Necropotence
This journal was found in the attic of a fully furnished and abandoned town house in 2007 next to the last purported owner’s death certificate.
I.
My life is so perfect that it scares me. I see smiling faces from my wife and coworkers, my boss tells me that I’m doing a fine job, and the pastor pulls me up in front of the choir to set an example for the congregation.
They know nothing of my desire. If my priest knew what I was meddling in, he would condemn me to the fires of hell.
When my life was difficult, I felt more alive. Each day when I open my eyes as a successful family man, I feel as though I’ve slipped one rung further on a downward spiral of age, wrinkles, and systematic failure of my body as it repeats a daily crucible of perfection that most would envy.
I know some are jealous of my life when they see me on the street, and yet I would trade life, limb, and soul to live in their shoes for one day.
I crave INTENSITY.
The easy life is mind numbing.
II.
Routine, routine, routine. Every day is exactly the same as the one before it. There are a few minor details that I barely have a measure of control over. I can order a ham and swiss instead of a turkey and pepper jack for lunch, and I can scratch my dog’s left ear before his right. Coors Light, Michelob Ultra, Budweiser Select, Sam Adams Summer Ale. It doesn’t matter if I fuck my wife from behind, if I finish up on her glasses, or if she swallows.
Drunk is drunk. Pussy is pussy.
Everything is always the same. Soon, I’m going to try it.
I’ve waited long enough.
III.
This is the last week I’m going to keep myself locked in this prison of endless repetition. I have all my affairs in order. I’ve written a note to my family and provided for everything and everyone.
In case I get senile, this is a typical morning in my life on a normal day.
I wake up at five thirty on the dot because my bones have internal timers in them, and my hip catches on fire at around five thirty four. I take a swig of mouthwash on my way to the toilet to save time, and I spend a three minute stretch swishing Listerine through my mouth and managing to squeeze out inconsistent bursts of urine. I’ve had to prop my hand against the wall since I was fifty. Standing straight up to piss is beyond me these days.
My third young trophy wife Margerie can only make decent eggs over easy, and sunny side up is out of the question unless we go out. The bacon is microwaved for two minutes and thirty seconds because although her rack is perfect, she can’t cook to save her life. She spends every morning breakfast session explaining to me that my children from previous marriages are ungrateful and deserve to be cut out of my last will and testament. This all comes while I’m chewing spongy bacon and drinking cofee that tastes like engine oil.
By seven thirty, after I’ve shit, showered, and shaved, I’m in my boring Saab, puttering twenty minutes to work on economy cruise control. This twenty minute window is the highlight of my day. There’s no traffic, the morning show I listen to is sometimes funny, and I take my first valium as soon as my rear tires hit Nutwood Street.
For the record, my life was once gritty and unpolished, but also glamorous in a way that it was poetic. I miss being piss poor, living paycheck to paycheck, and not knowing what the next day would hold in store. I miss my first marriage, when everything was new, including some positions that I can’t do anymore because my fake hip would crucify me with pain for trying. I miss my 1970 Oldsmobile 442 that got six miles to the gallon. It was a one fifty five big block with a superstroke and a twelve second ignition top out. You felt like you were going to die if you lost even a smidgeon of control on a country road.
I was young then. It all comes back to age.
Old people all go out the same way. Heart attack, stroke, brain aneurism, cancer.
I want to be different.
It’s still sitting on my mantlepiece, but it doesn’t have to beg me anymore.
I’ll soon be determined to take it down and use it of my own free will.
IV.
I did it. I’ve been carrying it in my jacket pocket. I can feel how cold it is through my shirt.
In case I lose my mind, let me describe a normal work day, more for myself than for you. I am the second in command under a tyrannical office crone by the name of Jana. She runs a tight ship and she’s only been in the business for five years. She inherited the company from her father —- my old business partner. Soon, she had the support of everyone else, and I became the sideshow with some measure of plastic authority. She still wields the iron rod.
I usually sneak a second valium in for the morning meetings, and I smile and nod more than anything else. I make Jana feel like her ideas are good, like the employeees actually care about what she has to say. When we break for lunch, I use my hour to go to one of five places.
I can’t go anywhere the costs more than eight bucks. I made one hundred and sixty two thousand dollars last year, but Margerie doesn’t put out for me if I eat expensive food without her. She IS a trophy wife, after all. My choices are always limited to the Taco Bell Pizza Hut two in one, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, or the China Spring. The best deli in town is open before three, three blocks down, and I get to eat there once a week when our meetings cut short. They always have to put the meat back out because I stroll in at two fifty eight, and they glare at me with the utmost loathing. There’s no telling how many pastrami and loogie sandwiches I’ve had, courtesy of Jana’s rambling motor mouth.
When I get back from lunch, Jana is always gone, and I spend three hours walking around the office and telling my employees how good they are at their jobs. The truth is, some of them really ARE good, and they know they deserve a raise. I have to tell them that I need more out of them because Jana is too much of a tightwad bitch to pay them higher salaries. She saves the extra cash for botox and the newest Corvette every year.
No matter how good my day at work is, it ends in absolute frustration. I live eighteen miles from my office in the city, but in five thirty traffic, it takes me ninety minutes to get in to my driveway.
