‘You know they’ll come, Astrid, they always come.’

‘Why us, Adonis?’ I raise my shoulders in expectation of an answer, but as usual he just sighs.

‘Who cares why us, all we care about is survival. Never forget that my love.’

I look up into his beautiful blue eyes, framed with golden lashes, that reflect the brilliance of his flowing hair. I had thought him beautiful from the first moment I’d seen him and I knew for a fact he thought the same of me and we are both in agreement on how beautiful our children, Osiris, Helen and Eve, are.

I look around at my fellow freaks, each of them born on the Space Ship, Ark One, each of them considered perfect by the society that has bred them for this journey. Few elders survive now; most have died a slow agonising death from shame and dissolution as their journey from explorers, adventurers even, to freaks broke them. Those, like myself and my Adonis, who have come to terms with being freaks realise our journey is as valid as our parents’. After all, we are travelling in outer space and collecting data on everything we see. If we ever do return to earth, and that is a big if, the data we will have collected will be ground breaking. We will answer man’s eternal questioning, is there life on other planets? You bet there is and we don’t get to be top dog out here, we’re much lower down the food chain. The words of an old poem come back to me, “When the stars threw down their spears, And water’d heaven with their tears, Did He smile His work to see? Did He who made the lamb make thee?”

I look further a field and see the manager of the freak show coming towards our enclosure. His appearance still has the power to shock all of us, even me. I understand him better than the others, but that is my secret shame as I’m probably the nearest thing to an actual freak in this freak show of ours, by human standards that is. Where all the other babies on our spaceship were from pair matched optimised couples, I’d been created genetically with enhanced telepathic abilities. My development had been unnatural, forced on me by others, just like the children kept in boxes, their limbs broken and twisted in a sham of the human form, created rather than born different.

I hear his distinctive mind humming happily inside my head. I know he isn’t the ogre our parents believed. His ferocious appearance, his hairless greyish green scaled body and razor sharp teeth hide a being that feels responsible for our wellbeing, feels he makes the best of a bad situation. He’s tried to save all of us, but on his planet, the government and military had taken many from our landing site and only those whom he’d hidden had survived. The rest had been interrogated, beaten, studied, dissected and finally their bodies put on show in their museums.

In fact, we freaks are the lucky ones. On that thought, I look down into his enormous black soulless eyes and I know he is laughing. He finds the irony of our situation amusing for our freak show is designated as an educational resource and he is paid to research a new species. He is the highly respected Professor Dlz Cq hish and the hoards of visitors to the show will be other academics or invited guests, the rich benefactors of knowledge and the curious, the political, those who seek to profit from this new curiosity, the discovery of a totally new life form… humans. Removed from our habitat, the Earth, we have become as curious as the tiger was to our ancestors or John Merrick, the elephant man, who left one freak show only to become the star attraction in a more legitimate side show, science.

I focus now as I hear the buzz of different minds, different languages coming into range and I prepare to study the subjects, decipher each new language I hear. I watch Adonis and know he is making mental notes on the body types and adaptations he is seeing. All around me, we freaks are preparing, organising our thoughts to take-in and memorise as much information as we can. Our journey continues and we still collect information for our return to earth. The only difference now is that it’s our turn to be called freaks, we are the other, the outsiders, ridiculed and feared because we are so different.

I call our children to me and watch them run happily past the Professor only Eve pauses before entering our enclosure.  She is quiet, more timid than the other children and he is so very scary to look at, then for the first time ever I hear a word from his alien brain and I’m shocked… Freak is an ugly word.. Shame fills me and grief engulfs me before Eve plants herself squarely in my lap laughing. I look down at her and she says quietly ‘The Professor wants to know what a freak is?’

He sat at the dressing table mirror putting the last touches to his Halloween costume under her unfavourable scrutiny.  She didn’t understand that tonight was his night, the one he’d dreamed of for a lifetime. Tonight he would go to his office’s Halloween party as the person he should have been.  Steve McFadden would finally be Stephanie McFadden with no risk, it was a fancy dress party after all and no one needed to know he wasn’t in costume.

‘I told you to shut up, it does count. I’m going to be mixing with my co-workers as myself, the real me, and it doesn’t matter to me how many times you call me a coward, I’m taking my first steps tonight.’ Steve picked up a make-up brush and liberally applied vivid blue eyeshadow to each lid from lash to brow in a hideously unschooled fashion. He smiled and fluttered his badly applied eyelashes at his reflection.  He picked a lipstick, not just any lipstick, but one he’d had hidden in his briefcase for over a year, the shade was called Primal Passion.  He’d told the girl on the cosmetics counter that it was for his wife, as if Sadie would wear something like that. No, she didn’t wear anything that hinted at sexuality, she wore Hint of Pink or Dusky Blush, but never Passion in any shade at all.

‘Why don’t you leave, if you don’t like the new me? No, you wouldn’t leave me would you, sweetheart, not you, you wouldn’t let me live my life how I want.’ He turned and glared at the woman his mother had thought of as a daughter, not him who would have been the best daughter in the world but her. She’d stolen his mother from him. How he wished he’d never married her. His father had stopped picking on his sexual orientation the moment she’d entered his life and the relief was worth it then, but not now.

He stood, a little awkwardly, and walked self-consciously towards the closet where the frock he’d bought on the internet and the perfect matching red pumps in size fourteen awaited him. Halloween it might be, but it felt like Christmas as he wrapped himself for the coming festivities.

‘Don’t wait up,’ he said smiling at her disapproval. ‘You always said I was effete, you mocked my manhood and told me you’d make a better man than me. Tonight I’ll be mixing with people dressed as monsters, clothed in their own nightmares for amusement and likewise I’ll be dressed, not as a monster but as a butterfly who’s finally escaped the chrysalis. Say goodbye to Steve because he’s never coming back.’ He left the room, walked down the stairs and to his car without a backward glance.

The drive to The Lodge Hotel, where the party was being held, was difficult as he’d never driven in heals before. The car park was full when he arrived and he spent two or three minutes driving around until he found a space far from the lights of the party. He could hear Thriller, a staple of all Halloween parties, from where he parked. He discovered another thing he couldn’t do in heals, dance, but after tonight he’d have plenty of time to practice. Stephanie, he just knew, was going to be a great dancer, unlike him.

He entered the packed function room, which, decorated with pumpkins and witches’ brooms, looked very festive. The music stopped almost immediately.  He jumped as he heard the first scream, which was followed by another and then another. He turned full circle as the screams surrounded him.  He caught sight of himself in the mirror behind the bar and for the first time he saw himself as those around did. He wasn’t a beautiful women dressed for a night out, but a hideously macabre facsimile of womanhood, a man dressed in the rotting skin of his wife and for the first time he could smell the rotting flesh he’d flayed from her living body over the mist of Chanel No. 5 he walked through earlier.  He heard someone calling the police, describing him as grotesque and blood stained. So much for his beautiful dress, all they were interested in was the skin beneath it. In the words of Tammy Wynette, “Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman,” but he understood that now. He should have just left her and got the surgery, what had he been thinking. To the horror of those around him, he pulled off his disguise and looked around at the disgust on the faces of his colleagues.

Within minutes of their arrival, the two police officers sent to check on Mrs McFadden were joined by what seemed to be the whole division and a dozen or so forensic personnel. They broke in at exactly twelve midnight and made their way through the immaculate house. They searched the downstairs and finally opened the door of the master bedroom. Before them were the remains of Mrs McFadden, she’d been flayed alive and left sitting on one of the single beds. Blood had congealed on the bedspread, making the sensible cotton into a mockery of red satin. Her husband had taken her skin from the top of her head to just below what must have been her breasts. Eyes stared out of the bloody mess and to the shock of the police officers, barely able to hold the contents of their stomach in place, it, the thing on the bed, Mrs McFadden, was still alive.

One of the officers shouted for a paramedic, and then leaned down to comfort the victim. To his horror she began to laugh, the whole scene was like something from a horror movie and he for one was going to need a hell of a lot of counselling to get over this Halloween.

‘Just ask him,’ she said, blood oozing through her gritted teeth, ‘just ask him if he was any happier in my skin than he was in his own.’

He heard her sigh and knew she was dead.

Rich, but old, what use was money to Imelda when she was a prisoner in her own home, in her own body, held hostage by ill health and cared for by a small band of well meaning imbeciles.

Shoes and death had been her passions in life and now she was closer to death than she cared to think about and the shoes in her wardrobe…  She stared at the wood and smiled sadly. Only a few months ago she’d have taken a walk in her woods and come back inspired to write a few chapters of her latest novel. There’d be no more mysteries from the pen of Imelda Watson, Goddess of Gore, no more murders and no more shoes.

“What a lot of shoes you have,” the woman with the duster said as if reading her mind. “There must be at least 40 pairs in this wardrobe alone. That’s odd Miss Watson,” the carer voice babbled on cheerfully, “these shoes are all different sizes.”

With a great effort, she turned her head, looking briefly at the woman holding a pair of tiny size three white sling-backs in one hand and a pair of beautiful black patient court shoes in the other, and sighed inside her head. The women, an ugly brute with nasty rubber soled lace-up trainer things on her feet, continued her tidying or snooping from Imelda’s point of view.

“Oh, I got one of your novels, The Slaughter Club, from the library yesterday and I’m going home to finish it.”

Imelda tried to glare at the woman and tell her to ‘shut-the-fuck-up’ but the noise that came from her lips sounded as if she’d strangled a cow with its own udder. First, the chatty-fatty touched her shoes and now she was going to talk about her novel, her creation. Imelda wished for death to take her for the tenth time in as many minutes. She’d written about slow painful deaths for thirty years, but now she was living it herself, worse still, her death included torture by a group of chatty women who invaded her personal space without compunction, without finesse.

“I can’t believe the murderer will get away with it, though. I mean, someone must of have missed the girls or the police would have put two and two together. I know the sales assistant’s boyfriend is going to find her before the group kill her, that’s obvious.”

Imelda wanted to laugh at the woman’s banal chatter and to take her rubbery-blubbery throat in her hands and bite her tongue off as she squeezed the life out of her body. She wished she had a pen or the ability to hold one, this woman would be a new type of victim for her novels but at this moment, she believed she could make it work. She looked down at the woman’s shoes, perhaps not.

