On Tonight's Edition...

So, I've kind of been slacking on the blog posts the past two weeks. Two weeks ago I was running late by several days, and last week's post was so poorly thought out and written that I ended up deleting it before the day was over. To be bluntly honest, I didn't have much for this week either, but I'll be damned if I'm going to make you wait another week. So, here's what I've got for you. 

About this time last year, I found out a short story of mine that I had submitted to a writing contest, had made finalist. I had to travel to the convention which sponsored the contest to find out how it ended up placing and I was somewhat delighted to find I had earned an Honorable Mention. Still, it meant my work was included in the convention anthology, which, for those interested in checking out the other works in the small book, is available here. 

However, if you're just interested in what I've written (for which I am immeasurably grateful), you can read my entry right here on my blog, today. So without further ado, I give you my Honorable Mention short story from the Crypticon Seattle 2013 writing contest. Enjoy.

On Tonight's Edition

By Shaun Horton

~~

Jerry sat there, watching the news with a feeling of sadness and a slight degree of disgust. He held the fully-loaded Glock in his left hand, an almost empty bottle of Crown Royal in the right. The chair he sat in was decidedly uncomfortable and covered in a flower pattern he wouldn't have chosen for his worst enemy's living quarters. The television was all right though, a seventy-two inch plasma which showed every pixel in colors brighter than anything could ever be in reality. He supposed that could also be the alcohol, though. Jerry spat at the TV where the nightly news was on, falling well short of the screen. All they ever showed on the news anymore was death, murder, war and destruction, with a seasoning of weather and sports.

Jerry could remember when the highlight of the news had been a piece on the old lady that lived two doors up from him; she took in every stray cat that crossed her path. He had liked that old lady, though he couldn't remember her name and her house had smelled so strongly of cat urine it was almost painful to walk past. That had been when he was much younger. Jerry could remember when it really was big news that someone had been found murdered.

He had only been thirteen-years-old that first time. Jerry had been on his way home from playing baseball with some friends; it had been such a nice summer. Walking along one of the back trails through the local park, he had come across an older kid, sixteen the news had told him later, beating on some poor dog that had been left tethered to a tree. He didn't know why the older kid was picking on the dog or why he kept kicking it with such ferocity. Jerry knew the poor animal was in pain and was whining and crying for him to stop; the older kid hadn't seen him.

It was the laugh that finally did it for Jerry. The kid's laughter at the pain he was inflicting on the poor animal was like nails on a chalkboard inside Jerry's mind.

The kid hadn't heard Jerry put down his bag or even walk up. The first thing the kid knew was when the baseball bat took his supporting leg out from under him and he fell hard to the ground, clutching his knee.

The kid had looked up at Jerry, first in amazement, then in anger and rage. The older boy reached for him and the bat swung again.

Jerry remembered the satisfaction at the feeling and sound as the bat shattered both bones in the kid's forearm.

It was only then that the kid looked up at Jerry in fear, finally understanding he was in real danger. The older boy tried to ward off the next several blows, and Jerry had to smash in both of the boy's shoulders before he could finally get in a clean blow to the skull. The boy's face caved in with the first strike, splattering blood and brain matter across the ground. Jerry wiped his bat off on the ground before picking his bag back up.

Jerry started to continue on his way and stopped. The dog, still whimpering in pain and fear, looked up at him thankful but still terrified. Jerry untied him and carefully carried him home. After pleading with his father to help the stray he had found, they took the dog to the veterinarian, where they found the injuries were too extensive and quietly put the poor animal to sleep.

Jerry had cried when they went home without the dog, but the older boy never crept back into his mind until a few days later, when the corpse showed up on the news.

Luck had been with Jerry that day. Nobody else had been on the trail while he was there, or saw him exit onto the street with the dog. He had also been able to claim the blood on his clothes was from carrying the hurt animal home. The murder went unsolved. That one case dominated the nightly news for almost a week, the same story asking people to call in with tips. Unsolved murders, especially brutal ones like that, were very rare back in those days. Back then you could watch the news without being saddened or depressed by the cheerful newscasters; whose smiles never faltered as they panned from one brutal story to the next.

The bottle rose to Jerry's lips, giving him another sip as he reminisced.

The first murder had been enacted purely by chance, though Jerry still felt a twinge of satisfaction remembering it. He had enjoyed the news of his murder on television for a full week, even though he knew how lucky he was to have gotten away with it.

The other murders were more planned out and fun.

The second opportunity came when he was seventeen. Jerry's friend's girlfriend had left him for another guy, while seeing a third on the side. After careful observations, Jerry followed her and her boy toy out to a back road late one night.

The windows were rolled down and the radio was blasting through the woods while the two melded body parts in the back seat. Jerry had quietly snuck up to the car, reached through the window, and pulled the keys out of the ignition. This, of course, turned off the radio. Her “friend” ceased his thrusting to see what was the matter. After satisfying himself that the keys weren't on the seat or the floor of the vehicle, he stepped out of the car in just his boxers, and circled around, yelling about people playing pranks.

Jerry doubted the “friend” had even felt the pain of the impact as the baseball bat crushed the back of his skull. Jerry made sure to hit him a few more times, though, just to be sure, flattening the boy's head into the ground.

Once she noticed her partner wasn't answering her calls to come back to the car and finish what they had started, the young woman got out as well. Pulling her skirt down around her hips and holding her shirt to her chest, she only had time to see the masked figure for a moment before Jerry's bat shattered her jaw and sent teeth flying. She tried to scramble away; a single strike across the back shattering vertebrae and rendering her lower half immobile.

