My new novella, THIRTY MILES SOUTH OF DRY COUNTY is now available via Darkfuse Publishing (an imprint of Delirium Books, with whom I worked on the second edition of my long out-of-print first collection RAVENOUS GHOSTS some years ago) for all digital formats. You can also preorder the hardcover edition, due for release in March.

The book is a sequel to my novel CURRENCY OF SOULS, which documented the fate of the residents of a cursed, dying mining town called Milestone, and features typically wonderful cover art by the very talented Daniele Serra.

To buy in any digital format, preorder the hardcover, and/or to read an excerpt, check out the book’s dedicated page at the Darkfuse site.

Hardcover:

Available from Cemetery Dance Publications.

Digital:

Synopsis:

On a scorching hot summer day in Elkwood, Alabama, Claire Lambert staggers naked, wounded, and half-blind away from the scene of an atrocity. She is the sole survivor of a nightmare that claimed her friends, and even as she prays for rescue, the killers — a family of cannibalistic lunatics — are closing in.

A soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder returns from Iraq to the news that his brother is among the murdered in Elkwood.

In snowbound Detroit, a waitress trapped in an abusive relationship gets an unexpected visit that will lead to bloodshed and send her back on the road to a past she has spent years trying to outrun.

And Claire, the only survivor of the Elkwood Massacre, haunted by her dead friends, dreams of vengeance… a dream which will be realized as grief and rage turn good people into cold-blooded murderers and force alliances among strangers.

It’s time to return to Elkwood.

In the spirit of such iconic horror classics as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Deliverance, Kin begins at the end and studies the possible aftermath for the survivors of such traumas upon their return to the real world — the guilt, the grief, the thirst for revenge — and sets them on an unthinkable journey… back into the heart of darkness.

Praise:

“If you’re a fan of Jack Ketchum, Richard Laymon, or movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Deliverance, don’t miss Kin. Burke’s novel not only re-imagines the classic slasher tropes, but it invents new ones. Kin is sure to garner Burke a wider readership, awards, and to inspire a slew of new slasher novels and films. This is a modern classic, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.” – FEARNET

“It’s odd that an Irish transplant to the Northern US has written one of the best Southern Gothic novels in recent memory. I’ll look forward to Burke’s next work just as much as I hated to see this one end. I would highly recommend Kin to lovers of old fashioned horror fiction with a twist.” DARK DISCOVERIES

“…with this novel, Burke has fully arrived as a novelist…his talent running full throttle… Kin ends a long period of silence from Burke, and has me quite excited to see what’s coming next. It gets my highest possible recommendation.” OCTOBER COUNTRY

“THIS is serious horror fiction that has set a high standard for future stories in this subgenre. Don’t miss it.” THE CROW’S CAW

“The blurb will tell you that this is in the vein of the ‘Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ and ‘Deliverance’ and, while I can see what they mean, it doesn’t do the book justice. This is not a ‘slasher’ book or a book that reads like a movie. This is far more. This is a novel that begins where the other stories ended and explores the impact such horror has on the survivors, their family and, though we may not like them, the perpetrators of the horror.” THE BIG THRILL

“Kin is not only the best novel I’ve read all year, it is one of the most horrifying ones I’ve ever read.” – HORROR WORLD

“If you took the moral quandaries about revenge, justice and violence against evil from Dennis Lehane’s Patrick Kenzie novels, spread it over the sprawling cast of a Stephen King thriller, and mixed it with the Southern Gothic grotesques of Eudora Welty, you might end up with something like Kealan Patrick Burke’s new novel, Kin.” LITSTACK

Available from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes and Noble.com, Smashwords.com, and all other e-book retailers.

* * *

I’d like Halloween to really come alive within a small town setting (a little like mine in New Zealand) and get into the spirit of things. Have a film screen in each shop/store, place of interest etc, and show an appropriate film. Essential viewing to give children (especially the very young) the best of nightmares.

On the train from Wellington to my town let us have NIGHT OF THE DEMON. Don’t let anyone off the train until the end.

The Toy Shop. Puppets! Bloody scary things. Those porcelain dolls which are supposed to look cute but aren’t. Chucky dolls. And let us not forget the clowns. Show IT.

The Estate Agent. Perched on a hill here in the Wairarapa is the creepiest old colonial style house. Two storey which is uncommon in the countryside. From a distance is stands, quite grandiose, and as you drive closer you see the decrepit exterior, a house crying out to be bought, and repaired. Show THE HAUNTING.

The Old Cinema/Theatre. The 1945 Ealing Studios Portmanteau film with one story about a ventriloquist and his dummy. Film to be: DEAD OF NIGHT.

The Museum. Show HOUSE OF WAX.

The Hotel. THE SHINING. Of course.

The Butcher. Don’t even bother. Put a pig’s head in the window, throw a little blood on the walls, and you are done.

* * *

ISIS UNBOUND is due out in December from Dark Regions Press.

Visit Allyson Bird’s website.

Related articles

• Halloween Guest Blog: Simon Clark (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)
• Halloween Guest Blog: Michael Marshall Smith (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)
• Halloween Guest Blog: Steve Rasnic Tem (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)
• Halloween Guest Blog: Chet Williamson (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)

Cover of Bloodstained Oz

Cover of Under the Overtree (Leisure Horror)

Halloween is upon us, and we have a treat for you. James A. Moore, author of such novels and novellas as Under the Overtree, Serenity Falls, Blood Red, Bloodstained Oz (with Christopher Golden), Fireworks, Deeper, Vendetta, and Subject Seven has written a Halloween story, just for you. “Harvest Gods, Revisited” is a brand new, never before published tale set in the same world as Moore’s novel, Harvest Moon and the short story, “Harvest Gods”, and has a distinctly E.C. Comics flavor, which makes it the perfect way to end this series and usher in the night.

