Face your fear - Issue #5
What have I been reading? Recent reviews
What have I been listening to?
I got my Spotify data back from a year of listening, and it wasn't full of surprises, it's full of Sadeiest songs (used as inspiration) and the hesitant start of a playlist for the Masocheist. I listen to music primarily in the car to and from work, or on my headphones as I cycle to work or training (not possible in winter, it's too slippy - too much snow). For those that want some of the soundtrack to The Sadeiest, have a look below:
In 2021, there was no such thing as normal. Find out how your year sounded with #SpotifyWrapped
What have I been watching?
I'm a fan of Joe Hill's comic, Locke and Key, which is now in its second series on Netflix, with a third series presently being filmed. If you haven't seen it - you only have yourself to blame. Go watch it, there's a great cameo from Joe at the end of season one, Joe, along with his improbable beard, appears as a medic.
I tend to read more than watch TV, so finishing a series is actually a milestone for me (I know - this is not normal - but I have too much to do with reading, writing, editing, training, cooking, and working!). I thought this was just great, can't wait for the next season.
Austria in winter
Before you say it, no, this isn't where I live. This is a standard photo of Hallstatt (oberösterreich) in winter - the village that was actually copied (building for building) and rebuilt in China because they loved it so much (I jest you not). I've included a photo below of the one in China, which apart from not having snow, is an exact copy. No. They didn't copy the mountains. But how amazing is that?! Austria does snow really well, we had about 20-30cm of snow overnight on the first night it snowed, and more snow is on the way. Could England cope with that? Schools close in England with a couple of centimeters.
How's life?
As some of you may know, I got another Kidney stone a month ago, I went into hospital and it wasn't possible to remove it at that time, due to an infection in my Kidney, so I had a stent inserted there in an op, to stop the pain and allow the kidneys to recover. D-Day is fast approaching when it gets removed and the stone too, before another stent is inserted to allow the kidney once again to recover - next Thursday to be exact. So I'm in hospital from Wednesday to (hopefully) Friday next week, barring any complications.
Wish me luck!
Wrap it up, Spencer.
So there's nothing left to say other than I hope you all have a great Christmas, or Yuletide, or whatever you call this season, and that you all stay safe and read great books! If anyone is looking for a signed copy of any of my books, just reply to this newsletter or send me a mail via my website, from the link below.
Personal webpage of Austrian Spencer, horror writer.
Here's Chapter 2, part 2, Pez (2nd edit). Enjoy!
Billy Dunn was a stupid, mean poopster.
Hannah Walters’ face framed a mess of childhood misery, like a mismatched Warhol painting, a collage of tears and snot and quivering mouth, none of which blended well with the others. Her scalp still hurt from where Billy had pulled her hair by her braid, her mother’s careful work ripped and abused, strands no doubt sticking out, ragged and wild. Her face was hot, blotchy from crying, patches of red painting her face, heat radiated whenever she wept.
Hannah almost always cried ugly.
Other children, when they cried, played right to the heartstrings. You couldn’t help but want to comfort. Hannah cried in such a way that everyone nearby would have a look creep across their faces – disgust, wariness – afraid, perhaps that the volcano mess of a five-year-old would explode snot all over the helpless observer.
Stupid boys.
Her class had gone to the park to draw. Billy had waited until Miss McKenzie had left with the others that needed to go, to make sure they washed their hands and didn’t get lost on their return from the park’s toilets - a sturdy but smelly brick building with no doors, which was cold in winter and stifling in summer. Miss McKenzie was the new kindergarten nanny, having started that year, and she was kindergarten cool. With her goth chic, pierced nose, eyeliner-heavy style, she delighted the children with her changing hair color, from pink to purple, blood red to blonde. Her ready smile and cuddles had won the children over in a flash.
Hannah hadn’t been the only girl left with the remaining boys but had been the only one on her own. She had seen Mr. Noodles, and he had recognized her and prowled in her direction. The bushy, black and white cat was always in the park, bothering its visitors for attention and begging for scraps of food. Hannah had named him after seeing him with his head deep inside a discarded square noodle box. The cat had heard her approach and raised his head to look at the potential threat, but the box had risen with him, stuck around his thicker neck fur. He had shaken the carton off his head after considerable effort, but not before the sight reduced Hannah to a laughing mess on the floor.
It happened so quickly. Billy had not cared that the other girls saw. Hannah had no warning, her head had been abruptly yanked back against Billie’s chest by her pigtail, her nose thrust into the air, her mouth opening in a cry of pain as he spat in her face. She pitched forward, her eyes clenched in disgust, the cry dying on her lips, as she landed on all fours on the pavement. A flare of pain from her hands and her knees broke through her attention as she gasped for air, his phlegm a wet streak down her cheek.
And all of it to the tune of his hysterical, hyena-like laughter. His he-haw, maniacal in its pre-pubescent soprano. Hannah had seen a nature documentary on the animals. Sir Richard Attenborough whispering how social and pack like they were, their ugliness and grating laughter hiding their family-orientated existence. That despite their look, their laughter, they were kind, group-loving animals. In contrast, Billy was mean all the way through.
She had scrambled away, running to one of her hiding places, a sheltered, shrub-filled floral area of the park, to sob, and hide away from the laughter of the boys. And because she was alone, and because she was clearing her eyes, she saw it almost immediately.
