Samhain. When the
walls between the worlds grow thin, and spirits of the Underworld walk the
earth. It’s the best time of year for those
with a love of eating pounds of candy and being scared out of one’s gourd.
I love Halloween. I
love the costumes and the chill, I love black cats and Jack-o’-lanterns and
trick-or-treating, and I will happily consume miniature Butterfinger bars by
the truckload if I could. But horror
movies? Horror stories? The paranormal?
Hell no.
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| Preach it, Wonder Woman. |
I have an extraordinarily hyperactive, incredibly overactive imagination. It's the main reason I love to write, and why I'm good at it. I can write scary shit like nobody's business - I'll freak you out in a minute - but overall, I simply don’t do scary shit. I’m a composite wuss, if you will. I am a firm believer in the existence of the Closet
Monster, the Creature Under the Bed, and the Magic Blanket – ah, that heroic bed
cover that must be draped over at least one buttock in 90-degree weather or
securely tucked around one’s toes in the cold…because no one in their right
mind would sleep with an exposed body on TOP of a mattress in the dark, am I right? Even the slightest sound in a black hallway will
flare into Something That Goes Bump in the Night and I will lie there with my blood pressure increasing, my heart pounding, and my imagination going haywire. Did I lock the door? Because,
you know – something is out there. (Especially
if you live in an old, creaky house.
Like me.) Nothing will make me go
to a haunted house or haunted forest because I will piss myself in 2 seconds
and will be one of those people that screams until someone slaps them. Disney’s Haunted Mansion is my limit, and I
was 13 years old before I would even consider going in there. (Okay, okay, I was pretty much dragged in
there, if you really need to know.)
What scares me the most about horror movies and horror
stories is that I can’t stop watching or reading. It’s like a train wreck – I can’t look
away. Years ago, I was subjected to “The
Shining,” with the crazy Jack Nicholson.
Yeah, right. I didn’t sleep for a
goddamn week. I refused to go up the
stairs for fear of running into those chopped-up twin girls ("Come play with us, Danny!") at the end of the hallway, so I always made someone else go first.
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| Get out of my hallway, you little brats. |
Then there was “The Amityville Horror,” which
made me close the bedroom curtains for weeks so I wouldn’t wake up in the
middle of the night and see those glowing pig eyes looking in the window
across from me.
| Stupid glowing red-eyed pig! I'll make you into goddamn bacon if you come in here! |
On New Year’s Eve, my
father made me record this movie for him while he, my mother, and my sister
went out for the evening. (I was certain
I was being punished for not going with them.) As a result, I had every light in the house turned on, the stereo was blasting loud
Christmas Muzak, the TV over the refrigerator was blaring a Perry Como holiday special – anything, anything to keep me from hearing that horrible
theme music coming from the VCR in the basement. Why do horror movies always
showcase little children singing? GAAH!
The Blair Witch. The
Exorcist. The Grudge. Paranormal Activity. All of you, BITE ME.
Oh, wait, don’t. I’ll freak out, beat the bloody shit out of you, and then probably fall down the stairs and break my own leg in my mad urge to escape.
Reading is just as bad.
Stephen King’s prose, for example, is just so fabulous that you are
sucked into the horror in a Clockwork-Orange-ian, eyes-held-open-with-a-wire-speculum
kind of suckage. You read until you can't take any more, slowly put
the book down, and try turning off the light, and you lie there with your eyes
still wide open, bloodshot and burning, afraid to blink because Annie Wilkes from
“Misery” might be standing by your bed with a fucking sledgehammer, calling you
a dirty bird.
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| This is what a psycho wacknut looks like. |
Or that cat in “The Cat from Hell” might be sitting there, grinning, ready to pounce and force itself down your throat. Really, it’ll be best to just turn the TV on and watch “Big Bang Theory” reruns until 3 in the morning. You can sleep at your desk.
When I was a kid, my parents gave me “Alfred Hitchcock’s
Haunted Houseful,” a compendium of ghost stories for kids. While I now cherish it – it’s a collector’s
item, very rare and very hard to find in good condition – I used to hide this thing
under the living room sofa cushions. My
mother always found it and returned it to my bedroom - at first my imagination made me think that it floated up the hall in the middle of the night and slowly, s-l-o-w-l-y inserted itself into its place on my bookshelf. (Aw, shit - *shudder*) What scared me? The artwork inside the front cover!
I mean, look at this…
Look at that ghostly seaweed woman!
(Actually, it’s “The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall” – a terrific story,
by the way.) This dead kelp-covered chick is one of
the reasons I couldn’t keep the bedroom door open because I thought she was in
the hallway at night. The damn moon has an eye. An EYE. The tree has FINGERS. And that stick-man on the water!
Anyhow, I’m
bringing up the Alfred Hitchcock book because I wanted to use his opening words in this book for my
ending salvo. So I leave you with the prose
of the Master of Suspense.
First find a room
where you can be alone. Next, turn the
light down low. I know; plenty of light
is better for the eyes. However, it is
death to ghosts and we should always think of others. Now, concentrate on the printed page…
What’s that? You hear
a strange noise? I’m sure it’s just a
shutter banging in the wind. You don’t
have shutters? Good! Your attitude indicates you have completed
your reading readiness and we are all set.
You may begin wandering through our little
tract of haunted houses.
No, I’m not coming with you.
This is as far as I go.
Me too, Al. Now I'll just go see if "Big Bang Theory" is on...
Happy Halloween, all.
--Rebecca