“Mike, my hubby, is picking me up and we’re taking Sally, our dog, for a walk and a picnic, so I’m just going to put your lunch on to cook, liver casserole, isn’t that nice and Lily will bring it up and feed you later. I’ll see you tomorrow and if I have time we can finish talking about your novel. Won’t that be nice?”

The woman left the room with the bustling gait of the overly hormone replaced and finally Imelda could relax and contemplate the joys of liquidised liver casserole… yuk. Just once, she’d like to choose what she ate but that wasn’t going to happen ever again. She hated liver casserole almost as much as she hated chatty-fatty woman.

She drifted a little, not sleeping, but not fully conscious either. In her mind, she plotted another novel with another murder and then most importantly how to get away with it. Of course, the idea of writing anything was laughable since her stroke. Thank God she’d had the foresight to write down and get her agent, Franklin, to make sure she was cared for at home, not that he visited anymore. No one did, except the happy band of torturers that cared for her.

From her semi-conscious state, Imelda, came fully awake to the sound of a dog barking in the distance. Dogs were something she never allowed on her property, she hated them and locals knew better than to trespass in her wood. She stared out of the window, at an unfamiliar car and the chatty-fatty woman talking to a strange man were the only things she could see. Something about the scene bothered her, the man was holding something in his hand a ligature maybe, perhaps he was going to put Imelda out of her misery and strangle the annoying woman.

Something moved at the edge of the wood and a dog bounded out, heading straight for the couple. The dog’s gait was odd and as it came closer, to Imelda’s horror, she could see what it held in its mouth, a bone, a femur by the size and shape.

When Lily took the police upstairs to talk to Imelda Watson, they found her dead, lying on the floor clutching an armful of shoes all of them different sizes, all of them belonging to the bodies in the wood. In the end, even Imelda would have had to admit chatty-fatty woman was right; the murderer can’t escape discovery forever.

Postscript

With the discovery of twenty-three bodies in the woods at the home of the famous novelist Imelda Watson, sales of her novels have skyrocketed. Her agent, Franklin Dean, has been quoted as saying that it is the realism in the novels that grips the reader. A police spokesperson told the press that the case is closed and they are no longer looking for anyone in connection with the murders.

Most of the aged and infirm residents were deep in memory-laden slumber, the odors coming from them and the building prickling the vampire’s heightened senses with mixtures of repulsion and interest. Stale urine, cloying and faded bowel reek combined with that of sickly sweet creams and powders created a contradiction in reality.

Then there was the blood, old and heavy and laboriously pushed like heavy sludge through ancient veins by ancient hearts. The blood superseded any repugnance felt by the vampire—that and Maribel.

He never took blood from the young. He had been made a vampire when in his twenties and knew the price of surrendering youth for immortality. He fed on old ones near death or devastated by the loss of a partner.

Maribel was supposed to fit in the last category. Her husband had shared the apartment with her at the nursing home for over seven years. They had been married for sixty. A stroke felled him and she soon followed with an inoperable collapsed hip. They had no family. Because they needed twenty four hour a day care, they ended up in the nursing home and did quite well until Maribel’s husband caught the flu, eventually leading to his death from pneumonia.

The vampire knew she would be overwhelmed; he heard it in the thoughts of the night shift workers and other residents. But no one guessed Maribel’s senility had progressed to a point where she actually forgot her husband had died. When the vampire came in, she believed it was Harold, returning home late from work.

The vampire wasn’t certain what to do. She wasn’t close to death, and she was so happy to think Harold was still around the vampire couldn’t bleed her, so he appeased her instead.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Timothy C. Hobbs is the Vamplit published author of The Pumpkin Seed and The Smell of Ginger.

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At the top of a steep cliff a derelict church serves its congregation of dust, cobwebs and birds roosting in the rafters. One human occupant lives there hidden in the cellar. He is cursed never walk in the tortuous sunlight, but to roam the woods on the cliff at night in the form of a hideous beast struggling with the violent desire to kill while striving to preserve remnants of his own humanity.
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Tonight, as he did every night, the vampire came to spend the last part of his evening with Maribel. He came to the nurse’s station and offered a smile to the charge nurse, his prominent fangs glinting in the soft computer lights.

She returned the smile and pulled her collar slightly away exposing her neck. “I keep tempting you,” she said teasingly. “But you never take the bait. What’s wrong? Am I that unattractive?”

“Dear, lady,” the vampire said with a slight bow of his head. “You are quite stunning, but, alas, much too young. Maybe in fifty years or so.”

The nurse pretended a frown. “Well, I suppose I can be patient.” She winked and added, “Maribel’s still up and waiting . . . as usual.”

He entered the apartment slowly. The television was on the late news and turned down low. Other physical traits my have abandoned Maribel, but hearing was not one of them.

She turned to the doorway. “I’m so glad you made it back from work okay, dear,” she said. “And how was your day at the office?”

The vampire glanced at her lovely, lined face. She had pulled back her salt and pepper hair and clipped it in a wad behind her head. There was just the slightest hint of lavender and vanilla hovering in the air –Maribel’s favorite body spray.

The vampire went to the side of the bed, bent down and gently kissed her neck, feeling, for an instant, the rhythmic pounding of the artery under her soft skin.

“Mr. Clinton is a slave driver as usual,” the vampire said as he rose away from Maribel and sat in a recliner between Harold’s empty bed and hers. He had learned all about Harold’s bank job over the past months.

“That old miser,” Maribel said with a light laugh. “All of you still call him Scrooge behind his back?”

“As much as possible,” the vampire chuckled.

Maribel yawned. She turned slightly to look at ‘Harold’. An impish smile rose on her face. She patted the side of her bed. “Why don’t you squeeze in beside me?”

The vampire got out of the chair and positioned himself sideways close to her. She hugged his neck. “You really should see about cutting your hair, Harold. I don’t imagine old Scrooge cares for the rebellious look,” she stated playfully then whispered, “I wish we could still,” she patted his leg, “You know. I’d like to feel that hair on my skin.” She shuddered slightly and hugged him tighter.

“Behave now,” he said without conviction.

Maribel giggled and snuggled her face into his neck. She fell asleep there just as Letterman came on television.

* * * *

A week later, when the vampire returned for his nightly visit and approached the charge nurse’s desk, he sensed an immediate dark mood.

“What is wrong?” he asked, reading her mind before she could answer.

Complete surprise–cerebral aneurysm.

“It was fast,” the charge nurse informed him.

The vampire’s face clouded; something happened to him that had not occurred in centuries: the corners of his eyes welled with red tears.

“I convinced them to leave her body until morning,” the charge nurse stated, tears of her own spilling.

The vampire walked slowly to Maribel’s apartment. She lay peacefully in her bed, the smell of lavender and vanilla embracing her.

The vampire knelt and took her cold hand. He kissed it and sobbed. He felt a touch on his shoulder. The charge nurse stood behind him.

“I think I can keep the room open for you. I know enough about the funding here to make you the resident,” she said.

The vampire glanced up at her, streaks of red flowing down his face. “Why?” he asked.

The charge nurse knelt. “For you and me,” she said with tenderness. “Fifty years is not so long to wait, is it?”

I guess I should admit that when they first announced a Fright Night remake, I nearly spit blood.  I mean, how could they take something sacred and re-do it?!  Especially in this day and age, when many films seem to be brain candy and vampires have lost their bite (literally — the Meyer vampires have no fangs, and they sparkle).

But then I learned of the cast and crew — Buffy writer Marti Noxon was on board, as well as Colin Farrell (a great actor, and hawt!), Toni Collette, Anton Yelchin, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and the Tenth Doctor himself, David Tennant (playing the beloved Peter Vincent).  A lot of great actors in there, and it seemed like the modernization of Charlie’s mom might be a good thing.  Then, when I heard that Jerry would be scary (the shark in Jaws),  I changed my mind about the remake, so much that I was eagerly anticipating it, even making it my birthday outing.

Honestly, I was disappointed.  Let me preface the rest of this review by saying that when I first saw True Grit (2010), I wasn’t sure I liked it, because it differed from the 1969 movie (and novel).  However, on my second viewing, I appreciated the movie in its own right.  While I tried looking at Fright Night as its own flick, I couldn’t help but make comparisons to the original, and I think that’s where the disappointment lies.

Some may argue that the original, by now — some 25 years later — is dated.  I say that a good story is never dated; look at Hitchcock’s films.  And Fright Night (1985) is really Vertigo with vampires.  Everything about it is perfect.  You have an average, ordinary teenager, Charlie, staying up late watching horror shows, when…. he sees his neighbor with fangs about to bite into a girl.  And the missing prostitute had just gone into that house the other day!!

Of course, no one believes the poor kid, they all think he was dreaming after watching too many Hammer horror flicks.  Even his good friend, who is into the occult, earning him the nickname “Evil” Ed, laughs in Charlie’s face and calls him a fruitcake.

The vampire, Jerry Dandridge, is handsome, charming, and suave — but underneath, he is evil to the core.  He shows this to Charlie, but gives Charlie, “something he didn’t have – a choice.”  Dandridge is evil, but in those words, there’s a bit of longing, which becomes more pronounced when it’s revealed that Charlie’s girlfriend looks exactly like a long-lost love of Jerry’s (a theme that Vampire Diaries totally stole!).

I could go on and on about the first one, but I’ll stop there for now and get into the remake.  This movie, instead of telling a good story with believable, interesting, and most importantly — likeable — characters, was more a collection of scenes.  The scene in which Charlie, his mom, and Amy meet Jerry.  The scene in which Evil is turned.  The scene in which Charlie goes to Peter Vincent for help. The scene in which Charlie deliberately makes Jerry wait on the back porch (not inviting him in) for beers (this scene, I have to say, was actually pretty good).  And the scene in which Chris Sarandon, the original Jerry Dandridge, makes a cameo.  A collection of scenes, which, while some were good and suspenseful, didn’t really make up for a spectacular movie.

