Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-4893169-20150303214112

“Whoo stooole myyyyy golden arm?”

I rubbed my wide chin, totally unimpressed.

Meanwhile, my friend Russel McKeley, ‘Rus’ to his friends, groaned loudly, making his characteristic eye roll.

“Whooo stoooole my goool-den aaaarm?”

Yawning, I started cracking my knuckles. The noise startled the audience, including the werewolf girl Ruth Welsh, who was slouched in a decrepit chair, looking bored out of her furry head. Amused, I continued my sound effects, watching with a satisfied smirk as people cringed at the pop, pop, pop of each cracked knuckle.

Oblivious to my popping bubble wrap impression, Rus continued on with his griping.

Kevin Tullugaq, obviously mistaking the nervous jittering of the audience as noises of approval, continued on with his wailings.

“Whooooo stoooooole myyyyyyy gooool-den aaaarrrmmmm!”

“Well…Whoopty freakin’ doo,” Rus muttered under his breath. He clawed his hands through his crew-cut hair until it stood out in disheveled tufts. “Whooooo stoooooole myyyyyy gooool-den aaarrrmmmm!”

Eventually, the werewolf noticed my antics and grinned, revealing gleaming white rows of canine teeth.

I smiled back, though I didn’t show my teeth and I promptly quit my knuckle-cracking game.

Rus sighed heavily. He glanced irritably out of the old house’s window. Following his gaze, I soon noticed one of Faerie’s many radiant moons peeking behind a towering stand of rowan and mountain-ash. The strand wasn’t a natural barrier, rather something that was purposely planted there years ago to keep whatever inhabited this old human structure contained and sealed tight. Through the thick fruit-laden branches, I could just barely make out the distant lights of the former hippie tree house now turned summer sleepaway camp.

Turning back, I blew out a weary sigh of my own and rubbed my tired, watery eyes. I now regretted the decision that I made earlier that afternoon, of accepting Kevin Tullugaq’s offer to spend the night in the old Gardner Place. “This sleepover will be really cool,” Kevin explained excitedly as the three of us surveyed the house. “I promise.”

The sharp, pointy-nosed, elfin face of the Korrigan boy regarded us with a wide-eyed, appealing gaze. We eventually caved at such overwhelming despairing sincerity (you had to have a granite-thick heart of stone not to give into a face like that), plus we were rather impressed with the place. It was the very epitome of horror movie creepiness. Squatting at the end of the disused town road behind the camp, the dilapidated three-story structure resembled a weathered skull—double casement windows on the second floor stared hollowly like empty sockets while the triangular porch roof jutted above the door like a nasal cavity. Age-wise, it wasn’t very old; commissioned and built around the early 80’s by some upper yuppie family out of Orange County, who wanted to go all “New Age Native” and be like the Faire Folk, while at the same time, trying to make an instant profit selling mail-order homeopathic remedies and “miracle spring water” from nearby hot springs. However, their idyllic Faerie paradise soon came to an abrupt macabre end when their mummified corpses were discovered, three and a half years ago in their living room, sitting on the couch. No one had seen the Gardner family since early 1988. No one ever bothered to check up on them either since they were an obnoxious snot-nosed bunch who pretty much alienated everyone in town including many of the ex-hippies.

The fact that the corpses were also wearing clown costumes and were grouped around a staticky 50’s TV set seemed to make the mystery even more bizarre and ludicrous.

No one was even arrested for the multiple “Clown Murders” as they were called, and no weapon was ever found. To this very day the Gardner case was still open and had never been solved.

Over the years, many people had brought the Old Gardner Place, only to move out within a month due to the various forms of paranormal activity. And this included the still shadowy figures watching roaring white noise on the telly. Eventually, the house was taken off the market and pretty much abandoned to the elements, although it still held a sinister fascination for various daredevils and thrill seekers, many of them, like me, of the under 18 variety. Somehow, Kevin managed to get nearly half the camp on the sleepover scheme, as well as some the neighborhood kids. Various excuses were given to inquiring grown-ups from camping out with close friends to Mummer’s Night—an old style custom similar to Halloween where people dressed up and paraded through the streets, driving out evil spirits and begging door-to-door for candy and trinkets.

I figured if you were a descendant of one of the first settlers of the Erskine Valley Basin, and your families also own a lot of property including a fancy tree house camp/tourist resort…Well, you were bound to have some influence. So here we were, huddled close together in a tight circle, surrounded by yet another circle made entirely of sea salt.

