It’s almost time to say goodbye to our lovely zombies. But not just yet—
Home » Horror
Category Archives: Horror
“iZombie,” Season 3, Episode 11, “Conspiracy Weary”
“Fear the Walking Dead”, Season 3, Episode 3, “TEOTWAWKI”
“Fear the Walking Dead”, Season 3, Episode 2, “The New Frontier”
With the new site come new recaps! And it’s time for some zombie love—
It’s My Party…
Well, that didn’t turn out the way I expected.
Needless to say things did not go as I had wanted. By about eleven thirty I knew what was going to happen, so I left the party I was at and walked home. I didn’t cry walking home: I was already cried out by that time. I pretty much knew what to expect when I woke up, but what I didn’t expect was the state that I worked so hard to keep blue had flipped in the middle of the night. Yeah, that’s not a good feeling.
So I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of people who are thinking this is going to be the bees knees and things are going to get back to the way they used to be. And that’s what really bothers me: things will get back to the way they used to be. I’m old enough to remember how they used to be–and they weren’t all that fucking great. Particularly if you aren’t white, male, or Christian. Well, at least I have one of those properties covered…
I don’t have any answers. I know a lot of people are going to try to frame this as the common man doing away with the political establishment. What is really going to turn into is a lot of hate, a lot of misery, and a lot of turning back the clocks to get rid of things that some of us fought for fifty years to put into place. It really makes it hard to be optimistic about the future when you think about this, because to me, this is really nothing more than the last grasp of the Angry White Man trying to get back what he felt was his. And now that it seems that they’ve got it, shit is likely to get real dark in the next few years as they struggle to hold on to it.
Are we going to see a rise of the protests we had in the 1960s? Going up against the newly militarized police that we have, these could turn into real bloodbaths. I don’t know if that’s going to happen: too many people have gotten use to hashtagging their protest because it’s a hell of a lot easier to do while you’re sipping a latte at Starbucks. I missed out on all the protest of the 1960s and 70s, but I damn sure remember them. I remember people getting shot; I remember people getting teargased. I’m not sure if this generation’s up for that sort of thing and I know my generation’s too goddamned old for that. But who knows: maybe I still have something left in me. Maybe, at my age, with my suicidal impulses, I won’t give a shit if I get shot protesting for rights I shouldn’t have to protest anymore.
This was supposed be a happy day for me. Today was one year ago that I changed both my name and my gender marker. I was really looking forward to the future living out my life as the person I’m supposed to be. Today, who the hell knows? I know I’ll make it until my daughter’s graduation, because I want to see her graduate. After that, though? We’ll see. I’ll see if it’s worthwhile going on.
They say it’s darkest before the dawn, but I think this because a lot of people have things turned around due to getting off of Daylight Savings Time.
Right now everything seems dark to me.
Demonstrations of Death: Bloody Good Show
Before anything else goes down, there’s a little something that popped up on my Facebook time line today, and that something has to do with historical timelines. I bring this up because one year ago today I posed The Coming of the Chestnut Girl, and we finally discovered the identity of The Chestnut Girl, about Kerry’s attachment to Annie through their dreams, how he first expressed something most important to her.
Of course that little coming out session led to my kids getting confronted by Helena as soon as they were done pouring their hearts out, and before long they’d find someone trying to rip their hearts out, because bad guys are assholes. Not to worry thought, ’cause my kids were trained up enough that they managed to keep everyone from dying, and eventually Kerry learned (1) that someone wanted him to be a Dark Witch and (2) to stop overthinking everything.
What a difference a year makes–
Like almost a quarter of a million words difference.
I eventually wrote just over eighteen hundred words yesterday, and this section I’m showing today is all about practical demonstrations, and it starts off in a bit of a snarky way . . .
(All excerpts from The Foundation Chronicles, Book Two: B For Bewitching, copyright 2015 by Cassidy Frazee)
Kerry looked to Annie as she looked back. She half-shrugged her head to the right. “How do you feel?”
“You guys don’t have to do this.” Helena stepped so she was almost between them so she could speak more confidentially. “Like Annie said, you’re not here to show off.”
“True, but—” Kerry quickly glanced to his right, then between Annie and Helena. He lowered his voice. “I’m tried of Lisa’s crap.”
Annie nodded and spoke in the same hushed tones. “So am I.”
