"Look, we gotta do something with this mess." I wave the gun toward the kitchen. "What's in there?"

A smile crawls across his lips. "Oh, I get it. Stairway to the bas.e.m.e.nt." Jack nods. "Like that Poe story, right?"

"Not Poe again."

"The bas.e.m.e.nt...we can hide the body down there. Poe used that one, too. 'The Black Cat' I think." Jack grabs Mr. Body's feet and pulls him across the hardwood, leaving a thick streak in his path.

"For f.u.c.k's sake, you're making it worse."

Jack pauses. "What?"

"The blood, dumba.s.s. We gotta clean up."

His stare shifts from the blood to the body to me. "That's what the fire is for."

"Fire? Jeeee-sus."

Jack shakes his head. "Don't you read anything?"

Chapter 16: How to Write a Horror Story.

Every story must begin with a plot. Think of plot as a journey-and your horror story is bound for a magical destination called "catharsis." Read a wide variety of horror tales. Start with Edgar Allan Poe-or even Charles Brockden Brown if you're feeling ambitious. Read through some of the modern pulp magazines. Stephen King is okay. Tell yourself you can do better, and then copy the plot of one of your favorites, switching the vampire with a werewolf or vice versa. Every good horror story needs a monster. Serial killers make great zombies, but it's a one-way switch.

You must decide on a setting for your story. Setting means when and where your story takes place. Night is always a good choice for horror because night is when things "go b.u.mp." Things like werewolves and vampires and zombies. Serial killers sometimes have night vision goggles like Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, so they rarely b.u.mp into anything.

You may have heard the tip "write what you know." This means you should set the story in your house, especially if it is located in a rural area and/or next to an abandoned factory/warehouse. After all, if you are stuck, you can always look around for details to add to your story. Writers call these details "imagery." If your house isn't located near any abandoned buildings and/or not located in the country, you may want to choose one of the following spooky locations to set your story: a lake cabin, parking garage, dark house after the storm has knocked out the power, or perhaps an old farm. Old farms are scarier than new farms because there will be more items on an old farm into which to b.u.mp. Although either is likely to be in a rural area in the first place.

Finally, you will need characters. Every horror story has them because the vampire/werewolf/serial killer/zombie must have something to suck/bite/stab/eat. Here again, borrow from real life. Everyone wants to be famous, so feel free to use real names. Legal action can be avoided with the prudent blending of one person's first name with another's last. You may have heard the term "character development." This occurs when an author makes a character seem like a real person by giving them baggage. Baggage can be many things: regret over stealing a candy bar from the store/anxiety about a math test/desire to lose a few extra pounds before prom. Don't worry about developing your horror story characters personalities too much. Since most of the characters will die, it doesn't matter if they are flat and uninteresting. The reader wants to see some blood, thus achieving "catharsis." Catharsis occurs when a reader is happy some other person is bleeding and not her.

Catharsis is your horror-story destination.

Now that you have planned your tale, write. This is the easy part. Begin with a character and an action: Bob walked into the house.

Here we have a character, Bob, an action, walked, and a setting, into the house. But imagine taking it further: Bob stumbled into the dark, abandoned farmhouse.

The author has taken his story to an eleven by adding darkness and a secluded location. The verb "stumbled" also suggests a sense of urgency and/or drunkenness. Is Bob stumbling into the house to save someone after he has been shot in the leg or is he stumbling into the house to hide from something which may or may not know he is intoxicated? These are details best left to the reader's imagination. The more unclear a horror story, the darker, and therefore more apt to have a reader wondering if the story is real. Confusion is scary. One thing is sure: Bob will be dead before you type the words "The End". How you get from point A to point B is secondary to the fact that our hero will die a gruesome death. Remember: catharsis. You want the reader saying, "Boy, I'm glad I didn't die a gruesome death like Bob."

