apparently nobody ever taught your tinder hookup that 'coochie coochie coo' wasn't appropriate dirty talk

Spooktober story XX_xx_XX

“So, I just looked down there for the first time and let me just say, I am appalled.”

People snicker, and one speaks up, “I love it.”

Someone spits off of the balcony.

A stray cat on the skywalk below is startled and begins to lick itself.

The dullest bird from a nearby pigeon flock is struck in the head by a sticky raindrop.

Above, the neighborhood’s pigeon obsessive squawks with delight.

Below, the neighbors reel in their laundry and shut their windows in preparation for a drizzle of white shit.

“Look at those doves.”

“Beautiful. And look, we can almost see the sun.”

Barely-pattering smears appear on the sand, b(h)inkling with faint but pleasant sound. Binkle. Binkle.

“We’re gonna have to clean our laundry line. I’ll call the neighbors and let them know.”

*Ring Ring*

*Ring Ring*

Click.

…

… … …

“Hello? …”

A stray cat bats at the head of a stunned and spitcovered pigeon. The cat sniffs in. The pigeon barely flutters its wings frightening the cat into an anti-curious and overzealous backwards leap.

A neighbor below bemoans the shadow cast across their window.

“Oh, now what’s this?”

“…

…… … ……

… Beep - Beep - Beep - Beep - …”

The neighbors across the way aren’t answering their phone.

“Someone spit again.” says a neighbor above.

“You’ll spit, you did it before.”

“Nah, I can’t spit. Not anymore. That was stupid.”

The cat jumped too far, accidentally flinging itself from the skywalk and down to the laundrylines. Neighbors start to take notice.

“Well, I’m perfectly happy just going back inside. We should keep playing if nobody’s gonna spit.”

“I’ve got some coins.” says a neighbor above.

A couple of shabby, chipped coins almost glisten in the almost sunlight.

A neighbor far below notices a tug on their laundryline.

“Oh, oh whoa, hey hey come here!”

“No way!”

A screen door, luxurious and aerated as it could possibly be, closes behind a partyful of neighbors.

“Back to it then? Okay, cowards.”

A pigeon on the skywalk stands upright.

A neighbor reels back their laundryline in a hurry.

“They’d better unlock the damned gear! Or pick up the damned phone!”

A flock of pigeons are ill-met by brutal roostings beyond the neighbors above.

Someone relinquishes, “Okay I’ll fucking spit.”

A pigeon on the skywalk coos.

A neighbor below shrieks.

A flock of pigeons remakes itself whole.

Jon Phillips spits onto the stuck laundryline of a neighbor’s below.

A black cat lands predictably on its feet, way, all the way down on the sands below the belowest neighbors, cursing each neighbor it passed.

If you haven’t been to the Tab’s Avenue Market neighborhood in a while, now might be a time to pay it a visit. Over the past few months there have been half a dozen exciting new openings that have revitalized the neighborhood (including Yolk & Marrow, which was recently nominated for a regional Big Fred Award for their succulent, fall-off the bone spare ribs), but maybe none that have had quite as many people buzzing as the Evisceratorium That Sends Your Soul Straight To Hell.

Located in the historic Fridge Building at Tab’s Ave and 18th, the Evisceratorium That Sends Your Soul Straight To Hell (already being nicknamed the ‘Visc’ by locals and survivors alike) is a “boutique human abattoir operated by corrupted denizens of Hell”, as described by a press release in advance of their soft opening on June 3.

They offer protracted, excruciating deaths, with deluxe packages including holistic and bespoke physical, mental, and spiritual torture for months, or even years (but be prepared to pay extra!) Regardless of your package, every visit to the Visc is guaranteed to end with whatever is left of your ruined and broken body and mind being destroyed, and your immortal soul being damned directly to Hell, to be tormented with unimaginable cruelty for eternity.

The Evisceratorium That Sends Your Soul Straight To Hell’s hours are Tue-Sun, 9 a.m – 9 p.m.

We sit and watch the lake, because we can’t think of anything else to do.

