Ellie Potts's Blog, page 54

A little Halloween Fun!

Alice Cooper and The Muppets :)

Book Review: Dr. Sleep by Stephen King

Stephen King brings us back the world of the Shining. We get to see what happens to Danny after the Overlook hotel. And his journey into the bottle, after all he is his father's son. We watch Danny hit bottom, and as he climbs out he meets Abra. Abra and Danny have a lot in common. I liked the True Knot he has terrified me now I will always look at RVS on the freeway differently. The only problem I had was towards the end, it felt a little more rushed. But on a plus side it almost felt like reading an older King book.

Blurb:
Young psychic Danny Torrance has become a middle-aged alcoholic (he now goes by Dan), bearing his powers and his guilt as equal burdens. A lucky break gets him a job in a hospice in a small New England town. Using his abilities to ease the passing of the terminally ill, he remains blissfully unaware of the actions of the True Knot, a caravan of human parasites crisscrossing the map in their RVs as they search for children with the shining (psychic abilities of the kind that Dan possesses), upon whom they feed. When a girl named Abra Stone is born with powers that dwarf Dan&'s, she attracts the attention of the True Knot&'s leader—the predatory Rose the Hat. Dan is forced to help Abra confront the Knot, and face his own lingering demons. Less terrifying than its famous predecessor, perhaps because of the author&'s obvious affection for even the most repellant characters, King&'s latest is still a gripping, taut read that provides a satisfying conclusion to Danny Torrance&'s story.

Here is a frightening list of scary books worth checking out!
http://flavorwire.com/419194/the-50-scariest-books-of-all-time/view-all/

Halloween Craft!

We are doing this for our Pot Yuck Halloween Party. Scooped-out mini pumpkins become spidery votives, thanks to tea-lights and pipe cleaners. We will have a weird spider thing going on and I am freaked out about spiders.
 This year marks our third annual Pot Yuck. The goal is to bring a gross looking dish that is yummy. Last year my husband won the best entree. Ribbs and sausages for the intestines. We founds this huge platter and a nasty burnt head. We usually start planning our entree during the Summer. So we have plenty of time to figure out how we are going to do it and how much we will need. This year is a secret. But I will be posting it up after our party so stay tuned! Our friend Kerry won best desert. Poo cupcakes!I am looking forward to what everyone brings this year.

History of Halloween

Today's Halloween customs are thought to have been influenced by folk customs and beliefs from the Celtic-speaking countries, some of which have pagan roots, and others which may be rooted in Celtic Christianity. Indeed, Jack Santino, an academic folklorist, writes that "the sacred and the religious are a fundamental context for understanding Halloween in Northern Ireland, but there as throughout Ireland an uneasy truce exists between customs and beliefs associated with Christianity and those associated with religions that were Irish before Christianity arrived." Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, notes that while "some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia, it is more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain", which comes from the Old Irish for "summer's end". Samhain (pronounced sah-win or sow-in) was the first and most important of the four quarter days in the medieval Gaelic calendar and was celebrated in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. It was held on or about October 31 – November 1 and kindred festivals were held at the same time of year by the Brittonic Celts; for example Calan Gaeaf (in Wales), Kalan Gwav (in Cornwall) and Kalan Goañv (in Brittany). Samhain and Calan Gaeaf are mentioned in some of the earliest Irish and Welsh literature. The names have been used by historians to refer to Celtic Halloween customs up until the 19th century, and are still the Gaelic and Welsh names for Halloween.

Samhain/Calan Gaeaf marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the 'darker half' of the year. Like Beltane/Calan Mai, it was seen as a time when the spirits or fairies (the Sí) could more easily come into our world and were particularly active. The souls of the dead were also said to revisit their homes. Feasts were had, at which the souls of dead kin were beckoned to attend and a place set at the table for them. However, the spirits or fairies could also cause harm, and needed to be propitiated or warded-off. This is thought to have influenced today's Halloween customs. Bonfires, which were deemed to have protective and cleansing powers, were lit and sometimes used in divination rituals. At the household festivities in these areas, there were many rituals intended to divine the future of those gathered, especially with regard to death and marriage. Christian minister Eddie J. Smith has suggested that the bonfires have a later Christian origin and were used to scare witches of their awaiting punishment in hell.

