13 DAYS OF HORROR - Day 13!!! Here's Jodi!

Lovely Creature

by Jodi MacArthur

Need I say more? CLICK on the post header for the link to Saturday morning pleasure!Erin Cole's 13 DAYS OF HORROR ends with gem from Jodi!

#fridayflash: STAMP OF A VAMP by Paul D. Brazill

Stamp of A Vamp by Paul D. Brazill

Alison Day was a mousy woman who had barely been scuffed by the wear and tear of life until the day she met Lulu, the effect of which was like lightning hitting a plane.

The Autumn night draped itself over the city, and the moon bit into the sky as Alison rushed home from her usual Wednesday evening yoga class. She felt edgy and fumbled for her keys as she heard the click, click, click of high heels on the wet pavement.

She turned. On the corner of the street, beneath a blinking street lamp, a woman was smoking a cigarette.Her silhouette seemed to appear and disappear like warm breath on a cold window pane.

She was tall and, like Alison, in her early thirties with wan looking skin, a slash of red lipstick across her full lips and her black hair cut into a Louise Brooks bob. She was wearing a red PVC raincoat and shiny black stiletto heels and Alison suddenly felt very dowdy with her green cagoule, Gap jeans and mousy, unkempt hair.

The woman slowly sauntered towards Alison-and in a muddy foreign accent, said:

‘Keep looking at people like that and you’ll be in for a good tongue lashing.’

And then she collapsed in heap at Alison's’ feet.

***

‘Would you like a cup of tea?” said Alison, “I have ...’

‘Something stronger, maybe?’ purred the woman as she sat up from the sofa.

Alison rummaged in a cupboard and found an unopened bottle of absinthe.

‘How about this?’ she said.

The woman smiled and lit a Gauloise cigarette.

‘My name is Lulu,’ she said, filling two shot glasses with absinthe. ‘Drink with me, eh?’

As the night hurtled on, Alison got drunk and in the process told Lulu her life story, such as it was. Lulu seemed fascinated by Alison's idyllic, picture postcard childhood in Yorkshire and her job at Bermondsey Library. Lulu revealed little about herself, however, except that she had come from Bucharest shortly before the revolution and that she was married to a nightclub owner called Nicholas.

‘You know,’ said Alison ‘ I hardly ever drink. My friends say that I can get drunk on the sniff of a barmaids apron.’ She giggled.

‘This is the first time I’ve drunk absinthe.’

‘Makes the heart grow fonder,’ said Lulu, licking the rim of the glass and holding Alison's gaze.

***

At some point during the night Alison woke up in bed, in a cold sweat, with no recollection of getting there. Lulu, naked, was smoking and gazing out of the bedroom window. The tip of her cigarette glowed bright red and then faded to black.

***

In the morning, as slivers of sun sliced through the blinds, Alison awoke and saw that Lulu was gone. Memories of the night before fizzed like champagne bubbles as,on the bed, she saw a business card for Vamps Gentleman's Club in Shoreditch. Written in red lipstick, was a phone number.

Vamps was suffocating in black leather and red velvet. It was cluttered with noisy groups of brash City Boys and semi-naked young women who wandered around with beer glasses full of money.The DJ played ‘Goldfinger’ as a statuesque blond, wearing only a pair of angels’ wings, crawled up and down a glistening pole.

Alison sat on a large black sofa next to Lulu, who was dressed in a red leather nun’s habit with a gold pentagram dangling from a chain around her neck. Tearing the label from her beer bottle she moved in close to hear Lulu speak.

‘I suppose marriage to Nicholas was a marriage of convenience.‘Lulu said. ‘I wanted to stay legally in England and he wanted...well, a pet. He promised me a job in a West End nightclub and I ended up here. But the worse thing is. He makes me have sex with other dancers. Business partners.’ She downed her drink in one.

‘Can’t you leave him?’ said Alison, red faced.

‘If I leave him, I’ll be deported and that will be that’, she said. Alison blanched..

As Autumn trudged on into Winter, Alison and Lulu’s meetings became more frequent and murderous thoughts hovered over them like a hawk ready to strike it’s prey until one night Lulu eventually said, ‘Okay. Let’s kill him.’

***

‘You see, 99% of the human race are just here to make up the numbers,’ said Nicholas, in a voice stained with nicotine and brimmed with brandy. He was an elegant, handsome man in his sixties. He indifferently smoked a large cigar, the smoke rings floating above his head like a halo.

‘They’re just cannon fodder. Don’t you agree?’

Alison couldn't agree or disagree. She couldn’t say a thing and she couldn’t move.

