Who Said Romance Is Dead?

He got into her car, she smiled at him, he nodded back. They drove out not knowing where they were going but there was no need of a destination, they both knew what they wanted that night. Isabella had long brown curly hair which she fluffed whenever she talked to him. Alex had combed back dark hair and talked in a way that would seduce her, she loved whatever he said, it was alluring, magical. The sun was out but setting, it created a sort of romantic atmosphere as they drove around the open country roads locked away from the world it seemed. at least in the car it felt like they were the only people that mattered.

Driving past old country houses, Isabella looked at every house dreaming of the perfect place to live, Alex sat there watching the sky , as if he was waiting for the perfect moment./A peacock provided a momentary distraction  from what they were both saying with their body language, while a black cat dashing across the small bendy road provided a moment of fright as Isabella who was an animal lover swerved quickly to dodge the suicidal feline while Alex looked unfazed, laughing in the passengers seat. The fact that nothing seemed to unnerve him just attracted her more to him.

They reached a small abandoned cottage and got out to "stretch the legs". The views from beyond the cottage were beautiful, open fields after another that had a mystical feeling to them, it was something in the air that night. They walked around the rundown garden, grass and weeds up to her knees and his shins, it was rundown but she could see a future here. Alex seemed at home, free from the shackles of the city life he lit up a cigarette that he took from his top left pocket of his shirt and gazed into the distance. Throughout their conversation they were growing visibly closer, her eyelashes working on overtime as he looked into them when responding.

After tentatively leaving the cottage grounds they drove through a small village but the people there seemed invisible to them. He leaned over and grabbed a CD from her collection down by her right side "I never noticed how hairy you are" she giggled before adding "I saw a bit on your chest from  your top two buttons open but now even on your arm its the same" he looked at her rubbing his hand through his hair in a combing motion asking "Does it bother you?" , "No not at all, it...its.....kinda attractive to be honest" she answered forthright. Alex smiled for the first time that night "Good, I am glad that impresses you"

They pulled on to a main road, up ahead was a turn off saying "Calden Castle", he looked over to her and gestured his head towards the sign in a way that she understood. The small car park was abandoned. "Great" they both thought silently, it was the perfect location. She was adventurous by nature and suggested that they walk around the old castle that only had two sides to it , he went along with her idea. Inside they strolled around, she loved it here and took a few pictures. "You're lucky" said Alex in a relaxed manner while lighting up his next cigarette, "I know why I think I;m lucky tonight but why do you say so?" responded Isabella cheekily. Alex walked around in a circle delaying his response "You're lucky because in another half hour the darkness will be here and there will be no more pictures then, but yeah maybe you are lucky in more than one way tonight".

They sat in the castles centre until darkness took over before returning back to the car talking the next hour of the night away. He could sense that she wanted him but waited for the right time to act on this, he enjoyed teasing her too much to stop right away. She struggled to know if he felt the same way but whatever happened she was gonna make her move tonight, no more waiting, tonight was the perfect night in every way. There was a river facing them in the car park that went down along by the castle and Alex told her stories of how this river reminded him of times he went fishing. Isabella found this interesting as she could never picture him as a person that liked to fish so she asked him the usual questions- "Did you ever catch anything?" "How did you catch it?", he delayed his response again, teasing the answer "Yeah I caught loads" before smirking at her "With my hands of course", she spat out her water with laughter, making a pig noise in the process that he poked fun at endlessly.

11.57 p.m and the night was coming to an end. She finally mustered up the courage and started to rub his arm, up to his shoulder and back down again, he didn't seem to mind this at all. She leaned in closer and closer to the point where she could see one tiny little freckle on his nose. Their lips separated only by their breath, she went to kiss him but he pulled away "Is something wrong? Not the right time?" she asked all embarrassed. He looked deep into her eyes as the gong of the church in the distance went off signalling midnight had arrived and grabbed her by her neck "Now its time" before kissing her passionately as the glare of the full moon shone down on them through the front window of the car.

As they were kissing all sorts of excitement was going off in Isabella's head, the moment finally came and she didn't want this to stop, in fact she wanted more of this feeling, she wanted more of him. As her hands started to wander down his shirt, gently grazing through the hair on his chest she could feel hair coming from his face as they were kissing. She pulled away for a moment and with enormous shock she saw that he was not Alex no more, he had turned, turned into a beast more commonly known as a Werewolf. Her breath started to get faster and shorter, panic overtook her emotions but she didn't run, she just sat there looking in amazement.

