Nika Harper's Blog, page 7

My Whimsy: Dinosaur Limericks!

A nod to the famed dinosaur!
But it’s not all Tee-Rexes, there’s more!
Not just brontos and stegs
That once hatched out of eggs
There’s such variety to adore.

The praise for Veloci, they sing!
But remember, that dino had WINGS.
They saw in a movie
A dino quite groovy!
“Deinonychus” is the REAL thing.

I was having a personal crisis
To decide which dino is my likeness.
Information consumed:
Cannibals, it’s presumed?
I am sure, my fav is Coelophysis.

The gossip went that any raptor
With one pair of wings was not dapper.
So Micro, tenacious
Grew feathers pennaceous
And glided on four wings thereafter

Your duck-face may be quite euphoric
But so many Hadros have worn it!
Like Lambeo, Corytho
Parasaurol also.
Guess selfies are now prehistoric?

Check out www.Worldbuilders.org and make the world a better place, one goat at a time.

findchaos:Fuck Your Opinion(Prints, merch, and original for...

findchaos:

Fuck Your Opinion

(Prints, merch, and original for sale!)

★Twitter ★ Facebook ★ Patreon ★ Tumblr ★

I will have one of each.

Everything Would Be Better If...

If I could drink red wine
Or coffee whenever
If I could be thinner
Or cook a great dinner
If I had a cat
And a comfortable bed
But instead…

I have my own parking, and books line the walls
And I hate it, but laundry’s not that hard at all

But everything would be better if….

If I made good choices
And stayed in touch better.
Didn’t second guess
If I was a good guest
And stopped panicking
Over something I said
But instead…

I know lovely people who help me get through.
I bet lots of them worry about this stuff too.

But everything would be better if…

If I didn’t worry
About my big tummy
If I wrote a fraction
Of what I think I can make
If I could stop crying
From thoughts in my head
But instead….

I help people smile, that counts for a lot.
I live how I want to, work with what I got.

But what would be better, is…

If I had no money,
And I don’t, so it’s true
I’d be doing the same thing
I’ve wanted to do
Which is write and tell stories
And share them with you.

I’m allowed to be worried.
That is what people do.

I need to remember
Life is already great
I want to be greater
I’ll just have to wait.

I’m impatient as hell
and don’t believe in fate…

But I fucking believe in myself.
Sometimes.

Happy Halloween!

Yes it’s that magnificent day full of candy, pumpkins, costumes, and absurdity! Why do I feel so tired? Oh because I’ve spent two months gearing up for it and now I just want a damn nap. Herein lies proof of my Halloween excitement, a la the fantastic Joseph Scrimshaw.

Halloween is on a Friday, which is both convenient and inconvenient, it seems. EVERYTHING is happening on the same day, which can make plans tricksy tricksy.  But here’s a little goodie bag for you. Trick or Treat!


If you prefer to read the night away for All Hallows Read:

Shivers In-Between, my brand new scary story collection, is on Amazon!
My book of ghostlike stories, Echoes of Old Souls, is FREE on Kindle until tomorrow!
And a few stories of mine to round it out:
13 to 31
1 2 3 4
I’ve also been reading up on fascinating articles of real-life weird things on AtlasObscurica’s 31 Days of Halloween.


Perhaps you like LISTENING to spooky things, then?

If you haven’t heard Neil Gaiman’s “Click-Clack the Rattlebag” then just get this right now RIGHT NOW.
An assortment of my own audio-style stories, voila!
Guess It
Scratches at the Door
Frights and Night Lights

Also check out this amazing Halloweeny art by Pixels Huh JUST LOOK AT IT.

And some wicked awesome videos from Geek and Sundry for HALLOWEEK!

Or maybe gaming?

Costume Quest 2 is a must-have, silly RPG adventure. The highlight of my season, easily.
Or Haunt the House: Terrortown. It’s short and wicked cute, good for a smile.
As for scary, well have you even PLAYED Five Nights at Freddy’s? You probably don’t want to. It is scarytimes.

The scariest thing of all? National Novel Writing Month looms over your keyboard, waiting for you to write a monstrous work…
Nah that isn’t scary. But it is here, almost. Sign up to write (or TRY to write) a 50,000 word novel in a month! The fun is in the attempt, the camaraderie, the excitement of writing. You will be absolutely surprised, I promise.