Why?  Well, they messed with the characters and the dynamics, too.  Charlie is still an average kid, but now he’s cool and popular ’cause he’s dating the school Hot Chick.  Good for him, but I identified more with the old Charlie.  Jerry is handsome, but he’s not socially adept; he doesn’t woo and charm Charlie’s mom or Amy, as in the first one.  Jerry had a motive back in 1985, to recapture lost love.  It made his character interesting and sympathetic.  But he was still a vampire, and killed to feed.  This time around, it was great to see a scary, out-for-blood vampire, but Dandridge had no depth, really.  For me, part of the vampire’s allure is that they are so seductive and tempting — you want to be with him, but you can’t, because he’s evil.

A big disappointment was Evil Ed.  His character is whiney and a petty blackmailer.  Yes, he’s a nerd who’s been dumped by his BFF, Charlie, so that Charlie can date the Hot Chick, but blackmailing Charlie to go check on a former friend by threatening to have childhood videos go viral does not make him a sympathetic character.  Yes, he did have a line, “You just think you’re so cool, Brewster…” and thank goodness that the delivery was not meant to be like the first one, because no one could pull off Stephen Geoffreys.  In the first one, Ed was likeable.  This time, he’s not.

The biggest disappointment is Peter Vincent.  While David Tennant’s performance was great — the character was completely unlikeable; crass, cowardly, and not actually necessary

In the original, Charlie goes to Peter because he’s got a vampire living next door to him, one who’s sworn to kill him, and Peter is, after all, the Great Vampire Killer.  This is akin to the story of Dracula (later adapted into numerous Hammer films) in which a vampire moves into town, and it’s up to Van Helsing to kill him.  The wrinkle — the 1985 Vincent was actually a washed-up actor who was about to lose his job, which was third-rate at best.  He didn’t believe in vampires, nor had he any intention of fighting them.  But the character was likeable, even as a coward, and he is completely redeemed when Vincent bucks up and fights side-by-side with Charlie.

There were details in this movie that also were unrealistic — YES, I know it’s fiction, with vampires, but if you’re going to have a vampire move into town, I think, even in transient areas, he won’t be taking out entire families in a single evening.  Nor will he make them into vampires so that they could do his bidding or take over the town. And if he’s got a kid in his house, the old Jerry would have sniffed him out in half a heartbeat and taken him down, splat!

There was just something ordinary and very human about all the 1985 characters.  Little details that were lost in the remake — no Billy Cole (no homoerotic undertones, no treating Jerry like some aristocrat with servants), the loss of love interest between a vampire and his reincarnated love, the fact that vampires can love, despite being demons, that Charlie was just an ordinary kid who had something extraordinary happen to him, a fading actor who gets to be the hero he always played in films.  Also, in 2011, entire families are wiped out in a single night.  True, the area is transient, but — doesn’t anyone notice this (besides Evil Ed?).  The original had prostitutes missing — no one would really care about them, and the dynamics between the characters — it was just perfect.  Fright Night 2011 is two-dimensional, whereas the original was fleshed-out and completely 3D.

Maybe, like True Grit (2010), I’ll see this one again and I’ll like it as a movie in its own right.  But compared against the original, it was a disappointment.

SUMMER READING PICK

Nicole Hadaway is the author of Release. Ben never imagined meeting vampires, let alone demons and werewolves, but soon discovers that Miranda and her friends have very useful talents, especially when it comes to saving children. The sequel Return released later this year.

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Someday I’ll be a big star.

So she moves out to L. A. but her dad doesn’t like her, she can’t please him or maybe she isn’t trying.

She starts to drift.

Jobs and men and dance clubs, hotel rooms and bedrooms sometimes even in cars. She was sliding downhill and fast.

She had loved a few guys but they were gone–lost one way or another.

The slide gathers momentum and often she has no place to sleep.

She remembers the Biltmore Hotel and her suitcase in the train station….was she going home?

A voice soothing her, urging her to come along so she goes.

“Need a place to sleep tonight?”

It’s a shock because this is it. This is the guy with the killing hands.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Carole Gill was selected by North West Playwrights of England for further development. It was an invaluable experience but Carole found she prefers to write fiction. She loves to scare herself and others with her horror fiction and is widely published in horror and sci-fi anthologies. Currently, Masters of Horror Anthology One, Masters of Horror Damned If You Don’t, Sonar’s Ladies and Gentlemen of Horror 2010, SNM’s Bonded By Blood3 Languish In Lament, Sonar’s Whitechapel 13, Anthology, Rymfire’s Undead Tales, Zombie Winter, Angelic Press’ Demonic Toys, Netbound’s Spirits of the Night and Enter at Your Own Risk, Dark Gothic Fiction. Sci Fi Almanac 2009 and 2010 and Science Fiction Freedom Magazine, issues 1-4, Sci Fi Talk’s Tales of Time and Space. Although she loves writing sci-fi her true love is dark gothic horror. Her gothic horror novel, The House on Blackstone Moor, published in 2010 by Vamplit is her first novel. The sequel, Unholy Testament will be published by Vamplit later this year.

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Oh the pain. Pain like she never knew—! And then the quiet painless peace that only death can bring.

Suddenly there’s a shout from somewhere, no not there at her murder but, here in the place she is now.

“Hey kid, you ain’t so special. There’s lots of us see?!”

Elizabeth Short known to all the world as the Black Dahlia turns to see all the other spirits of the dead—the young the old, all converging upon her, wanting to tell her their own stories.

One is holding her stomach she looks pregnant. “Sure, they killed you but they murdered me and my baby…and my friends.”

The friends are there too and they’re all weeping for their unlived lives, for that which was taken so cruelly away from them.

Sharon Tate and the La Biancas too, gotta feel for them and Dahlia does.

Yet in a strange way she is comforted.

Shared pain and all. Misery loves company, the murdered comfort one another because no one else can.

The Hillside Stranglers’ victims, all young–cling to Elizabeth, collective final experience. There’s a lot to that.

“I know,” she says. “I remember.”

And that guy Glatman. sometimes he said he was looking for models and other times he was lonely. Bigger net, see? He murdered wannabe models and girls looking for love. Whatever they sought they found death instead.

Tied up and photographed. Lonely terrible deaths lying in the desert on what should have been a date or a chance.

More memories of death to share.

This is unending for there are more, thousands upon thousands more—fallen flappers and gangsters, beautiful girls, kissed up to the wrong guy, only takes one wrong guy you know.

Young gangsters cut down in a thousand gutters, still slick with carnations in their lapel along with bullet holes.

Some try to laugh but others cry because they don’t care anymore. When you’re dead you don’t get shamed. They’re beyond shame and hurt and pain too.

Gang members of more recent times, what the hell do their colors mean any more?

Nada.

The Bloods and the Crips and more besides, united in death at least, so much so they offer comfort to one another.

“Shit though, ain’t it awful, no second chance, man.”

Nope not ever. Once you’re here you’re here.

Prospectors and Indians, hell even primates … rubbing their fatal wounds as though they still had pain.

All those that were murdered in this place yesterday or zillions of years ago are here now all present and accounted for–ghosts each and every one of them.

Old habits die hard, the flesh goes only the spirit remains.

Dahlia and the others, sometimes they forget, invariably they do. It’s tough being dead, and if that’s the case being murdered is the hardest thing to cope with of all.

There are the memories of their living lives and if that isn’t bad enough, the recollection of their deaths is pure poison because it’s like dying all over again.

One of the other spirits tries to comfort them.

“We are not just lost; we are murdered and lost—gone from the world we knew, fated to be among the murdered souls—existing in our own domain, existing forever here because we can’t be anywhere else.

The best you can do is to forget, memory’s a killer and vagueness is the best hope you’ve got, the best hope any of us have.”

They listen until the next time, until they go through all that sad stuff all over again.

The curse of death, the fate of the murdered, the sad existence in their own domain, where the murdered reside.

692 words

© 2011 Carole Gill Copyright

She got out of her car and milled with the scant customers there, coming upon the most remarkable phonograph sitting on a mahogany table. It appeared old but well cared for. The base was of the same mahogany as the table. A silver-plated horn rose from the rear, and a small rectangular plaque engraved with the legend His Master’s Voice was attached in the center of the base. Alice smiled at the image of the little dog cocking his head into the horn of the phonograph pictured on the plaque.

There was a green tag with the number 25 written on it. Under the number was printed If interested, bring this tag inside.

Alice glanced at her watch and decided she had enough time.

“It states here the item is a Victor V phonograph,” the estate manager said, then added, “Says here it is a vintage 1907 model and in remarkable condition.”

Alice asked, “How much?”

“Three hundred dollars.”

“Oh, that’s a little steep.”

“Of course that includes the mahogany table and a collection of records.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Timothy C. Hobbs is the Vamplit published author of The Pumpkin Seed and The Smell of Ginger.

NEW RELEASE

MUSIC BOX SONATA

At the top of a steep cliff a derelict church serves its congregation of dust, cobwebs and birds roosting in the rafters. One human occupant lives there hidden in the cellar. He is cursed never walk in the tortuous sunlight, but to roam the woods on the cliff at night in the form of a hideous beast struggling with the violent desire to kill while striving to preserve remnants of his own humanity.
Purchase on Smashwords

Alice thought a moment. The possibility of not owning the phonograph left her with an unexpected feeling of disappointment. Really, she could afford it. The house was paid for, so was her car. Carl had given them to her as part of the divorce agreement after leaving her for a much younger woman: an American Lit student of his.

She had steady employment, so why not splurge?

“Will you take a check?” she asked.

* * *

The pleasant fall afternoon turned into a rainy one, the temperature dropping behind a cold front.

Alice got the fireplace going, poured herself a brandy, and sifted through the 78 RPM recordings. She came across an Enrico Caruso recording. She placed the record on the turntable, wound the handle, and lifted the arm, placing the needle gently down.

Alice sat back in her chair. Caruso’s melodic voice filled the room. She took a sip of brandy and laid her head back into the plush cushion. She never noticed the teardrops sliding silently down her cheeks.

* * *

The fire burned down to a series of snaps and pops. The rain had stopped. A light dusting of frost settled on the eaves of the house.

A whisper came though the horn, drifting to Alice’s sleeping form.

“Listen,” it said softly.

Alice stirred but did not awaken. Images formed in her subconscious.

The shadowy outlines of two people appeared: one a young man, the other an older woman.