"Alex....Alex is that you?" she asked in a frightened but curious way; it was like when you're a kid watching a really scary movie that terrifies you but there is something drawing you to it that you cannot leave. He or it as it now was just looked at her snarling, drooling from its large half open mouth while its claws scratched down the window of the car making an eerie squeaky noise, The wolf got closer to her, sniffing her hair,blowing it like the wind."You don't scare me you know, I know it's you Alex" Isabella's initial shock and fear now seemed to have gone and was replaced with the feelings she had for him. She looked directly into his eyes "They are still blue, they didn't change at all, that means you are still in there", the beast's growling seemed to ease a bit as she talked more to him.

Isabella looked out up to the moon but as she looked away from the wolf it swiped at her; cutting all down her left arm, which was met with a scream of pain. The wolf was getting hungry, he could smell her blood and just had to taste it. "Just do it" she said "Do it Alex ok just do it, if this is how we are gonna be together then so be it"she cried out. Just as she finished her sentence the werewolf was all over her, biting down upon her neck; this wasn't how she imagined him at her neck. Blood dripping from the mouth of the beast, it was satisfied with its feed and now broke out of the car, smashing through the front window and resting up in the castle grounds out of sight from anyone.

As morning came, Alex lay naked in the grass of the castle, awakening with a thumping headache that always occurred when transforming back over. He vaguely remembered what happened and went down to the car to see Isabella lying there smiling at him as she always done "Now we can be together forever Alex"

Frequency

Heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary embolism and brain aneurysm, these are just some of the ways in which a person can die suddenly. Smoking, alcoholism, blood pressure, stress, bad diet and being overweight, these are major contributors that can lead directly to the before mentioned ways of death, but what if a person was to die and none of it made sense. Someone who never smoked suddenly died from clogged arteries in the lungs or someone who was stress free and had a perfectly healthy level of blood pressure suddenly dropped dead with an aneurysm, well this is what happened to numerous people over two weeks of Spring.

The neighbourhood was known for having a reputation as one of clean living, people were always out jogging and eating right, no overweight people existed here, it was like all the men and women that had below 10% body fat were all transported here. If you lit up a cigarette you would get the evil look as if you were a convicted paedophile that just got out after serving their time. The bar was a place to be only enjoyed at special occasions and not one to be taken advantage of. It seemed as if on every row of houses there was a doctor of some sort and a lawyer. Most "normal" everyday jobs for the common folk was frowned upon and every car looked straight out of "Car and Driver" monthly magazine.

While out jogging in the evening one of the men that lived here suddenly dropped to his knees, clutching his chest, by the time that help arrived at the scene he had died - Heart attack. The man was known as the fittest guy in the neighborhood. He won multi triathlons and cross country races,  in-fact, it was only a week before his death that he won his last race!! No doctors were able to understand why this man who was simply out on a light jog, listening to some music had dropped over his heart giving out, it didn't make any medical sense at all.

Three days later, a woman was out on her front porch sitting down enjoying a glass of fine wine while listening to her favorite radio channel on her phone when she started to get short of breath which was followed by extensive coughing of blood. Within minutes she was lying on her porch dead, she had a major pulmonary embolism. Doctors again were bewildered at this, her lungs suddenly went from being clean to that of someone that smoked 60 cigarettes a day. She was known for her hatred of smoking since her sister passed away from them when she was a young adult and ever since then she had put on many anti-smoking campaigns.

The start of the following week came around and while at the gym a young man had a serious stroke and never recovered, dying minutes later as a result. He was a dedicated gym-goer, his face was on every poster around here as the man with the biggest muscles in town. At the time of his stroke he had gained 300 pounds in a matter of seconds. A day after this and the strange deaths continued; an older lady who was a total teetotal, drink never crossed her lips but yet she had died from liver failure while driving along in her car. It was similar to someone who had drank heavily all their life, another unexplained death.

Over the next few days these unusual deaths showed no signs of stopping; A person who didn't have high blood pressure died due to a brain aneurysm while cleaning her home, another died at work from the acute stress problems but she was a highly educated practitioner in meditation and healing therapies mainly focusing on getting rid of harmful toxins and stress from the body. There was a serious unidentifiable problem happening in this neighborhood.

After the two weeks ended so did the strange deaths, it was like mist had cleared and everything was back to normal. People got back to living their normal lives, putting the memories of the two weeks of that faithful spring down to some strange coincidence that happens once every few thousand years but unbeknownst to them it wasn't every few thousand years as the next Spring that rolled around these deaths came back and continued to do so every Spring after that until everyone either died or fled the neighborhood.

