What a delightful tale coming from the mind of Christa Planko. It reminds me of the games my cousin and I used to play in a haunted house somewhere in the Northwoods. But they weren’t games for Corey and the gang, were they? – Jim
The Shutterbug
“Do you think this is a good idea?” Jeremy hesitated at
the bottom of the warped wooden stairs. His three friends already stood upon
the creaking porch.
The shortest, stockiest of the boys swept the cobwebs
out of his way as he led the pack toward the front door. “What he means,” Corey
said. “Is ‘do you think we’re a bunch of wussies?’”
“Hell, no!” chimed Randy and Raymond in unison. They
were identical twins and always in sync.
“I’m not wussing out!” Jeremy cried. “I just don’t want
to get busted for trespassing. The cops patrol the streets on Mischief Night,
you know.”
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“So, we’ll keep extra quiet,” Corey said. “Now shut up
and follow me!”
Jeremy gulped and climbed the rickety steps. The boys
stood by while Corey picked the lock. Slowly, he pushed open the door. It
moaned on rusty hinges.
“Quick, guys!” Corey ushered the boys in and shut the
door behind them. Their flashlights immediately scanned the dusty room. Nothing
but a few pieces of furniture draped with sheets—a sofa, an armchair, a coffee
table. Otherwise, the house stood as vacant as the day it was abandoned.
“We’re here again why?”
Jeremy asked.
“To see the room where it happened,” Corey said.
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“Um…where what
happened?”
“I’ll tell you all when we get there,” Corey’s
flashlight illuminated a staircase. “This way!”
He mounted the stairs, bravely leading the way. Randy
and Raymond prodded each other to go first.
Corey paused halfway up the stairs and spun around. He
frowned. “Come on!”
Jeremy shoved the twins from behind and they squeezed
up the stairwell, side by side. They followed as Corey ventured up the
second-floor hallway. He shone his light into each room, passing each one by
until he came upon the largest at the end of the hall.
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“This is it!” he cried. “The master bedroom. This is
where they found her.”
“Found who?” Jeremy asked.
“Shirley Sugg,” Corey whispered. “The Shutterbug!”
“Oh, we know this story!” Randy elbowed his brother in
the ribs.
“Yeah, but we thought it was just an old tale,” Raymond
added, clutching his side.
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“What tale?” Jeremy asked. “Someone please tell me
already.”
“It was told to us as an old rhyme,” Randy started.
Then he and his brother chanted in unison:
Shutterbug. Shutterbug. Shirley Sugg was a shutterbug. Photography her only role, she captured your photo, then captured your soul. She carved your smile with a box cutter. The Shutterbug will make you shudder.
The boys all jumped as a rat suddenly darted across the floor, startling them.
“OK, that was really
creepy, guys!” Jeremy panted, holding a hand to his racing heart.
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“Oh, it gets better,” Corey smiled. “I know the true
story. Shirley Sugg was an actual person. This was her bedroom.” He propped a
lantern on the bed and turned it on.
The twins froze, then glanced about, trying to play it
cool. Jeremy’s body shook with fright.
“Check you out, bro!” Corey snorted. “You really are a
wuss!”
“Am not!” Jeremy snapped. He collected himself. “It’s
just that it’s cold in here.”
He shone his light around the room.
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“Hey, look!” He snatched an object from a nightstand
and turned around. “It’s an old Polaroid camera!”
He held it up and aimed it toward them all.
“Group selfie! Smile!”
He pushed the button. Surprisingly, the camera groaned,
producing a square, white photo. They stood around, watching as an image began
to develop. Within minutes, their awkwardly smiling faces emerged.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Corey said.
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“Why not?” Jeremy asked. “We needed to lighten the
mood.”
Corey shook his head. “I didn’t get to tell you the
story.”
“Well, tell it already so we can all get outta here.”
Jeremy crossed his arms and glared at Corey. Corey
glanced from face to face, then began.
“OK. So, Shirley Sugg was a local photographer about
half a century ago. She was an oddball, but good at what she did. She never
married and she lived alone—here.”
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Corey observed the captive audience before him, then
continued.
“Over the years, she got stranger and stranger. She
started walking around with a Polaroid camera, taking pictures of random things.
Then one day, someone got in her way. That’s when she completely flipped out
and went bonkers. They say she stalked the person afterward, then killed her.”
For dramatic effect, Corey lowered his voice to a
whisper.
“When they found the body, it was posed in a chair, the
mouth carved into a permanent smile. The ruined photo sat in the dead woman’s
lap with her image scratched out.”
Corey stared at the horrified faces before him. The
twins whistled low in disbelief.
