Book Excerpt: The Junkyard

Below is an excerpt from Jack-o’-Lantern Press’s book, “Transylveinya Traveler: A Travel Guide for Monsters, Ghosts, Vampires, Aliens, Werewolves, Witches, Zombies, Demons … And Mad Scientists, Too.” 

To purchase the book, go to JackoLanternPress.com. Or click HERE.

For those of you giant killer insects out there looking for a big bite to eat, buzz on over to The Junkyard on Insect Centre Drive. The Junkyard is an eatery that offers up everything from tasty motorcycles and vans that roving gangs have stripped bare of parts, to mouthwatering sedans and trucks that are only recently no longer in operation.

The place is still somewhat new, but it’s already gaining a reputation as the best bite in town for ginormous bugs looking for a hearty breakfast, lunch or dinner. And do you hear that pulsating high-pitched screeching sound (the one those giant horrible ants make in the 1954 film “Them!”)? That means it’s time to eat!

“I have a huge appetite for Volkswagen Beetles,” said an enormous beetle who lives in town. “My wife never serves the stuff. She thinks it’s cannibalistic since we share the same name, but, you know, it’s totally different. That’s fine, though, because The Junkyard has the best Beetles I’ve ever tasted, most of them with less than 100,000 miles on them, so I’ll just keep going there when my appetite’s on the loose.”

The Junkyard also delivers its wrecks. They have a fleet of car carriers that can transport up to 10 vehicles at a time to your hive or nest, perfect for those of you lazy bugs with the biggest appetites.

Here are a few regular items on the menu:

Breakfast

Crashed-Up Hondas with Pasta

Freshly Beat Toyotas

Smoked Volvos

Lunch

Engine-Fried Fords

Chevy Slammedwiches

Boneyardless Infinitys

*Not always available since these “boneyardless” vehicles are, as their name states, transient

Dinner

Braised BMWs

Mashed-Up Mercedeses

Maseratis al Dented

Dessert

Creamed Mazda Pie

Mini Coopers á la mode

To see The Junkyard’s daily fresh catches from Hell’s Highway (you might learn more about this stretch of road soon), check the Travel Tragedies section of the newspaper for newly crashed vehicles.

The Fly offers to change trick-or-treaters into hybrid insect of choice

By Laye D. Bug

Staff Swarm Writer

The Fly is going into the human world this Halloween, and he’s bringing with him a set of telepods and a bagful of bugs to change trick-or-treaters into the hybrid insect of their choice.

The Brundlefly Project, as The Fly is calling it, will be the first of its kind since 1986 when Seth Brundle (The Fly’s previous identity) first developed a teleporting science that resulted in the mutation of two beings.

“Kids don’t have to be bats for bugs to try it out,” Fly said. “In fact, it’s more fun if they’re not. But I’ll be doing the transformations in places with lots of walls to climb and things to break so participants can try out their newly increased strength and stamina.”

Fly said there’s no going back once trick-or-treaters go into a telepod.

“All I can do to make things better is string up three telepods,” Fly said, “and fuse three beings together into one ultimate family. By the end of the night, we should have some real interesting messes for someone to try to destroy. Fat chance of that, though. That’s right -- I’m not going down so easy this time.”

The Fly will have many Brundlefly Project stations set up all over the human world beginning at 7 p.m. on Oct. 31. To find a location near you, check the Bartok Science Industries’ website or see the full-page ad in this month’s edition of Particle Magazine.

Monster Island ‘Deceaseful Settings’ -- is peace what you really want?

By Queen Kong
Staff Island Writer

If you’ve spent a decent amount of time on Monster Island, you’ve surely come to notice that the misfits here were banished for good reason. The whole idea to escape the troubles and idiots of your world was to go to a place where there are no troubles and idiots at all.

Not to worry. If you can shake the animatronic hippos, banshees, bloodthirsty mermaids, centaurs, cyclopses, dinosaurs, dragons, dwarves, elves, ghosts, golems, gorgons, griffins, giant gorillas, hydras, imps, minotaurs, mothmen, ogres, pirates, sirens, skeletons . . . (This place isn’t called Monster Island for nothing!) . . . two-headed tigers, warlocks, wizards and the will-o’-the-wisps, then try to locate the Beach of Never-Ending Solitude.

