Sawtooth Jack is Coming...

On October 13, one of my favorite books is coming to the screen! (You can see my original review of the book here.)

Dark Harvest, written by Norman Partridge, is a delicious tale of Halloween horror so beautifully told, you can almost smell the burning smile of a jack-o'-lantern.

It goes like this: Two things happen every Hallowe'en.

The October Boy rises. And The Run begins. Has done for years. 

The boys of that little Podunk town know their job is to make sure The October Boy never makes it to the church in the center of town. The October Boy, for his part, knows he has to make it into the church by the last stroke of midnight. The boys of the town are locked up for days before The Run, with only water and orange juice to sustain them.

The October Boy is filled up with candy, and the boys are starving...

The boy who kills ol' Sawtooth Jack is allowed to leave the town for good, and his parents get all the money and things they could possibly want.

But you know what they say. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Apparently, this will be a video on demand release. I expect to get more details soon!

God, I hope they don't mess this up!

My Scary Bookshelf

Some of you may be looking for some creepy stories you can curl up with as the weather turns to the cool, crisp days and nights of Fall. I post this Pinterest board of stories every year because I generally will add to it, little by little, every year. And also, because I need a place to got to, to remind myself of the stories I want to read or re-read.

So click on the scarecrow above to be taken to the board and peruse the offerings there! 

Yes, qualifying purchases on Amazon may lad me a microscopic commission, but don't worry. I won't be using the wads of cash to go to space or anything dumb like that...

Neat Freak, Part 3

The final chapter in the short story, "Neat Freak." I hope you've enjoyed it! Happy Hallowe'en!
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She knew where Todd had gotten the idea to drink from the container. Leave it to Jeremy to undermine her and justify his nasty habits.

Todd screwed the cap back on the milk and stuck it back in the fridge, in the wrong place.

Jamie came to stand next to her dad, a smudge of dirt on her cheek.

I can’t believe this, Peggy thought, just look at her face. She knows it’s dirty. She’s flaunting it in front of me because she knows her dad is here to protect her.

She put the phone back to her ear.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“Perhaps you should—correct—the problem, Margaret,” suggested the neighbor. “Perhaps you’ve been too lenient with your family. When you’re done, you can go and feed the roses.”

“You’re right of course,” she answered pleasantly. Jeremy was watching her, still waiting for an answer about his dinner. She smiled at him, more a slight baring of her teeth than an expression of affection.

“Thank you for calling. I really needed to hear your voice,” she said warmly, her eyes pinned to her husband.

“My pleasure, my dear.” She hung up. Peggy gently put the phone back on the hook and turned to her family.

“Why don’t you go in the living room and watch TV, kids, and I’ll start dinner.

The kids went to the living room. She could hear the noise of cartoons blaring. Her headache’s pounding twisted up a painful notch.

Jeremy went back to the bar for a refill of scotch, leaving a condensation ring on her counter.

She stared at it. The pounding came harder. Her eyes were throbbing in time with the pounding.

She turned to the freezer, grabbed a package of frozen salmon he had caught that summer (leaving the tiny remainders of the entrails in her sink, she remembered). There were several salmon in the package. She weighed it in her hand and glared at the back of his head as he poured his scotch, leaving another condensation ring on her clean bar.

Yes. Salmon would do nicely for the whole family.

That evening, the neighbors didn’t wonder at the sound of the chipper in Peg’s beautiful yard, although they did shake their heads a little at the sound. She often worked in the yard after dinner. One or two wondered if she would ever lighten up and enjoy life a little, rather than working in her house all the time.

Later that evening, after the neighbors had gone to bed, the worms feasted.

Peg’s house was finally clean.


One Year Later

Jenny stood alone in the back yard, gazing at the wilting roses and listening to the drone of the real estate agent’s voice drifting through the window as she tried to gloss over the unfortunate incident which had happened here months ago. This was a state that enforced the full disclosure laws, and the woman, by golly, was going to spin it into a sale if she could.

