flash fiction

Happy October!

| Mister Kessell

I am holding out hope that everything will turn around in October. I know that it’s the season of cold and death and decay, but it leaves me feeling quite optimistic.

Maybe everyone will stay at home and watch horror movies all month. Or they will order candy apples in the mail and have cider delivered to their door. Maybe everyone would just wear a mask for once.

Even wild men wear masks

I have two different Halloween costumes planned, even though I doubt there will be a place to wear them outside of my own living room. Maybe this year we’ll have a Zoomoween.

I’ve said it before, at least Halloween won’t be canceled in my cold, dead heart.

Like usual, I have a handful of cool projects on the horizon that I can’t share with you just yet, but believe me, they’re going to be a lot of fun. Stay tuned.

I’m preparing a short story to publish on the blog next week that I’m hoping will get the goosebumps expanding and the blood pumping faster than usual.

In the meantime, did you know that I started a YouTube channel? There are some weird, new T-shirt designs over in my store. I also hang around on Twitter sometimes, stop by and say howdy.

Disturbing Depths

| Mister Kessell

Butch coughed up the last of his tobacco smoke as the screams escaped the mouth of the mine.

“You hear that?” he looked at Red. The bug-eyed man gripped his rusty pickaxe tight across his chest.

A low vibration started in their boots; an explosion deep in the tunnel. Hot air and dust erupted, knocking them to the ground. Through the cloud, Young-Johnny came running, face bloodied, and a fine rope trailing behind.

As he reached daylight, the rope glinted then snapped taut, pulling him backward off his feet. Arms flailing, trying to grab ahold of anything, Johnny shrieked, “Spiders!”

Nothing of Value

| Mister Kessell

His empty hands dripped with sweat as he approached the altar on his knees. The creature with a million dead eyes was waiting, its many orifices watering, towering over the small human.

“I know that you crave constant stimulation,” he said, “and you demand new content continuously,” he put his hands up, “but as an artist, I just can’t do it. I have nothing of value to offer today.”

The beast reared back and howled, pulling taut the thousands of cables running from its body. It thrashed. It shrieked. Drops of saliva rained down. The artist shielded his head and vital organs, anticipating a swift yet painful execution.

But the beast turned away, laughing and gurgling, distracted by another’s offering; something loud, flashy, and viral. That would buy the artist some more time.

He crawled into a dark corner of the temple, where, being enveloped by the whirring of giant cooling fans, he could have a moment to just be human and think.

Oh, There They Are!

| Mister Kessell

Going uptown, the F train was packed. With my back to the doors, I stood, studying people’s footwear. A baby wailed. Some teenage girls chittered like squirrels. A garlicky dude was barking into his cell phone.

Across the way, an older man faced outward, his nose pressed to the glass, grocery bags swaying at his sides. As we hurtled through the dark tunnel, he cried out:

“Oh, there they are”—everyone else on the train got quiet—“those teenage mutant ninja turtles. Workin’ on the tracks.”

I smiled as we rode on in silence.