We know that somewhere under the endlessly roiling water, stirred by the frigid winter winds, rests a being incomprehensible to us. Only a night ago, those of us who still lived watched in dumbfounded and traumatized silence as its forked tails disappeared back into the deep waters, churning its waves, the whole lake lifted by the immensity of its form, the beach surging with that algae clotted slurry. I thought to myself, inappropriately but unavoidably, ‘eureka.’

The youths, some of them orphans now, huddle together, whispering suggestive names for the being, all of them crass and too concise. They call it a “creature,” a description which seems lacking. A creature suggests it less than human, subjugant in a grand hierarchical structure. The being I saw is something closer to a vessel of a vicious and uncaring God.

My husband is dead. I’ve seen enough of the body, tangled through the wreckage of our cottage, to assure myself of this fact. I consider myself fortunate. At least I have a body. Many have nothing, just an unexplained absence, the vessel of God having swallowed them whole.

I find myself awaking from sleep, my bones crying out for the comfort of a bed. Impossible, now, my bed shredded, scattered with parts of Andrew across a fifteen meter stretch of our ruined village. The night shatters into an assemblage of broken shards of nightmares, visions of the still lake appearing before my eyes as my spine forms to the hard earth beneath it, my lungs to the harsh and cold air of December.

When morning dawns, I awake again, despite my best efforts. The displaced water of the lake has returned to its normal level. The displacement has abated, and the foam laps naturally at the shore. I say to myself, inappropriately, once again, out loud, this time…

“Eureka.”

The youths look to me, like I’m sharing some hidden wisdom, but I just shake my head. I have nothing to say. My words have left me with Andrew. My words have crawled into the lake with the vessel of God.

the skull boardin kid gets it wrong

"Ooh, great fun, I'm a little pumpkin lad, look here! Watch me turkey trot!"

"How dreadful. Patrick, come here, look at this awful thing."

"My arms are gourds and my head is a pumpkin, I'm simply a little pumpkin lad! I may dance only with the air but she is a partner that keeps me light on feet, and oh I love to dance!"

"Good lord, Mrs. Benson, this thing is ghastly. What an obscene little goblin you are, pumpkin lad. If we were not bound by a previous engagement we would take our time chopping you into pieces and roasting you over a fire."

"You don't want to roast me! I am a little pumpkin lad who loves to dance! Shall I illustrate the Maxixe for you? Or perhaps a Charleston? Oh there is a song in my heart, dear friends, and I must-"

"Patrick, flag down that disgusting street urchin over there. We shall pay him a penny to go tell the Fornesyths that we shall be delayed."

"Yes, Mrs. Benson. You there, urchin!"

"Do you delay your plans that you might watch me dance? Or, I see you grasping my arm, does this mean you should like to join? Shall I teach you the steps? They're quite simple, and will bring you great joy. Your grip is quite firm, Ma'am. Oh, horray and harrah! I cannot tell you the depths of my excitement to finally have a partner that I may dance with!"

"No, little pumpkin lad, we intend to chop you into bits and roast you over the fire, and perhaps bring you as a gift to our friends the Fornesyths to eat with butter and jam."

"Oh no! Please let me go then! I do not wish to be eaten with anything. I simply wish to dance! Let me go and I shall continue on my way to the dance hall in the city, and you shall never see me again! I do not care to be roasted!"

"That is very sad for you, little pumpkin lad, but take solace you will not be sad much longer. Soon, will only feel terrible pain..."

"Oh no! Oh no! Oh nooooooo...!"

You awake slowly, your mind and memories bound in a deep and lightless bed of cotton, wresting themselves together blindly, haltingly and by feel, towards the sensation of consciousness. Blurred images swim in your eyes, wet and only but half open. It's impossible to interpret them, spilled watercolor and shadow.

The effort proves too much. Your mind slips back into the depths of nothingness, and you cease to exist, once again. For a while.

After some infinity of time, you begin the ascent anew. Another infinity, and your eyes glimmer open again, light piercing the void. Another, and you remember the existence of your body, your limbs. You can't feel them yet, but the memory of them gives you some sense of your body again, and with it, comes your mind. Your eyes, finally, flicker open fully, and you can feel yourself breathe, the rank air filling your lungs, expelling through wracked throat and dry mouth.