Tricks, treats, and happy hauntings to you!
-Nika

13 to 31

Day 13
Simon walked past the pumpkin for the second time that day. It only caught his attention because it seemed abandoned. It wasn’t carved, didn’t sit anywhere in particular, no other decorations surrounded it in the middle of the courtyard. Was someone giving it away? Possibly a lazy attempt at being festive?

Day 12
He saw the pumpkin had been carved, finally, and now sat with two others in the same haphazard spot across from his apartment. Mystery somewhat solved. Still looked out of place, but the carver seemed skilled at their work. Simon had never felt uncomfortable about jack o’lanterns before, but the middle one’s carved face looked…strange. He couldn’t decide why, but he unpacked his groceries and shot looks furtively out the window. Nothing would change, of course, but he drowned his worries in making pancakes and sausage for dinner. His roommate might be pleased, if he didn’t come home full of fast food or take-out. Simon cooked and watched in the same breath. The pumpkins never moved, but who was he to expect it?

Day 11
There were more, of course there were. His roommate was out, a consistent office job demanded such a schedule even if his did less so. Simon saw more pumpkins which was…fine, really, getting into the spirit of things. The previously unmarred pumpkins had new faces, and yet they were all still pointed to his apartment. It’s probably the neighbors above, he thought, spreading the festive nature of the holiday. As he cooked pancakes, again, at noon, he watched out the window to see who had changed these gourds to face them. It just didn’t feel right. Simon went back to bed in the afternoon to right his mind. He woke in the night to see lights dancing on his walls from the candles outside. They were almost calming, like traffic lights.

Day 10
Tomorrow came too soon. Pancakes again, was that too much? Simon had to go to the office and check in some work, so he bustled about and got the task done. The pumpkins looked less threatening in the daylight, soggy things full of wax that wrinkled at the sides already. Didn’t anyone understand molecular decomposition? Against his better moral judgment, Simon twisted the jack o’lanterns to look elsewhere. To the left, to the right, off into the distance beyond the gate. Give them a bit more fun, after all. it must be frustrating staring at one thing all day and night, especially if that is his (undecorated) window. They were still twisted upon his arrival that night, through dinner and until bed.
But the lights in his window flickered again. Simon peered out to see all the pumpkins peering back at him. Every single one.
Their orange glow tickled the walls of his room.
The middle one, the original, cruel-faced pumpkin, flickered vaguely green.

Day 9
Someone is talented, and perhaps living above Simon’s apartment Who was this mysterious carver? He drafted a quick memo asking for an “Expert Pumpkin Designer” for his own creation, perhaps. On the bulletin board it went, and in the mail slots of a few specific doors around his place. There were more pumpkin faces pointing his way today, the courtyard was rippling with stems of new pumpkins like tiny gangs and loiterers.
The candlelight shining in the window that night was so distracting, Simon considered buying blackout curtains so he could sleep again.

Day 8
No takers on the flyer. The older jack o’lanterns were curling up into themselves, some hinted at rot and mold. Most were still fine, and there were many fresh ones joining the bunch. Their creator must be dedicated.
Simon looked up from his shopping list to see a decorative, plastic pumpkin leering down from the grocery aisle. It was the only pumpkin of the bunch that had a carved face, and it looked just like the one outside his door, the same simple but markedly upsetting shapes and asymmetry. He took a picture on his phone.
The internet had no leads about mysterious pumpkin carvers. In his mind, Simon romantically considered that there was a mad, anarchist artist carving pumpkins all around the town, like a Halloween Banksy. Nobody else had reported it anyway. He ended up searching medical sites for evidence of disturbed sleep leading to the sour feeling in his stomach, but results were inconclusive and usually pointed to cancer.
He cursed his lack of dark curtains. The candle shadows made his stomach lurch like he was on a boat.

Day 7
Simon fought to not be late for his last-minute doctor appointment, but it just seemed like that kind of day. Reaching to lock his door, he felt the key slide out of the way. The lock had been covered and crusted by milky white wax. It took a few minutes to dig out.
Stomach problems were not uncommon in times of stress, and his doctor prescribed some acid reflux pills and good tea.
Simon hated tea. The only effect it had was increasing his rate of using the bathroom and seeing the glowing faces in the courtyard.

