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of-tatooine · 4 years ago

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mercy. | chapter 5 - metal

you look for the light.

The freezing cold air managed to seep through the cardigan pulled over the scrubs as you gazed briefly into the night through the vast windows of the University of Eastern Colorado's medical wing.

Slight buzzing of white fluorescent lights surrounding the entire compound comprised of labs and makeshift infirmaries seemed to calm you down, giving you a sense of habitual ease that had been so hard to come by. In this makeshift base constructed out of whatever supplies remained from the university, scientists and doctors who had been at the top of their practice before all hell broke loose had been given a new direction, a new hope to serve humanity - you could spot them working hastily on various samples taken from Clicker dens, some gathering around a freshly taken out runner to inspect as you walked through the hallways of the college.

Would this time be any different? Was there really the slightest glint of hope for a cure after twelve years? Would the next blood sample from an infected, the next brain dissection pave the way for a novel discovery, arm humans in the ways of eradicating the Cordyceps brain infection?

As you made your way to your post in the infirmary, the repeating questions in the back of your mind brought back images of the tens to hundreds of infected dragged into this facility only to be ripped apart and studied to no avail. The leashed Clicker that bit one of the doctors during an experiment gone wrong, the way they both had to be brutally executed. The screams of the monkeys as scientists struggled to keep them confined to their cages. One of your patients turning right in front of you on the operating table, his teeth cracking with the newfound hunger he had for your flesh.

For quite the long time, the metal pendant against your bare skin with your name engraved forever on it, had emanated a certain comforting, relieving warmth. Knowing that you were part of something much, much bigger than just surviving day by day, that you played a considerable role in restoring faith for humanity. The glimmers of hope towards order coming back to society through any means necessary had given you much-needed strength to keep working.

The warmth of the pendant turned stone cold whenever your mind drifted to the blood you had spilled, to the innocent lives taken for the pure intention of survival, to the gut-wrenching memories of helplessly watching the military bash your kin’s skulls to the cement - made you double take whether there was a humanity worth saving at all. It haunted you that the patients you continued to save on behalf of them and the experiments you aided conduct would never even come close to make up for all of the sins you have committed over the years.

“They’re waiting for you inside,” the soft yet assertive voice of Marlene spoke to you, walking up to you with a slight smile on her features as you entered the infirmary. It was a pleasant surprise to see her, back in control and overseeing everything as best as she could. The Queen herself looked weathered down, having just returned to base. The dried splashes of blood on her caramel skin making you wonder about how many she had killed to get her crew out of the Denver zone and come back alive.

“On it. Hope this one does not turn on us,” you would respond with a brief nod as shivers traveled all around your bare skin under the scrubs, slipping out of your cardigan and making your way towards the somewhat sterile, makeshift operating room.

“Hold up, you see that?”

And the cold that froze the blood in your veins was replaced by the sweat forming on your neck under the burning sun. The scrubs so worn out you could not discern the color of turned into bloody cargo pants and a tank top. Linoleum you stepped on was no more as the dried grass crunched under your boots. The slightest spark of hope you had in your orbs disappeared as your head tilted up at the sudden call.

“Oh, shit. Fireflies.”

Whatever breath you had left in you got hitched into your dry throat, the hollow in your stomach deepening when you focused on that familiar white graffiti sprayed out on a stop sign, neighboring a house with a rather big porch. Instinctively, your hand would move to your holster, the absence of the cold metal against your neck seeming to hit you then.

Upon taking a couple of steps ahead of the duo, your eyes could spot the somewhat fresh white paint, some droplets leaked down the red metal, your focus then shifting to the faint yet audible thudding on wood on your left. On that, you took out your handgun with a vice-like grip on it, body twisting to catch the eyes of your companions as you gestured them to get down behind a rusty shell of a car.

Every fiber in your aching body owed their prolonged existence to the man kneeling beside and a deal was a deal - you help them out along their journey and then go your own way. Yet, being tasked with watching over the two, even though it was just for getting even, apparently struck some resurfaced sense of responsibility in you. It had been a damn long while since you had shot and killed for anyone else other than yourself, and for the time being, your adventure in the apocalypse had some meaning to it.

With the instinct fueled by responsibility, your arm would shield over the little girl crouched in front of you as you sneaked a peak towards the house. It did not go unnoticed that Ellie did not protest this time, only opting to send you a look of confusion mixed with anxiety, letting you handle the situation as you saw fit. Ever since that little chuckle you rewarded her for the terrible puns, she had been more accepting to your companionship meaning she did not curse at you every five minutes, hopefully seeing through your rough exterior that harbored a creak of innocence left. The change in her attitude towards you, no matter how small, you would need. You needed every single drop of trust and courage if you were going to make it out alive from this.

Joel, on the other hand, leaned his broad back against the beaten down car, the wide expanse of his chest rising and falling, a guarded expression on his hard features that you had never seen before. Every encounter you had with him since he rescued you, he remarkably possessed a determined composure, his olive eyes clear and set on whatever had been on his mind.

This time was different - in the face of imminent risk, he seemed to be pondering, his vision and face clouded as his emptied gaze focused on the cracked concrete road. Whatever it was on his mind preventing him from blasting in guns loaded, had to be pretty messed up if it made a hardened survivor like him falter. At that moment, you knew much, much better than to ask him if everything was alright and instead tried to count heads through the shattered windows.

Fortunately, you could only see two lurking around what seemed to be the open-space living room.

Leaving them had been one of the hardest things you had to do since the outbreak hit. The once revered Fireflies who worked to restore order to what was left of a country, seemed to be causing more havoc than restoration recently with their constant planned bombings in quarantine zones and increasing smuggling operations. With the military hunting down what was left of your old kin, many became stragglers just like the ones you were facing then.

You had to play this nice and safe. It was unclear if you could afford to tell the gruff man beside you the truth, that you had been one of them once - some hunch inside told you not to. You could trust him on the road, to some extent, but this information could cost you your precious life at best. The Fireflies were not exactly epitomes of good citizens, with your old leader’s wanted posters around the quarantine zones. That left you with the sole option of handling this clusterfuck by yourself.

You did not know what was worse - them recognizing you and sparing you for a while or killing you on the spot. It baffled your mind how you could bump into stray Fireflies out of all enemies in the forsaken world, especially when whatever soldier there was left ached to pop a lead in them, but you were about to find out the hard way.

One glance towards the side of the house where a driveway used to be under the grown weed, partially gave the answer and caused your lips to curl up a bit in hope.

“The paint’s still fresh. These two just arrived,” you whispered to Joel beside you, who seemed to jump out of his brief trance upon your words, the expression in his amber eyes instantly hardening into survival mode.

Switching your weight to your opposite leg with a wince, your nimble thumb would slowly turn the safety off on your revolver. The faint clicking sound echoed, making Joel and Ellie turn their gazes over while you would respond with a quick nod at their confusion.

“I’ll sneak in. Chances are they have pretty hefty supplies,” you made yourself clear to the pair, though you may have had slightly different intentions than just gathering supplies from your old crew. Upon that, the girl’s mouth opened up in protest but she knew better than to talk loud after the gaze Joel threw at her in a split second. The man shifted, turning to face you with his gaze slipping over to the little girl at times, no doubt assessing the situation.

“No. It’s safer if we just sneak around ‘em. Ain’t got much ammo to waste on two stragglers,” he reasoned, his voice assertive. What he said would be exactly the course of action you had followed if it did not involve members of your old team having something you so desperately needed. Without saying a word, you motioned him to look over his left shoulder, showing him the functioning pickup truck with the tail lights still gleaming a welcome red.

The man looked a bit appalled at his sudden luck - it did not come his way often, and when it did, it came at the cost of doing terrible deeds. It seemed too good to be true, and he would not put his and Ellie’s life at risk for a false promise of hope, but this time around they had someone willing to jump into danger for whatever God forsaken reason she had. The good man hidden deep within him did not want to let a wounded woman go in there alone, with her only defense being her gun, yet the survivor in him told him to protect Ellie and him at all costs - even if it meant sacrificing you to the cause.

If he had listened to the good man in him for all these years, he would be long dead and gone.

The brief nod he gave along with his own hands reaching for his gun were all the signs you needed as you slipped by his side and snuck up to the house, leaves crushing under your boots, your bandaged leg still a bit sore but manageable. Making your way around the stucco walls towards the back porch, you made sure to stay far away from the car - their main point of attention.

“Think she’s in the zone? Heard that place was a fuckin’ hunter trap for years now.”

Her? Who the hell were these bastards looking for? One eyebrow cocked in confusion, your hands clutched onto your revolver tighter, controlling your breathing as you would climb through the cracked open window, your boots hiting wood as silently as they could. The moth-eaten curtains swayed in the light summer breeze, the mid-day sun shining through the creaks. Heart beating out of your chest with your bare skin against the chipped walls, your eyes closed for a moment as the men’s footsteps made the hardwood creak and thud.

"I ain't steppin' foot in that zone after what happened to the old crew. She can burn in hell for all I care."

Moments like this brought out the worst of you. When you succumbed to the new woman this doom has made out of you. The ruthless killer it had molded you into. It had been a hard-earned virtue to shoot first and ask questions later. It kept you alive for so long, for over twenty years suffering in the gutter, but alive nevertheless.

That was not going to change anytime soon.

As you leaned over the edge of the wall, a gunshot rang through the house, making the ground rattle with a dying scream.

#mercy #val writes #writing #my work #fanfic #tlou #the last of us #the last of us joel #joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you

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hyperfashionist · 4 years ago

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Actual Cosplay, No. 26 S3E10 - Francis Dolarhyde: “Someday, if circumstances permit, I would like to meet you and watch you meld with the strength of the Dragon”

@fannibalgrowingcircle

So this was my costume for RDC5.

$$$ Francis’ boots: “The Ecco brand boots (size 43) are made of brown leather”

$$ My footwear: brown leather and canvas rolltop non-slip boots, Timberland via thrift store. These don’t have any mesh or metal in them which could conduct electricity, so these are what I wear in the Dangerous Woodwork Lab Of Sharp Power Tools And Sawdust.

$$ Dolarhyde’s trousers: “The Gap brand pants (size 34) are made of thick grey twill cotton”

$ My trousers: grey chinos, Topman via thrift store, as before.

Dolarhyde’s belt: not seen.

$ My belt: brown floral-embossed leather belt, thrifted, as before.

$ Dolarhyde’s hi-vis jacket: “The vest is made of orange polyester and includes various pockets beside the button-closure. Two reflective strips run down the left and right sides as well as around the waist.” “All three tops feature a logo reading `Sure Talk Telecom.’”

