Rish's story "Lighthouse View" on Horror Addicts podcast

Somehow, this is the fourth year in a row I've entered the Masters of the Macabre contest, a short story challenge over at Horror Addicts dot net.  They provide an overall theme for the contest, and those participating are given three variables that have to be in the story. 

This year, the theme was Creature Feature*, monster stories, and my three variables were: (Story) Location: Lighthouse, Item: Camera, and Creature Origin: Volcano. 

I actually started writing the damned thing right here on my blog, in the first (was it only the first?) of my live-blogging exercises.  Unfortunately, I discovered that I was contractually forbidden from publishing the story anywhere for a hundred days after the contest, and it couldn't have appeared anywhere previous to it.  So, I had to halt the blogging after the first page or so, and I'm still a bit bummed about that.

So, my tale tells of a young woman who comes to a lighthouse to interview the old man who lives there, but also hoping to get footage of the monster that supposedly emerged from an underwater volcanic eruption somewhere off the coast.**  She starts the interview, and then hears a noise from outside the lighthouse . . .

It should come as no surprise to you that my first version of "Lighthouse View" was way too long, and had to be cut down considerably.  Then that version had to be stripped down to be turned into an audio version.  Then that version had to be fed to piranhas, which removed any and all flesh so I could fit it into the time frame necessary.  When will I ever learn?***

Here be the link: http://horroraddicts.wordpress.com/2014/08/12/master-of-macabre-3-rish-outfield/

I don't know how good the tale is (or was before I machete-ed it).  As it stands, only Gino Moretto (and hopefully soon Renee Chambliss) has read the full story.  But it was fun to write (I went to a restaurant with my notebook and basically forced myself to reach the end before I could leave), and is yet another tale I'd never have come up with had the contest not suggested it.

There are five contestants in the challenge this year, including Solomon Archer, Ricky Cooper, Stephen Kozeniewski, and D.J. Pitsiladis, who (also) enters it every year.  I can't say whether mine is as good as theirs, or that you should go over there and vote for me, but I've lost every year previously, and it hasn't yet discouraged me.

Funny, that doesn't sound like the Rish Outfield I know.

Albrecht St. Neal

*Which is a much better title for my story than "Lighthouse View," but just like "Last Contact," it'll have to wait until later to be called that.

**I just discovered that another contestant, Solomon Archer, was given Oceanic Trench as his creature's origin, which I pretty much used in mine.  Whoops.

***I will run the full story on Ye Olde Rish Outcast one day, and have already done the episode for it.  Be warned.

Broken Mirror Shard - Day 9

I told Big I thought I might be able to finish this soon, and I was surprised to hear that he's already finished his. He really is doing good writing work right now, which is encouraging to me, because if he gave up on this, I certainly would have as well. As it stands, I am glad this story is a short one, because I am finding it difficult to care anymore.

We'll have to talk when it's over, but I'm not exactly thrilled with the way it's going, and once it's finished, I fully expect me to describe it--as I do all my completed tales--as "not a great story."

But the work waits.

***

            The clerk yawned.  “You understand that the only way a machine like that makes money is if people spend more to win a prize than the prizes are worth, right?”

            Anthony shook his little head.  “But I got money from it, and Stewart got a piece of paper with boobs on it.”

            The clerk opened his mouth, puzzled, then simply asked, “Who’s Stewart?”

            “He is,” said Anthony, gesturing.

            “Okay, it’s all luck then.  I don’t know.”

            Stewart got an idea.  “Hey, if I gave you fifty cents . . . would you play the game?”

            The clerk squinted at him.  “What?  After you’re gone?”

            “No, right now.”

            “Why?”

            “Because I’m not having any luck with it.”

            “You got some gum.  And you won ten bucks out of it yesterday, right?”

            “That was me,” Anthony said proudly.  “And it was twenty.”

            “Irregardless,” Stewart said, “I can’t get it to give me anything.  Will you try?”

            “You really want me to play it?”

            “Yes,” both boys said at the same time.  It was almost creepy.

            “Well, I guess so,” Adrian said, and stepped around the counter.  He glanced back at the cash register, just in case this was some elaborate ruse to get him away from the money there, but both boys were following him.

