Eerie Indiana Photo Five Challenge

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Eerie Indiana Chooseday Challenge

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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:

ForeverWare Ladies versus Creepy Garbage Guys

Eerie Indiana Drabble: Left Behind

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There was a seal skin draped over the back of the chair. The day was hot and the sunlight streaming in from the long low windows bathed the Baitshop in liquid gold, but the coat remained damp under her fingertips.

Janet looked around, but the crowd of dark-eyed, sharp-toothed selkies that had occupied the round central table for most of the morning were nowhere to be seen.

"This is not a marriage proposal," she told the enchanted hide as she draped it carefully over one arm. "You're going in the Lost and Found box, nothing more."

The seal skin glistened.


Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Shrine

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There were more chicken statues that morning. Lining the base of the falling-down fence that surrounded his parent's dead and dried-out front lawn, they glittered in the pale wintery light that struggled to break through the overhanging clouds.

Simon watched them for a moment - you never knew with randomly-appearing statues, and it was always better to be sure - before ducking back inside and returning with a large cardboard box.

Chick Two half-strutted, half-slithered over as Simon began packing the statues away, both heads bobbing, examining him first with one jaundice-yellow eye, then another, and another, and a fourth.

"Naughty chicken!"

Ongoing Verse: Holmes Brothers

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Encroaching Forest

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The trees were moving, though no wind stirred their branches. Thick with pale green leaves, newly-budded with the coming of spring, they cast writhing shadows across neatly manicured lawns and fresh-paved roads.

The grinding noise of asphalt being torn and churned was horribly loud in the quiet spaces of an early Sunday morning in Eerie, and families gathered at their windows to see what was happening.

The day was bright, the sky a clear pale blue, and the blotting shapes of the walking forest turned sunlit living rooms to gloomy caves as they inched past houses full of frightened people.

Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Pilgrimage

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Marshall Teller grips the broad ledge of the sill below his bedroom window. His hair is full of leaves that hadn't been there the night before, and his feet are black with good rich soil.

He has walked into the Kingswood and walked back out again, congratulating himself on emerging with only a few scratches and a full camera roll that will convince nobody but himself and his best friend.

Now the forest is coming to him, and he has no idea what to do, and the trees rustle amongst themselves as they form a rough semi-circle around his house.

Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Awakening

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From a pile of blankets and sleeping bags on the floor of Marshall's bedroom, Simon stirs, opens his eyes and blinks in sleep-fuddled confusion. The room is full of green light and smells of hot-house vegetation, and the carpet beneath him is crushed grass, damp with dew.

"Marshall?" he croaks, struggling to sit up in a makeshift bed turning to moss and bracken even as he lies there. "Mars?"

"Simon," his best friend says, in a voice that belongs to his best friend, and belongs to something far older. His hands press against the window and his fingers are strange.

Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Pyjamas

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"Mars?" Simon asks again, and his voice cracks, the single syllable emerging high-pitched and thin though puberty is still several years away.

Marshall shakes his head, like he's shooing away a curious mayfly or an unwelcome thought. A dead leaf comes loose from his sleep-tousled hair and flutters down to land amidst the wildflowers springing up between his toes.

Simon squirms free from clutching brambles that snag and tear his borrowed pyjamas. He feels a flash of guilt - Mrs. Teller had washed and pressed these, laying them out just for him, and now they're torn.

"Tell me what to do."

Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Calling

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The floor is soft and spongy under Simon's feet. Every step disturbs a cloud of pollen, crushes new-growth grass and sprouting things and releases the fresh, sweet smell of the green.

He slips one small hand into the crook of Marshall's elbow and yanks, hard.

"Marshall!" he says again, and it's every time Marilyn caught them outside in the summer without sunscreen, every time Edgar has scolded them to come down off the roof. It's the time Syndi glanced up from her textbooks to see Dimsdale standing beside them at the World o' Stuff.

It's everything Simon knows about love.

Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Transformation

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The trees outside are flexing and bowing, bent almost double as they genuflect in front of the Teller house. Their uppermost branches scrape the asphalt and wooden sinews creak and groan and sound close to breaking.

Simon pulls at him, and his hand slides off the glass separating him from the worshipful, whispering forest below. For a moment his fingers look wrong, too long and too twisted and at least twice as many knuckles as he remembered there being.

Then he blinks and they are his hands again, pink and flesh rather than the woody green of branches and lichen.

Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Snap

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"Simon," he says, and his throat is full of mud, and his voice is soft as rustling whisper of ripe corn in the fields.

He coughs and tries again, forces a grin through lips that feel stiff like bark and sticky with resin.

"Simon, grab the camera."

