Grandpare was an expert marksman. He could take down a gator at over a hundred yards, without a scope, even in his ripe years. He blamed it on perfect eyesight and hearing, despite Grandmere's constant complaints about his inability to hear or see anything she wanted him too. Of course he figured he had good reasons for that. Just like he had no reason for immediately filling the swamp corpse with buck shot. After all, he weren't no gator.
“I'd stop right there if I was you stranger. Aint a good idea to come walking up on a man with a shotgun without giving warning.” The gaunt figure kept sloshing through the muck towards him only with what seemed to be more energy and perhaps excitement. “Hey there! I said stop before I shoot ya!”
“What the hell you caterwauling about out there, chere?” a voice hollered from behind the door.
“Don't you worry none Millie, you don't want none of this,” he answered. “Just a stranger that done come up out the mud.”
“What in blazes are you getting at?” asked Millie.
Granpare's sight really wasn't that great despite all his boasting so it wasn't until the guy was within fifty feet of the boat dock that served as the front porch to the house that he really got a good look at him. One side of the man's face was gone except for the black bone underneath while the other side drooped down his chin. His hair was patchy with swamp grass and one eye stared at him from underneath. The tongue lolled in its cavity as if there wasn't anything attached to keep it in. It kept swaying back and forth, colliding with skin and what remained of teeth. That's when Grandpare pulled the trigger, mostly out of shock and confusion.
A thunderclap erupted from the barrel of the shot gun and exploded the swamp monster's right shoulder. Black blood, clothing, and arm bits splashed the surface of the water. Inside the house there came a loud slosh, clang, and unwomanly exclamation. The creatures forward moment was barely slowed. If anything it moved faster having shed some unwanted weight.
“Mon dieu!” She bellowed as an elderly woman of weight busted through the door behind Granpare. “How many times have told you never to shoot at gators so close to the house!”
“I told ya stay inside Millie!”
Grandpare retorted as he shucked the empty shell from the barrel and slid another in its place. By now the man monster had reached the stairs next too the pontoon and had begun climbing them one squishy step at a time. Grandpare shouldered the shotgun again to squeeze off another into its chest when Millie slapped the back of his head and caused the gun to go off taking off a leg instead.
“Why on earth are shooting at this poor sot!” She dropped heavily to her knees to inspect the the armless, legless man laying on the porch. “I think you kilt 'em!”
“Millie, don't get any closer! I done shot his arm clean off him already and he just kept a comin!”
“Why in God's name would you...”
The monster rose to what was left of one knee, grabbed Millie with his remaining arm by the apron strings, and tried to pull her closer to his clackety teeth, tongue wagging limply against droopy face. The old lady screamed and pulled away as hard as she could while Grandpare brought the butt of the shotgun down in a frantic arc to the back of the assailant’s head. He missed the head but enjoyed a loud crack sound as the monster's neck broke and caused the head to list to the side. Millie was free but its hand kept grasping and teeth kept clacking. Grandpare grabbed a two by four that was waiting to be part of the make shift bench and used it to push the monster off the porch.
Grandpare and Millie watched the walking corpse flail in the water seemingly trying to right himself in the three feet of muck when a gator, attracted the blood and bits floating there, lazily swam toward what appeared to be easy prey. When the dead guy finally found a place to balance on his one foot he rolled his head to his good shoulder and stared his dead eye stare at the old couple on the dock. That's when the gator made his move. It snapped onto the arm stump that Grandpare had created and pulled the monster off balance causing him to flail again. Grandpare would later make light of the way the way the whole scene looked like something out of a B-horror movie. The zombie swung its one arm wildly, repeatedly smacking the gator on the snout. The gator let go and back stroked for a few seconds then lunged forward to snap off the zombies wrist with razor teeth. This didn't stop the barrage of punches coming from the bloody stump so the gator swung his giant tail which created a violent wave that caused the zombie to pitch head first into the gator. It even looked like he tried to bite through the gators tough hide, according to Grandpare, which instead lead to the zombie losing what was left of his broken teeth. By then the gator had had enough of this sport and closed his iron jaws around its head with a snap and a pop. After that the death roll was overkill, or so Grandpare would say.
