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Listen to Four Christmas Eve Ghost Stories Now

12/22/2021

Happy Holidays!

All December, Matt and I have been telling Christmas ghost and ghost-adjacent stories on The Shadow Storytellers.

Today's episode is the 4th and final one before we return to non-seasonal tales of terror in January, so it's a great time to binge the set if you want to fit in some last-minute festive chills.

Ghost stories are an old Christmas Eve tradition, and they're typically best told around a warm fireplace, but of course you can also enjoy ours while wrapping presents, traveling, baking, or taking care of whatever last-minute tasks are on your list.

They're completely free to listen to and currently ad-free as well.

"Something Else Is Coming to Town"

A young boy's attempts to catch Santa in the act inadvertently release a horrifying darkness into the world.

"The Gingerbread's the Thing"

An amateur baker/necromancer creates a haunted gingerbread house to get to the bottom of her sister’s untimely death.

"Don't Ruin It"

Specters reach across the ether to crash a Christmas Eve family dinner, but their powers to terrorize have nothing on That One Uncle.

"'Til the Merry End"

A recently deceased mall Santa arranges for a Christmas miracle.

Click the titles to stream directly from The Shadow Storytellers website, or come find us on whatever podcast platform you like:

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We hope these Christmas ghost stories bring some spice to your season, as they have to ours!

Book Review: Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances

2/21/2017

Book Review:

Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances

John Green, Maureen Johnson, Lauren Myracle

Speak, 2008

B+

The Basics:

On the night of a Christmas Eve blizzard, Jubilee is trapped in a strange town after her parents’ arrest, Tobin and his two best friends embark on a quest for a Waffle House full of cheerleaders, and Addie is determined to prove her capacity for selflessness at least to her friends, if not to the ex she can’t let go. The three searches for love, each written by a different rightly renowned YA author, interlock and collide amid holiday miracles.

The Downside:

The last story of the three, Addie’s, falls into the unfortunate role of having to tie all the threads together for the others, making it the weakest in its own right, and leaving Addie’s personal epiphany feeling as though it’s sparked simply by reaching the point in her arc where she’s supposed to have an epiphany, rather than by natural progression.

The use of a Waffle House full of snowed-in cheerleaders as the unifying ingredient across the three stories doesn’t always come across quite as sensitively as is clearly the intent. After seeing them used as a symbol and canvas for several other characters to project their differing attitudes, I would have loved to see the multi-perspective format used to take us inside the life of one of the cheerleaders to see how she views herself, but no such luck.

The ultimate message seems to be that they’re not mystical creatures, they’re not property to be controlled, and that the coolest girls are the non-cheerleaders who don’t allow themselves to be used as sexual accessories to the more respected exploits of boys, which is all good stuff. However, the female perspective to this effect rings a bit hollow when the characters providing it are always in a position of jealousy, and the male dehumanization of the cheerleaders is harder to accept as the curable youthful ignorance and lack of communication it’s meant to be when those male characters are endowed with all the intellect, perceptiveness, and perspicacity required to deliver John Green dialogue.

The Upside:

Whatever accidental inconsistencies they may cause in the characters’ social awareness and aptitude, John Green’s sharp wit and evident heart are as enjoyable as ever in Tobin’s struggle with the terrifying prospect of taking a chance on the female best friend he loves, rather than searching for the next pretty girl he’s not afraid to lose. Lauren Myracle brings her usual vivid rendering of high school friendship in spite of the confines of the final story, and Maureen Johnson (the one whose other work I’m least familiar with), starts things off with a bang, or rather, with a double-dose of the humor and genuine sweetness that runs throughout all three storylines.

While the three stories are each capable of standing alone (the first two especially), and all three authors play to their own strengths, occasionally even with some gentle fun poked at each other, the snowed-in town and the tone of romantic holiday spirit are seamlessly cohesive.

Let It Snow is like a smaller scale, teenage version of Love, Actually, without the inexplicable fat jokes or creepy theme of powerful men exploiting female subordinates, but with all the unabashedly heartstring-tugging sentimentality and double the smiles.

Pity this review is going up in February, thanks to receiving the book as a perfect Christmas present, but… belated Valentine’s Day reading, anyone?

Agree? Disagree? Comments are always welcome (just keep it civil, folks)! Or keep up with my fictional musings by joining me on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, or by signing up for email updates in the panel on the right!

Holiday Horrors: From Your Secret Santa

12/20/2015

It's that time of year again, that joyful time when the ghoulies and ghosties begin to feel just a wee bit neglected, and once again, Fiona and I have taken it upon ourselves to bring a few holiday chills to those who seek them!

Check back with us throughout the season for more bite-sized holiday horrors. Or, if you can't wait for more, check out last year's entries.

Previously on this year's Holiday Horrors: Season's Greetings and The Man Who Loved Christmas Specials.

For this week, we bring you...

Holiday Horrors: From Your Secret Santa

By F.J.R. Titchenell

Erica tried not to be disappointed when she opened the filing cabinet and found the second gift labeled, “To: Erica. From: Your Secret Santa.” It was obvious at a glance that this one was a book.

It wasn’t that Erica didn’t like books. Idiots didn’t like books. The problem was that people who didn’t like books also tended to assume that books were like chocolate bars, all alike and guaranteed to make her happy if they came in promisingly shiny wrappers.

Books were more like lingerie. Personal and transformative, with fickle and unpredictable ways of fitting.

No one here at work knew her well enough to buy either of those things for her. At best it would be something she’d already read, at worst, some boring or insulting knockoff of something she’d already read that the giver would expect her to give an opinion on when the thrill of keeping the name drawing secret wore off in January.

The first gift, a heavenly soft scarf with candy cane stripes, wasn’t the kind of thing Erica would ever have bought for herself, but that was exactly why she liked it so much. It was the kind of thing she would have given a passing, wanting glance as she passed it in a storefront and then told herself to stop being silly.

This one time, it was hers.

Deciding that she could always steer the conversation to how spot-on that gift had been if the giver ever asked her for a review of this one, she tore the wrapping paper back from the cover of the book and gasped.

This was perfect. Whoever had given it couldn’t possibly know how perfect it was, with the fairy on the cover, her dragonfly wings held at just the angle Erica remembered, ready to take flight.

It had been Erica’s favorite as a kid, her one loyal friend back in the bad days when everyone had avoided her, always waiting for her in the seldom-frequented middle school library, ready to whisk her away to fairyland for a stolen hour.

