Christopher Spencer's Blog: C. Lee Spencer's Blog
December 5, 2015
Obligatory "I write because I like to write" post
My journey into self-publishing has been fascinating. I believe that my work is good. It's not Pulitzer-worthy, but I think I'm telling a worthy story in a worthy way. I've got a few loyal readers. Some pay for my work. Some love my work as long as they don't have to pay for it.
Some have promised me reviews they haven't written yet...
(Stares at some of you...)
But ultimately I saw the numbers. Self-publishing is very much like finding a needle in a haystack of needles. There are tens of thousands of writers out there all hiring cover designers and getting their stuff professionally edited. All of us are screaming, "I'm worthy of your time and money!"
Even persistence isn't a guarantee. Even if I wrote 10 books a year, that's 10 books amongst hundreds of THOUSANDS. It's like buying lotto tickets 10 times and expecting one's chances of winning to significantly improve. Self-publishing is a tax on people who don't understand statistics.
The emotional cost of being vastly ignored only comes when you write something with ANY hope at it being popular. I sometimes grouse good-naturedly about only selling eight books TOTAL. My promotional campaign at Amazon has yeilded zero sales. Out of 11,000 "impressions", only 59 people clicked on my book. Out of those 59, NONE have purchased. People say the cover sucks. I got a five star review that specifically SAID my cover sucks. I like the cover. I ain't going to change it.
If changing the cover will make it more appealing and increase my audience, why don't I hire someone to make a better one? Why am I not discouraged by the low sales?
Because there is a cost in NOT writing Love/Kroft. Because I've had nightmares about these characters. I've awakened from dreams of them and sobbed into my pillow. This world is in me now. These characters are part of my life. I love these characters. Even the bad ones (maybe especially the bad ones) live in me. To not write about them is to kill them.
So I write. And as long as I have a platform to allow other people to share the world inside me, I will publish.
Some have promised me reviews they haven't written yet...
(Stares at some of you...)
But ultimately I saw the numbers. Self-publishing is very much like finding a needle in a haystack of needles. There are tens of thousands of writers out there all hiring cover designers and getting their stuff professionally edited. All of us are screaming, "I'm worthy of your time and money!"
Even persistence isn't a guarantee. Even if I wrote 10 books a year, that's 10 books amongst hundreds of THOUSANDS. It's like buying lotto tickets 10 times and expecting one's chances of winning to significantly improve. Self-publishing is a tax on people who don't understand statistics.
The emotional cost of being vastly ignored only comes when you write something with ANY hope at it being popular. I sometimes grouse good-naturedly about only selling eight books TOTAL. My promotional campaign at Amazon has yeilded zero sales. Out of 11,000 "impressions", only 59 people clicked on my book. Out of those 59, NONE have purchased. People say the cover sucks. I got a five star review that specifically SAID my cover sucks. I like the cover. I ain't going to change it.
If changing the cover will make it more appealing and increase my audience, why don't I hire someone to make a better one? Why am I not discouraged by the low sales?
Because there is a cost in NOT writing Love/Kroft. Because I've had nightmares about these characters. I've awakened from dreams of them and sobbed into my pillow. This world is in me now. These characters are part of my life. I love these characters. Even the bad ones (maybe especially the bad ones) live in me. To not write about them is to kill them.
So I write. And as long as I have a platform to allow other people to share the world inside me, I will publish.
November 21, 2015
Jessica Jones
Jessica Jones (E01-E03): I should be a rabid fan of Jessica Jones. I love the genre, I love strong (in this case literally) women leads, I love David Tennant, and I find the story line fascinating.
So why is it such a slog to get through each episode? Why am I constantly checking how much time there is left in an episode?
The answer is "Person of Interest". I forced myself to get through season 3 because I was ASSURED it gets better. I was lied to. Yet PoI should've fascinated me. It has all the elements that make my inner (and outer) geek giggle. AI. Good fight scenes. Clever plotting. Why can't I like it? Jim Caviezel. He has most of the screen time, but I find him as charismatic as a cardboard box. He simply doesn't interest me. At all.
Or Anna Torv from "Fringe", ANOTHER show I should dearly love. But watching Anna Torv act was like watching paint dry.
All three, "Jessica Jones, "Fringe", and "Person of Interest" have the same exact problem. The lead actors don't have a "twinkle" in their eye. There's no sense of charisma. I find them unutterably boring to watch.
Krysten Ritter was asked to play, "Bitchy, but vulnerable". It's frankly a trope I'm about as tired of as the next 100 "House, MD" clones of "I'm a bastard, but always right and for your own good". I'm disappointed the series went this way. But since they did decide on this direction, they needed to cast (like Hugh Laurie) someone with a twinkle in their eye.
Krysten Ritter was the WRONG casting choice. She has zero charisma. She plays overies-out "bitchy, but vulnerable" in each and every scene with no variation. It's like watching grass grow.
So, who would knock the role of Jessica Jones out of the park? There are many actors who can, but the one that jumps up and down and waves its hands in the air is Katee Sackhoff with a black hair dye job. Her turn as Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica was revelatory. Not only that, but in her physical fight scenes, she actually looks like she could beat up everyone at a bar, then sit down for a frakking cigar. AND she has that "twinkle".
And before you say she's too old... She's frakking 35, and gorgeous as hell.
Jessica Jones proves once again that you can get 95% of everything right in a production, but if you cast the lead badly, it leads to a problem no matter of awesome plot and technical brilliance on set can solve.
So why is it such a slog to get through each episode? Why am I constantly checking how much time there is left in an episode?
The answer is "Person of Interest". I forced myself to get through season 3 because I was ASSURED it gets better. I was lied to. Yet PoI should've fascinated me. It has all the elements that make my inner (and outer) geek giggle. AI. Good fight scenes. Clever plotting. Why can't I like it? Jim Caviezel. He has most of the screen time, but I find him as charismatic as a cardboard box. He simply doesn't interest me. At all.
Or Anna Torv from "Fringe", ANOTHER show I should dearly love. But watching Anna Torv act was like watching paint dry.
All three, "Jessica Jones, "Fringe", and "Person of Interest" have the same exact problem. The lead actors don't have a "twinkle" in their eye. There's no sense of charisma. I find them unutterably boring to watch.
Krysten Ritter was asked to play, "Bitchy, but vulnerable". It's frankly a trope I'm about as tired of as the next 100 "House, MD" clones of "I'm a bastard, but always right and for your own good". I'm disappointed the series went this way. But since they did decide on this direction, they needed to cast (like Hugh Laurie) someone with a twinkle in their eye.
Krysten Ritter was the WRONG casting choice. She has zero charisma. She plays overies-out "bitchy, but vulnerable" in each and every scene with no variation. It's like watching grass grow.
So, who would knock the role of Jessica Jones out of the park? There are many actors who can, but the one that jumps up and down and waves its hands in the air is Katee Sackhoff with a black hair dye job. Her turn as Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica was revelatory. Not only that, but in her physical fight scenes, she actually looks like she could beat up everyone at a bar, then sit down for a frakking cigar. AND she has that "twinkle".
And before you say she's too old... She's frakking 35, and gorgeous as hell.
Jessica Jones proves once again that you can get 95% of everything right in a production, but if you cast the lead badly, it leads to a problem no matter of awesome plot and technical brilliance on set can solve.
October 26, 2015
Plea To My Republican Friend
What I see you doing is putting bandaids on a major wound. One at a time. One at a time, if you try REALLY HARD, you can justify any number of his opinions, but in the grand totality, they build up to the death of this country.
When I say the Republicans (ESPECIALLY the tea party) are like the Nazi Party in 1932, I'm not engaging in hyperbole. They are the party of HATE. They HATE everyone, unless they are white, protestant, straight, and male. They even hate Ben Carson. Ben Carson hates Ben Carson for being black. Why? Because they hate black people. Ferguson showed us that.
What I see you doing is giving a bunch of flimsy excuses to some really bad rhetoric. NO, the Jews would NOT have been able to defend themselves if they had guns. Come on! That's so obvious it hurts. And, BTW, in countries where they had some warning about the atrocities the Nazi's perpetrated on them, the Jews did fight as Partisans, with guns. Six million STILL died. This is some weird, twisted NRA logic that you've convinced yourself is right just so you feel okay with voting Republican. All armed Jews would've accomplished in 1932-1935 is give Hitler an excuse to move even FASTER to exterminate them. You HAVE to see that, right? This isn't rocket science.
I'm seeing a friend make a bunch of excuses to justify voting for a party of HATE. HATE. HATE. They will destroy this country with it. They will destroy this economy with it. We will be in a third-word theocracy, and we will resemble Somalia with it's theocratic factional fighting between well armed militias. You HAVE to see that. It's so clear that's what's going to happen.
Republicans have presided over EVERY destruction of our economy in history. Their deregulation push CAUSED the great recession. This isn't speculation. This is FACT, proven over and over and over again. You HAVE to see that. This isn't something that you have to figure out like a huge puzzle. It's right THERE in the historical record.
They are willing to destroy the Earth, pollute our rivers, sell off our national forests. Again and again, they deny global warming, even though the past ten years have all, consecutively, been the hottest on record. They ignore the MOUNTAINS of evidence that what we're doing as a species is causing global warming. You will vote for people who will contribute to the DESTRUCTION OF OUR SPECIES. You HAVE to see that! You HAVE to know that their position is insane. This isn't a matter for debate. You can't put a band-aid on this. If you respect General Relativity, then you have to listen to 99% of scientists in this field when they say WE ARE THE CAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING. Why would you vote for a party who, because it might cost their rich industrialist friends some profit, ignore basic science? If you can perform this mental trick in your brain, then become an alchemist and an astrologer. Study Nostradamus instead of Einstein. Because you are REJECTING the scientific method to vote for these people. Certainly you must SEE this?
I'm going to draw a metaphor that is almost not a metaphor. It's almost a direct comparison.
When you vote Republican, you are voting for Nazis. They have no redeeming qualities. They just HATE. Their whole platform is HATE. That's all they do, all day long, hurt the poor and HATE. Surely you see this? Surely it's plain. Surely it's FACT.
What could the Republicans POSSIBLY offer you that would allow you to make so many excuses in order to put them into office? Don't rules-lawyer it. Don't put a band-aid on an arterial spray. What do they offer to YOU that you're okay with their HATE enough to vote for them?
Is there so much hate in YOU, is there so much fear in YOU, that you can't see the blindingly focused obvious that these are NOT moral people? They are NOT ethical. They are simply vessels of HATE. Excuse them all you want, tell me that you've joined the hate train, but it is so hard to sit there and watch you rationalize their complete and utter hatred of women, the poor, minorities, gays, the non-religious.
Republicans have an attitude: "I got mine. I will hoard it, and I will never help anyone because if I can do it, then automatically they can do it, because our lives are COMPLETELY the same."
That is selfish, self-centered, narcissistic, greedy, and destroying the planet. You are an intelligent man, but you seem to throw ALL logic out the window with your politics. So what URGENT need do you have inside your soul that REQUIRES you to switch off all empathy, humanity, and reason in order to vote for this vile, offensive, theocratic, hate-filled, unscientific party?
Please, dear god tell me before I lose my mind.
When I say the Republicans (ESPECIALLY the tea party) are like the Nazi Party in 1932, I'm not engaging in hyperbole. They are the party of HATE. They HATE everyone, unless they are white, protestant, straight, and male. They even hate Ben Carson. Ben Carson hates Ben Carson for being black. Why? Because they hate black people. Ferguson showed us that.
