13 Nights of Horror - Something Wicked This Way Comes. . .

Welcome to the first annual 13 Nights Of Horror.



On this first night of Horror..



We are going to have a special guest author blog!



Lynsay Sands

Something
 Wicked
This
Way
Comes 

I was asked to write something about Halloween and although many things came to mind, I dismissed a lot of them thinking they weren't scary enough, or not interesting enough, or. . . well you get the picture. Then it came to me. . . Please keep in mind that I like Halloween and in the spirit of this particular holiday, I have even gone so far as to get the latest crazy Halloween decorations. For example, I have a witch on a broomstick that cackles if you get near it, a skeleton that dances to one of the latest hits, hanging bats, screeching black cats and even black hairy spiders that drop on you if you walk below them. These artifacts of horror are fun and funny because they’re so unreal. I mean, you would never actually see a hand crawling along the floor after you. . . that’s absurd, right?! Well, let me enlighten you; some of these things aren't so unreal, and they are not so funny in real life.

Last Christmas, just a couple of days before that lovely holiday, Mr Sands and I needed to go shopping. We lived in an old century home and the interior trim, doors, stairs and bookshelves were all this dark, cherry-stained wood. This house was a fine example of ornate woodworking at its best but on an overcast day, it was dark! So as I was saying, we needed to go shopping. It seemed like all we had been doing in the last few weeks approaching Christmas was fight the holiday crowds for more Christmas stuff that I’m sure we didn’t need. So my purse, which also happened to be a very dark colour, was on top of my bookcase in a corner. It had been there since the afternoon before and when Mr. Sands began tapping his shoe impatiently, I quickly threw on my shoes and grabbed my purse to leave. Ouch! I felt a sharp pain on the fleshy part between my thumb and forefinger. Letting go of the purse, I shouted and shook my hand frantically, probably resembling someone having a seizure, but that seizure ended abruptly when a small black object hit the floor a few feet away. I stood there for a good three seconds as my brain calculated what I was looking at and what had just happened.






 

- There was a small, stunned black mass on the floor that looked like a mouse with wings.


- It was a bat, I deduced with surprise. A bat had been perched on my purse and I'd picked it up with the purse. . . and it had bit or scratched me in retaliation


- I looked at my hand and sure enough, there were puncture marks between my thumb and forefinger. He bit me.


- And everyone knows that Bat bites mean Rabies shots!
















 

I began to screech, not in terror at the bat who was really rather cute, but in outraged horror at the possibility that I might need rabies shots. I DETEST shots of any kind. There, now you know, I'm a big wussy girl when it comes to needles. I howled and shrieked and the bat began to flap its little wings weakly (no doubt in panic at my panic) and Mr Sands came running to see what all the commotion was about.






Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Me, being a writer who happens to write about vampires . . . well, gees, of course I'd be bitten by a bat. But really, I don't have batty vamps. I have nano vamps. Shouldn't the damned bat have bit someone else, someone who actually incorporates bats in their vamp stories? I thought this was highly unfair, myself. And while it's a good laugh now to think about it, it certainly wasn't at the time as we waited in the ER with my bite and the bat in a box to see someone. (By the way, hospital workers are rather strange. They all wanted to see the poor little thing until they found out it was alive in the box. Like I'd kill a poor defenseless bat! Sheesh. I was hoping they could take a blood test on it and let it go. He really was cute.)

Anyway, the bat was sent for testing and I was sent home to spend the entire Christmas holidays fretting over whether I’d have to get rabies shots. You know the really painful shots that they give you in the deltoid muscle of your arm on four separate occasions. . . shudder. It may be a funny story to tell after the fact but I don’t want to ever go through anything like that again. I’d much rather stick to the cheesy, fake Halloween decorations that need batteries cause reality is just. . . too real!

And NO, I am not a vampire. . . LOL.

Sincerely,

Lynsay Sands

Now you guys are going to love this:



For your chance to win a copy of Lynsay Sands' latest
release of The Renegade Hunter!

To enter just post below your favorite vampire character of The Argeneau Series.

This contest will begin at 3 pm Central Time.

Only for residents of the U.S and Canada.

Winner will be announced on Friday, October 23rd,2009.