The best day at work I ever had was the last day for one of our interns, Sally. It was about ten years ago, but I still remember when she unzipped my fly, pulled out my cock, snorted a line of cocaine off of it, and then drained me dry.
It took me two hours to get home because of a jack knifed tractor trailer that day. Work always ends on a bad note, even when Sally is there for your afternoon delight.
I hope my wife doesn’t find this diary if something goes wrong. I never cheated to hurt her. I just like to feel intense. This fucking crazy thing is so cold in my pocket now that I have a red spot on my chest from where my skin is chafing against my shirt. I think I’ll sleep with it under my pillow tonight.
I’ve had enough of normal.
When I wake up tomorrow, I’m opening it.
V.
For such a long time, it was a smooth, hard stone, not unlike something you’d pick up out of a creek and throw through Jana’s front windshield. It’s been that way since I was ten.
When I was young, this town wasn’t much more than a church, a gas station, and a diner. I rode my Schwinn to service on a normal Sunday morning.
He wandered in after the offering prayer, and I know most of the Methodists thought he was a homeless vagrant, sliding from town to town with three handles of whiskey inbetween. He wasn’t.
He pulled me aside behind the cemetery graveyard in broad daylight before I went home because my folks weren’t at the service that day. Everyone talked and gossiped and I got plenty of warnings about talking to strangers afterward, but he was different than anyone I’d ever met. He didn’t have much to say, and he had to be at least a hundred years old, but one thing sticks in my mind, seventy one years later.
“You’ve got the blood to use it, boy. I have none left. It’s someone else’s turn.” he said with dry, cracked lips.
I wasn’t interested in his gift at first. Here’s an old man waving a rock in front of me and gibbering on about some lost art called “necromancy.” I told him I wasn’t interested in any work that was not of the good Lord’s. I was brainwashed.
To persuade me to take the rock, he used it on my bike. As of right now, you’re the third person to know about this.
I watched a clumsy, rusty contraption that had been handed down from poor kid to junk yard to dirt poor kid transform before my eyes. The stone glowed almost digital green, like the display you’d get on a high tech wilderness watch or something.
The problem is, back then, digital didn’t exist. Neither did color television.
I watched rust melt away in liquid red flakes, and dents faded like the metal was made of silk. In a few seconds, my bike was brand new.
“I’ll be dead soon, boy. Use it on something that breathes.” he said. He looked to be in such ill health that I was scared by the prospect of his death. He dropped the stone in my pocket, and I fled.
Back then, I thought honesty was the best policy. I told my parents an old man fixed up my bike for free in the graveyard with a rock. They kept me locked in the house for the next three months and told me it’s not nice to lie. I never told them about the stone. I kept it hidden in a safe place. It stayed in the back of my mind, but I ignored it for a long time.
When I was fifteen, my dog Becky got caught in the wheels of the neighboring farm’s tractor because she liked to chase things. It was an accident, but she lost an eye, broke both her back legs, and she was on her way out. It was horrible.
Of course, my father wanted to spare me the pain and grief with a blast of buckshot. Everyone told me it was the easiest way — that Becky would die an agonizing, slow death if my father didn’t end her life now.
An hour before he got home from work to put an end to it, I took the stone and wrapped Becky in a blanket. I still remember her crying from the shifts in weight as I carried her broken body to the graveyard. Every footstep was painful to her.
It took me six hours to figure out how the thing worked. I had to cut myself and give it some blood. As soon as my blood touched the surface, it opened up and became soft, like a fleshy sponge opening its mouth. The more droplets I gave it, the more it glowed, and the more frozen it became in my hand. My skin was numb with the cold — I couldn’t even feel my pocket knife.
I know I didn’t do it the way he did, because I ended up with a puppy with both eyes, but two broken legs.I couldn’t bring Becky back to my family as a pup without them asking questions, so I gave her to a gypsy trying to hitch out by main street.
My father tanned the living shit out of my backside when I got home, but luckily, he was the type of man who would beat you and stop asking questions afterward. He considered the matter finished, and I was grateful for that.
After feeding my blood to the stone, I felt a few years older, and my body showed the signs of it. I shot up to six foot three, got hairier, and started looking at girls more often. I can never say for sure, but I think giving that time back to Becky cost me most of my adolescent years. I went through high school as a twenty year old pretending to be a teenager. My birth certificate said otherwise, but for all intensive purposes, I was older than everyone around me.
I’m not asking for sympathy. I just want to pull you in to the sad affair that has become my life. My past is interesting. The present? Not so much. If I don’t explain all of this, then you’ll think I’m a horrible person for what I’m about to do. The future holds the most potential of the three.
Maybe these words can put you on my side. The only explanation I owe the world is “why.”
I don’t want sympathy or forgiveness; I only want you to understand.
VI.
I always had an inkling that my own blood wouldn’t work if the target of the stone was myself. It’s much worse than I imagined.
Here’s the last part of my daily routine. I know you have no interest in it, and that by now you’ve certainly heard enough of my babbling about how terrible normal can really be. I need this from you, and you can skip ahead to the end of the grimoire if you’d like, but it will help me to write it down. I feel so old that I can’t keep it straight in my head anymore.