What I see you doing is giving a bunch of flimsy excuses to some really bad rhetoric. NO, the Jews would NOT have been able to defend themselves if they had guns. Come on! That's so obvious it hurts. And, BTW, in countries where they had some warning about the atrocities the Nazi's perpetrated on them, the Jews did fight as Partisans, with guns. Six million STILL died. This is some weird, twisted NRA logic that you've convinced yourself is right just so you feel okay with voting Republican. All armed Jews would've accomplished in 1932-1935 is give Hitler an excuse to move even FASTER to exterminate them. You HAVE to see that, right? This isn't rocket science.
I'm seeing a friend make a bunch of excuses to justify voting for a party of HATE. HATE. HATE. They will destroy this country with it. They will destroy this economy with it. We will be in a third-word theocracy, and we will resemble Somalia with it's theocratic factional fighting between well armed militias. You HAVE to see that. It's so clear that's what's going to happen.
Republicans have presided over EVERY destruction of our economy in history. Their deregulation push CAUSED the great recession. This isn't speculation. This is FACT, proven over and over and over again. You HAVE to see that. This isn't something that you have to figure out like a huge puzzle. It's right THERE in the historical record.
They are willing to destroy the Earth, pollute our rivers, sell off our national forests. Again and again, they deny global warming, even though the past ten years have all, consecutively, been the hottest on record. They ignore the MOUNTAINS of evidence that what we're doing as a species is causing global warming. You will vote for people who will contribute to the DESTRUCTION OF OUR SPECIES. You HAVE to see that! You HAVE to know that their position is insane. This isn't a matter for debate. You can't put a band-aid on this. If you respect General Relativity, then you have to listen to 99% of scientists in this field when they say WE ARE THE CAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING. Why would you vote for a party who, because it might cost their rich industrialist friends some profit, ignore basic science? If you can perform this mental trick in your brain, then become an alchemist and an astrologer. Study Nostradamus instead of Einstein. Because you are REJECTING the scientific method to vote for these people. Certainly you must SEE this?
I'm going to draw a metaphor that is almost not a metaphor. It's almost a direct comparison.
When you vote Republican, you are voting for Nazis. They have no redeeming qualities. They just HATE. Their whole platform is HATE. That's all they do, all day long, hurt the poor and HATE. Surely you see this? Surely it's plain. Surely it's FACT.
What could the Republicans POSSIBLY offer you that would allow you to make so many excuses in order to put them into office? Don't rules-lawyer it. Don't put a band-aid on an arterial spray. What do they offer to YOU that you're okay with their HATE enough to vote for them?
Is there so much hate in YOU, is there so much fear in YOU, that you can't see the blindingly focused obvious that these are NOT moral people? They are NOT ethical. They are simply vessels of HATE. Excuse them all you want, tell me that you've joined the hate train, but it is so hard to sit there and watch you rationalize their complete and utter hatred of women, the poor, minorities, gays, the non-religious.
Republicans have an attitude: "I got mine. I will hoard it, and I will never help anyone because if I can do it, then automatically they can do it, because our lives are COMPLETELY the same."
That is selfish, self-centered, narcissistic, greedy, and destroying the planet. You are an intelligent man, but you seem to throw ALL logic out the window with your politics. So what URGENT need do you have inside your soul that REQUIRES you to switch off all empathy, humanity, and reason in order to vote for this vile, offensive, theocratic, hate-filled, unscientific party?
Please, dear god tell me before I lose my mind.
October 7, 2015
They Came From Outer Space
"They Came From Outer Space"
By C. Lee Spencer
Why hello, there! Welcome to the farm of the fantastical! We have here THE premiere attraction in all of Coon County. That's right. In 1957, a local named Joe "Big Bear" McCall awoke on a stormy night to find this here farm invaded by little green men. He fought them all night with his shotgun and his dog Pete. When morning came, the little suckers holed themselves up in a UFO on his back lawn where it still sits today! When poor "Big Bear" passed away some five years ago, we bought the property and built this here entertainment park in Coon County, Georgia.
As the sign on the road says, it's ten dollars per car load. I don't care how many people you stuff in the front, the back, or the trunk. Ten dollars is all I'll charge you!
Now, over there is my wife, Thelma. She's got herself a pitcher of dee-licious lemonade. It's a dollar a glass. Don't you fret. It's guaranteed gluten free! Just lemons, sugar, and sparkling water direct from my own personal well. Though the glasses all look different, I promise that they hold the same amount. We've got blue glasses, red glasses, sparkly glasses. My wife collects them all. She just can't help herself. Those late night shopping programs are like catnip to a lion!
All right. Come this way for the mysterious, the fantastical, the amazing, the shocking, the confounding sight of the first UFO kept in captivity! Step on up. Don't be shy. Now, you can see it's saucer shaped, like every good UFO should be. It's got a ladder there for them little guys to come climbing down. Sometimes we hear them at night, talking in their strange little language as they move about in the darkness. Now don't get scared, kids! They never come out during the day, and they never even say hello to us, and we're allowing them to sit here, rent free. It's a mutual sorta situation. They provide the attraction. We give them a home. So lets move on.
Here we got some alien assist gravity drives. Sure, they look like swings, but they're ALIEN swings! Watch out! One of them is looking at us from those bushes! Ha ha! Sorry. I try to get all my customers with that one. It's just a barrel with some paint on it. No, I could tell I wouldn't be able to fool you folks. And look, we got a mockup of the alien spaceship's insides. Naw, those ain't jungle gyms! Don't worry about that rust. No one's ever gotten lock jaw playing, er, exploring the alien ship. Hey parents, if you want some alone time away from the kids, it's two dollars to rent the playground... I mean ALIEN FORTRESS... for an hour. You can sit back, enjoy a lemonade knowing your kids are having the times of their lives on our state of the art play equipment.
No?
Well, over here, in this shed, you can see all kinds of strange equipment they used to dissect the various cows, goats, and chickens on this farm. Look at those vacuum tubes glow! Aliens have all the best technology! They got knobs and dials and wires and stuff, all to study the insides of our bodies so they know exactly how to invade us! And there, that's the examining table they used. Fake blood? Fake nothing! That's real, grade A, American cow blood from a cow they scientifically inspected with their space tools!
Well, come this way. This is the end of the tour. Now, you gotta keep this place a secret! I can't have those government fellas coming in here and taking away my aliens! I hope you enjoyed the attraction. And if you still want that lemonade, my wife can...
Now, that's funny. It wasn't like that a moment ago. I wonder if someone plugged it in. Why, all this time I didn't know it could glow like that! I gotta charge extra for this. Oh, not you good people. You get the one-time rate of $10 for this new spectacular stage show! Wow!
Why's the top opening? Well, folks, this is mighty strange. In all of five years, I never saw its top open like that. And what is that? Some sort of rod? Pole? Looks like the handle of a vacuum cleaner. Don't worry about the sound it's making. It's probably just winding up. Or winding down. Or something. Let me just stand behind this tractor. Let's use our inside voices, right kids? Boy, with all the screaming you're doing, you should really reconsider Thelma's lemonade! Your throats must be...
It just set the farmhouse on fire! Well, my insurance company is gonna be... NOT BESSIE! That was my favorite cow you just burned! Thelma! Thelma! Run for the road, sweetheart! RUN!
Sorry about your car, but we can't take responsibility for causing its destruction. Every man's for himself! The show's over! Run! Run!
(Copyright ©2015 Christopher L. Spencer)
Be sure to click the blue frog below to find more #Octoberfrights blog posts!
By C. Lee Spencer
Why hello, there! Welcome to the farm of the fantastical! We have here THE premiere attraction in all of Coon County. That's right. In 1957, a local named Joe "Big Bear" McCall awoke on a stormy night to find this here farm invaded by little green men. He fought them all night with his shotgun and his dog Pete. When morning came, the little suckers holed themselves up in a UFO on his back lawn where it still sits today! When poor "Big Bear" passed away some five years ago, we bought the property and built this here entertainment park in Coon County, Georgia.
As the sign on the road says, it's ten dollars per car load. I don't care how many people you stuff in the front, the back, or the trunk. Ten dollars is all I'll charge you!
Now, over there is my wife, Thelma. She's got herself a pitcher of dee-licious lemonade. It's a dollar a glass. Don't you fret. It's guaranteed gluten free! Just lemons, sugar, and sparkling water direct from my own personal well. Though the glasses all look different, I promise that they hold the same amount. We've got blue glasses, red glasses, sparkly glasses. My wife collects them all. She just can't help herself. Those late night shopping programs are like catnip to a lion!
All right. Come this way for the mysterious, the fantastical, the amazing, the shocking, the confounding sight of the first UFO kept in captivity! Step on up. Don't be shy. Now, you can see it's saucer shaped, like every good UFO should be. It's got a ladder there for them little guys to come climbing down. Sometimes we hear them at night, talking in their strange little language as they move about in the darkness. Now don't get scared, kids! They never come out during the day, and they never even say hello to us, and we're allowing them to sit here, rent free. It's a mutual sorta situation. They provide the attraction. We give them a home. So lets move on.
Here we got some alien assist gravity drives. Sure, they look like swings, but they're ALIEN swings! Watch out! One of them is looking at us from those bushes! Ha ha! Sorry. I try to get all my customers with that one. It's just a barrel with some paint on it. No, I could tell I wouldn't be able to fool you folks. And look, we got a mockup of the alien spaceship's insides. Naw, those ain't jungle gyms! Don't worry about that rust. No one's ever gotten lock jaw playing, er, exploring the alien ship. Hey parents, if you want some alone time away from the kids, it's two dollars to rent the playground... I mean ALIEN FORTRESS... for an hour. You can sit back, enjoy a lemonade knowing your kids are having the times of their lives on our state of the art play equipment.
No?
Well, over here, in this shed, you can see all kinds of strange equipment they used to dissect the various cows, goats, and chickens on this farm. Look at those vacuum tubes glow! Aliens have all the best technology! They got knobs and dials and wires and stuff, all to study the insides of our bodies so they know exactly how to invade us! And there, that's the examining table they used. Fake blood? Fake nothing! That's real, grade A, American cow blood from a cow they scientifically inspected with their space tools!
Well, come this way. This is the end of the tour. Now, you gotta keep this place a secret! I can't have those government fellas coming in here and taking away my aliens! I hope you enjoyed the attraction. And if you still want that lemonade, my wife can...
Now, that's funny. It wasn't like that a moment ago. I wonder if someone plugged it in. Why, all this time I didn't know it could glow like that! I gotta charge extra for this. Oh, not you good people. You get the one-time rate of $10 for this new spectacular stage show! Wow!
Why's the top opening? Well, folks, this is mighty strange. In all of five years, I never saw its top open like that. And what is that? Some sort of rod? Pole? Looks like the handle of a vacuum cleaner. Don't worry about the sound it's making. It's probably just winding up. Or winding down. Or something. Let me just stand behind this tractor. Let's use our inside voices, right kids? Boy, with all the screaming you're doing, you should really reconsider Thelma's lemonade! Your throats must be...
It just set the farmhouse on fire! Well, my insurance company is gonna be... NOT BESSIE! That was my favorite cow you just burned! Thelma! Thelma! Run for the road, sweetheart! RUN!
Sorry about your car, but we can't take responsibility for causing its destruction. Every man's for himself! The show's over! Run! Run!
(Copyright ©2015 Christopher L. Spencer)
Be sure to click the blue frog below to find more #Octoberfrights blog posts!