It was only after she’d left the school that she’d realized she didn’t know the book’s name. She could recite plenty of the passages within word for word, but that hadn’t been any help in her attempts to track down a copy of her own.

Once she’d gone so far as to go back to the school and ask to be let into the library, so she could check what combination of words she’d gotten wrong in the title. Some half-listening administrator had brushed her off with a quoted rule about who had access to the familiar old building and a small, superior smile for each admission of what this children’s book meant to her.

Erica flipped open the cover, hoping to savor a paragraph or two before anyone discovered her not working, and her excitement turned cold.

Oakville Middle School, said the label inside the flap. She turned to page twenty, where the Geranium Elf was introduced for the first time, and knew before she saw it that the little heart she’d covertly added to the margin would still be there.

This wasn’t just the same book she’d been missing for the past decade. It was the same copy.

“Don!” Erica shouted, dashing around to the boss’s office. She stopped in the doorway, book held out in front of her, deciding how to justify her panic. “I need to know who my Secret Santa is,” she said.

Don’s look of weary expectation turned to impatience. When she didn’t retract the question, he chuckled, “Did you miss the ‘secret’ part of the concept?”

“Mine is creeping me out,” said Erica. “I need to know.”

“You got something threatening?” he asked, with a small trace of concern, probably for what legal liability he might have if she said yes.

“...Not exactly,” Erica had to admit.

“Something obscene?” Don guessed.

“No.”

Don relaxed into his chair, his over-gelled hair making a scratching noise against the headrest, and Erica knew she’d never recapture his attention now.

“Monica has the names,” he said with a shrug, and Erica resisted the urge to curse. Monica had called in sick that morning. “You can see if she’s willing to let you cheat tomorrow.”

“No, I can’t,” said Erica immediately. “I’m gone tomorrow.” The guardedly confrontational look on Don’s face made her suddenly nauseated. “I am gone tomorrow,” she repeated.

“Chris is gone tomorrow,” Don corrected her. “He was the first to get his plans to me.”

That was a flat-out lie, Erica knew, but knew better than to say so.

“I have a flight tomorrow,” she protested.

“I’m sorry,” said Don with more irritation than sorrow. “I’m going to need you to stick out the week, get us through the rush.”

“I don’t even know what it would cost to change my flight!” she said, beginning to approach pleading. “And that’s if I can get another flight this late before Christmas!”

Don held her gaze. “I’m sure it would cost enough to make you glad to have a job,” he said.

#

There was nothing for it. Erica arrived at work the next morning, fuming, at around the same time she should have been lifting off toward home. She’d brought along the book to show Monica, in the hope that it would help convince her to reveal the list, but that hardly seemed important now. She had considered taking the opportunity to give another Secret Santa gift of her own before she left, but thinking about giving Secret Santa gifts had reminded her of the bad days for some reason, so she stopped.

She was vaguely aware that she’d put in more than the expected effort already, and it was better not to give unnecessary thought to things that upset her once they were done. Even the doctors had said so.

When Erica stormed into the office, Monica was already at her desk, frozen pale and holding her phone in front of her as if undecided on what she wanted to do with it.

Erica followed her gaze to a round bundle of wrapping paper hanging from a huge Mylar balloon bouquet. Something reddish-brown and noxious-smelling was dripping from it onto the carpet.

“To: Erica. From: Your Secret Santa,” said the tag.

“Don’t touch it!” said Monica when Erica reached out.

“It’s got my name on it,” Erica said dimly, though what she meant was, It can’t be what it looks like.

But it was. Erica knew the moment her fingers tore through the paper and into stiff, over-gelled hair, before the rest of the wrapping split open and Don’s head rolled under a shrieking Monica’s chair.

“Who was my Secret Santa?” Erica asked urgently.

It still couldn’t be what it looked like. It was Don’s head, yes, but the thing from the bad days couldn’t be back. Erica had gotten rid of it, with talking and pills, and with holy water and spells, and it was gone from inside her.

“I was checking,” said Monica’s quavering voice, “but I must have made a mistake when I made the list.”

She turned her monitor, the better to crush any denial.

Chris’s name next to Jennifer’s.

Monica’s next to Lance’s.

Erica’s next to her own.

For more horrors from F.J.R. Titchenell and Matt Carter, find us on Facebook and Twitter, or check out our other works!

FJR: Facebook, Twitter, Books.
Matt: Facebook, Twitter, Books.

Holiday Horrors: The Man Who Loved Christmas Specials

12/13/2015

It's that time of year again, that joyful time when the ghoulies and ghosties begin to feel just a wee bit neglected, and once again, Fiona and I have taken it upon ourselves to bring a few holiday chills to those who seek them!

Check back with us throughout the season for more bite-sized holiday horrors. Or, if you can't wait for more, check out last year's entries.

Previously on this year's Holiday Horrors: Season's Greetings

For this week, we bring you...

Holiday Horrors:
The Man Who Loved Christmas Specials

By Matt Carter

The man loved Christmas, even if it didn’t particularly love him back. Even though it always came with memories of his parents’ death (a car crash while picking up a Christmas tree when he was seven, very fiery, very bloody), it was the one thing he looked forward to most every year. There was joy, there was laughter, and most importantly, there was family.

No real family, no blood family, but an even better kind, because while he may not have had family, he had his Christmas specials.

On TV, everyone was perfect. Everyone was happy. Nobody would call him creepy, or weird, or ignore him. They would let him into their homes welcomingly, and he could pretend, if just for a little while, that he was one of them. Laugh at their jokes, listen to their stories, and life would be good for a little while.

He had a full calendar of them, nearly one every night for the last half of December. He would decorate his living room to match each one, every detail, every ornament, every dish using the same recipes as the family on TV. The rest of his three-bedroom house may have lacked any color, or even furniture save for necessities in the bathroom and kitchen, but as long as he had his specials, none of that mattered.

The kitchen timer dinged. He cooed enthusiastically, pulling out his ham and slicing off a few good pieces onto his plate that already was piled high with mashed potatoes with gravy and butter, squash and green beans.

He checked the time on the microwave, even though he didn’t need to.

He had this down to the second.

Right on time.

Slowly, carefully, he brought his plate into the living room and set it on the TV tray next to his recliner. The flute of apple cider he’d set out earlier still bubbled, while the crackle of the fireplace filled the room with a nice, warm smell.

