This month’s theme:
“Halloween Stereotypes”
By David M. Fitzpatrick

It’s Halloween, so let’s go with some old-school characters: vampires, werewolves, witches, zombies, and ghosts! Sometimes there’s nothing like the classics.

“Post Mortal Syndrome”
Vampire/Werewolf
By David M. Fitzpatrick

I was dying from the Black Death when a vampire made me immortal. I’ll never die, but I’ll forever suffer the plague’s symptoms.

A werewolf tore out my throat a century later, adding lycanthropy to my vampirism. I’ve often awakened, after a night spent as a werewolf under a full moon, to my skin bubbling in the morning sun.

Sunless nights forever spent drinking blood or eating flesh. Constant plague symptoms. And I had been experiencing my monthly period when I was first turned. I’ve been stuck in endless menstruation for six hundred years—the worst cramps, sweating, and mood swings.

Life’s a bitch, and so am I—the worst one on Earth.

“Herman Aphrodite”
Reanimated Corpse
By David M. Fitzpatrick

Tamara was in the morgue, working with the bone saw. She was almost through his neck.

“You shouldn’t have raped me,” the witch told the corpse through gritted teeth. Her wild blond hair hung about her face. She was still pissed, but felt better when she finally sawed through his neck. His ugly face rolled away, and she grabbed it by the hair and held it up, looking into its blank, dead eyes. “You shouldn’t have raped those two dozen other women either, Herman Sullivan, but you sure picked the wrong woman when you did me.”

She’d already cut off another corpse’s head earlier. That corpse was standing by.

*   *   *

By the time the dead woman’s head and the Herman Sullivan’s body were finished burning in the oven, Tamara was miles away, in the basement of an abandoned factory. She’d stitched his head onto the body of the woman whose head she’d removed at the morgue. It was a stunner of a female form—big breasts, narrow waist, and broad hips—a true wet dream that would be irresistible to any heterosexual man. But it could have been any woman.

Tamara set up the spell—a circle of salt around the table, a pentagram of blood across the woman’s chest, a few material components, burning candles. She knew the spell by heart—had practiced it all day. She launched into it, reciting arcane words and moving her hands in the necessary gestures. It took several minutes, at the end of which she was hollering the command words, but finally it was done.

Then she sat down to wait.

It took about twenty minutes, but the reanimated rapist finally stirred and his eyes fluttered open. He realized who was looking down at him, and he roared in anguish and tried to sit up. He was completely immobilized, though, with no less than a hundred feet of rope.

“Let me go, you fucking bitch!” he roared.

“Not a chance,” Tamara said. “You need to know a few things. First, you died. I cast a spell on you—made you put a bullet through your own heart.”

She saw the realization on his face as he remembered.

“But I’ve worked another spell,” she said, and she grabbed the door mirror leaning against the wall. She picked it up, held it angled and high so he could see his entire new self. He saw his familiar face on his familiar head, joined with exaggerated stitches to the voluptuous body of the dead woman. He screamed.

But she was ready for that. A few quick words, a sprinkle of magic powder—and she silenced him forever. He tried to holler, to talk, but only air puffed out.

Tamara leaned in close, smiling. “Here’s what’s going to happen. Your head is attached to one sexy body. So I’m going to bring in an endless parade of street people—the kinds with penises, just like you. I’ll enchant them so they don’t care about your face. And I’m going to let them rape you all night long, every night, until you die again. Then I’ll resurrect you once more, and we’ll start over.”

She laughed, throwing her hair back. “Let’s see how you like being violated and tortured, motherfucker.”

He tried to scream, but no sound came out.

That night, thirty enchanted men who wouldn’t remember a thing later brutally raped the female body of the male rapist. He didn’t enjoy one moment of it.

Tamara enjoyed it enough for both of them.