Showing her the bloody end of the bat before planting his boot between her shoulder blades; Jerry took off the top of her head in a swing similar to a golfer using his driver on a three-hundred yard straight shot.

Jerry had called her new boyfriend from a payphone on his way home, telling him she was cheating and where to find her. He had smiled as they had then passed each other on the road. Pulling into a gas station and calling the police, letting them know as well where to find the girl and her boyfriends, Jerry smiled again. The police spent the next week holding her boyfriend under suspicion, but then released him for lack of true evidence. By then, though, it was too late to accurately point a finger at anyone else.

Jerry had reveled in the news of the murder. Everyone was hearing about his handiwork, even if they didn't know it was his. The glory of it all was intoxicating.

That was many years ago, now. Jerry had racked up quite a number of murders since. But each one seemed to attract less and less attention as other people stepped up and murder had become more common. That just didn't seem right to Jerry. His last kill hadn't even been mentioned.

A man Jerry's daughter worked with, a creep that had made several advances on his little girl, was the latest to be discovered. Jerry had studied him in a bar; watched the creep throw back beers and shots for most of the night, until he had chased off every woman that had dared to come in. Jerry had slipped out of the bar and waited for him. The man didn't leave until well after last call.

The bat took out the bastard's right knee. The sound was a somewhat familiar popping as the kneecap dislocated from the impact. The creep dropped to his knees, then fell to one side, clutching the damaged knee and screaming. Jerry planted his foot against the guy's chin, forcing the creep's mouth shut while he lined up the bat with the man's head. Then took a full swing as the man grabbed and pushed at the foot holding him down. The bat tore off the front of the creep's head with a satisfying crunch. The struggling ceased, as did the noise. The metallic scent of blood filled the cold, night air.

Jerry reveled in the moment, reaching out with all of his senses. The feel of the bat in his hands, still remembering the moment of impact against his palms. The scent of the man's life fluids flowing out onto the concrete. The silence of the late night, devoid of the man's irritating, slurred speech. The sight of the large man's face, a void where the top half of his face had been and the beautiful red pool expanding on the black asphalt. Last of all was the taste, as he cleaned some of the red splatter from the back of one hand.

The coat covered most of the splash damage his shirt had taken, and his black jeans did well hiding where the streams had struck them. When he had time to revel in the act, he enjoyed wearing their blood like a badge of honor, but Jerry knew when to indulge and when not to. The extra set of clothes and box of moist towelettes which waited in his truck indicated which one of those options he had expected that night to be.

This last murder had been trumped by a shooting in some nightclub that had killed three and wounded fourteen others. Even doing what he did, Jerry still held every life as something precious. Each life was equal. It saddened him greatly to see that quantity was all the news cared about anymore. It wasn't just about seeing his work on TV, it was about each life snuffed out getting an equal share of time. There wasn't even that anymore. The news wasn't even listing the names of the dead from the club shooting, it was enough to just throw up a number. It was sickening.

Jerry held up his bottle to the light of the TV for a moment, gauging how much was left before sucking it dry and letting the empty vessel drop to the floor. He looked at the envelope on the coffee table, marked in his own bold cursive "For the Police". The letter inside listed every murder Jerry had ever committed. Even that first one when he was thirteen.

He wondered if the original owners of the house he sat in would mind. They were in no condition to answer even if he asked. Their bodies lay on the kitchen floor, along with his most recent bat. Their beatings had been short, but brutal, even by his standards. He had been in a hurry to get to the TV before the news started. The back door had just happened to be unlocked.

Jerry sighed and shook his head at the television, lifting the remote and turning it off. It was a realization that had come to him over the years as populations skyrocketed, technology jumped in leaps and bounds, and people became more detached from each other. Nobody really mattered anymore. Unless you had your name in huge lights somewhere, who you were didn't matter to anyone outside those closest to you. It was sad. Everyone should mourn every life lost, whether they knew them or not.

That was how Jerry felt.

He lifted the Glock and pressed the cold metal of the barrel against his head, nestled in the graying hairs just above and in front of his left ear. He knew if anyone deserved not to be mourned, it was him after all he had done, but still he pondered if anyone would. He wondered if the community would mourn the couple who lay beaten to death in the kitchen. Some neighbors might. Most would probably never know. A world where your neighbors could be brutally murdered and you'd never know was not a world worth living in.

That was Jerry's final thought.

Creating a Monster: The Hungry

So, I'm lying in bed, waiting to go to sleep, when I get this idea. It's not a story idea specifically, but an idea for a monster. And as I'm lying there, it's almost like I'm just watching the pieces come together, like a puzzle, or one of those mix-and-match playset thingies. It was really fascinating watching it come together into something I could recognize as fairly original and I though I would share it with you all. It may give you some ideas of your own for monsters, demons, and/or degenerates.

This is where it started, a human torso and arms. The version I pictured though, didn't extend down to the pelvis. It more ended just past the rib cage. Why this is where I started, I couldn't really say, but I do have an idea or two. First, recognition. If people see something of themselves in a monster, even if it's just a physical similarity, it breeds familiarity. Things with which we are familiar, coming after us with intent to cause harm, is a very basic fear in that to a degree, we can almost imagine that being us. I think that is one of the things that makes zombies so frightening. They are us, even if they are dead, rotting, missing limbs and walk around with massive, open wounds. 

From the torso, I moved up to the head. Sort of. Actually, I didn't get past the neck. It became an extended stump, waving around, with skin covering the end, except for a small hole in the middle. But then the skin retracts, the end of the stump expands, and we have...

