran Hides Her Presents

By Matt Carter


“I know she keeps them in here somewhere,” Olivia said, rooting through the cabinet in Gran’s den.

“I don’t think we should be looking,” I said.

“Oh come on, Jacob, don’t you want to see what she’s getting us?” she said, setting aside another stack of family photo albums.

I really did. Gran always got us the best Christmas presents, and it would’ve been cool to see what she got us this year, but something about finding out early just felt wrong.

“Can’t we just wait until Christmas morning?” I asked. “You know so then we can be surprised and mom and dad can get the great pictures of us?”

“Oh stop being such a baby,” Olivia said, pulling a straw doll wrapped tightly with chains and an old hat from the cabinet. “There’s nothing in here. Come on, let’s keep looking.”

She got up to leave, which meant I had to put everything back. Stupid Olivia.

My older sister hated surprises, and if there was ever any reason to be getting presents she’d always found some way to find out what they were before they were supposed to be opened. She’d ruined pretty much every birthday and Christmas that mom and dad ever tried to hide anything from her for. The only person who’d ever hid stuff from her good was Gran, and that was probably because we didn’t go to Gran’s house that much, which was usually fine by me because her house was old and weird and I think had animals living in the walls.

But mom and dad needed to do some last minute Christmas shopping, and Gran wanted to join them, so we had to spend the day at her house. Alone.

At least Olivia wasn’t calling me stupid for wearing my Santa hat. At least I got to feel like I knew what Christmas was about.

She was walking out of the basement Gran always told us to stay out of when I caught up.

“Wasn’t that locked?” I asked.

“Not very well,” Olivia said. “Gran’s getting old. She only turned the lock, like, halfway.”

Against my better judgment, I asked, “Find anything?”

“Nah, it’s just empty down there. The only thing I found was like some chalk circle on the ground and a bunch of weird writing around it. And a box of Christmas decorations she hasn’t got to putting up yet. And it stinks, too,” she said.

“Stinks?” I asked.

“Like the time Mr. Whiskers crawled into the crawlspace and died and dad couldn’t find him for a week,” she said.

“Ew,” I said.

“Tell me about it,” she said, waving a hand in front of her nose. “You’d think for all this nice stuff she’s got she’d have a nicer basement.”

She was right about that. Gran’s house, like the stuff she always got us for Christmas, was nice and expensive-looking, though the stuff she got us wasn’t covered in dust and looking real old.

“Where do you think she got the money for all of it?” I asked Olivia as she started walking to Gran’s bedroom. I startled when I heard something in the wall. Fast and scrabbling, some rat with inch long fangs and claws like swords, no doubt. I could’ve sworn I saw it moving beneath the wallpaper, but maybe it was my imagination.

It had to be my imagination. Olivia didn’t see anything, say anything.

“From Grandpa, I think. He made a lot of good investments after the war, mom says,” Olivia said.

“What war?” I asked.

“One of those ones where people died; does it matter?” Olivia said. We were in Gran’s room now. All doilies and dust and perfume, so much perfume, from those bottles on her dresser. Bottles of gold and green and blue and some so red they looked like blood. A tall Santa decoration made out of a dressed up paper towel roll stared at us, so at least we knew Gran remembered some of her decorations.

“Whatever war it was, it was one where people back here had to hide things away because they were afraid they’d be invaded and wouldn’t be able to have stuff anymore, so I think that’s why Gran got so good at hiding things. Then Grandpa got sick and all the money was hers,” she said.

“What happened to him?” I asked.

“Something bad, it, like, made his body rot off his bones. She’s got an album with, like, day by day pictures of it happening,” Olivia said.

“Ew,” I said.

“Yeah, tell me about it, she’s got all sorts of messed up pictures in her albums,” she said.

“I thought they were just baby pictures,” I said.

“Those too, but they’re kinda mixed in with a bunch of pictures of people in hoods standing around bonfires,” she said.

“Old people are weird,” I said.

“Tell me about it. See if she’s got a safe or something hidden behind that painting,” she said, motioning me to a bad painted landscape hanging on the wall.

I pulled the painting off. There was no safe, just some badly-drawn picture of a goat’s head inside an upside-down star, surrounded by weird writing.

“Nothing,” I said, putting the painting back.

“Damn,” she said. “Guess we’ll have to check her closet.”

Gran’s closet was an impassible mess of shoeboxes and clothes packed several feet thick. She knew there couldn’t be presents in there since most of that stuff hadn’t been moved in years, but there were shelves up top that could easily be used to hide gifts. Olivia climbed the pile, higher and higher so she could reach the upper shelves. When she got most of the way up, I could only see her legs.

