October 31, 2012

A Pirate Raccoon, The Halloween Story - 2012

A Pirate Raccoon
Part 1
No. 216
October 11, 2012
“I don’t want to wear it,” said Riley
His mom turned from the bowl of candy she was preparing. “You don’t want to wear the dinosaur costume I made for you?”
“Nope,” said Riley with his arms crossed firmly.
Mom sighed. “I spent a month on this. Why didn’t you tell me that you didn’t like it before?”
Riley shrugged. “Dunno.”
“What do you want, then?”
Riley didn’t hesitate to answer. “I want to be a pirate raccoon,” he said with a decided finality.
“What?”
“A pirate raccoon.”
Mom’s perplexed look turned into something more annoyed. “You’ve already got a costume and I don’t even know what a pirate raccoon is.” She picked up the unwanted suit and examined it. Perhaps she could solve this problem.
She softened her stance. “I guess I can turn it into a lizard, or if I work really fast, maybe a turtle.”
“Pirate raccoon,” Riley demanded, stamping his feet for emphasis.
This was when Mom made her stand. “That’s just not going to happen. Come on, if we’re going to go out tonight you’re going to have to choose something I can make. Or be a tyrannosaurus. You’ve got two minutes to make up your mind or nobody goes trick-or-treating.”

Part 2
No. 230
October 31, 2012
Riley hit the floor and went limp in protest.
“Fine,” said Mom. “If that’s how you’re going to act, I’ll leave without you. I won’t share my candy, either.”
One of Riley’s eyes opened.
Mom threw on her coat and stepped toward the door.
Riley’s other eye opened. They were both very wide, now, but he didn’t get up yet. Maybe there was still a chance his mom was bluffing.
She on her boots and put her hand on the doorknob. “Goodnight, Riley,” she said as she began to turn it.
Riley recovered quickly. “I can be a dinosaur,” he said, his demeanor suddenly cheery.  
“Good,” said Mom. “Because that’s the costume you’ve got.”
She helped her son into the green jumpsuit, complete with stuffed head and tail. His face peered out from behind large, felt teeth. “I’m ready,” he declared.
“Are you sure?” Mom asked him. “You aren’t forgetting anything? Maybe your treat-bag?”
“Oh yeah!” he exclaimed.
“Here you go,” said Mom as she handed it over.
Riley was all set to go out and seemed to have forgotten that he hadn’t wanted to be a t-rex. Now he waited impatiently in the entry way for Mom to put the finishing touches on her costume. When she was done, they left the house together.
As they joined the stream of ghosts, goblins, princesses, and superheroes who were already on the sidewalk, Riley turned to his mom and asked her an important question.
“Can I be a pirate raccoon next year?”
Mom smiled. “Yes, you can. As long as you don’t change your mind.”

No. 230 - A Pirate Raccoon Part 2

Riley hit the floor and went limp in protest.
“Fine,” said Mom. “If that’s how you’re going to act, I’ll leave without you. I won’t share my candy, either.”
One of Riley’s eyes opened.
Mom threw on her coat and stepped toward the door.
Riley’s other eye opened. They were both very wide, now, but he didn’t get up yet. Maybe there was still a chance his mom was bluffing.
She on her boots and put her hand on the doorknob. “Goodnight, Riley,” she said as she began to turn it.
Riley recovered quickly. “I can be a dinosaur,” he said, his demeanor suddenly cheery.  
“Good,” said Mom. “Because that’s the costume you’ve got.”
She helped her son into the green jumpsuit, complete with stuffed head and tail. His face peered out from behind large, felt teeth. “I’m ready,” he declared.
“Are you sure?” Mom asked him. “You aren’t forgetting anything? Maybe your treat-bag?”
“Oh yeah!” he exclaimed.
“Here you go,” said Mom as she handed it over.
Riley was all set to go out and seemed to have forgotten that he hadn’t wanted to be a t-rex. Now he waited impatiently in the entry way for Mom to put the finishing touches on her costume. When she was done, they left the house together.
As they joined the stream of ghosts, goblins, princesses, and superheroes who were already on the sidewalk, Riley turned to his mom and asked her an important question.
“Can I be a pirate raccoon next year?”
Mom smiled. “Yes, you can. As long as you don’t change your mind.”

