God bless
horror.
We live our lives racing from one
nightmare to the next.
We fear losing our parents in the grocery store. We fear getting left behind at school. We fear getting laughed at by classmates. We fear not getting
laid. We fear unwanted pregnancies. We fear what might happen to the
baby.
We fear
flunking out. We fear not getting a job. We fear losing a job. We fear getting the boss mad. We fear
bankruptcy and
poverty and
homelessness. And if we escape poverty, wealth still does not free us from fear.
We fear car accidents and plane crashes. We fear
rape. We fear
blacks,
whites,
Hispanics. We fear
cancer,
heart disease,
diabetes,
AIDS,
brain tumors,
Alzheimer's disease.
We fear that the
Republicans will win the White House. We fear that the
Democrats will win the White House. We fear
terrorist attacks and
gay marriage and kids with guns in schools. We fear
Islamofascism,
Christofascism, an
atheist dictatorship.
We fear dying too soon. We fear lingering too long. We fear outliving our kids. We fear what might happen to our parents.
We fear the
future. We fear what's going to come
after.
We
fear.
And yet... We read
horror novels. We spend money to watch
horror films. We spend our evenings watching scary TV shows. We play
computer games where demons spring out of dark corners. We embrace the terrors brought to us by
vampires,
zombies,
psycho killers,
werewolves,
ghosts, and
interdimensional monstrosities. Are we fools? Are we masochists? Are we crazy?
Yes. We
are crazy. It's a planetwide
psychosis.
There is, as
Clive Barker says, no delight the equal of
dread. It is our oldest and purest
emotion, and our oldest and greatest
challenge. Everyone has to face it every day. And there's something to be said for facing a tremendous fear and surviving it. Of course, in the real world, if we face a great fear, we must risk the possibility that it'll kill us, embarrass us, lose us our job, or do something else
unpleasant to us.
But when you face the
mad killer in a
horror movie, you live to tell the tale. When you face an invasion of vampires in a novel, you beat them by finishing the book. When the zombies tear your face off in a computer game, you can go back to the last time you saved your progress and try again.
With horror
fiction,
we control the fear, instead of the fear controlling us.
Halloween traditionally sees a horror story Quest here on E2 -- earlier horror quests have included
They Hunger For Nodes: An e2 Halloween Scary Story Quest,
The Blood is the Life: A Frightful Halloween Quest,
Everything Quests: Scary Stories, and
I can make you howl. And vice versa. Let's get down to business. Same thing now: write an original scary story or node a story that is in the public domain. If you can't do fiction, give us a factual writeup that is about horror or scary stuff. It can be any length and any topic -- as long as it's scary. You can even node true stories, if you have them, but make sure they're
scary -- straight factual writeups won't cut it here.
Your reward? You mean other than upvotes? Other than any chings? Other than the bliss of scaring the pants off innocent readers?
kthejoker is co-sponsoring this Quest, and he'll hand out treats of 13 XPs for every writeup you submit for the Quest. There is a limit of ten blessings per noder, but you're welcome to add more than ten writeups. (though I may participate in this Quest, none of my writeups will receive the 13-point blessing; however, I'm insisting that Kyle get the 13 XPs, 'cause his stuff's so damn good)
Be warned: if you cut-and-paste or plagiarize someone else's copyrighted work, your writeup will be deleted, and you'll be assessed a -13 XP penalty.
What's the runtime for the Quest? The entire month of October, plus November 1, server time. Halloween is too damn nifty to limit to just one day a year.
When you write a story for the Quest, just /msg me with the node title and softlink your writeup to this node. I'll include a list of all the Quest participants below.
Let the fear begin.
Tales:
The Sweet Smell of Death by
borgo
Distance on Mars by
Yurei
The Maniac's Song by
Ereneta
Public sculpture by
dannye
The Writer's Block by
drownzsurf
Haunting Chikamatsu by
Yurei
The Last Concert by
drownzsurf
The Murderer's Confession by
Ereneta
The Tank by
henry flower
thank you Don by
artman2003
An Open Letter to the Boogeyman by
allseeingeye
The Doctorate by
drownzsurf
The Spectre, A Fact by
Ereneta
Phineas Gage's Air Conditioner by
ncc05
You need trepanation like you need another hole in your head by
ncc05
Ghosts can laugh, but they're already dead by
Servo5678
Shub-Internet by
Jet-Poop
Scoutmaster Bob's Fraternity Story by
Major General Panic
The Tanzanian Devil by
rootbeer277
Grindyma by
DejaMorgana
I am the Monster by
henry flower
Who knocks within? by
dimview
Heavy Science by
drownzsurf
Carving by
sid
The shower drowns out the shutter-click. by
Rapscallion
Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ by
IWhoSawTheFace
A Vacation Too Far by
drownzsurf
the dead had risen, and there was nobody to pump gas by
anamnesis
I am outside the set of scientifically intelligible events by
anamnesis
With the song still in them by
Scriblerus
Late one October night by
no_one
Truths:
Faces on the Kitchen Floor: Belmez, Spain, 1971 by
Radar
fear by
paraclete
Everyone has a 'true ghost story' story by
paraclete
The Witching Hour by
drkersdeofgry
Gilles de Rais by
drkersdeofgry
Reviews:
The Walking Dead by
prole
Land of the Dead by
prole
Religious Horror Films by
bishopred1
The Monster Mash by
Shen
Werewolf versus Vampire Women by
Timeshredder
The Curse of the Blair Witch by
Timeshredder
Happy Halloween by
Jeedan
The Quest is at an end for another year. Many thanks to everyone who participated. Your XP rewards should be on the way soon.