31 days of halloween, p.2
31 Days of Halloween,
p.2
I haven’t slept for days, sitting by his side, my dear, sweet boy. He hasn’t slept in weeks.
It won’t let him eat; vomiting everything I try feeding him. I can see his ribs poking through.
Cautiously I kiss his cheek. It burns with fever and the thing inside turns his head to snap at me. I know it is not him doing it, but my heart breaks just the same.
“WE ARE LEGION!” it screams.
“And I am Love,” I whisper back, helpless.
23rd
When I bit into the apple I wasn’t expecting the razor blade. Pain shot through my system like lightning, blood poured from my mouth.
I nearly severed my tongue.
Fetching the needle and thread, I put on some Dvorak in order to savor the moment. With every needle puncture and thread pull I shivered with delight. I tried singing along and, oh my, what wonders of pain that brought. The contraction and expansion of tongue muscle against stainless steel and cotton.
Delicious!
I must try to remember the address where the apple came from.
Halloween, a night of kindred souls.
24th
Okay, I shouldn’t have egged her house. And I shouldn’t have tossed dog crap at her windows.
But I really shouldn’t have waited around to see her come out onto her porch, to see her curse the night and apparently me.
Nope, really shouldn’t have done that.
I also shouldn’t have run for help when I couldn’t get my mask off, when it stopped being a mask, when it started being me or I started being it.
Yeah, bad idea...
I’m guessing curses were a lot safer when it was just pitchforks and torches.
This shotgun and 9mm stuff sucks.
25th
“Only one wish left,” the Djinn said. “Better make it worth it.”
The world burned around Harold as he sobbed. The bodies of his friends and family lay in piles, broken, smoldering.
“I don’t want to wish anymore!” Harold blubbered. “Everything I wish for gets turned around, becomes evil.”
“I told you to think things through before wishing, but you wanted to hurry. Are you ready to think now, Harold?”
“Yes, please! Just make it all go away! I just want everything to go away!” Harold cried.
“Oh, Harold... You just don’t learn,” the Djinn sighed before it all went...
26th
“Burn them all!” Reverend Pittman shouted out to his flock. “Show the heathens, the disbelievers, the sinners! Show them we will not be tempted by their smut and whore music! Burn them all!”
The crowd cheered, shoveling the offensive books high onto the flames, as one truck pulled away, to be replaced by another.
“Now my children!” Pittman screamed, his voice hoarse from the smoke. “Books fueled this fire, but now we burn the source! As God commands!”
The truck opened and the first writer was forced out and tossed on, his pleas the last words he would ever create.
27th
“Darling, you aren’t eating your birthday cake,” Matilda fussed. “Here let me help you.”
Matilda delicately pried open Edward’s jaws, careful not to tear the dried sinew and muscle. “Open wide!” Matilda laughed at her and Edward’s ‘little joke’.
She placed the forkful of cake between Edward’s shriveled lips and onto his desiccated tongue. “There we go sweetheart! Doesn’t that taste Devine! It’s from a new bakery this year. I asked if they could make German chocolate and they said they made the best.” Matilda took a bite also and chewed slowly, savoring the flavor. “Mmmmm! I have to agree!”
28th
I received a package today. It wasn’t from USPS or UPS. It had no return address or shipping label. Just my name on it in dark red letters.
And a warning: Do Not Open Or They Die.
I have shaken the box, but whatever is inside is secured and does not rattle. There is substantial weight to the box, but not too much. Feels like a bag of flour or sugar, it has that kind of density to it.
I tried calling my wife, to ask her opinion, but she didn’t answer.
Okay, one little peek... What could go wrong?
29th
“Eat it.”
“No.”
“I said eat it!”
“No!”
“You will eat everything on your plate right now or there will be consequences! Do you hear me? Don’t you look away! I asked if you heard me!”
“Yes... I heard you.”
“I can make you eat it.”
“No, please, not again...”
“It’s up to you, not me.”
“Son, listen, you can’t do this. You have to let me go! You have to let your mother go!”
“Oh, Mother isn’t going anywhere anymore.”
“What do you mean? Where is your mother? What have you done?”
“Never you mind. Now... Eat. Your. Food.”