Day 6
It took a while to get out of bed, the nausea was worse. Taking out the trash, Simon tried to breathe through his mouth to avoid the smell of decay. Reaching the dumpster, he wondered what could cause such an odor, but the back alley of the building smelled perfectly normal. It was all in the courtyard, the strong stench of rot wafted from pumpkins that used to have faces and shapes. Now, many were deflated, devoured and blurred by mold. How could anyone let this happen? Not his problem, though. The bulletin board made no mention of it, nor did any neighbors. Standing tall and central, the sharp grin of the first pumpkin remained fresh.
Tiny communal flowerpots around the complex added a needed splash of color to the courtyard, their lackluster contents now overrun by bright green vines. At least someone put all those extra seeds to use.
His roommate didn’t have any problem with “a couple pumpkins” in the complex, but Simon wondered what the hell he considered “a couple” to be. There were at least twenty by now.
Abandoning the tea, Simon was nonetheless kept awake as his stomach gurgled through the night.

Day 5
Halloween never seemed to fall conveniently on a weekend, so Simon’s friends were celebrating a few days early at their house across town. Donning a cheap vampire costume from previous years, he skirted around the makeshift pumpkin graveyard and arrived at the party with some beer in hand The house was beautiful as usual, they took parties very seriously and his friend had spent hours decorating. After his third beer, Simon’s stomach protested. The night wore on more soberly than he had wanted, settling into quiet midnight conversations on the patio, lit orange by glowing fairy lights. They congratulated their hostess on a great party, she smiled and took a sip of her cocktail, “What I want to know is, who brought the pumpkins?”
Over Simon’s shoulder on the far side of the yard, he saw that familiar, daunting grin.
He slept on their couch, pulled the curtains closed tight. He was sober enough to drive, but if he was honest, he didn’t want to return to his apartment in the dark..

Day 4
Some of the party stragglers woke up with bloody marys, some with simple black coffee. The patio smelled like cigars and fresh morning air, SImon sat outside with a mug in his hand, locking eyes with the improbable pumpkins perched across the grass. They stared hollowly back.
It finally felt like autumn. He took a sip of his coffee and felt something brush his lips. Floating on the surface were three fresh pumpkin seeds.
He didn’t look at the courtyard when he got home. He didn’t look out the window. He got into bed and closed his eyes deliberately.
The light was bright enough to shine through his eyelids. Peeking slightly, a grim, flickering green face was on his windowsill.
Simon slept on the couch.

Day 3
Snow shovel in hand and garbage bag tucked into his belt, Simon was exhausted and ready to make some enemies.
Fuck you, player of tricks and carver of gourds. Fuck you for letting your pumpkins rot and interrupting someone’s sleep. It was over. Every pumpkin went into the bag, whether fresh and gleaming or a puddle of mold. He jammed his shovel into their faces, flattening and cutting them apart with impunity. Sometimes he got new bags. Nobody saw nor cared to stop him, and it was a public service. The courtyard was filthy from remnants of stringy, once-orange squash guts. That was good enough. Someone probably got lazy and didn’t clean their own mess. Whatever. Not his problem. The greenish grin, the leader, was last. The thick orange rind crunched satisfyingly under his shovel, and dumped unceremoniously into the bin without further thought.
Simon slept in his bed that night and didn’t see flickering lights. His stomach felt knotted and sour. His nostrils were lined with that putrid smell.

Day 2
Sleep was well-earned. His roommate was already gone, Simon toasted a bagel and opened the package of cream cheese.
Two moldy black pumpkin seeds lay under the foil.
His head snapped up and he stared out the window. The courtyard was full of jack o’lanterns, like they had never left. In the dead center, staring right back at him, was the same sagging eyes and sharp smile.
Simon hunched forward and vomited into the sink, reddish remnants of his dinner mixed with chunky bile and water. In the mess of sick, there were two bright green sproutlings.
He locked himself in the bathroom all day and night, trying to heave out anything he had inside him.

