Episode Details

Good evening, it's Spooky Boo Rhodes with another episode of Midnight Scares. I'm sitting here in the lighthouse looking over the beaches in Sandcastle, California a little sad that Halloween is over with but also excited that I can now plan for next year. I have a fun idea for next year's season. It might be a little  game to play online for all of the Sandcastle residents. Not a game like we were aiming for before, but one with videos, special effects, and more.
Stay tuned to the end of this podcast to find out how you can help with the game if you like to.
Now let's begin....
The Hounds of November
by Kolpik
"Meat analog? What the fuck is a..." it suddenly dawned on Henry what his daughter was talking about, "no fucking way am I eating any of your soy shit for Thanksgiving! Your mother was so embarrassed last year when you brought over that hippie crap. God rest her soul. She asked you to bring a squash casserole and you showed up with stuffed squash with acorns in it. Do we look like squirrels to-" The old man's whole body tensed up. "Oh... shit!" he said in a strained voice as he clutched at his chest and gave his daughter a frightened look.
The added pain in his neck and jaw was all the confirmation he needed. He'd had three heart attacks before, so you could say he was an expert at recognizing the signs. His doctor had warned him he probably wouldn't survive a fourth one. "Dad, what's wrong? Oh my god, are you having a heart attack?"
"My nitroglyc... get my..." Henry stumbled to the kitchen table and fell heavily into his chair.
His daughter rushed to his side, "Nitroglycerin?" She turned to fetch his medication, but quickly spun back around, "Is it in the medicine cabinet?"
Henry was leaning back in his chair at the head of the table, clutching at his chest when the absurdity of his daughter's question put the final nail in his coffin. She was standing there in a near panic, waiting for an answer when he jerkily turned towards her and said, "You... are a... moron." Those were the last words Henry T. Jankowsky ever spoke.
Sally Anne Jankowsky wasn't the son Henry had always wanted; she wasn't even the daughter he had wanted. No, she was someone he just didn't understand. She was fine up until her twelfth birthday, but not too long after that she started saying and doing the strangest things. "Greenpeace", "Save the Whales", and "meat is murder" were just a few of the inane things that came out of her mouth in a constant stream of what Henry could only interpret as idiocy.
It would be unfair to say he was a bad father or that he hated his daughter, but he didn't like her very much. Henry and Beatrice Jankowsky were in their forties when their miracle baby came along. It's safe to say she wasn't planned. Henry had come to terms with never having children. Beatrice was another story, though. A sadness laid hold of her heart when she edged toward the forty year mark and slowly over the next few years squeezed the will to live from her. That all changed one day at the doctor's office.
Beatrice's absolute joy at the wonderful news totally eclipsed Henry's utter surprise. He was forty-four years old and just beginning to settle into his ways. It may be hard to believe, but it wasn't unheard of or even impossible for a parent to resent their child. He did love Sally and he provided her with everything she could need or want as a child. It was her teen years that really rankled in his mind.
Almost seven months after his wife of fifty-four years passed away, Henry was laid to rest next to her. The space of time between the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Jankowsky isn't even a speck in the greater scope of things. It's less than a speck of a speck of a speck, but if you count every hour, minute, second and filter it through the complicated circuits that comprise the human mind then it can seem quite immense.
In that infinitesimal space of time, Henry, lost i