Reading, News, and Lions, oh my!

Hey everybody! To my new supporters, hello! Thank you so much, I am so excited to share my work with you!

I know I'm late posting this week--I aim for Saturday--but I ran out of time this weekend while traveling. I'll be posting tonight though and I thank you for your patience!

Supernatural School has a publishing date! July Fifth! I'll be making a bigger post about that as the month comes to a close :)

This is a youtube video of me reading the story below. It's a little rough since it's unedited, but I really love writing comedy. It challenges me in a way thriller doesn't!

Enjoy!

-------------------------

“This job is going to make or break your career. You know it, the big guy upstairs guarantees it, and your parents are, like, mildly apprehensive about it.

“Just be a swamp monster,” your mother says 

“There’s good money in mob monsters,” your father agrees.

“Well yeah,” you say. “There has to be otherwise no one would agree to the surgeries.” Your friend Arvin had come out with tentacles.

You are not going to be a tentacle antagonist.

Your parents look at each other with barely disguised grimaces. As one they turn to you.

“That’s probably the best option for you,” they say together, a benefit of the telepathy that had made them premiere antagonists in their day. You’ve inherited no psychic ability, a fact that no one in your mauling classes lets you forget.

You try to flip the table, but can’t since it’s bolted to the ground. Your parents frown disapprovingly at you and you make a face at them, trying to convey what exactly you think of their suggestion. Then, with an inarticulate scream of rage, you storm out of the house.

You’d show them. You’d show them all.

——————————————

The costumer doesn’t seem to know if she should laugh or not. She looks from the drawing in her hands to you and back again. She sucks on her unnaturally sharp teeth, looks back at the cabin they’ve given you for this job, and back to you.

“I have questions,” she says.

“Alright,” you say, magnanimous in your makeup chair. Everything is being set up just how you want it, from the traps in the forest to the secret labyrinth of tunnels running underneath the set, to the bowl of rotten fruit on the counter in the pristine kitchen.

Your parents are going to eat their words.

“Are these chainsaws?” she asks, turning the paper around to show you your own drawing. You admire it for a moment, a little impressed with the shading you accomplished in the half hour it took you to draw it.

“Yes,” you say and check your angles in the mirror. The makeup artist had done a wonderful job giving you sunken cheeks. You look, you think, a bit more corpse-like than you’d hoped.

“On both arms,” the costumer clarifies.

You raise your eyebrows. “Obviously.” You roll your eyes.

The costumer frowns and flips through the papers on her clipboard. “But– you say you start inside the house. There are doors inside. With doorknobs.”

“Yes,” you say. You don’t understand how this is so hard. You are too smart for these people. “I scare them in the kitchen and then towards the front door. It’ll be locked, of course, and they’ll be forced to go down into the basement.” You chuckle, letting the sound build until you’re cackling. You stop abruptly. “How was that? Spooky right?”

The costumer stares at you. “Right. Sure.” She flips back to the picture you drew of your chainsaw hands. “And you’ll get through the doors…how?”

“How about you worry about getting these babies in chainsaw gloves?” you ask her, rudely snapping your fingers in her face. “Huh? Maybe leave the scaring to the talent.”

The costumer obviously just needed a firmer hand because she gets right to work after that.

—————————————————

Later that night, your heart is thumping with excitement and your new chainsaw hands are aching to be turned on. Everything has gone according to plan. The group of college students, five in total, have shown up for their “fun” weekend in the woods, settling into their “grandfather’s” cabin like nothing is amiss. 

And they’ve also…they’ve also…

Well they’ve settled in. And that’s what you’ve been waiting for.

You push open the trap door in the living room, smirking as the hinges hardly make a sound. You’re silent, like the grave, you are a panther padding across the living room towards the kitchen, you are a ninja, you are–

The floor beneath you creaks, long and loud.

The conversation in the kitchen comes to an abrupt halt, the silence crashing around you like an anvil. Your palms are sweaty, strapped in as they are, and you dare not even breathe.

“Man, how old is this place?” one of the girls asks with a nervous laugh. “It sounds like the wind is going to knock it over!”

The others agree, relief coloring their voices. You, slowly, relax.

You meant to do that. Now they’re feeling the beginnings of the true terrors you’re going to unleash on them. This is because you’re a genius and they are your prey because as well as being a genius you are a hunter.