Alice’s heart sped up when the image cleared, revealing the woman aiming a gun at the man. “Cheater,” the woman screamed.

The gun exploded and the young man gripped his chest.

Alice woke up suddenly. Her eyes still heavy, she glanced at the phonograph. A face briefly outlined the inside of the horn then disappeared.

Alice dismissed her dream and the face to the brandy and fatigue. She got up and went to bed without taking her clothes off.

Next morning Alice overslept. It was already close to two pm when she got out of bed. She saw she was still dressed in her clothes. She took them off, had a quick shower, and brushed her teeth.  Instead of dressing, she slipped on a pair of pajamas. She went to kitchen and made coffee, which she sipped as she sat down and sorted through the records again.

“That’s odd,” she said, coming across one entitled On the Beautiful Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II. “I thought it was just The Blue Danube.”

Alice took the record from its sleeve. A piece of yellowed newsprint slid out and fell into her lap. She picked it up and read: Heiress Charlotte Colt acquitted of murdering her young lover. District Attorney Williams claims jury and trial influenced by the defendant’s wealthy family. A motion for a new tr . . . The rest of the clipping had been cut away.

Alice put the clipping back in the record sleeve, got up, and went to the phonograph. She took the Caruso recording off the turntable. As her hand passed the side of the phonograph, she noticed a slight indention in the wood. Alice pressed her finger against it and the panel opened. She looked inside and found a revolver with the word Colt scripted on both sides of its pearl handle.

Alice took the gun out and balanced it in her hand. She felt a distinct tingle travel up her arm. She broke the chamber and found only one shell missing.

A knocking at her door disturbed the moment.

Alice placed the gun inside the phonograph and walked to the door and opened it. Carl stood outside. His face was haggard, his clothes disheveled, his normally smooth cheeks covered with bristly stubs.

Carl shrugged. “I should have known better, Alice. A young girl like that.” He lowered his head. “She kicked me out.”

Alice made no reply, just stared vacantly at her ex-husband.

“Well, can I come in?” Carl asked harshly. “Don’t you want to say ‘I told you so’?”

Alice turned and walked back into the house. Carl came in and shut the door.

“I never should have left you, Alice,” Carl announced as he watched her walk to the phonograph. “What is that? An old gramophone?”

Alice put the Strauss record on and wound the handle. The strains of On the Beautiful Blue Danube waltzed through the air as she pulled the Colt out and aimed it at Carl.

He smiled momentarily then frowned. “Hey! What’s going on? Put that thing down, Alice.”

“Alice?” The woman standing by the phonograph asked, a sardonic smile lifting her lips. “My name’s Charlotte,” she said tonelessly as she pulled the trigger.

1000 words

Life was tough, tougher than he could ever remember. The market for a shamus like him had dried up with the advent of the internet and digital cameras, he found himself on the skids, bumming odd jobs from house dicks and working cleanup for the local hoods. They were punks with no honour, they had no code, life was cheap to them, death even cheaper he thought. He flicked the butt of his gasper out the window and watched it arc through the air before falling to the rain-glazed road, hissing its displeasure as it faded away into oblivion.

He cracked a smile as a waft of stale perfume from the twenty-buck chippy he’d banged in the car last night hit him. She’d told him her name, Sadie, like he’d cared. To him, she was as faceless and nameless as all the others who’d serviced his needs over the years. He wasn’t a complicated guy, he knew that, understood that nothing about him was exceptional.  His dreams were as grey as the flipper he habitually wore over a suit that had seen, like him, better days.

Were the lights ever going to change? He’d run a million red lights in his life but not tonight, tonight he couldn’t risk it, not with the cargo he was carrying. He sighed, looking around. The road was empty and he was only a mile from home, but he had to make a stop first. He eased his foot off the brake unconsciously preparing for the inevitable. When he looked up at the lights over the intersection again they were green. He hit the accelerator and for a second the tires spun on the greasy street, then he was on his way.

He took a detour, just a small one. The recession that had hit so many had made his life harder in the beginning, no new building meant no wet concrete, but he’d become inventive now and with a little grease to the right palm, the stiff in his trunk would be history just like the one last month. So far he’d been lucky and not attracted the attention of the hammer and saw, but he knew it couldn’t last. He needed to get out before something bad happened, before he got himself caught or ended up in someone else’s trunk ready to be fitted with his own metaphorical concrete overcoat.

The drive to his grubby little apartment took minutes, but he didn’t hurry he knew what was waiting for him and there would be another one… Oh well, maybe this time would be different.

“Hey guys I’m home has the newbie arrived yet?” he said as he entered what appeared to be his empty apartment. He did it every time now and wondered if his neighbours thought him mad. Probably, but most likely they didn’t even notice. He’d better watch himself in future though, he was sure that Feldman in 5C was getting hinky and everyone knew the guy was a stoolie. Maybe he’d finger Feldman to the boss, maybe he wouldn’t, the last thing he needed was to bring trouble back to this flophouse he called home, life on the lamb didn’t appeal to him.

He headed for the kitchen and the bottle of cheap hooch that waited for him. A glass filled with the amber poison waited on the table. It flowed over his pipes in a raw burn. Then he saw the first one materialise and just like every night, he wasn’t alone anymore.

“Hey man you want one?” he asked the insubstantial figure leaning against the fridge, the slug hole in his head a vivid reminder of why he was here.

“Why?”

“I don’t like to drink alone?”

“Why’d you off me?”

“Oh that… Why not? You were just a job, it’s nothing personal.” He took the last swig of his drink, grabbed the bottle and headed to the TV. It was a pointless conversation and one he’d given up taking part in years ago. He took the shooter from the left hand inside pocket, dropping it casually on the sofa, then shrugged out of the flipper and dumped it on the chair next to him.

The moving pictures eased the dull ache in his neck as he relaxed and poured himself another shot. The guys would be along soon. Moments later, they began to materialise and take up their usual places, the new guy, who didn’t know better, just stood in front of the TV staring at him.

“Why?”

He didn’t answer, why should he. It wasn’t as if he invited the smuck into his joint and anyway one of the others would start soon and then they’d all kick off. Maybe if he ignored him the stiff would just shut up and watch the TV like the others.

“Why?”

This time, it wasn’t just the newbie’s voice he heard.

“God damn it! See what you’ve done now you’ve started them all off. You wanna know why, simple they pay me. They gave me your name, told me when you’d be alone and I got five-hundred bucks to make sure you disappeared real quiet like.”

“Oh.”

Just like that, oh and he was satisfied, they always were. Ghosts, who-the-hell understood them. He looked around for the remote control.

“Okay which one of you jokers has it,” he asked, looking around at the grinning faces of the dead, each with a vivid slug hole in their forehead.

Grace Mahoney is the Vamplit published author of The Dancing Dead. She lives and works in North Wales, she writes poetry because she hears it in her head and writes vampire poetry for fun. She has no plans to write anymore vampire poetry at the present as she is working on another project. She also edits and publishes other authors work and finds this just, or more, fulfilling than writing herself.

Genre: Fiction, Poetry–Words: 4167–Published: March 2, 2010–Purchase on Smashwords

Where to Visit Grace
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She took their souls to an ancient sleep beneath the earth, to lie so deep.

Her face holds beauty, horror and despair, her fate to kill and still to care.

Satan’s daughter and his bride, she wanders the earth bound to his side.

Cursed to kill at Satan’s will, evil’s angel, but cruelly part of humanity still.

She sobs as she takes a loved one’s last breath, she’s tired of such unnecessary death.

Again Satan points his crooked finger and Regal know better than to linger

and so she sweeps in to take the life from a husband, from a wife.

You’ll never awake to see a serpents smile coming from a face so vile

lying safe within your bed, you’re probably already dead.

If you’ve tasted her fatal kiss, you’ll end in hell or heavenly bliss

she sends the good on their way, but if you’re bad, her master you’ll pay.

Regal is death personified Satan’s reluctant bride, tied

to death, she can only sigh, her existence means man must die.

“Mas tequila,” Parker ordered.

A skinny cadaverous faced bartender poured another shot. “What brings the senor to Guanajuato? The mummies?”

“Mummies?” Parker asked.

“Si, The Museum of the Mummies.”

Parker shook his head no. “It’s a secret,” he whispered. “I’m on the run.” Parker held a finger to his lips. “Ssshhh.

Parker giggled. He ran his hand over the right side of his shirt, feeling the bandages underneath.

The veterinarian in the last shithole he passed through had advised ‘Just one half inch more down and the liver it sliced, senor.’

How many attempts was it? Six? Seven?

Parker knew the secret now. No guns. A knife through the heart. The bodies Mr. Grim sent could be stopped no other way. That’s why Parker kept a six inch stiletto tucked in his pocket.

It all began when Parker had been clinically dead for over three minutes. ‘It’s amazing the EMT’s revived you,’ the ER doctor informed. ‘I suppose you could say you cheated death.’

Parker discovered Death didn’t like to be cheated, that Mr. Grim will send out the newly deceased to collect what is rightfully his, promising the assassins an extra week of life.

“Mas tequila, senor?” the bartender asked.

Parker shoved his shot glass forward.

As he poured, the bartender suggested, “Maybe the senor would like Cassandra to show him the mummies. For a few pesos she will take you on a private tour.”

“Who?”

The bartender pointed to a back booth. “There. Cassandra takes touristas all the time.” The bartender winked. “For a few more pesos . . .” He raised his eyebrows. “Muy romantica.”

Parker glanced at the booth. This was a typical Mr. Grim scenario—luring him with sex.

Parker stumbled a bit when got off the bar stool, but his balance returned quickly.

He walked to the booth and found a young woman sitting there dressed in a tight, low cut dress.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BLOG

Timothy C. Hobbs is the Vamplit published author of The Pumpkin Seed, Charles is a drinker of human blood and an eater of human flesh, a monster dressed in the skin of a man, and The Smell of Ginger, it’s Halloween in Jasper, Texas when Butch, Suzy and their dad encounter two spinster sisters who have been waiting eternally for children to call their own. His new book, The Music Box Sonata will be released in September.

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“Buenas noches,” she said.

* * * *

The rows of glass cases were lighted with internal bulbs.