The plan had been simple enough. She was to go to Vamps on New Years Eve and ask about work as dancer. When the place closed she’d accept Nicholas’s inevitable invitation to go to his office for a night cap with him and Lulu. They were to poison him and dump his body in the Thames along with the drunks who tottered into the river’s dank and dirty water at this time of year.

But after the first couple of drinks she realised that she was paralysed. In the oak and leather armchair she was like an insect trapped in amber.

The clock struck twelve and the room was lit up by exploding fireworks. Lulu and Nicholas’ eyes glowed bright red and then faded to black.

‘Happy New Year,my sweet ,’ said Lulu. ‘I hope you like your present.’

‘I’m sure I will, darling ‘,said Nicholas, ‘I know how difficult it is to find fresh meat in these decadent times’. He chuckled and seemed to float from his chair.

As he sank his fangs deep into her neck, Alison wanted to cry, to scream but she could do nothing except listen to the sound of fireworks and Lulu’s cruel laughter.

She was as quiet as a mouse.

The end.

(c)Paul D. Brazill 2009.

A version of this story appeared at Powder Burn Flash in March 2009.

The painting is by KATE GABRIELLE.

13 DAYS OF HORROR - Day 12 - John Wiswell

If you don't read John Wiswell's Bathroom Monologues you should and you should also check out Day 12 of ERIN COLE's 13 DAYS OF HORROR. today, John Wiswell brings us Familiarity Does. CLICK on the Post header for the link.

13 DAYS OF HORROR - Day 11 = MJS

CLICK on the post header for DAY ELEVEN of ERIN COLE's 13 DAYS OF HORROR. Today it's the splendid Hunter Moon by Michael J. Solender.

Don’t Call Me a Crook! A Scotsman's Tale of World Travel, Whisky, and Crime by Bob Moore

Don’t Call Me a Crook! A Scotsman's Tale of World Travel, Whisky, and Crime


If you look up the word ‘ bounder’ in the dictionary you won’t see a picture of Bob Moore (what you will see is the definition ‘a morally reprehensible person; cad’) but you really should.

Don’t Call Me a Crook! A Scotsman's Tale of World Travel, Whisky, and Crime was written by Bob Moore in 1935 and originally published by the same people that published Mien Kampf. Moore wrote ‘Crook!’hoping to make a packet although it’s doubtful that he made a penny from the book. It was discovered dishevelled and ignored in the ‘Tramps’ section of the New York Public Library by Dissident Books’ Nicholas Towasser and is an absolute cracking read.

It starts off brilliantly:

“It is a pity there are getting to be so many places that I can never go back to, but all the same, I do not think it is much fun a man being respectable all his life.”
It then recounts the fantastic globetrotting adventures of a working class Scotsman who makes his way around the world wheeling and dealing, wining and dining and working as a marine engineer, building superintendent, a moonshine runner and a gun runner.
Moore’s adventures take him to the U.S., England, Australia, Egypt, South America, Japan, and China. The book has an afterword by Booker Prize-winning novelist James ‘Chuckle-Chops’ Kelman but don’t let that put you off. Moore and his book are far from respectable. A thief, a liar, a cheat and, yes, a bounder this is a hell of a yarn.

CLICK on the post header for Bob Moore's MY SPACE page.

13 DAYS OF HORROR - Day ten - ANGEL!

CLICK on the post header for the link to DAY TEN of Erin Cole's 13 DAYS OF HORROR. Today the very talented Angel Zapata gives us a wonderful poem: STYX&STONES.

13 DAYS OF HORROR - Day Nine - me!

CLICK on the post header for DAY NINE of Erin Cole's 13 DAYS OF HORROR. The story is THE FRIEND CATCHER and it's by me.

13 DAYS OF HORROR - Day Eight - Kate Pilarcik

CLICK n the post header for DAY EIGHT of ERIN COLE'S 13 DAYS OF HORROR. Today's offering is the absolutely spooky 'Apparition' by Kate Pilarcik. Chillin'

13 DAYS OF HORROR - Day Seven.

CLICK on the post header for Barry J. Northern's A TRICK OF THE NIGHT. It's DAY SEVEN in ERIN COLE's 13 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN!

This Old House at A Twist Of Noir

CLICK on the post header for my Halloween story THIS OLD HOUSE which was at Thrillers Killers n Chillers in April and is NOW at A Twist Of Noir.

13 DAYS OF HORROR - Day Six

It's DAY SIX of Erin Cole's 13 DAYS OF HORROR and today we have Monsters by Laurita Miller. CLICK on the post header for the link.

