Scream For Your Life

True Dat

Suddenly, for some reason, a scene from Stephen King's The Shining leapt to mind. It was the one where Danny, the little kid, was playing in the snow outside the Overlook Hotel, and he found one of those big concrete tubes that kids like to climb through, and he got in, and suddenly he became aware of something else that was in the tube there with him: A kid who had climbed in there and couldn't get out, who had died there, who clamored toward Danny with a pathos that bordered on revulsion and then surpassed it, clearly wanting Danny to die there, too, to stay with him, forever...

Ian found himself simultaneously wondering why Kubrick didn't put that in the film and thinking, Momma, get me outta here, this place is starting to give me the creeps. He was not surprised to find himself walking at a highly accelerated pace.

"This," he told himself aloud, "is ridiculous. Fucking Stephen King. This is all his fault."

The Light At The End - John Skipp and Craig Spector

Tonight's the Night

Tonight the moon was almost full. And tonight was also Halloween.

Their are those who say they don't need to look at the sky or consult an almanac to know when a full moon lurks behind the rain clouds. For they are policemen and firemen and hospital workers and bartenders and ambulance drivers. From years of experience they have learned that the nights just before full moon will bring out more violence, more uncontrolled emotion, more just plain weirdness than any other time.

It has long been known that in mental hospitals the most bizarre behavior occurs in the twenty-four to forty-eight hours preceding the full moon. Now there is scientific theory to back this up: it is accepted as fact that the moon's weak magnetism affects the earth's metal-induced magnetic field. This is primarily true of iron. Based on this fact, a Chicago study concentrated on a single element in biological tissue. It concluded that magnetic and gravitational interaction between the earth and the moon may very well be involved in certain human physiological and psychological changes.

Halloween, of course, takes no account of science.

Halloween concerns itself with only evil forces.

Headhunter - Michael Slade

Clap for the Wolfman

The Boogeyman

Psycho is effective because it brings the Werewolf myth home. It is not outside evil, predestination; the fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves. We know that Norman is only outwardly the Werewolf when he's wearing Mom's duds and speaking in Mom's voice; but we have the uneasy suspicion that inside he's the Werewolf all the time.

Danse Macabre - Stephen King

Time to Take the Masks Off

Peter picked himself up on the stairs and, with no awareness of willing himself to move, went backward up the stairs to stand beside Jim on the landing.

The werewolf came slowly, unstoppably toard them, in no hurry at all. "You want to meet her, don't you?" His grin was ferocious. "She will be so pleased. You will have quite a welcome, I promise you."

Peter looked wildly around; saw phosphorescent light leaking from beneath a door.

"She is not perhaps quite in shape to see you yet, but that makes it all the more interesting, don't you think? We all like to see our friends with their masks off."

Ghost Story - Peter Straub

Listen

Presently, I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief -- oh, no! It was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself, "It is nothing but the wind in the chimney, it is only a mouse crossing the floor," or, "It is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp." Yes he has been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions ; but he had found all in vain. ALL IN VAIN, because Death in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel, although he neither saw nor heard, to feel the presence of my head within the room.

The Tell-Tale Heart - Edgar Allan Poe

Respect the Classics, Man!

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Legion

Kinderman entered the cell and pulled the door shut softly behind him. A naked light bulb hung from a wire in the center of the ceiling. Its filaments were weak and it cast a saffron glow on the room. Kinderman glanced at the white washbasin. A faucet was dripping, one slow drop at a time. In the silence their sound was heavy and distinct. Kinderman walked toward the cot and then stopped.

"It's taken you a long time to get here," said a voice. It was low and had whispers at its edge. It was sardonic.

Kinderman looked puzzled. The voice seemed familiar. Where had he heard it before? he wondered. "Mister Sunlight?" he said.

The man raised his head and when Kinderman loked at the dark, rugged features he staggered backward a step in shock. "My God!" he gasped. His heart began to race.

The patient's mouth was cracked in a grin. "It's a wonderful life," he leered, "don't you think?"

...Kinderman looked up from the file. "Were you here when this man was brought in?" he asked sharply.

"Yes."

"Search your memory, please. Doctor Temple. What was he wearing?"

"Jesus Christ, that was such a long time ago."

"Can you remember?"

"No."

"Were there signs of any injuries? Bruises? Lacerations?"

"That would be in the file," said Temple.

"It is not in the file! It is not!" The detective slapped the file on the desk with each "not."

"Hey, take it easy."

Kinderman stood up. "Have you or any nurse told the man in Cell Twelve about Father Dyer's murder?"

"I haven't. Why the hell would we tell him that?"

"Ask the nurses," Kinderman told him grimly. "Ask them. I want to know the answer by morning."

Kinderman turned and strode from the room. He walked up to Atkins. "I want you to check with Georgetown University," he said. "There was a priest there, Father Damien Karras. See if they still have his medical records, and also his dental records as well. Also, call Father Riley. I want him to come over here right now."

