A NOTE FROM THE TEAM
PRES + VP NOTE
“One of the items on my to-do lists as President this year was to throw a Halloween Party for the Spilled Ink team; that couldn’t happen for obvious reasons, so perhaps The Pumpkin Project is us trying to live that dream vicariously. Every team meeting for this project used to leave me excited, hopeful, and my brain in absolute shambles. I am fortunate to have this team who never for a second made me doubt this self-indulgent mess of an idea. I never thought we’d pull it off till Anshuman sent me the final PDF, but we did! I am not going to lie it feels very nice to create something on your own, no matter how small it is, something that will stick, live in the darkest corners of people’s google drive folders till they’re 27 or so. It’s awesome.”
- Shringarika Pandey, President, Spilled Ink
“Okay so this would just be me rambling incoherently for an entire paragraph so I would suggest you rather check the magazine out first, *yes stop here*, and then return to this page later because between choosing fonts, font sizes and text fills, writing a curator’s note (which was already a daunting prospect) became an afterthought. The sheer logistics of the whole thing happening were astronomically screwed from the start, and the process of making the zine was definitely not easy. My 14 Photoshop crashes, “:D” Chrome tabs, and a similarly iconic number of pending assignments are a testament to it. I could go on and on about how this was a complete mess but I still need to do some fixes so we shall postpone the ranting for now. Because after all is said and done, we did manage to pull through. And honestly, that’s rad.” - Anshuman Jha, Head Designer or Something, The Pumpkin Project “It was so fun creating the portfolio. The energy and the time that the team have put into it are evident in the design. I am so happy that people came forward and participated in the creation of it. I hope the reader enjoys it as much as we have enjoyed creating this.”
- Aarushi Pandey, Vice President, Spilled Ink Rest of the amazing TPP team we couldn’t include due to limited space but whose contributions we are deeply grateful for: Aastha Dixit, Sonali Mishra, and Resham Sharma.
Contributions Something Wicked Comes This Way (Creative Submissions) The door just creaked! You would have to go ahead and find out. Have a wicked good time!
1. How To Kill: a Thrill Killer’s Comprehensive Guide - Arpita Das 2. “… and so, Alice never made it back through the glass.” - Shambhavi 3. Lullabies to the Moon - Jiya Somaiya 4. I am haunted by the ghosts of the people my father killed - Shagun Pruthi 5. To all the essays due - Shringarika Pandey 6. Faces - Diksha Verma 7. A list made in the kitchen - Shringarika Pandey 8. Those ten minutes of my life - Bishwarup 9. Cloud Room - Kaushiki Tripathi 10. Time-stamps from a dream - Vidushi Mishra 11. 10 PM - Ranya Vaid 12. Salem But Chic - Kaushiki Tripathi 13. Ink and Bone - Shravya S Mallya (The Witch Hour selected entry) 14. Nightcrawlers - Sambhav Jeswani (TWH) 15. Kids See Ghost - Anshuman Jha 16. Dip it in blood - Parneet Kaur (TWH) 17. Every Solar Eclipse Until They - Drishti Verma (TWH) 18. Witch Gals With One-Eyed Kitty - Aditi Dungran 19. Happy Halloween - Bhavya Jain Salem’s Lot (Recommendations)
Hocus pocus, spells, potions, witches’ cauldron! We have it all- no tricks just treats- just for you.
1. Books 2. Movies 3. Spilled Ink Halloween Playlist
How to Kill You A Thrill Killer’’ Killer’’s Comprehensive Guide by Arpita Das
And you’re so fresh with your pale dark bliss Those blackjack eyes and tambourine hips Step 1: Mental and Physical Preparation: Preparation First comes deception and denial, it is necessary that one learns to lie- to themselves first. Example 1: “This is easy, I’ve done this before” Example 2: “I enjoy it”
One of these two statements is true, the objective is to make both of them feel alike. I squint at the smell of cat piss and vomit, remnants of sleep slithering away with each futile swipe of the stolen ATM card. I have got $50 under my scratchy sweater and a brown town square, worn out of its people at the navel of nowhere. All for you-how poetically noir. It’s 5:46, you’ll wake up in 10 minutes, want your coffee in 15. I wonder if I could drive north to Iowa-to mother, south is Arkansas, west-Dakota. I instead head to my immediate east, to get coffee filters first, among other things. things Walked right out of an acid trip Got a corkscrew mind And the sweetest grip Step 2: Selection and Purpose: This step is variable, choose someone that's at least three inches shorter, fifty pounds lighter and easily overthrown in bare combat, children, teenagers, elderly, women will work. Drunk men may work. The purpose is, of course, custom-made.
