I’ve been asked,

where do I get the ideas  for my stories

where do I dig up the weird things that inspire me to write

and today I thought I would show you…

that I am inspired by the things

I see every single day

 

Photo A.M. Moscoso

Photo: A.M. Moscoso

Photo A.M. Moscoso

Photo A.M. Moscoso

Photo A.M. Moscoso

Medical Ed-Photo By A.M. Moscoso

 The Odd

Shrunken yes it's real Torso by: A.M. Moscoso

 

The Macabre

Welcome to my world!

 If you’ve spent a lot of  time in Funeral Homes

and Cemeteries

the obvious doesn’t affect you.

Shadows over tombstones,

crows strolling across graves

and mourners standing over old graves with the lettering worn away

are as common place in your day

as getting stuck in traffic or not being able to find your keys.

It’s the little things, the sublte things

that you see

when you wake up in the middle of the

night.

 

Photo: A.M. Moscoso

Photo: A.M. Moscoso

 

Photo: A.M. Moscoso

 

Photo: A.M. Moscoso

 

Photo A.M. Moscoso

 

Photo: A.M. Moscoso

 

Photo: a.m. moscoso's grandfather's headstone

 

Photo: A.M. Moscoso

 

photos taken

May 16, 2009

Evergreen Washelli

Seattle Washington

Every Saturday Gavin Valentine goes to the fifth door down from his house and buys something called a Cinnamon Splash and  he walks back home, slowly with the ice cold drink in his hand.

He does that even on the days it snows.

Just before he gets home he sets his ice cold drink on a bench and watches for hours at a time to see who will move his Cinnamon Splash with the whipcream topping and the dusting of white chocolate curls from it’s place on the bench.

Sometimes he worries about his little cup of cinnamon and whipcream- will it be tossed behind the bench into the bushes, which has become a graveyard of sorts for Gavin Valentine’s plastic cups with the gold stars stamped along their rims? Will it end up in the trash can? Under the wheels of a bus or a fast moving car?

He wonders for hours and hours at a time  five doors down from the shop that sells him his Cinnamon Splash.

But when the weather is nice, Gavin sits on the steps across the street from the bench, on the steps of a Church with his hands clenched together and watches his cup and wonders what cruel fate it will meet on that particular day.

It can’t be easy, Gavin always think to himself, to be a little cup of something sweet and fluffy and defenseless-  just sitting there as the world goes by you- and when it does stop  it’s pretty much a fact that something awful is going to happen to you.

It just wasn’t fair.

So on one nice warm Saturday Gavin went five doors down and bought his drink, he walked back up the street and this time he left his cup on the steps of the church across the street and he took the seat on the bench and waited.

People walked by, they jogged by, they rode by on scooters and in cars and some even glided by on shoes with little wheels embedded in their soles.

And hours and hours later a man and a woman stopped right in front of Gavin and started to talk. Their backsides inches away from Gavin’s face-which made him a little angry because it’s not like there was not a lot of sidewalk to stand on.

Then the woman looked up and around and then she looked down and asked Gavin- without really seeing him- if the buses stopped here on Saturdays and Gavin said yes, but he wasn’t sure exactly which ones did.

” Pretty useless, aren’t you? ” the man said impatiently.

There was a little breeze as the cars started to fly- like they always did at that time of day- and as they did Gavin could hear the plastic cups in the bushes behind him rattling together like a handful of  small and nameless bones.

 Gavin Valentine stood up as the man and woman turned away from him and just as they   looked up the street and started to talk about finding a cab-Gavin reached out

and pushed them off of the curb.

 

Sometimes it’s not a word that calls out to us and sends us down roads and paths and into dark forests.

Sometimes

it’s a sign

I was driving through a town last summer- it was somewhere in the Midwest when I went through a town that barely, hardly, almost had no pulse.

Most of the stores were closed up and had boards over their windows- as did the houses and the churches ( there was one on each corner- I swear to God that’s true ).

But hello- what is this I see just before I leave the dieing town?

A Funeral Home.

Darnell and Sons.

It was boarded up too- and the front doors were chained (!) shut.

Chained Shut.

Not nailed shut, not boarded up with giant sheets of plywood but …

Chained Shut.

I know there’s a million reasons to make sure no one busts into an empty Funeral Home.

Still.

I was curious.

Why Chained Shut.

So I called ahead and told my husband I was going to get some ’spooky’ camera shots for my blog and that I would be a little late and then I got out of my car in front of Darnell and sons and walked around to the back where the doors had not been chained shut or boarded up but

 the doors had been completely removed and entrance way had been bricked up.

Why.

This just keeps getting better and better.

So there I was halfway to my car and halfway to the chained door and across the street was a boarded up Ice Cream Shop called Bevy-Anne’s.

In her better days Bevy-Anne’s must have been a pretty place to get a Soda or an Ice Cream Float. Now it was just empty and dusty and there were cracks all around her foundation.

In fact.

I looked up and down the street, there were cracks in front of and all around every single boarded up building for as far as I could see.

Except for Darnell and Sons.

There was one deep gouge in the pavement that ran from Darnell’s front door- the one that had been chained shut- and that crack in the cement turned into many more that ran up and down that street.

Instead of going to my car ( of course ) I walk up to the door with it’s chain and reached for the lock

and there inside of the lock

is the key.

It’s right there in the padlock where anyone can walk up and turn it and then unwrap the chain from around the door handles and then anyone could open those doors and either step aside or step inside

and then what I wondered?

I looked at the lock and  at the cracks in the road and the boarded up buildings and houses and decided…

I liked not knowing for sure.

I let the lock fall out of my hand and as it banged against the door I heard a little thump coming from the other side.

So I got into my car and I left that little town in the Midwest, the one that barely  had a pulse, and as I drove away I saw a giant billboard at the side of the road. Despite the fact most of  what had been painted on it  had been worn away by years of rain and ice and snow and heat you could still see the image of a cow in a bonnet and there was a balloon coming from it’s mouth and inside of that balloon there was a message.

It said.

See you soon!

 

In the woods of old poetry
I find lost moments of clarity,
fragments of unabashed emotion.

New lightfall on the thicket
obscures the darkness of self-destruction;
mitigates what only I remember.

Clean verse and clean hands:
meticulously sculpted stories
contain the broken nut of my shell.

Bristlecone-memory is a curse
and a companion.  Its branches
scrape the shadows without compassion.

With compass and cutlass
I inch through the forest:
leaves whisper ugliness and truth in one breath.

Now I gust past rage to finger twigs of wit,
lilt through old poems like prayer:
barely spoken, barely there.

Prostrate in duff, I crack apart the pages,
cast each to the fire as a voice to the wind –
watch the flames finally have their way.

© 2009 Jade Leone Blackwater

*     *     *     *     *

Thanks to Anita Marie Moscoso for once again generously sharing her audience here at Anita’s Owl Creek Bridge.  I always welcome constructive feedback on my writing.  To learn more about my work, or to contact me via email, please visit me at Brainripples.

 

“ Just get the suntan lotion and be quick about it. “ Lilly Thorn told herself “ just go into the store, back to shelf where they have probably  kept the Personal Care and Beauty aides in the same place for the last 40 years and go. You don’t even have to be nice to the clerks because they don’t know you, they can’t know you, not only are you not 6 years old anymore you are just old, all those people who used to work there are either dead or moved on to work in other Mom and Pop Grocery stores by now and if they are still the same people working there they are not going to recognize you.

 

- so just get the Suntan Lotion and go.”

 

So, what kind of person forgets to buy Suntan Lotion  when they’re packing for two weeks in Hawaii ?

 

A person like Lilly Thorn-that’s who- and for that stupid oversight she guessed she deserved to have to make a pit stop on the way to the airport to pick up Suntan Lotion at a corner Grocery Store where she had the misfortune of peeing on the floor when she was six years old.

 

If you don’t think it could have gotten worse for Lilly after doing something like that in front of her friends and neighbors your’re wrong.