After doing a quick once-over of the room to make sure the decorations were perfect and the presents were properly placed beneath the tree he’d chosen for the night (Noble Fir, almost tall enough to touch the ceiling, star on top, hand-made popcorn strings, classical ornaments), he went into the closet behind the recliner and pulled out the sweater with the ‘TAYLOR’ tag pinned to it. It was a crazy, ugly sweater, but the fun kind of crazy and ugly, the ironic kind that everyone loved these days.

Especially the Taylors.

The Taylor Family Christmas Dinner was one of the specials he looked forward to the most. The Taylors were all-American. Father Chad and mother Diana with three grandparents between them (two hers, one his) and four kids, teenagers Nikki and Rudy (adopted), ten-year-old Hayden and four-year-old Brenda. They were perfect, and loving, always with warm smiles and great stories and even cheesy jokes from Chad that’d be perfect in any dad joke book.

Smiling giddily, the man pulled his TV tray forward, took a sip from his cider, and turned on the television.

It was everything he hoped for. Dinner had just started, and as always the man got lost in it. He could hear himself congratulating Nikki for finally making the cheerleading squad and Rudy for being in the running for a prestigious scholarship. Brenda tried telling some jokes her dad taught her, and though she rarely remembered the punchlines, everyone oohed and aahed appropriately, as you should to a girl as cute as her. Hayden, mischievous as ever, threw a green bean at Grandpa John, but with a smile, Chad was able to firmly and politely stop the boy and get him to apologize. Everyone laughed at their silly sweaters, though the man knew his was probably the best. Soon they would bust out some party games, and Chad would show off his stuff at the piano while they all warbled Christmas songs, and the night would end sublimely.

The only thing the man hadn’t accounted for was the empty chair, but it was a surprise he didn’t mind in the slightest. He knew the seat was for him, and he knew just how he’d see the family, and he knew-

The doorbell was ringing. This was a surprise. Who the heck interrupts Christmas dinner like this? No, no, it’s ok, this can still work, this can-

The man who the empty chair was for finally showed up. Almost an hour late.

Uncle Ned.

Tattooed and swaying and clearly drunk with some bleached-blonde strumpet on his arm who might’ve been the only thing holding him up straight. He wasn’t supposed to be here, he was disowned, this wasn’t a very special episode about reconciliation, this was a Christmas Special, and he would ruin everything.

It’s ok, it’s ok, they can still fix this, maybe this is one of those kinds of specials, where the holidays bring everyone together, he hasn’t ruined anything yet…

Then he ruined everything. Not when he dragged a chair across the hardwood of the dining room, scratching it up, so his strumpet could sit with him. Not when his strumpet lit up a cigarette and started using inappropriate language. Not even when he accidentally spilled a bottle of cider across the ham, or when he asked if Nikki would show off her cheerleading outfit.

No. It was when the man realized that he clearly hadn’t brought a present.

That was too much.

The man felt ill. The food tasted like ash in his mouth. The plate, the sumptuous feast he’d cooked to be like the Taylors, it might as well have been writhing with maggots.

In a disgust flavored with fury, he grabbed it and threw it into the fireplace. His breathing became ragged and his vision blurry.

No, no, you can fix it. This isn’t over. This holiday can still be saved.

Thinking fast, the man grabbed a burlap sack from his closet and shoved all the presents beneath the tree into it. Then he grabbed a couple spare crazy sweaters from the closet and tossed them in the sack. They were his size, too big for the plan, but they would do.

Then he grabbed his kit.

Mustn’t forget the kit.

Stepping outside, the man trudged down the sidewalk, snow crunching beneath his feet, the icy air chilling his scalp through his thinning hair, thinking with every step:

You can fix this. You can fix this. You can fix this.

Two houses down and across the street. The pocket knife from his kit opened the latch to the side gate easily. He checked his phone, watching the feed of the special, knowing where everyone was. Ned had left, but was still in the house, the back guest bathroom, cleaning gravy off his tank top.

Disabling the security system with the press of a button on his phone, the man silently entered the back of the house, quiet as Santa Claus himself. Pulling the cheap plastic Santa mask that fit uncomfortably against his glasses and thin moustache and the collapsible baton from his kit, the man covered his face and entered the guest bedroom, his bag of gifts trailing behind him.

Uncle Ned didn’t see him at first, too focused on cleaning his top, but when he did, he nearly screamed.

A baton strike to the back of the legs quickly silenced him.

“Be like the mouse. Don’t stir, don’t stir…” the man whispered soothingly.

Ned didn’t want to be silent. He wanted to fight. He wanted to keep ruining the evening. The man showed him the error of his ways with a strike to the ribs. Another between his shoulders, then two more to his lower back, nothing that would leave marks, nothing that would ruin the evening, but enough to take him to the floor, gasping and moaning in pain.

The man spoke, sternly but politely, “This is a special night. A beautiful night. And you and your lady-friend are ruining it. I’d tell you to leave, but that would ruin it even more, so I am going to give you a chance to fix things.”

He pulled out the bag so Ned could see, “In this bag are two sweaters. I apologize for the ill fit, but you gave me little time to improvise. You and your lady-friend will wear them like everyone else. You will go back to dinner. You will make amends and apologize for your rudeness. You will make this evening special and wholesome as it is supposed to be. You will then give out the gifts in this bag to everyone in the family. They are nice gifts, things they want, things you can’t afford, so it will do much to mend this evening. You will be a hero, and this will be a magical celebration of Christmas. Do everything I’ve said, and you can leave this dinner in peace when the night is over. Don’t, and I will find you no matter how far you may travel and I will start cutting pieces off of you and feeding them to your lady-friend until no one would ever want you at a Christmas dinner again. Do you understand?”

Fearfully, Ned nodded, rooting through the bag and pulling out a sweater.

“Good boy. Now remember, smile, and be jolly. It’s Christmas time!” the man said, quickly exiting the bathroom. He could hear Ned weeping, which he took for a good sign, because that meant Ned would play ball.

On his way out, the man quickly checked the batteries in the cameras he’d planted in the guest bedroom and back hall. The back hall ones would need a refill soon, but should last the night, long enough for him to come back and put in more before Christmas morning.