The room slowly comes into focus as your eyes regain their function.

It appears to be the interior of some decrepit rotunda, piss-yellow sunlight piercing in from an array of oval and ill washed windows. Your neck doesn’t respond to your commands to turn, so instead you circle around with your bleary eyes, feeling tired, oh, so tired, or something below tired, like rising from the grave. Incurious pigeons and thick reams of layered pigeon shit sit on the ledges just below the blearing windows.

The light illuminates stacks of books, some large, leather wrapped, and decaying; but a great number newer, glossy paperbacks blossoming with mold and mildew, their airport-fresh patina forever stained. Some of the bindings have completely come apart, spilling leaves across the floor, yellowed from years of sun.

Your eyes adjust, now seeing into the shadows, and you spy now a bulky figure, hunched on a small stool, its hair greasy and flowing from its lump-ridden head. It appears to be breathing heavily, raggedly, the dampness of its back sodding its thin shirt, sweat glistening off its hairy neck.

You attempt to cry out to it, but you emit nothing more than a low and unfamiliar wheeze, vibrating through your throat muscles, nerves in your back molars inexplicably crying out. Still, it’s enough. The figure turns. Its face is ghastly. Its eyes meet yours. Small, dull, piggish eyes, embedded in a pocked and unshorn face. Its mouth splits from beneath the black and patchy beard, revealing jagged, yellowing teeth.

“Ah, you’re awake,” it croaks, in an ugly, high-pitched tone. It lifts a pair of glasses from the floor with fat, dumb fingers, raising them to conceal the eyes. You wish to god you hadn’t gotten its attention. Something seems terribly wrong.

“No need to be afraid,” it says, rising, revealing its hideous, toad-like body, clad in greasy t-shirt, stained and threadbare denim jeans. It approaches. The stench, rotten milk and liquor, hits you before it has crossed half the room. You attempt to cry out, your throat disobeying you, nothing but another hiss.

“You should not try to speak. It will... prove difficult. I am a friend. I don’t suppose you remember me.”

You do not. This... thing... is not a creature which you have ever seen before, in waking, or even in nightmare. Its tiny eyes squint as it smiles, wetness glistening below thick and matted brow. “My name is Jon Phillips. We were friends, once. Or, acquaintances at least.”

You try to make your body move, but it does not respond to you. In fact, you cannot even feel it, anything but a dull ache, a very distant pain. What was the last thing you remember? Who is this thing? Where is this place? Jon Phillips? Why does it so freely offer its name, if it means you harm?

“Shh, shh, there, there. Calm yourself. There is no sense in struggling. I mean you no harm. I am simply a... well, I am a vessel. For the Muses.”

The creature, Jon Phillips, lifts one flabby, pale, hairy arm, and gestures around it. The pigeons? Is it referring to the pigeons as Muses? This thing is insane. You must get away. You must get away now.

“I always struggled, you know. With capturing my visions, those beautiful, horrible visions given to me, by the Muses. I lacked... what do you call it. You know. Motivation. I was given the images, and yet, without a drive to draw them from me, without any vessel but the blank page to spill them to, the beauty of my visions languished inside me, turning to sickness, disease, and eventually, something close to madness. Words on a page are nothing more than that. An emptiness worse than emptiness. And no one to read them... no one... so alone... crying madly to the void.”

It laughs, staring at the floor beneath its flat and knotted feet, its laugh a disgusting, huck huck huck, like dry heaves. It looks back up from the floor. At you. Directly into your eyes. You try to close them and find the horror too intense, you cannot, you cannot look away from this horrifying image in front of you, or the terrible things it is saying.

“But now, I have you. And I thank you. I truly must thank you. For you have solved my problem. No longer will my Muses give from me, to the page, to nothing. Now, they have an audience. Now, they have an audience, if only of one.”

It reaches out, now, touches the side of your face. You try to flinch away but cannot. Its touch is so gentle, so disturbing, its fingers soft and wet.

