#92. Halloween Special—A Brimming Casket of Creepiness (Short Stories and Poetry)

It’s the Halloween Special! Today’s episode showcases some amazing short fiction and poetry from my talented listeners, then another 3 new rounds of Exquisite Corpse lead to an unexpected, haunting story (but not your run-of-the-mill Halloween tale).
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Plus, don’t miss this Halloween offer: the bizarre and creepy “I” For Immortality is at the special reduced price of 99c/ 99p for a limited time only. Click here to get your copy.

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​Hello imaginative people. I’m Anna Tizard and this is episode 92 of Brainstoryum. Apologies for my rather nasal voice, I’m “enjoying” the first virus of the season, and I really have to record today. But it does mean my voice can go deeper and more gravelly, so maybe it’s all worked out for the best, since this is the Halloween Special.
 
And, yes, maybe it is weird and a bit risky for me to declare this as the Halloween show when (as usual) I have no idea what words are going to come out of the Socks of Destiny, no clue as to what writing prompts I will be faced with today, so how can I know that I’ll be able to draft and share with you at the end a short story or scene based off one of them that will be suitably spooky? I suppose, as a discovery writer, and having challenged myself in these ways enough times, I’ve kind of developed a sort of trust or faith (blind faith?) that either serendipity will intervene with some creepy words, or that my imagination will find a way to render something spooky out of them. Thinking about this, I did have a quick look back at last year’s Halloween Special and it’s weird how the themes just sort of emerged, ready-made. The Socks of Destiny complied that day: There was a portent about a “hexed bride”; there was even a “crystalline zombie”. What are the chances?
 
But whatever does (or doesn’t) come out of the socks today, I do have some incredible stories and poetry to read out: my talented listeners’ responses to two very creepy prompts from the last show, the “undead date” and the “weary porcelain doll”—so at least that part of today’s show will be Halloween-themed for sure. The rest is up to the forces that be.
 
I also have a special Halloween offer for you: during the spooky season—that is, between now and 8th November (I may have just picked a random date there, but never mind), the e-book of “I” For Immortality will be 99c, or 99p (or equivalent low price in other territories). So if you haven’t read it yet, now would be a good time to head over to wherever you buy e-books and get your copy. Your Halloween will be all the spookier for it. “I” For Immortality is the second release from my series, The Book of Exquisite Corpse, but of course, each book is standalone and they can be read in any order: they are simply connected by the source of their inspiration which is the crazy game I play on this show. It doesn’t really resemble any stories out there that market themselves as Halloween-themed, but it is eerie with some very dark and bizarre ideas at its core. Link in the show notes, or you can just search for “Anna Tizard” wherever you buy e-books.
 
Before we get started (and my listeners’ stories and poetry will be right up next), I have even more reasons to be excited this Halloween. (And I’ve been sitting on this for a while.) During the last weekend of October that crosses into November, it’s Fantasy Con in the UK. And I’m going! I’ve never been to a convention of any kind before. And I kind of I have to go, because this year it’s in my hometown of Brighton, on the South-east English coast, and the venue is a mere bus ride away; I could not possibly find a reason not to go. And why would I?
 
I know that in America, Fantasy Con is a big thing with a lot of dressing up; I have no idea how much we as Brits tend to dress up at these things—probably a lot less. It’s on a much smaller scale, and we are a shier culture, on the whole.
 
I’m looking forward to a lot of talks and events; learning lots, meeting lots of other authors and making connections. I will be doing something a bit silly (of course I will, this is me!). I am going to be offering a sort of lucky dip of writing prompts; in fact, I’m going to fashion a sort of mini shoulder bag, from a large sock, like a bed sock. (A clean one, of course. I’m actually still waiting for this to arrive in the post at the time of recording! The Socks of Destiny themselves are a bit too small for the job.) I’ve been through my records of hundreds of Exquisite Corpses that have come up on Brainstoryum over the years and gathered about 60 or 70 word combinations, and I plan to print these off on small squares of paper, roll them up like tiny scrolls, maybe even tie them with a bit of cord, and put them in this little bag (sock bag?) so I can entice other authors at the event to have a rummage, pull one out, and at least have a think about what they might do with that prompt. Maybe they’ll keep it; they’ll put it in their pocket and come across it after the event and think, hmm, I might write something based on that. I might even have a listen to Brainstoryum and see what that’s all about… (The woman seemed kind of crazy, but I’m sure it’s fine…)
 
But aside from that, my ‘lucky dip sock plan’, I’m not running any events or talks, this is my first convention and I really want to go there as part of the audience to hoover up whatever useful information I can and meet lots of lovely and interesting people who love what I love. The themes of Fantasy Con this year are horror (which I don’t really write but often lean towards), and lyrical styles of writing—which I think (I hope) is very much up my alley. My original influences, my roots as an author, if I delve back far enough, are in literary fiction, even though I don’t read it so much any more, and I like to think that nowadays it’s becoming much more commonplace for genre fiction to blend with the literary. All writing has the opportunity to be beautiful to read; to be lyrical in style, but without holding back the pace of a good plot. It’s all about balance.
 
