Monday, October 24, 2016
Thursday, April 7, 2016
GEO
by Michael Lizarraga
The following excerpt is from Geo, a story by Michael Lizarraga published in an anthology titled "Twisted Yarns" by Sirens Call Publications.
Synopses: "Unsteady Eddie," "Freak-O," "Tic Tac" are just a few names given to young Edwin Morales by his peers, a boy with a moderate case of Tourette's Syndromoe who often retreats into his junior high school's basement during recess to avoid being bullied and harassed by schoolmates. It is here he finds refuge, solitary, peace.
Until one particular morning, Edwin finds that he is NOT alone in his private little refuge, and for the first time, wishes he was back upstairs with the bullies...
Edwin stepped closer, peered down, to the opposite right base of the desk, finding a pair of leather dress shoes on feet that lay on the floor, sticking out from behind the desk. He rounded the table, and behind it lay Mr. Doty, eighth grade science teacher, in a bloodied dress shirt and tie and blood stained khakis.
A tiny whistling gasp was sucked into Edwin as he pulled breath, his face apron white.
The teacher's face was a mask of dry blood and lacerations and dirt from which his crazed eyes peeked out of, glaring eerily at the ceiling like dead jewels. His mouth was wide-opened, as if screaming without sound, two of his front teeth missing. His rolled up sleeves revealed thin arms riddled with gashes and contusions and remnants of dirt and sand. His hands were especially bloodied and battered, skin torn and shredded off the knuckles, revealing bone.
Edwin's eyes bulged in their sockets. His hair stood perfectly on end. His heart was a runaway rabbit in his chest. The world tipped crazily, teetered clockwise, then counter-clockwise, as if he just got off a cheap carnival spin-out ride and needed a bench.
Stare and twitch his face. That was all the young boy with Tourette's could do. Stare and move his ears, brows, eyebrows, nostrils, head, shoulders, and anything else his nerves could muster.
Edwin's twisted face turned green, the corps' putrid stench wafting through his nostrils, almost palpable, and he felt like vomiting. A rift of nerves overtook him. Edwin's arm jerked, the steel pipe he held dropping from his clammy hand. "Clank!"
Suddenly, there were noises from a small room in the corner, heavy objects dropping to the floor.
Edwin looked toward the little room, its door wide open, and saw a medium size/potato-shaped "rock" roll to the doorway, stopping at the threshold...all by itself.
Six more rocks rolled and skittered to the doorway, stopping beside the potato-shaped rock, three on each side, all different shapes and sizes. Each spotted or drenched with blood.
Moving all by themselves...
# # #
For the complete version of "Geo," you may purchase "Twisted Yarns," a horror anthology by Sirens Call Publications at the following link. And be sure to check out Lizarraga's article on his inspiration for Geo at top of link's page.
https://sirenscallpublications.wordpress.com/2016/02/14/twistedyarns-michaellizarraga/
IMAGICIAN
by Michael Lizarraga
The following is an excerpt from Imagician, a story by Michael Lizarraga soon to be released in an anthology titled 'Reconstructing the Monster' by Emby Press (EmbyPress.com).
Synopses: Hansen Park. A downtown public outlet for bike riders, pot heads, skaters, vagrants, joggers, pushers, and eclectic sidewalk "entertainers" whose crude talents range from dancing, rapping, juggling and miming for money. But Hansen Park has a new occupant, a mysterious shape and face that only a few have seen.
And unfortunately for Shelley Holdridge, the few that have seen this face did not live long enough to warn her, and thus turning a late night jog into a hellish sprint from sanity...
And unfortunately for Shelley Holdridge, the few that have seen this face did not live long enough to warn her, and thus turning a late night jog into a hellish sprint from sanity...
The dark figure stood twenty feet before Shelley, embedded within tree shadows, silhouetted against the yellowish lamplight.
A man-figure, it seemed, the shaded outline replicating a shadow actor, his stature thin and lanky, his appearance shrouded by the gloom, and all Shelley could see was a faint pale image of his bright clothing - a costume or outfit - consisting of a tight, long sleeve T-shirt. Skin-tight pants.
His face was also opaque within the shadows with a kind of moon-like haze. Eyes gleaming, beady, abnormally shaped, like cat eyes, or distant light houses.
She attempted to move. Turn around, get away. But her entire body simply stood there, refusing to say "Yes ma'am" and carry out its captain's orders. She was a mannequin with pulse, staring at the stone-still man, trying with all her strength to move, but unable. Clueless as to why. The feeling was similar to sleep paralysis - waking up with a temporary inability to move. But it was something else. Another feeling, stemming from her brain, the cerebellum specifically. Intensely triggering her intrigue and fascination. The allure felt when seeing a car crash or a fight and unable to look away. Her pleasure sensors, the nucleus accumbens, were also stimulated. A warm glow reminiscent to sitting in a soothing Jacuzzi or bubble bath, and sooo NOT wanting to leave.
Slowly and steadily, the dark figure raised both gloved hands slightly before him, waist-level, the way a weight lifter holds a barbell for bicep curls - elbows bent, shoulder width apart. He clutched his left hand into a fist, knuckles upward like he was starting a motorcycle. The other hand was palmed up, partly opened, as if resting something in it, like a "stick" or "bat" - and yet it was really nothing. Nothing but the vacant air before him. 
