Castaways by Brian Keene

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If you never want to read a horror novel, stop reading here. If you’re open to reading horror but unsure where to begin, message me; I’ll send you a list.

Because CASTAWAYS by Brian Keene is not for the faint of heart, nor is it an introduction to the genre. For that, there are plenty of other options. Keene knows his audience, and his audience knows who they are. If you’re not sure, you’re not part of it.

At first I wanted to lambast Keene for writing unlikeable characters, which made it hard to get into the story. Then about a quarter of the way in, I realized it’s not his fault: the setting all but demands unlikeability from its cast. The types of people (that we see on the surface) attracted to being on reality shows like Keene’s semi-fictional “Castaways” survivor-style show are exactly the type with whom Keene fills his book. Nearly all are utterly unlikeable, and I found myself anticipating the villains coming after them with great relish.

Once the reader can accept this not-so-secret desire to see the cast get theirs, CASTAWAYS gets a lot more fun. It’s a horrifying scenario and one that rings of distinct possibility. As an author, to me this book epitomizes that “What if?” question that has kicked off so many stories, horror or otherwise.

And this is horror, make no mistake. It’s bloody, it’s gory, it’s foul, it’s violent.

If that makes you perk up, then this novel is for you.

Keene understands jerks. Most of the book is populated with them. These are exactly the kind of people you’d expect to meet under the circumstances they are in. That said, there are a few redemptive changes over the course of the story, which keeps the arc moving and prevents the novel from being the literary equivelant of torture porn (though the story does share a lot in common with the genre. You’ve been warned).

To a certain degree, CASTAWAYS is a slasher film disguised as a monster movie. The monsters are still effective; they just operate more functionally like a Jason or a Michael, albeit with a different motivation. There is nothing supernatural in the book, which creates part of it’s terror.

This is, and I cannot underscore this enough, a BRUTAL book.

I wouldn’t recommend the book to non-horror readers looking to dip a toe in the genre. This novel is for the already-committed fans. Viewed through that lens, CASTAWAYS excels at what it sets out to do.

 

Grab the Kindle edition here. This is an affiliate link.
Brian Keene Castaways

Scissors

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His mother always cut his hair. From the time he was very, very little to now, when he was a determined and energetic six year old who would fight dragons in the back yard with a wooden sword crafted by his father.

But his father was gone now, and James didn’t understand. He didn’t understand the yelling and screaming that he’d heard from Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom the last several weeks. He didn’t know who “Sandra” was, because that wasn’t his mother’s name. Her name was Annie.

He sat still now in the kitchen, gripping the edges of the tall chair where he always sat for his haircut.

“Mommy?”

His mother hummed a tune James did not recognize as she spread out a red dishtowel on the counter.

“What,” she said, not looking at him.

James considered not asking the question as his mother placed all her crafting shears on the dishtowel, like a surgeon before operating.

“Is Daddy still coming over today?”

“Mmm-hmm,” his mother said through lips pressed tightly together.

“Is he going to stay here tonight?” He hadn’t, not in weeks, and no one would tell James why.

Mommy did not answer.  She continued humming.

James squirmed in the chair. His nose itched, but the white zip ties around his wrists prevented him from scratching. He managed to rub his shoulder against the itch.

James looked down at his wrists. Mommy had never done this before.

“Mommy?”

She finished organizing the scissors on the dishtowel and brushed her hands as if to free them from dirt. “What.”

“How come I can’t move my arms?”

“You move around too much,” Mommy said. “You need to stay still.”

“I will. I’ll stay still.”

“No, you won’t.”

She walked out of the kitchen. James listened to her go in to the garage and open Daddy’s big red tool chest. He knew the sound well. Daddy always used the tool chest when fixing the car or doing some repair around the house. He always asked James to help, which James delighted in. He even knew the difference between a flat head and a Philips, which made Daddy so proud.

If he wasn’t going to stay tonight, who would fix the holes Mommy put into their bedroom walls with her feet and hands over the past few nights?

Mommy returned with a green nylon cargo strap. Before James could ask what that was for, she dropped a loop of it over his body so it ran across his chest. With a series of brass clicks, she tightened the strap so his body was held rigid against the back of the chair.