Something small, dark, round, its shape somehow fuzzy, lay in the dirt a short distance away, hidden in the foliage, surrounded by the darkness of the leaves. The air around it seemed hazy as if a cloud surrounded it. The shadows of the bushes nearby covered the object, made more detail impossible to see. The foliage of a nearby tree hung over the area, the branches sheltered the site in thick layers of leaves, whispering in the wind. Hannah squinted, trying to bring the object into focus, but the fuzziness remained. She thought it a ball, a filthy, dirt-coated thing, muddy and discarded – probably burst, left broken in the bushes, but there was something strange about the object. Its surface seemed to move. A constant wave of activity.
The small hairs on Hannah’s arms stood alert, goosebumps rose on her limbs, and her throat went dry. The thing seemed to shudder, to twist, to rotate, though it remained exactly in the same spot. It was mesmerizing. It was as if the thing had running patterns that shifted as she…
A hand grasped her shoulder. Hannah screamed.
“There you are, Hannah,” said Miss McKenzie, as she spun Hannah around. “What are you doing over here?”
“I found something, Miss McKenzie,” Hannah whispered, afraid that she had done something wrong, having run from the group.
“What is it? Oh! Goodness!” Exclaimed the nanny, her voice tinged with excitement. “Quickly, children,” she shouted over her shoulder. “Come and look what Hannah has found!”
The other children drifted over to them, pressing close to Miss McKenzie like ducklings.
The ball-shaped object shook.
“Well! Can you see that, children?” Miss McKenzie exclaimed, hands steepling to rest underneath her bottom lip as if in prayer, her mouth open in wonder. “They’re ants! Ants swarming on something! How cool is that!” Behind her, the others stood paralyzed, half of their mouths forming perfect “O”’s of wonder, the other half pressed tightly together in lines of barely withheld disgust. “Look at how aggravated they are! They are all working together as a team! Go Team Ant!” she beamed.
Only a couple of the children repeated the mantra, Billy one of them, his eyes wide. Some of the other’s faces slowly changed, Hannah saw, as disgust and uncertainty replaced wonder. Miss McKenzie hadn’t noticed, all of her attention focused on the writhing ball of black. Now that Miss McKenzie had named the thing, Hannah could see the undulating object for what it was, a dance of tiny bodies swarming over an object, the fuzziness in the air a cloud of tiny flying insects, agitated.
“What are they doing?” Billy whispered from somewhere behind Hannah, his voice full of wonder.
“I don’t know, Billy,” Miss McKenzie answered, her gaze breaking contact with the object for a second, to look back at the boy, her lips parted, a small smile playing around the corners of her eyes. “but just look at how they work together.”
“I don’t like it,” said one of the boys.
“There’s nothing to be scared of, Michael. Ants are quite harmless to us, these aren’t the army ants of Brazil, they are simply scavenging for food. Perhaps there’s something in that box.” Miss McKenzie whispered. Now that the nanny identified it, Hannah saw the object clearly. It was a Tupperware box. A clear, slightly opaque form, though the sheer number of ants crawling over the thing made its exact shape difficult to see. “I’ve never seen so many ants focused on one job before. Isn’t it amazing?”
“I don’t like it,” whimpered Melanie, her mouth pulled down in the start of a sob. “What are all the spiders doing?”
“What?” Miss McKenzie replied. Her head rose slightly, eyebrows knitted, mouth pursed.
Hannah glanced up.
Spiders, still as an in-taken breath, covered every leaf, every branch, every visible inch of the surface of the tree they stood beneath. Individual legs twitched, as if unable to contain the pent-up energy held in check from the minds behind the infinite number of eyes that witnessed them below. Hannah’s heart rose into her mouth, her breath gone, the tightness of her ribcage drove the pounding of her blood into her ears. She was suddenly cold and felt unaccountably small, frozen in the moment.
“Oh my,” said Miss McKenzie, backing away a step, pushing the children further away from the area. “Good grief. Just… step away a little, children. We don’t want to aggravate anything here.”
A shrill hiss, heated with hate and aggression came from directly below Miss McKenzie, making her yelp in shock. Mr. Noodles stood between her feet, his back arched, tail stuck straight into the air, all four of his legs rigid, his claws fully extended, his incisors bared, as he stared at the ants swarming over the lunchbox.
All movement around the box stopped.
As if caught in the moment, a photo freeze-frame of itself, the ants ceased all movement. The chaos of the writhing pattern covering the thing hesitated, then moved in unison. It was as if, in a millisecond, all of the ants had aligned in the same direction, to face the oncoming threat.
“I need to pee,” said someone.
Mr. Noodles let forth a piercing meow and attacked the lunchbox, his body upright like a boxer, his claws swiped lethally together from the sides to grab the box within his claws.
The ground exploded.
From the dirt, from the leaves, from under the earth, the floor became a black pool of upward-moving bodies. A cloud of aggression from above swooped to the head of the suddenly screaming cat, its claws still dug into the plastic box, unable to shake itself free. The horde swarmed up its legs as if moving fluid oil. The cat writhed from side to side, attempting to hurl the box from its claws. His shrieks of surprise and fear set Hannah’s teeth grating together.
“Go Team Ant!” shouted Billy.
A girl screamed her high-pitched wail of terror so loud it made thinking impossible under its assault. Hannah stared fixated at the sight of the cat, now totally black and writhing on the floor as if it were having a fit, as a part of her mind registered that it was she that was screaming.
And then the spiders fell.
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