$ My hi-vis jacket: came in a pack of two from Amazon. The blank navy badge is also from Amazon with the SureTalk logo hastily drawn on in white fabric paint. I remember that I left this until the last minute so it didn’t even have time to dry properly :-(

$$ to $$$ Dolarhyde’s jacket: "The Denver Hayes brand jacket (size L) is made of dark blue cotton with a black polyester lining.”

$ My jacket: dark blue cotton/polyester jacket, Littlewoods via thrift store, borrowed from the Hyperfashionmum. I didn’t add a logo because it’s borrowed, but you wouldn’t see it under the hi-vis jacket anyway.

$$ Dolarhyde’s shirt: “The Dakota brand shirt is made of a dark blue cotton blend material”

$ My shirt: dark blue chambray shirt, Topshop via thrift store, as before.

$$ Dolarhyde’s gloves: yellow leather work gloves, Dakota.

My gloves: none. I would not have been able to work the button of the UV flashlight if I’d been wearing gloves.

$$ Dolarhyde’s hat: dark blue cotton adjustable baseball cap, Nu-Fit.

$ My hat: dark blue cotton adjustable baseball cap, generic via eBay.

To apply the invisible blacklight skull makeup, I followed this tutorial by Boy-Neon. He used Kryolan, but Kryolan had discontinued the invisible shade by the time I was doing this costume. I found an $$ alternative at MaskWorld in Berlin. (Back when Brits could just order stuff from neighbouring European countries T_T) Some have said their customer service is dicey, and in fact I didn’t get an ack email when I placed the order. I phoned the next day to check, and they were perfectly pleasant and efficient about it, and the makeup arrived in good time, so clearly they are legit traders.

Notice that Boy-Neon puts a UV bulb into his lamp and works continuously like that. All I had was the UV flashlight that I bought for the occasion, so I had to keep stopping and changing hands to see what I’d just painted, as I could not see the paint properly while I was applying it. Both Boy-Neon and I have very light skin, and I don’t know how well this would work on even slightly darker skintones. But on me, in normal lighting, you would only see the invisible paint if you knew it was there.

I taped the UV flashlight with red duct tape to the top of the receiver of a Fisher-Price Chatter Telephone so that when I “talked” on the phone, I could click the “on” button and activate the skull makeup. My chosen soundtrack was, of course, “Ring Ring” by ABBA.

PropStore Auction catalog entry

The Suits Are People version

Forth to next Francis Dolarhyde outfit

Back to previous Francis Dolarhyde outfit

Back to Actual Cosplay, No. 25

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theskinlabdenver · 1 year ago

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ember-overkill · 4 years ago

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@lily-the-killer

@sunshinetheproxy

Say hello the newest member of our crew, Willow the Proxy!

Name: Willow the Proxy

Real Name: Willow Wright

Nicknames: Weeping Willow, Catgirl

Age: 16

Age of Death: None

Ethical Origin: Hooman

Place of Origin: Denver, Colorado

Species: Neko human hybrid

Personality: Shy, sad, timid, sweet, cuddly, guarded but very kind when you get to know her, insane

Sexual Preference: Bisexual

Relationship: Dating Ticci-Toby

Family: Adopted parents, unknown bio parents, and Masky

Affiliation: Slenderman

Arrest record: None

Occupation: Killer and proxy

Motives: Fun and because Slendy told her to (she’s a proxy)

Date Of Birth: February 27

Weight: 110 lbs

Height: 6’0

Eye Color: Very very bright ice blue with a scar over the right one (which is blind but doesn’t affect her killing at all.) They also glow faintly in the dark and get brighter when she’s mad. She also has eyeliner running down her cheeks.

Skin Color: Ivory with pretty black operator symbol on wrist

Hair Color: Brown, butt-length and straight. Has bangs. Hair is dip dyed red.

Clothes: Black and red hoodie, ripped jean shorts, black combat boots, black and red striped stocking on left leg and black and white striped stocking on right leg, black choker with red gem, bandages around forearms, black and red mouth guard with operator symbol, black baseball cap, red eye patch, black and red spiked wristbands

Fears: Spiders, Zalgo, n losing Tobeh

Powers/Abilities: Retractable cat teeth and claws

Weapons: Two hatchets and two daggers along with kitty claws n teeth

How S/he kills/wounds in Combat: She runs up to people in the forest and butchers them with one of her four blades or her kitty claws and teeth

Weaknesses: Cares too much

Strengths: Really fast and smart, cat teeth and claws, weapons, and very stealthy because CAT

Cause of Death: None

History: She was put up for adoption by her bio parents and brother bc they couldn’t take care of her and adopted by a drunk dad and a mom who didn’t do anything. The only light of her life was her older brother Levi, who was killed in a car crash. She was also bullied at school as well. When she was 12, she snapped and killed her parents with a knife from the knife block. Because she was so young, this attracted the attention of the government, who took her away to a very top secret lab to be experimented on to make her stronger and some kind of prototype super soldier. She got cat ears and teeth and tail, glowing eyes, and she grew a foot. When she was 14, she killed the scientists and guards by taking their weapons and turning them on them. Slender then gained an interest in this strange creature and began stalking her, eventually taking her as a proxy. There she reunited with her brother, Masky, and started dating Toby, who was her childhood friend (did i mention that?) She also owns two red eyed hellhounds named Luna and Storm gifted to her by Slender even though she is not a demon.

Place/Type of Residence: The mansion

Notes: She is friends with Sally, Masky, and Hoodie, and Slender is like a dad to her. She hates Zalgo and the Rake (because ofc) and Clockwork, bullies, stupid people, and Deerhead (decent oc of mine.)

Theme Song: Animal by Three Days Grace, Monster by Skillet, and Don’t You Dare Forget The Sun by Get Scared

Catchphrase: “Do I smell fear?”

(Admin: I’m so sorry 😂)

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songofsaraneth · 5 years ago

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wow its been a minute huh but ok!!! apparently its been... 6 months since i did a catch up post y i k e s but that about tracks with the chaotic state of my life these days. so uhhhh let’s see where things are at since my last update. honestly if u want a better more consistent look at my life instagram @mermaidjadeofficial is my more active place now just cause i have to be better about it for business reasons :/

I successfully baked that wedding cake and it turned out lovely

still doing taiko drumming!!! I had my first stage performance this september, I’d played at small events or on the sidelines at some local half-marathon races before, but it was nice to push into full song/stage routine. as a hobby it’s been really nice and honestly. everyone should adopt a hobby where the other members are predominantly women over the age of 65. Birdwatching, knitting, book club, whatever. It’s so refreshing to spend time with people that far outside my age group and older ladies are a HOOT. Also with all my joint problems I finally feel on par vs spending time with all my climber/mountain biker friends. Also Karen’s having her hip replacement in a few weeks so everyone send her good vibes for her recovery.

keepin’ on with the modeling, though took a break for the later half of fall. Did several photoshoots this summer, including a big bridal one in july. It was fun but now that I have some for my portfolio I’m pretty over bridals, unless they involve some other fun concept. That’s like 90% of the photoshoots in Utah though because of the mormon population density so may or may not be shooting myself in the foot if I stop those. I am really proud of how well me & the male model in oregon did at pretending to be a couple tho! being able to pose naturally/convincingly with someone you’ve known less than 24hours is a skill, however undervalued, and I am proud of myself for being good at it.

I WENT BACK TO IRELAND!!!! ahhhhh my sad homesick heart. Spent time in Scotland & England again as well, I went BACK to the ISLE OF SKYE, it rained on me there a lot again but I did get one beautiful day. I got to see old friends, new places, old places I missed dearly, and eat a LOT of pastries. Like, a LOT. I could talk forever about the trip so I’ll just leave things at that.

While in Dublin I also went to worldcon again!! And I did finish my Raven Queen costume for it and I’m super proud of how it turned out. It’s the first corset I’ve ever sewn and it’s somewhat a miracle it fits but I definitely leveled up sewing wise with this project!!

got back from abroad and pretty much instantly got thrown right back into fieldwork. I don’t think I unpacked for a full month and a half after getting back since I was basically camping/staying in an airbnb for work for three weeks of september and the first two weeks of october. it was beautiful in the desert as always but also i cannot describe my relief at not having to live out of a suitcase for the first time since mid july.

i just realized that the cake picture followed by two bridal modeling example photos below it make it look like i actually got married so just to clarify. i definitely didn’t.

on the weekends between all those work trips I also ended up traveling, once to salt lake for some photoshoots! a fun La Llorona inspired one, one of my raven queen costume, and one just fancy dress one in the Utah Capitol Building.

and to denver to visit my bf/friends including one visiting from out of state, go to the oddities & curiosities expo, and then go two concerts!!! I saw Korpiklaani and Eluveitie, and then Arch Enemy and Amon Amarth, the later two I’d never seen play live before. I love moab but I MISS CONCERTS SO MUCH sometimes ahhhhhg

been trying to get better at my own photography/editing/retouching as well. have done a couple portrait edits of myself but I think I wanna start getting other models to pose for me so I can work on faces that aren’t my own bc wow does staring at yourself for 5-8 hours make you keenly aware of every flaw your skin possess.

I also have been very sparse online bc, and this is probably the main important one and no one will read this far down now that i’ve burried it. but i spent most of my free time the last two months studying for the GRE, which I have now taken. i am going to try to find a school/lab and go back for my masters degree, ideally with a start date of next fall. it’s a big step i’ve been putting off for a long time but i feel like if I just keep waiting I will never do it. so. that’s gonna be a big life change in my future, assuming I can find somewhere to take me.

because of the above: i am not doing NaNoWriMo this year. that’s honestly the biggest bummer of my life right now. I made it 4 years in a row and it is always such a good motivational challenge for me. and I’ve even had things I planned out to work on for most of it that I was really looking forward to!!! but honestly I just couldn’t swing it and study for the GRE and had to put the latter as my priority. which sucks. idk if I’ll have time to do it in the future either bc grad schedule but... yeah. trying not to think about it too much at the moment bc it bums me out.

Kazul is still the most perfect and beautiful snake ever and our 2 year anniversary was a few days ago :)

ok this update is hugeo so i’ll leave it there. if you read this far, pls sell me your attention span, i need to find/purchase/steal one before i go back to academia

#ramblings #PHEW #now will i vanish into the abyss for another 6 months #or will winter depression drive me back to the internet more frequently eyyyy #me #my stuff #long post #LORD tumblr really killed the quality on those nice pics of mine huh #uhg

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chiseler · 5 years ago

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Little Devils: 50 Years of Killer Kid Movies

Face it, children are just plain creepy—especially the really cute ones.

