"One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion."

-T.S.Elliot

Let's all be good thieves together.

Monday 20 October 2008

Halloween Girl

With Halloween coming up here's a little short story for people.

Halloween Girl

It had been a bad October. Things had started off well enough -- looking at wedding cakes with my fiancée – but then a week later she was going to France to be the muse for a sculptor and jazz musician called Jacques. The week after that I received a phone call from my agent, the publisher who had bought one of my stories for his magazine had died of a heart attack while snorting cocaine off the ass of a fifteen year old hooker. As a result of the scandal his company was going belly-up and would be unable to pay any debts. Including the money they owed me. The rest of the month was filled with petty annoyances: my car breaking down, my landlord raising the rent, and the spontaneous human combustion of the quarterback for my favourite football team. Just the minor trials and tribulations you get when God decides to use you for target practice.

The final straw came on the morning of the 31st when I went to feed my goldfish Fred only to find him floating on top of the water very, very dead. I stood there for what seemed like an eternity in my bathrobe and fluffy slippers holding his little box of fish food. My mind at first seemed unable to process his passing but all too soon the shock was drowned by a wave of depression, followed by the almost irresistible urge to stick my head into his fishbowl and follow him into the great beyond.

I was saved from the ignominy of an embarrassing suicide when the phone rang, shocking me out of my trance. On the other end was my oldest friend Dave, he had decided that with all my woes I needed to get out of the house. Looking at Fred’s tiny cadaver I couldn’t help but agree with him. He had managed to score tickets to a local Goth club where he assured me that the alcohol would flow to the point where a four foot tall, overweight little troll with halitosis and body odour that could knock out an ox could get laid. Standing just under six feet with only a little extra padding and being freshly showered I fancied my chances at a little action to chase away the blues.

I should have known better. Every girl I talked to I scared away by either comparing them to my bitch ex-fiancée, or just blubbering away, telling them how much I missed her and wanted her back. Finally I just gave up and found myself a deserted table in a shadow filled corner where I could have a drink in relative peace and quiet, while watching the girls dance.

Soon Dave found me in my little oasis of solitude, two attractive, giggling young Goth girls hanging off his arms. He told me their names were Cherry and Sherry, or something like that and he’d been invited back to their apartment. He wanted to make sure I was alright and was willing to stay and keep me company if I wanted. I smiled at him and told him I was fine, I was just going to have another drink or two before heading home and he should go and enjoy himself. Smiling gratefully he promised to make it up to me another time and the trio vanished into the crowd. I returned to my drink and watching the dance floor, feeling my depression rising again.

That was when I saw her. I can’t say for certain what it was that drew my eyes to her initially. Was it her sinuous, graceful dancing? The age difference between her and her dance partner? It could have been the way the crowd seemed to part around them as though they were subconsciously unwilling to get too close. It could have been any combination of these things or none at all, it didn’t matter. Once I saw her -- I couldn’t look away.

She was tall, easily over six feet, with well toned legs that seemed to go on forever in those tight black, leather pants she wore. Her red and black corset hugged an hourglass figure as though it were a second skin, imprisoning a pair of buxom breasts as they strained to burst free. Her shoulders and arms were bare; revealing alabaster skin that seemed to almost glow luminously in the flickering strobe lights. The only ornamentation she wore was a silver snake bracelet coiling around her left forearm. Her long flowing hair was raven black, though even at a distance I could see a tracery of grey hairs marring its ebon uniformity. Her face was beautiful though angular, with high cheekbones, deep dark brown eyes, and ruby red lips, slightly parted in a seductive pout. It bore the marks of time’s inevitable march well, a wrinkle or two upon the forehead, some crow’s feet at her eyes but they did nothing to detract from her beauty. I would have placed her in her mid to late thirties while her dance partner was clearly just out of her teens. Still more girl than woman, with curly red hair bouncing around a cherubic face, she was at least a foot smaller than the woman who had caught my attention, and wore a red blouse with a dark skirt and too much white foundation in an effort to appear pale and interesting.

As I watched them dance I soon saw that the red haired girl was responding to the older woman’s movements in an almost dazed fashion, as though she were not in full control of her body. It was then that I realized their movements weren’t even remotely in time with the fast paced beat of the song; they were following a tune that only they could hear. I stared in fascination at their slow precise movements as they danced. I could see hints of an ancient symbolism in their movements that had been forgotten long ago. It was a dance of seduction and supplication, the older woman represented some unearthly predator while the younger was its prey, pleading for mercy while slowly moving towards the inevitable surrender to the predator’s will. As their dance reached its conclusion and the young woman opened her blouse baring the flesh between her neck and breasts to the older something strange happened to me.

The ever present music that reverberated through the club seemed to fade until only its beat remained fast and rapid, then that began to slow as did the other dancers until they were unmoving statues and all I could hear was the steady, slow thump – thump echoing in the club like giant heartbeat. At the same time the colour seemed to drain away turning the club into a cold, lifeless tableau like an old sepia photograph. As I looked around my first thought was that I was dying, but then I realized that the women I had been watching dance were still flush with colour and visible signs of life in stark contrast to the rest of the club. I drew in breath to call out to them but some primeval instinct prevented me from speaking as the older woman leant in towards the younger.