It remained closed off to the public for many years but soon enough it was advertised as a haunted area and was used a way to make money. Guided tours and phony merchandise based on no element of the truth was sold here, natural human greed took over. It became a landmark, something people travelled far and wide to see - The haunted Neighbourhood of Timeston City as it was now known as. People became less interested in finding out the true secret of what happened here but instead they were more focused in taking a selfie here.

As with all the unusual deaths that took place over the years here, there was one common denominator - they were all listening to the new local radio station on 66.6 FM , it was a frequency controlled by a nasty plague demon that travelled from town to town interrupting the channel when people were listening to it and whispering their ironic deaths to them right before it happened. The irony of the deaths were just for its own kicks. When people were all gone from the small town it inhabited, it then moved on to find the next place to plague of all good.

Purple NightZ

Maplebrook Springs is an expensive housing estate out in the Suburbs. The sky was always blue and the sun seemed to shine brighter here. During the day you could hear the sound of kids playing out in the streets along with the daily 3 p.m song of the ice cream man passing by. During the night there was no sound, it was just still here, besides the odd cricket stridulating to look for a mate. Perhaps the most amazing part of Maplebrook Springs was the sky on a clear night, it turned purple. It's something that no one has ever figured out, why it turned this colour was a mystery but it was certainly beautiful to look at and unique to this suburb only.

Ryan who was a 15 year old boy living in the corner house of the estate was fascinated by the sky, he would often stay up all night just gazing into it, getting lost in the magical appearance. He was homeschooled by a family friend because of his socially awkward ways which was part of his Asperger's condition and didn't really like to integrate with others his own age. His parents were gone for the majority of the day out working, so from when home school finished at 4. p.m until his parents arrived home at 6.30 p.m Ryan had the house to himself, something he was now entrusted with since he turned 15.

During these two and a half hours he had free he would spend most of it reading up on something that fascinated him ; things that can die and come back to life. So he would go online and research living things such as the Wood Frog , Arctic Wooly Bear Caterpillar and the Darkling Beetle who all have the ability to freeze their bodies in extreme weather and then come back to life when the weather eases off. Ryan spent months sitting in front of his computer reading about this but his passion and thirst to know more eventually led him outside, and when outside he searched his back garden and the nearby areas for bugs or any kind of small animal that he came across.

On his adventures to gather up beings of the animal kingdom he went out and killed some worms, a few centipedes and also a robin, he put them into his lunch box container. Once at home he would wrap them up and place them safely in a small cooler box that was inside the freezer out in the garage. The next day on his time alone he went out to check on them but to his disappointment they were still dead and now frozen over. He took them out and tried to heat the bodies up but nothing happened they remained dead. Ryan was angry, he felt like he was let down and lied to, he vowed never to turn on his computer again. The next few weeks he would sit and stare out his window waiting for the sky to turn purple; something that he could always count on and that never lied to him.

His parents went on a weekend vacation so he was left with the family friend who taught him. On the Saturday night he got bored and snuck out the back door late at night. Wandering around idly he jumped over the walls that circled the suburbs and came across a small burial site for people that lived in that estate. His fascination with death and life started to come back, he felt excited to be here, the adrenaline was flowing through his body once again. There was a sign here stating "To end a life begins a new life", Ryan didn't really understand what this meant, but he couldn't stop fixating on the words end a life and new life. His mind was racing with ideas, passing by his left foot was a cat, he looked at it as his eyes started to get bigger, more ideas came into his head. He bent down to rub the cat, hands circling around its neck but right as the moment came he heard a cry in the distance "Bella where are you". He thought to himself about it but couldn't go through with it, I guess there was some remorse inside.

This moment was like a breakthrough in is thinking, he wondered why he is the way he is and what he had done and what he was gonna do to that cat, it was like it re-shaped his mind. He was gonna change his life or at least try. As he was walking away from the burial site he heard a crunching sound coming from under him; he had stood on two snails under his right foot. Saddened by this he bent down and said sorry to the splattered gastropod, behind him he heard the noise of someone groaning along with that same sound that is used when shovelling clay. Arms were reaching out from the surrounding graves, followed by heads and then their bodies, people were rising up from the dead.