 

The worst part of the Pee Incident came after an angry phone call from the store’s owner. Mrs. Lee. Not only did  she bar Lilly from the store for life in that angry phone call to Lilly’s Mom, she also demanded that Lilly come to the store and get on her hands and knees and scrub the floor herself.

 

Lilly’s mom made her do it and Mrs. Lee watched.

 

The thing of it is, nobody ever asked Lilly why she peed on the floor and she wished they had because then maybe the ghost that Lilly met at the Pink Store that day wouldn’t have worked it’s way into her head where it has lived now for over 40 years.

 

When Lilly and her family lived up the street from Lake William all of the kids in the Neighborhood used to go to the Pink Store and buy the penny candies. If you had a little more money  you could also buy candy bars and comic books or in Lilly’s little candy tarts called “Sweet Sprees “that came in packages with pictures of people sailing in boats or walking on beaches or hiking on mountain trails.

 

The candies were hard and always tasted slightly dusty but the pictures were pretty and Lilly used to collect them and used them for posters in her Doll House.

 

One day, after school Lilly and her friends went into the Pink Store, which back in Lilly’s Grandma’s day used to be a Speakeasy called 32 Pinkerman (the building number and street address, back then places like the Pinkerman didn’t have real names-sort of like the shady characters that owned and ran them.) when she looked over at her friend Domino and asked, “Hey that’s my Grandma’s favorite song.”

 

“What?” Domino asked as she started to choose her candy from the baskets on the shelf.

 

“That song- “Lilly pointed up “my Grandma sings it all of the time.”

 

Domino shrugged and went back to her baskets, she didn’t hear anything and she didn’t bother to say anything because when your Mom was feeling generous and gave you 50 cents to spend on candy- choosing fifty pieces of penny candy took all of your concentration.

 

Especially if you weren’t exactly proficient at counting to fifty yet.

 

So as Domino counted Lilly could hear the music get a little louder and then the air started to smell like Lilly’s Mom and Dad’s house around the holidays (only there wasn’t the smell of Christmas Trees or roasting turkey woven into the mix) and then someone walked by (though she would always think of it as through ) her and Lilly looked up into the face of a man with a black eye.

 

He was talking to someone standing in back of her and too afraid to turn around Lilly kept looking up and the man with the black eye was holding a black bag up and saying,

 

“I’m telling you I never opened it, I went to Greene’s like always and made the pickup. I never open these things, you know that Ben. Come on Ben put that thing down. You gotta believe me Ben I’d never cross you. I’d never cross anybody. You know that”

 

When Lilly looked around the store was gone and the candy was gone and so was Domino and there was Lilly at 32 Pinkerton, six years old and watching a man beg for his life.

 

“Ben, please …” Lilly saw an arm over the top of her head and she saw something in it’s hand and she saw the gun pressed against the man’s forehead. “ This isn’t right, it’s not-“

 

There was a bang and Lilly watched the man with the black eye snap his head back and then his head slumped to the side and then she watched him fall to the floor.

When she looked up again everyone in the store was watching her pee all over herself.

 

 

After that Lilly went through her life always feeling that someone was standing just behind her, someone faceless and monstrous, somebody who could make a grown man cry and then shoot him in the head and then haunt the only witness to the murder- a six year old girl at least 50 years after it committed it’s crime- for the rest of her life.

 

Trips to Hawaii ? Her Wedding Day? Her Divorce Day?  When she buried her only child who died when he was only 12 after being knocked off his bike by a car and could have survived if only one of the dozens of cars that day that drove by him had stopped to ask if he need help.

 

On all of those days Lilly was never really there because part of Lilly was still at The

Pink Store and the part that was here was thinking about and feeling that dark soundless thing behind her.

 

 

She guessed then it was normal that on the day she went into the Pink Store to expect she wouldn’t be going into it alone.

 

It was funny then how alone she did feel as she pushed the door open and the Pink Store-, which had been outfitted with new shelves and stainless steel coolers and even bigger windows.

 

She walked –

 no she ran by the aisles where the candy and comic books and spin racks where the paperback books used to be-

 and when she got to the back of the store she got lost.

 

Everything was different- The Pink Store wasn’t a grocery store anymore, it was more like a walk in refrigerator lined with coolers full of beer and energy drinks and frost covered boxes of pizzas.

 

The shelves in the middle of the store were shorter now, which didn’t matter because there was nothing but cases of beer and more energy drinks waiting to go into the coolers and as far as personal care products- unless you counted can openers cans of soup with faded labels and packages of cookies and bread and peanut butter that in all likelihood would be consumed or used by one person there wasn’t a personal care section.

 

Stupid, Lilly thought to herself, why didn’t I just buy the lotion at the airport or in Hawaii? Why do I always do these dumb things and then she knew, as she had always known that Lilly was never really all there.

 

As she turned over the many, many ways she could screw things up she heard her Grandmother’s favorite song and instead of looking up into the face of the Man with the black eye she found herself looking into the face of a teenager with a black eye and behind her she could feel-

 

It was going to say something to her, after all these years of making her less without actually saying a word to her it was going to speak and it said…

 

“ Let’s go.”

 

“What.” Lilly felt something she hadn’t felt in years, if ever.

 

It was rage.

 

That was it? Lilly’s brain screamed in her skull, after all of these years of saying nothing by making me afraid by just standing there it says…”

 

“Let’s go…”

 

Lilly turned around and he was a man, just a ghost of a man with a gun still clenched in his hand.

 

“I’ve spent my entire life scared of a man who shoots unarmed boys and haunts little girls? And I let you ruin my life?  Are you serious? God. You don’t even look like a killer; you look like my fourth grade teacher. What was I thinking?”

 

Lilly wasn’t finished talking.

 

  “ Hey, here’s a thought.  No. We aren’t going anywhere. I’m going though…and so is he.” She pointed to the boy. “ You. You stay here. “ She put her face close to his and said “ Coward.”

 

And as he became less Lilly became more and on her way out the door she fought off the malicious urge to pee on the floor.

 

Instead she grabbed a gritty bottle of suntan lotion jammed between some cans of cat food that went off of the market  six years ago, put it into her purse without paying…

 

And then she went to Hawaii.

 

“Mark Of The Penny Snatchers”

is

dedicated to my husband

Luis

December 25, 2008

and to his friends

from

the

Class of 68

Dubuque, Iowa

who inspired this tale.

Photo By:dfmead

” So you finally get to go on vacation, ” Chesa Appleway’s friend said to her at lunch. ” I can’t believe it. You on vacation. So. Where are you guys going?”

” To Seattle. ” Chesa said into her plate of Chilli-Fries.

” Well. That sounds nice ” Vicky said wondering why Chesa looked like she was going to Seattle for a funeral as opposed to Seattle which was at least six  States  away from work. ” Is it for a special occasion or …” Vicky snuck another look at the expression on Chesa’s face and thought- God, it has to be bad. but maybe it wasn’t so she asked, ”I know you’re going to see that volcano- Mount Helen, right?”

” Mount Helen…geeze Vic is that all  you ever think about? It’s called Mount Saint Helens and we won’t be doing anything fun like walking up and down the side of a live volcano on this trip.”

” Oh no. ” Vicky could have pinched herself for being so dumb, of course it was for a Funeral or something like that- Chesa and Norbert never took vacations – Chesa and Norbert owned the biggest, the most well known Coffin making company in the United States. Those two were always working and if they weren’t working they were thinking about working.

” So why the trip? ” Vicky asked quietly, gently.

” It’s Norbert’s 40 year High-school Reunion.”

Both women looked at each other for a minute and then burst into tears.

” Oh God. I’m sorry Chesa. ” Vicky gave her friend’s sagging shoulders a hug. ” I am so sorry.”

 

Later, Chesa had to admit that the four days in Seattle weren’t her worst days, maybe not the best but they were far from being the worst.

Most of Norbert’s classmates enjoyed telling her stories about the Norbert they used to know and in turn they seemed happy to hear Chesa’s stories which more or less confirmed that Norbert  was indeed still Norbert.

