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Halloween Short from Howard Odentz

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Dead (A Lot)

Picture Perfect Meadowfield – 1987

by Howard Odentz

Thirteen-year-old Garrett McCarthy pumps the pedals on his ten-speed bike as he glides through the darkened neighborhoods of bucolic Meadowfield, Massachusetts. He weaves in and out of the shadows cast by street lights, whistling a tune that’s been stuck in his head all day.
It happens to be a song by The Talking Heads released four years prior, but Garrett doesn’t know that. He just thinks it’s strangely appropriate.

His parents aren’t home. Most nights Garrett is left alone. His mother, Maggie, is overly involved in town politics. His father, Gene, works late far too often, or at least that’s what he tells his family.

Garrett’s absentee parents suit him just fine. Being alone gives him breathing room. It also gives him time to work on his hobby, the one that he has been perfecting for a while now but keeps to himself.

Garrett McCarthy likes to watch things burn.

He likes it better than television, and he even likes it better than perusing the collection of old Hustlers that his father keeps stored in plastic bins underneath the basement stairs, supposedly hidden within stacks of Life Magazines.

There’s something about the erratic dance of flames that stokes Garrett’s inner furnace and ignites his passion. Simply put, watching white, hot death devour everything in its path floats his boat.

Most of Garrett’s fires have been small thus far, causing no real damage other than to things that don’t matter. Certainly no one has been hurt in his flames. Still, he is acutely aware that when the heat and light engulf everything and he watches, compelled and engrossed, he is missing something crucial and desired.

He longs to hear what will happen when fire and flesh meet. He imagines there will be frantic squeals like those that permeate a slaughter house when the other pigs realize that they might be next. He wants to relish the sound of screams—the popping of flesh—the crackling of hair.

That’s why tonight Garrett is on a mission. He wants to burn something big.

Last month’s torching of the attendant’s shack by the entrance to the town dump at the end of Miller Road was less than fulfilling.  So was the incineration of Father McQueen’s old Cadillac.

Garrett found the Father’s car in front of the park entrance to Prince Richard’s Maze. Everyone knows why middle-aged men skulk in the Maze at night but no one ever broaches the subject. Garrett lit up the Cadillac while the father was getting busy elsewhere, but the gas tank didn’t blow.

That’s why tonight Garrett McCarthy is after something much, much bigger. There’s a demon coiling inside his belly, demanding to be fed, and Garrett is acutely aware it can no longer survive on meager half-meals. He now must offer it a banquet of heat because that’s the only thing that will sate its ever growing appetite.

As Garrett meanders through the dark streets, riding his bike with no hands and a pack full of fixings on his back, he decides that his initial target, Journey’s End Senior Care, is too big and too well built for arson. Besides, he’s almost positive that there are sprinklers inside that will be activated the moment any smoke is detected.

His mind wanders to a new target—a disheveled old bungalow in a bleak corner of town, two streets in from the Connecticut border. A hundred years ago, the ramshackle eyesore belonged to a woman named Ma Irish who delivered babies and sold pickled eggs from her living room.

An unseemly family lives there now. They display rusted-out cars on cinder blocks in the front yard, and keep more than one pit bull chained in the back. People talk about how such a family doesn’t belong in a community like Meadowfield. Garrett has no opinion about that. However, he does think Ma Irish’s house is a bit of a town fixture. Removing that piece of local history may leave a hole better served un-dug.

Ultimately, Garrett decides on a different target. It is one he has been thinking about for a while now. Folks in Meadowfield will be sad to see it burn because, for some reason that Garrett can’t fathom, most people find fire tragic.

Still, they won’t be too sad.

He leans forward as he pedals, grabbing his handle bars and steering his bicycle this way and that before finally turning onto Sycamore Avenue. There is an old two-story colonial at the dead end, tucked up against the woods, with a handicapped ramp that zig-zags up to the porch.

A very small sign in front read ‘Happy Valley Group Home’ which sounds way cheerier than what lives inside.

The Happy Valley Group Home houses six developmentally delayed teenagers and two full-time staff. Garrett doesn’t know any of them by name, but he has seen the sad, little group at Cinema X before. Some are in wheel chairs and others stand quietly by the ticket taker with their hands on each other’s shoulders so they won’t get lost. After all, there is an ocean of ways one can disappear between the concession stand and the bathrooms.

Meadowfield will mourn the loss of the Happy Valley Group Home, but not really, and when the old colonial and those inside are nothing more than blackened ash, some will even breathe a sigh of relief that ‘those kind of people’ are no longer part of the fabric of town.

Although Garrett McCarthy doesn’t exactly agree with such a harsh sentiment, in some perverted way, he thinks dispatching the building and those inside is somehow performing a kindness. At least that’s what he keeps telling himself as he glides down Sycamore, ever wary that no one is outside in the darkness to see him

At the end of Sycamore, just past the Happy Valley Group Home, Garrett gets off of his bicycle and pushes it twenty feet into the woods.

There, he pulls his back pack off of his shoulder, unzips it and pulls out everything he will need to feed his glitch, even though he doesn’t think of pyromania as a glitch at all.

He thinks of it as magic.

After he gathers together a glass jar full of gasoline, newspaper, and wooden matches that he favors over a lighter, he pushes through the thick foliage until he is standing right inside the tree line. There, he studies the house from the shadows, poking and prodding at it with his deranged mind, seeking the perfect spot to set a fire.

His inner demon offers up a multitude of solutions.