In modern Ireland, Scotland, Mann and Wales, Halloween was celebrated by mumming and guising, the latter of which goes back at least as far as the 18th century. This involved people going from house to house in costume (or in disguise) reciting songs in exchange for food. It may have come from the Christian custom of souling or it may have an ancient Celtic origin, with the costumes being a means of imitating, or disguising oneself from, the spirits/fairies. In some places, young people dressed as the opposite gender. In parts of Wales, men went about dressed as fearsome beings called gwrachod. In parts of southern Ireland, the guisers included a hobby horse – a man dressed as a Láir Bhán (white mare) would lead youths house-to-house collecting food; by giving them food, the household could expect good fortune from the 'Muck Olla'. Elsewhere in Europe, mumming and hobby horses were a part of other festivals. However, they may have been "particularly appropriate to a night upon which supernatural beings were said to be abroad and could be imitated or warded off by human wanderers". When "imitating malignant spirits it was a very short step from guising to playing pranks". The guisers commonly played pranks in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, and this practice spread to England in the 20th century.

The "traditional illumination for guisers or pranksters abroad on the night in some places was provided by turnips or mangel wurzels, hollowed out to act as lanterns and often carved with grotesque faces to represent spirits or goblins". These were common in parts of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands in 19th century. They were also found in Somerset (see Punkie Night). In the 20th century they spread to other parts of England and became generally known as jack-o'-lanterns.

Jennifer Brown stops in with a treat!

Bringing my Books to Life

            When most people think about Halloween, they think candy, pumpkins, and haunted houses. I always used to think of it as a way to introduce people to my characters.            I got the idea to start dressing up like the characters I wrote about, back around 1995 when I worked at Hills Department Store. (Anyone remember those?) That year we got to dress up and the idea smacked me in the head one day and had me as excited as a new story idea. I dressed up as a young girl who went on a senior trip to Kings Island, a local theme park where I live and was found dead, with her hand cut off. Her name was Rachel, and my main character had a bit of a crush on her.            So, I tried to make myself look as dead as possible—I guess as some would say in the faze today, yes a zombie—and ruffled my hair up, took a sweatshirt inside out and rolled my hand up in it, finding some fake blood to top off the end of my arm.            It. Was. A. Blast. My manager that night was taking count of what people had dressed like, and when he came to me, he was baffled. It was awesome, it was just a shame at that time I wasn't published yet.            The next year I dressed as the first psychopath character I ever created. Her name was Amber, she ended up killing her parents. I want to say she was a catholic schoolgirl because I remember dressing in a plaid jumper and got a fake knife and colored the end in fake blood, which I carried around. At this point I had decided to start throwing Halloween parties, and as soon as a new guest would arrive I'd run out with the fake knife poised above my head and screaming. Just like Amber did the night she killed her parents.            The last year I dressed up, I was a general character from another story I was working on. I got a 50's sock hop outfit, complete with poodle skirt and top. I took fake blood and streaked it across my neck. That year I was working on a story set in a drive in movie where people were killed.            I had so much fun doing that for Halloween each year, bringing one of my crazy, or even dead characters to life. It was always interesting and funny to get people's reactions as I introduced them to a world only I knew and created.
            Learn more about Jennifer's characters now that she is published, and check out her new upcoming release Twisted Revenge from Nevermore Press November 1st!
www.jenniferbrownauthor.weebly.comwww.jenniferbrownsuspenseauthor.blogspot.comwww.facebook.com/InJensWords
www.twitter.com/jenbrownauthor