Norbert still liked to read History books for fun, he still sang in a rock band on the weekends and he still drove to slow on the freeways- which meant he still got pulled over a lot because nothing looks more suspicious to a Cop then a sports car going to slow on a practically empty road.

And the one thing you could count on was that the roads Norbert drove on were going to empty because Norbert hated to drive in heavy traffic.

” Good old Norbert ” they said separately and together ” he’s still the same good old Norbert. “

So it was the night of dinner / dance down at waterfront when Chesa, Norbert and some of his friends stopped into a tourist shop that featured a Mummy, a collection of shrunken heads and a machine that flattened pennies that Chesa really did learn something new about Norbert- something that she never thought he would do.

Norbert was a member of a secret club.

 Chesa learned about the Club just after she and Norbert and some of his friends were all looking at the Shrunken Heads collection together. Chesa moved down to take a look at a two headed calf  and when she turned around a few minutes later she saw Norbert, Mark, Sean, Tony and Darren standing there in front of the Penny Flattening  Machine looking slightly embarrassed and a little guilty.

Norbert said, ” well if we had used this thing it would have saved us a lot of trouble.”

” What do you mean? ” Chesa asked.

” I mean, ” Norbert held his right hand up ” I could have been a Piano player AND a singer.

” What do pennies have to do with you not having the tops of two of your fingers?”

Darren looked around and said almost in a whisper, ” we were part of a secret Society called  ‘The Penny Snatchers’ “

” You lost your fingers stealing pennies Norbert ? Good. That was stupid. If you were going to steal money you should have at least gone for nickles. Maybe even…dimes.”

” No- ” Sean took her by her elbow and leaned down and whispered into her ear, ” we used to go down to the tracks on King Street and put pennies under the trains wheels while the trains were parked and right after they flattened them we’d snatch them off the tracks before the next set of wheels came along.”

” That.Is.The. Dumbest. Thing. That. Anyone.Has. Ever. Done.”

” Yeah. Well, we were kids. We were eight years old when we started  The Club. We cared more about that then being in the Boy Scouts even” Darren said as he started to go through the change in his pocket.

” Why on Earth did you do that?”

“  For the dare” Norbert said defensively “and we collected flattened pennies. Those things were valuable.”

“ Invaluable ” The Penny Snatchers said all at once.

And then they heartily agreed at the tops of their  lungs with each other and just in time remembered to lower their voices. Fifty years may have gone by since the first official meeting of the Penny Snatchers, but from the looks on their faces it could have been two hours ago.

Chesa rolled her eyes upwards at the comments that followed about bravery it took to be a Penny Snatcher and the cool comics and candy you could trade your flattened pennies for. And as Chesa looked down and considered what to say to that she noticed that Norbert wasn’t the only one of the Penny Snatchers with missing fingers.

She looked up almost in shock.

” Whose stupid idea was this penny snatching thing? “

Mark raised his hand and smiled. “Guilty.”

Norbert and the other guys – who had indeed bought some flattened pennies from the Machine started to walk towards the front of the store.

Chesa and Mark were left standing alone by the Penny Flattening Machine and a shelf full of soaps set with scorpions and leeches- plastic ones Chesa guessed.

” For real, this was all about collecting flattened pennies?” Chesa demanded.

 Mark held his hands up in mock self defense and Chesa saw he still had all of  his fingers still attached to his hand ” I wasn’t there to collect pennies.”

 

Photo By:matildaben

 

Photo:art-e-zine.co.uk

Trixie was always late-

 

her family thought she had a mental deficiency because not only was she always late she never learned to tell time very well from clocks with faces. Even when those were replaced by digital clocks it still didn’t make a difference because Trixie still found herself chasing after buses or coughing up dust from the trains as they sped by without her to a place she was probably supposed to be an hour or two before.

 

Trixie always burned the food she cooked, her clothes were always damp or ruined when she took them out of her dryer and she studied the Piano faithfully for years and practiced but it didn’t matter because no matter how hard she worked her timing was always off.

 

“Oh Trixie “they would say “typical Trixie, you have to pay more attention to the time.”

 

“Why should I? “She would say “It looks to me like it already has enough people paying attention to it. I doubt it even misses me…for a minute” and then she would fall over laughing.

 

And then one day after a week that involved yet another late date with her fiance’ Barney, Trixie made her way to her sister’s house.

 Her sister Evie was in her sewing room unpacking a beautiful dress from a box. As she held it up she told Trixie, “ I was going to wear this myself, you know, it was supposed to be for my wedding…but being that I’m not going to be getting married anytime soon, it’s for you Trixie.”

 

“Wow Evie, it’s … are you sure you want to do that?”

 

“All I can say Trixie, is that you better not mess this up and show up late. How would that look? “

 

Trixie shrugged and said, “Well, it sure freak the guests out, that’s for sure.”

 

During that entire week Trixie stayed as close to her family’s home as possible and as the food and flowers started to arrive her Mother arranged for places for the long distance guests to stay over.

 

Trixie didn’t dare step foot away from the house, she stayed as close to home and her sister as possible.

 

“All you have to do is show up on time Trixie- everyone else will do all of the work. I can’t believe this is happening to you first. I always thought it would be me. I’m older after all.”

 

“Yeah, well, no offense but I feel the same way Evie. But when it happens you sort of have to go with it, you know?”

 

Evie just busied herself with the final touches on the back of the dress and she told Trixie, “You can have the veil to…”

 

“I hate those things. “

 

“I know veils aren’t your thing, but for this one time…”

 

Trixie touched her cheek and said, “Okay, it’s only going to be this one time. I guess I can handle it.”

 

And then on the big day, just as the guests were starting to arrive at the church and her fiancé was standing nervously in the Vestibule with her Father who kept walking into the vases full of flowers Trixie who had kept her promise to not put herself in a position to be late and had stayed close to home looked up from her Mother’s kitchen table and saw what the clock and said.

 

“ Oh No.”

 

So Trixie ran the four blocks to the Church and she breezed by her guests who were about to be seated.

 

 Trixie found her Sister sitting up front- and when the Organist saw her she nearly fell off of her stool when she saw Trixie.

 

Evie’s  arms were folded across her chest and her jaw was clenched so tight that she had to put her fingers to the side of her face to pop them apart.

 “ I’m sorry.”

 

  “Late for your own funeral…Typical!”

 

Evie turned and saw that Trixie was still wearing the clothes, torn and ruined and bloodied from four days ago when the Cab Trixie had taken to meet her fiance for dinner ran that red light and Trixie had been thrown from the car, head first, into a telephone pole.

 

“ Typical Trixie.” Evie said “ When will you learn to pay more attention to the time?”

Photo By: Kevin Rosseel

Years and years ago something very bad happened in a little house on a corner of a street called Litman Avenue South.

The house was just a house- built mostly of wood because back in the day Seattle was a logging town- and the glass windows weren’t the sort of windows that opened which meant the little white house with the wide doors and very big basement always smelled like flowers, even after everyone was gone and the house was full of dust because the little house on Litman Street was a Funeral Home.

It had never been used for anything else, two men  Conry Kelsev and Semple George built the house themselves and when they were finished they opened for business almost a week later and two weeks after that Semple George and his new wife the former Herma Dawn Bishop moved in.

Conry met Herma Dawn for the first time in the kitchen of the Home where she was making a pie. She had a streak of flour across her forehead and she was whistling which was something Conry couldn’t say he ever heard a lot of women doing- mostly they sang he thought.

” So it doesn’t bother her, ” Conry asked Semple as they left the kitchen for the basement ” having those bodies downstairs and such. “

” Not a bit ” Semple said with a smile ” she says she really feels at home here.”

And it was right then, at that very second Conry knew something bad was starting to happen in that house.

Conry and Semple had been friends all of their lives, and the only time they were apart was for the six years Semple had moved to the Midwest to take over the family business, which was a funeral home home in Iowa.

By the time Semple came back, Conry- who was a carpenter by trade had decided to spend the summers out in Iowa making caskets was already doing more work in the Funeral Parlors around town- decided it wasn’t such a bad line of work and readily agreed to open a Home right there in Seattle.