Lots, and lots, of sharp teeth. Reaching out, grabbing things, and dragging them down the throat and into the stomach. Of course, it can't exactly chew with a mouth like that, and being attached to a torso, that makes spinning a little uncomfortable. So generally, if something fits in the mouth hole, (reminder, we're only talking about something maybe a bit bigger around than the average human neck.) it swallows it whole. If it attaches to something too big to swallow, it'll point the first row of teeth out, stab the prey with them, and then suck out the blood, like a giant leech. If it happens to grab something which fits, but is attached to something that doesn't, like an arm or a leg, it flings the prey around until the teeth manage to do enough damage to just rip the appendage off. After all, you'll probably have to look around a bit to find someone who isn't squeamish about worms and leeches. 

So now the top half is done. I just needed to figure out the bottom half. I figured the torso would use it's two arms to drag itself around, so out goes any need for legs. I also had to figure on where does all that blood and body parts it eats go. How about just a sack? 

Yeah, something like that, like a termite or ant queen. Something that just continues to swell as the monster eats more and more. 

Fairly disturbing image, yes? Imagine seeing that crawling around the corner of your bed or the couch, A human torso, with a worm-leech mouth straight out of a headless neck, dragging along a bulbous sack behind it full of what it's eaten. 

Now imagine more than one. 

Now, what I think is the fun part, figuring out the story. First off, there's one more physical detail I thought out. It has no eyes, no ears, no nose, no brain even to speak of. So how does it find people and prey? How about a long, snake-like tongue that flicks in and out of the throat hole while the mouth is closed. Disturbed yet? 

Anyway, where was I? Ah, the back story. Well, for being a human-like creature, and having the strength to drag around that bulbous abdomen no matter how big it gets, it makes sense that this is a creature which is demonic in nature. A minor demon, maybe the representation of bloodlust. As such, this also becomes something you probably won't find in the creepy forest or the big, abandoned mansion on the hill. This seems to me to be more of a city dweller, maybe hives of them living in lost and unused subway tunnels, sewer systems, and other underground labyrinths. Oh yeah, they (smaller, unfed ones) would roam in groups. This would prevent them from getting too big, too fast. 

Also, being demonic, they don't actually digest what they eat. Everything just sits in the ass end until it rots away to soup. So the sack will literally contain everything the thing has eaten since it was created/summoned/born. Break one open and you will quickly find yourself inundated with blood, bones, and a soup of rotten sludge. Keep in mind that the sacks expand and stretch in order to hold everything. One that makes its way into a nursing home for instance, could, over the course of a day or two, expand to fifteen feet long and ten feet around at the widest point. 

Not only that, but they are never sated. They only stop eating when they can't find anything else to eat or when they've been destroyed. Hence, their name: The Hungry. 

All that while I was trying to get to sleep the other night. Really, brain?

Anybody want to draw one up for me? My visual arts skills suck. That's why I paint with words.

Sleep tight everyone. Also, don't forget to check the Giveaways link at the top to keep up on Kindle Free Days, contests, and other chances to win stuff!

~ Shaun
Email me!

Love Kills

This Friday is Valentine's Day. I hate it. Now, that may have something to do with the fact that I haven't had any reason to celebrate it since Elementary school, but that's neither here nor there. The thing is, I'm not exactly alone in my opinion of this pink holiday. The Horror genre is about as full as you can get of relationships gone wrong.

Seriously though. Relationships seem to be a major focus in horror. For instance, throughout most of the early 80's, you could tell who was going to be the next victim based on their inability to hide their feelings for each other. (Although, I suppose you could also blame their stupidity for rushing off into the woods alone to get it on.). A good example of the different kinds of problems relationships can cause is the Friday the 13th series. As I said, in every movie, there's at least one couple that dies together while they're in the middle of coitus. Killing two people with one spear, as the saying goes. Though, you can also say that the whole series starts over some guy's attempts to get into some hottie's pants. If that one lifeguard had been paying attention, Jason might never have drowned and gone on to become one of the most bitter zombies ever to walk the Earth. 

It's not just being in a relationship that can get you killed though. You can also end up on the bad end of a large, heavy object just by being desirable. Who can forget the rabbit scene in Fatal Attraction? 

Dramatization. No rabbits were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Of course, you don't even need to be the specific object of desire to get hurt. In Stephen King's Misery, writer Paul Sheldon isn't even the object of Annie Wilkes' obsession. He's just in between her and her love, and for that, he gets an ax to the ankles. (It was a hammer in the movies, but in the book, he actually loses his feet entirely. Sorry if that's a spoiler to anyone.) 

Of course, almost any story worth reading has some kind of relationship dynamic. After all, nobody really goes through their entire life alone. They don't. They don't. I swear they don't. (Yeah, just keep repeating it.). A relationship is something everyone can relate to. It gives us a reference point to the characters. We want to see them reach the end with the love of their life safely in their arms, or we want to see them escape the clutches of their psychotic or abusive ex and move on with their lives. It also makes for a common sub-plot, filling the spaces in between and making another point of attack for the horrors that live in the shadows.

Of course, while not so prevalent in Horror, you do also have those stories where love conquers all. Where the bond between hero and heroine is the only thing that can defeat the darkness and spare their lives. More often than not though, in Horror, the hero has to make a choice and decides to sacrifice himself in order to ensure the safety of his love. Of course, it doesn't always work, and some lucky(?) guys might only get partially mutilated before the girl rides in with the cavalry to save his ass.

Though, let's be honest here. Few things really suck more than being by yourself in the middle of a huge number of happy couples. Just ask Carrie.

~ Shaun

But yeah, totally not bitter.