13 DAYS OF HORROR - Day Five

Click on the post header for a link to day five of Erin Cole's 13 Days Of Horror. THROAT is by Jeffrey S. Callico and it's a pretty special piece or work.

Another new kid on the blog.

Mike Wilkerson- you should know his stories from Thrillers Killers n Chillers & A Twist of Noir has started a blog: WRITING THE HARD WAY. Click on the post header for the link.

13 DAYS OF HORROR - Day Four

CLICK on the post header for Lee Hughes's WITH BRUSH & PAIN a classic contribution to ERIN COLE's 13 DAYS OF HORROR>

Viz is 30 years old!

Amazing. Now I feel old! Ok, I rarely read Viz now (although SUPERGOD in the last one I read was brilliant) and I was never a big fan of the early studenty one with SKINHEED AND I've never liked the pathetic sharks or johnny fartpants BUT for Sid, The Fat Slags, Biffa, Black Bag etc CONGRATULATIONS!

13 DAYS OF HORROR - Day Three

CLICK on the post for Paul Phillip's BRANDED. It's day three at Erin Cole's 13 DAYS OF HORROR and it has nothing to do with Chuck Connors!

13 DAYS OF HORROR - Day Two

CLICK on the post header to read JOHN DONALD CARLUCCI's 'HUNGER PANGS' as part of Erin Cole's 13DAYS OF HORROR

STORIES UPDATE. Confirmed Bookings:

Story updates: 'The Last Shot Is The Deepest' accepted by DARKEST BEFORE THE DAWN. 'Late Night Film' accepted by DISENTHRALLED. 'Warsaw Ghosts' accepted by Shoots & Vines PRINT! CUSHTY!

13 DAYS OF HORROR - Day One

Click on the post header for DAY ONE of ERIN COLE's 13 DAYS OF HORROR. It kicks of with ORANGE DOT by Micael J. Solender.

#FRIDAYFLASH:Six Word Story: V

V: I saw. I conquered. I came.

YELLOW MAMA -Josephine, Jodi, Mel plus

YELLOW MAMA has stories by Josephine Damien, Jodi MacArthur, Mel Bosworth and MORE! CLICK on the post header for the link.

Laura Eno - Flashes In The Dark

Click on the post header for a new story by LAURA ENO at FLASHES IN THE DARK.

The Feral Pages

CLICK on the post header for the link to The Feral Pages. Cross genre creepiness from Patrick Shawn Bagley and others.

Pamila Payne at Powder Burn Flash

Click on the post header for a great story by Pamila Payne at POWDER BURN FLASH, For Lack Of A Good Time

disenthralled

CLICK on the post header to get to disenthralled a lovely new magagzine by Walter Conley with a top new tale by Quin Browne.

Everyday People at Thrillers Killers n Chillers

Click on the post header for my story EVERyDAY PEOPLE which is over at THRILLERS KILLERS n CHILLERS/ Cheers to Col & Matt !

Judgement & Wrath by Matt Hilton.

Matt Hilton's DEAD MEN'S DUST was one of my summer highlights and his follow up JUDGEMENT & WRATH is in the shops this week. According to CrimeSquad 'its fun and a thrill a minute and ideal reading for a miserable autumn weekend.' Can't say much better than that, can you?

Frisbey With Andrey by Tim Hall

Click on the post header for FRISBEY WITH ANDREY the world's first all text comic by TIM HALL.

#FridayFlash:Six Word Story: H

H: To be? Or not? To be.

Robert Mitchum -Walk Like A Panther.

Some walk like they own the place
Whilst others creep in fear
Try if you can to walk like a man
You've got to walk like a panther tonight’

Or so said, Jarvis Cocker,and, indeed, he could have been talking about the great uncaged beast that was Robert Charles Durman Mitchum. Big Bob, certainly prowled though many films like he ‘owned the place’ although, in typically self deprecating fashion, he said this: "People say I have an interesting walk. Hell, I'm just trying to hold my gut in."

For most of his life Mitchum was also uncaged. After being expelled from High School, he traveled throughout the country on railroad cars, taking a number of jobs including a ditch-digger and a professional boxer. He experienced many adventures during his years as one of the Depression era's "wild boys of the road."

However, in Georgia he was arrested for vagrancy and put on a local chain gang . Years later, in August 1948, he was arrested by narcotics officers for marijuana possession and sentenced to 60 days at a California prison farm.