Snippet Sunday: Toys from Flights of Delusion

Toys            What would be on level nine, she thought as she wheeled the toys to the elevator. Aliza waited for the elevator the sky behind her darkened as if storm clouds rolled over the summer sun. Aliza turned to look, and sure enough the sky had turned black.
            She walked to the window, just one of the many gawkers wondering what would make the sky so dark. The air in the building seemed to be running fine, and they could make out people at the new Marriot hotel across the way. They too were staring out the bright windows looking at the sky.
            “Look!” Someone shouted pointing down.
            All their eyes went to the man running for his life on the street three stories down. He franticly looked over his shoulder, his foot hit the edge of the sidewalk and he went down. He managed to turn around looking at the sky. Head shaking, he scooted back some then stopped. He placed his hands over his ears and it looked like he was screaming. They saw nothing, nothing at all. And in a blink of an eye the man’s head exploded. Popped like a balloon. His torso fell to the gore splattered sidewalk leaking out dark fluid.
            The very quiet people all around Aliza started screaming, yelling or talking at the same time. The noise level reached throbbing when someone else screamed pointing down. At that moment groves of terrified people ran past their building. Some screaming as others fell lifeless to the grounds missing heads.
            “What is going on?” Preston asked her.
            “I have to get to level nine,” she said shaking her head at the terrified mailroom clerk. “I think we should all stay inside. So far nothing is happening in the buildings.” She watched him nod, his eyes big blue saucers, as she turned back to the elevator.
            Someone was peeking at the cart that she had parked there. “Excuse me, those are not for you,” she said to the person.
            “Why do you have a cart filled with toys?”
            “That is none of your business either.”
            “I am one of the heads of this level,” The horse-faced brunet said.
            Aliza looked the lady over. Her dress clearly not meant for someone with such man shoulders and no hips. It strained at the top but bellowed down almost looking like a sack. Her shoes were something else. It looked like she wore Dalmatian puppies, that didn’t match the off blue-green of the dress.
            “Well excuse me but I have direct orders to deliver these to the ninth level. I believe there is something more important you should be worrying about as she motioned over her shoulder to the window.
            “No one goes to level nine,” she said smugly.
            “Really we are coming to this,” she sighed grabbing her folder and pulling out the note she was given down in the basement. She really hated coming to the other levels. Everyone seemed so hot headed and power hungry. But rarely you moved up levels.
            “No it can’t be. You are nothing. NOTHING!”
            “No ma’am, nothing, just doing my job,” Aliza said grabbing the note, and entered the elevator as the door opened.
            She looked down at the note. “Why me?” she asked. She didn’t see the nicely dressed man behind her.
            “If I knew I’d tell you,” he said with a cocky smile.
            She jumped. “Sorry,” she said looking at the man in his nice business suit.
            He looked her over. “Black slacks and polo, let me guess, mail clerk?” She nodded. “You are far away from the mailroom.”
            “I was given a task,” she said taking in his rich caramel eyes and hazelnut hair. His suit of browns and tans made his eyes stand out.
            “Curious. Either you have been extremely bad, or extremely good,” he said pondering her with a small smile.
            “Excuse me?”
            “Those are the only two reasons to be moving up levels.” She looked and they were now on level five. The elevator opened at each level for ten minutes and waits for someone to walk in or out. It closes and moves slowly to the next floor. Not many people get very close to the elevator unless they have direct orders to go somewhere.
            “I work and mind my own business.”
            “You smell of copper,” he said behind her his nose flared invading her space. “Blood and secrets.” His eyes closed as he sniffed her again as she watched in the mirrored wall. He moved forward and hit the elevator stop button.
            His back blocked the control panel as he looked at her. “How long have you been here?”
            “A long time,” she said quietly. Her heart started to speed up.
            “And why would they want you on level nine?”
            “How do you know where I am heading?” she asked her voice small and scared.
            “It says so on the envelope,” he said as he started to remove his tie.
            “I am just doing as I am told,” she said backing up.
            The man shrugged his jacket off as each hand gripped an end of the tie. Her back hit the warm glass of the elevator. He his eyes had glazed over to insane, as he slowly walked to her.
            “I have worked hard to move up to the next level. And you, a peasant pee-on, is skipping every damn level!”  He quickly went to use the tie to strangle her. But as he got close she kneed him in the crotch. He shrunk to his knees grabbing the cart of toys knocking it over.
            They clattered to the ground making her wince. He looked at her even more crazy eyed as before as he got back to his feet.
            “You bitch. You basement level stealing BITCH! I was going to kill you as easily as I could. But now,” he said reaching into his pocket, “Now it’s going to be messy I’ll show them on level nine.” He hit the small trigger and a blade popped out of the thing he pulled from his pocket. “I am going to carve you up real slow.”
