That’s Just Creepy

You Rock Barbara Jo

I don’t know who Barbara Jo is, but she has created the most awesome cake ever.

It’s Called A Zombie Cake.

I admire her work on so many levels…the first being, it’s obvious this cake takes a lot of work, my Dad was an excellent Chef and he admired what it took to bake so when it comes to sugar and patience- I am humbled.

Second of all, I truly hate Zombies, not because they scare me but as a horror fan they offend me.

If you are a character in a horror movie and you get chased down and killed by a creature who is rotting from the inside out-

or the outside in

 and the monster’s brains are turning to water in their skulls and they can still figure out how to trap their victims you SO deserve to die

and in turn

I deserve to lose whatever money I paid to watch it happen.

So I guess that’s why I like the idea of turning a zombie into a cake and carving it up with a kitchen utensil….

a sharp one.

By the by:

Barbara Jo also created these:

They’re eyeballs made from maraschino cherries-

which were soaked in rum.

I think that’s hilarious.

So get thee over to

THEY’RE COMING TO GET YOU BARBARA

to find out what it takes to make a Zombie Cake.

Plus you’ll have fun over there:

Not only do they ( you have to read THIS to find out why Barbara is a THEY ) bake truly gruesome cakes they do movie reviews for shows like ” The Werewolf Vs The Vampire Women ” and “Wizard of Gore”

Barbara Jo just made my Halloween a little sweeter…hope they do the same for you

So let’s go visit Barbara Jo…I’ll drive and please

don’t mind my friend in the backseat…

he’s dieing to meet you

How My Light Is Spent

  

Delarious Mandusa and Quash Mowers  work in a Funeral Home and they had great stories ( that they made up ) for how it was they came to be Grave Diggers that had nothing to do with reality but they were great stories.    

The problem was nobody ever asked.    

Delarious guessed that people assumed he dug graves for a living because of his name and Quash guesses that the fact he had born with a parasitic twin attatched to the top of his head ( his parents had named it Lawton ) that was removed a few months after they were born- was his reason for working at the Cemetery.    

But those weren’t the reasons- and the story about finding graves with their names and dates of  birth as the dates of death on the hundred year old headstones wasn’t even remotely close to the truth.    

The Grave Diggers with the colorful lives and equally colorful names became grave diggers because of a girl named Harley  Sandeen.    

Years ago, when Delarious and Quash were kids they lived next door to each other and one day a little girl with big brown eyes and tangled brown hair moved into the   Bronson  House across the street.    

Her name was  Harley Sandeen and she collected bugs, comic books and bubble gum.    

She chewed it out of eyeshot of her Mother who wouldn’t allow Harley to chew gum because Harley’s mother said that the gum would wear Harley’s teeth down to stumps and then where would she be in life?     

” I guess I’d be living somewhere with stumpy teeth and a tree full of chewed up bubblegum.”    

Akela looked down at her daughter and said, “ Harley, why on earth would you stick your chewed up gum on a tree?”    

” That’s how I get bugs for my collection.”     

” Oh  Harley. That’s just awful.”    

” I know, but look at it this way Mom, if anyone ever decides to collect bug’s legs they’re not going to care if I have a mouth full of stumpy teeth. They’re just going to be glad I was a bubblegum chewer.”    

So Harley continued to chew bubble gum, which when she snapped it between her teeth was as loud as gunshot and she also bought comic  books once a week at the 52nd Street Best Mart which is where Delarious and Quash met Bonnie.    

” The world is full of comic books and they’ve only got six titles here- can you belive that? And look only one scary one ” she said to them as they stood behind her waiting for their turn at the spinner rack.   

“ We don’t collect those- we collect the Archie Comics. My friend had a parasite twin attached to the top of his head, show her Quash. ” Quash took off his hat so that Harley could see the top of his head which was flat and angled to the left.    

” That is amazing.” Harley sighed.    

” Yeah. We got plenty real weird in our life. ”    

” Oh. Did you have a parasite too?”    

” No, I’m Delarious Mandusa.”    

Harley’s mouth fell open and her gum fell out and stuck to the front of her t-shirt. ” You got named after the guy who found the Flying Dutchman?”    

” He was my Granfather.”    

Harley pulled the gum off her shirt and popped it back into her mouth.    

” You guys are the coolest human beings ever.”    

” You’re a pretty cool human too, ” Quash who was falling in love with Harley right then and there in front of the comic book rack said.    

And Harley laughed.    

    

 So Harley and Quash and Delarious grew up together and goofed off together and on the day Harley’s family sent her away to go to school in ” the old Country ” they made one last trip to the empty building where they first became friends.    

