SECRET PROTECTORS

(Prologue)

In anticipation of the night...

They walk among the Secret Protectors!

RLJ

(30)

SECRET PROTECTORS

During this night,

The night before this year's Halloween,

The rain that has fallen for a whole week has passed...

Leaving in its wake cooler nighttime air and the anticipation of...

Youthful Trick Or Treaters!

It is a rare occurrence that a child is lost during Halloween night!

Think about it... children would be easy pickings for the haunts of the night!

But there is a mysterious understanding that affect all dark creatures this night!

The children are off limits on Halloween night... their energy is fuel!

Leave them along this night so they will return energized next year!

RLJ

I DON'T MAKE THE RULES

(Another FOURTH LINE OF HORROR tale)

(Prologue)

Sometimes you MUST follow the rules!

RLJ

(29)

I DON'T MAKE THE RULES

I don't make the rules in my horror world,

I am just compelled live by them!

The number one rule in my horror world is... 

Kill a human man before you sleep at night, or die!

The other horror rules don't matter much if the first rule is not met on a daily basis!

So, 

As I now stand here sweaty and bloody, 

I can carry on another day having just executed the rule... again!

Boris Yannis 

(RLJ)

BETTER TODAY THAN YESTERDAY

In your hour of greatest despair,

Would it not be a great thing to have a witch as a friend?

RLJ

(28)

BETTER TODAY THAN YESTERDAY

(Mahwah, N.J.)

Yesterday was simply an awful day! My good friend since way bask in elementary school, Mary, wanted me to conjure her deceased husband back to life!

I told Mary that, hey, I'm Lorie Jones, the woman you keep telling that she is your best friend in the world... that it is impossible for me to bring him back alive because he has been dead for a month and his brain has rotted by now!

Of course, as these horror stories go, she didn't care about what I had to say, about the consequences of blasphemy, she only wanted her her Harry back! And she was in a state of distraught so severe that she was psychotic! The look in her eyes told me she, her mind, was simply gone! 

So, I used my powers over magic and illusion to change her perception of reality! I determined that there was only one way to give my friend the relief from her grief that she needed. I gave Harry back to her. She and Harry are now in heaven together, forevermore living in bliss... inside the brain inside the skull of her comatose body!

And as the ambulance pulled away from her driveway, and as I locked her front door before driving to the office of her lawyer, who happens to be my lawyer as well, to give him the keys to her house, I stopped to think about what had just happened... to my childless friend... who only had me and her dead husband to call upon... all I could say is, surely she is better today than she was yesterday!

Mary Steele

(RLJ)

THE VISITING OF OLD DREAMS

(Prologue)

What makes some men crazy?

RLJ

(27)

THE VISITING OF OLD DREAMS

What does a man say to his sanity when he begins to revisit old nightmares during night time sleeping hours?

What can be said about the man who has horror dreams so vivid, so often... his mind now resorting to revisiting old night terrors?

Sanity is lost, most truly, when a man begins to run out of what is now focusing his reality... replacing it with horror that once was?

It is an awful feeling, this dream Deja Vu, for it takes away one's ability to discern reality from craziness.. and makes you bat shit crazy!

RLJ

BITE YOU IN YOUR NECK

 (PROLOGUE)

One better watch what one says about life and death.

Later in life,

That folly might come back to bite you in your neck!

RLJ

(26)

BITE YOU IN YOUR NECK

(Burke, Virginia)

Aunt Judy was well know around town about her attitude toward life and death!

She said, "I won't worry about a thing after I'm dead... you, the living, deal with it!"

So, after she died from a violent attack and arose later as a living dead vampire,

We, her living relatives did something about it... with a wooden stake through her heart!

(Alan Peptone... Vampire Hunter)

 

RLJ

MOSQUITO BUZZ

(Prologue)

Fear that high pitched buzz in your ear!

RLJ

 

(25)

MOSQUITO BUZZ

(Southport, N.C.)

That tiny flying insect is a vexing monster... hear its high pitch buzzing by your ear?

Lowly is not the word to describe the status of a mosquito... it causes too much death!

The ugly truth is confirmed, though, as to the diabolical nature of this tiny beast!

This terror horrifyingly transfers blood and spit and disease from creature to creature!

What a true monster of horror is this living and flying and biting insect infection!

This buzzing thing that flies directly at you is truly... death with wings!

And every coastal North Carolina mosquito bite could potentially end in a hospital visit!

And you just got bitten... 

The first jab of burning pain in your neck of this day... 

And, as usual, everyday, you wait until tomorrow to see how you feel!

