Dr. Nightmare and his nightmares now on display for your terror

By Leonardo da Vampire

Staff Arts, Crafts, Blood & Guts Writer

MONSTER ISLAND -- Nightmarish works from your mind and everyone else’s minds are now on display in the Hole of Nightmares at the peak of Monster Mountain.

Dr. Nightmare, who began many years ago as the dull and studious Dr. Night, figured out how to rip people’s nightmares from their thoughts and bring them into being. Upon the overpopulation of the monster world in the early days of monsterhood as a result of this creation of life, causing a housing crisis for nearly every district in the land, Transyl-vein-ia officials banished the doc and his creations to the giant hole in the mountain, and have had him and his monsters trapped in there ever since.

“Holy smokes, that hole’s a mess,” said former Transyl-vein-ia President Phantom of the Opera, who was a city councilmonster at the time of the banishing. “The doctor is constantly accessing nightmares from your sleep and mine, and he’s been bringing them to life in that hole with no room to spare. You see, when we designed the hole, we lined it with monster proofing that can’t be cracked. And guess what? There’s no bathroom and no seepage in that hole, which is a whole other mess.”

Those interested (and armed with the proper full-face respirator mask to combat the stench) can take the Scare-ial Tramway, the longest and most dangerous aerial tramway in any world, to the top of Monster Mountain and walk up to the rim of the Hole of Nightmares to look down through the monster-proof glass at all the horrors inside. You might even see Dr. Nightmare himself.

“B.Y.O.N.,” said the skeleton that operates the Scare-ial Tramway at the foot of Monster Mountain. “That means ‘Bring Your Own Nightmares.’ Because if Dr. Nightmare gets a hold of your thoughts, he’ll bring them to life, and some creatures’ nightmares are truly, truly awful. It’s awesome!”

According to curators of the exhibit, secret codes, emergency release levers behind glass and evil spells are easily accessible in and around the mountain, and just waiting for some evil mind with evil plans to release the nightmares in an evil plot to take over the world. It should make for a really bad, really predictable monster movie, but without all the stop-motion effects.

Werewolves respond to recent disasters, and it’s not pleasant

By Calamity Janine

Staff Fun and Catastrophes Writer

WEREWOLFTOWN -- New evidence shows that portals between the human world and the monster world will, in fact, close on Halloween night, just as a mad scientist predicted after traveling into the future and seeing it with his own eyes. Monsters that travel into the human world to terrorize people on Halloween will most definitely be locked out of the monster world, leaving them stranded in the human world forever.

President Count Dracula is adding to the current state of woes by forcing Transyl-vein-ia districts to install blood misters in all patios and outdoor areas, with Werewolftown next in line. The misters have made gigantic messes, depleted precious resources -- much of which has just evaporated into the earth -- and the blood mist itself in the air is beginning to cause problems with the environment, making it difficult for some monsters to breathe and screech and howl and moan and groan.

“I went to jump out at someone the other night, and I slipped on the bloodied ground and was more like a joke than a scare,” said Jen Tacles, a street-walking octopus from Downtown Transyl-vein-ia. “I couldn’t even roar. My lungs were so full of that sticky blood mist. It’s ruining everything.”

Officials Downtown confirmed the 100th mist-related scare misfortune last night as local leaders have been taking their arguments to President Dracula in the Fright House. Mad scientists, who are looking into the portal situation, have claimed that none of the issues with the misters are going to matter soon because, once the portals between the human world and the monster world close, Halloween magic will be trapped on the other side of the gateway, and monsters will slowly begin to die, and not in the fun way.

“Halloween magic is what keeps us all going,” said the Wrathful Scientist, who’s been working on a Halloween magic substitute. “If we don’t come up with some kind of alternative, we’re next on the extinction list.”

All this news hit Werewolftown last night when gypsies from the Gypsy Village held a panic protest in Werewolf Run Square late last night.

“The vampires aren’t doing a thing about what’s going on, the witches have been silent and the mad scientists usually fail at whatever they do, so we’re hoping to get the werewolves involved,” said a gypsy woman named Maleva, who was leading the protest last night under heavy blood mist from the newly installed blood misters. “When a werewolf wants the jugular, a werewolf gets the jugular. When a werewolf wants the moon, he or she will howl at that thing until it goes away. Eventually, it always does. Werewolves make it happen.”

It’s true. Werewolves never give up. If it’s a cure they’re looking for, which is rare these days, they scour the Earth to find the beast that infected them with the curse. If they’re battling other monsters, crumbling castle walls won’t ever stop them. They can’t die. They’re determined. They keep going and going and going . . .

