June 2012
1 post
11 tags
Universal Monsters XXIII
We carried our ghosts. Lucian strapped the dustbuster to his back like a katana as we walked west. Into the sun. Tesla and Art Fleming could be heard whining from time to time, from deep inside the tiny vacuum. It reminded us of Limbaugh and Hannity bitching on the radio. The bulls listened to that shit non-stop. We don’t know why. You’d think being in prison you’d get your fill of mindless...
March 2012
1 post
9 tags
Universal Monsters XXII
Being dead didn’t make Nikola Tesla any saner and it didn’t help that Art Fleming was egging him on. It also didn’t help (it never helps) that if you’re in a room with more than ten people you are in a room with a fucking ghost expert. They’ve seen Ghostbusters One and Two and they’ve got a respectable Casper collection, two or three long boxes at least, and they...
October 2011
1 post
11 tags
Universal Monsters XXI
Space started pulling at the stuffing in the planetarium chairs with two fingers, like getting the yellow foam out of them one fiber at a time was the only thing in the world worth doing, and he took enough time off talking that we pretty much all assumed the story was over. It was a good story, not as funny as maybe some of us would have liked, some of us might have added a chase scene in act...
September 2011
1 post
Universal Monsters XX
“Here’s how terraforming Mars will work.” Space was rolling now and maybe a little drunk on a story that’s been fermented and aging in his mind-cask for over a decade and we don’t know if he cared that we were in the room at all at this point. He didn’t seem to notice but someone switched the presentation on the planetarium dome from “Sunrise” to “Mars.” The red planet spun overhead...
August 2011
2 posts
Universal Monsters Chapter XIX
“There was a time when music only existed while it was being played,” Space said. And then he paused like we were all supposed to get that this was way, way deep and maybe “ooh” or “gasp” or something. Brinkmire choked on some candy corn he found under a chair but we didn’t think that counted. “It was not very long ago, really,” Space continued. “Wasn’t till Edison came up with the...
Universal Monsters Chapter XVIII
“There was always going to be an extinction event, so it was my job to bend Mars,” Space said as he worked something out in the middle distance. Like he was pulling the memories through a crack in time. Everyone gathered in a circle like we were at camp and that was okay because we all knew it was a ghost story coming. Jackson said before we went on we needed music. He told us it would be more...
July 2011
2 posts
Universal Monsters Chapter XVII
We slept that night in a junior college planetarium with the “Sunrise” presentation on a loop. We had no idea if it would work on the vampires, but we had high hopes. We had high hopes, also, that bloodsuckers couldn’t come in unless they were invited. There really doesn’t seem to be any kind of consensus on the matter amongst fiction writers or inmates and, at the time,...
Universal Monsters Chapter XVI
Ever stood in the kind of rain you can’t see through? Sure you have. It’s also the kind of rain you can’t hear through. It’s loud and thick and everywhere at once. It piles up in your eyes like you’re crying and it ruins your phone. Probably you’ve kissed in that kind of rain and maybe danced and laughed. This would have been before that Tuesday when you still believed in dancing and...
June 2011
1 post
Universal Monsters Chapter XV
We had to walk around Alabama. The entire damn thing was on fire. Fire to the skies, and, hell, maybe into the heavens and maybe into Heaven proper. Fire as high as we could see. And something swam in the flames. Brimstone Whales or Ember Sharks. Something. They were only silhouettes, really. We couldn’t get to close enough to make much out. Hair started burning ten or fifteen feet...
March 2011
2 posts
Universal Monsters XIV
It was Space that figured the rags would be combustible. It was Space that figured they were eraseable.
He did a little math and came up with the Anti-Life equation. He put two and two together and it equaled kaboom. He rubbed his chin a little and nodded for a while and said they’d be “Inflammable like a drunken fleet of crispy, undead Hindenburgs.” Then he spent about fifteen minutes...
Universal Monsters XIII
The other mummies were more productive .They were trying to bring the mountain to Mohamed. They were trying to build pyramids. But south Florida is made almost entirely of strip malls and swampland. If the ground can support a discount haberdashery, then one has been built there. Step off the sidewalk at your own risk. Hope you can swim. So the rags kept breaking off chunks of Gap...
January 2011
2 posts
Universal Monsters XII
Mummies are like molotov cocktails with feet. They’re anointed with oil, wrapped in linen, kept away from moisture and whatever organs and things don’t get yanked out before they get entombed basically liquefies and ferments. They’re just these fantastic little fire-bombs that moan a little here and there and explode on impact. Sure, there’s the whole idea of the curse of the mummy but...
Universal Monsters XI
Eventually we made a new calendar. It only made sense, we thought, to start working forward from Tuesday. We wanted every damn date to be a reminder. We wanted a count. An at-a-glance, fuck-you-monsters number. We wanted even our cheques to tell us we had survived if we ever had a banking system worth using and robbing again. And “Anno Domini” felt like a lie. “The Year of Our Lord”...