Malaria is no goddamn joke!

So, before you go to bed tonight, you will say your prayers!

And you will hope tomorrow is not the beginning of another week of horror!

RLJ

WHO MURDERED JOHN BROWN

 

(Prologue)

Here,

for your perusal...

Another Fourth Line Of Horror entry!

RLJ

(24)

WHO MURDERED JOHN BROWN

The dead man's twisted body was still warm!

Some blood was pooled in the right corner of his lips!

There is something thick and nasty looking in his opened mouth!

"Oh my god," choked out Detective  Overton, "Is that a tongue in there?"

RLJ

HOW LONG TONIGHT

"Really, can these ghosts tell time?"

RLJ

(23)

HOW LONG TONIGHT

Mary Trask, again, finds herself right in the middle of a conversation between two haunting entities she cannot see. Oh, it has long been established that they see, and hear, her. But when they, again, begin to argue like an old long-suffering-of-each-other married couple, Mary huffs and puffs and asks them to quiet down, please... but they do not listen.

Mary used to think she was going crazy because of the voices. They began their first argument, that she knows of, the first night she moved into this apartment. Clear as day and close to her as she lay in her bed listening to the conversation, invisible voices began to debate philosophers she had never heard. After about two weeks of this, she finally caught on that she was paying rent to live in a haunted apartment.

And the apartment managers played coy and shy when she confronted them about her plight. They told her that they forgot to tell her about the voices. Mary found herself actually declining their offer to move to another apartment. Something inside of her, maybe morbid curiosity, made her stay.

And so, on a Wednesday night of her work week, she now sits on her bed with her pillow pulled up to her chin, waiting for them to eventually fade out of sound. Sometimes it takes them minutes, and sometimes they debate for hours.

"How long will it be tonight, guys," she whispers in a resigned tone. "How long tonight..."

RLJ

THE DEAD DO NOT CRY

The medium spoke from her trance-like state!

She channeled the final words of her deceased husband.

His widow sat motionless as she received his thoughts.

"Please God," she whispered under her breath. "I hope the dead do not cry!"

RLJ

 

(22)

THE DEAD DO NOT CRY

So, you're dead as a doornail... pushing daises... six feet under... and other clichés!

And your spirit has now raised up from the grave to look down on your resting place!

The funeral was a week ago and you were still so dead that you did not see a thing!

But now you have raised up from your embalmed body and you are looking down at dirt!

You know you should be sad and anxious as you experience the impossible!

Your spirit mind should be exploding with confusion as you are now... conscious!

But, not a single emotion is in there for you to tap into!

For, you are dead... and your emotions died with your physical body!

You cannot cry because you are not alive to cry!

Your emotions are nullified because your organic brain is sitting is a jar somewhere.

And now that the bright light has blinked on above you... you are being called to it!

Goodbye world... don't cry for me...I am OK... because the dead do not cry!

The final thoughts of Mark Sands

(RLJ)

SOMEDAY

Is that a haunted house across the way?

Samantha Jones will find out...

Someday!

RLJ

(21)

SOMEDAY

The house across the street has been vacant for 8 years!

I know that information because I have lived here those 8 years!

The only person to visit the house, during the day time, is the yard keeper!

And he is so weird that I avoid eye contact when I am outside, when he is there!

Stranger still is the fact that every night I see movement in that house!

There are weird shadows waltzing in the dark behind those yellowed shades!

And there are the occasional, indecipherable animal-like noises over there!

And no... I have not been out of my house, alone, after dark for at least 7 years! 

Oh no, I will not expose myself to the strange things going on over there!

That is why I tolerate my annoying younger brother living with me!

But some day I will get the nerve to confront my soul numbing fear of...

That yard keeper... and that creepy house... and what is in the inside of that house!

Someday...

Samantha Jones

(RLJ)

MEAL FOR A VAMPIRE

To all vampires,

Every human being is a,

Meal For A Vampire!

RLJ

(20)

MEAL FOR A VAMPIRE

As Max spasmed just before he passed out from the severe blood loss.

Milly recoiled in shocked surprise because she had never seen that reaction.

 Always, when her prey dies as she sucks into her mouth the last drops of blood,

They simply stop the struggle and go limp... and that is the end of that feeding.

She liked Max Roberts,

But love was never to be between them.

You can like the food you are nurturing to maturity,

But you cannot love it because that confusion leads only to heartache.

Milly has long since stopped trying to be human!

But she is a forever 19 year old vampire teenager... plus 102 years.

And boys and men alike love her looks... even in the dark!

