POOR LITTLE DEAD RED PAINT GIRL'S NAME IS MATILDA

That night they 'threw the bones.' It not really so hard a do. Y'all might think it sick'ning, but y'all think that 'bout lot a thing. Got a cave back in the woods. Maybe it an old mine. I do not really know. But it look like a cave. Red Paint folks use it for like a chapel. Talk-To-God Man live in it. He got a bed. It just two old mattresses, but that all right. Got two little bit banged up 'IGLOO' coolers for water. Everybody need water. 

Mommy - Woman and Daddy-Man tote her in. The little girl, I mean. Lay her down on a rough, stone slab. Got flowers on it and everything. Other folks shuffle in after. Mortals, vampires, couple Jersey Devils... they all here. Few other disembodied spirits drift in too. Talk-To-God Man light candles. He got a lot a candles. Most of 'em old red ones from a closed up steak house on the Black Horse Pike. He like red candles. Couldn't get no table cloths a go wit' 'em. Somebody's son-in-law got them.

Mommy-Woman start singin'. It more like a hum, actually. Red Paint folks rock a little bit from side to side. Everybody else jus' stand quiet and respectful. Jersey Devils put on pants. More like purple, nylon thongs, to be truthful. Still, you gotta give 'em something for makin' the gesture. Daddy-Man say somethin'. It in a real old way a talkin', so I cannot tell you what it is... not word for word. He jus' say bye-bye and that he love her and 'spects a see her in this world and the next.... Both a them cry a little. Mommy-woman hiccup some. Sniff back a bitsy snot. Talk-To-God Man look at 'em. He nod. They nod. He pick her up and put her in a little quartz trough..... like what horses would drink from in The Glass Menagerie, if the Flintstones made it. Then he pour a lot a water on her. Say some more old talk. Light charcoal 'round it, put on a big, rough, copper lid (more like a bashed up rectangle that just happen a fit) and plop back down. Guess he forgot, 'cause three heartbeat later he motion for everybody a set down and they do. Some a the human beans grunt a little (two fart), but they all manage to get down. After that we just wait. 

It get hot in there. Folks starts sweatin'. Smoke snake up through cracks in a roof, but that don't cool it off none. Pin Head Mel get cranky. His mama rock him some. Jersey Devils start sweatin'. Get real lathery, jus' like a horse. After a while they pulls off them thongs. Got to, else they want a die.

Don't smell no dead girl cookin. Guess he threw somethin' in the water. But she boilin' up real good. Meat gotta be off them bones by now, 'specially seein' how it jus' soft, little girl meat. 

Talk-To-God Man ass walk over and look in to see. Then he say - It done.... I took a peek. Look like boiled chicken what cook too long...... Then he say - Rise up! Rise up and fly! Taste the sweetness of the sky!......... Ain't no sky in there. But that what he say. Guess part a the service in English. 

He throw off the lid. Ladle in some water. Steam start risin' real good. Mommy-Woman say she see her. Say she see her little girl, Matilda, in the cloud. Folks start noddin' and buzzin'. Soon everybody see her. Pin Head Mel clap his hands. He happy. But his mama shush him up. 

Only thing is, she really in that cloud, 'cause I seed her too. Daddy-Man say - who done it? Who kill you?......... Matilda say - I sorry, Daddy. I not mean a go so far........ He tell her not to worry...... Girl say she jus' wanna get good at 'slow jumpin''. That their word for levitatin'. She say bad man, plain human man, come outta trees. He a archer man, huntin' muskrats and varmints. Mus' a lost his job, but still got a taste for meat. You know how it is? Seed her sashayin' 'round, wit' her bottom up off the ground. Got scared. Started prayin'. Guess his God mus' a told him a shoot her up, 'cause that what he do. Six heartbeat later she dead, but he keep on shootin'. After he yank out them arrows an' use 'em again, mostly for shootin' crows, but least he got somethin'. 

Edith say huntin' man what ain't Piney don't stay 'round here. Daddy-Man say - How you know he ain't Piney? Not all folk got the hoo-doo like we do........ Pin Head Mel laugh some more. He like poetry.

Annie say - Y'all want me to find him? I kill him up real good....... But Sarah tell her not a butt in. 

Somethin' gone happen. I can guarantee. Daddy-Man want it to happen..... They all do.

Me? What? You wanna know what Mister Never-You-Mind do?... Well, I tell you. I jus' shimmy-sham up through that mine roof and find her. Matilda, I mean. She not know where to go. She not know what a do. So I help her. Take her to a place legally part a heaven, but wit' some kind a telephone line to what y'all got 'round here..... That way she say 'hi' to her mama every now and then..... I figure it best that way.....