And now, down with the lights, and up with the curtain, as we present to you, “Harvest Gods, Revisited”…

* * *

Harvest Gods, Revisited

By James A. Moore

 Sometimes people are cruel. That lesson comes to everyone sooner or later, I suppose. It came to me when I was very young. It came to the boy down the road from me a few hours ago.

I watched, of course, because that’s what I do. One can hardly make judgments without a good reason, after all.

His name is Ray Larkin, and like all children, he lives for certain events. Ray was the boy who best loves Halloween.

Was. I suppose time will tell how he feels about the season in the future but just now, at this moment? Well, decide for yourself.

* * *

Ray settled into the classroom seat with barely bridled impatience. Lunch was done, and there were still two more classes to endure before freedom came his way. Two more classes before he could prepare for Halloween. Halloween on a weekday. It should be illegal as far as he was concerned.

At seven years of age, Halloween held a special place in Ray’s heart. Everything was scary, yes, but fun scary, not bad scary. There was a difference, as he’d learned a long time ago, when he was seven. When his dad died, Ray was too young to much understand what that meant, but in time he got to understand that part of what that meant was his mom was sad a lot of the time. Mom was a good woman, and a great mom. No two ways about that, but she sometimes waited until he was asleep—or thought he was—and crawled into her bed and cried for a long time before she fell asleep herself. He thought maybe he understood about her loneliness, but not as well as he thought he would someday. His Grammy and Grampy had told him that he would understand someday, but for now he just had to know she was missing her husband, his father.

And then his mom met Lawrence. Lawrence was a big man—well, relatively. Most men were big next to Ray, who was only nine, after all—with a nice suit he liked to wear and a smile that was warm and friendly as long as Mommy was around and not always as pleasant when she left the room. That was okay at first, because Lawrence made Mommy happier and she didn’t cry as much.

And then it wasn’t as okay. Then it became a problem, because Lawrence started coming around more and more often. And when Lawrence came around, Mommy smiled more and Ray started not being quite as important. He knew Mommy loved him. That wasn’t really it. More it was simply that she had to be shared with a man who didn’t know how to smile with his eyes and almost never smiled at all when he was alone with Ray. He’d tried to explain that to his Grammy once, but she shook her head and leaned in close so that no one else could hear, even though there was no one else in the house, and said “Your mommy needs to have Lawrence in her life, Raymond”—she always called him Raymond when it was time to discuss serious matters—“and she needs you to understand that. Lawrence is the key to your mommy being happy and we all want her to be happy, don’t we?”

Well, there was simply no arguing with that. So Ray left everything alone. He kept his peace and he swore to himself that he would do nothing to stop his mommy from being happy.

Lawrence was a nice man, really, but he was also too serious. He didn’t like to have fun. As a result, Mommy stopped liking fun, too. Or maybe that was one of those things he would understand when he was older, like why his mommy needed Lawrence in the first place.

Instead of going out to Chuck E. Cheese’s for dinner once or twice a week, they stayed home to eat. Instead of watching Disney movies on DVD once a week as a treat, Ray and his mother only watched them when Lawrence was out of town. He did some kind of work with cars. Most of the time he stayed in town and went to an office a few miles down the road and came home by five-thirty in the evening. But maybe every other month he left town for a couple of days and they got to watch new movies. It was always fun.  Ray started living for those times, because Lawrence didn’t like the TV in, and when it was on, he always had it set for one of his news channels.

The news was boring, and mostly it made Lawrence go on and on about the liberals, and how they were trying to take over the world for the bleeding hearts. Ray wasn’t exactly sure what a liberal was, but he suspected it was something to do with the library. He started dreading the idea of going to the library, because the last thing he wanted to see was a man whose heart was dripping blood while he was trying to decide which book he wanted to read. He was getting very good at reading, because that was almost all that Lawrence ever wanted him to do. The only exception was that his mother was teaching him to play the piano. He maybe would have hated that, but it was a little fun and sometimes Mommy sang and she had a perfect voice for singing as far as Ray was concerned.

The thing was, come Halloween, Ray got his mother all to himself for a few hours. Lawrence didn’t like Halloween very much, either, but he allowed that Ray did and Mom insisted that she should take him out.

So, yes, Halloween was only hours away and he wanted it now.

Of course the hours crawled. But eventually they passed. Sometime later, much later according to Ray’s patience, he was allowed to run for home and get ready for trick or treating.

That was the plan, at least.

Ray took off from the school and made a beeline through the woods, heading for his neighborhood and planning to get home as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for Ray, the Beldam Woods were not always the nicest place to use as a short cut.

In very short order he was lost.

Within half an hour he was on the verge of tears, shivering in part because the weather was very cold and also because the woods were pretty darned scary at the best of times. The Beldam Woods were an ancient lot of trees, most of which had already been stripped of their leaves and all their colors. The trees were skeletal figures that loomed over his tiny body and creaked in the winds blowing from the north. There was a threat of winter weather come early and he knew that, too, because it was all they were talking about on the news the night before, and he’d have remembered it too, if he hadn’t been so determined to find the quickest way home for Halloween.

Seven years old, just the right age to forget all about things like safety until it’s exactly too late.