So… really looking forward to all that, and no doubt I’ll have some tips and anecdotes to share with you in the next show, although I will have to be rather ninja about recording, because the weekend I would normally use to record in, is taken up by the convention itself! I shall just have to find a way to squeeze it in, and I might have leave most of my feedback on the convention to the next show after that, once I’ve had more time to stare into space and have a think about it.
 
Anyway! That’s all to come in the next couple of shows. I think now it is time to get stuck into some Halloween tales. Let the velvet curtains of spookiness be drawn aside…
 
**
Now, as mentioned, the writing prompts I invited you to respond to were: “the undead date” (whatever that may mean) and “the weary porcelain doll”.
 
As usual, I was not disappointed…
 
Elena Dennison wrote a poem based on the “undead date”, entitled:
 
“He ghosted me, the fool.
 
He ghosted me
But I will wait
behind a half-opened door
at the top of the stairs
to breathe out his name
or in the shower
shrouded in steam
where I will draw
a watery love heart
on his reflection.
 
He ghosted me
But I am the undead date
And I know where he lives.”
 
So creepy! I love this. It has all the suspense you’d expect to get from a story. The way it unfolds is like the perfect beginning of a horror movie. Thank you, Elena Dennison.
 
Nick Vracar wrote about  “weary porcelain doll”:
 
“Buddy was tired of waiting. He had spent only a moment as David’s best friend, a longer moment as a curiosity, a haunted doll in a corner museum. He had seen the world end from his glass case ages ago. It had been so long since someone visited. All Buddy wanted was a friend.”
 
Ah, it’s that simple language at the end that has so much tension gathered underneath it, like a half-glimpsed shape pushing up from under a sheet. Thank you for haunting us, Nick.
 
Alessandro Bozzo combined The Undead Date and the Weary Porcelain Doll in one story:
 
"Over there," Hazahn pointed shakily with his tiny, ceramic finger. The poor doll sounded exhausted. He was just tired. Tired of having his spirit trapped in this claustrophobic children's toy. Ever since The Priestess had discovered his connection to the supernatural world, she had been forcing him to work with her, solving countless occult mysteries with the promise that she would eventually release him. Only The Priestess knew how to perform the ritual to set his soul free. Hazahn's connection to the spirit world allowed him to see things that the living could not. So, here they were. A weary, porcelain doll and his master trying to discover the source of an undead plague in a small village.
 
"It's a... date palm?", the priestess observed with curiosity. Using his spectral vision, Hazahn proceeded to explain that the unconsecrated burial ground that lay beneath the soil here was the source of the corruption. A single date palm grew here. Anyone who ate of the fruit from that tree succumbed to its poison and then returned from the grave as something unholy. The villagers had taken to calling this tainted fruit, "undead dates".
 
"Now quickly do your thing and heal this land. Then release me from this accursed, earthenware vessel once you're done," Hazahn grumbled impatiently. "And don't eat any dates!"
 
There’s so much packed in here. It’s just a scene, but you’ve found a way to sneak in a glimpse of this awkward partnership between a spirit trapped in a doll and a priestess. Thank you, Alessandro!
 
Paul Monteith also combined the two writing prompts and wrote:
 
The Undead Date and the Porcelain Doll

“Drac was finally sitting beside his date instead of facing her, allowing him to avoid her fixed, vacant, glassy-eyed gaze. Her look penetrated his soullessness, evoking thoughts of a stake penetrating his heart, and he shuddered. To Anna, Drac looked like most of her other dates, dead on arrival. It was as if DEATH had failed to claim him. He looked older than his profile pic, and a sickly sweet odor followed him. His smell and age made Anna wary of him. Even so, she felt compelled to expose her neck and offer him her flawless porcelain skin. Drac parted his ruby red lips and, with fangs bared, came down on Anna's neck. He shrieked. Instead of piercing skin, his fang chipped on her hard ceramic casing. She looked at him dead-eyed. "Quite the porcelain doll, aren't I?"”
 