However, work was work and Conry knew for a fact that he would never be able to live in the place he worked, especially if dead bodies were involved.

So when Conry was done for the day, he went home two miles away and if for any reason he had to go down into the basement of the house on Litman Street after dark he was quick about it because he was sure that after dark the dead and the living had no business being around each other.

Conry turned out to be right.

The true story about the infamous Kelsev And George Funeral Home, and the story that led to a group of people who wanted to turn an old buidling into a dance club with a gothic theme ( what could be more perfect then a Goth Club in a real Morgue? ) strays from the Reality Street to Fiction Ave- starts right here.

One night Conry got called out to the O’Hara’s place on the bluffs, Mrs O’Hara had lost her second child as she did the her two others to burns from a fire that her children had been in over the weekend.

The last child to die was the youngest and Conry carried the little girl, who’s hair had been burned away ( she had always kept it braided he remembered and someone had tied a silk bow around her skinless forehead ) wrapped in a blanket carefully against his chest down to the basement and he nearly dropped her when he pushed the door open and heard voices coming from below.

He called himself a fool when he realized he recognized the voice as Herma Lee’s and he guessed as he made his way down the steps she was talking to Semple.

Only the voice that answered Herma Lee’s wasn’t Semple’s voice it- was a child’s voice and by the time Conry got into the basement he realized that there were two children down there with Herma Lee.

The children down there with Herma Dawn were Darlene and Violet- Darlene and Violet were Herma Dawn’s and Semple’s children.

” Will it take long?” Violet was asking her Mother as Conry stared into the blackness that was fighting for space in the well lit room.

” No. It’s almost done .”

And then Conry let himself look and there was Herma Dawn with a streak of flour across her forhead and a knife in her hand and on the embalming table, head to foot were two small bodies.

And on a small table next to her was a pie.

Herma Dawn was making a pie

And  her daughters were helping her.

 

Conry guessed he had to do something.

The first thing he did was to walk up the stairs and out to the hearse where carefully laid the little girl across the front seat. After, he closed and locked the door and then he went out to the shed and found an axe and then he went down into the basement.

When he was finished he waited for Semple, he never did find out where it was Semple had been all night because he didn’t show up until after sunrise.

But there was dirt under Semple’s finger nails- which Conry saw as he swung his axe down and Semple threw his hands up…and Conry also saw it was in Semple’s hair and teeth too.

 

When he was done Conry couldn’t bring himself to bury the George Family in a graveyard, he wasn’t sure he would burn in hell for what he did to them but he was sure there would be a price to pay for putting them anywhere near a dead body.

So Conry took all four of them- piece by piece to the new building that was going up across the street- some people said it was going to be a hotel one day-and he buried them in the basement.

And he wondered if that would hold them.

He doubted it.

In all of the years he knew Herma Dawn he was sure of one thing-he had never seen her outside of the house- her or the girls.

He figured no matter how long it took, they would find their way back to it.

And they would keep finding a way to make pies.

That’s probably why he went home, to his house and hung himself in his attic.

 

So Conry Kelsev left behind a mystery, nobody ever figured out what he did to the bodies, the legend that the Club Owners built their Halloween House and future business on says Conry burned the George Family alive in the Funeral Home’s Crematorium but anyone with common sense realized the home didn’t have a crematorium, still it was a morbid story and that was the one that gets repeated the most.

However, the locals who fancied themselves as Detectives of sorts guessed that he  buried the family in a cemeteries that Semple and Conry had access too, or more then likely somewhere on the grounds of the Funeral Home itself.

And then because Kelsev and George was not the sort of story you want floating around while you are trying to get funds for Urban Renewal Projects all the theories went away until the Morgan Group decided to open the club up in the Kelsev and George Funeral Home.

The problem the Morgan Group had was this: they had a good story to build on, but when Jeff and his brother Val went out to look at the Kelsev and George Funeral Home ( it was still there and still empty ) they were disappointed.

” Damn, it looks like a house a regular old house- are those flower boxes under the windows? Damn it to hell…”

Jeff was pointing to something across the street.

There were tears of joy in his eyes.

He  was pointing to a sign, it was partially covered by Ivy and the paint was blistered and peeling

but none the less the sign said this building, with the fancy lentil work above the windows, the crumbling gargoyles peering down from the roof and the rusted iron bars running up and down over all of the windows and doors was for sale.

And the name of the building was still visible above the doorway.

It was the Dennison Hotel.

The Dennison did well for awhile and then it closed down and during the 1960’s it’s lobby was turned into a series of offices, it’s upper floors went the same way and eventually it was turned into a meat packing plant.

I kid you not.

 

So the Morgans opened their club by hosting a haunted house there, which they called the Kelsev and George Morgue.

Soon after they bought the house across the street to use as offices and while he was out on the road Val called and said he had moved into the old house, that he was going to start refinishing it and that he aslo had a surprise.

The surprise answered the door and it had a streak of flour across her forhead and she said as reached out for him, ” Jeff, it’s so good to meet you at last.”

” And you are? ” He asked.

” Well, when I worked for your club they used to call me Chef but now days they just call me Val’s wife.”

” My name is Herma Dawn.”

Ben Jordan investigates the strange suicides at a French hotel. Is there something more sinister controlling the victims? This is a movie starring people from AGS filmed at Mittens 2008 in Vireux-Molhain (in the Ardennes) France.

Directed by Mark Lovegrove.

Written by Creed Malay& Mark Lovegrove.

NOTES: This is the first cut with some bad sound, missing sound effects & spelling errors.

Look out for the SE!

My favorite scene:

Ben:::A girl is dead and I saw you out last night, what were you up too?:::

Janitor::: I was with your Mother:::

Ben::: I didn’t come here to be insulted:::

Janitor::: Oh? So where do you usually come to be insulted?:::

That’s exactly what Macabre stories need, more ‘ yo mama’ lines.

 

Photo by bledpub

Deveal Pelham’s house is the oldest, strangest house in a little town nobody goes too and that nobody has come from for many years.

If you were to come across Deavel’s house on a drive one evening,  you might wonder if white house  with the peeling paint and the yellowed lace curtains in some of the windows and torn blinds in the others was lived in. If you saw the rusted wind chimes hanging on the porch just left of the leaf filled wicker chair you’d guess it had been abandoned for a very long time.

But as you drove on by- you might slow down a little- then you would probably see that the mailbox was new and the house address was legible and the red flag was up and in the orange box just under the mailbox you would probably see that day’s newspaper.

And the feeling that you would get from these little images that would tell you the house is alive- that someone was actually living in it- would be the same feeling as finding a pulse in an embalmed corpse.

And as you drive away from the house  you might notice that in two of the windows on the top floor were turning red, just the faintest shade of red

and you would know that glow was coming from the inside of the house.

Don’t worry if you felt like a fool, if days later that house was turning up in your dreams and maybe you started to notice other houses like it eventually the feeling  and the dreams will pass.

It wasn’t like that for the people who lived In Cedar Valley.

At first the people who lived in Cedar Valley just took it for granted that every town had an odd duck swimming in it’s pond and it just happened that in their case that duck was Deveal.

Deveal would drive into town and buy groceries that he would carelessly toss into the back of his rusted truck and he would sometimes stop into the post office/drugstore for ‘No Pest Strips” that he would carefully place on his dashboard for the drive home and sometimes he would even buy a hamburger.

Which he did not eat.

And

Deveal would always say hello and in turn, even though they did not want to, his neighbors had to say hello back.

But the oddest thing about Deveal was his house.

It was only about two years older then the rest of the houses in town and it looked like most of the houses in town and it even had those fancy lace curtains that were in style and hanging from all of the houses in town.

But it always looked older, and it aged faster and the grass and trees all around his house turned brown and stayed that way.

And sometimes the windows on the top floor turned red, just the faintest shade of red and in those days, before the street lights went in and Cedar Valley got built up, you could see that faint red glow for miles.

Pretty soon Deveal’s house was mentioned by almost everyone in Cedar Valley at least once a day, everyone had something to say about it- it was used as a reference point when they gave driving directions, it came up when topics of conversations involved rot or decay or crazy people who made things out of human skin and hair.