I could see a sudden flash of steel as she opened her ruby lips to reveal a razorblade she had somehow concealed in her mouth. With a lover’s gentleness she slowly drew the blade in a crimson line across the flesh of her victim whose mouth opened in an O of pain or pleasure I couldn’t be sure, all I could hear was the damnable thump – thump. Then as suddenly as it appeared the razorblade vanished and the woman’s tongue slowly and gently licked up the blood that had begun to slowly ooze from the wound before suckling at the wound itself like a hungry kitten. I could see the girl’s eyes roll back in her skull as her head tipped back, clearly in ecstasy at the sensation of the older woman feasting upon her. As I continued to watch in terrified fascination barely able to remember to breathe, I noticed that the older woman’s hair was slowly growing darker and more luxurious, the grey hairs changing before my eyes to black. At the same time the crow’s feet and wrinkles gradually vanished as the skin tightened and became taut once more.

Finally the woman finished with her meal, now looking in her early twenties. After a last languid lick of her tongue to clean up any stray droplets of blood she kissed the wound and I watched stunned as the flesh closed leaving no mark behind. She then gently closed the blouse and stroked the hair out of her partner’s eyes before planting a tender kiss upon her lips. At that the colour and signs of animation had fled from the red haired young woman and she joined the rest of the club in that bizarre frozen moment they seemed to occupy. Her business concluded the raven haired woman began to make her way towards the exit while I held my breath and tried to remain as still as possible lest she realise I had witnessed her ritual.

She froze halfway to the exit and turned to face me. For a second deep within the centre of her brown eyes, I swear I saw a fiery red spark that threatened to consume me but then it faded and she smiled. She raised her hand to her mouth and blew a kiss at me before vanishing out into the night. The instant she left the club, the beat began to pick up pace once more, the colour and music returned and everything was normal. For a second or so, before I heard a scream and turned to see the red haired girl lying prone on the dance floor. I sat in that corner shivering until the club closed, unwilling to go out into the night afraid she might be waiting for me. I finally got a cab home and in the morning I was almost convinced it had just been a hallucination brought on by too much alcohol and my fragile mental state. Perhaps the red haired girl had just collapsed due to overheating or exhaustion, perhaps even some form of drug abuse. Unfortunately my morning newspaper quickly disabused me of that comforting belief when I read the review of the Halloween party.

It had gone well though there had been a moment of concern when Ms Regina McKay, 21 had collapsed on the dance floor. Paramedics were called and it was soon determined that she was suffering from a form of anaemia or lack of blood. She was being treated in a local hospital and was expected to make a full recovery.

I felt every hair on my body rise in terror and my heart threatening to explode in my chest upon reading that, fearful that the raven haired woman whoever she was might come after me. I soon calmed down though as I realized that if she had wanted to hurt me she would have done so at the club, I tried to tell a few of my friends the story but they just laughed at me and in time I put it to the back of my mind.

I’ve gone back to that club a few times but I’ve never seen her there again, though she does appear occasionally in my dreams, forever dancing, forever young, with droplets of blood on her smiling lips she’s my eternal Halloween girl.

22 comments:

williemeikle said...

Nice wee story there.

So where are you from? I'm from Kilbirnie in Ayrshire originally.

Willie

Lewis said...

Thank you. I'm from Dreghorn in Ayrshire as well by coincidence.

williemeikle said...

Hey, I've got relatives in Dreghorn... a family called Rooney and another, not surprisingly, called Meikle :)

Lewis said...

The names don't ring a bell but I tend to keep to myself. My dad might know them but that probably depends on what pub they drink in ;)

Anonymous said...

Mice story, there, Lewis. I've added you to my blogroll

Anonymous said...

Crap --I meant "nice," not "mice."

Lewis said...

LOL thanks for the compliment though a little story about an infestation of vampire mice could be rather interesting, particularly if told from the point of view of a cat called Van Helsing... Once I finish up with my rental of Deadspace I'll need to take a go at writing that.

Nickolaus Pacione said...

You blatently plagiarized Halloween Girl and you had no right to do this to one of my short stories. Do you respect any copyrights to anyone's work dickwad? Fuck you.

Lewis said...

Oh Nicky my little dumpling you know you can't copyright a title.

When you get right down to it we may have a similar core idea but our execution is completely different, which I believe lets me off on your plagiarism accusation.

Still I'll tell you what, if you can find three sentences in my story that are identical to yours I'll paypal you fifteen bucks. It shouldn't be difficult after all with my blatant plagiarism.

Nickolaus Pacione said...

How about this you unemployed drunken fat fuck, I find about 20 lines that you plagiarized in my story and you pay me $3000.00 USD for it.

That should keep my imprint running a few years. That should help start up my Lightning Source version of Lake Fossil Press. So you did plagiarize Halloween Girl. You stole all the themes of the story.