Women in Horror

Before I get into today's post, I just want to point out the clickable link above that says "Giveaways". Currently, I'm running a giveaway on Goodreads.com to get rid of five signed copies of my book Class 5. It runs all month before winners are chosen to click the link and check out the giveaway to enter. Also, feel free to check out the "Biography" link too.

February is Women in Horror month. So, if you hop around the blogosphere, you're likely to see posts about women in horror as authors, as protagonists, and as villains. Now, I would be remiss to let the month go by without taking at least one post to acknowledge women in the Horror genre, so here we go.

I also may or may not be being threatened. (send help!)

One thing I've seen people lament leading up to this month, is that there aren't that many well-known women Horror authors, and that there seems to be a stigma against women that do write in the genre. Personally, I've never been one to care about the author I'm reading until after I've read their work. If I'm particularly impressed, I'll look them up to see what else they can offer. If I'm feeling insulted, I'll look them up to make sure not to make that mistake again. If it was just okay, I'm probably not going to note who the author was. But that's just me. Male, female, I don't care when I pick up a book. 

To say there aren't that many female authors in Horror isn't exactly true either in my opinion. A short list includes Anne Rice (Interview with the Vampire, The Witching Hour), Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), and Shirley Jackson (The Haunting of Hill House). That's some pretty esteemed colleagues if you ask me. (No, Stephanie Meyer is NOT a Horror author. Claim otherwise and I'm sending Annie to your house.). 

I'm here to kick ass and put on mascara. And I'm all out of mascara.

We really don't have a lack of strong female leads either. Even if they don't exactly seem that when when you read them. Wendy Torrence in The Shining is written as a strong character (as opposed to the movie). There's the mother, Chris, in William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist. You also have Clarice Starling, from Silence of the Lambs. And how about Coraline from the book of the same name. That's just using examples I think most people will be familiar with. 

I also want it to be said that I think female protagonists in Horror generally come off as even stronger than their male counterparts in other stories. It's stereotyping to a degree, but you expect between men and women, the women will have the stronger bonds with those around them, so when people start dropping like flies, it's generally that much harder for them to maintain their composure, face down the villains, and come out in one piece (usually with a few other people in tow). 

Nurse Ratched, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Last of all, are the villains. Women as villains are every bit as terrifying as monsters and their male counterparts. This is due, in part, because people expect women to be nurturing and protective. When you have a character like the one in the picture above, it feels wrong on a much deeper level, it feels more like a betrayal. Even in the old fairy tales, they knew the power a female villain could wield. How many of them feature an evil queen or enchantress? 

Of course, there's Nurse Ratched and Annie Wilkes to start. You've got the witches that curse people like in Stephen King's Thinner. And, of course, you've got the classic evil queen in Snow White. (Let's not kid ourselves here. The original fairy tales were NOTHING but horror stories designed to scare children into obedience.) 

I'm sure there are tons more in every category that I'm not familiar with or remembering at the moment. Or, maybe I'm wrong and there aren't. At the very least, my examples show that women can excel in every one of these aspects. Women can be popular and respected authors of Horror. Women can be strong, intelligent protagonists. Women can be diabolic and overpowering villains. 

So, in Horror, as in life, a woman can be anything she wants to be. And that's the way it should be. 

~ Shaun 

Misconceptions in Horror

So, there's this.

Now, I'm all for the re-imagining of the classic monsters. They need to be treated with the respect and reverence they deserve, though, even if they no longer scare or terrify as they once did. I'm not bringing up this trailer for the new movie I, Frankenstein, to pass any kind of judgement on it though. I'm just using it as a lead in to my topic for the day, which is common misconceptions of Horror.

One of the ones that irks me the most being; Frankenstein was the doctor's name, and NOT the monster's. In the original movie, it was called Frankenstein's Monster, or creature depending on translations and subtitles. The sewn-together beast is NOT actually Frankenstein, no matter how many lazy movies have decided to just call it that. So just remember that if you're ever on Jeopardy and they ask for the name of Dr. Frankenstein's creation. It'll likely be The Monster.

"Horror means blood, gore, and death."

Sometimes. That is not always the case though. Horror is based on the things we fear, and as far as things the average person is afraid of, torture and death are pretty high up there. The loss of those important to us, as well. There is a lot of psychological Horror out there as well though. Movies such as Fire in the Sky, Poltergeist, and The Mothman Prophesies may have a scene or two of bloody mess, but that's not what scares us about those movies. The messy parts are what makes them Horror. Horror isn't just a genre, it's an emotion; and the best examples can bring that fear kicking and screaming out of us without resorting to throwing ketchup at your TV screen. Just look at a story like The Exorcist, where there is a fear of death, but worse than that, is the fear of innocence stolen. Slasher flicks, torture porn, those are sub-genres within Horror. They don't define what Horror is though.

"People that like/write Horror have something wrong with them."

I've actually heard it said that many Horror fans are actually more well adjusted than those who abhor the genre. We don't try to live pretending everything is always great in the world. We don't live every day trying to suppress and deny the darker parts of ourselves. For example, who hasn't had a boss that they wish would get hit by a train on the way home? Horror fans are more likely to smirk at the thought, maybe chuckle a little bit, and then move on to the next thing to catch their attention. More repressed people might be mortified at the thought and fret over having had it for the next hour. Which one of those scenarios sounds healthier to you?

"Horror stories are just cheap one-trick ponies."