            Her eyes took in the glint of the knife and for a second she remembered something she hadn’t in years. It seemed to be happening a lot lately. Memories of her past. She pulled the memory closer. She smelled skin; hot flesh, warm sand, suntan lotion and then the tang of blood. It made her nipples hard and twisted things in her belly making her feel warm all over. All these years, she had been buried away from herself.
            She looked on the ground at the toys that littered the floor. Her toys. How sharp shells were when you made them into toys. She picked up one not even interested in the oncoming crazy man. The wooden handle felt smooth and familiar. And she, the real Aliza, broke free. The abalone blade shined under the elevator lights.
            Crazy brown suit guy came for her ignoring the toy in her hand. She planted her feet, the fear she felt now gone. She no longer gave off the timid mailroom clerk she had been for so many years. Brown suit man stopped, feeling the change in her.
            “Do you think that will stop me?” he asked.
            “I know why you can’t move up levels. No guts little boy. Is that what mommy told you? Did she like to make you wet yourself and laugh? I bet she did. I bet she made you do things in front of people. She made you so mad, so when you got older you hurt mommy. You hurt her and made her do things. Naughty things. And when you were done you found other girls who reminded you of mommy. How many girls did you hurt? Probably not as many as me.”
            “You don’t know me,” he said voice wavering.
            “I’m done with you I have a job to finish,” she said and stalked over to him. Her knife bit into the flesh of his neck easy like slicing into butter. She grabbed him, turning him so he could see himself in the mirror wall of the elevator. She sliced off one ear as he tried to protest, his neck bleeding out his life juices. His hands tried to keep the bleeding down as he fell to his knees. She cut his other ear off to make him even.
            “I was called the Shell Carver. I used my pretty toys to carve people’s faces. The part I enjoyed the most was watching their soul leave their body, seeing them fully die.”
            Her free hand grabbed his hazelnut hair and she forced him to look at himself. “Watch yourself die,” she said. “You can see the light drain from your own eyes. They called it the soul. But see,” she got down to whisper into what had been his ear “you have already died and came here. What happens when you die again?”
            The last few seconds of his life you could see the question in his scared eyes. She could feel when he finally died, his dead flesh became heavy, she let go of his hair. His face plopped down into a puddle of his own blood, which was already disappearing. She grabbed the body and pushed it against the side of the elevator. She turned her back. A wet smacking sound filled the elevator, and then it burped.
            “You’re welcome,” she said as she busied herself to pick up all the nice toys from the ground, placing them back on the cart. She then hit the continue button on the elevator. She stood there waiting for the elevator to hit level nine, and there seemed nothing left of brown suit man.
            Finally the door opened and she pushed the cart out and walked out. She had delivered mail to level one, two and three, but never any higher. She walked down the hall passing numbered doors until she reached the main door at the end. The name on the door made her pause; she took in a deep breath and pushed it open. A secretary dressed in Goth black looked up from the magazine she read.
            “Go on in, he’s been waiting for you.”
            Lucifer came over from his large window. “Aliza, I have been trying to find some way to make you remember who you were. The elevator, your toys and the person seemed my last resort. At least it worked. I was kind of getting worried.
            You see I need an agent just like you to be part of my team. I have been recruiting now for some time, which is rather hard with Hell being over populated. So many souls, so much to take in.”
            “So the heads exploding is population control?”
            “Need new souls to work in the shitholes to make new room for the extra souls coming in. I have scheduled a meeting with the man above in a month. For some reason I think he’s given up or someone isn’t doing his job properly. I sure know I am doing my job.”
            “So does this mean I am not going back to the basement?”
            Lucifer laughed. “No, Aliza, you became level nine as soon as you regained yourself in the elevator. Like I said I need you and people like you. You have these gifts, and when the final battle is decided on you will play a very big roll.”
            “Final battle?”
            He sat down in his big black leather chair. “Oh you know which one I’m talking about. And it sure seems closer to reality then just talk. That would explain the over population. Oh maybe I should be looking on match.com to start spawning mini-antichrists.” He looked to the computer on his desk.
            “Sir,” Aliza said, “Um, what would you like me to do with the toys?”
            He looked back at her with his dark eyes. “Those are yours, why not go and get settled into your new office. It would be number three in the hall you walked through, and don’t forget to talk to your neighbors. Great bunch you guys, you all should have lots of stories to share.”
            And like that she was dismissed. Before she closed the door, she heard him talk to himself, “Really online dating I have to shrink to their level?”
You can read other short stories based around Lucifer in Flights of Delusion out now!Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Flights-of-Delusion-ebook/dp/B00DJLYUR6/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1381091957&sr=8-4&keywords=ellie+potts
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/flights-of-delusion-ellie-potts/1113871785?ean=2940016538419

