Jonas Pruitt

Scales & Tails

 The bell above the door of "Scales & Tails" chimed with a sickly, metallic tang, a sound that always made Rico’s teeth itch. He glanced up from scrubbing the stubborn grime off the reptile enclosures. His wife, Maria, was behind the counter, her face a mask of polite boredom as she helped a woman select a feeder mouse for her snake.

Rico hated this place. He hated the smell of sawdust and fish flakes, the constant chirping of crickets, and the way Mr. Abernathy, the owner, watched them with those unsettlingly bright, bird-like eyes.

Rico and Maria were trying to make a new start. Fresh out of prison for a robbery gone wrong, Rico was determined to stay on the straight and narrow. Maria, loyal to a fault, had waited for him, and together they’d scraped together enough money for a deposit on this cramped apartment above the laundromat. Mr. Abernathy had been their only option for work. No questions asked, no background checks. That should have been a red flag, but they were desperate.

Abernathy himself was a strange bird. He was a gaunt man with skin stretched taut over his skull, making him look perpetually surprised. He claimed to be a retired veterinarian, but the way he handled the animals felt clumsy, more like a scientist poking at specimens than a caregiver. He spent most of his time in the back room, a place strictly off-limits to Rico and Maria. He’d told them it was for “sensitive procedures” and “quarantining new stock.” They suspected it was just a glorified nap room.

But lately, things felt different. Abernathy had started staring at them, not with the detached curiosity of before, but with a disturbing intensity. He kept asking them strange questions: how much sleep they got, what they ate, how they felt. He even offered them vitamins, weird, oversized capsules that tasted faintly metallic. Maria refused to take them, but Rico, wanting to be a good employee, swallowed them down with a grimace.

One night, Rico woke up soaked in sweat, a terrifying dream clinging to the edges of his mind. He’d been in a cage, surrounded by chirping crickets and the stink of ammonia. Abernathy had been there, his eyes glowing with a feverish light, injecting him with something through the bars. He tried to shake it off, blaming it on the stress of adjusting to life on the outside.

But the dreams persisted, growing more vivid, more real. He started experiencing strange physical symptoms too: fleeting moments of disorientation, phantom pains in his limbs, and an overwhelming urge to burrow.

Maria noticed the change. "You're acting weird, Rico," she said one evening, her eyes filled with worry. "You're jumpy, you're talking in your sleep… You're like a different person."

That’s when Rico decided to investigate the back room.

He waited until Abernathy left for the night, locking the door behind him as usual. Maria stood guard at the front, a nervous watchman against the chime of the bell. Rico took a deep breath and inserted a bobby pin into the complex lock. His fingers, rusty from disuse, worked with surprising dexterity. Finally, with a soft click, the door swung open.

The air inside was thick with the smell of formaldehyde and something else… something acrid, like burnt flesh. The room was a grotesque parody of a veterinary clinic. Surgical instruments lay haphazardly on a steel table, stained with dried blood. Jars filled with murky fluids sat on shelves, containing what looked disturbingly like human organs.

Then he saw the cages.

They were animal cages, but larger, reinforced with steel bars. And inside… inside were the remains of animals twisted and contorted into unnatural shapes. A rabbit with too many limbs, a dog with eyes that glowed like embers, a cat that hissed with a voice too deep for its size.

Rico’s blood ran cold. He stumbled back, his hand landing on a stack of notebooks. He opened one, his heart hammering against his ribs. The pages were filled with meticulous notes, diagrams, and equations. The heading on the first page read: "Project Chimera: Subject Acquisition & Integration."

He flipped through the pages, his eyes scanning the dense text. Abernathy wasn't just experimenting on animals. He was experimenting on people. He was trying to create… something else.

He found a section detailing the vitamins Abernathy had been giving him. They weren't vitamins at all. They were a cocktail of hormones and gene-altering compounds, designed to slowly transform his DNA, to… integrate him with animal DNA.

He understood now. The dreams, the physical changes, the disturbing impulses… He was being changed, twisted into something monstrous.

He slammed the notebook shut and turned, desperate to escape. But as he reached the door, he heard a soft click behind him.

Abernathy stood in the doorway, a syringe in his hand. His eyes gleamed with an unholy light. "Disappointing, Rico," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "I had such high hopes for you. But you had to go and spoil the surprise."

Rico lunged, but Abernathy was faster. He jabbed the syringe into Rico’s arm, and a searing pain ripped through his veins.

He stumbled back, clutching his arm. He felt a burning sensation spreading through his body, a terrifying transformation taking hold. He looked down and saw his hands, his skin rippling, scales forming, fingers elongating into claws.

Maria burst into the room, her eyes wide with horror. She screamed, a sound that echoed through the pet shop like a dying animal. Abernathy turned to her, a cruel smile playing on his lips.

