Hideaway (a short story)

    The door is locked, bolted, boarded up.  They won’t think of looking for me here if I keep to myself.  In this dark room, I sit alone in the corner, quiet, silent as possible.  I barely want to breathe.

    I hear them out there, beyond the door.  Moving, always moving.  Sometimes with purpose, but sometimes they just can’t stop.  If not physically, then verbally.  Always the unbearable noise.  They can’t shut up or stay still, unlike me.  

    I can stay perfectly still, as far away from the door as I can get.  As far away from them.  They taught me to be afraid of them.  In little ways at first, but then I learned how truly damaging they can be.  This is why I must lock myself away from the pain and agony that is…

…other people. 

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2026, John L. Harmon 

Freak Out, 
JLH

P.S.  click a pic for another short story…

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A totally biased list of books and a couple of short stories you should read in 2026…
📚 

booking freakboy: BLOOD SPLATTERS QUICKLY by Edward D. Wood, Jr. (2014)

I am in the third month of a cheap three month trial of Audible.  Of course, I searched for some of my favorite authors, such as Ira Levin and Jacqueline Susann.  Yes, this search also included Ed Wood, the infamous cross-dressing filmmaker.  I truly did not expect to find any audiobooks of his work, but lo and behold, there was one.  

BLOOD SPLATTERS QUICKLY collects a variety of stories from Ed Wood originally published in pulp and nudie magazines in the early 1970’s.  Much like his filmography, the stories cover Ed’s favorite genres.  Horror, crime and sex fill each page, or track, as the case may be.  There is little doubt these stories are from the late, great Wood.  Dialogue is occasionally lifted directly from his films (“Beware. Take care.”) and Angora sweaters are featured more than once. 

Like other short story collections, there are hits and misses.  A few of them really stand out for me.  “Dracula Revisited” felt like a love letter to Bela Lugosi as a man investigates the myth of the legendary vampire.  “The Night the Banshee Cried” is about an undead woman roaming fresh from the grave and it was easy to picture Vampira from PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.  As for Ed’s penchant for wearing traditionally feminine clothes, he used it to best effect in the title story “Blood Splatters Quickly” as a man seeks revenge for his sister’s death. 

As I’ve said in past reviews, Edward D. Wood, Jr. might have been heterosexual, but he wasn’t straight.  Two stories involving queer men dares to break stereotypes and includes progressive ideas, highlighting Ed as an ally, at least.  “The Autograph” is about a reporter interviewing a Hollywood cowboy who has just come out of the closet.  It’s easy to picture John Wayne as the cowboy, which adds an amusing touch.  “Superfruit” is sadly not about a gay superhero, but is about a queer man seeking business advice from a friend after losing his partner.  It really is more interesting than it sounds

. 
There is one story that made me feel physically nauseous.  “Breasts of the Chicken” is about a man who pays a fortune for a very specific delicacy.  It’s so disturbing and wrong that I almost skipped this story, but the twist ending is so perfectly demented and hilarious that I forgive the unbridled grossness leading up to it. 

A confusing highlight is “Come Inn.”  Within the first paragraph, I realized I knew this story.  Turned out “Come Inn” is sort of a Reader’s Digest Condensed version of Ed’s 1971 adult film NECROMANIA: A TALE OF WEIRD LOVE.  It covers the entire plot of a young couple going to a necromancer for their sexual problems in 20 minutes.  Strangely, Wood also wrote an expanded novelization of NECROMANIA in 1972 called “The Only House.”  Having experienced all three, I’d say the film is best, but the short story is more accessible to less adventurous Ed Wood fans. 

In conclusion… 
Just like the films of Edward D. Wood, Jr, this collection of short stories intrigued me, made me laugh, caused me to raise an eyebrow and occasionally inspired an eye roll.  So, if you’re an Ed Wood fan who hasn’t read his books, BLOOD SPLATTERS QUICKLY is a good introduction to his literary world.  If you already enjoy his longer efforts, then you know exactly what to expect from these short stories. 