October 30, 2012

No. 229

Sally’s red belt was special. When she wore it, for as long as she was wearing it, she’d be grown-up. She’d be 10 years older, to be precise.
She’d tried it twice, so far, and didn’t want to put it on again. Being an adult was nothing like she’d expected. The belt stayed hidden in the bottom of Sally’s sock drawer for a long time.
Then her friend Reagan got into trouble and asked Sally for help. Reagan told her that nobody else could know. Sally felt like she had no choice. Reagan needed her.
She wrote a note and slipped it under her pillow. If her plan didn’t work, at least her mom would find the paper later and know what had happened.
With a deep breath, 13-year-old Sally threaded the strap through the buckle and cinched it tight. She closed her eyes for the change, then opened them, and walked out of her bedroom.

October 29, 2012

No. 228

“I certainly will,” was Katy’s enthusiastic response. Even as she said it, she knew that nothing could be further from the truth. Nobody could have fun on this desolate island.
She watched the ferry leave the pier and wondered for a moment if it was a good idea to dive into the water and try to swim to catch it. The captain and the deckhand waved to her from the bridge’s window as the boat pulled away.
“Awesome,” she grumbled as she grabbed her duffel bag and turned to walk up the 67 steps to the lodge. “Just awesome.”
Her friends had booked the rooms before she’d had a chance to veto the destination. They’d bought into the hype about the resort and hadn’t hesitated to put down non-refundable deposits, including one using her credit card number. Katy had stayed here once before, and would have been more than willing to tell them the whole story.
This time she was able to make it to step number 32 before the rain started and the fog rolled in. She hung her head and tried to climb a little faster. It was going to be a long week.
She hoped that the management had at least been able to get rid of the larger rats.

October 28, 2012

No. 227

“Something just bit me,” said Grant Busker.
“Did you see it?” asked his girlfriend, Angel Orr.
They were on the first day of their trip to the beach, and neither one wanted to turn back for anything that wasn’t an emergency.
“No. Didn’t see anything,” Grant answered.
“Are you sure it was a bite? There’s not a lot of cover around here for something to sneak up on you.”
Grant showed her his arm without saying a word. There were clearly two puncture marks just under his elbow.
“Ok,” said Angel. “I wonder if whatever it was is poisonous. How do you feel?”
“Not too bad,” said Grant. “It stings a little, though.”
Angel shrugged. “You want to keep going?”
“Sure.”

They continued to hike their picnic gear up the beach. They didn’t have to go far before they were alone.
“Can we stop for a moment?” said Grant.
“No problem.”
“Thanks. I’m just feeling hot. Is it hot?”
Angel looked up at the slightly cloudy sky. “Not really.”
Grant sat down quickly. Angel thought it was too quickly.
“Did you fall?” she gasped.
Grant did not reply. His head slumped forward and he let out a slight moan.
Angel was at his side instantly. “Grant, talk to me. What’s going on?”
He did not reply. He rolled onto his side and Angel saw the wound again. It had festered to several times the original size in the short time since she’d seen it last. Something under the skin seemed to twitch.
Angel covered her mouth in silent horror. She kick away from her fallen boyfriend and turned, stumbling, to flee.

October 27, 2012

No. 226

November 8, 1989
“Commander, should I initiate the Protocol?”
“Not yet, Comrade. Not yet.”

Tomorrow
“Hurry up with the camera, will you? This place isn’t going to film itself,” said Jack Hurdy.
“Yeah, I’m coming. Give me a break,” replied Frank Dealer.
The pair were on location, shooting a documentary about former Soviet airbases now abandoned after the end of the Cold War. This one was rumored to have, at one time, sheltered nuclear missiles.
They were about to uncover something far more sinister.

After some time, picking their way over broken concrete and collapsed walls, they penetrated the heart of the complex.
“Look at that,” Dealer whispered. “It’s the launch tube.”
Hurdy said nothing, but slowly made his way the edge of the hole. He kicked a small rock over and shuddered when it hit the bottom many seconds later. “Wow,” he managed.
Dealer had moved around to the opposite side of the silo. He leaned over the edge with the camera pointed straight down. “There’s stairs,” he called back.

