Weclome to my One Question Interview, where I ask one question and have it answered by some of my literary pals.

The Question: You’re alone, cornered in a dark basement. Something horrible is upstairs looking for you, and it’s only a matter of time before it comes down those stairs. What is it? For extra credit, how will you escape (is escape even possible?!)?

The Answers:

Benjamin Kane Ethridge: It’s that damn rape demon again. I suppose I’ll just have to give it up this time.

>>Visit Benjamin’s web page.

-

Louise Bohmer: It’s a phooka crossed with goblin, better known as a phoogob. They’re nasty pieces of work with backward knees and breath that smells like a long forgotten outhouse that was never cleaned. But their heads are quite spongy, so if we’re talking my basement, I’m going for the poker by our woodstove and aiming for the cranium. Phoogobs are fast, though, so I’ll have to make my first hit count.

>>Visit Louise here.

-

C.V. Hunt: The man lurking upstairs is a manifestation of my conscience. He stomps around with an arrogant stride, knowing he’s tormenting me. His snarky laugh echoes through the first story as he approaches the basement door. He knows there’s no escaping the windowless and dank basement.

I press my back into the cold cement of the corner as he slowly clomps down the stairs. I refuse to scream or beg or cower. I’m not giving him the satisfaction of watching me squirm. Besides, no one would hear me even if I screamed till I tasted blood.

He reaches the bottom of the stairs and he plants his feet firmly on the concrete floor. He folds his arms, lifts an eyebrow, tilts his head to the side. We make eye contact. We stare at each other, regarding each other as the enemy. I hold my eyes open, refusing to blink, and hold my firmest and most confident look I can muster.

My eyes sting from the lack of moisture. My eyelids flutter. But we continue our staring contest for a lifetime and wait for the other to relent.

>>Check out C.V.’s page here.

-

Jessica McHugh: Malfunction

I’m afraid it will smell the gash on my leg. Even with a towel wrapped around the cut and half a bottle of Drakkar Noir soaking in, I’ve seen enough of the beast’s talents to know the cologne won’t be enough. If it had a normal sense of smell, I might have a chance. I might even have the courage to search the basement for an exit. Instead, I huddle deeper into a bulky mountain of toilet paper, my leg stinking of my first boy/girl party.

Truthfully, I don’t have the energy for much else after running all the way from Denmore Labs. I’d hoped the beast would lose interest in me, maybe get distracted by a jogger, but it seems the technician who ran 10,000 volts through its body daily wasn’t an easy man to ignore. When I busted into a random house on Porter Street, I thought it might pass me by, even with the old lady screaming and smacking me with her knitting needles. But when I saw it through the curtains, its mammoth nose snorting at the trail of blood I’d left on the sidewalk, I knew it was over…

>>Jessica’s entry is continued HERE.

-

Anthony Rapino: The thing upstairs is an electric razor. Of course, this is no ordinary razor; it’s both enormous *and* sentient. I cower downstairs in the dark, stroking my luxurious man-beard and plotting my escape. The razor, however, has picked up the scent: a musty mix of testosterone and whiskers. My face-pubes stand on end in anticipation of the violent face-rape now headed down the stairs.

Practiced as I am in the subtle art of misdirection, I quickly pull out a few strands of my beard and fabricate a trail for the slow-witted beard eater to follow. He buzz, buzz, buzzes his way into a dead end, and I hightail it up the stairs, turning back only long enough to pull out its power cord.

I’m safe. My beard is safe. But for how long?

Behind me, my girlfriend smiles menacingly.

>>Take a gander at Anthony’s page.

-

Ennis Drake: You’re in the basement. That quintessential womb of Horror. And you’re being born, reborn, borne into Fear. You’re hiding. Curled. Fetal. Trembling. Willing yourself to be still, but your mind, your body are no longer yours. You whimper. Stifle yourself with your own shaking hand. You can’t be quiet. Your voice is no longer yours. It’s coming. It’s coming and it’s going to find you. The earth floor smells of finality. Sweet and pungent. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dirt. Soon, you will be one with it: the earth. Decomposing organic matter devoid of all things. Dirt and nothing more. Your bladder goes. Loose. Hot wetness between your legs. The smell is strong, stinging. The scents mingle. Earth and urine. Mingle with your sweat. The odor of fear. Fear. And it is coming. There are no windows. No exit. No escape.