“Worse Things”
Zombie
By David M. Fitzpatrick

She was face down on the bed, her ample backside in the air. Her head was turned sideways, and she snarled and gnashed her teeth from her place on the bed. Jerome Carpenter stood there, looking down at her. He’d tied her wrists and ankles to the bedposts, and she was naked. She was almost as beautiful as she’d been before the plague hit.

“It’s okay, Sweetie,” he said as she thrashed. He’d called her “Sweetie” since he could remember, but her name was Melody. Melody Carpenter.

Melody’s skin was gray, her hair in need of washing. Her eyes were that bizarre yellow and red that all of the reanimated dead always had. The most disconcerting thing was the big bite taken out of her shoulder. Jerome hadn’t gotten there in time before the zombie had bitten her, and she’d died an hour later. She hadn’t bled from the wound since she’d died, but the meat was gone and it was ugly to see.

She growled and snapped her teeth. She’d do anything to take a bite out of him. It was because she wasn’t herself anymore. But he felt there was something of her in there somewhere, no matter how deep. Some tiny part that knew him and loved him. He hoped.

“Be easy, Sweetie,” Jerome said, and he moved in with the pliers. It was easy to hold her head in place while he worked, but it still took fifteen minutes to yank them all out. When he was done, he stood over her as she snarled, watching her toothless mouth still trying to take a bite out of him.

He unbuckled his belt as she squirmed, dropped his pants. He was already aroused, and he opened the flap in his boxers and stroked himself. She used to hate watching him do that, but at least now she wouldn’t complain. Now, she made biting motions with her gums as she tried to get at him.

He grabbed the condom from the nightstand, tore it open, rolled it on. This was something he had to do, he knew, but he wasn’t stupid. He had to be sure he wouldn’t somehow catch the plague from her.

Jerome grabbed her hair and held her head steady. Melody’s jaw rapidly opened and closed, and he fed his manhood in. It was the most bizarre oral sex ever—the feeling of the soft, decomposing gums mashing around his raging hard-on. He figured it was like being gum-jobbed by an old lady without her dentures, which Jerome had actually done before. She’d been an 83-year-old prostitute he’d done on a dare.

He grabbed her head with both hands and began to pump his hips. It was the best deep throat he’d ever had, and he’d had many women who’d done that. He pounded her gullet like a madman until he tensed, grunted, and exploded in the condom. It was an incredible orgasm. When he pulled out, she continued snarling and gnashing her toothless gums, trying to take a bite of him.

“See, Sweetie?” Jerome said, grinning as he peeled off the condom. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? I told you it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Just like I told you being tied up like this wouldn’t be so bad. You just never let me try anything like that.”

She snarled and thrashed some more.

He turned his attention to her beautiful backside. It jiggled in the air as she moved, beckoning him. He’d always loved her ass. It was perfect in life, and nearly so in unlife.

“You never let me have that, either,” he said, grabbing another condom from the nightstand. “You’ll see that it ain’t so bad either.”

He reached out and lovingly stroked her bulbous cheek.

“After that beautiful butt, we’ll have real sex,” Jerome Carpenter said. “We’ll make love like we always should have, Sweetie.”

What was left of Melody Carpenter growled and squirmed as he climbed on the bed and straddled her.

“I’ve been telling you since we were kids,” he said. “Just because we’re brother and sister doesn’t mean we can’t make love, Sweetie. Now you see—there are many worse things in the world.”

“The Twilight Zone”
Vampire
By David M. Fitzpatrick

Author’s Note: If you have to ask about this one, then consider yourself lucky.

The woman blubbered on the castle’s stone floor, next to the smashed remnants of her cell phone. Snot bubbled out of her nose as she bawled like a baby. She was surrounded by a throng of people—men and women, old and young. Well, seemingly young.

“We’ve had about enough of you,” said the eldest man. He looked about sixty, but he was tall, robust, and healthy, with an angular face and weathered features. He stepped forward, his polished shoes clacking on the stone, and he crouched next to her. “You no doubt know what we are, yes?”

She looked up through her tears and disheveled hair, nodding a jolting nod, like an android with malfunctioning neck mechanics.

