Thursday, October 28, 2010

THE HOWLOWEEN SHOW ~ Double Feature Creatures Ghoulishly Present ~

THE SHOWS MUST SCARE ON .... creepy photo ala William Self

THE HOWLOWEEN SHOW
*AT THE BIJOU*

IT'S BIG
IT'S BOLD
IT'S SPOOKY
AND GRUESOME
IT'S AN APPARITION
AND A DON'T LOOK
TWOSOME!


Scared up by ~
Absolutely*Kate
and
 Zelda Martin
and 
Harry B Sanderford


IT'S TWO, 
TWO, TWO HITS IN ONE!
pLeAsE fReAk*OuT aNd
ThOrOuGhLy EnJoY
  *AT THE BIJOU*  

simply click on HOME below
to get to our two terror tales
trailing to the heart o'you

oh boy, oh boy, oh girl!

 

APPARITION ~ By Absolutely*Kate of Harbinger*33 ... #FlashingFiction once again


APPARITION

 By  ~ Absolutely*Kate


Bill didn’t have a ghost of a chance when Mary died suddenly the night following the annual Christmas cookie exchange on Mocking Raven Lane. Bill adored all the merry merits of Mary. Why, that’s why Bill married Mary. Admiration knew no bounds for the passions, pleasures and playful priorities that Mary brought to the blend of their loving life. Oh how Mary loved life!

Mary created and considered, then created some more, and Bill loved Mary’s creations ever more. He cherished her poetry, pottery, plantings and photography; her tapestries, timetables, teriyaki and tiramisu. Whenever Mary baked up a storm for any season’s reasons, he played their special tune while the oven attuned to 350-bake. Midst brown sugar and sprinkles, almond flavoring and the warm flavor of Mary’s appetizing eyes, Bill slowly undressed his pal and his gal, let fingers linger, sensed thoughts collide, and came into new understandings every way inside. Proud Bill told talented Mary time and time again, “Just like you Mar. Perfection is delicious.”

On the pre-holiday afternoon of the annual thumbprint cookies bake-a-thon — which the whole neighborhood knew were to die for — Bill’s thumbprints left slow, swooning indentations all along Mary’s supple breasts, pulling her natural lovely nakedness oh so tenderly into his own. Aye, that was the rub that tendered the Bill. The whisper from the big-hearted man into the soft woman who flexed his vitality, rasped with feeling over the raspberry filling, “Sweet Mar, never change any ingredient. How could it be you if otherwise?”


   

As the calendar turned a new year and turned Bill’s life achingly upside down, the new neighbor Edna showed up with casseroles and condolences. Eager Edna edged into pedal pushers, then short shorts, then a string bikini as spring gardening turned to backyard summer tanning. While cutting the lawn one day, Bill noticed where the grass was greener. Theirs was a spirited howl of a whirlwind relationship from late May to early October, in which Bill bedded and wedded Edna in a thinly veiled ceremony attended by the knowing neighbors of Mocking Raven Lane. The reception was held at one of Bill and Mary’s former fave haunts, where some said they felt uneasy around easy Edna.

Every night felt so familiar as Bill told Edna how well she filled out Mary’s silks and satins, which he hadn’t the heart to toss into Thursday’s trash or the Goodwill receptacle downtown. He told her she was an apparition to behold.

Halloween night saw Edna half-heartedly backing the buoyant boyhood spirit of Bill at the door, with Reese’s, Butterfingers and Snickers galore. He chuckled past princesses, Transformers, zombies and more, after asking one pirate tyke, “Hey — where’s your buccaneers?”, earning back the kid's jubilant jeer, “Under my buckin’ hat!” To Edna that joke fell flat. Bill reminisced how Mary though, would’ve giggled on and on about that.

Funny, in all the gathered groups of Trick-or-Treaters, one costumed neighbor mom fringed the sidewalk edge more and more. In the midst of the mist of darkening dusk, he sensed a melancholy her non-smile was putting out. Cheer of prior years hauntingly reminded Bill ~ he just missed Mary. Mentioning the freaky frequency he had gazed at the gauzy lady, edgy Edna crackled and snapped, “Most likely the vicious vampires are changing their get-ups behind the bushes and hitting us up for more than their fair share. Can we shut the porch light out yet?”