Scary TV!

Some horror TV favorites are about to start up- American Horror Story Coven to air this Wednesday or The Walking Dead (October 13). 
American Horror Story Coven (Season 3)October 9
It's been around 300 years since the Salem witch trials. Those who remain are almost extinct and in danger again. A school has opened in New Orleans to teach protection to the young. The long-absent Supreme, Fiona (Jessica Lange), arrives to also protect the coven and their secrets. Fiona's daughter, Cordelia (Sarah Paulson), teaches at the school. The themes include witches, witch hunts, incest, minorities, slavery, mothers and daughters, and witchcraft versus voodoo. This season will be set in modern day and the 1830s.
The Walking Dead season 4Sundays
"30 Days Without An Accident"The group lives an ideal life at the prison, and strives to hold onto humanity, until an accident befalls the group.
"Infected"The group faces a new enemy; Rick Grimes and the others fight to protect their hard-won livelihood.
"Isolation"A group leaves the prison to search for supplies; the remaining members of the group deal with recent losses.
"Indifference"The supply mission faces hurdles; the situation at the prison worsens.
But there are a few newer shows out now that are worth checking out. 
Sleepy Hollow on Monday nights.
In 1781, Ichabod Crane "dies" in the midst of the Revolutionary War while on a mission for General George Washington. He rises from his "grave" in modern day Sleepy Hollow after the Headless Horseman, (revealed to be Death, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse), is summoned back from his watery grave by an unknown party. The resurrection of the one causes the resurrection of the other due to the intertwining of their fates as a result of their blood mixing shortly after Crane decapitated the Headless Horseman on the field of battle.
Lt. Abbie Mills begins investigating the Headless Horseman after he beheads Sheriff (Clancy Brown), Mills' mentor and partner. Mills' investigation reveals the presence of two occult groups, one for good, the other evil, in Sleepy Hollow both of which are concerned with the Four Horsemen and the associated apocalypse. The killing spree the Horseman embarks on causes Crane and Mills to team up.
As Crane's worldview is from 18th century Colonial America, some friction can be expected between him and Abbie, and also between him and the people he must now work with.
Halloween Wars on the Food Network
This Sunday Halloween season 3 starts up again. For 4 weeks a cake maker, pumpkin carver and a candy maker team up to create scary Halloween displays. This years guest judges are Danielle Harris (Halloween), Tony Todd (Candyman), Charlaine Harris (Writer of the Sookie Stackhouse series), and Derek Mears (Friday the 13th). Worth a watch!



Other noteworthy shows coming soon: Grimm season 3 (October 25), Dracula (October 25), and Netflix original Hemlock Grove season 2 will be out in 2014, Tony Todd, 

The awesome Selah Janel stops in with a treat!