“Mommy?”

“What.”

“What are you doing?”

“I told you, you move around too much.”

“I won’t, I promise. This hurts.”

Mommy stopped answering. She went to the counter and picked up her heavy steel Fiskers scissors, the ones she used to cut cloth. The others she used for all sorts of crafts: pinking shears that made little triangle cuts. Detail scissors for snipping little bits off paper or cloth. Others.

“Where is the shaver?” James asked.

“We’re not shaving today.” She snipped the Fiskers in the air. The blades caught the overhead light and glittered. Snip snip!

She turned to face him.

“Daddy sure does love you, doesn’t he, James?”

He didn’t like the way she asked it. But, not wanting to upset her, he said, “Uh-huh.”

“He sure does,” Mommy went on and took a step closer. “Your hair is the same color as his, isn’t it, James?”

She gestured with the scissors. Snip snip.“Yeah,” James agreed. He didn’t like how his heart was beating so fast. It was very uncomfortable.

“And you have his chin. With the little dimple?”

Snip snip.

 “Uh-huh?”

“And of course, you have his pretty blue eyes.”

James shrank back as Mommy drew nearer. Mommy looked very, very different than usual. Even from when she was angry. She was smiling, but not like a good smile.

“Y-yes . . .” James whimpered.

“Yes,” Mommy repeated, now standing right in front of him. “You look just like Daddy.”

She raised the scissors.

“Let’s fix that.”

Snip snip.

 

THE END

 

Wow, that was messed up, I’m sorry. Not really, but sort of. Man. Well, if you enjoyed that, you might enjoy my horror novel Now You Don’t – a horror novel

What is your “Location?”

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Another school assignment I thought some of you may enjoy. So…enjoy!

The assignment was to write two pages answering these questions:
Where are you from?
What are your stories to tell?
Who are you writing for/to?

LOCATION
I am from Scottsdale, Arizona, a small city that abuts the capital city of Phoenix, Arizona along its western border, and connects to other smaller cities like Mesa and Tempe. You can tell who’s native here because we pronounce the latter temPEE, not TEMpee or, worse, temPAY like commentators are apt to do on television for our pro sporting events.

The term “small city” is relative. Phoenix proper recently attained 5 million residents, and at last check was the fifth largest city in the U.S. by population. The state clocks in at 7.2 million.

Until moving to Canada last year, I had lived in three houses total. No apartments, no dorms, and not including a few weeks here and there at my mother-in-law’s house in between buying or selling homes.

Forty-eight years old. Three houses. This sort of stat is true for very, very few people, I think.

I’m not ashamed of it. On the other hand, my 11-year-old has already lived in three homes, and one of those is in another country. I don’t mind that I didn’t move a lot, but I do sometimes wonder what positive and negative impacts it had on me. Certainly I accumulated a lot of stuff, and most of it is useless. I have toys from early childhood still. (Which, happily, are put to use by my children.) I think living in the same town my entire life instilled a sense of place in my heart, but also gave me a certain fear of change—even when change would be for the best.

Part of my reason for moving out of my country was specifically to get out of and hopefully alter (or at least interrogate) my Location. Just before leaving, I livestreamed a tour of my hometown, talking about memories and nostalgia; about lessons learned. What I realized at the end of the stream was that I could no longer be in the same city as the house I grew up in and still make forward progress in my own emotional well-being.

I owned a VHS video camera from sophomore year of high school through to after the turn of the millennium. Thus, not only do I have vivid memories of where I grew up because I lived in one place for so long, I also have literal, visual proof of what it looked like, what I looked like, what my family looked like; how we interreacted; and the ways in which that place affected me and continues to affect me today.

I lived on Windsor Avenue, just a block or so from the border of Phoenix. I had a large backyard and a large house. My mother and father both divorced their first spouses, and then had me, though I’ve learned recently the pregnancy was likely an accident. I have six older brothers and sisters who, when I was born, were being forced to live Brady-Bunch style in this house. The next-youngest is at least ten years older than me, so I have few memories of them. They were out of the house while I was very young.