Day 1
The receipt read $62 plus tax.
Their carved faces stared at the lobby door as he got back, all waiting for him. Through the window back in his apartment, they had moved to stared there too.
He took his stomach pill, chewed an antacid, and poured the jug’s liquid into a tall glass.
The bucket in front of him caught most of his sickness the first time, but the second stayed down longer, the third seemed easier still. He had gallons.
Nothing else came up but the herbicide. So Simon tried again and again.

Day 0
The neighbors had called about the smell. His roommate got home and the stench was so thick it was almost visible.
He must have been there for days, or weeks. There was almost nothing left to find, like Simon’s body had melted into a puddle under that blanket of mold. He was an outline on a bed and little more.
Outside, the vines in the flowerbeds flourished.

HALLOWEEN: Obsessed Ep 63

HALLOWEEN: Obsessed Ep 63:

Writer, vlogger, and self-professed “dorky goth” Nika Harper joins Joseph to obsess over Halloween. Topics include bats, candy corn, a hatred of the word spoopy, bobbing for things, monsters, and, …

This is the real stuff.

Talking about my OBSESSION with Halloween, alongside a brilliant and talented host, Joseph Scrimshaw. That guy is the best.

Guess It

(Listen)

Go on, ask me what’s in the bag.
I won’t spoil it for you, if you like the surprise. But I have a bag here. It’s full. To bursting, even, some would say. It’s only natural to ask what’s in it.
So I’ll let you.
Do you want to? I’ll loosen the tie for a bit. Do you want to ask?

Are you feeling okay? Making sure you’re not sick. What a shame. How are you feeling? No, let’s keep on subject. You’re going to ask a question. And I’m going to let you.
Ask me what’s in here.
This bag. The thing I’m holding, you can ask about it.
Well you can see that it’s burlap, but that’s only because I like it. It should be a Trick or Treat bag. Not a plastic thing you buy from the stores, they have that now, that’s the new bags. Have you seen that? Remember when it was all pillowcases filled to the brim? I remember so much. My mother made me a special bag, just for the holiday. It wasn’t meant to be full, you see. Half full at most.
I miss that bag, I really do. I wonder what happened to it. It was unwieldy in the ways I liked, tied with YARN. Why yarn? Yarn disappears. It wears and frays and…. I liked it longer than that. I could fix it if I found it. But it’s not meant for having.
The concept of trick or treating and… keeping things… collecting things…. expires. It stops. You can use yarn. After a while nobody will use the bags. They think.
I have good memories of them. To me, that’s what this is. It isn’t, but go on.
This isn’t just Halloween candy after all. You know better.
It isn’t even Halloween yet. Soon maybe, but not yet.
So then what is in here?
It could be candy. It could. Stop struggling. It could be little boxes and bits of colored things, wax and corn syrup and food coloring, the kind of things we love to eat. It could be those things, all manner of them, I remember the smell. A sickly sweet smell. Chocolate and fruit and savory and sweet and just…. That’s the real smell of Halloween, if you haven’t stuck your head into a big mixed bag of…
Well I mean, are you really living? Here? In America.
Of course, this smells quite different. No chocolate here. At least, not that I’d have, ahah. This takes much longer to get, you know. You know a lot of things, I can tell by your eyes. I haven’t blindfolded those yet. So tell me, what are you seeing?
It’s just a bag.
But, ask me what’s in it.
I’ll untie you. Just the mouth but I’ll do it. Are you ready? I’m ready for you to ask.
Well it really isn’t fun unless you guess. Can you guess? You know twenty questions? I’m good at it. So try your first.
That’s too specific, start more general. No, by the way. No. Are you even looking? Obviously not.
Well. How am I to say? How are you to know? That’s not the point. I’ll give you that one, and I’ll say…. no. Make of that what you will. Stop crying, this is simple. What’s in the bag. Start thinking, start really thinking.
See, see you’re thinking now. Yes. Yes it is, and you have so many questions left and you won’t squander them will you? Would it surprise you to know I’ve played this before? How well do you think you’re doing?
It’s just a question. I can ask it to you, I mean you have seventeen questions left for me. I can ask a few of my own. In fact I can ask as many as I want. See? Now you can’t ask anymore. Now you can only nod, and cry, not unlike you’ve been doing. You don’t want that. So stop being so… difficult. It’s just trick or treat, that’s all it is. My trick is you guessing. Now quiet down and think.
You can see it. Can’t you?
Don’t be stupid this time.
Ah. Yes! So much closer, so wise. You have ten. Not two. That should be enough, I know it is. You don’t seem to have ten of almost anything. Not sure if maths account for brain cells, either. If you say hair, I can make you wrong about it. So don’t get sharp.
You know, of course you know now. So ask something interesting. How many people? ….Well, can’t you tell? Take a deep breath.
That many.
It took a while.
Ah, the scarf goes back on then. Is that why they call it a scarf? I’ve wondered, the etymology you know. I wonder many things. I wonder what your face would be like when….
You were right after all, so I can just show you.
This little piggy went to market.

