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A Dark Red Press Presentation

Past The Patch, edited by Brian Fatah Steele

“The Witch Of Mistletoe Lane” © 2011 by Court Ellyn For that terrible tapping at the twilight window, the boogeyman lurking beneath our beds, and the creatures creaking the closet door – we salute you!

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

This is not a collection of horror stories, but a collection of Halloween stories - there’s a difference. Now, given the nature of the holiday, you’re going to find a great deal of horror crammed within a number of these tales, but not all of them. That was never the purpose of this anthology, simply another genre collection, but an attempt for authors of various styles to all throw their talents at one theme.

I’m quite pleased with the result.

As an author and reader, I’ve consumed quite a bit of material by now in my mid-thirties. While my tastes run wild and varied, it has been the anthologies by the likes of John Joseph Adams, Al Sarrantonio and (of course) Harlan Ellison that have always stood out to me. Why? Because they know how to capture a concept as editors, they know how to see the forest for the trees. If I’ve pulled together even a fraction of that dark magic inside here, I’ll feel successful.

Dark Magic. I remember feeling it the first time I stumbled upon Borderlands 2, edited by Thomas F. Monteleone when I was still too young to fully grasp the madness in the pages. An amazing, imaginative and grotesque collection by names I didn’t recognize then, it had a definite impact. I still have the battered paperback to this day.

Now, there are many reasons why this anthology is free. I could say it’s because I didn’t want to be bothered with royalties and financial issues, and that would be partly true. Mostly, however, it’s because these are rising authors who deserve to be read and in this Wild West market, “free” works out nicely for everyone. There’s also the fact that Dark Red Press just likes folks out there to be able to read cool stuff.

So here you go, stroll on past the patch and see what you find.

Try not to get eaten. ‘Cause that would suck.

Brian Fatah Steele

October, 2011

HALLOWEEN CANDY

J.T. Warren

J.T. Warren was born on Halloween, a few months after his mother saw Jaws at the movies. His affinity for horror can be traced to an early age when he built a coffin out of cardboard and pretended to be a corpse, much to the concern of his parents. He can still be found in a coffin on Halloween when he gets into the spirit of the season. He is a public school teacher and has successfully lured thousands of students into literary waters through works of horror. He hopes his writing will further encourage young adults, and everyone older, to discover the wonder (and dread) found in the written word. J.T. Warren is the pseudonym for a much creepier guy. He is the author of Hudson House, Blood Mountain, Calamity, and Violent Glimpses: Five Dark Plays. Each is available as an ebook.

***

I was restocking the million different varieties of baby lotion when the fight erupted at the far end of the aisle. I had seen something similar to this many times in my life as a stock boy and had even once witnessed an old lady beat a man over the head with an umbrella because he had snatched the last box of turkey stuffing.

This was nothing so grand. Two young boys, maybe four or five-years-old, were running around playing some ridiculous version of tag only they understood while Mommy was standing next to her shopping cart, infant child strapped in the front seat, box of diapers in her hand. She was reading the box, turning it over, reading whatever she could find. Probably reading the bar code. I imagined she was debating whether to take the chance on this different brand of diaper with the reinforced grip tabs because little baby Willie was always ripping off his diapers at the most inopportune times, especially after making a fresh deposit. Whatever the mother’s internal debate, she was too engrossed in the fine print on the diaper box to notice that her two other little darlings had morphed from sweet playmates into vicious enemy combatants.

The little boy wearing a bright red T-shirt slapped the other little boy who was in a shirt with a smiling jack-o-lantern on it. That poor kid started crying in loud, rolling sobs. Mommy’s head twitched but her eyes did not venture off the diaper box. “Play nice,” Mommy said.

The crier stopped his outburst and leveled his gaze at his brother. The red shirt boy started laughing. I could imagine that kid years hence tripping some unsuspecting victim in a high school hallway and grinning when the kid tumbled full-sprawl, books and papers spilling everywhere.

“You’re it!” the future bully yelled.

“No!” the other boy shouted back. “No! No!”

“Boys,” Mommy said in a plain, flat tone. She was rereading the front of the diaper box. Little Willie was sucking on his fingers. His plump face reminded me of mushy balls of Play-Doh.

“It!” the red shirt boy said again. “It! It! IT! ” The boy in the pumpkin shirt growled and lunged at his laughing brother. The bully saw it coming and sidestepped, but as he did, he placed his little hands on his brother’s back and shoved him hard.

I saw what was going to happen and though I was at least watching, I was as unhelpful as the boys’ own mother, though I wouldn’t have been able to do much anyway considering the brace on my left leg. The kid with the grinning pumpkin on his shirt collided into the shelves. His face was at the perfect height to take a metal-shelf hit right in the forehead. His face smacked with a resounding metallic warble and I thought maybe that would be the end but as a stock boy I knew that was too much to hope for.

Above the boy, the dozens and dozens of baby food glass jars wobbled in their little towers and tumbled from their appointed spots. The kid even glanced up as if he sensed that the shelf hit was not to be his only embarrassment at his brother’s hand. I wanted to yell out, to tell the kid to back up, or duck and cover, but there wasn’t any time. I had a flash of a thought-- this is going to be bad--and then the jars were falling.

The first casualty cracked onto the white tile floor and split open like a gourd to reveal its mushy orange insides. Several other jars hit the floor around the boy in rapid popping succession like each jar of food was a mini grenade, like the damn things were filled with so much pressure they were just waiting for the slightest extra stress to explode. The jars ruptured and spewed their multi-colored contents. Glass shards sprayed across the floor.

Tiny arcs of white fluorescent light flashed off them as they scattered.

The first jar to smack the kid was filled with a dark red gunk that was supposed to be squash. If I could have taken a snapshot, it would have gotten a million hits on-line: the little kid frozen in disbelief, head tilted back, jars of baby food cascading around him, and one jar of red squash-like stuff just crashing onto the bridge of his tiny nose, the black and white face of the chubby Gerber baby grinning stupidly off the label.