He smiled, showing his white fangs in the light. A hint of red gleamed faintly in his dark eyes. He rose, turning to the men and women gathered around. They surrounded the woman with their own fangs and glowing eyes.

“We are vampires,” he announced, as if that weren’t obvious. “We’ve existed since the earliest days of humanity. I’m Sumerian, you see, born five thousand years ago—to my knowledge the oldest vampire on Earth. But the vampire who turned me was thousands of years old then, and the vampire who turned him was older still than that. We’ve been around a very long time.”

She broke into racking sobs, lowering her head, and her crying turned into painful coughing. The vampires waited patiently as she graduated into dry-heave restching.

“So we are a very proud people,” the old vampire said, and he began a slow walk in a wide circle around her. “Humans have forever told stories about us—folk tales and songs in the old days; later, in literature, and later still in films and then television. We enjoy the fiction, for it keeps humanity wary of us. But every so often the stories get outlandish, and we have to step in—to preserve our pride, as it were.”

She looked up through her hair and her tears. No doubt she was convinced she was about to be bitten.

“I met Bram Stoker,” the vampire said as he circled. “I congratulated him on such a terrifying tale. Pure fiction, of course—the sun, turning into a bat, coffin surrounded by its grave soil, all that foolishness. But Stoker—he was a marvelous writer. He did us proud.

“Bela Lugosi—a wonderful actor,” he continued, “despite the campiness of the films. We were okay with that. In fact, vampires have generally been entertained by everything. Nosferatu, Dark Shadows, The Lost Boys—and Forever Knight, a marvelous television series. Interview with the Vampire, John Carpenter’s Vampires, even the very funny Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie.”

He stopped his circular pacing before her. “But not the TV show. I never much cared for that one. It wasn’t my thing. Vampire stories for the young masses.”

She looked up at him then and his eyes locked with hers. His glowed brightly red. “Rise,” he commanded.

He knew she was powerless to resist even a young vampire; with him, it was like a drug dealer waving crystal meth under a junkie’s nose. She clambered to her feet, never leaving his hypnotic gaze. She moved in, as if drawn by a magnet, until her breasts were mashed against his abdomen. Her head tilted back, her throat exposed, and he leaned close over her.

“But you,” he hissed, “you cannot be excused. The Buffy TV series may have appealed to the young, but at least it had decent stories. But you… you do worse than devastate and disrespect vampires.”

Hie eyes burned like cinders as he bared his teeth. “You can’t write worth a damn,” he growled. “Take a class. Learn some skills. GROW beyond your weaknesses, or the next time we meet you won’t leave here with your throat intact.”

He turned, breaking eye contact, and she collapsed back to the stone, howling and crying.

The vampire nodded to his minions. “Take her back home,” he commanded. “And remind her of what I’ve told her here today. Make sure she understands fully.”

Two of them pulled the crying woman to her feet, but she called after the old vampire. He turned to face her, brow raised.

“Thank you, sir,” she said amidst her sniffles. “I’ll try to do better. Or I won’t write about vampires anymore.”

“Whichever,” he said with a smile. “Don’t disappoint me, Mrs. Meyer.”

She nodded with great enthusiasm, and then the vampires led her from the room.

“Ghosts in the House”
Haunted House
By David M. Fitzpatrick

I don’t know why I did it. I couldn’t help myself. I loved them all so much…

“Why did you do it?” Violette asks me yet again. Her face is a mix of anger and disappointment. I can still see the bullet hole in her skull. She’d been the first I killed. I believed she’d cheated on me. Maybe, deep down, I knew she hadn’t. I just couldn’t control my anger and my guilt.

I try to escape her, as always, by fleeing from the room. But there she is, in the hallway, as if by magic, confronting me again.

“You’ll never escape,” she says. “I’m going to torture you, James. You took my life. You took all of our lives. Now go to their room and suffer!”

I fight back the tears and run through the big house. It was too big for our family, but we loved living here. We were so happy when we moved in. Everything had been perfect. It just went all wrong.