This little piggy stayed home.

You know what’s next?
Just nod.
Stop it.
This.
Little piggy.
What did he do?
He had roast beef didn’t he.

Where did he get it from?
Aren’t cows just meat? Aren’t pigs just meat too?
Aren’t we? Sometimes. Aren’t we sometimes just cells and muscles and blood?
You don’t like that but you don’t have to. You didn’t use up the rest of your questions. Try them now. Your mouth is full, but… it’s nice if you try anyway. Maybe you can keep yours after all.
So tell me. What did this little piggy do?

And this one?

You’re all out of order. You didn’t ask anything interesting. You didn’t ask what happened to everyone, or if you would be okay.
They all ask that. Pity, I had such GOOD answers but we’re not worried about that.
THIS little piggy went to market.

Thank you.

This little piggy…. stayed home.

For now.
Ask me again.
How many there are in the bag?
Do your complex math.

This little piggy cried.
All the way
to
your
home.

Octoberishness

Fiiiive more days ‘til Halloween…
Hallowe’en…
Hah-Low-Een

October is a super busy time for me, what with all the bats and cats and apples and candy and ghosts and little devils and….
Well it’s Halloween time, but not everybody celebrates the way I do.

I’ve been working hard on completing my new spooky story collection, which I am delighted (and relieved) to announce is OUT NOW! Shivers In-Between has some polished-up stories you might have seen before, along with some new ones folded in there like a jam-filling surprise. ALL OF THEM SCARY! Or creepy or woeful or… well you get the gist.

It’s on Amazon Kindle right nyah.

Paper copies will be on Amazon soon, but they’re available on Createspace right now.

(As is custom for non-US readers, type my name into your regional Amazon site and it should appear like spooky magic.)

I’m very excited, very proud, and I can’t wait to order a whole box full and give them a big book hug. It really feels amazing to hold your own, professionally-bound work in your arms and just squeeze.

Also as a matter of tradition, my first book, Echoes of Old Souls, is free on Kindle until Halloween!

Sometimes spooky, sometimes sweet, all of the stories are about ghost-y things. Get it, share it with a friend, do as ye will. Can’t argue with ‘free,’ right? Check out my reading of the first story heeeere.

Five more days until candy and pumpkins and costumes and skeletons and…

A Night in a Haunted House

They always said the house was haunted, but any abandoned building in disrepair got the reputation, even without earning it. Like any unwanted dwelling was owned by ghosts and ghoulies instead of possums and termites. An explorer might find their doom at the end of a rusted nail rather than a vampire willing to suck their blood. This is just how the real world exists, but gossip, as we know, is fun.

The house on the hill, I’d seen it since I was a child, and had not seen it since. Whether the cemetery was there before or after the house was founded, it is unsure. A drafty, abandoned house on a hill, surrounded by an overgrown graveyard. At least this place earned the name. As a child, I even believed it. When I grew up, I learned that abandoned places are not to be feared, nor bodies in their final rest. Our fears of the dead are distant, baseless things. Our real fear should be of death itself, and the emotional damage it rips from the living.
Graveyards are places of sorrow, not fear. But I digress.

Yes, I had been afraid. I believed the stories of an empty house filled with cackles and mad laughter, as though anyone there had gone insane. The house at the top of the hill was one of myth, and not even original in that right. Derivative, made for scares and spooks.
When I heard there was a tour on Halloween, of course I had to go.

