The Theory

[Bill Floyd]

He started getting strange ideas in his head that autumn, like when he warned her not to run the exhaust fans in the bathrooms because the house would implode.  That winter he tried to hammer aluminum sheets to the roof, and she pled with him to speak to the doctor about changing his medication.

Oh no, no way, the doctors are beholden to Big Pharma and Big Pharma is beholden to the US government and the government is beholden to the Chinese who are beholden to the Grays, those interstellar hominids who colonized Earth millions of years ago and live beneath the polar ice caps, sending out signals to the receptors in my head.

Those ice caps are melting, you know.

She fled with the kids in early spring, and he kept up his solitary vigilant watch, charting oceanic temperature fluctuations and drawing great confusing graphs across the living room walls.   

The police broke in that summer after neighbors complained of the smell, but all they found were brackish puddles on the floors, and holes in the ceilings where you could see straight through to the sky. 

[Stephen Torelli]

Spooky tale and I know more is brewing for the eve of All Saints' Day. Nice work.

[Jamie Hogan]

I'm in.

[Bill Floyd]

Thanks, y'all.  It's good to know people still remember that series.  Paul, I asked my agent to pitch the idea of a book around at some point, but I don't know if he ever did.  Not sure I've got another installment in me for this year, but I'll see what I can work up.  It would definitely need a twist so I wasn't just repeating myself.  Suggestions are welcome, or we could make it sort of a group thing, like everyone take a day and write a chapter in an ongoing story, like a monthlong game of "Sentence."  That would rule.  Thoughts???     

[Paul de Denus]

I'm looking forward to some of that hallowed writing too, not that you have to do the whole month like last time but if you do, it'd be great to see it all in a book including last years. The last line here is killer.

[Teresa]

You do know, or if you don't you will now, that Halloween is so much sweeter because of your writerly ways.  You write creepy so well.  I thought of you this morning while listening to the Shins.  The first few notes of Phantom Limb sounded like speaker interference, a deep vibrating hum, and I thought, Ahhh....  Music therapy.  This six is twisted spooky perfection, just the way we like it.

[Gita]

Yikes! I have just watched X-Files episodes in which the aliens who landed here eons ago were trapped in polar ice.  When those puppies thaw, they are HUNGRY!

"Brackish puddles" gave me the mammer jammers. I hope Hogan's right and you're going to go all Halloween on us again.

[Jamie Hogan]

Get ready people. The man is starting to smell Halloween, and you know nobody does it better. Brackish puddles and holes in the ceilings. Shit on toast man, that is good.