Freak Out, 
JLH 

P.S. click a pic ⤵️ for more Wood… 

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Escape reality with my books, some of which are available as Audible audiobooks…
📚 
🎧 

A Short Story (a short story, of sorts)

    I stare, glare at the black screen through two pieces of plastic glass.  The white too bright to reflect, refract, magnify my muddled words.  Feeling the syllables crawling, scrawling beneath this growing older by the millisecond skin.  Verbal seeds screeching, reaching for the blinding sight of others to inhale, devour, clatter in their respective collective mindscape.  Fading away fingerprints scrolling through digital pages or tips bleeding from flipping sharp paper edges in a frenzy to discover meaning in nonsense and senselessness in moments.  Watering eyes, tears or sweat blurring lines of fictitious reality and really fiction until the happy or not end is reached, achieved.  My voice spent, digits numb from popping letters into place, trying to place the seen from my head onto the dark screen floating in depth, closer than appears but so far from the soul suffocating inside.  Circling the circles surrounding sighing eyes, unable to see what others claim to see inside out.  Inside me within the lines of a short story that may never come to be.

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2024, John L. Harmon 

Thank you for reading or listening to my half-blind words. 

Freak Out, 
JLH 

P.S.  Escape reality through my books available from an Amazon near you…

RIVERSIDE

    It was all fun and games until it wasn’t.  They had gathered around a campfire on the man-made beach to relive their college days, not that those were so long ago.  Two years had passed since they became productive members of society. 

    Lev sat nursing a bottle of beer as the general catching up conversation landed on him.  The six others were shocked he and Adam were still together.  “Adam was always such a loner.  Never came to parties or anything,” Stacie commented as she moved closer to the drenched Derek.  

    Derek had jumped in the river first thing, now he sat half-naked, glistening in the evening light.  “Why didn’t he come with you this time, Lev?” he inquired between handfuls of pork rinds. 

    “Adam doesn’t like the water,” Lev answered with a shrug, hoping his display of nonchalance would change the subject.  

    Maybe it was the atmosphere of the fire in the fading sunlight or maybe the group was realizing they didn’t have much in common without college, but Beth pushed up her glasses and suggested telling ghost stories.  Brad groaned as Beth mentioned the Peach Lady.  They all had heard the legend.  A ghostly woman wearing a peach dress would visit the graves of those she murdered in life and if you saw her, you’d be her next victim.  “Sorry, but that’s a buncha bullshit!  An apparition can’t manifest in such a physical sense,” Brad demonstratively voiced, nearly spilling his beer on Beth.  They had been a couple back in the day, nerds in love as Derek used to call them, but the look on Beth’s face said those days were over. 

    “Ricky Jones wasn’t bullshit,” Derek muttered just loud enough for everyone to hear. 

    “What?  Did the Peach Lady get him?” Brad asked in a fit of laughter which made Beth move closer to Marnie and Alice. 

    “No,” Marnie answered, firmly silencing the laughter.  “Ricky Jones disappeared during a paranormal investigation on campus.  We heard him scream, but we couldn’t find him.  Even the police turned up nothing.  He was just gone.”

    “I don’t remember him,” Alice spoke up, feeling ashamed.  Marnie took her hand and gave it a sympathetic squeeze. 

    “Most people forgot about him.”  Derek shook his head and glanced at Lev before finishing the bag of pork rinds.   

    Lev remembered Ricky Jones and the night he disappeared.  They had known each other threw off-campus meetings, but the main reason he remembered was Derek.  It had been late when he returned to their dorm room and shook Lev awake.  The typically handsome young man was a mess of fear and tears as he tried to explain the unexplainable disappearance of Ricky Jones.  Lev didn’t know what to think or say, so he pulled Derek into his bed, allowing his distraught friend to safely sob away the trauma until they both fell asleep entwined in a comforting embrace.  They never talked about that night, but Lev felt like this wasn’t the time to bring it up. 

