"I Am Legend" once more on the big screen

I'm posting early (Thursday instead of my usual Friday) because I've been ill lately and want to take tomorrow to rest. I have some energy now so... here goes!

In the past year or two one of my growing favorite science fiction authors has been Richard Matheson. His credits include scripts for The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and, his most famous and perhaps most influential work, the novel I Am Legend.

I Am Legend has once again been adapted for the silver screen and will be released into theaters tomorrow.

The previous film renditions of I Am Legend include The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price and The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston.

Why is Matheson worthy of my praise? The power and epic nature of his writing. His tales, while generally decent narratives, almost always takes on a meditative nature that looks into the reality of life and an individual's place in the universe. And I do mean the universe. Yeah, he can be that epic.

Not all of his writings are worthy of praise, however. He also wrote the novel that the Robin Williams movie What Dreams May Comes was based on. It was a very slow tale and more of a Jean-Luc Godard-style talking-heads piece than a real story. It didn't work for me.

He also scripted *ulp* Jaws 3-D. If you've not seen it, don't. It's not exactly the best movie in the franchise.

I'm hoping the new I Am Legend starring Will Smith will at least be decent. I can't say it will be. While Will Smith's movies have always done well financially, I find them generally far from the best science fiction ever made for film. I don't think I Am Legend will be bad, but I don't think I can expect it to carry the weight of the novel. Maybe I'll be surprised... maybe it will. One can only hope. And I'm willing to give it a shot.

Here's some stuff from off YouTube about Richard Matheson and I Am Legend.


A PIECE DISCUSSING RICHARD MATHESON:



THE OMEGA MAN TRAILER:



THE LAST MAN ON EARTH TRAILER:



THE NEW I AM LEGEND STARRING WILL SMITH (TRAILER):



RICHARD MATHESON ON DARK DREAMERS SPEAKING ABOUT HIS WORK:

Robots on Mars!!!

Here's a short documentary with an intimate look at NASA's plan to build a robot colony on Mars.

Bonus Post! Giant Robo

This is TOEI's orignal tokusatsu TV series for kids called Giant Robo. Here in the United States it was dubbed Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot.



SEE ALSO:

GIGANTOR

KAIJU FAN ONLINE

In the Far Future... There Can Be Only War!

I'm featuring two different games today. Both are sci-fi strategy games. The first is the new Warhammer 40K video game due out for the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP called Squad Command.

The other is a rival offering to 40K by the French game company Rackham. It's called AT-43.

WARHAMMER 40,000: SQUAD COMMAND:





AT-43 ACCORDING TO WIKI:

"AT-43: No one Escapes War! is a science fiction tabletop wargame using 28mm miniature figures and terrain to scale developed and published by the French company Rackham.

Released in December 2006, the game features pre-painted plastic miniatures of mechs and infantry units with corresponding cards showing the stats and gameplay options for each unit type."



Here's the newest expansion army. They're called Karmans:







U.N.A. FORCES:


THERIAN FORCES:




RED BLOK ARMY:

Robot Thanksgiving

Abraham Lincoln established Thanksgiving Day as a national holiday in the United States in 1863. In honor and in celebration of the holiday, here's the funniest 'virtual' robot fight in film history:



Movie: Eurotrip

Der Golem: Ancient Jewish Folktale, Opera and The Simpsons Did It

In conjunction with friend and comrade in nerdiness J. Ho, today he and I are posting about golems. I challenged him to a timed drawing, giving him scant few minutes to draw a golem. He posted the end product on his blog today.

For my part I'll be posting a few things about the golem, its history and pop culture references.

Perhaps through video games (most specifically role-playing games) we know the golem today as a humanoid creature made of stone or other such earthy materials. Here is the 'classic' image of the golem creature from the Dragon Quest video games:



The origins of the golem are similar to our modern idea of what a golem is. M-W.com defines the word 'golem' as: "an artificial human being in Hebrew folklore endowed with life". It is from this folklore that we get our modern golem.

The most famous and one of the earliest mass-media representations of the golem creature is the 1920 film The Golem: How He Came into the World and preceded by the 1915 film Der Golem (translated from German as 'The Golem' but originally released here in the United States under the title 'The Monster of Fate'). I found this on YouTube:



The basic plot of the golem tale is this: An antique dealer buys an old humanoid statue made of clay that was created by a Rabbi centuries before. By placing words written on paper into the open mouth of the golem, the golem will come to life and obey the written command. When the golem is brought to life by the antique dealer, it falls in love with the antique dealer's wife. Saddened the antique dealer's wife does not requite its love, the golem begins murdering people.