The keys make a bored silvery clunk on the counter, in beat to the gunshot in the T.V- its buttons peeling away as it reruns the same Westerns and local news, back and forth, fact and fiction dizzying into pixels. People here find news as entertaining as movies, the hipness of both far away from this town- separated through layers of glass and metal, paper and ink, sometimes through multiple mouths. All of it a bird’s eye view, God looking down. Back in my room, I brush, I strip, shower and shave; my nails are grazed to their beds. Online-you’re smiling with friends, sharing vines, writing pieces of yourself all over the place; how you hate monsoons and regret falling for nihilists. It’s funny how you’re kinder than you have to be. Your humour, however, is shit. I smirk thinking maybe this is why I choose you, for your painful puns. I walk out smelling like motel mildew.
Step 3: Homework & Surveillance: Surveillance The most tedious step of all and one to be the most careful with. Observe the patterns and all possible deviations of the Target. It is at this step that equipment must be procured. A note on the Target's agility and reaction time is needed.
A greasy spoon with decently grimy food feeds half the scraggly population of this town. You get the same soup & bread in your same window seat, averse to the pies that have been showing up since Halloween. The waitress is kind to you, calls you soft-spoken- maybe because you’re a beautiful naive teenager, maybe because you are soft spoken. My right leg feels numb as I curl in the car that shrinks with every word of my mother’s letters: she misses home, says she feels perfectly fine and wants to get out. I laugh mid-sentence because one: you look like a pig eating, two: Mummy makes absurd requests. It takes 12 minutes to walk back home, you stall and take 30. Always making pit stops, sticking to the left side of the road, your cigarette breaks last 135 seconds, counting it this way is much easier. All the right places of your brain click together; I wonder why you should die. I pick my way through the living room, dishes drying in the kitchen, punctuated by the low hum of electricity and the annoying ticking of the clock. I hate it. I move to the next, surprised at how quietly my body moves, as if made for this.Your room looks like mine, a monastery with gray walls and neatly folded clothes; the warped floor lets me know its age- groaning under my weight. I’m like you, if I could, I would have stalled my way back home too. Step 4: Execution: Execution Imagination is key. One must play every possible event out. The surveillance notes, if done right, will help with entries and exits. A coy silent break-in, before the Act, works wonders.The option of backing out is possible in all of the previous steps but this.
I pick my way through the living room, dishes drying on the kitchen rack, punctuated by the low hum of electricity and the annoying ticking of the clock. I hate it. I move to the next, your room looks like mine, like a monastery, with neatly folded clothes, the floor lets me know its age- groaning under my weight. I’m like you, if I could, I would stall my way back home too. For you, the threat registers sluggishly, shuffling sounds, a gentle dip of the mattress as you throw your phone and- turn to me. The crowbar feels hot and metallic, opening your wound wide, red koi fishes coiling and spasming between my feet, synchronous to our hearts. “It’s your eyes that are the prettiest, you know?”My ears ring in a way I need to do something about- so I feed you your socks and ask you to keep quiet, politely. There’s a soft warm song flitting from your earphones and yet you’re shivering. I wrap your feet in a jumper and look at my arm, the pain is tender, almost exquisite, scratched pink-red and raw, I suddenly feel tired. My hands are itchy from the latex and bleach.
Powder junkie, spider monkey, swim in the sea Crushed like a grape under possibility I lean my head against the seat of my car, closing my eyes briefly, or maybe longer than that because the next time I open them it’s 5.46, exactly ten minutes before you did.
“… and so, Alice never made it back through the glass.” by Shambhavi
Lullabies to the Moon S
by Jiya Somaiya
She was always waiting, it seemed to be her forte, D.H Lawrence once said in his book Lady Chatterley’s Lover. She would often think of these words, at strange occasions. She was oscillating on a wooden rocking-chair, humming an obscure lullaby, the French windows were open to the moonlight that found its way inside the eerily dark room; her fingertips traced the necklace, she was a married woman. She thought of these words and instantly started to beam, so much so that her dry cheeks grew warm and red. They say that the manor she was living in, was constructed by a French merchant for a certain mistress; his wife - a thorn in his flesh - was murdered in cold blood, for he wished to marry his mistress. Since then, acrylic echoes ricocheted off the manor’s walls; moans, screams, and abuses swam in the atmosphere, an everyday affair. Overtime, she had grown familiar with these voices. She knew they would last for twenty-two minutes and then withdraw into silence. The manor was huge. With a bifurcated staircase, long paintings of French Kings and Queens hung on the walls of never-ending corridors, several balconies, each with a different view, her favourite was the one that faced the Parvati running in between the mighty mountains. Amidst all of this, her husband lay unconscious in their bedroom, the poisoning did work after all, something she had been planning for months. She felt a familiar presence, concluded the lullaby, and let down her hair from the low bun. Her lover was finally there; she smiled at the butterflies, even after all those years, he had an effect on her, it made her feel light-headed. She remained upright, “Punctual as always, I see.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and patiently waited for his reply, since it was her forte. He smirked, took a seat on the floor, beside the rocking-chair, his forehead on the arm of the chair “‘The life of the dead is set in the memory of the living’, Marcus Tullius Cicero, my love, do you remember?” She raised her index finger but stopped midway, overcome by emotion. The fragmented attempt landed with a soft thud in his stomach, she deserved better, not a mere apparition of love that haunted her every waking hour. They accepted it in bitter silence. “I do”, she paused, making sure he felt fine. “It was the autumn of 1939, we were walking. Where to? We didn’t quite know at that moment, the crowd was so very transparent, nobody existed, only the three of us: you, me and Bombay. And I asked you what was the last read that made you think, you laughed, looked at me and said, ‘Cicero.’”