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“That is one creepy story, dude,” Jeremy finally said.
“But whatever happened to Shirley? Was she arrested?”
“No,” Corey smirked, enjoying the fright he was giving
his friends. “That’s the strange part. When the cops showed up at her house,
there was no answer. So, they entered. What they found was Shirley Sugg in her
bed in this room, dead. She had a huge grimace frozen onto her cold, dead face
and a Polaroid on her lap. It was a selfie she took—in this very room, but her
smiling face was missing from the photo. Instead, it fixed itself permanently
onto her dead body.”
“Christ!” Jeremy cried. He slowly backed up, bumping
into the bed. He jumped. The Polaroid fell out of his hand, onto the bed. It
landed image side up.
“Holy, shit, guys!” he screeched. “Look!”
Corey snatched the photo. The twins gasped as they
looked over Corey’s shoulder. The photo showed the entire group with the
exception of Jeremy’s face, now a white smear.
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“OK, let’s get outta here!” Corey said. He bolted out
the door and down the hall, the twins immediately in tow, when a slam occurred
behind them. The last sound they heard from behind Shirley’s closed bedroom
door was Jeremy’s scream, followed by a maniacal laugh.
Christa resides in South Jersey—home of the Pinelands and the Jersey Devil. She is a medical writer by day with a passion for creative expression. Her poetry and short stories have been featured in several publications, including Jitter Press, Rune Bear, Tanka and Haiku Journal, and Every Day Fiction.
So here is our last installment of our AI journey exploring the idea of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad wolf being one and the same. All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva. Feel free to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this exploration if you missed them.
A non sequitur I know, but I couldn’t resist. If you picked up where we left off you’ll get it.
Seriously?! Again with the cropped off head cop out…
Finally! That was a journey. And not even worth the result, in my opinion.
Anyway, here is a bonus montage I made out of a bunch of additional Red Riding Hood prompts for an article that never happened…
Prompts for Montage:
1.) What if Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf were one and the same being? 2.) Her wolf face peering out of her red cloak, fangs dripping with the blood of another victim, lost in the forest and never found. 3.) Little Red Riding Hood closes in for the kill, lunging from her red cloak, her wolf fangs dripping with blood. 4.) I am Little Red Riding Hood. I am the Big Bad Wolf. I am coming for you. 5.) Howling within, the rage sears forth from the red cloak, discarded in the deep woods. Red Riding Hood succumbs to the lycanthropy. 6.) Heaving breaths. Dripping blood. Red Riding Hood is not what she appears. She is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. 7.) Her red cloak masks the fangs hidden below the surface. 8.) It starts with a long sighing breath. Waiting. The wolf within stirs. 9.) Red Riding Hood trembles. She succumbs to the lycanthropy. 10.) The wolf bursts forth from within. It takes over Little Red Riding Hood’s mind, her body, her being. 11.) Red Riding Hood howls. She is ravenous with hunger for blood. The wolf within has taken over. Mind, spirit, body. She feasts on the blood of the moon. 12.) Big Bad Wolf Red Riding Hood ravenous blood moon feast 13.) Blood moon beckons. I. Little Red Big Bad Riding Hood Wolf. Freedom howling night curse. 14.) Beware. Bewolf. BeRedRidingHood. Betwixt. Beyond. 15.) I pad quietly as the forest dissolves around me. Red Riding Hood and Wolf, one and the same. 16.) Wolf within howling dark recesses of the mind, Red Riding Hood lost 17.) Red Riding Hood HOWL wolf bane true existence polymorph within-and-without. 18.) Red howl Riding Wolf dark existence brooding within
Continuing our AI journey from last time exploring Little Red Riding Hood herself as the Big Bad Wolf… All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
How very… Phantom of the Opera predatory… this is definitely not what I had in mind. Maybe something more cutesy?
Ugh. Maybe not.
Wow, that seems like such a cop out, cropping off the head so you don’t have to depict it. And I don’t want to lose the Little Red Riding Hood reference completely.
So no surprise there, I knew that was too many references to work.
And as promised in Big Bad Poetry, we shall embark on our next AI journey, this time looking at Little Red Riding Hood. I had wanted to depict her as the Big Bad Wolf one and the same, although maybe not so big nor bad. But it just wasn’t happening quite as planned. All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
So I actually like this even better than my original vision, it is playful and even a bit serene (especially given the Sinister style). The wolf is just being a wolf. It’s quite lovely, really. But it wasn’t what I had in mind, so I revisited the idea later to see if I could get that result…
williamdprystauk
May 21, 2019 at 5:16 pm
Great, old time, spooky horror fun!
I want more!