A Halloween Story: Flythe's Stage

[Bill Floyd]

He had a very specific scene in mind; or, rather, a series of scenes, tableaux drawn from the images his parents had used to torment him every year on this date until he finally gave them the carnage they'd secretly wanted to draw out from him all along.

The grand stage he'd set in The Acres' clubhouse had been a blueprint spiderwebbed across his mind all those lost years in the hospital, and in the time since they'd released him and he'd moved to Arkham County, he'd been tagging the ones he would use to fulfill the fantasy that demanded fulfillment.  

He'd spent this past year collecting his actors and actresses one by one, and this summer after the police stopped searching these empty streets for Owen Nelson, Flythe had spent his every spare moment preparing their places.

And tonight, oh tonight, fulfillment was at hand, and what a series of scenes he made: in the lobby of the clubhouse the burned body of the teenaged witch Angie Busby was staked to a column; at the foot of the staircase lay the nameless teen runaway whose face had been carved out into a jack o' lantern's vacant grin, empty-eyed and hollow-skulled; lashed to the long dining room table was a boy named JJ Reddick, whom Flythe had plucked from the projects across town and then flayed until he was nothing but a capering skeleton; there was a meth-wasted juvenile, Gerald Henderson, floating in the fetid water of the hot tub on the back deck, bitten to death by a thousand vampire kisses; and finally, the living zombie Flythe had made of Owen Nelson, drugging him all these months while Flythe conducted his nightmare symphony around him.  

Owen was trussed up on a wall on the second floor balcony overlooking the entrance to the clubhouse, here tonight to bear witness, the audience necessary to appreciate the genius of the symphony's conductor, necessary just as Flythe's parents had required his reactions to validate their own madness--and it was to Owen that the starring role had been granted, the diva who would culminate the night's activities when he was drawn and quartered by the various cords that even now stretched his arms and legs to the limits of endurance.

Flythe worked through the afternoon to have everything prepared by nightfall, and now he walked through his house of horrors with tears streaming down his face, ecstatic with it, some gold-crimson light suffusing him, his thumb fondling the jerry-rigged garage-door opener that at the stroke of midnight would activate the contraption that would rip young Owen into pieces; it was a very specific scene he had in mind.    

[Michael Brown]

You two guys are doing a smash-up job with this one. I had to go back to the beginning to see what I'd missed, and have to say on this you and Jamie are like two halves of one mind. The combined efforts flow together without a ripple (except for the hairs rising on my arms). This is something that readers must follow to the finish.

[Angela]

Where does this come from?  Very tightly written and visual.

[Diana E. Backhouse]

You can't do that, Jamie! It's down to you to save us from this nightmare. That's the trouble with collaborative writing, you can't control the beast in your partner in crime. Not that I'm suggesting Bill is a beast - no, no, no!!!

[Jamie Hogan]

I kinda knew what was coming, and I'm not sure I'm sleeping tonight either. "To bear witness." Only three words, but if you're paying attention they encapsulate everything you need to know about the psychopath - sadism, narcissism, the whole deal. I knew there would come a point where I wanted to duck out, to put down the pen and go sit with the rest of the kids by the fire and see how Uncle Bill finishes the story. And that point is now.

[Diana E. Backhouse]

This is scary stuff, Bill. I'm not sure that I want to read on! Then, I might, but not before bedtime.

[bolton carley]

the diva role?  the fetid water of the hot tub?  the tears of success?  um, i'm not sleeping tonight.  if your writing wasn't so fabulous, i would already have quit reading these.  they're haunting me.  well done.

[Gita]

a blueprint spiderwebbed across his mind all those lost years in the hospital, and in the time since they'd released him .... put the scare in me. Then you went all Dexter and medieval on us and I felt the terror. You have a dark passenger, my friend.

I feel like I just got good-cop-bad-copped by Jamie and you. He lulled me with his pretties and then you clubbed me with the house of horrors. NOT FAIR!  

[Paul de Denus]

Well you blew the guts out of this one!- Mr. Flythe is one sick puppy- liked "a blueprint spiderwebbed" and the overkill view of all the victims- very King-ish- great telling Bill