Here's an original poster for the film:


And here's a picture of how the golem was portrayed in the film:


If that picture looks familiar, it's probably because (in the immortal words of General Disarray): "The Simpsons did it!" In the 2006 Treehouse of Horror XVII episode of The Simpsons, one of the segments parodies the film. The segment was called "You Gotta Know When to Golem".

John Casken also wrote an opera called Golem that premiered in 1989, retelling the story of the creature with original music.

On a last related note: While looking for video of the golem, I found this on YouTube. This golem costume was hand-made from about five foam mattresses. Rad!




ADDITIONAL SOURCES:

Monstropedia

Voyage Dans La Lune -- A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès

Today's offering comes from the earliest parts of film history. "A Trip to the Moon" is widely acknowledged as one of the first, if not the first, science fiction film. Made in 1902 by Georges Méliès, a stage magician, the film was then hailed as a technological feat with astounding special effects including its blend of animation and live actors. The story is loosely based upon From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells, both being very popular at the time.



A Side Note: The band The Smashing Pumpkins made a relatively famous homage to the film with their music video Tonight, Tonight which can be viewed here.

Vikings vs Zombies Part 2 -- "Hunter of the Dead"

Sorry for the belated post today. My disrupted sleeping schedule has really thrown me off.

And now for Part 2 of "Hunter of the Dead"!


“Ordak!” Haffdann’s cries went unanswered. His hands had found the grip of a short sword and it was working well against the horrors raiding the huts for flesh. Strapped to the other arm was a shield he used to bash and push away the offending monstrous raiders.

Haffdann estimated the creatures’ numbers to be thirty, perhaps more, but seemed as a hundred score for no matter how he worked the blade against them, Haffdann could not send them to their graves.

Oil had sparked into flame. Great billowing black clouds roild before Haffdann’s eyes until he could make no sense of direction.

From out of dark mists came a form without features or with features hidden by the dark, curling fingers of smoke. Haffdann gripped his prized sword and shield, readied himself. “Come ye beast! Come be met by the steel of Haffdann the Frenzied!”
“Ho, Haffdann!” came a booming baritone from the shadows in shadowy smoke. “When last we met you were Haffdann the Pig-herder!”

Features resolved into view. Haffdann straightened, relaxing a bit, recognizing the insane Siggurd the Berserker.

“I do not know what these men are,” he said to Haffdann, “but by Tyr I’ve not had so much fun killing! They’re better than slaying Saxons!”

“You would like ‘em. They fight back.”

Siggurd stood over seven feet tall and had blazing red hair made redder still by blood and reflecting fire. His beard, as fiery as his braided mane, was shaved only at the chin and neck so as to appear his sideburns had overrun the sides of his face and hung low, braided beyond the jaw into two pointed horns that hung to his chest. In his hand he carried a war axe.

Siggurd used his free hand to slap Haffdann on the shoulder in a friendly gesture. Haffdann nearly fell over from the playful blow.

A creature melted from the darkness. Siggurd readied his axes and eyed Haffdann. “Choppy-choppy!” he said as he charged, swinging, not waiting for Haffdann. The beast’s head was cleanly separated from its body and fell to the snow, its mouth biting at the air. The headless body groped aimlessly.

Siggurd swung again. The blade sliced down through the shoulder of the headless body, cleaving through the chest and out the side of the torso. Ribs cracked and popped and half the torso fell away, its lone arm clawing desperately at the frosty ground being tainted red with what little blood the body was spilling.

With a third swing the legs came free, kicking helplessly.

“What wonderful enemies!” Siggurd bellowed. “Tyr blesses us this day with enemies that never stop fighting!”

Haffdann followed reluctantly as Siggurd pressed into the smoky shadows, spilling seas of blood.

* * * * *

Ordak stepped out of the hut, his face and furs stained with small splotches of red. Few of the monsters remained and through the choking smoke he could see Siggurd happily tending to them. Haffdann came running to his side.

“Thank the gods,” Haffdann huffed, his face now smeared with the gore of unholy battle. “Your woman… how fares she?”