Ryan's feet were planted in the ground with shock and his body quivering with fear as about forty of the undead were slinging towards him. As one tripped and fell clawing at his feet that adrenaline rush he used to get for different reasons kicked in and he fled the burial site, running until he got home and locked every window and door in the house waking up the woman staying with him in the process. When asked by her what was wrong her muttered fastly "The dead are coming, the dead are coming" but she didn't believe him and told him to get some sleep that it was just a bad dream. Ryan sat wondering what he had done while hesitantly looking out his window to see if any of the dead could be seen. It was all quiet outside, that was until a few moments later he heard the meow of a cat but not in a nice way, the screech of the cat immediately set off every dog in the estate barking mad and moments later all the decayed bodies that rose up were seen walking out into the middle of the estate.

Ryan called the woman up to see it and to her disbelief he had been right all along, she told him to lock the door and be quiet. The strange thing was with these zombies is that they started dispersing, every different one went to a different house, it's like they were going back home. Ryan and the woman watched out as the seen people coming to their front door being attacked and eaten, some fought them off and got away others were eventually overrun. The woman went downstairs to grab a knife from the drawer but when she got there she was bitten from behind on her neck and chewed apart, Ryan forgot to lock the back door he came back in through in his terrified state.

The screams outside made Ryan sick, he went down to look for the woman but what he seen he wished he never came down at all. One of the undead crouching down and eating her from the stomach, she was the only person to ever show him some real attention and love. He shouted  angrily "Get off!!" but this only alerted the zombie to his attention, Ryan moved towards the it but the fear quickly took him back over before he jolted out the back door. Outside was the worst move he could of made and he soon registered this as dozens of that thing that was inside were now outside. Living in the corner house meant he was trapped and the only way out was through the heard of the dead, he stealthy slid past a good few of these and could see a clear route up ahead to make a break for.

He took a deep breath and went for it, getting to the entrance of the estate without being noticed. He looked behind him to see was alright but when he done so he saw the mutated body of the cat and he froze again remembering what he was gonna do to it and what he had done to other innocent animals like "Bella", This hesitancy allowed for a zombie to grab his arm and bite down,another came from the other side and did the same. Ryan fell to the ground as the two zombies made dinner out of him, his last few moments were spent staring up into the purple sky that was the only through ever present in his life which paralleled that of his fixation of death while he was living.

Punkie Night

The sun set low on a warm summers night, the smell of fresh cut grass took over the air as everyone settles down for the main event of the night. This fair was held every summer as tradition for all the local country folk to gather together and have some fun. Drinks were aplenty, dancing was encouraged and sitting on barrels of hay was very common but this all quietened down for the last act which was something new , instead of the usual country singer coming out to wind down the night they had a band to perform, a new band that no one had ever heard of around these parts.

The fair organiser was out grabbing a bite to eat a week before the event in his usual haunt when he seen a flyer on the wall that read ;     
                                                              Punkie night tonight
                                                              Punkie night tonight
                                                              Adam and Eve would not believe
                                                              It's Punkie night tonight

This caught his attention so he decided to give the number a ring. He was very impressed with what they had offered; to play at the fair for free just so they could get their names known around these parts, so after sorting out the style of music and all the little things the organiser decided to get this band to perform as the main event. He was also known as a bit of a tight man when it came to spending money so that also had a bit to do with it.

On the morning of fair day he met with the band, four members but only two greeted him; "Hello sir, my name is King Punkie and this is my wife Queen Punkie, its a pleasure to be of service to you and your people tonight". Wife Punkie did not speak, she smiled all coy half hiding behind her husband who oozed with charisma. The organiser thought it was a little strange how they acted but went long with it and was very impressed as he listened to their sound test. He smiled to himself , thinking how he had managed to pull this off "I did it again, bargain absolute bargain, can't wait to see the reaction of the people when they hear Punkie Night later".

The time had come to play, they decorated the stage with Jack o'lanterns and pumpkins all around to give the halloween look which was distinctive of their style. They also dressed in creepy costumes which together with the decorations was a strange sight to see in the height of summer but there was a special feel and aura to it , especially when the sun was setting and the light of the lanterns got brighter, there was a calmness in the air. People sat and listened to the melodic sound of their songs, it was like they were in a trance, their focus and attention totally dedicated to the music of the band.

A lot of head nodding and feet tapping, the organiser stood watching this great performance, delighted with what he had pulled off. As the night was coming to a close Punkie Night played one last song, their best known hit - Soul Searching. Everyone loved it and as they were about to finish a bang of smoke filled the air momentarily blinding everyone, when the smoke cleared the band were gone. People applauded the gimmick relating this as all part of the act.