Only later in life did I realize my family was wealthy while I grew up, at least by modern American standards, though we possessed few of the trappings of wealth. My parents drove the same cars for twenty years. They didn’t go out shopping or take expensive vacations (in fact, they rarely travelled). When I was young, we belonged to a country club, but while I did learn to play tennis and sometimes used the pool, fundamentally I did not fit in with the other kids there. Eventually we left the club, though I’m not sure why and will probably never know, because one Location my family shares is that of secrecy.

No—that’s the wrong word. It’s not secrecy so much as brushing all negativity under the rug and pretending (insisting!) that Everything Is Fine.

Especially when it is not.

But I grew up with enormous pine tress that I’d climb to the top of. This large back yard became the scene of fights with monsters, fights with pirates, wars with foreign invaders. (My early moral compass originated from 1980s action films, for better or worse). I climbed and swung and hid and spied. At 13, I missed the state record for pullups (18!) by one, only because I’d spent my whole life pulling myself up in my favorite tree in the yard.

I went to an ELCA Lutheran preschool, then to a Missouri Synod Lutheran school for K-8. The impact of those years cannot be overstated. The education was good, but the physical punishments were not. It was a small school with a graduating 8th grade class of perhaps 30. I had many enemies, but I also learned from one friend in particular the truest, deepest meaning of friendship that I carry to this day. This school, in hindsight, got many things wrong about childrearing and my education (this was 1979 to 1988), but they also got a few things exactly right: for instance, being given the chance to use a teacher’s VHS editing deck to make my first movie, or being the only student taken to Arizona State University’s “Young Authors Conference,” where I presented my 30,000-word fantasy, Derro The Warrior. I still have both the book and the movie. They were far too formative to let go.

After grade school, I attended a public high school (culture shock!), where I became a part of a group of chosen family. These are people who made deliberate choices to love me at my best and worst, and I them. This Location matters more to me than any physical locale. Later my Location became the intentional part of another family, which informs many of my choices today, particularly as it pertains to how I raise my own children.

My Location is the heat and sun and lack of rain. My Location is the little hills we call “mountains” because we (Phoenicians) have never seen the Rockies or Appalachians.

My Location is a time in U.S. American history before school shootings, Internet, cell phones, or Covid. It is decidedly European in descent (English, Swedish, and German), with the attendant ignorance of privilege that comes with such ancestry; my current Location is trying to understand, question, and repair that ignorance.

My Location is the first hand knowledge of violence enacted upon my body by my own hand and by others, and the lifelong repercussions of that violence.

My Location is alone, and I am grateful for that, because it is what fostered my imagination and led me to become a storyteller. And as a storyteller, I take my responsibilities to my readers very seriously, particularly if they are young. Particularly when I see myself in them. Too many of them.

I am happily from the 1980s and 1990s. I am from couch forts on Saturday morning, sugar cereal, and Godzilla movies on “World Beyond” (KPHO TV 5 Phoenix!) long before they were eviscerated on MST3K. I am from bike rides to Thomas Mall to go to B. Dalton and Waldenbooks and buy the newest Judy Blume. Or Stephen King. The aroma of ink and paper suffuses my being. I am from winning a bike at Your Movie House on the corner because I rented so goddamn many horror movies when I was far too young to be watching them.

The stories that are mine to tell are the stories of young people who were or are not seen. My stories are often about dismissal, which is different (and I argue, worse) than rejection. I am here to tell stories of fear, pain, loss, grief—and triumph in despite of them.

I write for the weirdos and drama department kids. I write for the punks and the outcasts. I write for the kids who were legally beaten in school systems and who knew instinctively that family in its truest sense was a selected relationship. I write for the abused, abandoned, and neglected. My goal is to give them escape and entertainment and confirmation of their trials; I want my work to tell them, Yes, I see you. You are safe here.

Because my earliest Location was the opposite of that. My later Location embodied it. I want to pass it on to anyone who needs it.

You Will Play Until I Say You Stop

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A bit of doll horror to get your heart rate up…

It crept from the dollhouse on spiderlegs, too many joints, too many limbs.

Alexandra watched it first in fascination then with a growing dread that made her kidneys shrivel.