Ordak said nothing. He did not so much as look at his friend. He stood silently staring at his feet, wondering.

Haffdann understood. He placed a gentle hand on Ordak’s shoulder and said, “Your sorrows are mine.”

Ordak found a wood pile and sat there. Ovbjorn approached a bow in his hand and a quiver strapped to his back. Siggurd, laughing, finished his dismemberings and joined them.

“A bow will leave you in want of a blade,” Siggurd told Ovbjorn.

“I didn’t get the chance to make that discovery myself.”

“Off hiding behind a yew tree, no doubt,” Siggurd frowned in disgust.

“Avoiding an enemy to discover the nature of my kin,” Ovbjorn defended.

Siggurd spit.

Ovbjorn gave no retort.

Siggurd looked to Ordak. “What weighs on him?”

Haffdann approached, speaking quietly, “His woman was taken this night.”

“All our women were taken this night and half our Viking brethren!” Siggurd replied in a not-so-soft tone.

“Siggurd!”

“Bah!” the berserker approached Ordak and squatted before him. “Ordak, friend, give me your ear. Now is the hour of lamentation, but in the hour that’s to follow we must choose what destiny to follow. There’s likely more of these creatures. Even if not, their origin must be discovered and our fallen brethren avenged, though they may be riding with the Valkyries to Valhalla as I speak this to you. Siggurd Saxonbane does not intend to allow this night’s bloodletting to go unchallenged. Those… beasts we met fight well and I love it. I must find more. I must find their origin.”
“There’s no reason we must think there could be more,” Ovbjorn said.

Siggurd stood, “And if we do not prepare for the possibility we will join our fallen kin. If that is your wish, then so be it. But if I am to fall to these creatures, it shall be in their hunting.”

Ordak grabbed Siggurd’s wrist and caught his attention. “What manner of beasts are they?”

Siggurd shook his head unknowingly.

“My grandfather,” spoke Haffdann, “if his tales are to be believed, told me once as a child of a creature that did not die outright for it was already dead. There are many variations on them, but they are all called draugr.”

“The walking dead,” added Ovbjorn ominously.

With that we know why they do not die,” Siggurd said. “We know our enemy better already.”

“They can never die,” added Haffdann. “except by fire and then drowning the ashes.”
“Then let’s start throwing the bit and pieces on these fires!” Siggurd called.
As they worked to pile the body parts of the draugr and their own dead kith and kin onto the fires, Ordak thought quietly.

As they watched the bodies burning, rags across their faces so they could more easily breathe, Ovbjorn spoke. “We have offended the dead. In some way we must have tread upon the sacred, now they hunger our flesh.”

“We don’t know that,” Haffdann replied as he and carried one last half-body to the flames. “I know this man,” he indicated the body as they threw it, wiggling, onto the fire. “I bartered with him for his daughter’s hand for my now dead son before the heavy snows came. These are not monsters. They were once men.”

“Who were his people?” Siggurd asked.

“The Danir over the moutains.”

“The creatures that attacked us this night, were they all once Danir?” ordak asked.

Haffdann did his best to peer into the flames and find faces. “Perhaps some, but not all.”

“Then we seek out our vengeance against the Danir. Over the mountains we go,” said Siggurd.

“No,” said Ordak, “We have a good ship and strong winds approaching to fill our sails. We ride the waters.”

“The winds will not last,” Haffdann said. “They never do. We four cannot row alone.”

“I will not leave my ship,” said Ordak. “And the waters will be safer.”

“What’s this? Does Ordak wish to run?” challenged Siggurd.

“No. Vengeance is poison curdling in my throat, but in these snows the mountains will kill us before we meet with the Danir.”

“As would four men at the mercy of Aegir.”

“I go the way of the mountains. If you three wish to join me, I ask only that you keep up,” Siggurd issued.

Haffdann lowered his head in thought, then looked up at Ordak. “The way of the mountains,” was all he said.

Ovbjorn looked upon Siggurd’s mass and his bloody axe. He wondered if they could stay instead, but knew they idea would be argued down. “I go the way of the mountains,” he spoke.

The burning pile of corpses and undead reflected in Ordak’s eyes. He watched, defeated. “I cannot fare the seas alone. Make the duties light upon yourselves: Load the rest of the bodies onto the ship and set it adrift and aflame.”