People like to point out that it’s highly ironic that I write horror, especially if they knew me as a kid. I was scared of everything. You know the type, the girl who covered her face every time a commercial for a horror movie came on TV, the type that didn’t dare step on a crack, the type that believed every stupid local urban legend told in the cafeteria, who worried about it all before going to sleep at night.
And yet, those who REALLY know me probably aren’t all that surprised. I lived for Halloween, after all. I spent months deciding what I wanted to be, adored decorating the house, and spent all of October play-acting like I was some tragic goblin princess that could only come out at night, or an unsuspecting soul who went to live with a haunted house chock of wacky relatives.
As I grew older, I also walked that fine line of being freaked out but curious. I wasn’t allowed to watch horror movies because of my delicate sensibilities, but I don’t think my parents knew how many times I snuck off when we went to the video store (remember those?) to read the backs of every horror video box I could grab before they discovered I was missing. At sleepovers I queried my friends for a point-by-point plot synopsis of every movie I’d missed out on (though I have the sneaking suspicion that they either padded some of these stories, or teenage girls are better at being malicious and descriptive than some scriptwriters). The ironic thing was, certain family members liked certain horror movies and days that they had to watch me meant that I’d most likely find out what I’d been missing (Little Shop of Horrors, The Lost Boys, IT, and a lot of other Stephen King movies were force-fed to me this way, though I never really saw the full cuts until I was older…something about running for my life when I was told that the villains would come get me if I was bad. To my credit, I was like five or six…also to my credit, there is some serious irony involving some of those titles that happened later in life and would take too long to recount.
The rules about horror movies extended to scary books, though I discovered from an early age that I have a serious thing for urban legends. I’ve never quite figured out what’s so appealing about them. There’s something about the what-if factor, the “well it’s probably made up but it MIGHT be true” thing, the short narratives that bordered on the claustrophobic, the fact that they could be about someone JUST LIKE YOU…they’re brilliant and I binge on them to this day. RL Stine was big around the time I hit my tweens, and his babysitter titles were high on the list of books that were deemed off limits for not only myself, but a lot of others in my small town, too. Not only his, either, but the grand-daddy titles for those of us who were in our early teens at the time: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.
These things are brilliant. I can honestly say that I haven’t picked up a copy of one of the three titles in over a decade, but I can tell you some of the stories and recount the malicious illustrations that went with them. No lie, that was part of the draw…no funny, namby pamby art for THESE books. THESE books had tales that curdled blood and illustrations that would give you nightmares. There were some other books written with similar stories, but they weren’t as mind-bending, though they did the job. I wasn’t allowed to read any of them, or rather, I was highly discouraged from doing so. And I agreed. After all, everything freaked me out as a kid…as curious as I was, I didn’t need that stress!
And then a friend who was forced to get rid of her stash gave me her copies. Or rather, I started out keeping them for her in my locker, and then ended up inheriting them. I’d love to say I just read them once, freaked out, and got rid of them, but even then I’d blanche at the thought of throwing out a book. Besides, we all know that I turned into a dark fiction writer, so that’s not how this tale goes. Nope, I didn’t get rid of them, and I didn’t just read them.
I totally started renting them out to other people.
At one point, for a short time, I had my own middle-school contraband library going where people exchanged dark and dreary titles with myself acting as quiet, unsuspecting ringleader. I don’t think these titles were banned or anything at school…I don’t know why we just didn’t exchange them in study hall or between classes. I really have no clue why we felt the need to hide everything in my locker. At the end of the day, I don’t even think my folks would have been that upset, unless it all started extensively traumatizing me, and really, I can’t honestly recount one single story that made that much of an impact beyond keeping me up for a couple hours. Still, for a time, I felt like I was the master of the illicit, the dealer for the darkside, the gatekeeper of the ghoulish. Really, the stuff that passed through all our hands wasn’t exceptional and wasn’t particularly titillating. Cable was just starting to come into its own and I’m sure there was better stuff there than what we were reading. Still, it was the IDEA that we were dabbling in the macabre and reading tales that were highly discouraged (after all, some routinely started making the banned books list).
I don’t know whatever happened to those books…I don’t own any of them anymore, though I’ll admit when I’m feeling nostalgic I’ll go check out some RL Stine books and chuckle away an afternoon. I don’t know when the urge to stop obsessively reading them happened, but I can hazard a guess. It was probably about the same time I had to start reading Edgar Allan Poe for school.
And thus began a whole new level of dark and dreary education.