Well, this one took me by surprise. A vampire and a doll go on a date, and what happens? I get the feeling she might have one up on him—and not just because she’s called Anna. Thank you, Paul Monteith.
 
Finally, Eric Mongomery, who writes poems and short stories, responded to both writing prompts, but separately:

These are just… magnificent. The balance between things happening—change, movement—and the pure lyricism, the beauty. It’s amazing. Thanks so much for sharing these, Eric Montgomery.
 
Right, it is time to discover unique new story possibilities, with some Halloween flavour hopefully, as we reach into the Socks of Destiny.
 
SOCKS OF DESTINY ORGAN JINGLE
 
This part of the show is un-transpose-able! There's much giggling and rustling of paper as I pull words at random from the Socks of Destiny to create three unique sentences according to the rules of Exquisite Corpse, going: “Describing word—noun—action—describing word—noun.” Today’s resulting sentences are:
 
1. The glittering mafioso concealed the brightly-feathered retired social worker.

2. The hyperactive wandering gypsy was in a parallel universe to the mustachioed collector.

3. The bloated autocrat crossed the dry waste to meet the entranced Allosaurus.
 
After some initial brainstorming, I use the "pause button" (at length!) to draft a scene or short story, using one of these as my chosen writing prompt. Here goes (fingers crossed)…
 
****
The face was back again.
 
She’d seen it in the shapes of steam unfurling from her coffee. She’d glimpsed it in a cloud only yesterday—but that might have just been her imagination.
 
But as she set down the wash bucket, it was there, wavering in the surface. Watching her.
 
Zahliah washed her clothes as quickly as she could, keeping the water churning continuously. Never let it settle. For there was no knowing how the secret eyes found you, how ‘he’ made you disappear; and a fireside story that was fun to tell the night before, over sausages roasting on sticks was, in the morning, as cold and real as the ground frost that ached through her knees.
 
The face wobbled on the water, as if he were standing behind her, leaning over the bucket. The soap suds parted and spread into thin lines of bubbles, fizzling out. The man’s smile spread wide, his thick moustache a shadow along his upper lip. Anger laced with terror balled in Zahliah’s chest. Her fist tightened, and with a shout, she smashed the surface of the water.
 
Still there. She rocked back onto her heels and sank down onto the freezing grass, breaths coming quick.
 
How could she be so stupid as to think she could beat the Man? Then to anger him, draw his attention to her? But hadn’t he already taken everything from her? She had little left to lose. Her parents, her sister, were just a fading dream. Sometimes she idly wondered if she’d made them up; if all of it had been a dream. But no. She had to come from somewhere, even if, as a Wanderer Gypsy, that place was unmapped, more a place of the heart. But if only she knew why the Man hunted them. He’d taken her family, if the stories were true. There was no other story that made any sense.
 
She poured out the water, squeezing the sopping clothes against the inside, and trudged back to her caravan. Her shire horse, Mitchell, was already stomping for his breakfast.
 
“Hungry again, Mitchell? Surely not…” She cooed with gentle sarcasm, stroking his glossy side. But as she reached for his food bag, something made her hesitate.
 
It was first light, quiet. Too quiet.
 
Turning from Mitchell, she trod softly over the grass, suspicion tingling in her skin. Her neighbour—her friend, Ingus, who often travelled with her—was parked behind that little copse of trees. The doors to his wagon were open. But he wasn’t there. His horse wasn’t there. And one of the doors was hanging off its hinges.
 
Zahliah stalked around the side of it, careful to stay out of view of the open wagon, just in case. But the silence was an eerie blanket smothering the whole area, and not even the birds in the trees wanted to mark the sunrise.
 
A whimper, too small to be Ingus’s voice. It had to be his daughter, Sarah. At the thought of that tangle-haired, pure-hearted imp of a girl, Zahliah dropped all her caution and rushed to the doorway.
 
“Sarah?”
 
With a thump and a clatter, Sarah dashed out, the whites of her eyes seeming to glow in the dusk.
 
“Zahliah… Where’s daddy? Where’s daddy?”
 
“What happened, chickpea?” Zahliah stroked back the girl’s wild curls. But whatever it was, it was too awful to say. Sarah mashed her face into Zahliah’s stomach, gulping back the words that caught on a sob.
 
Zahliah’s rage was liquid now, like lava rushing through her veins. She stormed into the wagon, lit a lamp with shaking hands, and pored over every surface, hunting. There had to be some clue. Her heart beat against the obvious, but no, she couldn’t accept it, not yet. There had to be a clue.
 