Historically—and I’m talking about going back thousands of years—we’ve always been scared to death of the children we’ve spawned. Before they’re born we worry they might be physically deformed or just a little off in the head somehow. And after they’re born and as they start to grow and think and talk, hoo boy, that’s when things really start getting scary, as you start to glean a little something about what’s going on behind those cold, staring eyes. I’m not a parent myself, but having been a kid once I fully understand the panic and fear that can grip parents as they come to better understand their kids. What if they’re no good at sports? What if they start hanging out with a bad crowd and using drugs? What if they get bullied by the other kids and take revenge by shooting up the school? Worse still, what if they decide to bludgeon us to death with a crowbar in our sleep one night? What if they turn out to be the bona fide offspring of Satan himself? What the hell do we do then? Sure, we all pretend to be shocked and dismayed when we hear news stories about some eight-year-old in Kansas or Oregon stabbing the little neighbor girl twenty times for no apparent reason, but let’s be honest—we all know what these pint-sized miscreants are capable of doing, and have simply come to expect it.

As with a few of those other fundamental adult fears, like asteroids, nuclear war, clowns and deadly plagues, over the years our fear of children has led to its own unheralded cinematic subgenre of Killer Kid movies.

While countless slasher films from Halloween onwards feature tykes with butcher knives who grow up to become adults with butcher knives, I’m focusing here on those films in which the snot-nosed killers remain snot-nosed throughout. While I could have included those rambunctious hobo youths from William Wellman’s Wild Boys of the Road (1933), those little back-to-nature wastrels from Lord of the Flies (1963) and the matricidal zombie girl with the trowel from George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968), I, um, didn’t. So sue me.

Here’s a quick chronological list of a double handful of notable features about murderous children. It’s interesting to note that as the years pass, the films themselves seem to grow less clever, endearing, original and interesting. Just like kids!

The Bad Seed (1956)

I’ve long been a big fan of that Mervyn LeRoy. As a director, he always understood the darker side of human nature, and had a sly sense of humor about it. In 1931 he directed my two favorite (and two of the bleakest) Edward G. Robinson pictures, Five-Star Final and Two Seconds. Then eight years later he directed The Wizard of Oz. I always like to think (though I’m undoubtedly wrong about this) he intended his 1956 creeper The Bad Seed as a kind of bonk on the head to those audience members who hadn’t recognized the darkness that lay at the heart of The Wizard of Oz.

Okay, Nancy Kelly plays Christine, the nightmare-plagued mother of the world’s most perfect little girl. Not only is blonde, pigtailed and always immaculately dressed Rhoda (Patty McCormack) perfect, the ten-year old knows she’s perfect. As a perfect child, she also knows what she deserves out of life and those around her, and lord help anyone who doesn’t cough it up. As time goes on, Christine begins to suspect Rhoda may somehow be responsible for the tragic drowning of a classmate who’d recently won an award Rhoda felt she rightly deserved. And if she was responsible for that, maybe she was responsible for all those other weird deaths that have been happening all over town, too. And what the hell’s the deal with that recurring nightmare, anyway?

Although based on a stage play that was itself based on a novel, it was LeRoy’s film that would become the standard reference point and template for so many of the Killer Kid movies down the line, though few would come close to matching it.

Village of the Damned 1960

John Wyndham was a reasonably popular pulp writer in the 1930s. While his crime stories gained him the most attention at the time, these days he’s best remembered for his occasional forays into sci-fi and horror. Day of the Triffids, his end-of-the-world masterpiece about killer plants (a personal phobia) was a major hit when adapted for the big screen, but his cautionary evil kid tale Village of the Damned had a much longer reach after director Wolf Rilla got ahold of it.

Yes, we all know the story: one day everyone living in a small English village falls asleep at the same time for some unknown reason. When they awaken several hours later, all the women of child-bearing age (even the virgins!) find they’re pregnant. Weirder still, they all go into labor at exactly the same time.

Ten years later, all the kids born that day have turned out to be extremely intelligent, blond, beautiful, and emotionless. Snappy dressers though they may be, they’re also arrogant little snots who have no time for adults or other kids, and only hang out with one another all the time. They also seem to share a psychic connection, and there are hints they have some larger purpose in mind. Anyone who tries to interfere with them gets the creepy glowing eyes treatment shortly before unexpectedly committing suicide. George Sanders at the top of his game plays a rational sort who tries to get to the Bottom of what all the hell,

It remains a starkly eerie and atmospheric picture that to this day can still make you want to punch blond British pre-teens right in the face.

The film went on to spawn one lesser sequel (1964’s Children of the Damned), one superior sort-of sequel (Joseph Losey’s 1962 These Are the Damned), a 1995 remake directed by Jon Carpenter, and a Simpsons parody. My favorite bit of cultural impact, however, is that some of your more out-there paranoids have worked Village of the Damned into the Montauk Project conspiracy, claiming beautiful, blond alien/human hybrids were created in the secret government labs in the caves beneath Montauk, Long Island. These Montauk Children, as they’re called, were set out into the world as sleeper agents (though most settled in Denver for some reason), and to this day are awaiting their secret orders from above.

The Twilight Zone: “It’s a Good Life” (1961)

It was included as one of the segments in Twilight Zone: The Movie, but good as that was, there’s just no topping the original. And there’s no topping the original because back in the early Sixties Billy Mumy was the creepiest kid on the planet. Rod Serling clearly recognized this, which is why he kept casting him.

Little Anthony Freemont (Mumy) lives in a pleasant small town where everyone knows him and everyone’s really nice to him. I mean really, really, REALLY nice to him,. And they’re really nice because over time they’ve come to realize that even if he doesn’t opt to simply blink them out of existence if they don’t do what he says, he has the power to make incredibly awful things happen to them. Even thinking bad things about Anthony isn’t such a hot idea. Things aren’t any better in the Freemont household, where his terrified parents (John Larch and Cloris Leachman) have to walk on eggshells out of fear he might do something else to his siblings, or them. )“It’s a…very GOOD thing that you did that…”)

It remains one of the most delightfully wicked and true portraits of just how terrified adults are of kids, and just how sinister kids can be.

Interestingly, Mumy apparently also had this power in real life, later going on to have a big hit with the novelty song, “Fish Heads.”

The Other (1972)

Kids alone are creepy enough, but you get twins to boot, you know you’re in for some bad news. And you get twin boys in a rural town in the 1930s? Holy mackerel, you might as well just pack it in right there and go home. Nothing good is going to come of it.

I don’t know how many times I watched Robert Mulligan’s film (based on the Thomas Tryon novel) on TV in the early Seventies, but it was a lot. Enough that to this day I still remember every shot and every line of dialog., but it still gets under my skin as one of the most effective of the lot.

Real twins Martin and Chris Udvarnoky play Holland and Niles Perry. As with most twins, one is mostly nice and sweet and innocent, while the other, Holland in this case, is the dominant, wickedly mischievous one.. Also like most twins, Niles and Holland share a weird psychic link. But in their case, and under the guidance of their Russian grandmother Eda (Uta Hagen), they can use a special ring to take things one step further. They call it The Game. As in Being John Malkovich, they can actually enter the consciousness of anyone they choose, from a magician in a traveling carnival, to a passing crow, to a corpse.

It’s a Northern Gothic tale complete with dark family secrets, farm accidents, dead babies, emotionally shattered mothers and real freaks. And an evil twin. It unfolds very slowly and quietly, and even though we get the Big Revelation at the halfway point, it doesn’t matter because the story rolls on with a few more twists and surprises left. It’s not shocking or terribly bloody, but extremely unnerving. Featuring an early turn by John Ritter and a Jerry Goldsmith score.

Don’t Look Now (1973)

Nicholas Roeg’s brilliantly shattered, hallucinatory narrative with the shock ending might be a loose fit here, but it had such an influence on other sort of Killer Kid movies (like David Cronenberg’s The Brood) it deserves mention.

The great Donald Sutherland was rarely better than he was here as John, an architect whose young daughter recently drowned near the family home in England. He takes a job in Venice, thinking a few months away from home might be just the thing to help him and his wife cope. Shortly after they arrive, however, they encounter a blind psychic in a restaurant who tells them their daughter’s spirit is around, and seems happy. Being the slide Rule sort, John is less willing than his wife to accept this at face value. At least until he starts having recurring visions of what seems to be his daughter all over Venice. Dresses like her, anyway. He becomes a little obsessed with that little girl in the red cloak who may or may not be his daughter. Who cares if she might have something to do with that whole nasty string of brutal stabbings around the city?

The less said about it at this point, the better (and easier, to be honest). Almost 45 years on now, it still works, that ending still gets me, and there’s nothing else like it.

It’s Alive! (1974)

People might cite Rosemary’s Baby as the be-all and end-all of films about pre-natal anxiety, but think about it. Sure, she gave birth to the Antichrist, but she has a good support network right there in the building, and if she treats him right, she’s set for life. No, for my money Larry Cohen’s breakthrough monstrous infant hint trumps them all, beginning with one of the most unsettling ad campaigns of the Seventies.

Funny thing is, though it’s remembered as a film about a baby with fangs and claws who slaughters all the doctors in the delivery room before escaping to go on a killing spree around town, if you go look at it again now you realize that’s only a minor subplot. It’s also a conspiracy film about government scientists using unwitting citizens as guinea pigs. Above all else, though, it’s an indictment of the mass media, which has the power to destroy the lives and reputations of innocent people on a whim, in this case the Davis family. And damn but that John P. Ryan is great as the horrified and disbelieving father who finds himself and his wife being publicly blamed (as is So often the case) for giving birth to a kid who isn’t quite right.

Much smarter and more subtle than most would give it credit for, It’s Alive ! Is loaded with Frankenstein references, and went on to spawn two equally good (and very different) sequels. To this day I will not put my face or fingers anywhere near a baby’s mouth.

Devil Times Five (1974)

The early to mid Seventies were mighty good years for Leif Garret. Not only was his picture plastered all over every teeny-bopper magazine in the country month after month, he was also scoring supporting roles in huge drive-in hits like Macon County Line and Walking Tall. Let’s just say considering his squeaky-clean image, Devil Times Five (aka Peopletoys) was a departure.

Garret plays one of five kids traveling on a bus which crashes in the mountains during a snowstorm. With the driver dead and not knowing what else to do, the five youngsters take refuge in a nearby resort.

It eventually comes out the bus was actually delivering the kids to an institution for the criminally insane, as they’re all kookoo bananas and extremely violent. There were hints of this beforehand, as per the standard asylum movie cliche, each nutty kid has a telltale tic—this one thinks she’s a nun, the black kid thinks he’s in the military. etc. But it’s all just mild comic relief until they pick up the knives.

Well, before you can say “Mr. Green Jeans,” they begin slaughtering everyone at the resort in a variety of hilarious ways, and occasionally in slow motion.