‘Underneath the porch’, it whispers.

No.

‘The back of the carport,’ it prods.

No.

‘The basement.’

Yes.

Garrett’s eyes follow the side of the house to the backyard. There he spies a cobblestone patio with patches of weeds growing through the crisscrossed pattern between the stones, and a metal hatchway.

The patio’s disheveled nature gives Garrett’s inner demon fuel to urge him on.

‘The Happy Valley Group Home is so untidy,’ the demon says. ‘Cleanse it.’

Garrett’s eyes sparkle. Fire always rises, so starting a blaze in the basement might be the perfect way to create a tower of flames so tall that it can be seen from as far away as Skinner Mountain. He smiles, because someday he knows that he will also burn The Summit House on top of Skinner to the ground, hopefully while there is an event going on inside, like a wedding or a sweet sixteen party.

Thoughts of puffy dresses combusting makes his tongue wet. Garrett licks his lips and a slick of saliva drips down his chin.

‘Do it now,’ hisses his demon from deep inside his belly. ‘Feed me. Feed me. Feed me.’

Garrett crouches down low and quickly runs to the side of the house. There is a window there with a partially pulled shade. Slowly, with his fingers splayed and his heart pounding, he stands until just the top of his head and his eyes are over the windowsill.

Inside, some of the residents of the Happy Valley Group Home are watching children’s puppets on television, however, they seem as though they aren’t watching the dancing screen at all.

A boy with milky eyes, confined to a wheel chair, is playing air piano with weirdly jointed fingers that look better suited to a skeleton.

Another has his eyes half-lidded and his chin on his chest.

A third boy looks all wrong, like he’s been drawn by a third grader with poor anatomical skills. His head is misshapen and lopsided.

The three of them sitting there, dull and dim-witted, make Garrett a little angry.

They all look so off that he’s not even sure that they will scream when the flames begin shooting through the wooden floor. The residents of the Happy Valley Group Home might just stare at the fire with their vacant manatee eyes and not do anything, even when the deadly flower finally reaches them—searing their skin—making it bubble and burn.

‘Oh, they’ll feel it,’ whispers his inner demon. ‘They’ll feel it but good.’

A pleasant chill runs up Garrett’s back as he agrees with the monster inside. A fire will surely coax the residents of the Happy Valley Group Home out of their stupor.

That’s what fire does.

Without hesitating, he sprints to the back of the house and across the weed-filled patio to the metal hatchway.

Garrett holds his breath as he reaches for the handle, praying that it isn’t locked. Thankfully, his prayers are answered. He pulls open one side and gingerly descends the wooden stair case while holding the hatch open, then quietly lowers it back into place so no one will know that he’s there.

The basement is dark, but Garrett McCarthy is used to the dark. He stands still for several minutes, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He knows they eventually will.

Once they do, he sees shadows of boxes, storage containers, several wheelchairs and a workbench. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a chubby, unscented votive he has taken from his mother’s holiday closet. Then he strikes a wooden match and lights the candle. Immediately, the rest of the basement turns color and he can see. There’s a washing machine and a dryer against the far wall. There’s also an extra refrigerator and a freezer chest. Scanning the room, he sees separate cage-cubbies like in the nether regions of an apartment building, each with a name on it and a padlock. They appear to be filled with suitcases and trunks.

Garrett rightly guesses that these are the storage areas for each of the residents. It’s where parents have dumped the belongings of their family embarrassments, relieved that their burdens are someone else’s problem now and they can finally forget.

Garrett McCarthy smiles to himself. Once he has cremated the Happy Valley Group Home, the people of Meadowfield, Massachusetts, will forget, too. He knows he’s right to have chosen here. It’s an easy target. He can’t wait until he is back in the woods, watching the flames reach higher and higher until the whole place is blazing in glorious death.

Garrett walks across the room and puts the candle down on top of the freezer chest. Then he quickly surveys the rest of the basement to find exactly the right spot to start his work. Above him he hears the television blaring away and maybe the creak of a wheel chair slowly rocking back and forth.

He smiles again as he unscrews his jar of gasoline and splashes the floor with the acrid liquid. When he’s through, he bunches up wads of newspaper and wets them with what’s left in the jar, stuffing clumps between cardboard boxes and other things that look like they will burn easily.

Finally, with his heart pounding in his chest out of sheer anticipation, he strikes a match and drops it to the floor.

Immediately fire erupts and races across the cellar, hitting wet newspaper as it goes. Each damp pile bursts into life in front of Garrett’s gleeful eyes. Scant seconds after the fire begins, an alarm pierces through the basement so loudly that Garrett hears someone scream up above and footsteps running through the house.

‘Excellent,’ hisses his demon. ‘More.’

Garrett, however, is transfixed. He can’t help but watch his newborn masterpiece devour everything in its path, regardless of the alarm and regardless of the movement over his head. His inner demon devours each image alongside him as fire ignites wood and debris. Little beads of sweat start to pop out on his forehead.

Garrett pays no heed to anything but the flames and the delicious screams of Happy Valley panic in the rooms above.

Soon, very soon, the heat starts becoming too much for Garrett and he knows he has to leave. Reluctantly, he backs away from the flames and returns to the hatchway stairs, the alarm blaring, and the good residents up above panicking.

Unfortunately, the hatchway door is locked. He doesn’t know how and he doesn’t know why.