You did this story to mislead the real one. As what the cunt Torgensen did, she stole TABLOID PURPOSES and did stories to mislead people from the fifth incarnation.

Care to defend on that, you white trash loser.

Lewis said...

Oh Nicky you brighten up my day. I've read your terrible little story, and mine bears a passing resemblance at best.

Go on though, pick out your twenty lines and send them to nikolauspacione@hotmail.co.uk I stole none of your themes by the way. Your story was about a delusional little prick who keeps hearing a ticking noise, watching some crazy chick cut people and drink their blood. Mine was about a writer at a Halloween party who witnesses a supernatural ritual, as a woman seduces and drinks the blood from an innocent on the dance floor to restore her youth.

As for misleading people? Not at all, this is partly for my amusement and partly to further humiliate you by allowing people to see that even a complete amateur like myself can make a better story from the generic ideas you're so proud of.

Jenny said...

Lewis, I really enjoyed your story. It was creepy, and I like the fact that "drinking blood" didn't automatically mean "vampire". Nicely done.

Nicky, my last name is Torgerson. Since my "Tabloid Purposes" is the only one up on Lulu right now because of your antics, you're SOL. And yes, my hastily written, one-pass-edited, cold-medicine-induced writing is still better than yours.

Lewis said...

Thank you very much Jenny :) This was actually my first time trying to write a Horror story, normally I prefer Fantasy, but as I was thinking the other day it's good to experiment with different genres. If nothing else the experience will come in handy if I want to incorporate aspects of the others into my preferred one.

Colin said...

Wow this Nickolaus A. Pacione guy is really a prat.

I like this story it has an air of James o'barr about it.

As for the Halloween girl by pacione it reads like Poe done by a drunk 14 year old. It missed the points that he was famous for such as a skilful use of onomatopoeia and literation. Using "ticking" to increases your word count does not make the story any better only harder to read. When reading it you will run over larg parts of the text. It is all topped off with bad pacing.

Alice said...

Hi, Lewis. I thought I'd C&P my response to Nicky's blatherings about your--ahem--"plagiarizing" here because I know he's going to delete it as soon as he hauls his fat ass out of his sleepsack. I thought you might like to know how much I liked your tale.

"Lewis's short story, "Halloween Girl", was not plagiarized word for word from yours. Lewis's story was darkly witty and quite entertaining to read. His prose was clear and lucid, his descriptions conveyed some pretty vivid images (though a bit purple in places; sorry, Lewis), and his characterizations and dialogue were utterly believable. In summary, it did what any decently-crafted short story should do and put me into another world for a few minutes, a world that I could sense very well in my imagination. Your "stories", on the other hand, are all just repetitions of the same meaningless words and phrases--dark, horror, indescribable (unless in the context of a TV show, movie or book), nightmarish, sleep, illness, etc.--that never really go anywhere or even paint a static picture. Give it up, Nick. You've been pwned by someone who was just using your story title as a joke, and who managed to write a pretty decent tale about a girl on Halloween."

Lewis said...

And since he deleted my reply, I'll post it again here ;) I'm grateful for any honest criticism and thank you for your compliments as well.

Purple prose is a definite weakness in my writing that I need to work on eliminating, though in the other story I have on here now it was a deliberate choice in an attempt to give it a more unique voice.

Nickolaus Pacione said...

I like my Halloween Girl story better -- beside I got published in print for my non-fiction and yes I have you in my fucking crosshairs you fat loser.

Nickolaus Pacione said...

I busted my ass and put a lot of research in my Halloween Girl. You're going to go and steal my titles and ideas for your sick amusement -- stay out of Illinois because I will slice your throat and dump you over the Chicago River. You will join Matt Shepard in death you queer.

Nickolaus Pacione said...

Hey faggot -- enjoy this one you little fuck The Fandom Writer. It's written with people like you in mind who go around stealing everyone's ideas and concepts -- I chew slash writers up and spit them out. This story got me published on The House Of Pain. This the bullet to the head edit. So go fuck yourself!

ExposeTheTard said...

This isn't Nicky's Halloween Girl, is it? It's not written as poorly as his usually is. It's not like the electronic version I own anyway.

The original was so bad that a bunch of real authors once took turns reading it at a convention. Best part was someone Nicky likes, Grabosky, was there laughing hard like everyone else. That's the sad part: Even people Nicky idolizes think his writing is an abomination.

Lewis said...

No it isn't, though he'll never stop believing it is. This was actually done in response to someone at SomethingAwful.com pointing out that some of Nicky's core ideas weren't too bad, if a little cliché, it was his execution that was so painful.

I thought it might be fun to strip the core ideas and work them into stories that were actually readable without generating a migraine, this was the first result. Unfortunately real life got in the way and with him calming down I decided to leave it be, but since he appears to be back in force I may restart my little project.

Anonymous said...

the 50 foot ant also wrote a story titled 'the halloween girl'

i like both this story and his(50 foot ant's), by the way. can't say i blame you for having trouble with purple prose. i sometimes have that problem