Rebecca McNutt

Most people are as happy as other people decide they should be.

I wish I could run away,_ Rudger told Jersey as they both rushed in and out of various patients_ rooms, darting around like little ants. __ can__ leave and be on my own though, not right now, anyway.___hy?_ asked Jersey, waving her flashlight in mid-air.Rudger froze for a second, a regretful haze emanating from his eyes. __t__ break her heart if I left.___in__ that normal? For parents to have mixed feelings about their kids growin_ up?___ot for me, it isn__.__ersey made a pitying face in his direction. __o, you wanna keep bein_ towed around with your mom, livin_ in a gross town like Danvers?___s there a choice?___eah, there sure is. You can run away and try to be a whole person before it__ too late, or you can live with mommy dearest forever and turn into Norman Bates.

Um, thanks,_ Jackson told her. __nd your name is_?_____ Margaret, Margaret Van Der Graaf,_ she answered with another eerie smile. Her teeth were so white that they looked bleached.__an Der Graaf?_ Jackson repeated, trying to stifle his laughter. He didn__ want to be rude to the only person in sight, to this kind-hearted stranger who was offering to help him, but_ Van Der Graaf?__hat are you laughing at?_ Margaret asked with curiosity, flashing him a calculating gaze. __ like my name. If you__e going to be a jerk, then I won__ help you. You can stay out here on the street through the night for all I care.___Harsh,_ said Jackson, giving her a quizzical glance back. There was something __ff_ about her, something that Jackson couldn__ quite place, something that bordered on horrible loneliness and longing. __ho else lives here, Margaret Van Der Graaf?_ He couldn__ resist saying her name aloud. Despite its hilarity, it had a nice ring to it. __ho else lives here?_ he urged.__e, myself and I,_ said Margaret simply, snickering when she saw his horrified and annoyed expression

Well, you__e not exactly social, are you, Mandy Valems?___h yeah, sure, because I__ just surrounded by genius to be social with in this day and age,_ Mandy replied with razor-sharp sarcasm. __ey, I don__ need anyone else! I__e got you, you__e my friend, and you__l be with me forever!___You won__ be with me forever, though_ said Alecto cynically. ____ like a spider__ web; anyone who is friends with me gets dragged into my troubles and eventually dies.___Poetic, dear friend,_ Mandy sighed, shaking her head. __orbid, but poetic.

_I love you,_ he said to her, although at that point he was certain she could no longer comprehend the words. ____ trade places with you in an instant, Mandy Valems_ you never deserved this_ why would anyone do something so terrible!?_ A cold chill froze his heart when he saw her empty eyes again.The fluorescent lights in the dim room sparked to life all of a sudden, brightness so sharp that it startled him. In a flash, sharp and sudden, quicker than a lightning strike, the bulbs flickered and exploded with a few jingling pops.

Terrell is weeping soundlessly, and despite the guard__ objection, he raises his hand up to the glass. Geraldine mimics him, lining her fingers up with his. It__ lonely to think that one little sheet of glass could create such a thick distance between them, but all the same, regardless of what he__ done, he__ still one of the closest friends she has.

Nobody really wants to be your friend when they discover that you work with dead people.

Mandy would much rather have imaginary friends who were real than real friends who were imaginary.

People are often wary of reading or watching anything in the horror genre because in their minds, it's just senseless gore, death and violence. Well, I can tell you from avid experience, that's not what horror is about. The horror genre teaches us that sometimes really bad things happen to really good people, but that hope always prevails in even the darkest of situations. That's a very important lesson, no matter how frightening you think the teacher is, and to be in the top of her class, all you need to do is to go in with an open mind.

He didn__ remember the very first time he actually died very well. It wasn__ as bad as remediation, but he remembered being afraid and worried_ and when he found himself alive again a few hours later with Mearth__ wild green eyes peering down at him, he remembered still being afraid and worried. It was strange, he thought, to be afraid of being alive_ but being alive was worse than being dead in his mind.

Geraldine keeps her eyes trained on him as she slowly reaches into her purse, wrapping her fingers around her gun. __Callo, I__ so sorry that your life ended up this way,_ she sighs as she gets out of her side of the car, her feet burning from the cold as her high heels sink into the fallen snow. __ren__ you scared?_____ you, Geraldine_ I fell into the same trap as you, anyway,_ Callo answers. His large eyes are shining with tears, but he doesn__ seem afraid in the least. __The dead don__ feel anything, you know_ not even guilt or regret. So, what is there to be afraid of?