But in film he always seemed free. Roger Ebert called Mitchum 'the soul of Film Noir' and this was true in films such as Crossfire, The Big Steal,. Otto Preminger's Angel Face and Out of the Past, directed by Jacques Tourneur ,where Mitchum's cynical, mischievous attitude along with his lascivious droopy eyes and non-committal mouth were ideally suited to the role of the anti-hero.

However, it's the Charles Laughton helmed The Night of the Hunter that is still considered by many to be Mitchum's best performance, playing a psychotic criminal posing as a preacher to find money hidden in his cell mate's home.

(This post appeared at Kate Gabrielle's SILENTS&TALKIES in April. Click on the post header for the link).

Painting by Kate Gabrielle.

A TWIST OF NOIR #200!

A Twist Of Noir has published it's 200th story. It's a cracker from Mr. Keith Rawson entitled WHAT WE PRAY FOR . Click on the post header for the link!

Conversation with Jason Michel.

Here's part of the chinwag that I had with Jason 'The Beaten Dog' Michel over at the Outsider Writers Collective in July this year. It's a bit like a sweary MY DINNER WITH ANDRE.


Conversations From God Knows Where.

'Paul Brazill writes the best short pulp fiction on the net today. Bar none.
If you don’t believe me, I’ll take you outside for a knuckleduster sandwich with a baseball insert for dessert. His stories are lean, mean and are dripping with miles more inventiveness and streaky dark humour than any of the Bukowski wanabees out there today. His work has been featured in Powder Flash Burn and Beat To A Pulp amongst others. Keep your head down and enjoy the ride.


JM – Hey Paul.
Can you remember the first time you wanted to write stories?
What was the catalyst?

PB – Ey up.
When I was a kid in Hartlepool it was really hard to get the American comics that I loved so I made up my own stories when I ran out of things to read.

JM – Which comics were they? The old classic horror, crime or superhero? Why did they float thy boat?

PB – It was the superhero stuff. Mainly Batman and the Ditko Spiderman.
Escape, was what they gave.

JM – So, how was growing up in Hartlepool as a kid?

I notice it features in your stories a fair bit. Writing about what you know, an’ all that?

PB – Let’s just say it WAS grim oop North and the world of the imagination was much more appealing than the real world.

JM – I have to say that growing up in the hills surrounded by the Welsh version of Deliverance that I understand completely … 2000AD(a limey dystopian sci-fi comic for all you philistines) saved my soul (or damned it).

What is it about the so-called “pulp” fiction and noir novels that you dig?
Is it just those damned sultry femme fatales, or what?

PB – It’s the vivid and sometimes lurid images and language. Perfect for people who grew up living more in their imagination than the day to day.

JM – “… the vivid and sometimes lurid images and language”, I love that.
I was always drawn to those so-called “low brow” books, comics and movies too. Anything that seemed to swamp the senses, like a good Hammer Horror yarn, a shadowy Boris Karloff feature or a smidgeon of Robert E Howard.
Some of your stories remind me of the old Roald Dahl’s Tales Of The Unexpected collection which, believe me, is a compliment.
Was his writing ever an influence and do you remember the freaky opening to TV version?

PB – I loved the tv series -along with the twighlight zone, outer limits, thriller -but have never read any.. I like Tarka Dahl-because it’s ‘otter’

JM – Ouch!

That piece of Indian wildlife was toe stubber …
You should read Roald Dahl’s collections, they’re classic. Lots of macabre twists to turn you on.

So, tell me. Crime...Which one is the most fun to write about? Have any of your stories comes from real life experiences? Or stories heard from friends?

PB – Oh, pub stories, mostly. We’re all in the gutter but some of us are seeing stars through the bottom of a pint glass. Or something.
I do fancy checking out Dahl though.

As a kid, I loved the Pan Books of Horror Stories. Know them? And on TV -Hammer House Of Horrors!

JM – Never read the Pan books but do remember HHH.


PB –

I like seeing people make a bollox of things.’Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.’, you know the Chaplin quote?

Patricia Highsmith is someone I used to adore.’The Blunderer’ is a great story. It’s about a peeping-tom who gets accused of murder and proceeds to dig himself deeper and deeper into the shit. Ray Banks’ Cal Innes does this same but with more laughs and loads more swearing.


JM – “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.” – Mel Brooks.
Now that’s a piece of truth for you.

There’s a real streak of gallows humour in your writing. How essential is it to laugh at the darker aspects of life?
Is there anything that is not fair game?

PB – Fantastic quote from a REAL comedy genius!

I think everything is fair game -if you can get away with it. Some people can and some can’t but it’s all subjective. I’m an entertainer -maybe more Tony Hancock then Des O’Conner but I write stuff to read while you’re in the pub having a sneaky pint not to put you off your pork scratchings.

