Free Shit… And A Coffin Hop!
As you can no doubt tell by the marvelous picture above (contributed to this year’s hop by the super talented Jolie DuPre), it’s that magical time of year once again, when churchyards yawn and Hell itself breathes contagion into this world… Wait. I think someone else wrote that.
Anyhow, it’s Halloween again and as is my custom, I’m just dying to give one of you lucky souls some very cool, very free shit! But, some of you new followers may be confused. It’s not Christmas, you may be saying to yourself. Is it my birthday? No, chances are it’s not your birthday, (but if it is, how cool is that?!). It is, however, time for the 3rd Annual Coffin Hop.
What is that? You ask yourself.
Well, it’s just about the most awesome thing ever. Every year a great big group of horror writers and artists band together and blog, each giving away one or more prizes during the week leading up to Samhain. With so many horror folks putting on this party, and so many contests to enter, chances are very high that you may just walk away with some very cool shit this year.
Now you’re saying to yourself, Is this shit really that cool?
Only if you like free books and Halloween swag. And if you don’t like that stuff, I’m sure you’re starting to realize you’ve wandered to the wrong blog hop. No worries, just google dwarf hamster porn and you’ll be directed where you want to go. It’s okay. Mistakes happen. We’ll close the door behind you.
Thank God. I thought that freak would never leave! Where was I? Oh yes. As you can see in the picture below, this year’s prize pack includes signed copies of AD NAUSEAM (my collection of extreme horror), GRUESOME FACES, GHASTLY PLACES (a recent collection containing stories by Adrian Ludens, Doug Murano and myself-All South Dakota horror authors) and none other than DEATH BY DRIVE-IN (the official Coffin Hop anthology, put out by the lovely and talented Mr. Axel Howerton). As if such high-brow literary delights were not incentive enough, I will also include some tokens of the holiday that I have selected with my own two, bloody, little hands.
But how do I get this cool, free shit? You cry.
No worries, I’m about to tell you.
Last year I asked you all to share your jack-o-lanterns with me and it was a great time. This year, however, I am in the middle of a move and am feeling a bit pressed for time. That’s right, as you all are having fun visiting the sites and winning the free shit, I will be boxing up my worldly (and otherworldly) possessions (did someone say possession?) and moving them into my very first, owned by me, home! No more renting for this kid! That said, my contest this year is pretty simple. I want you, in just a few sentences, to tell me what you think my new home may be harboring.
Is it haunted by Victorian ghosts? Are there petulant poltergeists in the pantry? Disturbed deities in the den? Banshees in the bedroom (YEAH there is!)? Tell me what I will find as I take up residence at the new place, and be creative. Be scary. Be funny. Knock my socks off! Leave your description in the comments and the one that I like best will take home the gold (and by gold, I mean free shit, of course)!
And that’s all it takes. Put on your thinking caps, wow me with your originality, and make sure to click the picture of the handsome fellow above. He’ll take you back to the list so you can win even more free shit! Enjoy the Hop.
*NOTE In order to protect you from a deluge of smarmy spammers or the lunatic ravings of an internet troll whose name might rhyme with Dickolaus Schmaccione, the comments on this site are set to approve only. AND due to the aforementioned move, I will be losing internet very soon. Comments posted may not be viewable until sometime late Monday. Mea Culpa.
29 Responses to “Free Shit… And A Coffin Hop!”
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Hey there! Thanks for the shout-out! ~~~ So what do I think your new home will be harboring? I’d say one of those creepy looking dolls. I’d say you’ll hide one in one of your guest room closets. Only, I think you have plans to pull it out of hiding whenever a guest arrives to freak the shit out of them.
Sadly, there are no guest rooms, but dolls really are scary!
Well, I know what your house will actually harbor, and that’s probably worse than any ghoul, goblin, or ghost. But if I had to guess, I’d say a domovoi, because apparently, everyone has one…better keep the new house tidy! 😉
Nikki, is this one you?
Yes ma’am, that’d be me.
I know what your new home will harbor, it’s the soul of a lost drunken sailor. His soul yearns for flaming shots to quench his thirst. This soul walks the halls in the wee hours if the morning making his way to the kitchen where he rattles pots and pans till the end of days.
I’m adamantly against lighting alcohol on fire 😉
It’s killer clown dolls. Your home is definitely infested with killer clown dolls. So don’t open any strange trunks or toy boxes, and if you hear scratching in the walls… run.