One day, Skip Keyes said to his friend Alby Bench ” You know it seems like we never get away from Deveal’s house, it’s always here- right here in the middle of town. It’s like the damn thing is always watching us. It feels like we never get away from it. Why do you suppose that is?”

And before Alby could answer Deveal walked by and as he did Alby and Skip did what they always did in Cedar Valley when their Odd Duck swam by

 they turned to say hello to Deveal.

And Deveal stopped and with the faintest of red glowing from his eyes he said hello back.

Hidden Spirits

Halloween Hangman

Make Pan de Muerto

for your loved ones

who have

passed on.

 

and now for some traditional Halloween Fun:

now I’m off…

I hope you all have a great Halloween!

a.m.

…he will be taken from the jail at three o’clock in the afternoon

he will be hanged by the neck until dead

and it is further  considered   by the court

that after the execution is done

your body will be delivered to Doctor J.W. Canfield, a surgeon

for dissection

and may God have Mercy on your soul

That was the price

Antoine LeBlanc

paid for the murders of Judge Samuel Sayres and his family

However, legend says that after Le Blanc was pronounced dead he wasn’t even close to completing his sentence:::

After the execution, Dr. Canfield of Morristown took the body, and with the help of the esteemed Dr. Joseph Henry of Princeton University, passed electrical current through it to see if it could be resurrected. Although they were able to make the limbs contract, the eyes roll, and the mouth grin, the corpse stayed lifeless.

:::from

THE HAUNTED RESTAURANT OF MORRISTOWN

By: L’Aura Muller

So who was the monster and who was the beast and why did a Judge find it necessary to kill a man twice?

Just a little thought for you to turn over in your head on Halloween.

From Weird N.J.

 

I don’t know who Barbara Jo is, but she has created the most awesome cake ever.

It’s Called A Zombie Cake.

I admire her work on so many levels…the first being, it’s obvious this cake takes a lot of work, my Dad was an excellent Chef and he admired what it took to bake so when it comes to sugar and patience- I am humbled.

Second of all, I truly hate Zombies, not because they scare me but as a horror fan they offend me.

If you are a character in a horror movie and you get chased down and killed by a creature who is rotting from the inside out-

or the outside in

 and the monster’s brains are turning to water in their skulls and they can still figure out how to trap their victims you SO deserve to die

and in turn

I deserve to lose whatever money I paid to watch it happen.

So I guess that’s why I like the idea of turning a zombie into a cake and carving it up with a kitchen utensil….

a sharp one.

By the by:

Barbara Jo also created these:

They’re eyeballs made from maraschino cherries-

which were soaked in rum.

I think that’s hilarious.

So get thee over to

THEY’RE COMING TO GET YOU BARBARA

to find out what it takes to make a Zombie Cake.

Plus you’ll have fun over there:

Not only do they ( you have to read THIS to find out why Barbara is a THEY ) bake truly gruesome cakes they do movie reviews for shows like ” The Werewolf Vs The Vampire Women ” and “Wizard of Gore”

Barbara Jo just made my Halloween a little sweeter…hope they do the same for you

So let’s go visit Barbara Jo…I’ll drive and please

don’t mind my friend in the backseat…

he’s dieing to meet you

I’ve reposted this article  by BERNADINE SANTISTEVAN, DIRECTOR OF  “The Cry” because it’s Halloween

and

because

 ” The Cry ” is now avalible through Amazon!

So check out the story behind the creation of this movie, and then check out the film!

Buy Your Copy HERE at Amazon.Com

Bernadine was kind enough to make a trip to Owl Creek Bridge in order to share some stories about making her Supernatural Thriller Based on the Legend of La Llorona.

I hope that you enjoy her story and that you are as inspired by her determination to see her creative dreams realized as I am.

amm

BONUS! VIEW THE NEWEST TRAILER FOR ” THE CRY“

I first heard of La Llorona when I was a kid growing up in a small town in New Mexico. Ever since I can remember, we were told stories of a woman who drowned her kids in the river—basically to get revenge from her lover who had betrayed her. But after drowning them, she realized what she had done and let out a horrifying, heart-wrenching cry. From that moment she was condemned to roam the rivers forever, crying and searching for her children. 

As kids, our parents always told us that La Llorona would take us away if we went by the river to play alone, or if we misbehaved. On top of being completely scared stiff that La Llorona was going to get me, the whole idea that a mother would kill her own child absolutely terrified me.

When I decided to make a movie, there was no question in my mind that it had to be about La Llorona. On the one hand, I definitely wanted to do something focused on my culture. And from a more personal perspective, having grown up in a very superstitious environment (a combination of old Spanish beliefs dating back to the time of the Inquisition mixed with Native American beliefs), making a movie about La Llorona was a way for me to conquer my some of my fears/demons, with La Llorona being a big one.

Like most of the more than 28 million people in the U.S. who grew up with stories of La Llorona, I originally thought that this ghost was from my small town. After learning that she’s basically everywhere and has been a strong force in the Latino world for five centuries, I set off on a search for her across the U.S. and Latin America. I dug up historical material on her dating back hundreds of years, interviewed people who believe they’ve seen or heard her, and collected stories, artwork, poems and songs about her from all over the continent. You can see some of my research on my website www.TheCryTheMovie.com. I also went on to explore “Lloronas in other cultures,” and found several similar legends from all over the world like the Greek Medea, the Jewish Lilith and the Irish Banshee. In the end, it took me 5 years to get to a place where I felt as though I knew La Llorona well enough to write a script that would truly capture her essence. Then it was writing, rewriting, finding money, shooting, finding more money, post-production, distribution…what seemed like endless work.

Since it’s Halloween, I want to mention a few creepy experiences that I had while making The Cry—moments where I definitely felt La Llorona’s presence. 

The first creepy experience happened one day when I was shooting in Spanish Harlem. Some santeros (traditional saint makers) from New Mexico had carved a wood statue of Death in the form of a woman (Dona Sebastiana). It was quite difficult to transport the santo to New York because it was a large, life-size carving and very fragile. In any case, the day my best friend, Horacio, and I were unloading Death from the vehicle, a freak accident happened where I was hit in the head—just a hair above my right eye—

with something flying through the air. It felt as though a brick had hit me, and I almost lost my eye. I remember grabbing my head and seeing blood pouring into my hand. Horacio ran and caught me just as the world started spinning and I was falling to the ground. The experience totally freaked me out not only because it happened when we were moving Death, but also because in The Cry the way that I physically show La Llorona’s curse on people is through their bleeding eyes. A few months later when I was doing post-production on The Cry, one morning my project manager suddenly had some bloody tears coming out of her eyes. She never did find out why that happened. 

Another creepy experience happened when I was shooting some of my flashback scenes in New Mexico. Basically, I had spent several days looking for the perfect river location to shoot La Llorona drowning her kid, and found it months before we shot there. The place had a strange, haunting feel to it that made it perfect for The Cry. What was creepy about this was that a few weeks before we shot there, my sister, Rita, who still lives in NM called me to tell me that a woman named Bernadine—my name, which is pretty uncommon—had gone to the same location and drowned her two kids and herself. When I heard this my stomach fell to the floor. As I was shooting my scene I remember looking out over the river and feeling La Llorona’s presence more than ever.

The last creepy experience that I want to mention happened when I was in the final stage of post-production. In The Cry, I am the voice and cries of La Llorona. It took me quite some time to figure out what La Llorona would say, and this is something that I wrote only after digging deep into my knowledge and “relationship” with her. On the day I was in the studio recording La Llorona’s voice, something very strange happened. All of a sudden, something moved through me, taking control of my body and my voice. It felt as though for that slice of time, I was outside of me, hearing someone else’s voice come out of my body. It was a haunting, yet amazingly experience. The sound team that was recording in the control room was frozen stiff with how scary my voice sounded. You’ll get a taste of it yourself when you see The Cry, and you can read about more creepy experiences on my blog www.TheCry.typepad.com/thecry/.

