HalfAStick.com

This year I have several anniversaries coming up. Two in February, one in March, one in May. Three, the one in May, the one in March, and another, are 20 year anniversaries. Twenty goddamn years. The thing is, every single one of them is associated with pain and misery and unhappiness. All of them. “But  [ Read More ]

Yeah, I know. I haven’t posted anything since the LAST column went up. I apologize. I’ve just been busy with work. More soon, I promise. In any event, here’s my latest at Apex. Caution: Some links are not necessarily safe for work.

It’s that time of the month again! My latest column for Apex Books is up and deals with the Young Adult series of books The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. It explores the history of similar stories and Collins stated influences. From Greek Myth to Shirley Jackson to Stephen King (as Richard Bachman) I touch  [ Read More ]

  So the third challenge has come and gone and sadly, I did not do quite as well this time around. It was my own fault for reasons I’ll discuss shortly. First, however, the challenge itself. Take half of a conversation and fill in the blanks. 400 word limit. Here was the half we were  [ Read More ]

The first real challenge for the Survivor game comes to an end and yours truly pulls double duty. After some debate over the plot of our story, things were not progressing. As you’ll see below, I took matters into my own hands. TEAM: I’m with Stupid Don Campbell In southeast Kansas sits an eighty-five mile  [ Read More ]

He’s half an hour north of Missouri when the first symptoms hit him. Nausea first, then the headache. There’s little to be found ahead of him for a few hundred miles, not until he gets close to Kansas City, and he doubts he’s going to make it that far. Fifteen minutes later he feels the  [ Read More ]

The first challenge in the Spookymilk Survivor Challenge was to write a short story using exactly 59 words. Given that I more or less did that semi-daily for awhile on the Explorer’s Club stuff, it was pretty damn easy. I took an older idea, rewrote it a bit to tighten it up, and BAM. Done.  [ Read More ]

I wept bitter tears when I found out my homeboy John Wreisner would be taking part in the Spookymilk Survivor Writing Challenge and that I had not discovered this particular event until it was far too late. Then, like a tiny, cigarette addicted, alcoholic messiah (the best kind) dear Johnny called me up to let me  [ Read More ]

Hey kids, Uncle Don here to tell you that at my day job, the Muller Family Theater Delano 5, we’re going to be having an early screening of Paranormal Activity 3. Oh, sure, it opens big tomorrow, but we’ve got it tonight at 9PM, you lucky bastards. It’s a sad Halloween season this year with  [ Read More ]

I want to tell you true things. I want to hear the gasp you make when you hear them. I want them to thrill you, frighten you, hurt you, make you weep bitter tears on your pillow at night. I want you to think of them and need to take a drag, take a hit,  [ Read More ]

Riding in, Black Bottom looked no different than a hundred other places I’d been. Small by any standard you cared to measure it with. The population consisted of maybe a few hundred people. The sign at the town proclaimed it to be four hundred thirty, but that meant exactly jack shit. Who knows when the  [ Read More ]

Hey kids! Uncle Don here letting you know that there’s a brand spanking new column by yours truly over at Apex Books all about those crazy psychics and their telepathy. As a kid, the story of psychic powers that really rang with me the strongest was that of Firestarter’s Charlie McGee. I think it’s because  [ Read More ]

The ice floats in amber and gold and the sides of the glass are covered with hoarfrost. Another swallow slithers down my throat burning and cold and I grimace into the darkness. Television flickers blue-white and I don’t know what’s on. There a subtitles but I’m not reading them anymore, just lost in the dark  [ Read More ]

Day Eight is finally here. The day of days. The final day of the Fest and the day of the Great and Mighty Party. Starts off a little rough. I have a headache and my stomach is hurting a bit, so I grab a beer from the fridge and eat it for breakfast. When it’s  [ Read More ]

Day seven dawns and it’s a late start day. No tickets available till 10:00, so I get a little extra sleep. Not that it matters to my queue number which, despite having logged in the night before, has been randomly assigned to me in the 300’s. The Queue Gods seem about as happy with me  [ Read More ]

Day six is off to a rocky start. I get tickets for two of my movies, but two others I really wanted are sold out. Still, I decide to not to worry too much and just enjoy things as best I can. It’s bright and early but I feel good. Well rested even. Amazing what  [ Read More ]

Up late, I get shit for tickets, but I have my Fantasic Feud ticket locked in already so I don’t really worry about it. Jacob and I go in late that day, skipping the early show and instead showing up in time for the two o’clock shows. First on the list is Knuckle, a documentary  [ Read More ]