When I pull in to the driveway on Nutwood Street, Margerie meets me when I open the garage. She tells me whatever concoction she’s left in the oven for me. It’s a game of mundane surprises. Tonight it’s meatloaf.
Before I can open the door in the garage that leads to the kitchen hallway, I have to shell out some cash for my darling wife. She’s most fond of Ulysses S. Grant and Bejamin Franklin, but today, Roosevelt will have to suit her.
To this day, I truly have no idea where my wife takes that money, or what she does with it. I’ve never asked, and I never will. This is possibly why I’m in my third marriage, but the intensity in life that I crave does not come from prenuptial feuds and accusations of infidelity. She shows me the movie tickets and provides better reviews than Ebert and Roeper. I’ve grown quite fond of her cinema rants.
After I pay my wife and she leaves, I spend a brief moment of time at the dinner table. Usually, I attempt to eat the food as quickly as possible, and I rarely finish half of it. Mostly, I’m looking forward to the after dinner valium and a glass of wine.
When I finish dinner, I watch recorded episodes of Jeopardy on the DVR with my new mutt, Sasha. I have her trained to bark in time with the bells when someone hits the Daily Double. Usually by Final Jeopardy, I’ve fallen asleep, but sometimes I keep my eyes open long enough for the Skinemax porno. More often than not, I fall asleep with my cock in my hand, and Margerie wakes me up to escort me upstairs for a goodnight romp.
You think these nights of the routine don’t sound so bad, but after so many years, it gets vicious. You can substitute Margerie for my first or second wife, change the house, and put new cars in the driveway, but the routine will never, ever change without something drastic to pour in to the mix.
Tonight, after forcing half of her dry meatloaf down my throat with a generous helping of Heinz 57, I opt to place the rest of the scraps on the kitchen floor for the dog before I lock the house. I grab this grimoire of my darkest confessions, and then I get in to my Saab and start the engine. I rarely see the dashboard lights and I’ve driven the Saab after the sun goes down less than a dozen times.
Driving on the open road with a dying sun rehabilitates my sense of danger and excitement. Not a single human soul knows where I am right now.
My first destination is the vast library at my country club. I haven’t used my membership in three years. My second destination is a back alley by the corner of Norfolk and Phelps Avenue, where the railroad tracks intersect the city between the haves and the have nots. There, I will surely find a soul in desperate need of my resources.
I’ve read enough, researched enough, and toyed with this stone enough. I should have known you can’t drain yourself to make yourself younger. It’s like moving money from your checking to your savings and saying that you have more money, when really, nothing changes. Eventually, if you do it enough times, the bank will get pissed off at you.
It won’t go from soft to hard again. It’s sitting here in my pocket, gaping wide open, expecting what it knows it’s eventually going to get.
I need someone else’s blood to make the magic truly potent.
VII.
She looked vulnerable enough. I never would have imagined that she was packing a Smith and Wesson.
The struggle was brief, but exciting. I didn’t open with a ruse or story. I told her that she looked hungry and down on her luck, and that I would like her to accompany me to dinner at the Cajun Kitchen, a short distance away.
She ordered a shrimp po-boy with red beans and rice and devoured it with an intensity that I truly envied. I’ve never suffered the pains of true hunger. I paid the tab and we left to walk a few blocks back to her alley.
She pulled the revolver from her torn coat around the same time that I shanked her with the dinner knife I swiped from the back of the restaurant. I waited until the train passed through at nine, and thank the heavens I did, for someone surely would have heard the gunshot otherwise.
Her eyes bugged out around the same time that her finger depressed the trigger, but the shock of being run through with a butcher knife overpowered her sense of depth, timing, and perception. She didn’t have time to aim the weapon and shot herself in the stomach. She made it easy for me.
I tried scooping her blood out with the stone, but that wasn’t enough. I used mason jars to store it in my trunk. When I got home, I went straight to the attic to give it what it needed all at once. Margerie wasn’t back yet.
I was able to retrieve large sections of the Munich Manual of Demonic Magic, despite the odd stares of the librarian hussy and her ill repute towards my interest in the subject.
I learned about the power of circles and the danger of using the stone without standing in the middle of one. I learned about fire and ash and the requirement of sacrifice to complete any true necromantic ritual. My sacrifice tonight was the neighbor’s cat —- or its organs, if you want to be specific.
Kiss my routine goodbye. Nothing will ever be the same again. Do you know how it feels to stand side by side with the spirits of eternity?
With each new drop, I saw the lives the stone had consumed. I could only guess which ones were victims of the old man who possessed the artifact before me, or how far back the lineage of sacrifice went. My homeless vagrant was last, and her stomach still had a gaping hole in it. She gnashed her teeth and tried to lash at me like a demon, but the barrier of the circle impeded me from harm.
If I’m going to be alive forever, I need some form of companion, and Margerie won’t cut it. She’s a terrible cook. God, just the thought of eating her eggs for eternity makes me want to find a random sewer rat on the street and give it a brand new lease on life at the cost of my own. I used the blood of the homeless woman to rejuvenate my dog. Sasha growled at first, but once she was in the circle with me and the stone took its hold over her, she seemed to enjoy it.