If he were older and smarter he would have studied up on safety precautions for residential facilities such as the one he is now burning. In doing so, he would have learned that all doorways and windows in places like the Happy Valley Group Home automatically lock from the inside to keep the residents from wandering away, or that the trained staff makes sure that everyone is out of the house and on the front lawn in less than a minute after an alarm is set off.

Unfortunately still, the path to the basement stairs leading to the first floor is now blocked with flames, and Garrett can’t exit that way either.

He can’t exit at all.

So while the residents of the Happy Valley Group Home watch their colonial go up in flames, one still nodding and another playing air piano, no one hears the screams of a fourteen-year-old boy locked in the basement, his skin crackling and splitting and his clothing melting onto his body.

No one that is, save for the hungry creature that Garrett McCarthy carries around in his gut.

‘Delicious,’ it wails. ‘Scrumptious. Give me more…more…mo…’


Read more of Howard Odentz’s work today!


Bloody Bloody Apple is on sale for $0.99 until October 31st!

Author Spotlight: Howard Odentz

Author Spotlight: Howard Odentz

LOOK!!! A Highland Coo!!!


I just came home from a 10-day tour of Scotland. The whole country is beautifully bleak, with rolling hills in the lowlands and towering mountains in the highlands. By a very thin margin, the national asset is arguably the sheep or the highland cow (pronounced coo). The people are friendly. The shops are literally  bursting with tartan, and everywhere you look the ground is covered with heather, which our kilt-clad guide, Ian, described as a ‘disappointing brown’ this time of year.

It’s cold there, which the New Englander in me loves. The history is filled with blood, which the horror writer in me adores.

Still, I have a beef with Scotland, and it’s a big beef, roughly the same size as a shaggy highland coo.

My beef is Nessie.

I’ve literally spent my whole life dreaming of the day that I would stand on the dark shores of Loch Ness and look off in the distance, camera at the ready, to see Nessie rise from the depths in all her prehistoric splendor, just so I could get a selfie with her monstrous, slimy self.

The thing is . . . the locals don’t actually believe that Nessie exists.

Wait, what?

Oh sure, there are little stuffed Nessies at all the gift shops, and salt and pepper shakers shaped like a head and a hump. What’s more, there’s even a place called Nessieland on the outskirts of Inverness, with all the seriousness of the It’s a Small World attraction at Disney. Just the for record, the Disney attraction is far creepier and you all know what I think about creepy kids (See Little Killers A to Z among my recent releases).

Our portly guide on our Loch Ness boat ride giggled when he pointed out the tiny trailer across the loch where the resident crazy has lived for the last twenty-five years, scanning the waters daily for signs of the monster. He practically admitted that most locals cross the street when they spy him because he also believes in Bigfoot, aliens, and the fact that the majority of folks in the US government are really giant lizards intent on taking over the world.

Great. Just great. Go ahead and shatter my entire world view.

I suppose that witches, ghosts, vampires, and intelligent politicians are all fantasies, too?

I’m crushed, Scotland. I guess there’s nothing left for me to do but throw away all my old beliefs and maybe switch to writing romance novels. That, or shore up the walls inside my head and hold fast to the inarguable fact that Nessie is really down there in the depths somewhere waiting for that one person who will get that perfect shot of her.

I can be that person. Why not? I’m booking a trip back to Scotland soon and I’m going to rent a tiny, stucco bungalow near that equally tiny trailer across the Loch. Maybe the man who lives there will give me pointers on where to stalk the waters with my camera ready.

After all, someone has to win the Lottery. Why not me?

 

Pick up Little Killers A-Z today for just $0.99! This deal will only last until the 15th!

Bad things come in small packages . . .

EPIC Award finalist Howard Odentz has penned twenty-six disturbingly fascinating horror stories about the youngest predators among us.

From Andy and Boris to Yuri and Zina, this eclectic anthology is filled, A to Z, with psychopaths, monsters, and murderers!

So turn on the lights and huddle under your blankets because murder isn’t just for grown-ups anymore. Come meet our gallery of little killers.

After all, they’re dying to meet you!

 

 

About Howard Odentz:

Author and playwright Howard Odentz is a lifelong resident of the gray area between Western Massachusetts and North Central Connecticut. His love of the region is evident in his writing as he often incorporates the foothills of the Berkshires and the small towns of the Bay and Nutmeg states into his work.

Author Spotlight: Jake Bible

Author Spotlight: Jake Bible

I write fast.

My career is built on being able to crank out a novel a month. Yes, you read that correctly, a novel a month.

Is this a good thing? Well, it sure helps pay the bills.

Are the novels any good? My fans and readers seem to like them and the reviews tend to back that enthusiasm up.

Can they be better? Ah. There’s the rub. Can they be better…

The quick answer: yes.

The long answer: of course, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the timeframe in which I write those novels.

You see, even if I was given a year to complete a novel, I’d probably still write it in four weeks. That’s my style, that’s my groove.

That’s where the editor comes in.

When I finished Stone Cold Bastards and turned it in, I thought I was done. The other publisher I work with would have put the manuscript through some rigorous proofreading for typos and grammar and all that jazz, but they would have trusted that the story itself was solid and off it would go to the printer and to the ebook formatting elves. Nothing wrong with that. I write tight, so I’m comfortable with a quick turnaround.

Except every manuscript can be improved upon and SCB was certainly one of those manuscripts. I know, I know, how can you improve on a novel about a ragtag team of misfit gargoyles tasked with protecting the last of humanity from the demon-possessed hordes that have taken over the world? I know, right? That’s perfection in a nutshell.