Bet y'all talk to folks in that part a heaven all the time..... only you all call it 'dreams'......

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A POSSE IN THE PINES AFTER AN OLD (scaled down) RITUAL

The Red Paint woman carefully laid her little girl on the bed. Others of her kind gathered 'round. The breed is entirely human, but tribal ties run deep, especially after twenty thousand years. What's felt by one is felt by all. Not the world over, but within a certain radius. The four females surrounded the neat, little, quilt-covered pallet. They reached out, held hands and quietly said a prayer. That's when the Saint Vitus' Dance set in. They began to tremble and tremble and tremble. Moe-Larry-Curly, the dog (they just called him 'Moe'), whimpered and crawled from the room. Twelve heartbeats later the dead, little girl began to move. Her body rose up, as if borne on invisible hands. Red paints excell at levitation. Once moved a house from New Gretna to May's Landing. Had to do it at night, but they got the job done. 

Daddy-man come in with some big, old scissors. Don't know what they used to cut with them in the old days. He used them to remove the muddy t-shirt. Snip, snip, snip and it was gone. Just fell back down on the bed. Then he silently inspected the holes. They were dry now, but you could tell. You could see where they came in. Some from the front and some from the back. A regular Saint Andrew, or Anthony, or whoever it was. You've seen the pictures. The one with all the arrows in him. Only these arrows got pulled out. 

Daddy-man smell the wounds. Once or twice he taste 'em. Then he kiss his little girl on her forehead.... mumble somethin' to hisself and nod. Red Paint ladies start cryin', as she float back down to the bed. 

Now in the old days when they were fixin' to do big things, there'd be a 'Throwin' A the Bones.' Think they had one back when we first started channeling this over two years ago. Shouldn't a done it then, but they did. Guess y'all can google it (Throwin' of the Bones) if you want to know. Used to have a hollowed out crystal bull. Big too. Think I once saw maybe eight or ten people stuffed inside. A relic it was. Don't know how old. Guess they made it here, back in prehistoric New Jersey days. God knows what they call the place then. Must a dug it out from a big hunk a quartz. A diamond as big as The Ritz. Got a lid, like a stopper. Fits in real tight right where a saddle would be. Folks inside knowed what was comin'. They drugged up... a little bit. Still, it gotta hurt some. The Talk-To-God Man make like a fire under the belly. First he put water inside, so they steam and boil the right way. Meat gotta fall off the bones, else it ain't no good.

But this gonna be a baby version, like them Readers' Digest condensed books everybody got collectin' dust. And these days, Talk-To-God Man say bakin' up a dead person almost good as  a livin'. So they gonna do it to the dead, baby girl. She gonna tell 'em. She gone tell 'em who done it.

After that come revenge. You doan wanna miss that part. 

Vampires feel somethin'. Get like a itch, or a tingle. You know, like what you get when that dandruff shampoo really workin'. But it too light yet, so they can't come out. Edith rockin' back and forth on her porch. She know. She feel. Not Red Paint, but she know. 

Pin Head Mel come over. He wanna know what happen. But she don't say nothin'. Just keep rockin'. So he go back in a Pines and walk away. 

Moe-Larry-Curly climb up though. He sad. He real sad. He 'dog' sad. Edith pet him on a head. Then she go get him a carrot. Moe-Larry-Curly like a good carrot. Not that he ain't sad no more. But now he busy too. And that gotta count for somethin'.

Sun goin' down. Dark-time comin'. And this time... it gone be real dark...

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LITTLE SURE SHOTS IN THE JERSEY PINE BARRENS

And the dawn came up like blueberry-lemon water ice. The vampires curled up in Edith's root cellar. They don't have no little flat screen TV's in there, like they do in the city, so Mister Edith ran over to the 'Snatch & Grab' (their general store) and bought them some cheap, tiny, music catching devices called 'battery powered radios.' Then he filled them up with these tiny rollers. Look like Babylonian cylinder seals. You know, what they used to print their names. Now, nobody prints their name. They all have pin numbers. 

Mister Never-You-Mind drifted off to hear some 'strummin' and pickin'..... That's how they play this lyre thing they call a banjo. He likes banjos. But don't worry, because you have me now. You have Zebulon, the thirteen year old Judean boy who got stoned to death for playin' 'herbal healer' with a pagan sorceress. Worse thing is we never got to the good part. Never did see what a little gherkin can do.