October 5, 2015
Madrigal Trees
"Madrigal Trees"
By C. Lee Spencer
I am entering into my diary my last testament.
For twenty years I've lived in the town of Ravensfork, Vermont. It's a small mill town off of a fork of a fork of a fork of a desolate road leading north into Canada. It consisted of some few pubs, trading posts, a mill that employed most of the population, some trappers, and the assorted flocks of rough women and their barefooted children. The lumber, transported down the Bear Run River, earned the local mayor enough to lord it over the rest of the town from his mansion high on a hill above the nighttime fog.
They were suspicious of me, of course. Why would a gentleman of proper education and standing move to this most primitive and desolate of towns? However, I came invited by the Mayor, who was related to me in some ancient, twisted path through my family tree, all the way back to some whaler captain out of the Netherlands relocated to Boston in the early seventeen hundreds. He didn't know the intent of my studies, of course. No one knew. But now I leave this final log entry as a statement of sorts, and a declaration of success, though I scarce believe I shall survive my triumph. I, as martyr to the scientific cause, will stare down from heaven as creator of an entirely new species of life on this world. That's an achievement only God could claim before today!
A trader from the East Indies sat in a pub in Boston and wove the most wondrous, if drunken, story I'd ever heard of a strange kingdom on the border with Afghanistan that grew in even the most desolate of deserts. Each season the villagers would go out raiding and kill a certain number of men. They'd chop the heads off, then bury them, neck up, in the hardscrabble ground. In each neck they'd plant a seed of this plant. For three days they used the drained blood from the decapitated bodies to water the ground. Weeks later their valleys and hills, ground so hostile to life that nothing could grow, would bloom with green vines and luscious, delicious sweet fruits so imbued with properties of health and longevity that some village elders claimed to be centuries old. The villages of the kingdom could consume these sanguine berries all year round until the next planting.
The sailor pulled from his pouch such a berry. It'd seen much wear from the months at sea, but amazingly it showed no rot or dehydration. The toughened skin bore veins and capillaries much like those found on human skin. In its center it held a pocket of fluid that looked much like arterial blood drawn from a corpse. I was instantly fascinated. I tried haggling with the man, but he resisted, wanting a higher price than I could afford. Finally, I awaited him in an alleyway and struck him from behind as he staggered drunkenly past. I grabbed my prize and ran fast to my laboratory, stopping only for a moment to grab some gravel and dirt from the road outside my home.
I planted the berry that night, spritzed with a bit of blood from my wrist. It lay there in its womb of rock and coagulated mud for a day, then two. I realized that I'd nearly drained myself too far when I swooned on the fourth day. I fortified myself with brandy and headed out the next night to find another supply. White as a sheet my flesh must've looked. As a ghostly figure, I roamed the back alleys of Boston for any sort of person I could find. First I brought home an elderly man, advanced in his years and with not long to live. I strapped him down on my bed and stuck a needle in his neck. It took an hour to drain him, but the resultant fluid lasted me several more days. Then I added a woman of ill repute. Then a child of ten who'd ran away from an orphanage.
My hungry seed took hold, finally, at the moment my fears of discovery by the constabulary were at their height. A small sprig. Leaves purple and pulsing. Alive! Alive! The blood fruit rose!
Imagine my dreams of riches. A fruit that could extend life and heal all illness. What would anyone pay to have such a marvelous addition to their cornucopia? A hundred dollars a seed? A thousand? From mullahs in the Ottoman empire to the ministers of Europe, to the czars of Russia, they'd pay! I could lead a life of a plantation owner in a white house with servants and a maid and a lovely wife who would bear me children from between her buttery thighs.
So I found myself in Ravensfork. It was both large enough and lawless enough for my work. The ground, like much of New England, had a rich black loam ready for planting. I divined that my plant could grow in sand or soil as long as blood in sufficient quantity was present. Blood I could harvest by the gallon from the travelers, passers-by, trappers, lumberjacks, and anyone else making the hard trek through the thick forests between civilization and Canada. No one could possibly miss these souls.
I employed an Indian to do my actual work of killing. I found it dirty work, and my strength was unsuited to bringing men of any size down. I paid him one dollar a soul. He'd never seen such riches! I laughed to myself. Baubles! Baubles I paid him, when I was harvesting jewels!
The first plant produced five berries, one of which I ate with a fork and knife. It had the texture and tenderness of the finest beef, with sweet juices that exploded into the mouth at each bite. A series of symptoms I'd learned to live with vanished overnight. The odd ache eased. The rash on the back of my leg. The wart under my arm. My thinning hair seemed to thicken by the day until I fancied myself quite the rake.
The other four I planted, in the skulls of travelers and vagabonds, just as the lore said. Watered twice daily with the arterial blood of humans, they all grew at a fantastic rate. My crop expanded to five, ten, then fifteen vines. Their roots extended yards into the surrounding soil, strong and ready for multiple bloomings. Their thirst for blood caused my Indian to range farther and farther for their feast. I tried substituting animal blood for human to little success. Neither wolf nor deer blood proved suitable. I don't know why.
The villagers had grown suspicious of me, but once I shared a fruit with the Mayor, he put a stop to the speculation. He was so grateful for the cessation of his gout that he offered me an allowance to buy pleasantries for my home and the occasional companionship of some of the lovelier ladies from the pubs who offered such services. I also laid about with enough of my purse to incite greed in every shop owner and tradesman that they looked forward to my approach. Suspicions subsided and I could continue to water my crop.
One day I noticed something strange. And by this I mean to end my story soon. My vineyard had expanded nearly to the reaches of the forest. The trees nearest my precious plants started to grow purple leaves. I found this odd, but not disturbing. As days fled on, the trees grew a weird orange moss that seemed to wave and rustle even with no wind. This infestation spread over the next weeks. No useful lumber could be made from the wood of these trees. The wood turned fleshy and supple. An ax strike would result in a spray of red foam that stung and burned where it touched. In a panic, the townsmen sought to burn the effected parts of the wood to keep the blight from spreading, but I denied them access to my plot. And through the power of the Mayor, I stood my ground when they came with torches.
I dug the ground and found the fine latticework of roots had completely dominated my land, merging with the roots of trees everywhere. Each tree they touched slowly lost its integral definition. They sagged. They flopped. They pulsed in an altogether alien and repulsive way.
Then they started to move. Slowly at first, but day by day they grew stronger and more active. They fought against the axes and saws and torches and anything else that sought to bring them down. They caught men in their branches and sucked them dry of every bodily fluid. They surged against the the town, crushed the mill, and advanced on the home of the Mayor. I, living in the midst of the original crop, seemed safe for the moment, but I could do nothing to escape. I could not travel the forest without meeting my own fate. As my supplies dwindled, I watched as the entire forest came alive and fight against its masters.
It occurred to me after several days why this most wondrous of plants would only be harvested from the most inhospitable soil. In any place that produced other plant life, this blood fruit would grow its roots to merge with every blade, twig, and branch. It would turn the region into a hive of death from which no animal could escape. Only in the dry, sandy, barren hills of Afghanistan could it be harvested safely.
I don't know how far this infestation will grow. Perhaps it will cover the entire continent. Perhaps it will devour everything in its path. I won't know. I leave my journal here on this last entry. My stores are depleted. My well is grown over with fleshy tendrils. I expect to die of dehydration and starvation. Yet I leave behind my legacy, don't I? What other man can do what I've done? I've accomplished the end of the world!
(Copyright ©2015 Christopher L. Spencer)
If you liked this story, check out my book, "Event Day" here: Event Day
Be sure to click the blue frog below to find more #Octoberfrights blog posts!
By C. Lee Spencer
I am entering into my diary my last testament.
For twenty years I've lived in the town of Ravensfork, Vermont. It's a small mill town off of a fork of a fork of a fork of a desolate road leading north into Canada. It consisted of some few pubs, trading posts, a mill that employed most of the population, some trappers, and the assorted flocks of rough women and their barefooted children. The lumber, transported down the Bear Run River, earned the local mayor enough to lord it over the rest of the town from his mansion high on a hill above the nighttime fog.
They were suspicious of me, of course. Why would a gentleman of proper education and standing move to this most primitive and desolate of towns? However, I came invited by the Mayor, who was related to me in some ancient, twisted path through my family tree, all the way back to some whaler captain out of the Netherlands relocated to Boston in the early seventeen hundreds. He didn't know the intent of my studies, of course. No one knew. But now I leave this final log entry as a statement of sorts, and a declaration of success, though I scarce believe I shall survive my triumph. I, as martyr to the scientific cause, will stare down from heaven as creator of an entirely new species of life on this world. That's an achievement only God could claim before today!
A trader from the East Indies sat in a pub in Boston and wove the most wondrous, if drunken, story I'd ever heard of a strange kingdom on the border with Afghanistan that grew in even the most desolate of deserts. Each season the villagers would go out raiding and kill a certain number of men. They'd chop the heads off, then bury them, neck up, in the hardscrabble ground. In each neck they'd plant a seed of this plant. For three days they used the drained blood from the decapitated bodies to water the ground. Weeks later their valleys and hills, ground so hostile to life that nothing could grow, would bloom with green vines and luscious, delicious sweet fruits so imbued with properties of health and longevity that some village elders claimed to be centuries old. The villages of the kingdom could consume these sanguine berries all year round until the next planting.
The sailor pulled from his pouch such a berry. It'd seen much wear from the months at sea, but amazingly it showed no rot or dehydration. The toughened skin bore veins and capillaries much like those found on human skin. In its center it held a pocket of fluid that looked much like arterial blood drawn from a corpse. I was instantly fascinated. I tried haggling with the man, but he resisted, wanting a higher price than I could afford. Finally, I awaited him in an alleyway and struck him from behind as he staggered drunkenly past. I grabbed my prize and ran fast to my laboratory, stopping only for a moment to grab some gravel and dirt from the road outside my home.
I planted the berry that night, spritzed with a bit of blood from my wrist. It lay there in its womb of rock and coagulated mud for a day, then two. I realized that I'd nearly drained myself too far when I swooned on the fourth day. I fortified myself with brandy and headed out the next night to find another supply. White as a sheet my flesh must've looked. As a ghostly figure, I roamed the back alleys of Boston for any sort of person I could find. First I brought home an elderly man, advanced in his years and with not long to live. I strapped him down on my bed and stuck a needle in his neck. It took an hour to drain him, but the resultant fluid lasted me several more days. Then I added a woman of ill repute. Then a child of ten who'd ran away from an orphanage.
My hungry seed took hold, finally, at the moment my fears of discovery by the constabulary were at their height. A small sprig. Leaves purple and pulsing. Alive! Alive! The blood fruit rose!
Imagine my dreams of riches. A fruit that could extend life and heal all illness. What would anyone pay to have such a marvelous addition to their cornucopia? A hundred dollars a seed? A thousand? From mullahs in the Ottoman empire to the ministers of Europe, to the czars of Russia, they'd pay! I could lead a life of a plantation owner in a white house with servants and a maid and a lovely wife who would bear me children from between her buttery thighs.
So I found myself in Ravensfork. It was both large enough and lawless enough for my work. The ground, like much of New England, had a rich black loam ready for planting. I divined that my plant could grow in sand or soil as long as blood in sufficient quantity was present. Blood I could harvest by the gallon from the travelers, passers-by, trappers, lumberjacks, and anyone else making the hard trek through the thick forests between civilization and Canada. No one could possibly miss these souls.
I employed an Indian to do my actual work of killing. I found it dirty work, and my strength was unsuited to bringing men of any size down. I paid him one dollar a soul. He'd never seen such riches! I laughed to myself. Baubles! Baubles I paid him, when I was harvesting jewels!