Kindle    Amazon Paperback Blurb: Journey with authors Selah Janel and S.H. Roddey to a world where every idea is a possibility and every genre an invitation. In this collection of forty-seven short stories, lines blur and worlds collide in strange and wonderful new ways. Get lost with the authors as they wander among fantasy, horror, science fiction, and other speculative musings.Shadows can’t hurt you, and sometimes it’s all right to venture off the path. Genre : various speculative genres Length: 300 pages Format: Kindle, Paperback (Nook and PDF available from authors) Publisher: Published by the authors
Excerpts: It was a dark and stormy night and the fairies took over the stripper pole. It was the only recourse when Beltane fell on a moonless, rainy eve and the last Maypole in town had been bulldozed decades ago to make way for a rest stop. It wasn't the best solution, to be sure, but tradition had to be kept and the local strip was closer to the Faerie mound than the nearest field. Quietly, they emerged from what unsuspecting mortals took to be an over-sized speed bump misplaced in a back alley. Through the years they had adapted to life in the city, so pixies and elves, brownies and sylphs, redcaps and trolls emerged from their underworld home, all dressed for a night in the seedier part of town.
They grouped together in a lump, all staring up at the flashing sign for Tit-tania's with eyes that were blue, green, yellow, orange, and black. Round and slit pupils widened and contracted at the convenient name. It was all the sign they needed that they were where they needed to be. The mortals inside never knew what hit them, especially when gold coins pelted the dancers into fleeing the stage. The elfin maidens who took their places may have been dressed in club wear, but they moved with the grace of the ages-old and whirled around the poles with a fire and grace that no mortal could replicate. Pixies swirled about their heads like sparks of light, so fast that their movements burned a trail of an after-image around the dancers' heads and shapely figures, the brilliant streaks mingling with the long, swishing hair.
The brownies chugged beer since no ale was available, and trolls watched gaping mortal men out of the corner of their eyes. The age of sacrifice and tithe was over, but if one of the humans reached a grubby hand towards a Fae maiden, then they were more than happy to remind the fool why they were unworthy.
Businessmen, young men who were barely out of boyhood, old men with nothing better to do...they all gaped in awe at the display going on around them. After a while, the creatures in the audience joined hands and circled the perimeter of the club in a dance as old as time. A particularly mischievous sprite cut off the blasting music and poised itself at the edge of the stage, pipes in hand. Another soon joined it with a lyre, and another with a lute. A pixie produced a hand drum and joined the makeshift band, providing a joyful, driving rhythm. The sweet music drew the spurned human women back towards the stage to watch, tears streaming down their faces as they viewed the elegance they'd never have. Their human audience stared, unable to reach for wallets. They didn't need to. Their admiration was something the celebrating Folk hadn't had for a long, long time.
Into the night they danced and celebrated, invoking envy, nostalgia, and a heartbreak for the old days. Troll and lawyers guzzled liquor together, brownies hit on strippers jokingly, hobgoblins compared notes with the manager, and all celebrated and danced to the ancient music, enjoying the holiday though most mortals in the place didn’t remember that it existed. Just as fast as the Folk had arrived, they disappeared. Leaves were left where their coins had fallen and none of the club's patrons could rightly remember what had happened or how much time had passed. They only had a strange memory of joy and an even stranger heartbreak of missing something they could not name.
From the front it appeared no different than any other house on the 200-block of Downing Street – a well-kept two story monument standing as a proud testament to pre-1900’s architecture. Festive decorations adorned the front porch while spooky blow-up caricatures lined the steps like undead marching soldiers. Even a pumpkin graced the front lawn, hiding inside it a peeping Frankenstein. Orange and black lights blinked along the trim of the wide porch day and night without fail. Hidden in the front hedges was a motion sensor that exuded an eerie laugh each time someone passed by. Many people paused to gaze at the spectacle. Some took pictures, but nobody ever stopped. Just because it was six days after Halloween with no change in scenery didn’t mean the still-standing decorations were that unusual.
No, it just meant that the owners of the house were dead.    
If the passersby were to look closely they would have noticed that the broken door jamb was real, and that the dark trail marring the bright-white boards of the steps was blood, and it led across the threshold. If they were to push open the ruined door they would notice other things out of place – a broken crystal goblet and an overturned bottle of scotch to start. The trail would continue through the house into the kitchen where a once-beautiful blonde woman lay, face up in a pool of blood that had long-since oozed from the angry gash across her throat. From there bloody footprints would lead upstairs where her husband lay sprawled on the landing, almost completely disemboweled. Intestines would be strung along the banister much like the lights out front. His eyes would still be open, staring sightlessly ahead.
But nobody would witness these gruesome sights, because nobody paid attention. Nobody would stop to see what was wrong. Nobody would care.
At least, not until Christmas.

