SPOOKTOBER 2024!

Spooktober is a 31 day event of coming up with original horror ideas based on prompts my writing group voted on.  Carrying forward from last year we’re having optional sub-themes and I’m trying to do them all like Debbie do Dallas.  Book covers made with midjourney and photopea.

SPOOKTOBER DAY #8 — SOUTHERN GOTHIC
(× Blue-Collar or Phobia or Plants & Flowers)

TITLE:  Witch Stain

PREMISE:  I should be composing these before 2 AM but it just ain’t working out like that.  Letting the images guide me too, not the best way to come up with a good idea.  Let’s say Creepin’ Lamont is victim of religious abuse (Southern) with internalized homophobias (Phobia), who thinks he’s possessed by witches and demons.  Even normies can tell he’s just gay and a lil wild-hearted, tho the crueler among them think he’s going to do harm to children, hence the nickname.

Lamont falls is gardening (Blue-Collar, Plants & Flowers) at a rich old family’s estate (Gothic) and falls in love with a young dude of the house, Marcus.  Marcus tries to get the wild boy to give in to gentle feelings, but it always devolves into panic attacks and visions of hell.

HORROR ELEMENT:  What if witches really did want you to kiss a dude?  I keed, i keed.  The horror in this one is realistical – loving somebody with bad problems.  It must have a happy ending tho, insofar as it’s possible.  Cut to future and he controls his episodes with therapy and careful self-regulation, and can kiss the boy without having a heart attack.  The world is haunted by demons that god made, thx god.

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