“Hey, I think…”

“What?” I asked. I wanted to see my presents on Christmas morning, I wanted to wait for the surprise, but I could feel a thrill when she said that.

“I found, I think, where she’d keep something. There’s a hole high up in the wall up here, it’s pretty big,” she said.

“Is there anything in it?” I asked.

“I’m reaching, I’ll see… oh,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

She wasn’t saying anything. Her legs started to jerk like she was trying to dance, and it looked like she was going to fall, but then they jerked upward and disappeared like she just flew away. I could’ve sworn I’d heard something crunching.

“Olivia?” I called out. No answer.

“Olivia?” I called again. “You find anything?”

There was a heavy breath from up there, then she talked again.

“Jacob, you have to come up here, you wouldn’t believe the presents she’s got for us!”

Her voice sounded a little weird, choked and heavy, like it was her but not her. Still… there were presents.

I wanted to be good. I wanted to wait until I saw the presents beneath our tree to know what we got for sure. I wanted to be the good one, not like Olivia, not going out of my way to break the rules of Christmas.

I wanted to be a lot of things, but the call of presents was too strong.

“Coming!” I said, climbing up after her.


For more horrors from F.J.R. Titchenell and Matt Carter, find us on Facebook and Twitter, or check out our other works!

FJR: Facebook, Twitter, Books.
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Holiday Horrors: What's Eating Mall Santa?

12/14/2014

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In this season of warm and fuzzy good cheer, we year-round-Halloween folk feel a certain responsibility to offer a few winter chills to those like us who seek them.

After all the fun we had bringing you scares from Prospero all October long, we couldn't resist concocting this series of festive flash fics of fear.

So check back with us throughout the season for fresh, bite-sized of holiday horrors!

Previously On... Holiday Horrors: Black Friday, What the Movies Don't Show
Picture
What's Eating Mall Santa?

By F.J.R. Titchenell

I got suckered into the big red suit at the ripe old age of eighteen.

Mom’s a pediatrician, needed someone to fill the suit last minute for the children’s hospital, and of course no one who worked there could do it, because the kids might recognize them.

You’d think some of them might also recognize that the guy behind the beard is only a little older than the kid humoring him from the bed next to them, but event planners think kids are stupid, and most kids know how to make the best out of our clumsiest attempts at magic and goodwill. 

Other kids are just good at not bursting the event planners’ bubbles as long as those bubbles keep bringing them presents.

And we think we’re fooling them.

Thing is, it grows on you. You feel ridiculous putting it on, but then those first eyes light up when they see you, and you want to be Santa. The best Santa you can be. 

So it seemed like a no brainer to try out for the job at the mall the next year, hope to put on the suit again and help make a merrier Christmas for my little brother. Because that doctor’s paycheck? Not all it’s cracked up to be. Not when there are still student loans to pay twenty years later. 

I knew it was a longshot, this being an actual paying job with tryouts and all. Maybe they’d tell me I was better suited to be an elf, or maybe afterward I’d go hit up some of the surrounding stores for seasonal work. 

I was right about there being a lot of other applicants, plenty with real beards and no need for padding, some already in their own red suits. I was wrong about there being an abundance of promising potential Santas. 

I’ve never seen a surlier bunch of people than the men packed into that big back room, all hard-lined faces that were never made to smile. 

The friendly mall-shirted folk didn’t seem at all surprised by the odd turnout as they examined us, the small, cheery-faced woman who was clearly the event planner in charge asking each of us to demonstrate our jolliest laugh.

A flash of something like pity cut briefly through her smile when she heard mine. I knew my age showed a little more in my voice, but I couldn’t see how it could possibly be that bad, compared with the snorts, snickers and outright cackles of some of the others.

I’d always assumed it had been my imagination, how terrifying visiting Santa at the mall had been as a kid, half-remembered details thrown out of proportion by my then painful shyness. If these were how the standards had always been though, maybe I’d been on to something.

Without further instructions, the event team disappeared into some deeper part of the mall’s employee maze, leaving the applicants to glance awkwardly at each other for a hint of what to do next. 

We’d stood in that fluorescent-lit white room for maybe fifteen minutes when a girl about seven years old stepped inside from the door to the mall floor. She wore a pine green dress and matching shoes with the curly tops Santa’s elves always wear, making me wonder if she belonged to one of the planners. The nervous, uncertain way she closed the door behind her made her look even smaller than she was.

