Maurissa Guibord's Blog, page 7

Haunted House Tour- The Game Room

Today in Ridley Manor we are going to have some fun!

Just down this hallway- No, not that door please- Mrs. Festering is taking a nap. At least that's what Festering says-  though she's been in there an awfully long time...

Here we are. Just the place for some good sport:







 NOSFERATU AND THE PARTY GAMES

A Story by Carrie Harris
 Nossie didn’t like games.He wasn’t a people person, either. He didn’t like to associate with his dinner before he ate it. Besides, humans had too much hair and freakishly small ears. They freaked him out. Even their buildings annoyed him—too many right angles, not enough artistic vision.Frankly, if it weren’t for Halloween, he wouldn’t leave his crypt at all. But he couldn’t resist anything even vaguely related to the holiday. Halloween made him feel like he belonged. His decorations stayed up all year. He even had a TV installed in his crypt so he could watch the Thriller video. He knew all the moves.
 So when he heard about the Haunted House down the street from his graveyard, he couldn’t resist stopping by before trick-or-treating. He put on his red leather jacket, the one with all the zippers. He squeezed his hand into a single sparkly glove. Then he executed a faultless moonwalk in front of his dingy mirror and felt incredibly cool.
 The moment he arrived, he knew this was a bad idea. The pseudo Victorian mansion was awash in twinkling lights, and machine-generated fog spilled down the steps. It smelled like syrup. Paper ghosts spun and twisted in the trees. The house was not at all scary, and it almost killed his Halloween buzz. But then a pair of teenagers came sprinting out the front doors, screaming hysterically.Now this, he had to see. He grinned a pointy grin and went inside.
 Nobody there. The ticket table was deserted, the money box open and empty except for a few lonely coins. He wandered into a game room, which was punctuated by a cobwebby billiards set and a row of dusty and unidentifiable board games set out on card tables. The game pieces moved themselves. Glasses on the bar lifted and lowered back down again, the liquid inside disappearing into thin air. At first he thought it was just a parlor trick. But then his keen vampire ears picked up the sound of mocking, disembodied laughter.“Quit laughing at my cothtume, you thtupid ghothth!”
 He stumbled over the last word, and the laughter grew until his ears burnt with it. He spun, his eyes burning redder than the leather of his jacket. His claws grasped at his tormentors, but their spectral bodies gave him nothing to hold on to. Nothing to bite.They were visible now. The room was full of blue outlined figures in Victorian finery, lace practically erupting from their every pore. They tittered at him from behind fans (lace trimmed) and handkerchiefs (also lace trimmed). They looked like total nancies to Nossie. And he hated being laughed at.
 Fine. They wanted scary, he’d show them scary. Those lace-trimmed, game-piece-moving, Halloween amateurs.The door opened, letting in a man with a pinched face half-obscured by a black velvet robe. Nossie didn’t need to look at the runes woven around the cowl to know the guy was a necromancer. Evil oozed from his pores. At least it was better than the lace.
 Nossie stared him down, his red eyes glinting in the dim light. “Make them thtop laughing at me,” he demanded. “You control the ghothth, don’t you?”
 The necromancer snorted, looking down his nose with an expression of haughty superiority. “They are harvesting fear on my behalf. This is true. But I will not take orders from a bottom feeder like yourself. Now remove yourself from my presence before I am forced to deal with you.”Nossie could have just left, but they’d ruined his Halloween and he couldn’t just let that slide. He began to dance. There was no music, but he knew the moves by heart. He spun and twisted like an undead Michael Jackson, his claws curling in the air. The performance went well until the necromancer laughed. Big mistake.
 He grabbed the man by his throat, lifting him effortlessly into the air. The ghosts wasted no time; a glittering silver something flew at his eye. He ducked, and the game piece nicked the plaster behind his head. His face stung as the ghostly ladies and gentlemen pelted him with the rest of the game pieces. When that didn’t work, they assaulted him with visions of blood and torment.That just made him hungry. His stomach growled.
 Nossie squeezed until the necromancer fell limp in his arms. Spectral hands desperately tried to hold him back as he carried the necromancer out the door. He looked back at the house only once. The ghosts clustered at the windows, wailing and shrieking, unable to cross the threshold. And he laughed his way home, dragging his meal behind him.
 Checkmate.
 