This goes along with comments like "Horror can't be literary" and "Horror stories try to scare you and that's it". Would anyone try to claim Edgar Allen Poe's work wasn't literary? Does anyone really think that Horror stories can't have something to say about society or the human condition? Horror does that all the time. Horror movies put our current fears up on the big screen in allegory all the time. Look at the giant monsters of the fifties and sixties. Those were created due to our new and rising fears of atomic energy and radiation. The second Red Scare was embodied in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. More recently, you have movies like Event Horizon, which showcase the current clash between science and religion. How about a story where an old man is haunted by a handful of ghostly beings in a single night and is eventually tossed, screaming, onto his own grave, all to try and make him see the world in a different light? Sound familiar? Sound like a good horror story? You can thank Charles Dickens for writing A Christmas Carol for that one. So, yes, Horror can have a lot to say about the current state of society and the human condition. It's just a matter of climbing out from behind the couch, stopping the shivers in your spine and paying attention to what some (not all, there are pointless gore-fests out there after all) of these movies are trying to say.

So, there we go. Horror does not mean blood, gore, and death. Horror can be thought-provoking and deep. There is not automatically something wrong with people who like or create Horror stories. That is the truth of the matter. Anything I missed? Leave a comment and we'll discuss it.

Also, Dracula's first name is Vlad. Not Count.

~ Shaun

Human Monsters

While there is always a lot of talk about the supernatural creatures of the night, and the abominations from outer space in horror, there is one beast that a lot of people don't like to talk about or admit exists, and that is the monster inside each and every one of us. We make light of them and try to understand them in the forms of Normal Bates, Hannibal Lecter, Dexter, and Jigsaw. We cheer as they get hunted down and brought to justice in movies like Se7en, Red Dragon, and Zodiac.

As you're watching Marathons of Evil Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and any of dozens of other horror movies this halloween, keep in mind that a lot of these human monsters you're seeing dash and stab across your television screens are based on real events, or at the very least, what they do pales in comparison to things people have done to each other.

The character of Leatherface in Texas Chainsaw Massacre is loosely based on one Edward Gein. A Wisconsin man who dug up bodies from the local graveyard and fashioned them into macabre trophies and keepsakes. These included skulls used for bowls and set on the posts of his bed-frame, a belt made of human nipples, several masks made from corpses faces, and even a lampshade. On top of the bodies dug up from their graves, he also killed two local women for some projects which required "fresher" parts. He was caught, tried, and declared legally insane. After that he spent the rest of his life in a mental institution.

Then, you have tales told of such people as Elizabeth Bathory, the fabled Blood Countess, who supposedly tortured and killed hundreds of young woman to bathe in their blood in the belief such an act would allow her to retain a youthful appearance. And of course, there is Vlad Tepes, the man whom the monster of Count Dracula is based on. Vlad was a butcher on the field of battle and was known to be a fan of torture, in particular, the grotesque impalement. After a battle he was known to not only have every fallen foe lifted up onto stakes, but also the ones that remained alive. Some accounts claim that any of his own men that were wounded in battle were also given the treatment as a punishment. Entire forests would be cut down, and then raised with human bodies, some of them still alive and begging for death as slowly slid down the poles. Among these killing fields, Vlad would often have his victory feast, dining among thousands of the dead.

Of course, those are merely some of the most famous monsters of human history, there are hundreds, possibly thousands more, their names lost to history as people have tried to cover up their foul deeds and grant them the obscurity they truly deserve. People like the unnamed doctor that ran the hospital on the island of Poveglia, who tortured patients, conducting live lobotomies and brain surgeries, before ultimately going mad and throwing himself from the island's bell tower. (Check last week's blog post for a video detailing the history of the island of Poveglia.)

So just keep in mind while you're watching those horror marathons on TV this Halloween. Despite what some of the things those monsters and maniacs do, most of it doesn't compare to the horrors people have inflicted on each other over the centuries.

One other detail I want to add in today. My book Class 5 will be free to download on Kindle all day October 31st. So if you haven't snagged a copy and given it a look, go ahead and do so, and enjoy!

~ Shaun

Halloween Grab Bag

Yeah. I missed a week. Not that it seems to matter too much, my post two weeks ago about 2-sentence horror stories has over over 100 views since posting, which is a new record for my blog here. It is a pretty good one, so I recommend giving it a look if you haven't yet.

With October, comes Halloween. And with Halloween comes pumpkin carving. With that, comes my first giveaway contest.

I'm challenging everyone who wants to try, to a pumpkin carving contest. Email them to me here, post them on my facebook page. You've already done carving, you've probably already posted pictures, why not try to get something free out of it?

At the end of the month, I'll put up a poll on my facebook page for people to vote on the pumpkin they like best. The winner will be contacted and I'll send them a signed copy of the 2013 Seattle Crypticon Anthology, which includes my short story "On Tonight's Edition...". Note, your pictures will be posted on my Facebook page for people to vote and the winner will also get mentioned on my blog here. So let's see what you've got.

Of course, with Halloween coming up, you have all manner of scary shows coming up on TV. From the classic It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! to the new Toy Story of Terror! featuring the characters of Toy Story.

Some of the best scary shows are the ones not making the rounds these days though. Back in the early 2000's, there was a series that came around every October, showcasing some of the most haunted places on Earth and delving into their back-stories. These included places like the plague-island Poveglia, Chillingham Castle in England, and Magnolia Lane Plantation in Louisiana. Every year, they would take a family of five and dare them to spend the night in these places, to see if they could take it. The series was called, rather unoriginally, The Scariest Places on Earth. I loved this show, and would've given my toes to know when they were doing the casting calls for families to send to these places. It is unfortunate now, that the show never made the jump to DVD, though a few VHS copies can still be found. Still, a few enterprising individuals have uploaded several episodes to youtube, for which I am especially grateful.