I’m a journalist now. I know when to ask questions and how to get the answers I need. I’m going to tell my account of going through that house… I wonder if writing it will clear it up for me, that I may see the cracks and little bolts that keep it in place. I do not know. So I write it here.

There were not many of us. Our guide was shapeless and formless and crude, as dark as the environment with a voice that sounded like old wood snapping. He groaned with every word, his words waspish with disdain whether at us or the house, we could not be sure. It was just a few curious others and I, our scarves tucked in and ready for the walk up a seedy path just barely visible under the crabgrass and weeds. The way up was not far, the cemetery lay mostly behind the house and we did not pass by much of interest. A tree here and there. The guide met us at the gate, needing no introductions and giving none of his own. Everything about him was sheltered but for his voice. We followed.

He called the mansion Hangman’s Folly, throwing words over his shoulder as we trudged up the path together. Said there to be no birds, but I’d seen a few. Said that horses shied away, but we have to wonder how long this house had been there that horses were the form of transport. If nothing grew here, what was all the scraggly grass on the path? I asked these questions in my mind. It was approaching night, sometime between eight and nine p.m. where the sun had gone but the darkness had not become complete. Of course the tour would be at night, and who knows if we even had permission to be here? It didn’t seem that way.

As advertised, the house was a wreck. It was hard to stand on the porch, being so sunken and pockmarked that the entryway was the only flooring intact. The night was windy, the air howled around us like a cheap effect. The door opened with a shove of the guide’s shoulder.
“Mind the cobwebs. Stay close together.”

He hadn’t lied when he said it was a mansion. The first hall alone was cavernous, lined with doorways and staircases, from what we could see in the dim light. Seemed like nobody had brought flashlights, or they were thrillseekers hoping not to use them. Despite the wind outside, it was dead silent as the door closed behind us. Dust was settled all about our feet, real dust with no patterns in it save for the scraped door and our brand new footsteps. It was a place that truly seemed untouched.
But then, what that noise?

It started as a thump. Then a patient creaking, a door or something else, but nothing seemed moving. It was all so loud and close, contrasted with the silence all around us. I recognized my mistake. I had signed up for a “haunted house tour” on Halloween night, and clearly this was an orchestrated maneuver. Theatrical kids were in the wings waiting for us to become frightened; this is what I had signed up for that evening. In the absence of anything interesting, I resolved to stay along and make this a review piece.
Hangman’s Folly might be interesting yet. After all, they had left the dust at the door, which was quite a fantastic detail. I did not sign up for a house of cheap scares and entertainment, but I might as well enjoy it if I was there.

The group shuffled forward, tight together. There might only have been five of us, I was determined not to look at the others but found myself now doing so. Average types, their peacoats buttoned up and scarves on tight. They looked about in wonder, snapping their heads at every new sound that occurred like clockwork. Our steps were merely a shuffle, following the shapeless mass of presumed human that was our guide. So many doors in this place, a few sounds of activity no matter where we moved our head. Our guide said nothing. We matched his silence. What kind of scares would they have in store, I wondered?

“Listen. Is that music I hear?”
….Is music the ONLY thing he heard this whole time? As though the thumps and bumps were all regular.
He lurched over to a door and pushed it wide, indeed there was a long room through it, almost as though a deep hallway had become its own destination. Then we heard the music too. It was a pipe organ, expertly played, distant and cloudy, echoing its way to us. I could see down the hall’s length, just barely, as though by candlelight. Indeed there was an organ and a shadowy figure that played it, splaying itself in raucous pleasure. I could commend their choice of talent. The notes rang true and even picked up others in its stead, the sounds of a harp, a wind instrument and a bell. It was a lovely airy thing, but in the way it echoed, the way it bounced from ear to ear… it didn’t feel real, or live. Maybe it was a recording. I watched a harp’s strings plucked invisibly, a neat trick.
I mean it must have been a trick.
Everything went dark and the organ at the end of the room, well, it looked broken and in disrepair. Like nobody could have played it for years. The other instruments, lining the hall in their places, stood still and broken just the same. In an instant, we were all alone, no music to guide us.
Indeed, a neat trick we had seen. Projections, perhaps. Masterful stuff. It was all becoming an article so quickly, my experience and the creators of this experience.