Fear is our ghost. Our monster. It haunts us. Stalks us. Corners us. Devours us. But only if we let it. Fear is on the steps. Looking for you. Hungry for you. Does the fear of Fear paralyze you?

>>See what Ennis is up to here.

-

Dean Harrison: “What Came In From The Hurricane”

In darkness I huddled in a corner, hearing the grumble of thunder, the crackle and sizzle
of lighting, the dull pounding of wind-driven rain—

And the heavy thud of footsteps from the thing upstairs.

The thing that only moments ago crashed through the sliding glass door, barreling into
the living room where my wife and I sat cuddling on the couch, listening to the storm.

The thing that bit into her neck and ripped it open like a wet paper bag. The thing that
feasted on her flesh and blood as I scrambled for my gun in the coat closet.

I shot it five times with the revolver, but the bullets merely ricochet off the hard and scaly
surface of its huge, black-green body. Crouching over the grisly meal it made of my wife,
the reptilian creature looked up with its fierce red eyes and snarled. I knew then that I was
next.

The power was out. The hurricane outside knocked a tree down in front of the house. The
giant, sharp-tooth monster blocked the only other means of escape left. I was trapped.

The only option I saw available in my frantic state of mind was to barricade myself in the
basement—a dark, damp, cluttered dungeon where alone I now awaited my fate.

I heard the creature upstairs hiss and shriek. I heard it reduce the basement door to
splinters. I heard it descend the stairs two at a time.

The gun was still clenched in my hand. I knew the single bullet left in the cylinder would
be ineffective on this lizard-like abomination, but it wouldn’t on me.

Not wanting to suffer a slow, painful death being devoured like a slab of meat, I slid the
bitter steel barrel of the revolver along my tongue as the wet, slime-dripping horror from
the storm towered over me; and prayed that this was all a nightmare—

That I was actually lying asleep on the couch, my arms around my wife, as the hurricane
passed through. None of this was real.

Dear God let this be a nightmare.

LET ME WAKE UP!

My shaky finger pulled the trigger.

>>Visit Dean’s page here.

-

Thanks for contributing, comrades! I loved reading these, and I’ll definitely be doing more One Question Interviews in the future. 

Dean Harrison stops by the ol’ BMK bloggishness today. Not coincidentally, today is also the release day for his debut novel These Unquiet Bones from Odium Media. Here’s the cover:

And here’s our interview:

BMK: First of all congratulations on your debut novel being published. That’s a huge deal, and you should be proud. How are you planning to celebrate the release?

DH: Thanks. Yes, I am very proud. It’s been a long, hard journey with this novel and I’m glad I finally made it to my destination—publication. I don’t have a release party plan, but I do plan on celebrating. In fact, I have a cigar I’ve been saving for this particular occasion. Might pick up a bottle of my favorite bourbon as well.

BMK: You’ve had several short stories published in the past, so you know your way around a story… Were there any unexpected challenges that you found in writing a novel? Second part: how long did it take to write?

DH:Though I knew going in that writing novel was going to be a tough battle, there were many unexpected challenges. First of all, the story I started out with was nothing like what I ended up writing. The plot was different. Some minor characters were major characters and vise versa. Scenes were taken out and others added in. Settings were different, etc. It took a while for me to get the novel on stable footing, and it also took a lot of help from friends and fellow writers. They say that writing a novel is not a solo effort and it’s true. I couldn’t have made it over certain blocks without their insights and opinions.

How long did it take to write it? Three years. Why so long? Four reasons: 1) Because of many blocks I faced in the writing process and the changes I had to make in order to make it over those blocks. 2) I went back to school for a second BA degree (journalism), so schoolwork took up a lot of my spare time. 3) I was working on a novella for an anthology titled Twisted Tales from the Torchlight Inn. That was another adventure. 4) I wrote three short stories for three other anthologies to which I was invited to contribute. So to sum up, I was distracted, but busy and productive.