    Stacie was about to say something, but she moved away in annoyance and disgust when Derek started coughing.  Alice moved closer, worried he was choking.  Her nurse training kicked in as Derek collapsed and began violently convulsing in the sand, but her aid seemed pointless as his body suddenly went limp.  The others stood up as Alice incredulously pronounced Derek dead, except he wasn’t quite. 

    Derek sat up and lunged at Alice.  She screamed and Marnie, usually so jumpy, raced to help, but stopped.  None of them could process the sight of Derek tearing off a chunk of flesh from Alice’s face with his teeth and then swallowing the pulpy mess.  Stacie ran screaming.  Brad vomited and passed out.  Beth tried to stop Derek as he continued feasting on Alice but his attack on her was just as bloody and brutal. 

    Within the horrifying seconds of eternity, Lev locked eyes with Marnie across the campfire.  He had once drunkenly told her Adam’s story, told her what Adam said to do if anything strange happened.  Stay calm.  Stay focused, and run.  Run to me.  Marnie’s curly hair blew back and Lev’s hazel eyes focused ahead as they ran through the night, as they ran for their lives. 

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2024, John L. Harmon 

Click the pics ⤵️ to read stories which may share threads with RIVERSIDE…

Thank you for reading or listening to my half-blind words.

Freak Out, 
JLH  

P.S.  Take a holiday in the small town tranquility of Sturgeons…just don’t expect to survive… 

The Failure (a short story, of sorts)

   The ignorance was loud and astounding.  

    He sat there in stunned silence as his office coworkers spewed forth ignorance and maybe even hate.  It was difficult to say when hate and ignorance sound so similar.  Either way, he couldn’t believe his ears.

    One coworker theorized that the entertainment industry was trying to get rid of white people.  She complained how there weren’t as many white faces on television and in film these days.  He knew this was a ridiculously bigoted theory and a gross exaggeration, but he bit his tongue.  

    The second coworker agreed with the first coworker’s theory and added one of her own.  With a tone best described as disdain, she complained that when there is a white person on television or in film, they were gay.  He knew this was also a ridiculously bigoted theory and as senseless as the other, but he continued biting his tongue. 

    Deep down, his voice was screaming to put an end to this blatantly racist and homophobic exchange, but what could he say? 

    “I am the whitest white guy you’re ever going to meet and I’m as queer as a two-headed penny, but I’m thrilled to see a variety of people telling their stories, daring to show the world how we are all very much alike!” 

    He could’ve gave voice to the screaming thoughts in his head, but he didn’t.  The community where he lived was predominantly made up of white, conservative, straight Christians.  If one did not fall under all of these categories, then one had to tread with caution.  He knew his place in this so-called community and out of fear of being fired or being labeled the problem worker, he swallowed his anger and sadness over how such intense prejudices continued in the world.

    In the end, he felt like a failure for not speaking up, for not daring to shine a spotlight on the intolerance before him. 
____________
2024, John L. Harmon 

Thank you for reading or listening to my half-blind words. 

Freak Out, 
JLH 

P.S.  my queer little books are available from an Amazon near you… 📚 

The Emptiness (a short story, of sorts)

Feeling as cold as the dark, icy landscape, the bundled figure trudges alone.  How long has it been since the last encounter with another?  Too long ago and for too brief of time.  Death in this frigid atmosphere is inevitable. 

The ending began with a dimming of their star.  Theories turned to conversations.  Conversations turned to disagreements.  Disagreements turned to arguments.  Arguments turned to war.  War over their perceived differences illuminated by the dimming. 

The bundled figure comes to a halt amidst the frozen desolation with final, futile understanding.  All of the warfare is what collapsed their civilization.  Their dying star only decimated the remnants of their planet, which now drifts lifelessly through the immeasurable void.
____________
2024, John L. Harmon 

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SIDE NOTE: 
In a moment of freaky fate or creative coincidence, I stumbled upon a piece of new music, right after I finished writing the above short story, and I feel it would make the perfect soundtrack. 