I think Kevin’s last minute idea for a demon-deterrent might have saved everyone’s life, including Rus’s, but I’m getting a little ahead of myself. The living room was fairly large with a huge fireplace on the left side and across from that sat a big rugged couch (not the same one that was at the scene of the crime, of course. The police got that one). In the far right hand corner directly behind the couch was narrow doorless closet with old toys along the floor and square crawlspace in back.

At first things were great. A few people brought food and punch; there were even some Japanese snacks courtesy of the Sayuko Twins and the Satori Triplets. Kevin told some jokes that were a bit on the raunchy side. There were even some pretty cool scary stories, but after a while, things started to go wrong.

It started shortly after we explored the rest of the house. At first, we didn’t find much of anything; just bugs, some rat nests, still more crummy furniture. Then we checked the attic and found probably one of the scariest things you would ever come across in an old abandoned house. All these pretty horrifying motel room paintings that stacked up on shelves, showing these things like creepy and soulless circus animals; the kind that looked as they would slip out of their paintings during the night and eat you the moment your back was turned. If that wasn’t creepy enough, there were also paintings of these goddamned clowns; there were dozens upon dozens of these creepy painted devils doing various things of whimsical and silly fun. Seriously, it was like something out of an 80’s slasher flick, all that was needed now was an ice cream truck playing that creepy circus music, over and over again, and being driven by that Pennywise guy from Stephen King’s IT, and the nightmare would be complete.

Well, we got out of there fast, but I think just looking at those things jinxed the party combined with that other jinx that was hiding in the corner closet, but that would come much later. But the stories from then on were boring old stuff I heard back in primary school and like every campfire story, urban legend and Halloween themed recording I ever listened to when I was wearing  Pokémon-themed shoes & accessories. Cripes! It was like a cloud of dreary dullness was hanging over our heads and sucking out all the fun and originality, and replacing it with lame old rehash stuff. Pretty much everyone was probably thinking the same thing—it was all those freaky clowns’ fault, they probably scared the hell out of any Gardner ghosts living here and they all left to move into a quaint Victorian mansion…unless they got eaten by the clowns.

Oh well, I thought, making the best of a very difficult situation in which I was stuck. ''At least the food wasn’t bad, and the Sayuko Twins and those clique centaur-girls got freaked out over a house centipede. That was kind of hilarious.''

Meanwhile, Kevin continued on with his mournful wails. He held a flashlight to his face, making a big effort to scare us silly. It wasn’t working. It just made him more like a goofball than ever.

The only people that really acted scared were the little kids like Rus’s brother Nate, for one, who spent most of story time, hiding underneath his blanket and pestering either Rus or me with forty-odd questions.

Nate: “Is there really a hook-handed killer?”

Me:   “Actually yes. But the original guy was some innocent WWII veteran who had his prosthetic limb stolen by two teenage delinquents, who later went on a killer spree and the poor ole dude got blamed for it all.”

Nate: “And what about the ghost girl haunting the school bathroom?”

Rus: “That’s only in Asia. Back in the States, we got something called ‘bathroom lampreys’ that hide down in the toilet drain.”

Nate’s eyes widened in horror and amazement, “Ba…ba…bathroom lampreys?”

At this point, I felt obliged to step in and save Nate from a lifetime of bathroom phobias and having to use a chamber pot for life.

“Yes, but they’re only found in really filthy places,” I explained, “such as privets and service station restrooms.”

“Oh,” said Nate, still looking unsure. “Kinda like those sandwich worm things that Futurama guy ate?”

Having never seen the "Parasites Lost" episode myself, I merely shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Gross,” Nate grimaced in disgust. “Not eating anything out of a service station…or a vending machine.”

He returned to cowering under his blanket, and was quiet for a while until— “Are we at the ‘You Got It’ part yet?”

“No,” Rus muttered, finally growing fed up with Kevin’s growing uncoolness. “At the rate this story’s going, the ghost lady will probably get bored waiting and go back to her dirt nap…plus I think Kev might be turning into as owl.”

I and several other people snickered at this, and we also had a chuckle at Nate’s comparison of Kevin to a goofy fox. All the while, I was wondering what person in their right mind would want a golden arm. Not only would it be really expensive, it would be utterly useless as a prosthetic device. Also, it would be rather heavy and more likely to cause back problems. And why would anyone want to be buried with the blasted thing, when their spouse could surely use the money to pay off the creditors and the burial tax?

“Whoooo? Whoooooo? Whoooooooo? Whooooooooo stole my golden arm?”

I frowned as I folded my arms. “Chez! It’s going to be midnight by the time we get finished here!”