“A cholera epidemic,” Cassandra explained. “The dead had to be buried quickly. Sometimes they were not dead yet. That is why so many have twisted faces and limbs from trying to dig out of their graves.”

The walk to the museum in the cool night air had sobered Parker considerably.

“Hey, senorita.” Parker smiled. “The bartender said I get more than a mummy tour for some extra pesos.”

Cassandra frowned briefly. “The senor does not wish to see the mummies?”

Parker shook his head negatively, pulled paper notes from his pocket, and handed them to Cassandra.

She shrugged her shoulders. “Very well. There is room in the basement.”

Parker stayed close behind her, wanting to take care of Mr. Grim’s assassin as soon as they got to the room.

They went down a short flight of stairs. Cassandra opened a door leading into a small room. Parker grinned when he saw a toilet in the middle of the place along with a sink sunk low into the wall for, he imagined, convenient  hygienic cleaning.

The sound of Cassandra unzipping her dress brought Parker’s attention back to her. She stood naked by a folding cot.

“Does the senor prefer to be on top or bottom?”

Parker eyed her body. She was magnificent. Heavy breasts studded with dark, erect nipples; a flat abdomen sweat-sheaned hovering above a gorgeous bush of black pubic hair.

“The senor prefers to be on top,” Parker said aware the heavy breasts needed to fall sideways so he could hit the heart unimpeded.

Cassandra lay flat, closed her eyes and waited as Parker pretended to unhook his trousers, moving the stiletto from his pocket instead.

Cassandra’s eyes flipped open when she heard the blade click free. Parker drove it directly into her heart. Cassandra gasped for air, her eyes wide with surprise.

“Gringo!” The shout came from the doorway. “Crazy fucking gringo!”

The bartender rushed Parker, who turned sideways just in time to avoid the machete that whizzed by his neck.

Parker grabbed the bartender from behind. They struggled. Parker shoved him to the floor, pulled the blade form Cassandra’s body, and stabbed the man before he could get back up.

The bartender slouched to the floor. Parker must have pierced a lung as red foam formed around the bartender’s mouth.

“Why you kill her, senor?” the bartender asked.

Parker knelt in front of him. “Did Mr. Grim send the two of you?”

The bartender scowled. “Que Mr. Grim?” He coughed, looked into Parker’s eyes, and grinned. “We were going to rob you. The old badger game, senor. Cassandra and I have done this many . . .”

Parker drove the blade into the bartender’s heart.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, waiting awhile before he pulled out the blade.

He went up the stairs and walked down the hallway where the mummies were encased.

Parker felt a shiver. He froze when he saw a silhouette at the end of the hall.

The dark shape expanded, revealing its black hooded robe, the skeletal visage grinning in the shadows of the hood.

“You’re a tough man to kill.” Mr. Grim spoke with the timbre of dry, rustling leaves.

Parker smiled feebly. “Those two back there weren’t very smart. I’m surprised you pick so many duds.”

Mr. Grim laughed coarsely. “They weren’t mine until you killed them. I suppose damnation is now in order for you as well.”

Mr. Grim’s size increased, his bulk filling the hallway and stretching to the ceiling. The empty sockets glanced at the mummies. A sniffing sound came from the nasal cavity.

“What a lovely bouquet.”

The scythe slid out from under his robe, the long handle gripped firmly by bony hands.

“As is the general rule,” Mr. Grim said as he swung the glittering blade. “Sometimes you have to do the job yourself . . . if you want it done right.”

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

New Release 

At the top of a steep cliff a derelict church serves its congregation of dust, cobwebs and birds roosting in the rafters. One human occupant lives there hidden in the cellar. He is cursed never walk in the tortuous sunlight, but to roam the woods on the cliff at night in the form of a hideous beast struggling with the violent desire to kill while striving to preserve remnants of his own humanity.

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Purchase Music Box Sonata priced $1.99 in all major ebook formats.

Jevron McCrory

A Report By Jevron McCrory

Confession upfront; (one I think I already made in my debut novella, Swan Song’s Author Notes) I’m absolutely obsessed with the 1987 vampire flick The Lost Boys. Ridiculously so. This isn’t news to anyone who knows me. (Honestly, it may not even be news to those that don’t).

So when my friend’s girlfriend casually announced that not only were Future Cinema planning a screening of the film but a fully immersive, interactive experience whereby the fictional town of Santa Carla would be re-created in East End London’s Docklands area, I was more than a little sceptical. Who, other than myself, would go to the bother of so uniquely celebrating such a movie on such a grand scale? The Lost Boys’ influence on vampire cinema is a given, granted, but a re-creation of the cinematic town, complete with hired extras, replicated locations and all invited encouraged to costume? It sounded like a dream come true for a suck head like me.

Yet, true it was. Future Cinema, as it turned out, had done this before. They’d already taken Bugsy Malone, Blade Runner and Alien(to name a few) and executed immersive experiences that had apparently won awards. This wasn’t a new venture, these guys did this for a living! Why had I not heard about this before?  And now they had chosen my favourite movie of all time! Once the announcement had been confirmed as truth, I immediately bought tickets for my wife and me! I wasn’t missing this for the world!

So, how was it?

Big question.

Let’s start with an overview.

Future Cinema’s ideals are BIG! They don’t do things by half, so on the whole, I was left thoroughly impressed, the effects of which didn’t wear off for at least a day or two. Having said that, with a little more care, thought and planning, the day would have been remembered as THE single most defining movie event in London’s illustrious history. That’s how good it COULD have been. Seriously, I’m not joking!

It started well. Very well.

After signing in and receiving our wristbands, we were instructed to head ‘to the pier’ where a LONG line was in process. No sweat, I thought. Four thousand people were expected at this shin dig, I was prepared to wait a little, especially as now I could see that familiar boardwalk sign, the infamous Horse Wurlitzer (where, in the movie, we meet the Boys for the first time) and, gasp, the Santa Carla sign, announcing it as the Murder Capital Of The World. I wasn’t even inside yet and I was excited. (Now may be a good time to mention that I was dressed in my replica ‘David’ costume, all black and custom made vampire lenses. Did I mention I was obsessive?)

The music started to pound as we passed under the boardwalk sign. People were everywhere! Among those who had paid to gain entry were costumed locals, actors re-creating a 1980’s California vibe with wonderful panache! There were strung out hippies, roller skaters, bikers, punks, tramps, rock sluts, etc. Future Cinema had spared no expense to ensure that not only the guests at the event would be responsible for the atmosphere, and what an atmosphere!

Photos were rapidly taken as we passed the Santa Carla sign, the Wurlitzer, the Dodgems, a huge Carousel Wheel, a Battle Of The Bands stage (in full swing) and numerous, hastily erected shop stalls. It was as we turned a corner at these additions that we came across the biggest, most adventurous addition in the event, Grandpa Emerson’s house. Before I continue, let me quickly add that this was in no way screen accurate. Everything about it, from the size to the porch, from the rooms to the layout, was different from the movie, BUT it was buried atop a huge sand filled created beach, complete with palm trees, AND it was massive!

A guitar playing chick nodded us through it’s doorway (where I stopped to take a picture of Nanook’s bed, the wolf-like dog that Corey Haim owned in the movie; again, it was the little details that began to really sell the day) where we came upon invitees slicing open and stuffing REAL dead bunnies (I kid you not!), people lounging on Sam’s bed, the bathtub where Paul met his untimely end, a collection of stuffed animals that seemed to swamp the room and a full size bar, catering busily to the many patrons, and here is where we come to the day’s real downfall.

Let me get this out of the way right now, as it was a HUGE issue on Facebook the following day.

Undoubtedly, the one negative that ruined the day for most, if not all, was that Future Cinema did not successfully cater for the four thousand it had invited. There were queues literally EVERYWHERE! Queues for food, queues for the rides, queues for beer, the queues for the toilets were so big, I heard one girl say she had waited an hour and a half! Queues were all you could see, if that’s all you chose to see, I hasten to add. My wife and I got lucky. We got served fairly fast at the bar and, remarkably, felt no need to use that which required a queue as the day wore on. (My wife left before the screening, more on that in a minute). Needless to say, if you wished to experience ALL the day had to offer, you’d have to be willing to queue an hour or more. Harsh.

But allow me to continue…

Outside the ‘house,’ two beautiful horses grazed peacefully in a suitable sized enclosure as the many revellers took their snaps. To the left, a volleyball tournament was under way upon more of the man made beach. I heard there were vampire lairs and ear piercing displays to view but all I could see were queues. Even one of the actors directed me to one of the lairs but the sheer numbers that waited impatiently outside deterred me. (I have since seen pictures of actors and the work that went on inside these lairs and I can testify, it all looked fang-tastically spooky and effective). It not did dampen my spirits however. I was in Lost Boy heaven! Everywhere I looked, there were vampires and vampire hunters! The crowd had really taken the costuming to heart and I gave as many compliments as I received. The sheer buzz from being among people who had taken to the film as passionately as me really blew me away. It was then I saw the screen.

There it was. Silver lit and enticing before a laid out, green, specifically located sitting area, this was where the screening would be held. At the time, it was six o’clock, at least three and a half hours before the movie was scheduled to begin, and people were already staking (pun intended) out their respective spots, as if they had never seen the film before. It was awe inspiring.

What was NOT awe inspiring, however, (here comes another negative) were the costumed actors intended to be the principal cast of the film.

Now, I am an obsessive fan, I admit this freely, so my expectations were perhaps a little on the high side, but I was TRULY disappointed to realise just how little thought and effort had gone into this particular area. (Note, this is in no way to besmirch the actors that played the characters, unless of course, they were responsible for their own costumes!)

I saw, ahem, a David, Dwayne, Paul, Marko, Star and Laddie. While I am SORELY tempted to launch into a blow by blow account of what was wrong, I realise not everyone who reads this will be as obsessive as I am, so I’ll give you just the highlights.

Mr Actor David; your wig was hilarious, and the boots? David wasn’t a lumberjack!

Mr Actor Paul; you’re Asian, Brooke McCarter is Caucasian.

Miss Actress Star; Jami Gertz was natural, why you looked like the Bride Of Frankenstein I’ll never know!