She’d named the doll Admordeo, a name which had merely slipped into her mind the moment the porcelain-cotton thing had been placed into her hands by her odd Aunt Chelsea. Aunt Chelsea, who favored the macabre in her dress, her entertainment, and her thought.

But Admordeo was a mouthful, just like Alexendra, so Alex started calling her Addie.

That had been yesterday. No — today. Earlier today.

Alex wanted to look at her green digital clock, but was afraid that if she took her eyes off the slowly crawling thing from the dollhouse, Addie would disappear, just like spiders always disappeared the very instant you went to get a swatter or shoe.

So Alex didn’t look away, though she intuited it was quite late. Too late to shout for Mom or Dad — they’d be so angry if she woke them again.

Addie, on her delicate hands and feet, crept closer still, her head up and bright black eyes staring at Alex. Some starlight filtered through Alex’s window, softened by sheer curtains, but she could see. Yes, she could see the doll’s eyes as black as sharks’ and the way Addie’s small mouth slowly began to grin.

“Stop,” Alex whispered.

The doll shot across the floor. It skittered, and Alex heard its little feet tittering across the floorboards like tiny wooden giggles.

Then the toy was up the quilt and racing toward Alex’s face. Addie’s grin grew wider, splitting her white face at the cheeks.

Alex inhaled for a scream — she’d risk waking up her parents — but the doll was faster. Alex felt its slight weight on her legs, her hips, her chest, and now her throat.

An inhuman hiss issued from the doll’s gaping maw, smelling briefly of garlic and old urine. It gagged the little girl, and then it was too late.

Addie the doll, her slender hands as sharp as tacks, tore into Alex’s open mouth. Alex instinctively bit down, and felt the wriggling and writhing of the doll’s arms like earthworms between her lips.

The toy hissed again, its features twisting into a mask of rage and hate. Alex coughed as blood ran down her throat and into her belly. This freed Admordeo to resume her attack with more ferocity. She tore the child’s tongue, bit her cheeks, scratched her face.

In mortal terror, Alex fought to push the wicked thing off her. Addie’s strength, she discovered, came from some other place, some magic from beyond this world that only a child could ever understand.

When Addie plunged her sharp hands into Alex’s eyes, the child was mercifully already gone.

THE END

Wow, what the hell was THAT? I dunno, but it creeped me out, and I guess that’s all that matters. If you dig haunted dolls and such, be sure to read my short novel Those We Bury Back. Excellent killer doll sequences! (That is an affiliate link, BTW.)

Happy Halloween… 🙂

It’s the Not-Knowing

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by Tom Leveen

© 2022

 

A hooded figure sat at Jack’s computer when he came down that morning. Jack, quite naturally, gasped, cursed, and stepped backward at the site of the hood, bathed in the blue light of the computer monitor on the desk before it.

 

“The hell?” Jack demanded, feeling his shoulders tense up and hands clench into fists. He licked his lips, wishing for a weapon. None were at hand. Jack worked at home and was a CPA who barely watched action movies, never mind owning anything that might defend life and limb.

 

“Get out of here!”

 

His voice was weak and cracked at the end, making Jack wince. Dammit.

 

“Go on!” he tried again. “Get!”

 

Like the ominous figure was a misbehaving puppy. Predictably, the words had no effect.

 

Jack glanced behind him at the open door. Obviously, the smart move here was to run, to go back to the kitchen where he’d left his iPhone charging, and call the police. They’d deal with the intruder just fine, by God they would!

 

Only . . .

 

They wouldn’t. Jack felt this truth like knives piercing his palms and feet, pinning him to this time and this place.

 

The room was dark except for the monitor, and it cast its light against the robe and hood in a way that made a black hole where a face should have been. The tip of a nose, the glint of an eye . . . something should have shown the figure to be human, but the blank space in the hood offered no such consolation.

 

So Jack figured it was Death.

 

It sat still. Motionless. No bony hands rested on the desktop, and no brimstone odor leaked from the folds of its black robe. Still—Jack felt deeply that his guess was right.