Even animals aren’t beyond the lure of eternal youth.
I still don’t know whose soul I will use to make me youthful again. A few names come to mind —– it’s choosing one of them and not the others that really challenges me.
The ritual ran in to the early hours of the morning, and Margerie was wary of my secrecy in the attic. How many owners has this thing had?
I doubt I will ever know the answer to that.
VIII.
Sasha has been bouncing off the walls when I get home and she paws at the locked bedroom door when Margerie and I have sex. She hasn’t done that in five years.
The term I’ve coined for the accuracy and power of these rituals is “necropotence.” The sacrifice, the environment, the time of night —- these are all factors that determine the extent of your success.
These small details could be the difference between your body evolving in to an eternal medium for the dead, or shaving decades of wear and tear off of your lifeline. The line I walk is so very thin. I’m lucky I didn’t unleash something by mistake when I was younger. Sasha turned out halfway good, and halfway possessed, but at least she’s not human. If she becomes dangerous, so be it.
All spirits serve me now.
I’ve realized that this power makes me greedy, and I’m ashamed to say that it feels wonderful. I won’t relinquish this for anything.
I don’t seek revenge on them for letting me lock myself in to a lifetime of mediocrity. Instead, I will use their lives as an apology. They will become part of something greater. They don’t realize who they have become or how miserable they make the rest of the world around them, but I do.
I have a duty to find a meaningful purpose for them.
I have seen the dead face to face, restrained from consuming my soul by nothing more than a line of chalk on the hardwood floor. Their rotting smiles form insidious and leering grins at me when I funnel the blood of my subjects through the stone.
I call them subjects and not victims because they become a part of the kingdom of the dead when they pass in to my prized artifact. This is above and beyond anything they could have hoped to achieve on this plane, because I have chosen them by the very classification that their lives are pathetic.
As of right now, I am no longer a man of the routine, but a necromancer.
IX.
Sasha and I didn’t have to sleep last night. We went for a walk.
She helped me chase down another vagrant across the railroad tracks. Something tells me that it’s not exactly Sasha inside anymore. Whatever’s behind those amber eyes is in this with me for the long run. She’s better for it.
I concocted an impromptu ritual in the woods and used most of the old bum’s blood. Right before the sun came up, I fed the last of what I’d gathered to the stone. I was back in time to take my morning piss at five thirty five, and guess what?
I can piss standing up now, and I flushed my valiums. Soon, I’ll be on my way to work.
X.
I made my own eggs and bacon and I told Margerie that she’s never been good at it. I also told her I was donating my entire estate to the local funeral home and cemetery. I found it fitting. The owner and I run in close circles.
When I got to work, I quit on the spot and told Jana I hated her more than I hated her old man. I spent time writing checks to various people around the office who have never received a Christmas bonus, but earn more for the company than Jana does herself. People told me I looked good —- ten years younger, even.
I waited in the parking lot until she left and I followed her to her condo on the other side of town. I wasn’t surprised to see her whip out a bottle of Early Times as soon as she hit her living room.
Jana won’t have a drinking problem anymore, and if I were to approximate the years she gave me, I’d put myself right around thirty years old.
When I got home, I told Margerie that I dyed my hair and I’ve been exercising. She’s threatened by my new outfit I have going here, but she also can’t resist the urge to fuck me.
I waited until she was riding me reverse cowgirl, and I thought myself a warrior poet as I slid the knife inbetween her third and fourth ribs. The sheets did a marvelous job of soaking up all the blood. I was able to wring them out in to the circle.
I should bleed more people out in bed. I feel like a teenager again.
XI.
Those were all my changes. Maybe you’re sitting in my attic and you’re the first person to come across this monumental discovery. I can’t give you any more of the names on my list or reveal my plans for the future. You understand, I’m sure. Although I have the forces of the underworld on my side, I can’t have anyone meddling in my affairs.
If you’re the detective type and you have some great sense of right and wrong, I can imagine you’ll probably be on your way out the front door of my empty house to contact the authorities.
Maybe you are the authorities. My place has been condemned for so long that society has been forced to notice. In that case, good luck. You’ve never seen my old face, much less the face of my youth. Will you take this dirty journal to a precinct and place it in a folder where it will grow cold over the next twenty years until the statute of limitations expires?
Or, perhaps there’s a chance that you’ll change your routine.
Look around. I’ve left the stone in the basket of my old Schwinn in the corner of the attic. To have any chance of chasing me, you’re going to have to reject mortality.
Will your magic be potent enough to find me? How much are you willing to bleed?
Will you bleed for justice, or become one with the dead like me?
Do your research. Without enough necropotence, you’ll be nothing when you finally face me.
//
Credited to Violent Harvest.
Too long, would’ve been better in a more compressed version.
It’s a bit dry too.
Absolutely amazing read!
Nice to see some actual literature on the main page, rather than shitty ritual pastas.
What’s the matter Rainie, too deep for ya?
I like it, 10 internets to you
This was brilliantly written, and it totally captured and kept my interest, but I didn’t really find it all that creepy. But maybe that’s just me.
Altogether, probably one of the better new pastas I’ve read in a while.
INTENTS. AND. PURPOSES.
