scary stories

Ghosts and Nightmares

Pop Lit Fiction

HALLOWEEN 2019

WITH Halloween upon us– leaves changing color, weather becoming chilly– do our dreams change? Do they fill with dreads and shadows, specters from other worlds? Are they frighteningly real– more real than reality itself?

For this Halloween we have a story which explores these notions, about a boy, and his parents, and a house. . . .

The story by Joel Allegretti is “The Obb.”

“Mommy?”

It flapped its arms like a crow’s wings. Alex screamed, and it was gone. He heard footsteps pounding through the hall. His mother flipped the wall switch. The sudden light shocked his eyes.

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NOTE: We also have recorded poetry from Joel Allegretti at our ongoing Open Mic feature, with another Allegretti audio poem soon to follow. 

Good stuff!

head of a skeleton with a burning cigarette van gogh

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(Art: “Skeleton Stopping the Masks” by James Ensor; “Head of a Skeleton” by Vincent van Gogh.)

Halloween 2018

Pop Lit Fiction

WHAT MAKES A GOOD HALLOWEEN STORY?

A good Halloween story should be truly scary– or at the least, disturbing. Something which climbs inside your head to unsettle your dreams. Or magnify your nightmares.

Our Halloween presentation for 2018, “God, the Machine” by Travis Simpson, does not involve pumpkins, demons or goblins. The story features instead that most frightening of nature-or-God’s creations, the human mind. Set in a futuristic world swiftly becoming contemporary and real.

She imagines the room filling with water, their bodies floating inside, spilling whatever blood is still loose inside them free in billowing clouds, a little like the nebulous entity outside the craft. This is the will of God, who moves through all dimensions and put this plan in her life from the moment she was conceived.

rivera controller of the universe

(Art: “The Headless Horseman” by Ichabod Crane; “Controller of the Universe” by Diego Rivera.)