BMK: Horror writers have to have an understanding of real fear to be any good. So what kinds of things do you find terrifying?

DH:I know it’s cliché, but I am genuinely terrified of heights. Even when I’m watching a movie and a character finds himself, lets say, standing on the ledge of a tall building looking down, I feel myself getting jittery and weak in the knees. Another thing that makes me sick with dread is the thought of nuclear war, which seems to be an imminent threat these days.

BMK: Is there a worse flavor of ice cream than Possum Blood Crunch?

DH: Now there’s a random question, and it deserves a random response—Porcelain Mudslide.

BMK: How are you on vampires, zombies, and werewolves? Seen enough yet, or is there still some ground left to cover?

DH: I’ll start with werewolves—can’t get enough of them. I find that they have a lot in common with the Jekyll and Hyde syndrome, another of my favorites. I love the theme of man’s inner beast breaking free of its moral restraints, which is explored in my novel, but not in werewolf form. That’s for another story.

With zombies, I know I might be in the minority here, but I just don’t get the fascination. To me, there’s nothing interesting about them. I loved Night of the Living Dead, but beyond that I just get bored. What can you do with the zombie story that hasn’t already been done? I’m sure Brian Keene has already answered that question for me. I still need to read The Rising, and watch an episode of Walking Dead. Maybe one day I’ll jump aboard the zombie train. We’ll see.

Vampires. Now here is why I believe I might one day change my opinion about zombies—because I used to feel the same way about vampires. I thought they were boring and overdone. It wasn’t until I was asked to write a short story for the anthology Fem-Fangs that I changed my mind. There are always new twists you can put on old stories. That’s where the creative part of fiction writing comes in. You also need to have fun with it. Don’t go down the well-trodden path. As Richard Laymon once put it, “blaze your own trails.”

BMK: What kind of entity or being would you like to see enslave humanity? Mole people? Aliens? Robots? Something else?

DH: Dancing skeletons. That’s not enslavement, that’s a party.

BMK: If you could see any two literary characters in a fist fight, who would you pit against each other?

DH: The Frankenstein monster and Hannibal Lector. I think that would be a pretty interesting fight to watch.

BMK: I’m recycling this question because I love it: Many, many years from now, after I’ve passed away, I would like people to be able to summon me. I think a person alone by a campfire at midnight should be able to close their eyes, say my name eleven times, and have me appear. How will the children of the future summon Dean Harrison?

DH: After midnight, spill a bottle of Southern Comfort on the floor in the shape of a star. Next, blast Metallica’s “Call of Ktulu” at full volume and turn off all the lights. Then, stand in the center of the star and scream my name until your voice gives out. As a result, I will manifest before your very eyes and scold you for wasting perfectly good liquor.

BMK: What’s something folks should know about These Unquiet Bones?

DH: It’s more than just a horror novel—it’s a mystery, a psychological suspense thriller, a family drama. I like to think of it as a Southern Gothic. I hope others agree.

BMK: What are you cooking up next?

DH: A novella inspired by some elements of Celtic mythology and vampire lore. It’s a quiet horror that reveals my spin on the vampire theme. Though the monster in this story is not a vampire, it has somewhat similar traits.

BMK: Those questions were so glorious, the voices tell me I can ask a bonus question… Gotta think… This has to be good… GOT IT! Who is a cartoon character that deserves to be tortured for weeks on end, and what should be the nature of said torture?

DH: Sponge Bob Square Pants. A few hours spent in the toaster.

–

Thanks to Dean Harrison for taking time out of celebrating his novel’s release to answer my super awesome questions! Everybody else, go buy These Unquiet Bones. Read it, review it, tell a friend. “But, Brent! I was saving that money to buy smack!” No, guys. No more smack. We talked about this, remember? You spend your money on top-quality, independently-published literature from now on.