I should finish that thought, I suppose. Are you a fan of things that go bump in the night? Scary movies? Scary books?
With Halloween just a couple weeks away, it's the season for all things spooky, right? We tend to turn our Friday and Saturday movie nights to horror movie watching, though we also like silly horror as well (Shaun of the Dead, anyone? We rewatched that one last week.) I think next weekend we'll be heading to the theater for the 30th anniversary re-release of The Nightmare Before Christmas, partly because we like it, and partly for nostalgia...it was the first time we went out anywhere without our oldest son after he was born. This weekend we watched a couple of Stephen King films, and we have plenty more to get through. One of my favorites is The Hitcher, with Sean Bean (he's my guy!). Come to think of it, I also really enjoy him in Silent Hill, too. Or in The Frankenstein Chronicles. And now I've gone off on a Sean Bean tangent, but that's for another day, I think. Haha.
Right now I'm watching The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix. I loved their version of The Haunting of Hill House, and this has a handful of the same actors, so that's fun. With Hill House, the first few episodes completely creeped me out, but Bly has taken a few episodes to do that; the one I just finished gave me goosebumps and made all the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Yes, I know the series isn't new, but I'm one of those people who adds a million things to my watch list and then lets them sit there until I eventually get around to them. But I don't tend to sit down in front of the TV every night either, and sometimes I like the comfort of a rewatch, like Penny Dreadful (I still want Vanessa's tarot deck!) or Longmire, and I always have more than one thing that I'm watching. I also don't binge a whole series generally, though I made an exception for the first season of the British version of Broadchurch.
Anyway...back to the subject at hand. We have a small collection of Stephen King dvds (and more on VHS, but that's a whole other story), and plenty of other things we can watch from our movie collection or on the couple of streaming services we use. One of my favorite classics is the original Halloween. Aside from the complication of a second needle, that movie ranks high on the reasons why I never wanted to learn to knit.
I have plenty of scary books on my shelves, too. My mother-in-law loved Stephen King as much as I do, and she always got the hardcover releases right away, then gave them to me. I remember when Gerald's Game came out, and it was too scary for her to finish. His Misery is why I will never have an electric carving knife in the house. Jack Ketchum was great at really terrifying stories, and in his, the people were the monsters.
Right now, I'm waiting for the new Nora Roberts book next month that kicks off a ghost trilogy. She hasn't done one of those in a while, and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on it.
In the meantime, though, I'm working on revisions on Freeing Medusa, the third book in the Medusa's Daughters Trilogy. I'm at the stage I call drudge edits, the ones where you are making sure you don't use the same word or phrase a hundred thousand times, and that you don't have random commas floating around the story. I think once I get through these and get another pair of eyes on it, we should be a whole lot closer to it getting a release date. Before I go back to those, though, I have a quick snippet for you today from Protecting Medusa.
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She set her fork down. “Just because I made a mistake and slept with you does not give you permission to make my decisions. Also, you are no longer in the military, and not my commanding officer. And, FYI, I will not be sleeping with you again.”
He laughed. “Not much sleeping going on, the way I remember it.”
Heat scorched her face, and Philomena growled, curling her fingers into fists on the table. “I am not looking for a relationship, and even if I were, you wouldn’t be at the top of my wish list.” Good Gods, no.
Ryder took a drink, though she couldn’t understand how, with that miserable grin still spread over his face. “You, Mena, are afraid to be in a relationship with a man stronger than you are.”
She blinked at him, her heart pounding faster. “What?” How could a man she’d managed to avoid for so long know so much about the way her brain worked?
“I’ve seen your ‘dates’. Bunch of pansies, without a spine in the whole lot. You pick men who won’t argue when you decide you’re done with them.” He lifted his fork. “It’s a tactic I’m immune to.” He scooped up more eggs.
Her mouth was dry, but she refused to lift her glass and let him know he’d hit the mark with his assessment of her. “How long have you been spying on me?” she asked instead.
He shook his head, swallowing his eggs. “Just trying to make sure you were safe. Can’t have you bringing danger home to Jason.”
That was low, and she shot him a fierce glare. “I have never dated anyone who was a danger to Jason,” she ground out.
“I know.” His grin remained smug, and she wanted to smack it off his face. “You’ve never dated anyone who was a threat to your remaining single either.”
She shoved away from the table, her chair screeching with the sudden movement. “My dating is none of your business.” She jolted to her feet and spun away.
“You haven’t dated anyone who would present any sort of challenge to you,” he continued from behind her when she walked the few steps to the sink. “Is it because you’re really that afraid, or because you were just waiting for the right man to come along?”
She shook her head, anger and fear clogging her throat, and gripped the edge of the sink so hard her knuckles turned white. There was no ‘right man’ for her. Not for the Medusa.
Behind her, his chair scraped over the floor. “I’m not a spineless wonder like any of those guys,” he said, his booted footsteps drawing nearer. “And I’ve been waiting a very long time, so I’m not going away quietly.”
Philomena shut her eyes.
His big hands settled on her shoulders. “But I promise I’ll never hurt you, Mena,” he whispered, too close to her ear.
She jabbed her elbow into his ribs, hard, surprising him into releasing her. She slid away along the counter. “But I might hurt you.” She patted the hilt of her dagger through her skirt as she faced him. “You know I’m armed, right?”
He rubbed his side where she’d elbowed him, still grinning. “Bring it, baby.”
Her jaw dropped, and he laughed. Suddenly, his smile vanished.
“Get down.”
“What?” She frowned.
He pushed her to a crouch, then moved through the doorway of the guest room, grabbing his gun from the open bag on the bed.
Her heart jumped into her throat at the sight of it.
“We have company,” he breathed, peering through the narrow space she’d made when she parted the living room curtains earlier to let some morning light in.
She fumbled her skirt out of her way and unsheathed her dagger, wrapping her fingers tight around the hilt. It felt good against her palm, but her hand shook. Two days in a row was a little much.
“Hang onto that.” He stepped to the alarm panel and shut the system off, then eased out the back door, his posture cautious.
Philomena shut her eyes. Oh Gods, don’t let the Harvester hurt him.
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Are you a fan of scary books and movies? (Even the silly ones count, like Zombieland or Shaun of the Dead. I'm a huge fan of the SyFy original movies that were hilarious, like Ghost Shark.) I'd love to hear about your thoughts on them!