To whom it may concern

It's the 14th of the month, and that's the date we put aside to think about all those amazing minor characters, places, organisations and general backdrop that make Eerie so compellingly watchable.

This month's theme is:

DEADWOOD PARK

It's Tuesday, so today you get a choice between two prompts. Pick one, combine both, pit them against each other - on Tuesday, you choose!

This week, your options are:

Deadwood Park versus Edgar Allen Roe Boulevarde

The things that were not ducks but instead the duck-shaped fingertips of some vast and lurking thing that made it's home in the muck at the bottom of the reflecting pool in Deadwood Park were ragged and bleeding, leaving pink trails in the white-crested water as they sank beneath the surface, desperate to escape their attackers.

Their attackers, who actually were ducks, bobbed and dived and bit at their retreating enemies, but finding themselves unable to follow once the false fowls vanished below ground, contented themselves with a victory lap of their reconquered territory, accompanied by some very derisive quacking.


Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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It was a beautiful summers' day despite being the middle of February, and the carnivorous roses were in full bloom, their petals lush and vibrant and gloriously pink after a full morning feasting on the trapped and shrivelled corpses of a half-dozen joggers.

Weatherman Wally sat on one of the white-painted benches that lined the path through the rose garden, eating a sandwich while being careful not to make any sudden movements. All around him, signs warned of the risks posed by undertaking any high-speed activity while in the presence of man-eating plants.

A shame the runners visited before dawn.

Ongoing Verse: Weather

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The man-eating water horses that made their homes in the clear streams and babbling brooks of Deadwood Park were out in full force today, sunning themselves on wet river banks where the dark mud and verdant green plant-life made a fetching backdrop for candy-coloured coats and showed off glittering manes to their best advantage.

Janet Donner watched as one pastel-pink pony kicked a blood-stained picnic basket behind a nearby rock before resuming it's artful posing beside a child-sized waterfall, and shook her head.

"Every summer," she said. "You'd think people would learn."

"I'm going to ride one," said Melanie, grinning.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

( Read more... )

It's Tuesday, so today you get a choice between two prompts. Pick one, combine both, pit them against each other - on Tuesday, you choose!

This week, your options are:

Edgar Allan Roe Boulevard versus Deadwood Park

The statues in Deadwood Park's small but well-appointed sculpture garden were on the move again.

Some careless idiot had decided to ignore the signs saying not to climb the statuary, fallen a good ten feet after a shove from a Venus made of reclaimed aluminium that sported rather more than two arms, and consequently bled all over the neatly-raked but very cursed gravel that lined the pathways winding between the figures.

Sara Sue didn't like dealing with the sculpture garden. Too much metal, too many hard, sharp edges. Though it was nice to see murderous artwork that wasn't her fault.

Ongoing Verse: Pay Attention

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The stream that wound it's way through Deadwood Park was choked with water weeds and body parts, and though the sun was barely up, the day was already hot and the air was quickly becoming thick with both unpleasant smells and great clouds of black and buzzing flies.

The Garbage Men's faces were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses and beneath the shadows cast by peaked caps, but a cautious and careful observer might have detected the flared nostrils and pinched white lips thinned in disgust.

Not at the violent loss of life, of course. Just at the disorderly and unscheduled mess.

Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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Ongoing Verse: The Children

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Marshall nodded thoughtfully. Simon stood up and stretched.

"Besides," he said. "Just because Mustard looks like this now, doesn't mean he looks like this always."

He glanced around, making sure they were alone, then produced a rib-bone carved with indentations like the holes in a flute and blew on it.

At once, Sparky abandoned what he was doing and came trotting over, three pink tongues dangling from three canine heads while his writhing coat of vipers tucked their own tongues neatly away.

As always, Mustard followed, small yellow paws stepping into the great depressions left by the Hellhound's huge feet.

Ongoing Verse: Microwave

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It's Thursday, the day we dedicate to Simon's absolute best boy, Sparky the Hellhound.

Today I'm introducing honksgoose, a.three-headed honky lad by BeanieBastards:

"We can argue about this all day," said Janet. "And by that I mean you guys can, because once again, this is my free time and I don't have to spend it debating the ethics of letting the lake creatures thin out the summer people if I don't feel like it."

She stood up and stretched.

