{"id":12608,"date":"2011-11-05T07:09:13","date_gmt":"2011-11-05T11:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/?p=12608"},"modified":"2011-10-13T14:10:07","modified_gmt":"2011-10-13T18:10:07","slug":"unspooky-saturday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/?p=12608","title":{"rendered":"Unspooky Saturday"},"content":{"rendered":"

I originally did this for Shellhawk’s October Dreams<\/a> ghost story marathon: She asked her guest bloggers to write about their scariest ghost story, but since the story that scared me most isn’t really all that spooky, I sort of took a different tack.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed writing it, so I thought I might do a few for my weekend NaBloPoMo<\/a> posts this month. And I’ll start off by recycling content because…um…I’m environmentally conscious and hate to let the electrons go to waste.<\/p>\n

—————<\/p>\n

My scariest story isn’t intrinsically all that frightening; it’s an Inuit legend that I happened upon in a book of ghost stories when I was in second grade. Our teacher had assigned us one of the other stories to read–the 70s were an awesome time to be in elementary school–but I decided to read the rest of them as well, and this one just scared the everliving crap out of me. But it isn’t going to scare you because you aren’t seven years old. Probably. So instead of trying to be spooky, I’m going to break it down Myths RETOLD<\/a> style.<\/p>\n

okay so there are these four hunters right
\nthey’re out in the middle of nowhere
\nand a blizzard starts up
\nwhich they somehow were not expecting
\ndespite living in the arctic
\nand just before they all die of exposure they find an abandoned hut<\/p>\n

this kind of thing always happens in fairy tales
\npeople are always finding cottages in the wilderness
\nor falling into holes next to magic tinderboxes
\nor being chased into the one cave on the entire planet where Spock is hiding
\nnot that I am bitter about that<\/p>\n

so instead of thinking
\nfinding this hut is way too convenient
\nand maybe it would be better just to freeze to death
\nthey all think SWEET
\nand hustle right on in<\/p>\n

they build a fire and go to sleep
\nand the next morning three of them wake up and find the fourth one dead
\nand instead of thinking logically
\nand yelling HOLY SHIT ONE OF US IS A MURDERER
\nand refusing to take their eyes off each other
\nthey are all remarkably blas\u00e9 about this
\nand I guess stack the body up in a corner somewhere
\nand go about their business<\/p>\n

I don’t know what their business would be
\nbecause they are stuck in an abandoned hut
\nin the middle of a blizzard
\nand the internet had not been invented
\nso maybe they just stared at the walls all day
\nbut that is not the point of this story<\/p>\n

but the blizzard does not stop
\nso they have to spend another night in the hut
\nand they go to sleep
\nand the next morning only two of them wake up
\nand they look at the second dead body
\nand go, huh<\/p>\n

this is not normal behavior you guys<\/p>\n

so the blizzard still does not stop
\nand that night one hunter says
\nwelp, two hunters dead in two nights
\nthere’s no pattern there
\nso I’ll be going to sleep now<\/p>\n

but the other hunter is smarter
\nor has maybe seen more horror movies
\nand decides to lay down
\nbut only PRETEND to go to sleep<\/p>\n

so he lays there for a while
\nand suddenly sees movement in the rafters
\nand one of the bundles up there rolls over<\/p>\n

let’s stop a minute and consider this
\nthey have been stuck in this hut
\nwith nothing to do
\nfor three days
\nand there is not just one
\nbut apparently several
\nmysterious bundles in the rafters
\nand nobody has considered investigating them
\nthese hunters are made entirely of concentrated stupid<\/p>\n

so the bundle rolls over a couple of times
\nand then a GIANT FUCKING SKELETON ARM
\ncomes out of the bundle
\nand reaches down
\nand sticks a finger
\ninto the back of the sleeping hunter’s skull
\nand pulls out his liver
\nand then goes back into the bundle<\/p>\n

somehow the remaining hunter does not shit himself lifeless
\nbut instead deduces that the bundle contains a giant skeleton
\nwhich perhaps is not a hard conclusion to draw
\nbut he further deduces that the skeleton was not buried properly
\nand thus is sad
\nand so is consoling itself by eating livers<\/p>\n

and a fava bean and chianti joke is way too easy here
\nso I will simply inquire
\nwhy the skeleton thinks that eating livers
\nwill make it less emo<\/p>\n

so the hunter waits until morning
\nwhen I guess the skeleton will be napping
\nand then kicks the stove apart
\nand runs out of the hut
\nand instead of continuing to run until his legs are worn to nubs
\nhe turns around and watches the hut burn down
\nand the doorknob rattles for a while
\nlike something is trying to escape
\nbut eventually it stops
\nwhich is kind of a shame
\nbecause a giant flaming skeleton bursting out of the door
\nwould be awesome<\/p>\n

so the last hunter defeats the skeleton
\nand since the story never says the blizzard stopped
\nhe probably freezes to death
\nbut at least he isn’t turned into liver snacks by eldritch horrors<\/p>\n

the moral of this story is to always go hunting
\nwith companions who are dumber than you<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I originally did this for Shellhawk’s October Dreams ghost story marathon: She asked her guest bloggers to write about their scariest ghost story, but since the story that scared me most isn’t really all that spooky, I sort of took a different tack. I enjoyed writing it, so I thought I might do a few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funny-peculiar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12608"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12610,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12608\/revisions\/12610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}