I have been undulating through this ongoing tale since 5771. That's a bit over two years ago to the calendar-challenged among you. Jonathon, also known as Tomas, is a favorite of mine. He does not know it, but a distant progenitor of his kept company with The Blue Jinn, known throughout The Dual Monarchy of Israel-Judea since the heady days of Solomon The Great. He taught me how to turn beetles into grapes and snakes into diadems ( the jinn, that is). Last I heard he slipped into a parallel universe. Hope they have honeyed dates there. He loves honeyed dates. Sweet meats and Circassian dancing girls...... two of his favorite things...... But enough of this digression. Please allow me to steer our dhow back to its original course. Permit this lowly, dog-of-Canaan (though I, myself, identify with the royal Salukis)to return to the Barrens, in the province of Later-Day-Jersey.... I mean NEW Jersey... and regale you, once more, with the local goings-on....

While the life-eaters were sleeping, other things transpired. A Red Paint mother went searching for her little daughter. The girl never showed up for lunch...and braised muskrat can be so enticing. She attempted to contact the missing child both verbally and via mind-talk. Red Paints are especially adept at mind-talk, often breaking into the assorted day-dreams of people as far away as King of Prussia (real s.e. Pennsylvania town) and Bivalve, New Jersey. Yet her talents proved fruitless. Nothing worked. She sat herself down on a dead, spongy log and cried. 

But half passed a Sidonian hour-glass she saw something. Off to the right, under a stand of rather thick, Boston ferns of the feral variety. She saw a head... a little, gray, pale head, sticking up out of the damp earth like a mushroom. It had long, dark brown hair and the tiny tattoo of a crescent moon 'tween the eyebrows....... It belonged to her little girl.... not just the tattoo, but the head. So the Red Paint mother sobbed, as she fell down on her knees to retrieve it.

Now damp earth is hard to dig, even with a spade. And this one had only hands. But after approximately eight hundred and fifty two tears she cleared away the dirt covering the torso. That's when she saw the holes, at least a dozen of them, entering the poor, skinny body from all angles. Such wounds are caused by arrows. The woman knew that. And when she was done, she picked up the body and slowly walked back home. 

Red Paints are usually moderate in all respects. They speak quietly, dance quietly and sing quietly..... But they also kill quietly. 

Edith saw the sad, sad woman three hundred and fifty heartbeats later and she ran down from her porch to help her.....

It was time for a 'throwin' of the bones'.....

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VAMPIRES GO BARE-BACK RIDING ON A JERSEY DEVIL

Tomas call this a magic night. Only he don't say 'magic.' He say 'blessed.' You know how that boy believe? He set there prayin' and prayin'. He say - I doan care how you talk to God. Y'all gotta pray tonight. So everybody sit outside. Mister Edith pull lot a old beach chairs outta the shed. Think he get 'em from a casino. You know he was a real gambler back in the day.

They set 'em up on the grass between the porch and the Pines. It not a big space. Maybe like twenty feet, or eleven cubits, as Tomas say. Then he go - Y'all gotta ask God to forgive all the crap you do...... Only he doan say it like that. So they all start singin' and chantin' an' recitin'. Red Paint folks do this hummin' thing. It purdy, but it make me want a go to sleep. You know, disembodied spirits do nod off every now and then. Once I fell asleep during the Hoover administration and din't wake up til Mutiny On The Bounty came out. You know, the one wit' Clark Gable and Charles Laughton. Think Franchot Tone in it too...... I wanna be in a movie, if they ever let real ghosts play fake ghosts, that is. Do a real mean sand dance too. My daddy used to say - Why you do like you  do? He want me be a cotton merchant like him. But I wanna be a bad boy. That why they burnt me up. It the ouchiest night I ever had..... Way ouchiest.

Edith sing Amazin' Grace. Tomas like that. He doan care how you sees God, just so's you see 'im. Annie sing The Inky-Dinky Spider'. You know how she is. Conrad keep repeatin' - God is good. God is good...... Leo come back from his ghost whores. Jus' come walkin' out them woods, au natural and everythin'. He say - Who die? What you doin'?....... Sarah wrap a towel from 'Lantic City 'round his hips. You know, some vampires got no manners at all. But I guess it still like a novelty to him. Tomas (only tonight he use his Bible name and make us call him Jonathon) say - We all die. Tonight we all die. That why people doan eat. We like corpses. And God bring us back alive 'cause He want to. 'Cause we deserve it. OK? You got that, you dumb bastid?...... Only he doan talk that way... I do...... Mister Edith ask can he have a Rolaid, but Tomas make like he doan hear him.

