Spleen-Mart™


Store Home


Audio


Short Fiction


Magazines


Market

Killing Time - Horror E-Rag™: Previews

Issue 2-5


1) Letter from the Editor

This issue is the hardest one to write as a whole. There is just something about the season that says, "You don't want to work." The chill of spring is still with us, there's dull drab weather full of rain and heavy cloud cover, yet there is that lazy it's almost summer, it's almost time to have a big huge holiday feeling. They say that your school years always stay with you. If they were talking about the desire to take two months off in the summer and do nothing then they were right.


2) Mr. Madman, Bring Me a Dream

Dream a little dream, don't ask what it means. There is tonnes of debate over the real truth behind dreams in the real world. In fiction it is an entirely different matter. In fiction, dreams represent one more layer to the story. In horror, dreams represent one more scare. Dreams, or perhaps more precisely nightmares, are chaotic things. This chaotic nature prevents some of the functions that a dream may provide to a story from being used in non-horror fiction.


3) Horror Cinema Autopsy #3

Warning: May be unsuitable for some readers. The second page on contains mature subject matter, disturbing situations, and coarse language. Reader Discretion is Advised.

In 1973, one day after Christmas, the world (well the US and Canada) bore witness to what would later be called "The Scariest Movie of All Time". The film caused mass chaos in the theatres as viewers screamed, fainted, and generally went hysterical making it not only the scariest but also one of the most controversial. This response was from the people who wanted to see the film, not the people who would deride it as pure evil and a tool of Satan from day one that the novel was written two years previous to the film's release. These were the horror-craving public reacting this way.


4) Burnt Corn

Kerri Carella thudded into the side of her little blue Civic. She scrabbled for the door handle as a low moan began to fill her ears. The sound reached a fevered pitch and Kerri stopped and put her back against the car window. She looked up and down the road but there was nothing to see, and no one or no thing approaching. The sound tapered off slightly. She turned around to try and open the door again. It was with the strengthening return of the sound that she realised...


5) Molotov

Kevin hunched over his desk intent on what he was doing. He didn't notice the teacher watching him from the front of the room. He looked furtively to the left. Susie had her head stuck in her reader and wasn't paying him any attention. He looked to the right and blinked against the bright sunlight streaming in from the window. Something was moving outside. Kevin sat up straight and watched the homeless guy moving slowly up the street.


6) Review: Thir13en Ghosts

Thir13en Ghosts is a remake of a 1960 film of the same name. Arthur Kriticos, widower and father of two, inherits a house from a recently deceased uncle that he barely knew. His Uncle Cyrus Kriticos was an eccentric who was said to have squandered the family fortune. Unknown to Arthur, Cyrus was a ghost hunter and he captured them as trophies. Ghosts normally cannot be seen although the more powerful ones can affect the world around them. Cyrus had special glasses with which ghosts can be seen...


7) Review: Wraith: The Oblivion

Players will create characters that have died and are now ghosts. The truth of the game is that those who look for death to be an out, a way to end suffering, or move on to greener pastures, are in for a horrific surprise. Death is not the end. Heaven is not near to hand on the other side of the veil of life, in fact it may not even exist and seeking it out may get one a fate worse than death. Being dead is a new experience to be mastered.


8) PSY3007 Act #5

Ben returned from the public library with his mind spinning and his arms full of local history books. Silas Jones had been a wonderful source of useless information, but his collection of local information was stunning to say the least. Ben took the books straight up the back stairs and into his room. He dug into them straightaway without even taking his jacket off. After a while he noticed how warm it was and took the jacket off and dropped it to the floor without a glance.


9) Hangman's Noose #5

The reality is that we may never understand that sly smile on the face of the Hanged Man. Fortunately we have a much easier time when it comes to reality and fiction. Horror is all about creating false realities with as much reality as we can actually fit in. The more real a story is the more we can suck the audience into it. It's all about that little something called "suspension of belief". If there is enough reality and only a little unreality the story goes down smooth...



Return to the Item



Store HomePrivacy/TermsBattered Spleen Productions™