But SCB needed tweaks. The characters needed better motivation. They needed to care. They needed to want to survive and/or help others survive. They had distinct personalities, yes, but so what? That’s where the editor steps in and helps turn a good novel into a great novel.

I fixed those characters. I made them care about others and about themselves. And in doing so, I made the reader care about them too. I wouldn’t have seen that flaw if it wasn’t for that extra editing. I would have moved on to the next novel and forgotten all about SCB. But the skill and experience of Bell Bridge Books, forced me to take another look at the manuscript. And another. And another. Until it was just right. Until it was the novel it was supposed to be, not just the novel I turned in.

In these days of self-publishing and the race to get novels to market, I think many writers forget the value of a good editor. For me, I never knew the value until I experienced it. Now I’m spoiled.

Yes, I’ll still write fast. I won’t deviate from my novel a month pace because that’s the writer I am. But it makes things easier, it takes a little bit of the load off my shoulders, knowing that the novel I produce at the end of that month can still be made better and I don’t have to go about that task alone.

All thanks to the editor.

 

About the Author:

Jake Bible, Bram Stoker Award nominated-novelist and author of the bestselling Z-Burbia series, short story writer, independent screenwriter, podcaster, and inventor of the Drabble Novel, has entertained thousands with his horror and sci/fi tales. He reaches audiences of all ages with his uncanny ability to write a wide range of characters and genres. Other series by Jake Bible: the bestselling Salvage Merc One, the Apex Trilogy, the Mega series, and the Reign of Four series. Jake lives in the wonderfully weird Asheville, North Carolina.  Connect with Jake on Facebook, Twitter, and his website: jakebible.com

 

Stone Cold Bastards Giveaway

Stone Cold Bastards Giveaway
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The big day is only two weeks away!
Celebrate with a giveaway!
Jake Bible’s newest title, Stone Cold Bastards, will be officially released on 2/24!
That gives you two weeks to win an exclusive Stone Cold Bastards T-Shirt!
In order to enter, pre-order Stone Cold Bastards here, then send proof of your purchase to nikiflowers@bellebooks.com.
The contest is open to anyone who has already pre-ordered and anyone else who pre-orders by 11:59 PM on 2/23 (Print or ebook versions).
Two winners will be chosen and notified of their status on Monday, 2/27. Contest is only open to US residents.
Good luck!

“Misfit stone warriors against the demon apocalypse—a bloody good story!”
—Gail Z. Martin, author of Shadow and Flame
Only a rag-tag team of gargoyles stands between humanity and extinction.
Hell has released its ravening horde of demons, leaving most of humanity a puke-spewing, head-spinning mess of possession.
Humanity’s last hope? A team of misfit gargoyles—including a cigar chomping, hard-ass grotesque—come alive and ready for battle during the End of Days. They guard the last cathedral-turned-sanctuary atop a bald knoll in the North Carolina mountains.
Gargoyle protection grudgingly extends to any human who can make it inside the sanctuary, but the power of the stonecutter blood magic, which protects the sanctuary, may not be enough when a rogue grotesque and his badly-wounded ward arrive.
All the hounds of hell are on their heels. The last sanctuary is about to fall.


Jake Bible, Bram Stoker Award nominated-novelist and author of the bestselling Z-Burbia series, short story writer, independent screenwriter, podcaster, and inventor of the Drabble Novel, has entertained thousands with his horror and sci/fi tales. He reaches audiences of all ages with his uncanny ability to write a wide range of characters and genres. Other series by Jake Bible: the bestselling Salvage Merc One, the Apex Trilogy, the Mega series, and the Reign of Four series. Jake lives in the wonderfully weird Asheville, North Carolina.  Connect with Jake on Facebook, Twitter, and his website: jakebible.com



The Dead (A Lot) Diaries: Roger Ludlow

The Dead (A Lot) Diaries: Roger Ludlow
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***LITTLE KILLERS is on sale for just $0.99!***

Each day, diary entries will be released from the viewpoint of secondary characters of the Dead (A Lot) Trilogy Universe, people we may not have met (yet!) but who still had Poxer issues of their own. . .

 

Roger Ludlow—Locked in Jolly’s Pharmacy—Guilford, Massachusetts

Diary Entry #1

My Millie got the cancer a long time before she told me.

I don’t rightly know why she didn’t say anything. Maybe she was afraid for me. Sometimes Millie was protective in a way that wives shouldn’t be protective over their husbands.

She stopped letting me mow the lawn when I was fifty-five because she was worried for my ticker.

She refused to let me shovel the sidewalk or the path leading up to the duplex, too. Instead, she scrimped and saved so she could pay that fat, lazy, turd, P.J. Marshall, to do it. Sure as shooting he used that money for reefer. He’s just that way.

Yes, Millie was afraid for me, but when she got the cancer she wasn’t scared that I might blow an artery or have a stroke doing things reserved for younger men.

She was afraid for my mind.

Lordy, she knew me so well.

After all, Millie and I went way back a long way, almost to the beginning. I was sweet on her from the moment I first set eyes on her back in Elvira Morely’s second grade classroom at Guilford Elementary School. There weren’t many other colored families in town back then, so it was a big deal that Millie’s family moved to Guilford.

Lord have mercy, but they were a big bunch, too.

Millie had seven sisters and four brothers, and there she was, smack dab in the middle of them all.

She liked me, too, even though I couldn’t string five words together to make a conversation. I was shy back then, but my Mille wasn’t. She did enough talking for the both of us. When we got hitched, and I worked on cars in Hap’s garage while she did the register and kept the books, she talked for me, too.