They descended together, both trying not to disturb the years of debris that had accumulated on the rickety gantry.
Hurdy breathed a sigh of relief when he set foot again on the solid floor of the pit.
“Maybe we can find the control room,” said Dealer.
“Sounds good,” Hurdy agreed. “Do you have a light?”
Dealer snapped on the light rig attached to the camera and panned around the landing. “Jack, I’m not sure this was a missile base.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Hurdy. “Why?”
“Something’s just wrong.”
“We’ll get to the control room. It’s just your imagination playing tricks on you.”

Quickly gathering their gear, the two filmmakers set out into the dark. After working around two dead-ends and up a ladder, they found their target.
“You see?” said Hurdy. “This is it. Destructo-central.”
“No. No, this isn’t for nukes,” said Dealer. He stepped forward to get a better look at the instrument panels. “This is some kind of transmitting station.”
“Transmitting? Like broadcast?”
“Yes. Like our dish back home, but way more power.”
Dealer was now studying the buttons intensely, but he was confused by the notations.
“My Russian is rusty,” he continued. “This one says ‘power’, and this one says ‘activate’, but this third one, I think it says ‘protocol’.”
“Why is the light still on beside it?” Hurdy asked. “Maybe they never shut it down?”
“It’s certainly possible.”
“Don’t press it.”
“Don’t worry,” Dealer assured his friend. “Not going to happen.”
He continued his investigation. Mold and dust had obscured some of the labels. Picking at some with his pocket knife, Dealer cleared off another line of letters.
“Huh,” he grunted.
“What?” said Hurdy.
“That says ‘cats’.”
“Like the animal?”
“Yup. Like the animal.”
“It says ‘cats’ in a nuclear missile bunker?”
“I told you, man, I don’t think this has anything to do with missiles.”

October 25, 2012

No. 225

Nelson Oames studied the imposing facade of the building from the driver’s seat. His trained eye took in every conceivable feature while he worked out the best way in. He was very quiet for a long time before making his final decision. “We’re going do this the old-fashioned way.”
Dean Jackson snapped his seat back to vertical from its reclined position where he’d been napping. “What’s that?”
Oames made a note in the small book he’d taken from his shirt pocket. Only then did he answer his apprentice’s question. “We throw a rock through the window.”

October 24, 2012

No. 224

Ted Tenner took the punch in the jaw. He shook his head to regain his senses and looked his captor in the eye. “Not bad, but you’re going to want to step into the next one if you really want it to count,” he told his foe.
The next blow was, indeed, harder than the first.
“Ted, quit hassling him and just tell them what they want to know,” hissed Andrea Aarons, Tenner’s partner, who was tied up on the opposite side of the dank cell.
Tenner looked at her and winked. “Don’t worry. I’ve got a plan.”
“Awesome,” said Andrea, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Eventually the guard grew tired of the beating and left the two prisoners alone while he went for a break.
“What’s that plan of yours?” asked Andrea.
Tenner coughed, then groaned. “My plan was to wear him out, and then escape. He ended up being a lot better shape than I anticipated.”
“Figures,” said Andrea. “Alright. I’ve got this.”
With a deft twist of her wrist and some nifty finger work, she sprung the handcuffs she was wearing off of the metal ring on the wall. She quickly crossed to Tenner’s side and undid his restraints, too. He fell off of the wall with a limp slide to the floor.
“Oh, come on. I’m not going to break us free and carry you to safety,” said Andrea. “I’m just the sidekick, remember?”
“Remind me to have a little talk with you about that when we get back to base,” said Tenner. “You might be in for a promotion.”

October 23, 2012

No. 223

“What’s up?”
“Hm?”
“Seems like there’s something different about you today.”
“Don’t think so.”
“Huh. You sure?”
“Yup.”
“You didn’t get a haircut or nothing?”
“Nope.”
“Coulda sworn something changed.”
“Just the same old me.”
“Cool.”

“Is there something different with you?”
“Well, actually, yeah.”