“You... you do not need to do any work, now, to read my words. I have taken the difficult efforts myself, for you, to make things easier, for you. You are now page, and reader. You are audience, and form. And I will write only for you. From the Muses, to me, directly to you, without any liason, any creative broker. You are... you are, my beautiful, perfect, audience of one...”

It is then that it rotates the mirror it has been standing by, and shows you... you don’t recognize it as yourself, at first, and when you do, what’s left of your mouth attempts, and fails, to open into a scream.

Your eyes lock into your own, wide, swiveling, bloodshot. Tears leak down your cheeks, past your top lip, over ruined flesh, to... your jaw has been completely removed. Everything below your mouth has been either amputated, or destroyed in more hideous and insidious ways. Your head is no longer part of your body, instead simply a dome of skull and flesh, isolated, corrupted, and part of some ghastly machine...

The hard palate of your mouth is bolted to a copper plate, from which the keyboard of a typewriter springs. A purple slug, your fat and writhing tongue, works uselessly above it. Wires spring from the keys, tracing up through hanging vertebrae, directly plugged into your cervical spinal cord, and from there, buried deeply into your skull. Your trachea winds down a wooden dowel, held in place with oily fencing staples, to a thick plastic bag, which heaves as you attempt to scream. Your trachea works madly.

“Now now, none of that,” murmurs Jon Phillips, this hideous tormentor, this insane surgeon, this cruel, hairy frog of a thing. “Time for our first story together. What shall it be? Muses, speak to me.”

It listens, as you scream silently, you attempt to tear yourself from this horrifying situation, even to die. But Jon Phillips doesn’t hear you. It hears its Muses. They coo, calmly, above, amongst the windows.

“Ah, yes,” the hideous thing says, and sits down on a stool, in front of you, poising its dirty fingers above the typewriter keys that have replaced your lower jaw. “That’s just the thing.”

When its finger presses down on the first key, it is as if a great crackling firework had burst just behind your eyes, blossoming through your brain tissue until you see, lit in fire, bounding in front of your jittering eyes: W

E

L C O M E

T O

S P O O K T O B E R

S T O R I E S

Y E A R

8

Top review for "Halloween Haunted House Sound Effects Cassette/CD Vol. 8"
★☆☆☆☆ (1/5)

audio design ok. starts off pretty spooky, lots of screams and ghoulish sounds that effectively set the tone for a holiday party. that's the only reason this review is not ZERO out of five stars.

about 10 minutes in it gets VERY specific. i do not know who "brian jeffrey hopper at 2042 west ernest lane columbus ohio" is and i do NOT care for all the blah-blah-blah of his father begging me to contact him to help free him from where "they're" keeping him. i hoped he'd at least describe where he was, maybe give some spooky details... but instead he says they've "taken his eyes" so he can't see anything, and he just keeps pleading for us to "find brian, find brian, he can save me"!

no!

ten minutes of ok sound effects. fifty minutes of begging and crying and (admittedly gross, but not very frightening) throwing up from the pain. this is NOT what i paid for. disappointed. ruined my party. will not be buying from this company ever again.

I have a spare hour before work so I do a fifteen minute sublet of my cerebral cortex to the cloud computing company with the nicest looking ads. I try not to do this too often; my roommate Rebecca sublet her brain for three, four hours a day for a couple weeks and ended up absolutely fucking nuking her higher brain function, her grey matter now perpetually rented out, she’s making absolute bank but she’s a baked potato. I tried to pull her back a couple times, but ultimately it’s really nice having a steady source of income in the household.

During the sublet, I dream, a little, mostly primary shapes and colors, the name INGSOLL IV, a lot of numbers, and when the lease is up I have the taste of watermelon and iron dancing around the back of my throat. I cry, because I always cry, but things are pretty good, actually, I’ll be able to afford those boots with the lights on them.