Unlike other Killer Kid movies which try to explain away antisocial behavior by blaming it on assorted external forces (government scientists, radiation, aliens, Satan, or an eclipse), these kids are just plain old evil by nature, and that’s all there is to it.

It wasn’t a big hit, it didn’t do much to propel Garret into leading roles, but today it’s earned itself solid cult status as a pre-slasher grind house number. And what’s not to love about the ol’ “piranhas in the bathtub” gag?

The Omen (1976)

In the Seventies and Eighties, a number of once-huge stars—Ray Milland, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Rory Calhoun, Ida Lupino, George C. Scott and, in this case Gregory Peck—found themselves making genre pictures simply because that was all that was available to them. Granted, The Omen was a few cuts above The Devil’s Rain and Tentacles, but still.

Okay, regardless what the producers and screenwriter David Seltzer may claim about the franchise’s origins, the original trilogy of Omen films was lifted wholesale from “The Devil’s Platform” episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

Be that as it may, when you get a cast like this, a smart director like Richard Donner, a simply astonishing score by Jerry Goldsmith, some diabolical camera trickery and editing, wonderful practical effects (Lee Remick’s fall from the balcony kept me going for years), and a story about a smiling, (mostly cheerful 3-year-old Son of Satan wandering around England leaving a trail of beheadings, impaled priests, seriously pissed off baboons and hanged nannies in his wake, how can you go wrong? Even if the script itself is absurdly silly.

In an interesting postscript, like so many other child actors deeply associated with high-profile horror films of the era—think Danny Lloyd from The Shining—Harvey Stephens (who as Damien spoke, what, five words onscreen?) would not appear in another film for the next four decades. And even then he hasn’t been in much, though he did have a cameo as a reporter in the remake of, yes, The Omen a few years back.

Alice Sweet Alice (1976)

I dare you to show me one worthwhile horror film about Presbyterians. No, as far as religious sects go, Catholics have it all over everyone when it comes to horror. You got your robes, your chanting, your weird rituals, your transmutation, your Inquisition, your fetishism, your magic relics, your ghostly visions, oh, it just goes on and on. The Catholic Church is just one big horror show, top to bottom. As a result, Catholicism lay at the heart of countless horror films, and Alice, Sweet Alice is among the best.

The tagline read, “If you survive this night, nothing will ever scare you again,” which may or may not have been a reference to the fact this was Brooke Shields’ film debut. Shields plays 10-year—old Karen, the cute, quiet, polite and well-dressed younger sister of that moody, smart-mouthed and generally ornery Alice (Paula Sheppard), who likes to pull nasty pranks and doesn’t dress nearly as well as her sister. Everyone from the neighbors to their own parents to the local priest adores Karen and showers her with gifts, while they just wish Alice would go away. She clearly needs to see a shrink or something. So when Karen is brutally stabbed to death outside the church on the morning of her first communion and Alice is found with Karen’s veil in her pocket, well, there you go. And then when a whole bunch of other people around town somehow connected with Alice end up all stabbed to death as well, well, there you go again. I mean, she just looks like someone who could do something like that, right?

Alice, Sweet Alice is an American Giallo, so the less said about the story the better. For having such a tiny budget, the visuals are rich and gorgeous, filled with Catholic imagery and ritual throughout, featuring a cast of wholly unlikable characters you honestly don’t mind seeing stabbed to death (especially that Little Miss Perfect Karen). The one standout is Alphonso DeNoble as the crass, sleazy, filthy and morbidly obese landlord Mr. Alphonso. DeNoble has a terrifying charisma, which may have come from being a bouncer at a gay nightclub in Jersey in real life.

Yes, the film owes quite a bit, and blatantly so, to Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, but aimed at a more lowbrow mainstream audience. It’s a bloody, nasty little shocker still held dear by thousands of disaffected girls who survived Catholic school.

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976)

1976 was not only a busy year for Killer Kid films, it was also the busiest year of Jodie Foster’s career, during which she appeared in half a dozen films ranging from Taxi Driver to, well, this, a film she and other cast and crew members would bad mouth down the line. In retrospect, it’s not really as bad as all that.

A 13-year-old Foster plays 13-year-old Rynn Jacobs, a precocious girl who may or may not be living alone in a rented house in a secluded section of a small, affluent seaside town. Her rich, nosy and suspicious landlady keeps barging in uninvited to ask too many questions, the landlady’s perv of a son (Martin Sheen) keeps putting the moves on her, a local cop is endlessly curious but nice enough, and a gimpy teenage magician from the area knows the score. But Rynn is self-sufficient and smart beyond her years. Enough so anyway to dispatch with all those nosy yokels who’d try and pry into her business.

It’s less a horror film than an atmospheric mystery that ties up all the loose ends by the three-quarters mark. Based on a 1974 novel, the claustrophobic stagebound film is mostly forgotten today, but back in ’76 the poster creeped the hell out of me. Certainly more than the film did.

The Children (1980)

Although “creepy bloodthirsty children” seems to be a simple, straightforward notion just bursting with possible storylines, 1980 marked the point at which screenwriters and filmmakers everywhere seemed to run out of ideas, so simply began rehashing those earlier, better films. Case in point is this slight variation on Village of the Damned.

This time around, instead of mysterious alien impregnation, a school bus full of perfectly normal kids drives through a cloud of yellow radioactive fog released from a nearby nuclear power plant. The radiation, it seems, turns all the tykes into shambling, emotionless and murderous zombies. Instead of glowing eyes, the infected kids have black fingernails (which was easier on the fx budget), and instead of psychically driving adults to kill themselves, the mere touch of these evil zombie children can fry any adult to a crisp. With little else to do, the radioactive zombie kids lay siege to their small town as the adults try to figure out just how to handle this. I mean, it was already hard enough trying to get them to go to bed on time.

Oh, derivative as it is, the film does have it’s moments. In fact it includes one scene I must admit I’ve never seen repeated in any other Killer Kid film, in which a group of well-armed adults barricaded inside a house open fire on the army of evil radioactive curtain climbers massing in the front yard. And when the adults finally do figure out how to dispatch the little monsters, well, let’s just say it was unexpectedly gruesome.

The Godsend (1980)

Given the year had already provided a Village of the Damned knockoff, it was apparently time for a Bad Seed knockoff, and an obvious one at that.

A pleasant and kindly British couple, the Marlowes (Malcolm Stoddard and Cyd Hayman) decide to take in a young unmarried pregnant woman even though they already have six kids of their own, telling her she can stay with them until she has the baby. What nice people those Marlowes are! But wouldn’t you know it? As soon as the ungrateful wench spits out the baby she vanishes without a word, leaving them with a seventh mouth to feed.

Being pleasant people they don’t complain too much, and over time the child grows into a polite and lovely little girl named Bonnie (Wilhelmina Green).

Well, sure enough before you know it all the other Marlowe kids start dropping like flies, and the parents take their own sweet time connecting the dots. I mean, come now people! We all know what happens to the youngest kid in a large family.

Itself based on a less-than-original novel, director Gabrielle Beaumont’s low-budget film plays like a TV movie, and lacks pretty much everything that made The Bad Seed so effective.

Bloody Birthday (1981)

On June 9th, 1970, three women in a small California town give birth during a total solar eclipse (uh-oh!). The resulting three kids—Debbie (Elizabeth Hoy), Curtis (Billy Jacoby) and Steven (Andy Freeman)—understandably share a tight bond, and as their tenth birthday approaches in 1980, plans are underway for a big bash pretty much everyone in town is expected to attend.

In the week before the party, maybe just to trim that guest list down a bit, the trio of little scamps undertakes a killing spree. They bludgeon and strangle a couple of stereotypical slasher film teens making out in a graveyard, beat Debbie’s dad (the local sheriff) to death with a baseball bat, shoot a teacher, and attempt to lock a classmate in a refrigerator in a junkyard. No one suspects them, of course, because they’re freaking nine years old. Nowadays we know better. While you’d expect the big party to be the film’s climactic scene, it just comes and goes without much happening, and those darn kids keep killing.

Around the halfway point, a teenaged amateur astrologer offers up the closest thing we get to an explanation for such naughty behavior. During that eclipse, see, both the sun and moon were blocking Saturn. Since Saturn controls the emotions, these kids were born with no conscience. Okay, so you come to accept a lot on faith in these things. Ultimately, though there are hits of both Village of the Damned and Bad Seed here, the picture owes much more to Devil Times Five.

Director Ed Hunt had made a handful of genre cheapies prior to this, but today Bloody Birthday remains his most memorable film. The dialogue is often painful, the soundtrack is comprised of library music from TV movies, and it’s not nearly as gory as would become standard for slasher films, but his three little killers all exude a believable David Berkowitz vibe, and the film contains enough boobs to earn an R rating. In an irrelevant sidenote, it remains one of the very few entries here in which the kids use guns, and, I think, the only one in which they use a bow and arrow.

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

Writer/director Robert Hiltzik’s weirdie is a delightfully oddball number not only within the Killer Kid subgenre, but also among slasher films, which is doubly surprising considering when it was released.

Although the film at the outset has all the standard earmarks of a cookie-cutter post-friday the 13th slasher film (a bunch of youngsters at summer camp, and endless supply of sharp implements, a fast-rising body count), careful viewers will note a few unsettling details. First, apart from the counselors, most of the campers (and victims) are pre-adolescent, and all the males, young and old alike, wear shorts that are just a little too short and a little too snug. Hmm.

Anyway, Angela (Felissa Rose), has been sent to summer camp against her will with her older brother. She’s pretty and nice and shy, but has clearly been damaged in some way. She adamantly refuses to go swimming or play games ore shower wit the other kids, despite repeated (and usually understanding) pleas from the counselors. She prefers to be alone, and isn’t much interested in making new friends. I know the feeling. I was sent to summer camp once, and after a lummox named Trent got to go home because he got a fish hook in the eye, I considered bribing those kids with the fishing poles to do the same to me.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen it, the less said the better. Let’s just say it fits the category, but with a notorious twist, and remains near the top of the lists of many slasher film fanatics I know. I do wonder, though, given the age we’re living in, how this one would go over today. It also leaves me wondering what the deal is with that Robert Hiltzik.

Children of the Corn (1984)

Yes, it’s a stinker, but remains a memorable touchstone within the then exploding subgenre of Stephen King stinkers. I always find it funny that King continues to bitch about Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining, but never has a word to say about this, or The Mangler, or Silver Bullet, or Maximum Overdrive or…

But that’s beside the point. Given the subject at hand, both the original short story and Fritz Kiersch’s film adaptation are interesting in that they represent a genre-blending crossover between Killer Kid movies and Religious Zealot horror.

