Thomas Carnacki knocked softly on the weathered
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Thomas Carnacki knocked softly on the weathered grey seaside shanty. "Mrs Squidmore, I'm sorry for your loss and of course I would be happy to help with the phantasms you mentioned
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but I've serious reservations about investigating a haunting by the middle toe of your husbands right foot. It's much too silly for a good story, sillier than that 'Straw Platters'
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; nevertheless, there've been many reported sightings of the lone middle toe in the midnite hours, hovering inexplicably, at times with its toenail painted a garish blood red,
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to lure wanderers within pouncing distance. There were stories told about the lone toe's cunning skill. Legend has it that the blood red polish had hallucinogenic properties.
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The red polish had been tested on by peasants looking to seek cheap makeup during the Middle Ages. Today, the substances are now known as angel dust and crack respectively.
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I knew someone who used them. She knocked on my back door at 3am one night, asking for money. During the Middle Ages, Count Aznea did research on the red polish and found it could
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harden a man's fists as well as his mind. Or hers, as far as he cared. That meant she hadn't necessarily tried to hurt him. It could just have been a sick twist of
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"I know what you want me to say and you know I can't say it even though it doesn't mean anything because that is just the way I am. I have to say something unexpected but apt. I
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have to be unpredictable. If I'm not unique, then what am I?" she asks, leaning back against the wall, twirling her long dark hair. "You're you," I say, "and there's nothing wrong
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with your television set." "Well fine, then," she said. So I picked up my gear and got back into the truck. As I pulled out of the driveway I heard the Jeopardy theme, and sobbing.
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- Started
- 2014-11-14 21:06:54
- Finished
- 2016-09-16 14:06:18
9 Comments
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Woab Sep 16 2016 @ 14:09
This one is majorly odd.
Gibber Sep 16 2016 @ 16:39
Thomas Carnacki is an occult detective created by William Hope Hodgson. Carnacki mentions "the 'Straw Platters' case" in one of the stories. "The Middle Toe of the Right Foot" is a ghost story by Ambrose Bierce, which is not about a haunting by a deceased husband's toe.
LordVacuity Sep 16 2016 @ 22:40
Bierce disappeared after writing The Devil's Dictionary.
BlastedHeath Sep 20 2016 @ 20:52
Gibber, I'm sure I must have started this one after you had mentioned Carnacki and Hodgson below some other story, which I can't find. I think there might have been some cinnabar in that nail polish.
Gibber Sep 21 2016 @ 01:52
I don't recall, although I probably mention Hodgson a lot. In fact, right now I'm listening to an audiobook of "The Night Land" and a thing called "horror ambience" simultaneously. I'm wondering if Mrs. Squidmore is a literary character?
BlastedHeath Sep 21 2016 @ 20:25
Well, Mrs. Squidmore squirted out of my virtual pen, so yes -- how could there be any doubt?!! ;-) I think there might have been another squid reference afloat at the time, maybe a long-running FS character invented before I joined, and I was riffing off of that as well as Carnacki.
Gibber Sep 21 2016 @ 20:48
Aha! Squids and William Hope Hodgson, finished on 11/7/14: http://foldingstory.com/oppuu
BlastedHeath Sep 21 2016 @ 21:09
Thanks! And in the comments to that one I see fragments of maps to unexplored territory ...
sharklover Sep 24 2016 @ 20:27
That was a beautiful ending of a beautiful story