The comic book rack was still there and Harley told them, ” you just wait. One of these days you’re gonna see one of these things full of books and comics by Harley Sandeen.”    

” What? I thought you were going away to learn the family  business.” Quash said.    

” Yeah. Then I’m going to write about it. I figure I better get something out of being sent out to the middle of nowhere to learn how to find dead people. Geeze. Like that’s hard. “    

” I thought your Mom said that wasn’t the hard part- she said the hard part was killing them.”    

 ” Blah blah blah.” Harley said.     

“ But you don’t have a choice- right? I mean, you’re family hasn’t ever done anything except for-” Delarious mimicked  putting a stake to his heart with one hand and with the other pretended to pound it in with a mallet.    

Harley pulled a green square of bubblegum out of her pocket and tossed it into her mouth. ” Yeah. But I think there’s more to life then chasing around pale people with pointy teeth and bad breath. It ain’t like the movies guys. Those things are so dumb that they still haven’t figured out that if they don’t want to be found they need to quit putting their real names on their tombstones. You know what’s worse? I’ve got to go to the other side of the world and get a college degree to learn about them.    

Geeze, all my family has to so is rent me some movies and buy me a stack of comic books- they’d save themselves a ton of money and they’d save themselves the embarrassment of the sucky novel I’m going to write about them based on the Santa’s Village Incident.”    

” The Mountlake Mall will probably never get another guy to do the Santa thing at Christmas and forget getting anyone to dress up like elves in this town again.”    

” Yeah. Well. That  entire deal was a train wreck just waiting to happen.”  Harley  said  and like the good friends the boys were they agreed.    

   

It was about four years after Harley’s second book was turned into a movie that Quash and Del decided to chase after their own dream- and that dream involved the smell of fresh cut grass and heavy machinery.   

So instead of chasing after ghosts, or going out of your way to make sure that the world never found out that the parasitic twin that was removed from your head was alive and screaming in silence in a jar in a museum basement and that it was still growing – Harley’s friends took her advice.   

And in case you’re curious.   

Yes she did write about their story and their friendship and she dedicated the story to    

Del And Quash. 

Funky Coffins (via Irregular Bones)

At one of Heather Blakey's older blogs called the The Writing Notebook the first prompt on 8-3-04 was about these kids in one of her classes who designed Funky Coffins ( she had them do it on paper -if I would have been their teacher I would have had them in a wood shop somewhere sawing and nailing and gluing away , but that's me) and then they wrote pieces about death. This is how I feel about Coffins- I've seen a lot of them, I've had to move t … Read More

via Irregular Bones

And Many Happy Returns

“ I can not believe that in your long and interesting life that you have never pranked anyone on Halloween.” Candida Wing’s  best friend said to her  just before their 80th birthday over Tea at their favorite Cafe in Lister- which was the town they lived in.

Their birthday, which was on November 1st was shared but they were  born almost a world apart. Candida had been  born at 11:55 in Seattle to parents who were school teachers and Twinks was born at exactly the same time to her archeologist parents who had been working on a dig in Egypt.

” No.” Candida told Twinks who has worn the same pair of eye glasses and  by that I mean they are the same lenses and frames since 1964. ” Twinks, I just never felt the need to pull pranks on Halloween.”

” I thought that was the best part of Halloween. Me and my brother- May God rest his soul- “

” No kidding ” Candida agreed whole heartedly.

” Me and Jasper did it all” Twinks continued, “ the flaming poo  bags, the soap on the windows, the flour dusting, the toilet paper in the trees, the scarecrows that we used to sneak into people’s houses and stick under their beds and in their closets. It was so much fun Candida.”

” You know, the entire Mossdean family went a little crazy after that scarecrow stunt of yours. Do you know they still think the Mom was responsible for all of those poor cats that went missing.”

” Oh. They were nuts before the scarecrow thing.” Twinks waved her gloved hand in the air. “ You didn’t see the Archer or Burns family-”

“ You must have forgotten.  The Burns family locked themselves in their basement and nearly starved to death. It took a month to get them out of there.”

” Oh. I forgot about them. At any rate Candida pranks are a big part of the Halloween experience and it’s a horrible shame that you never got to pull a prank on Halloween.”

” It just never occurred to me Twinks.”

” That’s sad, really very sad.”

The two friends drank their tea and ate their almond cookies and then Candida said to Twinks, ” But had you not been out there pulling pranks on Halloween we may have never met.”

Twinks smiled sadly and said, ” that was the last prank me and Jasper pulled- he went away to college after that Halloween and then the accident. ” Twinks didn’t bother to wipe the tears off of her cheeks. She just let them fall. ” Well. It was the last and the best.” Twinks said firmly.