Moments after the fair had finished and people were getting ready to leave, they started dropping to the ground one by one as if there was a sniper in the distance picking them off  but the cause of this strange behaviour was unknown. Not one man, woman or child was left standing, bodies lay on the ground but still breathing, the organiser came out from his back room in total shock to what lay before him. As he stood in disbelief King and Queen Punkie appeared before him "Don't worry they are not dead but not alive they are the ghosts we create to ensure we survive" whispers King Punkie in the organisers ear while Queen hung from her husbands shoulder staring seductively at the terrified fair man.

Punkie Night are a demon band that travel around from town to town putting on performances then taking the souls of those who were enthralled by them through a state of trance and finished off by the inhalation of the smoke they produced. The organiser was spared but no one believed his story of what happened that beautiful summers night. His years were now tormented by the image and sound of the band skipping away and vanishing into the night singing the rhyme ;
                                             
                                                          Punkie night tonight
                                                          Punkie night tonight
                                                          Adam and Eve would not believe
                                                          It's Punkie night tonight.

The Madness That Lies Within

There has been many versions of what is known as the "Russian Sleep Experiment". People have been writing creepypasta's about this urban legend for years and it was also made into a movie in 2015 but of course history and evidence suggests that this never took place and it was nothing more than a legend created to scare people. What people don't know is that with all these legends there is an element of truth behind them and this is the case also for this sleep experiment that was said to have taken place in the 1940's.

It was back some twenty years earlier in Minsk; the capital of Belarus, where six death row prisoners were involved in an experiment that would guarantee just one of them freedom but this wasn't what they were told. They were asked to partake in a thirty day simple experiment, researchers wanted to see what effects sleep deprivation had on people, so they were asked to stay awake for those days helped with a stimulant gas and if they did so then they would all go free but in fact they were each told individually during their screening process that only one would go free and that each individual was their chosen person to walk away, all they had to do was not tell the others and make sure that they walked out after the thirty days alone!!!

After 3/4 days nothing was to note, they each stuck to themselves reading what books were given to them and not wanting to engage with the others as they each thought they were the so called chosen one and didn't wanna get to know the people they were gonna dispose of. Day 8 came and everyone was getting very weak and started murmuring to themselves a bit more often and also louder, their eyes twitched uncontrollably and the books they had were now torn up and each page scrunched up and tossed around the chamber room.

It was in the next few days or so, 11/12. that things really started to get weird with each prisoner seemingly getting more energy and pacing up and down the room talking to themselves clearly out loud, the murmuring had evolved and the paranoia now in full swing. The researchers and prison officers were getting concerned about this as no one had been killed off yet, it seemed as though they had all forgotten their "Special" task they were given and now their minds had wandered past that. The officers threw in a knife through a hidden passageway but what happened with the knife was the exact opposite of what they wanted.

All of the camera's became smeared by the inmates by their own faeces and the officers and researchers found it hard to see what was going on, all they could hear was the paranoid chants of them all as they walked around in circles going from laughing to crying.  So on day 15 they decided to get a few armed guards to enter the room to shake things up a little but what they saw was horrific, they had each used the knife on themselves cutting pieces of their flesh off as if they were preparing Sunday dinner, two guys lay on the ground torn to pieces and face down in their own pool of blood, another guy was in the corner shouting about how he is free while slicing up his abdomen and pulling out his intestines. The guards tried using force against the remaining three torn up inmates but found them surprisingly strong and ended up shooting one of them, subduing the other two.

The remaining two were brought into the infirmary and put under strong sedation. As the gas stimulant from the chamber started to wear off their situation started to get worse, their bodies started convulsing to the point where one of them actually died as a result of the gas leaving their body. The researchers decided to pump the one last remaining survivor with more of the stimulant to keep him alive, he immediately shot up from the bed foaming at the mouth, trying to get at the people observing him but his shackles prevented this.

One researcher asked him "Do you remember who you are" to which the crazed inmate replied "Yes, I am what's in you, what's in all of us, what we all try to control out of fear, the purest form of mankind". "Do tell me, what is this thing you speak of" asked the very curious researcher, the man started shaking with laughter , blood draining from his eyes before responding in a raspy deep voice unfamiliar to him " I am the madness that lies within". He then broke free from his shackles and leaped at the frozen with fear researcher before the officers shot him in the chest putting an end to his life and also this experiment. It was never talked about since and wiped clear from any records but it does make you think is there that madness in all of us and if we weren't all so conditioned by society would we turn out this way??