Personally, I believe "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I'd rather use film cameras and vinyl records and cathode ray tubes than any sort of the digital technology available. Look around! The streets are full of people who would rather have their eyes on their cell phones than on the world around them! Scientists are researching technology to erase specific memories from people! Our thrown-away digital technology is showing up overseas in huge piles of toxic heavy metals and plastic! And yet there are still people who keep wanting technology and the future to keep going. They dream of flying cars, or humanoid robots, of populated cities on Mars. But do we really NEED this stuff? Maybe before we try to keep turning our world into an episode of The Jetsons, we should focus more on the problems that are surprisingly being overlooked now more than ever. Before we design another stupid cell phone or build a flying car, let's put a stop to racism, to sexism, to homophobia, to war. Let's stop buying all our "American" products from sweat shops overseas and let's end poverty in third-world countries. Let's let film photography never go obsolete, let's let print books continue to be printed. Let's stop domestic violence and child abuse and prostitution and this world's heavy reliance on prescription drugs. Let's stop terrorism, let's stop animal cruelty, , let's stop overpopulation and urbanization, let's stop the manufacture of nuclear weapons......I mean come on, we have all these problems to solve, but digital tech enthusiasts are more concerned that we don't have flying cars or robotic maids yet? That's pathetic.

Science is not a democracy. Therefore to try to pass of global warming as real just because "98% of scientists say they agree" makes no sense at all. If 98% of psychiatrists said that all mentally ill people needed lobotomized, does that make it true? If 98% of your friends jumped off a building, would you jump, too?

You have more issues than Reader's Digest.

You__e not exactly up for the Humanitarian of the Year award, so save your altruism for someone who can't see through you like cellophane.

I__e got money!_ Eve exclaimed in a frantic frenzy of hope, her eyes dancing wildly with the notion that there was some way out of this. __ mean, I don__ know what use money is to the Grim Reaper, but I__e got a ton of cash! It__ in a hat box under my bed! I__e got a bright red Lexus in the garage, I__e got my engagement ring upstairs, it__ real gold_ there must be something we can trade off with___ou can__ bribe me away, I__ afraid,_ said Mr. Azrael. __oney means nothing where I come from.

Imagine for a moment that you are the proud owner of a large house which you have spent years of your life painting and decorating and filling with everything you love. It's your home. It's something you've made your own, something for you to be remembered by, something that, perhaps years later, your children and grandchildren can visit and get a view of your life in. It's part of your creativity, your hard work... it's your property.Now suppose you decide to go camping for a couple of weeks. You lock your door and assume that nobody is going to break in... but they do, and when you return home, to your horror you find that not only do these trespassers break in, but they also have quite uniquely imaginative ways of disrespecting, vandalizing and corrupting everything within your property. They light fires on your lawn, your topiary hedges are in heaps of black ashes. There's some blatantly obscene graffiti splattered across your front door, offensive images and rude words splashed on the walls and windows. Your television has been tipped over. Your photographs of family and friends have had the heads cut out of them. There's mold growing in the refrigerator, bottles of booze tipped over on the table, and cigarette smoke embedded into the carpeting. Your beloved houseplants are dead, your furniture has been stripped down and ruined. Basically, the thing you've spent years working for and creating within your lifetime has been tampered with to the point where it is just a grim joke.So, I feel terrible for poor Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jane Austen and Lewis Carroll, who must be spinning in their graves since they have no rights to their own works of fiction anymore. I'm all for readers being able to read books for free once and only when the deceased author's copyright eventually ends. Still though, did Doyle ever think in a million years that his wonderful characters would be dragged through the mud of every pervy fanfiction that the sick internet geek can think of to create? Did Carroll ever suspect that Alice and the Hatter would become freakish clown-like goth caricatures in Tim Burton's CGI-infested films? Would Austen really want her writing to be sold as badly-formatted ebooks?The sharing of this Public Domain content isn't really an issue. Stories are meant to be told, meant to echo onward forever. That's what makes them magical. That being said, in the Information Age, there's a real lack of respect towards the creators of this original content. If, when I've been dead for 70 years and I then no longer have the rights to my novels, somebody gets the bright idea of doing anything funny with any of those novels, my ghost is going to rise from the grave and do some serious ass-kicking.

Sadly, atheists are becoming everything they aren't supposed to be: obnoxious, oppressive, loud, pushy, smug, condescending and annoying. Since when did the definition of atheism become "an anti-religious person"? It's one thing to say "I don't believe in God because I see no proof in God. We'll just agree to disagree". It's another thing to make it your sworn duty to put down and berate religious people, to view them as primitive morons, to turn every conversation into a debate and to make it your mission to put forth this vision of a faith-free society fueled only by science and technology. This kind of oppression is against everything atheists stand for. Atheists believe in the freedom of choice, the choice to not be religious if one does not want to be. This does not mean being pushy or rude towards anybody else who has made their own choices to be religious. For some people, religion gives them a purpose, helps them cope with trauma and grief, gives them hope, gives them something to hold onto. So, as long as they aren't pushing their faith on others, why should atheists do the same thing to them?