At last, you’ll be able to enjoy what you came to the island for -- peace, quiet, seclusion and only a few sea monsters, hobgoblins, orcs, giant vultures, giant crabs, giant centipedes, giant scorpions, monster bees, selenites, harpies, the occasional serpent woman and the Kraken, which is a sea creature so it’s somewhat redundant to bring him up. Other than a few pests, you should find yourself all alone.

But you may discover that there’s really nothing to do on the Beach of Never-Ending Solitude when it comes down to it. All of that solitude starts to make you feel like you’re the trouble and the idiot you’ve been trying to escape all along, in which case, get off the Beach of Never-Ending Solitude.

Around the northern peninsula and back into what’s called Bug Bay, you’ll come across the Worm Holes. These holes, dug up by monster worms, are great places to climb into as a means to unlock your inner peace. Go on -- get in. They’re actually quite relaxing.

Once inside one of these cocoon-like encasements, you’ll be able to shut out everything. Shut out those thoughts that bring you down with your so-called “logic” and “rational reasoning.” These are the thoughts that make you say things like, “My life is so unfair,” “I have no friends” and “I’m so good-looking,” and with that you’re forced into coming up with lame rationalizations as to why you’re worse off than everyone and everything else.

And just as you shut all that out, a giant worm from inside your wormhole will inevitably attack you. Get out of there quick.

That’s when you’ll be confronted by the hordes and swarms and packs of bugs -- ants, aphids, bed bugs, bees, beetles, cockroaches, dragonflies, earwigs, fleas, flies, grasshoppers, leeches, mantises, mites, moths, mosquitos . . . (This place isn’t called Bug Bay for nothing!) . . . sandflies, spiders, termites and the occasional cloud of wasps.

Take cover in the nearby Troll Caves. If you make it there before your demise, you’ll forget all about your personal anxieties, so there’s no sense in finishing my previous explanation of how to shut out the thoughts that bring you down.

The trolls will first try to attack you. After they have their fun, they’ll want you out of their home, so they’ll take you to a boat headed back to the mainland.

They’ll most likely drag you to Viking Village, where you can catch a Viking boat over to a small floating landmass connection off Monster Island called Voodoo Island. Not to worry -- your layover will be brief (only a week or four). Use that time to get to know Tiki Town and Captain Cook’s Tiki Cove.

Although, if you’re a skeleton, avoid Captain Cook’s. The fact that they started serving skeletons last year doesn’t mean a thing. The Captain and company still hate skeletons because they can’t hold their liquor. According to one of the tiki gods that serves there, the drinks literally go right through skeletons and all over the floor, and the staff is tired of mopping up after them.

But do check out Tiki Town for the best in all your tiki needs, including voodoo dolls and pins, cursed wooden tikis, stone heads that put spells on you while you sleep and other cool stuff like that.

For entertainment, check out the death chant ceremonies you can join, exotic music performances that hypnotize you and the Polynesian Midnight Burlesque Show that pays homage to the early dooms of the island.

At last, a shrunken head dealer or some other kind of tradesman will come and get you. No, your boat for the mainland is still not ready, but all those monsters from Monster Island are after you.

Hope you can swim. All you have to do is get past the breaking waves and over to the other side of that invisible force field that keeps monsters trapped on Monster Island. Because the field is invisible, I can’t tell you where it is, so just keep swimming.

See your pursuers crashing into something there? That’s the field. You made it. And after a few days of swimming, you’ll be home again, back to everyday life (or afterlife) and all the stressful difficulties you thought you escaped.

But I promise, it won’t be long before you find yourself back on Monster Island in search of a place to help you forget all the troubles and idiots of your everyday world. And you can bet that all us misfit monsters will be here to welcome you with open arms . . . and claws and curses and fangs.

This is one in a series of TRAVEL STORIES from the 13 districts of Transyl-vein-ia. These stories run weekdays between August and September. Jack-o’-Lantern Press’s regular news and entertainment coverage will continue in October.