Horror 101

LATE NIGHT HORRORS PRESENTS:

HORROR 101

SCARY TALES IN SHORT BURSTS

MICHAEL E. GRANT

LATE NIGHT HORRORS PRESENTS:

HORROR 101

SCARY TALES IN SHORT BURSTS

Copyright © 2014 MICHAEL E. GRANT

Smashwords Edition

Cover copyright © 2013 Derek Chiodo, http://www.ecovermakers.com

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.

Edition: October 2014

ISBN: 978-0692285817

For My Teachers,

From pre-school through college, I learned so many valuable things from all of you.

Without your sharing of knowledge this book would not exist.

Many of the stories contained within were birthed in your very classrooms.

There are too many of you to list but a few demand special mention…

Mr. Knoll – for the poetry introduction;

Mrs. Jantzen – for the encouragement when I was a difficult student;

Professor Egan – introducing me to the richness of Melville;

Mr. Moorhead – who would undoubtedly call this effort adequate;

Mrs. Sovel – for Dante and Homer and reading my earliest attempts at stories;

Mrs. Brody – colleague and friend guiding me along my writing journey;

and

Mr. Hammar – for the best two years of elementary school…

plus, you have a bitchin’ Vampire Hunter name.

Horror is the natural reaction to the last

5,000 years of history.

– Robert Anton Wilson

Horror is beyond the reach of psychology.

– Theodor Adorno

Horror is the removal of masks.

– Robert Bloch

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART 1

MONSTERS 101

BELIEVE ME NOW?

ROCK–PAPER–SCISSORS

TABLE SCRAPS

THE CHEATER

GRANTED

THE BROKEN WINDOW

HORROR IS…

A PRIZE IN EVERY BOX

TEST PREPARATION

A JOYOUS MOMENT

OUT OF ORDER

CHATROOM ETIQUETTE

MAIL ORDER

TEDDY

THE SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT

JOINING THE PARADE

PART 2

STRANGER

THE BACKSEAT CHECK

THE SPA TREATMENT

FIRST DATE

BOO!

BOO! TO YOU, TOO!

UNDONE

THE CASTRATOR

MOURNING ROUTINE

PERIPHERAL PEOPLE

SPOUSAL SUPPORT

CLOSED CASKET

LINGUIST

YOU SHOULD SEE A DOCTOR

DOMESTIC DISPUTE

ALL I CAN EAT

THE 10-STEP ZOMBIE DEFENSE PLAN

AFTERWARD

LATE NIGHT HORRORS POSTER CONTEST

TWO STORY SELECTIONS FROM…IN 666 WORDS

TWO STORY SELECTIONS FROM…READ AND DIE!

A STORY SELECTION FROM…LATE NIGHT HORRORS

NOW AVAILABLE…THERE GOES TOKYO!

COMING SOON…THERE GOES TOKYO 2!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION:

BURSTING!

I’ll get right to it. This book would not exist if, on a cold January day in 2011, I hadn’t discovered a book entitled Lessons, by Michael Crane: a perfectly presented collection of horror drabbles, each told in precisely 100-words. As the snow fell outside, I found myself, reading, rereading, and even counting the word-length of each story. Crane never missed a beat and many of his tales sent immediate shivers through me with their intense delivery – if you’ve never heard of that book, then sometime before, after, or during the reading of Horror 101, do yourself a favor and buy one of the four Lessons books currently available.

Before my exposure to Crane’s little drabbles, the idea of a story confined to such a tight word count had never occurred to me. Short stories seemed to require pages to truly deliver a powerful image, much as a scary movie seems to need an hour or more to fully ensnare the audience in a memorable fright-filled journey.

Alien is the most frightening horror movie I have ever seen. I was eleven years old when my dad dropped the VHS tape into our old top-loading machine saying, If this gets too intense for you, tell me and I will stop it. There was also the caveat that if I refused to sleep upstairs in my room that I would never be allowed to watch another scary movie. I didn’t pay attention to anything he was saying. I was fixated on the movie that all of my classmates had been talking about.

Then the classic bursting scene splashed across my TV and I was petrified. Before 1979, who could possibly have prepared themselves for that moment? When an explosion of blood symbolized Kane giving birth to a slimy little xenomorph, my life was forever changed. Decades later, whenever I take an antacid I’m still wondering, Is this how Kane felt?

It was that simple burst, such a powerful visual, that lasted for all of about twenty seconds in the movie and yet lingers with me forever. In fact, the entire second hour of my first viewing of Alien never registered with me. My brain was still wrestling with that shocking image and my eyes simply drifted into a catatonic stupor. When the movie was finished there was one certainty, I was not sleeping alone – ever again. Such is the shocking power of a strong moment of pure agonizing horror. It leaves you numb but then seeks you out in a dark room…for the rest of your life.

Does horror fiction need a lengthy word count to deliver a similarly powerful jolt? Obviously not. In any scary book there are simply one or two frightening moments that dwell in the mind of the reader akin to a grasping hand clutching at your ankle. So, like other authors who have dabbled in drabbles, I locked myself in to an incredibly tiny word count and took a creative journey to see if I was capable of inducing some truly terrifying imagery.