            Stewart handed him fifty cents.  “Here you go.”

            “And if I win something . . . what?  It goes to you?”

            “Yeah,” he said.  Then he reconsidered.  “No, we’ll split it.”

            “Alright, but if it’s a Chevy Tahoe, it won’t do you two all that much good.”  He smiled when he said it, but the smile faded when neither one of them laughed.

            They followed him to the MagiClaw and he almost inserted one of the quarters, then stopped.  “You know what?” he said, not to them, but to himself.  “I shouldn’t do this.  I’ll just hang out behind the counter.”  He handed the coins back to Stewart.  “Here you go.”

            “Come on,” Stewart demanded, and this time he was the one who sounded whiny.

            “You know . . .” the clerk began, but never continued.  He just walked back around to his cash register, and glanced away from them.

            For some reason, that caught Stewart’s full attention.  “What?”

            “Well, not for nothin’ but . . . it’s a nice day outside.  You shouldn’t be cooped up in here.”

            “Why do you care?”

            “’Cause I am cooped up in here.  Last week, I saw a girl I used to know, wearing Daisy Dukes.  And I just had to watch her walk past.”

            “What are Daisy Ducks?” Anthony asked, stupidly.  But Stewart was curious too.

            “They’re short shorts.  A rare sight nowadays.  You’ll understand soon.”

            But Stewart already understood, and wanted to tell the clerk about Claudia Espinoza and her glorious text message.  He’d never see something like that or something like her if he managed to master the toughest skate trick, win the lottery, and save the world, all on the same day.  He wanted to tell him that he hadn’t believed in anything for a long time, let alone magic, and now, for the last day, he’d been looking at the world differently.  With wonder again, like he had before Dad left, before Anthony was born.

            But this clerk was just a guy, a stranger, and Stewart couldn’t tell a stranger those things.  He couldn’t even tell his little brother.

            He handed over another five.  His last five.  “Quarters, please.”

            Adrian stared at him for a moment.  Then he opened the register, not glancing down.  “Listen, we’re running low on quarters.  I can only give you two.”

            “No, you’re not.  You’re just saying that.”

            “Maybe.  But I’m doing you a favor.  Just two bucks more, then go out into the sun and be young, enjoy the day.”

            “You have to give us quarters,” asserted Anthony by his brother’s side.  “We can tell your boss.”

            “Tell him what?”

            “That we wanted to buy something and you wouldn’t let us.”

            “Right.  Like beer or smokes?”

            Stewart gritted his teeth.  “This isn’t like that.  We’d tell him you wouldn’t serve us.”

            The clerk nodded.  “Hey, aren’t you the kid who tried to pass me a phony twenty yesterday?”

            “What?” Anthony asked, his eyes widening.  “You told me it was real.”

            “Ignore him, Ant,” Stewart said.  “He’s just being a . . .”  He nearly said, ‘prick,’ but a small voice told him not to, that he could get kicked out, banned from the store like Head was.  And that would not be good.

            “A what?”

            “A Yoda.”

            The clerk narrowed his eyes.  “A Yoda?”

            “He was in Star W­—” began Anthony.

            “I know who that is.  But what does that mean?”

            Stewart explained, “It means somebody old who’s full of useless advice.”

            “Hey, Yoda was not useless.  He . . .” The clerk sighed.  He seemed a little disgusted, a little angry, but he produced the quarters and pushed them in their direction.  “Spend on, boys.”

Words Today: 828
Words Total: 4649

Broken Mirror Shard - Day 8

I took a bit of time off from the blogging.  Not much, but enough to make me not want to continue doing it anymore.  I guess I need to hang out with other writers to recharge my motivators (and inertial dampeners), and I didn't get together with Big to talk about writing or podcasting this week.

I will at least try, though.

***

           Indeed, the next day, after feeding the ducks at Shinooginah Pond (of all activities), Stewart and Anthony went back to the Stop N Go for refreshments—chili dogs, this time—and a friendly pull of the claw.  The store employee was the same as the day before, and the MagiClaw sat exactly the same, although the baseball was gone.

            Anthony dropped fifty cents into the machine, managed to claw a watch, but lost it before it reached the trapdoor.  He shrugged it off, and let his big brother try.