You stalk the rest of the way to the kitchen door and take a deep breath. Show time. You reach for the knob only to find that you can’t grab it, not with your chainsaw hands.

Well, what makes you a genius is your ability to improvise.

You kick the door down, thumbing the switch in your gloves so that your chainsaw hands rev loudly as they turn on. You cackle, letting your eye twitch and rush into the room.

The college kids react just like you knew they would. They scream, shouting over each other as they jolt up from where they’re sitting around the table.

“Oh shit!” one yells.

“Oh my god!” another screams.

“The knives!” the third one commands.

Wait, what?

You were only intending to rev your chainsaw hands at them until they fled into the basement. Your mind goes blank as you watch all five of them lunge for the knife block, literally jumping over the counter to get to them.

“AUGH,” you say as they throw the first volley. You duck behind your chainsaw hands, shuffling back until the kitchen table is between you and them. “Stop!”

They do not stop. Why did you put so many knives in the kitchen? Why would you do that? You should not have done that.

Luckily, your cowering keeps you from getting more than nicked by the deadly knife attack. You stay hunched by the wall as the college kids rush past you, back to the living room.

A real antagonist works through the pain. This is a hiccup, but, if anything, it makes you more motivated to slaughter these assholes.

You jerk up from your strategic fetal position and sprint towards the living room, brandishing your chainsaw hands.

The kids who, for some reason, have stopped in the living room begin to scream again.

“He’s chasing us!” one yells.

“To the basement!” another screams.

“Don’t be stupid!” the same third one commands. “There are no doors in the basement!”

“Outside!” a heretofore silent one suggests.

“What,” you say. “No, no, there are– there are swamp monsters–!”

They don’t listen to you and race to the front door. You advance on them menacingly. It’s too early to end it, you need them to go into the basement so you can lock them in! Then they’ll find the secret tunnels and–

“It’s locked!” the yelling one announces.

“Quick, go down!” the screaming one says, pointing to the basement.

“Oh for the love of god,” the commanding one says and puts his shoulder through the front door.

The sound you make isn’t human as they go racing into the night. The last one turns as you charge them, yelps, and slams the screen door shut behind them. You feel rage coursing through you. A screen door? A screen door. They think a screen door will stop you? You are a predator, a genius, you–

The screen door is made of steel mesh which is surprising difficult to cut with your chainsaw hands. You grapple with it and sneer. Surely they don’t think it’s that easy to get away, there are still traps in the woods, spread out all around the perimeter. They won’t just get away and completely ruin your great plan.

“Watch out for this giant hole!” the commanding one shouts. “Jess almost fell into it!”

Almost, you think. That’s fine, they’ll split up and then it won’t be almost again. You get one corner of the screen away from the frame and start working on the next corner. It would be a lot easier if you could just unlatch it but your chainsaw hands are oddly limiting.

“I wasn’t watching where I was going!” the yelling one says in a shaky voice. “There are, like, traps everywhere!”

Yes, you think gleefully. You are almost done with the second corner and will soon be free. They’re everywhere, one for each one of you. Traps for all!

“We should spread out!” the screaming one suggests. “He can’t catch all of us–”

“No more talking,” the silent one snaps. “You don’t get to talk. If we walk single file, we can spot all the traps and get out of here.”

No, you think with some panic as they all agree. You muscle your way through the screen with a roar, wincing as the sharp steel cuts into your arms.

“He’s coming!”

“Move faster!”

You launch yourself across the grass, almost blind with rage. You’re going to do this right, you’re going to make a name for yourself, you’re going to–

The world turns on its head, your stomach swoops, and your chainsaw hands sputter as you fall into the hole you’d had set design dig. You sit at the bottom of the ten foot pit and blink up at the starry night sky, dazed. Then it sinks in.

You fell. You are trapped.

“NO!” you roar, stumbling to your feet. Spittle runs down your chin as you hear their footsteps crashing through the forest. They are getting away. “NO!”

You throw yourself at the dirt wall of the hole and try to climb up it. Unfortunately, the wall is as slick as you’d imagined it would be, nearly solid in most places and muddy in others. You’d normally be able to find purchase and use the strength your father gave you but today you have chainsaws instead of hands.

“Curse you chainsaw hands!” you scream, lifting the cursed things to the sky. “Cuuuuuurse yooooouuuuu!”

The last sounds of your prey running fade to nothing.