I shake myself off, put on my shoes (no lights… yet!), step around Rebecca’s body, trembling lightly on the rug, and go to work.

a lazy short film called like 'the visitant' where it's just somebody going around their boring apartment while their phone glitches out with bad after effects plugins and the big scare at the end is somebody wearing white makeup jumps at the camera and makes a face like >8o

actually, the bride of frankenstein is the doctor. the monster is called frankenstein

Oh, so it's GHOULISH what I'm doing with the corpses, is it? Sure YOU'RE not the ghoulish one? Attacking a man for simply following his heart? Let me tell you, you need to do a lot of self reflection before you're in a place to judge anybody!

i've become one of those guys who says 'know what i'm sayin?' at the end of every phrase. everyone says, 'yea,' or, 'i know what you're sayin ha ha!' but when i ask them about it they'll never tell me. i don't know what i'm sayin. i don't. i don't. help me i don't know what i'm sayin i don't know what i'm sayin please help me know what i'm sayin?

Life of a gravedigger ain't easy. I keep buryin' em, they keep diggin' their way out. Company only pays me once, no matter how many times I gotta put em down. Ain't that just the way.

The man strains against his chains, naked, his eyes bloodshot and bulging, blind with it: "...The hunger... the HUNGER... the INSATIABLE HUNGER... I mustn't, no, I, dare not indulge, for if I give in to these URGES I shall truly be LOST... forever... lost in MIND and lost in SOUL... and yet the hunger GNAWS at me... it EATS at me from the inside, a greedy demanding BEAST named HUNGER... I must FEED... I must FEED, I've never felt a HUNGER such as this... please, Father, you must KILL ME to SPARE ME from this INTENSE HUNGER... I BEG OF YOU...!"

"Haha," responds Father Whitcombe. "Me in line at the Taco Bell, lmao."

"lmao," admits the chained, naked man.

She spends all day listening to comedy true-crime podcasts about her daughter's abduction, torture, and murder. Whenever there's a particularly witty joke she pushes another sewing needle into her stomach.

"Welcome," says the mat, but it's not very welcoming at all. The mat makes you feel very unwelcome, in fact, because it's woven of what is clearly your mother's beautiful blonde hair.

I'm not getting anywhere with the lady on the phone and she's so fakey-fake nice that I know that they've gotten to her already and she's just stringing me along until they can trace the phone booth I'm calling from which is 14 blocks away south from my apartment and another 8 blocks east, which i chose because their product is 112 and the number 112 is important and maybe it's how far they can search but i don't know yet

so I hang up and wipe off my fingerprints and burn a match to erase my pheromonal dna signature, take the bus back to my apartment and sweep it again for bugs and then it's only noon so I take another two buses and a taxi that I can't afford so the taxi driver pulls a gun on me and I get away only just but I don't think he was going to use it, to get to the big gray stone building that I've seen in the newspaper where I know they have to be.

i touch the door four times before i go in, just to be doubly sure that i am grounded and won't be riding any telluric currents, and i walk in and i ask the front desk guy if this is where they are broadcasting the messages into my brain from

"yes," he says. "lots of them."

"oh," i respond, slightly taken aback. "uh. why?"

"oh, you know how the cabal-" he gestures upstairs, rolling his eyes; solidarity between the working class. "-can be. they think you might be the reincarnation of so-and-so the redeemer or ba-ba-ba the avenging messiah or whatever, and are beaming these messages into your skull just to mix you up a little, so you won't redeem or avenging messiah anybody."

he excuses himself to take a quick phone call, returns, smiles politely.

i say: "is there any way to make them stop? if i promise not to redeem anybody, i mean?"

"i don't think so. you could fill out a form, but i don't think it would do any good, they're rather busy with their eschatological scheming and don't really bother with much paperwork. how about i let you go up and talk to their front desk man?"

i squint, and ask, suspicious: "will they kidnap and murder me or anything?"

"probably not, they're very busy, as i said. the fellow working the cabal's front desk today is jeschia, that's j-e-s-c-h-i-a, and he likes it when you pronounce it right: je-shy-uh. he's very susceptible to flattery, so i recommend you compliment his tie before asking any big questions like 'please stop beaming messages into my brain,' ok?"

"ok," i say, nodding, trying to remember: je-shy-uh. je-shy-uh.

"elevators to your left. floor 112."

"this building isn't that tall!"

he winks. "that's what they want you to think. good luck, and if i don't see you again, have a beautiful day."

"you too," i tell him, and mean it.