Upstairs in bed, Bill heard Mary’s grace of giggles. His dreams? The radio? Nope ~ he’d remembered waiting until 12:15 when their favorite classic rock station played Clapton’s “After Midnight”. A simple playlist maneuver, but any purposeful pun would set off Mar’s giggles. The allure just took off from there. Nope, the radio was off . . . but the music wasn’t.

Bill didn’t have a ghost of a chance when “Unchained Melody” began to play. Like the wind, her song stayed on his mind, as engulfing passions tend to do. Desire aspires to where intertwined fires flair and flare. Her spirit, or his bewitched, bothered and bewildered thoughts played “Misty” for him next. A chilling sensation just out of reach provoked his guilty reach towards Edna. Chilling there too; no real surprise. He strained to adjust his eyes towards two small approaching lights. Warm lights like ~

The first shot that rang out in the dark went straight through Billy Boy’s heart. The following volley sought where Mary wondered if evil Edna even had one. When she’d viewed their vows at the flimsy altar of intentions, her solemn dark of soul vowed to taunt, daunt and haunt the man who done her wrong, the man that shoulda known . . . the proof wasn’t in the pudding that fateful night, the secret was always in the sauce, the raspberry sauce.

Three ghosts now aghast circle-swirled the wretched room. Two rookies and a seasoned spirit of soul who knew how to create an entrance . . . amongst other titillating talents. Take tonight ~ she’d done her tutorials well, bided her time, knew inside-out the Halloween power of Forging Worlds. With the savvy of mentor Marley’s masterful ghost, Mary unchained her own refrain dead-on, aimed evenly at Edna’s eerie “Eeek!”.

There were sparks to her aura and she knew how to use them. In solemnity of spirit, Mary taunted just right, “I saw you through your garbage. That’s where you nonchalantly drained your vile vial. Since it didn’t make my raspberry butter batter better that afternoon, you were bitter. You tried to take over my perfect life. You set out to become my Bill’s wife. But it takes love to have a perfectly delicious life. Cold souls can’t. Disintegrate Bitch!”

And with that declaration of incantation centering her core power, Mary turned on the power of that which was hidden beneath her diaphanous spinning swirls ~ the trusty dustbuster which mutilated grime and effectively, the remnants of this farcical crime. Marley had showed her precise adjustments for molecular karmic vacuumation. Edna was now an eon of her former self.

“And YOU!” She turned to Bill, the only lights in the room the flash of eyes he remembered taunting him so tenderly. Despite her dismissive disgust, he was desperate for her tantalizing touch, that sink into sensation of skin against skin . . . errr . . . apparition against apparition? How the sorcery did they express pent-up passions? Does ghostly charm disarm or alarm?

Mary’s soul though, went solely for harm. “You willingly let another ingredient prevent perfection. By the powers vested in me by the Exalted Spirits of Eternity, your punishment is permanent paralysis of reach and touch and please and ease. A vortex of vulnerability is where you’ll flail. Nothing personal any more Bill, I’m sentencing you to hell.”

Mary positioned the life-size clay pottery figurines she’d conjured into random dead shadows in front of darkened windows around the old home place. The folks on Mocking Raven Lane went about their street sense and left lifeless recluses to themselves. The sage among them though, (and those who burned sage), remembered that perfection was the joy of a life vitally lived as Bill and Mary had vibrantly done. At nights, Mary at first visited hers and Bill’s old haunts, but with true character no longer tormented by a broken soul, Mar's heart opened to a new whirled’wide woo of warlocks . . . and wonder of wonders, developed a zest for zombies along the way. Zing went the gossamer fling of her spirit and unlife passed perfectly.  She became a ghostwriter and is finishing . . . this . . . story . . . now.


(C) 2009 spirited Author ~  Absolutely*Kate
  

Once upon last Howlaween,
this lovin' revenge tale made the scene
at the Erin Cole's 13 DAYS OF HORROR

LISTEN TO THE VOICES gore all the more
and buy the first novel Erin scared up too!
 