October 18, 2012

No. 222

“When was the last time we went on a quest?” Growl asked the creature hunched beside him.
“We’re goblins, you fool. We’re the bad guys. We don’t go on quests,” replied Shiver.
“I guess. It’d still be nice sometime, you know?”
“Yeah, I know. But our job is to sit around the fire waiting for the heroes to come through our territory and then go running up to them while we scream and wave our swords around. Maybe we take down a couple B-listers in their party.”
The two misshapen beings pondered their existence for a time.

“What if we kill the next group that traipses past and complete whatever quest they’re on?” suggested Growl.
“I like it,” said Shiver. “I like it a lot!”
He stood and stretched his gnarly arms to work out the kinks. Then he sat back down and made himself comfortable.
“We just have to wait until they come by,” he told Growl.
There was a short silence as both monsters pictured their glorious adventures in their minds’ eyes.

“When do you think they’re going to come by?” asked Growl, impatiently.
Shiver looked at him with a scowl. “Listen, if you keep bothering me, I might kill you as well, and go on the quest by myself.”

October 17, 2012

No. 221

She slept heartily. In her dreams she was slaying dragons.

October 16, 2012

No. 220

“What do you want me to do? Chew through it?”
“Have you got any better ideas?”
“No,” admitted Pete Conway as he examined the heavy steel door.
“So your plan was to show up, and then figure out a way past?” questioned Harvey Yearling.
“We didn’t have a lot of time beforehand, did we?” Pete tossed back.
“Nope.”
Conway spat on the ground, his mind racing, trying to work his way around the problem. He traced the outline of the door with his finger. “I think—.”
He didn’t get a chance to finish. Yearling shoved him aside and then walked out through the rainy parking lot to the car.
Pete’s phone rang and he answered it.
It was Harvey from inside the vehicle. “I’m waiting here, where it’s warm, until you sort this out. It’s your problem, anyway, not mine.”
He hung up abruptly.
Conway sighed and cracked his knuckles. It was going to be a long night. If he didn’t get through that door, it was going to be a very long week.  

October 14, 2012

Around Gray Halloween Mini-Story Candidates 2012

Number One
No. 213
October 5, 2012
Craig Hansen examined his pumpkin intently, searching the mottled orange surface for clues or inspiration as to what he should carve into the gourd.
He cast a sideways glance at his friends, all happily hacking away at their jack-o-lanterns. He didn’t see anything terribly impressive. They were all doing the standard smiley-faces with jagged teeth and triangle eyes.  Craig wanted his to be different.
“Forty-five minutes left,” somebody at the end of the row announced. If Craig didn’t have something soon, he’d be forced to turn to the cliché just to have something to enter in the contest.
“Come on,” he whispered at his mute vegetable canvas. “Give me something.”
The pumpkin, being an inanimate object, did nothing to add to Craig’s creative energy.
Time ticked by far too quickly, and though Craig didn’t wear a watch, he could feel the deadline approaching. Usually, he was better at this, but this year he’d been busy in the lead-up to the Halloween season. He contemplated recycling one of his previous designs, but he knew there was a good chance somebody would remember and disqualify him.
With diminishing opportunities, he made the call that would have been unthinkable just an hour before. He raised his knife and began to thrust the blade down to begin the traditional spooky face.
The point met flesh with a satisfying resistance, but Craig felt something inside himself dim as he began to saw the first eye-hole. He stopped and closed his eyes, hoping for a last-minute flash of an idea.
“What’s yours going to be?” asked Lindsay Ross, interrupting his process.
Craig started to tell her that it wasn’t going to be anything special, but the spark he’d been waiting for hit mid-way through his sentence.
“It’s going to be awesome,” he told her with a smile on his face and one careful eye on the clock. “You’ll see in about half an hour.”

Number Two
No. 215
October 10, 2012
I’m shy by nature, so tourist season is always a bit of an ordeal. I can’t stand strangers out tramping around on the lawn, asking ignorant questions, getting in the way and yelling all the time. It used to be only one or two kids wearing old bed sheets coming by to ring the doorbell and run away. Now, everyone’s got their spectrometers and their infrared cameras and their fancy tape recorders.
I understand that Halloween’s going to be busy around here. I know that. I live in a haunted house. I’m a ghost. I have to grin and bear it. But sometimes I find myself wishing I wasn’t tethered to this place and that maybe just once I could get away for the holidays to avoid the hype. This year, if everything goes to plan, I might get that chance.
I hope so. I’m not sure I can handle another TV special filming in my living room.

