PICKED CLEAN HUMAN CARCASSES SPOIL APPETITES.....RENATE SENDS A MESSAGE TO A MANIC FOE

Such a simple deception. The Lady Renate knew she was haunting an imposter. The leader of the twenty six satrapies slept elsewhere. This rather ordinary male creature was a doppleganger, put there to foil assassins. And he relished the honor, Happy to die for his ruler. Eager to see him rain fire upon their 'enemies,' whether they be warriors or school children.

The Lady decided to grant his wish. Not the part about raining fire from the sky. She was not that accommodating. But the part about dying for his ruler would be easy to arrange. So she whispered the word 'liar.' And he froze. Moments passed. He bagan to perspire, though much too scared to throw off those bedclothes. He uttered prayers. She responded, levitating him up off the bed, till he was approximately two cubits above the clammy linen. The fine, smooth, satin covers slid back down to the mattress. He attempted to scream. But the viceral shriek caught tight in his throat and she changed it, transforming the pent up energy into a writhing mass of soft, oozing worms........No, they were not earth worms, but a smooth, segmentless variety such as found in the guts of diseased individuals.....Now be quiet! And don't bother me.

The ersatz dictator convulsed and trembled. Waste poured out of his anterior orifice, soiling the night-nest below. And she laughed, stepping out from the pearly, column of illumination to reveal  her true self. The tortured man thought - Cher? I am being bewitched by 'Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves'?! She laughed some more, for his thoughts were easy to decode. She said - I am sent to bring a message.....and you will bear it.
Then she walked over to his body and with strong, sharp nails began to pick and strip the flesh from off his ribs. Did she lick up the blood? I do not know. Yet I do know this. Drinking that ruby elixir is secondary to the vampires cause. They feast on life, drawing in the Heaven sent force and confiscating it from those unfit to live.

The man would have screamed.... if he could have. No sound rose up from his body. No sign registered upon the tick-tock, fire-sparked mechanisms of security. Members of 'the ten thousand' standing ram-rod straight in the hall heard nothing. And she picked and she stripped and she tore. The tight, little shreads of bacon-like meat held fast to the bone. Renate did not mind. That would only multiply his pain. And when she was done. And when he was just about gone, she conjured up a nimbus of grave beetles to gobble up the rest. Then she folded back into the darkness, abandoning her victim to eternity.

Three hours later, two guards entering the chamber were struck dumb by what they saw, for there before them, imbedded in the air, roughly two cubits above the bloody sheets was the nearly picked clean carcass of a man.

And the ruler of the twenty six satrapies was made privy to it all. What a shame he got the pictures during lunch.

THE LADY RENATE PENETRATES A WELL GUARDED BED CHAMBER IN A FABLED CITY NOT FAR FROM THE CASPIAN SEA

She is not speaking to you directly. The Lady Renate, I mean. Not because she is haughty, but simply because it does not always occur to her to do so. This ancient beinng thinks like the wind. Her visionns and conceptualizations race along, richocheting from one image to another. She penetrated the brains of simple shepherds and transformed them into Sumerians. She shaped illiterate reed gatherers along the River Nile into the Nation of Kemet, known to history as the Egyptians. The Lady is usually benign... but not always. So we take her as she is. When she speaks, she speaks. And when she does not speak...we listen to her heart beat. I am one of those able to feel  the rhythm.

Now she progresses through the night, like the sky blood men call lightning. Hello, children of the Canaanites sleeping far below. Greetings, thou contemporary Sumerians.....Your Sculptress passes. And if she created not the clay, she never-the-less gave it form.

Far away, over the horizon lies the Nation of The Twenty Six Satrapies. A veritible pillar of the classical world. Home to the triumphant Medes. Fortress of the people we call Persians. But their 'king' chews bitter herbs. He has made of his heart a fiery stone and keeps counsel with manic forces.

So the Lady Renate penetrates the particles of reality known to you as atoms. She approaches his bed chamber, guarded by modern 'immortals.'  Can they stop her? They cannot. Her power is vast. Her form quite elusive. She stops. She condenses by the bed and calls his name.

The rather ordinary sized man in the wide bed begins to stir. His eye balls race beneath the skin. The moustasche trembles. His fingers grab the linen. But he hears her. His essence feels the call. And he sees. There by his bed stands a figure, a shimmering pillar of soft, pearly light. It speaks...or rather delivers thoughts right into his brain. It 'says'  - HEAR ME!..... And he does. But he gathers up his courage and asks - What manner of ghost addresses me?...........The Lady says - I am not a wayward spirit, angry man, but something greater........... He burrows deep into the bedclothes, as her fingers examine his heart..........She says - Who would  you destroy? Whose children will you burn? What temples shall you shatter?