Simon doesn't let go right way. He stares at Marshall for a long moment, watching the green recede and the shadows shrink, before he releases his grip and darts to the Polaroid sitting on top of the chest of drawers.

He pushes it into his best friend's human, human hands, and prays.

Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Borders

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The camcorder is heavy. Too heavy for Simon, really, but it's not like he'll be walking around with it. Not with the forest pressed tight against the Teller's property line, held at bay by the pretty floral border he'd watch Marshall's grandmother plant the summer before.

At the time he'd thought she was just particular about the aesthetics; now, watching one coiled root lash angrily at an invisible barrier that stretches above the lines of yarrow and foxglove, he wonders.

In the gloom cast by the walking trees of the Kingswood, the flash of the Polaroid is silver-white and blinding.

Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Faith

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Before she was crowned Miss. Tornado Day, if you'd asked her about religion, Syndi Teller would have paused, and thought, and shrugged and said she supposed she was 'culturally Christian, I guess?' and not thought much about it.

Even afterwards, when cool breezes dried her sweat-damp skin as the air hung motionless and stifling all around her, she'd viewed it more like a secret identity, part super-hero, part slightly embarrassing medical condition.

The Lady of the Cold was a weather God, and the King of Summer, and the red-gold whisper that crackled in the air of fall, but not her.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Perks?

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Now, as she wakes in green-tinged darkness and hears above her the creaking of branches that should not be there, she reconsiders.

Eerie is a strange place. A fun contest that comes with a sash and a ride on a parade float comes with other things too. Marshall won a cow, and the next week she'd seen all their mother's houseplants bend towards him when he walked into the kitchen.

Her clothes never blow loose from the washing line strung over their backyard. Her heaviest sweaters are crisp and dry within minutes of being hung out, even on damp days.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Sibling Rivalry

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And now, the trees are moving, and she can feel the lack of her between them, feels that there is no breeze to ruffle those leaves and no wind to stir their branches.

And Syndi is... annoyed. She lies in her bed, blinking up at the ceiling and examining the feeling, turning it over inside a mind that howls and whistles more than it speaks.

Yes. She's annoyed. And it's that same flash of irritation she gets when Marshall uses the last of the milk, or turns the TV up loud while she's reading, or talks during Todd and Donna...

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Rise

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Her hands move to push back the covers, and a draft that comes from nowhere rips them from her bed and hurls them into the far corner of her room. The cold whistling air raises no goose-pimples on her bare skin, though it had been a warm night and she'd slept in a thin nightshirt.

Well-loved paperback romance novels riffle their pages as she stands, and the glossy cover of a heavy textbook rises and falls with her every breath.

Syndi opens the door of her bedroom, crosses the landing in three silent strides, and bangs on her brother's door.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: A Knock at the Door

[froodle]

The knocking jolts a sudden, startled squeal out of Simon, emerging before he can muffle it with his one free hand.

Outside he can hear Syndi, her voice low and full of the strange hissing of stray drafts caught in boarded-up places.

"Marshall!" she says, loud enough for them to hear, hopefully not loud enough to disturb their parents. "Quit goofing around with your plant buddies and open this door."

Simon sets the camcorder down on the edge of Marshall's bed, hoping the mud and leaves won't get into the workings, and picks his way across a carpet of brambles.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Threshold

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The door is heavier than it should be, sticky with pine sap and swelling with new life that presses it hard against the still blessedly-inanimate frame.

"You'll need to push it," Simon calls. "On three?"

He hears Syndi counting down - you can always hear her, now, if she wants you to, the air so loves to carry her voice - and he yanks hard as she shoves from the other side, the door making a sticky sound as it wrenches free.

Her eyes are storm-cloud grey, but the raised eyebrow and the half-smirk is all her.

"What did he do now?"

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Loyalty

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"It's not totally his fault," says Simon, because loyalty counts, even or perhaps especially when your best friend has accidently summoned a bunch of monstrous trees and his sister is promised to a towering funnel cloud who likes picnics.

Syndi raises her other eyebrow, and the smirk becomes a knowing grin.

"Oh, Simon," she says, and reaches out to ruffle his hair with hands that are too cold and smell like ozone. Simon can feel the staticy build-up and the rise of what feels like truly monstrous levels of frizz, and he sighs and tries in vain to flatten it.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Confession

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"He went into the Kingswood," Simon confesses, and then, since the metaphorical cat was out of the metaphorical bag and the cat in this case was made of vines and emerging from a bag also made of vines and threatening to engulf the town, he added, "And he was wearing his Harvest King crown."

Syndi's eyes widened, and just for a moment she looked honestly, truly worried. Then what Simon always thought of as her "big sister" expression slid back into place, and she was full of rueful amusement once again.