I caught the eyes of the other guests as we shuffled back out the door, or tried to anyhow. They avoided my gaze. Did they seem disturbed? It was all parlour tricks, even made within parlours themselves. Could they really think this was—
There was a door leading down into the basement.
I went first. It was cramped, more than it should have been. Why the guide didn’t lead us in was a mystery, but I felt the cobwebs in my face, smelled the air so heavy with humidity. Could it be a wine cellar? I wouldn’t say no to a glass of something, but the steps opened up to a room.
It was hard to tell what it was, at first. I thought, a crypt? What is the most overdone thing in—
Oh.
A laboratory.

Vast, yes. I didn’t know the ceiling could be so high—how far down had I traveled? I was aware of a heartbeat that was not my own, thrumming as though in my chest. I heard and felt it the same—the deep insistent thump-thump of humanity.
Speaker effects perhaps. Something strong. Perhaps the room wasn’t meant to be experienced from the doorway. How much had they attributed for someone who walked around?
So I did that. Just barely out of my vision, I could see edges of tables, littered with crusty debris of experiments long rendered. I stepped among them, leaving the others behind. The guide had told us to stay close.
Well, I wanted to test that a bit better.
The first electrical arc lit up the room. A jacob’s ladder, or at least that’s what I think they called it. Some showy device that crackled a current up wires; did they do anything but make colors and noise? The size was impressive. They must have brought in specialists.
The bubbling noises were also interesting, I didn’t see any instruments that were currently capable of boiling anything at all. More speakers, then. Somewhere, yipping laughter caught my ear. Oh, so a mad scientist is it? Then we could expect—
I smelled it before I saw. I couldn’t see much, truly, the flickering electrical discharge made silhouettes flash in my eyes. I couldn’t trust my eyes, I just couldn’t be right, but on the table… there might have been…an arm.
And I wasn’t right.
It wasn’t just one arm.

A stack of arms laid there, or perhaps they were various limbs of some sort…. A thick sheet draped over most of the pile, but a single grim forearm lay separate. I could smell the iron, the blood, the meat. I sensed it before I could see for certain. Was anyone here with me?
And to the left, a table of bloodied riffraff. Skin maybe. Surgical thread. Discarded bits. Nonsense, it must be. These things are easy enough to get from a butcher shop. It was an old trick.
A bolt of lightning arced the room—my hair stood on end. Electricity was pulsing, throbbing, the heart sound knocking ever faster, the laughter heightening. Was I safe to walk this far after all? I backpedaled few steps and met the shoulder of another, the guide who wrapped his fingers around my shoulder and dragged me back. A glorious display of light and sparks shot into a sheet-covered figure on a table. The moaning was…melodic. It melted into the rhythm of the room, the electricity and the bubbles and the manic laughter. My elbow was dragged back up the stairs before its finale.
Just another show, with some lights. But what was next was a different story.

Perhaps I am crude for being unshaken. Perhaps I am cold for testing the waters, for I saw the people around me and they looked back with fear and distrust. This was just a magic trick, the lot of it. It was all designed to scare a few people on Halloween, that was what we were. How lucky I was to be a journalist! To ask the questions and take notes! Our guide seemed untouched by the activities, but shuffled his way up an ornate stairway to a doorway on the second floor. The stairs creaked in a satisfying fashion, the way they SHOULD sound, they way they SHOULD feel underfoot. I climbed them, marveling the dust on the banisters. It was all so complete, so regimented and thought of. What a review it would make. I thought back to the organist, the composers in the first room, what were their names? Surely readers of the news should know of their skill!
This door was dark, and cold.
The guide said it was the gallery. His knowledge of the room was beyond me. It was entirely dark inside. What little we could see was interrupted by pillars, pedestals, and shadows that seemed to shift upon the blink of an eye. A room of darkness, I thought, allows the fears to manifest themselves without anything more than gentle nudging. Indeed, from our right, a growl sounded that set us all on our toes. Then another echoed from deeper within.
It was upsetting. But that was the point.
One of our party screamed, a curdling shriek, and took flight. She ran into the darkness, leaving us to wonder.
Well, we could still hear her. Nobody else made a sound. But her panting breath and sobs carried through the gallery quite easily. The monstrous presence was moving, snuffling and looking for this new prey. We tracked them both by sound, quieting our breath.
She must have been a plant all along. Designed to be done away with as the plot thickened. I felt momentarily had, that the tricksters had gotten the best of me. How many more of them were there? Was everyone a false tourist but for me? All the better to write about, I supposed.