 

Death faced forward—well, “faced” being a relative term in this case—while Jack stood just a bit to the side, so that the figure wasn’t looking at him head-on. Instead it faced the screen. From his position by the door, Jack couldn’t see what might be on it, nor could he remember what he might have left up on the screen yesterday when his workday was done.

 

An Excel sheet? Some client’s bank statement? A video game he knew spent too much time on?

 

The light never flickered, so Jack assumed it was a static image. Perhaps just his desktop, with whatever quasi-inspiring image Bill Gates’ people had seen fit to push through that day.

 

“Look,” Jack said, again trying to moisten his lips. “I get it, okay? I know who you are. So, what now, do I get another chance? Is this just a warning? Look, I’ll eat more vegetables, okay? It’s not like I smoke. I don’t even drink a lot. So, come on. Another shot, huh?”

 

Death didn’t move.

 

“Well you don’t have to be a dick about it!” Jack shouted. “If we’re going to do this, then come on, do it! I’m . . . I’m ready!”

 

Lie. Total and utter. He wasn’t ready.

 

Death didn’t make a sound.

 

Jack gripped his short hair in hands. It felt melodramatic, but hell, life didn’t get more melodramatic than this.

 

“I’m talking to you! Answer me, say something! What? What do you want?”

 

While the figure made no movement, Jack heard a stealthy, slithering sound emanating from the dark folds of the robe. Cloth rubbing together, like arms shifting. But he could see no movement.

 

It occurred to Jack then to turn on the damn overhead light, but he hesitated, afraid of what the light might reveal. What if he then could see into the hood? What sort of Lovecraftian horror might be gazing back?

 

Jack released his hair and hugged his own body tightly, pounding his right fist against his chest. “Come on! Just do it, okay? You’re here for a reason, just get it over with!”

 

No response.

 

Jack shrieked. The madness of not knowing his fate grew like a geyser of India ink in his belly and torso, swirling black and heavy. He stamped his feet like a child.

 

“What are you waiting for? I’m here, I’m right here!”

 

Death offered no new sound, no motion.

 

The strain nipped at the edges of Jack’s sanity. In an ecstasy of tension, he gripped the sleeves of his shirt and tore them away. The old fabric whispered apart in his hands.

 

“What do you want from me? Huh? Are you the Ghost of Christmas Wasted or something? Speak!”

 

At that, the hooded figure slowly turned its head.

 

It was a slow, deliberate motion that obeyed all known laws of physics, yet at the same time, the gesture had an ethereal quality to it Jack could not pinpoint. The closest thing his addled mind could compare it to was the movement of a snake, which always disgusted him; they had no legs, how could they move? Here it was the same: the figure did not have a visible structure, no bone, muscle, sinew. How could it move?

 

Despite the movement, the darkness within the hood only appeared to grow thicker, revealing nothing. No pinprick ice-blue lights for eyes, no glimmering ivory fangs. Just darkness.

 

Jack raked his fingernails down his face and screamed. “What, what, what, what?”

 

He pulled thin layers of skin off, leaving burning tracks behind. It felt good, for a moment; felt good to feel, felt good to control, felt good to hurt. Pain meant he was still here.

 

So he did it again, and again. Bellowing rage at the dark figure, Jack fell to his knees and dug his fingers into his mouth. Pulled, hard, until the thin flesh gave way in a flood.

 

“What, what, what?”

 

By the time Jack stuffed his fingers into the soft skin below his eyes, he was well and truly insane. He tore his face to pieces until dead, lying prone against the thick-pile carpet in his office. It sucked eagerly at his blood.

 

The figure observed all this without a sound. When the deed was finally done, it rose gracefully from Jack’s leather chair. The robe fell neatly into place like drapery. It moved silently across the room and stepped easily over Jack’s mutilated body.

 

It was not Death, but Death’s assassin.

 

It was the not knowing that killed them.

 

THE END

Never Abandon the Blissful Value of Saying What Can’t Be Said

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MIXTAPE

by Tom Leveen

(c) 2022

 

A mixtape says the things you can’t. Or won’t.

Or sometimes: shouldn’t.

Mikey fretted over this daily as he sorted through song after song, classics and new hits, trying to compose his feelings with someone else’s music.

