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Post by Fray on Apr 2, 2009 19:26:26 GMT -5
Here's the deal: We're going to play a little game where you have to create a short story (100 to 800 words long and a title) based on the photo below. Each person will post their story here and we will vote on the best one. The winner gets to pick their own photo and post it here. We will then write a short story based on that photo (FYI: PLEASE make sure that the photo isn't too big). And so on. The deadline for our first "competition" is 2 weeks starting April 4th. (The deadline will be 2 weeks for each photo/story "contest" thereafter.) You won't win anything, your work won't be collected into a book, you get nothing. This is just for fun and to get your creative juices flowing. (FYI: You will, of course, retain the rights to your story and may do whatever you want with it after the "contest" is over.)
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Post by Danny Trioxin on Apr 2, 2009 19:31:38 GMT -5
Im not shitting you, Fray..this house...it looks like the one back on Dr. Dark's property...creepy
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Post by Fray on Apr 2, 2009 19:46:03 GMT -5
Then maybe you should write about it
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Post by lucas on Apr 4, 2009 15:16:21 GMT -5
Well I couldn't keep it under 600 words after my weird mind got working (it went to 745). But here it is...
The McDoogle House
It's just another drafty day in the old McDoogle estate. The leaves flow through what was the living room like birds in flight. The creeking of the wood flooring above, from 32 years of inhabitatablilty, rattles my thoughts. But then again, I haven't had the clearest thoughts since I came upon this property 3 months ago.
The McDoogles were a young couple who decided to build themselves a home, where they may then start a family and start a new life... together. After months of construction the house was finally complete. And only 11 months later it became... a home, with the arrival of their first child. His name was Hunter.
The teenage years of Hunter's development was stunted by his parent's struggles to stay together as parental units. Frank (Hunter's Father) had started sleeping around with his secretary, while Mary (mother) had gotten back into her opiate addiction. It was quite often that Hunter was left to feed and fend for himself.
This house built on the premise of love and compassion, had turned into hell on earth for all that resided within.
After a "long day at work" Frank comes home, reaking of perfume and a prominent hicky on the side of his neck, demanding a well cooked meal. Unfortunately, what Frank doesn't know is that Mary has been without her "fix" for about 4 days. Not to mention that neither had bothered to go shopping for over month. Like I said, these are classy people (wink, wink).
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Mary yells.
“I’m looking for something to eat.”
“Well, taking one look at you tells me that you’ve already had something to eat, you cheating bastard!”
Hunter could always hear his parents fighting, and would often be found weeping in the hallway closet. Found by whom? No one. Like I said, they never paid much attention to him. But on this particular night, they would listen… they would pay attention to him.
“I have had it!” Hunter exclaimed as he runs into the kitchen. “Every goddamn day, you two run off to your vices and come home to what? Bitching about ‘You didn’t do this’ and ‘How dare you do that’. And all the while, do you take 1 nano-second to think about where your boy is? Thinking ‘Damn, I haven’t seen him in over a week. I wonder if he’s okay’. No, that kind of logic doesn’t flow through your head. No more. This ends tonight!”
“Son, you get your ass back upstairs before I have to make you sorry you were ever born!” Frank says, while making his way toward Hunter. “Sorry … Dad… there hasn’t been a day that has gone by that I have been glad to be alive.”
“Watch your mouth when you talk to us.” Mary bellowed as she slaps Hunter across the face.
With that, Hunter ran back upstairs to his room and locked the door. He scurries around his room, looking for anything that he could possibly use to end this… here… and now.
Frank and Mary make their way to his room with a quickness. Pounding on his door. “Hunter, you better open this fucking door!” demanded Mary.
“How many times have we told you not to lock this goddamn door?” inquired Frank.
Hunter opens the door with one hand… slowly, but forcefully. As his father Frank walks through the door, Hunter slams him over the head with an authentic mace that he won as the “Fryer Tuck look-alike” contest that his dead-beat parents signed him up for at a local Renassance Fair. Frank hits the floor with quite a thud.
“Noooo! What have you done?” Mary shreaks as she heads for the stairs. After making her first two steps down the maple staircase, her ankle twists and she is sent flying down the stairs.
“Third step’s a bitch, huh mah?” Hunter says with a youthful glee in his voice. “Don’t worry, Mom… I’ll make this painless.”