The thought of them opening the presents he’d given Ned brought a tear to the man’s eye. They were supposed to be from him (though they all said From Santa Claus on the labels), dropped off on Christmas Eve. They would confuse the family, but they would be a Christmas miracle all the same. Now they would be from Ned, but with luck they would be enough to buy his way back into their hearts.

Quickly, the man ran back to his living room. Out of breath and wheezing, he turned the TV back on in time to see Ned, now clad in a sweater (and handing one to his strumpet), reenter the dining room. He apologized for his behavior, and started handing out gifts to everyone. Chad hugged him, and the kids cheered appreciatively at their new toys and electronics. Everyone started eating again, and soon there were games and songs and everyone, even Ned and his strumpet, were all smiles.

The man breathed a sigh of relief, heating up some leftovers and enjoying their taste again. The night was saved, and the Christmas special ended as they all should, with everyone hugging and expressing their love for one another, making the man cry.

He only turned off the TV when they all went to bed for the night, and with that, he started putting everything away in the boxes marked TAYLOR.

It would have been a bittersweet experience, if it weren’t for the boxes marked MARTINEZ the man knew would come out tomorrow.

They really knew how to put on a special.

For more horrors from F.J.R. Titchenell and Matt Carter, find us on Facebook and Twitter, or check out our other works!

FJR: Facebook, Twitter, Books.
Matt: Facebook, Twitter, Books.

Holiday Horrors: Season's Greetings

12/6/2015

It's that time of year again, that joyful time when the ghoulies and ghosties begin to feel just a wee bit neglected, and once again, Matt and I have taken it upon ourselves to bring a few holiday chills to those who seek them!

Check back with us throughout the season for more bite-sized holiday horrors. Or, if you can't wait for more, you can check out last year's collection here.

And for this week....

Holiday Horrors: Season's Greetings

By F.J.R. Titchenell

The card and gift shop overflowed with holiday spirit, hung all over with green tinsel and red velvet bows, with battery powered dancing snowmen and reindeer up front to welcome customers, demo versions of the ones in the boxes artfully arranged under the two sparkling synthetic Christmas trees, framed with tufts of kaleidoscopic paper, as though they had just been gleefully unwrapped.

Beyond were the aisles of cards for all different occasions, relationships and tones, though presently more than half were a medley of seasonal color.

Delia had spent the last month and a half hoping to be struck by some perfect inspiration for what to get her dad and sisters for this first Christmas when she would finally be able to buy presents with her own money.

This inspiration had, with a week left to go, so far failed to materialize. Nothing she’d found had said “dad” to her, or “Leslie,” or “Bree,” but she thought it would be difficult to leave this store without something that at least said, “Merry Christmas.”

The only employee present was a woman a little older than Delia, who stood leaning against the checkout counter, glaring listlessly at the floor. She didn’t look up when Delia entered. Delia likewise ignored her and wandered down one of the warm, inviting aisles that made it hard to imagine that either glaring or listlessness could be possible within them.

She pulled out the first card that caught her eye, a glitter-encrusted one in the shape of an ornament that seemed likely for Leslie.

“You decorate my life,” said the inside.

Not quite.

The next one contained a generic “Happy Holidays.”

A dirty version of the lyrics of Jingle Bells in the following one made her giggle, but it couldn’t be read aloud over a family breakfast.

When she moved to put it back, it hit against something that must have fallen into the card rack from the shelf above.

She pulled the cards forward to look at the little wind-up elf figure. It was also dusted with glitter, though of a finer texture and in less intentional-looking patches than the cards. With a mechanical jerk, a last bit of wind-up energy let loose by the disturbance, it raised one plastic arm and puffed out a cloud of the glitter over the card Delia had been trying to replace.

Delia moved the elf to the top of the display and tried to shake off the card. The glitter spreading across the surface changed the colors, until hidden letters became discernible, between the re-written lines of Jingle Bells.

“I want you to think I’m cool.”

The elf moved with another clockwork noise, and Delia looked up at it. It moved again, half a jolting step, and the noise it made sounded curiously like a word.

“Run.”

When Delia made no move, the elf raised its arms in the closest thing to a gesture of exasperation that its stiff little joints could manage, and shot a cloud of its glitter into her face.

Through her coughing, blinking, rubbing efforts to clear her eyes and throat, the groaning steps of the elf along the top of the rack toward the door unmistakably sounded out,
“The sparkle may save you.”

When Delia’s eyes grudgingly opened, everything was iridescent and tinged with peach and purple. She steadied herself against the rack, knocking a few cards to the floor. Similar hidden text on them was clearer now than the unhidden as she gathered them up.

“I don’t know you well enough to know how not to offend you,” said one.

“I’m hoping you’ll ask me for spiritual advice,” said another.

“I hope everyone likes cats,” said the next.

Another said simply, “This card is shiny.”

In spite of the burning in her eyes, Delia smiled at the thought of how much Leslie would like the hidden text version of that one, and then watched, transfixed, as more words formed. The more she thought about her sister, the clearer they became.

“I love you.”

Whatever the elf had blasted her with was making it possible to see, at a glance, what the cards were saying, and therefore the perfect card for anyone.

Delia flicked excitedly through the racks, searching for the next card that would reveal exactly what she meant to say when she held it and thought of either of the others.

“I’m masking my contempt for you,” she quickly put aside.

“I don’t remember your face.”

“You’re just another bank client.”

“I hate you.”

“I hate this.”

“My soul is dry.”

“I’ve been fed on by a thousand sheets of cheap cardstock and I can’t do it anymore.”

“Let me die.”

Delia looked warily up at where the elf had run off from, frozen in place. “The sparkle may save you,” it had said.

A few of the dancing snowmen, still in their boxes, were scattered in the aisle behind her. They had definitely not been there before. The purple-peach tinge of her vision made them look unsettlingly unlike snowmen.

With a few off-tempo notes of Carol of the Bells, the nearest snowman did not dance, but picked up the card she had set aside at the front of the rack, the one with “I love you” in fading letters on the front. It looked up at Delia, and its sewn-on coal mouth widened its smile.

She took a panicked step backward, away from that smile, tripping over the boxed reindeer that had taken its place behind her.

Before she could get her weight onto her hands to sit up, the deer clamped its mechanical jaws onto her sweater sleeve and the thin skin of her wrist and forced her hand flat against the rack of cards. The fear brought on more thoughts of her family, and the words spread out over the fronts of the cards across the rack, radiating out from her hand.