“That was one of the few walks which didn’t make me want to strangle those red coats.” “But what about the time we walked along the coastline of Bombay, late at night?” “My love, we got caught by the British later.” “You have an awful memory! That was the monsoon of 1941, our last monsoon together-” “Indeed. Should’ve listened to your extremely affectionate words ‘Don’t get yourself killed by those nutcases, aye? Or else I’ll have to commit murder for you’ “ “What did you say in return? Ah, yes, “No promises. Go on a killing spree, my love, make me proud”, the love of my life, everybody!” They chuckled and savoured a moment of silence. Memories, both good and bad came rushing to her, as though they were not allowed to be thought of for a very long time. These memories flowed like the Ganga, she had locked them away for years, but memories are a lot like water, you can’t stop them forever. He looked at her in awe; he couldn’t touch her, she couldn’t touch him but he could sing to her. And so he sang to her the lullaby she would sing to herself when she thought of him, which is to say, she could never stop thinking of him. She never imagined it would haunt her like it did- almost every night, when she would sleep next to her husband, in nothing but absolute pain and numbness. But,he would take the pain away , the pain that had been accumulating since forever. “How do I thank you?”, she asked him rather seriously. “Hmm, let’s see, you could marry me? You know, I wanted to marry you, my love, in independent India, in Bombay, on a full moon.” “This is independent India and today’s a full moon, sure we’re not in Bombay but-” They looked at each other and knew what was to be done. They made their way towards the river, like little children running and laughing as soon as the last school bell rang. The next morning, she was found dead in the rocking-chair with the necklace, she was a married woman. This time, to her lover from her past life.
Trigger Warning- Death, Physical violence, Gore
I am haunted by the ghosts of the people my father killed. by Shagun Pruthi
The blurry night starts with a scream pulled from my mouth, a hand closes around my wrist and another caresses the inside of my cheek. They say the ghosts of the past never lurk, that they always teach a lesson and drift apart. But what do you do, if the ghosts slip under your covers, shush you with their cold and bitter fingers whispering in your ear, we have come for the payback. You tell yourself to breathe, a gasp escapes your throat, when icy fingernails scratch you on the arm. You convince yourself that your mind may have created a monster, but how can a monster surround you in a cubicle with nothing for you to hold onto. While it lets out an evil chuckle, your brain registers the words accompanied, it won't help you to shout. You try to escape the hold they have, as your heart tenderly latches onto the next few breaths. Fields of distress cloud your vision and you attempt to reach for something, - anything that may aid you in getting rid of the skeletons looming upon you. .
Little do you know, the deck of horrors has just begun. The wicked eyes gleam of torture and death, while your mouth is chained together. your father murdered us, bounces off your ears. You fail to explain that he died too, of similar horrors, terrified eyes open and the face of death clung to his visage.
You stare at the fanning cold wall, that separates you from the world, inside your own little bubble of shrieks abandoned in your mouth, shrouded in the darkness. The only sense of life comes from the chuckle of the ghosts, as they pop out your bones and put them back in, play with your eye socket, hollowed out and bath themselves in the blood. Red is oozing down your thigh. you bleeding to death, slowly as your life swims around you, the mutterings and cackling of the ghosts left behind your father, while he plunged himself into insanity
To all the essays due by Shringarika Pandey
Silence has its personal favorites, debilitating ache is one of the main ones. Today, they tell you horror is a Marxist essay, the old library—a haunted place of worship. The head turns along with arms knitting a Christmas sweater, ready to be deposited in the sweat puddle of October. You're holding the needles—the room is ablaze with a subtle violence and you're holding the needles. Ghouls hide behind the olive green couch as damp towels and discarded dirtlaiden shoes. This loneliness you're sitting inside, is worse than the potions they hand out on the streets. Another row is knitted with a pastel, you question the existence of pockets and your body takes it personally. You have a damaged pouch stitched to your stomach, a home to your gut bruised from the ultimate force of the world. Silence, at the end, has its secrets too. Your bruises would not heal in solitude. Marx didn't tell you about the wizardry that hides underneath—horror is a home with no insides.