Well, what happens after that is a mystery. I don’t remember many things that have happened to me over the past 30 years. Being transferred from hospital to hospital, I spent many of those years coming in and out of a coma.
But I’m here now and it seems as though no one has found them yet. They’re hid safely and securely in my weeping closet. I go there sometimes just to see them again… in their purest form… together…. FOREVER!
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Post by Fray on Apr 4, 2009 22:49:01 GMT -5
I must admit that out of everyone I never thought in a million years that you'd write a story, Lucas. You said you don't like to read and the majority of writers like to read sooooo....
Anyway, great story! Very interesting take on the photo. Can't wait to see what the others come up with. FYI: I moved the maximum word count up from 600 to 800. You guys can thank Lucas for that.
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Post by lucas on Apr 5, 2009 11:05:47 GMT -5
Thanks Fray, but what can I say... it's a pretty cool little excercise. However, I'm surprised no one caught my pretty bad typo... turning "Friar Tuck" into "Fryer Tuck" ;D
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Post by Fray on Apr 5, 2009 12:28:41 GMT -5
I did, but since this is more about getting people's creative juices flowing and not a class on spelling and/or punctuation I didn't feel the need to mention it. That's not to say that I want everyone to throw spelling and punctuation out the window. Far from it. I generally don't read writings (i.e. board posts, PMs, chats, stories, etc.) that neglect them b/c it drives me nuts trying to figure out what the hell the person is saying. So PLEASE, people, make sure you spell and punctuate correctly. My brain thanks you By the way, Lucas, I'll comment more on your story once others have done the same.
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Post by evil007nate on Apr 5, 2009 13:44:37 GMT -5
Well if it's spelling and punctuation you want I guess count me out. That's on the bottom of things I know how to do. Also, great story Lucas. It may work the opposite way cause I read a lot but I don't know what I'll be able to come up with for this game. Lack of creativity is right above spelling and punctuation.
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Post by evil007nate on Apr 7, 2009 11:48:22 GMT -5
Here we go I'm giving it a try.
Hospice of Horror?
March 13, 2009 Friday Friday evening around midnight investigators were called to an abandoned home by neighbors who lived down the road from the property complaining of a fowl odor emitting from the house as they drove past. According to county documents the home was built in 1924 and has had many previous owners. It most recently was used as a hospice.
According to investigators the unmistakable stench permeated through their cars before exiting their vehicles. Some men wouldn’t even get out. “A few of my deputes turned right around and left.” Said Clevis Riley the head of investigation.
Approaching the door, the steps where covered in a thick layer of coagulated blood. Upon entering investigators where horrified at what they found. “We weren’t prepared for this.” Said Riley. “I saw hardened investigators, grown men throwing up and fainting at the gruesome scene. To think a human being could be responsible for what was in there is beyond me.”
In the center of the living room were human bones arranged in a pentagram and thirteen chalices overflowing with blood. Over the chalices hung thirteen heads with theirs eyes removed. Walls were adorned with what appeared to be dried human flesh. “We didn’t know where to start, and this was only the living room.” Stated Riley.
Upon farther investigation, all thirteen bodies were identified by dental records as the most resent patients of the hospice. “People came here to die in peace, not to live their last days in horror. Now their spirits will never rest” Said Riley. Investigators tried to contact the family that ran the hospice but found no record of them. No names have been released yet because all of the families have not been notified. The case remains open and anyone with any information in regards to this case is asked to notify your local authorities.
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Post by Fray on Apr 7, 2009 14:19:27 GMT -5
Good take on the pic, Nate! Anyone else brave enough to tackle it?
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Post by cenobitedave on Apr 7, 2009 14:53:37 GMT -5
It had been there for as long as any of us kids could remember. Just an old dilapidated house, way out on the back part of a vacant lot that the grownups had told us was originally owned by a family but they just up and disappeared one day and then the city bought up the land and had planned on building more houses.
That never happened of course. And that one house just stood there, dying slowly in the elements as the seasons passed.
Every kid in town was afraid of that fucking house, all the parents had told us to stay away from it, who knew what might be living in there, or if the floorboards were rotted or if the roof would even survive the slightest movement within.