Author Bios:
Selah Janel: Selah Janel has been blessed with a giant imagination since she was little and convinced that fairies lived in the nearby state park or vampires hid in the abandoned barns outside of town. Her appreciation for a good story was enhanced by a love of reading, the many talented storytellers that surrounded her, and a healthy curiosity for everything. Her e-books The Other Man and Holly and Ivy are published through Mocha Memoirs Press with more to come. Her work has also been included in The MacGuffin, The Realm Beyond, Stories for Children Magazine, the anthology The Big Bad: an Anthology of Evil from Dark Oak Press, and the upcoming anthology Thunder on the Battlefield from Seventh Star Press. Olde School, the first book in her new series The Kingdom City Chronicles is scheduled to release from Seventh Star Press later this year. She likes her music to rock, her vampires lethal, her fairies to play mind games, and her princesses to hold their own.
Catch up with Selah at the Following Places: Blog – http://www.selahjanel.wordpress.com Facebook Author Page – http://www.facebook.com/authorSJ Goodreads - http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5622096.Selah_Janel Amazon Author Page - http://www.amazon.com/Selah-Janel/e/B0074DKC9K/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1346815995&sr=1-2-ent Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/SelahJanel
S.H. Roddey South Carolina native S.H. Roddey has been writing for fun since she was a child and still enjoys building worlds across the speculative fiction spectrum filled with mystery and intrigue.  She brings to the literary world a unique blend of humor, emotion, and wild ideas filled with dark themes and strong characters. In addition to writing she is also a voracious reader, wanna-be chef, and video game addict with two full-time jobs: administrative social media professional, and mom to two cats, a teenager, and a precocious toddler with an affinity for computer keyboards. For more information on Susan, her imagination, and the things she writes:
Blog:  http://creepyauthorgirl.wordpress.com
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/AuthorSHRoddey
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/draickinphoenix
Twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/draickinphoenix
Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/author/shroddey
Goodreads:  http://www.goodreads.com/draickinphoenix

Happy October and turning the tables as I interview you!

You can smell fall in the air and pretty much feel it too. The nights are colder, there is that chill in the air. People can start using the stoves without over heating their houses, and warm drinks sound yummy. Oh how I love fall. The leaves changing to those oranges and reds, the pumpkins of different shapes and sizes, and of course with fall brings my favorite holiday. Halloween!!
For the next month I will bring you something Halloween related. Movie and book reviews, Halloween arts & crafts, Halloween food and some great guest blogs from some awesome people.
But today I have a Halloween interview that I am asking my readers to take part in! Because I am nosy, and because you are super awesome J
What is your favorite part of Halloween?What is a costume you haven’t dressed as but would love to?What is your favorite Halloween candy?What is your favorite scary book?What is your favorite scary movie?Have you ever had something paranormally scary happen to you? If so what happened?

Thanks for participating J

WIP Challenge day 30!!

What do you do to celebrate when you finish your WIP?
I do something fun for myself, get my self something special, something along that line.