The first plant produced five berries, one of which I ate with a fork and knife. It had the texture and tenderness of the finest beef, with sweet juices that exploded into the mouth at each bite. A series of symptoms I'd learned to live with vanished overnight. The odd ache eased. The rash on the back of my leg. The wart under my arm. My thinning hair seemed to thicken by the day until I fancied myself quite the rake.
The other four I planted, in the skulls of travelers and vagabonds, just as the lore said. Watered twice daily with the arterial blood of humans, they all grew at a fantastic rate. My crop expanded to five, ten, then fifteen vines. Their roots extended yards into the surrounding soil, strong and ready for multiple bloomings. Their thirst for blood caused my Indian to range farther and farther for their feast. I tried substituting animal blood for human to little success. Neither wolf nor deer blood proved suitable. I don't know why.
The villagers had grown suspicious of me, but once I shared a fruit with the Mayor, he put a stop to the speculation. He was so grateful for the cessation of his gout that he offered me an allowance to buy pleasantries for my home and the occasional companionship of some of the lovelier ladies from the pubs who offered such services. I also laid about with enough of my purse to incite greed in every shop owner and tradesman that they looked forward to my approach. Suspicions subsided and I could continue to water my crop.
One day I noticed something strange. And by this I mean to end my story soon. My vineyard had expanded nearly to the reaches of the forest. The trees nearest my precious plants started to grow purple leaves. I found this odd, but not disturbing. As days fled on, the trees grew a weird orange moss that seemed to wave and rustle even with no wind. This infestation spread over the next weeks. No useful lumber could be made from the wood of these trees. The wood turned fleshy and supple. An ax strike would result in a spray of red foam that stung and burned where it touched. In a panic, the townsmen sought to burn the effected parts of the wood to keep the blight from spreading, but I denied them access to my plot. And through the power of the Mayor, I stood my ground when they came with torches.
I dug the ground and found the fine latticework of roots had completely dominated my land, merging with the roots of trees everywhere. Each tree they touched slowly lost its integral definition. They sagged. They flopped. They pulsed in an altogether alien and repulsive way.
Then they started to move. Slowly at first, but day by day they grew stronger and more active. They fought against the axes and saws and torches and anything else that sought to bring them down. They caught men in their branches and sucked them dry of every bodily fluid. They surged against the the town, crushed the mill, and advanced on the home of the Mayor. I, living in the midst of the original crop, seemed safe for the moment, but I could do nothing to escape. I could not travel the forest without meeting my own fate. As my supplies dwindled, I watched as the entire forest came alive and fight against its masters.
It occurred to me after several days why this most wondrous of plants would only be harvested from the most inhospitable soil. In any place that produced other plant life, this blood fruit would grow its roots to merge with every blade, twig, and branch. It would turn the region into a hive of death from which no animal could escape. Only in the dry, sandy, barren hills of Afghanistan could it be harvested safely.
I don't know how far this infestation will grow. Perhaps it will cover the entire continent. Perhaps it will devour everything in its path. I won't know. I leave my journal here on this last entry. My stores are depleted. My well is grown over with fleshy tendrils. I expect to die of dehydration and starvation. Yet I leave behind my legacy, don't I? What other man can do what I've done? I've accomplished the end of the world!
(Copyright ©2015 Christopher L. Spencer)
If you liked this story, check out my book, "Event Day" here: Event Day
Be sure to click the blue frog below to find more #Octoberfrights blog posts!
Home Invasion
Alone, she sat at the window and stared out onto the street.
She remembered that the service promised her a nurse. She couldn't get out of her chair without help after falling down the stairs of her apartment building. Her daughter, estranged for many years, never called, never visited. Even her television refused to turn on. She could do nothing but look outside and watch the cars and children pass by her yard. She fretted about her rose bushes, unpruned, and grown wild. She remembered many a pleasant afternoon with her husband, Frank. They'd squabble. They'd fuss. But after each turn in the garden, they washed their hands while standing side by side in the sink. Poor Frank. He'd died of a heart attack many years ago. She missed him.
When would the nurse arrive?
Children laughed and played outside. She turned to look. They jumped around, tagged one another, and laughed with the sound of sweet spring rain. She waved her hand at them. One of the boys saw her and stopped his play. He turned and said something to his friends. They all stared at her with expressions of nervous wonder, fear, and shock. One of the children screamed and ran. The others followed an instant later. How rude! They'd trick-or-treated at her house for years. Why would they run away?
And when would that nurse come?
The front door opened. A young couple, the woman very pregnant, entered behind an older lady in a business suit. She didn't need three nurses, especially one that looked ready to pop at any moment. Yet they turned as they looked around the room as if she wasn't there. The young lady smiled and nodded. The young man kissed her on the cheek. They shook hands with the older lady and left.
What right did they have to enter her home? She'd have the nurse escort them out! Where was that nurse?
Night came. She fell asleep only for a moment. Her television was gone, replaced by a large flat screen that gave her a headache to look at. Her couch changed from a white cloth with fleur-de-lis patterns into a leather monstrosity. Her favorite picture of Frank vanished from the wall. She didn't like the changes. She wondered who would do such violence to her home. Just because she was elderly didn't mean she didn't have any rights!
She'd have to get the nurse to change it all back.
Her chair had moved, just in the space of a blink. She found herself in what used to be her sewing room upstairs. A small crib sat there, with a white dresser. Pink decorations and fluffy toys were scattered like confections on every horizontal surface. Sunlight streamed in past curtains with cartoon characters on them. Unicorns. Fairies. She could no longer see the street from where she sat. The warm sun, at least, shone down upon her, and the smell of baby powder brought back fond memories of her early motherhood.
She must call the service and ask them about the nurse.
A dark cloud passes by and the crib is a bed. Posters of men in outrageous clothing spot the walls. A desk with one of those computer contraptions sat along one wall. A girl lay under the covers. She slept fitfully. Her eyes opened and their eyes met for a brief second. The girl crawled out of bed and ran from the room.
The nurse forgot about her. The service forgot about her.
She found herself outside, next to the curb. It rained down on her. The wind blew. The garbage cans stood next to the chair like guards, their lids propped up with bags of trash. How'd she get outside? Didn't they know she'd get pneumonia? The thunder rumbled and shook the air. No. Wait. That was the garbage truck rumbling down the street. She looked from one garbage can to the other. Why would she be between them, unless..
She saw the truck stop. Two big men in dirty overalls hopped off the truck. One garbage can went in. Then two. Then they grabbed her chair.
She sat at the end of a moving conveyor belt. The building in front of her had no windows. It did have an opening, wide and gleaming red from within. Bits and pieces of paper and boxes and other indefinable bits of refuse fell into the glowing opening to disappear. As she approached the opening, she saw what was within. Fire. Smoke. Gouts of flame rose from the floor in great jets. The air roiled with white ash driven to swirl around by the waves of heated air inside the building.
Hell. She was going to hell to burn.
The chair blackened and burned around her. The covering singed and smoked. Fire suffused her, penetrated her, and lit her from within until the chair was ash. Freed, she floated, swirled, and drifted like the ash up into the air, up into the sky. The city fell away below, then the clouds, then there was nothing.
(Copyright ©2015 Christopher L. Spencer)
If you liked this story, check out my book, "Event Day" here: Event Day
Be sure to click the blue frog below to find more #Octoberfrights blog posts!
She remembered that the service promised her a nurse. She couldn't get out of her chair without help after falling down the stairs of her apartment building. Her daughter, estranged for many years, never called, never visited. Even her television refused to turn on. She could do nothing but look outside and watch the cars and children pass by her yard. She fretted about her rose bushes, unpruned, and grown wild. She remembered many a pleasant afternoon with her husband, Frank. They'd squabble. They'd fuss. But after each turn in the garden, they washed their hands while standing side by side in the sink. Poor Frank. He'd died of a heart attack many years ago. She missed him.
When would the nurse arrive?
Children laughed and played outside. She turned to look. They jumped around, tagged one another, and laughed with the sound of sweet spring rain. She waved her hand at them. One of the boys saw her and stopped his play. He turned and said something to his friends. They all stared at her with expressions of nervous wonder, fear, and shock. One of the children screamed and ran. The others followed an instant later. How rude! They'd trick-or-treated at her house for years. Why would they run away?
And when would that nurse come?
The front door opened. A young couple, the woman very pregnant, entered behind an older lady in a business suit. She didn't need three nurses, especially one that looked ready to pop at any moment. Yet they turned as they looked around the room as if she wasn't there. The young lady smiled and nodded. The young man kissed her on the cheek. They shook hands with the older lady and left.
What right did they have to enter her home? She'd have the nurse escort them out! Where was that nurse?
Night came. She fell asleep only for a moment. Her television was gone, replaced by a large flat screen that gave her a headache to look at. Her couch changed from a white cloth with fleur-de-lis patterns into a leather monstrosity. Her favorite picture of Frank vanished from the wall. She didn't like the changes. She wondered who would do such violence to her home. Just because she was elderly didn't mean she didn't have any rights!
She'd have to get the nurse to change it all back.
Her chair had moved, just in the space of a blink. She found herself in what used to be her sewing room upstairs. A small crib sat there, with a white dresser. Pink decorations and fluffy toys were scattered like confections on every horizontal surface. Sunlight streamed in past curtains with cartoon characters on them. Unicorns. Fairies. She could no longer see the street from where she sat. The warm sun, at least, shone down upon her, and the smell of baby powder brought back fond memories of her early motherhood.
She must call the service and ask them about the nurse.
A dark cloud passes by and the crib is a bed. Posters of men in outrageous clothing spot the walls. A desk with one of those computer contraptions sat along one wall. A girl lay under the covers. She slept fitfully. Her eyes opened and their eyes met for a brief second. The girl crawled out of bed and ran from the room.
The nurse forgot about her. The service forgot about her.
She found herself outside, next to the curb. It rained down on her. The wind blew. The garbage cans stood next to the chair like guards, their lids propped up with bags of trash. How'd she get outside? Didn't they know she'd get pneumonia? The thunder rumbled and shook the air. No. Wait. That was the garbage truck rumbling down the street. She looked from one garbage can to the other. Why would she be between them, unless..
She saw the truck stop. Two big men in dirty overalls hopped off the truck. One garbage can went in. Then two. Then they grabbed her chair.
She sat at the end of a moving conveyor belt. The building in front of her had no windows. It did have an opening, wide and gleaming red from within. Bits and pieces of paper and boxes and other indefinable bits of refuse fell into the glowing opening to disappear. As she approached the opening, she saw what was within. Fire. Smoke. Gouts of flame rose from the floor in great jets. The air roiled with white ash driven to swirl around by the waves of heated air inside the building.
Hell. She was going to hell to burn.
The chair blackened and burned around her. The covering singed and smoked. Fire suffused her, penetrated her, and lit her from within until the chair was ash. Freed, she floated, swirled, and drifted like the ash up into the air, up into the sky. The city fell away below, then the clouds, then there was nothing.
(Copyright ©2015 Christopher L. Spencer)
If you liked this story, check out my book, "Event Day" here: Event Day
Be sure to click the blue frog below to find more #Octoberfrights blog posts!
October 3, 2015
Just Say No
"Just Say No"
By C. Lee Spencer
They took me down the grimy back steps of some club. The hood over my face couldn't block the rhythm of the DJ spinning records. They'd taken me from the trunk of the car through an alley where our footsteps echoed between the walls. Hands, large and strong, held my arms on either side. Big blokes. They probably weighed 20 stone at least. Shat out of the east end of London, they were. It weren't no matter. I'd poke 'em in the eye if I could get a ladder to reach that high.