Never underestimate the importance of using multisyllabic vocabulary when describing your character's death. Disembowel and eviscerate are personal favorites. Make sure to mention plenty of blood. The word "gore" is powerful as well because it implies chunks of flesh mixed with the blood. The more chunks, the more sure the catharsis. "Boy, I'm glad I didn't die a gruesome death like Bob." Think of synonyms for the color red so as not to browbeat your reader with the same word over and over and over again. Crimson, scarlet, burgundy, ruby, and cherry are all suitable subst.i.tutes. Nothing beats "dark crimson rivulets of scarlet gore cascaded from the gaping wound where Bob's head had been viciously torn from his body by the werewolf's claws". Some variation is acceptable, but keep it scary. No one likes to bleed in dark crimson rivulets of scarlet gore, and they will feel sympathy for Bob. Now you have achieved catharsis. Whoot!

With a little practice and liberal application of werewolves/vampires/serial killers/zombies and blood/viscera/gore, you will be on your way to fame, fortune, and a folding table at the next comic book convention in the lobby of the local Holiday Inn.

Chapter 17: The Sub-bas.e.m.e.nt.

"Daddy!" Owen's voice blasted through the night and jarred his father awake. Charlie Pinder rolled over and read the time on his bedside alarm clock. Too d.a.m.n early.

"Aww," Charlie muttered, "the kid always wakes me up...she can sleep through anything..." Megan mumbled in her sleep, her hair a tangle of dark blue in the moonlight.

"Daddy!"

Charlie flopped his feet over the edge of the bed and brought them in contact with the cold hardwood floor. Behind him, Megan stirred but remained in a deep slumber, a slight hint of smile dusted across her lips. Charlie stumbled through the dark into Owen's bedroom.

"What is it buddy?" he whispered. Owen's small face glowed green from his nightlight with a shining streak down his cheek.

"Is there anything scary?" Owen whimpered.

Charlie knelt down next to Owen's bed. "No way buddy." Charlie said.

"The man in the bas.e.m.e.nt said there was lots to be scared of."

Charlie blinked. "Who?"

"The man in the bas.e.m.e.nt." Owen wiped a sleeve across his face. "Where does grandpa live?"

Charlie rubbed his forehead. "Grandpa lives in Cleveland, buddy." He pulled the comforter up to Owen's chin.

"The man said he was grandpa."

Charlie sighed. "You and me will go talk to him, together, in the morning. Okay?"

"Yeah...goodnight."

Pushing himself from the floor, Charlie padded across the hall.

"He okay?" Megan asked, propped on one elbow.

"Fine. He's fine." Charlie slipped into bed. "Asked about Grandpa. Says he talked to him in the bas.e.m.e.nt."

Megan chuckled. "Right. My dad's in Cleveland."

"I told him. At least the kid has an imagination."

Silence swallowed a few moments. Megan turned to Charlie. "You don't think he's talking about your dad?"

"That b.u.m took off twenty-five years ago." Charlie shook his head. "Told Mom he was going out for a pack of cigarettes. Stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Mmm-humm. Goodnight."

Charlie stared at the ceiling for fifteen minutes. Sleep wasn't coming back so easily. "Megs, I'm a little restless, gonna watch some TV."

"Make sure you come back," she muttered, half asleep.

He hopped to the floor. "Funny." A nice gla.s.s of milk. That'll help me sleep. He walked to the kitchen, poured a gla.s.s, and listened. The house was still, only the occasional groaning of old wood and whispering ventilation. Charlie stood at the sink with his gla.s.s of milk, imagining people in the dark shadows outside. Nonsense.

But-it won't hurt to check.

After swallowing the last few gulps of milk, Charlie hurried down the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs. All was quiet, a deep blue silence that hung like old drapes over everything. He flicked on a light and squinted with the bright flare. The room smelled different. Old. A memory sputtered in Charlie's brain.