Carrie Harris is a geek of all trades and proud of it. Brains are her specialty; she used to work in a lab where they were delivered daily via FedEx. After that, it seemed only natural to write a zombie book--BAD TASTE IN BOYS, which comes out in July 2011 with Delacorte. Now she lives in Michigan with her ninja doctor husband and three zombie-obsessed children.  Check out her sparkly, spooky website too: carrieharrisbooks.blogspot.com/   

Haunted House Tour- The Parlor

Welcome back to Ridley Manor! This week's winner of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein on dvd is:



  shoebrera    Congrats!!

Next up for a prize for one of this week's commenters is a copy of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book.


And we're moving, we're moving... Let's see where shall we go... How about the parlor?






The ParlorBy Sonia Gensler The room had known laughter,swells of song and quarrel,the dozy drone of prayer.It held its breath during the kiss,creaked merrily through a jig,sighed at a widow’s tears. Now darkness reigns,and oak beams brittle,sorrow snakes across the walls,cracking yellowed paper.The room shivers and groans –a heart rent to pieceswith each hunk of plasterthat crashes to the floor.



Sonia Gensler (soniag) loves stories of ghosts and hauntings -- so long as she's not experiencing them alone in the dark.  Visit her at www.soniagensler.com 
  

Haunted House Tour- Let's go upstairs...

Welcome back!
I hope everyone's been well. We had a gorgeous long weekend in Maine with bright warm skies in the daytime and frost at night.
I forgot to mention that a randomly selected commenter will be selected this week to win a DVD copy of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, with Kenneth Branagh and Robert DeNiro. (It's Alive!)
Today's tour of Ridley Manor continues upstairs. There's a bedroom at the end of the hall and inside the bedroom is a charming old fireplace :
 
Greasy Eyeballs                                                                              By Randy Russell                      It’s best not to stand too close to the fireplace in a haunted house.  There’s always a strange popping noise when a fire is lit.  This time of the year, when the weather turns chilly at night, was when the old hag Mary Dollar moved her bed close to the fireplace.  She set a small table beside the bed.  She kept her eyes in a glass of water there at night.  No, Mary didn’t take her eyeballs out so she could sleep in a dark room while the fire blazed.  Mary took her eyes out because she wasn’t home all night.  She was a witch and she had flying around to do.  Witches when Mary was alive didn’t enjoy the technology we take for granted today.  They did things the old-fashioned way.  With cats and brooms and plenty of grease.  Mary Dollar, like other witches of her day, had to take all her clothes off and rub grease over her body in order to fly up (and back down) a lit fireplace at night.  In order to keep her toes and fingers and nose from being burnt, she had to get up and down the chimney as fast as… well, greased lightning.   It made her hair frizzy, despite the slick alacrity of her ascent.  That’s why Mary always wore a hat. She chose a red pointed one to make sure she went up the chimney in the right direction.  By the time she made her upward pass onto the roof, though, the hat always looked black because of the soot in the chimney.  So did the rest of her.  Well, except her eyes. Now, it was dark when Mary made it up to the roof.  It was dark all night.  She didn’t like bumping into tall trees while she was flying around looking for children to snatch.  So Mary changed out her eyes with those of one of her cats.  They were the right size, but everyone knows cat’s eyes have a different shape than ours.  Mary had to grease up those eyes she took out of her cat to get them to slide into the empty sockets where she’d taken her eyes out and put them in that glass of water by the bed. The poor cat had to wait till she got home in order to see a thing.  But Mary Dollar could see just fine while she was zipping around on her broom hither and yon.  One Halloween was particularly windy, though, and Mary lost her hat.  It blew away in the wind. She was mad about that and came home early to get another hat.  She kept several pointy hats in the closet. Unknown to Mary, the wind had dried out the grease that covered her body sooner than you might expect a coat of grease to last.  When she came down the fireplace, she came down just a little slower than usual. And, without her pointy hat on, her hair started to sizzle a little.  Her toes felt for a second like they were being fried.  Mary jerked her head back as she slowly dropped and the heat from the flames rose to greet her.  Dang it, she bumped her head on the inside of that chimney and her cat eyes popped right out.They fell in the fireplace and cooked along with the burning logs.  First, the eyeballs sizzled a little, then they popped.  Mary got out of the chimney all right, just a little crunchy on the edges.  The cat, though, was mad as all get out.   Luckily for him, Mary had lots of cats.  A witch had to have plenty of back up in those days. And the cats thought it was unfair of Mary Dollar to take the eyes out of one of them and then lose them in the fireplace just because a little of her grease had dried out.  So one of them knocked over the glass of water by the bed and Mary’s own eyeballs went rolling across the floor.  Mary was blind without them, of course. The cats teamed up and jumped against her as the witch ambled around the room with her arms stretched out.  They shoved her around that room until they had her in front of the fireplace.  Then they all jumped at once and pushed Mary over the hearth into the burning logs.  Every time she tried to get out, those cats pushed her back.  With a lot more a sizzle and a number of additional pops, Mary Dollar was consumed by the fire.  There was one less witch in the state of Maine.   The cat that wore Mary’s eyes for the rest of its natural life gave birth to kittens with human eyes just like yours and mine.  And those kittens’ kittens keep being born with Dollar Eyes just like their momma had.  You might have seen one on your way in. You never know with witches eyes whether they'll go away for good or not.  Anyway, don’t stand too close to the fireplace in Ridley Manor.  And don’t stare at the fire too long.  You just might see something in there that is seeing you back.