"But in the meantime I'm going to get lunch at Out-of-this-World Burgers, where my extra-large chocolate-peanut-butter-banana milkshake will come with a shot of Kahlua courtesy of the guy who didn't tip and got eaten by a kelpie, and I won't feel bad about it."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Microwave

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"Okay, seriously," said Dash. "If someone's dumb enough to pose for a picture with Finding Neighmo just because it's got glittery scales and a couple of ribbons in it's suspiciously-wriggling hair, that's their problem."

Janet nodded.

"I'm with Dash on this," she said. "I'll warn people off if I'm at work, but I'm not spending my free time explaining why it's a bad idea to put your hand into Candy-Clops Clearwater's mouth when she's got fangs the size of a ten-year-old's forearm."

"They wouldn't listen anyway," Dash added. "Come on, Teller, how many years did you waste trying?"

Marshall scowled.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Microwave

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Three deep, parallel scratches marked the heavy wooden boards that had been laid across the hole at the centre of Deadwood Park. The earth around the pit was torn and gouged, huge clumps of soil still topped with April-bright grass scattered in all directions.

Marshall used a novelty grabber shaped like the chomping jaws of a t-rex to lift one severed but still-twitching tentacle into a resealable sandwich bag, and pressed it closed.

"Looks like Leviathan's attempts to recruit the Mud-Sharks to their side of the conflict isn't going well," he commented.

The goose with the serious face said nothing.


Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Janet thought about it.

"I do have to work this weekend," she said thoughtfully. "And two less ravenous, toothsome things preying on the summer people would make it easier..."

"I'll give you twenty bucks if you wait for them to go back to the Baitshop on their own," said Dash. "And I'll make a special effort to steer bad tippers towards them while they're here."

Janet snorted.

"That benefits you as much as me," she said. "No, I want..."

She paused, thinking.

"A hundred dollars up-front, and a jar of curse-free gooseberry preserve from the stall at the farmer's market."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Microwave

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"I was wondering about the vegetables," Janet admitted. "I didn't know we still had a farmer's market. I thought they died out when the Harvest King... you know, didn't."

"It's mostly garbage," said Dash. "Hardly worth the effort of summoning the potato blight. Even the kelpie's only eating this stuff because it comes attached to a human arm."

"You shouldn't judge them on that," said Janet. "Getting a kelpie to eat it's vegetables is like... well, like getting a toddler to do it. This stuff could be perfectly fine."

Dash made a face. By the bandstand, so did the kelpie.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Microwave

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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"Don't feel too bad for that guy," Dash advised. "I know him from tending bar at the Lodge. Lousy tipper, mean drunk."

He gestured at the t-shirt. "He's not even on the Loyal Order's bowling team," he said. "Just wears that because he thinks it makes him look cool."

He shook his head in disgust.

"Oh, well then," said Janet, with withering sarcasm. "What a monster. I guess he deserved a venomous kelpie bite."

"All I'm saying," said Dash, "Is that Eerie won't miss one more lawnmower-riding jackass who thinks he knows more about corn whiskey than he actually does."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Microwave

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"You're right," said Dash. "I meant to say lamprey."

They watched as the kelpie nosed at a handful of wilted greenery being shoved at it by a man in a faded Shucker's Bowlathon shirt. It's snout distended and split, revealing wet, pink flesh coated in a thousand yellow-white barbs. Viscous drool formed sticky webs across it's open maw as it lowered soft lips over vegetation and fingers alike.

The man went very pale, very suddenly.

"How much did you charge that guy?" Janet asked.

"Enough," said Dash. "Since he's not going to be able to get his wallet out again."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Microwave

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The mermaid carried a large parasol to keep off the glare of the afternoon sun. Somehow, the fact that the struts were human finger bones and the canopy was a stretched-out screaming face hadn't attracted much attention from the thronging mass of sun-worshippers crowding Deadwood Park that afternoon.

What had attracted their attention, however, was the flesh-eating, gill-sporting kelpie tied to the bench next to her. The thing stank of saltwater and spilled blood, but that hadn't done anything to put off townspeople and tourists alike, who stood with hands outstretched as they offered it seed bags and sugar lumps.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Microwave

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The sun was setting, and in Deadwood Park the night things were on the move.

