As the Gore Monger, I'm not a very subtle person. If I'm having difficulty with you, or need to keep you from something, I don't really go for lies or deception or anything. I'll let you know there's something wrong in a pretty direct manner. Maybe I'll swing an axe at your forehead or something; something obvious.
Knowing this is true about me, I don't understand why it is that people don't believe when I tell them that in the four years I've been writing Gory Details, I've never met or even spoken on the phone with any member of the Nocturnal Ooze staff.
"Really? Never once?" The disbeliever will say.
"Nope. Only email." I'll respond.
"I find that hard to believe." They'll say.
"Swoosh!" *Smack* I like to let my axe finish conversations like this for me.
In honor of the last episode of Nocturnal Ooze, I thought I'd share what a Nocturnal Ooze staff meeting is like. Since I've never actually been to one, I'm just going to make some shit up. Enjoy.
The scene is an ancient stone church in Columbia. The windows are gone and the sticky air breathes in the stench of green madness from the jungle outside. We are in the nave. In the main sanctuary an old priest is serving communion, to robed worshipers. All seems to be in order but the "select" are being led though a small door to the dungeon below. Faintly we can hear their screams and the roar of the beast. Occasionally a faint whiff of burnt flesh seeps up through cracks in the flagstones.
On my left is Marty Hiller, senior editor, he looks like a psychiatrist, with a white, moustacheless beard around his chin and a halo of white hair. He has on small silver spectacles.
Next to him, across the wood table from me is Kay Patterson, the other senior editor. She looks like a cenobite from the Hellraiser movies. She is pale white with her ears twisted back by a black vinyl and silver hoop device that holds them together at the back of her head. It gives her a wicked smile. She's dressed all in black vinyl that has been sawn open in strategic places with what may have been a nail file.
To my right is Phil Adams, Associate editor. He looks to be about twelve but he's strapped into a straight jacket and tied to the chair. It's not clear if he's conscious or not
Finally, Mary Hiller, Copy Editor is hanging from the rafter's above us, with her hands behind her back. She's actually quite the raven haired beauty but someone has stuck a small brass tube into the bulging vein in her forehead and she's dripping blood into a goblet in the middle of the table that Kay is using for ink as she writes on what appears to be the back of a live lizard.
Kay calls the meeting to order.
Kay - So I told him, 'just because it's warm and dark doesn't mean it doesn't have teeth. Now get your hand out of my...Oh. Hey. So, hi everybody. Let's get this meeting started. Phil why don't you give us the useage statistics from last month.
Phil – He is coming! The days of your pathetic rein on this planet are over! The dark Lord has promised me thirty-three and a third virgins from the Tower of Isengard! He slimed me!
Kay – (Hitting Phil with the lizard) The website you moron. The website!
Phil – Eight hundred dark eyes viewed the doom of man. The milk of Babel coats you all...
Marty – (leaning toward me, whispering) I'm not wearing any underpants.
Me – What?
Marty – I'm not wearing any underpants.
Me – Why are you telling me this?
Marty – Sometimes I just look at someone and wonder, 'Are they wearing underpants?'
Me – Yes. I am wearing underpants.
Marty – Oh...What color are they?
Kay – Now Mary. You wanted to talk about the Gory Details?
Mary – Well, it's just all the non-verb verbs.
Me – Verb verbs?
Mary - Yes. You used weed whackering and intracranial hammer installingering as verbs last issue.
Me – I don't see the problem.
Marty – Oh shit he's loose.
Or meeting is interrupted by Phil who's gotten loose from his chair and is charging through the congregation screaming the recipe for the perfect tuna fish sandwich. Kay takes off after him but proves to be wearing shoes made of nails and moves like two geishas in a three legged race. With a loud obscenity, Mary changes over into a bat and sails after Phil. Marty and I are left alone. He leans towards me, his eyes sparkling behind his silver glasses.
Marty – Do you scream on roller coasters? I know I do.
Me – Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Goodbye my good friends at Noctural Ooze.
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The Gory Details (Gross)
HorrorBetween 2004 and 2008 I wrote a series of "Tips for Writers" for Nocturnal Ooze magazine vaguely about what would happen in real life if you did the things they do in movies but mostly about the gross out. I've always loved them and so have taken...