November 2010
4 posts
Universal Monsters Audiobook Chapter 10
Here, then, is the audiobook version of Chapter Ten. If my voice sounds a little odd at times it’s just because my throat has been trying to secede from my body for about a week, now. At one point, when I say the word, “sanctuary” it sounds like I’m doing a Tom Brokaw impression but, in fact, I’m just dying a little.
Download it here.
Enjoy, all,
E
Universal Monsters X
“This is very sad,” said Brinkmire. “Very sad. I’m very sad for us. Coming back here, to this place, this may be the most fucked up thing I’ve ever seen. And, as some of you may know, I’ve recently been through a bit of an apocalypse.”
It was hard to argue. We all agreed on that. We agreed that we needed a plan. What divided us was everything else.
Do we stay? The prison has food and drugs...
Universal Monsters Audiobook Chapters 1-9
A few people have mentioned that they prefer audiobooks for working out and driving and being illiterate and whatnot. Also, some people don’t see so good. So I’ve recorded the first nine chapters in audiobook format and hope to include an audio version of every chapter with its posting as the book progressess. As always and of course it is cheap as free.
It sounds more than a...
Universal Monsters IX
He told us we could call him Casanova Jones. We told him that was ridiculous and we would not. Even though he was sitting on a throne he made from werewolf skulls we told him we would call him, “Sarah.” He had a small Dutch boy he named Jeff that he used for an ottoman and his throne-skulls were held together by taffy and coagulated chupacabra blood. From time to time Jeff would turn...
October 2010
2 posts
Universal Monsters VIII
It had been the kind of day where a body could miss a few details. And by the time we noticed it was too late. And even if it wasn’t. None of us had the heart to tell Fraction he was swimming west. None of us had the balls to tell him he was in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Universal Monsters VII
The gates were open. What was left of them. But we walked over the crumbled, tumbled, bombed-to-fuck-all rubble of the walls anyway. Walking through the gates felt like parole. Walking over the walls felt like freedom. It also would have made a flippin’ sweet photo had anyone been alive to take a picture. Space bandaged Quietly as best he could, but even a one-seventy IQ can do only so...
September 2010
4 posts
Universal Monsters VI
We lined the walls of the yard like a middle school gym during a fifth grade dance. Convicts on one side, inmates on the other. In the middle was the disco ball. In the middle, was Fraction. Death was Fraction’s dance floor and every living thing at MGD 64 and all of the spirits that couldn’t leave just yet because this was too damn entertaining and all of the beasts and trees and...
Universal Monsters V
We hid. We fought. We stood tall and we ran and we froze and we burned and we played games and we played dead. Eventually most of us didn’t have to play. Some of us cried. Some of us slept. Some of us cooked because the kitchen was open and the last meal is a convention convicts take seriously. Even if you’re not on death row you’ve talked about it a hundred thousand...
Universal Monsters IV
MGD-64 Maximum Security State Prison reports a seven-to-one prisoner-to-guard ratio. Which is pretty sad on the face of things. But what they won’t tell you is: that number reflects the staff to inmate/convict ratio in total. Not at all times. Or at any time. Over three shifts, with off days, vacation days, sick days, maternity leave, paternity leave, injuries, toga parties, klan...
Universal Monsters III
Prison Guards called themselves, “COs”. We called them, “bulls”. This is back when there were prisons. And people to guard them. These days when we use the word we’re usually just talking about minotaurs or sometimes that one cow in Nebraska that knew Kung Fu. That guy was a dick. But before we ever saw a dairy-cow perform a hurricane kick, “bull” meant, “guard.” Probably it comes...
August 2010
4 posts
Universal Monsters Part II
No one can explain the military’s response in those early days. When Hell first opened her mouth and bore her teeth and proved right those of us who had long suspected that Hell was not a flosser. Cleveland was the first to go. Jackson heard a rumor that a Private was left at the trigger after pretty much everyone else evacuated and then left the building. And that Private military man...
Universal Monsters Part I
The world ended on a Tuesday like we always knew it would. Brinkmire drank tea because Brinkmire drinks tea. And, like always, when he had wrestled the last drop from his earthy, simple, ceramic mug he pried the teabag from the bottom of the cup and ate it. This was prison, after all. We all had our bits. Our business. Little things we did to keep the even scarier, even more murdery...
Universal Monsters Prelude
About eight months ago I wrote two and a half pages of…nothing in particular. Of bullshit. I was just bored and I had a pen and a pad. I was “sketching with words” as my dad used to say.
I called those two pages, “Universal Monsters.”
They look like this:
Now, for whatever reason, I’ve decided to turn those two pages into a book.
Maybe?
I’m...