A trio of joggers ran three abreast beneath an overhanging canopy of winter-bare branches, and only two emerged. A young couple packed up the remains of a romantic picnic, only to find the red and white gingham print of their blanket had become a sucking morass that wrapped around their linked hands and dragged them beneath the innocent green of the summer grass. Fresh shoots and new blooms snagged the ankles of the slow and red-gold leaf-fall grew teeth that crunched unwary bones.

Night fell.


Ongoing Verse: The Children

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The kelpies that lived down by the creek in Deadwood Park had covered themselves in bright rugs and garlanded their heads with bridles made from silver thread and human intestine.

They clustered together in the shade of the red oak, the dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves and obscuring the slime-slick scales of their coats.

"Pony Rides!" the sign beside them might have read, written in an indifferent hand using a dusty brown ink that smudged and flaked at the slightest touch.

The day-trippers from the Eerie Nursery and Garden Centre crowded around them, and the kelpies muffled their giggles.

Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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From her vantage point high on the cold slopes of Wolf Mountain, Janet could see the way the roads twisted.

Every bend was a blind one, even in the places where it didn't make sense for the street to turn that way. Shops and houses were cut short to make the curve, or stretched long and thin, like they'd switched places with their reflections in some giant funhouse mirror.

Deadwood Park was changing shape, the ornamental pond narrowing in the centre as though some invisible hand was choking it, the two ends bowing out to form the sign of infinity.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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It was known locally as the Kingswood, the patch of land where the Eerie Wood met and merged with Deadwood Park. Here the trees grew tall and straight and the leaves never fell. The animals had human eyes, or human hands, or human hungers..

Normal folk didn't go into the Kingswood, the townspeople whispered, apparently classifying themselves amongst the normal even as they laundered straitjackets and sealed their children into giant rubber caskets. Or if they were normal when they went in, they weren't once they came out.

Marshall Teller straightened his Harvest King crown, breathed deep, then marched ahead.

Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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(takes place immediately before Timepiece)

"Construction on Main," warned the sign. "Expect delays."

Marshall examined the row of watches that stretched from his wrist to his elbow and, after a moment of deliberation, selected his least-favourite one.

"Digital," said Simon, making a face. "I hate digital."

"It's got a timer on it," explained Marshall, unstrapping it and taping it to a long branch scavenged from Deadwood Park for exactly this purpose.

The "construction" took the form of a great hole that stretched from sidewalk to sidewalk in the very centre of Main Street. It was deep enough that the bottom of the pit could not be seen, though the dim outlines of rusting JCBs could be spotted here and there in the gloom-shrouded depths.

High chain-link fences surrounded it and across the broadest part stretched a series of wooden planks surrounded by orange safety cones. A notice board above the nearest plank promised pedestrian access, though tellingly, it made no mention of an exit.

Marshall pulled a heavy-duty stopwatch out from under his Giants sweatshirt, held it up alongside the stick-mounted wristwatch, and set them both running.

He looked at Simon, who nodded.

Careful not to let any part of his body cross into the cordoned-off construction zone, Marshall eased the time-bearing end of the branch past the signs warning of falling debris and the need for hard hats, counting down a slow one hundred as he did so.

The stick seemed to become suddenly heavy in his hands, his palms growing slick with sweat and his arms trembling with the strain of holding it level. When he finally reached a hundred, he yanked it back, almost falling as an ornate carriage clock secured to it with strips of weathered, decaying duct tape shot towards him.

Simon jumped clear as Marshall stumbled backwards, tattered wisps of displaced time clinging to a once-dead tree branch now verdant green with newly-budded leaves.

"What the corn?" he exclaimed, pulling a paradox-proof blanket bordered in time-twine from his backpack and throwing it over the transmuted watch, which had begun to tick ominously.

Marshall got slowly to his feet, one hand fumbling for the stopwatch as he pressed the pause button with a trembling finger.

"Simon," he said. "I think we need to go talk to the old guys at the Museum of Horology."

Simon turned to stare at the gaping hole in the blacktop.

"Yeah," he said. "Me too."

Ongoing Verse: Milkman

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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It's the 14th of the month, and that's the date we put aside to think about all those amazing minor characters, places, organisations and general backdrop that make Eerie so compellingly watchable.

This month's theme is:

DEADWOOD PARK