* * * * *

They worked into the early hours of the morning loading the longboat. They first unloaded every provision they could carry before piling on the bodies and ashes. Siggurd spilled oil all over the hull and bodies. They then waded waist-deep into the icy sea, pushing the ship free from shore and setting her adrift.

Ovbjorn stood on the shore with an arrow wrapped in rags soaked in oil and set afire. He shot into the air. His aim was true. The ship burned.

The four stood on the shore a long while, not speaking. They watched only.
After some times Haffdann spoke, “We should use our final hours of night to rest before we set out for the mountains.”

They all agreed.

Each turned from the shore except Ordak.

“Ordak, come,” said Haffdann.

“All that I was is now dead and gone,” Ordak spoke. “I, too, am now dead… or gone. Ordak’s people are all slaughtered and burned to ashes; his mate eaten alive but unholy monsters that were once men; his ship sinks, burning.

“I am no longer Ordak. Ordak is no more. Call me Ordak no more for he has died this day.”

Haffdann, fearing his friend losing his mind much in the way Siggurd does in battle, approached slowly and spoke softly, “Then what name takes you?”

“Call me now Urdgar, Hunter of the Dead.”

“Urdgar,” Ovbjorn’s voice was a whisper of misty morning air. “‘A Fate of Blades’,” he translated.

Siggurd slapped the now-named Urdgar on the back. Urdgar rocked under the weight of the loving blow. “Come Urdgar,” Siggurd said, “We must rest for tomorrow we slaughter.”

The mountains loomed in the distance. Cold snows began to descend in frozen fury. High on those mountains, speckled against their frosty peaks, yellow, dead eyes peered out of the darkness.

I hope you enjoyed! Watch for more tales of Urdgar the Hunter in the future!

Happy Halloween! -- An Old Halloween Story

Happy Halloween! To celebrate the holiday, I'm posting an older short story of mine. Originally published within the pages of If - E - Zine(tm) Issue Number 8 (last year's Special Halloween Edition), "Simple Simon" tells the tale of a farmer and his family's annual Halloween party. Enjoy and have a happy, fun and safe Halloween!


“Simple Simon”
© 2006-2007 by Charles Shaver. All rights reserved.


The moon glowed blue, bathing the landscape in dispirited monotones until every blade of dying autumnal grass arcing to and fro in evening breeze, every bough bowing to howling winds, every stone, every scurrying mouse and cricket seeking underground
shelter, every fallen leaf, every bit of September life was dripping sweetly with twilight. The blue light of the moon danced in and out and around hills, trees, homes; shocks of shadows went flying skyward, having spent their day buried beyond the topsoil, while shocks of corn tied to porch posts in celebration of harvest season crinkled and cracked, crying softly, naturally in the whisking wind, whispers of the dying time.

Still other shadows danced with their moonlit partners, hand-in-hand and cheek-to-cheek, in an odd waltz set to the tune of oncoming winter storms, music unheard yet played within the bones of every living thing in the countryside.
While winds chanted shadows swirled forming ghostly shades moving to trick the eye, forming dark creatures dodging between trees. And there, there! Beyond rolling hills, on the highest and farthest hill sat a structure creaking and moaning, moving with nature’s rhythms despite being man-made. Whispering winds, breath of the dead, pierced the sides of the old barn and flowed over its broken wooden back and through its broken wooden teeth to give it a howling voice. The barn groaned under its own weight. Its coughs and shudders sickly as color drained from cheeks, its red paint chipping away under chiseling ghost gusts.

It was a grand, glorious old barn surrounded by a graveyard of headstones made up of the foundations of other buildings long ago fallen and forgotten. While other homes still stood in this country, none were near in age or location to the old, dying barn, dying from a broken heart. It served little use to anyone any more. Except… once a year…

On or soon after the first of October every year Mr. Mulahey would come out to visit the barn with family or friends or farm hands, taking ever deeper breaths, pulling vital air into themselves so they may take up hammer, take up nail, take up broom and breathe life anew into the exhausted barn in preparation for the annual Mulahey Halloween Barn Dance.

The Barn Dance had been an affair for the good people of this part of the country for more than sixty years.