Fire-eater and part-time Circus performer, Randy Russell writes about ghosts and dead people from his home in Asheville, North Carolina.    www.ghostfolk.com     

Haunted House Tour- The Front Porch (and a winner!)

 
So I called Elmer Festering in from the garden where he was digging. He's the caretaker of Ridley Manor and our official random-winner-picker.
It's a difficult time for Elmer right now- the moon is waxing (too bad Elmer can't!  ha-ha-um, sorry)




Here he is with the lucky number. Good job Elmer!
And this week's winner of an amazingly spooky prize is: dotificus  Congratulations!

But on with the tour of Ridley Manor. I think some of us may be a bit uncomfortable- it was warm in the kitchen wasn't it?
Why don't we get some fresh air.
 

The Other Side of the Screen DoorBy Terri-Lynne DeFino

I sit on the porch swing every evening, watching the stars step out of dusk, glittering debutantes swirling onto a dance floor. It’s my favorite time of the day. My peaceful time. The stars don’t seem as bright as they were when I was a child; but I remember. I pretend. It’s nearly as good as it used to be, for a little while. It’s cold, though. I never minded the cold before. It used to be a relief from the southern heat. Now I miss its velvet clinging to my skin, making my hair curl. I miss the fireflies and cricketsong and the scent of peaches long after season’s end. It was always summer. Once. Things change. They become too small to see, to hear. I swing. Back and forth. Back and forth. The chains of the porch swing creak and groan. How many times I’ve asked him to oil them. He doesn’t hear me, or pretends not to. If he would listen, just once, things would be better. I’d stop being so angry all the time. I don’t like to be harsh with him. I love him. And it’s so very unladylike, throwing things, breaking things, making a mess that he has to tidy. Fool that I am; I keep hoping he’ll see things the way I do. Love is not supposed to be this way. I hear him inside, cleaning up the dishes I dashed to the floor, pretending he can’t hear the porch swing, believing he can drown me out. He should know better by now. I can hold out longer than he can. I swing faster. The creaking becomes a rusty, grating, angry sound. I want to be a girl again, full of dreams that will never come true. I want to go inside, make him acknowledge me, make him love me. I want. I want. But I never get what I want. Why should this be any different? The screen door opens and clacks closed again. I let the swing sway to a stop. He is standing so near. I can imagine his warmth. I can imagine his touch. I long for both. He breathes deeply, and lets it go like a sigh. “You have to go, Liddy,” he says. “Please. Leave me in peace.” He calls me Liddy. My name is Charlotte. If he would only look upstairs in that closet I bang closed all the time, he’d see my name written on the wall there. I can’t, I tell him. I won’t. I love you. But he doesn’t hear me. He never hears me. The swing sways, creaks. Softly. He weeps. Inside, a crash. A mirror, I think. Maybe it was more than one. I don’t want to do this. He leaves me no choice, and I’m sorry for it, but a girl must do what a girl must do.

