THE MARTINEZ HALLOWEEN STORY

The Core Media Forum
1

Yeah, I know Halloween was LAST week. I was going to post this then but I was too busy. I wasn’t going to post it afterwards but Omega convinced me to post it anyway. Blame him. Besides, I have to write SOMETHING if I want to get back into the writing groove. This story is short, has few characters and is fairly obvious- in other words, NOT my typical kind of story. As I said, I’m just practicing. Remember that when you comment.

October 31st, 2006
The house of Wilfredo Martinez, somewhere in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico
Some time in the evening:

-"…C’mon, how long is this going to take? It’s been nearly two hours! I thought Cable Access was supposed to be fast!" Wilfredo Martinez, heroic sorcerer and interdimensional explorer, grumbled aloud as he sat in front of his computer, waiting for it to download the latest DOA Beach Volleyball game trailer.

He was interrupted by a knock at his front door.
Knok Knok
-Great, what now? he cursed. “Who is it?”
-“It’s me, Uncle Wil! Nelimar!” a girlish voice said.
-Oh, wonderful. The animated boobies will have to wait he sighed as he stopped the download. He got off the chair and walked to the door.

He opened it, and standing there was his 15-year-old niece, Nelimar, whom he had been training as a sorcerer recently. He loved her a lot, but right now she had an ear-to-ear grin, and he knew well enough that meant she wanted something.
Annoyed, he just said: “OK, what do you want?”
-“What?!” she said, in (mock) offense. “Can’t a girl visit her favorite uncle in the world just for its own sake?”
-“Say it already, Nel. I was doing something, umm, important, and I want to get back to it ASAP.”
-"…Ok, I admit it, I have something to ask. But it’s something important!"
-“Like, schoolwork important?” he guessed.
-“Correct! Wow, you’re so smart, Uncle Wil!”
-“Stop buttering me up and tell me what you need already.”
-“Here” she said, handling him a piece of paper.
Wil read for a second, then said, “…You have to do a paper on a foreign religious group?”
-“Yup.”
He looked at her disapprovingly. “Nel, you won’t learn anything if you keep asking other people to do your homework for you.”
-“Hey!” she said, offended for real this time. “You know I’m a responsible student! It’s just that, umm, I don’t have much time to do the paper, so I just want a little help.”
-“When is this due?” Wil asked.
-“Err… tomorrow” she said sheepishly.
-“Wha- sputterkoff*- TOMORROW???” Wil snapped. “Of all the irresponsible…! Why didn’t you ask for help SOONER?”
-“I was busy… training in another dimension with SOMEBODY” she shouted back.
Oops. That was true, Wil realized, he’d been training Nel in magic so often, it might have taken time away from her studies. He sighed again. “…Alright. I’ll help you with the paper.”
-“Yippee! I knew I could count on you, Uncle!”
-“BUT next time, give me a warning early so we can work things out in time, you got that?”
-“Sure!” she grinned.
Wilfredo had to smile. Nel could be mischievous at times, but she WAS a good girl- and pretty sneaky, too. He had to admit, she reminded him of himself.

Moments later, Wil was back on his desk, with Nel sitting besides him.
-“Okay, let’s get this started. What religious group is your paper on?”
-“The Amish” Nel said.
-“The… Amish?”
-“Yeah. My teacher said we should expand our horizons, learn about other cultures, blah blah blah.”
-“Hey, she’s right. You should always keep an open mind about other cultures, you know.”
-“Okay, whatever. Let’s just write the thing already. I want to go trick-or-treating tonight!”
-“Hmm? Oh yeah, it’s Halloween tonight, right? That reminds me, I want to catch the double feature of “The She-Creature” and “The She-Monster” tonight on Cheap Horror Theater.”
-“Uncle” Nel said, annoyed. “Focus, please.”
-“I AM focusing! Err, where were we? Oh, yes, The Amish… mm-hmm… well…”
-“Is something wrong?” Nel asked.
-“No no, it’s just that… well, I know nothing about the Amish.”
-“WHAT?” Nel said, truly shocked. “But, but, you know EVERYTHING!”
-“Hey! I never said that!” Wil snapped.
-“Well, not in so many words, but you always act like you do.”
-“No I don’t! I just happen to be, err, extensively self-taught.”
-“Really. So how come you don’t know about the Amish?”
-“Well… I had other priorities, you know? Magic, alien cultures, how to defeat Big Fearsome Monsters, things like that.”
-“In other words, The Amish were just too boring to study?” Nel asked slyly.
-“Uhh… OK, I admit it. They are. But hey, it isn’t like there is much to study. The Amish keep themselves sequestered from modern society. They want to be left alone, so I left them alone.”
-“Great” Nel said, bummed. “So what do we do now?”
-“Don’t worry” Wil said, turning towards his computer. “I’ll just Google up some site about The Amish, and download it-”
-“No, we can’t do that” Nel said, sadly. “The teacher said we had to write the paper ourselves. No web research allowed. Something about kids not reading books anymore, blah blah…”
Wil facepalmed. “Great. That means we only have one choice left” he sighed. “We’re going to have to visit an Amish Town and interview the residents.”
-“What?” Nel gasped. “Is that REALLY necessary?”
-“It is, if we want to finish this thing by tonight. Going through the books at the library would take too long.”
-“But- will the Amish allow us to even see them?” Nel asked.
-“I think so. I hear they are actually quite friendly.”
-“Aww, bummer. There goes my trick-or-treating” Nel sighed.
-And my double babe-monster movie show Wil mentally added. “Let’s stop whining and just do it.”