Ray wandered around and around, his feet kicking through the thick blanket of dried leaves as he got colder and colder. The air was dry, too, and he wanted something to drink. He also wanted to pee something fierce—that was one of Lawrence’s favorite terms, something fierce—but was afraid to get spotted breaking the rules. What if someone saw? What if someone told his mom? Trick or treating might get taken away and then what?

No. He had to hold it in. That was the only option.

Ray was on the verge of tears, cold and miserable and so desperate to go potty, when the stranger showed up. He was an old man, tall and lean and weathered. His skin was almost as wrinkly as the leaves on the ground and his hair, while long, was thin and wispy around his head.

He carried a small pumpkin in one hand, and walked with a cane. The old man looked at Ray for a moment, his face set in a dour expression of disapproval. Ray found himself desperate to disappear. If he could hide away, maybe the man would simply go away.

Instead the man continued to stare at him.

“Would you be ‘Raymond?’” the voice was as creaky as the trees and almost as cold as the air. Just hearing him speak was enough to make Ray shiver. Still, he was caught by the dichotomy of his mother’s rules: He was not to speak to strangers. He was also always supposed to be polite. The two orders did not work well together and Ray was forced to choose which to follow. He finally decided that since the man knew his name he must not be a complete stranger. There were several friends of his mother that he had met before when he was very, very young, and didn’t really remember. They always seemed to remember him and to be surprised that he had grown so much. Maybe then, the old man was one of those sorts. A non-stranger that he didn’t remember.

He answered, “Yes sir,” in a very small voice.

After another long moment of looking at him the man squatted until they were closer to the same height and looked Ray in the eyes. “Your mother is worried about you. You weren’t on the bus.”

“I tried to take a short cut.” He meant to explain more, but the tears started. A moment later he was crying like a little kid and the old man was suddenly holding him. He hugged hard, unable to stop the tears. And a few minutes later, all cried out, he looked on as the old man stood up.

“Come on then, Raymond. Let’s get you home to your mother.”

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.” It was a little late to point that out, but it was one thing to talk and another to actually go somewhere with a stranger. His mother might be even angrier and as it was, Halloween trick or treating might be taken away from him.

“My name is Mister Sticks. Your name is Raymond. We are no longer strangers.” The old man shifted the pumpkin to his other hand for a moment and then changed his mind. “Here. You hold this for me, won’t you? And then I can lead you home.”

The gourd was nearly perfect. It was just the right size for Ray’s hands, and the skin was a bright orange that was the color he always looked for when he eyed the pumpkins at the market. The same color as the one he’d picked last week and they’d carved just last night.

He took the pumpkin and nodded his head seriously. This was, of course, a serious display of trust. Ray could have dropped the thing, and then where would they be?

“Why didn’t you take the bus, Raymond?”

“Because I wanted to get home sooner. I wanted to see my mommy.”

The old man looked at him with one eyebrow raised. “You don’t see your mother often?”

“I do, but today is special. I get her all to myself.”

The old man nodded. “I have to share my mother, too.”

“You do?” He tried to do the math. The man was very old; his mother must be even older. Ray couldn’t begin to imagine how old the lady in question might be.

“Oh, yes.” Mister Sticks nodded his head. “With my brothers.”

“I have to share my mommy with Lawrence.” He couldn’t quite keep the bitterness from his voice.

“Is Lawrence your brother?”

“No. I don’t have any brothers. He’s my mommy’s boyfriend.”

“You sound disappointed. Is it Lawrence that makes you sad? Or not having a brother?”

He had to think about that. Maybe it was a little bit of both. Charlie at school had a big brother and liked to talk about him all the time. Eric at school had a little brother and was always talking about what his little brother did that was funny. Lawrence was never funny.

Mister Sticks smiled then and nodded knowingly. “You’d rather have a brother than Lawrence.”

Ray laughed. It was all he could think of to do. The man was right, but not completely.

“Or maybe you’d like to have your father back and have a little brother.” Mister Sticks, who had been leading him through the woods very calmly, suddenly stopped moving and looked down at Ray again, his old, blue eyes staring hard. “Your mommy could be with her husband, and you could have a little brother, someone to show how to be a big boy. Am I right? Is that what you’d like?”

Ray looked around, suddenly feeling guilty, though he had done nothing to make him feel that way. Maybe it was just knowing that someone could so easily understand his desires, even when he couldn’t figure out how to say them himself.

Finally he nodded his head. Guilt or not, it was true and his mother told him he shouldn’t lie.

The old man nodded his head. “I could make that happen, you know. I could bring your daddy back for your mommy, and they could give you a little brother, maybe a little sister. And you could spend more time with your mommy, too. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes. Yes I would.”

“What would you trade to have that, Raymond?” Mister Sticks was looking away again, like the answer didn’t really matter, but Ray wasn’t fooled. He knew the man was still listening. Ray was not silly or stupid or even a little slow. He knew exactly what was happening, even if he lacked the right words to fully understand and express it. This was a deal. He knew that, like when he traded his bologna sandwich to Deidre at lunch because Deirdre liked bologna more than she liked grilled cheese and grilled cheese was the best stuff ever as far as Ray was concerned.

“I don’t have anything to trade.” Ray sighed. A little brother would be neat. A daddy? That would be pretty cool, too, especially if it meant his mom never crying herself to sleep again.

“Don’t you?”

He thought hard as they walked. The woods looked like they were thinning, he could see the sun between the branches and that hadn’t happened since he got lost. And there was a thrill in his chest at the thought of getting home to see his mom. Still, there was unfinished business here, wasn’t there? What could he trade for a brother and a father? What would he be willing to trade?

“How about Lawrence?”

“What about him?”