That’s funny. My beloved happens to adore creepy clowns and subsequently, there are many in my home!
I think your new house will be surrounded by otherworldly beings. The Ghosts of past owners in the bathroom, Zombies in the garage, evil rats under the floor, Wendigo’s in the backyard, and of course banshee’s everywhere. Get out while you still can!
Whoa! I’m about to be a busy lady! Good thing there’s nightshade growing in my backyard!
First – CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! Owning your first is scary and exciting. Second, the 30th is my birthday, so I’m counting it as ‘yeah, it’s my birthday!’. And third…
What inhabits your new domain that is creepier, more terrifying than your own imagination? Besides the guy in Jolie du Pre’s fantastic artwork (buy him a toothbrush to keep handy, by the way – he needs it!) is a creature most foul; one that will stalk between the floorboards whilst you are awake, scratching and clawing at your every footfall. When you sleep, his blinded eyes will watch you, his gelatinous skin will crawl with your every breath while he hovers over you. And his demented thoughts will blend with those of your own, twisting what little is left of your sanity after the constant onslaught of bangs, bumps, and shadows caught from the side of your eye, into a being even you won’t recognize in the reflecting glass! (and FYI – that was freaking fun!)
Best of luck with the move, and I wish you much happiness, health, and a ton of blissful inspiration in your new digs!
Thank you and Happy Birthday! My ghoulie sounds like a real pain in the ass. Maybe I should burn some sage?
After an exhausting day, you finally finish unloading all your stuff into the new house. A misty dusk has fallen, with a shivering chill, and you collapse on your just-moved-in couch, not quite ready to start opening boxes. For now, you pop open a bottle of wine and pull out a good horror novel, ready to settle in… when you hear something, faintly, above you–like soft, pattering footsteps on the floorboards. Damn it, you think, if this house has rats, I’ll strangle someone… You head up the stairs, flip on the light, and look around, but the rooms are all empty and bare. Returning to your book, you’re just about to get to the good part when you hear another sound–giggling? Children’s giggling? That can’t be right. You don’t have any kids, and there’s no way you could hear the neighbors beyond the walls. You head down the hall to find the source of the noise when you notice scampering behind you, and more laughing. Chilled, you call out, “Who’s there?” No one responds. Frustrated, you return to the living room, determined to enjoy your book, but there you see five shadowy figures sitting on the couch you had previously occupied. They turn to you with blank faces and say, in a whispery unison, “You must be the new tenant. Welcome to our home.”
Great yarn! Unfortunately, I do have both children and pet rodents. However, I am allergic to wine, so the thought of a glass scares the hell out of me! 😉
Congratulations on your new home! I have a message from the things which bump in the night, regarding your new place of residence:
In the shadows, between here and there -we are among you. It is not by happenstance you came upon this new place of residence, believing you chose it for your new home. We were always with you, doll. We were lurking in the black crevasse of your mind, absorbing the energies of your fears, your restlessness, and your bitter, unspoken hatred. It is the fear within you we twisted, pulled and shaped with dark sorceries and bound you to this new place for OUR purpose. When you are there, when you are settled .. for every whisper you may hear, for every soft chill on the nape of your neck – for any shadow you think you see from the corner of your eye or moving through the shadows of shadows ..it will be us.
It will be us.
And we fear no light.
Very nice!
Victorian ghosts.
At least they will be fashionable!
Congrats on the new home! I predict it will harbor … gremlins! (Let’s hope not.) 😉
Thanks! It already does. In the form of children and an obnoxious bulldog!
Every day objects of a certain color if touched will melt into your skin and the color changes every day at different times. Enjoy!
I hope tomorrow’s color includes coffee. It will save me precious time not having to drink it!
Well, after a long hard sweaty day of moving box after box, as you wonder what in the hell you were thinking wanting to move, you decide to go take a nice hot bubble bath to soothe your muscles. As you finally relax, sipping on your glass of wine, you hear it. A small sound, like something scrabbling on the tile floor. Curiosity being your first nature, you look over the side of the tub. Nothing. You lean back, and hear it once again. This time, you see what looks like a growing pool of blood come out from under the tub itself. Startled, you drop your glass of wine, shattering it into a million little pieces. The scrabbling starts again, much louder this time, and you grab your towel and wrap yourself in it, trying to decide how to get out of the tub without stepping on broken glass or getting blood on you. By now the blood is almost covering the entire floor. You scream for help, but no one answers. Finally, you take the chance of stepping into the blood, anything to get you out of the damn bathroom. Once again, your curiosity gets the better of you, and as you stand in the blood, you decide you have to see what is under your beautiful clawfoot tub. WHat you see takes your breath away. IT IS YOU, crammed underneath, blood coming out of several gashes in your skin, causing the pool of blood that is now soaking into the grout of the floor, mingling with stains that have been there for decades. Just remember…curiosity killed the cat.