” It was pretty great. ” Candida agreed.

” You know, my Parents gave us the idea- they found those embalmers tools on their last dig and they brought them home and just had them sitting there in there in their office. And of course their notes about bringing the mummies back to life once they crossed over to the other side.”

” Too bad you didn’t have any mummies to try that out on here in Seattle.”

” Well.” Twinks said, ” technically cemeteries are full of mummified people.”

Candida said, ” technically your prank didn’t work.”

” We thought we could bring the entire graveyard back to life.”

” Too bad it didn’t work. ” Candida said.

Twinks looked at her friend and shrugged, ” Well, it didn’t go to plan. Still. We were pretty happy with the results.”

Candida lifted her tea-cup up and said, ” Me too Twinks. Me too.”

Photo By:Luciana

Bancho Church Has A Grave Thought

Bancho Church is a horror writer- at least that’s what he gets paid to do and that’s what he says he does for a living and on good days he’ll say to himself, ” I am a horror writer ” and mentally he gives himself a big kiss.

But when Bancho has days where he spends most of his time watching video clips on his computer and chatting on-line with his friends he doesn’t feel like a writer. On those days he wishes he had stuck with his original line of work- he used to be the top salesman for a company that sold pathology equipment.

When he had down days at Waxons he’d clock out and go to the bar around the corner and drink beer and eat peanuts until he had either picked his spirits up or drowned them in a  sea of Dark Ale.

Now when he had down days with his writing he goes outside and does yard work.

So that is where Bancho was the day he saw the old lady waiting at the bus stop across the street from where he lives.

She was wearing a bright red coat to protect herself from the chilly fall air and she was wearing a hat decorated with birds and fruit to cover her almost shoulder length gray hair to- well, as near as Bancho could figure it out- she wore that for fun.

Bancho waved and the old lady slowly raised her arm waved back and then Bancho turned away from the street and started to rake leaves.

There were millions of them.

Millions and millions he was thinking over and over again because he wasn’t thinking about anything useful- like maybe the book he was working on- when he reached down to scoop up the pile of leaves at his feet to put them into the yard waste bin.

They crumbled almost to dust in his hands.

He dropped them into the open bin and started to rake up another pile- and as he did the dark wet leaves curled a little on the edges and started to break apart.

He kicked at the pile with his foot and looked up.

The old lady in the red coat raised her arm again to wave and this time when she waved she wiggled her fingers too.

He waved back.

Bancho moved the little pile of leaves around with his foot and some of them broke apart and the ones that didn’t almost did.

Bancho felt a cool  blast of air make stroll by and he heard it make its way up into the tree’s  branches around him and leaves- some red others gold and lots of still green leaves fell into yards and the street for as far as Bancho could see.

And he knew that if he were to walk to each and every one of those leaves and picked them up in small bunches in his hand or step on them they would crumbled to dust.

The old lady in the red coat with the birds on her hat shrugged.

” Well. ” Bancho thought to himself ” The leaves are dieing. That’s what they do in the fall. They fall from the trees and they die because-”

Bancho ground a fresh green leaf to a fine powder  and he said out loud ” they get old.”

Bancho looked up and across the street and the Old Lady was now hatless.  Her hat was in one of her hands and she was twirling it on one finger.

And then from down the street Bancho could hear the bus coming towards them.

It crawled to a stop and Bancho could see the Old Lady make her way to the back of the bus and she wasn’t moving like an old woman.

She bounced down the aisle  and he could see her swing into a seat and he saw her, as the bus slid away waving to him- at least he thought it was her- he saw the red coat and she was actually waving her hat at him- but the woman he saw had long dark hair.

It couldn’t have been her, he thought as he reached for his rake.

What had he just seen, he asked himself A Vampire who feeds off of leaves to make herself young?

Bancho laughed at himself  as he pulled his rake along the ground and when the sharp pain shot up from the middle of his back and he was forced, for a few minutes to support himself against his rake he tried to  keep on laughing.

But he could not.

To Grandfather’s House We Go

Over the river and thru the wood,
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes,
And bites the nose,
As over the ground we go.

-Lydia Maria Child-

Petty Morrell asked his wife, on Halloween Night, the same exact question that he has asked her for the last 30 years on Halloween Night.

” Marginata, why do we do the same exact thing for Thanksgiving? Why can’t we for once do something different.?”

Marginata answered Petty’s question the same way she has answered it for the last 30 years.

She ignored Petty.