Given my current company, I couldn’t blame her.

“You okay?” I asked, side stepping away from the other Santa hopefuls to try to give her a less crowded space to approach, dropping automatically to one knee so she could see my face better. 

The elf girl swept her extra bright eyes across the whole crowd of us before acknowledging me, without a change on her face. When she finally reached me, she gave me that lighting-up face in fast motion before launching herself into my arms. 

“Santa! They need to see you in there!” She pointed over my shoulder, further down the employees only hallway.

Without the suit and beard, I looked easily the least like Santa out of the meager competition in that room, and I doubted she would know if I was being asked for in a direction she hadn’t come from, but thinking that she might be looking for help finding whatever family she might have back there, I let her take my hand and lead me down the hall. 

A few of the others tentatively started to follow us, maybe belatedly sensing some kind of test, but the girl hurried me down two more hallways ahead of them and slammed the door to another room as soon as it was behind us.

This backroom was full of elves. Men, women and children of every shape and size, all of them dressed in pine green adorned with curlicues. Only the red mall shirt of the sorry-looking planner sitting with her head in her hands in the corner stood out against the forest of them. 

Their clothes matched the girl’s too perfectly for coincidence, backing up the theory that she was somehow connected with them, but something about the matching glint of all their bright eyes turned on us at once made me push her behind me at the sight of them. 

This broadened all their grins enough that I could see the needle-sharp points of their teeth.

“Only one today, Sprinkles?” A squat man near the front chirped to the girl behind me. 

“He’s got oodles of Christmas spirit to go around!” Sprinkles replied excitedly.

The room full of elves all ran tongues over their needle teeth, tasting something in the air that caused them to nod in agreement with Sprinkles.

“The dregs in the breakroom are yours,” the squat elf man called over his shoulder to the event planner, nodding toward the way I’d come from. “Pick a decent one to suit up for the kids this year!” 


The elf swarm flooded toward me, just as my hand missed the doorknob and Sprinkles’ teeth found my wrist.



For more horrors from F.J.R. Titchenell and Matt Carter, find us on Facebook and Twitter, or check out our other works!

FJR: Facebook, Twitter, Books.
Matt: Facebook, Twitter, Books.
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Holiday Horrors: What the Movies Don't Show

12/7/2014

0 Comments

 
In this season of warm and fuzzy good cheer, we year-round-Halloween folk feel a certain responsibility to offer a few winter chills to those like us who seek them.

After all the fun we had bringing you scares from Prospero all October long, we couldn't resist concocting this series of festive flash fics of fear.

So check back with us throughout the season for fresh, bite-sized of holiday horrors!

Previously On... Holiday Horrors: Black Friday
Picture
Holiday Horrors:
What the Movies Don't Show

By Matt Carter
I’m not a bad guy, but I done some bad things. I know that, but I didn’t deserve this. Neither did Chuck. Neither did Marty.

Okay, maybe Marty mighta deserved some of this because it was his idea and he said it’d be easy, but he didn’t deserve all of this, not all the way.

You hear that? He’s out there now, I know it, maybe behind that door, or in the vent. I can hear him scrabbling around, giggling, knowing there ain’t shit I can do against him, just waiting for his moment and knowing all I can do is lie here tryin’ to stop the bleeding before I pass out, looking at all his movie posters and watching its end on TV with all its happy holiday music…

There was music like that playin’ in the bar when Marty came to us with the job. He’s always been one of those guys lookin’ for opportunities, usually makin' a dishonest buck. When I still had my job I’d just laugh and wish him good luck not gettin' caught, but you know how things are. The economy’s shit, and you gotta make money somehow, especially this time of year. I mean, I got kids too, ya know? What am I gonna tell them, Santa couldn’t find them because their dad’s a bum?

No way I’d do that.

The air vent’s rattling. He’s in there. Glad I moved that bookcase against it when I was still strong enough to think. The bleeding’s not stoppin’…

Marty said he’d heard of this house, some rich mansion out in the boonies where the people who owned it left for the holidays. They had walls, but they were so far out they didn’t even invest in bars and security systems. All we had to do was bust open a window, spend maybe half an hour clearin’ out jewelry and electronics and boom, we’d all have a Merry Christmas.

So yeah, Chuck and me followed Marty out in the middle of nowhere in his van. We climbed the wall and we crossed the snowy yard to the most beautiful, plushest mansion I’d ever seen.

He’s trying the door handle. Blocked that too you little son of a bitch… He’s not trying too hard. He knows this house better, he’ll find a way in.