Day 4 I set my alarm for 7:45 but managed to pull it off the couch during the night and am now sleeping on it. It’s going off for around twenty minutes before I wake up. I skip a shower because there’s not enough time and that gets us right on schedule. We arrive at  [ Read More ]

Despite my vow to get in line earlier, I forget that my alarm is set for Monday through Friday only. This is only partially problematic as I come out of dreamland two minutes after nine.My number in line is in the 500’s but at least I’m in line. Jacob’s already gone, needing to pick up  [ Read More ]

It’s 8:30 in the morning and I’m awakened by Fred the Cat romping about as Jacob moves around the apartment. I get up to shit, shower, and… not… shave. I haven’t shaved in thirteen years. I sign into the online ticketing system two minutes after it opens, which turns out to be two minutes later  [ Read More ]

7:30 am when I snap awake. My air mattress is deflated and I spend a moment worrying about a puncture before I realize I had simply been lax in securing the stopper. I roll it up and stash out for the day then sit and read for a bit until it is time for a  [ Read More ]

When I loaded my bags into Melissa’s car, it was gray and windy. Rain fell in scattered occasional drops, spicules of moisture. It was almost too chilly for the shorts I was wearing. The trip began for me as it always does, from my front door with that familiar sense of excitement and terror that  [ Read More ]

Well, kids, the grand experiment is over. I worked like a dog to code up the site, to get it to look as slick and shiny as possible, and I did that. Unfortunately it was such a pain in the ass to maintain and update, I found myself simply not posting rather than deal with  [ Read More ]

It’s been awhile since I posted anything up here. It’s not because I didn’t want to, or had nothing to say, but mostly because the beastly computer upon which exists all the tools I need to update the site has been in a state of disrepair. First the power supply blew out and I had  [ Read More ]

Two weeks in Minnesota now. I suppose you’re wondering how I’m doing. Truly, that’s a somewhat difficult question to answer. Overall, I feel pretty good. My panic attacks have certainly decreased, and I’m having an easier time in general dealing with stress, but that could be due to a change in my medication. The days  [ Read More ]

Go forward, move ahead. In my last post I discussed how I was leaving Texas and heading back up the Great White North to the wonderful city of Minneapolis. The situation comes to a head today as this is the day I go pick up the rental truck I will use to haul all the  [ Read More ]

They’re at the top of the trail, a some­what steep slope lined on either side by small trees that give way to old growth decid­u­ous for­est a short way out. He looks up at her, sun­light dap­pling her cheeks and fore­head as it shines brightly between the leaves of the canopy overhead. “Come on!” He  [ Read More ]

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated the site. I have several good reasons for this and one bad one. The bad one is the same one it always is: I’m lazy. The good ones, however, are pretty good. They largely include “because I’ve been writing longer content than I reserve for the site”, “Because I’m  [ Read More ]

It looked like a bug bite. Red and swollen on my left inner fore­arm, it was nearly an inch in diam­e­ter and was crowned with a pin­prick of white. It was almost com­pletely pain­less save for a low pul­sat­ing sen­sa­tion that seemed to be slightly out of sync with my pulse. It hadn’t been there  [ Read More ]

Up on the roof again. The wind whips around him as he steps toward the edge, his long coat bil­low­ing. The air has a chill that cuts through every­thing, damp and icy. He’s not sure how high the build­ing is, he only knows it’s plenty high enough for his pur­poses. Get­ting to the roof had  [ Read More ]

She walked down the quiet hall singing to her­self as I approached, a song I’d never heard but one I knew any­way. I fell into step beside her and lis­tened for a moment, wav­ing hello. She smiled and waved back but con­tin­ued her song. A moment more and I’d picked up the words and began  [ Read More ]

There’s an itch behind my eyes. The whole house has begun to smell like some­thing between rot­ten turkey and burnt hair. I don’t know if that even makes sense, but it’s the best I can do. There’s noth­ing in the house that should be mak­ing that smell, but it’s there any­way. The nose­bleeds are get­ting  [ Read More ]

Speck­les of maroon on the porous asphalt remind me of child­hood woes. I see the spat­ters that remind me of my old life and I wipe my arm across my nose, leav­ing a red streak stain­ing the hairs there. I don’t quite smile, because the mem­o­ries are too sharp, but I come close. There’s a  [ Read More ]

God and Man Jesus, I am drunk. I’ve spent the night sorting presents and configuring devices and assembling doohickeys and I sit here now in the early morn before The Girl wakes and before I go to bed content wit the fact that she will be pleased when she sees what waits for her from  [ Read More ]