Not intensive purposes, what shit is that?
Also, not creepy/grammatically sound/decent.
Way dry.
- / 10
x.x
I liked it! Well written, and the author did a good job of giving off a creepy/smutty feel. At least that’s what came to me when I was reading.
The thought of old man sex/masturbation gave me the heebie jeebies though.
before i started reading, i thought it was going to be entirely too long for my taste. it sparked my interest from the beginning, though. not very scary, but then again who says that everything on this website has to give me nightmares? very well written. i enjoyed the read.
Very good pasta…..
Awesome story, I absolutely loved it. I really hope this author writes more soon, I’d read anything by them. There is just one thing I’m wondering, though. The stone is what he used to get younger, but he left it there so how does he still have powers or anything?
Can we get a continuation of the story?
I\’d love to see this come to life in the theatres. Brilliant.
Those of you not currently browsing the forums don’t know what a big step forward this is for Phone and VH.
On behalf of all the users on this site, thanks a lot, Sarah. I hope we see a lot more of Harvest’s work on the main site now. My fingers are crossed.
Also, anyone who doesn’t like it, consider this quick checklist:
1) Well written?
It’s Violent Hervest. Of course it’s well written, he edits these things for like eight hours.
2) Appropriate length?
It may be long, but it holds your attention. Unless you’re ADHD.
3) Creepy/paranormal?
Not creepy per se, but since when is necromancy not paranormal?
4) Twist?
How many of you read the first paragraph and thought ‘I bet this is a story about necromancy’?
5) Does the writer have previous work on the site?
I think you’ll find he does.
6) Is it better than the last story posted?
Does that even need asking? I believe that the term favoured on the forums is ‘literary abortion’.
TL;DR version: This story is made of highly concentrated WIN.
Bland, too long, boring, and inconsistent.
Not to mention the grammar/spelling errors.
Good english, but it just got really boring after it starts to ramble.
Hmmm, it’s a bit too long for a pasta, but I think the story makes up for that. It’s pretty good.
D
Fascinating… It’s been a long time since I read something quite as arcane and amazing as this story.
No this wasn’t scary in the slightest. But it was creepy, so it fits the bill. It was also superbly written and stands out amongst everything i’ve read on here in a while. I didn’t find it too long, it was a good 2/3 minute read which is hardly too long. Excellent story, good job.
i like the story, a lot… but \"for all intensive purposes\" almost ruined it for me right there. learn some grammar, man. it\’s \"intents and purposes\". christ.
Excellent, as expected
Engaging, and superbly written.
Thanks guys. This definitely qualifies more as “short fiction” than pasta, and I know it’s terribly long compared to most. I appreciate you taking the time to read it, believe me.
Beautiful, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I like how you finished the story, but then again you didn\\\’t finish it.
9.9/10
\"intensive purposes\"
*shoots self*
Good. Not much more to say. Except the same issue with \"Intents and purposes\" vs. \"Intensive Purposes.\" The second doesn\’t even make sense, so I\’m not sure why people make that mistake.
Didn’t feel any creepiness or shock from it, but aside from that, it was very well written. Catches your attention from start to finish and an interesting idea, although I’m not totally sure how original it is.
“INTENTS. AND. PURPOSES.
Not intensive purposes, what shit is that?”
Yeah, gotta call you on that one VH. “Intensive purposes” doesn’t even make sense, even though everyone and their brother thinks that that’s what the phrase is.
Beautiful, a bit too much swearing, but well written.
Although I would prefer a concise version.
x-COS
Pretty darn good IMO. Long, but worth it because it kept me busy for longer, which is exactly what I wanted.
Much worth the read if you\’re doing it to pass time
first one in a long time that actually made me want to read and finish as opposed to just having something to read while i was bored
9/10
Good pasta, better than some. A little on the long side, but the biuld up is good
Terrible sentence structure, boring, cliche.
I liked it better than 90% of the stuff on this site, anyway.
That… was cool. Very well written. Very tasty pasta.
Long, but really good. Kept my interest, and even though it was not real scary, it was creepy. The intensive purpose bothered me though. If you are going to write something like this, proof read before submitting.
Naw, it’s just not my thing.
The ending’s taunting and sinister, which I like, I’ll give it that.
it was boring to me.
:/
7/10
“My third young trophy wife”
As soon as I saw that, I knew that this would have something about immortality. Place underlines under ‘young’.
And HOLY SHIT THAT WAS LONG, AND I FEEL PROUD OF MYSELF FOR READING IT ALL.
I sensed Pet Sematary in there, but that was only because of the dog getting dragged in.
Marvelously well-detailed, well-spelled, and damn good in general. 10/10.
It was way too long, a lot of stuff could have been excluded with the same result. That being said, it was a well written Pasta though it wasn’t creepy in the slightest.
8/10
better than most of the ritual pastas here, nicely done! enjoyed it completely
*yawn*
Too long, and not worth the time it took to read because the conclusion was rather dull and lacking. It started off promising, but there was no payoff. Overall, not very creepy.
Loved it! Its not something that is true necromancy, but nonetheless, it had a wonderful feel to it. The description of the mundane rituals of everyday life complemented the dark rituals that forever changed the “protagonist’s” life.