AS much as there is to chuckle at here—my goodness what an awful bit of filmmaking, from the script to the performances to the camera set-ups and fx—dammit I keep going back to it. I do enjoy that flashback in the diner, as well as the fact the initial slaughter of the adults is never clearly explained. Not really, anyway. And I do dig the amateurish overacting on the part of John Franklin as the crazy young preacher Isaac and Courtney Gains as his True Believer henchman Malachai. And I’ll watch that R.G. Armstrong in anything. Mostly, though, I think I keep going back time and again just to hear the line “He wants you, too…Malachai!,” which has been a catchphrase of mine for years now.

Firestarter (1984)

Amid the mid-‘80s flood of Stephen King quickies, at least director Mark L. Lester had a few more chops than most. He also had a much larger budget, which allowed him to sign a cast that included George C. Scott, Art Carney, Louise Fletcher, Martin Sheen and Heather Locklear (!).

So a young couple who met in college while volunteering as research guinea pigs in a secret government drug test later get married and have a daughter. As these things happen (see Blue Sunshine or Jacob’s Ladder), those secret government drug tests have a way of hanging around awhile, with some mighty unexpected side effects. In this case, their new daughter Charlie (Drew Barrymore, who was in a few King adaptations) was born with pyrokinetic powers, meaning she can set anyone or anything she doesn’t like ablaze, the lucky brat.

Well, a few years later when the secret government agency that ran the secret government drug test catches wind of what little Charlie can do, they decide they’d like to have a little chat with her, and maybe her dad too (the briefly popular David Keith), who himself might have psychic powers. Or maybe they’d like to have something more than a chat.

Less a horror movie than conspiracy thriller and chase picture, Firestarter remains an oddity here, as it’s one of the few Killer Kid films in which we’re asked to root for the Killer Kid, actually hoping the wee pyro in question, even though she’s cute and blond, will set a few of those icky, mean adults on fire.

It’s hardly on a par with The Shining, Carrie, or The Dead Zone, but at least it’s better than Night Shift, Sometimes They Come Back, Children of the Corn IV, Cat’s Eye, Maximum Overdrive…

The Omen IV: The Awakening (1991)

As would become standard for plenty of other franchises that had seemingly run their course, some bright TV executives thought there was still some money to be made with that whole Omen thing. A decade after the last and supposedly final entry came out, why not give it the TV movie treatment? And while we’re at it, why not give it a fresh twist by doing a little gender switcheroo, right? So this time around, why not make Damien a girl? That’d throw viewers for a loop, wouldn’t it?

(An Omen IV novel had actually been released shortly after The Final Conflict came out, but it had nothing to do with this.)

The events of the previous three films have long been forgotten by the time we get underway here, I mean, don’t we see the Second Coming of Christ at the end of Final Conflict? Okay, so I guess Jesus had gone on vacation or something by the time two young smug and wealthy lawyers (Michael Woods and Faye Grant) adopt a new daughter without asking too many questions.

Their daughter Delia (Asia Vieira) grows into a pretty, dark-haired young girl who is extremely unpleasant. Oooon, but she’s a bratty little smartass who could use a spanking. I always thought the Antichrist was supposed to be charming and charismatic, but I’ll let it slide. In any case her New Age hippie nanny starts to suspect something far more sinister than smug parents might be at the heart of Delia’s bad attitude. When all her magic crystals turn black in the little girl’s presence, she starts making frantic calls to her other New Agey friends.

I’m going to stop there. Hilariously awful film, save for one scene, And that one scene alone is reason enough to forgive the film’s countless other unforgivable flaws.

The nanny drags Delia to a New Age fair in a park in hopes of getting a snapshot of her aura, and let’s just say things don’t go well for much of anyone. In simple slapstick terms, it’s on a par with Final Conflict’s montage of baby murders.

The Good Son (1993)

As he transitioned from the “dorky, buggy-eyed but still weirdly cute” kid in the Home Alone pictures into a “dorky, buggy-eyed and much less cute” adolescent, Macaulay Culkin decided to prove his range as an actor by playing against type in still another take on The Bad Seed.

Instead of telling the story through the mother’s eyes, in Joseph Ruben’s film we see things through the eyes of a nice, wholesome kid named Mark (a young Elijah Wood). After his mother dies, he’s sent to live with an aunt and uncle and two cousins. Not yet knowing he should avoid anyone named “Henry,” Mark and his cousin Henry (Culkin) become good friends. But after Henry is clearly delighted when one of his silly boyhood pranks triggers a deadly multi-car pileup, and after he shows off his homemade gun to Mark, and furthermore hints he once tried to kill his own brother, Mark starts to get the idea Henry might well be a psychopath with bigger diabolical schemes in mind.

Ruben’s picture is a slight cut above the likes of, say, The Godsend thanks to that change in perspective. Although Culkin makes for a believable psycho kid, it didn’t really do much to revamp his career and set him on that road to an Oscar. Thinking about it, though, Henry’s use of improvised and homemade weaponry wasn’t that big a step away from his Home Alone character, but with more fatalities and fewer cartoon sound effects..

Home Movie (2008)

The found footage/hand held video/POV horror film was pretty well dead and buried as a style by 2008, but that sure didn’t stop anyone. It was a cheap way to make a movie, after all. In this case, though, the story would have worked much better as a straight narrative, as the POV gimmick just gets in the way, leaving viewers (or maybe just me) repeatedly asking, “Why would anyone be filming this?”

Why, for instance, would an alcoholic Lutheran minister (Adrian Pasdar) choose to film an intimate argument with his psychiatrist wife (Cady McClain)? And why would a psychiatrist use the family video camera to record private patient notes, leaving them mixed in there with the Christmas and Easter home movies? Maybe writer/director Christopher Denham was trying to make a point about people so obsessed with living through screens that they can easily ignore the obvious and increasing threat posed by their clearly disturbed twin children, who mostly just lurk in the background as the parents focus on themselves. I doubt it though.

The creepy ten-year-olds Jack (Austin Williams) and Emily (Amber Joy Williams) were born on Halloween. While their parents try to desperately prove just how fun and cool and hip they are by setting up haunted houses in the basement and teaching their kids how to pick locks, Jack and Emily spend the first half of the film staring sullenly at the floor. Soon enough though, they begin killing goldfish, crushing toads in vices, crucifying the family cat, and attacking schoolmates, working their way up the evolutionary chain toward You Know Who.

Oh, I’m not giving a goddamn thing away here—the goddamn tagline gave it away! And even without the tagline if you couldn’t see exactly where this was headed with the first scene, maybe you need a nap or something.

To it’s credit, like Devil Times Five, Home Movie offers no explanation for why the kids are funny in the head. If you wanted to push it you could make something out of that Halloween birthday or the fact the family name is “Poe.” Myself, I just tend to accept that any kid unlucky enough to have a preacher or a shrink as a parent is fucked from the start.

Case 39 (2009)

Renee Zelwegger stars as a young sincere and overworked case worker at Children and Family Services. After the seemingly unbalanced parents of a shy, sweet and neglected girl on her case list try to cram the pre-adolescent into the oven (repeatedly!) one night, the parents are institutionalized and the social worker adopts the girl.

Okay, same as with Home Movie, if you can’t see where this one was headed ten minutes in, theres something wrong with you. Funny twist is, while I initially took it to be simply yet another Bad Seed knockoff (which it is) before deciding it was simply another Omen knockoff (which it is), by the half way point it finally became clear: what I was watching was in fact a knockoff of Omen IV: The Awakening. And that’s pretty bad. To make it all even sadder and more pointless, Case 39 is capped by a climax that makes absolutely no sense, if you think about it even for a little bit. Even the Omen IV had a better ending, and that’s saying something.

Considering all the above, the ultimate lesson to take away here is that, talk as we might about The Terrible Twos, it’s when the little monsters turn ten that you really need to watch out.

by Jim Knipfel

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loretranscripts · 6 years ago

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Lore Episode 8: The Castle (Transcript) - 15th July 2015

tw: death, skeletons, graphic descriptions of violence, medical procedures, body horror, torture, abortion, execution, hanging - generally not for anyone squeamish

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

On January 17th, 1894, a couple stood before a minister in the Vendome Hotel in Denver, Colorado. Henry Howard and Georgiana Yoke were about to be married. Standing near them was their witness, a woman named Minnie Williams. The bride had come from Indiana to escape a scandalous reputation and had found work in Chicago at a store owned by Henry. She was a tall, slender woman, about 25 years of age, with blue eyes and blonde hair, and she was madly in love with Henry. It sounds wonderful. It sounds perfect, actually, but there was trouble in paradise even before they met the minister there at the hotel. You see, Henry was already married. He was, in fact, married to two other women, and Minnie, the woman standing as witness, was actually Henry’s mistress of over a year. Even Henry’s name was fake – his real name had been abandoned long before, and it would be months before Georgiana would discover who he really was. Sometimes we think we know a person, only to discover that we were fooled. Community is built on trust, and that trust allows us to make connections, to let down our guard and to feel safe. When that trust is broken, though, our minds quickly shift to disappointment and stress and outright fear. Sure, it happens less often now in the age of Facebook and social media, but in the late 1800s very little stood in the way of a person falsifying their identity, and Henry Howard, or whoever he was prior to that moment in Denver, had turned that skill into an art. Few people knew this about Henry, though - in fact, few people could have imagined what deep, dark secrets boiled just beneath the surface of this smiling young groom. And when the world finally did find out, exactly ten months later, they could barely contain their horror. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

Henry Howard was born in New Hampshire in 1861 as Herman Mudgett. His parents were wealthy, well-respected people in their community, and their son was born into that privilege. But from an early age, Henry was a problem child, constantly getting into trouble. According to Mudgett himself, as a child his classmates forced him to view and touch a human skeleton after learning that he was afraid of the town doctor. Their prank backfired, though, generating a deep fascination rather than frightening him off, and that obsession with death would only grow. Soon the boy was expressing interest in medicine. One report even claims that he would actually perform surgery on animals. Along with his excellent performance in school, he was able to pursue that interest and enter medical school, enrolling at the University of Michigan as H. H. Holmes in 1879. Far from home and with access to resources that he previously lacked, college allowed Holmes to get creative. He devised an easy way to make money, a drive that would fuel many of his future crimes. It involved stealing a cadaver from the medical lab. Holmes would disfigure the corpse, plant the body somewhere that gave it the appearance of being the victim of a tragic accident, and then a few days later he would approach the life insurance company with a policy for his “deceased relative” and collect the cash. His final insurance swindle in Michigan netted him $12,500, but he knew his welcome was wearing thin. After collecting the money, he vanished, abandoning school and his new wife and child, who he never saw again.