Here's what enigmatic eerie Erin had to say
about that Absolutely*Kate dame:

"My next featured guest on the 13 Days of Horror is a writer with such a unique edge, her prose is a voyage through the magic and mysteries of spirit and psyche — she has muses working for her. Having collaborated thirty-three writers for the stellar venture, Harbinger*33, backed with her own witty, diligent, and talented works, she is a gale storm of splendor and a true comrade to many.

It is with great honor to introduce to you my next guest, and kindred spirit, Absolutely*Kate Pilarcik and her story, Apparition."
~ Erin Cole, 26 October, 2009 


THANKS 
FO
SPOOKIFYING
such a stupendous intro of me
to your scary scream-scene Ms creepy cool Cole.

MAY READERS MAKE THE ROUNDS NOW
@ LISTEN TO THE VOICES 13 DAYS OF HORROR

Erin invited me back in November to tell a tale of a Goddess trio's tricks or treats! Read me then ... 
but surely sense an
Apparition of Appreciation 
for reading me now,
 
~ Absolutely*Kate  
 *AT THE BIJOU


And now folks ~

Take a look 
at "DON'T LOOK!"
( It's a Zelda and Harry thriller ) 
.............................. Uh ... maybe get a flashlight first?


"DON'T LOOK!" ~ By Zelda Martin and Harry B. Sanderford of Harbinger*33


"DON'T LOOK!"
By Zelda Martin and Harry B. Sanderford


There are reasons why a basement is a scary place.  It's underground.  It's dark.  It's damp.  It smells funny.  Things are stored down there for years on end; boxes that have been there for so long that you don't even know what's in them anymore, or who put them there, or why.  But the contents must have some value, you tell yourself, or you (or someone else, whoever it was) wouldn't have gone to the trouble to box them up and place them on the floor, or shelves, or rafters.  They're all stuck back in the darkest corners, where you never go, because it's kind of creepy back there and what would you do with the stuff if you did haul it out into the light, anyway?  And the spiders!  My god, it's like the NYC of spiders and spider webs and lots and lots of dead things caught in those webs.  Just let sleeping bugs lie, you've told yourself over the years. Always a reliable philosophy in retrospect, but somehow, this time, you just had to know.

Curiosity is notorious for offing its share of cats and looking back, maybe finding Fluffy’s mummified remains sandwiched there between the stack of moldy leftover sheetrock and those long forgotten boogie boards should have served warning enough for you to curtail your own intrigue. Maybe you should have left the basement right then. Just climbed the stairs, switched off the light, and locked the damn door on the NYC of spiders, never to return.

But it was Fluffy! So, with a lump forming in your throat, you couldn’t help but reach out and stroke the little lost tabby.  Her orange hair exploded in a puff and scattered like dandelion seeds, dozens of which you inhaled with a horrified gasp before scrabbling backwards into a pyramid of paint cans, coughing and spitting and blinking back your tears.

Yes, maybe you should have left right then. Terror and disgust gave way, however, to a pitiful sort of relief. As sad as finding the kitty made you, at least now you finally knew what happened to the lovable little fuzzball everyone had panicked over and searched for. The one that little Elinor had cried little rivers for.

Elinor is almost twenty now!  So Fluffy has been down here for over fifteen years.  It's time to clean out this creepy basement, right now, you told yourself.  So what if today is October 31?  It's still daylight, after all, and it'll feel good to be sure there are no other unpleasant surprises down here.  So in you went, you foolish woman.  Pulling down old boxes, hauling them up the steps to the back yard, while dust flew and spiders scattered.  You recognized some of the boxes; they were labeled and taped, and hadn't been opened since you'd moved to this old house, a long time ago.  You decided that you would just haul them to the dump the next day, without even looking inside.  If you hadn't needed whatever was in them in the past 15 years, you sure didn't need it now.  Finally, you reached the back wall, and felt a sense of elation.  Look at all the space we'll have to store important stuff now!  But then, you saw the small, locked door in the corner.
                                                
If you’d been hoping to avoid unpleasant surprises, not looking inside the boxes was a good choice. Had you been in less of a hurry to clear out the crumbly cardboard containers, less eager to sweep the dust from all that glorious empty space, space you could now fill properly with tons of those cool, color coordinated, Tupperware containers you saw at Target, you might never have opened that damned door. Maybe if you had stripped the tape off of the box marked “Bone China,” for instance, and looked under the lid of Aunt Saucy’s Wedgwood soup tureen to find Mrs. Parker’s long missing Pekingese, Pugsy; his bleached skeleton simmering in a puddle of its own congealed sauce. Maybe then you would have run screaming and just abandoned the whole idea.

