Dread (an acrostic poem)

Image: image.pbs.org/video-assets/r97srp8-asset-kids-mezzanine1-16×9-qmViMtz.png

Don’t fear the reaper was a phrase that didn’t make sense

Reaper represented death, the end, that’s all folks

Everyone should be fearful.  They should be scared witless.

And that’s why he was so confused at the moment

Didn’t these people understand he was the real thing, especially on Halloween?

Slice (an acrostic poem)

She held the knife in two hands like a samurai sword.

Looking at the watermelon, her sworn enemy, she bowed her head.

It was going to be a battle to the death, but she didn’t feel like dying tonight!

Cutting deftly, the watermelon never had a chance and soon it was bleeding chunks on her counter.

Extremely happy with herself, she popped a piece in her mouth and spit out the seeds.

Wasp (an acrostic poem)

Image: canr.msu.edu/home_gardening/uploads/images/PaperWasp-web.jpg

Wings buzzed their warning against the evil death dealer

As it swooped in to get its revenge for the hundreds she had just killed

She screamed and brought up the can of bug spray to finish the job

Perhaps she was more the villain than the hero, but she terminated it and screamed victory

Betrayed (an acrostic poem)

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Been promised that everything would be fine

Except that was never going to be true

That shouldn’t have surprised her

Rachel had grown up on the wrong side of the tracks

And no one there was ever able to keep their word, even if they tried

Yet this one hurt more than all the rest put together

Everett said he would always be there to hold her, to help make things right

Death had conveniently gotten him out of that, the bastard.  She spit on his grave.

Laugh (an acrostic poem)

Image: urmc.rochester.edu/prnews/story/uploadedimages/0912096484_laughing%20emoji_5331.jpg

Little giggles slipped from his lips

As she bent over into a full belly guffaw

Under the withering gaze of the priest, they tried to compose themselves

Guests looked aghast and that sent the couple into another fit of snickers

How come everyone didn’t get the joke of “Till death do us part.”

Post (an acrostic poem)

Image: thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/property-line-markers-pink-ribbons-tall-stakes-ground-property-line-markers-pink-ribbons-woods-clean-186592875.jpg

Putting a stake down to claim what’s yours

Ordinarily would mark the property line sufficiently

Since this property line was between life and death

That necessitates adding the heart of the vampire

Emotional Relationships (a 100 word story)

Melancholy was his mistress and muse.  He worshiped her day and night, always trying to make things right, but it never quite worked.  He felt he came up just short no matter how hard he tried.  She had been his first love.  One day he decided to take the plunge and proposed.  That was the last day he ever saw her.

He now felt empty inside.  That’s when he found Depression.  She moved in, and they became inseparable.  Once he thought about breaking up with her, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.  Till death did they part.

 

Image: embodimentchronicle.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/melancholy-in-blue1.jpg

Justify the Means (short story)

Some traders deal in stocks and bonds.  I trade lives and souls.  I buy low and sell high.  The problem for Matt is that his potential had just maxed out and I was here to collect, with intrest.

It didn’t help that I was already pissed off that my Louis Vuitton hand bag had a hole in it, and this asshole in front of me was responsible.  Okay, maybe it happened when I slugged him upside his head with it when I kidnapped him, but it still pissed me off.  No one likes me when I am pissed off.

Matt sat blindfolded, tied to the chair.  I placed my pistol at the base of his skull, making sure the hard steel bruised that tender part of his neck.

“One more time, where is the little girl?”

Matt growled and stained against the ropes.  I wasn’t expecting much from this conversation, to be honest, but I have my own demons and I needed to justify to them what I was about to do.

I pulled the trigger then spit on Matt’s remains.  “Now I own you,” I growled.  I scooped out what brains were still left in the body and painted a pentagram around the cooling corpse.  I then took out my hip flask and poured a drink offering into the vacated head cavity.  “Okay Belial, fetch me his soul.”  I set fire to the liquor and the blue flame turned deep purple before flaring out.