I can hear them in the playroom. I know Violette won’t let up until I go in. I enter, and there they are—my angels. The three girls, ages six, eight, and ten, playing together. The playroom is full of a thousand toys, decorated in pink and yellow, adorned with horses and unicorns, the floor covered with Barbie dolls and coloring books. Sunlight illuminates it in beauty, but it feels like a dark and fiery hell to me.

I see them playing, seeming so happy, giggling and sharing sisterly moments. It makes me cry. I can feel the tears building. They’re gone because of me. But they’re so perfect with their golden hair and their bright blue eyes, their rosy cheeks on high cheekbones. So perfect…

“Not fair,” Violette says from behind me. “You’re cheating. See them as they really are.”

I squeeze my eyes shut against the tears, against the reality. I don’t want to look. I know she’ll make me.

When I open them, the girls have stopped playing. They’re looking at me with accusing faces. I can see the bullet holes in each of their heads. Neat and clean, until they turn around, and I can see the backs of their heads blown away. I don’t know if I’d rather see the gaping wounds or those angry, disappointed faces.

“You did that,” Violette hisses in my ear like some vengeful demon. “You killed us all.”

“I was angry,” I say. “I didn’t mean it. Everything fell apart! I thought we’d be together forever, and be happier…”

“I never cheated on you,” she says. “You’re the cheater. You defiled our marriage. And then turned your shame into anger. I never strayed, no matter what you’d done. And those innocent girls didn’t deserve what you gave them.”

“Why, Daddy?” Janie, my ten-year-old, asks. “Why would you do this to us?”

“Why did you hurt us?” asks Jasmine, the middle girl.

“Why don’t you love us?” says the youngest, Jessica.

They were so beautiful, so perfect. Look what I’ve done! I begin to cry, and behind me Violette laughs.

“You’ll suffer for eternity,” she said.

“No,” I say, turning away from the playroom. “Only until I die.”

She shakes her head at me, in pity and loathing. “You have no idea.”

My head spins, and I turn to argue with my dead wife. But there’s the big wall mirror, framed by colorful flower patterns, and I see myself.

I see the entrance wound under my chin, the top of my skull blown open. Now I remember pulling the trigger that final time and taking my own life. I remember that I’d planned to join them in the afterlife, where nobody could cheat and we’d be happy together forever. And I remember that I keep forgetting this, and that I keep suffering with their ghosts without realizing I’m just like them.

I scream and drop to the bathroom tile as Violette laughs. I can feel unconsciousness coming over me, even as I begin to forget…

*   *   *

The girls don’t understand why he tried to kill us. They remember him screaming through the house that he’d kill us all—and hearing his gun go off.

I shudder when I remember it—when he shot me in the head. It ripped the side of my head off, along with bone, but didn’t go through my brain. I was so lucky.

The girls had come running to help me. There was so much blood, and they were hysterical. I remember them clambering all over me, and me trying to get them to run away. And I can remember John’s face as he stood over us, gun in hand, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d done.

And we all watched as he put the gun under his chin and ended his life.

He’s gone, and I survived, and my three daughters are traumatized. But we have to rebuild our lives in this house. My family has been helpful, and so has John’s. Nobody can believe any of it.

I can’t help but wonder whether there’s an afterlife. If there is… well, some days I hope he’s at peace; others, I hope he’s burning in Hell.

Or at least I hope he’s suffering with his guilt for a while—atoning for his sins or something.

But probably not. There’s no Heaven, no Hell, no Purgatory. And certainly no such thing as ghosts. Just the terrors and horrors in our own minds.

Ours will last the rest of our lives.

I suppose John got off easy.

David M. Fitzpatrick is a fiction writer in Maine, USA. His many short stories have appeared in print magazines and anthologies around the world. He writes for a newspaper, writes fiction, edits anthologies, and teaches creative writing. Visit him at www.fitz42.net/writer to learn more.