I can’t say I told you so. Heheh, no I cannot. But the signs were all there for you. Right there in each crusty carton, each corrugated crypt. Cats and kitties by the score and cute bunny rabbits galore. Guppies and puppies, turtles and frogs, oh so many gerbils and hamsters, but just the one prairie dog. The big box marked LIONEL, the one you thought was Johnny’s train? Jeffrey Archer’s German shepherd, of same name fame. Lionel was supposed to be romping on a farm upstate. At least that’s what they told Jeffrey.  Not that Jeffrey will ever be the wiser, but Elinor knows. She knows about Fluffy and she knows a lot more.

You avoided the unpleasant surprises, but you missed all the signs. The ones urging you to TURN BACK!  “Unpleasant” does not begin to describe what horrors lie beyond that door. You just have no idea. But Elinor knows. She knows about Fluffy and she knows a lot more.

She was so meticulous in her concealing of canine and kitty corpses, hiding them so carefully in all those cartons.  How could she have been so careless as to leave that cursed key in the lock?  Of course you couldn't resist turning that key, opening the lock, and slowly . . . oh so slowly . . . opening the small, low door.  In the dim, murky light, you see another container.  This one is made of wood, about five feet long.  You think it's your imagination, but it does smell kind of like formaldehyde in here.  Turn back, honey.  No good can come of this.  Don't open the crate.  Oops!  Too late.  Screaming won't help, my dear.  Johnny is dead.  Johnny, your little boy, Elinor's little brother, the little brother you and your husband loved so much that you neglected Elinor. You doted on that silly boy, showered him with praise, attention and gifts, while poor little Elinor sat on the sidelines, seething with jealousy.  Of course, she grew to hate Johnny; what did you expect?  She worked so hard in school, got all A's, while Johnny goofed off and came home with C's.  But that was just fine with you and Daddy, wasn't it?  You never praised me for my good grades, but you acted like Johnny was a goddamned genius for getting C's!  Yes!  I killed him and I'm glad I did it!  You should be glad that I studied chemistry and preserved his stupid body in formaldehyde, instead of letting him rot, like all those other stupid animals.   Now stop screaming Mommy, you're next! I have one more coffin to fill, right here next to Daddy's. 

(C) 2010 Diabolical Duo Authors ~  
Zelda Martin & Harry B Sanderford
  at it again

Zelda's a zingsation
in her very favourite howliday of the year
and Harry always hobgoblins wit'the best!
 

Get-Your-Z's with Zelda's zany zen ... 
and then ... hell, go back again

The surfing cowboy who would sooner spin yarns
then mend fences tells all @ Harry B Sanderford 
(He stayed up all night to conjure that blog-name, folks! Honest.) 




THANKS 
FO
SPOOKIFYING!


 
~ Absolutely*Kate
 *AT THE BIJOU* 

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

HOW DO YOU FLY ~ 100 BY? ~ By Absolutely*Kate and staff of renown

 
FLY BY HIGH IN REGARDS FOR YOU  ~ photo ala R Castro

HOW TO FLY  ~ 100 BY? 
100 THANK*YOUS ...

~ from *AT THE BIJOU*
by ~ Absolutely*Kate

 

Yes, we hit 100! 100 wonderful followers of writing under the lighting of our kliegs and spots. Of who's cool. Of what's hot. You who have ambled in our majestic mahoghany double doors, plopped your splendiferous fannies ceremoniously into lush red velvet BIJOU seats have favoured and savoured clever writing, insightful plotting, fiction flashes, noir which dashes, and prose that goes lingering . . .  sometimes upon the soul.
    

Yes, that's all AT THE BIJOU, where the popcorn pops and the Milk Duds never are ~ duds. Dudes and dandies, molls with brandies, ladies and gents and shadows on streetcorners not dubbed Desire have graced our stage and paced our breathing alongside hordes of returning audiences . . . to read, to feel, to zeal ~ what YOU, stellar authors of HARBINGER*33, of #Friday Flash Fiction, of writing sites and try-out delights have to show by showing up on our showcase. Gosh ~ we're not even a year old AT THE BIJOU and you've come and come and come again and the stories -- oh how your stories show their glories!
 
