New story: "Dying With Her Cheer Pants On."

[seanan_mcguire]

Do you like cheerleaders? Do you like aliens? Do you like urban legends? Well, then you're just gonna love my latest published short story, "Dying With Her Cheer Pants On," in which the Fighting Pumpkins Cheer Squad goes up against an alien invasion in a battle to the death, with the very fate of mankind hanging in the balance.

"Dying With Her Cheer Pants On" is available now, in the April 2010 issue of Apex Magazine.

Some of you may have heard me perform this story live, since it's a favorite reading piece of mine (and how could it not be? I mean, really). For those of you who haven't, there's an audio version of the same story in this month's issue. Totally awesome.

Go, read, enjoy, and remember...

GO PUMPKINS!

Comments

[nightshade-03.livejournal.com]

... Can I say I don't even like to *think* that lady's name in front of a mirror because I'm afraid she'll gut me like a fish, annnd now I just read that and I am so creeped out. LOL, not even by the alien's aspect which gave me that twitchy 'world is coming to an end' feel but it was like okay, whatevs, let's see how they beat this. And then they pulled out the big guns and I started to get a creepy feeling, especially with the count down of cheerleaders while she was counting down. Oh man. Definitely more afraid of ghosts then aliens [when i'm sitting safe in my room, LOL] great short though.

[I tried not to give anything away in case someone checks the comments before reading so sorry if it's a bit disjointed, lol]

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

That's okay! I get the meaning. :) Glad you liked it. I love the Pumpkins.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's a fine combination of high drama and absurdity. Well done.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[saffronrose.livejournal.com]

I never heard of Bloody/Hell Mary--didn't hang out with an "in" or popular crowd. I was with the nerds of that era.

I LOVE the idea of "Fighting Pumpkins". My son has had a pumpkin obsession since 2 or 3, and he's 16 now. I ended up buying as many pumpkin, halloween, witch, and pirate books as I could find, and THEN I had to work in dinosaurs.

The guy who runs California Carnivores (plants) started out with dinosaurs, and now has a nursery just outside of Sebastopol.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

The Fighting Pumpkins cheerleaders are often my targets of choice. I love them so.

[vincentursus.livejournal.com]

Yay! I've been looking forwards to seeing the Fighting Pumpkins in action.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

And now you have!

[ravenclawed.livejournal.com]

Creepy but good. Definitely not the sort of thing I should be reading before bed, but no nightmares, so it's all good. :-)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Nooooooooooo, probably not the world's best plan.

[manynames.livejournal.com]

Wow. That ending really caught me off guard - the beginning was just absurdly humourous enough that I wasn't expecting such a grim ending. Totally unsettling, in a good way.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Awesome. :)

[swevene.livejournal.com]

You have resurrected all my buried Bloody Mary trauma. I was an intensely impressionable child when two of my more mean-spirited friends told me about Bloody Mary. I spent the rest of our time living in the house where it occurred unable to go to the bathroom at night- or even go near the bathroom at night. I had to move to the bedroom farthest away from the bathroom on that floor.

But other than that, it was an amazing story. I loved it to tiny little pumpkin-flavoured pieces.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

...ooops.

Sorry about that.

[swevene.livejournal.com]

I'll live. I'm no longer five years old and therefore better at dealing with my overactive imagination. Like I said, I loved it, and I also shoved it in the faces of at least half of my friends!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Hooray!

[shiyiya.livejournal.com]

Reading that in the wee hours of the morning? Not the best idea I've ever had. What with how I've already got nyctophobia going for me and all.

(I was WAY too scared to ever try the Bloody Mary thing. I don't think any of my friends ever did it. The sleepover thing for us was just watching Fern Gully and/or making crank calls to jack in the box and walmart.)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Whoops. Please be capable of sleeping?

[shiyiya.livejournal.com]

It just took a bit more nightlight than usual. Heh.

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

*cheerful* I've been making all my AIM-friend read this story by pinging them with

"Seanan is AWESOME. "

They all agree!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Glee!

Thank you, honey.