Halloween!

[cyberghostface]

I've posted this one before but this time it's restored and in black and white.

This story comes from Shock SuspenStories #2.

The story opens with Miss Dennis applying for matron duty at an orphanage. She discovers the orphanage itself to be rundown and threadbare, but the master on the other hand..





Miss Dennis sees that the children are all thin and malnourished, and promises to take care of them. The children are skeptical, saying that the other matron was cruel to them. Dennis later confronts Mr. Critchit about the poor conditions for the children, who tells her that he's doing the best that he can, but that the food prices have risen while the allotments haven't.

To give the children better food, Miss Dennis pays extra out of her own pocket, and the children start to improve. That is, until Mr. Critchit informs her that the allotment has dropped again. Things begin to worsen--in addition to the food, the childrens' clothes begin to wear out. Miss Dennis does the best she can, and the children are happy around her.

When Halloween comes around, the children want to celebrate Halloween and ask Miss Dennis for a pumpkin. When Miss Dennis asks Mr. Critchit, he tells her that they have no money to throw away on such trivialities.

Comments

[zapbiffpow]

Taking a pseudo-medical approach and assuming a shared EC universe, we see that physical strength and creativity drastically increase relative to one's murderous impulses. The same theory applies to that story a few posts ago with the wife turning her husband into a Big Mouth Billy Bass.

That's part of what scares me about these stories - that there's a whole world of sleeper psychopaths (or whatever 'path' it is) that function under those principles. Something wrong happened to this world's gene pool somewhere.

[crinos]

Yeah, apparently the phrase "That's a bit much isn't it?" doesn't exist on this world.

I mean yeah, that asshole was gonna kill her to keep his dirty secret. so one could argue the kids were acting in self defense.... but turning the guys head into a Jack O Lantern. I don't think that's gonna go over well with the cops.

On the subject, I watched a fun little horror anthology called tales of Halloween tonight. Its a collection of ten halloween themed horror shorts, some goofy, some scary, pretty good overall. The last one focuses on a killer Jack O Lantern, and the cops of the small town all this crazy stuff is happening in, we get a look inside their precinct, and get references to some of the earlier shorts from the cops, with the implication that crazy supernatural bullshit happens here every year.

I like to think the cops in the EC world have the same issues, but all the time. Seriously it must be fun to be a cop in the EC universe.

[cyberghostface]

I think they just snapped after everything he had done prior.

Funnily enough I saw that exact same movie today. I liked it better than 'Trick r Treat'. Some misfires but a pretty fun experience to get you in the mood for Halloween.

[icon_uk]

"All it takes is one bad day..."