He worked his way around the bas.e.m.e.nt, past the unused exercise machine, the ancient console TV, the stacks of boxes-books that never made it out after their last move. He stooped and snagged a book from the nearest one, held it to his nose, and inhaled. No. The bas.e.m.e.nt smell was different the musty odor of old paper. My bas.e.m.e.nt, back home-the old house on Lindbergh. Charlie shuddered at the sudden memory.

In the laundry room he found a door. Pulling his pajama collar against the cold, his feet nearly frozen to the concrete, Charlie stepped closer. Funny, I don't remember... One hand touched the k.n.o.b; the bra.s.s was warm, out of place. He turned the k.n.o.b and pulled the door open without thinking. A few feeble rays of light poked through the doorway, but couldn't really penetrate the black veil.

He found himself through the door before having the thought to go in. Devoured by a new darkness, a more complete quiet, Charlie Pinder said "h.e.l.lo" to puncture the silence.

"Thank G.o.d, Charlie." The voice was raw, wet and raspy. An old man's voice. Charlie felt a boney hand clasp his arm. "Free at last," the voice said. The hand released him. Charlie heard a door click shut. The room fell to black again.

Charlie waited for a moment. His eyes did not adjust; no tiny beam of light streamed in to reveal his prison. After a while, he groped about on his hands and knees, touching the edges of the room, finding each corner, wall, and crevice. The door was gone. He sat down.

Someone will come and find me.

Chapter 18: Unchecked Expansion.

The sound of breaking gla.s.s yanks Curt from his sleep. Bolting upright in bed, he turns to face Gail, her eyes also blown wide with surprise.

"Downstairs," he mutters.

She nods.

"A burglar?"

"Maybe," she whispers. Without taking her eyes from her husband, she fumbles for the cell phone on the nightstand beside her. "911..."

Curt hops out of bed.

"Curt," she pleads.

"I have to check." His scowl says too much: Three tours in Iraq and I come home to some sc.u.mbag in my own home. There's your freedom. He ignores her voice chattering into the phone. At the top of the stairs he pauses and listens for another sound. Nothing. The house is cold.

Too cold.

Curt takes the stairs one at a time, his ears ready the whole time. He wishes for the 9mm in his nightstand drawer, the one Gail isn't fond of, especially loaded with a four-year-old in the house.

He hears the other sound when he reaches the first floor. Wind?

The thing is on the kitchen floor, swollen and blue, stretching across the room. The small table they'd inherited from her parents is clearly broken, smashed under the thing's weight. One leg juts out at a strange angle. The kitchen window above the sink is broken, and chill breeze cuts through the opening.

Curt spies a slip of cardboard on the floor, approaches carefully and picks it up. The blue thing undulates like jelly after someone taps the side of the jar. He can almost hear it breathe.

The slip of cardboard is from the package. They'd bought the Magic Growth Sponge at the checkstand earlier that day to keep Sophia quiet. She'd begged; he'd given in. It was supposed to grow into a cow after soaking in water. A f.u.c.king cow.

Curt read the label in the dim moonlight: Continuous Growth.

The thing swells...

"Bring the gun, Gail."

Chapter 19: Thaw.

He woke from the dream and immediately rolled over to find her, but she was gone. His hand found damp sheets and a soaked mattress.

"Molly?" His heart thrum-thrummed in his chest, and he feared the silent house would be the only answer.

"In the kitchen," she called.

He hopped from the bed, nearly skidding into the wall when his socks slipped on the hardwood.

She was there, standing at the kitchen window, her white arms folded across her chest.

"I had a dream." He reached out and touched her shoulder. His eyes sank to the puddle on the floor at her feet. "I was worried about this."

Her eyes, walnut brown so dark they often looked black, stayed on the window. "Nothing's melting out there."

He pulled his hand back. He'd expected a puff of frost as she spoke, but nothing. His mouth opened and closed while he tried to find the right words. "Look--don't go. I'll turn off the heat.

Wear my coat. Just--just don't leave me, okay?"