Month: August 2023

The Last Thought

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WP Prompt: What was the last thing you searched for online? Why were you looking for it?

Artist Unknown

When you are writing a story you can imagine what would happen if someone was decapitated by execution or in an accident or by murder or you can do what I do and dig around for medical info and accounts ( which I found were considered dubious at best ) by eyewitnesses.

I was prepared for the horrific details ( I’ve seen human remains in this state ) but what I was not prepared for was the sadness that  came across in some of the accounts – this one for example:

From an article by Cecil Adams, June 11th, 1998

(Then) I received a note from a U.S. Army veteran who had been stationed in Korea. In June 1989 the taxi he and a friend were riding in collided with a truck. My correspondent was pinned in the wreckage. The friend was decapitated. Here’s what happened:

My friend’s head came to rest face up, and (from my angle) upside-down. As I watched, his mouth opened and closed no less than two times. The facial expressions he displayed were first of shock or confusion, followed by terror or grief. I cannot exaggerate and say that he was looking all around, but he did display ocular movement in that his eyes moved from me, to his body, and back to me. He had direct eye contact with me when his eyes took on a hazy, absent expression … and he was dead.

Artist Unknown

The terror, the sadness  the realization that you are no more- I’m not sure to call that the seeds of a ‘horror’ story, but it would be a dark story all the same.

 

 

And We Are Off

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#100DAYSOFHALLOWEEN HAPPY #32

AI Artwork-Creator Unknown

I’ve been participating in a writing adventure called ” Horrordailies ” since 2016.

Horrordailies is an offshoot of The Holidailies which has been going on a little longer, but between the two I give my all to the Horrordailies.

I post for each day in October and I work it!

But Horrordailies isn’t as popular as the Holidailies and I think the other challenge they sport called ” Thingadailies ” is pretty popular too.

The thing is, I was the only person to post for Horrordailies last year and I was kind of embarrased. I mean. I felt like I got stood up for a date or something. I don’t run the challenge and I’m not in  a postion to drive traffic to it because my Social Media presence is pathetic- my FB page is sort of a lonely train wreck and my blog- yeah well. It’s a labor of love. What can I say? I don’t do what I can to pull in readers so it’s sort of just – here.

But it’s an adventure of sorts, so sure. I’ll go along.

This year if the owners of the ” Dailies ” run the Halloween page  I’ll probably post there. But it would be fun to read Halloween work by someone other then me. Adventures are fun if you don’t have to go on them alone every single time.

Visit HOLIDAILIES here

Must See TV

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When I was growing up in the late 60’s and early 70’s my favorite TV shows were Dark Shadows, Star Trek, The Avengers and Wild Wild West.

Out of that lot Star Trek had the biggest impact on me because that’s where I found my love of science and nursed a dream of flying a space ship one day.

But the show that was closest to my heart was Nightmare Theatre.

Starting when I was almost five, every Friday night I would park myself in front of our TV with my stuffed Snoopy, a bowl of popcorn and I would wait for the Count to rise from his Coffin and show me a movie that was guaranteed to scare me out of my five year old brain.

How bad did those movies scare me?

We used to live in an old spooky looking house and my bedroom at the time was upstairs.In order to get to it I had to walk up a scary set of stairs and through an unfinished attic to my bedroom. Some nights I never made it up the stairs because I was sure that whatever monster I had seen on TV was waiting for me in closet which- true story- I wouldn’t use. I never opened that door. I used to shove my close under my bed to avoid using it. Anyway. I would fall asleep on the stairs.

Then one Friday night after seeing a particularly disturbing film, on my trip to bed I had this picture of the  Count and His Coffin at the top of my attic stairs and I could  see his coffin open and clear as being able to see my own face in the bathroom mirror I saw him sit up  and….

I wasn’t afraid to finish my trip up the stairs, through the spooky attic to my bedroom.

I loved the Count to pieces- seriously. I was a fan and keep in mind my Dad’s family started to watch Nightmare Theatre when it first aired in 1964 and that is the  year I was born. So he was a family hero and we all loved him.

Here’s some info on The Count- The Vampire who scared  the  Monsters in my attic away and helped me learn to not be afraid of the dark- indeed- he taught me to enjoy it.

Joe Towey- ” The Count “

From Wikipedia: Nightmare Theatre was one of the more prominent late-night horror programs of the 1960s and 1970s. During its fourteen-year run, this show introduced several generations of television viewers to the horror films of yesteryear, across the Pacific Northwest. Created and starring Joe Towey  and produced by Seattle-based KIRO-TV, and utilizing much of the same cast and crew as the similarly popular The J.P. Patches Show Nightmare Theatre reached an audience that stretched as far north as Alaska, as far east as Idaho, and south into Oregon, as well as Canada] Its residential horror host, Joe Towey (The Count) – , has accrued a cult following over the years, much in the same vein as his make-up laden peers Maila Nurmi (“Vampira”), John Zacherle (“Zacherley”), and Cassandra Peterson (“Elvira”).

Joe Towey– The Count ( from Wikepedia )

After the show ended in 1978, Joe continued to make live appearances as The Count for such special events as parties and charity auctions in Washington State, usually alongside longtime friend and partner-in-crime Chris Wedes aka J.P. Patches.[1] (Chris made at least one guest appearance on Nightmare Theatre, but he never directed the show as some sources erroneously claim.) Towey died in 1989 at the age of 55, having been in ill health for more than a year. During his thirty-year stay at KIRO-TV, Joe Towey received two Emmy Awards for his work as director on The J.P. Patches Show, and another for set designer on Nightmare Theatre.

Joseph C Towey BIRTH 18 May 1933 DEATH 9 Apr 1989 (aged 55) Seattle, King County, Washington, USA BURIAL Holyrood Cemetery Shoreline, King County, Washington, USA

RIP Joe Towey

You were a bright spot in my childhood.

Rat Girl

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RDP  Thursday Prompt: VERMIN

Title: Grass and Insect
Creator: Shin Saimdan Descriptive Title: Watermelons and Rats

When I was little, some people in my life- those people being “friends” or even family- used to refer to me and my brother and sister as ” screeching monkeys ” or ” little rats “.

Even back in the day being called a monkey or vermin was a racially charged slur that people knew better then to use, but some people believed if you did it with a smile it was a ‘ nickname’ or something lame like that.

The mental gymnastics people perform to justify their cruelty could win some of them gold medals, they are THAT good at it.

To be sure, it used to bother me back then and as an adult it actually hurt- until I realized how afraid of rats and primates people actually were.

A run in with the wrong rat- just one rat- can cost  could  your life and Chimps will tear your face off lickety- split, just like that, and as they do it, they look like they are laughing, they even look like they’re dancing around on top of it.

So I suppose I don’t look down on ” Vermin”. On the contrary I look up to them for good reason. They may be small,  people may dress them up and make fun of them but at the end of the day- they can bring cities and the toughest individuals to their knees. Not bad for worthless ‘vermin’.

Conilurus albipes, white-footed tree-rat (1788-1797). Probably by Thomas Watling (1762-1814), from the Thomas Watling Drawings Collection, held at the Natural History Museum