And finally, (my favourite)…

Miss Actress Laddie, (yep, you read that right!), Laddie was a small, thin, long haired, eight year old boy. You were a chubby, ginger, middle aged woman in a corset! (I know it was Laddie because she kept holding Star’s hand, and not in a friendly-I-need-you-as-a-parent-figure kind of way, and I spoke to the actress on Facebook. I think I offended her!)

(Believe me, that’s the short version. You want to know the details, email me!)

Ahem, let’s get back on track.

The sun fell behind London’s Canary Wharf.

Those who were dissuaded by the queues left. (I don’t blame my wife at all. She’d come along for me, in all honesty, and I love her for it) but the screening of the movie itself that followed was AMAZING!

Never before have I watched a movie with a more appreciative crowd. Dialogue was recited, cheers and chants filled the air, songs were sung along with. It was simply spine tingling stuff. For all of Future Cinema’s efforts, THIS was why we were all gathered, to enjoy a movie that singlehandedly changed the face of vampire movies (make no mistake, it’s hard to remember what savvy vampire movies were like BEFORE The Lost Boys) and happy we were indeed!

(Did I mention I started a ‘Michael, Michael…’ chant that ended up involving the four thousand strong crowd? No? I’ll have to remember to mention that.)

There were more delights to come as the screening ended.

The empty bathtub in Grandpa’s house now bubbled and boiled around a blood splattered skeleton (poor Paul, sniff!), a large stereo now pumped obnoxious smoke (poor Dwayne, sniff!) and yes, the bar was STILL serving! I hung around to talk with the many fans that had loved the entire day as much as I had. I was called an ‘obsessive fan’ not once, not twice, but SEVEN times by SEVEN different people! I took it as a compliment.

So as I lounged outside Grandpa’s house as the time approached midnight, nursing my final beer and talking to ‘guitar girl,’ in Santa Carla, in California, in Canary Wharf, in London, I mused on what an incredible night it had been. I think Future Cinema may really be onto something with what they do. An interactive Top Gun experience and screening followed the next day with, what I heard, were similarly impressive results. Channel Four even covered the day, attempting to explain the ‘cultural ramifications and social implications nights like this have on society as a whole.’

Screw all that. Let me lay it out for the people in the cheap seats. We love movies and sometimes, we wish we could step inside them.

It’s that simple.

Future Cinema put on an incredible event that I won’t forget in a hurry. With a little more forethought, we may see these events happening more locally to us all and on a regular basis. All I can say to that is :

‘Be one of us, Michael.’

Now, about that chant I started…

SUMMER READING PICK
Jevron McCrory is the author of Swan Song. When Katrina and Lewis find each other their discovery brings hope, redemption, pain, pleasure and death.

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This study confirms the assertion of Han [1998] that the occupants of Alwighul and Krorän are not derived from proto-European steppe populations, but share closest affinities with Eastern Mediterraneanpopulations. Further, the results demonstrate that such Eastern Mediterraneans may also be found at the urban centers of the Oxus civilization located in the north Bactrian oasis to the west. Affinities are especially close between Krorän, the latest of the Xinjiang samples, and Sapalli, the earliest of the Bactrian samples, while Alwighul and later samples from Bactria exhibit more distant phenetic affinities. This pattern may reflect a possible major shift in interregional contacts in Central Asia in the early centuries of the second millennium BCE.

Tarim mummies From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

‘Do they even have mummies in China?’ Sadie asked. ‘I mean… I thought. In the films, don’t mummies come from Egypt?’ Sadie looked up from her cup of coffee, but the smile died on her face when she saw the ‘look’. The look meant he thought she was an intellectual slug again.

‘If they didn’t, we wouldn’t be going to the university to see an exhibition of a 2,000 year old Chinese mummy, would we, duh,’ replied Jez without any attempt to hide his sarcasm.

Sadie and Jez, an archaeology postgraduate, had been dating for 6 months, but it would take a miracle or unplanned pregnancy to make it past the year marker.

They arrived at the exhibition. Sadie was sadly disappointed once she found out there were no mummies on show, just photographs, artist impressions and a few artefacts where the academics clustered.  The icing on this cake of an evening for Sadie was that, as soon as Jez spotted a woman with a child, he’d ditched her to talk to them.

‘Miss Gray?’ said a slightly built, middle-aged gentleman who reminded her of the guy from Karate Kid, not the remake but the original, which she liked better, even though, she only watched any of the films because Jez was a big fan.

‘Yes,’ Sadie’s answer was automatic, even though deep down she knew he couldn’t know her.

‘Miss Gray, I am glad you accepted my invitation.’

Sadie was about to say she wasn’t invited, but was here with her boyfriend when she felt a sharp pain in her arm and passed out before even hitting the floor.

‘Miss Gray… Miss Gray, wake-up please.’

‘What… where am I and… What the fuck is going on?’ Sadie came around fast, in a place she’d never seen before and bound to a chair. The man in front of her was the Pat Morita look-a-like from the exhibition.

‘All will be explained to you in good time, Miss Gray, but first I would like to say what an honour it is to meet you.’

‘You didn’t meet me, you abducted me… you… cad?’ The insult sounded weak even to Sadie, but she was still coming around from her drugged state. At the back of her consciousness, she seemed to have a black and white horror movie playing in her head. Out of the shadows, a figure appeared without warning.  It was Christopher Lee dressed as the character Fu Manchu, Sadie blinked but nothing changed, a man who looked like Christopher Lee stood before her dressed in a very Hollywood Chinese costume. Like pantomime but with more spangle.

‘She is conscious Dr. Miyagi?’ asked the newcomer to her nightmare.

‘Yes, my Lord Lee,’ he bowed to the newcomer as he spoke, ‘but wouldn’t it be kinder to allow her to be unconscious during the ceremony?’

‘Kinder… You forget our Lady must be fed tonight, the fear will add to her restoration. She has waited 2,000 years for the perfect vessel to be found.’ He turned to Sadie and smiled almost benignly then said, ‘We have waited for you for the last 2,000 years, my dear girl. You are a direct descendent of Lady Xiao, who was lost to us until road builders found her resting place. My family have been in her service, searching the world for you and praying that she would make herself known to us, Miss Gray. The mistake her husband made when he killed her was in burying her and the child away from their ancestors, they could never rest and once released became Chiang-Shih. Your life will be forfeit to hers now, Miss Gray, your purpose preordained.’

Christopher Lee’s facsimile smiled again. She looked around. Something flickered and an image of the university museum played across the shadows, vanishing in an instant. Dr Miyagi came towards her, waving foul smelling burning sticks under her nose, while Fu Man-Lee spat a green fluid at her face. Sadie would have screamed but for the fear of the green spittle entering her mouth.

Without warning, both men stopped what they were doing and fell to the ground in utter subjugation. From the blackness, Sadie could hear the sound of banging or shuffling… hopping even. Tied, as she was, Sadie couldn’t wipe the tears from her eyes. She tried to catch her breath amid the acrid stench of decay that now filled the room. Then through the mist of tears she saw it, recognised it from the photos at the museum, the 2000 years old mummy was hopping towards her, its arms outstretched, vicious talons extended out from each hand. As the mummy hopped closer, Sadie noticed the long auburn hair much the same colour as her own. It stopped inches from Sadie and leaned in, the smell was nauseating. Razor sharp talons gripped Sadie’s face as she looked in horror at the sealed eyes of the hopping corpse. It was then she felt her breath being drawn slowly from her body. Panic exploded through her, but she could do nothing, held immobile as she was, while the creature sucked the life from her body. In the moment before the blackness engulfed her, she thought she heard Jez begging and promising her anything if she would just open her eyes.

Sadie opened her eyes and stared up into the face of Dr Miyagi as he waved a bottle of smelling salts under her nose. ‘Dr Miyagi?’

‘No, I’m Professor Li, cultural liaison for this exhibition, Miss Gray.’

‘But how do you know my name?’

‘Ah… Jeremy dragged you here at my behest, I’m afraid. My wife,’ he said as he pointed at the beautiful woman holding a sleeping child in her arms that Jez had deserted her for, ‘is very lonely here and Jeremy mentioned to her in passing that you are an artist… she too has studied art and wondered if you would like to… I was on my way over when I saw you sway and I tried to catch you.’

Sadie saw Jez from the corner of her eye. He was holding a polystyrene cup of water and had obviously been flicking it on her face in an attempt to bring her round.

‘If one more drop of water hits me, Jez, I won’t be responsible for my actions,’ she said with mock menace.

‘I thought you’d fainted in shock at what you would have looked like 2000 years ago, the artist reconstruction looks just like you Sadie. Maybe I should have mentioned why I was bringing you here, but Professor Li wife was keen to meet you and well…’

Sadie looked at him in blank horror as her vision cleared and the truth became clear to her. She was pregnant. Oh, she might not have been fodder for a 2,000-year-old vampire, but her life was over anyway. Just as the woman whose remains had  been the subject of this exhibition she was now bound to a function in society that excluded her from main event and left her hovering, like Professor Li’s wife, on the periphery trying to fit into another’s life. The true horror of her situation became clear and her function in the universe explicit. She was a host, not for the vampire, but the genetic material that passes from each generation throughout time.

Vamp Emma by Sue Midlock

Cottonwood, Texas 1890

The soulful cry of a whippoorwill floated on the wind. Lonnie sighed in his sleep and reached across to hold his wife only to find a vacant, cold spot.

Lonnie opened his eyes. A figure holding a candle approached.

“Paw Paw’s outside,” Lonnie’s ten-year-old son Jacob said.

Lonnie slid from under the covers and pulled a robe over his night shirt. “I’ll handle it, son,” Lonnie said, taking the candle from Jacob.

Lonnie grabbed a kerosene lantern and lit it before handing the candle back to Jacob. “You go on back to bed now, son.”

Lonnie stepped out of the bedroom. He walked through the cabin and opened the front door. Moonlight fell on a figure dressed only in a nightshirt.

“I cain’t ask you in, Pa,” Lonnie said.

The old man frowned. “Don’t want to be invited in, Lonnie. I come to get you to take care of Luanne. Your Ma and me cain’t kill one of our own.”