The body jerked twice then became still.  “Where is the girl?  Talk and I’ll let your soul go.”  The body twitched back and forth as it tried to resist what was happening.  “Belial, if you make him talk and his soul is yours.”  Demons loved collecting souls.  It was their version of Pokémon.

The body stopped spasming.  Flames leaped from the cranial cavity.  “How can you give away my soul?  That’s against God’s law.”  The voice originated from the reignited fire.

“Because when you have pals on both sides of the war you get to break the rules.”  I was beginning to lose my patience.  “One more time.  Where is the girl?”

“She is locked in my ex-wife’s dominatrix hideaway.  I knew the bitch would be in Europe for the next month so I had time.”

I shook my head and took a shot from the hip flask.  “Your whole life is one big fucked up mess, isn’t it?”

“I don’t have any life now.”

“You should thank me for that.”

“Go to hell, bitch!”

“I will, but I won’t be seeing you there.  Belial, he is yours.”

“But…”

The body self-immolated as the sound of Matt’s scream echoed in my head.  I took another hit from the flask and poured another shot onto the flaming body.  I should have brought some marshmallows with me.  Oh well, better luck next time.

I tucked away my flask and pulled out my cell phone.  “Janet, it’s Felicia.  She’s at the ex’s torture chamber.  Any idea where that is?”

 

Image: orig00.deviantart.net/839a/f/2015/021/2/5/belial_by_tentaclesandteeth-d8ew5ja.jpg

Dead Wrong (part 1)

I usually don’t do this, but before I get to the story for today I have a question.  After you are done reading this can you comment and tell me if you want more in this story?  I wasn’t planning on writing this right now, but of course sometimes stories stand up and scream at you.  Thank you for your feedback.  🙂


Jeff opened his eyes and watched his corpse being taken away by the ambulance.  He looked down and his body seemed whole to him.  He then heard laughter behind him.

“Man, that never gets old,” said a young man Jeff didn’t recognize.  “You should have seen the look on your face before that car crash.  Man, it was precious.”

Jeff glanced around noticing that some of the people he saw were looking at him, while others were cleaning up the accident scene.  He ran up to a policeman who seemed to be trying to direct the cleaning crew.  “Mr. Officer.  There seems to be something weird going on,” Jeff said.

“Nothing weird man, you just bit the dust and said your final goodbye,” the man said.

Jeff wheeled around and looked at the man again.  The man was wearing bell bottomed pants where the bell bottom was at least a foot bigger than a normal pant leg.  He also wore a shirt with a collar and lapels that you could land an F-16 on.  “I’m sorry,” Jeff said, “What do you mean?”

The man bowed his head solemnly.  “You, my son, have just died.”  His head snapped back up with a large grin on it.  Jeff just stared at him, dumbfounded.  “Man, I love it when they just don’t get it.  What do you think boys and girls?”

A few of the other people paying attention nodded.  One of them, a red headed woman dressed in a flapper style dress spoke up.  “Did you ever get a chance to eat Baked Alaska?”  Her haunted blue eyes felt like they were boring holes into Jeff’s very soul.

“Gillian, enough with the Baked Alaska.”  The man pointed at the red head with his thumb.  “She was going to her birthday party to try out the new dessert fad.  Instead she ran into a bit of a mugging gone too far.”

“Did you?” asked Gillian.

The man turned around and gave Gillian two middle fingers.  “Go haunt that restaurant on 22nd why don’t you.  Someone eventually will kick the bucket and you’ll have someone to pester about it for eternity.”

Jeff couldn’t process the conversation and turned back to the police officer.  “Sir?”

“Give it up!” the man yelled.  Jeff whipped his head around and the man shrugged his shoulders.  “Sorry about that.  Look, he’s still alive and you, my son, are dead.  Unless he’s some sort of medium he can’t hear you.  The most you can do is cause him a shiver down his spine.  Watch.”  The man walked over to the cop and placed his hand inside the officer.  The officer shimmied involuntarily.  The officer looks around, but his gaze passed right through the man, Jeff, and Gillian among the others watching the scene.