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Eulogy
Authors Final Note:
Well once again we’ve managed to wrap up yet another project that’s taken me more than a decade to complete. As I mentioned before in the introduction there was a lot going on during the original conception of the idea known as Fright and it lead me through many adventures. It is now much later in my life and I’ve not only matured as a human being (although some times that’s debatable) but a writer as well. I suppose the real reason I chose to resurrect the old rags in a better organized and written volume is to better tell the stories within as an introduction to the future of Fright. Yes, gentle reader, you may expect to hear more from the realm of our dear king and I do hope that it won’t happen on a decade by decade basis!
Although the future of Fright is definitely not yet determined, it is safe to say that I do intend to keep it alive one way or another. I have several plans and ideas in the works as we speak including the creation of a regular magazine with the hopes of adding co-conspirators, an E-zine, Website and comic book (the only certain thing is there will be future collections of my stories in Fright fashion). Of course the concept and design is very much like its predecessors (i.e. Tales from the Crypt, Twilight Zone, Creepshow) it is my hope that even if Fright does not take on a life of its own perhaps it will at least send a 2 bazillion volt lighting bolt into the previously mentioned monsters that helped create Fright.
When I was just a wee ghoul of perhaps 5 or 6 I took great delight in watching my favorite early morning kiddie shows like Land of the Lost and Puff N’Stuff. Now please understand, I was this child during the mid-seventies, so I’m talking about the original Land of the Lost in living black and white with claymation dinos. Now the scariest part of the show, and I believe I can speak for most toddlers of that era, were the evil, glowing eyed, slimy Sleestacks. Ok, maybe I only speak for myself; nonetheless the visage of horror first came to me as black and white, slimy lizard men with pointy teeth. If it weren’t for the glowing rocks, that when touched together produced a blinding light that the hissers obviously didn’t care for, I would never have a slept a night in my young life (I had a red (or gray) and blue (or grayer) one imaginatively attached to each corner of my blanket for when those scaly bastards came to visit. Which they did on a regular basis.). So why did I mention Puff N’Stuff? To this day I have no idea what it was about the oversized goof that spooked me except maybe that he was an oversized goof. Come on, I was five, it wasn't like Captain Kangaroo who was so happy all the time. Besides, I was literally afraid of my own shadow. Seriously, I was the Fraidy Cat you’d always heard about growing up. They invented that name for me. More proof is coming up...
During this time period in my life my father (whom I will affectionately call Dad from here on out) and I lived with each other in a one bedroom upstairs apartment. Dad worked a full time job so I spent a lot of time with babysitters which was no big deal to me since before I that I lived with my Dad’s Uncle’s family while he hitched his way cross country, back forth to college (my “mother” doesn’t factor into many stories and the one known as mom didn’t come about until much later). I won’t spend to muc
h time on the pre-5/6 years except to mention it as further proof of my “Scaredy Cat” syndrome. My cousins and their cohorts found great fun in my gullibility and easy fears. I have several fond memories of running home to Aunt Lois in tears over many a scare job. Thankfully that’s about all I remember about those days so I can’t go blaming my messed up mind on them. But I’m losing track of where I was...Oh yes, Sleestacks and big goofy guys...
My Dad’s favorite show at the time, and quite possibly his favorite of all time, was Star Trek. I of course would dutifully join him in watching this menagerie of monsters. Aliens of all types and sizes, possessions, evil Klingons and the even slightly demonic Mr. Spock (I wasn’t at all surprised to learn that his alter ego was a murdering back stabber!)! But of course I was still enthralled, this was the most fantastic stuff I had ever seen! Wonderful fodder for nightmares galore! Thankfully those rocks never ran out of juice! Then there was the I-scream on the cake, the occasional midnight matinee of hard core spook...
Ok, so let me explain, once in awhile the visions of Sleestaks, Puffs, and Mr. Spocks would keep coming back even after fell asleep and some how my blinding rocks would disconnected (I believe there was some sinister force at work) and I’d wake up clutching the corners of my blanket together. After the rocks scared everything away again I would notice the T. V. was on and could hear Dad snoring on the couch. Well, I was after all a kid, and even then there was nothing more enticing then the pictures on the screen even if they were black and white (Now that I think on it, it was a black and white T. V., go figure). So it was that I discovered that not only was a sneaky enough to watch television when I was supposed to be sleeping (and that Dad was impossible to wake up when he was chopping lumber) but the enticingly terrible world of The Twilight Zone and Tales From the Darkside. Oh yes, as if this gullible little Fraidy Cat didn’t have enough to keep him awake at night! Even so, I was hooked. Rod Serling was a god to me. After all, he had a direct line to the boogeyman! I had no choice but to believe that, as long as I worshiped him regularly, he would keep the monsters at bay. So I did, except on those nights Dad would catch me and send me back to bed with a sore butt. But I think Rod understood because the monsters seemed to visit less often. Oh they were still lurking about when the lights where out, I could hear growling in the closet and scratching at under the bed. I still took a running leap into bed for fear a clawed hand would grab my foot, but it didn’t, and I attributed all that to the great god Serling. Perhaps he did have something to with it, who knows for sure, but I was getting braver. Well, at least that was until my first haunted house...