What would they think of her if they only knew what she thought of them!

Full of blood now, she would now twist off Max's head from his body!

She would take the body to the ghouls out in the woods down the street!

The head must be buried somewhere else!

She then takes a long rest to digest her food... before her next Meal For A Vampire!

RLJ

WHAT THE OLD MAN SAID

All of our eyes will see the inviting light,

Or the frightful darkness,

When death finally reaches out to touch us...

Is what the old man said!

RLJ

 

(19)

WHAT THE OLD MAN SAID

What said he, 

The dying old man named Jed Smith,

Sitting proud and stubborn in his death watch rocking chair,

Looking across the street at the neighborhood activities!

Hey you kids over there...

You ones...

Come over here and listen to me right now...

Listen to me tell you something about life that you need to know!

All six of you...

Jumping and yelling and running around like wild cats...

Burning all your teenage energy chasing your own crazy tails...

Not one of you spending a second to look at my decay!

All of you need to sober up right now...

Because I am staring at death and and I see something very dark...

Something heart stopping scary staring through me as it looks at all of you...

Death smiling as it bides its time until it catches you, too!

RLJ

HUMAN MEMORIES

 

Ah, those memories are fleeting, indeed!

RLJ

(18)

HUMAN MEMORIES

Look through the eerie glow of the full moon...

Out there in the feral woods...

Like the small forest out behind your house!

Halloween is coming...

Even though the creatures out there...

They have no true concept of what Halloween means!

Over there...

Behind the ancient pecan tree...

An animal of black darkness has caught a wild turkey to slaughter!

While ripping the wild bird to shreds...

A faint holiday thought flashes across thus creature's mind...

But, those are the quickly forgotten thoughts of when it is in human form!

RLJ

UNDER THE OLD OAK TREE

 Childhood friends reunite as adults!

They both share a very strange secret from their childhood past!

And at least one of them wants to dig... Under The Old Oak Tree!

RLJ

(17)

UNDER THE OLD OAK TREE

Hey Hamilton... it was great seeing you at the gas station last week. I am truly happy we exchanged our email addresses and phone numbers. The fact that we haven't seen each other in over 30 years is straight sad. I should have made a better effort at keeping in contact, but life has a way of making time shift in what seems like a blink of an eye.

I did not tell you that I still live in my childhood house. Mom and dad passed away about 4 years ago and they willed the house to me. Being an only child, like you are, means that everything associated with this house is up to me to take care of. And so, I decided to move back in this house to take care of it and to watch over the thing in the back yard that used to obsess, and frighten, us as kids.

That's right, Hamilton, the old oak tree is still out back and it is even larger and louder than it was when we were kids forced to go out back and play when your mom, and you, came over for them to visit and gossip.

The voices are still whispering from under the old oak tree. You and I thought it was weird and a little scary when we were kids, but I never took it seriously. To me, the sounds simply were creepy earth noises. I remember you basically thought the same thing. And when you moved away, I thought the sounds would go away, but they didn't.

During my high school years, I became too busy to go out to the tree and place my ears to the tree roots to hear the sounds. And during my 5 years of college, I simply forgot the oak tree and whispers. By the time both of my parents had died, and I finally moved my family into the house, I slowly began to be drawn back to the oak tree. And now the whispers are full on words and some of the things said are a very disturbing.

Hamilton, there are ghosts or spirits or something down there among the roots of the oak tree... and they are asking for both of us to dig down into the earth around the tree roots so that they can have peace. Ultimately, I don't know what that means. But I want to find out. Oh, and they are calling for us by our names.

So, I hope you will write me back and tell me what you think about my missive. I am going to start digging in a couple of days. I am not going to bother you by calling you. I only hope you are interested in what I've stated here. 

I am going to find out what is UNDER THE OLD OAK TREE!

Sincerely, your friend Greg Jones

(RLJ)

HUMAN PREY

 ...Said one vampire to another...

RLJ

(16)

HUMAN PREY

(Wilmington, N.C,)

The weakest prey of them all are suppose to be the humans!

But, be careful of them because they are exceptionally cunning!

Last year, one of them actually broke my neck when I tried to feed from her!

She flipped me over her back and stomped my neck... that is why you hunt my prey for me!

RLJ

A WOLF IN A JAIL CELL

Jonny Mack just wants to be left alone!

He walks these Texas plains alone.

But when the cops saw him and attacked him and jailed him,

Little did they know they are detaining a wolf in a jail cell!

RLJ

 

(15)

A WOLF IN A JAIL CELL

I am scratching this note into the wall down near the floor!