Number Three
No. 216
October 11, 2012
“I don’t want to wear it,” said Riley
His mom turned from the bowl of candy she was preparing. “You don’t want to wear the dinosaur costume I made for you?”
“Nope,” said Riley with his arms crossed firmly.
Mom sighed. “I spent a month on this. Why didn’t you tell me that you didn’t like it before?”
Riley shrugged. “Dunno.”
“What do you want, then?”
Riley didn’t hesitate to answer. “I want to be a pirate raccoon,” he said with a decided finality.
“What?”
“A pirate raccoon.”
Mom’s perplexed look turned into something more annoyed. “You’ve already got a costume and I don’t even know what a pirate raccoon is.” She picked up the unwanted suit and examined it. Perhaps she could solve this problem.
She softened her stance. “I guess I can turn it into a lizard, or if I work really fast, maybe a turtle.”
“Pirate raccoon,” Riley demanded, stamping his feet for emphasis.
This was when Mom made her stand. “That’s just not going to happen. Come on, if we’re going to go out tonight you’re going to have to choose something I can make. Or be a tyrannosaurus. You’ve got two minutes to make up your mind or nobody goes trick-or-treating.”

Number Four
No. 217
October 12, 2012
“Whatcha got there? Anything to declare?” asked the stone-faced customs agent at the border.
“Um. I don’t think so,” said recently arrived traveller Robert Ogden. “This is all kinda new to me.”
“Can’t be too careful,” said the guard. “We all have to follow the rules,” he finished, pointing at the long list of regulations on the wall behind him.
The sign was a stern warning against smuggling. Huge red letters spelled everything out in minute detail. Ogden was more concerned about the title.
The banner proclaimed a grim message. “Ordinances for Travel to the Afterlife V. 17. Violations Not Tolerated!”
Ogden swallowed hard. “Does this mean I’m dead?”
The guard answered him with a bored shrug. “This isn’t Disneyland.”
An alarm began to blare. Ogden ducked reflexively. The agent was instantly on his walkie-talkie. Ogden could hear the frenzied announcements blasting out of the speakers.
“Breach in Sector Nine. All personnel to Sector Nine.”

Number Five
No. 218
October 13, 2012
Andrew Star watched the trick-or-treaters approach his door, and then looked at his dog, Ace. “What are you going to tell them when they get here?” he asked the sulking canine.
An empty bowl on the floor beside the shoe rack betrayed Ace’s actions. The dog put his tail between his legs and tried to slink off toward the living room.
“Oh no, you don’t,” said Andrew, grabbing Ace’s collar to haul him back. “You’re going to be right here as evidence when those poor kids ring the bell and find out there’s no more candy.”
The doorbell rang and Andrew greeted the children. There was a ghost, a ninja, and a princess.
“Trick or treat!” they all yelled in unison.
“Hey, guys. I’m sorry, but there isn’t any treats left. My dog, here, ate them all just before you arrived.”
The little shoulders of the ninja and the princess fell, but the ghost took the bad news in stride. “That’s ok, I guess. Your dog is really cute, though.”
“You can pet him,” said Andrew. “His name is Ace. He won’t bite.”
This ghost reached out her hand to pet the friendly hound.
Ace took the opportunity to regurgitate most of the pilfered sweets onto the porch.
All the humans leapt back.
“Ewww!” shrieked the children.
Andrew covered his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. That was gross. My wife is on her way home, and if you come back later we’ll have some chocolate bars or something for you.”
The costumed visitors all agreed that this was a good idea and then left to canvas the rest of the neighborhood.
Andrew returned to Ace, who was now trying to revisit the burgled candy dish. “You just wait until Heidi gets home and I tell her about this.”
Ace stared back and pretended not to understand English.