Wil then started searching on the Net for the location of a convenient Amish Town.

MORE SOON!

2

Finally you started a new story! :smiley: I like the start , specially the part about the paper work of boring cultures! LOL.

3

Everything is funnier with the Amish. :hahaha;

4

Wil…is…writing again?

WHO ARE YOU?! AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MARTINEZ?!

Still, nice start.

5

I actually know a few amish people. THeyr’e really nice. And open about people coming to visit and learn their ways, so long as you follow their ways while you’re with them. I haven’t been, but I still learned quite a bit.

Word of advice: don’t sing Amish paradise by Weird Al around them. THey don;t find it so funny.

6

Good to see you are writing again Wil. It is always good to see something of yours of the forum.

7

Wil’s writing again… the seventh sign…

dashes into a bomb shelter, securing the lock.

Still, good to see the master back in action.

8

Yeesh, I should’ve known: no sooner do I start a story than I get flooded with work, and I get delayed. Sorry, guys. Oh well, it IS November and students are scrambling around looking for help with their school projects and such… anyway, I had decided to write this story with NO set deadline, I’m not going to stress myself like I did last time. I WILL finish it, however.

Some Story Trivia Bits: Yes, there are such things as “The She-Creature” and “The She-Monster” movies. The She-Creature even got a remake (that had absolutely nothing to do with the original.) There is no such thing as The Cheap Horror Movie Theater, however- not under that name, anyway.

Back to the story:

The town of King’s Crossing
Somewhere in Nebraska, USA
October 31, 2006
Late in the afternoon

The road was empty and quiet. There were a few trees alongside it, but nothing else. Then, green lights appeared in the air out of nowhere. They began to quickly swirl around, and then they suddenly bursted- and in their place stood Wil and Nel. They were wearing normal clothes, as opposed to their usual adventuring gear.

-“Hey Uncle” Nel asked, “How come you could teleport us here if you’ve never been here before?”
-“Ahh, very good question” Wil said, proud of his niece’s perceptiveness. “You see, the World has invisible energy links called “lay lines” that crisscross the planet like lines on a map. I teleport along those lines. To get to a place, I only need to know the general coordinates- then I find a line that passes close to it, and POOF! There we are. Of course, rarely do they pass exactly where one wants to go, which means we usually still have to walk some distance.”
-“Not this time, I’ll bet. Look” she said, pointing to their right.

A group of rustic-looking houses and barns could be seen in that direction, a short distance from where they stood on the road. No people were visible, though.

-“Ah, good” Wil said. He pulled out a piece of paper with a computer print-out in it. “That should be King’s Crossing. According to the article I downloaded, it’s a quaint but friendly Amish Town. We should have no problem getting the information we need.”
-“Are you sure, Uncle?”
-“Yeah! All we have to do is ask politely. We’ll just make a couple of questions, then be on our way.”
-“Good. The sooner we’re back home, the better” Nel grumbled.

The two of them began walking towards the town.

As they came closer, they saw a lot of things straight out of old western movie: wooden fences, livestock, horse-pulled buggies, and a big cornfield next to the town. No people, though.