Click the pic ⤵️ to listen to “Emptiness in Static” from the minds of Blue Sun Chasing x Armageddon Speaking…

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Thank you for reading or listening to my half-blind words. 

Oh, and Happy New Year or something. 

Freak Out, 
JLH 

P.S.  click the pic ⤵️ for a different story about a different planet…

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Something to read in 2024… 
📗
https://mybook.to/Sturgeons 

10 years in the freakboy zone…

My first post was posted on Friday, May 24th, 2013.  I wrote about wanting to entertain through my words and how I didn’t want to set parameters for this blog.  Essentially, I planned to blog about whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.  

Did I achieve what I set out to do a decade ago?  You have joined me as I released short stories, poetry and blog serials.  You have experienced my reviews of some wonderfully off-kilter books, films and television series.  You have stood by me as I shared my struggles & triumphs with vision loss.  You even stuck around as I dragged you into my obsession with the late filmmaker Andy Milligan.  Hopefully through it all, I entertained you and maybe accidentally expanded your horizons. 

No matter how old I get, I shall always be a freakboy, so here’s to another 10 years in the zone… 🤓 

Thank you to past, present and future readers!  My appreciation runs deeper than words can fully express.  

Freak Out, 
JLH 

P.S. You have also tolerated the plugging of my books, so click the pic ⤵️ for a recent red carpet review of DARK EXCURSIONS from Realweegiemidget Reviews… 

Snowy Year's End (December 2020 in Hindsight)

December is drawing to a close in a winter yuck-land, which is why I'm posting this early.  I don't want to chance the library being closed on the 31st due to weather.  So, what have I done this month? 

I blogged a lot about NOWHERE and added another piece of the supernatural jigsaw puzzle I started in 2014.  NIGHT CALLING made me feel kind of proud.  I also released a video about my small town life.  

I don't want to officially say SMALL TOWN PERCEPTION is my final video for The FreakOptic Files, but I feel like stepping back a bit from my visual blog.  Even though 2020 has been an artistically good year for my video creations, I'd rather focus more on writing in 2021.  Yeah, I'll probably end up in an obsessive video creative jag next year just to make myself sound like a fool. 

Where will my writing take me in 2021?  I hope to continue my aforementioned supernatural jigsaw.  I imagine at least two more short tales in the series.  I will also be participating in a blogathon in January, which should be fun!  There are other projects on my radar, so we shall see.  All I can promise is to try to keep my freak light shining in the new year. 

Thank you for reading or listening to my half-blind words this month and this year!  I appreciate you more than I can say! 

Catch you in 2021!

Freak Out, 

John L. Harmon 

P.S.  PHOTOGRAPHIC GHOSTING was my most read post this year and DRONES OVER NEBRASKA! was my most watched video.   

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The Collective Eye is going to open a little differently in 2021, so here is one last glance at December...

https://thejlhcollective.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-collective-eye-december-2020.html 

booking freakboy: GHOST STORIES by Antara Roy O

Who watches us from dark corners?  What goes bump in the night?  Is a friendly stranger all that he or she appears to be?  Author Antara Roy O weaves seven tales of the supernatural that dare to answer these questions. 

Two tales from GHOST STORIES really stood out for me.  THE GIRL BY THE LAKE is about two friends who encounter a mysterious young woman who asks for a ride home.  This tale captures the uneasy eeriness of encountering a stranger in the dark.and leaves you speculating on the motive of the young woman.  A FRIEND IN THE MOUNTAIN is about a reporter and a photographer who stumble upon a story from an old man concerning a benevolent spirit.  There is a beautiful, almost magical element to this tale which appealed to me.

If you enjoy taking brief literary excursions into the paranormal, then GHOST STORIES by Antara Roy O may be the e-book for you! 

Available from...

Amazon 

Amazon UK 

Thank you for reading or listening to my half-blind review.

Freak Out, 

JLH 

P.S. The Collective Eye for February is open!

https://thejlhcollective.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-collective-eye-february-2020.html