Faces by Diksha Verma
A list made in the kitchen by Shringarika Pandey One. Do not cut the apples vertically. Your fingers are fragile and blood rarely tastes like diced apples, despite the redness. Two. Cut your heart vertically, another jab straight into the upper valve. A mixed up cocktail of all your 3am thoughts. The bar rarely ever takes requests. Three. You're aware of your intrusive thoughts but don't quite do anything. The boat sails now, the blood keeps flowing. The paddle is stuck in a coil of broken plastic. Four. Get lost inside a hool-a-hoop, your happiness is a facade for all the things you've lost. The circle keeps repeating itself till it's not a circle anymore. Five. Break the lines into fragments tonight.
Six. Deconstruction is at play here, which is to say you'll need five stitches. I told you to watch the fingers. It's all blood now. The apples too.
Those ten minutes of my life by Bishwarup My legs froze in the middle of the night, so did my body; as I woke up trembling in my bed, calling for people around and catching my breath. I sighed in relief when I found out it was just a nightmare. A nightmare which would keep haunting me for the rest of my life. Two months ago, when I was warm and full from the meal at my friend's, happily making my way home through the same road I've been almost a thousand times before; I suddenly felt cold and quivered like an autumn leaf, at the very sight of the hungry eyes peering into my skin, staring at me as if I was their feast on Halloween night. I shivered from top to bottom crossing the empty lane and with the few sinful eyes making me feel naked and perturbed, even when I was laden with clothing neck to toe. The streetlights weren't just enough to usher in me the grit to make it just two streets far; as the haunting shadows of the barbaric souls followed me all the way until I reached the only place I was meant to be safe. It was dark, but the darkness seemed to be more brutal than the other nights. I provoked a feeling in myself which I never felt even when I was surrounded by dozens of dogs rallying the empty streets. I held myself together and moved one step at a time with utmost caution, hoping that the shadows didn't chase mine. And I paced up when they whispered among themselves, of things which gave me chills right down to my bones, frightened and devastated. Those ten minutes of my life produced an inexplicable scar—one I would never be able to heal from..
CLOUD ROOM by Kaushiki Tripathi
time--stamps from a dream time by Vidushi Mishra
3:06 AM, Sunday: I wake up with sweat beads all over my temple, I am unusually breathless. I look at
the other side of the bed, my partner who usually sleeps beside me is not there, just some creases on the sheet. I try to remember the horrid dream I had, I can’t for some reason. I look at the door constantly as if waiting for someone, or something.
3:15 AM, Sunday: He returns, I heave a sigh of relief. He returns with a glass of water in his hand. I can
barely see his silhouette, but reassured by his presence, I flit back to sleep, going back and forth between trying to remember the dream and questioning whether I even want to.
11:42 AM, Monday: I wake up late, I see he has already left for office. I take a shower, make myself a pea-
nut butter sandwich, grab my keys hurriedly, stop for a second to stare at the “drive safe” post-it note pinned on the refrigerator that I’m pretty sure wasn’t there yesterday, and run off to work. Work goes as per usual, after which I visit my therapist for our weekly appointment, but vestiges of the dream continue to nag at the back of my head. She asks me about it, but I don’t know what it even was - a dream? Or was it a nightmare? Ugh, I can’t deal with semantics. Whatever it was, I tell her, it’s more than vivid when experienced and just as abstract when it ended. So what exactly happened? It’s a creature of its own will, I try to perform therapy on my own psyche. I am still trying to remember and not remember what went on down last night.
1:13 AM, Monday: I have the same dream, yes we’re calling it that, and when I wake up, I am in the same
state of pandemonium as I was last time; once again, I find my partner’s side empty except for the creases that seemed to be making up for his absence. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him in over a week. I am constantly late, and I never get to see him in the mornings. (why doesn’t he wake me up though?)
6:12 PM, Tuesday: I come home early today, and pretend to have fallen asleep, for when he returns I
can see him as more than a silhouette. Night seems to be taking longer to arrive than usual, and so is he. But soon enough, I see him, or, a part of him. I wait for the silhouette to come close this time. It comes closer. But the distance doesn’t seem to be getting any less. Has it stopped moving? Wait, now I can’t see it at all? Is he not there anymore? I rise with a jolt, scanning my surroundings for my lover. At this very moment, it hits me.
