The Cell of Cthulhu: Part 1

I was working on a horror-short story the other day when I had a mild epiphany: nobody’s going to be scared of a cursed printer that prints nasty things in the middle of documents. I mean, mine does that all the time and I’m not scared of it.

NOTE: Considering it’s an incredibly cheap model, I’m pretty sure my printer isn’t cursed. I mean that’d be like cursing an individual gumball . . . which is not a bad idea. ‘The Dunwich Gumball.’

So after that epiphany, I started working on a different horror short story, featuring nubile co-eds being chased by a were-clown.

“Oh, no!” Bambi exclaimed. “We’re being chased by a were-clown!”

“Eeek!” said Candi. “Let’s run aimlessly into the woods and then hide in a shack.”

“Okay,” said Bambi. “And then we can have a pillow fight in our underwear!”

“Yay!” said Candy.

Yes, with dialogue of that caliber, the Pulitzer/Nobel Prize is all mine. And no, I didn’t spell ‘Candy’ two different ways. There are just two co-eds with similar names. ‘Bamby’ is also present, but she didn’t have any lines just then. Hey, if Tolkien can do ‘Sauron’ and ‘Sauroman,’ then I can do this.

Anyway, the were-clown would trap the girls in the cabin, where they would slowly run out of food. I then had a sudden revelation: cell phones. Everyone and their brother, including the family dog, now owns a cell phone. I couldn’t even put them in an out-of-service area nor have their batteries be dead, as that would be completely unbelievable, thus ruining the end of my perfectly reasonable story of hot coeds who defeat a were-clown by totally making out.

Basically, horror is based on three things: Being trapped, physically or metaphorically, ancient, un-stoppable evil, and not being able to call the Army from anywhere at any time. That last one’s a biggie, as lots of men with guns and tanks showing up does not good horror make. Even if you’re an eldritch abomination that can only be defeated by the Seven Very Old Sporks, getting shot/run over by a main battle tank is going to put a serious crimp in your style.

Tomorrow: Part 2