A door opened. I felt the air change. It got cold and dank. It smelled something awful, like places get when they aren't attended to. Smelled like the boyfriend's bathroom, with the kitty litter box he never fucking cleaned. Only this was a wet cat litter box, left to ferment for decades, with bodies moulting their skins off under those blue speckled sands. I've smelled worse, but not often. And then the music moved inside, too, or above the boards. Nothing but the beat, understand, none of the high notes that make a song a song. It felt like I crept into the middle of a huge black beating heart and heard it beating from the inside.
"Hey," I said, "if you're going to kill me, could you light some incense? I don't mind dying, but the stench is gonna make me heave my lunch all over your shoes."
The hands pushed me harder. A hallway. A room. Someone screamed. Someone laughed. All manner of things brushed my arms and legs. My 100 bob shoes slipped on something slick and slimy. That was a shame. THey weren't no shit like "Air Jordans" or whatever crap the kids think is cool. Mine were genuine Ukrainian knockoffs of designer Gordon White boots. I bought them from a dead man in Bucharest. All hail the European fucking Union and their multinational markets, right?
Finally we stopped. The hands left my shoulders. They pulled the hood off my head.
With the stench and all, I expected a wretched place with dirty walls, wet floors, and just a general sense of fermented filth. That ain't what I saw.
The thing in the middle of the floor I'll get to. But let me just paint a picture here. The walls were white, as was the floor. I couldn't figure out what they were made of, but it weren't no plaster or concrete or wood or any of the like. Plastic comes close to it, but this shit was soft, like fur. Now, to describe the ceiling would require describing what lay in the middle of the room, and I'm not ready to go that far, yet.
So let me tell you about the man. First off, he was bald, right? Not the refined, cultured bald head you often see on bankers, businessmen, and blokes what wear suits and ties. This bald head bulged away from the temples. Most bald heads are like ovals if you look down on them, yeah? This head were round on top. And veins. Lots of veins. They kind of pulsed and twisted under his skin like lazy snakes sleeping in the sun. His eyes. They made me uneasy. The size of half-crowns coins, they were, and yellow. Urine yellow. With black peas stuck in the middle. He had a sharp little nose over bloodless, thin lips. On most, you could tell the chin from the throat, but not this guy. His chin simply disappeared into a tube of flesh. When he spoke, it looked like his neck were talking.
Yeah, and he wore a white coat that covered him all the way to his shoes. He could've been naked under there and I could never tell. I don't want to, either. Let's just leave what hid under that coat a mystery for all time, yeah?
Did I mention he spoke? Yeah. We talked. Strange accent, he had. Weren't from England, that's for sure. Weren't from no place I ever heard. He talked like he needed to figure out each word. He really worked it over in his head between each sentence. And his voice got that hollow sound, like he was talking down a huge long hallway, even though he stood right next to you. Not loud, but pronounced, right? Maybe he was an American.
Look, I'll spare you the blow-by-blow. Let's just say I wanted to talk business. I mentioned how I heard of his product. I told him that this here was my territory, and he better shove off before my boys objected to not being cut in to the bounty. I owned the club scene. Every bathroom in every club up and down the Strand belonged to me. Last stall, just knock on the door, right? Pills, cocaine, molly, some heroin, but most of that went out in the 90's. You want to sell, I got the distribution.
He said it wouldn't do no good. To make the drug work, you'd need one of those things in every establishment, and in a specific place. Yeah, I know, I been cagey about the thing in the middle of the room. But just hang on. It's important you hear this bit first, right? First he brings out this girl. She couldn't have been more than sixteen. She wore a dress, but she soon removed that. I ain't into girls, you see, but She'd look pretty enticing to any other bloke. That is until you look down past her neck. Her breasts were there, but she had no nipples. Hell, she had no cunny. Just a smooth strip of skin between her legs. But as if that weren't fucked up enough, she had gills down both sides, from armpit to arse. She didn't breathe through her mouth, got me? These gills opened and shut as her chest rose and fell.
The man pulled at her hair and it came off. Under her blond wig were the same round head. She pulled these contacts out and her yellow eyes stared right at me.
Where what stood a sixteen year old nymph any bloke that don't swing my way would get horizontal with in two moments, a creature looking more fish than female stood. I couldn't understand. I started to go a bit bonkers, I don't mind telling you. I tried to back out of the room, but the two escorts stood on either side of me. I asked the man with the big head what the hell that creature was he'd just undressed.
You ready for the thing in the middle of the room? Because this is some shit you probably won't believe. You see, the man explained as to how they were aliens from outer space. Right? Bonkers. That's me. But I swear that's what he said. But rather than send huge spaceships with thousands of alien people, why not just bring the seed that makes new aliens along and do up a bunch of humans. Change their genetics. Make our sperm and eggs turn into something other than human. Into them. Into that girl with the gills. Into that man with the enormous head.
So the ceiling of the room was clear. Totally clear. Like glass. But I doubt anyone above us could see through it. If they could, they would've run screaming from the place. But we could see up to them. This was a cool room. Lots of clubs got them. Its for people on molly to go cool down, because people on molly got a real hard time with heat stroke. So they sit in a cool room to chill out for a while so they don't get sick.
Only this cool room were littered with naked people. They just seemed to strip down wherever there were room, and then they just stood there. They didn't blink. They didn't move. They just stood there, staring straight ahead. But if that weren't weird enough, the floor grew tubes. I can't describe it better. Like jellyfish tentacles. Clear and writhing with life. The tube would crawl up a naked person's legs until they reached a guy's cock or a girls bits. Then it'd, you know, extract stuff. Baby stuff. When the job was done, the tube would retract through the floor into the thing in the middle of the room.
It lay on the table. Imagine a woman with no arms, no head, no tits, no legs. Just a belly and an opening down below. Just a mute womb. It stretched, right? Stretched large. Huge. As if any manner of a hundred babies gested from within. As I watched, the opening stretched wide and a ball of flesh flopped out onto the floor, connected by a string of an umbilical cord, which it bit off before scurrying off. A huge sack came after.
The man offered it to me. This slimy, dripping, white sack. He told me exactly how to use it. A hundred pills it could make. Just dry it out, grind it up, and bob's your mother, a hundred hits of their special drug to sell to the clubbers upstairs. The clubbers had no idea they were getting high on dried out alien placenta. How fucked up is that? I mean, no one in a club asks how their shit is made, right? Someone hands you a pill and calls it molly, and you just take it and trust to God.
Well, I lit on out of there. I don't know how I got past the guards. I don't know why they couldn't stop me with their death rays or whatever. But somehow I made it out of there.
But it weren't no god in that room. It was an alien invasion. That's why I'm telling you this story. That's why it needs to get out there. When you take drugs, you're eating alien placenta, being sucked dry of your sexual seed and eggs, and used to breed a master race that will rise up and conquer humanity!
Don't do drugs. It's a matter of survival of the whole bloody human race!
(Copyright ©2015 Christopher L. Spencer)
If you liked this story, check out my book, "Event Day" here: Event Day
Be sure to click the blue frog below to find more #Octoberfrights blog posts!
By C. Lee Spencer
They took me down the grimy back steps of some club. The hood over my face couldn't block the rhythm of the DJ spinning records. They'd taken me from the trunk of the car through an alley where our footsteps echoed between the walls. Hands, large and strong, held my arms on either side. Big blokes. They probably weighed 20 stone at least. Shat out of the east end of London, they were. It weren't no matter. I'd poke 'em in the eye if I could get a ladder to reach that high.
A door opened. I felt the air change. It got cold and dank. It smelled something awful, like places get when they aren't attended to. Smelled like the boyfriend's bathroom, with the kitty litter box he never fucking cleaned. Only this was a wet cat litter box, left to ferment for decades, with bodies moulting their skins off under those blue speckled sands. I've smelled worse, but not often. And then the music moved inside, too, or above the boards. Nothing but the beat, understand, none of the high notes that make a song a song. It felt like I crept into the middle of a huge black beating heart and heard it beating from the inside.
"Hey," I said, "if you're going to kill me, could you light some incense? I don't mind dying, but the stench is gonna make me heave my lunch all over your shoes."
The hands pushed me harder. A hallway. A room. Someone screamed. Someone laughed. All manner of things brushed my arms and legs. My 100 bob shoes slipped on something slick and slimy. That was a shame. THey weren't no shit like "Air Jordans" or whatever crap the kids think is cool. Mine were genuine Ukrainian knockoffs of designer Gordon White boots. I bought them from a dead man in Bucharest. All hail the European fucking Union and their multinational markets, right?
Finally we stopped. The hands left my shoulders. They pulled the hood off my head.
With the stench and all, I expected a wretched place with dirty walls, wet floors, and just a general sense of fermented filth. That ain't what I saw.
The thing in the middle of the floor I'll get to. But let me just paint a picture here. The walls were white, as was the floor. I couldn't figure out what they were made of, but it weren't no plaster or concrete or wood or any of the like. Plastic comes close to it, but this shit was soft, like fur. Now, to describe the ceiling would require describing what lay in the middle of the room, and I'm not ready to go that far, yet.
So let me tell you about the man. First off, he was bald, right? Not the refined, cultured bald head you often see on bankers, businessmen, and blokes what wear suits and ties. This bald head bulged away from the temples. Most bald heads are like ovals if you look down on them, yeah? This head were round on top. And veins. Lots of veins. They kind of pulsed and twisted under his skin like lazy snakes sleeping in the sun. His eyes. They made me uneasy. The size of half-crowns coins, they were, and yellow. Urine yellow. With black peas stuck in the middle. He had a sharp little nose over bloodless, thin lips. On most, you could tell the chin from the throat, but not this guy. His chin simply disappeared into a tube of flesh. When he spoke, it looked like his neck were talking.
Yeah, and he wore a white coat that covered him all the way to his shoes. He could've been naked under there and I could never tell. I don't want to, either. Let's just leave what hid under that coat a mystery for all time, yeah?
Did I mention he spoke? Yeah. We talked. Strange accent, he had. Weren't from England, that's for sure. Weren't from no place I ever heard. He talked like he needed to figure out each word. He really worked it over in his head between each sentence. And his voice got that hollow sound, like he was talking down a huge long hallway, even though he stood right next to you. Not loud, but pronounced, right? Maybe he was an American.
Look, I'll spare you the blow-by-blow. Let's just say I wanted to talk business. I mentioned how I heard of his product. I told him that this here was my territory, and he better shove off before my boys objected to not being cut in to the bounty. I owned the club scene. Every bathroom in every club up and down the Strand belonged to me. Last stall, just knock on the door, right? Pills, cocaine, molly, some heroin, but most of that went out in the 90's. You want to sell, I got the distribution.
He said it wouldn't do no good. To make the drug work, you'd need one of those things in every establishment, and in a specific place. Yeah, I know, I been cagey about the thing in the middle of the room. But just hang on. It's important you hear this bit first, right? First he brings out this girl. She couldn't have been more than sixteen. She wore a dress, but she soon removed that. I ain't into girls, you see, but She'd look pretty enticing to any other bloke. That is until you look down past her neck. Her breasts were there, but she had no nipples. Hell, she had no cunny. Just a smooth strip of skin between her legs. But as if that weren't fucked up enough, she had gills down both sides, from armpit to arse. She didn't breathe through her mouth, got me? These gills opened and shut as her chest rose and fell.