Would you believe it? We found an open window. It was like the Christmas spirits were smilin’ on us. I mean, yeah, the room we climbed in wasn’t all that nice, but we got in a little further, and we were in fat city. The living room alone, with its big shiny Christmas tree in the middle, had like three game systems, a safe Chuck said he could open quick and two jewelry stashes. We probably coulda made bank without checking the rest of the place out (though of course we would, I mean, why waste such an opportunity?)

I mean, yeah, it seemed a little weird at the time that they spent the time decorating this place and left everything on if they were gonna leave for the holidays, but who were we to argue with something so sweet?

There were footsteps on the floor above us, I remember that, and I remember almost telling the guys, but before I could, Chuck picked the safe.

That’s when everything went to shit.

There wasn’t any cash in there, but there was a blowtorch tied to some string. It opened up full blast on Chuck’s hands. I could hear him screaming, see his gloves and skin burning right off his hands. Marty stopped cold, but I had to help. I grabbed a flower vase and poured it on his hands. Water put out the fire, but his talented hands were gone.

Something tapping at the window. I couldn’t block that in time. Is it… no, just the wind. Just a tree. Relax… Relax…

Chuck was in a bad way and I knew we had to get out. Even Marty agreed. Chuck was blubbering, screaming, I knew he’d pass out soon. I tried to joke with him, tried to say how this was like one of those movies with that kid alone in his house, fighting off the burglars. Chuck didn’t remember it then, but maybe the pain put him past that.

We went for the room with the open window, but it was shut now.

Nailed shut.

And then we heard that little shit for the first time.

“You’re gonna have to try harder than that to escape, mister!”

I could only see him out of the corner of my eye, short, blonde and wearing pajamas. Couldn’t have been more than eight.

Didn’t want to deal with him. We just wanted to escape. But we couldn’t. He’d thought of that. All the windows were made of shatterproof glass and nailed shut, the doors reinforced to stop an invasion.

And the traps…

You see, it was just like the movies, but not like them at the same time. There were things in there you wouldn’t think would hurt a man but did. Like the marbles on the floor that made Marty slip and break his hip. Or the paint can dropped from the second floor that broke in Chuck’s skull, gouging him so deep I could see brains. Or the wire that sliced in my thigh, or the glue and plastic tarp the kid threw on Marty’s face, suffocating him.

Every time something happened, the kid was there, laughing but out of reach, always saying some cheesy line even when we shouted for him to go away or when we begged for him to let us leave.

By the time I barricaded in the kid’s room, I’d lost two fingers, busted some ribs and my collar bone I’d think on some brick-throwing machine he’d made, and sliced my leg so deep the blood comes in spurts.

The room’s covered in posters for those movies about the kid and his burglars, and I think he’s got them playing ‘round the clock on a flat screen in here. I locked myself in in time to see the end where the kid meets his parents and gets the swell of happy music that says Christmas has been saved.

But it hasn’t been saved. Not for me. Not for my kids. Not even for this kid, I don’t think, because I’m not sure he’s even a kid now. There’s no family pictures in this house, just pictures of him. Him and his black eyes, and his smile with the pointed teeth, and the skin that doesn’t look like it fits him right.

Tapping at the window again. I don’t look at it.

I know it’s him.

I just sit here wondering. Wondering just how long he’s done this.

How many other mooks like us fell for this.

How-


For more horrors from F.J.R. Titchenell and Matt Carter, find us on Facebook and Twitter, or check out our other works!

FJR: Facebook, Twitter, Books.
Matt: Facebook, Twitter, Books.
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Holiday Horrors: Black Friday

11/28/2014

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In this season of warm and fuzzy good cheer, we year-round-Halloween folk feel a certain responsibility to offer a few winter chills to those like us who seek them.

After all the fun we had bringing you scares from Prospero all October long, we couldn't resist concocting this series of festive flash fics of fear.

So check back with us throughout the season for fresh, bite-sized of holiday horrors!
Picture
Holiday Horrors:
Black Friday

By F.J.R. Titchenell

From the text archives of Janet Filmore:

11/27/2014

11:56am:

We’re getting ready to open. Steve did his speech reminding us to be thankful (isn’t he so damn clever) for the restful morning and start getting excited to help make other people’s holidays happy. Yeah, that’s totally why we’re manning cash registers and not soup kitchen ladles today.

12:01pm

Enjoy dinner, Carl. I mean it. When we’re rich and famous and out of school, we’ll be together whenever we want. I’ll update you when I can.