All of it comes rushing back. My right shoulder suddenly aches, it threatens implosion. it feels like someone is crushing my entire body, one of my veins pops, the blood pours out into the sheets. Someone suddenly pokes at my chest, they clutch and pierce and rip my heart out. Why, er how am I writing this down? My hands - I can't move them. All I can see is that his crumpled bedside is crimson now. I'm somehow still alive and I don't want to see this. I try to cover my eyes with my palms, but my arms refuse function. It finally strikes me, because I'm just as much in denial as they are. The dream - him and I were in a car talking, we were talking about going bedsheet-shopping and getting cola while we're at it. But then a truck rammed into us, and I don't remember much after it except shards of stray metal and side window glass implanting themselves into his body. He died in my arms, I remember his tears, or was it the blood? I don't think it's a dream anymore, this had actually happened. About 10 days ago. I just didn't remember it earlier.
9:28 PM, Tuesday: I look at the creases at the other side of my bed and the silhouette at the end of the room and reassured, I go back to sleep.
10 PM
by ranya vaid
Trigger Warning : Gore This is the last time your reminder to get home will pop on your screen before your phone dies out. You should have been in bed by now. It has been three days since your father made it home. Addiction runs deep in your blood. Addiction is why you are here in front of this chipping window sill painted brown. You run to the places that reek of love because your mother only knows how to heat cold dinners and not buildings made of 6 rooms. Your hand doesn’t reach for your phone, reminders to get home are void when there isn’t one, so your eyes don’t move. From outside the window, you can see a family of four settling down on the dinner table. The little girl with pigtails barely makes it to the chair, her rosy cheeks make spaces for dimples when she smiles. It seems like there are words resting on her tongue, she opens her mouth to speak and then closes it, something your Lilly often does. Beside her sits her brother, he’s talking about his newfound love for literature while replacing pieces of bacon on the little girl’s plate with his peas. The mother is smiling down at her children while the father is leaving sneaky kisses on the woman’s cheek while the children are busy fooling around. They look happy, a word that leaves scabs around your mouth so you have learnt not to say it. Maybe you should leave because you’ve always heard about the reputation these low light mansions hold, you know about the bats that fly across the terrace and crave for a kiss, the withering tree that never dies yet only withers. The corpses they hide in their backyard, the blood that spills down their silks and satins. But you will still look, right? Because even though your feet want to run away your eyes don’t. You blink and maybe“You shouldn’t have”, the mother turns her head towards you; half of her face is burnt, worms feeding on the flesh that’s left of her. With a knife she is cutting off slices of her hand onto her daughter’s plate, her dead eyes staring into yours. You are trembling by now, beads of sweat rolling down your back, tracing your spine and your voice stuck somewhere between your throat. “Humpty-dumpty fell from the sky, Humpty- dumpty watched his mother die” die”
The little girl keeps singing as her brother pulls on her pigtails and her head breaks off from her neck, her veins splitting the blood on the table right over her father’s soup but he keeps eating with his heart hanging out of his chest. The window is pulling you in forward, your feet moving backwards, you want to run away. The house is lightening up now, there’s jazz playing on the vinyl, and it’s almost as if the house is laughing. Stumbling on your feet you somehow make it out but you can’t leave; you can’t leave without a look, right? Because even the dead can reek of love and you, my dear, you are addicted. Your eyes travel to the nameplate and it is your own. It is your home and the love that never enters through your door, it’s the love your mother never passed on to you, that your father never held in his hands. It is your family. But you wonder why are you trembling? Why are your palms covered in sweat and your heart in your mouth? Why are you standing out and not going in? So you move forward towards the door, to step into your house with your family. Because addiction runs deep in your blood and you run to the places that reek of love and you continue to move in, till it’s your blood that reeks of love. And even if it’s dipping from the dinner table, it still reeks of love.
Salem But Chic by Kaushiki Tripathi
Ink and bone by Shravya S Mallya Prompt: A mannequin in a departmental store that is alive
I see you Your job as a salesgirl In the departmental store Keeps you busy most of the time But there’s a gnawing darkness within – A darkness that devours you, Bit by bit, cell by cell Until there’s nothing for it to Gnaw on – nothingness Until it begins to fester And you try to get it out of your body But the rot has set in and It will never leave. You snap out of your reverie As the manager’s meaty hand Clasps your shoulder I want to gouge his eyes out You smile at him amicably As he tells you to arrange the Mannequins in the store display I see you You eye me nervously Don’t worry I don’t bite Do you remember How we first met At the grocery store, On your seventh birthday? You saw me The real me, and I knew I had to be with you Forever… That night, you’re unable to sleep Dreams of a hooded figure Following you everywhere, Plagues you… You were 7 when the Nightmares first started You dreamt of Skittering shadows On the ceiling and Razor-sharp claws raking The underside of the bed.