"Ah, Maria," he said. "The perfect companion for my new creation. Perhaps… we can integrate you as well."

But Maria wasn't going to be a subject. She grabbed a heavy metal feeding bowl from the counter and hurled it at Abernathy's head. He crumpled to the floor with a sickening thud.

Rico watched, his mind reeling, his body changing. He was no longer Rico. He was something else, something monstrous, a horrifying amalgamation of human and animal.

He roared, a sound that was both guttural and human, a sound of pain and rage. He wanted to attack, to tear Abernathy apart. But he also wanted to protect Maria.

He staggered out of the room, Maria following close behind, her hand outstretched. They fled the pet store, leaving behind the cages, the jars, and the twisted remains of Abernathy's experiments.

They disappeared into the night, two fugitives, one human, one… something else. They knew they could never go back. They were on the run, hunted by the authorities, and haunted by the terrifying reality of their transformation.

And somewhere in the darkness, the experiment continued, the terrifying legacy of Scales & Tails living on in the monstrous creature that Rico had become. They would never truly be free, forever trapped in the grotesque chimera of Abernathy's twisted dreams. The bell above the door of "Scales & Tails" remained silent, but the horror within would echo through the shadows for years to come.

Mark Antony Raines Ghostman at  Comedy Friendly Zombie Production Ltd Mark Antony Raines aka ghostman

Thaddeus

 The desert wind whipped at Dr. Thaddeus Blackwood’s worn leather coat, stinging his face with sand. He squinted, his good hand, the left, tightening its grip on the reins of his sturdy Appaloosa. The relentless sun beat down, turning the already harsh landscape into a shimmering oven. Behind him, the wagon groaned under the weight of his belongings: a medical library he'd never use, surgical instruments gleaming unused in their cases, and the meager supplies he needed to survive as a traveling scholar.

He was a ghost in his own life, a shadow of the man he could have been. The dream of bustling hospitals and grateful patients had curdled into a nightmare of antiseptic smells and the dull ache in his missing fingers. The dissecting knife, meant to heal, had become his executioner.

He spurred the Appaloosa onward, the rhythmic clip-clop a lonely counterpoint to the howling wind. He was heading for Salvation Gulch, a flyspeck of a town clinging precariously to the edge of the Arizona Territory. He'd heard whispers of its existence - a rough, lawless place where men went to lose themselves, or perhaps, to find something they didn't even know they were missing.

Thaddeus wasn't looking for redemption. He was simply looking for a place to stop running. A place to bury himself in his books, to observe life from a safe distance, to let the desert silence soothe the phantom pain in his missing fingers.

As he crested a rise, Salvation Gulch materialized below. A collection of ramshackle buildings huddled around a dusty main street, punctuated by the stark silhouettes of saloons and the glint of sunlight on weathered tin roofs. Rough-looking men lounged in doorways, their faces etched with hardship and suspicion.

He felt a pang of trepidation. This was a raw, untamed place, a far cry from the sterile halls of his medical college. But as he looked at the wide-open sky and the unforgiving beauty of the landscape, a sliver of something akin to hope flickered within him. Perhaps, in this desolate corner of the world, he could finally find a measure of peace. Perhaps Salvation Gulch, in its own brutal way, could offer him a different kind of healing. He urged his Appaloosa forward, a solitary figure silhouetted against the setting sun, riding towards an uncertain future in the heart of the Wild West.

The Scream Begins At 2 17 AM

Ode to CFZ OTT

 When I switch on youtube tearing out my hair,

Cfzott recues the day,
Information, weird shit, cryptozoology and
Serndity ,
Guests , cats, a manic dog and man dressed in a chicken suit,
Saturday and Wednesday's bring joy too my heart,
Watching Jon and Richard debating ,,book reviewing,
It's the best cryptozoology show on the YouTube channels,
So why not subscribe, like, share ,
That's the end of ode,
But if you have the time why not check out Cfz Ott Holsworthy Extra produced by Mark in his Bungalow as not enough room for a chicken shed.

SCARY FOR KIDS Teeth

A story  about a trip to the dentist, beware the werewolf 

(Come on Harry you know it has to be done )said his father.
Harry like all people going to visit the dentist was feeling very anxious a tiny bit scared.
Harry told his father how he felt but was just told put himself together and get on with it as that what the family expected.
So after a lot of shouting and arguments Harry  is frog marched out his bedroom grabbed by the scruff of his neck.
The walk to Harry  was like the one of a condemned man going on his execution, each footstep felt like he had on lead boots .