Best way to ennoble honoured gratitude is to turn our ever glitterin' spotlights on the very best o'the zest (and jest) AT THE BIJOU presents . . . 
 

~ 100 Starring Followers FOLLOW ~


Click 'em. Read their stories
Multitudes play here, time and tiempo again  

 

And that's why
AT THE BIJOU
  is the razzamatazz it is!

"Thanks a million,
 first 100!"

 
The Pleasure's so mine and yours 
and almost a quarter of a million readers more,

~ Absolutely*Kate
Believing in Believers

and that the shows
... must ... 
go ... 
on






" T H A N K S ! "

Here's our first 100:

HARBINGER*33,
the Book, the Sensation,
and Manifesting Destiny



Rockin' SUSAN CROSS WRITES
>coming soon: Arlo Guthrie Interview<



CYNTHIA COX


DEBBIE


REMIN


JACK


LYDIA




BRITT
 memorably, upon 6*City streets

MARIA KELLEY

L'AUSSIE
a #Friday FlashFiction addiction

PABLO GULLIE

Blushing Bride ~ CATHY WEBSTER (Olliffe)
splashing Harbinger*33 sensations to be
a #Friday FlashFiction addiction

ERIC KRAUSE
a #Friday FlashFiction addiction
AND MAJOR GRIDIRON PICKER!

TARA

JULIE DAO

SSFIELDS

KM

TOMARA ARMSTRONG
a #Friday FlashFiction addiction

PR Wizard ~ TONY GATES

BLAKE N. COOPER
THINKING 10's man of words

fabled reality of Harbinger*33
 a #Friday FlashFiction addiction

DANI DUCK

Off Off Broadway Playwright ~ 

J. O. VAUGHN

Brit lit wit ~ SANDRA DAVIES

JBROCK CONSULTING

che bella ~ SERENA SOLANI
VITA BELLA ~ where the Journey is everything

ALAN.ANOVA

LISA CALLIHAN

GINA KINCADE

THE BEATEN DOG BARKS
PULP METAL MAGAZINE!

WILSON JAMES

MATTHEW MAGDA (aka "The Prof")
who christened Harbinger*33

GRANT-GREY GUDA
memorably, upon 6*City streets

SMALL TOWN REPORTER
Wicklow a Peter McNiff state of visual mind

of 3 billion stories?

a star by any name ~ ESTRELLA
>coming soon: such a lovely tale<
a #Friday FlashFiction addiction

CINDY

the esteemed ~ TONY NOLAND
a #Friday FlashFiction addiction

THE ZENSPIRATION BABE

the rambunctious ~ LILY MULHOLLAND
>coming soon: such a lovely tale<
a #Friday FlashFiction addiction

ANNIE

CHAD

the illustrious  ~ PAMILA PAYNE
mysteriously of  Harbinger*33
a #Friday FlashFiction addiction

DEE DEE presenting NOIR NOIR

the prolific ~ DAVID BARBER
{ He's everywhere! He's everywhere! }

BLOODY BRIDGE REVIEW
ONLINE LIT MAG FOR YOU

the sexy Aussie ~ MALABLOGGER


FRESH GREEN KIM ~ of Ohio and Insight

Boardwalk Surf Warrior ~ KEVIN MICHAELS
everything New Jersey of Harbinger*33
with new E-NOVEL hitting the world!