12:11pm

People are lined up all the way across the parking lot.

12:12pm

Well, they’re not technically lined up. More like crowded up. There’s some definite pushing to be in the row close enough to push their faces against the glass. It’s like being in a zombie movie. Soon they’ll breach the perimeter.

4:04pm

Taking my first cigarette break. Thinking about you. Well, you and my dad, but he doesn’t text. Taunt me. Does dinner smell amazing yet? Say hi to your parents for me. Tell them I wish Dad and I could have joined.


5:17pm

Tide’s ebbing a bit while most of the customers start taking their turkey breaks at home, but I’m not sure if that’s better, because it distills the crazy.

5:41pm

Spent twenty minutes explaining to one woman that those new tablets have been on backorder since they were released and that I’ve never even seen one in person. I explained the same thing to her yesterday. Apparently her cousin’s boyfriend told him they’d be in for Black Friday, so of course it MUST be true.

5:45pm

There’s a guy buying three turkeys out of the freezer section. I hope he doesn’t think he can cook them by tonight. Okay, I kind of hope he does.

5:55pm

Steve’s making me take my pizza break before the rush comes back. The pizza guy looks like he probably poisoned it, but it’s hot and it’s free.

6:35pm

There’s a little girl on the floor screaming about how much she needs a new dress. She’s unbuttoned her jeans to prove that they don’t fit. Her mom is yelling at her to sit still. The mom is also doing some painful-looking math with dollars-to-inches ratios in the TV aisle and hasn’t figured out that the kid is already in women’s fashion.

6:16pm

Women’s, not girls’. That ball gown is a circus tent on her.

6:22pm

The kid’s pants are completely missing now, and the dress came off like snakeskin when she took off running again. She just slid between a security guard’s legs like Indiana Jones. I don’t think the guard is even trying.

9:06pm

That stupid time clock still says “out for break” every time someone punches out. It’s only supposed to say “out” when it’s the second punch out of a full shift, but no one’s ever seen it happen. They keep saying they’re going to fix the rest of its glitches too. Like the randomly deleted overtime. Right.

9:07pm

Think I’m going to take the clock’s advice this time and crash in the breakroom. I’m on again at five. Sleep well, Carl.

11:45pm

Harvey’s commandeered the breakroom. He’s watching some cop show on the old TV and crying. Can’t stay there or he’ll expect me to ask why and then stay awake to hear the answer.

11/28/2014

12:21am

Found a spot in stockroom on a pallet of diapers.

2:04am

Cheryl’s all pissed that I wouldn’t help her re-stock the diaper aisle since I was in the way anyway.

5:11am

Hitting the next wave of bodies flowing in. Thought it might distract Steve, but wouldn’t let me clock back in until I bought a toothbrush and toothpaste and used them.

11:37am

My conveyor belt has developed a mouth again.

11:52am

Half of the stuff people are bringing to the front is making it into their bags, maybe less. The belt likes blue and green things best, though I can’t imagine it tastes them much, the way it swallows them whole.

12:30pm

Please answer me, Carl. I know it’s not the same, and I promise, we’ll get together and do a real meet-the-parents night when things settle down. We’ll have time for the families after the holidays are over. For now, I just need to know that you’re thinking about me.

12:39pm

I just noticed the pm on the clock. It should be daytime.

12:46pm

I think the parking lot is gone.

12:47pm

I’m standing on the little bit of raised concrete surrounding the store, and there’s nothing. No cars, no concrete, no sky. There’s nothing but black and the places in the black where the bodies come and go from.

12:49pm

They keep trampling in, and when their heavy meals and lost sleep and the effort of scrabbling over each other catches up with them, they stagger back out carrying the stuff away, but there is always more stuff.

12:50pm

Maybe it’s the same stuff, cycling back into the stockrooms when it touches the black, because there can’t be anywhere else for the bodies to carry it to.

12:51pm

This store is all there is and I am always here. I am ALWAYS here. Even when I’m with you, I’m here. I’m here or I’m going here or I’m coming from here and going back here before my break runs out, because that’s all it is when I step outside. A break.

12:54pm

I am always here I am always here I am always here I am always here

12:59pm

Are you there, Carl? Are you sleeping or doing dishes or are you finally gone too?

12:01pm

I’m thinking about stepping through the black to see where I end up.

12:06pm

Have to test it later. My break is over.


For more horrors from F.J.R. Titchenell and Matt Carter, find us on Facebook and Twitter, or check out our other works!