Ray looked at Mister Sticks and swallowed. This was it. This was the bargain chance. “What about if I let you have Lawrence?”

“You’d let me have your mother’s boyfriend? What if she likes him?”

“Well, she’d have Daddy, right?”

“Well, yes, of course. But are you sure you want to trade? Once we agree, there’s no going back.”

“Yeah. Deal.” Ray smiled and held out his hand, and Mister Sticks took his hand and shook. The old man’s skin was dry and hot and almost as rough as the wood on the trees around them.

The leaves hissed and the wind roared and for a moment the old man’s face was wrong. He looked too weathered, his eyes and nose and mouth fading into the shadows until he almost looked like a jack-o-lantern.

And then all was well again.

Mister Sticks led the way and in only a couple of minutes they were free of the woods and walking up to the back yard of the house where Ray had lived his entire life.

Ray ran fast, heading for the front door of the house. He moved around the side of the place at high speed, because he knew for certain that he would be in trouble because he was so late already. He might have used the back door but his mommy always left that locked, just in case someone should try to sneak in.

And as he rounded the corner of the house he saw the school bus just coming up the road. His mother should have been outside and calling his name, but instead there was just the bus rumbling as it slowed down. The number 83 was clear on the side. It was his bus, not the one that came by later to drop off the older kids.

Ray looked behind him to see if Mister Sticks was there. It was always possible that the man could help him explain to his mother—but even as he thought that he knew that what had been said between him and Mister Sticks had to remain a secret.

Ray moved around to the front of the house exactly as his mother was opening the front door. She saw him and looked no further. The bus had stopped and kids were already piling out and that was enough of the equation to make sense to her.

Somehow he had gotten home in time, despite the old man telling him that his mother was calling for him. Ray frowned for a moment, puzzled, but then decided to merely be glad he was okay and that Halloween was not ruined.

Half an hour later he had changed into his costume—this year he was Captain America—and they were ready for the sun to set, the better to go trick or treating. Four other mothers came to the house and brought children the same age and even younger than Ray. The group would be going together, because, as his mom said “youneverknowwhosoutthere,” which as near as he could figure meant that there was less chance of getting hurt if you walked with other friends. He could have told her that all by himself, because she’d taught him as much years before.

House after house, with a group of kids who were all alien in their masks and oddly familiar as well. He knew it was Jay under the Darth Vader mask, but the voice and the face together made a wonderfully dizzying confusion ring in his head. That, too, was part of the fun. Of course the candy that was starting to make his bag feel heavy was a nice part of the night as well.

But this year was different. This year he saw a few grown ups in costumes as well. The strangest was the man with the pumpkin head. He knew the stories, of course.  Just last week at the library—look out for liberals!—Missus Sue had read the tale of old Hattie the witch and her three sons….

Ray’s skin crawled. He’d heard the term before but never expected to feel it for himself. His skin tried to slither away and hide, because the name of the old man he’d dealt with was Mister Sticks.

Mister Sticks, the oldest son of the old witch. Also known as the Pumpkin Man.

He spun in a circle, looking for the man with the jack-o-lantern head.

And the world spun madly with him as he tried to catch a breath, tried to find out where the giant shape with the pumpkin head and the old clothes had gone. He even wore an old Pilgrim’s hat with a wide brim, like all the old stories said.

But Momma said that the stories were all just fairy tales. Make believe, like ghosts on Halloween and witches….

Ray looked at his mother, where she was talking with a woman he knew, but couldn’t for the life of him remember by name. She was just Tory’s mom as far as he was concerned.

The two women kept speaking as he tried to raise his voice. And behind them he saw the man again, standing above them, on the branch of an old Oak tree that dominated the front yard of the Stack family’s house.

The man looked down, and held up one finger. He placed that finger over the glowing slash of a mouth that dominated his pumpkin face. His white hair was as thin as it had been when he was just a man, and it moved against the faint breeze.

The fires that burned inside of that face looked cold instead of warm, and Ray felt himself shiver.

He reached for his mommy, so very, very afraid.

And then he collapsed.

 ***

 Are you expecting to hear that I killed a little boy?

I didn’t. I have before and I likely will again, but I rather like Raymond. He was innocent and he wanted a lot of the same things I wanted when I was younger.

Mostly he wanted the attention of his mother, and to have his father close by.

The only thing in the way was Lawrence.

Getting rid of Lawrence was easy. You’d be surprised how many people are susceptible to fear. And the light I carry with me is an ember straight from Hell. Rest assured, I can be scary when the mood strikes me.

Lawrence died screaming.

Long before I answered to my current names, I was known as Jack and then Jack of the Lantern. To this day my visage is celebrated come Halloween. Through my incarnations I have learned a few tricks as it were.

One of my gifts in this world was granted by the boon the Devil himself offered me when he handed me the ember from Hell to guide my way through the afterlife. Hellfire can feel a soul, can burn the sin right out of a soul, no matter how innocent or corrupt.

Lawrence is gone. He will be remembered. He left his girlfriend with a child, you see, and she will raise that child, because she does not believe in coincidences, nor does she believe that she could ever give up a child for adoption. She is, in short, a good woman with a good heart. She is raising one child already. She will raise a second without giving it a moment’s thought. I know this, because I can see the intentions within her soul.

Lawrence would have made a good provider. He might even have made a good father, but he was not a good man. I know that, too. I saw it in his eyes when he was dying.

Now why would I care about that?

I don’t, not really, save in that I see something of myself in the eyes of a child who is currently recovering from a deep scare he received on Halloween night.