Look now! Beyond the horizon! Just past that ridge! Between those trees! Do you see it? See it coming on at us? A light! You do see it! A small glow… distant, distant… glowing like the moon, glowing when the moon hides behind gypsy clouds… it grows nearer! It comes to us. Closer still! Like an orb, a ball… like a will-o-wisp, don’tcha think? And as we watch it weaving, weaving, growing, glowing, approaching, causing the land to light up white, it descends slowly, disappearing into the old barn.

* * * * *

“How long ya been doin’ this?”

“Over sixty years.”

“No. I meant how long you been doin’ this?”

“Oh,” Simon, dressed in a long-sleeve checked shirt and denim jeans and work boots, said, “Tha firs’ year was ’88. I guess this one here will make it nineteen years.”

“Thassa long time.”

“That’s a long time,” Simon echoed.

Milo Silas, the questioning young man, was of ordinary size and looks. He wore a plain white t-shirt turned gray with work and sweat, jeans and cowboy boots.

“Every year,” Simon said as the two headed across open fields towards the barn, “I think I’m never gonna make it out here ta have another dance again. But then every year, ‘bout the end of September, when the winds shift and the sun cools and the cats seem more riled up, when I breathe in that autumn air it brings into my lungs something a little different, a little more fun and a lot of tradition. I think we need our traditions, ya know? Rituals. Holidays. Fourth of July has long gone and the aftertaste of summer hot dogs has faded. Something happens to the earth and we have to mark it somehow. Do something to show we know.”

Milo silently nodded in agreement.

The noonday autumn sun made the men glow orange as if they had eaten a few too many pumpkin pies, the lands glowed golden brown and the winds swept off the final heat from the land. It was as if the whole world had sighed in its relief from the hot summer sun.

“And I can’t help but ta feel good when I see people smile as they come on inta my barn. People dress up cuz they can. They smile at themselves with painted goblin faces. And somewhere out in that barn between nightfall and home, between punch cups and pumpkin carvings, we secretly, maybe unknowingly, conjure up some kinda magic. We make voodoo. We have fun.

“Now I ain’t sayin’ I’m saving lives out here or nuthin’. But makin’ people smile can’t hurt no one.”

Milo again agreed silently.

Approaching the barn Milo felt he was making a pilgrimage to a holy sanctuary, a piece of the past left standing by the magic Simon fondly spoke of. A caern, an apothecary of candy smiles and a Stonehenge of country living. This old barn wasn’t just a piece of the Mulahey family history, it was a piece of everybody’s history that ever walked through here or danced here or was invited to celebrate here. It was grand and generous of the Mulahey’s. It was grand and generous. Milo smiled.
The two men entered the rickety barn and stopped, staring. Staring up. Staring beyond the two lofts, up into the rafters.

“By God,” Simon whispered. “How’d he get up there?”

Plump and purple from the rafters did hang by his neck a dusty old man in weather-torn clothes.

“Dear God,” Milo whispered. “Who is he?”

The old man’s head, noose about the neck, hung to one side oddly, crookedly. He was ugly and stained with death, dangling like an overripe berry from a vine.

“Who is he?” Simon repeated Milo’s question.

“Who was he?” Milo corrected Simon and himself.

“Get that ladder,” Simon instructed. “Then run along and get Doc Dearborne.”

* * * * *

A few people had made the trek to gather in the barn, Doc Dearborne and Sheriff Arker among them. Daisy, Simon’s wife, had also come when she heard from Milo some tragic thing had happened out at the old barn. Milo had refused to return.

“Who is he?” Simon asked.

“Some hobo named Dusty Jim,” Sheriff Arker answered. “No clue as to a family name. He’s been through this area before. He loved the hard whiskey. One of my deputies talked with him a little last time he was through here, oh, I’d say about early last summer. Lost his wife near on a decade ago to a younger man. She took the kids. He never saw them again. Lost his job soon after. He was a mechanic or worked in a machine shop or something like that. Told my deputy he was killing hisself with booze cuz he couldn’t work up the nerve to eat a bullet. I guess he finally got the nerve.”

“Why here?” Simon asked. “Why my barn?”

The sheriff shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe cuz it’s away from everything and everyone.”
Eyes watched as an ambulance crew tucked Dusty Jim’s body into the back of their vehicle. Eyes followed as the ambulance slowly made its way across the field. It was in no hurry. No lights were blinding them, no sirens blared.