“Then it’s settled.” Helena returned to her spot to Kerry’s right. “Since I brought a few homunculi for those students who might be ready for a go at a quick test of their abilities, you’ll be able to see what my minions can do.” She glanced to her far left. “Annie, would you mind demonstrating the Exsanguination spell? I’ve not actually seen you do this on a full homunculus, and I would love to see it in action. I hear your spell is . . .” The right corner of her mouth curled upward. “Killer.”
Annie smiled darkly at Helena’s inside joke. “Of course, Professor.”
Who says Helena doesn’t have a sense of humor? It’s just a little snark between Guardians, is all–and if you don’t believe Annie isn’t thinking of herself as a Guardian by now, you don’t know my Chestnut Girl. As with all things involving her, it’s eyes on the prize, and this prize has a big “G” on the ID.
So let’s get Annie up there first with her killer spell:
Helena pulled out a tablet and began scrolling through something on the screen. A moment later one of the cabinets that were used for holding homonculi appeared about twenty meters from the group. “Since Ramona knows how much you all love those training zombies, she cooked up a batch this week just for you.” She tapped the screen a few times, then nodded at Annie. “You go first.”
“Yes, Professor.” She examined the cabinet as she stepped about five meters away from the other students. “Tracker homunculus?”
“Oh, yeah.” Helena grinned. “Those always give people an incentive to be good.” Her finger hovered over the tablet display. “Ready?”
Annie looked straight ahead, flexing her fingers. “Yes, Professor.”
“Here goes.” She tapped the display.
Right off the bat, when Annie says, “Tracker homunculus,” the students watching should have grown nervous. Then you watch Annie standing there like she’d ready to beat the hell out of someone, and that should have been Nervous Moment #2. So let’s open the door and see who’s about to try and lay the smack on Annie.
The door opened and the homunculus stumbled out. Annie was well acquainted with the type: a girl-like humanoid about her size dressed in a school uniform and appearing to be about a week dead. Like the ones Kerry and she had trained with in the past, this one didn’t stink of rotting flesh, though Annie half expected that at some point Helena would throw a few like that at them to test their concentration.
The tracker zombie keyed on Annie and snarled, then began shambling towards her. She was aware that these homunculus moved faster than they appeared to move, but in the short time she’d had to set up Annie knew what she wanted to do to this thing. All of them want some sort of an exhibition— She pushed her hair back over her shoulders and began to craft.
The zombie girl was about four meters from Annie when two black ribbons eased down from the shadows and wrapped around the homunculus’ upper arms. The zombie snarled and thrashed, but couldn’t free itself from Annie’s spell. It stumbled forward another three meters, finally jerking to a stop about a half meter from the unmoving, unwavering Annie. With Annie close enough to touch it reached out, trying to get hold of her so it could carry out its instinct to bite.
Annie stood in front of the angry, snarling creature, showing no emotion. Once she was certain the homunculus was secure she reached out and took the zombie’s hand in her right and pressed it down hard. It was only as she began crafting the transformation spell that a slight smile finally appeared upon her face.
Slowly the zombie’s hair changed from the the dark brunette to a light blond almost the identical shade of Lisa’s hair. Annie knew it wasn’t necessary to go this far to make a point, but as like Kerry she’d grown tired of the girl’s crap, and while she didn’t know if the argumentative girl would get the point Annie was about to make, she knew others in their level would.
The little sorceress inhaled deeply, clearing her mind. What she was about to do next she’d done before, and under far different, more stressful, conditions. She focused her energy and pulled in the dark energy she needed finish crafting her Exsanguination spell. All that remained was for her to activate the spell with her will . . .
She raised her left hand close to her face and pointed her finger at the snarling face of the zombie.
So the kids wanted to see stuff, but they weren’t likely expecting Annie to go all Natural Born Killer on this simple homunculus. Sure, it’s enchanted to make you go unconscious the moment it bites you, because you should always know that if this were real–and who’s to say this isn’t in this world?–you’d be Zombie Chow.
But Annie’s taking this shit to another level. First, she shows she can truss up her zombie and that she has no fear it’s going to free itself from her shadow ribbons. Then she works in her little bit of transformation magic she’s learned from Kerry and gives her homunculus the same shade of hair as Lisa.
And then she gets serious . . .
Blood immediately began gushing from the homunculus’ nose, ears, and mouth. The snarling increased as the creature’s head began whipping about, spraying Annie’s face and the upper half of her uniform jacket and blouse with flecks of blood. Annie gripped the creature’s hand and held it steady as the homunculus’ clothing began soaking up the blood seeping from its body. In a few seconds the creature’s eyes filled with blood and sprayed away from its face as a huge burst of fluids doused the floor under its feet. The homunculus jerked three times and went limp a few seconds before falling completely.