“Paw Paw!” Jacob exclaimed, standing outside by the cabin.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Timothy C. Hobbs is the Vamplit published author of The Pumpkin Seed, Charles is a drinker of human blood and an eater of human flesh, a monster dressed in the skin of a man, and The Smell of Ginger, it’s Halloween in Jasper, Texas when Butch, Suzy and their dad encounter two spinster sisters who have been waiting eternally for children to call their own. His new book, The Music Box Sonata will be released in September.

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An immediate change came over the old man. He crouched and snarled. Moonlight fell on the predatory distortion of his face. He bared long upper canines and shambled toward Jacob.

“Stop, Paw Paw!” Jacob screamed in terror.

The old man paused and hissed. The sound of grinding teeth cut abrasively through the night.

“Better see to it soon, Lonnie,” the old man said. “I won’t be able to stop the thirst forever.”

“Get back inside, Jacob!” Lonnie ordered.

But before the boy could go back in, a wail traversed the night.

“Ma!” Jacob yelled and ran toward the form emerging from a fast moving mist. The old man caught Jacob around the waist and with uncanny strength threw the boy toward the doorway. Lonnie braced to catch him and was knocked backward. He lay on the floor of the cabin with Jacob on his chest.

When Lonnie got his breath back, he asked, “You okay, son?”

Jacob raised his head and nodded. Tears streamed down the boy’s cheeks. “That’s Ma!”

“That ain’t your Ma no more . . . . And don’t you slip out the backdoor when I tell you to stay put.”

“Jacob.” The voice was unearthly. “Jacob, come to me. I’m cold. Let me hold you, kiss you.”

Standing outside the doorway, a woman beckoned. She was covered in a filthy gown, her hair black and tangled. Damp earth spotted her face and was clumped under her long fingernails.

Lonnie lifted Jacob off  him and got up. “You ain’t welcome here, Luanne.”

The woman drew back her lips, revealing hideous fangs.

“Let me in, husband. Take me to our bed.” Her tongue slipped out. She licked her lips.

“Son, get that crucifix I hung above your bed,” Lonnie instructed, staring at the thing on the threshold.

Images raced through Lonnie’s mind: carrying Luanne over that same threshold, the wedding night – ‘Promise not to look’ Luanne had said shyly as she undressed.

The images faded and the eyes outside caught him, their texture more like red gelatin now. Lonnie jumped when he felt something cold touch his hand.

“Here, Pa,” Jacob said, slipping the crucifix into Lonnie’s hand.

Lonnie held it up and approached Luanne. She hissed and backed away, laughing repugnantly. The mist enveloped her, and she was gone.

“Lonnie,” the old man said. “Ain’t many in Cottonwood not turned, and those that ain’t will be invitin’ in their kin and friends who are turned soon enough. Best destroy Luanne. She started this contagion. Once she’s gone, we can all rest in peace. She sleeps under a pile of dirt in my storm cellar. Me and your Ma rest there too in a wooden crate. It’s best to catch Luanne just before she rises. Just before sunset.” He looked at the horizon and saw a hint of pink. “Got to be goin’ now.”

* * * *

Lonnie left Jacob with strict orders not to leave the cabin.

“I’ll be back directly,” he had told the boy.

Lonnie stopped by the tool shed and picked up a hammer and a wooden stake he’d made from ash tree wood.

By the time he got to his father’s storm cellar, the sunlight was fading. He opened the cellar’s door and went down the steps. Very little light drifted in, but it was enough for him to witness the pile of dirt began to stir.

Lonnie swallowed hard as the filthy sleeve of Luanne’s gown broke free. He moved quickly, and when the rest of her body emerged, Lonnie fell on Luanne, driving the stake into her heart. She shrieked, kicked and jerked. Gouts of blood spewed up splattering Lonnie.

The light was almost gone. Lonnie glanced down and saw Luanne’s face was bathed in peace. ‘Promise not to look’—the memory hit him hard.

Lonnie put his face in his hands and wept. The rusted hinges of a wooden crate creaked as it was opened.

“Lonnie.”

Lonnie glanced around. His mother and father stood in the gloom.

“I thought you’d be at peace now,” Lonnie said, wiping his eyes.

“Lonnie, it was me taught Luanne all those dark secrets. Me that turned her,” his mother said.

“She was gettin’ too powerful, taking your Ma’s place without askin’,” the old man stated. “We had to get rid of her some way, Lonnie. Like I said we couldn’t do it ourselves.”

They moaned and moved toward Lonnie.

“Glad you’ll be with us now,” his mother said.

Lonnie backed up, tripping on Luanne’s corpse. Darkness filled the cellar. Lonnie could just make out the shadows descending on him.

“Don’t!” Lonnie screamed. “What about Jacob?”

“We’ll tend to him later,” his mother said.

Lonnie felt teeth tear into both sides of his neck. His struggles were brief.

Eventually, two silhouettes exited the storm cellar. They paused and gazed at the rising moon with reverence, then began the journey to visit their grandson.

somnambulant screams

accompanies her ambulant dreams.

Walking, talking, still she sleeps

giving everyone the creeps.

Sadie tripps through the night

on the road and out like a light.

Sadie, Sadie

pausing, pirouettes

as her mother frets.

Closing windows, locking doors,

they live up seven floors.

Tidy minds tucked up, like the dead,

Sadie’s subconscious’s never in bed.

Sadie, Sadie

oh my God

isn’t life a bloody sod.

Waking in a strangers bed,

people think, she’s touched in the head.

Somnambulistic Sadie, wanders around,

in the night where dangers abound.

Sadie, Sadie

skipping on air

cursing, crying full of care.

Shuffle, shaking in a world of her own,

even though she fully grown.

Stumbling through the night adrift,

with blank eyes, a rapist’s gift.

Sadie, Sadie

scared of sleep

takes her final leap,

Walks under a number 9 bus,

causing such a fuss.

Now Sadie’s sleeping forevermore,

because someone forgot to shut the door.

By Grace Mahoney

Genre: Fiction, Poetry–Words: 4167–Published: March 2, 2010–Purchase on Smashwords

Where to Visit Grace
Blog ~ Twitter ~ Facebook

the zombie horde, humanity’s blight.

Taking her shovel she runs into the crowd,

screaming, slashing completely unbowed.

Soon heads started flying into the air,

as she raises her weapon with never a care.

For Sadie Gray’s found her reason for being,

the cowering crowd can’t believe what they’re seeing.

An average woman plagued by cellulite

is right in the centre and leading the fight,

cleaving and weaving her mighty weapon,

refusing to give-up and be fed on.

Sadie’s screams pepper the night

as she feels the first zombie’s bite.

The horde of dead overcome her will

while she’s still living they eat their fill.

She feels her muscles ripping away,

as still attached flesh the zombies flay.

Sadie barely twitches when they bite off her ear,

seeing her own guts, she feels queer.

The hiding humans sickened by dread,

they watch her become dinner for the dead.

In an instant her head became a movable feast,

as each zombie vying, for his or her piece.

Shuffling, moaning, mindless the zombies turn round

to mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers they’ve found.

The horde of the dead pulling families asunder,

with Sadie’s flesh fuelling their ambulant blunder.

Humanity now, is nothing but meat

rushing headlong towards insanities bleat.

Hiding away or now running from the dead,

they remember the last thing Sadie said.

“Oh shit Donald there’s zombies in the garden and they’re pulling the washing off the line. Will you bloody well get-up and sort it out or shall I?”

By Grace Mahoney

Genre: Fiction, Poetry–Words: 4167–Published: March 2, 2010–Purchase on Smashwords

Where to Visit Grace
Blog ~ Twitter ~ Facebook

But the babe was just a babe and nothing more. Truly, I was not particularly impressed I have to say, not at first. It was as a man that I was struck by him: by his voice and what he said.

“Pray for those that persecute you!”

Could he mean it I thought. How could he say such a thing? The very logic of it was illogical, was it not?

I was thinking this when he looked at me. His eyes, seeming to go through me, piercing into my flesh in a way no being has ever been able to do.

Our eyes locked onto one another’s and I felt every bit the demon I was. And because I did I hated him and found I wished to destroy him. This hatred festering until it seemed to become its own separate being.

I became like one obsessed and began following him from place to place being drawn to his words but at the same time hating them because I hated him!

If I hated him others hated or feared him.

Rome considered him a threat to its power and so he was eventually arrested and tried for having this power or seeming to. That was the truth of it, whatever Pilate postulated.

Pilate, Governor of this hot, dusty troublesome place was Rome’s representative. Pilate who had been sent there for some infraction, Pilate, who would eventually commit suicide was now to move this entire thing to its earthly conclusion.

“Take him away…”

His final words.

I stood amongst supporters and enemies too, all of us witnessing.

And then when they took him away, I ran along and watched it all. There was screaming and shouting. There were onlookers tearing at their clothes and wailing for the Rabbi.

It seemed to me he had more support than not! That’s when I began to grow fearful. If I felt the slightest bit of satisfaction at the suffering of this, my avowed enemy, I suddenly became aware of an awful truth, a certainty I knew to be a certainty! This Rabbi was going to be remembered! And it was going to be Rome’s fault because they were making a martyr out of him!

My hand flew to my mouth as I considered the ramifications.

And then the most amazing thing happened! The Rabbi looked at me! Oh yes he did! He turned around and found me instantly!

If his look had been one of condemnation before it was different now. There was calmness in his eyes. His expression was neither triumphant nor vengeful. If anything it was saintly. It was then that I knew.

He was the Messiah! He was what they said, God’s son come to earth!

I gazed Heavenward for a moment, and then I understood everything. No matter how much terror Satan causes or those in league with him cause, they will never defeat Him!

I left then; I just walked through the deserted market, up past the city gates and onward.

At last I came upon a man. “Have you seen him?”

I knew who he meant at once. “Yes. They are taking him to crucify him!”

The man nodded and hurried away. It was then that I heard Satan’s voice; it was as though he whispered to me. “Judas,” he said. “He is mine now.”

*

“He died in agony,” Satan said nodding.

We were sitting in one of his favorite caves just on the outskirts of Jerusalem. He looked very pleased. “I spoke to him in this very cave, you know! I offered him anything he wished. But—he kept talking that nonsense.” He glanced over at me. “But it is all done now, isn’t it?”