And mistaking her for a jinn sent to aid his cause, he licks his lips and smiles.......But her purpose is not his......And his lips begin to burn..............

SECRET MESSAGES FROM AN U NKNOWN SOURCE. A VAMPIRE PRIESTESS TEARS THROUGH THE NIGHT

Never mind who I am. You do not need to know. but understand this. The 'goog' ones, the Jonathons and Sarahs and Jean-Michels and the rest have enemies. There are legions of entities who do not want them to succeed, evil jinns, mud demons, nasty laughers.....I could go on and on. We're smeared across creation like a greasy stain. And to think, you humans find fault with vampires and opposing creeds. Such drivel. WAKE UP! Face the real adversary. I believe a certain well known rabbi said it best...None are so blind as those who will not see.

Let me give you something to chew on. It is said that The Messianic Age will begin in a year where all the digits add up to eightteen...the Hebrew numerical representation of God and Life. The year 5706 (we're talking about the original, Biblical  Hebrew Calander here) was such a time. That was sixty six years ago, during the Trinitarian year 1944/1945 (the calanders commence on different dates). But I believe certain demonic actions at a notorious hell hole in Nazi Occupied Poland took care of that. The next opportunity comes 'round again in 5803. That corresponds to the Trinitarian year 2043, or about thirty two years from now. And the Messianic Era does not begin with the birth of that personage. It starts with the birth of his message. So it is extremely likely that he (or she...after all...anything is possible.) is getting ready to pop into existance right now. Anybody got a brand new little cousin? Take a look... You never know.

Do you think the guys who play for 'the other team' are happy about that? Let me tell you... they're not. And as we know from past history, nothing is beyond them. No reaction is too extreme. How might they postpone the pivotal event? What way is easiest? Which is most direct?

Renate has her own suspicions. True, in her near eternal lifetime she's seen revelations come and go. But a revelation is still a revelation and not to be trifled with. One bomb...that's all it would take. Precision is not an issue. A radius of say five miles would suffice. Just pinpoint the city. Kill all the inhabitants therein for the sake of the one. Do you think they would not do it?......Please, don't be so dumb.

And who lusts after such lethal toys? Which ruler yells the loudest? Who dreams of nation killing? Who sings songs of death before the congress of sovereign states? Which misguided inheritor of a great and worthy empire makes such threats? ......Look, do I really have to tell you......You know.

So Renate sublimates through the midnight sky. She moves toward him. She seeks him. Can he be turned? Watch the news and you will know.

True, the powerful ones are quite capable of controlling things. Old and venerable vampires (excuse me. they disapprove of that term. call them life-eaters instead) can take control. But puppet masters they are not. The power lies within the living. Do you think this is only a narrative...some after-dark, digital ramble? Well, if that's the extent of your comprehension, so be it. But you're wrong. For the story mentions you...It mentions all of you. Which part will you play?

THE EARTH MOTHER OF ALL EARTH MOTHERS TAKES US BACK TO THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF 40,000 B.C.E.

I am the Lady Renate. Tell  me if I have addressed you directly before. I do not remember. Things are quiet in the City of Faith. All the little boys are minding their own business. Who knows? Pehaps it's 'the dream'? And most of the dreamers are afraid to own up to it. They keep quiet, lest others thing them insane. But they are not insane. They are awake.

Do you know that I was born at a time before distinct races, as we know them today, existed? Yes, yes, yes, there were people with white skins and brown skins and sallow skins and black skins. But the arrangement was more of a melange, or what somme call creole. I myself possess the form of a rather statuesque, Mediterranean beauty. My brother looked like a Hun. My grandfather like Jerry Lewis (but with less bear grease in his hair). That's how it was. Humans had only penetrated into the European theatre of habitation quite recently. And the discovery of the Americas (the first discovery, I mean) was still ten thousand years in the future.

How clean it all was. Every stream ran pure and clear. All the clouds were fresh and new. And  grasses sported a shade of green unseen since the time of the Scythians. We ran naked across the plains, laughing as we scattered the birds. The grasshoppers were quite delicious. I could eat five times 'toes and fingers.' That's one hundred to you. And I grew to be a great woman, a Wise Woman, in my pack. Twenty six 'flames' we were. What was a 'flame'? Well, think of a soul. It meant about the same thing.