If you want to see more, you can hit the Youtube link at the top, go to playlists, and check out the one titled Scariest Places on Earth. You can also check out the other two playlists, which compose the majority of the music I write by if you're curious.

That's it for this week. Have fun, and let's see some pumpkins!

~ Shaun
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2 Sentence Horror Stories

So, a while ago, the website Reddit had a little contest or something for its users to come up with two-sentence or less horror stories. The best of this contest hasn't quite gone viral, but it has popped up in several places that I've seen and while they won't keep you busy through the night reading them, there are some very nice little bits in there.

Of course, some have been around for a while now and turned into meme's. Ones which I think a lot of people have probably seen by now. These would be.

The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door.

Dude! Where did that spider go?!?

A few are actually really good though, and can very well be considered stories in their own right. There is one that had been almost universally declared the winner of this little contest, as it consistently gets listed as one of the best that was submitted.

Now, I want to go over this short piece, because there are a couple things here which are great examples of what makes a good horror story, of any length. 

1. An unexpected twist. You know this is a horror story. You read the first sentence and you're sure there actually is something under the bed. The monster grabs him and pulls him in, or something along those lines. What you're not expecting, is him to see his son under the bed, when his son just asked him to check for monsters while being tucked in. Which brings us to...

2. The "Oh shit." moment. You know the one. That point in any good horror story when you realize the hero or heroes are in it pretty deep. It could be where they've fallen into a trap or when the villain/monster reveals just how powerful it truly is. That moment in this short piece is right after you read the second line and the realization hits you that whoever just got tucked in is now sitting above the father who is down on the floor looking at (what we presume to be) his real son under the bed. Not only that, whoever (or whatever) is in the bed, asked him to look fully aware of what the father was going to see. There is no doubt in our minds at this point that whatever happens next probably isn't going to be pretty.

3. Not really a third, but just something else I want to point out as a reminder. Characters and Setting. A father, tucking his son into bed at the end of the day. Could there really be a more peaceful, sweet, little family moment? It feels like a very vulnerable moment, where something could easily slip in and strike, but at the same time, the idea that a monster or spirit or what have you would dare to step up at such a point is almost infuriating. 

Of course, there are several others. The original page on Reddit has over 1,000 comments. So, without further ado, here's more of the best. 

My grandmother told me that it was a gift to see the angel of death in front of people's houses, to know that he'd be collecting someone there soon. I thought it was a gift too, up until the day I began to see it in front of every house. ~ Ressurection_man

I woke up to hear knocking on glass. At first, I though it was the window until I heard it come from the mirror again. ~ therealhatman

My daughter won’t stop crying and screaming in the middle of the night. I visit her grave and ask her to stop, but it doesn’t help. ~ skuppy

Nurse’s Note: Born 7 pounds 10 ounces, 18 inches long, 32 fully formed teeth. Silent, always smiling. ~ ichokedcheryltunt

 You can find the whole thread here. 

Now, as some of you may have noticed, I fancy myself a bit of a horror writer as well, so I thought I would give this neat little challenge a try.

1. 2:47 PM. The moon set hours ago, but the sun hasn't risen yet.

2. I never swam in the lake. It was always too crowded with the people who lived in it.

3. I came home to find every door in my house shut and locked. I live alone and most of those doors don't have locks.

So there you have it. Now, I challenge my readers to go ahead and leave a comment (or two, or three) with whatever stories they themselves can come up with. Only two rules, it needs to be Horror, this is October after all, and they have to be two sentences or less. Ok? On your mark, get set, GO!

~ Shaun

A Feast of the Dead

So, I picked up a book, I'm about halfway through, and I don't really have much interest in picking it back up. Now, I don't mean this as anything bad about the book. It's decently written, with some nice cover art and a combination of elements I haven't quite seen yet. It's just those elements don't interest me much anymore. It's almost like they've (dare I say it) been done to death.

I think it's fair to say at this point, that the zombie has jumped the shark.

Or something like that.

Some of you may not be familiar with that term (I knew it, but didn't know what it meant until recently). So I'm going to explain it.

The term means something that was once popular, but has now crossed the line into a decline of quality that is beyond recovery. Originally, it was applied to tv shows at the point where the writing fell apart and the shows started relying on cheap gimmicks and rehashed gags to get ratings as opposed to, you know, good writing. The term has since caught on and is open to mean anything that once popular and is now so overdone that people are getting tired of it.

Shaun of the Dead came out in 2004, and almost ever since, we've been inundated with zombie this and zombie that. We now have zombie conventions, zombie weddings, and even zombie strippers! A movie even came out this past year that was a zombie romance! I mean, everyone is entitled to their own fetishes and fantasies, but at this point you might as well say that we're actively promoting necrophilia. (Though I guess you could say Twilight did that already).

Now, granted, the fears that zombies represented when they first became somewhat mainstream are long gone. The idea that we're all "zombies", working through the paces of our lives with nary a thought in our heads as we go one by one down our list of daily tasks, isn't compelling anymore. If anything, we've accepted that role.

The evolution that the zombie has undergone in recent years, changing from the slow, lurching, reanimated corpse it started as, to the agile, running, cannibalistic predator, is due in part to directors recognizing that the older versions of the zombie don't scare us anymore. We're just not afraid of the walking dead at this point, so they try to switch up which fear they're playing on by aiming for the more primal fear of being hunted, chased down, and eaten, as opposed to the unnatural fear that something dead is up and walking around. I mean, at this point, you might as well be using aliens, werewolves, vampires or even just human cannibals. 