There was someone beside you Under your blankets Your heart is glass As the sun kisses your paper eyelids Maybe it was all a story That you told yourself To fill the chasm in you, The chasm that swirls With ink and bits of bone – Always churning Maybe he was a figment Of your imagination Like the sunflowers that You grew in the dead soil In your backyard or the Skeletons in your closet that Leer at you every time you Take skin off of them to Warm your hollow heart You come to the store Looking like you haven’t slept All night Missed me? You go into the manager’s office And time floats by Like confetti You come out with Mascara running down your cheeks Like a stream carving its path Down a ravine. He didn’t believe you, did he? Your words didn’t suffice, You etched the words onto your skin When your nails wore down, and your skin started peeling, You took up my mother’s knife And drew on your skin You know that when you fall asleep, I will come for you I’ve been growing stronger with every drop of your blood spilt.
Night Crawlers by Sambhav Jeswani Prompt - It always happens when he’s alone in the car. I prefer night shifts because there’s less traffic. Driving into the arms of the seemingly endless road delivering cargo interstate. In the calmness of the night I often pass people walking along the shoulder of the highways far from civilization, feeling their footsteps in sync with my heartbeat. It always happens when I’m alone in the truck, people suddenly emerge and disappear, my logic attributing it all to the speed of my vehicle. It’s not every trip you spot them. But sometimes you see a few in a single go. It always strikes me as strange because you never seem to see them during the day. Or maybe you do but they don’t stick out as much under the sun. Almost like trains on a track, they trod along the little white line separating the road from the pedestrian. Beings of different size and build all having similar facial expressions. For a long time I didn’t pay them any attention beyond noticing them on occasion in the split second that they were visible as my truck zoomed past them. But one rainy night, I passed by what looked like an old lady slowly trudging along the shoulder under the dim moonlight. She was wearing ragged clothes and looked just like someone under conviction. Sunken, devoid of life eyes, fuzzy white hair and pale wrinkled skin. She was smiling, yet something about it felt uncanny. I wanted to keep driving but something about her situation stirred feelings of pity deep within me. I halted my vehicle a few metres in front of her, and grabbing a flashlight, stepped onto the road. I could hear footsteps approaching before I could see her. Scrape, scrape, scrape. I could visualize her wrinkly feet in those worn out slippers, shuffling ever onward. The closest town to where we were was over fifty miles, no way this old lady was walking that, I thought. I held up my flashlight and started walking towards the sound of her footfalls. “Hello?“ I called out, hoping there would be a reply, but none came. Just more scraping. Goosebumps popped on my skin as I waited for her to enter into the dim light of my flashlight. I nearly cried out as her ghostly silhouette came into view. “Ma’am. Are you okay?” I called out. She didn’t answer. Just kept smiling and moving steadily forward, towards me. Now my heart quickened its pace. “She’s just old and in need of help,” I tried to compose myself. But my feet were frozen in place. Her pace seemed to increase by the second and as she reached within 4 feet, her wrinkled hands began to reach slowly up towards my face like a grandma reaching for her grandchildren’s face. She opened her mouth but didn’t say anything, just grinned at me with pale gums. My legs gave out and I collapsed onto my side, she reached down for me with surprising speed and agility. Before I knew it, she wrapped her bony fingers around my neck and started dragging me down the gravel. Desperately I pulled back, but her grip felt superhuman, moreover the addition of my weight didn’t seem to affect her pace in the least. I punched at her with all the fight I had in me and luckily connected with her eye. To my horror, it was like kicking solid concrete. Luckily her grip weakened and a gush of blue liquid dripped out of her skin. I crawled backwards towards the middle as she kept walking unaffected.
I curled into a ball in fright as the scraping of her slippers faded from my ears. After what felt like half an hour of stunned silence, I worked up the nerve to get up and go back to my rig. No sign of the lady, but when I climbed into my truck and sped down the highway, it didn’t take long to catch up with her. Her eyes were still glued on me. The last I saw of her as I drove away were her thin, chapped lips, smirking at me. Since then, the night crawlers are always looking right at me when I drive pass, which they never used to do before. Almost like they’re aware of my encounter with the old lady. Waiting and relishing the thought of luring me outside my truck again...