The man pulled at her hair and it came off. Under her blond wig were the same round head. She pulled these contacts out and her yellow eyes stared right at me.
Where what stood a sixteen year old nymph any bloke that don't swing my way would get horizontal with in two moments, a creature looking more fish than female stood. I couldn't understand. I started to go a bit bonkers, I don't mind telling you. I tried to back out of the room, but the two escorts stood on either side of me. I asked the man with the big head what the hell that creature was he'd just undressed.
You ready for the thing in the middle of the room? Because this is some shit you probably won't believe. You see, the man explained as to how they were aliens from outer space. Right? Bonkers. That's me. But I swear that's what he said. But rather than send huge spaceships with thousands of alien people, why not just bring the seed that makes new aliens along and do up a bunch of humans. Change their genetics. Make our sperm and eggs turn into something other than human. Into them. Into that girl with the gills. Into that man with the enormous head.
So the ceiling of the room was clear. Totally clear. Like glass. But I doubt anyone above us could see through it. If they could, they would've run screaming from the place. But we could see up to them. This was a cool room. Lots of clubs got them. Its for people on molly to go cool down, because people on molly got a real hard time with heat stroke. So they sit in a cool room to chill out for a while so they don't get sick.
Only this cool room were littered with naked people. They just seemed to strip down wherever there were room, and then they just stood there. They didn't blink. They didn't move. They just stood there, staring straight ahead. But if that weren't weird enough, the floor grew tubes. I can't describe it better. Like jellyfish tentacles. Clear and writhing with life. The tube would crawl up a naked person's legs until they reached a guy's cock or a girls bits. Then it'd, you know, extract stuff. Baby stuff. When the job was done, the tube would retract through the floor into the thing in the middle of the room.
It lay on the table. Imagine a woman with no arms, no head, no tits, no legs. Just a belly and an opening down below. Just a mute womb. It stretched, right? Stretched large. Huge. As if any manner of a hundred babies gested from within. As I watched, the opening stretched wide and a ball of flesh flopped out onto the floor, connected by a string of an umbilical cord, which it bit off before scurrying off. A huge sack came after.
The man offered it to me. This slimy, dripping, white sack. He told me exactly how to use it. A hundred pills it could make. Just dry it out, grind it up, and bob's your mother, a hundred hits of their special drug to sell to the clubbers upstairs. The clubbers had no idea they were getting high on dried out alien placenta. How fucked up is that? I mean, no one in a club asks how their shit is made, right? Someone hands you a pill and calls it molly, and you just take it and trust to God.
Well, I lit on out of there. I don't know how I got past the guards. I don't know why they couldn't stop me with their death rays or whatever. But somehow I made it out of there.
But it weren't no god in that room. It was an alien invasion. That's why I'm telling you this story. That's why it needs to get out there. When you take drugs, you're eating alien placenta, being sucked dry of your sexual seed and eggs, and used to breed a master race that will rise up and conquer humanity!
Don't do drugs. It's a matter of survival of the whole bloody human race!
(Copyright ©2015 Christopher L. Spencer)
If you liked this story, check out my book, "Event Day" here: Event Day
Be sure to click the blue frog below to find more #Octoberfrights blog posts!
October 2, 2015
And Now These Words...
This is Casey "The Sunshine" Summers coming to you from WPAO. It's 6 AM and the temperature is 71 degrees out. Traffic is, well, there is no traffic. But you all know that, don't you? That's right. It's Monday morning and there are no cars on the road. None. You can leave home and drive to work in just a few minutes. Hell, break the speed limit. Go as fast as you want. I won't tell. And since no policemen exist anymore, you won't get pulled over.
So, with that in mind, here's Sammy Hagar with, "I Can't Drive 55".
I don't mind telling all of you folks, I am sitting in my studio completely naked. That's right, ladies. What's the opposite of "mooning" someone? It's "The Sunshine"! And I'm standing here like midday on the Fourth of July, just waving Ol' Glory around. So why am I still broadcasting? Why haven't I been fired? Why no restraining orders or sexual harassment lawsuits from gentlemen too intimidated by my size, shape, and general demeanor? I'll tell you. It's because no one came in to work today. They didn't even bother to call in sick. They just didn't show up to the most listened to morning drive-time radio program in the Cleveland area. I know! It's a tragedy! Luckily, I've liberated a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue from the CEO's office. To hell with propriety. To hell with politeness. I'm indulging in conspicuous consumption, here. I'm drinking the bottle straight from the lips, and my tongue is licking the inside. That's right, everyone. I'm felching Mr. Walker and he's loving it! I just hope it doesn't get weird between us.
Anyhow, time for another song. How about, "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer," from George Thorogood and the Destroyers!
I mean, is it any surprise that the end of the world saved Cleveland for last? I know, I know, to the one remaining fan I've got that's still alive out there, I realize I'm supposed to tell jokes, laugh, and tell you the weather and traffic conditions every fifteen minutes. Hey, Casey, what's with this doom and gloom shit?
Oh, shit. Did I just say shit? Shit, the FCC is going to fine me a lot of money. See, there are many words I can't say on the air without getting my ass fired. One of them is shit. The others are piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. Nope. Can't say any of them. Oh, fuck, did I just say them? I'm such a cunt. What cocksucker would say these things on an FCC regulated radio station? Motherfucker. And um. Um. How can I work the last one in. Um... Nope. I got nothing. So. "Tits". There you go. Tits. I'm waiting for you, FCC! Come and get me!
While this radio announcer awaits the judgment from suits in Washington, let's play another tune. "Stagger Lee," by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
It's 6:20 in this AM, and there's no sun. There hasn't been sun in days. I remember the sun. Don't you all? Now we've just got this boiling, thick, tarry mess up in the sky. Covered the whole word in seven days. That's right, you biblical types, you. God, like the dear old dad that he is, brought us into this world in seven days, and he can take us out in the same amount of time. But why does the world have to end on a Monday? Really, God? It isn't enough that you have to turn our planet into a boiling desert, you have to finish us off on the worst day of the week. You might've given us the basic fucking consideration of not taking your damned rest yesterday, gotten up early, put on your cargo shorts and polo shirt, gone to the garage, gotten out the shears and gotten the last of your work done.
Still, I got laid yesterday. My wife decided, after two years of marital celibacy, that she wanted one more piece of love from yours truly. I guess the pool boy had already died. So had the tennis coach. And the Cleveland Browns. But hey, sometimes last place is a winner. We were going at it hard, too. Grunting. Groaning. Sweating. She was on top, you know. The way I like it. That way I don't have to move as much. Somehow she managed to find the fortitude to reach an orgasm while riding my three-incher. Then, BLAM! At first I wondered, were we having period sex? How else did I get blood all over me? But, nope, she'd shot herself in the head. And the tragic thing is, she did it before I could come! Selfish to the last, Jennifer. Selfish to the last.
All right. Enough of this. They pay me to play the songs that make the whole world sing. Here's, "Under My thumb." The Rolling Stones!
I just peeked outside, folks. It's looking grim. The last bit of blue sky has filled in. I can't see more than a hundred feet in any direction. And the air. Whew. I thought my bathroom stank after sausage and sauerkraut night, but God obviously eats Thai food. I've swallowed rotten eggs more appetizing. I think the only reason I'm alive is because my asshole CEO had allergies to nearly everything, so he installed HEPA filters and an overpressure system in the building. I don't know what any of that is, but I'm still alive in here and I wouldn't last more than a few minutes out there. But, my faithful listener, it looks like "The Sunshine" isn't gonna last all day. The generators are nearly out of gas. And when they go, I go. Can you believe it? I'll be the last human voice to say anything on this planet. A man who has spent his entire adult life saying absolutely nothing to millions of people day in and day out has been given this responsibility. No pressure or anything...
I've got to think about this. Time for another song. "The Sound of Silence". Simon and Garfunkel.
All right, my listener. And, yes, I'm talking to you, God, because there ain't no one else. I've finished my Johnny Walker Blue. I've smoked my last joint. I've eaten the last stale bagel. I've masturbated three times, and I don't have a fourth in me. The generators are sputtering and the lights are flickering. I've got one more song left before WPAO goes quiet forever, along with the human fucking race. I've thought about what the last words ever heard on this Earth should be. I've thought about the wisdom of Solomon. The gentle nobility of Lincoln. There's probably some good stuff in the Bible, but I don't remember any of that crap. But as a disk jockey with a twenty year career, I believe that the best words ever uttered by men are contained in song.
So, one last tune, then, God. One last song to go out on. Some final words to sum up all of human existence, our potential, our hopes, and our dreams. Here it is.
"I'm an Asshole," by Dennis Leary.
(Copyright ©2015 Christopher L. Spencer)
If you liked this story, check out my book, "Event Day" here: Event Day
Be sure to click the blue frog below to find more #Octoberfrights blog posts!
So, with that in mind, here's Sammy Hagar with, "I Can't Drive 55".
I don't mind telling all of you folks, I am sitting in my studio completely naked. That's right, ladies. What's the opposite of "mooning" someone? It's "The Sunshine"! And I'm standing here like midday on the Fourth of July, just waving Ol' Glory around. So why am I still broadcasting? Why haven't I been fired? Why no restraining orders or sexual harassment lawsuits from gentlemen too intimidated by my size, shape, and general demeanor? I'll tell you. It's because no one came in to work today. They didn't even bother to call in sick. They just didn't show up to the most listened to morning drive-time radio program in the Cleveland area. I know! It's a tragedy! Luckily, I've liberated a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue from the CEO's office. To hell with propriety. To hell with politeness. I'm indulging in conspicuous consumption, here. I'm drinking the bottle straight from the lips, and my tongue is licking the inside. That's right, everyone. I'm felching Mr. Walker and he's loving it! I just hope it doesn't get weird between us.
Anyhow, time for another song. How about, "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer," from George Thorogood and the Destroyers!
I mean, is it any surprise that the end of the world saved Cleveland for last? I know, I know, to the one remaining fan I've got that's still alive out there, I realize I'm supposed to tell jokes, laugh, and tell you the weather and traffic conditions every fifteen minutes. Hey, Casey, what's with this doom and gloom shit?
Oh, shit. Did I just say shit? Shit, the FCC is going to fine me a lot of money. See, there are many words I can't say on the air without getting my ass fired. One of them is shit. The others are piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. Nope. Can't say any of them. Oh, fuck, did I just say them? I'm such a cunt. What cocksucker would say these things on an FCC regulated radio station? Motherfucker. And um. Um. How can I work the last one in. Um... Nope. I got nothing. So. "Tits". There you go. Tits. I'm waiting for you, FCC! Come and get me!
While this radio announcer awaits the judgment from suits in Washington, let's play another tune. "Stagger Lee," by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
It's 6:20 in this AM, and there's no sun. There hasn't been sun in days. I remember the sun. Don't you all? Now we've just got this boiling, thick, tarry mess up in the sky. Covered the whole word in seven days. That's right, you biblical types, you. God, like the dear old dad that he is, brought us into this world in seven days, and he can take us out in the same amount of time. But why does the world have to end on a Monday? Really, God? It isn't enough that you have to turn our planet into a boiling desert, you have to finish us off on the worst day of the week. You might've given us the basic fucking consideration of not taking your damned rest yesterday, gotten up early, put on your cargo shorts and polo shirt, gone to the garage, gotten out the shears and gotten the last of your work done.