“Man, that doesn’t get old either.  Too bad I can only do that to someone once every couple of hours.  If I could do it more often…” The man shrugged his shoulders.  “Well that would make being dead a bit more fun.”  The man walked over and grabbed Jeff by the arm.  “Look, in a couple more minutes you will have to make a decision.  I suggest focusing on the now, or at least what passes for it on this side.  Let the living be the living, you know what I mean?”

“I’m dead?” Jeff asked in a very small voice.

“Keep up with me son, you don’t have much time.”  The wind suddenly picked up, but only Jeff and those that could see him seemed to be effected by it.  The man looked around, but continued.  “A passage is about to open soon.”

“A passage to where?”

“No one knows.  Anyone who goes inside never returns.”

“It’s how you go to heaven,” Gillian said.

“You don’t know that you foolish woman,” the man said.  “For all we know it spits you out in Hell or someplace even worse.  Hell, you might cease to exist.”

“The tunnel opens when someone freshly dies,” Gillian said.  “This will be yours.”

“Once again I call bull,” the man said.   “I’ve had friends go into them afterwards.  They just show up when someone dies.”

Jeff noticed most of the other people that he must now assume were dead had begun to leave.  “Why are they going away if it’s my tunnel,” Jeff asked.  “Not that I totally accept that I’m dead and all.”

“Man, them’s the chickens.  They worry about the tunnel somehow sucking them in or some bull.”

Suddenly a circle of light opened in front of Jeff.  He could feel its pull.  It called for him to walk on through, that this existence was truly done and over.

“You should go into the tunnel,” Gillian said.

Jeff tore his eyes off the tunnel.  “What happens if I don’t go in?”

“You get to see the world in all its glory,” the man said.

“You’ll regret the decision for the rest of eternity,” Gillian said.

“Then why are you still here?” Jeff asked.  “Why didn’t you go into your portal?”

“I didn’t have my Baked Alaska,” Gillian screeched before turning and running away from Jeff, the man, and the gleaming portal.

“Man, she is such a crazy.”  The man waved at her as she ran away.  Turning his attention back to Jeff he said, “Promise me you won’t lose it like she has.”

The pull on Jeff started to lesson, but Jeff could feel panic of missing out starting to settle in.  “Why did you stay?”

“I stayed because I wanted to see how my family would do without me.  Man, they have done some messed up things since I died.”

“Your family?”

“Yeah.  I try to be around when the kick the bucket.  Because you know, I care.”

“What does that make you to me?”  Jeff could feel the portal slipping away.  The winds were calming down and the light began to dim.

“I’m your daddy’s granddaddy,” the man said.  “So are you going to stay with me son?”

Jeff took his eyes off the portal and looked at the man again.  He definitely could see the family resemblance now that he looked for it.  “You wanted to be there for me when I died?”

“Of course.”

Jeff made his decision in that moment and the portal winked out of existence.  “So what do we do next?”

“Whatever you want.”  The man looked around and then waved at Jeff.  “Catch you on the flipside.”  With that the man began to run down the street, right through the cop, never pausing.

Jeff called out, “Wait, I thought you were going to help me.”

The man stopped and turned back around.  “I did.  I either gave you eternal life to play with or doomed you to the same hell I decided to hold onto.  Either way I’ve got places to go and people to watch.”  With that the man took a right and walked right through a building and out of Jeff’s sight.

Jeff looked around at the living who didn’t even notice he was still among them.  “Well I’ll be damned!”

 

Image: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Car_crash_1.jpg

Carrot (an acrostic poem)

Couldn’t be easier really

Asking for help with her honey sweet come hither voice

Reaching out to make sure they knew what she wanted

Really it shouldn’t always work

Obvious they never opened up their eyes

Till she beat them to death with her large stick

 

Image : upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Noun_84055_-_Carrot_and_stick.svg/2000px-Noun_84055_-_Carrot_and_stick.svg.png