by Anshuman Jha
Dip it in blood by Parneet Kaur
Prompt : A cannibal puts up an ad on Craigslist for a willing victim. “Ms. Albany, it’s fine as long as your vintage chainsaws don’t mess with the buck heads in my hallway.” I chuckled into the phone. Around quarter past 9, an Aston Martin pulled outside my curb and out rolled the smartmouthed, charismatic New York political attorney with a deadly smirk on her face. She looked even more inviting than I had imagined her to be. She swiftly removed her cases from the back of the car and dragged them effortlessly past me, giving me the iciest warm stare leaving me in a pool of dizziness. Upon reaching the threshold, she asked if I could help unload her rusty brown trunk full of chainsaws and “sledgies”. The moon starved to brush her cheekbones with its chilliest fangs and when it finally managed to, it mistook her for an ivory statue during that pale minute. I helped her with the cloak and led her into the green hallway, stacked with buck heads and wall plants carpeting every inch of the wall. She led out a sigh of relief and said, “This is what a soul massage would feel like.” A part of me felt glad that I could make her feel at ease and the other part was busy thinking of the ways in which I could spoon her. I showed her around, the antique chandeliers and originals by Rembrandt and Monet didn’t catch her eye as much as the in-house plants. As for her room, she specifically asked for the coldest part of the house be allotted to her. “Sean, I think this is the best I could hunt.”, she added while pouring me some 2014 Harlan Estate. She was even more intimidating in her inebriated state, but I managed to slip my question while she was still lost in her thought. “Why do chainsaws fascinate you so much?” She perked up, gave me a side-long glance, rested her chin on her pale hand and heaved, “Someone minced my three year old kid with a chainsaw a year ago.” , and she retired for bed after that. I couldn’t comprehend her, neither did I try to, anymore. I sat with my thoughts and nothing I had ever done could be labeled more merciless than her words. If Hades ever met her, he would have been paralyzed. Her lips were like a noose around the neck and each time she uttered something, the noose tightened, letting only the dead cold words fall on your ears. I had apparently dozed off on my armchair but I woke up to find myself in a warm, wet embrace. I tried to loosen the grip and somehow managed to turn around only to find myself in a pool of blood, my very own blood but I couldn’t feel the pain. Albany was licking me, digging her teeth deep into me and with each bite she took a striking hot wave of sensual pleasure washed all over me.
“Sean. Sean, Sean”, Albany screamed. “I think I lost my… .” And that’s how they say morning in New York. I wiped off my drool and inquired as to what had her growing mad early in the morning. Apparently she had lost one of her chainsaws and I had to find it before I could finally dice her and stuff every bit of her. After that weirdly pleasing dream, I couldn’t stand her around me. She looked ravishing, more ravishing but by this time she had me confused as to whether she would make a better meal raw or cooked. I went to her room, crouched and found something glistening under the bed, hoping that it was her chainsaw, when a whirring sound brushed right above my hair. I lay flat and instinctively launched my hind limbs into her groin. I turned on my back to find her reeling with pain but her grip on chainsaw was tighter than ever. She smirked and threw me a letter which read, “Cannibal on the loose, 25 victims as of October 23, 2020” with her mug-shot and her real name: Sorose Klein. I was overcome by a lot of emotions, but the one that perfectly fit the moment was a paralyzing fit of laughter. I laughed like a mad man, switched to the other side, pulled the carpet and there, the trap fell right above her. Before she could utter a word, I threatened to pour tar all over her. She didn’t whimper, she stayed cold and then I confessed, “I was about to feast on you.” She displayed utter disbelief but still didn’t show an atom of fear. She was fiercely cold. I let her out for she amazed me at so many levels. I took her to my dungeon and showed her the pictures of all my victims, they were 18 in total. She wasn’t particularly surprised, rather she was annoyed that I subjected my victims to a “no pain” death. That’s the least I could do, I felt ashamed and guilty for not being able to control myself. I tried considering therapy but I ended up consuming the therapist. Later that evening we went out on a great hunt and haven’t since returned. Hope this letter finds you dead!
Watch Solar Eclipses Until They by Drishti Verma
Prompt: It always happens when she’s alone in the car /// Trigger Warnings: Death, Accidents, Blood // On why some things are left untracked left in hours, left in humans, left in showers, left in sandglasses, left behind doors. Gate close. The new starting waited for my feet to dance on it. The Lotte Tower gleamed like all the candies I drew in my notebook. My pink white cotton candy aesthetic will never be visible to the eyes of red walls. It is left behind. Walls never run. Humans die. She did too. Did she?
Act 1; First Contact; Meeting Of Colors; Open Windows The paucity of money can never be solved. The Red Lamb in front of me is her track; her clue; her presence. I sold out her jewels to change the red to nude pink. She will never know, her words won’t bite me again. Colours never run. Cars die. I opened the window for the first time. It brought me her camouflage fragrance which she mirrored on me. “Not the case anymore, (or is it?)” said my voice made by a white-coated therapist. I sat in the car. The white-coated lady was precious enough to remove all her belongings from the car. (Why did the car smell like her though?) The white-coated lady never showed me her face. Her fragrance could be a coincidence. But I only made one bottle of dried tears for her. How could she bear so much resemblance? Perfumes never run. Fragrance dies. She did too.