“I love you. I love you. I love you.”

Possibly the elf’s glitter had gotten into her ears, because dimly Delia could understand the lyrics hidden in the tinkling notes of the dancing snowmen’s version of the carol, playing endlessly for the passing foot traffic outside.

“Love for sale here, love for sale here.”

Delia looked across the store at the lone clerk who still had not moved from her post, at the lifeless, joyless expression on her face, and understood that it would, in a matter of seconds, match her own.

For more horrors from F.J.R. Titchenell and Matt Carter, find us on Facebook and Twitter, or check out our other works!

FJR: Facebook, Twitter, Books.
Matt: Facebook, Twitter, Books.

Fi's Five Favorite Male Action Heroes #3: John McClane (Die Hard)

4/19/2015

(Click the links to read Favorite Male Action Hero #5, #4, and Fi’s Five Favorite Female Action Heroes)

Next up, we've got my favorite hero of holiday mayhem.

Well, one of them.

If you haven't seen at least the first Die Hard movie, here's how it goes:

John is in LA to visit his kids for Christmas. He's been kinda-sorta separated from his wife, Holly, ever since she took a promotion that moved her to LA from New York, and John stayed in his position with the NYPD. He's still pissed with her for giving him up in favor of a job and knows she's probably feeling exactly the same way about him, but he wants her back and is hoping the trip will give them the chance to reconcile.

We learn all this from another artfully efficient opening scene, between John and Argyle, the limo driver who's been sent to bring him to Holly's office. Argyle used to be a cab driver, which apparently falls into the same category of jobs with therapists and bartenders (this LA local wouldn't know), and he drags the story out of John one telling answer at a time, without a single improbable expository monologue.

Holly's company is in the middle of their holiday party, and while John is cleaning up from his flight in one of the upstairs bathrooms, a group of extensively prepared and armed terrorists led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman with an attempted German accent), storm the building and take the entire party hostage.

Using only his wits and whatever else he can get his hands on, John has to foil the bad guys' plot from inside the building, save the hostages, and win back Holly, who's the acting supervisor among the captive employees, playing liaison to the terrorists and watching with grim amusement as they get progressively angrier and more terrified as John picks them off one at a time.

John eavesdrops on them, finds out that (mini-spoiler) they're actually after the contents company's vault and their political posturing is a cover, signals the local police by throwing a corpse out the window onto the hood of a cop car, and finally stops the super-thieves from escaping in the helicopters included in their demands in a showdown on the roof.

Sounds like a pretty basic action movie setup in a lot of ways. You've got a good guy, bad guys, high stakes, and plenty of guns.

What makes John special is how seriously outnumbered and outgunned he is at the beginning of that setup and how creative he has to get to compensate.

Die Hard arrived right on the tail of the '80s action movie equation of more guns + more muscles + more fire = better, and it takes a different technique.

John doesn't get to come into the action fully prepared, guns blazing. When things first go to hell, he doesn’t even have shoes on. There's a scene where the bad guys have him cornered, notice his shoelessness, and nearly catch him by shooting all the glass in the room onto the floor.

No, I didn't mix up this picture with one from Saw.

And of course, there's that beautiful, tide-turning moment when John takes out one of the thieves who wanders off on his own and then announces himself to the rest by sending the body down to them in the elevator,

…with the words, "Now I have a machine gun, ho-ho-ho" written on its chest.

The John vs Hans conflict is a duel of wits that involves guns and explosives, rather than a simple duel of guns and explosives. John spends most of his time hiding from the bad guys until just the right moment, giving him time for radio conversations with both Hans and the police outside that don't happen under fire. In other words, he has time to be a person instead of a walking death machine, and that humanity carries over when the action does happen.

And there's no lack of action or suspense. I point to John trying to navigate between floors through the empty elevator shaft by using his gun as a rappelling anchor, or stealing the bad guys' C4 and tossing it down that same elevator shaft after them. And that's the simple stuff. Just because John doesn't start the game with all the cheat codes on doesn't mean he doesn't end up taking part in some spectacular crazy. The difference is that he's smart and human enough that when we in the audience start to think "no way, come on!", he's thinking it to. And lucky for us, he likes to think out loud.

Who hasn't dreamed of pulling off a stunt like that and then realized that this is exactly what you'd sound like actually doing it?

Agree? Disagree? Comments are always welcome! Or keep up with my fictional musings by joining me on Facebook, on Twitter, or by signing up for email updates in the panel on the right!

Fi's Five Favorite Remakes (That Don't Exist) #3: "Baby, It's Cold Outside"

1/18/2015

(Click the links for Favorite Remakes That Don't Exist #5 and #4)

With the holidays recently behind us, you’re probably freshly familiar with this song. If you are, you’re probably wondering how someone like me could possibly advocate for increasing the number of versions of it infesting our airwaves.

If you’re not...

The Original:

In overlapping counterpoint, a man and a woman argue over the woman staying the night with the man, him trying to convince her to stay because of the storm. It’s very playful and cutesy and usually played at Christmas, and features such adorable lines as “Hey, what’s in this drink?” and “The answer is no.”

Yeah, it’s a cutesy upbeat Christmas date rape song.

There are plenty of covers of the original recording that all sound more or less the same, including one released last year featuring Idina Menzel. Yes, the voice behind such beloved feminist icons of our time as Elphaba and Elsa of Arendelle.

Brace yourselves if holiday radio listening hasn't yet made you numb.

This version also has a lyric-censored version with a music video involving children.

I’m not making this up.

The Imaginary Remake:

Thankfully, the world contains enough sanity and decency, and this song is so inescapably reprehensible, that parody versions pointing out the fact that it’s a rape scene do already exist.

Thanks, Key & Peele, keep being awesome.

But what I’m proposing is a little different.

My favorite, imaginary remake retains the original lyrics, the original tight musical construction (the song really is technically beautifully done). It’s a faithful performance of the original piece, only it isn’t cute. It isn’t merry. It’s the chilling musical scene the original has always secretly been.

Oh, we can start out playful and flirty enough. Everyone’s having a grand old time right up until “Hey, what’s in this drink?”

Our female lead’s demeanor goes suddenly serious. Our male (a particularly brave singer/actor) need only sleaze things up. So pretty much exactly the original.