You see, she knew I wasn’t a strong man. I’m a good man, but I was never a strong man. As the years went on, I suppose shy gave way to reserved. As the decades layered one on the other like drifts of snow in the winter, reserved gave way to thoughtful, or just, ‘that sweet old, Mr. Ludlow’.

So now what’s ‘that sweet old Mr. Ludlow’ s’posed to do?

My Millie’s got the cancer, and now she’s got this other nonsense, too. I don’t know what it is, but Millie and the rest of the folks here in Jolly’s pharmacy, are sick.

Real sick.

I know one thing for sure. I can’t do this life thing without my Millie. She can’t leave me. She just can’t.

I won’t let her.

 

Roger Ludlow—Locked in Jolly’s Pharmacy—Guilford, Massachusetts

Diary Entry #2

My Millie and I had stopped by Jolly’s Pharmacy to pick up one of her prescriptions.

Millie didn’t like to talk about what Dr. McKee had her taking. She called that junk her special candy. I knew they were pain pills, but she didn’t want me to think she was in pain. Millie never wanted me to worry about her like that.

She’s the one who wanted to worry about me.

There were only a few other locals in the pharmacy when everything happened.

Nola Norris was working the front checkout. She’s been riding that register at Jolly’s for over ten years. Nola always told Millie that someday she’d settle down and find a husband, but I had my doubts. After all, she wasn’t much of a looker. Besides, lately she had been covered with angry, red, poison-ivy welts. My Millie asked her what happened. Nola just shrugged and told her there’re some things that you just shouldn’t do in the woods.

Then there was the druggist—John something-or-other. He’s been at Jolly’s since before I worked at Hap’s. As a matter of fact, he’s been there long enough for me to see his hair go from blonde to white, and the crow’s feet around his eyes to become permanently etched on his face like battle wounds.

That trouble-maker girl who went and got herself tattooed all over the place, was there, too. I don’t know her name, but I do know her parents. She ought to be ashamed of herself for the things she’s put them through. When we first came into the pharmacy, I noticed her reading a magazine in aisle six. She was probably getting ready to steal it.

That girl was always bad news.

Millie and I were slowly walking up the cosmetics’ aisle, arm in arm, heading to the front register. She couldn’t walk that fast, anymore, but she sure as shooting could hold her head up high. I don’t mind telling you, my Millie always walked with her head held high, like one of those beautiful carvings on the front of an old-time whaling ship.

I let her guide me as we walked, because I knew that’s what my Millie wanted and I would do anything for her.

I remember trying to decide if, when we got up front, I was going to buy one of those new-fangled Snicker’s bars with the yellow wrapper—the kind with peanut butter layered inside. Lordy knows they’re bad for me. Still, they taste so damn good.

As we walked, Millie started squeezing my arm. I didn’t quite notice at first, but her grip got harder and harder.

“What’re you doing, woman?” I asked her. That’s when I saw her eyes. They weren’t Millie’s eyes, anymore. They were someone else’s eyes—cold and gray.

I didn’t mean to pull away from her. I would never pull away from my Millie, but I was startled. Her beautiful skin—that soft, brown, cocoa skin that I had the privilege of touching for the majority of our lives—was gray.

I took a step back—then another. That’s when I noticed the others.

I keep playing it all back in my mind in slow motion. I don’t know why, because everything happened so quickly. Still, in my head, it takes a million years.

Nola Norris’s poison-ivy welts weren’t red anymore. They were white against gray skin, and her eyes were gray like Millie’s peepers. Pharmacist John was making a bee-line for me—not Millie—just me. He was walking down the cosmetics aisle like someone with cerebral palsy. I couldn’t understand why, because John was a healthy guy—and that trouble-maker girl—she was staggering toward me, too.

“What’s happening, Millie? Honey, are you okay?” I kept saying, “Honey—honey—honey,” like a broken record, the whole time, her grip squeezing my arm tighter and tighter, like a vice.

Finally, my Millie snarled at me. It was an awful sound, like the growl of a rabid dog in a dark alley, hovering over the bloody remains of a dead rat.

That’s when I knew there was something wrong with them all—not just my Millie, but everyone in the pharmacy.

Something was dead wrong.

 

Roger Ludlow—Locked in Jolly’s Pharmacy—Guilford, Massachusetts

Diary Entry #3

I needed to get help, but by the time I got my head screwed on straight, it was too late. There was no help to get.

The few people out in the parking lot had changed, too. Everyone was sick with whatever my Millie had—all with those gray eyes—staggering around like they were drunk, and all them looking like they wanted to eat me whole.

I ran to the back of the pharmacy, into the storage area behind ‘The Great Wall’.

‘The Great Wall’ was where all the condoms were displayed.

That wall has always been a joke in town. When I was younger—a lifetime ago, the other fellas would always head off to the pharmacy right after they cut out of work on Friday afternoons.

They used to say they were prepping to get their jollies at Jolly’s.

I bought my first box there when I was just shy of nineteen. My Millie made me do it. Don’t get me wrong, she was a good girl and made me wait until our wedding night. She said she wasn’t interested in having no babies until we weren’t babies ourselves, anymore.