“Yep,” the sheriff said. “Cuz it’s quiet out here. Far from everything. The rope was here. The rafters. Nice, quiet, safe.”

Doc Dearborne explained, “Looks like he climbed up in them rafters, tied the makeshift noose and then either jumper or fell. Snapped his neck completely.”

“Dear God,” Daisy gasped. “Simon, we can’t have the barn dance this year. Not now. Not after this.”

“Ma’am,” the sheriff spoke, “It ain’t my place but I say don’t let some train-hoppin’ hobo ruin your plans.”

“They’ve already been ruined,” she said. “No one will want to come out here now. No one will come.”

Simon shook his head. “In all my years, this barn has seen many things die. Coupla cows, chickens I remember. Lord only knows how many mice and bugs. Even had a goat die out here once when my granddaddy still used this barn. But I don’t remember ever hearin’ a man losin’ his life out here.”

“I best go,” said Doc Dearborne. Simon shook his hand and thanked him before he left. Then the Doc disappeared out across the field much like the ambulance had.

“I best go, too,” said the sheriff. “Happy Halloween.”

The barn emptied out. Only Simon remained with his wife.

“No one will come,” Daisy whispered.

* * * * *

Alex was a local farmer, much like Simon, but every year he planted a new patch of pumpkins for the Halloween season. Simon bought all his pumpkins from Alex. Like Simon, Alex had inherited his land and occupation from his family. He was tall and young and hard working. A few freckles still spotted his face while age lines hid deep below the skin, waiting to burst out. His red hair blazed and mixed in, fitting in, with the autumn sunsets.

Every October, Alex would load his pumpkins onto a flatbed trailer, pull them out to the side of the road that ran past his house, placed a coffee can with a hole cut in its plastic top and a sign taped onto it that read:

PLACE MONEY HERE
THANK YOU
HAPPY HALLOWEEN

He never asked much for his pumpkins and he always sold a lot. Simon was his biggest buyer. So when Simon pulled his old pick-up alongside the pumpkin-laden trailer, Alex came out to meet him.

“Simon! How are you?”

The two exchanged handshakes and smiles.

“Good, good. And you?”

“Can’t complain.”

“How many you got for me this year?” Simon surveyed the landscape of pumpkins across the flatbed.

“Same as every year: As many as you want.” Alex smiled and smiled.

“I think I’ll take the usual thirty.” Simon lowered the tailgate of his truck and the two began picking and loading pumpkins.

“How’s Daisy?” Alex asked.

“Good, good. How’s Marlette?”

“She’s fine. Inside with the kids teaching them to bake pumpkin pies from scratch.”

“God, I love Marlette’s pumpkin pies!”

“Why ya think I married her?”

The two men shared a laugh.

Then Alex said, “I heard what happened out to your barn.”

Simon thumped a pumpkin and smiled at it. “Yeah.”

“It really happen?”

Simon lost his smile. “Yeah.”

“Sorry to hear it.”

“Me too,” Simon placed three fat pumpkins onto his truck to Alex’s one.

“You expectin’ the usual crowd?” Alex asked.

“Not so much, maybe. People get funny about things.”

“Yeah.”

The two worked on, loading plump gourds one after the other.

“How many you expectin’?” Alex asked.

Simon stopped. “I dunno really.”

Alex and Simon exchanged glances.

“Simon,” said Alex. “How long we been friends?”

“Well, I been buyin’ from you since you started growing these things when you was six. That’s what, nearly twenty years? It’s been mostly business between you and me but after twenty years I’d gotta say somewhere along the way we’d had ta have become friends.”

Alex smiled, and then frowned. He picked up another pumpkin and Simon began loading again. “Simon… I don’t think I’m gonna make it out this year.”

Simon kept quietly loading.

“It’s not you, or even the suicide,” Alex explained. “It’s just… my kids got wind of it and it might spook ‘em out right to be there. This year, least ways. But next year… next year you sure can bet I’ll be out that way! We all will!”
“I can understand that. Especially with young’uns.”

Simon loaded a huge, fat, round pumpkin onto his truck, patting it. “This one’s a beauty.”

It glowed fire-orange and had a golden stem with a clean face. It seemed about to burst into smiles without a carved face, smiling while waiting for a smile to be carved. Simon smiled back at the gorgeous gourd.