He moved around the country doing legitimate work, but also learning his way around the business world. He mastered the art of buying product on credit, avoiding the bills, selling the items and then vanishing with the profit. Armed with that skill, he soon settled in Englewood, just south of Chicago, and that’s where he met Doctor Elizabeth Holton. It was 1885 – Holmes was trying to avoid creditors from all around the country, but rather than vanish into obscurity, he chose to hide in plain sight. He married his second wife, polygamously of course, and took a job at a local drug store owned and run by Doctor Elizabeth Holton, who’s husband was dying of cancer. Holmes spent the next two years becoming more and more essential to Holton’s business, paying her for ownership of the business and building relationships with the customers. When Mr. Holton finally did pass away, the payments from Holmes stopped and Mrs. Holton became upset, threatening to end their business partnership, but nothing happened. Nothing happened, because Doctor Holton mysteriously vanished. When asked about her disappearance, Holmes told the authorities she’d moved to the west to live with her family – right after she had signed over the business to him, of course. And the police bought the lie. Holmes operated the drugstore as if nothing had happened, growing the business and continuing his chess game of evading creditors. But when the empty lot across the street became available, he couldn’t resist the temptation. Holmes, you see, had bigger plans.

The World’s Columbian Exhibition was scheduled to be hosted in Chicago in 1983, and he envisioned a hotel that could house the countless visitors who would travel to the area. His project was lovingly called “The Castle”, which wasn’t far from the truth – it was 50ft wide and over 160ft long, taking up half a city block. With three storeys and a basement, it would eventually have over 100 rooms within its walls, and Holmes (ever the micro-manager) took on the task of project architect, refusing to share the plans with anyone else. Workers on the building asked questions, naturally, but when they did, Holmes would replace them. Most of the men working on the project never lasted more than two weeks, and all told, over 500 carpenters and craftsmen worked on The Castle. True to form, Holmes managed to avoid paying most of them as well; he would accuse them of shoddy work and refuse their wages. Some sued him, but he managed to put those cases off long enough that they eventually gave up. And once completed, Holmes moved the drugstore into the building’s ground floor and rented out space to other shops. His personal offices were located on the top floor, and the remaining space was rented out as temporary living quarters, marketed as a boarding house for young, single women. The Castle was open for business. Unfortunately, not everyone who stayed there managed to survive the hospitality that Holmes offered them.

When Mrs. Pansy Lee arrived from New Orleans, she rented a room at The Castle. She was a widow and had travelled all over the United States, before arriving in Chicago to settle down. When Holmes learned that she kept $4000 in cash in the false bottom of her trunk, he kindly offered to keep it in his store vault for her. Mrs. Lee declined the offer and vanished a short time later. While some people came to The Castle for lodging, others were looking for work. One of the requirements that Holmes imposed was that all of his employees were to have life insurance policies for the sum of $5000. Holmes, remember, knew the life insurance business well. And when 17-year-old Jenny Thompson arrived from Illinois looking for work, Holmes saw an opportunity. She was young and pretty, the exact sort of blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty that he preferred, and he quickly gave her a job. In casual conversation, Jenny let slip that her family didn’t actually know where she was. She had told them that she was travelling to New York, but the offer of a good job was enough to keep her right there in Chicago. She told Holmes that she couldn’t wait to tell her parents about her good fortune. Before she did, though, he escorted her up to her room, and she was never seen again.

In 1890, Ned Connor arrived at The Castle looking for work. He travelled with his wife, Julia, who was unusually tall for a woman at nearly 6ft, and their young daughter Pearl. Ned was a watchmaker and a jeweller, and Holmes hired him right away. But it was Ned’s wife who captured his attention the most. Holmes soon fired his bookkeeper and gave the job to Julia. Not long after, it began to be obvious that Holmes was more than a little friendly with Ned’s wife. Ned, for his part, turned a blind eye – it seems he was simply glad to have a job with steady pay and a roof over his head. When Julia became pregnant, though, Ned finally took the hint. He packed up, filed for divorce, and left her and Pearl in the care of Holmes, who immediately took out life insurance policies for both of them. But Holmes had a new problem: Julia knew the business too well, and she presented a threat to his illicit activities. Holmes found a solution, though. He told Julia that he would marry her, but only if she would have an abortion. Julia resisted at first, but finally, on December 24th, 1891, she gave in. She asked Holmes to put Pearl to bed, and then he led her to the basement, where he had a makeshift operating room. Julia and Pearl were never seen again. That same winter, Holmes summoned a man named Charles Chappell to his office. Now, Chappell performed odd jobs around The Castle, but he had a particular skill that Holmes required: he was incredibly gifted in the craft of articulating skeletons. Chappell arrived, and Holmes led him to a second-floor room, where the body of a woman lay on a table. According to Chappell’s own testimony to the authorities, the body had been “skinned like a jackrabbit”. He assumed, since Holmes was a doctor, that he had simply been performing an autopsy on a patient and pushed his doubts to the back of his mind. Holmes paid Chappell $36 to strip the flesh off the body and prepare the bones for articulation. The finished skeleton was sold to a Doctor Pauling of the Hahnemann Medical College. Doctor Pauling would often look at the skeleton in his private office and marvel at how unusual it was to see a woman who was nearly 6ft tall.

Holmes eventually made a critical mistake. Ironically, it was his old love of insurance scams that caught up with him in the end. After killing his right-hand man, Benjamin Pitezel, and attempting to pass the death off as an accident to the insurance company, the authorities caught wind of the crime and tracked him down. He was finally arrested in Boston on November 17th, 1894, 10 months to the day from his wedding ceremony in the Denver hotel. Before his trial began, however, The Castle was mysteriously gutted by fire. Thankfully, the authorities had already been able to search the building, and after doing so, they had given it a new name: “The Murder House”. The authorities discovered that, like any boarding house at the time, The Castle had a reception room, a waiting room and many rooms for residents to live in. But the building had more inside its wall than was expected. There were secret chambers, trapdoors, peepholes and hidden laboratories. Aside from the 35 guest rooms, the second floor was a labyrinth of passages. Some doors opened on brick walls, some could only be opened from one side and others were hidden completely from sight. Trapdoors led to staircases that led to hidden chambers. There were even alarms in all of the rooms that would alert Holmes in his quarters if any prisoners tried to escape. Some of the rooms were windowless and could be sealed off and made airtight if necessary. Some were equipped with gas jets that were fed by pipes from the basement. Others were lined with asbestos and had visible scorch marks on the floor. Then there was “the vault”. It was a room that could fit a single person, and only then if they were standing. The walls inside the vault were lined with iron plate, broken only by a handful of gas fixtures and a trapdoor that led to a chute. On the inside of the door was a single footprint, the size of a woman’s boot. It was a homemade gas chamber that was designed to deliver corpses straight to the basement. And when the police descended to the lowest level of the building, they discovered that Holmes had expanded the basement beyond the foundation of the building and out beneath the sidewalk. He did this to make room for all of his equipment. Here they found the dissection table, still splattered with blood, jars of poison filled a shelf, and a large wooden box nearby contained multiple female skeletons. A crematorium was built into one wall, which still contained ash and bone fragment. A search also found valuables that belonged to some of his victims: a watch that belonged to Minnie Williams, scraps of fabric, tintype photographs, and a ball of women’s hair, carefully wrapped in cloth. The bones of a child were found buried in a pit, and the remnants of a bloody dress were recovered from a woodburning stove. When Ned Conner was asked to identify the fabric, he confirmed that it belonged to his wife, Julia. A rack designed to stretch bodies was also discovered. Beneath the dirt floor, they found a vat of corrosive acid and two quicklime pits, used for quickly dissolving the flesh off of corpses. There were human skulls, a shoulder blade, ribs, a hip socket and countless other human remains. Whatever the police had hoped to find that day, they were simply unprepared for the truth. In the end, they had discovered a medieval chattel [?] house, right beneath their feet.

It’s easy to feel safe in our own neighbourhood, walking past the closed doors and manicured lawns, but what goes on behind those walls is never something that we can be sure of. Each and every person we meet wears a mask, and we’re only allowed to peek behind it if they let us. Society is built on the idea that we can trust the people around us, that we can take our neighbours, our family, even our co-workers at face value, and enter into relationships with them. But with every relationship comes risk. We risk disappointment, we risk pain and betrayal. For some of us, we even risk our very safety. European mapmakers of the 15th century would sometimes mark unexplored areas of their maps with a warning: “here there be monsters”. There’s danger in the places we haven’t explored, and while this was true then of undiscovered continents, it has always been true of humanity. Beneath the surface, behind the mask, hides the monster. On May 7th, 1896, after a final meal of boiled eggs, dry toast and a cup of coffee, H. H. Holmes was led to the gallows at Moyamensing Prison. A black hood was placed over his head, and as the crowd outside the prison walls shouted their insults and jeers, he was positioned over the trapdoor. When it opened, Holmes dropped, and his head snapped to the side. But rather than killing him quickly, the rope had somehow broken his neck and left him alive. The crowd watched for over 15 minutes as Holmes hung from the noose, fingers and feet twitching and dancing, before his heart finally stopped beating. Holmes was buried in an unmarked grave in Holy Cross Cemetery, just south of Philadelphia. As per his request, there was no autopsy, and his body was buried in a coffin filled with cement. Holmes, you see, was afraid that someone would dig up his body and use his skeleton for science. He was probably right. We don’t know how many people he killed – Holmes confessed to a variety of numbers, even changing his story again on the hangman’s platform. Some experts who have studied the missing person’s reports of the World’s Columbian Exhibition have placed the possible death toll as high as 200. There’s so much we don’t know about Holmes, a man whose entire life seemed to be one elaborate lie built atop another, like some macabre house of cards. He will forever remain a mystery to us, a monster hidden behind a mask that was painted to look just like you or I. But one last insight into the man can be found in his written confession. “I was born with the devil in me”, he wrote, “I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing. I was born with the evil one standing as my sponsor beside the bed where I was ushered into the world, and he has been with me since.”

Lore is a biweekly podcast, and was produced by me, Aaron Mahnke. You can find out more about this episode, including the background music, at lorepodcast.com, and be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook, @lorepodcast. This episode of Lore was made possible by you, our amazing listeners. [Insert sponsor break]. And to find out how you can support Lore, visit lorepodcast.com/support. You’ll find links to help you leave a review on iTunes, support Lore on Patreon for some awesome rewards, and find the list of my supernatural thrillers, available in both paperback and eBook formats. I couldn’t do this show without you, and I’m thankful to each and every one of you. Thanks for listening.

#lore podcast #podcasts #aaron mahnke #h h holmes #serial killer #chicago #murder house #transcripts #8

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dacianav · 6 years ago

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⋆ ◦ ° ☾ ana de armas + cisfemale + she/her — have you seen scout calhoun around? this twenty eight year old known as the southern bellle has been hanging out at town square a lot recently. they are a civilian that works as a/n bookshop owner, and they feel hopeless about the gangs. a bisexual capricorn, they are compassionate + generous, as well as naive + irrational. old books, magnolia trees, matching tattoos.