One thing that bothered me though. You misspelled “coffee.”
Good job though! 9/10
Loved it, not creepy no, but still loved it. 10 internets.
incredible,
realistic psychology
On the -intensive purposes- phrasing:
I described the craving for -intensity- early on and frequently throughout. I was actually trying to be clever by changing a common phrase to something involving one of the themes of the story. I think it sort of rubbed off badly, but it\’s similar to my phrase -from poor kid to junkyard to dirt poor kid-…. it doesn\’t make any grammatical sense, but I figured I would play with the words. Sometimes this doesn\’t go over so well!
I really liked this pasta and I think people need to stop complaining/bitching about stories being creepy/scary. Not all of these have to be scary or spook you. This was a well written story and it dealt with a form of dark magic mixed with a modern day setting. I really enjoyed it regardless of the fact that it was a bit longer than I was expecting.
Those of you who say ‘too long’ are twats.
And must have never read a fucking book in your life.
Also, paranormal /=/ creepy.
idiots.
INTENTS AND PURPOSES. NOT INTENSIVE PURPOSES. I appreciate you were trying to make a pun, but it wasn’t obvious enough to come through.
On the whole a good story, I’d say it really transcends the medium of ‘creepypasta’ and is in fact simply paranormal themed fiction. Still, I’d prefer this than the horrible prose that sometimes crops up on the site. Maybe some of the other authors should get VH to ghostwrite their stories?
Holy shit, the entire time reading i had my dad in mind… Greatest Pasta yet, in my opinion.
Somehow this story feels rather worn to me, as if I\’ve read some variation of this a dozen times before by various authors, and seen it done better. The result is that I could predict nearly every turn before the story actually took me there, which killed any potential excitement or suspense. In that way I guess the story did manage to pull me in, for I suddenly found it easy to relate to the storyteller\’s talk of tedious repetition.
I\’ve read work by Violent Harvest before which I really enjoyed, such as \’Second Sight. I get a sense of great potential from VH, but this story feels like a faltering step on that path to renown.
Not that creepy but I liked it. A couple grammatical places that tripped it up but otherwise, very good. Much better than the shit thats been up lately.
Incredible story. Stop complaining about the length.
Wow. Really, to all of those who posted about the DEVASTATING grammatical error \"For all intensive purposes,\" please shut the fuck up. its been posted multiple times already, and its not so groundbreaking that the entire story should be marked down. I thought it was outstanding and obviously much deeper and interesting than most of the bland, unoriginal crap on this site.
I did just read the Diary of a Modern Necromancer that loves to have sex, but seriously, he was too concentrated on having sex.
Once again, VH de-fucking-livers. Plus 10 internets for having a such a fascinating character in this story.
I wish you the best on your writing career.
Was a bit long yes, but definitely worth it. Very entertaining.
“She’s most fond of Ulysses S. Grant and Bejamin Franklin, but today, Roosevelt will have to suit her.”
How is she supposed to go to a movie if he gives her dimes and not paper money?
Boring pasta is horrendously boring. Its disappointing to miss this website for almost a year and come back to very stale pasta.
One of my favorite things is necromancy, and I love the smell of a challenge.
8/10
She’s most fond of Ulysses S. Grant and Bejamin Franklin, but today, Roosevelt will have to suit her.
She likes $50s and $100s, but today $.10 will have to suit her?
Did he really give her a dime when she asked for money? Or did the author mean Jackson?
…also, it’s Benjamin Franklin, not Bejamin.
The beginning drew me in a lot and I really liked how well it was written. It\’d be perfect to hear aloud. It got boring around the middle though, I don\’t have a problem with the length, it just seemed like too much rambling. By the end, I wasn\’t too excited about it and felt there wasn\’t that great of a buildup or a clear bridge to the conclusion. Plus it\’d be creepier if his (I\’m assuming) death certificate wasn\’t discovered in the beginning, like if it was left open for the audience to interpret if he\’s alive or not.
Goddamn this read just exactly like a Chuck Bukowski novel, i’m not sure if that’s a good thing
the only complaint that I had, was that it didn’t seem like it was written by a fifty-something year old man- more like about a 25 year old. other than that, well written, good work.
You kids need to seriously shut the fuck up about the “Intensive Purposes” thing. Why the fucking hell should you even care? God damn you act like he’s a world renowned grammar god and is expected to be entirely perfect.
Go kills yourselves.
Couldn’t finish it. : /
Too boring.
i love your writing style, this story was so good. don’t listen to the haters. this was fucking awesome. write moar please!!!!!
I really liked it. Not too long for me, ’cause it kept my interest. Not particularly scary, but nice and slightly creepy. 9/10 for something actually worth reading on here.
HEY GUYS DID ANYONE ELSE CATCH THE \"INTENSIVE PURPOSES\" FAUX PAS? SRSLY PLZ POST IF YOU DID!! I WANT TO CIRCLE JERK WITH OTHERS ABOUT OUR BEYOND AVERAGE INTELLIGENCE!!
Get over it faggots, it doesn\’t change the story, especially if you knew what he meant in the first place.
This was actually an incredibly good read.