~
  Terri-Lynne Defino, alias bogwitch64  lives quietly in rural New England with her cats, kids, and husband despite her delusions of being Empress of the Northern Hemisphere. In sane moments she is a writer, mother, cat-wrangler, sparklequeen, and occasional laundress. Her debut novel, Finder, is scheduled for release on November 12, 2010 from Hadley Rille Books. You can find out more about Finder here: www.hadleyrillebooks.com/finder.html   

Haunted House Tour- The Kitchen

Welcome back! So sorry about that unpleasantness at the front door. Our caretaker is going to fix that doorbell one of these days. But now that you're inside we can continue our tour of Ridley Manor. And please leave a comment if you're inclined- on Friday the Festerings are going to pick a winner for a book of classic ghost stories and a $10 Borders card.

Just this way, watch out for those loose boards...                          
 




                The Cook                
              By Asakiyume
Welcome, welcome--have a seat at the kitchen table. Here’s a washcloth for your hands and forehead and buttermilk to slake your thirst. How may I serve you? Will you have some herbed bread, grilled with garlic? Here’s sausage as well, and bacon, too, and why not top it off with a chestnut and cranberry compote? Another helping? Good, eat hearty!
Thirds? No? You’re filled to the gills, ready to pop, bursting at the seams? That’s fine. Why not just sit and take your ease--have a postprandial glass of wine. You tell me about your journey while I tidy up the counter here. Have another glass of wine.  Go ahead--bottoms up! Let it loosen your limbs, let it relax you. The day’s been long.
Eyes growing heavy? Head nodding? No worries; I’m not offended. Lay your head right down there on the table. Is that a snore I hear? Poor weary soul! I’d take you to a bedroom, but you see, I’m still not sure how best I might serve you.
Stuffed and marinated as you are, I’d thought perhaps a roast--a hot oven to start, to crisp your outsides and seal the tender juices in, and then turn down the heat and continue until you’re completely done. And yet, the many leagues you’ve traveled . . . I fear they’ve toughened you. Perhaps then, a long, slow stew. The stock’s already on the stove, and several hours at a simmer ought to render you quite tender. A quick cut here and here, and out the giblets come, then a few sharp blows with the cleaver to quarter you and butterfly your breast. Then it’s into the pot your pieces go. Ah, what a delicious smell! I’m so glad I chose this way to serve you. And what’s this? More pilgrims at the door? Now how, I wonder, might I serve them?

 Asakiyume would be happy to cook you up something if you come calling. Visit her at  asakiyume    

Haunted House Tour- The Front Door

Good evening victims  er, visitors,

Welcome to the Haunted House Tour of 2010 where I and a talented, if rather disturbed group of authors have gathered to fill a haunted house with short fiction. All for you!  There are stories in each of the rooms of the house and we will be visiting them one by one, all through the month of October.

The caretakers (Mr. and Mrs. Festering) would be real pleased if you'd leave a comment too. They will be picking a random winner from the comments every Friday (starting October 8th) to get a prize. But you have to be from the United States or Canada, because the Festerings are on a fixed income and, as they put it: "can't afford to send this stuff all over creation!"

This week's prize is a book of classic ghost stories:     plus a $10 Borders gift card. 

On to the tour!
This year's elegant haunted home is Ridley Manor. Built in 1842 by the Boston shoe factory baron, Theodore "Teddy" Ridley, it was a gracious summer refuge for his entire family here on the rocky coast of Maine. After Theodore's sudden and bizarre death (he plunged from the top of the St. Xavier Lighthouse on Halloween night in 1869) the house was sold. The popular theory was that Ridley committed suicide. Though that certainly didn't explain the blindfold tied over Teddy's eyes. Over the years Ridley manor has had many different owners and lots of visitors. 
Not all of them as lively as you. Or, I should say, as alive?

It's a cold night, perhaps you'd like to come inside? Let's step up to the front door shall we? 


