by Shaun Meeks
“Don’t worry about what I do and don’t believe. I seen things up on that kid’s granddaddy’s farm that I shouldn’t ever have believed, but I saw them. Do you even know what those people up there have gotten into in the past? Let’s just say that if there was ever something wrong with this town, it would have been born over there. Where’s the boy now?”
“Same booth he’s always at.”
Larissa watched as her boss and one time lover, Hal, walked away from the griddle, leaving the burgers to burn a bit more, grabbed his cleaver and walked out into the dining area. She followed him, wondering if something had happened while she had slept, that perhaps she had went to bed and woke up in the Twilight Zone and any moment Rod Serling would come out and start his spiel.
She followed her boss and heard him gasp before she could see why, but once she moved around the man that seemed to freeze in his tracks, she saw why he had stopped, though it took a moment for her eyes to comprehend what she was looking at.
Teddy was standing in the middle of the room, his wife beater now red and wet, stuck to his body, making him look even smaller. Around him, the diner had been painted red, the smell of fresh blood cover the smell of the omelets, burgers and coffees that where laying forgotten on the tables, the people that had ordered no longer sitting at their tables. The customers were still in the diner, just not in their seats. They were on the floor, the ceiling, the walls and on Teddy himself, bits of someone hung from his teeth as he smiled at Hal and Larissa. She looked at Teddy, though to be honest, he was far from the boy she had known all his life.
Teddy was standing there, his body cover in the blood of the others lying dead around him, his flesh seeming to ripple with something unseen under the surface, moving from head to toe, all the way to his hair. Larissa watched as the boy’s mullet moved in time with the movement under his skin and he turned to her.
“You laughed earlier, didn’t you? Thought it was all a joke, but now you will see the power I have and that everything you know will crumble around you.”
Hal moved forward, raising the meat clever, but Teddy was faster than the old cook could ever be. Whatever was under his skin, moving like snakes or worms, flowed up to the top of Teddy’s head and exploded out of and moved out towards Hal with speed that seemed unnatural. The meat clever fell to the ground as the monstrous extension hit the cook with a wet slap, followed by his head and his insides. Larissa watched, unable to scream as her boss fell to his knees, the stump of his neck spraying blood on her before it fell with a dull thud. She looked back towards Teddy, his hair seemed to have returned to normal again, though the party in the back was dripping with fresh blood and his skin was still pulsing with alien life underneath.
“Now, I’m going to show you what I meant earlier. Try not to laugh.”
The Little Bastards was another one of those fun stories I wrote, something quick and a bit silly. I wanted to do a twist on the story of Redcaps without doing some silly fairytale story with elves and magicians. When I was writing it at first, the story was only about a guy in the dead of winter, heading to his girlfriend’s house in hopes of getting laid. I used ideas that I knew all too well from my childhood, especially the spitting on bus shelters to watch it freeze on the glass. It’s gross to think I use to be that guy, but we all make mistakes. I also hate to admit that I use to be the guy that would walk through feet of snow, through terrible rain storms, all with the hope of getting a little action. When you are young and foolish, it is amazing what you would do to try and get a girl’s affection. Come to think about it, does that ever change? Maybe it still that way for some of us old dudes.
You Can’t Always Run Away was originally written for a collection that I still have in the works called 7 Tales of 7 Sins, this one being the story about Sloth. The story started off with an idea I had while walking through a mall in Scarborough. I saw this little girl there that was dressed up like her parents thought she was a doll, a deep purple velvet dressed that seemed so out of place. The little girl was standing by one of the little wish ponds and I thought of how creepy it would look to see her all dressed up like that, standing in the pool and just staring off into space as though she wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. That thought led to this story. It has had mixed reactions from people because, again, it is one of those dark ending stories that might leave a bad taste in your mouth, but I think it is more realistic. I also wonder now if this is the same darkness that Mark and James were facing in When the Darkness Came. It could very well be, but I will let the reader decide.
I original wrote Madcap for a collection about evil toys and wanted to do it from the toys point of view, making it about a demonic toy that kills because nobody will love him. The story was originally written for an anthology about attic clowns, but it was reject because they were looking for stories that were a bit more extreme than what I had written. My idea was to make the reader feel some sympathy for the ugly toy clown that feels isolated and wants nothing more than to be loved and accepted, and gets driven to madness and violence when he doesn’t get it.