I begged them not to put me in a jail cell!

I begged them not to lock me up with people in detention!

I then warned them that they would regret ignoring my plea!

But they beat me with their batons and threw me in there anyway!

By now, I know humans never believe me when I tell them I'm a werewolf!

Well, tomorrow is the first night of new full moon!

And, to make matters worse, this will be a Harvest Moon!

The wolf is much more vicious under a Harvest Moon!

Oh my god, I can smell the upcoming carnage and death and blood!

Concrete walls and metal bars will not prevent the carnage!

Fucking racist Texas backwater cops never listen to anyone they don't like!

I am just a simple drifter staying away from humanity!

They will pay for their monstrous hatred tomorrow night!

Unfortunately, so too will the inmates!

Jonny Mack

(RLJ)

CAN SHE CARRY HER OWN WEIGHT

When the world had gone to crap,

And a man comes upon a woman in need...

All he might want from her for his good deed is to know...

Can she carry her own weight?

RLJ

(14)

CAN SHE CARRY HER WEIGHT

Journal Entry 319: 

The unbelievable has happened to me today. 

I discovered another human being battling HER way through this insane zombie apocalypse!

She was trapped in a large gasless SUV.

To me, she was pretty safe...

But 20 zombies could wait her out indefinitely!

There was no way I was going to leave here there...

To surely suffer what would be a terrible fate!

I consider myself to be an expert zombie killer!

Dispatching a horde of shambling decaying monsters is like an...

Exercise workout for me after years of practice.

I can hack to pieces dozens of zombies per minute...

Without getting a single drop of their muck-like blood on me!

The woman is very attractive and seems hardy enough!

She tells me she is 28 years old and has been alone for years!

Of course, 

I don't trust her one stinking bit,

But I will allow her to tag along for as long as she is useful.

All that confusing man/woman bullshit is confusing and dangerous!

So none of that mess!

All I want to know is can she carry her own weight!

Cam Jones

(RLJ)

THE DISTANT HOWLS

 

Robert knows they will call him soon.

He does not want to go!

But he cannot resist the distant howls!

RLJ

(Another Forth Line Of Horror tale)

(13)

THE DISTANT HOWLS

Sleep, sweet deep REM sleep, cannot lighten this nightmare I suffer through!

I've even closed my mind during the day, but I cannot get away from my horror!

Change can be the real nightmare, especially when you cannot stop the change!

The moon is full tonight... I will not sleep tonight... I can already hear the distant howls!

ROS

THE HORROR

 It just might too late to want your life back,

When you did not do what needed to be done to prevent...

The Horror!

RLJ

(12)

THE HORROR

(Killeen, Texas)

So...

If I contract COVID-19 DELTA VARIANT,

And if I die because I have refused vaccination,

I will not get to tell the story of my long life...

Of all the loves I've found and lost and found again...

Of all the good times I had living my life...

And to tell the tales of the many bad times I've had, too!

To tell the world of how beautiful it is to breath fresh air...

To suck into my lungs the particle filled air that I need to live!

I will not get to tell those who will listen what COVID suffocation feels like!

And of the pain of a intubation breathing tube forced down my throat!

And talk about the drug induced nightmares haunting me in the hospital bed!

If I contract COVID-19 DELTA VARIENT,

And if I die because I have refused vaccination...

Oh, what a horror tale that would be!

And what can I do about... the horror?

Harold "Tex" Smith

(RLJ)

DEAD KIDS

The thought of dead kids is not pleasant!

The thought of a bunch of dead kids is a horror!

What happens to these dead kids after death is a matter of interpretation!

RLJ

(11)

DEAD KIDS

(Somewhere dark and dangerous, TEXAS)

    There are 12 of them who roam the earth, drifting from place to place, searching for peace they may never find. These are ghosts of another mass act of American Violence. They have a blood bond between them that they nurtured when they were alive... and now that they were all murdered at the blasphemous mass murder event 3 years ago, the tragedy of it all has solidified their bond beyond death and they now haunt as a team who could not leave each other if they wanted to.

    There obviously are supernatural forces at work here that mere humans may never understand.

    But they each know the actual reason they could not fully die. For bad, or for worse, the parents of these 12 dead kids cremated their bodies... all in a same day ceremony. And with their bodies all reduced to a few handfuls of ash, their roaming souls no longer had the physical manifestation for a final resting place. So, they are now all restless spirits haunting the earth.

    They are now all a bunch of Dead Kids with no place to call home! And they are not happy about it...!

THE END 

(RLJ)