Some of it depended on his mood. Some days it was all AC/DC, which he knew Glorietta liked from back in the day. But this wasn’t the sort of situation where one could blithely record Highway to Hell onto the mix, even if it was one of her favorites. The title was just too . . . inappropriate.

He leavened today’s tape with some old R.E.M., thinking some of the lyrics of Driver 8 said a lot of what he wished to say: take a break, we’ve been on this trip too long.

He’d never say that to her. Even if he could muster up the courage and, hell, write the words down, they still wouldn’t come out right. He had way too much experience with that. Glorietta deserved his best.

Nirvana next? No, too abrasive. Poison? No, a power ballad didn’t work either, not today.

Checking the time—he did not want to be late, so as to maximize their time together—Mikey hurriedly chose some Midnight Oil, followed by U2. Classic stuff. Despite not the world’s biggest U2 fan, in his opinion, The Joshua Tree was one of the top great albums ever made.

Minutes ticked away as he painstakingly constructed the opus. He didn’t have a title for it yet; previous incarnations included A Fragile Flash of Lightning, riffing off Pink Floyd’s Delicate Sound of Thunder. Glorietta—she preferred “Glory”—had given him a brief laugh for that, which Mikey cherished. Last week he’d gone full metal-head, nothing but Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, Metallica, Skid Row, Queensrÿche, Flotsam and Jetsam . . . and called it Wish You Were Hair, bemoaning that he’d lost his own long locks some time ago and still feeling pretty pouty and petty about it.

Petty! Of course.

Wildflowers became the last song on side B. Glory belonged among the wildflowers, most definitely.

Mikey hesitated as he scrawled the song title on the lined white insert. Did Wildflowers imply too much? That he, Mikey, should be her lover?

No, he decided. Most of the lyrics seemed very pointed at wishing the best for the other person. If that happened to come from a place of pure love and affection and . . . okay, fine, lust . . . Glory wouldn’t be any the wiser.

He hoped. God, the last thing she needed right now his sappy confession of love. No way, man.

Mikey snapped the cassette into its case and ran for his bike. If he pedaled hard, he’d get there just in time.

He got to the hospital one minute after Glory’s visiting hours began. A little breathless, he peeked into her room to see if she was awake.

She was. Barely. The TV was on. Family Ties.

“Hey,” Mikey whispered, still peering around the open door, not wanting to come in without Glory’s permission.

“Hey, you,” Glorietta said, and motioned with her fingers.

It was all the strength she had, and it was all the invitation Mikey needed. He slid into the room and went to the side of the wide bed, where he slipped the case into her hand.

“I, uh, I made . . . I made this . . . um . . . it’s, it’s a new—”

Even in her emaciated state, Glory’s smile lit his insides on fire.

“You know, Michael, one of these days . . .” She had to pause to take a breath. “You’re gonna have to bring a Walkman. Remember those?” Another pause. “Or you could just send me a Spotify list.”

He shook his head. “Not the same.”

“No,” Glory said. “It’s really not. You’re right.”

She lifted the tape to her face, squinting. “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. Christ, Michael, you’re fifty-five years old, you better get on it.”

Glory smiled again as Mikey shuffled his feet. He wanted to say, “I did. I did find what I was looking for. Forty-five years ago when you moved in next door.”

But he couldn’t, and wouldn’t.

And, probably, oughtn’t.

All these years, nothing but friends. Through her various boyfriends, her first husband, her divorce, her second husband, him leaving her. Never having kids, career like a pinball in one of the old machines they used to play back in the neighborhood growing up. Then finally, this illness. He’d been the best friend he could. So he came every day with a new tape, and he’d keep coming until the inevitable end.

It was nearer than he cared to think about.

Glory gently put the cassette on a nearby table with several others Mikey’d brought over the past couple weeks. He almost helped her do it, her gesture was so weak. But he knew her stubbornness well. She would have given him a raft of shit for helping.

After the tape clattered mildly against the table top, Glory then stretched out her hand toward him.

“Michael.”

Perplexed, he took her hand. She was so cold.

“You don’t have to keep doing this.”