I sat with the men. And they attended to my counsel. I spoke with the voice of the Sky. I channeled the will of God. Maybe it was because I never bled. That was usually taken as a sign among my people. It made me special. It made me strong. Other females rarely ventured far from home. We lived in a collection of wig-wams (that's what they looked like) arranged across the mouth of a large cavern. Were we afraid of attack? By animals, maybe. But not by humans. For organized bands were so far apart. Meetings were rare, usually resulting in quickly arranged 'maiden swaps.' You see, even we recognised the dangers of too much inbreeding. Sometimes the girls would cry. Yet after a few nights of almost continuous sexual attention...hot, little caresses.....luscious tastings....and slow, feather-soft massages they'd become quite distracted. Our leader, the 'Wolf Man,' would direct them to chose. Which man would they bow (you'd probably say 'bend over') for? And that was it. Congratulations to the new, not quite blushing bride. But as I said, I was not like the other females. I was the Wise Woman, a best beloved of the Sky. The night was mine, for the stars shone down for me. So I wandered, observing nature and learning what I could. Did the animals molest me? No.  For I smeared myself with noxious gall. Few creatures can withstand that.

But what I met was not a creature.......and, strictly speaking, not a human, at least not our kind of human.  Your learned men and woman would label him Neanderthal, since the bones of the breed were first uncovered in the valley of the Neander River. But they foraged all over. Some bands occupied territories not far from this city of Jerusalem we find ourselves in now. Others sojouned along the Bay of Biscay, in what is now called France. Not brutes, as you have been told, but attractive beings with an exaggerated gymnast's build and broad, pugnatious faces. Mine had sandy hair and green eyes. Did he ravish me? Yes.....in more ways than one, for he bore the enchantment. He was a life-eater.....a vampire 'caveman' if you will. Life must have been hard for him. 'Human' victims were spread so thin. Constant travel was a must. Rest came under a pile of mud and leaves. The earliest vampires would occassionally share dens with bears, especially during hibernation. Indeed, some still do so today, as regular visitors to this nocturnal conversation already know.

The second oldest vampire alive today, the one you call Papa, is my 'son,' but he came along much later. I was approximately twelve thousand years old by then. Did I have other 'children'? Yes, but they are all dead, or have been carried off to other realms in the sky. Am I talking about aliens? Of course. Oh, the things Icould tell you. If only you would understand. Not now. Some other night. For I have 'miles' to go before I sleep. And I have 'promises' to keep.

It's time to 'quicken' things. The three musicians are not enough. The miraculous parlor tricks of Jonathon (my 'grandson,' as yet unaware of his true potential) and the others are too slow. So I go to whisper in the ears of powerful men. May The Sky stretch over us. And may they listen to my councel.

Magic (real magic) Travels Faster than the Speed of Light

This is wilkravitz talking. The egg laying has subsided...actually it's disappeared all together. Honestly, I do not miss it. I mean what am I supposed to do when it happens on the bus? You can't hold back with a thing like that. The egg pops out when the egg wants to pop out. And considering the orafice 'chosen' for this miraculous occurance, the physical sensation can be very confusing. Lost a couple good ones down the toilet at Micky D's. Once, when I was feeling a bit playful, I gave a couple to a bum on the street. He thanked me for the goose eggs and proceeded to roast 'em over a can of sterno. And don't worry. He didn't get salmonella. They were fresh.

I guess the spell, or whatever it was, just wore off. Edith says magic can be like that. It's mostly just illusion anyway. They can't create actual matter out of Elizabethan rhymes and pastel colored talcum powder.......BUT, Papa says they CAN transport things (and most things are made of matter) from one place to another. So like on Bewtitched, when Samantha made yadda yadda and conjured up an elephant, that meant there had to be one less elephant in Africa, or India or Wild Country Safari. Unless it was just the illusory type of enchantment. Then, we'd look at a spider, or something and just THINK it was an elephant. So maybe I never actually laid any eggs. Maybe what I produced was a more ordinary bodily product.......Yeeeech!.......Only if that was the case, how come Edith was able to cook 'em?   They smelled all right, a little beefier and gamier than chicken eggs. That's what made 'em special.

I called that number, the one written on the back of the paper the witches gave me. Only instead of hearin' their phone ring at the other end, I picked up what sounded like a gale force wind tearing across the Antarctic ice fields. Could a been the Siberian ice fields too. I don't know. It's hard for a layman like me to discriminate between the two.

Papa says magic travels faster than the speed of light, because when conjuring folk suck a live, screaming, baby lemur right out of the air it all happens instantaneously. Ain't no 'wait' time. Not like Domino's Pizza. So maybe, according to the latest report, magic has something to do with neutrinos, those little sub-atomic particles that race through the omniverse at faster than light velocities. I asked the kid at Radio Shack if they had any neutrinos. You know. Not individual ones, but a whole bunch of 'em, in like a plastic bag or something All he knew about were the AA and AAA batteries. I told him that wasn't it, but he gave me one a the coupons anyway.