All the while, Shelley struggled to move her limbs, her face drenched with perspiration. Like moving through quicksand, or running for dear during a nightmare, and yet being stuck.
His eyes on Shelley, his body remaining still, the man continued holding the virtual "stick" horizontally across his waist, the way a soldier harnesses his rifle. Then, with his right hand, he began touch/feeling another invisible device at the end of the stick, an object which hung from it like a flag off a horizontal pole. Gently, with precision and without sound, he glided his arched fingers over virtual curvatures, moved the hand steadily over the lengths and corners, indicating a large triangular, bell-shaped object with a rocker/smiley-shaped base.
Shelley, still attempting to move, was finally conscious of what was being created, or what was being pretended to be created, and it was THEN the man moved forward, placing his right hand back onto the invisible "handle."
"Can't...be," muttered Shelley
The man kept his "object" clutched at his waist as he approached. He stepped out of the shadows, in full light.
His face was painted turquoise/blue, lips dark turquoise, matching his gloves that reached half his forearms. He was without emotion, cold, a sentinel or toy soldier, saying NOT a word. A ghastly laceration lay across his upper neck area. His left eye was abnormally huge, beastly, as if the socket harnessed a small baseball, shone bright yellow with a heavy vertical gash just above brow. His right eye was squinted and partially opened, colored bright apple red. His black hair looked as though cut with a sugar bowl on top, bangs perfectly horizontal across the forehead. He was a twisted combination of KISS, Moe Howard and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
More droplets of sweat ran down Shelley's neck as she conjured every ounce of energy to move, an intensity compared to an amateur weight lifter bench pressing his/her own body weight.
"Can't...be," uttered Shelley, gazing upon the invisible instrument in the man's hands.
Rationally, she was quite aware that this "device" was invisible, transcendent, pretend - and yet, for some spaced out/far fetched/ludicrous reason sprouting from those dark regions of her brain that only neuropathology could explain, she was TOTALLY convinced it was...not pretend.
"Can't be!"
Standing before the wailing Shelley, the painted-face man placed his right hand at the end of the invisible "handle" with the other hand, raised both arms, and held up his noiseless virtual weapon like a lumber jack about to work wood.
Then a thought bolted through Shelley's mind. A flash of an idea.
CLOSE them.
She tried, with all her strength, to close her eyes. But her lids wouldn't even budge, and she found herself being involuntarily forced to stare - by something supernatural - at the man's completion of his little "act."
And then he brought down the virtual instrument, down on Shelley's screaming head.
Nothing happened to her head; it remained perfectly en tact, not splitting open like she anticipated.
But inside her head...inside her head was a different matter. Inside that region in her brain called the cerebral cortex, specifically, the primary somatosensory that this "man" was able to metaphysically control and manipulate. Unleashing an individual's capacity to go beyond their use of 10 percent of their brain, with all of the brain's infinite power, to believe that whatever he does or performs is REAL.
Shelley lay there on the cool evening grass, statue still, BLOOD pouring out her eyes, nose, mouth, ears.
Gasping her last, gaping upon this phantasm, once known throughout Hansen Park as "Dude the Mime."
# # #
For a complete version of Imagician, you may purchase "Reconstructing the Monster," a horror anthology from Emby Press scheduled for release this year. Visit EmbyPress.com
Also, feel free to toss a comment (or question or concern or derogatory remark) on this blog page.
You may also visit my website at www.MichaelLizarraga.com
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
OUTREACH
by Michael Lizarraga
The following excerpt is from "Outreach," a short story by Michael Lizarraga appearing in Schlock! Publications.
Synopses: Meet Mr. Nick O'Neil, former L.A.P.D. detective, former husband, former father, former "feared cop" who for years has lived in a perpetual cycle of self-pity and resentment over the loss of a career and the absence of a reluctant daughter. More deeper than this is an unyielding animosity toward others, a "red cloud" of rage and vengeful bliss. Blind hatred that has kept him on an unstoppable "train" of destruction and chaos.
A train that has now pit stopped at a South Los Angeles coffee shop where something bazaar begins happening to Nick - via phone calls, television screens, video monitors, and a dirty public restroom...
Ignoring the room's black musty smell of a week's worth of undisturbed urine and mildew, Nick frantically splashed his cheeks with cold water at the sink, gasping. He had to clear his head from all the weird that was happening. From seeing that...FACE...flickering on and off like lightening on his phone's screen saver; on the restaurant's television screen."The hell were those faces..." Nick muttered, spitting saliva into the rusty sink, staring at his tainted reflection in the cracked mirror.
And though they were only one-second flashes that he gazed into those...images...it felt like eternity for Nick.
"The hell were they?"
He was about to leave when he heard sounds. From the ceiling.
Nick glared up at the square vent. Listened to the faint murmur of voices, thousands of them, creating a churning, almost a rushing sound. An intense drone, as he had previously heard on his phone.