Making The Cry is definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. (Details included in my next horror film.) But despite all the unbelievable struggles, if given the choice, I’d do it all again. The film helped me learn so much about myself—my culture, my power as a woman, how to face and fight my fears—not to mention how to make a film. Though I have to say that perhaps the most important thing I learned by making The Cry is that nothing is more fulfilling, empowering and magical than pouring your heart and soul into a dream and making it come true. 

As per La Llorona, we’ve been together for many years now, and I know her well—perhaps better than anyone else on the face of the earth. And although I no longer fear her, I am now more certain of one thing than I ever was before: There’s nothing worse than a mother who murders her child…and La Llorona is real.

 

I hope you enjoyed Bernadine’s article.

Please visit Bernadine’s Sites and check out her wonderful work.

www.TheCryTheMovie.com

www.TheCry.typepad.com/thecry/

email- bernadine@lallorona.com

 

Today I read an article that debunks the story about The Georgetown Morgue.

 I don’t do the haunted house tour thing ( you know, after you’ve worked in a Funeral Home and had to visit real morgues and years later all you can remember is the taste of McDonald’s French fries because you were consistently assigned removals in the afternoons- just before lunch)- Morgues don’t exactly scare me-

 the thought of them now just makes me hungry.

For French Fries.

The super-sized serving.

Anyway.

I thought the setup for the Georgetown Morgue was a fun idea, a very neat story and the building the “morgue” is staged in is way over the top and looks the part.

Most funeral homes, let’s face it, were supposed to blend because they were either near churches or in neighborhoods and people actually lived in them. 

However subtle- some of them are they are weird if you know what to look for the weirdness- take a look at the garage doors and back doors which are wider then normal to accommodate you know, things which require a lot room to move through, and though the writer of the above mentioned article does toss in the small smoke stacks at the Evergreen Washelli Funeral Home and how unscary they are but he fails to mention the actual creepy thing is the mirror mounted on the roof and tilted upwards towards the smoke stack.

The Funeral Directors use this mirror to make sure the smoke doesn’t turn dark during the cremation process…see CREEPY.

You just need to know where to look to find it.

However- there’s always an however isn’t there?

 On a visit Dubque Iowa, I saw this amazing funeral home called Behr’s- which looks scary by any measure.

So what do I think about the ‘debunking’ of the Georgetown Morgue?

Well.

I’d say the writer who did this didn’t prove anything other then the only story he could come up with was the deconstructing of another writer’s work.

Creating a world and a story and legend for you to follow isn’t easy, placing it in terms that invite readers to want actually walk ( or drive ) to  that door is actual work, bringing a building and people who never existed to life, takes effort, writing a vindictive little hit pieces to ruin the moment for people who wanted to visit the “Georgetown Morgue” ?

Geeze- now that’s just mean spirited.

So visit the setup site for the Georgetown Morgue, it’s actually well done- I thought the way they wove bits of Seattle’s real history into the ‘legend’ was pretty clever - the earthquakes, the hint of the Wa Mee Massacre, the death of a famous local musician wrapped in media hype- made it possible for present day for local residents to ‘relate’ to this building and to the story.

So no- I wouldn’t visit the haunted house- I couldn’t even be bribed with French Fries…however…if someone were to tell me more stories about the Georgetown Morgue- they would have my undivided attention.

After all, this is what we do during Halloween- we spin yarns, tell tales and for one night not only do we get to face the monsters-

we get to face them down.

It’s all part of the fun.

So.

Try.

A few of you, more then others…

to have a

Happy Halloween.

Kube93FM Haunted House

The Georgetown Morgue: Gruesome true story or fabrication?

Blogging Georgetown

For me- as a writer- this closing scene from an Twilight Zone Episode titled

” Will The Real  Martian Please Stand Up”

taught me to not only look under the bed or into the closet to find the monster so that I could write about it

it taught me to get under the bed or into the closet and THINK like one.

Enjoy.

During a snowstorm, two state troopers are investigating a crash and are led to believe that it was a UFO. They follow footprints leading from the crash site to a diner, where a group of passengers from a bus to Boston are waiting for word that a bridge up ahead is safe to cross. Though the only patrons of the roadside eatery are bus passengers, there is one more diner than there were people on the bus. There is mutual suspicion among the stranded travelers, as the passengers each try to guess which among them is the alien. When they get permission to go across the bridge, however, they all leave.

Shortly, the businessman played by John Hoyt returns to the diner and tells the cook that the bridge collapsed and the bus and police car fell in killing all aboard the bus and the policemen. As the cook wonders how the businessman survived, he also notes that his clothes are not even wet. Soon the businessman unveils his third arm and stirs his coffee with his third hand, telling the cook that he is a Martian, and revealing that Mars plans to start a colony on Earth. Laughing, the cook tells him that he’s too late, and by taking off his paper hat and revealing his third eye, reveals that he is from Venus, which has already started a colony, and that the Martian invasion force has been intercepted.

Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 64
Written by	Rod Serling
Directed by	Montgomery Pittman

 

” Once I had a nightmare ” my friend Bonnie told me ” about this witch who tried to break into my house “

” Okay, ” I tell Bonnie thinking this sounds like a good story to kill that long bus ride home from Seattle ” so how did it go? “

“Well, in my dream I heard my dog crying and in my dream I woke up and went and looked out my bedroom window. “

” And your dog was…”

” Hanging from a tree. “

” Like Hell you say. “

” It’s true, so I tried to run down my hallway to help get her out of the tree but the floor was gone and all I saw where the floor should have been was this dark pit filled with people with snake’s eyes and they were talking to me in a language I couldn’t understand.”

” I really hate it when that happens…” Bonnie looks at me a little strangely and I say ” you know… in my dreams.”

” Well sure.  So anyway I go back to my bedroom and crawl out my window and then I fall into my rose bushes. “

I turned that image over in my mind a few times..

Bonnie isn’t into breaking a sweat for any reason- she wouldn’t run wouldn’t run from Lizzie Borden  swinging an ax to save her own  life so I couldn’t begin to imagine her crawling out of a window.

I smiled and encouraged she went on.

” When I get outside there’s this woman standing by Tippy and she’s got her back turned towards me. As much as I want to help Tippy I don’t want her, whoever she is, to turn around.”

” No. ” I tell Bonnie. ” You certainly do not want that.  It’s a psychology thing…”

” Yeah well, she doesn’t turn around. She just reached up and grabs Tippy by her neck and yanks down. “

” Damn. ” I say ” So what did you do?”

” I run back to my front door and just as I run through it, the door slams shut and I throw myself against it…and I can feel the knob turning in my hand and just before it opens I lock it.”

” Good for you. “

” It didn’t matter, because the door swung open and pushed me back and then the Witch came in with Tippy. She was dragging Tippy by the rope and then Tippy opened her eyes and- she wasn’t Tippy anymore.”

” What was she? “

” Dead.” Bonnie says sadly. ” And I started to cry and scream for Tippy not to leave me and then I woke up.”

” Look, it was only a dream right? I mean Tippy isn’t really dead and the Witch didn’t get you.”

Bonnie looks at me and I look at her and Bonnie asks me if I think she’ll have that awful nightmare again.

 ” Bonnie”  I say as I  pull a rope from out of my pocket ” you’re not awake yet.”

Photograph(s) copyright Shaun O’Boyle

Houses can be haunted

and so can roads and diners and cemeteries and hospitals and even people.

So many places, so little time for sharing those stories…

unless of course

you have nothing but time on your hands

like I do.

That’s all I have in my hands,

yes…really.

So.

 Shall I light a candle?

Would you like to begin?

Of course you would.

Just take a deep breath and say……

“It started that night Mrs Duggan saw the shadows come down from her attic…”

Mattie Greaves sat across from Mr. Sawyer Day, the owner of a small and all but forgotten funeral home in Seattle, Washington and together they were quietly discussing  a suitable coffin for Mattie’s husband Tabor.