Certainly I don’t want to become the gimmick author who always has a word count attached to every collection of stories. With that in mind, there are four additional stories included in this collection with no limitations. These four special tales all were birthed in numerous classrooms over my decades as a student. They’ve been polished and updated for the times but of the four larger, in word count, stories each came from a different time in my life from middle school through college.

As every writer would attest, when you sit down at a keyboard with ideas and stories continually beckoning to you, there’s simply no avoiding their call. And, word count or no word count, tales and characters need to be brought to life, and sometimes sent to a cruel and fittingly gruesome end. These short stories and little bursts that you hold in front of you are proof that I constantly listen to my voices.

MICHAEL E. GRANT

PART 1

TROUBLES FOR KIDS

TROUBLES FROM KIDS

I’m a teenage Frankenstein,

the local freak with the twisted mind.

– Alice Cooper, Teenage Frankenstein

Remember, short controlled bursts.

– Corporal Hicks, Aliens

MONSTERS 101

It was the bats that led me here. Jerry was lying in the grass, binoculars pressed to his face as he spied on their quarry.

Jerry, you’re goofy. There aren’t any bats in Mayville. Stanley was hunched over next to Jerry, eating his ever-present apple. The boys had been on the hill overlooking the small neighborhood street for close to an hour. Twice Stanley tried standing up from their vantage point, most assuredly to leave, and both times his best friend pulled him back down.

Stay low. We don’t want her to see us.

Well, then, let me take a look.

Jerry took off his 1959 Los Angeles Dodgers Championship baseball cap, removed his brother’s binoculars from around his neck, and handed them over to Stanley as the portly boy crawled next to him under the bush. See for yourself. If you watch near her chimney you’ll see these huge black bats circle around it.

Those are too big to be bats. Besides, it’s day time.

Ok, Mr. Bird Expert, what are they?

Hmmmm…I think they might be crows, or maybe ravens. My brother has a big book on birds. If I had known we were coming over to bird watch I would have brought it.

We’re not bird watching! I told you. Mrs. Deacon is some sort of monster. We’re watching her!

Probably for the best. The last time I borrowed one of his books I used a candy bar wrapper for a bookmark. It got some chocolate on the pages.

Jerry adjusted his baseball cap, keeping the sun from blinding him. Quiet. I need to pay attention to what she’s doing.

Right now the only thing I feel like paying attention to is that pie sitting on her kitchen window sill. It’s fresh out of the oven. See the steam is still rising out of it? You think maybe its apple?

Apple pie? How can you think about apple pie when we’re busy hunting a monster? Besides, it must not be a very good pie; even those bats or birds aren’t fussing with it.

Stanley reached down and scooped up a handful of candy-bar wrappers scattered between them. Well maybe if you had shared some of your candy bars with me, I wouldn’t be so hungry. How is it you’re the skinniest kid in fifth grade when you eat all this?

My mom says it’s my metabolism. She said grandpa was the same way; he could eat whatever he wanted and be hungry five minutes later.

Yeah, well sometimes I can eat whatever I want too. But then my mom has to let out the waist in my pants. She says it’s glandular.

The breeze now carried the aroma of baked apples to their hiding spot.

Jerry thought he heard the rumble of thunder and then realized it was Stanley’s stomach. He looked over at his chubby friend, who was anxiously rubbing his belly.

I don’t know, that pie smells pretty good to me. I sure am hungry. Doesn’t Mrs. Deacon live alone? Why is she baking a pie that big all for herself?

Jerry took out a notepad and wrote. No idea, maybe it’s for the school bake sale.

Bake sale? So the local lady who is a monster is helping out with the school bake sale? That’s goofy! You’re staying up late watching too many movies.

Stanley, I told you, I’ve been watching her all week. Not only because of the bats–

They’re birds! Lots of people have them flying around their homes. This is how you’re spending summer vacation?

No dummy. I was down by the park, collecting some rocks. There was all this commotion and the police were there. Lots of police. They were searching through the woods. They were looking for Buddy Hensler.

I heard about that. I hear all they found was his school bag.

Jerry nodded. Yeah, and my brother told me Joey Connelly went missing in the woods a few months ago too.

Really? I heard his family moved.

Jerry shook his head. Nobody knows where they are. But, they’re all gone.

Stanley produced another apple from his jacket pocket.

So I watched the police for a bit and then went down to the library and got this neat book. He held up the large grey hardcover book titled Monsters 101: 1957 Edition. While the police were searching, I started doing some reading. It’s got all this information about vampires, werewolves, ghouls, zombies, mutants, even reptile men.

How about a witch?

I didn’t get to that chapter of the book yet. My guess is she’s a vampire or a ghoul. You know, drinking blood or feeding on dead flesh.

Stanley tapped Jerry on the shoulder and borrowed the book. Absently he flipped some pages, glimpsed a few photographs that upset him