                                                                                                                            
                              The Belfry
                        By Maurissa Guibord


There’s that doorbell again. No, we needn’t bestir ourselves. Someone else will answer it. It’s so comfortable by the fire and I do enjoy having a little company. It’s been much too quiet here of late. I prefer the sound of hearty voices to the rustling of these black crinolines or… other things.
Mourning? Oh yes, I should say so. We all miss Doreena. The Influenza took her so suddenly. They call it the Purple Death, did you know that? I don’t know why. Doreena wasn’t purple at all- quite the opposite. As pale and cool as a lily, and just as beautiful as she was in life.  I’m afraid things haven’t been the same around here since she died. Everyone loved my sister.
Doreena was so remarkable you see. She was a modern young woman. And fearless? She used to smoke cheroots in the library and write letters to the paper. She was a member of the Sisterhood of the Enlightened Sciences and even spoke of supporting those suffragists to win the vote for women. Imagine that! 
Yes, Doreena was brave. There was only one thing of which she was afraid. A curious notion that she’d held, ever since she was a little girl. One day when she was six Doreena somehow got locked in the linen closet. Mother found her hours later, screaming quite savagely and tangled in the flannel bedclothes as tightly as if they’d been winding sheets.
Ever after that, Doreena had the most unreasoning fear of being buried alive.
Premature burial is a common enough fear these days. For myself I blame those sensational novelists, Mr. Edgar Allen Poe in particular, for vexing people with this odious rumination!
There’s the doorbell again. You can hear it through the whole house when it rings. In every room, I’ve found. It has a curiously penetrating sound. Don’t you think so?
Sometimes it can quite grate on one’s nerves.
What was that? I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening. There. I think it has stopped now. Oh yes. My sister. Doreena would have been married in the spring to Philip Grady. Poor Philip. He is quite devastated of course.
Interestingly enough, it was with me that Philip first formed an attachment. Just friendship of course, nothing more. When he saw Doreena, naturally he loved her at once. Everyone did. Who would look twice at the bland and sensible older sister once he’d seen Doreena? She, who was so comely and vibrant. So modern.
But then Doreena was taken ill. At first we thought it was only catarrh but she became quite fevered and was confined to bed. Soon after her mind became agitated with her old schoolroom imaginings. The poor thing was obsessed with the idea that she would be buried while insensible and awaken later, inside her casket.

Modern creature that she was, she insisted that Father order a device.
Of course, they have a mechanical gadget for everything these days, don’t they? I should say so! The Bateson Revival Device was what Doreena insisted upon. It’s an alarm of sorts. It consists of a sturdy iron bell mounted on the outside of the casket. A braided cord connected to the ringer passes into the interior and is placed in the hand of the deceased. If by some circumstance an unfortunate soul is sealed in their coffin and later awakens, they have only to move the cord, thus ringing the bell and alerting everyone to their plight. Father ordered one from The Gentleman’s Practical Catalogue.

Bateson’s Belfry is the popular name I am told. 
Doreena declined very quickly after that, despite my constant ministrations. She died one month ago today. Fortunately she passed quietly, in no pain whatsoever. Though she did complain of the bitter taste of that last cup of tea.
That, despite all the sugar I had added.
On the saddest of days we all watched as the undertaker Mr. Gregson, wrapped the cord for the belfry around Doreena’s cool, white hand. Her wishes were completely satisfied. The slightest movement would activate the trustworthy mechanism.  But she was quite still, of course.
The funeral was lovely. Doreena’s casket was so covered with banks of roses that they all but obscured the sight of it!  And I’m afraid that my loud lamentations were uncontrollable. You could not hear a thing above my wails of grief.
Certainly not any muffled scratching or faint cries.  The bell. There it is. Perhaps I could ask you to go and answer the front door. I have this odd notion you see. Come closer and I’ll tell you.
I believe it’s Doreena. 
Why? Well, because I took her bell.
Yes, just before the funeral I took the belfry from her casket.  I cut the cord through which it communicated with my sister’s hand within. Later, I fixed it to the front door. It now makes a very serviceable doorbell.
Please don’t look so alarmed. I thought it only a fair exchange. She took my beau. I took her bell.
But now, the sound of that infernal device haunts me. And there are times… when the bell rings late at night and I glance through the glass panels alongside the front door that I see her there.
A gruesome creature stands at the door. Flesh hangs in greasy looking gibbets from her moldy skull. Maggots fall from the soiled lace of her dress and there is something nauseating in the gaping, loose cant of her jaw. But it is Doreena. I know because she still holds that silken cord of the belfry. The cut length of it trails from her tight, gray fingers. 
Angry? I should say so. I believe Doreena is very angry.
There is that cursed bell again. Listen. It rings so loudly tonight.
Go and answer it for me, won’t you?