Behind The Great Wall and in the back of the storage area, I found the basement door opened a crack. Maybe Nola Norris or Pharmacist John had been down there getting some more gummy worms or wax lips to fill the shelves. Candy always flies out of Jolly’s this time of year. Kids are back at school so they often come into the pharmacy to get their lined paper or pencils. The leaf peepers also start coming this way, hoping they’ll catch a glimpse of whatever colors New England is supposed to be famous for. I’ve been here all my life, so I don’t give no never mind about the colors. Still, the Quabbin Reservoir is beautiful this time of year.

There, or Hollowton, or even Apple.

I don’t mind telling you that anyone who’s anyone should know to stay away from Apple, Massachusetts in autumn. People get themselves killed there. Every year when the trees begin to die there are murders. I guess it’s the price people pay for living there.

Hap lives in Apple, so I asked him about the murders once. He just shrugged and said, “Yeah. Apple chews up and spits out a few seeds every year.” I wouldn’t want to live there, that’s for sure. Who would want to approach the fall every year, dreading that you might end up a seed?

Anyway, I got my Millie and the rest of them to follow me down into the basement. Nola Norris kept gnashing her teeth together as she staggered along. It didn’t take but a minute or two before I realized what Nola Norris wanted was to take a bite out of me. I didn’t know what would happen if she did, but I had a sinking suspicion that a bite from Nola, or any of them, would make me just like them.

My heart ached for my Millie. Maybe if I was bitten I would be just like them—just like her.

One bite—that’s all it would take—but I couldn’t do it. Someone had to take care of my Mille.

Once they were all down in the cellar, it was easy enough to lose them in the stacks of shelves with inventory on them like deodorant and tacky little stuffed animals that kids wail for their mammies to buy them, just to make them shut-up.

I took the stairs, catching one last glimpse of my Millie as I did, then closed the door behind them.

Then, without even thinking, I pulled some beef jerky off a spinning rack, cracked open the door and threw several bags down the stairs. After all, I couldn’t let my Millie go hungry, now could I?

And right then was just about the time the lights went out and I was smothered in darkness so black and deep that it stole the breath clean out of my mouth.

 

Roger Ludlow—Locked in Jolly’s Pharmacy—Guilford, Massachusetts

Diary Entry #4

I’m scared.

I’m tired.

I’m ready to start eating pills behind the pharmacy counter.

I’ve lost track of time, but I think it’s been almost a week now that my Millie and the others have been down in that basement. Sometimes, they can go for hours without making any noise, then all of a sudden I hear them moving, like rats beneath  my feet.

I’ve run out of food to feed them. Lordy knows there ain’t no more beef jerky. Soon I’ll run out of food to feed myself.

Now, there’s some fool outside in an ambulance flashing high-beams at me with Morse Code.

I’m not stupid. I know what Morse Code is.

Sure, I’ll play along.

If whoever is out there wants to come in, I’ll let them.

After all, My Millie and the others have got to be starving down there in that basement, with nothing to chaw on but beef jerky.

I’ll let them in, alright.

And if I have my way, My Millie is sure-as-shooting going to be eating well tonight, I’ll tell you that right now.

She is sure-as-shooting going to be eating well.

 

Novels by Howard Odentz:

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Dead (A Lot) (The Dead a Lot Trilogy, Book 1)

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2fwFMOt

BN: http://bit.ly/20IBtBn

Kobo: http://bit.ly/1Og6vIC

Apple: http://apple.co/1JS1H6v

Google: http://bit.ly/1DvyBrm

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Wicked Dead (The Dead A Lot Trilogy, Book 2)

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2f9zHDu

BN: http://bit.ly/2dprZXT

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2d4rbK3

Apple: http://apple.co/2e4P3cP

Google: http://bit.ly/2cRscl0

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Bloody Bloody Apple

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2erp8f2

BN: http://bit.ly/20IBq8D

Kobo: http://bit.ly/1EZhJ2i

Apple: http://apple.co/1D9txyj

Google: http://bit.ly/1gOKRhF

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Little Killers (Only $0.99 til 11/3)

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2f9xurS

BN: http://tinyurl.com/hhyrtm2

Kobo: http://tinyurl.com/hjjx462

Apple: http://tinyurl.com/zo3n8rc

Google: http://tinyurl.com/hawdd59

About the Author:

howard_odentz-jpgAuthor and playwright Howard Odentz is a lifelong resident of the gray area between Western Massachusetts and North Central Connecticut. His love of the region is evident in his writing as he often incorporates the foothills of the Berkshires and the small towns of the Bay and Nutmeg states into his work.

In addition to The Dead (A Lot) Series, he has written the horror novel Bloody Bloody Apple, the short story collection Little Killers A to Z, and a couple of horror-themed, musical comedies produced for the stage.

The Evil that is Apple, Massachusetts

The Evil that is Apple, Massachusetts

The Evil that is Apple, Massachusetts

by Howard Odentz

I’ve come up in the shadow of the orchards, the gnarled roots of fruit trees twisting and turning into the ground.

I’ve seen brick buildings grow where there were once fields, and I’ve gazed with a lizard brain as factories bloom by the reservoir, only to wither and die in great heaps of red-clay rubble.

I’ve witnessed Apple’s children, innocent and pure, turn from adolescence to adulthood, go off to war, and come home with missing parts—or never come home at all.

I’ve watched the very seeds of this town bear corrupted fruit along a backdrop that has morphed from soda fountains and penny candy stores to tattoo parlors and bars.

And amidst all the never ending change, as the darkness slowly engulfs everyone and everything in its cold embrace, I now stare with a psychotic detachment as the very flesh of Apple is drawn and quartered—literally.