She only found silence, as if Ingus had left a glut of it behind. Dust motes danced like midges in all the spaces where he could have been, should have been. The kitchenette. The sofa bed, still pulled out, the quilt a jumble of panic left behind. The crouch-space underneath, a secret compartment where Sarah had surely hid, trembling like a mouse, while…
 
Zahliah huffed, shook her head. Not until I know.
 
“Ingus?”
 
As if he would answer. As if she could call the signs to her, make them appear.
 
There. The mark against the wall, adjacent to the bed. Zahliah held up the lamp. A swirl of striations, faint but still visible. As if a dirty piece of corduroy had pressed against the wall, but in a looping curve. Just like all the times before.
 
It was him. The giant fingers of the Man. With wild eyes, Zahliah envisioned the moment, unable to escape it now, as if the scene were unfolding in front of her: Ingus’s shout as the doors tore open. Hasty whispers to Sarah, urging her to hide and stay quiet under the bed. Ingus grabbing his cricket bat, swinging it hard against the massive protrusion of flesh as it reached inside. Again and again he would have pummelled it, this giant, muscular worm; the other, adjoined worms that spread from the monstrous hand, fumbling for him, grazing the wall as they searched—leaving that partial fingerprint—then finally grasped, curled around his body. It was too strong. Ingus would have struggled, uselessly, but the hand might have knocked him against the wall, rendering him unconscious. Otherwise, Zahliah would surely have heard his shout.
 
She lowered the lamp, swallowing.
 
The Man always got you in the end. That’s how the stories went.
 
There was a reason why the Wanderer Gypsies never settled. They were forever on the run.
 
****
Spooky? Spooky enough? Not traditionally Halloween-y, but that’s not me. Every story must be a surprise; to me, first, and then I’ll know I have a good chance of passing on that surprise to you, because being genuinely surprised is one of my favourite things about reading.
 
I have more ideas surrounding this story and where it could go, if Zahliah gets to confront this surreptitious giant… who likes to “collect” humans, these so-called “Wanderer Gypsies” especially, but there wasn’t enough space and time to fully develop it for this show.
 
And I’m so glad I left plenty of space and time to share your stories. Thanks again to everyone who sent them in to make this Halloween Special really special; they were just wonderful to read out and so inspiring. Some of them are beginning to get a little longer than the 1-2 paragraphs I’ve been asking for, but I’ve been thinking about this and I’d like to give you that little bit more space for these entries, wherever it’s needed, as it’s so difficult to squeeze a lot into 100 or 150 words. Maybe 250 words with some wiggle room should be the new limit. Let me know what you think. I still welcome short-short pieces, it’s just that I don’t want you to feel too cramped when you’ve got something sprouting deliciously at your fingertips.
 
Now, what new writing prompts shall I suggest from today’s Exquisite Corpses? If you want to have a go at a complete Exquisite Corpse, just go for it: the one I’ve just used might be a good one to try, I’d love to hear what you make of it, “The hyperactive, wandering gypsy was in a parallel universe to the moustachioed collector.” But if that’s too bonkers, or too much to try and squish into microfiction, or a poem, then how about trying either of those describing word—noun combinations? Being either the “the hyperactive, wandering gypsy” or “the moustachioed collector”. Ooh, I didn’t really explore the moustachioed collector in much detail because he was just a kind of glimpsed face in a bucket of water: so let me know what you might make of him. If you focus just on the one-word combination, one character, maybe that image will more easily blossom and morph into something unique and brand new. You’ll never know until you put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.
 
If you have something you’d like to share, you know what to do. Go to annatizard.com and hit the “contact” button on any page footer, or ping me on social media if you’ve found me there. (I’m not on there a lot, but just enough.) Make sure you get your entry to me by the Friday after this show goes out, so I have time to include it in my recording for the following weekend’s release.
 
And don’t forget the special Halloween offer for “I” For Immortality (it did win an award, you know), and, forgive me, I can’t help but quote a review from Harland Doerksen (I hope I’m pronouncing that correctly), who says:
 
‘"I" For Immortality is a story of change and permanence, and reading it permanently changed me. Anna Tizard writes with pace and passion and does so beautifully. The book just flows. "I" for Immortality is a gem and a tour de force.’
 
Wow, thank you to Harland if you might be listening. Every time I read this review, I feel like I must have dreamt it, it just seems too good to be true.
 
Anyway, I hope you may have a chance to read "I" for Immortality for a “transformative” Halloween. And why not? You can be creepy… deeply. That’s why I call it “deeply weird”.
 
Until next time, go forth and be inspired!