“Well, she was unstable, Mr. Quint,” she explained to Jenny’s husband.

“Those roses used to be lovely,” a voice commented, cutting through the other woman’s grating patter. Jenny thought the voice was coming from behind the fence to her right. She glanced over, trying to see between the slats, but couldn’t catch a glimpse of whomever was talking to her.

“I’m sure they haven’t been fed in at least a year, since the house was last occupied,” the neighbor (she was sure it was a neighbor) continued.

Jenny shook her head sadly. “What a shame. They could be so beautiful!”

“Well, dear, they will when you move in and feed them what they need to grow and be beautiful again.” 

And just like that, Jennifer decided she would convince David to buy the house.

Neat Freak, Part 2

Part two.  If you're just tuning in to the story, go back to yesterday's entry to catch up! And again, feel free to observe copyright laws. Share the link to my blog if you enjoy the story!

Neat Freak, Part 2

Her mouth twisted downwards at the thought of diseases. One of the idiot neighbors once suggested she and Jeremy get a dog for the kids. She launched into a vehement lecture on what foul, dirty creatures they were, how they carried all manner of disease. She was so vehement, in fact, that the neighbor looked horrified. Peggy was sure it was because now he knew that the dog in his own home was a hazard, a bio-hazard, and he would certainly have to get rid of it, if not put it down for good. After all, the ignorant ass had children of his own. It was his duty as a father to protect them from infection!

After she scrubbed the entire counter (and the oven, the floor, the refrigerator and the kitchen table, too, for obvious reasons), she was dripping with the sweat of her efforts. With a satisfied sigh, she stepped into the living room. She stopped short and nearly shrieked with anger.

There were footprints on her white carpet.

Mind you, the footprints weren’t black with dirt, but the pristine pattern left by her vacuum cleaner was ruined. She conscientiously vacuumed every day (sometimes twice) to eradicate dust mites, knowing the tiny aliens were nothing but trouble. Snarling to herself, she stormed to the utility closet and brought out the vacuum. It was one of these cyclone models, with the clear bin so you didn’t have to touch the dirt. She would dump the dirt in the compost pile afterward, thereby making the dirt useful to her precious roses. As she vacuumed, frantic with the need to erase all traces of her family from the room, she made little noises of anger and frustration. Didn’t they understand how much effort it took to clean up after them? Didn’t they appreciate all her hard work?

She stopped, the metallic whine of the vacuum’s motor a comforting drone of cleanliness waiting to happen. No. It was obvious they didn’t, the ungrateful pigs. They were slobs, all of them, just living to make work for her so she couldn’t spend time with her roses. And Jeremy, husband and ringleader, mocking her to the children behind her back. She just knew he did.

She resumed her frantic vacuuming, anger making each pass more energetic.

After she had dumped the clear plastic bin into her compost pile several times (she had vacuumed the entire 2,550 square foot house just for good measure), as well as dumping out the kitchen waste into the vermicompost bins for her darling worms (so tidy, so efficient at cleaning up that nasty waste), she stole a quick moment with her roses. The sweat on her body cooled in the gentle breeze.

A tender smile spread across her face as she took in their sweet, heady scent, reminding her of her mother’s perfume. Her mother was neat and tidy, too. She was married to a military man who demanded his house be kept as neat as a military barracks, and by God, Mother did.

It had taken Peggy years to understand what an ungrateful little beast she had been growing up, leaving messes for her poor mother to clean. In fact, she couldn’t remember being so passionate about housework until she moved into this house, and had to manage her own two ungrateful little beasts.

She caressed a velvet rose petal. The children were clearly hard cases, and Jeremy was too easy on them. She must find a way to make them see the light. She spun on her heel and, regretful at leaving her roses, resolutely stalked back into the house to continue her routine.

Their rooms were a deplorable mess, as usual. She put everything away in their places (order. She must have order here), then moved through the house, picking up and dusting until the house looked just like a model home, like the house she grew up in. Looking like nobody lived there but her. She savored the thought for a sweet moment.

The front door banged open.