Nick flipped over a trash can below the vent, climbed on it. A fairly tall man, Nick's head came within inches from the vent, and placing both hands on the ceiling, he peered past the webbed grills, finding complete darkness and stillness. The drone of voices had mysteriously dissipated; now there was palpable silence. He felt a rush of thick heat, as from an opened incinerator. Smelled a pungent, godless odor that brought tears to his eyes. 
Then there was a deep beastly groan from within the vent that almost passed for a growl, neither animal or human, and something...up close...lurked and seethed in the pitch, rich black. Its eyes appeared within the darkness, just past the vent grills. Glowed laser red, almost blinding, alive with stupid cunning. 
Mad eyes that were crazily fierce, following Nick like a reflection as he moved. His hands remaining on the ceiling, his head propped upward, Nick continued peering past the vent grills, stared with drugged, horrified fascination, his breath a thin winter-whistle in his throat, where his heart had crawled up into the middle and froze, solid and dreadful. Merely standing under the being's presence was paralyzing. Nick's legs weakened by the thing's sounds and smell; he did not want to see it... # # #
For further reading, you may purchase a Kindle copy of "Outreach" from Schlock! Publications' Vol. 8/Issue #24 at the following link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schlock-Webzine-Vol-Issue-24-ebook/dp/B016DZ4TKW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1445077807&sr=8-2&keywords=schlock+webzine
Thursday, February 19, 2015
by Michael Lizarraga
The following excerpt is from 'The Seashell,' a story by Michael Lizarraga published by Schlock! Publications in an anthology titled 'Timeless Worlds.' An excerpt screenplay from an upcoming film version can be found at www.MichaelLizarraga.com, under The Shell (short)
Synopses: “Hold a seashell to your ear, hear the sounds of the ocean” is one of the biggest myths many of us believed while growing up. In addition to this is an even stranger tale – a captured “scream” heard within a seashell, from someone who had drowned near it while it was in the ocean. Forever echoing.
But suppose these were not mere ocean legends...
Anna heard the noises again, from the shell's mouth, this time giggles. Children, echoey and distant, as if in a basement or cellar.
It was the size of a football, a particular seashell known as Murex Ramosus, its rock-rough, spiny exterior blended white and brown with thin beige streaks, pinkish blotches and striations all around.
The bewildered woman grabbed the seashell, studied its multiple pointy edges, its rows of short, long thick/thin
finger-like arms jutting in different directions, one end like a spiraled drill or an Indian pagoda, swirling into a
pinnacle. Anna listened as the echoey laughing of children continued. Holding the shell closer, she peered into its wide opening, its oval, lemon-shaped mouth the size of a large pomegranate, or a small bowl, ten centimeters in
diameter. Resembled a clown with no eyes tilting his head, mouth wide
open, laughing.Then her head jolted back as a gush of water shot out from the seashell's mouth, splashing her face. Her eyes squinted, mouth gasped, and she was unsure whether to be startled or annoyed. Again, she heard the children's smirks from within the shell.
Then, silence.
Her brows arched with intense curiosity, putting the shell's mouth to her right ear, its cold porcelain like interior against the side of her head. It was the sound of the ocean deep - the actual deep - far different than any seashell Anna ever held. The lapping and swishing of underwater currents, the movement and noises of marine life, similar to aquatic recordings played in Yoga classes, or therapists' waiting rooms.
Keeping the shell pressed to her ear, she heard whispers again, sounding like a little boy and girl. The sounds shifted, from echoey and distant to girggling "underwater talking" sounds.
But curiosity switched to pain when Anna felt a sharp, powerful clamp on her ear. She wailed in agony and terror as she pulled the seashell away and gazed into the bathroom mirror. Attached to her ear and lower cheek was a thick, slimy six-inch leech, its dark body as fat and as big as a baby fig banana. Its anterior jaws were unyielding, hundreds of tiny sharp teeth slicing and digging further into the woman's flesh and bone the more she tugged on the blood-sucking creature, while the jaws on the leech's posterior end were equally stubborn. Extending from her ear almost to her mouth, it looked as if she held an opened flip phone to her cheek, blood now streaming down her jaw and neck.
wound. She dropped the seashell, shouting and falling to her knees, steam and smoke ascending from both the sludge and her melting, drooping face. Her cheek showed bone, while flesh dangled from her jaw like shredded meat. An actual hole formed in the side of her face, revealing molars. On the other side, the hungry leech dug deeper, producing veins. Her screams raked out of her throat and bolted from her mouth in howling spates. Anna looked at the seashell on the floor, watched another phenomenon occur. Small, insect like sea creatures scurried from the seashell's mouth, by the hundreds, like popcorn bubbling from a popcorn machine. Assorted species - crustaceans, mites, worms, parasites - quick and fast, campaigning toward Anna.
# # #
For complete version of The Shell, you may purchase "Timeless Worlds," (titled The Seashell), a horror anthology from Schlock! Publications. Available on Kindle and paperback. http://www.amazon.com/Timeless-Worlds-Schlock-Anthology-Book-ebook/dp/B009EA05MK
Be sure to Like my website: www.MichaelLizarraga.com.
Also feel free to toss a comment (or question or concern or derogatory remark) on my blog page.
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