30th
“This is stupid, man,” Reggie complained. “It’s two in the morning. What the hell are we doing in the middle of a lake?”
Mathers ignored Reggie’s bitching and continued to stare over the side of the rowboat into the dark, murky water.
“I’m freezing my nuts off! Why? So you can catch a ‘freshwater’ mermaid? Mermaids don’t exist!”
Beneath the boat a light, small and faint began to circle. Mathers smiled.
Do you come to pay tribute?, a voice echoed in Mathers’s mind.
Yes.
Do you have a gift?
Mathers turned on Reggie and brought the oar down swiftly. Yes.
31st
“Trick or treat!” the children cried.
“Ooooh, aren’t you scary,” the old man said, admiring the different costumes. “I choose ‘Trick’.”
The kids stood there confused.
“Where’s the candy?” one brave ghoul shouted, thrusting his bag out.
“No candy, children. I said ‘Trick’.”
“Um, what does that even mean?”
“You do horrible things to my house or me!”
The children slowly backed away off the porch.
“Wait! Come back! I want my Trick!”
“Dude, it’s the normal looking ones that are always the freaks,” a boy said, the other kids nodding their agreement as they ran to the next house.
About The Author:
A Bram Stoker Award nominated-novelist, short story writer, independent screenwriter, podcaster, audiobook narrator/producer, and inventor of the Drabble Novel, Jake is the author of over sixty published novels including the bestselling Z-Burbia zombie apocalypse series, the bestselling Salvage Merc One military scifi series, the bestselling Roak: Galactic Bounty Hunter space crime series, the fan favorite hit Team Grendel/Mega thriller series, and his original post-apocalyptic mech/zombie mash-up, the Apex Trilogy. His other novels include the YA zombie novel, Little Dead Man, the Bram Stoker Award nominated YA horror novel, Intentional Haunting, the middle grade scifi/horror series, ScareScapes, and the historical fiction/space opera mash-up series, Reign of Four, for Permuted Press, as well as Stone Cold Bastards and the Black Box Inc. series for Bell Bridge Books.
Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Jake currently lives in Asheville, NC with his wife and two kids (well, one is attending college. Go Tarheels!), enjoying the mix of the eclectic attitude of the area and good ol’ Southern hospitality. He really wishes the tourists would go away, though.
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OTHER BOOKS BY JAKE Bible:
By Series:
Roak: Galactic Bounty Hunter Series
The Z-Burbia Series
The Mega/Team Grendel Thrillers
The Flipside Sagas
Max Rage: Intergalactic Badass!
Black Box Inc. Series
Dead Mech/The Apex Trilogy
The Salvage Merc One Series
Fighting Iron Series
Dead Team Alpha Series
The AntiBio Series
The Kaiju Winter Series
Reign of Four
By Genre:
Science Fiction-
Roak: Galactic Bounty Hunter Series
Max Rage: Intergalactic Badass!
The Flipside Sagas
The Salvage Merc One Series
Drop Team Zero
Outpost Hell
Galactic Vice
Agent Prime
Dead Mech/The Apex Trilogy
Fighting Iron Series
Mech Corps
Reign of Four
The AntiBio Series
In Perpetuity
THRILLER/ACTION/ADVENTURE-
Max Rage: Intergalactic Badass!
The Mega/Team Grendel Thrillers
The Flipside Sagas
Blood Cruise
Agent Prime
Galactic Vice
Post-Apocalyptic-
The Z-Burbia Series
Dead Team Alpha Series
Dead Mech/The Apex Trilogy
EverRealm
Fighting Iron Series
The AntiBio Series
The Kaiju Winter Series
Zombies!-
The Z-Burbia Series
Dead Team Alpha Series
Dead Mech/The Apex Trilogy
EverRealm
Horror-
The Z-Burbia Series
Blood Cruise
Stone Cold Bastards
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Black Box Inc. Series
Stone Cold Bastards
EverRealm
YA/MG Novels-
ScareScapes! (middle grade scifi adventure
Intentional Haunting (2014 Bram Stoker Award Finalist- YA horror)
Little Dead Man (YA zombie apocalypse)
Jake Bible, 31 Days of Halloween