Simcoe Sally Ain’t No Lady came from my childhood, when I use to go to Columbus Boys Camp every summer up in Lake Simcoe. When I was there, the camp councilors would tell us that there were alligators in the lake and about a relative of the Loch Ness Monster that called the lake home and her name was Sally, the Simcoe Serpent, or Igopogo. I remember believing those stories; having dreams and sometimes nightmares about the strange monster they told me about. I was telling someone else recently about those stories, then that same night I went home and wrote this story.
I wanted to write an apocalyptic story, something about a disease that was wiping out the human race and how some people would still try and do things they do every day regardless of the risks. Originally the idea was going to be about a drug addict, but then I moved away from that and thought it should be about a woman that worked as a stripper and continued to go to work because she still needed to pay bills. Stripped Away is what came out. The idea of men going out to watch women dancing naked, drinking overpriced beer while the entire world is falling apart around them may seem a bit farfetched, but I think that human nature, especially man behavior, would make this story less unrealistic than some might think.
The idea for Atheist in the Foxhole came to me while I was watching an episode of Breaking Bad. There is a scene during a house party where a hip hop song is playing and the chorus is “There’s no atheists in the foxhole”, which is a common war phrase. Of course when I heard it, I wondered, what if there was an atheist there, sitting with his dead friend beside him? When I did the first two drafts of it, I didn’t like the way it sounded, so I changed the point of view and made it a demon there, some little devil talking to him, bring up all the crappy things he had done and goading him into the inevitable. Some people may not like the second person perspective, But I thought it added to the stories overall tone.
Tailpipe Dreams was just a little flash fiction piece that I wrote for no real reason. Originally I was going to submit it to Dark Eclipse, but sent Open Book instead. This one was a weird little story about a serial killer with a strange fetish. I didn’t really know what I wanted the fetish to be when I started, but as I went, this is what came out. I hope there is nobody out there that would think it was a good idea, strange as hell, but not good.
The final story for this collection is The Creek is a story that seemed to just write itself. I also found it to be one of the hardest stories to write because there is a lot of myself in this one. Of course not all of it is true, but there is enough of me in this one to make it a little darker in my own head and I hope that it translates to those that read it. The story started off originally with a thought from my childhood, when my dad would go on walks with us all, usually I brought along my little crappy boom box and blasted Motorhead or The Sex Pistols as we went. It was originally going to just be about collecting fireflies, about how they have the souls of lost children in them, but then
I remembered a my dad telling me about a horrific scene he had seen when he still lived in Alabama. He had gone down to the creek one day, to where he use to jump off the bridge and go swimming, when he saw a kid hanging from a tree. As I was writing the story, that thought came back to me and the story took a turn the way it has and this was the end result. I hope that it took a turn for the better.
And that’s that. Now I am off to go work on another collection and to finish my next novel. I do hope you enjoyed the little trip into my dark recesses and that some of these stories will linger with you for a while.
About the author
Shaun Meeks lives in Toronto with his partner, Burlesque performer and model, Mina LaFleur. Shaun is the author of numerous short stories, most recently appearing in magazines and ezines such as Haunted Path and Dark Eclipse, as well as anthologies like A Feast Of Frights From The Horror Zine, Zombies Gone Wild and Fresh Grounds. He is currently working on the release of his next short story collection called Dark Reaches and his first novel, Shutdown. For further information go to www.shaunmeeks.com.
Introduction to the Madness Copyright © 2012 Shaun Meeks
Open Book Copyright © 2011 Shaun Meeks. First appeared in Dark Eclipse issue 7
The Edge of the Abyss Copyright © 2009 Shaun Meeks
Treats Copyright © 2009 Shaun Meeks
As Long As It Ends Copyright © 2010 Shaun Meeks
When the Darkness Came Copyright © 2012 Shaun Meeks
The Great Nothing Copyright © 2011 Shaun Meeks
The Tennessee Top Hat Copyright © 2011 Shaun Meeks
End of the Leash Copyright © 1999 Shaun Meeks
The Little Bastards Copyright © 2011 Shaun Meeks
I Am Fear Copyright © 1994 Shaun Meeks
All Things End Terminal Copyright © 2011 Shaun Meeks. First appeared in Haunted Path 7/8
You Can’t Always Run Away Copyright © 2000 Shaun Meeks
Madcap Copyright © 2011 Shaun Meeks
Simcoe Sally Ain’t No Lady Copyright © 2012 Shaun Meeks
Stripped Away Copyright © 2011 Shaun Meeks
Atheist in the Foxhole Copyright © 2012 Shaun Meeks
Tail Pipe Dreams Copyright © 2001 Shaun Meeks
The Creek Copyright © 2012 Shaun Meeks
Afterward Copyright © 2012 Shaun Meeks