JM – Enough with the pork scratchings. I’m trying to quit smoking here!

How’s the beer in Poland? How long have been there?

PB – Thank god I’ve never smoked or I’d be a living ashtray by now.
Beer is strong. OKOCIM MOCNE is my fave.
I came to Poland in 2001, before they joined the EU. I did a TEFL course in Madrid in the summer and came over here two weeks after I was offered a job.



How many TEFL Tours Of Duty have you done and where have you been?

JM – I left Blighty in 1997. Before then I’d been on the dole and worked in various factory jobs. Was even a streetcleaner for a while! Then an opportunity arose for a move to Japan.
I took it.
After 2 years there, I visited a mate in Thailand. I didn’t leave for 5 years.
Then I ended up in Spanish enclave on the Moroccan coast for a year, by mistake. The biggest rotten penetrated sphincter on the planet. They still have a statue to Franco. No shit. It is the last stop. One side of a fence is “Europe”, the other side Africa.
After suffering that place for a year, I decided to go to London and spent a good couple of years there.
And now I am in France. I’ve been here for three years or so.
At least the cheese, wine and cakes are good.

Are you planning to collect all those gems you write into a collection?

PB – TEFL. It’s the life of the eternally discombobulated, eh?

I had my first job at 16 but I’ve been on the dole loads too. I once worked in a toy shop but mostly as a Welfare Rights Adviser -in East London. If I get enough stories together, I’d like to do a collection. We’ll see. (I only started last November. Before that I’d written a screenplay in1995/ 6 which I sent to scala films and they lost -and I didn’t have another copy, of course (but that’s good because it was rubbish! )And some torch song lyrics for my old bandmate Peter Ord.) Every time I write something- finish something, really – it’s a suprise to me!'





Click on the post header for the full interview.

The pic is by Jason Michel who blogs here: http://beatendog.blogspot.com/

Citizen Kane (1941)

The Loot Of All The World! Jake Hinkson has written an excellent piece on CITIZEN KANE over at THE NIGHT EDITOR. Click here for the link:

The Night Editor: Citizen Kane (1941)

That Killing Feeling: LEGS

Carole Parker has started a new story at THAT KILLING FEELING. It's called LEGS.Pop over for a thrillThat Killing Feeling: I Carry A Gun

Something For The Weekend: The Mighty Quinn2. Six Sentences:

Go to 6S here: Six Sentences: Flash Fiction, Micro Fiction, Writing Contests and More (Writer's Digest 101 Best) A GREAT SIX SENTENCES from Quinn Browne: Johnston Station Late August.

Something For The Weekend: The Mighty Quinn

Sometimes, We Choose is a great story from Quinn Browne at her blog a gasping little voice This is how the big kids play. Click on the post HEADER for the link.

Something For The Weekend: THUGLIT!

Click on the post header for the new THUGLIT which has stories from Jimmy Callaway, Mike MacLean, Matthew Quinn Martin and MORE!

Something For The Weekend: New Full Of Crow!

The October Full Of Crow has lots of great work by Keith Rawson, Jodi MacArthur,Sal Buttaci, Michael J. Solender, Erin Cole, Leon Jackson Davenport, Peter Schwartz and MORE. It's a great mag and Lynn Alexander has done a hell of a job getting it together.

Click on the post header for the link.

Something For The Weekend: 10 Flash Quarterly

Click in the post header for the new issue of 10 Flash Quarterly with new stories by Laura Eno, Angel Zapata, Stephen D. Rogers and more.

Something For The Weekend: not from here, are you?

Click on the post header and wander around Michael J. Solender's blog for some fine writing from him and other writers. MJS is a keen supporter of other scribblers -this week his guest writer was A Twist Of Noir's Christopher Grant who gave us 'Happy Birthday, Honey'.Michael's Friday Flash is a real gem 'The sum of his deeds'. You'll also find links to his stories and poems at places like Shoots&Vines, Full of crow, A Twist Of Noir, Thrillers Killers n chillers, 6 Sentences and, well, everywhere.

Oh, and let's not forget his journalism!
Plenty of cracking stuff there!

Six Word Story: Quentin -#Friday Flash

Quentin:
Blah blah. Bang bang. Ha ha.

(c) 2009 Paul D.Brazill

THE FRIEND CATCHER at OUT Of RUINS

My story THE FRIEND CATCHER, which was at A TWIST OF NOIR in June, is also at OUT OF RUINS.

Click on the post header for the link. It's a funky looking mag!