Maurissa Guibord lives in Maine and just has a regular doorbell.
You can find out more about her writing here: www.maurissaguibord.com/  

A Day at the Writer's Spa

 
Who doesn't need a day of relaxation and pampering now and then?  And I say writers need it more than most. The pasty-skinned literary dreamers who stay holed up for days at a time in their dusty garretts, or split level ranches as the case may be, are becoming eyesores amongst the well or better-groomed majority. Writers are in dire need of the magic that only today's aesthetician can provide!

What's an aesthetician you might ask? An aesthetician (I just love writing that- it's like Pilates for my fingers)  is the person who in my mother's day would have been called a beautician. But they're not called that anymore. No. I believe it's because they've given up on achieving beauty in us unwashed masses. Especially in the tougher cases, like mine. No, aestheticians (fingers.tiring. now...) are just shooting for basic aesthetics. So you can walk out of the door, head held high and not offend anyone else's aesthetic. Like a public works building or something. 

So , what kind of services might a writer request at le spa from l'aesthetician you ask?( I have no idea if that word is French but I'll bet they had something to do with it)  Well, surprisingly enough I have thought of some spa treatments for writers.  Here's what I want:

1. A Skin Toughening Treatment- this is for the writer who is devastated by every critique and review, and yet can't. stop. reading. them. I imagine the treatment would involve massive doses of UV radiation, tannic acid and perhaps a sand blaster. You would come out with skin that's  tough as asphalt, yet surprisingly youthful and dewy.  

2. A Butt- in- Chair Intensive Cellulite Wrap- For the dedicated writer who discovers whoa an extra butt is back there when he or she finally arises! For this I'm thinking some kind of exotic Tahitian mud, Saran wrap and those shrinking carnival mirrors for the exit door.

3. Botox in the Industrial Size Syringes- For the furrowed brow of the writer agonizing over whether they will ever figure out what the theme of their novel is. Or if they need a theme. Or what the #@#$ a theme really is anyway.

4. A Soothing Soak in the Sensory Deprivation Chamber- This is for when you need to detach from all electronic communication. The black chamber and silence will do wonders for that nervous tic you've developed after checking your email 400 times a day to see if your agent or editor has contacted you.

So those are my thoughts so far. If you have any suggestions for a writer's spa treatment please let me know in the comments!

Until then.
Aesthetically Yours,

Maurissa



 

A Sweet Dream

My love,

I had a dream that you didn’t die.
You were just in Rehab.
A therapist had a grip on your belt. 
Sweating, she guided you as you shuffled, holding onto silver rails.
Learning to walk (again!)
But alive.
Your corrective footwear still made those clomping thuds.
But you were alive.
The past was just a dream. 
Those angry hordes with knives and fire.
Were only nightmare now.
We had other worries.
“Direct current is not covered by your plan”
Stupid HMOs.


 

Celebrating a year. And getting my spooky on!

When the air turns cool here in Maine and the wind starts to make even the green leaves shiver, my thoughts turn to Halloween. To celebrate a year of blogging on Live Journal and in appreciation for the friends I've made I thought it would be fun to host a little get together. 

So during the month of October I'll be opening my doors and welcoming you to a tour of this Haunted House. I've invited some very talented authors to come into the house and pick a room. They'll be there, waiting in...

WriteOnCon

 To support the wonderful (and free) online writing conference known as WriteOnCon the organizers are hosting a giveaway. The contest is today and it's the Epic Giveaway of Epicness. Lots of great stuff to be won, including critiques and copies of upcoming YA and MG novels.
You can donate or just leave a comment- and you're entered to win!
Here's the link: writeoncon.com/