MIKE WILKERSON

G. P. CHING
a #Friday FlashFiction addiction

the wilds of nature ~  AMY HALE (AUKER)

the enigmatic force ~ HZAR WORTH


HEATHER VAULKHARD

much more than a chirp ~ RYN CRICKET
>debuting: hot off keyboard ~ "TOYS"<


SUZETTE SAXTON

the man from Mann ~ LEE HUGHES
horroriffic Thrillers, Killers 'N' Chillers kinda guy


KATHERYN

oh sweet ~ SUGAR
~ compass-rosing Harbinger*33 the farther,
with a treasure'trove of Milk Duds in the Sugar Shack

the hip hep music master ~ UNCLE SHAG

the classy lady ~ ANNE TYLER LORD
>coming soon:  a lovely tale<
a #Friday FlashFiction addiction

the irrepressible ~ SALVATORE BUTTACI
~ Godfather poet aboard Harbinger*33

writer for all seasons ~ DOUG MATHEWSON
~ one of the founding reasons for Harbinger*33
Editor blink|ink and voice of how words speak

the scary ever clever ~ CARRIE
~ adding shadows to HARBINGER*33
a #Friday FlashFiction addiction

A B
memorably, upon 6*City streets

HARPER

dapper man under hat ~ L J DAVENPORT
~ full steaming ahead HARBINGER*33
{ along with a Chapbook and an Emmy nomination }

SUGAR ROSE

the eerie lovely ~ LAURITA MILLER
~ reportedly stowing Poe aboard Harbinger*33
a #Friday FlashFiction addiction

music crooner attuner ~ MIKE WHITNEY
~ now playing in the Lizard Lounge, Harbinger*33

our grand man in China ~ DANIEL
voice of authority ~ starboard, Harbinger*33
 
perennial garden of prose ~ LINDA knows
~ steady tiller hand aboard Harbinger*33
a #Friday FlashFiction addiction
  
brand new novelist ~ ERIN COLE
~ lass with class aboard Harbinger*33
Patron Saintesse of horroring Halloween'writ lit
 
the lilting ~ KATHLEEN GILBERT
>coming soon:  a lovely tale<
memorably, upon 6*City streets
 
 the luscious depth ~ JELENA
DISENTHRALLING all the more
  
a lexicon for all time ~ ALLIE
Editor extraordinaire of GLOOM CUPBOARD

writer-delighter everywhere ~ LAURA ENO
a #FlashFridayFiction addiction

grande dame of hearts ~ JEANETTE CHEEZUM
~ Goddess Mother of Brilliant Authors of HARBINGER*33
   
~TESSA~SCOFFS

where crime plays ~ COL BURY
co-honcho Thrillers, Killers 'N' Chillers dude

masterful voice resounding the deeper rage,
 ANGEL ZAPATA ~ inspirational ode sailor setting the sails of Harbinger*33
  
one of the Greek wonders ~ VICKI
memorably, upon 6*City streets, the MidWest, NewEnglnd
and the blue, blue Aegean
  
cool, hip, slick BUKOWSKI'S BASEMENT
gracing Harbinger*33 in all eras finer
a #FlashFridayFiction addiction
 
splendiferous cave'writer who gets frogs flung ~
JODI MACARTHUR ~ founding captain of Harbinger*33, who brung the lemons
 to scare the scurvy
and TERROR's poster gal in a rhinestown gown?

 J ... aka KAWFEEE
once upon 6*City streets
  
That nut at NOT with reach ne'er for naught
 making North Carolina news all the finah

kingpin of noir swing ~ PAUL D. BRAZILL
~ veritable sailing bluster of Harbinger*33


 writing pard of high regard,
loveable cowboy surfer ~ HARRY
~ cresting zesting waves for Harbinger*33
a #FlashFridayFiction addiction
 
charmin' accented Aussie ~ CRYBBEE666

WIND

CEO

the lovely lovely ~ DEBORAH B
an Editor Unleashed treasure of nature


theatre man himself ~ FOOLISH WRITER
aka RICHARD M. JOHNSON of Harbinger*33
 
WBS21656
  
and the chatelaine founder ~
 
ABSOLUTELY*KATE, believing in believers
and all the writers and readers AT THE BIJOU
Captaining ~ Harbinger*33

If you haven't taken center stage yet
 AT THE BIJOU,
well step right up to the spotlights folks
 with what you've got in song and dance,
perchance romance or a glory-story.

Our treasured readers will discover YOU
on Double*Feature Tuesdays and Thursdays
as well as the RETURN of
 the Sunday Murder Mystery Matinee


SEE YOU THEN
and
THANKS*AGAIN!

~ ABSOLUTELY*KATE, THE PHANTOM
and OUR FINE STAFF OF RENOWN
AT*THE*BIJOU