The story was a bit dry and repetetive in places, but overall was very immersive and well written.
The narrator was a very well crafted character, and the ending truly tied the story together and revealed a bit of his character.
Overall, very good story, I look forward to seeing more of this.
Some may say that it is a bit long, but sometimes good things take time to craft and appreciate.
You’re killing me, Smalls. All intensive purposes?
FUCK SON, I’M MASTURBATING
I liked it!
It didn\’t leave me feeling scared- but it did have a nice spooky theme, just enough to creep me out but not too much that I won\’t be too scared to go to sleep tonight.
I love the author\’s writing style, and I hope to see more :3 Although it was a bit lengthy, it was definitely worth the read, and the story had much more substance and plot to it than your average scary spaghetti.
Very well done :]
Wasnt the best pasta cuz at the beggening it was kinda confusing but then the end was easier to understand. i’de say 8 out of 10
“She’s most fond of Ulysses S. Grant and Bejamin Franklin, but today, Roosevelt will have to suit her.”
I’m Australian, so that meant dogshit to me. I understood that they’re references to different bill denominations, but it was still largely incomprehensible.
Literally TL;DR
Except for that I did and I honestly don’t know why I did.
I got no satisfaction from this pasta in any way other than that the beginning had some draw to it and that the rock gets soft. Ooh. Creepy.
It’s too long, very bland and has no closure for the ending.
As most other Anons are saying;
Blah Pasta is Blah.
I was reading a book, specifically a collection of horror stories, just now and this creepypasta is thrice as better than most horror novels.
The writing style and topic captivates the reader.
Thank you OP for that great story. It would make a fine plot for a movie I think.
Was it long? It would be long if you have ADD. If anything it should be longer and the story continued.
This is probably one of the best stories on this site, elaborating would only lead to repeating what others have already said so I\’ll just say well done.
10/10
You didn\’t play with a fucking thing, you\’re trying to cover your sad education.
@Anon Thanks for the input, Professor 4chan.
Eh…
As dry as his wife\’s meatloaf.
Favourite pasta of all time. Srsly do a sequel or something!
I thought the beginning was pretty interesting, but most of the story was him rambling on and on about his life. Eventually it picked up a bit near the end with the cliche immortal \"kill someone else so you can live longer\" thing. Then I got hit by a rather dull ending.
I think what really hurt this pasta was how long it was really, other than that it had a some-what good story to it
5/10
I’ve read this at least ten thousand times. It’s still amazing. :’D
Not scary at all.
But a really amazing reading.
Hmmm… At some parts it kind of seemed like he was rambling, but I guess that\’s better than saying something absolutly idiotic. Anyway, I will admit that this has been one of the better ones lately, and the grammar was excellent, but it was a bit long for my taste.
Oh! @Violent Harvest: Did you want it to seem like the old man who was writing the journal was a creepy, sex addict? O__x
I don’t get it….?
Meh. I didn’t see any real payoff :/
Also, ‘intensive purposes’ made me want to throw up my delicious macaroni and cheese, and then you would have owed me macaroni and cheese.
This is definitely one of the best creepy pasta’s I’ve read in a very, very long time. Even though it may be long, I didn’t get bored of it. I would like to hear more from this authour, amazing.
Too long and not scary at all, but definilely awesome!
Best new story in quite a while. Great job.
@WHO WAS PHONE: Indeed, my education was very sad. I’m a dropout, after all. Sorry to disappoint.
Good job, love.
Thanks for the comments all. Just a reminder that you can read new stories weekly at violentharvest.blogspot.com .
Many thanks to chairmansteve of the Monolith forums for helping me to get the project up and running.
Honestly, a damn good piece of humanity. There were certain moments that seemed.. out of character, like the voice changed, but maybe that makes it better? All in all, pretty good… Believable, even. Yeah, it has a dryness and it is lengthy, but I think that makes it better. You get a real sense of this guy. Makes me wonder if you aren’t a published writer, or you should be… Definite style.
That was a fine story.
TL;DR
To be of ill-repute is to have a bad reputation. It doesn’t mean what you entered here. Intents and purposes was already mentioned.
Other than that, I thought it was good, cohesive, and clever. Nice work.
Dude… this shit was epic… I pissed myself from sheer awesome.
@bananacorn im ADHD and i could read through this whole thing and no i dont take medicine for it so it had to be good to get me to read it
Every time I read the name, it makes me think that his penis fell off. :\
That would make an excellent twilight zone episode
Great story. 9/10 (Some of the spelling and grammer hurt it).
As for the ending, I assume that the stone was used as a crutch of sorts until he learned the dark arts
Those who are saying Tl;dr: I have ADHD and I read the whole thing. You must have the attention span of a retarded goldfish to find this too long to read
this was long. obviously. but it was i don’t know. not there all the way i guess. read it and it was good, but left me expecting more i think is the best way to put it
Ok, you all talking about \"spelling errors\" and \"typos\" can just shut your faces. You are just saying that so you can find error, I am a grammar FREAK and I barely found ANY mistakes in here, a lot less than most pastas. So either you\’re being unfair to the author, or you comment on EVERY SINGLE PASTA on this site (I\’ve read every frick\’n one, they ALL have at least one error) saying that they made a spelling or gramatical error. As for the length, it is a good pasta, so isn\’t it a good thing if it\’s long? If you are saying that you\’re proud of yourself for finishing it because it\’s so long, you have never read a book more than five pages long, so you must be stupid. I say it\’s an accomplisment to write such a long story, as well as making it interesting. YOU try editing a story this long, I bet you\’ll have over ten errors, judging by the mistakes in your comments. I thought this was an amazing pasta, truly unique. This is my all-time favorite.