Even a little sin can make me a frightening sight. It’s a gift, I suppose.

Of course, that hardly makes me an innocent. I don’t judge anyone. I merely observe and from time to time I remember that I am a Harvest God. I will gladly offer prosperity in exchange for a sacrifice.

Witting or not, young Raymond offered me a sacrifice. I accepted it. In return, he receives a brother or sister that his mother is already carrying.

Next he gets his father back.

I wonder if his mother will scream when she sees what time has done to her dead husband, or if she will recognize him at all.

- END -

“Harvest Gods, Revisited” copyright (c) 2011 by James A. Moore. No authorized reproduction permitted

Related articles

• Halloween Guest Blog: Brian James Freeman (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)
• Halloween Guest Blog: Chet Williamson (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)

Here Chet discusses the genesis of his love for horror, his recent trip to Washington, and the darker things he took away from some of the more notable locations…

* * *

The Halloween Mind

by Chet Williamson

You can always tell when Halloween is coming around. There are the usual signs, of course – the change in color of the leaves, the bite of the autumn air, and now, in formerly temperate Pennsylvania, the first eight-inch snowstorm of the season, and what’s up with that? There are other indicators as well, more technological in nature. TV movie networks start running more horror films, Facebook friends post shots of Karloff, Lugosi, and Christopher Lee as their profile pics, and the classic monsters begin their annual reappearance in every media you can think of. Ah yes, Halloween is at hand.

But there are those of us who, in our way, celebrate Halloween every day, who have a Halloween mind all year round, and if you’re reading this particular blog on Kealan’s website, I’d hazard a guess that you, gentle reader, are one of those fortunate, haunted people. You, like I, are drawn to the darkness, to the creatures of the night, to the shadow of death that stalks each one of us from the moment we’re born.

We all come to that Halloween state of mind by different paths. For me, it started when I was about eight and heard edited (but not expurgated!) versions of the tales of Edgar Allan Poe told to me by Bob Hill, the teenage stock boy in the dank and winding cellar of my grandfather’s grocery store. Of course I sought out the originals, was fascinated by them, and then in 1960 or so, I bought from the newsstand the fifth issue of Uncle Forry Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland, and my fate was sealed forever. There on the cover was Basil Gogos’ interpretation of Bela Lugosi in 1932’s Island of Lost Souls (which I’m buying on Blu-Ray next Tuesday when the Criterion half-price sale hits Barnes and Noble), and inside were dozens of wonderful photographs of classic and not-so-classic monsters, ads for incredibly cheesy and horrific items, and the worst puns ever uttered – everything that most appeals to a twelve-year-old.

Around that time the Universal horror films had been released to TV, and I got my share from “Leroy,” the shock jock working Channel 55 in Harrisburg PA. The tamer films aired at 4:00 Saturday afternoons, and they saved the good ones – the Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolf Man, and Mummy series – for the 11:30 PM slot, which I begged my parents to let me watch (and often they did, bless them. And bless them too for taking me to see the first run of Psycho!)

From there I made my way to the horror paperback anthologies published primarily by Ballantine, where I first made the acquaintance of Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and others of the Weird Tales school, as well as the classic stories of M. R. James, Algernon Blackwood, and so many others. I lived, loved, and dreamed monsters. My mind was a Halloween mind, and when that holiday, second only to Christmas in popularity, came along, I reveled in it. This was the time when everyone thought like I did, for one precious day, at least.

Chet and the Buddy Holly Bus

And I still have a Halloween mind, and suppose I shall until the day I die, when I’ll finally learn the truth – or the fraud – about that dark mystery, death. On a recent visit to my son in Seattle, I found myself drawn to the darker elements of everything I saw. In Issaquah, where Colin lives, Laurie and I ate at the last Triple XXX Root Beer stand, a beautifully preserved example of a 1950s teenage, car geek hangout. But what really got my attention was the bus in which Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Richie Valens, among others, had made their last tour. After it broke down once too often, the three musicians took a private plane to their next destination, and we all know how that worked out. The bus seemed haunted, redolent of death, tragic with the sense of young, creative lives lost – at least to this particular Halloween mind.

The EMP Museum in Seattle, with its displays of vintage guitars, Jimi Hendrix memorabilia, and shrine to Nirvana, had an extra bonus for me with its “Can’t Look Away: The Lure of the Horror Film,” in which such items as Jack Torrance’s axe from The Shining, Freddy Kruger’s glove, original Frankenstein boots, and other such items were on display. Yet, fun as it was, most of these items struck me as displays for the explicit horror wannabes, and I kept perversely wishing that Kurt Cobain’s shotgun would have been on display in the Nirvana exhibit. Yeah, I know, too soon…

Mount Rainier

Even the natural glories of Washington State were no balm against the darkness. We had a wonderful hike around the base of Mount Rainier on a glorious day, but what I left the gift shop with was a book about the many attempted ascents on the peak, with chapter after chapter about the deaths of unlucky climbers, including photos of their frozen bodies and stories of how many had never been recovered. Along with the beauties of the mountain, I was now able to appreciate it as a giant cemetery, its crevasses and glaciers holding a multitude of frozen corpses. Such are the quirks and glories of the Halloween mind.

So when October 31^st comes around, we of the Halloween mind may rejoice that for one brief season, for one short day, nearly everyone sees the world as we see it every day. But we should also remember that when November comes those other people will put away their plastic pumpkins, wipe off the smidgens that remain of their once-a-year zombie makeup, and go back to their normal lives, leaving it up to those of us with Halloween minds to keep the darkness burning with its black flame, to recognize the creatures that walk beside us, and to be ever mindful of that most dreadful monster of all, the one that will take our hand after we celebrate our final Halloween, and lead us into the richest darkness of all.

