 Horror/Scary: January 25, 2006 Issue [#846] |
  Horror/Scary
This week: Edited by: W.D.Wilcox  
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“I can hear it up there right now, Sheriff, walking around. Earlier it was trying to find its way down into the upstairs hallway—sniffing around by the attic door. I blocked it with my ladder then ran out to the garage and got my hammer and some nails and nailed that puppy tight. It won’t be getting out this way unless its got a crowbar.”
“How in the hell did it get on your roof? There ain’t no trees around.”
“I dunno, but it’s up there in my attic now and it wants out—bad. You better get over here in a hurry.”
And with that the phone went dead and no one ever saw Hollis Trawly again.
--billwilcox
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HORROR IN A MUNDANE WORLD
Someone reviewed me the other day and said that I take the most mundane situations and turn them into complete and utter horror. I thought about that for a bit and realized that most of my stories actually come from weird dreams or fears that I have inside of me—and not from the mundane world I live in at all. I’m just an average guy—what’s so horrific about that? Nothing. But I have these terrible images and fears about things disrupting my ordinary humdrum life: are my kids safe? Is that noise I heard in the middle of the night some rapist breaking in to kill my innocent family in their sleep? Am I prepared for the unexpected? What will I do if some bizarre thing happens, like a terrorist attack?
I was watching my kids do pretend magic tricks and had a flashback of an old friend and me trying to do magic in his garage once. We were teenagers—idiots, mostly, and we were playing with matches and goofing around until the garage caught on fire. I remember how frightened I was at the time. The memory spurred me to write:
“Now you’re gonna make me puke.” I said, watching as Ron laid the double-edged razorblade on his tongue. “Are ya sure you know how to do this?”
He nodded his head vigorously and smiled; then stuck out his tongue showing the mordant blade perched upon his pink chunk of flesh. He held up his hand, signaling the beginning of the trick, and I watched in horror as he lifted his chin and swallowed the razorblade.
I could see it working its way down his throat, and then Ron gagged and coughed. Blood sprayed out of his mouth and all over my new white tennis shoes. I stood there frozen in horror. “Jesus, Ron! Are you all right?”
He couldn’t speak, but the look on his face was one of absolute terror. He gagged again trying to spit out the blade, but it was lodged in his throat. Extending his neck, he grabbed at his throat and tried to work the blade free. But the pressure against his neck made the razor slice through his throat. I could see one edge of it coming through his skin. Blood ran down his neck and soaked his t-shirt.
I grabbed a pair of needle-nose pliers from his dad’s toolbox.
“Hold still!” I screamed. “I can see it!”
I lifted his chin trying to stretch his neck tight. There it was—just barely coming through. Carefully, I attempted to grip it with the pliers. “Hold still, will ya!” I got a piece of it and started to pull. Ron freaked. He pushed me away, his face twisted in pain and agony.
“I almost had it—hold still!” I tried again. Ron’s breathing was fast and panicked. I caught hold of it again and pulled hard. Ron screamed and knocked me down. I fell hard on my butt as I watched him grip his neck in pain. I looked at the pliers and saw the razor blade—wet and shiny with blood.
Ron looked relieved, and his terror began to subside. He looked at me, tears running down his cheeks, the neck of his t-shirt covered in blood, and then said, “Ta-daaa!”
That old ‘swallowing the razorblades’ trick always grossed me out—made me feel creepy whenever I saw it performed. So I wrote about it.
Another thing that happened in my mundane world was when my wife told me once, right after we had our first born, how she was afraid she’d suffocate the baby in bed if she drifted off to sleep. At the time, I laughed and tried to ease her motherly fears, but I got to thinking about it one day and wrote:
It wasn’t true what they said about Emily Parker. She didn’t kill her baby—nobody did. It was an accident. Things like that just happen sometimes. Ain’t nobody’s fault—at least nobody that lived here in Turn Around, Texas. And right away people talked—like people always do—spreading ill rumors and sick gossip like a flu virus running rampant through the small town.
The baby’s name was Shyla, and she had been only five-months-old when it happened. I know how hard it is when you got a newborn. You’re up all night—hour after hour—nursing the baby, changing diapers and trying to put the child back to sleep so you can get just one or two hours of shuteye.
It weren’t her fault.
Besides, Emily was a heavy woman, and I’m sure she never meant no harm to ever come to that baby—no harm at all. It was just one of those things.
I can’t even imagine what it was like: waking up and wondering why the baby had let you sleep so long—why she never cried. Feeling confused as you tried to piece together where the child was. Had I left her in the crib? Or brought her to bed with me to nurse? Everything kind of blurring together as you look down and sees the little arm sticking out from beneath your breast— the shock of realization—the dumbfounded expression on your face. You hurriedly lift your body from the mattress, your sagging breasts swelled with milk and dripping, and see your child blue and stiff to the touch—dead.
It weren’t her fault.
It could have happened to anyone.
So how do I find horror in a mundane world? I just write about it. We take are fears with us wherever we go—even if we moved to Hollywood to star in a movie, our fears would go with us. The most terrifying things always happen to the most ordinary of people. Horror IS NOT all around us. It’s inside of us. If you write about what scares you, you’ll scare somebody else too.
Until next time,
billwilcox
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HORROR PICKS
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You Talk, I Listen—that’s feedback according to my wife 
MercWriter 
Submitted Comment:
Hi W.D.,I quite enjoyed your editorial about Santa Claus--giving it a not-so-merry twist. Taking popular, so-thought benign characters and giving them an evil slant is always interesting. I've always been suspicious that the guy in the red suit is up to no good. Think it has anything to do to with the fact that if you rearrange the letters of his name, you get "Satan"?
zwisis
Submitted Comment:
I don't think I'll ever be able to look at Santa in the same way again, WD! I actually saw a blow up Santa this morning on a balcony opposite my bank - scared me more than the real thing! This dark side of Santa is a disturbing thought....
Wendopolis 
Submitted Comment:
I SO agree with you about that creepy bearded man....
schipperke
Submitted Comment:
Bill:And to think we let our children sit on that creepy man's lap!
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