"What an idiot," she said, and stepped past him.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Dynamics

[froodle]

Polaroid pictures lay scattered across the windowsill, and on the floor around Marshall. Syndi isn't sure how many exposures a single roll of Polaroid film has, but she doesn't think it's this many. The moss furring the camera does nothing to deter her suspicions.

"Hey, weirdo," she says, leaning against the windowsill and putting her hand over the camera lens. "What're you doing? Looking for UFOs over the World o' Stuff's parking lot again?"

Marshall stares at her as though waking from a heavy sleep. Confusion flashes across his face, then fear, then, blessedly, annoyance.

"Get out of my room!"

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Wakeup Call

[froodle]

Syndi scoffs.

"I'm going," she said. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm making pancakes for breakfast, and also to tell you to get rid of those trees outside before Mom and Dad wake up."

Marshall looks out of his window at the now-silent forest. The trees have no faces, but still they stare back through a thousand knotted eyeholes.

"Um," he says, and Syndi rolls her eyes.

"Look," she says, forcing the sash window up and snapping a thin mesh of ivy growing over it. "I'll show you."

She leans out and the breeze ruffles her hair.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Send Off

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She calls to the waiting woods, and the wind carries her words far under their shadowing canopy of leaves.

"Get lost," she says. "Go back to the Kingswood, and don't come here again unless you're summoned."

The trees murmur to one another, and Syndi chokes the breeze that should lift their voices. Their branches start to shake in alarm, and the air around them presses down, heavy and muffling.

"You need to go," she says, a tone Marshall's heard from their mother during an unnegotiable bedtime or a homework assignment that cannot be put off.

The trees inch backwards, slightly.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Departure

[froodle]

It takes almost an hour for the Kingswood to depart, the last twist and barbed curl of bracken slipping out of the still-open window and slithering away off the street.

Marshall's room is full of leaf litter, dead leaves and broken branches and wildflowers crushed underfoot, though there's no longer a root system binding them to the thick pile of his Jersey Giants-blue carpet.

"I'm not helping you clean this up," says Syndi, even as zephyrs scurry this way and that amongst the debris, pushing it into manageable piles that can be easily tackled with a dustpan.

"Thanks," says Marshall.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Weather

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Eerie Indiana Tellex fanart by Wielka

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A little fanart of #eerieindiana 😭

seagillicuddy on Eerie Indiana

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Petition to stop talking about millennials as a monolith and start talking about us based on what Disney Channel generation we were part of. I’m Even Stevens (2000) to the Suite Life of Zack and Cody (2005).

— • rachel • (@rachelwilbury) May 3, 2020

I’m a The Torkelsons, Eerie Indiana, and Flash Forward xennial.

— Emily G Grover (@seagillicuddy) May 4, 2020

Predict-O-Cast Eerie Indiana podcast

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In this clip from Center of Weirdness, our Patreon-exclusive show covering the 90s supernatural kids show Eerie, Indiana, we return to World O' Stuff and talk about terrible toys. To hear the full episode, head over to patreon.com/predictocast and sign up today!

wholesomechat on Eerie Indiana

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Eerie, Indiana on Disney was kinda in my comfort zone.

— Wholesome Chat (@wholesome_chat) May 7, 2020

Eerie Indiana tattoo from The Darker Marker

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From Finland! How exciting. I'm from Ireland living in New Zealand. I'm such a fan I've gotten this tattoo. pic.twitter.com/KYAByZgm0S

— JasperTDM (@JasperTDM97) May 7, 2020

Ota iisisti Marshall

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Great, Jasper ~(;^)~ greetings from an E, I fan in Finland!

— Hannu Björkbacka (@BjorkbackaHannu) May 7, 2020

From Finland! How exciting. I'm from Ireland living in New Zealand. I'm such a fan I've gotten this tattoo. pic.twitter.com/KYAByZgm0S

— JasperTDM (@JasperTDM97) May 7, 2020

Nice to know where you're from. A great tattoo! My son has Buster Keaton and It's a Wonderful Life ~(;^)~ I found Eerie, Indiana in 2016 as a "grown-up". And fell in love with it! I did not know it was shown here by the name Ota iisisti Marshall in 1993 ("Take it easy, Marshall") pic.twitter.com/1vAgKpWSjI

— Hannu Björkbacka (@BjorkbackaHannu) May 7, 2020

Eerie Indiana Drabble: Prizes

[froodle]

The stuffed pig was almost as tall as Harley, thick fur brightly dyed with an improbable swirling pattern of pink and blue. Simon propped it awkwardly against the table while his brother slid into the booth, then set it down next to him on the worn vinyl cushion.

