Boo!
I remember when Ottis O’Toole tried to pitch me a story for a “WRICH Halloween Show” special. Ottis had on a jack-o’-lantern face and told me Norm Macdonald jokes. Close, but no cigar. He took a haul from the peace pipe; I told him to stick to the Daniel Blowden crap. He said he had a story about an ex-girlfriend. I read the story, but God did it ever suck raw eggs. Sucking eggs considered a dying skill, but still, it was bad. Ottis was fine, but he was delusional.
A light tapping at her thermal pane window. Grandma listened closer with acute hearing. Standing up after sitting in the chair most of the day was difficult especially after she was diagnosed with an arthritic condition making her immobile some days, but she was stubborn and fought the pain. As she walked a few steps across the living room area into the bathroom, she turned off the running faucet from her tub and closed the shower curtains. She shook her head, walked back towards the living room window, peered outside into the darkness, and wondered. When would Danielle visit? The neighbourhood was pitch black. The only light shone intensely from the full buck moon hanging over Willamette Valley. There was a lonely cover of darkness. She listened to her beating heart and the clock. The sound from one of two analogue clocks in the living room of the mobile home. A confined space, but home. And she really couldn’t imagine living a different life.
Grandma heard more tapping, soon some scratching then clawing coming from the front door. The obese lady smiled, thinking a stray cat just wanted to play. The door opened a crack before it was violently forced wide open. Sharp claws gauged the sockets of her eyes. She screamed as blood dripped from her swollen-shut eyes. There right in front of her was her granddaughter, Danielle, covered in wolf’s hair with big teeth and razor-sharp claws. Her claws grabbed her sagging breasts and tore her blouse wide open. A drop of the shirt and the wolf-woman revealed her hairy chest. Grandma dropped all the way to the ground, landing with a thump on the pumpkin, smashing it and crushing it to bits. It was Saturday night and the entire community left early that morning. There wasn’t anyone around. The mobile home park was empty.
Everyone went to the tailgate party for the weekend. No one ever missed a football party, except for the hungry wolf-woman from Willamette Valley. Grandma screamed louder, Danielle hovering. Waiting. Her insanely irate face stared hard at grandma with wild eyes and she couldn’t speak. Grandma all bloody, in tears from the sharp pain. Barely able to see, she looked up at Danielle and then toward a light in the distance. She helplessly hoped there was a cop car in the distance, but it was just the light from the smoldering ashes of an old fire. Hurt and drenched in blood, she reached out begging Danielle to help her, but the hungry she-wolf merely howled at the full moon. Grandma put her hands over her bloody chest, laying down, never to get up again. All Danielle could do with a she-wolf soul was hang grandma’s extra-large panties on a tree branch. Topless, she howled louder at the moon.
Ottis walked back into my office. He sat down. “Are you from fucking Oregon? Your story is shit.” I gave him a deadly glare, told him not to get confused. I mean really, who did he think he was? He giggled at me.
He leaned in and whispered, “Snickers satisfies.”
“No! There are no sponsors.” I wanted to throw my pumpkin spice latte in his face. Bro probably thought I was a brutalist poet acting as president. Game on!
Johnny Electric sits in his office staring at a monitor with a big bucket of popcorn. The CEO nearly chokes. Suddenly, it hits him. A gasp in horror as Johnny realizes that this is his circus and these are his monkeys.
Technossance Magazine 