That's not even touching on the whole zombie apocalypse that people are waiting and HOPING to happen. The CDC even put up a page giving details on what to do to prepare for such a thing. I mean, we're not getting any smarter here people, a few generations down the line, our kids are likely to think a zombie apocalypse is a real threat that they live under on a daily basis! (If you want to argue the intellectual point of that with me, I advise you to look up the phrase "Lord of the Rings rips off Harry Potter" and "Stupid things girls do for Justin Beiber" on Google. Trust me, you will fear for the future of the human race.) 

At this, the point where the zombie has infiltrated every aspect of society in just about every way one can think of. I think the time has come to re-bury them. With this last image, I hereby cast my vote to eject the zombie from the list of horror monsters. 

Yes, this is a My Little Pony zombie. 

~ Shaun

What Scares Me?

It really is a simple question, and one more people won't hesitate more than a few seconds to answer. After all, everyone knows something that scares them, even if they won't admit to some of them.

In today's world, fears are mostly things that unnerve us or that we know make life disturbingly hard. Fears don't keep us alive like they used to. Sure, people in the African savannah know to fear lions, rhinos and crocodiles, but most of us don't really need to worry about being stalked, killed, and eaten on our way to the store, work, or school. The large metal boxes we tend to travel in make pretty good protection from mundane teeth and claws.

Pictured: NOT mundane teeth and claws.

In some people, we've even become scared of things which don't make sense, mainly (in my opinion) because of the lack of any other real fear or excitement in our lives. I mean, there's Arachibutyrophobia - Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth, and Sesquipedalophobia- Fear of long words. Those are both things which not only exist, but can influence a person to the point of damaging their quality of life. They may seem like laughing points to those of us who aren't affected by them, or similar fears, but to the people who suffer with them, they are every bit as terrifying as can be spiders, debt, or the idea of cancer.

As a fan of the horror genre, I have a pretty good idea of which subjects send chills down my spine and what things don't. The list of things which don't bother me include clowns, darkness, lightning, and enclosed spaces. There are things which do send chills down my spine, but which don't really impede my ability to function. Here's a little list for those curious about what kind of practical jokes are likely to get to me.

Heights. I actually like this fear. It's an easy one to challenge yourself on. Just climb a ladder until you don't feel comfortable, then push yourself a little higher each time. Or you can go for the overload approach and go sky-diving.

Spiders. I'm not going to turn and run screaming if I see a spider in my house (anymore). Chances are though, I'm probably going to smash it if it comes within reach. If it stays out of reach and minds its own business though, we don't really have any problem co-existing.

Deep water. There's a lot here which makes me squirm, the whole lack of air thing, being in a medium the human body isn't optimized for, as well as being aware of what lives out there and could be swimming underneath me just out of sight all combine to send shivers down my spine. One-on-one, these things don't bother me, it's just all together.

Snakes. Really, the whole idea of snakes is what gets to me. Face-to-face, they're just another animal and outside of a shiver now and again, these are probably one of the things I count as being afraid of the least.

Horror isn't about the little things that just creep us out though. Horror is about the things which send us screaming into the night. It's about the things we don't want to see but can't tear our eyes away from. It's about the things that we actively avoid to the point where, for the few moments the fear is there, our whole lives revolve around getting away from them.

What are the things that make my whole body shiver and make me close the book/change the channel/shut the curtains?

Cannibalism. There was a series on Animal Planet for a few years called Lost Tapes The premise is simply video being found which showed creatures of myth and legend on camera, doing what they do. I LOVED the show and I've seen almost every episode dozens of times to say the least. Except for one episode. The Wendigo. Animals eating people, I have no problem with. Vampires draining people's blood, I have no problem with. People killing and eating other people (typically raw, moments after the kill), I have a serious problem with. I don't know what it is that just disturbs me so about it, (you know, other than the obvious), I just know it does.

Twisted living bodies. I'm not talking about people mangled in car wrecks or anything like that. I mean people moving in ways the human body is not meant to move. All those scenes in the current crop of horror movies that have people spider-walking with their elbows and knees flexing the opposite of how they're supposed to go, just makes me look away. As someone who believes in and accepts the possibility of monsters and freaks hidden in the world around us, it makes what I say next hard to understand, but the way their bodies move while they are twisted around so is just so...unnatural. Trying to quantify it by saying it's not that it looks painful, I actually just realized, part of what makes it so horrible is the complete LACK of pain in all those scenes. It's the lack of pain, despite the knowledge that the human body isn't supposed to twist and bend that way, and the ease with which these beings move which makes them so completely wrong that the mind in no way wants to admit anything like that is even close to possible.

I'm not saying all this to try and sound like I'm cooler or braver than anyone else. It's more like I'm sharing some of how well I know myself, to encourage you to look at the things that scare you, challenge yourself to overcome your fears if you can, or try to understand what it is about those things that scare you. For a horror writer like myself, it's important because if I don't understand what it is about these things that scares me, how can I describe it in such a way and in such detail that the words leap off the page and scare you? 

So, what is it that scares YOU? 

~ Shaun

The State of Horror 2013: Monsters

This is the first post for a little series I'm going to write about the current state of the Horror genre in both books and movies.

Monsters in General

I would like it to be clear to start with that I'm using the word "Monsters" currently as a blanket term, under which I am shoveling everything; from Godzilla to Gremlins, Zombies to Werewolves, and Frankenstein to Hannibal Lector. I am talking about all the evil creatures and villains that make horror movies horrifying. Some specifics types I'll go into more detail further on. For now, this is where I'm starting though.

The Horror genre in general, has lost a lot of it's main monsters. Some have passed away from age, as the fears they engendered have given way to a better understanding of the way the world works, or they were passed up by things even more frightening. The age of the giants is long past as well as the fears of the atomic age. We are no longer frightened by the lack of understanding we have of nuclear weapons, we know we are not going to be mistakenly creating colonies of giant ants or turning iguana's into hundred-meter tall monsters.