            Stewart put quarter after quarter in the machine, but he kept coming up empty.  Once, the claw came up out of the covered space, a tattered comic book in its grasp.  It was a Superman comic, with the superhero holding a green automobile over his head.  Before it slipped from the claw’s grasp, Stewart saw the words ‘Action Comics’ at the top.  Then it was gone.

            “Holy crap!” Anthony exclaimed beside him. 

            “I know, right.  I can’t catch a friggin break.”

            “No, no, that book—that comic—that was the first Superman.  It’s, like, worth a zillion dollars or something!”

            “Yeah, right,” Stewart chided, but he did remember hearing on the news that an old Batman issue went for a thousand bucks or something in an auction recently.  It might even have been more, but Stewart hadn’t really been paying attention. 

            Stewart fed two more quarters into the machine—his last two.  This time, he won!

            A pack of gum, he won.  It was a pack of grape Bubblicious, and he cursed under his breath.  “All that for a pack of gum.”

            “I like grape.  That’s really good gum,” Anthony offered.

             “I’ve spent, like, six dollars—it better never lose its flavor.”

            He couldn’t let it go at that.  He went to the clerk to break more bills into quarters.  “You know, you’ve spent a lot on that machine,” observed the employee.

            “Yeah?” Stewart retorted, almost surly.  He wasn’t angry at the cashier so much as the damned MagiClaw.  It taunted him, teased him, kept pulling its goodies away from his grasp, like a drunk girl at an after-prom party.  Anthony had gotten bored of the game after a while, and had been talking to the guy (Adrian, his name was).

            “I’m just sayin.”

            “He said the machine is cursed,” Anthony told him. 

            Stewart looked at the man. “What?”

            Adrian leaned a bit over the counter, coming closer to tell them a secret.  “Nobody knows where the machine came from.  The boss ordered an ATM, and that came on the same truck, but not from the distributor.  And even though I’ve never seen anyone come into to stock it . . . it’s always full of prizes.”

            Stewart blinked.  “No joke?”

            The clerk cracked a smile.  “Sure, it’s a joke.  I only work three to eleven, so whoever stocks it comes in before I get here.”

            “But, it is magical, right?” Anthony asked him.

            The clerk shrugged.  “That’s just its name.”

            “He told me before that a kid won a pickup truck with the game,” Anthony tattled.

            “It’s true,” the clerk said, his face serious again.  “The claw pulled a Chevy Tahoe out of that thing.  It was amazing.”

            Both brothers stared at the clerk with growing awe.  “Really?” Anthony whispered.

            “No.  Of course not.  How would that even be possible?”

            “You’re not very funny,” Anthony growled.  Stewart couldn’t have said it better himself.

            “Fine.  But there was a guy here, like, two hours after you left yesterday, who got really excited when he was playing it.”

            Stewart too had gotten really excited, only afterward.  “Why?”

            “He said he got a certificate out of it that said he’d get full custody of his kids.”

            “What does that mean?” Anthony asked.

            “It means he got the kids in his divorce,” the clerk explained.

            “No, what does ‘certificate’ mean?”  And Stewart couldn’t tell if the boy was joking or not.  If he was, he decided he didn’t know his little brother well enough, even after seven years.

Word Count: 673
Word Total: 3770

Rish Performs "Of Men & Wolves" on Far-Fetched Fables

In the time since starting the Dunesteef, I've tried to accept any and all invitations to do voices in podcasts or audio dramas that come my way, even though I've really got to stop.  Soon.

I'll be frank witcha: I didn't like this story at all when I read it through. First off, I thought Gary Dowell, the editor of the then-forthcoming Far Fetched Fables podcast, was crazy to have sent me this story to narrate, a first-person tale of the newly-widowed wife of a barbarian.   The tale was called "Of Men and Wolves," by An Owomoyela, and I discovered that the main character wasn't exactly a woman (or exactly a man either), and wondered how I would pull it off (not to mention pronouncing the name of the author).

But I recorded it, doing my best to deliver an androgynous, accented performance, but also to bring some emotion to the table, and I'll admit that there were a couple parts I thought were pretty okay. After that, I had to edit the recording, and it was then that I picked up on some nuances and language craft that I hadn't appreciated before. By the time it was done, I thought "Of Men and Wolves" was a pretty high quality tale.