* * *

Visit Chet Williamson at his website.

But Chet’s books at Crossroad Press or Amazon.com

Here, Simon reminisces about a particularly creepy churchyard from his youth. Be sure to watch the video (below), directed by Clark himself, for a walking tour of the location…

* * *

LET’S GET SCARED

Simon Clark

‘Let’s get scared.’

‘How?’

‘When it gets dark we’ll go to the cemetery. The old one at the church.’

‘Why do we want to get scared?’

‘It’s Halloween, that’s why.’

We were ten years old at the time. Getting scared on Halloween seemed like a brilliant idea. So, me and my friend, Tom, headed off to the medieval church. You can find some terrifically strange gravestones there. Just the perfect venue for two young boys who are eager for a Halloween adventure. You see, Badsworth Church* was routinely used by local kids when they were in the mood for something on the eerie side of frightening.

So as dusk fell we arrived at the church. With perfect timing a thick mist ghosted in from the surrounding fields to engulf the cemetery. To our delight we discovered the fog had become so thick that we couldn’t see each other if we were separated by just a dozen yards. What was even more brilliant (for a couple of ten year olds) was that the gloom and the mist made the tombstones resemble strange, motionless figures – as if the dead had risen from the earth and now stood silently in the dusk.

Perhaps waiting for two reckless adventurers to happen by.

Well, two reckless adventurers did happen by.

Tom and me.

We ran along the graveyard paths hooting out ghost sounds.

Dusk darkened into night.

The mist grew thicker. We could now barely see ten feet in front of us.

Our laughter began to sound forced. We decided – as the last of the daylight died – it would be a good idea to go home now. In fact, it would be a good idea to get right away from this forlorn field of the dead.

We hurried along one of the paths that led to the churchyard gate.

Suddenly, there was a clatter from behind us on the stone path. When we checked we found pieces of broken glass.

‘Someone chucked a jar at us,’ declared Tom.

‘What would they do that for?’ I asked.

‘To scare us.’

‘They didn’t have to do that, I’m already scared.’

My heart beat faster. Suddenly the cemetery seemed vast. The quicker we walked to the gate the less progress we made. It seemed as if the cemetery pathway had become uncannily elongated.

We headed through the mist and the darkness, determined to get out of that suddenly frightening realm.

By now, we could hardly see anything at all. So when the figure loomed out of the darkness we nearly ran into him. We stopped dead.

An old man turned to look at us. His eyes were almost colorless. In truth, they seemed as white as the mist.

‘Wait,’ he grunted. Then he pointed at a headstone. ‘What does it say there?’

Tom was a polite child. So he obediently read from the stone, ‘Alfred Kellett. Died 1^st November, 1936.’

The old man sighed. ‘That’s what I thought it said.’ He stared into the fog. ‘This cemetery is bigger than it looks. I can never find my way out.’

Tom pointed along the path. ‘That’s the way to the village.’

‘I’ll try,’ he grunted in such an unsettling, pain-stricken way. ‘I’ll try.’

When you’re ten, when you’ve reveled in the mist-swirling weirdness of an ancient cemetery, that’s when you’re prepared to believe the impossible. Right then, we believed that Tom had had been asked by the old gentleman to read what was written on his own tombstone. And now, the ghost was trying to find his way home.

‘Let’s get scared,’ Tom had suggested.

Well, in my book, we’d succeeded in achieving exactly that.

We fled from the graveyard. We ran all the way home. When we felt safe we started screaming. Of course, we were laughing and screaming at the same time, as if it had all been a big joke, and we weren’t really scared, were we?

Of course, with mature hindsight, I can just claim it was coincidence that a short-sighted gent asked Tom to read what was on the gravestone.

But, if all these years later, I walked into the same churchyard at dusk, and I found an old man staring at the gravestone, trying to read the name carved there, I might well turn round.

And I just might run as fast as I did when I was ten years old.

* * *

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

*If you’re feeling brave… if you can handle more eerie stuff, try ‘A Child’s Dominion’. This pint-sized horror movie features Badsworth Church’s atmospheric graveyard in ‘Let’s Get Scared’. Take a deep breath, clench your fists, and watch…

Simon Clark’s latest book is Blood & Grit 21, an e-collection of hard-hitting horror fiction, complete with photographs and an afterword that reveals the story behind the stories. See bloodandgrit.com

Related articles

• Halloween Guest Blog: Steve Rasnic Tem (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)
• Halloween Guest Blog: Michael Marshall Smith (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)
• Halloween Guest Blog: Brian James Freeman (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)
• Halloween Guest Blog: Rick Hautala (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)
• Halloween Guest Blog: Joe McKinney (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)
• Halloween Guest Blog: Harry Shannon (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)
• Halloween Guest Blog: Al Sarrantonio (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)
• Halloween Guest Blog: Lisa Morton (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)
• Halloween Guest Blog: Glen Krisch (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)

Here, Brian ponders one of the common worries associated with exercise: death, though not in the way you might expect…

* * *

RUNNING AT HALLOWEEN

Brian James Freeman

I’m pretty sure someone on the other side of my neighborhood is trying to kill me.

I don’t mean that too seriously, of course, but maybe just a little bit. Here’s the deal:

I like to run in the evening, but given when the sun sets these days, these runs are usually in the dark. No problem, I’ve been running in the dark for years without too many issues or incidents.

But then this time of year comes around: Halloween. I love Halloween. But it definitely makes running at a night a different experience.