(hello here is my second babe come see this soft lil cutie)

Miss South Carolina 1991, Ashleigh Allen, crashed and burnt the eve of Miss America. A pregnancy scandal, her small southern town was up in arms, the father unknown and she was not sharing. And so she ran west, taking her crown and favorite book, until she ran out of money in Valdez, CO. With nothing but her looks and sweet southern charm, she bounced around jobs until the birth of her daughter, Scout, named for the main character of To Kill a Mockingbird, on New Years Day. Ashleigh had no marketable skills except her stage presence, and took a job as a lounge singer for the Cobras under the condition that her daughter was to remain ignorant of her mother’s gang affiliation.

She was a beautiful child, soft and friendly, sometimes overly friendly. Scout adored reading and wore her mother’s crown while pretending to be Glinda the Good Witch, King Arthur, or whoever was her current literary obsession at the time. Ashleigh wanted more for her daughter, wanted to help her get out of Valdez and not caught up in the gang politics. She tried to be a good mother, but she was young and soon found a man and became wrapped up in him. Her conservative southern grandparents sent money occasionally, as long as Scout was sent to them, alone, every Christmas. She grew up gentle, naive, and with a warm southern accent like her mother and grandmother.

Her future ex-husband (WANTED CONNECTION) was a tornado, sweeping into Scout’s life and becoming all consuming. At sixteen what did she know of love? Only what she had seen in books, and if it was not all consuming then what was the point. He was damaged and broody and arrogant in all the best ways. She brought out a softness in him and he gave her an edge. Scout wore red lipstick and drank tequila, sneaking out late and coming home with hickeys left like love letters on her skin. On his birthday, they got matching tattoos. On hers, they got married in Vegas in a drunken declaration of love.

Once she saw the ring on her daughter’s finger, Ashleigh broke. Scout, she felt, was trapped in the cycle she had started but did not want to take responsibility for. So mother left her daughter the house in Valdez, moving to Denver for a new life with her new husband.

Marriage is difficult, and you’re too young, they’d all said. Scout in her romantic notions had faith in this love story. Scout tried to be patient, they were young, he was learning, he promised he would stop. Every time he came home fucked up, or took some of the money they were saving for a honeymoon, or forgot something important to her they fought. She hated herself for the venom he pulled from her, and sometime feared the next time his fist wouldn’t just hit the wall. Later, when they tired of yelling and angry, sometime violent, sex, she would lay in his arms and accept every apology.

Until she couldn’t anymore.

And so she left, cutting out a part of her heart and leaving it on the bedside table. Back east, to her grandparents who welcomed her with open arms, ignoring the tattoos and ring she never returned. Scout went to school, studying literature and politics at Emory, trying to fill the emptiness in her chest with words. She lived happily in the sunshine and history of Charleston, letting it soften the parts of her that had been sharpened by him. She even considered marrying again, but found herself not quite satisfied by the nice man who sought her affection. Using her degree, Scout fundraised for a congressional race in 2016, and then became the finance director for a democratic congressman in 2018. She was happy in campaigns, but the constant pressure soon burnt her out and she sought a change.

The news of her mother’s death was sudden, but not entirely unexpected. She’d slipped into drugs after her divorce and at the news of Scout moving back east. She left behind the house in Valdez, and the small bookshop she’d bought but never actually opened in an effort to bring her daughter back. Scout came back to Valdez, intending to clean up her mother’s mess then leave, but something made her stay. Maybe a hopelessness about the gangs that permeated the town, the children who were destined to follow parents into a bloody war over a small town ignored by the rest of the world. Scout couldn’t leave without offering something to the place shed grown up, where she’d been happy.

Details

-scout opened the bookstore her mother failed to, trying to bring a place where the citizens who live in valdez can find an escape through the pages of a book

-she has a dog named Boo, a big black lab mix who looks scary but is a big softie

-sounds like Scarlett from Gone with the Wind or the ladies from The Help, v southern and gentle, ok not like redneck southern accent

-was the president of her sorority so she is that girl

-just met her father! aka Stan aka savage pimp aka lots of angst for scout

-her ex-husband is an open connection! I want toxic relationship! drama! angst! he's in a gang and she's like yikes!

-she still loves him and hates herself for this

-other than the tattoo she got with him, she only has one more. it was a drunken night her first year of school which lead to “these violent delights have violent ends” inked under her left breast

-kinda scared to be back in town?

-a very soft girl, ruined by her ex

(this has been updated to reflect a lack of an ex-husband! HMU if ya wanna pretty southern ex-wife

#outlaw.intro #outlaw.ooc #(scout)#what's your damage / muse #beauty queen baby / face #wanted connection #updated!

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theeldestbruner · 6 years ago

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Soul Script pt.2

Plance Fic, College AU, Soulmate AU

A/n

Thanks for coming back for another chapter! I hope you enjoy!

Word count: 2,319

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Katie stared at the solid wood door in front of her while dread settled into her heart. He was going to freak out, wasn’t he? He had no idea she was going to show up today, and she’d done everything in her power to make sure he’d never know she was coming, it was a complete and utter surprise...which only scared her even more. A sigh escaped her lips, and she stared at her shoes. The best bet was just to knock and get it over with, like ripping off a bandage. Right? She stood there a moment more with her suitcase sitting on the floor next to her, and taking one last deep breath she prepared herself to knock with a determined gleam in her eye. It took a few moments, but eventually she heard someone messing with the doorknob and with a click it swung open. Matt didn’t seem to notice it was her at first, so he just opened it casually like he was expecting company. Then she could see the surprise hit him in the face and he smiled, pulling her into a massive hug and spinning her around.

“Oh my gosh! Katie! What are you doing here?” he pulled away and looked at his little sister. “I thought you were still back with mom and dad in Denver?”he was so excited he almost sounded like a little kid who just got a puppy. Matt’s hair had gotten longer since she’d last seen him, like he was going for a ‘messy but smart’ vibe. She smiled back at him.

“I kinda did my best to make this a surprise,” she said.

“Well, it certainly is! How long are you staying for?” Lower in the building, the main door opened and someone started climbing the stairs. Matt’s apartment was only 302, it wouldn’t take long for someone to start listening in on them.

“Let’s talk inside Matt, I’m gonna need a minute to explain everything thoroughly,” she said. He shrugged, and scooted over to make room for her to get through the door. She hurried in and sat down on his old brown leather couch, Matt closed the door right as the footsteps on the stairs could be heard passing by. He jumped over the back of the couch and flopped down on the other side from her.

“So what brings you all the way out to lil’ ol’ Portland Pidge?” he asked.

“I told you to stop calling me that, it doesn’t even make any sense,” she huffed, “mom and dad are going to sell the house since I was moving out soon anyway. But, I’ve been having a hard time finding an apartment, it’s been ridiculous trying to juggle it with classes and tutoring.” She looked over to make sure he was still listening, and Matt nodded and waved for her to keep talking. “So now it’s come to the point where their real estate agent is going to close on a smaller house on the North side of town and sell the old one while they disappear on a cruise for nearly a year. Soooo now I’m here! Surprise!” They sat in silence while Matt looked at the floor in thought, then scratched his jaw and looked back up at her. His smile was so sympathetic, it almost hurt.

“You’ve had a rough couple months, huh Pidgie?” He stood like a rocket taking off into orbit, then grabbed her suitcase. A sunny smile across his face, it was so bright and cheery Katie almost had to block the light with her hand to keep from going blind. “Well, seems like you’re gonna be here for a while then! Let me give you the grand tour!” She got up as well and analyzed his expression, he really was just happy to have her here.

“Thank you Matt, I promise that I’ll get a job as soon as possible and help with the rent. I’m not just going to be some freeloader.”

“That’s sweet of you, but as you can see my job as a lab assistant makes my life in this little place quite comfortable,” Matt looked at the tiny kingdom he’d built for himself from the bottom up and grinned, “I want you to focus on your school work more than anything else. Come on, I wanna show you your room.” She nodded and followed him down a hallway, at first there was a bathroom on the left and then at the end was a fork that led to two different rooms. Matt walked into the room on the left. It was small, but just to the left of the door a full size mattress sat on the floor, and an armoire was tucked into the far corner with an open window next to it. There was a closed closet on the other side of the bed. That was it. She couldn’t really ask for more than that, she had just shown up totally out of nowhere.

“Thanks Matt, I’m gonna get this stuff put away for now. There’s more in the car outside but I just really wanna relax.” He set the suitcase down and nodded, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“That sounds good to me. I’m gonna go take a quick shower, once you’re done the place is free roam. I’ve got like a thousand snacks and some leftover chinese in the fridge, the TV has netflix, hulu, and showtime so you can pretty much watch anything.”

“Wow, you’re pretty stacked on shows aren’t you?” she said with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s the only way to get all the classics, you know. I can’t go a whole month without Leatherheads or Definitely Maybe, but they’re spread out. This way I can make sure I always get at least one of the movies I love.” Matt waved his hand and started to walk out the door. “Now stop making fun of me and make a room for yourself. There’s some sheets and a mink in the bottom drawer of the armoire. Sorry if they smell funny at all, I picked the mattress up with them for like 100 dollars from someone a few floors above me when his girlfriend left.”

“Okay, thanks again Matt,” she said with a smile.

“No problem Pidge,” he said, walking out of the room.

“Stop calling me that!” Katie could hear him laugh in the hallway and then the bathroom door closed. She took a deep breath and decided to take a look out of the window, kind of take stock of her environment. It was missing a screen, but that was because it led out onto a fire escape with steps leading up and down the building. “Well, it must be a decently nice area if nobody broke in with the window like this.” With a shrug she dipped her head back in the room and began unpacking her bag. Hanging shirts, folding pants and pjs, making the bed using hideous mink with a picture of a pug on it from the close, laying a small alarm clock next to the bed, and finally pulling out a small green stuffed lion she’d gotten as a present from her dad as a kid, setting it down on the bed as though it were a priceless heirloom. Her eyes wandered over the room and tried to evaluate what else she might be able to do with it later, the bed being on the floor didn’t bother her so it would stay, but she would need to get a desk to work at. Katie’s left hand came up and started rubbing a spot right above her right collarbone. It was her soulmark.

The day she turned fifteen had been extremely confusing, mainly because she’d been almost certain that her love for science and technology would keep her from ever leading a healthy relationship. Katie spent so much time on herself, she’d never considered that one day she’d have to spend some of that time on another person. Why should she receive a soulmark? It made sense for Matt, he was a big sap at heart. But when the feeling of a cool ocean breeze swept past her neck, and she’d looked down to see the script glowing to life on her skin in a deep blue she’d been a little annoyed. Permanently engraved on her skin, where everyone could see, was “Oops...My Bad.”