Murder happens here, in lonely tobacco barns along the edge of town, or in the dense forests where the screams of the mutilated are muffled by a thick blanket of autumn rot.

Murder happens here every year.

I am not to blame.

Does one blame God for allowing a husband to strike his wife? Does one blame The Lord for allowing alcohol and drugs and the poor choices of pitiful minds to ruin lives?

Does one blame Him for murder?

I can assure you He took his leave of Apple, Massachusetts long before the first tree was ever planted and long before the first suspicious death ever occurred.

He doesn’t tarry here anymore.

All that remains is me and I’m just fine.

Right as rain.

Ducky, in fact.

For I am the Evil that is Apple, Massachusetts, and boy oh boy…

It is good.

Curious about the evil that’s taken root in Apple? Pick up BLOODY BLOODY APPLE for just $1.99 and find out who’s behind the body count…

Bloody Bloody Apple

“The Infamous ‘Eyebrow'”

“The Infamous ‘Eyebrow'”
Dead (A Lot) FINAL
Bloody Bloody Apple

Howard-11“The Infamous ‘Eyebrow'”

by Howard Odentz

I don’t have the infamous ‘eyebrow’.

You see, every time I look at a blog or a site devoted to horror writers, each one of them is pictured very close to the camera with their fingers tented in front of them and one eyebrow arching to the sky.

Just one.

I can’t do that. I also can’t taste that weird litmus paper from high school biology. I can, however, curl my tongue, but I doubt that little talent is going to help me look like the author of the creepy things I write about.

I suppose it all comes down to genetics—my genotype forces me to write scary things. My phenotype is somewhere between a New England preppy and a cartoon. Nope—nothing disturbing about that, unless you have an irrational fear of all things L.L. Bean or Looney Tunes.

How my brain got so twisted inside, who’s to say? All I know is that when my hands fall on the keyboard, murderous psychopaths and gory visions flow out of them, and sometimes children who like to kill.

So how is it that my favorite holiday is Halloween? What mental glitch makes me turn to ‘The Walking Dead’ instead of ‘Downton Abbey’? Why do I scour YouTube in search of scary videos that will add spice to my nightmares while I sleep because I think regular dreams are so boring?

Who knows?

My parents were no more terrifying than me. My sisters devoured Harlequin romances like they were the best thing ever. Sure, I was terrified of the family poodle, but she had little needle teeth and growled at me every time she had a bone and I walked into the same room. Who wouldn’t run screaming the other way—or dress her in doll clothes when she had the rare mellow moment?

For whatever the reason, I’m told that people burst out laughing in the middle of some of my horror stories. I guess there’s a little bit of funny swimming beneath the troubled current of everything I write. That humorous shark-fin that can give you the giggles sometimes surfaces. I don’t know why and I don’t know how, but even when I don’t want it to be there, it sometimes knifes through my words, attached to a gigantic killer lurking just beneath each page.

In the end, I guess I can’t fight the scary or the dark humor. I suppose my eyes will always naturally stray to the creepy, twisted edges of things. It’s a weird way of looking at the world, but it’s my way, and I long ago learned not to fight it.

So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  For now, I have to run. My llamas are staring at me with those huge, dead eyes, hoping that I’ll grain them soon, and I have an appointment to get my dog, Einstein, fitted for a wheelchair.

What? That’s normal, isn’t it?

Isn’t it?

Pick up BLOODY BLOODY APPLE for only $1.99 today only from Amazon!

 

Bloody Bloody Apple

Howard Odentz is a Western Massachusetts author of playwright. His first novel, ‘Dead (a Lot)’, described as a humorous and thrilling zombie-ride, was published by Bell Bridge books in 2013. In 2014 it hit #1 on Amazon in several categories including young adult horror and humor-horror. In 2015 it became an Ariana Award Winner and an Epic Award Finalist.

His latest novel ‘Bloody Bloody Apple’ was released on October 17, 2014 to all major on-line platforms including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple and Google Play. It is also available for order through bookstores or through the publisher, Bell Bridge, at www.bellebooks.com.

Read more about Howard Odentz at www.howardodentz.com.

Book Review of Dead (a Lot)

Book Review of Dead (a Lot)
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Dead (A Lot) 200x300x72By Forris Day Jr. of Scared Stiff Reviews

Got Zombies? Dead (A Lot) does. Dead (A Lot) by Howard Odentz is fun book about a zombie apocalypse as experienced by a group of young teenagers. One day they are just doing the regular things that kids do then the next morning the world is forever changed when a strange virus is released into the world that changes most denizens of this Earth into slow moving and very hungry zombies. Unfortunately for our adventurers a shot to the head does not kill these decrepit bags of flesh as it does in most zombie stories. But a bit of fire seems to do the trick.

Odentz’s tale takes place during the fall season in New England. It is a time when people from all over come to drive the back roads admiring the foliage that this part of the country has to offer. Too bad many of the leaf peepers have now become a part of the landscape, dead like the leaves they came to view, searching for food to satisfy their never ending hunger.

Tripp Light and his twin sister Trina seem to be immune to the virus that has turned most of the world into a bad B-movie. As they go in search of their parents they meet up with other survivors who have their own strengths to add to their ever growing group. Alone they will die but together this ragged acne prone bunch of teenagers just might have a chance. Follow along as they travel from their destroyed home to go in search of their Aunts house where they believe their parents are hiding.