Bravery and stupidity are intertwined when you are twelve years old, and often times what you think is an act of great courage, is really an epic cluster fuck of stupidity waiting to happen.
I don't recall who it was, but someone's older brother suggested that someone should go into the house. We hemmed and hawed at this, claiming fear of grounding or worse, getting a belt to the ass.
The older brother called us all chicken shits and told us that we were just a bunch of babies. He said he'd been in the house plenty of times.
He was full of shit of course. He was only two or three years older than us, and he'd no more gone into that damn house than any of us had touched a bare breast.
A group of us, about ten or so kids from the neighborhood who I hung out with in those days huddled up. We couldn't stand by and be called chicken shits by a fourteen year old. He was practically a grown up.
I remember Tim, the kid with the thick rimmed Buddy Holly glasses with tape around the middle. His shaggy brown hair hanging over the top of his glasses as we all stood bent over in our tight circle, he was the one who said we should draw straws to see who would go in.
Tim had never been one for these kinds of adventures. Tim was always the voice of reason. Course that hadn't stopped us from getting into trouble many a summer doing stupid shit that could have gotten us killed. Tim it seemed was the one who almost always spoke out against whatever we were doing.
Someone agreed with Tim, saying that drawing straws would be the best way to figure it out. I was just shocked that Tim had even suggested something positive to this endeavor.
So we gathered sticks, handed them over to the fourteen year old and told him to turn around, break one and then let us draw.
Tim got the short one.
He protested of course.
But we marched up to the house anyway. Well, we all stayed back a good thirty or fortie feet, leaving Tim to make the long trip up to the front door and into the house alone.
He went in.
The minutes dragged on. After about ten minutes we weren't sure what to do. Tim hadn't come back out yet, and we hadn't heard anything.
Maybe he was fucking with us? Maybe he had snuck out of the back of the house and had already headed home.
No one was willing to actually go up and find out. Instead we lobbed rocks at the house, shouting at Tim to get his ass out of there.
We gave up after a few minutes, and all wandered home, hollering at Tim that he was being a fag and that we were gonna leave him there.
Tim didn't come home that night.
The police searched the house and didn't find anything.
They said there were layers of dust and crud on everything that if our friend had been inside like we'd said, they would have seen something. A foot print, a smudge in the dirt, anything.
Nothing.
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Post by Danny Trioxin on Apr 7, 2009 20:10:30 GMT -5
wow....this is really cool stuff guys!! Kudos goes out to fray once again. You always know how to get people's minds going, sir! How many times have i told you i was so glad you downloaded the old show and kept in touch?...well make this another time!
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Post by eighthcloud on Apr 18, 2009 16:15:15 GMT -5
Who knew?
Everyone had their speculations about what happened in that house.
"Some say there was a murder there." "My mom told me a little boy disappeared after a dare!" "Who would have thought a cult lived there?"
But the trees knew. Of course, nobody could ask the trees (and most hadn't even thought to), but they held the secrets in their long, twine-like fingers. Some of them bowed under the intense pressure, like so many bricks were laid in their branches. Others towered above the house, almost protectively, as though they could shield the house from naysayers and their matches. But none of them told.
No, none of them told.
(edit to add title)
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Post by Fray on Apr 19, 2009 10:33:03 GMT -5
The deadline for our first "contest" was yesterday and no more submissions will be accepted--sorry for not acknowledging it yesterday. I just plain forgot Anyway, here's what happens now: I've created a poll listing the fine folks who submitted a story. I'd like all the members to vote on your favorite story. To be fair to everyone, I must ask the contestants NOT to vote--if you want to vote for someone else that's fine, but you don't have to. You have one week starting today to vote. After that the poll will lock automatically, preventing further voting. If there is a tie I will make the final vote. The winner will be announced on the final day of voting. Good luck!
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Post by professorbleak on Apr 19, 2009 21:20:08 GMT -5
Good work, one and all. I have voted and although I should not spill the beans, it was for Cinobitedave.
He, however did not have my favorite line. That honor went to Lucas for...
((((As his father Frank walks through the door, Hunter slams him over the head with an authentic mace that he won as the “Fryer Tuck look-alike” contest that his dead-beat parents signed him up for at a local Renassance Fair.)))
Hey Lucas, a bit of that sounds a little to autobiographical not to be true.
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