Whoever her soulmate was supposed to be was sure to either be a clueless idiot or a clutz. For a long time she’d made it up in her mind that she would definitely tell them off for wasting such a profound moment on words like that. However, over time she’d come to find it almost endearing, in an annoying, irritating, and maddening way. Sure, they might be an idiot, but dammit if they weren’t going to be her idiot. Whenever her soulmark would light up and she noticed Katie would immediately place her hand over it. Sometimes it glowed for hours, and others it was just a quick flash. But all of them were reassuring and let her know that someone, somewhere, had her back. She’d needed that desperately when she’d said goodbye to her parents yesterday morning as they left for the cruise. But now she was here, living with her brother once again.

There wasn’t a community college or university she’d ever been particularly drawn to attending, so instead she’d opted for online classes and was working towards a doctorate in Botany through them. It made it easier to move because this way she hadn’t had to worry about transferring to another college when she moved. Satisfied that she’d done all she could with the room for now Katie walked back towards the kitchen and living room, thinking that Matt’s leftover chinese sounded pretty good after the long drive. It was lemon chicken, a family favorite, and she practically sprinted to put it in the microwave once she realized. She could hear someone with very heavy feet in the apartment above this one walk over to a spot right above her.

“No place is perfect I guess, I should just be grateful that the ceiling looks sturdy enough to hold up with people walking all over it.” While Katie was standing there and staring off into space, she absent-mindedly reached up and started rubbing her soulmark again. It felt warm, which she supposed made sense considering that the neck was on of the warmest parts of the body, but for a moment she entertained the thought that there might be another reason behind it. With a ding she pulled the styrofoam box out of the microwave and walked over to the couch, plopping down and reaching for the remote. She was in the mood for a good, old-fashioned rom-com. It had been ages since the last time Katie had last watched one, and the silly hopefulness matched her current mood perfectly. Netflix had exactly what she was looking for, What If was one of her movies. But she wasn’t even five minutes into it when she could hear someone running above her like a maniac and yelling, then there was a quiet thud and she became increasingly curious.

“D-did somebody just get murdered? Did I just hear someone get killed?” Katie wasn’t even scared, she was more curious than anything else really. She waited, the movie paused and her ears perked up. Depending on how you viewed the situation, she was either very lucky or very unlucky that she didn’t have to wait long to hear something else. Except this time it was down the hallway, right in front of the bathroom. There was the sound of something cracking and then several loud thuds followed by a larger one, she reached for the first thing she could protect herself with and creeped down the hall. The bathroom door was blocked from opening by chunks of concrete, dust was flying everywhere, and sitting sprawled out on top of all the rubble was a boy. On the other side of the bathroom door, she could hear Matt pounding on it and trying to break it down, though she couldn’t understand what he was yelling

She looked down at the boy that fell through the ceiling, he had cinnamon brown hair, chocolate skin, and navy blue eyes that popped out in contrast. His arms and legs were long and lanky, but look like they had a decent amount of muscle. He wore a gray baseball shirt with blue sleeves, jeans, and a pair of black converse. His hand reached up and began rubbing the back of his head, he’d probably hit it pretty hard during the fall?

“Lance! Are you okay? Hang on buddy, I’ll be right down, just stay right there and don’t move!” Katie looked up and through the new hole in the ceiling she could see a larger person with an orange headband duck away before she heard a door open and close. What Katie hadn’t realized during all of this was that her soulmark was practically radiating like the sun, as did the boy’s in front of her. Blue and green light shined up and mixed into teal. She finally noticed the glowing words on his neck, and her heart leaped into her throat, oh no way. No way this was how they meet, right? Just then he lifted his head and looked at her, then at the mess of dust and concrete around him with his eyes growing wider by the second, and then back at her.

“Oops...My bad,” he said. Katie just got angry at that point. She knew he was going to waste the first words on something stupid, but come on! That just blew every other stupid thing she’d ever heard out of the water.

“What the fuck is WRONG with you?!” she yelled.

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#plance #pidgance #flirtyrobot #pance #lance mcclain #pidge gunderson

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disconsolatememoir-blog · 6 years ago

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Affairs of the Flesh | Drabble | 04.02.19 |

Gore TW loves, don’t like it don’t read it. Also cannibalism.

The sweet springtime air always left Firkle with a bit of a spring to his step, especially on nights like this one. Ones where his own ghastly pale skin could drink in the moonlight, while being completely obscured under a thin black satin cloak. His mom was already off to her own sermon of sorts, which left the teen members walking, single file, through the winding path to a place they called the Circle. They were going off to not just feed their Lords but to feed themselves.

Firkle was the highest ranking in the group, despite being the youngest, leading the group of near adults off to the location he liked least. It always appeared almost quaint, if not utterly abandoned, grey uneven brick, shattered stained glass windows, a boarded up door, but they were at the place they needed to be. Nearly a five mile hike from Mephesto’s lab, resting deep in the lost woods. The goth turns to the oldest boy there, “Text the Highest to tell him we’re here, so they don’t think you’ve gotten your rank lost again. After all, I’m here to fix your mistakes.” His tone was one of annoyance, arrogance, and despite how irritated he was that he had to correct this cluster of seventeen and eighteen year olds, he much preferred it to the Court, where his mother was holding a service. “Be grateful it’s me cleaning up, and not my sister, she’d have you fed to the Beasts.” The pack of overgrown wolves were always hungry for heretics.

Stepping in through what was once a stained glass window, but was now a curtain, hidden behind a tree up against the brick. They were careful to keep these locations looking like no one’s been here, the less people know about the Starry Wonders, the better for their anonymity. Once inside, the goth went to work, sweeping out the dirt that’s settled inside, to cast a new circle, and keep an eye. This group was supposed to be in training to start teaching the next generation of toddlers, but the leader, a mildly attractive blonde from a Denver family named Karson, failed to have any intelligence. Or at least as far as Firkle could tell, this guy wasn’t exactly a sharp enough to be allowed in the shed. That’s where he came in, his mom had him in the most advanced lessons within the congregation since he could talk, so if anyone could whip them into shape by throwing them into the deep end, it was him.

The real question is, will they sink or will they swim?

A mere fifteen minutes later, Firkle had a the circle laid out in a salt and herb mixture, the rows of candles carefully placed and lit systematically. In truth, he did everything, these guys had never been to a summoning, Firkle doubted they actually earned the tattoos that marked their membership, but no everyone was as devout as him. The last step, before he opened up the tomb and discarded his robe, he brought out the bound body of a man on a cold metal table. He appeared to be a white man in his mid to late forties, and he had a crime to atone for. He was the middle school soccer coach, which implies all that’s necessary to explain why the cult wanted him removed. Another silent service.

Karson didn’t seem to understand Firkle’s need for the breathing body, but he knew better than to outwardly question him, most people knew better, even the smallest children he came across knew.

Calling the circle to order, Firkle stands in the center, with the metal table and the accessories he’d need, having discarded his cloak, “All you have to do is chant, I’ll say it three times, and I will not tolerate mispronunciations.” Then the silver tongued syllables rolled off his lips, repeating the melodic tones thrice. Once the team got the pronunciations, Firkle set to work, his own chant varying from theirs. The concentration and tension could be cut with knife, but the youngest goth was at peace, he felt like a tool for his gods, especially the one he was named for, Nyarlathotep.

When the energy he felt was about to pique, he runs his fingertips down the man’s sternum, making sure he was awake to witness his own demise. Purring in the foreign tones, he picks up hooked blade, maybe 5 inches in length, but the cruel curved blade made it look more dangerous than it really was. Running the tip down the center of his sternum, from his collar bones to his diaphragm, shallow, but from the face the man made, he could tell it hurt. Using his left index finger to gather some of the lovely crimson blood beads, before popping it in his mouth. His lips that rarely showed any emotion at all, curved into a sadistic grin, “I’m sure this is the first time you’ve been unhappy to see kids naked, but alas it’ll be the death of you.”

When the man seemed to register Firkle’s words, he, quite pitifully really, tried to struggle against his tight leather bonds. Giving a disapproving shake of his head, “Unfortunately for your instincts of self preservation, you won’t be escaping with your life in tact. The Reaper ordered the hit, and I have expressed orders to make you suffer.” As the words leave his lips, he holds the man’s chest down flat, to make an incision across his stomach, his first real cut. The blood was like a breathtaking fountain of red, warm like the ocean of a hot day, and he couldn’t help but to stick his hand right in. He found it mesmerizing how he could see his fingers rippling under the mans skin, only the attempts at trashing made it more beautiful.

The goth could almost smell the desperation, and it was almost sweeter than inflicting suffering. Pain is a bittersweet thing, but to the goth it was all life had to offer. You either hurt or be hurt, and he had no complaints when it came to being the one doing the hurting, after all what could be more beautiful than kissing someone’s lungs? Smilling, looking into the victim’s eyes, his fingers grip the squishy pink tubes that were supposed to be intestines, ripping them out in a fluid motion, letting the blood splatter onto the dead center of the circle.

Smelling nothing but the iron stench of blood, he saw nothing more than the same crimson that dripped down his hands to his elbows. It was disappointing to him that the man he never bothered to learn the name of had passed out. So he went in for the finale, before his gods could get bored, he could sense their anticipation, so he peels back the flesh, plunging his right fist in, he knew where to find the precious muscle that was the beating heart, wrapping his slender fingers around the beating organ. He could feel the pure life under his fingertips, he could feel the primal desire to live, and he couldn’t resist ripping it out. Gushing crimson down his arm as he frees it, gushing crimson down his chin and chest as he takes a bite. Chewing on the stringy, chewy muscle was a workout in itself, but nothing beat the rushing taste of copper. He was living in a mess of blood.

The energy he felt in the room only elevated, but as suddenly as he felt it, he felt it cold, and encapsulating him. The stone floor beneath him shook as it cracked open, the black tentacles that seemed to suck the light out of the room came up to snatch up the remains, and the pools of blood by the goths feet. Leaving him with nothing but a gentle pat on the head. No words, but the gesture meant more to him each time it happened.

The candles went out, and the ground mended itself back together, the springtime air again flooded the goth’s lungs. A sweet new scent to take over where the blood bathed him. Looking back to the team, who had long since stopped chanting, and stared at the circle in awe. “I’m going to tell them, you’re clear to teach kids, as long as you always remember that when you run extra miles for the gods, they will always reward you.” After all, each night like this, is nothing more than an affair of the flesh, they don’t do anything to sway it.

#; gore #; drabble #; cult activities #; cannibalism

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