The decorations go up everywhere, which means extra lights, which is actually kind of nice — even though they’re mostly orange and purple, which gets kind of trippy when you’re pushing yourself too hard to finish climbing a monster hill.

But Halloween decorations aren’t just a jack-o-lantern on the front step and a few fake tombstones and a pile of bones in the yard these days.

Some people are getting really elaborate with props. Some of these props even move.

I can dig that. I actually like it. When I can see what’s coming, that is.

There’s a blind curve on my run, in the darkest part of the neighborhood, and every night for the last week I’ve been caught off guard by the ten foot tall Grim Reaper that lunges out of the darkness as I pass by.

Holy crap, that thing is scary!

What’s even scarier is that the homeowner keeps MOVING it to different parts of the curve, and each night I think he must have turned the prop off, and then BOOM! There’s the grim reaper, leaping out of the darkness at me with his scythe!

And each night, once I’ve confirmed I’m not really having a heart attack, my imagination goes into overdrive and I start wondering… what if it’s the actual Grim Reaper next time? How will I know the difference until it’s too late?

So thanks Mr. Neighbor Pal for making Halloween so darn festive this year. If I don’t die, I’ll be sure to thank you.

Visit Brian James Freeman at his website, his blog, or via the author’s Facebook and Twitter pages. And to keep abreast of the latest developments at Brian’s publishing house, visit Lonely Road Books.

Related articles

• Halloween Guest Blog: Glen Krisch (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)
• Halloween Guest Blog: Al Sarrantonio (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)
• Halloween Guest Blog: Lisa Morton (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)

Here Steve talks a bit about that book and about the problem he perceives with much of modern horror…

* * *

WHISTLING PAST GRAVEYARDS

Whistling past graveyards: that’s what we do, those of us who write tales of horror.  It’s a reminder that yes indeed, there’s a graveyard there, but at the same time we offer an entertaining story about the fear, which might be seen as a way of dealing with the undeniable facts of mortality.

But it’s a delicate balance, and a contradictory sort of exercise, because this old idiom also suggests a kind of false optimism.  You’re playing around, whistling, despite the fact that there are important issues that need to be attended to.  Whistle too loudly, and you might forget the graveyard is even there.  Sometimes when I read horror, or watch horror films, I’m not convinced that the elaborately imagined “horrors” reflect the true fears/anxieties of anyone, not even of the writer who created the piece.  Some horror entertainment seems so far removed from the issues which really trouble us they seem to be encouraging us to check out completely, to ignore the difficult realities right in front of us, and to ignore those disturbing events in our dreams.  Some think that’s a positive thing, and sometimes it is.  We all could use a vacation.

But that doesn’t make the deadline go away.

I worked on my most recent novel, Deadfall Hotel (hardback from Centipede Press, paperback to come from Solaris next May) for over 20 years.  Not continuously, mind you, I’m not that slow, but off and on, revisiting the story regularly as I acquired new insights.  I’m glad I finished it.  I’m likely to leave other things unfinished when I go.  But at least not this one.

The dark obsessions of a culture become like a stream in the imagination, one that any of us can dip into from time to time, and interpret as we will.  Sometimes that stream slows, and pools, and at one of those locations I posit that the Deadfall Hotel has been built.  It’s a remote establishment where the guests are not quite like you and me, where nightmares seek a place of sanctuary.

The hotel takes its name from the grove. Those who stay there often complain of the trees in their dreams – long, snake-like, involved limbs they imagine must mirror the tree’s root system. Limbs you feel compelled to follow, in and out of shadowed hollows where branches disappear, where nests, newly inhabited or ancient and abandoned, are hidden. In parts of these trees the branches are so interlocked – within individual trees and among members of a group – that the strongest wind will not free them.

Night comes early, the hotel’s architecture is improbable, and you quickly become disoriented if you are not of the right frame of mind, or species.

When I began Deadfall Hotel I was pretty sure it would be the last time I would use most of the traditional horror tropes (the vampire, the werewolf, the haunted house) in my fiction.  At times I even thought this book would be my farewell to horror.  Even back in the eighties when I started this project these figures seemed pretty exhausted of any immediate significance for the contemporary reader.  And they were emblematic of the problem I mentioned earlier—they seemed all too much whistle, and not enough graveyard.  But as I visited each one of them, and experienced the hunger, and the anger, the frenzy, and the loneliness they represented, I began to believe again in their validity.  I knew I would use them again in stories, but hopefully with some selectivity.  My story “Grandfather Wolf” in John Skipp’s Werewolves and Shapeshifters anthology is a recent example.

So now this book is out, and it’s Halloween season, and the stores are full of their orange and black decorations and costume displays.  And again I’m thinking about whistling past graveyards.  People are worried about jobs, and terrorists, and health care, and if they’re going to be able to afford their retirement, and if they’re going to be well enough to enjoy their retirement, and whether people of different beliefs are ever going to be able to work together anymore, and if there is any real safety, anywhere.  So there’s also a lot of vigorous whistling happening right now.

In Deadfall Hotel there are a number of metaphors for horror fiction.  There’s the hotel itself, of course, and the old-fashioned entertainment of the Phantasmagoria, and the funhouse, with its house of mirrors inside.  Halloween is very much the funhouse, and some people (and ironically, my viewpoint character Richard is one of them) have no patience for it, or creepy anything, or “this idea that terror constituted entertainment.”  But he remembers what his wife (dead before the novel begins) used to tell him, “how important it was sometimes not to look away.”