I have to go to sleep. The neutrinos in my brain are startin' to coagulate

HEADLESS TOMMY TELLS US ALL ABOUT THE GHOSTS OF NEW JERSEY'S FORGOTTEN PLACES

My name is Tommy. I guess I'm a ghost. They twisted my head round and round till it got all wobbly and fell off. Then they burned me up and ditched the greasy, ashy remains in The Little Egg Harbor River. Ain't much of a water way, just a bitty stream sneakin' through the edge of The Pines. If you take County Road 561 (I think it is) from Route 73 to The Black Horse Pike on your way to the shore, you seen it. Probably drove right by where they did the deed.

I  would tell you why it had to happen, but my family is still in the area and it would kind a make them shit themselves...All at the same time too. So, just know I did somethin' real bad. That's why I been wanderin' the late night South Jersey highways all these years. They killed me in nineteen fifty eight. I been 'ghostin'' for fifty three years.  But that's not why I want to talk  to you. I got other stuff to share.

Ever notice how some of the smaller shore towns almost close up completely right after Labor Day. Sure, a few try to tack on an extra weekend or two. Maybe some bar owner wants a few more bucks. But September's dying, so those days are over. Soon it's gonna be like an empty bowling alley rounnd most a these places. I could roll my frozen-in-pain-and-terror head down all those Ocean Avenues and Atlantic Avenues without hittin' a soul......Well, without hittin' no living soul.

But a lot of 'funny' stuff starts to happen right after the Harvest Moon and by the time of the Hunter's Moon, the Dance Macabre is in full swing. Take a ride down some day. Park near the luncheonette. All the towns got a luncheonette, or a submarine sandwich shop, or a pizza joint. During the day, everything looks OK. Kinda like the movie set where they filmed Jaws, a collection of weather-worn summer cottages creakin' in the orange, autumn light. Maybe some forgotten bike layin' by the side of some street...a dead doll ...a dried up, smashed pigeon....some twisted up old salt water taffy wrappers.....metal sign on a Five & Dime scratchin' out a rusty dirge, as it swings in the wind. Even the seagulls know somethin's up. They just stand around in tight, little gangs with their heads pulled in and their wings all folded up, like a bunch of avian bums settling in for the cold months.

Then, when the sun starts floatin' out over Pennsylvania and the sky gets all Maxfield Parish looking, go into one a them luncheonettes. Sit down, jus not too close to the one or two locals who practically live there. Don't wanna spook 'em. Gotta leave some room, so they can discreetly give you the snake eye.  Order somethin' simple....a burger....some fries.....nothing that spoils too fast. Don't know how often they replenish in the 'off season.' Then jus listen to the talk. If you want, tell 'em you're out collectin' stuff for the next issue of WeirdNJ Magazine. Won't be no lie, 'cause alls you gotta  do is send it in when you're through. Pull out one a them midget tape recorders. That'll impress 'em. And sit quiet listening to all the gruesome recollections of murders long gone (mine too, I hope), or sticky-clawed giant spiders scrabblin' out a the marshes, or just plain mentally deranged hairless, albino killers. One a them families of hairless, albino killers is real good singers too. The fat one strums a  mean 'parlor' guitar, if I remember right.

After, when it's dark, go out and wander around. You won't be alone. Listen to the plump, crunchy cave crickets chirpin' away like crazy people. Look for them sqinty, little hot red eyes shining back at you in the dark. Don't expect much in the way of artificial illumination . Tax cheap bastids take care a that. Listen for the whispering, mournful song of the seasonally homeless drunk driftin' out from behind some rotting garage. Better hope he ain't got no straight edge.  Be nice to the wide-eyed, grinning little girl starin' at you from the shadows back a the church yard. She won't hurt ya, not if you have a friend with ya. She's just dead. That's all. And don't make no eye contact with them two or three twisted, naked mutants they got wanderin' 'round from the closed up experimental hospital over on the mainland.

Just follow the rules. Use common sense. You 'should' be all right.

Sorry to intrude on your vampires and crap, but I thought you'd like to know. And let me thank Papa for settin' this up for me.......

That's all..... Nitey-Night.......Gotta go scare some speeding shithead too-rich-for-their-own-good teenage f**k ups over on Delilah Road. Look for the rain soaked teddy bears and store bought artificial flower covered crosses tied to a tree by the highway. That's how you'll know I was there. Guess it's the headless part that gets 'em.....

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