Finally Harry and his Father reached their designation place were the dentist was situated.
Harry  climbed one the stairs imagining that was Mount Everest, His Father telling  him to hurry up and stop daydreaming.
Harry went into  the waiting  room whilst his father filled in the revalent forms, Harry got bored very easily  as no radio, no television to chill and watch some catch up television.
The dental nurse then came and got Harry and took him to the Dentist office.
Harry  father  seat in the waiting  room fir he really  was more of a whimp concerning  dentist then  he let on.
The dentist asked Harry  to sit down on the chair, the chair then went as low as a bed and then the dentist explained  what she was going to do.
Harry could  feel his heart beating  to a trash metal beat .
Then the dentist  needed to take a x Ray which involved putting a special moth piece inside his opened mouth, after two attempts  due to Harry having a gagging reflex the dentist had some news for Harry  was not expecting ,The dentist told him he needed a emergency treatment due to an remain s of a wisdom  tooth.
This involved the following

A simple extraction: you will receive a local anesthetic that numbs the area around the tooth. This helps you only feel pressure, not pain, throughout the procedure. The dentist will then pull the tooth by using an instrument to loosen the tooth and forceps to pull it all the way out. 
luckily for Harry  it was not the other alternative which  was the following.

A surgical extraction: with this type of extraction, you’ll receive both local and IV anesthesia to help you feel relaxed and prevent you from feeling pain throughout the procedure. This is needed when the dentist or surgeon needs to cut into your gums or remove bone around the tooth to be extracted. 

Having a tooth pulled can make the mouth sensitive for a few days after the procedure. The main risks include dry sockets, bleeding that lasts more than 12 hours, infection, swelling, and more.
Harry  was much relieved that his wisdom  tooth  was out as this made  him feel alot more hungry and he had not eaten  in days,so as he got off the dentist chair he saw the beginning of his favourite time of the month, a full moon, this was as his father would  say his time to be wild and feed.
Before the very eyes of the dentist and the dental nurse .  Harry appears in detail, and   as being painful as his Bones forcibly elongate and change their shape, sometimes moving so drastically that they rupture a person's skin. From beginning to end, the transformation can take several minutes, and the end result is a creature who is part human and part wolf, in varying proportions. To the dentist and dental nurse it was like a real life  special effects available at the time the film  WEREWOLF was made -- and the techniques used to create them -- this  transformation  grotesque to truly scared out of your  mind can't move kinda thing.
The dentist and the dental nurse knew nothing much more after thus apart from the remaining parts of their cadavers that Harry had not eaten.
The End.

DAIRY BY MARK ANTONY RAINES

@WHY DID WE SUCUFICE OUR FREEDOM TO STAY INDOORS  SO OTHERS  CAN  KNOW  DESTROY OUR FUTURE ONE LIFE IS NOT AS MPORANT  AS MILLIONS @ALL HUMAN BEING S MATTER @GOODBYE WORLD  AND THANKS FOR THE FISH 

Dairy by Mark Antony Raines

YES @BLACKLIFEMATTER BUT DON'T  LET  THIS BE THE CALCULUS FROM A MORE DEADLY COVERT _19 SECOND WAVE THAT COULD  END UP  KILLING MILLION S MORE IF ALL RACES NO MATTER WHAT  YOUR  COLOUR OF SKIN  IS

@ALLHUMANLIVEMATTERS

CARE HOME FARCE BY MARK ANTONY RAINES

@GMB @piersmorgan Recently  I heard on the news that care homes are charging  thier residents the sum  of a extra cost of 100 pounds per week due to  the  fact that cost  of P.P.E which was either  supplied by the government or other organisations or people  for FREE.And due to fact had to employ agency workers to cover shifts now is is a bit of a lie as most of all the care homes in have worked would  rather ask another member  of staff to  do a double shift then pay for agency staff plus is not unfair  that a total stranger  can come in the home s whom may or may not have  been to serveral  others that week and also as you have brought up on Good morning Britain many a time how loved ones were not all a visit. I doubt  you  will  even bring this matter  up on the show if you  wonder  about  source it came from a age UK report  I heard  on the radio. 

yours

faithfully 

mark antony raines 

DAIRY BY MARK ANTONY RAINES

I HAD PEOPLE  CROSS THE STREET, SAY TO THIER  CHILDREN  WE DON'T TALK TO PEOPLE  LIKE THEM;BE BRANDED BY THE MEDICAL PROFESSION; PEOPLE  TREAT ME LIKE SCRUM AS THOUGHT  I WAS GAY.PUT A YEAR BACK A PRIMARY  SCHOOL  FOR NO REASON. 

I AM NOT ALONE  WITH A STORY  LIKE THIS 

THERE IS ALL KINDS OF RACISM IN THIS WORLD  AND ALL IS WRONG NO MATTER WHAT YOUR  COLOUR