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Matt's Five Favorite "So Bad It's Good" Pieces of Pop Culture # 4, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2

1/7/2014

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Hello dear readers, and welcome back to my month-long tribute to guilty pleasure pieces of pop culture that may be bad, but manage to find a way of tickling me all the same. Already I have covered a favorite cheesy episode of one of my favorite shows (# 5), but now it's time to move on to a classic favorite for all the wrong reasons horror movie:
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Silent Night, Deadly Night is one of the most unremarkable and weird 80's holiday-related slasher flicks to come out in the wake of Friday the 13th's wild success. It had a surprisingly convoluted plot involving a young boy whose parents were murdered on Christmas Eve by a serial killer dressed as Santa Claus, whereupon he was put in a crazy Catholic orphanage for much of his childhood (giving him a skewed view of what's naughty and nice) and once he grows up, through oddly circuitous means, he becomes a serial killer dressed as Santa Claus who wanders around small-town Utah killing anyone he deems naughty (criminals, bullies, horny teenagers who appear to be in their mid-30's) like some yuletide version of The Punisher.
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Quote and all, this could actually be a frame out of the movie.

An Aside: It's kinda disturbing how many pictures there are online of The Punisher dressed as Santa.

Despite all of these lurid elements and a heaping helping of protests brought on by parents upset at the idea of a killer Santa Claus movie, Silent Night, Deadly Night is a pretty ho-hum film. It's utterly forgettable and can be easily written off as just another Friday the 13th clone. However, like any moderately profitable low-budget horror film, there were suits out there who wanted to make this film into a new franchise and sequelize the hell out of it. The only difference being they wanted to save money by making their sequel entirely out of footage from the first movie.
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What I'm trying to say is that they weren't exactly trying to make The Godfather, Part 2 here.
Some cooler (i.e. smarter) heads prevailed and made a case that maybe they'd need something resembling an original story, so a little extra money was put into the production, and a new story was tacked on to a lot of stock footage from the original movie. This is when the magic happens:
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It's a Christmas miracle!
The premise for this movie is thin at best. Ricky, the younger brother of the first film's killer, spends close to half the movie recounting his brother's life story and rampage using an excessive amount of flashbacks to events from the first movie, a lot of which Ricky would have absolutely no reason to know happened. After close to forty minutes of "Previously On, Silent Night, Deadly Night", we finally get a new movie when we start hearing about Ricky's life and crimes, including his holiday-related-psychosis, his intense fear of the color red, and his murderous rampages, one of which involves killing a Utah mobster with an umbrella.
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Naturally, it starts raining a few seconds later. No, I'm not making any of this up.
There's some more story in there that's not worth recapping, and an ending where he goes after the nun who abused his brother while dressed like Santa (a costume he wears for maybe ten minutes of the entire film, making the title more than a little wrong), and some poorly executed gore effects. For all intents and purposes, this should be an awful, utterly forgettable movie. It should be... and yet, it has one utterly terrible element that make this unforgettably hilarious.
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This guy.
Aside from all the hallmarks of a classic, terrible movie (ultra low budget, terrible script, little focus on things like continuity or coherence), this film has the insane and unforgettable performance of Eric Freeman as Ricky. I don't know where they found him, but he is unquestionably one of the worst actors ever to step in front of a camera. He overacts, he chews the scenery, he doesn't know where to put his emphasis in words, and despite having what I'm guessing is a decent physique, he manages to make 80's-movie softcore sex scenes look boring (seriously, neither he nor the girl move more than a couple inches in any direction). His eyebrows are all over the place, jumping across the screen every time he says a word. If William Shatner and Nicolas Cage were to have a child together, it would probably be a lot like Eric Freeman in Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2.

And of course, it is impossible to mention this movie without making note of the infamous "Garbage Day" Massacre. Once seen, it can't be unseen.

(WARNING: Some low-budget violence, poorly executed stunts that nearly kill a stuntman and terrible overacting ahead, be warned.)
As you can see, this film has all the makings of a holiday classic in the Carter household.

So, dear readers, is there anyone else out there who has sat through Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 willingly and enjoyed themselves? Has it changed your outlook on Garbage Day? Anybody else have some guilty pleasure pop culture favorites? Sound off in the comments below!


And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back! 

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-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)
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    Matt Carter is an author of Horror, Sci-Fi, and yes even a little bit of Young Adult fiction. Along with his wife, F.J.R. Titchenell, he is represented by Fran Black of Literary Counsel and lives in the usually sunny town of San Gabriel, CA.

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