Excellent read. another great one by Violent Harvest
The \"ill-repute\" thing REALLY bothered me, but besides that I definitely enjoyed the story. I especially liked the challenge the narrator poses at the end.
I think this story was decent. It\’s not incredible though. The grammar overall was okay. But, it just seemed dry. There seemed to be a lot of passive description. The active voice didn\’t kick in until about the middle of the story. But, maybe that\’s just a consequence of this story being part of a grimoire or a manifesto.
I was going to bring up the intensive purposes thing, but I see that it was a play on words that you wanted to fit into theme. It doesn\’t work too well, but it definitely made me think after you brought that up.
Overall, it\’s decent. But, it could definitely use some work. The grammar and sentence structure need a bit of work and the plot just needs a tiny bit of polish.
Other than that. Good work.
no one else spot the errors?
I’ve spotted around three.
If you want to sell it, it has to make sense.
TLDR: This writing said so much yet said so little. Ramble ramble ramble.
Way, way too long. Could be condensed quite a bit by removing a lot of the rambling and pointless bits. Make sure that when you are writing toward an end, to make every bit of what you’re writing have a purpose. That is to say, leave in the parts that ARE the story and remove the parts that ARE NOT the story. I think that will do wonders for you.
I\’ll agree it\’s better than most, but it was a bit heavy with the \"SUBURBAN LIFE SUCKS WOE IS ME / MY BOSS IS A BITCH / LIFE ISN\’T FAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIR \".
You don’t even know how tempted I am to make a “and then ghosts popped out of the rock” or “then who was old man” comment.
seriously though, this was really good. kept me interested, at least.
Not too scary, but interesting.
I wasn\’t looking for a storie like this but once I read the first 3 days I was hooked I just didn\’t want to stop I even saved the page so I could read more the next day It was truly amazing well done
Good story, but I thought a while, like I do on most stories, to try to find the hidden horrors, I found none. Or I found them out earlier in the story and didn’t notice that I found them.
Effin’ awesome pasta, mighty tasty I’d say!!
So, I read the story, and it wasn’t really that bad or anything, it just didn’t really…Stick out. It was totally average. On a scale of one-to-average, it’s at least a twelve…
All I got out of this is that the author seems to have some severely pent up hostility toward women.
Trust me, I recognize good writing when I see it and this was mediocre. The first half reminded me of “American Beauty.” A lot of unnecessary rambling that took away from the initial story/plot. It was a struggle to stay interested with all the trails off of the train track so to speak. You people are easily amused. :/
Cutesy.
Immortality at its best. Nice way depicting how it could\’ve been done. Though the lack of the origins of the stone made it lack a few factors.
The end MWAHAHA part was a little too cliched and not well thought through. The dude was well known in society, he had a full life and used plenty of names, heck, he left his \"death certificate\" there. You think someone can\’t pull some records and photos and find exactly what he looked at when he was younger?
Every part about women seemed stupid. For that much money he can get a trophy wife that can cook or a damn cook.
His life sounds fun.
Not that creepy, but an amazing paranormal story.
It was a little long and dry at some points, with all of the complaining about life, but even you said, you can skip to the next section if you want. : )
It is so nice to see someone who edits his/her work on this site.
Overall, I liked the story.
8/10
Long and I don’t like swearing. Interesting though.
Eh. An interesting story, but not creepy. I kept going waiting for the twist that would send that shiver — I thought it might involve the dog, given the hints about her being possessed — but it never arrived. Nice thought, but the execution left something to be desired.
tl;dr
I sense some rampant misogyny
Ohohoho, hohohoho. I see what you did there. Bravo, sir.
tl;dr
It’s nice to see you still submitting these excellent works, VH. After I got bored with creepypasta and stopped reading it like a year ago, I wondered how long it would be before all of the stories being cranked out were reused and boring. You always did make a strong impression on me with your stories, and it’s nice to see that hasn’t changed.
This was excellent. One of the best things I’ve read in a long time.
Wow, well-written pasta is well-written. Nice to see some of that for a change! The story wasn’t overly creepy, but I found it very intriguing and definitely worth reading.
Brilliantly written. Everything flowed logically, yet maintained originality throughout. Had all the crucial elements of good pasta – suspenseful and at times deliberately ambiguous, so as to keep the reader’s attention. The occasional humour was a bonus.
10/10.
I’m looking forward to reading more of your work!
Wow. I’ve enjoyed a lot of pasta. But this one almost put me to sleep. Much too long. And I’ve eaten bread creepier than this.
Lame
Can’t say shit about the story for I am no judge but, the people in the comment section have too similar opinions, tedious almost. So what if it’s not creepy, as long as it’s good? Above comment is shit, by the way.