You can check it out over at www.farfetchedfables.com/far-fetched-fables-no-16/ and judge for yourself.

Rish

Rish Outcast 10: Fradenscheude

In this story-free episode of ye olde Rish Outcast, Rish ruminates on the success of his friend.  He promises a story for next time.  A whole new world awaits.

Right click HERE to download the episode, select Save Link As, and save the file to your hard drive.

Broken Mirror Shard - Day 7

While I have a bit of fascination with old men and women, I enjoy writing young people the most.  Children and teenagers, which is good, I suppose, in this era when every movie not made by Marvel Studios seems to feature teens, and every movie including those made by Marvel Studios are aimed at teens.  While I've technically been an adult longer than I was a child or teen, I don't yet feel that way.  And this story--"MagiClaw"--is about kids (a child and a teen, to be exact), which is easy.

A writer I read a lot also writes about children.  But his children are always brilliant, precocious, eloquent philosophers who just happen to inhabit the bodies of twelve or nine or five year olds.  I have no interest in this, and when I started a recent book of his only to discover that the protagonists are three lil geniuses who range from six to eight, well, I nearly put it down.  Sure, it seems to interest him to write about prepubescent Einsteins, and maybe my buddy Jeff and his cranially-endowed megaminds, but that alienates the hell out of me, and I can't relate to something like that, or long to read about their exploits.

To me, being a child was never knowing the answers, never understanding how the world works, never being able to have the upper hand.  Hell, the world STILL feels like that.  So I write kids that don't get the joke, that don't know the definition of some bonus vocabulary test word, and seldom have a brilliant retort or riposte handy.  I'm one of those guys who thinks up something clever to say two hours after the argument, but only manages to stammer in the heat of the moment, and that's after years of practice trying to be a smartass.

So, maybe too many of my characters are like me.  In my mind, there's something suspicious of the child who speaks or behaves like the grownups, and something ugly about a kid who acts like he knows all the answers.  I originally meant for Brekkyn, the villain of my last blogged story, to be one of those because the girl that inspired her was always a bit smarter than the kids around her when she was little.  But as she got older, she was so used to not having to try to find the answer, that she became lazy, and eventually, pretty dumb.  I figured Brekkyn, who never had to work hard and anything or do anything she didn't actually want to do, would be lazy too, and even though she's probably got a higher I.Q. than Tanissa, she seldom uses any gift but her magic. 

I didn't mean to type quite so much here, I only meant to preface my story writing for the day.  But reading that book about the eight year old that speaks a SECOND LANGUAGE so fluently that he tricks everyone into thinking he is an adult made me shake my head with the opposite of enjoyment, and made me want to write the kids in my story . . . as kids.

***

            They went out into the sunlight, the heat a sharp contrast to the cold corner shop, and Stewart took the piece of paper from his brother.  It looked like girl’s handwriting, a cute little note like you’d pass back in forth in class in junior high.  All it said was that one stupid word, and Stewart tossed it onto the ground.  Anthony went behind the bushes where they’d hidden his bike and Stewart’s skateboard.  He wasn’t sure why his big brother was upset about the paper—he thought “boobs” was a hilarious word, though he wasn’t sure whether it qualified as a swear or not—but he was pleased with the money in his pocket and a pretty cool story to tell.

            They finished their drinks before heading back home.  There was a hill between their housing development and the center of town, and Anthony had to stand up on his pedals just to keep moving forward, while Stewart seemed to have no trouble with it at all.

            They were just reaching their street when Stewart’s phone began to buzz.  It was a text message, and he coasted while pulling his phone from his pants, expecting to read the rest of the dirty cannibal joke (at last).  But the number wasn’t familiar, even though it was a local one.  Stewart paused on his board--Anthony still half a block behind him, peddling hard to catch up—and opened the text.

            It consisted of two words, “Enjoy, Greg.”  There was an attachment that Stewart opened, just by force of habit.

            It was Claudia Espinoza, a hot girl from school, using one hand to take the picture, using the other to lift up her t-shirt, exposing her naked chest.