“Yeah, but, I . . . I mean, I do, I want to, I like to . . . unless you want me to stop.”

Glory shook her head weakly against the pillow. “No. Don’t do that. I’m just saying.” A pause. “You have a life. You don’t have to come if you don’t want.”

Mikey licked his lips, eyes darting. The words were right there, he could taste them in his mouth.

They wouldn’t come.

In a burst, Mikey snatched the new mixtape off the table and popped open the tiny radio-cassette player he’d brought on his first visit. He jammed the tape inside, slapped the tray shut, and pressed the play button.

Freddie Mercury said what he couldn’t. Mikey glanced at Glory, to see if she understood.

Glorietta pressed her lips together.

“Yeah,” she said quietly as the song played. “You’re mine, too.”

Mikey smiled, pulled a plastic molded chair to her bed, and sat down. Glory offered her hand again, and he took it.

She fell asleep an hour later in the middle of Tom Petty’s Wildflowers. Mikey stayed by her side until visiting hours were over.

He’d come back tomorrow. Maybe with some Beastie Boys.

 

THE END

Me and John Hughes in the same sentence

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I don’t have a lot to say about this review for the movie based on Party except…HELL YEAH!

“The Party” Review: A Modern Day Tale in the Spirit of John Hughes

 

And to top it all off the comic book based on Party is also coming out in the first part of next year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for being a part of all this!
~ Tom

What It Means To Make a Mixtape: How Adults Should Deal with Teen Drama

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This Halloween Was No Trick

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How was your Halloween? Mine was pretty good. My littlest had her first trick-or-treating extravaganza ever. She’s four now, which means she wasn’t really able to go trick-or-treating last couple years because of Covid. But she went last weekend and she made the most of it.

It was a mixed experience for me. I’m a big fan of Halloween, as some of you could probably guess. I’ve been catching up on my horror movies and so on.

There were a ton of people out there. That’s what made it a mixed bag for me. I don’t like crowds, not unless I’m the one standing up in front of them. (Then it’s totally okay.) But I just don’t do well with big groups of people these days. And there were a lot of people out. So frankly, I was pretty uncomfortable most of the night.

On the other hand . . .

It felt great. My heart was full. Honestly, I absolutely enjoyed and savored so many different people out together in the nice weather having a good time. Most people handing out candy were on their driveways, enjoying the evening. It was such a shift from the last couple of years.

I hope you were able to either pass out candy or have some yourself. I hope you had a good time. I hope the world was kind to you. That’s the thing about Halloween and those of us who love it. We love the scares, we love the ideas and the dressing up and the black lipstick and the skeletons and everything else. But in my experience, there are no more friendly, or approachable, or kind people in the world than fans of Halloween and horror. I don’t know if there’s a cause and effect relationship there or not, but most horror people I have met over the years I’ve been singularly cool.

I hope you had a wonderful Halloween, and Sarah would like you to know, it’s always a good time to trick or treat.

Take care,
~ Tom


P.S.
If you have avoided my horror stories thus far, let me recommend Those We Bury Back. It’s a quick read about a haunted house, inspired by some real events. Not scary, it’s more of a creeper, and I promise you a happy ending. Check it out here today.

When? Now.

Posted on

This image is a composite of all the pages of my first comic book, Beckett’s Last Mixtape, which will be launching soon on Kickstarter.

I spent a lot of money on this. I don’t know if anyone will want it.

But I’ll have a comic book based on one of my favorite characters from Party.

Totally worth it.

It was worth it when I blew thousands of dollars to produce Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 stage play for Chyro Arts Venue.

It was worth it driving to the tiny, antique town of Jerome with my wife a few weeks ago. Just for a few hours. (We found a great place for breakfast, and great place for fudge!)

That thing you want to do? Do it. Start today if you haven’t.

Dammit all, this is our only shot! Seize the day and all that. I don’t mean go skydiving or get a second mortgage to afford that European trip (although both of those are legitimate and entirely up to you).

That thing that sets your hair on fire. Do that.

You’ll be happier, and the world around you will be better for it.

Don’t wait.

Take care, be safe,
~ Tom