“Mom! We’re home!”

“Wipe your feet!” she shrieked as she came around the corner, “They’re dirty!”

Leave it to them to spoil a perfect, solitary moment.

Jeremy came in behind them (was he home already? Where had the day gone? She still had the bathrooms to clean), tracking in a leaf from the driveway and carelessly crushing it into her carpet. The kids had ignored her, as usual, and had run up to their rooms to destroy the perfection she had attained there. Her face hardened.

Jeremy tossed his keys on the kitchen counter (not in the special dish on the sideboard she had bought for that express purpose), and dropped his briefcase on the floor. He kicked off his shoes and left them where they fell in the middle of the kitchen, and went to mix himself a drink from the bar. A headache started behind her eyes, sharp at first, then settling down into steady pounding.

I will not scream, she thought. I will not. She was speechless with anger at his (their, face it, it was all of them) carelessness.

He took a swig of his drink and went to scrounge through her immaculate refrigerator, destroying the orderly rows of jars and food she had so painstakingly rearranged this morning, after emptying the entire thing and giving it a good scrubbing.

The phone rang. She answered. It was her neighbor. Peg smiled slightly, dreamily, listening to her voice praising her clean house and beautiful roses.

Jeremy turned to her. “What’s for dinner, Peg?” he asked. “I didn’t see that you took anything out for dinner.” It was just like him to demand her attention while she was on the phone with someone else.

The kids had come back downstairs, wearing their house clothes (she was sure threw their school clothes all over their rooms and just left them there).

“I saw them come home, Margaret.” The neighbor had always called her by her true name, not her nickname. “They’re making a mess of the house, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” she answered in a shaking whisper. Peg’s headache intensified.

She watched as Todd reached past his dad and grabbed the milk container, unscrewed the top and started to drink from it.

“Todd!” she screamed, holding the phone away from her ear, “Don’t you dare drink from that container! Do you have any idea how germy your mouth is? Do you?”

“C’mon Peg. Lighten up on him. He’s just being a kid,” Jeremy told her.

Peg schooled her face into a mask of calm. Jeremy never used her given name.

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Tune in for Part Three tomorrow!

Hauntcast Magazine is Up!

After a long wait (hey, Grimlock was viciously attacked by Sandy, and had a lot of stuff to deal with!), the first issue of Hauntcast Magazine is up! 

Hauntcast subscribers need to scroll to the bottom of the loyal minions page for the link to download. This also is my debut as a writer of horror; Squee! (I hope it doesn't suck!)

Subscribe. Just do it. You know you want to!

The House Next Door

Perhaps you have never run across this little gem of a horror story. I ran across it when I was a member of one of those numerous book clubs floating around out there- Book of the Month or some such, and was immediately grabbed by it.

Written in 1978 by Anne Rivers Siddons, "The House Next Door" was her one trip into the horror genre. It's the story of Colquitt and Walter Kennedy, who live in the 'burbs of Atlanta, Georgia. They live normal, peaceful lives until someone begins to build a house on the pretty, wooded lot next door to them, but that's just due to the typical bangings and crashings of construction work, right? Perhaps it's something less obvious...

Colquitt's forced acceptance of the march of progress in her little neighborhood is disturbed by the persistent feeling that something is wrong with the house. She feels almost as the house stares back at her through her windows, and then of course, there are the animals that go missing and are later found horrifyingly mauled, adding to her growing sense that the house itself may have a hidden agenda. Walter, ever the practical male, scoffs at her feelings at first, then becomes convinced that the house is, indeed, evil, turning each family who moves into it into its playthings and destroying their lives, one by one.

While in places the book may seem a little dated to modern readers, this is a solid horror story with the added twist of the haunted house being brand new and quite modern. I don't know that this story is very well-known, but what I do know is that Stephen King was so impressed by it that he included it in his special releases of his "Horror Library" series, and that was good enough for me. This book was one of those I just couldn't put down, and I really wonder why it seems it was never made into a movie. I'd certainly pay to see it!