Still, I got laid yesterday. My wife decided, after two years of marital celibacy, that she wanted one more piece of love from yours truly. I guess the pool boy had already died. So had the tennis coach. And the Cleveland Browns. But hey, sometimes last place is a winner. We were going at it hard, too. Grunting. Groaning. Sweating. She was on top, you know. The way I like it. That way I don't have to move as much. Somehow she managed to find the fortitude to reach an orgasm while riding my three-incher. Then, BLAM! At first I wondered, were we having period sex? How else did I get blood all over me? But, nope, she'd shot herself in the head. And the tragic thing is, she did it before I could come! Selfish to the last, Jennifer. Selfish to the last.
All right. Enough of this. They pay me to play the songs that make the whole world sing. Here's, "Under My thumb." The Rolling Stones!
I just peeked outside, folks. It's looking grim. The last bit of blue sky has filled in. I can't see more than a hundred feet in any direction. And the air. Whew. I thought my bathroom stank after sausage and sauerkraut night, but God obviously eats Thai food. I've swallowed rotten eggs more appetizing. I think the only reason I'm alive is because my asshole CEO had allergies to nearly everything, so he installed HEPA filters and an overpressure system in the building. I don't know what any of that is, but I'm still alive in here and I wouldn't last more than a few minutes out there. But, my faithful listener, it looks like "The Sunshine" isn't gonna last all day. The generators are nearly out of gas. And when they go, I go. Can you believe it? I'll be the last human voice to say anything on this planet. A man who has spent his entire adult life saying absolutely nothing to millions of people day in and day out has been given this responsibility. No pressure or anything...
I've got to think about this. Time for another song. "The Sound of Silence". Simon and Garfunkel.
All right, my listener. And, yes, I'm talking to you, God, because there ain't no one else. I've finished my Johnny Walker Blue. I've smoked my last joint. I've eaten the last stale bagel. I've masturbated three times, and I don't have a fourth in me. The generators are sputtering and the lights are flickering. I've got one more song left before WPAO goes quiet forever, along with the human fucking race. I've thought about what the last words ever heard on this Earth should be. I've thought about the wisdom of Solomon. The gentle nobility of Lincoln. There's probably some good stuff in the Bible, but I don't remember any of that crap. But as a disk jockey with a twenty year career, I believe that the best words ever uttered by men are contained in song.
So, one last tune, then, God. One last song to go out on. Some final words to sum up all of human existence, our potential, our hopes, and our dreams. Here it is.
"I'm an Asshole," by Dennis Leary.
(Copyright ©2015 Christopher L. Spencer)
If you liked this story, check out my book, "Event Day" here: Event Day
Be sure to click the blue frog below to find more #Octoberfrights blog posts!
October 1, 2015
Selfie Harm
So, you have this girl, see? She's in her bedroom. She's just received a text message from her boyfriend. He wants a topless picture of her. She's kind of nervous, but she's down for the flirty fun. She texts him back that if he ever shows her picture to ANYONE, she'd cut his balls off. With that, she takes off her shirt and bra.
She holds the camera out in front of herself. Click. She looks down to see the results before she sends it. Huh. She didn't remember leaving her door open a crack. She turns around to shut it. The door is firmly latched. She opens it to peek out into the hallway. Maybe her little brother is perving on her (again). Nothing. The house is dark and quiet.
The picture she took wasn't so hot, anyhow, so she decides to take another one. This time she poses with her chest thrust out, making the duck-lips she's seen Nicki Minaj do.
CLICK
She looks down and gasps. The door is open a crack, right behind her. But there, near to the floor, two eyes shine out of the darkness. She spins around. The door is shut. She tries to slow down her beating heart as she pulls the door wide open really fast. A black form races between her legs. She jumps, but manages to hold in a scream.
It's just her cat, Mr. Skitters. She breathes a sigh of relief. She's never been able to take a picture of Mr. Skitters without those damned cat's eyes glowing. Obviously, the selfie caught him pushing the door open.
She picks Mr. Skitters up, kisses him on the head, and sets him in his proper place on her bed.
Satisfied she's solved the mystery, she gets even more courageous. She pushes her pants down and steps out of them. This will really turn her boyfriend on.
CLICK
There's a FACE in the photo. A black face with white eyes stares at her from the open door. Claws curl around the door frame.
This time she screams and spins around. The door is shut. Mr. Skitters looks up at her and flicks his tail.
She grabs her robe and ties it shut around her. This is no longer fun. With shaking hands, she aims the camera right at the door and takes a picture.
CLICK
Nothing. The door stays closed. Mr. Skitters' eyes glow at the right edge of the frame.
She wipes sweat from her forehead and turns the camera around to aim at herself again.
CLICK
It stands behind her. Black smoke seven foot high. Eyes of pure white glow in the picture frame. Only two small black points reveal that it's looking right at her. Black hands reach over her shoulders and take hold of her robe just above her breasts.
Her fingers freeze on the phone. The index finger flexes and mashes down on the photo button.
CLICK. CLICK. CLICKCLICK. CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK
Her mother found her the next morning, naked and lying on the floor with the camera clutched in one hand. The girl's eyes stare up at the ceiling in a frozen expression of pure terror. Her mouth gapes open as if locked in an eternal scream.
Fearing someone had entered the house and attacked her daughter, the mother yelled for her husband to call the police. She pulls the camera from her daughter's hand and activates it. Through tears of grief she flips through the phone's photo gallery.
Black. Black. Black. Black. Black.
The mother taps the phone faster and faster. Surely she had to take a picture of something!
The sirens echoed down the street as the police pulled in front of her house. They'd certainly take the phone as evidence. She had twenty more photos to look at!
She tapped faster and faster on the screen.
CLICK.
Her finger had slipped and tapped the button to take a photo. The preview picture flashed up on the screen.
The mother screamed and dropped the phone. The police found her hiding in her daughter's closet, trembling with fear, unable to speak.
The investigator noticed the phone on the floor. It lay face up, the preview of the last picture taken showing on its screen.
Black.
If you liked this story, check out my book, "Event Day" here: Event Day
She holds the camera out in front of herself. Click. She looks down to see the results before she sends it. Huh. She didn't remember leaving her door open a crack. She turns around to shut it. The door is firmly latched. She opens it to peek out into the hallway. Maybe her little brother is perving on her (again). Nothing. The house is dark and quiet.
The picture she took wasn't so hot, anyhow, so she decides to take another one. This time she poses with her chest thrust out, making the duck-lips she's seen Nicki Minaj do.
CLICK
She looks down and gasps. The door is open a crack, right behind her. But there, near to the floor, two eyes shine out of the darkness. She spins around. The door is shut. She tries to slow down her beating heart as she pulls the door wide open really fast. A black form races between her legs. She jumps, but manages to hold in a scream.
It's just her cat, Mr. Skitters. She breathes a sigh of relief. She's never been able to take a picture of Mr. Skitters without those damned cat's eyes glowing. Obviously, the selfie caught him pushing the door open.
She picks Mr. Skitters up, kisses him on the head, and sets him in his proper place on her bed.
Satisfied she's solved the mystery, she gets even more courageous. She pushes her pants down and steps out of them. This will really turn her boyfriend on.
CLICK
There's a FACE in the photo. A black face with white eyes stares at her from the open door. Claws curl around the door frame.
This time she screams and spins around. The door is shut. Mr. Skitters looks up at her and flicks his tail.
She grabs her robe and ties it shut around her. This is no longer fun. With shaking hands, she aims the camera right at the door and takes a picture.
CLICK
Nothing. The door stays closed. Mr. Skitters' eyes glow at the right edge of the frame.
She wipes sweat from her forehead and turns the camera around to aim at herself again.
CLICK
It stands behind her. Black smoke seven foot high. Eyes of pure white glow in the picture frame. Only two small black points reveal that it's looking right at her. Black hands reach over her shoulders and take hold of her robe just above her breasts.
Her fingers freeze on the phone. The index finger flexes and mashes down on the photo button.
CLICK. CLICK. CLICKCLICK. CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK
Her mother found her the next morning, naked and lying on the floor with the camera clutched in one hand. The girl's eyes stare up at the ceiling in a frozen expression of pure terror. Her mouth gapes open as if locked in an eternal scream.
Fearing someone had entered the house and attacked her daughter, the mother yelled for her husband to call the police. She pulls the camera from her daughter's hand and activates it. Through tears of grief she flips through the phone's photo gallery.
Black. Black. Black. Black. Black.
The mother taps the phone faster and faster. Surely she had to take a picture of something!
The sirens echoed down the street as the police pulled in front of her house. They'd certainly take the phone as evidence. She had twenty more photos to look at!
She tapped faster and faster on the screen.
CLICK.
Her finger had slipped and tapped the button to take a photo. The preview picture flashed up on the screen.
The mother screamed and dropped the phone. The police found her hiding in her daughter's closet, trembling with fear, unable to speak.
The investigator noticed the phone on the floor. It lay face up, the preview of the last picture taken showing on its screen.
Black.
If you liked this story, check out my book, "Event Day" here: Event Day
September 16, 2015
Indie Publishing FTW
There's sort of a mini-war going on in the publishing industry right now between indie-publishing and the old book-rack-publishers. You see, the book-rack-publishers revenues have been in free fall for most of this year. The revenues for indie-publishing now equal the revenues from 1,200 traditional publishers COMBINED. That is an awesome statistic.
I've always believed in the democratization of the Internet. People are so concerned with the hegemony of the "Media". Scary meme posters proclaim that six companies control every news outlet in the USA. Even the National Geographic has been bought out by Rupert Murdoch. This is a really scary situation for some. For me, it's not scary at all. I don't really care. Why? Because we have E.L. James and PewDiePie. That's right, the author of "50 Shades of Grey" (or is it Gray?) and that annoying gamer youtuber that has just attained a BILLION views of his videos.
E.L. James got her start writing fanfic for Twilight. She built up a fan base there that came out in support of her when she published her first book. From that foundation she's earned millions and a three movie deal.
PewDiePie is some Swedish guy (or is it Norwegian?) who recorded himself playing games and posted them online. Through sheer force of personality, he built a media empire that is replicated by thousand of youtube content creators.
Traditional media is dying. I see it every time I walk through the living room and find my nephew watching another presenter screaming into his microphone as he plays a game. I see it every time I read an article about the NEXT million E.L. James put in the bank for writing incredibly mediocre softcore porn books.
Just so it's not lost here, I hate the content of both of these creators. I think they appeal to the lowest common denominator audience. I cannot possibly fathom their appeal. Yet, it doesn't matter whether I like them or not. I simply have to acknowledge that they are the harbingers of a huge transition away from the gatekeepers of content from the old media outlets and the new "crowdsourced" method of discovery.
All of that is preamble to the real topic I wish to tackle here. The old media people are not taking this transition lightly. Like a huge giant being tied down by Lilliputians, it's trying to struggle loose from their tiny ropes. One of the arguments they make is that crowdsourced media is the lowest of lowbrow content. And, in a way, they're not wrong. They're also not right, either.
I'm going to focus on the ebook industry for the rest of the post, mainly because that's where I find myself. I imagine the broad outlines of my post can be applied to other Internet-based content industries, but that isn't my purpose here.
The argument goes like this: There is a flood of poorly written, badly edited ebooks released every day on Amazon (which has exclusivity on 73% of the ebooks sold online). Many of these books are written by authors who can barely string a grammatically correct sentence together, let alone produce anything coherent. There is precious little "wheat" in all of that chaff, and due to rigging of reviews, services that "purchase" books (for a large fee) to force the ebook up to the Amazon bestseller lists for better visibility, etc. I cannot begin to tell you how odious I've found Twitter. Tweet after tweet, hundreds a day, advertising an author or the author's latest book.