“To tell you the truth,” said one werewolf at the Silver Bullet Pub and BEASTro last night when asked how these disasters have affected him and how he can help, “we really don’t care about blood misters or closing portals. We just keep going and going and going . . . We can’t die. So it’s really not our problem. We just really want more raw meat. And we’re always gonna get it, blood mist or shine.”

Time traveler claims monsters will be trapped in human world this Halloween

By The Crazed Scientist

Special Events Writer

MAD SCIENCE DISTRICT -- A trip into the future has brought news of trouble this Halloween.

According to The Frantic Scientist, who built a time machine and demonstrated it last night during this week’s Annual Mad Science Convention at the Mad Science Convention Center, monsters who are traveling to the human world this Halloween will be unable to get back following the holiday.

“I went into the future and saw exactly what happens,” Frantic said. “The portals between our worlds do not re-open and cannot be re-opened, and hundreds of thousands of monsters are stuck living with humans forever.”

According to no one else but Frantic, the threat is very, very real. No studies, no research and no second opinions.

“And we’re to believe that that stupid thing with a spinning satellite dish on the back is actually capable of time travel?” asked The Sour Scientist, who was a little more than skeptical when he saw the display and heard the news late last night. “What are we supposed to do, not deploy monsters into the human world for Halloween, pull out all our operatives who are already there, call off All Hallows’ Eve for the first time ever, not scare anyone again? This is ridiculous. Something like this has never happened before, why would it happen now?”

Some rationalize that monsters can simply scare during the early hours of the night on Halloween, and just leave for the monster world before the portals close up for good, as Frantic reported, at 10:30 p.m. STT (Standard Transyl-vein-ia Time).

“Why take a chance?” asked The Turbulent Scientist. “I’ll be able to carry out plenty of my plans by 10:30.”

Frantic argued that all monsters going through the portals at the same time would jam them up, so The Turbulent Scientist’s greed, he said, to conduct her scares for Halloween shouldn’t sway others from acting foolishly.

“Mortals are expected to be foolish,” he said. “We shouldn’t be. But it doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve seen the future and it can’t be altered. It is what it is. A lot of you won’t listen and you’ll be trapped over there. I’ll be here looking for ways to make money off my discoveries. I’ve already got a book deal going, so . . .”

The convention floor has since divided, pitting those hitting the panic button on portal travel up against those calling Frantic’s claims a frantic hoax.

“I mean, look at the guy’s body of work,” The Sour Scientist said. “He’s tried and failed to take over the world over a dozen times. I say we all stick to our current Halloween plans, and show that we don’t buy into this ‘Frantic’ nonsense.”

Frantic later told skeptics not to listen to Sour, who has also, along with everyone else in the room, tried and failed to take over the world well over a dozen times.

“Don’t be Sour,” he yelled. “Be like me -- I’m Frantic. And I’m not panicking here. I’m responding based on real science.”

Frantic tried to take others into the future so they could see for themselves what awaits, but the eyes his time machine uses to navigate through time stopped being able to see and wouldn’t allow him to take other trips.

“I bought these human eyeballs at the local Evil-More Shopping Mart the other day for my machine,” Frantic said, “and it looks like it’s a bad batch. No worries, though, I heard there’s a sale on other eyeballs now. I’ll just run along and get some more.”

Jack-o’-Lantern Press will keep you posted as this story unfolds. Check in with us again very soon for thrilling updates, gut-wrenching climaxes and the diabolic conclusion.

Graffiti found on medieval dungeon wall

By Attila the Hun the 2nd-and-a-Half

Staff Dark Ages Writer

WITCHES MEADOW -- A local wizard was taking his nightly constitutional in the neighborhood late yesterday evening when he came across a rather large piece of graffiti on the north side of the Rottenham Dungeons.

Unfortunately, the medieval jail doesn’t have security cameras, so dungeon keepers were unable to catch the culprit.

“We live in the Dark Ages,” said the Head Headsman of the Dungeons. “We don’t have new age digital gadgetry like ‘surveillance cameras’ and ‘security systems.’ So I made a call to a guy I went to ghoul school with, who’s now a resident in the Mad Science District, and he put an enforcer robot with a DNA tracker on the job. What we discovered was that the spray-paint artist was having some fun following the big Witching Hour fest-evil the other night, but then made the mistake of leaving human cells all over the dungeon wall he defaced and all the way back to his dwelling in the woods near Thorn Thicket. Now said artist is doing 100 years in the Dungeons. The only DNA trail he’ll be making any time soon will be the one he makes to my chopping block.”

Dark Ages, indeed. When asked how the Head Headsman made a phone call from a medieval dungeon to his pally in the Mad Science District, he simply said, “These days, even we have cell phones. Mine’s getting a little glitchy, though. I’ll probably have to run a firmware update following the double-header I’ve got planned this Sunday."