Hey, C.W. Did you ever read The Entity? Never mind. I’m kidding. Please don’t come over here and beat my ass. I was only kidding…
Let’s go with the ghost of an old boyfriend/husband like the film Truly, Madly, Deeply.
Seriously, congratulations on the new place. Wishing you all the best with it – and no haunted stuff. We’ll leave that for our fiction.
Cheers!
-Jimmy
Ha, so I became a homeowner recently too and as I unpacked boxes and did some small fix-up work (hung curtains, drilled holes, planted nails, all that good stuff), I felt a hand grab my butt. When I turned around, I saw no one. And I can guarantee you it wasn’t a product of my imagination. It was the middle of the day, on a Saturday afternoon. Powerdrill in hand I turned around and said: “Who’s there?” but then I shook my head and laughed, because, of course, I bought a house where the pervert ghost lives. The pervert ghost doesn’t do anything scary, besides touch you in inappropriate places and that is just wrong. Like why would ghosts bother to grab my coochie while I do some work huh? For fun? Because they’re bored? Anyway. Now every time I enter that room I watch my back. Hopefully you don’t get a pervert ghost. Maybe a cleaning ghost would be nice. Or a cooking ghost. Or a ghost that wins the lottery. Yeah. That’d be the best. Happy Hop!
A ghost cat!
Why on earth would you want us to get ideas in your head about your new home?! I just hope you don’t hear a sudden knock in the middle of the night. I’d shit myself. Really.
But I’m nothing if not obliging, and so here you have my idea of what might live in your house. Ever heard of the famous San Diego haunting? It was investigated by Barry Taff. Yes, he of The Entity fame. Hiding in your attic is a negative energy waiting for to arrive so it can feed of your anxiety. We’re always anxious and moves are particularly nerve-raking, so that will give him just enough strength to go back to his old tricks. You’ll hear strange knockings at first, then scurrying noises, and finally the loud banging of things (maybe corpses?) being dragged. If you ever try to investigate, you’ll be shoved around and your camera disassembled. Once this being even attempted to strangulate a man from a rafter in the roof. And when you think you can’t take anymore, the monster will be strong enough to materialize as a floating head that will haunt you everywhere. Oh, and lets not forget the strange substance oozing from the walls. It’s human blood plasma.
Happy hopping!
Just a few sentences? Yeah right! 😛
Everything is moved in, and you’ve finally found some time to relax. But wouldn’t you know it…a storm’s coming & the power goes out! You decide to make the best of it so you light some candles and take some time to kick up your feet and relax.
But from somewhere in the darkness, you hear a faint bell. You figure it’s coming from that set of windchimes you saw on your neighbor’s deck. But the night is still; dark; with no movement outside. The sounds is still there. And it’s getting louder.
You grab a flashlight and head downstairs. Everything looks normal – a little dusty, but that’s to be expected. The thing you don’t expect? A strange rusted door almost obscured by a dusty old shelf.
Ignoring the little voice in the back of your head to get the hell out of there, you inch the door open. Your flashlight illuminates a long narrow corridor, falling upon a gaping opening in the wall. It looks small, but when you approach it, crouch and shine your light inside, you see a pair of feet.
The bell clangs. You jump back against the wall. With a shaking hand, you lift your flashlight and follow the sound. The beacon spotlights a tarnished brass bell secured at the entryway from a drooping, weathered piece of rope snaking down into the hole.
Ring…ring…again…and again. The dead time between each ring creeps like cold fingers trailing up your spine. Then the bell is joined by another…and another…then so many that the clanging reverberates around you.
You spin around. The beam of your flashlight illuminates countless cavities dug into the wall like gaping mouths. The light flickers then is snuffed out, plunging the corridor into darkness. You drop the flashlight to the floor, then clamp your hands to your ears, but nothing can drown out the ghastly symphony of bells.