After while most of 'em is all prayed out. Tomas know it, so he say - OK, prayin' over. Go do somethin' else. But y'all better make sure it good an' holy. Leo read old National Geographics on the porch. Conrad write letters to soldiers over in them foreign countries. He wanna tell 'em they from a vampire. Annie say she wanna kick him in his ass. So he jus' say they from a regular kind a goof. Edith run inside to watch the late night re-run of Hoda and Kathy Lee. That Hoda take a lot a shit from the other one. Somebody ought a kick both sides a her ass. Middle part too.

Pin Head Mel come by. He wit' Horsey Skeezix. Horsey say (he a Jersey Devil boy) his daddy givin' free rides all up into the big night time sky. Annie say she wanna go. Now you know Tomas won't do it, so Sarah gotta go wit' her. And what she really want a do is read her book. She in a THE NIGHT CIRCUS. That girl do like her magic. I like the one Edith readin' SPLIT DECISION, 'bout killers and hootchie, vampire-cops and all. You know all ghost gotta  do is move through them pages and BAM! He know the book.

So Horsey Skeezix lead 'em back in a Pines, to where his daddy is. Daddy say hi. Sarah nod. Annie giggle. Daddy-Devils is big, real big. Look mostly like human bean, but with shiny, dark horse fur. Face little long too, but you see people like that in a butcher shop any day. Glossy hair on his head run all down his back, til it come to a tail, jus' like Seabiscuit. His feet like human bean feet most all the ways down. But the ball a his feet and the toes ain't there. He got hoof instead. Arms is people arms though, jus' wit' that shiny horse fur. The fanciest part the wings. Big, gray, leathery, bat wings... comin' up outta his shoulders and spreadin' wide, like that evil, giant, demon fella in Fantasia, only Mister Skeezix not evil. He got peanut allergy and everythin'. An' he talk real nice too. Sound like Fred Gwynne from The Munsters. He say - Who wanna go up first?...... Annie say she do, so Sarah let her. Not like she gonna go 'guhk' (drop dead) or anything. She a vampirina. You know that. So horse-guy scoop her up and go WHOOSH! 'Bout six or eight beats a them big wings and they high up over the trees. Ain't no roads 'round here, so folks goin' back from 'Lantic City never see 'em. Annie laugh just like a human child. Sarah like that. An' knowin' how she is, that like a miracle. Tomas mus' be very happy. 

When it Sarah's turn, she sit on his back and grab hold a his neck. Jersey Devil got real strong neck. Pin Head Mel yell - Bye-bye! Bye-bye! Everythin' look purdy up there. Stars, planets, couple them Virgin jets and all. Big black sky. Actually real,real,real,real deep midnight blue. But you know what I mean.

And that horsey guy keep her up a real , real, real long time.

Regular folk would never see. But Tomas could. He lay out on the grass watchin'. 

Do all this sound strange to you? Well it is. 'Cause remember...we only pretend it fiction...

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MER-FOLK ARE PICKY EATERS

You know the mer-folk are still out there. Every night they come close into shore...lookin' for stuff. Sometimes plastic bags. They tear 'em up and weave 'em into stuff. Sometimes beer cans. or soda cans... (good source a metal) to use for harpoon tips and tail piercings.

Once in a while they discover half drowned people. Two legged people. Crotch people. People like us. That's when they have 'sushi.' Four or five of 'em gather 'round and start eatin'. Nobody see. No human beans, that is. This all happen few miles out. Starlight twinklin' on them little, tiny, baby waves. Dolphin goin'- Ack, ack, ack. Phosphorescent sea bugs decoratin' everything. Like one a them art nu-vo posters I seen 'round New Orleans when I was a boy. (It me, Mister Never-you-Mind. as if you did not know.). Human bean start screamin'. by then it got the pants ripped off, underwears too. But them mermaids and mermen ain't no cannon balls. They doan eat no arm, or tittie or neck, or belly, 'cause that wouldn't be right, seein as they got those parts too. Mostly confines theyselfs to what grows from the hips down. Shark-fish chomp up them other parts. Ain't no big thing to them 'cause they ain't got no titties, jus' real big heads wit' lots a teef.

That how it is. Everybody think - Oh, ain't that mermaid nice. Doan she look jus' like a angel what ain't got no brassiere? But you never see 'em when company not around.