The roofies kick in before the audience’s eyes, the female lead grows gradually less rational and eventually less conscious. On the line “Maybe just a cigarette more,” she lights one and smokes with the obvious air of trying to clear her head. Her verses about how suspicious all her family members will be are delivered more as a threat than a lament.

Our male lead’s stage directions are written right into the lyrics. “I’ll hold your hands, they’re just like ice” has him holding them a little too tightly when she’s trying to back away. “I’ll take your hat, your hair looks swell” has him taking her hat, maybe her purse and her coat off her hands to make her less prepared to leave.

The only deviation from the original arrangement is the omission of the female voice in the final iteration of the chorus, because by that time she’s passed out cold on the couch and the curtains are coming down.

The classic delivery of this song deserves to be mocked and criticized in every possible way, but nothing could show the scene for what it is more effectively than the scene itself.

And after all, it is cleverly and catchily written.

Agree? Disagree? Comments are always welcome! Or keep up with my fictional musings by joining me on Facebook, on Twitter, or by signing up for email updates in the panel on the right!

Holiday Horrors: Bindley

12/28/2014

In this season of warm and fuzzy good cheer, we year-round-Halloween folk feel a certain responsibility to offer a few winter chills to those like us who seek them.

After all the fun we had bringing you scares from Prospero all October long, we couldn't resist concocting this series of festive flash fics of fear.

So check back with us throughout the season for fresh, bite-sized of holiday horrors!

(Click here for Holiday Horrors: Black Friday)
(Click here for Holiday Horrors: What the Movies Don't Show)
(Click here for Holiday Horrors: What's Eating Mall Santa?)
(Click here for Holiday Horrors: Where Gran Hides Her Presents)

Holiday Horrors:
Bindley

By Matt Carter

My wife and I had an agreement when it came to Christmas. She would do all the shopping, I would do all the decoration and cleanup. It worked out for everyone this way, really. She was insanely competitive and knew how to find good deals. I knew how to put things in and out of cardboard boxes and garbage bags. Win-win really.

It’s not that I didn’t take any pride in what I did. I made sure everything looked good. Our door had a wreath, our fireplace had its stockings hung with care, our mantle decorated with greens and lights. The first floor had been taken over by Christmas decorations, all centered around the six-and-a-half-foot Noble Fir tree that took place of pride in the middle of our living room. Decked out in ornaments, lights, strings of popcorn and about ten boxes of tinsel, it was a sight to behold if I must say so myself.

The kids loved it, of course, not that they wouldn’t have been happy with whatever I put up because it was Christmas, but I tried to make it right for them. We never really did much for Christmas when I was a kid, so I guess you could say that I was trying to overcompensate and make sure they had the most Christmasy Christmas possible.

Christmas morning was great. They woke up at four-thirty, hyper and jumping up and down on our bed, telling us that Santa had come. They practically dragged us downstairs to show us the mountain of presents beneath the tree and the bites that Santa had taken out of the Oreos they left on the coffee table. Presents were torn open, there was much cheer and pictures taken of fond holiday memories. They played for a few hours, then passed out (because hey, that’s what happens when six and seven year olds wake up at four in the morning), and while my wife brewed another pot of coffee I cleaned up all the boxes and torn wrapping paper.

If only that were the last of the cleanup necessary.

See, that’s the problem they never tell you about going all-out on decorating, that eventually you’re going to have to take it all back down.

I think I did that pretty responsibly too. Every night after the kids went to sleep, I’d take a little bit down, box it up and hide it back in the attic or the garage. It got to the point that they barely noticed a thing was missing until all I had left to take down was the tree.

We knew they’d be despondent if they saw the tree go down, so my wife took them out to the mall for some post-holiday clothes shopping and left me to take it down and out to the recycling center.

It was kind of sad, taking it down. It was that one last bit of the holiday that we still had to hold onto before getting back to the real world. When I pulled down that first handful of tinsel and tossed it into the trash, however, I realized one thing I wouldn’t miss about this season.

Bindley.

Bindley was a six-inch tall wooden gnome, with a jaunty red and green pointed hat, a high collared, furry suit, and a beard that reached down beneath his ample belly. His smile was wide and his blue eyes sparkled, and his one outstretched arm pointed out to his side at nothing in particular.

And I absolutely hated him.

My kids wanted an Elf on the Shelf this year, but since we couldn’t find one, I got a deal from one of my neighbors on Bindley, who was supposed to be some new equivalent made by one of those companies specializing in handmade toys. Since I needed it on short notice, I said sure, why not.

And from that moment on, I hated it.

According to the instructions, Bindley was supposed to move around your house, always pointing out to kids reminders that Christmas was on the way, and at first, I played along. I’d ignore his smirk, his eyes that seemed to follow me everywhere, that pointing finger always drawing attention to what I’d set up and how it didn’t match up to what other, better, dads could do.

But the kids loved him and searching for him, so I did my duty and moved him around.

Well, most of the time at least.

Bindley had a bad habit of popping up in weird places that I know I didn’t put him, like in the medicine cabinet, or in my glove compartment. Always pointing at me, always staring. My wife or kids had to be moving him, like some kind of joke, and I couldn’t say anything because I didn’t want to break the illusion of the holiday.

But I was looking forward to packing him away for the season.

I pulled him out of the tree and set him down on a nearby bookcase. I should’ve thrown him out, but the kids would remember next year. Maybe say you just lost him…

After taking down a few more ornaments and packing them away, I looked back to Bindley.

He was pointing at me and the tree. Staring. Smiling like there was some private joke that I wasn’t in on. I knew I must’ve just set him down that way, but it still gave me a start.

“What’re you laughing at?” I joked, trying to smile it off.

He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t say anything. He was just a toy gnome. But still he pointed, and for some reason I couldn’t quite explain, I felt compelled to look at what he was pointing at.

I pulled away a handful of tinsel, revealing a surprisingly empty section of the tree. It had been full when I bought it, and I’d kept it really hydrated, so this shouldn’t have been a problem. Pulling more tinsel aside, I probed deeper.

Then I saw it.

There was a bulge in the trunk, about the size of a softball, looking almost like a wooden tumor with a glossy sheen over it.

I looked back at Bindley, “So this is what you’re laughing at? That I got a funky tree?”

Still no answer, just staring and pointing and laughing.

Reaching inside, I made to tap the bulge. My fingernail barely scratched its glossy surface when it softly ruptured. Thousands of tiny, writhing insects poured out, scuttling down the tree and my arm. All at once they seemed to start biting me.