” My husband is a practical man ” Mattie told Mr. Day ” and he wouldn’t like anything with those fancy gold handles and he certainly wouldn’t approve of things like this ” Mattie was pointing at a catalog opened to a  glossy page of coffins painted blue and gold and even black with ducks and eagles flying around their edges.

” I understand ” Mr. Day said ” and I have several models for you to consider that are more traditional. I’m sure we can find one here that your husband would approve of. “

Mr. Day is almost 65 and he had taken over Morning Ridge Funeral Home from his Mother’s family right after he had turned 30. He had started working there right after he turned 16 so that means that for over 50 years Mr. Sawyer Day had heard and seen it all.

So when Mattie Greaves asked if the traditional model she was looking at came with a comfortable pillow Mr. Day didn’t even look up. ” From what I understand it does, however in the past some of our families have brought in their own blankets and pillows. “

” My husband is very fond of candy as well. ” Mattie whispered. ” Now his doctor told  him he needs to give up sweets but you know, he’s along in years and he’s been through so much. I ask you Mr. Day how could I take away his salt water taffy?”

” My Mother was the same way, she was fond of her Cuban Cigars. Not only did she refuse to give them up we could never figure out how she got her hands on them to begin with. In the end, we just let it go.”

” So of course I can…”

” Of course you can Mrs. Greaves, whatever you think would have made your husband happy.”

After going through a few more books Mattie decided on a solid oak model with bronze handles and a lovely cream colored liner. She passed on the flowers.

” He’s allergic ” she told Mr. Day.

Mr. Day and Mattie went through numbers and she was about to pull out her check book when Mr. Day said, ” We’re almost finished Mrs. Greaves all we have to do is discuss your choice of a grave liners..

Mattie dropped her checkbook on the table and looked at Mr. Day for almost two minutes before her face turned a little red and tears welled up in her eyes., ” Oh my, that sounds so final.”

” Mrs. Greaves, I’m very sorry.  I don’t mean to rush you. If you need more time to go over…”

” No Mr Day…you’ve been very kind and patient with me. It’s my fault. I’m the one who has been doing the rushing. I should have explained…my husband just needs a coffin until the one he normally uses arrives from back home.”

What do you get when you cross a vampire and a snowman?
Frostbite…

Do zombies eat popcorn with their fingers?
No, they eat the fingers separately…

Why don’t skeletons ever go out on the town?
Because they don’t have any body to go out with…

And here’s a few Halloween Superstitions…

If a bat flies around a house three times, it is considered to be a death omen.

A person born on Halloween can both see and talk to spirits.

*You should walk around your home three times backwards and counterclockwise before sunset on Halloween to ward off evil spirits

HALLOWEEN TRIVIA- HURRAH!

 

 

Halloween was brought to North America by immigrants from Europe who would celebrate the harvest around a bonfire, share ghost stories, sing, dance and tell fortunes. 

Orange and black are Halloween colors because orange is associated with the Fall harvest and black is associated with darkness and death. 

There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, the color of pumpkin. 

According to folklore, the jack-o-lantern got his name from a man named Jack.

Turnips and beets served as the original jack-o-lanterns.

 

Jack o lanterns originated in Ireland where people placed candles in hollowed-out turnips to keep away spirits and ghosts on the Samhain holiday. 

Mexico celebrates ‘The Day of the Dead’ instead of Halloween. 

 

Pumpkins also come in white, blue and green. Great for unique monster carvings! 

Pumpkins originated in Central America. When Europeans arrived in the New World, they found pumpkins plentiful and used in cooking by Native Americans. They took seeds back to Europe where they quickly became popular. 

Growing big pumpkins is a big time hobby. Top prize money for the biggest giant pumpkin is as much as $25,000 dollars at fall festivals. 

A pumpkin is a berry in the cucurbitaceae family, which also includes melons, cucumbers, squash and gourds. All these plants are native to the Americas.

Halloween is the 2nd most commercially successful holiday, with Christmas being the first. People spend as much as over $2.5 billion during Halloween on candies, costumes, decorations and parties. 

Halloween candy sales average about 2 billion dollars annually in the United States. 

 

Chocolate candy bars top the list as the most popular candy for trick-or-treaters with Snickers . 

It is believed that the Irish began the tradition of Trick or Treating. In preparation for All Hallow’s Eve, Irish townsfolk would visit neighbors and ask for contributions of food for a feast in the town. 

The ancient Celts thought that spirits and ghosts roamed the countryside on Halloween night. They began wearing masks and costumes to avoid being recognized as human. 

Black cats were once believed to be witch’s familiars who protected their powers.

Samhainophobia is an intense fear of Halloween.

 

 

photo by captain oddsocks

I have a secret.

I love pumpkins…year round, not just for Halloween.

But that is not my secret.

Let me explain.

I collect pumpkin knick knacks and pictures of pumpkins and I cross stitch them on all sorts of things  and I always have stickers with pumpkins on them and I slap them on anything that isn’t moving.

And if it is I’ll slap one on anyway.

Most people think I like pumpkins because I love Halloween.

In part that’s true.

The truth of the matter is- I like pumpkins because they look like severed heads-

 and when you carve faces on them.

Well.

a.m.

 

Yesterday me and my best friend Amihan were shopping at the Mall for hats ( I love those old lady styled hats with fruit and birds on the brim…the one I was wearing that day had little cats dancing around the edges ) when she asked me if I had heard the story about the E-Mail Soul eater and I was very sorry to have to say I had not heard that one.

” Well,” Amihan ” tells me- “the E-Mail Soul Eater is this demon who sits in this Library and sends out this picture and if you don’t pass her picture around she’ll come out of your computer and kill you.”

” Yeah but why…”

” She doesn’t have a Soul, so she eats them to stay alive.”

” Oh she does, does she?”

Amihan opens up her purse and takes out a couple of pieces of paper and I see that one is a copy of the e-mail and the other is the picture and I say to her:

” You have got to be kidding me.”

” No, it’s true. I mean I think it is.”

“Listen Amihan- Demons are old world. They do things the old fashioned way, that’s in their nature -they are hands on and in your face. Please Amihan, e-mails?”

” What the Hell kind of stupid story is that? ” I ask and then I took the picture from Amihan and folded it up in a neat little square and I put it in my back pocket.

 ” I know, I know, I took the e-mail and the picture and if I don’t pass it along the E-Mail Soul Eater will come and get me. Well I hope she does. ”

Amihan is near tears and she says, ” Why did you do that? “

” Hey Amihan, don’t worry about it. “

Amihan does look worried so I shrug and say as I pull my hat down over the little horns on my forehead ” Don’t worry about her, Soul Eater, Soul Thief, whatever- all I know is I don’t need the competition.”

:::to read about the real “E-Mail Soul Eater” go HERE:::

 

 ”From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night, good Lord deliver us.”

(Old Cornish prayer.)

The picture is in a gold frame and

and it is hanging in a basement in a little room with a coal shoot door that won’t stay nailed shut where I used to play as a child.

One year I pulled the picture down, turned it over and saw written on the back in dark red ink:

“Her eyes are wrong- and it’s to late to change them now “

I turned the picture so that it faced the wall.

But the words scared me more then the photograph itself

so I turned it back around

and I never looked into the eyes in that picture again.

But it didn’t matter.

Because those eyes, those wrong eyes, saw me.

I know it.

And I know that they still do.

a.m.

“Morgue Halloween Fun For You!”

Mummies…they’ve got them at

KING’S CAPUCHINS’ CATACOMBS OF PALERMO ITALY

Urban Legends?

That’s what they say they are:

at

Halloween Ghost Stories dot Com

Halloween Games- Grave Robbing is not on this list, I checked. Here’s a link to what they do have on the  Halloween Games List at Party Ideas dot Com

I have never been afraid of going off road and exploring

empty houses

and empty buildings.

I’ve gone into places with just a flashlight

and when I carried one I would leave my phone in the car.

The only thing I was afraid of was getting bugs in my hair.

I really hated it when that happened.

Well.

One day I found this empty house

and I had a great time poking around in there

and for some reason I sat there

on a dusty dirty floor

in what used to be the living room

and I thought:

Anything could have happened here…

anything.