Annie took two steps back from the zombie before turning and presenting a bloody visage to her fellow students—some who were gasping, some who were retching. She swiped blood from her eyes and flicked it to the floor before waving her hand back over her shoulder to kill the shadow ribbons. “I hope—” She walked towards Helena as the lifeless zombie homunculus collapsed with a loud thud. “—that was what you expected, Professor.”
Helena nodded and did her damnedest to keep the smile on her face from being seen by anyone but Annie and Kerry. “That was was far more than expected, Annie.” She waited until Annie, bloody and smiling, stood at her left before nodding towards Kerry. “Give me a minute to jaunt this mess away, then it’s your turn.”
That Annie, she knows how to show off when she wasn’t intending to show off. The thing is Annie doesn’t show off, and everything she did had a point–
“And I do hope you bitches saw that point . . .”
Everyone in the room got to see Annie’s signature move, and managed to see it in a way that didn’t involve them screaming and running for their lives, as they likely would have done the first time Annie kicked this sucker off when it was meant to mean something. Sure, the shade throwing wasn’t necessary, but as Helena once said, one of the best things you can get for yourself is a bad ass rep, and Annie certainly added to that one.
Up next, Kerry–
Just as soon as they bloody zombie is out of the room.
The Country of the Blind
Seriously, I was going to have something here for you to read–well, technically, I do have something for you to read and you’re reading it now. But no, I was gonna work on the novel, and even got eighty words into it, before I was massively side tracked–
Last night I was finally attacked online for being trans.
It was really kinda of strange and stupid how it came up, because the troll–and I have no other word for her–rose up from out of nowhere and just started lobbing non sequiturs at me in a thread on Facebook that had nothing to do with anything even remotely LGBTA. She was just like, “You’re not a woman. You don’t know what sex you are,” and then threw in a Caitlyn Jenner jab because of course you have to do that if you wanna keep your Transphobic Card current these days.
I commented back to this person, but in a rather snarky and comical way–at one point she said I didn’t know what my type was, because of dating or some shit, and I told her it was Times New Roman. She’s never tried to engage me directly, because that would require digging into her bag of tricks and actually coming up with something intelligent to say, and we all know that wasn’t gonna happen.
And then, come to discover, someone else in the same group, in another completely unrelated thread, decided to make an ultra snarky comment about me being the only person in the group who tucks “her” penis. First off, how would she know? Does she work for the NSA and she’s Secret Squirreling my ass when I dress in the morning? And second: for the record I don’t bother tucking ’cause there ain’t enough there to make tucking worth my while. The strangest damn things people come up with, I’m tellin’ ya.
A lot of people came to my defense, which was heartening, and I did ask them on a few occasions to keep it classy and not get pulled into the growing whirlpool of ignorant suck. Remember: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. It’s good advice that’s true in any situation where you’re dealing with slack-jawed mouth breathers.
I’ve expected that sort of thing to happen for a while, and given I’ve been really public on social media of late, I expected the bigots and haters to get their spine up and say something. And it will happen again, of that I’m certain. But so what? As I told this person last night, she sounded a lot like my grandparent telling me “the truth” about minorities, and when they died their took their ignorance with them, and she could expect the same treatment. Not to mention I have friends from various ethnic and religious backgrounds who probably hear far worse shit like that on a daily basis. If that’s the case I’m in good company.
I won’t ever let these people get the best of me because they are wrong: that’s all there is to that deal. Flap those jaws, fool, but don’t expect me to get bent out of shape and start yelling back at you. It won’t ever happen. If there is one thing I’m pleased with it’s who I am as a person–and you, loser, had nothing to do with me getting to this point. By attacking me you’re going straight to the ad hominem, and that means you instantly lose any moral high ground you believed you possessed. As I told this person last night after she accused me of attacking her when I said she was a bigot, “You pushed that button and opened the door: I only kicked it wide open.” Ah, yup.
Tonight I’ll get back to my kids and their instructors, one whom, as an A Level, dragged a girl by her hair from the Dining Hall to the Rotunda to “have a talk” because the dragged girl made the mistake of calling the instructor a racial slur. I would truly love to do that same thing to the haters, but hey, we can’t have everything, right? But I’ll be back to Salem this evening–I promise.
In the meantime I’m sorry I haven’t the time for your shit: I’m too busy being me.