It was a brisk August somewhere in my sixth year that brought me face to face with my first encounter with the “dreaded” haunted house. Ok, so it was just one of those cheesy carnival deals, you know, the dark claustrophobic trailer with the funky mirrors and the glowing skeletons that made noises like bug zappers? Anyways I suppose I’d have to admit it was essentially my idea. As soon as I saw it I knew what it was and what horrors waited inside. Dad was more than adamant that not only did I not want to go in there but that I wouldn’t be able to make it all the way through. Well this sounded like a dare to me, so begged and pleaded until it became a double dare. Besides, I had the great god Serling watching over me, and that was about as good as bulletproof vest. Of course I was young and also didn’t bother to realize that rod was merely a human being with a twisted sense of humor (duh, The Twilight Zone!). Dad eventually had to give in, most likely with hopes of shutting me up. I believe we both learned a lesson or two that day. Around the first dark corner out popped the ugliest glowing creature I’d ever seen my short life complete with eerie music and the zapping noise. The last twenty feet or so I spent permanently attached tom Dads leg in a full on Ball Baby, Fraidy Cat fit. It was to late to turn back with people filing in behind us so poor Dad foraged ahead as fast as he could (seemed like hours to me!) with a screaming growth attached to his waist (I’m sure he gritted his teeth, he was good at that). I have to give him credit though; he was really handling it well considering. He forced a few laughs and tried to get me to look on several occasions. Finally I managed to do so, after all, Dad seemed to be having a good time and he did say it was funny, who can you believe you can’t believe Dad? The answer...No one! I saw the glowing skeleton flailing his arms at me, and a hairy clawed hand try to grab my ankle. I yowled and gripped harder. Dad became the anti-Christ; Rod became a ruthless god. How was I to know I had learned the most important lessons in life that day? What would that be, you ask? Answer: Dad is always right, but don’t trust him because sometimes it really isn’t funny. I think he was in league with the evil Mr. Spock.
So, where the hell am I going with all this you want to know? You mean besides sharing the happiest times in my life with you? Ok then, the point is roughly thus...without these experiences I would have never become the lunatic that I am. Eventually I grew to not only accept the fear that could not control but also that I enjoyed it. All thanks to folks like the great god Serling (whom I have learned to forgive for only being human). This was the time in my life when I first met Fright. At the time I didn’t know what it would mean to me but quickly learned that I, like Rod, had a direct line to the boogeyman myself. This is your first introduction to Fright as seen through the eyes of a wannabe Fright god. The goal of Fright is to hopefully revitalize the same feelings in others. To delve into the dark and personal recesses of human nature and quite frankly, scare the shit of you. Makes everything else seem like child’s play for a little while. It’s a bulletproof vest in the face of reality.
Well, I suppose we learned a lot about each other today, you learned that I was a Scaredy Cat who now hopes to be a god like Serling. I learned that you have wonderful patience and I do believe we will speak again in future collections.
I’ve truly enjoyed our time together...
...‘til next we bleed, farewell from the beasts and I,
J.P. Hunt
May 7th, 2002
About the Author
J.P. Hunt currently works for the news where he gets to tell anchors and reporters what to do during broadcasts. He's also the producer, writer, reviewer and co host of the Creepercast, a horror genre website and podcast in which he co created. When not writing creepy stories he's brainstorming script ideas and sometimes even manages to enjoy a few hours of relaxation with his Heart. He's also one of many transplanted Michiganders now residing in Central New Mexico.
Other Books By This Author
Please visit your favorite ebook retailer to discover other books by J.P. Hunt:
Shadows: A Collection of Stories and Poetry
Body of Evidence
Fright Classics Vol. 1-4
Coming soon...
Nostalgia Freaks
Untitled Zombie Genre Novel
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