Halloween

Halloween is one of my favourite times of the year, for once people actually try to make their houses look the way I wish they did all year round. Of course I prefer the unsettlingly creepy to the cutesy decorations. I find the gory ones just don't have the impact and are in all honesty just plain old cheesy unless they happen to be ultra high budget.

This brings me to Halloween traditions. Pumpkin carving of course a must, but a new one I started for myself last year is watching the movie Trick'R'Treat (next year I WILL dress up as Sammie and you can hold me to that). I always want to add new traditions so if you have any comment and tell me about them.

Another tradition I have learned about this year is All Hallows Read. I heard of this through Neil Gaiman on twitter. It is the tradition of giving out a scary book Halloween. In honour of this new tradition I would love to catch on, here is a short story I wrote a few years ago:

Timmy the Zombie

Timmy was quite the zealous zombie. He always tried to be at the head of the pack, despite his missing foot, whenever they were cornering a group of humans and no other zombie seemed to disembowel a sassy survivor with as much vigour as him, it was almost as if he were alive. One particularly dreary night when an above average altitude of doom was in the air Timmy just couldn't keep up with the group, it seemed his stump was stuck in a headless putrid torso. He made a snack out of the tantalizing tasty torso rather than sharing it with the cluster and when he was finished he found that all of the other zombies were gone. Like a trapped wolverine Timmy moaned for hours, but his groans were not heard by the hordes of the undead. Alone he hobbled, for days upon days.

He had almost lost all hope of finding even a severed limb to munch on, when he noticed some movement in the shadows. It was living flesh! Sweet succulant sweaty redemption! For a moment Timmy's hopes were sunk when he thought he saw fur, for everyone knows zombies only eat Homo Sapiens and no other species of animal, but then it turned its brain container and Timmy gurgled with excitement. He started to shamble towards the meal on legs, as was the normal meat encountering strategy in any good zombie grouping. When it started to run Timmy was filled with as much despair as any member of the living impaired could, for there was no other zombie to stop it from getting away. Now that he was on his own, he was the only one accountable for his own well being.

Hunting just wasn't working for Timmy and he was forced to munch on the leftovers of long forgotten massacres he found in his wanderings. The twelfth night had ended and he needed to quickly find a dark place to hide out due to his natural zombie fear of fire, and when you are afraid of fire the last thing you want to see is a big burning orb in the sky. Timmy shuffled with all of his might until he started to approach a decrepit cottage in the woods. It seemed the perfect place to hide from the inferno above. But Timmy was hasty in his approach; he had no zombies of higher intelligence to bring to his attention the fact that there was a large gathering of man creatures in the apparent safe haven. Being sluggish and alone as he was, Timmy was an easy shot. Right as he reached the door a bullet pierced his skull. It turns out you can die twice.

By: Ariel Hansen