Act 2; Second Contact; Designation Of Colors; Plug Key The sounds of engine whirring can never be quietened. They hum if they cannot scream. But they always, always make sounds of creeping away from lifelessness. They live. Engines are not human beings. Sounds quieten. Her recordings did too. The key showed all shades of metallic under the evening moon. We both were starting new journeys with old thumbprints. Thumbprints that won’t appear in databases but fingers that will decorate our nights with screams. Our black and white polaroid of joining hands against the sky was real. Her hands ran blood inside. She didn’t bleed any. (Why were her thumbprints never recorded?) Her hands were there reclining on my windows. Piercing themselves to come in. Hands from pictures never walk. Fingers stiffen. She did too.
Act 3; Totality; Paint Your Colors; Drive Softly The Lotte Tower was a thing of the past. They embellish skies; act as pole stars; define lives; give perspective. Of all drawings I drew, I stopped drawing the tower when she left. A defining point is too scary, it shows only itself. And when your towers fall; leaves destruction. Towers don’t run. Towers are assimilated by the cranes. (Did the Cranes take her too?) My evening was running with wheels and trees. Until the shadows plunged into night. The highway became red walls I ran away from. The Red Lamb glowed orange and golden from the inside. The windows? Pitch black like her dresses which I made. Rubies with Sapphires at her neck. The cuts? Didn’t exist. They were made to threaten. (She never went. She was watching. Her fangs were always there) Her hands enclosed mine. Don’t look sideways. Drive. Homosapienssapiens never come alive. Creatures do. She did too.
Spell Count Dracula came back. 22:56/0202/01/32
WITCH GALS WITH ONEONE-EYED KITTY
by Aditi Dungrin
digital art by Bhavya Jain
salem’s lot - books
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We have always lived in the castle by Shirley Jackson A 1962 mystery novel, known to be the final work of Shirley Jackson, is a perfect read for the paranoid mind, that digs deeper into the tunnel of isolation. It implores you to find a sense of belonging in a space that doesn't accept you, and urges you to find refuge in the most unexpected and eerie circumstances. It leaves you with unease crawling through your bones and itches your flesh with a twisted, disturbing and sinister air. The tone of horror and dread lies behind the words, and unchurn in the corners of the mind, leaving you to thoughts that creep up from behind. Pick this short novel this Halloween and you'd realise you've always lived in Shirley's castle! Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Even know this genius classic was published in 1818, it shall continue to remain relevant and significant as long as man shall exist. This senseful and enveloping read is a slow burn which that explores the conflicting emotions of a human soul through a monster brain. A multitude of horror, thriller and suspense, this is the perfect Halloween classic read if you wish to be left in awe by a marvelous plot and intriguing storyline that keeps you hooked until the end! The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales by Edgar Allan Poe The genre of terror, mystery and suspense is incomplete without the mention of the most famous corner of the macabre, Edgar Allen Poe. Binding together fourteen classic tales of literary brilliance,including the world’s first two detective stories -- “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter”, Poe has brought the unspoken horrors of nightmares to life in his words. These eerie set of stories are sure to make the hair on the back of your neck stand in anticipation and fright this Halloween! The Turn of the Screw by Henry James This 1898 horror novella by Henry James mounts an atmosphere of fear and dread with every next page. The building bewilderment and wonder paves way for ambiguity and scope for interpretation that makes this novella shine. The language is extremely rich and though the book runs only some hundred pages, it casts a deeper and extensive spell that carries you along for longer than it seems. It is narrated by a young woman who is to work as baby-sitter to two children at Bly, a beautiful English country house, but there are horrors lying beneath the cover as she becomes convinced that the children are consorting with a pair of malevolent spirits of the past workers. Lose yourself to the world of Bly Manor this Halloween! Psycho by Robert Bloch It is a1959 horror novel by American writer Robert Bloch revolving around Norman Bates, caretaker at an isolated motel who puts up with his mother and soon finds himself trapped in a series of murders. Inspired by the real-life serial killer Ed Gein, it focuses on the mental turmoil and unleashing of a man who succumbs to the domination of his mother. The suspense running through the story is bound to keep you on toes as you work your mind to unravel the hidden hints of an unpredictable ending. Psycho is the perfect Halloween read to blow away your brains.
MOVIES
VERY SCARY
SLIGHTLY SPOOKY
MORE FUN THAN SPOOKY
HEREDITARY EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE THE RING MOTHER! EXORCIST SHUTTER
BABADOOK GET OUT SUSPIRIA CAROLINE BLACK SWAN JENNIFER’S BODY
HALLOWEENTOWN IT - (UNLESS YOURE SCARED OF CLOWNS) CASPER GHOSTBUSTERS ZOMBIELAND
Spilled Ink’s Official Halloween Playlist featuring Phoebe Bridgers, Radiohead, Wallows, Billie Eilish and many more, it has all the essentials you need to truly /vibe/ in the spooky season - and you get to add your own tunes!
so put your favourite costume on and rush over to https://spoti.fi/3mEiDbs or
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