Next to a fence was a device looking like a wooden barrel with a wooden pole sticking out of it.
-“What’s that, Uncle?” Nel asked.
-“Ahh, that’s a typical Amish utensil. It’s called a… well, I don’t know what it’s called. But they use it to churn butter.”
-“Churn butter?” Nel blinked.
-“Oh yeah, the Amish make their own butter. In fact, I think they make all of their stuff by themselves.”
-“All of it? They don’t buy anything?”
-“I think so. Hey, that’s one of the things we’re here to find out, eh?”
Wil was trying to make the experience as entertaining for Nel as possible. But it was obvious she was already bored out of her skull.

As they entered the town, they looked around, but saw nobody else. The whole place was eerily silent.

-“…So, where’s everybody?” Nel asked.
-“Hmm. Good question” Wil said.
-“Maybe they’re getting ready for Halloween” Nel joked.
-“Somehow I reeeally doubt that” Wil shot back. “Umm… they may be inside their homes. It is getting late. Maybe they’re getting ready for dinner.”

The explanation made sense for the two of them. But there was something that was bothering Wil, something he decided not to tell Nel about.

Birds. He couldn’t hear the sounds of birds, or other animals. A countryside town next to a cornfield should be full of bird sounds. He had been in enough towns like this one to know that for a fact.

Of course, that didn’t mean something wrong was going on. But for some reason, Wil was feeling VERY uncomfortable. It wasn’t his mystic senses, just a feeling. No sense telling Nel that, however, not unless he decided something was indeed wrong.

-“So, what do we do now?” Nel asked, impatiently.
Wil grumbled. He was hoping to just run into an Amish person and make a few questions. Now it seemed he would’ve to interrupt them at their homes.
He shrugged. “Well, let’s knock on the door of one of these houses, then see what we can find out.”

Nel grumbled, but followed Wil as he approached the nearest house, which was unremarkable from the others, at least to their city-bred eyes.
-“Now, let me do the talking, OK?” Wil said.
-“Be my guest” Nel responded.
They knocked at the door.
Knok knok

A few seconds later, the door opened. A young girl, of about Nel’s age, but blonde and brown-eyed, wearing a dress the likes of which Nel had never seen outside of an episode of “Little House in the Prairie” stood there. She looked at them, with a VERY intense gaze, her mouth a most definitely unhappy slit.
-“Ah… Hello, there!” Wil said, trying to sound friendly but somewhat taken aback by the girl’s harsh stare. “We’re, uh, tourists. We’ve heard many wonderful things about this town, and we wanted to see them by ourselves” he said.
The girl continued to stare. It was hard to tell if she was angry, confused or annoyed, but she definitely wasn’t happy. She didn’t say a peep, either.
Wil continued: “So… err… we would like to ask some questions. If you don’t mind.”
Still the silent stare.
-Okay, maybe she was told not to speak to strangers Wil thought. “Ah, are your parents home?” he asked.
-“No” she finally said. But in such a cold tone, Wil almost wished she hadn’t answered.
-“Uhh… so… where are they?”
-“In the cornfield” she answered.
-Ah, so that’s it, they must be harvesting the corn. Well, it IS harvest season Wil thought. Though he didn’t see anyone on the fields on the way in…
-“Will they be back soon?” he asked.
-“No” again she responded, flatly and coldly.
-“O…kay… thanks, anyway” Wil said, deciding he wasn’t going to learn anything from THIS girl. He and Nel walked away from the house, and the girl slammed the door shut behind them.
-“Was it just me, or was that girl CR-EE-PY?” Nel said, nervously.
-“She obviously has some… problem. But, that’s not our business. Let’s try another house.”
-“Uhh, you know, Uncle, I really don’t need that paper that much. I can make up for it later. Let’s go home.”
Wil smiled sarcastically. “You’re not SCARED, are you, Nel?”
-“Who, me? Of course not!! It’s just that, uhh, this town doesn’t seem that friendly.”
-“Hey, you can’t tell that from just one person. Let’s try at least one more house.”
-“Okay… but if it turns out they’re just as creepy there, let’s leave, OK?”
Wil snorted. “Nel, we’re sorcerers. POWERFUL sorcerers. I doubt there’s anything in this town that we can’t handle. Don’t forget that.”
-“Yeah, Ok…”

They walked towards another house.

MORE SOON

More Story Trivia: No, there’s no real Amish Town called King’s Crossing, that I know of. I made it up. Thought I used the name of a small town from a FANTASTIC FOUR comic book story. It was full of aliens. Doesn’t mean this story will have aliens, though.