Number Six
No. 219
October 14, 2012
“’Unpredictable sharply biting is made’,” said Nicole, reading the label. “That’s a sort of garbled warning, don’t you thing?
Her friend Tom took the plastic vampire teeth to examine the confusing printing. “Probably made in China. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Tom tossed the prop back to Nicole, who rinsed it and put it in her mouth.  
“How does it look?” she asked, while spinning to present the full effect of the costume.
“The teeth are kinda cheesy, but overall, not too shabby,” he confirmed with an approving nod.
“Get the rest of your stuff on, then let’s hit the party early,” said Nicole. “Before all the good stuff is gone.”
“Ok. Give me one sec, here. I just need to grab some stuff down from my closet.”
Nicole sat on the bed and watched Tom stretch up to the top shelf. She began to wonder if maybe his neck was looking more delicious than usual.

No. 219

“’Unpredictable sharply biting is made’,” said Nicole, reading the label. “That’s a sort of garbled warning, don’t you thing?
Her friend Tom took the plastic vampire teeth to examine the confusing printing. “Probably made in China. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Tom tossed the prop back to Nicole, who rinsed it and put it in her mouth.  
“How does it look?” she asked, while spinning to present the full effect of the costume.
“The teeth are kinda cheesy, but overall, not too shabby,” he confirmed with an approving nod.
“Get the rest of your stuff on, then let’s hit the party early,” said Nicole. “Before all the good stuff is gone.”
“Ok. Give me one sec, here. I just need to grab some stuff down from my closet.”
Nicole sat on the bed and watched Tom stretch up to the top shelf. She began to wonder if maybe his neck was looking more delicious than usual.

October 13, 2012

No. 218

Andrew Star watched the trick-or-treaters approach his door, and then looked at his dog, Ace. “What are you going to tell them when they get here?” he asked the sulking canine.
An empty bowl on the floor beside the shoe rack betrayed Ace’s actions. The dog put his tail between his legs and tried to slink off toward the living room.
“Oh no, you don’t,” said Andrew, grabbing Ace’s collar to haul him back. “You’re going to be right here as evidence when those poor kids ring the bell and find out there’s no more candy.”
The doorbell rang and Andrew greeted the children. There was a ghost, a ninja, and a princess.
“Trick or treat!” they all yelled in unison.
“Hey, guys. I’m sorry, but there isn’t any treats left. My dog, here, ate them all just before you arrived.”
The little shoulders of the ninja and the princess fell, but the ghost took the bad news in stride. “That’s ok, I guess. Your dog is really cute, though.”
“You can pet him,” said Andrew. “His name is Ace. He won’t bite.”
This ghost reached out her hand to pet the friendly hound.
Ace took the opportunity to regurgitate most of the pilfered sweets onto the porch.
All the humans leapt back.
“Ewww!” shrieked the children.
Andrew covered his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. That was gross. My wife is on her way home, and if you come back later we’ll have some chocolate bars or something for you.”
The costumed visitors all agreed that this was a good idea and then left to canvas the rest of the neighborhood.
Andrew returned to Ace, who was now trying to revisit the burgled candy dish. “You just wait until Heidi gets home and I tell her about this.”
Ace stared back and pretended not to understand English.

October 12, 2012

No. 217

“Whatcha got there? Anything to declare?” asked the stone-faced customs agent at the border.
“Um. I don’t think so,” said recently arrived traveller Robert Ogden. “This is all kinda new to me.”
“Can’t be too careful,” said the guard. “We all have to follow the rules,” he finished, pointing at the long list of regulations on the wall behind him.
The sign was a stern warning against smuggling. Huge red letters spelled everything out in minute detail. Ogden was more concerned about the title.
The banner proclaimed a grim message. “Ordinances for Travel to the Afterlife V. 17. Violations Not Tolerated!”
Ogden swallowed hard. “Does this mean I’m dead?”
The guard answered him with a bored shrug. “This isn’t Disneyland.”
An alarm began to blare. Ogden ducked reflexively. The agent was instantly on his walkie-talkie. Ogden could hear the frenzied announcements blasting out of the speakers.
“Breach in Sector Nine. All personnel to Sector Nine.”