“Simon,” Alex broke the enchantment the pumpkin had been weaving. “I’ve talked to folks. I… I-I don’t think hardly nobody’s gonna go to the dance this year.”
Simon frowned, patting the pumpkin. His voice grew soft, serious. All the drywall housing that collects and protects a man fell away from Simon’s heart. “What do you suggest I do?”

Alex hung his head. They loaded on the last of the thirty pumpkins. Simon dropped some bills into the coffee can.

* * * * *

For the next three weeks Simon worked alone on the barn. He layered the dirt floor with fresh straw, set bales about for seating, got a big wash tub for apple bobbing, set up tables for food, secured a pulley and rope for a jack-o-lantern piñata; he did everything that needed to be done. And he did it alone.

“No one will come,” Daisy would tell him every morning. “No one will come,” she said every night.

“No one will come,” she said as he went out the front door of the house on All Hollow’s Eve. “No one will come!” she yelled after him as he drove off in the truck, headed for the barn.

* * * * *

Boris Pickett sang on the boom box. The fresh straw crackled under his feet. Oil and battery-powered lamps set the mood. The last few weeks were some of the loneliest Simon had ever spent. Now he stood in his family’s old barn. Alone.

Simon sat on a stool at one of the tables, pulled the big, beautiful pumpkin that smiled before having a smile close, dug in his pocket for his jack-knife and carved.
Early wintry winds howled outside the barn. An owl sounded his night sounds, a moaning, questioning voice carried on and stretched out by winds in ghost tones. Shadows grew into witches dancing, prancing upon a landscape going dead from the great Fall. The barn glowed from within, sending spears of light into the heart of darkness, bubbling blackness troubling the moon, chasing it to hide behind clouds.
And look! A sphere, a sphere, a will-o-wisp bobbing, exiting the barn. Turning, turning, glowing, growing smaller with distance until at last it disappears between trees, behind hills, beyond horizons.

Ghosts, Zombies, Vikings, Bradbury, Kaiju... It's Halloween!

Halloween will soon be here. Does anyone have any idea what they're dressing up as? If you want to share, please do so in the comments! I'll be posting pics of me and my Halloween sometime soon after the holiday.

Please remember to stop by www.TheLordShen.com to check out If - E - Zine(tm): The Free Online Magazine of Thrilling Speculative Fiction! Issue Number 9 was published earlier this month and is this year's Special Halloween Edition. Within it's printable and completely FREE pages are three short stories and a kaiju rpg fighting game called Kaiju Katana: Monster Maker(tm).

Please check it out if you can. It's most appreciated.

And remember, this Friday I will be posting Part 2 of "Hunter of the Dead" -- a short story from the pages of If - E - Zine(tm) about Vikings in a zombie-filled apocalyptic world!

Now, enjoy the opening sequence of Ray Bradbury's animated Halloween classic: The Halloween Tree!



ADDITIONAL NOTES AND LINKS:

On a side-note, I recently finished the major work on my first novel. It's a science fiction piece set in the future where technology is virtually outlawed. I suppose I'm bragging a bit here, but I also know some of you good people may actually be interested by this little tid-bit. I'll be shipping it off to publishers and trying to get it sold soon.

Also please be sure to check out If - E - Zine's MySpace if you should happen to have a MySpace account yourself.

BONUS POST! In Search Of... Leonard Nimoy and The Amityville Horror!

Be safe this Halloween!

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

"Hunter of the Dead" -- Vikings vs Zombies!!!

Today's post comes once more from the webpages of If - E - Zine(tm) Issue Number 9. I offer you the first two pages of "Hunter of the Dead" in which Urdgar, a Viking, finds himself suddenly thrust into a zombie-filled apocalyptic world! This is part one of two. Watch for part two next Friday! Enjoy!


“Hunter of the Dead”
© 2007 by Charles Shaver. All rights reserved.

“It was a time of Vikings. The bitter breath of Frost Giants bedeviled the landscape. On the horizon came the shambling hordes of the dead.”
- From the Tales of Ugarth

A quiet snow fell upon the small collection of huts. Haffdann and Ovbjorn, dressed in furs, busily loaded provisions onto the longboat.
“Ya think Ordak will be out soon?” Ovbjorn’s baritone boomed even as a whisper.
“Give him way,” Haffdann said. “His wife has taken ill. Let him tend to her. We can load this alone.”