I got lots a stories like that. Mister Never-You-Mind been floatin' 'round a long time. Once I went to Europe in the nineteen forties. Saw that monkey-faced French gal, Coco Chanel rubbin' up 'gainst them Germans. Givin' 'em perfume and stockin's and all...... Oooo! Know what else I seed? I seed Nazi 'scientists' make bare, little, cryin' children lay down on them slabs they slide into them pizza-oven-lookin' crematorium things they got....... Jus' push them bones over to the side. There, you got plenty room...... Then they bang em shut and light it up..... Wanna see how the 'right kind a folks' dies in a fire. Got thick little windows in the side and everything. Know how hot them ovens get? Two thousand degrees..... Like lava..... and the fire come shootin' in from everywhere....... Gangster fellas burnt me up in a fire too. Dowsed me wit' gasoline and everything. I know how that feel.... Poor, little lonesome children. Some a them still got teddy bears..... That true and that did happen.

Doan know why all this come into my head right now. Still a nice night in the Pines and all. Maybe I pickin' it up from Tomas. They tried to burn him too, you know. That like a thousand years ago, but even though.... he still remember. 

Maybe I get some a them burnt up little children a visit him. Let him see they all right. Wit' the Holy Day comin' up he like that.

I feels them things, 'cause I very spiritual too.

Jersey Devil (a growed one) gonna take Sarah and Annie up for a ride. You know how they got them big wings and all? So please excuse me, 'cause I wanna go watch.

Pines get strange at night....They get real strange...

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Billy Kravitz' vampire wonderland: KILLER MONKEY AND BATTLE OF THE VAMPIRE VIXENS

I KNOW YOU DIDN'T SEE THIS ONE WHEN IT FIRST 'AIRED' AND IT'S A GOOD ONE TOO. JUST LOOK AT THE NAME. TAKES PLACE WHEN THEY WERE ALL HOLED UP IN THE BASEMENTS OF THE PENN MUSEUM... 'Billy Kravitz' vampire wonderland: KILLER MONKEY AND BATTLE OF THE VAMPIRE VIXENS: So this is how it played out that night. Annie made a big scene over the monkey. I know. I know. I know. He's a chimp. He's a chimp. But I c...

MADAM SHANG PUTS PAPA DOWN ~~~ the novelty wears off

She looked at him. Madam Shang studied the handsome, twenty eight thousand year old vampirino. He seemed frozen, caught in mid gesture, like a gnat in amber. Demi-Goddesses can do that. Time means nothing. Distance is nonexistent. And she sighed, for she knew there were other beings to have fun with. 

Papa also wearied of the experience. What did reality mean to a creature like her, an accidental tourist passing through the lives and worlds of others? Did she ever care? Perhaps when she was human and even as a vampire, but obviously not now. And in Shang's case 'now' went back a very long time.

She was in 'spider phase' now, inhabiting the physicality of a huge, intricately articulated arachnid. Oddly beautiful in a way. This one was devoid of fur, flaunting a multicolored, jewel-like carapace. And Papa was Papa, caught in a web that spanned the stars. Sometimes she rubbed his belly. Two toed spider feet (or are the front ones 'hands'?) can be gentle...when they want to be. 

Tiny beings, some human, some not, screamed, as she lowered her monstrous cephalo-thorax (roughly analogous to a head) the better to inject them with clear, hot poison running down from her needle-like fangs.

Papa didn't like her crude burlesque of 'el mundo vampirismo,' but that life was so far behind her she barely remembered it. Goddesses will have their fun. 

She considered eating him. Oh, the experience would be real. For are we not all just complicated electrical sparks? Yet a mind above hers said - No....... Perhaps it was The Jade Emperor Himself, or some other heavenly functionary. So she demurred. Although he was carefully wrapped in a silk cocoon and tucked in a safe, dry place.

And there she left him.... lost among the stars, or the illusion of stars, as she re-constituted her 'human' form and swam off to toy with children. 

Unfortunately, Papa's delicate condition was far from unique. Over the eons others were like-wise disposed, hung in abeyance 'tween the spirit and the flesh. But this one had talents of his own and he roused them so he could escape....

Yet he brought the 'shroud' back with him. The silk of a demi-goddess holds power. And the vampires would one day find use for it...

So a strange gaseous cloud blew sun-ward from the stars, as Papa advanced back home.

The ghosts of The Pine Barrens felt it. And they danced and swirled through the branches 'neath the kiss of a full, ivory moon...

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