How, they argue, can any quality book ever wade through all that garbage to find an audience?
The one tried and true way is to quickly produce a lot of content. There are authors out there who write six to ten books a YEAR. Every month they release a new book. They write in all different genres to expand their audience net as widely as they can. They fiddle around with their search terms. They create, or buy, lists of email addresses so they can notify the audience they've built of every new release they make.
The logic goes like this. If there are a hundred fish in a barrel, each with a price tag attached, which would you rather be? The fishmonger who only has one fish in that barrel, or the fishmonger who has twenty? It's the difference between 1 in a 100 and 1 in 5. Sheer statistics favors the second fishmonger.
So, it's just a numbers game, then? Right? Well, this is where the grumblers of the old media stop thinking through the implications. They stop at discoverability. Perhaps they do this because to take the next step ruins the logic of, "crowdsourced gatekeeping caters to the lowest common denominator."
The fact is, the numbers game only helps the audience DISCOVER the author. It doesn't help with keeping the audience buying the author's books. In other words, if I fishmonger puts twenty fish in, but they're diseased, bony, and smell funny, the customer will not choose any fish from that monger again. If a fishmonger only has one fish in the barrel, but it's large, meaty, and succulent, the audience will return when he's netted another one.
And what of the fishmonger that has five fish in the barrel that aren't as large and succulent nor as skinny and diseased? What if his fish are just "okay". That precious middle point between discoverability and quality? Those are the fishmongers that succeed in the crowdsourced media world.
Very few people who indie-publish have any desire to be the next Tom Stoppard or Cormac McCarthy. They don't want to slave over the perfection of one book for years. They're not looking to be particularly "literary". But the good ones, the ones who gain a following and keep it, like Hugh Howey (writer of the "Wool" series), want to be excellent STORYTELLERS. They want to entertain. They're not so full of themselves that they think their work is going to win a Pulitzer or a Nobel. Nor do they particularly care for literary awards (nor the designation of "writer of literature").
They simply want to tell you a story. Maybe they can excite you, turn you on, or horrify you for a few hours. If they can do that, they've succeeded. And the audience will come back for their next effort, whether it's the fifth book they've published that month, or the first book they've published in five years. Though the rule of "discoverability" favors the writer who can both entertain and create a large library of work.
So, is it feasible to write a 90,000-110,000 page novel every one or two months? Sure, though it's not likely to be any good. There are exceptions to this, but in general there are only so many hours in a day and quality will suffer. That writer will be like the fishmonger with 20 ugly, yucky fish. Is it possible to write a 30,000 word story in two months? That's doable even at a fairly leisurely pace of 1,000 to 2,000 words a day. Any writer with discipline and proper planning can consistently produce at that rate. Will they be 1,000 to 2,000 PERFECT words? Will the prose scintillate? Probably not. But can they entertain? Arguably, yes, if the author has any talent.
So the best indie-authors, the one who can produce entertaining works quickly, are producing works of novella length. 30,000-50,000 words. Many write serials that tell a larger story in smaller segments, or a bunch of individual stories that simply share a common universe. This has the advantage of locking in an audience if that story universe is compelling enough. They'll come back again and again to see what those crazy characters are up to next.
This isn't even remotely a new concept. This is just reviving the pulp magazine era. This is just paralleling the comic book tradition. Largely disposable, light, and entertaining reading. Something you can pick up for a few hours, finish, and feel you've been transported for a while. It's not meant to sit on dusty bookshelves like a trophy declaring the owner a "well-read person". It's not meant to stand the test of years. These stories are not meant to be classics.
Charles Dickens, who got paid by the word, wrote for the pulp magazines of his years. His books were simply serialized chapters published each month. He didn't write them to be "classics". He wrote them to entertain for a bit. To be, ultimately, disposable. He'd be shocked (though pleased), I think, to know his works are still in print today, with many MANY movie adaptations.
This will also happen with the indie ebook market as well. Right in that landslide of titles, are the seeds, the germination, of works of true art written as "fish in a barrel" stories. These authors don't know yet that in two hundred years their works will be lionized. They are simply focused on meeting their word-goals for the day. They worry that their stuff won't be discovered. They read the articles that say what they write is garbage because the old media hasn't vetted it.
History will prove, I think, that this model has opened up the doors of opportunity previously closed to these future star writers. We will be blessed with points of view, philosophies, and wondrous characters that would otherwise never have seen the light of day. And, ultimately, in the numbers game, there are 1,200 traditional book publishers of any note. They'll discover far fewer of these future stars than the open arms of Amazon, who provides opportunity for tens of millions.
I've always believed in the democratization of the Internet. People are so concerned with the hegemony of the "Media". Scary meme posters proclaim that six companies control every news outlet in the USA. Even the National Geographic has been bought out by Rupert Murdoch. This is a really scary situation for some. For me, it's not scary at all. I don't really care. Why? Because we have E.L. James and PewDiePie. That's right, the author of "50 Shades of Grey" (or is it Gray?) and that annoying gamer youtuber that has just attained a BILLION views of his videos.
E.L. James got her start writing fanfic for Twilight. She built up a fan base there that came out in support of her when she published her first book. From that foundation she's earned millions and a three movie deal.
PewDiePie is some Swedish guy (or is it Norwegian?) who recorded himself playing games and posted them online. Through sheer force of personality, he built a media empire that is replicated by thousand of youtube content creators.
Traditional media is dying. I see it every time I walk through the living room and find my nephew watching another presenter screaming into his microphone as he plays a game. I see it every time I read an article about the NEXT million E.L. James put in the bank for writing incredibly mediocre softcore porn books.
Just so it's not lost here, I hate the content of both of these creators. I think they appeal to the lowest common denominator audience. I cannot possibly fathom their appeal. Yet, it doesn't matter whether I like them or not. I simply have to acknowledge that they are the harbingers of a huge transition away from the gatekeepers of content from the old media outlets and the new "crowdsourced" method of discovery.
All of that is preamble to the real topic I wish to tackle here. The old media people are not taking this transition lightly. Like a huge giant being tied down by Lilliputians, it's trying to struggle loose from their tiny ropes. One of the arguments they make is that crowdsourced media is the lowest of lowbrow content. And, in a way, they're not wrong. They're also not right, either.
I'm going to focus on the ebook industry for the rest of the post, mainly because that's where I find myself. I imagine the broad outlines of my post can be applied to other Internet-based content industries, but that isn't my purpose here.
The argument goes like this: There is a flood of poorly written, badly edited ebooks released every day on Amazon (which has exclusivity on 73% of the ebooks sold online). Many of these books are written by authors who can barely string a grammatically correct sentence together, let alone produce anything coherent. There is precious little "wheat" in all of that chaff, and due to rigging of reviews, services that "purchase" books (for a large fee) to force the ebook up to the Amazon bestseller lists for better visibility, etc. I cannot begin to tell you how odious I've found Twitter. Tweet after tweet, hundreds a day, advertising an author or the author's latest book.
How, they argue, can any quality book ever wade through all that garbage to find an audience?
The one tried and true way is to quickly produce a lot of content. There are authors out there who write six to ten books a YEAR. Every month they release a new book. They write in all different genres to expand their audience net as widely as they can. They fiddle around with their search terms. They create, or buy, lists of email addresses so they can notify the audience they've built of every new release they make.
The logic goes like this. If there are a hundred fish in a barrel, each with a price tag attached, which would you rather be? The fishmonger who only has one fish in that barrel, or the fishmonger who has twenty? It's the difference between 1 in a 100 and 1 in 5. Sheer statistics favors the second fishmonger.
So, it's just a numbers game, then? Right? Well, this is where the grumblers of the old media stop thinking through the implications. They stop at discoverability. Perhaps they do this because to take the next step ruins the logic of, "crowdsourced gatekeeping caters to the lowest common denominator."
The fact is, the numbers game only helps the audience DISCOVER the author. It doesn't help with keeping the audience buying the author's books. In other words, if I fishmonger puts twenty fish in, but they're diseased, bony, and smell funny, the customer will not choose any fish from that monger again. If a fishmonger only has one fish in the barrel, but it's large, meaty, and succulent, the audience will return when he's netted another one.
And what of the fishmonger that has five fish in the barrel that aren't as large and succulent nor as skinny and diseased? What if his fish are just "okay". That precious middle point between discoverability and quality? Those are the fishmongers that succeed in the crowdsourced media world.
Very few people who indie-publish have any desire to be the next Tom Stoppard or Cormac McCarthy. They don't want to slave over the perfection of one book for years. They're not looking to be particularly "literary". But the good ones, the ones who gain a following and keep it, like Hugh Howey (writer of the "Wool" series), want to be excellent STORYTELLERS. They want to entertain. They're not so full of themselves that they think their work is going to win a Pulitzer or a Nobel. Nor do they particularly care for literary awards (nor the designation of "writer of literature").
They simply want to tell you a story. Maybe they can excite you, turn you on, or horrify you for a few hours. If they can do that, they've succeeded. And the audience will come back for their next effort, whether it's the fifth book they've published that month, or the first book they've published in five years. Though the rule of "discoverability" favors the writer who can both entertain and create a large library of work.
So, is it feasible to write a 90,000-110,000 page novel every one or two months? Sure, though it's not likely to be any good. There are exceptions to this, but in general there are only so many hours in a day and quality will suffer. That writer will be like the fishmonger with 20 ugly, yucky fish. Is it possible to write a 30,000 word story in two months? That's doable even at a fairly leisurely pace of 1,000 to 2,000 words a day. Any writer with discipline and proper planning can consistently produce at that rate. Will they be 1,000 to 2,000 PERFECT words? Will the prose scintillate? Probably not. But can they entertain? Arguably, yes, if the author has any talent.
So the best indie-authors, the one who can produce entertaining works quickly, are producing works of novella length. 30,000-50,000 words. Many write serials that tell a larger story in smaller segments, or a bunch of individual stories that simply share a common universe. This has the advantage of locking in an audience if that story universe is compelling enough. They'll come back again and again to see what those crazy characters are up to next.
This isn't even remotely a new concept. This is just reviving the pulp magazine era. This is just paralleling the comic book tradition. Largely disposable, light, and entertaining reading. Something you can pick up for a few hours, finish, and feel you've been transported for a while. It's not meant to sit on dusty bookshelves like a trophy declaring the owner a "well-read person". It's not meant to stand the test of years. These stories are not meant to be classics.
Charles Dickens, who got paid by the word, wrote for the pulp magazines of his years. His books were simply serialized chapters published each month. He didn't write them to be "classics". He wrote them to entertain for a bit. To be, ultimately, disposable. He'd be shocked (though pleased), I think, to know his works are still in print today, with many MANY movie adaptations.
This will also happen with the indie ebook market as well. Right in that landslide of titles, are the seeds, the germination, of works of true art written as "fish in a barrel" stories. These authors don't know yet that in two hundred years their works will be lionized. They are simply focused on meeting their word-goals for the day. They worry that their stuff won't be discovered. They read the articles that say what they write is garbage because the old media hasn't vetted it.
History will prove, I think, that this model has opened up the doors of opportunity previously closed to these future star writers. We will be blessed with points of view, philosophies, and wondrous characters that would otherwise never have seen the light of day. And, ultimately, in the numbers game, there are 1,200 traditional book publishers of any note. They'll discover far fewer of these future stars than the open arms of Amazon, who provides opportunity for tens of millions.
C. Lee Spencer's Blog
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