First it was the ‘Corona Virus,’ then ‘Murder Hornets.’ If ‘Flying Monkeys,’ show up — I’m outta here.

I never pay attention to my haters. In fact, I don’t even bother ignoring them.

People who pronounce ‘vase’ like ‘voz,’ deserve to be punched in the ‘foz,’ instead of the ‘face.’

Another way a horror story comes to my mind…a photograph taken…

They set up their tent under a nearby tree. After a day of playing in Frenchman Lake and then having a dinner cooked over the open campfire, they retired to get some sleep.

A slight breeze blew throughout the night and this created a plethora of tiny noises. At one point, Tom sat up, resting on his elbows to listen to what he though were footsteps come from jus’ outside the tent wall.

He touched his Colt .45, wanting to make certain that he knew where it was, jus’ in case. But the night passed without incident.

Slightly after sunrise, Tom got up to re-stoke their campfire and make a pot of coffee. Once finished, he noticed that the tree that they had set up under seemed to be farther away from their campsite than the day before.

They spent the day and evening once again enjoying the lake, floating off short, splashing around, and getting sunburned. Again they prepared dinner over their blazing campfire.

That night and into the early morning hours, there were more noises, more odd sounds, strange foot-steps coming from behind their tent. This time, Tom decided to get up and with gun in hand, investigate.

There it was – the tree they’d been camping under — sneaking back from having taken a private dip in the lake.

My wife is digging a grave-sized pit, claiming she has some planting to do. Must be the full moon.

My most useless purchase of 2019? A 2020 Day Planner.

This is where the story-line for most horror stories originate for me… Earlier this morning…

It was their dog that first alerted Tom that there was something moving about in the front of their home. He had been in a dead-sleep when he heard the low and guttural growl of his German Short Hair as it lay at the foot of the bed.

His wife remained asleep, unaware of the dog’s persistent and resonating warnings.

At first Tom simply lay there, listening, hoping to hear also what had caught the dog’s attention. And then, suddenly, there it was – a tiny, but noticeable muffled, grinding sound.

Where was their older dog? Tom didn’t know.

Quietly, he rolled from under his covers, picking up his small flashlight, and then withdrawing his Colt .45 from the top of the nightstand. Already charged with a round in chamber, he dropped the leather holster on his pillow and moved even more quietly towards the bedroom door.

The dog continued to growl as Tom entered the hallway and proceeded to the living room. The sound, which had grown louder, came to an abrupt stop the instant he set foot in the area.

Calmly, he raised his pistol and with the flashlight under his shooting hand, turned on the beam. There it was, humanoid in appearance, standing on two legs, eye’s glowing, and unmoving at first, before it rapidly bolted out of the light’s glare.

Tom had forgotten to put the dog door down for the night and his young hunting dog was both smart enough to know not to mess with the fiend and to get his human’s attention that the alarming thing was eating from its food bowl.

“Damned, Raccoon,” Tom muttered, as he slipped the dog door into place, sliding it down until fully closed.

My ass has been dragging all day following a night spent bathing my liver in Cuervo in honor of Cinco de Mayo. I’m nearly 60-years-old and I jus’ realized that I had never ever, even once, celebrated the Battle of Puebla.

Even though I woke up on the couch, still dressed, I got up and got busy. I spent much of the day painting the remainder of our ceiling and then I barbecued chicken for our evening’s dinner.

Nothing like sweating out a nighttime drunk from one’s body to leave one de-energized even further. I’m not complaining, jus’ stating a fact.

It was while finishing up the washing of the dishes that it occurred to me that I’d forgotten to write a story for tomorrow’s blog posting. Crazy that I should forget, even crazier at how I should suddenly remember.

Anyway, I figured since I’ve no story idea prepared, that I jus’ put in a couple hundred words or so, on something, anything, even if it is all meaningless drivel. Yes, I’m driveling all over this page, which is far better I think, than drooling all over our couch, but that’s a story for another time.

I’ll do better tomorrow.

The mass of devotees doxolized the antediluvian chant, “…and in the mighty glory of…”

“STOP IT NOW!” rumbled the primordial being, with vigorous disgust.

“Dark One?” questioned the acolyte.

“LET US CUT TOO THE CHASE.”

“Pardon?”

“ALL OF THIS IS NONSENSE.”

“But the ancient liturgy?”

“FORGET IT!”

“But…”

“AM I NOT THE ALL-POWERFUL DARK ONE?”

“Yes, Master, you are.”

“GOOD.”

“What do you want of us?”

“BRING ME K-POP.”

“You know that’s a music genre, not a group or an individual, right?”

“YES, I KNOW. I LIKE THE CUTE ONE WITH THE HAIRCUT.”

“But, that’s…all of them.”

“KAAAY-PAAWWP I SAID!!!”

The department store was filled with shoppers, even though Christmas 2008 had passed only today’s before. James was there like everyone else, searching the aisles and racks for hidden bargains.

He stepped onto the escalator, ascending towards the second floor when he felt a peculiar and sudden shift in the atmosphere. James looked around and while he could see other shoppers, he could no longer hear the sounds of people talking or the sounds of the store itself.

Abruptly the escalator jerked and James found himself standing on the bottom step, moving upward once again. With this came a blurring of the buildings surroundings, as if it were fading out of existence.

He screamed, but no one paid James any mind.

Once again, James topped the escalator and once again came that nauseating jerkiness that flashed him, inside of a second, to the base of the moving stairway. Looking around he saw that even more of the store’s walls, floor, ceilings and fixtures had disappeared.

James held his hand up. He could see through it all: skin, vessels, muscle and bone.

He screamed again. This time his voice seemed to be further away in sound as it left his evaporating body.

James tried to turn away from, to avoid the top step, to rundown the moving escalator, but to no avail. Again the jerk, again the flash and again he began his upward ride.

Twice more this happened and as he began his sixth journey skyward, all of the building had vanished about him. And beneath him, where the step should have been, was nothing but a blank space — a blank space, which now included James.