As the Sayuko Twins and Satori Triplets voiced their disapproval, I happened to glance over at the corner closet. I nearly swallowed my tongue. There sliding slowly around the corner of the door, was a pale puffy hand. The sort of hand you’d expect a clown to have.

My mouth suddenly felt dry. I felt ice-cold sweat on my brow and the back of my neck. So the stories we heard about the Gardner House were true after all! There really was a Gardner Family! They really did get murdered and turned into fun house props and now they were coming after us! Oh why did I agree to come to Kevin’s party? Why didn’t I just go to the Mummer’s Night thing where there would be plenty of goodies and ghost-deterring company? Oh, if only I signed up for Writer’s Camp where I would be writing about ghosts instead of getting by the damn things?

Then a face slowly crept into view behind the hand, and I immediately recognized it—the poodle-like, ginger-blonde hair, the pouty pink lips, small bunny nose, chubby baby cheeks and anime doll-like eyes. I didn’t see a horrific girly-girl fashion ensemble, but I knew who was and I didn’t like it one bit.

Nellie Oleson, one of the worst behaved kids imaginable; she was the reason why Rus and several of his buddies started hanging out at my place in Hogan’s Gap. Unlike Curtisville, my hometown’s bristling with a lot security and defense spells, powerful enough to ward off any evil menace, human or non-human. I guess that also applied to special snowflakes hell-brats from Crapsaccharine Worlds such as Hualau-Urth. Yep, you heard me right. Nellie Oleson was an alien, not an alien-alien, but an alien human from parallel Mirror Earth where sky-rocketing crime, religious zealotry, and crappy reality shows were all the rage, an oppressive bureaucratic regime had taken over the United States, with pretty much everyone else in the world in a state of hostility with one another.

Eventually, people started escaping to our world through a secret network of wormhole jump stations. Most of these refugees were good, honest, hard-working people, but occasionally you get a few with a lot of mental issues, people like Nellie Oleson, for instance.

Personally, I think her behavior problems were the result of rampant pollution, crappy fast food diet and her academic parents’ general lack of discipline.

When I was in the first grade, I was diagnosed with ADHA. My parents didn’t subscribe to that Indigo Child New Age crap; instead they fixed my bratty behavior the old fashioned way—with spankings, groundings, revoking privileges, etc. And guess what, I turned out okay and so did my sister, although Ethel was usually the most behaved one.

The Hualau hell spawn that was currently hiding in yonder closet got no such discipline. I figured it was because her parents couldn’t bring themselves to do it since they believed that scolding and spanking would actually harm her angelic free spirited nature.

They only actually did something when Rus’s family threatened to file a law suit against the Olesons for their daughter’s harassment of their son; in other words, stalking and ‘intentional perversion.’ Maybe back on Hualau-Urth, that’s how morons expressed affection, by giving their object of their affection a hard time.

However, back in my buzzkill logical universe, stalking like cannibalism and inbreeding is heavily frowned upon in much of the civilized world. To make the story short, the suit was soon settled out of court, and just as the McKeleys were seriously considering moving to French Canada or even Hawaii for some much needed peace of mind, the Olesons unexpectantly left town, taking their devil spawn with them.

So that part of the story is over—there’s no more to be said about it other than Rus Won. The Alien Hell Brat A. K. A. Nellie Oleson Lost and Got Exiled to Parts Unknown. End of Story.

Fast forward a couple years later.

I was staring across the crowded room, wondering how the hell this Rattus brattus wound up of all places—here. And why would anyone want to invite her to a party in the first place? Not only was she seriously messed up in the head, she was also a mega dispenser of bad luck. Something I learnt firsthand when she unexpectantly showed up at Rus’s 13th birthday party at the Oriental Buffet. Not only did she manage to alienate everyone there by overeating and then vomiting all over the table across from us, but there was also an infestation of bottle ants as well as lice, and then the very next day, Nate came down with a nasty stomach bug and had to go to the hospital. So you could imagine Nellie’s popularity level after that.

I was wondering whether I should alert Kevin of his uninvited guest when Rus suddenly nudged me and whispered, “Dude, you think he’s going to do it?”

“Do what--?” I started to say, before I remembered the Golden Arm “You Got It” Jump Scene. I looked at Kevin’s increasingly pale and sweaty face, his desperate, almost pleading expression as numerous frowns appeared on everyone’s face. “Either that,” I replied worriedly, “or collapse from mass exhaustion.”

My glance again darted to the corner closet, but Nellie apparently had ducked back into her hidey hole. I decided to not to tell Rus about her—let the poor guy enjoy his summer fun without the fear of this crazy freak hanging over his head. I doubt she would try anything with so many of his friends and camp staff about. (To be continued) 