Another trend which seems to be stealing away a lot of the power of Horror's most basic tool is the trend toward the Young Adult demographic. This group isn't interested in reading or seeing things that scare them. Anyone who has talked to a teenager for any length of time is well aware that their whole lives revolve around the drama of relationships, their own, their friends and those of the people they like or are interested in. Thus, a lot of the power our monsters had is getting toned down for this demographic or in some cases, even taken away entirely and then romanticized! One of the bigger problems with this is that as people move out of the YA category, they have already come to expect that of the monsters they may see in later books or movies and thus they dislike it when the "true" monsters come out.

Vampires

Vampires are one of the oldest monster tropes we have in the Horror genre. They have also grown to be among the weakest ones still shuffling along. While they survive in adaptations such as 30 Days of Night, Blade, and Underworld, the damage they have suffered in the past several years has been truly appalling. Gone are the days when a single one of these lords of the undead could send shivers down your spine and cause you to check the doors and windows before bed. Their strength has been weakened by such creations as the Twilight series, Being Human, and The Vampire Diaries; now they only cause fear by running in packs and acting like savage predators. It is telling though, that as a society we no longer fear seduction by these creatures, which was always an allusion to the sexual repression of the victorian era. So it has to be said, as much as we have outgrown this classic monster, it is a testament to it's power and adaptability that it remains such a common trope, whether or not it is portrayed as the monstrous villain or the courageous hero.

Werewolves

Werewolves are another Horror classic, and they have remained largely unchanged since they first appeared.  The werewolf was always used to represent the duality of the human condition, the difference between the intellectual and the beast. They aren't as common on their own and usually when they do show up, as in the Underworld movies, they are second string to vampires. Werewolves, however, remain one of the most consistent monster tropes that we still have. The human 'beast' who has no control over his transformation and joins with others of his kind to roam in packs for strength and protection. The point being, human beings are pack animals and as long as we strive to maintain our intelligence, there will always be the struggle between the brain and the animal instincts inside us.

Zombies

The zombie didn't become a horror trope in and of itself until the 1968 film The Night of the Living Dead, though several books and films did mention them in previous years, such as Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I am Legend. The idea of the zombie, a person who is dead moving around actively looking for live flesh to feed upon, hits upon several things that scare us; such as a loss of identity and cannibalism. Unfortunately, the zombie trope has been somewhat overdone in the past decade or so and has lost a lot it's ability to frighten us. There are many ideas as to why that is. Commercialization for a start, but I think it's more to do with the fact that you can have too much of a good thing. Zombies have been featured so heavily over the past several years that it's almost become a common part of the normal world. Movies like Shaun of the Dead and Warm Bodies make light of the zombie as a monster and even in shows that take them seriously as in The Walking Dead make them almost secondary to the drama of the survivors. Zombies will continue to stick around, but I expect them to further degrade as the years continue, not because we no longer fear what they represent, but because we have more or less given in to it.

Ghosts and Demons

It's rather sad to me that these are almost becoming mixed. Interest in these things has spiked, due in large part to the show Ghost Hunters and movies such as Paranormal Activity. These tropes as monsters offer a look into some of the greatest fears we have; the unknown and what happens to us after we die. The idea that we can only see what they want us to see, whether it's a door moving or pans rattling feeds a sense of paranoia that they can be all around us at any given time and at their will could grab us and throw us against the ceiling or drag us down the hall. Unseen spirits are one of the most enduring tropes in the horror genre and despite the passage of time have lost none of their ability to frighten. In some ways their ability has been strengthened by the jump in interest through the tv series and movies I've already mentioned, which have allowed everyone to see what these things could be capable of. It gives me hope that as long as the question of what these things really are remain unanswered, these will remain capable sources of frights, for books and movies.

Aliens

We have come a long way from fearing the silver space suits of the 1950's, and despite a seeming wane of interest these ideas continue to cause fear. It is a fear that has matured since it was first used, and no longer do we fear simply seeing the ships in the air as we did during the days of the cold war. Instead, we discovered what to truly fear, which is what they can do and why they're here. This is evident in movies such as The Fourth Kind and the older Fire in the Sky. As what it is about them that scares us has solidified, so has the level of terror they can bring us to. They have become the proverbial 'monster in the closet', waiting for us to go to sleep and sneak into our bedrooms. They have come to embody our fear of the dark and of what is out in the vast emptiness of space. They are currently taking a break, stepping aside for the uprising of the demons and spirits which are occupying the main stage of the horror genre currently, but they remain a powerful source of fear and frights and will likely see another resurgence in the years to come.

Last Rites

Those are the main monster tropes available in the horror genre currently. There are others of course, there has been a slight resurgence of the classic fairy tales, updated for the modern age and returning to their darker roots in the shows Grimm and Once Upon A Time. Giant monsters still pop up from time to time like the forthcoming movie Pacific Rim, as well as the monsters created by science be it Jurassic Park, or Rise of the Planet of the Apes. There are also the human monsters, reveling in the horrific acts that people can inflict upon each other. Rarely, a brand new abomination will rear it's head. The point of all these monsters and beasts though is mere allegory. No matter what repulsive forms they take, they are manifestations of the things we fear the most. Not everyone is scared of these things equally and some might fear other things entirely, but that is the truth of what these creatures are, and until these fears are conquered by the collective human society, they will continue to roam, terrorize and kill in books, movies and television. And I for one, don't think that's a bad thing.

~ Shaun