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www.PeterAndTheVampires.com
- by Darren Pillsbury
PETER AND THE VAMPIRES is a horror/comedy web novel (and a free podcast!)about a normal, 10-year-old kid who moves into a sinister town filled with supernatural horribleness. The series is composed of different "monster of the week" stories - kind of like THE X-FILES crossed with THE SIMPSONS (if Mr. Burns were a ghoul and something terrifying lived in the town dump). "Peter And The Dead Men" is the first story in the collection. A new page is posted every day.
Blog Archive
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2011
(103)
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January
(11)
- "Peter and the Boogeymen" Page 21 and 22
- "Peter and the Boogeymen" Page 19 and 20
- "Peter and the Boogeymen" Page 16 thru 18
- "Peter and the Boogeymen" Page 14 and 15
- "Peter and the Boogeymen" Page 12 and 13
- "Peter and the Boogeymen" Page 8 thru 11
- "Peter and the Boogeymen" Page 7
- "Peter and the Boogeymen" Page 5 and 6
- "Peter and the Boogeymen" Page 3 and 4
- "Peter and the Boogeymen" Page 2
- "Peter and the Boogeymen" Page 1
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January
(11)
6 comments:
And the moral of the story is, always be brave and put yourself out there, or you'll be unmasked (not framed - let's be honest, Mike was pretty much right about what Scott was doing there) as a creep in front of the DREGS of society - stoners ad skaters!
This could all have been avoided if only he'd bought some weed.
Dark Peter cometh!
Misumba = A type of Latin dance, characterised by simple movements coupled with enthusiasm and energy. This is the dance everyone finds themselves doing with old Hispanic ladies at parties, provided there are old Hispanic ladies in attendance.
"nicotine-stained hand grabbed his jacket and drug him mercilessly through the bushes" - past tense of drag is dragged, not drug.
I think it's a really good contrast, the difference between Peter's perspective and an older kid's. It adds a bit more depth, though I'm still looking forward to returning to Peter. Can't wait to see what Scott's got on Peter that'll save his own skin!
WV: shellygo. A sort of inverse hermit crab, in this case the shell leaves its crustacean or mollusc parasite in search of a larger invertebrate to fill its insides. It grows little legs for the purpose which drop off when it finds a new parasite.
I'm a little curious what age group you're targeting here. Maybe it's just my sheltered childhood?
Anyway, that girl seems like a real sweet-heart. Especially if she realizes the whole truth. I hope that there'll be more of her.
Rubberduck -
Hahahahaha! That was not the intended moral, but I suppose it works pretty well.
Although come on, Scott's just a very awkward, scared 13 year-old in love. He's not a perv.
Dark Peter cometh...hmmm...that actually SHOULD be the title of a story someday...
Cat -
Thanks for the typo catch!
Glad you like the older kid's perspective! We actually won't return to Peter for a while, but a certain turn is going to happen in about 15 pages that should be entertaining (and temporarily take us out of Scott's obsessive head).
Um the Muse -
That's a very interesting question, too. And one I've wrestled with quite a bit.
I always thought of this series as "horror-comedy for kids." What I've come to realize is that it's basically "horror/comedy" that will eventually turn into "coming of age"...and it just happens to star kids.
I would guess the vast majority of my readers are high school students, college students, and in their 20's and 30's. I mean, I'm guessing. I'm always ecstatic when a reader says they're in their teens (Mina is, right?) or that they read the stories to their children, because, hey, that's my demographic! I was hoping for 11 and 12-year-old readers, but I'm not sure I have any of those, unless their parents are passing along the stories.
But I'm beginning to question more and more whether they really ARE my demographic. It looks more like teens and adults are.
About half the stories I've written, I'm like, "Dude, this has GOT to be over a line." Think about it: we've had a band of what are basically child-murderers (Carnival of Evil) and planning-to-be-child murderers (Werewolves). There's been grotesque bodily mutilation (Frankenstein). We've had some absolutely brutal attacks (Dark Peter on Tad comes to mind, not to mention Mercy getting staked through the heart). There's been emotional child abuse (the court case, with Gwen, Dill, and Peter on the stand). And let's not forget that one of the three regulars is a 10-year-old girl who like shooting handguns.
It's not exactly squeaky clean.
On the other hand, I remember a LOT worse language and sexual conversations when I was growing up. And I'm OLD. My ex-girlfriend babysat her boss's four-year-old, and he told her a joke that he didn't understand, but the punchline used language I don't even use when I'm out carousing with the guys on Friday nights. (He laughed maniacally after he told it because he knew it was shocking to adults, not because he understood it, but still.) And this four-year-old went to an elite preschool that cost more than most public universities. His mother probably made over half a million a year. Imagine what a four-year-old in the projects is hearing on a daily basis.
MY stories are practically from the 1950's in the way they treat sex and bad language.
In fact, you know why I deliberately chose Peter to be 9-10 years old? So I didn't have to deal with sex or sexual stuff in these stories. By the time I was 13, I was obsessing over girls. The most sexual thing in Scott's narrative so far is that Jennifer has a "lithe dancer's body."
Hahahahahahahahahaha!
I can tell you, the vast majority of 13-year-old boys aren't thinking about lithe dancer's bodies. Especially not given what they can google on the internet. I wasn't, and I grew up BEFORE the internet.
On the other hand, I also remember sneaking Stephen King books when I was a kid. I would run into the grocery store and read "the good parts" while my mom shopped. I remember kids in 8th grade reading CUJO and CHRISTINE.
There's NOTHING in my books that approaches that level of language, sex, or...well, there's some gross stuff in mine, but not to the level that King has.
I realize that HARRY POTTER also is fairly squeaky clean and chaste in a lot of its dealings - I mean, come on, we spend a lot of time in Harry's head in those books, and he's practically a Jehova's Witness when it comes to relating his thoughts about girls.
So...I don't know. I had the same problem with another book, IMAGINARY FRIENDS (at Amazon.com), where it was a children's book and comedy, but it's really about an early 30's dad who thinks he might be going insane and seeing weird little creatures everywhere. It's written for children, supposedly, but the protagonist is an adult?
I thought I solved that with PETER, but as the stories get darker, I'm starting to think that my audience should be young adults and adults who enjoy reading about childhood.
I dunno. I basically write stuff and try to find an audience for it later...if I were targeting 12 and younger only, I probably shouldn't have all the scary and gory stuff in here.
However, I can tell you that my 12-year-old self would have LOVED these stories. So would my 15-year-old, 20-year-old, and 25-year-old self.
So I guess that's who I'm targeting: my 12-year-old self, and all his incarnations afterwards.
Probably not the wisest business choice, but I can't write anything else. There would be no way I could make myself keep writing it...
I fell behind for a few days, but I'm glad I caught up, most of all for these comments!
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