I drink scotch on the rocks from a Ball jar to appease the grem­lins in my spleen. At the bot­tom of the fridge is a limp hunk of ched­dar cheese that’s prob­a­bly crawl­ing with bac­te­ria but I fig­ure the scotch will ster­il­ize my guts enough to make ‘em hos­tile ground. I’m pin­ing for a girl,  [ Read More ]

I wake up in a cold sweat. The taste of tequila still in the back of my throat burns my gut. I lay quietly and listen. Was that a noise I heard or simply a dream-fueled delusion? I think it came from the closet. A deep rumble and scratching sound, as though something massive was  [ Read More ]

The crack of the whip no longer even startles him. Too long have they used it to motivate. He barely feels the sting as it pops a bloody seam in his flesh. The great hole in which he digs seems pointless to him, but he has learned long ago not to question. They had been  [ Read More ]

I slam back a third slug of reposado tequila. It burns the back of my throat and hits my belly like a heat bomb. My lips tin­gle with it and the smoky fla­vor of the steak sea­son­ing I use instead of salt lingers in my mouth. Salt is tasty but bor­ing. Some­times I use Hid­den  [ Read More ]

For Jessica (because she’s not happy unless someone is being messily devoured): The feel of her flesh between it’s teeth was exquisite. It had laid in wait beneath the water as she made camp by the lake’s edge and had been mere feet from her as she filled her waterskins. It could have take her  [ Read More ]

It moved through the water in sinuous rills. Sunlight glinted from irridescent scales. She smiled at the sight, her friend at play. It’s nexk arched up out of the water, towering above her. It inhaled through it’s plated notstirls in a way that would have sent anyone else screaming for cover. She trusted it implicitly,  [ Read More ]

The smell was unimaginable. The rotting carcasses stretched out across the forest floor. There was a hundred of them, two hundred. More. Taylor had never seen so many dead bodies on place at the same time. Some were stacked in piles. He thumbed the radio mic hanging next to his badge to place the call.  [ Read More ]

He sits in the road dust on the shoulder of the cracked highway. His head hangs low in the heat haze. In one hand he holds half a bottle of Tennessee bourbon and in the other a broken shotgun. The winged things above him chatter endless obscenities as the circle, waiting for him to die.

The crowd presses tight and close on all sides in the lobby, and the faint spicy smell of body odor tickles the nose and throat. I don’t enjoy crowded theaters as a rule but this place is different somehow. The mingling mob chatters and the noise ebbs and flows as the people move in and  [ Read More ]

I hear bubbling, gurgling in the black. It’s a distant liquid sound. I don’t know where it’s coming from, can’t see my hand in front of my face. The ground beneath the skin of my feet is rough, dirty, pebbled. I’m effectively blind but I can feel a breeze across my skin and I know  [ Read More ]

I fold my Self in and the world spins away. Plum­met­ing inside the Dream­space, inside the mind­scape in the gloam­ing dark of the near con­scious­ness. I swim fly run spin off copies of myself to fool the raven­ing Dreamdead who fol­low close behind me in the Dim, those that lost Self, always seek­ing the meat.  [ Read More ]

The path split as it emerged into the shadowed clearing. Jason stopped at the fork and stared. The ground ended a foot or so beyond the path. He saw only a great gaping hole, perfectly round. It had no bottom, just endless deep black. A handmade sign sat at the fork but the letters on  [ Read More ]

I can taste the rain as it drips down my face and over my lips. It’s warm and gray with the brim­stone tang of ash. The Moun­tain has been smok­ing since at least yes­ter­day. I do not know it’s name. I am not even entirely sure where I am. Africa, I think. Maybe some Asian  [ Read More ]

Drift­ing. In and out. Room lit by the spec­tral glow of mod­ern elec­tron­ics. The shape of my wife a com­fort­ing weight beside me. I don’t under­stand how she sleeps so peace­fully, unafraid, but there she is. Breath even and mea­sured, still in the dark. I roll over onto my side, seek­ing that per­fect spot that  [ Read More ]

Small patters of blood show it is injured, but not mortally so. Retreating, it uses massive strength to pull up the side of a sheer cliff. The size of three men, it hangs by its front legs as it scrabbles for purchase. He stares up, evil in flesh running from him, and he is proud.  [ Read More ]

Dark. A smell like axle grease, gasoline, coolant. Mechanical smells. Move slow, move sure, don’t attract them. Stick to the burnt out places. Listen for their clacking. Listen for their hum. Watch for the lights and remember always, they don’t need the lights to see you.