            Stewart’s eyes went large and he nearly fell off his board, despite having one foot on the pavement.  He glanced behind to make sure Anthony hadn’t caught up yet.  He looked back at his phone.  Claudia was a popular girl on the drill team, and her boyfriend was Greg Mortensen, a douchey Sophomore/about-to-be-Junior with curly bleached blond hair. 

            The photo was a marvelous sight, taken in a bathroom, somehow accidentally sent to Stewart.  He wasn’t sure how this happened, but he was not going to look a gift rack in the mouth. 

            And then the dots connected in his head.

            “Bewbies,” he whispered, almost like a prayer.

            “What?” Anthony called behind him.  “Was that Mom?”

            Quick as Mercury, Stewart locked his phone, and stuck it into his now too-tight jeans.  “No, just . . . just a wrong number.”

            They went back to their little house and let themselves in.  Anthony started organizing his Pokemon cards, and Stewart locked himself in his room.  When Mom got home, Anthony regaled her with the tale of the ill-gotten twenty.  She was very tired, though, and not nearly as amazed by the story as she ought to have been.  Stewart, however, was a true believer, and knew where they’d be buying their drinks tomorrow.

 

Words Today: 498

Words Total: 3097

Broken Mirror Shard - Day 6

I got no writing done on Friday, as it was GUARDIANS day.  Which is not an excuse, but I chose to hang out with my nephew, cousin, and friend, and edited audiobooks when I was not.

However, I will endeavor to make it up to you.

Words, muse!  Give me words!

***

            The clerk did as he was told, giving the boy three fives, three ones, and eight quarters.  As soon as his brother had the change, Stewart said, “He won that twenty, from the claw machine.”

            “Really?  We just got it in last week.”  The clerk looked past them, at the big black machine, and did not look pleased.  “You know, those games don’t usually pay out too good.  You might want to quit while you’re ahead.”

            “A guy won gold a minute ago,” Anthony said.

            The clerk—whose name tag read Adrian, glanced over at it again.  “Yeah, well.  A lady I know claimed it had her car keys in it when it first came in.  But she dropped them back in, so we’ll never know.”

            “Yeah,” Stewart said.  “Those things suck.  You can’t even see what’s in this one.”

            “I see a baseball.”

            “It’s probably nailed on there.”

            The clerk snorted, pleased by the youth’s cynicism.  “Probably.  You want to pay for your drinks?”

            Stewart hadn’t realized they’d forgotten about the soda and the Icee, and he told his brother to pay.  “Since you have so much cash on you.”

            The boy was glad to, but as soon as that was done, they were back beside the MagiClaw, and Anthony was feeding two quarters in.

            “You gonna try for the baseball?”

            “Baseball’s lame,” the boy said, and moved the claw past the ball—which was old and scuffed, with “Robinson – 42” scrawled on it in blue ink.  He maneuvered the claw over to the right, and lowered it down out of sight, where the black partition hid it from view.

            Stewart felt his chest tighten as the claw descended, closed, and began to rise again.  It moved to the left, where they could see what it had captured . . . absolutely nothing.

            “Oh,” Stewart heard himself say.  He had—for a second there—believed it would scoop up something good.  He felt suddenly disappointed, not in the machine, but in himself.  “Come on,” he said, putting his hand on the boy’s back.  “Let’s go.”

            “Do you want to try?” Anthony asked.

            And Stewart surprised himself by saying, “Sure.” 

            He took two quarters from the boy—technically his own quarters, since he’d paid for the first game—and fed them into the slot.  The lights on MagiClaw began to flash, and a little countdown started from ten.

            Stewart used the joystick to move the claw over the trapdoor and into the mystery section blocked from view.  He couldn’t see whether something good lay below—the whole machine might have been empty except for the old baseball for all he knew—but lowered the claw.  It dropped, then began to rise, moving on its own back toward the vending door.

            The claw had a little white paper in its teeth, fingers, whatever.

            “More money!” Anthony cheered.

            “Not unless it’s a check, Annie,” Stewart said.

            “Hey!” his brother said behind him, unhappily.

            The paper dropped into the opening, and Stewart reached in and got it.  It wasn’t a check; it was just a sheet of unlined white paper, folded once.  He opened it up.

            BEWBIES, it read, in flowery handwriting.