“We need more hands. Our men number too few. We’ve not even enough men for the oars.”

“With this air? Feel it. A storm comes and Thor rides with it just beyond our range. We’ll not need oars so long as our hempsails hold.”

A figure exited a small hut some distance away.

“Quiet,” said Haffdann. “Ordak comes now.”

Ordak was a tall man, though not taller than the hardy lot of men he called upon for heritage. The snow packed, crunching beneath his massive feet. His mane was long, brown and like a bear’s. Where man ended draped furs began was unclear. His eyes were emeralds and his skin pale leathers. He showed some youth, though the girth of age was filling him at the waist and cheek.

His voice was like a wolf’s, husky and growling. “What’s the wind tell you, Haffdann?”

“Our viking will be met by Thor.”

“We ride with Thor,” Ordak repeated.

“How’s your woman?” Haffdann asked softly.

Ordak eyed him but said nothing.

More figures moved through the shadows of night. At first three, then ten. Ovbjorn saw them first.

“Ya think our lousy oarsmen are comin’ to help?” he asked.

“Maybe Sigurd drank them stupid and has convinced them all to an early start,” Ovbjorn said. Ordak and Haffdann laughed.

A scream came to them as a banshee’s wail in the night.

“Fredierike!” Ordak yelled compulsively. His muscles tensed, launching him from the longboat and onto the soft snowy sands of the shore. His thick thighs contracted and stretched. He ran towards his hut, Ovbjorn and Haffdann trailing behind.

Another scream, this time from another hut and male. Ordak slowed in confusion before pressing on towards his woman.

He called for his wife once more. More screams filled the night.

“Raiders!” called Ovbjorn, but Ordak was as a hawk. No shape, no form, no shadow filled his vision. Only thoughts of his woman remained. His feet dug at the snow. His muscles churned. Death was on the air, in his nose as his world went red with horror and rage.

He plowed into the hut. There he found three men naked and pale as if with illness tearing flesh from his crying, dying mate. She screamed with frenzy and fear.
He paused in horror, cursed, “By the gods!”, then his muscles rippled beneath flesh, springing him through the air. He snatched one of the pale offenders tight by the head with both hands. One hand came away full of wispy, dry hair. Unthinking, he cocked his enemy’s head back with his still clutching hand and delivered a heavy blow with his fist, hair still in his hand. The man’s jaw broke with a snap and Ordak pushed him away.

The other two pale men looked up, blood spilling and spraying from their mouths. Their eyes were pure yellow with mad black tentacles spearing towards a pupilless center. Their flesh hung loosely from their bodies.

“By the gods,” Ordak cursed once more under his breath. “By what madness hast thou spawned?”

They were on him, each grabbing an arm. Dirty, gray nails dug into his forearm. Ordak whipped about until one fell crashing away. Ordak grabbed the other by the chin and forehead, twisting until its neck popped once, twice, thrice before throwing the creature against a wall of the hut.

Ordak stood over his bloody wife. Crimson bubbles gurgled from her mouth and an open wound at her neck. Her breath wheezed once, twice then faded. Ordak felt some sense of her hover in the air nearby. When the feeling faded, something faded from Ordak’s own heart.

A small shuffling of feet whipped Ordak’s head round. The three inhuman yet human-looking creatures were moving to stand once more.

“How is this possible?” Ordak cried. He leapt from bedside to the fire beside which lay his hatchet. He it up and it slipped into a position of comfort on its own as he yelled, “I’ll rend you with my steel!”

He became a dervish of bladed wind, a wintry whorl of biting death. The hatchet, spinning, lopped off a piece of one creature’s skull. It kept coming after Ordak.
Ordak screamed, swinging, cleaving off the arm of another. It kept coming.

Changing tactics, Ordak swung low to cut the leg off the third creature at the knee. It toppled and had to crawl using it’s hand and one remaining leg, but it kept coming.

With a lifting boot, Ordak kicked at the legless one and sent it flying into a wall. The hut shook with the clangor and blast.

Each time Ordak swung he hit.

The creatures barely bled, screamed none and kept coming.

“Demon spawns of Hel!” Ordak screamed and chopped, chopped and screamed until only bits and pieces of fleshy-splattered ichor covered the walls and the floor of the hut.


Watch for Part Two next Friday!