October 11, 2012

No. 216 - A Pirate Raccoon Part 1

“I don’t want to wear it,” said Riley
His mom turned from the bowl of candy she was preparing. “You don’t want to wear the dinosaur costume I made for you?”
“Nope,” said Riley with his arms crossed firmly.
Mom sighed. “I spent a month on this. Why didn’t you tell me that you didn’t like it before?”
Riley shrugged. “Dunno.”
“What do you want, then?”
Riley didn’t hesitate to answer. “I want to be a pirate raccoon,” he said with a decided finality.
“What?”
“A pirate raccoon.”
Mom’s perplexed look turned into something more annoyed. “You’ve already got a costume and I don’t even know what a pirate raccoon is.” She picked up the unwanted suit and examined it. Perhaps she could solve this problem.
She softened her stance. “I guess I can turn it into a lizard, or if I work really fast, maybe a turtle.”
“Pirate raccoon,” Riley demanded, stamping his feet for emphasis.
This was when Mom made her stand. “That’s just not going to happen. Come on, if we’re going to go out tonight you’re going to have to choose something I can make. Or be a tyrannosaurus. You’ve got two minutes to make up your mind or nobody goes trick-or-treating.”

October 10, 2012

No. 215

I’m shy by nature, so tourist season is always a bit of an ordeal. I can’t stand strangers out tramping around on the lawn, asking ignorant questions, getting in the way and yelling all the time. It used to be only one or two kids wearing old bed sheets coming by to ring the doorbell and run away. Now, everyone’s got their spectrometers and their infrared cameras and their fancy tape recorders.
I understand that Halloween’s going to be busy around here. I know that. I live in a haunted house. I’m a ghost. I have to grin and bear it. But sometimes I find myself wishing I wasn’t tethered to this place and that maybe just once I could get away for the holidays to avoid the hype. This year, if everything goes to plan, I might get that chance.
I hope so. I’m not sure I can handle another TV special filming in my living room.

October 06, 2012

No. 214

The midday buzz of the busy coffee shop usually helped Jamie concentrate on her work, but today she couldn’t settle in.
She sat in her usual chair in the corner, her back to the wall, a caramel latte just to her right, and stared at the empty screen on her laptop. Unsure where to start her story, she typed a random letter.
“k”.
She sighed and deleted it. There was a large group at the other end of the store, and their noisy chatter was distracting her. She grimaced a little and took her frustration out on her keyboard.
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” she pounded out.
They did. Jamie looked up at them and tilted her head to one side. “Well that was odd,” she told herself. Then her face reddened and she looked behind her to see if there was some reflection they’d seen. There was only empty wall.  She shrugged and returned to her work, once again deleting the words she’d typed.
The annoying group began their banter again just as the words disappeared.
Jamie blinked. Did that just happen? Slowly, she touched eight keys.
“Shut up!”
And there was silence.
She decided to continue the experiment. She typed another message. “Man with the red hat, take off your hat with your left hand.”
It worked. The man at the end of the table raised his left arm and removed his cap.
Jamie looked around, trying to see if anybody recognized what she was doing. All the other people in the store seemed to be going about their business as usual.  
She sat back and took a deep breath. How strong was this power? How long would it last? Questions spun through her head. Suddenly a darker thought occurred to her. “What if...,” she whispered. Then she hunched over the keys and typed out something that didn’t sound like her at all.
“Cashier, empty the till and bring me the money.”

October 05, 2012

No. 213

Craig Hansen examined his pumpkin intently, searching the mottled orange surface for clues or inspiration as to what he should carve into the gourd.
He cast a sideways glance at his friends, all happily hacking away at their jack-o-lanterns. He didn’t see anything terribly impressive. They were all doing the standard smiley-faces with jagged teeth and triangle eyes.  Craig wanted his to be different.
“Forty-five minutes left,” somebody at the end of the row announced. If Craig didn’t have something soon, he’d be forced to turn to the cliché just to have something to enter in the contest.
“Come on,” he whispered at his mute vegetable canvas. “Give me something.”
The pumpkin, being an inanimate object, did nothing to add to Craig’s creative energy.
Time ticked by far too quickly, and though Craig didn’t wear a watch, he could feel the deadline approaching. Usually, he was better at this, but this year he’d been busy in the lead-up to the Halloween season. He contemplated recycling one of his previous designs, but he knew there was a good chance somebody would remember and disqualify him.
With diminishing opportunities, he made the call that would have been unthinkable just an hour before. He raised his knife and began to thrust the blade down to begin the traditional spooky face.
The point met flesh with a satisfying resistance, but Craig felt something inside himself dim as he began to saw the first eye-hole. He stopped and closed his eyes, hoping for a last-minute flash of an idea.
“What’s yours going to be?” asked Lindsay Ross, interrupting his process.
Craig started to tell her that it wasn’t going to be anything special, but the spark he’d been waiting for hit mid-way through his sentence.
“It’s going to be awesome,” he told her with a smile on his face and one careful eye on the clock. “You’ll see in about half an hour.”