A fun and witty zombie apocalypse narrative that will bring a smile to your face as you discover (or remember) how the teenage mind operates in times of difficulty. The dialog is clever and the characters are realistic. The locations are based on real ones and that is pretty cool because they were recognizable to me as I am from New England and I know most of the locations really well. As a matter of fact the crew drives by the house I grew up in in Three Rivers, Massachusetts. Kind of a treat for me as I imagined the sidewalks that I rode my bike on as a kid, filled with all my neighbors turned zombie. I still think some of my neighbors I had as a kid were indeed zombies.

Dead (A Lot) is aimed at the “Young Adult” market but I feel it is an enjoyable read to anyone of any age who enjoys a good zombie story full of fun characters and entertaining zombies. Yes, I found many of the zombies funny and amusing because they could not get themselves out of many simple predicaments that us living folks take for granted everyday. For example turning doorknobs is beyond a zombies knowledge so if they are inside that is where they remain unless they can find some other means of egress. They are forever hungry and always have something up their sleeve…well the ones who still have arms that is.

Make sure you grab DEAD (A LOT) for only $1.99 through Friday!

And don’t forget about Howard Odentz’s new release –BLOODY BLOODY APPLE – available now!

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Dead (a Lot) Book Review

Dead (a Lot) Book Review
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cover34639-mediumZombie stories are everywhere. Due in some part to the unbelievable success of shows like The Walking Dead,books like World War Z, and films like 28 Days Later andShaun of the Dead, everyone’s writing about the dead-but-ambulatory. Nice zombies, evil zombies, teenage zombies, Nazi zombies, zombie dogs, shark zombies, Jane Austen zombies. Zombies sell books. And movies. And television. And video games. It’s all out there.

The thing about the best zombie fiction, though, is that it’s not really about zombies, not primarily. It’s about the living. The Walking Dead, for instance, has gone entire episodes without showing zombies. This is true of most genre fiction, for that matter: The conceit of the story—what makes it “genre,” in other words—is just a clever way to “tell it slant,” as Emily Dickinson advised, of examining the human condition. Yes, zombies are cool and threatening, but what keeps us coming back to the story is the desire to find out how the people work around the threat.

Howard Odentz’s Dead (a Lot) does just this, coming at the zombie apocalypse tale from a slightly different perspective. Odentz tosses the reader directly into the story of Tripp and Trina Light, teen twins who’ve been left at home while their parents are away on a trip. Almost immediately, the Lights’ universe tilts, things go awry, and the dead, unsurprisingly, begin to walk, and to munch on the living. As the book’s narrator, Tripp guides the reader through the story of how the siblings set out to find their parents. These teens have never had to make it on their own, they barely know how to drive, and they’ve certainly never had to kill another human being, so they’re up against enormous odds here.

Since Dead (a Lot) features a first-person narrative, big picture revelations are few and far between, but that’s fine, since the characters and their ongoing conflicts are interesting enough to keep us satisfied. And when the larger revelations do come, Odentz finds interesting ways to reveal them. We know that the zombies–called poxers by the characters–are the result of Neropoxy, a parasitic disease that causes the zombie plague, and we’re also certain that the disease was created by humans. We know that some people appear to be immune to the disease, which creates yet another source of tension and conflict. And we know that the poxers can be destroyed, though it’s not an easy thing to accomplish. Good thing, that.

During their journey, the twins meet up with radio DJ Jimmy James (whose name, I suspect, may either be a nod to the station owner from the 90s sitcom Newsradio or just a happy coincidence), brother and sister Prianka and Sanjay Patel, and Andrew the Crow, Jimmy’s talking bird. Odentz imbues these characters with interesting qualities that make the story more interesting. Tripp already knows Prianka from school, and they have a ready-made adversarial love/hate relationship. Prianka’s little brother Sanjay is autistic and often consults a worn out stuffed animal, Poopy Puppy, obtaining and passing on relevant and often unbelievably detailed information to the group. Jimmy also has a limitation that I won’t reveal here, but I will say that it helps strengthen an already prevalent sense of reality and urgency.

One of the most interesting aspects of this novel, though, is that its characters possess an awareness of the zombie genre. Tripp, for instance, has played video games and seen films featuring zombies, and Sanjay refers occasionally to zombie films by name. A good deal of the conventional wisdom contained in the cited media turns out to be false, or at least not quite right, and the characters rarely call the walking dead “zombies,” but there are occasional references to George Romero and other staples of the genre. Is this unique? No, but it does lend Dead (a Lot) an interesting authenticity, making it seem even more plausible that these characters live in the same world we do.

Overall, this is a fun and quick read. The story is fast-paced with little room for breathing or lollygagging, and there are plenty of close calls and high stakes. After all, around every corner or behind every door lurks the possibility of death. Odentz deftly captures Tripp’s voice, and his narration is engaging and full of humor, much of it clearly deployed defensively. He’s not perfect–not by a long shot–but he’s certainly worth rooting for. He’s sarcastic, often to his disadvantage, but we’re nonetheless able to occasionally glimpse his vulnerability, giving us the feeling he’s never far from losing it. And who wouldn’t be?

There’s such a glut of zombie stories on the market that perusing the contenders can feel a bit like running a gauntlet manned by the unruly undead. So, as with most growing trends in genre fiction, unless you want to read the same zombie story over and over, it becomes necessary to look for writers who find a way to make it different somehow.

Dead (a Lot) is different.

 

Make sure you grab DEAD (A LOT) for only $1.99 through Friday!

And don’t forget about Howard Odentz’s new release – BLOODY BLOODY APPLE – available now!

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