I screamed, pulling away from the tree, watching as my blood started to drip onto the ground. I pulled at the bugs, trying to scrape them free and only succeeded in covering my other hand.

I stumbled, falling to the ground. Looking close in one last moment of lucidity before they started burrowing deeper and climbing further up my arms, I could see that they weren’t insects, not quite.

They were miniature gnomes, all with tiny, pointed hats and even tinier, sharper, teeth and claws.

Bindley looked down at me from the bookshelf, pointing down at me and smiling down at us like any proud father would.

Before blood loss and their teeth took me for good, I couldn’t help but have one last, crazy, thought.

Guess I’m not going to have to clean up the tree after all.

For more horrors from F.J.R. Titchenell and Matt Carter, find us on Facebook and Twitter, or check out our other works!

FJR: Facebook, Twitter, Books.
Matt: Facebook, Twitter, Books.

Holiday Horrors: Where Gran Hides Her Presents

12/21/2014

In this season of warm and fuzzy good cheer, we year-round-Halloween folk feel a certain responsibility to offer a few winter chills to those like us who seek them.

After all the fun we had bringing you scares from Prospero all October long, we couldn't resist concocting this series of festive flash fics of fear.

So check back with us throughout the season for fresh, bite-sized of holiday horrors!

(Click here for Holiday Horrors: Black Friday)
(Click here for Holiday Horrors: What the Movies Don't Show)
(Click here for Holiday Horrors: What's Eating Mall Santa?)

Holiday Horrors:
Where Gran Hides Her Presents

By Matt Carter

“I know she keeps them in here somewhere,” Olivia said, rooting through the cabinet in Gran’s den.

“I don’t think we should be looking,” I said.

“Oh come on, Jacob, don’t you want to see what she’s getting us?” she said, setting aside another stack of family photo albums.

I really did. Gran always got us the best Christmas presents, and it would’ve been cool to see what she got us this year, but something about finding out early just felt wrong.

“Can’t we just wait until Christmas morning?” I asked. “You know so then we can be surprised and mom and dad can get the great pictures of us?”

“Oh stop being such a baby,” Olivia said, pulling a straw doll wrapped tightly with chains and an old hat from the cabinet. “There’s nothing in here. Come on, let’s keep looking.”

She got up to leave, which meant I had to put everything back. Stupid Olivia.

My older sister hated surprises, and if there was ever any reason to be getting presents she’d always found some way to find out what they were before they were supposed to be opened. She’d ruined pretty much every birthday and Christmas that mom and dad ever tried to hide anything from her for. The only person who’d ever hid stuff from her good was Gran, and that was probably because we didn’t go to Gran’s house that much, which was usually fine by me because her house was old and weird and I think had animals living in the walls.

But mom and dad needed to do some last minute Christmas shopping, and Gran wanted to join them, so we had to spend the day at her house. Alone.

At least Olivia wasn’t calling me stupid for wearing my Santa hat. At least I got to feel like I knew what Christmas was about.

She was walking out of the basement Gran always told us to stay out of when I caught up.

“Wasn’t that locked?” I asked.

“Not very well,” Olivia said. “Gran’s getting old. She only turned the lock, like, halfway.”

Against my better judgment, I asked, “Find anything?”

“Nah, it’s just empty down there. The only thing I found was like some chalk circle on the ground and a bunch of weird writing around it. And a box of Christmas decorations she hasn’t got to putting up yet. And it stinks, too,” she said.

“Stinks?” I asked.

“Like the time Mr. Whiskers crawled into the crawlspace and died and dad couldn’t find him for a week,” she said.

“Ew,” I said.

“Tell me about it,” she said, waving a hand in front of her nose. “You’d think for all this nice stuff she’s got she’d have a nicer basement.”

She was right about that. Gran’s house, like the stuff she always got us for Christmas, was nice and expensive-looking, though the stuff she got us wasn’t covered in dust and looking real old.

“Where do you think she got the money for all of it?” I asked Olivia as she started walking to Gran’s bedroom. I startled when I heard something in the wall. Fast and scrabbling, some rat with inch long fangs and claws like swords, no doubt. I could’ve sworn I saw it moving beneath the wallpaper, but maybe it was my imagination.

It had to be my imagination. Olivia didn’t see anything, say anything.

“From Grandpa, I think. He made a lot of good investments after the war, mom says,” Olivia said.

“What war?” I asked.

“One of those ones where people died; does it matter?” Olivia said. We were in Gran’s room now. All doilies and dust and perfume, so much perfume, from those bottles on her dresser. Bottles of gold and green and blue and some so red they looked like blood. A tall Santa decoration made out of a dressed up paper towel roll stared at us, so at least we knew Gran remembered some of her decorations.

“Whatever war it was, it was one where people back here had to hide things away because they were afraid they’d be invaded and wouldn’t be able to have stuff anymore, so I think that’s why Gran got so good at hiding things. Then Grandpa got sick and all the money was hers,” she said.

“What happened to him?” I asked.

“Something bad, it, like, made his body rot off his bones. She’s got an album with, like, day by day pictures of it happening,” Olivia said.

“Ew,” I said.

“Yeah, tell me about it, she’s got all sorts of messed up pictures in her albums,” she said.

“I thought they were just baby pictures,” I said.

“Those too, but they’re kinda mixed in with a bunch of pictures of people in hoods standing around bonfires,” she said.

“Old people are weird,” I said.

“Tell me about it. See if she’s got a safe or something hidden behind that painting,” she said, motioning me to a bad painted landscape hanging on the wall.

I pulled the painting off. There was no safe, just some badly-drawn picture of a goat’s head inside an upside-down star, surrounded by weird writing.

“Nothing,” I said, putting the painting back.

“Damn,” she said. “Guess we’ll have to check her closet.”

Gran’s closet was an impassible mess of shoeboxes and clothes packed several feet thick. She knew there couldn’t be presents in there since most of that stuff hadn’t been moved in years, but there were shelves up top that could easily be used to hide gifts. Olivia climbed the pile, higher and higher so she could reach the upper shelves. When she got most of the way up, I could only see her legs.

“Hey, I think…”

“What?” I asked. I wanted to see my presents on Christmas morning, I wanted to wait for the surprise, but I could feel a thrill when she said that.

“I found, I think, where she’d keep something. There’s a hole high up in the wall up here, it’s pretty big,” she said.