He was so pleased. It didn’t occur to him that he could be wrong. Actually I never regarded Satan as overly bright. Frankly and I don’t mean to sound boastful, I find him to be (at times) a little on the thick side. You see he doesn’t quite get things others do. “I am sorry Satan, but I cannot agree with your pronouncement. I think they have made a martyr of him. I think this is the beginning and not the end!”

He scowled. “I think you are wrong. I think he is gone now and the only thing left of him will be his rotting corpse. Why would his name be recalled when others have gone before and lie dead and forgotten?”

I nodded, but said nothing.  I knew what I knew. Satan’s self assuredness would prove as wrong as Rome’s’ intention to suppress it all.

If Hell burns, its flames are never as bright as Heaven’s light. Truth is truth after all.

Ah! I have surprised you! Well, it is truth and demon though I am; I know truth when it stares me in the face.

I knew something else as well. This truth was subjective. I was changed forever. Now for the first time in my existence I had become fully aware of my own limitations. Yes I was immortal but it was the other side that had the power. We could tell ourselves we were powerful but we weren’t and we never would be.

All we could create were different levels of mischief of varying intensity. Yes, we would terrorize and torture, we would spread evil through willing vessels but in the end we were little more than insects, little more than flies in Heaven’s ointment.

For Heaven’s ointment has the power to befuddle us always and forever.

*~*~*

961 Words

Please note: Eco is one of the characters in ‘The House on Blackstone Moor’ available from all good ebook stores and in all major formats including Kindle from Smashword and in print from Drive Thru and is featured in the upcoming sequel, ‘Unholy Testament.’

Genre: Fantasy, Romance–Words: 80,522–Published: December 17, 2010–Purchase on Smashwords

Where to Visit Carole
Blog ~ Twitter ~ Facebook

As the sun sank from the sky, Sadie awoke gasping for breath, her first in twelve hours. The end of each night brought another death, although brief, still unsettling, unpleasant, but worse were these nightly tortures of coming back to life. After a moment, Sadie looked around the unfamiliar place, still a little disorientated by her unnatural resurrection, and found the room tawdry, squalid even, but it did have a blackout blind and it was cold, which made it prefect. She couldn’t quite remember how she got there, but, intuitively, she knew her memory would return as the night progressed.

Since her death and subsequent rebirth into darkness, Sadie had been forced to move constantly, hoping to stay one-step ahead of discovery and find the vampire who’d made her, but the voice followed her, telling her to do unspeakable things. Sadie didn’t think the voice was her maker, but she hadn’t ruled out the possibility, which meant one night she’d have to stop running, face it, just not tonight.

“Sadie.” She heard the voice, sighed, time to move on, always time to move on, one-step ahead of the voice, and one-step away from freedom. She had no idea who the voice belonged to, but it knew her and wanted her to be bad, to kill, feed and lose herself in an ocean of blood.

“Sadie listen to me girl, you need to feed,” the voice was hungry tonight, igniting her undeniable thirst for blood. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to feed, she needed to feel the warm life of another trickle down her throat and surge through her veins, it was addictive, narcotic, but she knew if she gave in she’d be lost, the voice, which followed her through her preternatural existence, would have won again.

“Leave me the fuck alone,” she said without the usual heat that accompanies such words, emotion was difficult, almost an abstract concept and from the instant she’d woken up in her coffin, she’d know what she was, but felt nothing. She didn’t blame anyone, nobody made her open the door and step out into the vampire’s arms, she’d done that of her own freewill. She moved around the room and if she could feel regret, it would have been for all the souls who fed her with their death.

“You don’t kill for fun Sadie baby,” the voice said seductively. “You only kill for food. I know you Sadie, I understand you, I’m nearly there, soon I’ll be with you and we can feed together.”

If she’d still been human she would have shuddered, she hated the voice most when it sounded as if it knew her, loved her even. “Don’t come near me,” she shouted at the air around her, turning in circles, trying to find the source of the voice. “You can’t make me feed, don’t you understand that I’m never going to be a monster like you.”

She could hear the voice laughing now, closer, too close to escape it.

“Please just go away, I can’t fight you… please.” Sadie cried huddled on the bare floorboards.

Hearing another noise she listened, it was different, not the voice, human, whimpering and crying piteously, it seemed to be coming from somewhere in the house, now she was afraid, not just for the human, so obviously in distress, but also for herself. Mentally, Sadie gave herself a shake. Her only chance now was to run as fast and as far as she could before daybreak. She knew she’d done this before, could remember, everything was slipping into place slowly, she remember London on a sad sigh and Newcastle too.

Turning toward the door, she noticed for the first time the barricaded and then it hit her, the memory of dragging all the furniture to the door in a vane attempt to keep the voice out, to keep the human safe.

“Sadie, oh Sadie, I’m here,” Sadie pulled the last piece of cheap furniture out of the way and opened the door.

“Yummy, dinnertime, please, I’m hungry, feed me,” the voice shouted from right behind her and then inside her. She knew now, her nocturnal moment of epiphany had arrived in glorious detail. Her fangs grew more prominent, just for a moment she looked down at the feast before her and experienced a moment of pity, but it didn’t last.

The piece of meat on the floor whimpered again, she patted its shoulder in a parody of comfort, leaving him bleeding and hysterical. Licking her fingers clean of blood she knelt down, her fangs fully extended, and licked his eye, then sucking gently the orb popped from its socket as a gloopy morsel that slid down her throat with ease.

“Um… young meat is always so sweet,” she said and she pieced his flesh, drawing a mouthful of blood, holding it a moment before swallowing noisily. After the twentieth bite, her victim lost consciousness and after the fiftieth, he lost his life.

Sadie sat back fully sated from her delicious meal, wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and finally, remembered, she was the voice and the voice was her maker. No one had forced her outside that night to torture, then kill her elderly neighbour and beat his wife until she was unrecognisable. She alone, was responsible for killing a prison guard and a prisoner, punching and kicking them into a bloody mess, finally ripping the jaw off the dying guard and slicing open her own throat, the vampire was her own personal construct, and eternity awaited her with the nightly rebirth of a monster, Sadie Gray.

995 Words.

Carole Gill Author of The House on Blackstone Moor

I’ve just been reading You’ve Written a Book Now What? on Carole Gill’s Official Author Blog and wanted to make some comments on the wonderful advice that she, Blaze McRob and Mikel Classen have given readers.

It is great advice, from three writers who are out there living it. Each of these novelist are writing and promoting their work with no apology, just a belief in themselves and a lot of fun.

If I can add my voice to their advice, I’d say you’ve got to make it fun. Get out and meet new people, be open and be proud of your novel. Writers are often timid in showing the world what they’ve created and they want readers to find them and love them, but in the real world you have to find a large box, stand on it and shout I wrote this, reading it might not change your life but you’ll enjoyed it. What Blaze, Mikel and Carole do is show their audience that they are more than just their novel.

A personal comment to Blaze, I no long use a red pen, which is good because even I can’t read my writing.

My advice on editing is don’t use family apart from as a fresh pair of eyes, unless they’re qualified. Don’t expect substantive editing for under $1,000 if you self-publish, don’t send your manuscript to publishers the minute you’ve finished it, keep it safe and revisit it after a month or two and then see if you still like it. Remember great novels are often created in the rewrites (ignore that last remark Carole). Think before you write your synopsis and make sure you put in your hook in plain English. You know you’re novel’s special tell the editor why and make sure you check your spelling and grammar in any correspondence, at the bottom of my slush pile (I hate that phrase) are all the manuscript that came in with bad grammar and spelling in their letter and synopsis. Everyone has bad grammar and bad spelling days but like bad hair days, you should hide them away and not flaunt them in public.

Think of marketing your novel as part of the creative process. All writers have to self-promote even the big ones, the only difference is they pay publicists and you are on a do-it-yourself roller coaster and it’s scary sometimes. By following Carole’s, Mikel and Blaze’s advice, you can become part of something bigger, something that grows with each new author that joins. If all you are interested in is selling your novel, then you are selling yourself and your readers short. For many years, publicists have been using the cult of personality to sell. You might think you’re boring, but I know if you have fun with what you’re doing readers will be interested.

One of the first things I did when I started Vamplit Publishing was to set up a network for writers to get together and share, not just critique, but to socialise and it was the best thing I ever did, not just, because it sent in a flurry of submissions from really good writers, but because I made some fantastic friends. It is true that some of them are business friends who have helped me, but most of them are now personal friends who keep me sane. Every contact you make will have something to share with you, whether it’s a link, advice or even the personal email addy of Stephen King or Anne Rice. Each new person you meet as a writer, but also as a person, adds to your knowledge and understanding of humanity, which in turn will enrich your writing, it’s a win win situation.

When we started Vamplit everyone said we’d be gone in a year, not so we’re going from strength to strength and the reason for this… all the wonderful readers and writers we’ve met along the way. My personal heroes are too many to list, but W.J Howard, Sue Midliak, Carole Gill, Randall Stone and Blaze McRob, all of whom I met on The Vamplit Writers’ Group or where we all meet now on Blood Writes, have made a massive impact on Vamplit Publishing. Each of them in their own way has helped me continue through thick and thin and more important have given me their support and so many laughs along the way. Promoting my business and their novels, has become the fun part of Vamplit Publishing.

If you’d like to find out what readers are saying about Carole’s novel The House on Blackstone Moor visit Smashwords where it is available to download in all major formats including Kindle price $2.99.

Birthright

When Candra Rosewood returns to Utica she’s already missed her parents funeral and everything she thought about her family turns out to be a lie.

When Kane turns up unannounced on her doorstep, Candra, fights her strange need for him. Is he somehow involved in her parents’ death? Is the mysterious Mr Bennet a friend or foe, and can she trust him when he says she’s descended from powerful vampires.

Birthright is a novel that opens the door on family secrets. Both Kane and Candra are locked into a shared past neither of them can escape. Evil is everywhere waiting to pounce. Candra must decide who is a friend and find out what her birthright really is.

When everything in your life is lost, whom can you trust and who will be there to pick up the pieces and help you put them back together, family or a stranger.

Available in Kindle and all major formats from Smashword priced $1.99