Horror has a name, and that name is Fruitcake!
This is my 100th post, and to celebrate, I am holding my first annual Story Contest. It's very easy. All you have to do is write a story about the horrors of Fruitcake. Behold the horror in its various forms. All the hideous candied fruit, and you may have been the 666th person to receive this very fruitcake. If so, woe betide you.
The contest will run through January 5th, at which point we will vote on the stories. First prize will be an autographed copy of my and the ghost's book. If you already have one, I'll select something of equal value to award you. The alternate prize is most likely in better taste. If my story wins, I'll donate the price of one of my books to the World Health Organization's mental health division. Do not feel like you have to vote for my story. I am a novelist, and I acknowledge that my short stories are generally pretty foolish.
May the most malevolent fruitcake win!
Lily
'Twas the night before Xmahannuramakwanzyule and the Netherworld Hotel was at last quiet. The members of Death Cheese had fallen into a drunken stupor after playing till 3:33 AM. The Cheesemeister sneaked down to the pantry for a snack, hoping to find some cheese, fruit, chocolate, and maybe a little leftover wine--the classy kind from the box, not the rancorous rot gut that the members of Death Cheese favored.
The stair creaked, which did not particularly bother the Cheesemeister. Everything in the Netherworld Hotel was on the verge of falling apart. But when the clock suddenly struck the hour, it made her jump. That wouldn't have been so bad, but a chill went up her spine as she realized the clock had struck 6. Worse, when she looked at the clock, a simple old-fashioned grandfather clock with hands rather than digits, she noticed that the hour, minute and second hand were all pointing to the number 6. The clock face suddenly showed a malevolent, sharp-toothed grin, and the Cheesemeister jumped back. All around her were clocks indicating the number 666. Even the clock around Flavor Flav's neck when he sat upright from his drunken resting place on the lobby couch read 666, and the normally funny Flav had an evil grin on his gleaming grill.
"Yo, G, I guess you know what TIME IT IS!" he smirked wickedly.
It was then that The Cheesemeister screamed, for she heard a stomping on the roof. And then lunatic laughter echoed from the fireplace. Someone was up the chimney hole and Satan was his name.
"Ho ho ho, Cheesemeister!" laughed Unsaintly Nick. "You've been bad this year, like always, and you know it. But this year you will receive nothing so pleasant as coal. No, this year the price of being bad is truly unspeakable."
And with that, the wicked old elf tossed some sort of baleful object down the chimney. It steamed with the fires of hell and reeked of brimstone. And then the Cheesemeister's shrill keening filled the lobby of the dilapidated, cursed inn of the damned. For the thing opened its eyes and mouth. It lived! Or perhaps, more likely it lived not, and yet it moved. A malevolent intelligence shone in its glowing red eyes and in the clots of ancient candied fruit that adorned its hardened flesh. For this was the oldest fruitcake in the Universe, and Satan had chosen the Cheesemeister to receive it.
"Take care of your new pet, Cheesy One," Satan called down the chimney. "Or my new latrine cleaner for eternity shall be named. I bet you can guess what her name is too!"
As Flavor Flav took a swig of rancorous rot gut, The Cheesemeister sunk to the floor of the Netherworld Hotel lobby. She was stuck with the Universe's oldest fruitcake. She couldn't destroy it, she couldn't re-gift it and she definitely couldn't return it.
"Oh,woe betide me this Yuletide" she sighed. "Whatever shall I do? What are the chances that I'll get through the year without Soggy trying to eat that thing or Axe Man trying to chop it to bits? I'm doomed, doomed doomed!"
For extra atmosphere, here is the band that just may be Death Cheese's biggest influence.