            “Lemme see!” Anthony said, and Stewart showed him the joke.  For that’s what it had to be.

            “Bewbies?” read the kid.  “Is that how you spell—”

            “No.  It isn’t.”  Stewart’s back molars were grinding together.  He focused all his self-control on not looking toward the cash register to see if the clerk was watching them, maybe smirking.  Instead, he turned in the opposite direction.  “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Word Count: 601
Word Total: 2587

Broken Mirror Shard - Day 5

Almost no writing done today, just a couple of minutes jotting stuff down during lunch at work. 

I think my story will be called "MagiClaw."

***

            He looked at the front and back of the bill, but it seemed totally genuine.  It was a 2014 bill, with the watermark and everything.  “There’s no way you won this from the claw!”

            “I did!  I swear!”

            “I’m telling mommy you swore,” mocked Stewart.  “Where did it really come from?”  He thought of the guy with the ear gauges.  “Did that guy give this to you?  The one with the stretched-out ers?”

            “No.  I put in your quarters, and that’s what I won.”  The boy sounded sincere.   

            Stewart handed the money back.  “I still say it’s fake.  Maybe the wrong guy’s on it or something.”

            Anthony got an idea.  “One way to find out.”  He went across the store to the cashier counter, where a young man was reading a textbook, ignoring them completely.

            “Excuse me,” Anthony said. 

            The man looked up, then down at the kid.  “Hello.”

            “Could I get some quarters please?”  He handed the clerk the twenty. 

            The guy didn’t even glance at it.  He just opened the till.  “How many quarters do you need?”

            Stewart appeared at his brother’s side.  “Does that twenty look okay to you?”

            Now the clerk picked it up again, held it to the light, and put it down again.  “Yes.  Was there a problem with it?”

            “Two dollars in quarters,” Anthony said.  “The rest just in fives.”

 

Word Count: 227

Total Count:  1986 (a pretty good year)

Broken Mirror Shard - Day 4

I only managed to write about fifteen minutes yesterday (not counting typing up what I'd notebooked and putting it here).  Big has gotten far ahead of me with his story.  But he says it's not a contest, just a game in which everybody who writes a story is a winner.

Which reminds me, here's a link to Big's blog, where he's writing a story called "Doctor Claw," and one to Bria Burton's blog, where she's writing one called "Little Angel Helper . . . Claw."
I also heard Algar Van Cluth was writing one called "Claude Ballz," but I have no link to that one.

***

            Stewart scoffed, but he had been nine once.  He remembered there being a claw game at the Toys R Us his uncle lived by, and that it looked so easy to win . . . until you actually tried.

            “Oh, man!” he heard Anthony shout across the store.  Stewart put a lid on his Mountain Dew, and walked toward the sound. 

            The claw game was called MagiClaw, and it was a big black glass box about three feet long and seven feet high.  This one was unique in that most of the glass had a black partition around it, so you couldn’t see inside.

            Stewart scowled.  Usually these things had an assortment of tempting prizes right there in view to get people to waste their money on them.  Not this one.  All that could be seen was the big mechanical claw, and a baseball sitting right on the edge of the trapdoor.  Stewart couldn’t help himself; he gave MagiClaw the finger.

            “Well, what you think?” Anthony asked proudly beside him.

            “I think you got yoursel—”  Then he looked at his brother.  The kid had a twenty dollar bill in his hand and was rubbing it between thumb and forefinger.  “What?” Stewart said.  He thought the boy didn’t have any money.  “Where’d you get that?”

            “I won it, Stewie,” the boy said, emphasizing the nickname.  Stewart hated that epithet more than Anthony hated ‘Annie.’

            “Bullshit.  You did not win that from the machine.”  He reached out quickly and snatched the bill from the seven year old’s hand.

            “Hey!  I’m telling Mom” Anthony protested.

            “Shaddup,” Stewart mumbled, and began to examine the twenty.  It looked brand new.  No way it could be real.

            “I’ll tell her you swore.”

            “Shut up’s not a swear, turd.  Mom’s not gonna care.”

            “Yeah, but you said shh.  Twice.”

            “Shit on that,” Stewart said with a smile.  “I said it three times.”

Word Count: 316
Total Count: 1759