Paint the Town Red

Now past gloaming, and into tenebrous seeming, the cloak of darkness has fallen across our land. We slide slowly into the belly of night on a stately and nightmarish procession towards the plutonian heights of midnight and the advent of the witching hour. Dread and fell things stalk our world, sure and safe below the onyx sky. They wait in shadowy hollows, waiting, hunting and mayhaps even preying upon that thing which is man. But while some may thing it wise to lock the doors and cower in our quaint fortresses of brick and mortar, we instead sally forth into the Stygian murk. We festoon our vulnerable and fleshy forms in gruesome masks and frightful frippery, so as to scare aware these vaporous horrors. We carve the faces of gurning monstrosities into vivid orange gourds and leave them to stand sentinel before the gateways of our fastnesses. Or we hack the essence of a face into the hard and unyielding flesh of turnips and swing these Snanny Lanterns by our sides as we go a galumphing in the gloom. As so we bravely, perhaps even foolishly, hold make the monsters for the night.

All Hallows Eve is weird.

This month I tried my hand at ominous and spooky horror, which, as I have mentioned in previous years, is not an area I am particularly well versed or practised in. I don’t like the fear and the scares. It’s all well and good when I reading it, it’s just when it stops, and I’m left alone with my thoughts and the encroaching dark. That’s when Mister Imagination springs into terror overdrive. But I had a bash all the same and don’t think I did too bad a job of it. Mick also went down the spooky route and penned something truly eerie. Enjoy!

The Rogue Verbumancer – Nothing good follows the arrival of a corvid

The Mick – Dance, Devil. Dance!

James Clayton – The Phantom Pains of Duane Jenkins. <Edit: Added 13th Jan 2015>

Remember to check back tomorrow for the start of November’s Pictonaut Challenge!