October 04, 2012

No. 212

Bud Mitchell lay stretched out in his flight suit on the well-worn light blue couch. “I really hate this color,” he thought, as if he’d never noticed it before.
He was due at the airport in three hours and was trying to keep that out of his head.
The poster tacked to the wall directly across from the offending furniture displayed the reason for Mitchell’s nerves. “Hiram’s Park Airshow August 11 12 13” said the large red letters across the top.
Today was the last day. Yesterday morning, Mitchell had lost his lucky hat. Yesterday afternoon, he’d barely survived a harrowing spin in an out-of-control airplane when a control cable snapped. He could only imagine what sort of hideous trouble he’d get into when he took off today.
As the headlining demonstration, Mitchell couldn’t afford to pull out for a reason as nebulous as “superstition”. Instead, he tried put off leaving for as long as possible, cursing at the sofa the entire time.

October 03, 2012

No. 211

All the bear wanted was some delicious snacks from the birdfeeder. He didn’t expect to have to deal with a pink flailing animal smacking him with a stick.
He took the blows in stride, ducking and weaving to avoid getting whacked in the ear. It hurt to get whacked in the ear. He brushed his paws at the offending creature. This was met with shrill noises and stamping of feet.
The bear decided that he’d had enough of that, and turned back off the wooden platform. Maybe he could find some tasty grubs around the big blue pond that was just on the other side of the clearing.
The bear didn’t mind the change of plans, though. He’d just come back at night for another chance at that bird seed.

October 02, 2012

No. 210

On the occasion of their twenty-first birthday, every person was granted the gift of an hour. One hour that they could spend at any time during the rest of their life to re-live the previous sixty minutes.
Some chose to use their time repeating a happy event. Some chose to spend it correcting their biggest mistake.
This was Wendy’s moment. She took a deep breath and cashed in.

October 01, 2012

No. 209

Bozeman struggled to recall if anything good had ever happening to him in the middle of a rainstorm. He couldn’t remember a single instance. Right now, the situation was unravelling in such a way that he didn’t picture a happy outcome for this one, either.
The deluge was hammering down so intensely that Bozeman imagined that he could almost hear it, despite the thick concrete roof. “Three more weeks and I would have been out of here, too,” he grumbled to the cactus and the goldfish he’d brought with him from the Mainland for company.
The water had now flooded to his ankles, and Bozeman had just about resigned himself to drowning when the sharp hiss of the radio demanded his attention.
“This is Juliet Base. Over,” he told the handset.
“Roger, Juliet Base, this is Control. Stand by to receive reinforcements. Over,” was the metallic reply.
Bozeman paused before acknowledging the message. Reinforcements? Why would they send anybody else all the way out here?
“Negative. Negative, Control. I need evac, not reinforcements. Over,” he told his handlers.
“Copy, Juliet. ETA for reinforcement is seventeen minutes. Over.”
A chill coursed through Bozeman’s body that was unrelated to the warm pool now lapping at his knees. If the transport was due in seventeen minutes, it had been launched hours before the rain had even started. Nothing good was on its way.
Bozeman sloshed his way to the shelf with the cactus and pushed the desert plant aside. He reached up behind the spines and pulled down a vicious-looking knife. If Control didn’t want to play nice, he’d be ready. He tucked the weapon into his belt, and turned to his aquatic friend’s bowl.
“Hold the fort, little buddy,” he told the oblivious fish.
Then Bozeman opened the hatch and crawled out into the pounding tempest.