For a straight minute, we followed her sounds. She was close then distant, and sobs wrenched her from her hiding places. If we—paltry humans—could find her, whatever creatures there were would have no trouble at all. And they didn’t. The sounds moved further from us, yet more foreboding. As her gasps became echoes, so did those monstrous growls. Padded footsteps and heavy breaths moved away. Their snarls sounded like they were from everywhere at once. Her screams mirrored them like layered orchestra.
She never stopped screaming.
There were other sounds, wet things. Just theatre effects surely, but ligaments twisting and teeth scraping and….
The crack in the door spread light over us, none had moved. Whether to help or to run, no footsteps had been taken. And the way out was illuminated.
She was only a plant anyway.

There were so few now… only three of us, and the undaunted guide. Even reeling from his touch in the laboratory, I found I still knew nothing about this shady figure. We followed as we were meant to, moving across the balcony to where, rudely and yet to our relief, there was music. The door did not hide its innards.

It was all made of light. An enormous room, golden like in the movies, echoing with orchestral melodies which seemed so familiar but unplaceable. This place was the true achievement, the translucent figures that appeared only when you turned your head away and didn’t look quite at them. Projections into dust or other means, it was hard to be sure. While the rest of the mansion may be smoke and mirrors, this ballroom felt so real.
Despite the brightness, a chill crept up my arms.
“Alright, sir?” a young girl approached me and curtsied.
I meant to answer but she was only a recording or trick of the eyes anyhow. A figure made of silt who asked about me so plainly:
“Mister Gunnar?”
My head snapped. Her eyes blinked up at me, like a curious porcelain doll. Her face was a familiar one, but it couldn’t be…. What kind of cruel trick…
Her name was Marie. She was a schoolmate, and her perfect curls and trusting eyes never saw past nine years. She gazed at me in all her old perfection, the face of a girl I had known who lived and died in my heart. So young, she was. So perfect, she appeared right then.
What a cruel, odd trick. What a senseless, disgusting act to pull. To exhume the dead and make them talk, to play on tricks of the mind and make a body shiver—
For shiver I did. She looked at me with her glassy eyes, I quaked and stared right back.
“Mister Gunnar? Would you like to dance?”

Oh god, would I ever, Marie.

She could not take my hand and I could not take hers. I did what my feet were asked to do, and strode into this bright room of crisp shadows, but upon reaching the center I fell to my knees. I could look no further, walk no more, and dance not ever. Her face was still so curious, uncomprehending of the sickness she embodied. How did they recreate her as such? Could it be possible that she is still alive?
“Mister Gunnar, please dance tonight!”

I can’t assume that I did. The music swirled around me like a gin headache, I felt as though my heart were ripped from me to amuse these theatre folk. I may have wept, but I do not remember a thing more until I stepped from that house, that mansion of cruelty with my guide and none else.

“I know how to get out of here,” he said, his accent indicative of nothing. I saw him light his cigarette, and inflame a fuse with the same match. It whisked its way through the whipping wind, igniting small grass like a final parade. He and I watched it, felt the force of the blast on our faces, watched the house crumple and lean on its shoddy structure for support. When it gave in and burned, nothing else caught around it. It was singular and final. The hill no longer had a silhouette. It was gone forever, perhaps. I don’t remember the sound. It all sounded like the echo of a young girl asking to dance.


I’d missed my first and second train, but was nearly on time for the third. When had I slept? Where had my mind been? It was unsure. Conversations meant so little and my journal of notes had simply stopped. I bled my thoughts onto the pages and no answers emerged. So much for being a journalist and finding out the truth.
Must have been a very, very good theatre troupe then. Also, a very sick one.

The cab took me to the train to depart, but on the way I gazed out the side to see a lonely hill.
With a shadow of a house, upright and daunting, staring right back at me.
As though it never left.
As though I never went.
As though nobody would ever believe me.

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