Image courtesy of Healthline Gate. CC license.
I estimate that by the time my yard is covered with real grass, the ozone layer will have disappeared and life on Earth will cease to exist. As it stands, my yard is covered with a lush, green carpet of… READ MORE
Weeks ago I told you that on our previous visit to the Bahamas we had skipped out on a $2 debt for a loaf of bread. I theorized Flossy, our resort manager at the time, was sticking pins in a voodoo doll to exact revenge.
I promised that when we returned I would repay Flossy so the mysterious car breakdowns and diseases would stop. Well, this is what happened.
It was early on a Monday. I remember that much. The sun had not yet crossed the yardarm (whatever that is), so the rum punch sat untouched in the refrigerator.
Tracy and I were driving to the grocery store to stock up on provisions. The store, for some perverse reason, had closed early Saturday and hadn’t opened at all on Sunday, depriving us of the pleasure of paying $3,50 for a loaf of bread. But now it was Monday and we were starving and $3.50 for a loaf of bread didn’t seem unreasonable.
We had taken a different route that morning – in other words, we were lost – and there, lo and behold, appeared the resort where we had stayed two years ago. It loomed above the pine trees and broke beer bottles like the house above the Bates Motel.
“Let’s stop and pay Flossy!” I suggested.
Tracy gave me one of those “You-don’t-have-to-do-this-just-because-you-said-in-your-column-you’d-do-it”looks and said, “OK.”
We pulled into the parking lot. I expected to see Flossy standing at the gate, hands on hips, glowering at us the way voodoo debt collectors glower at their victims.
We entered the front office. There she sat. I think I said, “You’re not going to believe this.” Tracy and I blurted our confession.
Flossy started laughing.
“You came all the way back here to pay for a loaf of bread?” she snickered. “I’ve never heard of such honesty.”
I never said we came all the way back just to pay for a loaf of bread, but if she wanted to think that, fine. Maybe she’d give us a free loaf.
At any rate, she cheerfully accepted our $2 and I assumed the curse had been lifted. Wrong-O.
Later that week, as we were preparing to leave for a sightseeing expedition to the other side of the island, Tracy announced she couldn’t find her purse. Then a wallet turned up missing.
Apparently, as we were sleeping, someone had slipped into our unit and robbed us.
The slimeball ripped us off for about half our vacation bankroll. He stole IDs, credit cards, even the green shorts that contained the wallet.
What followed was a panicky ransacking of the unit, search-and-destroy missions into nearby woods, calls to police, cursing and so on.
The stolen items were never found, although we spent the next three days looking for a happy Bahamian in green shorts.
It was explained to me later that the “momentum of Flossy’s curse” had carried over into the robbery. If that was the case, I may have to return – to pay her interest on the $2.
This column was published in the Playground Daily News in 1987 and is reprinted with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone's stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra's Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone's comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled "December" for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman's Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone's novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild's award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida's best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn't look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Weeks ago I told you that on our previous visit to the Bahamas we had skipped out on a $2 debt for a loaf of bread. I theorized Flossy, our resort manager at the time, was sticking pins in a… READ MORE
Image courtesy of Concorede Pictures.
“Chopping Mall” stars Kelli Maroney as Alison Parks, Tony O’Dell as Ferdy Meisel, Russell Todd as Rick Stanton, Karrie Emerson as Linda Stanton, Barbara Crampton as Suzie Linn, and Nick Segal as Greg Williams. Directed by Jim Wynorski. Rated R… READ MORE
The sadists I work with on the wired desk have a game they play from June 1 to Nov. 30.
They know I am fascinated by hurricanes. They see my tracking charts featuring the scribbled admonition that he who steals this chart will die of earworms.
Worst of all, they know I am always anxious to study the satellite photographs.
We receive three satellite photographs each day. The first is transmitted at about 4 a.m., the second at 4 p.m. and the last at 9:30 p.m. Each has its own idiosyncrasies. The morning photo has poor resolution. The afternoon photo is usually sharp, and more closely represents the extent of the cloud cover. This is the photo we publish in the newspaper. The night photo exaggerates the cloud cover, but it can give you an idea of trends in a storm’s movement.
At any rate, I want to see them all. Enter the sadists.
My desk used to be next to the Laserphoto receiver and I could quickly intercept any photographs entering its collection tray. But now my desk is located across the room. Now I must rely on the good graces of the wire desk to supply me with satellite photos.
Ha ha ha ha ha, boy am I a schmuck. Relying on the good graces of the wire desk is like hiring a 40-foot python to babysit small children.
The game goes like this:
1. I am sitting across the room, minding my own business, when suddenly I hear the telltale click of a Laserphoto being cut and fed into the collection tray. All eyes on the wire desk also turn to the Laserphoto machine, as if were a slot machine that had just rung up four cherries.
2. Somebody on the wire desk leaps up and snares the photo.
3. A triumphant “AH HA!” rings across the newsroom.
4. The satellite photo is held so that everybody on the wire desk may see it, but not I.
5. Suddenly, everybody on the wire desk becomes an expert at interpreting satellite photography. “Looks like a suspicious cloud mass in the Caribbean,” they shout in delight. “Yes sir, I see evidence of a circulation in that cloud mass,” or, “Are those spiral bands beginning to form in that Atlantic disturbance?”