“We bring the same food- as wonderful as you pumpkin pie is, you’ve done it to death and we sit at the same table and we hear the same stories about your Grandfather- who you never knew because he died in that accident at the Circus before you were  born. I mean, Mar- please a little variety. Can we wear funny hats or bring pizza or hey, here is an idea let’s not go.”

Marginata closed her eyes- for all of his going on and on about getting stuck in a mind numbing routine Marginata thought that Petty would find something new to add to the conversation.

So just as Marginata was about to give her standard reply they both heard voices and then a knock at the door. Marginata grabbed a silver bowl full of mini chocolate bars and little bags of candy corn and she said, ” I like the funny hats idea Petty. That was a funny line the first time you used it and almost 30 years later it still makes me laugh”

” You’re not laughing.” Petty pointed out.

” I am on the inside.” Marginata told him as she opened the door to two mini-sized devils, one medium-sized space alien and in a stroller made up to look like a basket with a baby dressed up like a stalk of celery sitting in the middle of it.

She handed out the candy. closed the door and turned to Petty and then- surprise!  He had something new to say:

” You would think that a man who born with a tail and a full set of teeth would have produced a family with people who were at least open to new ideas.”

Marginata shrugged, ” lots of us in the family were born with tails and teeth Petty. Even me.”

” So why do we have to sit at a table and pretend to be like everyone else?” Petty asked.

“Well. It’s fun.”

” You think acting normal is fun?”

” No, I guess not. It’s more funny than anything else. After all my sister Ella  found five bodies buried in her shed. Only somebody in my family would end up buying a house that was once owned by a spree killer who buried the bodies in a tool shed with no tools in it.  Normal is sort of neat idea in our book”

” Your Uncle Beltrane certainly thought so.”

” My Uncle Beltrane thought someone cut his hand off while he was sleeping and replaced it with his neighbor’s hand. Uncle was weird yet practical on…well, the other hand.”

” Maybe so, but I’ll bet he’s glad for that weird old Insanity Defense being there when he went to get his hand back.”

Marginata said slowly. ” The woods truly are full of crazy people.”

” Your brother would know all about that. “

” He never said the woods were full of crazy people- he said the trees were crazy. Sometimes I wonder if you ever really listen to what people are saying or if you just react to what they say.

There was another knock at the door and the little group of forest animals, Pirates and Werewolves remebered to  thank Petty for the gummy candy eyeballs after he shut the door.

” You need to embrace the weirdness that is your family, your history Mar. I mean, I fell in love with that too you know.”

Marginata smiled a real warm smile at her husband and hugged the bowl to her chest. Then went back into the kitchen to fill the bowl with more candy.

Petty said, as he heard Marginata opening plastic bags ” Look, just try one new thing this year-anything you want. Big, little, doesn’t matter. Just shake things up a little.”

Marginata called  back ” Well, ” she thought out loud ” I suppose I could try  baking something  new. That might be fun.”

Petty groaned silently and rolled his eyes up into his head and called back ” sure, that’s the spirit.”

Marginata’s bowl of candy was overflowing and she said happily as she walked out into the living room,” I’m thinking apple.”

” Oh yeah?” Petty said encouragingly.

” Spiced apple.” Marginata said.

” Now there’s a thought.”

” You don’t love it?”

” I like the idea Mar…really.”

“ But you don’t love it.”

” I could.”

” Yeah. Well. Let me think-” this time the bell door bell chimed and Marginata walked towards the door with her bowl of candy she was saying something to herself about spiced apples and rum raisins  and then she sighed.

Petty heard that and regretted bringing up the idea at all.

Despite the fact Marginata’s Mother who as a child was suspected of starting a fire that burned down the Leaning Birches Prison back in the 50′s and may have caused the deaths of over 200 inmates- Marginata was and would always be a sweatshirt wearing suburban housewife.

” I don’t know Mar- your family does love those pumpkin pies of yours, especially when you whip up the whip cream with the nutmeg. It’s a nice touch.”

” I make it with fresh cream straight from my cousin Beezer’s dairy farm ”

” Is his daughter still in jail?”

” Yeah.”

” Sorry to hear that. I still don’t know what made that girl think she would not get into trouble for sneaking into the County Morgue and-”

” Kids.” Marginata said as she opened the door.

Petty heard the chorus of  Dracula’s and witches and clowns  sing out ” trick or treat” but he didn’t hear Marginata ooh-and ahh over the costumes or offer to let them choose their own treats from the bowl.

He turned and the door was wide open and Marginata wasn’t looking outside- she was facing into the house. The bowl of candy was in her hands and she was smiling.

” Petty, ” she whirled around and faced the Trick or Treaters ” I have a great idea for a pie.”

 

photo by: wintersixfour