It’s the scary season, so enjoy this Free Story, “It Ain’t Much to Brag About, but It’s All Mine.” A pretty much straightforward horror story about a girl and her pet monster, it was (heavily) inspired by watching the Night Gallery episode “Brenda” when I was a little kid (Which, itself, was an adaptation of a Margaret St. Clair short story by the same name). Also, I shamelessly swiped something from my favorite T.E.D. Klein novella, “Petey,” (in Dark Gods) to use for dramatic effect at a break.
At a whopping 9,000 words(!), it’s a longer read, but I think, in this case, the extra details from the highly suspect perspective of the little girl add much of the fun. Originally published in the great anthology Book of Dead Things, this story was reprinted in How to Die Well.
Happy Halloween.
Bill B.