Marshall came over, serving tray overflowing with an Elvis-level helping of Mister Radford's one-night-only Big Top Burgers and Fries. He took the seat opposite them and pushed the food into the centre of the table.

"You guys pick a name yet?" he asked. "Diglet-Piglet? Truffles? Oinky-Boinky?"

"El Gordo," said Harley.

Simon beamed.

Ongoing Verse: Holmes Brothers

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Dinner Companions

[froodle]

Simon had decided to nickname the raven "Table" because it perched there so often. He offered Table a torn-off section of sandwich and informed him of this fact.

Table took the proffered scrap of meat and bread and ate it without complaint, so Simon figured he either approved, or didn't care.

Possibly Table didn't grasp the concept of names, or furniture. They didn't seem like very raven things.

In the rhododendron bush, Table's three friends waited. Simon had names for them too, when the time came.

He tossed them a few crushed potato chip.

"Scarffey," he called. "Fall Down! Hezkediah?"

Ongoing Verse: Holmes Brothers

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Thank You Gifts

[froodle]

Syndi set the domed plastic take-out cup down on the counter.

"I brought you a coffee," she said. "To say thank you."

Janet glanced at the industrial coffee machine that hissed and spluttered behind her, then at the caramel-coloured confection that swirled beneath a mountain of whipped cream.

She grinned.

"You talked to Marshall," she said, picking it up and inhaling the scent of syrup and dairy and almost no caffeine at all.

"I did," said Syndi. "And then I remembered the time he gave snakes-in-a-can to a girl with a life-threatening heart condition, and I talked to Simon instead."

Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Smoke Break

[froodle]

Janet untied her apron, removed a set of brass knuckles carved with an invocation to Dagon from one pocket, and a lighter and a dented packet of cigarettes from the other.

"Taking my break!" she called to the man in the Zorro outfit who was chopping vegetables in the kitchen. The man, who had refused to give a name when he arrived for that day's shift but who was almost certainly still Fred Suggs, compulsive imposter, nodded cheerily.

"Let's go down to the slipway," said Janet, slipping on the knuckledusters and grabbing her drink. "So I can really savour this."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Price

[froodle]

They sat on the salt-encrusted boards at the end of the slipway, and Janet slipped off her shoes, trailing her feet in the gentle swell that lapped around the crumbling pilings. Her nail polish was blue-green and in the sunlight there was the faintest hint of webbing between her toes.

She saw Syndi looking, and blushed, and shrugged.

"The Deep Ones don't give their protection away," she said. "There's always a price."

She took a long sip of her cream-and-caramel drink and sighed happily.

"Delicious," she said. "Thanks."

"It's not much compered to you having saved me from evil clowns."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: The Circus

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They sat in silence for a long time, the only sounds the hiss and splash of the water and the plasticated rattle of Janet slurping the last of the milkshake through her straw.

"So," she said at last. "First time with the circus?"

Syndi hesitated, and Janet rephrased.

"First time with the evil monster circus?"

"Definitely," said Syndi, with deep feeling. "I swear, from the outside it looked exactly the same as the one that came through last year."

"It is the same one," said Janet. "It's always the same one. You were just seeing it's other face, 'til now."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Group Outing

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"No," said Syndi, but it came out sounding more like a plea than a refutation. "No, that's not... I've been there before. I've ridden that Ferris wheel. I ate funnel cake from one of the stalls and spilled icing sugar all down my favourite shirt..."

Janet nodded.

"When I first came back," she said, and Syndi doesn't need to ask where she came back from, because the morning after the clown she had read every one of those close-written notebooks Marshall kept locked away, "Some kids from my class invited me to go with them. Not everyone made it home."

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Thrill Ride

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"Clowns?" asked Syndi.

"Rollercoaster," said Janet. "Nine of us piled into two carts. When we came back down, there were only six of us."

She set the empty takeout cup down, careful not to let it drop from suddenly shaking fingers.

"They had a camera, at the very top of the ride," she continued. "It snapped a picture just as you went over the biggest drop. I checked, afterwards."

She took a deep breath, stared out over the rippling lake.

"Two of them were already gone," she said. "And Matty, he was... in pieces. Bloody bones in a safety harness."


Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Eerie Indiana Drabble: Nothing

[froodle]

"What-" Syndi groped for words, found none.

Janet nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "The circus said the photo was just a novelty souvenir, like the pictures you get on the ghost train where it looks like something's in the cart with you." She picked up the empty cup, fiddled with it. "Now that I think about it, I'm not sure if those weren't somehow real as well."

"But... nothing happened?" said Syndi. "There was nothing in the papers, nothing at school..."

"Nope," said Janet. "And nothing on the milk cartons either. Which in Eerie is how you know someone's really gone."


Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Milkman

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Ongoing Verse: The Children

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