And I think about how ironic it is that sometimes creating and reading some horror fiction can actually become an act of looking away.  In Deadfall I tried to use the traditional tropes of horror fiction in a manner that did not look away.  It’s up to others to decide if I succeeded or not.

- Steve Tem, October 2011

Penumbra: The Melanie Tem & Steve Rasnic Tem Website

Related articles

• Centipede Press Announces DEADFALL HOTEL by Steve Rasnic Tem. (miskatonicbooks.wordpress.com)

Related articles

• KIN Gets A Release Date (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)
• KIN Reviews (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)
• KIN Now Available for Preorder (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)
• Review: ‘Kin’ by Kealan Patrick Burke (via October Country) (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)

However, as a longtime fan of Dexter, and having been impressed–for the most part–by the first season of The Walking Dead, and with American Horror Story new to cable, I felt, given my hectic schedule, that it was time to become a slave to the small screen once more.

So the DVR has returned, and for the most part, I’m glad.

The past few weeks have seen the premieres of all three of the aforementioned shows, and below you’ll find my impressions of them, excluding another show I’m very much enjoying, the terrorist-drama, Homeland, because while it could be argued that it’s as much a horror show as the others, it nevertheless feels out of place here.

First up, Dexter. As I write this, we’re two episodes in and both have been equally good. The decision to introduce the religious/spiritual element in this season was a great one, as it seems a natural progression for a serial killer who believes his purpose is a noble one, despite his compulsions coming to him courtesy of an inner darkness. It’s not something that has been touched on so far, and will help avoid the sense of sameness that was beginning to creep into the series. Dexter is not a man who has faith in anything but himself, so when confronted with questions theological, he has no response. His natural curiosity, however, demands he learn more, if only to aid him in deciphering the mystery of who and what he is.

And of course, how better to kick off this journey than by introducing a pair of serial killers whose crimes appear to be spiritually motivated. The casting of Colin Hanks (a veritable clone of his famous father) and Edward James Olmos as the “Big Bads” of the season, was inspired. A more disparate pairing you’d be hard-pressed to find, but they work well onscreen, with Olmos taking the role of father figure/cult leader to Hanks’ quiet, uncertain, but eager acolyte. Their ultimate goal is unclear so far, though it seems they believe themselves nothing short of messengers, or perhaps harbingers, of the apocalypse. I am intrigued to see what Dexter learns as he pursues them, and what they believe they have to teach the world.

The final shot of the second episode–a very public reveal of their latest crime–is nothing less than horrific.

In keeping with the apocalyptic theme, the season premiere of The Walking Dead aired on AMC on Sunday night, and after the ratings monster that was the first season, expectations were high. After the ousting of showrunner Frank Darabont–a mistake no matter which way you look at it–even the show’s detractors probably tuned in to see if their claims that the show was going to self-destruct were justified. There’s no evidence that that’s the case, though it’s too early to tell, as apparently Darabont wrote much of the first episode. Let’s not forget though, that creator Robert Kirkman is still on board, and as much as I’m sad that Darabont is no longer involved, one director/co-creator does not a show make. It might indeed suffer in his absence as the show goes on, but at it’s heart, The Walking Dead is the story of a band of survivors struggling to make their way to safety in the wake of a zombie plague. There is a lot that can be done with such a simple premise, if those at the wheel remember that it is the characters who drive it and not endless scenes of zombie-splatter and the mauling of stock-standard humans, something Darabont clearly knew. If the balance developed by Kirkman and Darabont is mantained, I see no reason why TWD couldn’t have a very long and successful run.

Finally, to my least favorite of the shows, American Horror Story. To be fair, it hasn’t been on long enough for me to decide whether or not I’ll actually like it, but thus far, it’s an odd creature. You probably already know the story. It’s hardly different from any other haunted house film made over the past sixty years: A dysfunctional family moves into a house with a bad history and soon weird things start to happen.

There you go.

We’re two episodes in, and while the second episode was a marginal improvement on the first, there are still some things that bother me about the show, namely the familiarity of it all. Homage is one thing, retread is another, and, much like my issues with the recent remake of The Thing, I can’t abide lazy screenwriting, or the insulting assumption that painting over a classic and waving it in our faces will be enough to sate us. In other words, thus far I’ve seen nothing new, and the creators’ claims of “a scare a minute” have yet to bear fruit. And while I like the Lynchian weirdness of it all, and absolutely adore Jessica Lange’s character–who positively chews the scenery as if it were made by Wrigley’s, and may be the only reason I’m still watching it, I’m still waiting for the “a-ha!” moment where I’m finally convinced the writers have a unique avenue to explore. Because right now it looks like a rather dull mixture of every haunted house movie ever made (particularly The Shining and Rose Red), and while this may be startlingly scary and new for people to whom horror is usually a dirty word, the rest of us demand a lot more than hoary old ghosts carelessly dressed in modern costumes and then filmed with a camera attached to a paint-mixer. I’ll keep watching for now, in the hope that they have something up their sleeve that hooks me, but I’m not hopeful. In the meantime, I’ll keep tuning in to watch Jessica Lange vamp her deliciously insidious way through the cardboard cutout cast.

Push the envelope. Give us something original, and we’ll love you for it. Subject us to weekly reruns of The Amityville Horror by way of Twin Peaks, however, and you’ll lose all but those who find comfort in the security blanket of familiarity.

So what are your verdicts on these shows? Are there any shows I’m missing that I should add to the viewing list (please omit such insipid fare as True Blood and The Vampire Diaries, because you’d have to drag me naked and screaming over a field of broken glass before I’d agree to be subjected to them)?