6. They sneak peeks at me and titter like schoolgirls. They want me to get p and come over there and try to beg for the photo, but I know they’d pass it from person to person in a perverse game of keep-away, so I refuse to act like I’m interested.
7. They raise the stakes by saying in loud voices, “Uh oh, this looks like a Category 5 storm to me. I don’t think we better let Del see this. I think we should tear this up and burn it. Del wouldn’t be interested, anyway.”
8. The final act in the game involves my capitulation, where I must prostrate myself and shout, “Come on you slimes, gimme that satellite photo. PLEEEZE?” This always is greeted with malicious merriment, especially if I have to get down on my knees and grovel.
Now isn’t that sick?
This column was published in the Playground Daily News sometime in the 1980s, possibly 1986, and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone's stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra's Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone's comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled "December" for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman's Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone's novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild's award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida's best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn't look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
The sadists I work with on the wired desk have a game they play from June 1 to Nov. 30. They know I am fascinated by hurricanes. They see my tracking charts featuring the scribbled admonition that he who steals… READ MORE
As Rosanne Rosannadanna said many times, I thought I was gonna die.
The alarm clock ticked off the remaining moments of my peace and then it buzzed; my second thought – the first being that I had passed away in my sleep – was that I had awakened into some unhealthy person’s body.
I hurt everywhere. My back hurt. My throat, my ears, my chest – they all hurt. This wasn’t the body I had fallen asleep in. This was a boy on the verge of going belly up.
I had a cold.
A cold leaves me just sick enough to make life miserable, but no so sick that I feel I have to stay in bed. It seems a shame to lounge around in bed when I could be getting work done, but when I actually do those things I begin to wish I’d lounged around in bed.
I don’t know why I hadn’t foreseen this cold. Everybody in the office was sick, and relatives who were visiting were similarly smitten. When you are surrounded by people who are breeding germs faster than you can kill them, your chances of surviving unaffected are slim.
This cold was shaping up into a real barn-burner. My throat felt like Patton and his boys had chased Rommel through it. My head was stopped up and I could bells ringing – symptoms of a fever. And though the temperature outside was a balmy 73 degrees, I was freezing.
The thought of sweating it out at the office – and I use the term “sweating it out” purely in the abstract – was about as palatable as having a tooth pulled, so I phoned in sick. The building at work is usually 40 below zero, what with out overzealous air-conditioning system. I always go to work unless I’m not ambulatory, but since I felt SO bad, and since I’m OVER 30, I decided age has hits perks and this was one of them.
I lay in bed the entire day. The minutes were like hours. I would doze, look at my watch, doze a while longer, look at my watch, see that only 10 minutes had passed, doze again, knock off another five minutes. I did manage to stay awake long enough to watch “Jeopardy.”
The radio made no sense that day. I remember hearing an endless series of weather forecasts. You’d be amazed how many times radio stations give the weather forecast. I found myself comparing the weather forecast to my internal weather forecast: “Cloudy with a chance of showers today; severe thunderstorms tonight, with locally heavy rainfall possible.” Yep. That was about right.
Being sick all day means that you are awake all night and sicker still. I remember looking at the alarm clock and thinking it said 1 a.m. Then the living room clock began to toll and I counted 12 gongs.
As I write this, I am sick. I don’t feel like going back through and cleaning it up. It is freezing in here. I’m counting the minutes until 6 p.m. so I can get to the break room and eat one of those moon pie things and take more drugs.
I think I’m gonna die.
This column was originally published in the Playground Daily News in 1986 and is reprinted with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone's stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra's Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone's comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled "December" for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman's Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone's novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild's award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida's best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn't look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
As Rosanne Rosannadanna said many times, I thought I was gonna die. The alarm clock ticked off the remaining moments of my peace and then it buzzed; my second thought – the first being that I had passed away in… READ MORE
Image courtesy of De Paolis In.Co.R. Studio.
“The House by the Cemetery” Starring Catriona MacColl, Paola Malco and Ania Pieroni. Directed by Lucio Fulci. 86 minutes. Not rated. Del’s take “The House by the Cemetery” is a film only a horror purist could love, and love it… READ MORE
Image courtesy of Karolina Grabowska of Pexels by way of a Creative Commons license. https://www.pexels.com/@karolina-grabowska/
To watch Mom iron is to watch a carpenter join pieces of wood into something that ill be handed down, parent to child, for generations. It is watching an artist imbue blank canvas with timelessness. It is watching a craftsman… READ MORE
Image by Flickr user Greg Virtucio by way of a Creative Commons license. https://www.flickr.com/photos/gregvirtucio/
I opened into my personal computer file the other day and there, at the top of the list, was a short story with a message especially for me written above it. The message read: “Good news, Del.” A little farther… READ MORE
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We will warn you for the 3,418th time this year that the dreaded Asian cockroach is raping and pillaging its way up the Florida peninsula and will arrive in YOUR home precisely three minutes after you read this, because that… READ MORE
Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
“Phase IV” Starring Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick, Lots of Ants and others. Directed by Saul Bass. 84 minutes. Rated PG. Hulu, Prime. Mladen’s take “Phase IV,” lovingly built in 1974 with an admirable effort at incorporating animated and… READ MORE