Atkins stared quizzically into Kinderman's haunted eyes. The detective answered his unspoken question. "Father Karras was a friend of mine," said Kinderman. "Twelve years ago he died. He fell down the Hitchcock Steps to the bottom. I attended his funeral," he said. "I just saw him. He is here in this ward in a straitjacket."

Legion - William Peter Blatty

They're Coming For You

What's Inside You?

She opened her eyes. "Daniel," she said, "your bride is waiting."

There was movement near the door. A figure drifted toward her.

"Daniel?"

"Yes, my love."

She held out her arms.

He crossed the room, and Florence felt the drawing from her body as he neared. She could just make out his features, gentle, frightened, filled with need for her. He lay beside her on the bed. She turned to face him. She could feel his breath, and pressing close, she gave her lips to him.

His kiss was long and tender. "I love you," he whispered.

"And I love you."

She closed her eyes and turned onto her back again, feeling his weight shift onto her. "With love," she murmured. "Please, with love."

"Florence," he said.

She opened her eyes.

In an instant, she lay petrified, heartbeat staggering as she gaped at what was lying on her.

It was the figure of a corpse, its face in an advanced state of decomposition. Livid, scaly flesh was crumbling from its bones, its rotted lips wreathed in a leering smile that showed discolored jagged teeth, all of them decayed. Only the slanting yellow eyes were alive, regarding her with demoniacal glee. A leaden bluish light enveloped its entire body, gases of putrefaction bubbling around it.

A scream of horror flooded from her throat as the moldering figure plunged inside her.

Hell House - Richard Matheson

Ask The Stories

The Brothers

"And what are you doing here?" Tom asked.

They looked at each other, full of amusement which somehow embraced and included Tom.

"Why, we are writing down stories," Jakob said.

"What for?"

"To amaze. To terrify. To delight."

"Why?"

"For the sake of the stories," Jakob said. "That must be clear. Why, our very lives have been storylike. Even the mistakes have been happy. Boy, did you know that in our original story it was a fur slipper which the poor orphan girl wore to the ball? What an inspired mistranslation made it glass!"

"Yes, yes. And you remember the strange dream I had about you, my brother: I stood in front of a cage, on top of a mountain...it snowed...you were in the cage, frozen...I had to peer through the bars of the cage – so much like one of our treasures..."

"Which we were determined to show the world the wonder we felt in discovering, yes. You were terrified – but it was a terror full of wonder."

"These stories are not for every child – they do not suit every child. The terror is there, and it is real. But our best defense is nature, is it not?"

Tom said "Yes" because he felt them waiting for an answer.

"So you see. You learn well, child." Jakob set down the quill pen with which he had been toying. "Wilhelm’s dream – do you know that when Wilhelm was dying, he spoke quietly and cheerfully about his life?"

"You see, we embraced our treasures, and they gave us treasure back a thousandfold," Wilhelm said. "They were the country in which we lived best. If our father had not died so young – if our childhood had been allowed its normal span – perhaps we could never have found what it is to live in that country."

"Do you hear what we are saying to you, boy?" Jakob asked. "Do you understand Wilhelm?"

"I think so," Tom said.

"The stories, our treasures, are for children, among others. But..."

Tom nodded: He saw. It was not the personal point.

"No child can go the whole way with them," Wilhelm said.

"We gave our wings," Jakob said. "For our song was our life. But as for you..." The brothers looked at him indulgently.

"Do not idly throw away any of your gifts," said Jakob. "But when you are called..."

"We answered. We all must answer," Wilhelm said. "Oh, my, what are we saying to this boy? It is late. Do you mind stopping work until tomorrow, brother? It is time to join our wives."

They turned large brown eyes toward him, clearly expecting him to leave.

"But what happens next?" Tom asked, almost believing that they were who they appeared to be and could tell him.

"All stories unfold," Jakob said. "But they take many turns before they reach their ends. Embrace the treasure, child. It is our best advice. Now we must depart."

Tom stood up from the chesterfield, confused; so much of what happened here ended with a sudden departure! "Where do you go? According to you, where are we?"

Wilhelm laughed. "Why, Shadowland, boy. Shadowland is everything to us, as it may be to you. Shadowland is where we spent our busy lives. You may be within a wood...within a storied wood…"

"Or fur-wrapped in a sleigh in deep snow..."

"Or dying for love of a sleeping princess..."

"Or before a dwindling fire with head full of pictures..."

"Or even asleep with a head full of cobwebs and dreams..."

"And still you will be in Shadowland."

Both brothers laughed, and blew out the candles on their desks.

"I have another question," Tom said into the lively blackness.

"Ask the stories, child," said a departing voice.

A flurry of quiet rustling, then silence: Tom knew they were gone. "But they never give the same answers," he said to the black room.

Shadowland - Peter Straub

Doctor Wu

Starling rolled the blue section through on the tray. She sat still while Lecter flipped through it.

He dropped it back in the carrier. "Oh, Officer Starling, do you think you can dissect me with this blunt little tool?"

"No. I think you can provide some insight and advance this study."

"And what possible reason could I have to do that?"

"Curiosity."

"About what?"

"About why you're here. About what happened to you."

"Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can't reduce me to a set of influences. You've given up good and evil for behaviorism, Officer Starling. You've got everybody in moral dignity pants -- nothing is ever anybody's fault. Look at me, Officer Starling. Can you stand to say I'm evil? Am I evil, Officer Starling?"

"I think you've been destructive. For me it's the same thing."

"Evil's just destructive? Then storms are evil, if it's that simple. And we have fire, and then there's hail. Underwriters lump it all under 'Acts of God.'"

"Deliberate - "

"I collect church collapses, recreationally. Did you see the recent one in Sicily? Marvelous! The facade fell on sity-five grandmothers at a special Mass. Was that evil? If so, who did it? If He's up there, He just loves it, Officer Starling. Typhoid and swans -- it all comes from the same place."

"I can't explain you, Doctor, but I know who can."

He stopped her with his upraised hand. The hand was shapely, she noted, and the middle finger perfectly replicated. It is the rarest form of polydactyly...

"A census taker tried to quantify me once. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a big Amarone. Go back to school, little Starling."

The Silence Of The Lambs - Thomas Harris

Killer Klowns

Fairy Tales Can Come True...

Once upon a time there dwelt on the outskirts of a large forest a poor woodcutter with his wife and two children; the boy was called Hansel and the girl Gretel. He had always had little enough to live on, and once, when there was a great famine in the land, he couldn't even provide them with daily bread. One night, as he was tossing about in his bed, full of cares and worry, he sighed and said to his wife: "What's to become of us? How are we to support our poor children, now that we have nothing more for ourselves?" "I'll tell you what, husband," answered the woman, "early tomorrow morning we'll take the children into the thickest part of the wood; there we shall light a fire for them and give them each a piece of bread; then we'll go on to our work and leave them alone. They won't be able to find their way home and we shall thus be rid of them..."

The Andrew Lang Fairy Tale Treasury - edited by Cary Wilkins

Zombie PSA's

People to Avoid

E is for ELEVATOR PEOPLE

They never speak and they cannot meet your gaze. There are five hundred buildings in the United States whose elevators go deeper than the basement. When you have pressed the basement button and reached the bottom, you must press the basement button twice more. The elevator doors will close and you will hear the sound of special relays being thrown, and the elevator will descend. Into the caverns. Chance has not looked favorably on occasional voyagers in those five hundred cages. They have pressed the wrong button, too many times. They have been seized by those who shuffle through the caverns, and they have been...treated. Now they ride the cages. They never speak, and they cannot meet your gaze. They stare up at the numbers as they light and then go off, riding up and down even after night has fallen. Their clothes are clean. There is a special dry cleaner who does the work. Once you saw one of them, and her eyes were filled with screams. London is a city filled with narrow, secure stairways.

From A to Z, in the Chocolate Alphabet - Harlan Ellison

Something Wicked

Three in the morning, thought Charles Halloway, seated on the edge of his bed. Why did the train come at that hour?

For, he thought, it's a special hour. Women never wake then, do they? They sleep the sleep of babes and children. But men in middle age? They know that hour well. Oh God, midnight's not bad, you toss but sleep again. Five or six in the morning, there's hope, for dawn's just under the horizon. But three, now, Christ, three A.M.! Doctors say the body's at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You're the nearest to dead you'll ever be save dying. Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open. God, if you had strength to rouse up, you'd slaughter your half-dreams with buckshot! But no, you lie pinned to a deep well-bottom that's burned dry. The moon rolls by to look at you down there, with its idiot face. It's a long way back to sunset, a far way on to dawn, so you summon all the fool things of your life, the stupid lovely things done with people known so very well who are now so very dead-- And wasn't it true, had he read it somewhere, more people in hospitals die at 3 A.M. than at any other time...?

Stop! he cried silently.

"Charlie?" his wife said in her sleep.

Slowly, he took off the other shoe.

His wife smiled in her sleep.

Why?

She's immortal. She has a son.

Your son, too!

But what father ever really believes it? He carries no burden, he feels no pain. What man, like woman, lies down in darkness and gets up with child? The gentle, smiling ones own the good secret. Oh, what strange wonderful clocks women are. They nest in time. They make the flesh that holds fast and binds eternity. They live inside the gift, know power, accept, and need not mention it. Why speak of Time when you are Time, and shape the universal moments, as they pass, into warmth and action. How men envy and often hate these warm clocks, these wives, who know they will live forever. So what do we do? We men turn terribly mean, because we can't hold to the world or ourselves or anything. We are blind to continuity, all breaks down, falls, melts, stops, rots, or runs away. So, since we cannot shape Time, where does that leave men? Sleepless. Staring.

Three A.M. That's our reward. Three in the morn. The soul's midnight. The tide goes out, the soul ebbs. And a train arives at an hour of despair...Why?

"Charlie...?"

His wife's hand moved to his.

"You...all right...Charlie?"

She drowsed.

He did not answer.

He could not tell her how he was.

Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury

Pardon Me

While I interrupt the non-stop Halloween blogging for the following announcement.



Sorry for the interruption. Regular Halloween blogging will resume.

Haunted Memories