“Is there anything in it?” I asked.

“I’m reaching, I’ll see… oh,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

She wasn’t saying anything. Her legs started to jerk like she was trying to dance, and it looked like she was going to fall, but then they jerked upward and disappeared like she just flew away. I could’ve sworn I’d heard something crunching.

“Olivia?” I called out. No answer.

“Olivia?” I called again. “You find anything?”

There was a heavy breath from up there, then she talked again.

“Jacob, you have to come up here, you wouldn’t believe the presents she’s got for us!”

Her voice sounded a little weird, choked and heavy, like it was her but not her. Still… there were presents.

I wanted to be good. I wanted to wait until I saw the presents beneath our tree to know what we got for sure. I wanted to be the good one, not like Olivia, not going out of my way to break the rules of Christmas.

I wanted to be a lot of things, but the call of presents was too strong.

“Coming!” I said, climbing up after her.

For more horrors from F.J.R. Titchenell and Matt Carter, find us on Facebook and Twitter, or check out our other works!

FJR: Facebook, Twitter, Books.
Matt: Facebook, Twitter, Books.

Holiday Horrors: What's Eating Mall Santa?

12/14/2014

In this season of warm and fuzzy good cheer, we year-round-Halloween folk feel a certain responsibility to offer a few winter chills to those like us who seek them.

After all the fun we had bringing you scares from Prospero all October long, we couldn't resist concocting this series of festive flash fics of fear.

So check back with us throughout the season for fresh, bite-sized of holiday horrors!

(Click here for Holiday Horrors: Black Friday)
(Click here for Holiday Horrors: What the Movies Don't Show)

Holiday Horrors:
What's Eating Mall Santa?

By F.J.R. Titchenell

I got suckered into the big red suit at the ripe old age of eighteen.

Mom’s a pediatrician, needed someone to fill the suit last minute for the children’s hospital, and of course no one who worked there could do it, because the kids might recognize them.

You’d think some of them might also recognize that the guy behind the beard is only a little older than the kid humoring him from the bed next to them, but event planners think kids are stupid, and most kids know how to make the best out of our clumsiest attempts at magic and goodwill.

Other kids are just good at not bursting the event planners’ bubbles as long as those bubbles keep bringing them presents.

And we think we’re fooling them.

Thing is, it grows on you. You feel ridiculous putting it on, but then those first eyes light up when they see you, and you want to be Santa. The best Santa you can be.

So it seemed like a no brainer to try out for the job at the mall the next year, hope to put on the suit again and help make a merrier Christmas for my little brother. Because that doctor’s paycheck? Not all it’s cracked up to be. Not when there are still student loans to pay twenty years later.

I knew it was a longshot, this being an actual paying job with tryouts and all. Maybe they’d tell me I was better suited to be an elf, or maybe afterward I’d go hit up some of the surrounding stores for seasonal work.

I was right about there being a lot of other applicants, plenty with real beards and no need for padding, some already in their own red suits. I was wrong about there being an abundance of promising potential Santas.

I’ve never seen a surlier bunch of people than the men packed into that big back room, all hard-lined faces that were never made to smile.

The friendly mall-shirted folk didn’t seem at all surprised by the odd turnout as they examined us, the small, cheery-faced woman who was clearly the event planner in charge asking each of us to demonstrate our jolliest laugh.

A flash of something like pity cut briefly through her smile when she heard mine. I knew my age showed a little more in my voice, but I couldn’t see how it could possibly be that bad, compared with the snorts, snickers and outright cackles of some of the others.

I’d always assumed it had been my imagination, how terrifying visiting Santa at the mall had been as a kid, half-remembered details thrown out of proportion by my then painful shyness. If these were how the standards had always been though, maybe I’d been on to something.

Without further instructions, the event team disappeared into some deeper part of the mall’s employee maze, leaving the applicants to glance awkwardly at each other for a hint of what to do next.

We’d stood in that fluorescent-lit white room for maybe fifteen minutes when a girl about seven years old stepped inside from the door to the mall floor. She wore a pine green dress and matching shoes with the curly tops Santa’s elves always wear, making me wonder if she belonged to one of the planners. The nervous, uncertain way she closed the door behind her made her look even smaller than she was.

Given my current company, I couldn’t blame her.

“You okay?” I asked, side stepping away from the other Santa hopefuls to try to give her a less crowded space to approach, dropping automatically to one knee so she could see my face better.

The elf girl swept her extra bright eyes across the whole crowd of us before acknowledging me, without a change on her face. When she finally reached me, she gave me that lighting-up face in fast motion before launching herself into my arms.

“Santa! They need to see you in there!” She pointed over my shoulder, further down the employees only hallway.

Without the suit and beard, I looked easily the least like Santa out of the meager competition in that room, and I doubted she would know if I was being asked for in a direction she hadn’t come from, but thinking that she might be looking for help finding whatever family she might have back there, I let her take my hand and lead me down the hall.

A few of the others tentatively started to follow us, maybe belatedly sensing some kind of test, but the girl hurried me down two more hallways ahead of them and slammed the door to another room as soon as it was behind us.

This backroom was full of elves. Men, women and children of every shape and size, all of them dressed in pine green adorned with curlicues. Only the red mall shirt of the sorry-looking planner sitting with her head in her hands in the corner stood out against the forest of them.

Their clothes matched the girl’s too perfectly for coincidence, backing up the theory that she was somehow connected with them, but something about the matching glint of all their bright eyes turned on us at once made me push her behind me at the sight of them.

This broadened all their grins enough that I could see the needle-sharp points of their teeth.

“Only one today, Sprinkles?” A squat man near the front chirped to the girl behind me.

“He’s got oodles of Christmas spirit to go around!” Sprinkles replied excitedly.

The room full of elves all ran tongues over their needle teeth, tasting something in the air that caused them to nod in agreement with Sprinkles.

“The dregs in the breakroom are yours,” the squat elf man called over his shoulder to the event planner, nodding toward the way I’d come from. “Pick a decent one to suit up for the kids this year!”

The elf swarm flooded toward me, just as my hand missed the doorknob and Sprinkles’ teeth found my wrist.

For more horrors from F.J.R. Titchenell and Matt Carter, find us on Facebook and Twitter, or check out our other works!

FJR: Facebook, Twitter, Books.
Matt: Facebook, Twitter, Books.