Someone could have proposed marriage right on this spot

or somebody could have stood right here and been told that

their Mother had died or that their son was joining  the Army

or their daughter was pregnant or there had been a terrible accident…all of that could have happened right here in this small space I was occupying in this house nobody had lived in for years.

These thoughts were about the familiar safe things in life- which was funny considering where they had come to me.

But when I left, as I walked down the walkway to the path that would take me to my car I saw a shovel leaning against a doorway that led down into a root cellar.

I became painfully aware of the fact that the Sun would be setting soon.

I ran all the way to my car.

Gemi Ranney catches her bus at 3:43 on the Corner of 5thand Cherry Street Mondaythrough Friday.

You could set your watch by Gemi.

She shows up at her stop at exactly 3:38 and five minutes her bus, the 408 shows arrives and then Gemi gets on and she’s home a half and hour later.

Nothing surprising ever happens to Gemi on that short walk she takes to her bus stop after work.

She sees the same people withthe same expressions on their faces- sometimes they smile and sometimes they don’t and sometimes they say hello- but one day Gemi noticed  it truly was always the same.

Gemi started to wonder how they could do that- how they could smile the same, sound the same when they said hello and even wave the same way to the same people they passed on the street every single day.

Gemi couldn’t stick to any sort of routine, she never wore her hair the same way, she never signed her name the same way, she never made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches the same way and she only ever used three ingredients when she did that. 

So one day, because she was early, Gemi took a another route that was a little longer and as she walked towards 5th she ended up walking behind one man she always saw at the Cherry Street bus stop.

He always said ” hey there you ” with a little wink and a click of his tongue against his teeth.

As she walked by she said hello and he turned his head and looked down at her and as he did Gemi saw a little bug run from his ear into his nose.

“ I think something… ” Gemi pointed to the side of his head and as she did he said,

” Hey there you ” with a little wink and a click of his tongue the way he always did but this time he said something different.

This time he said, “ Mrs Grayford did this to me. ” and then he took his same place at the bus stop and he pulled a newspaper out of his backpack and Gemi had the feeling it was the same paper he looked at every single day as he waited on the corner of 5th and Cherry.

After the bug in the nose incident Gemi started to walk different roads to her bus stop and every once and awhile she would see some of the people from her stop going through their usual routines.

But now Gemi started to see not only the sameness in what they did every single day she noticed that they were wearing the same clothes and carrying the same books and sometimes from the smell she was sure they were carrying the same lunches and coffee cups too.

And sometimes they would stop and say to her, with dust in their hair and dust in their slightly frosty looking non-blinking eyes and the occasional  bug running across their foreheads or out of their mouths, a little desperately before their eyes frosted over again

” Mrs Grayford did this to me.”

Eventually, of course, Gemi did begin to wonder who Mrs. Grayford was. And when she thought about it too much she realized that doing that probably wasn’t a very good idea until that day at her office.

Gemi worked in an office supply store that sold pens and pencils and old fashioned things like erasers and they even sold business cards that were printed on a printing press and not a laser jet printer.

Gemi’s job was back in the warehouse and sometimes she had to work up in the office processing paperwork- which she didn’t mind because it was a break in the routine that was her work day.

So true to her nature after about 15 minutes of filing and initialing of order forms Gemi switched screens on her computer and typed in Mrs. Grayford and she put in Dearden, Washington.

She learned one thing, there was only one person named Grayford who lived in Dearden and exactly three months ago she opened a Funeral Home just 4 blocks up from Cherry Street.

” Well that’s just creepy. ” Gemi said to Rochelle who worked in Accounts Receivable- and Gemi only started talking because Rochelle was into her numbers and paperwork and wasn’t going to pay attention to anything you said unless it involved an invoice.

So as a rule, Rochelle didn’t talk to anyone at the office, and that especially included the human tumbleweed that was Gemi Ranney.

Now the beauty of this situation for Gemi was that she could say out loud this idea that was giving her nightmares. And the thought was crazy sounding but the person who was about to hear it wasn’t going to be listening to a word she said, let alone care what she had to say.

This brief and short conversation with Rochelle was Gemi’s way of dragging a vampire out into the sunlight and killng it. 

” You know what Rochelle? I think that someone is making Zombies at that new Funeral Home up the street…mindless Zombies that do the same thing over and over again until they fall apart. I’m hoping that I never run into the person that asked for this to be done. I’d rather stab myself in my own ear with a pencil then to be anywhere near a person like that.

 That’s what I think.”

Rochelle didn’t look up at Gemi just like Gemi new she wouldn’t and Rochelle continued to fill in numbers and mark pages that needed to have the date hand written into one box and  her initials written into another and then she started all over again on another form and then Rochelle slid something across her desk towards Gemi and Gemi saw what it was.

It was a pencil.

And then from her ink and paper filled hell Rochelle said said to Gemi

” Mrs Grayford did this for me. “ 

It’s October first and in case you forgot…Halloween is coming!

So here are some links to Haunted Places…a few jokes, and if you like the clip art click the pictures and you’ll go directly to the sites, more info on other Halloween Clip Art sites at the bottom of this post

Enjoy!

a.m.

Find Real Haunted Houses

In the U.S. HERE

Find Haunted Houses In the U.K

HERE

Haunted Australia

 HERE

Haunted Places In New Zealand

HERE

Okay.

It’s Joke Time.

I got these from the kids in my family…

I happen to love them.

The jokes I mean

Not the kids.

Oh come on, I’m just kidding.

What did Dr. Frankenstein get when he put a goldfish brain in the body of his dog?
I don’t know, but it is great at chasing submarines.

 

Why wasn’t there any food left after the monster party?’
Cos everyone was a goblin

Why did the vampire’s lunch give him heartburn?
It was a stake sandwich.

Dracula decided he need a dog, which breed did he choose?
A blood hound.

What would you call the ghost of a door-to-door salesman?
A dead ringer.

What do skeletons always order at a restaurant?
Spare ribs!

Who was the most famous French skeleton?
Napoleon bone-apart

Who won the skeleton beauty contest?
No body

If you like the clip art, just click the picture and you’ll go to the site where I found them, they’re from all over the Net, so have fun!

But if you’d like to see where I found most of the links go to this PAGE and HERE

This is the very story that made me decide to become a Writer.

I was about 10 when I heard it for the first time.

It was years later that I actually saw the film.

It was fitting then, that the first time I saw it on TV was on the Twilight Zone.

What follows next, before the video posted here, is the Closing Narration from the Twilight Zone, but really, it was the Opening Narration for me.

a.m.m.

An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge—in two forms, as it was dreamed, and as it was lived and died. This is the stuff of fantasy, the thread of imagination…the ingredients of the Twilight Zone

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge – part 1

 

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge – part 2

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge – part 3

 

 

 

A few days ago someone sent this to me-

it’s one of those Urban Legend stories about a ghost

that shows up on a security camera.

It made me think because

I have an elevator ghost story.

We have an old freight elevator at work

and the repair men who run the inspections- and its always a different inspection team from year to year- tell the same story about a building just two streets over from where I work.

This is a story ( it’s just a story I’m sure ) about a woman who was murdered on a service elevator that wasn’t used very often (she was moving boxes from her apartment to the basement ) over a holiday weekend and her corpse rode that elevator for three days.

Her remains were discovered after the long weekend was over when someone in the building complained about the service elevator running up and down all night long without stopping.

Nobody could get the elevator to stop and apparently the people in the building had a hard time finding a service crew to come in because of the holiday weekend.

So everyone had to listen to those gears and that motor humming and hissing and running up and down on that last night.

 Finally the repair crew made it in and when they finally got the elevator  stopped they were able to open the doors there she was.

Her neck was broken and her eyes and mouth had been sewn shut.

That was done, I learned before her neck had been snapped.

The elevator always had problems after that and no matter what they did they couldn’t fix it, so eventually the elevator was taken out and the shaft was turned into a staircase.

And sometimes, the people in the building say you can hear clicks and hums all night long coming from the stairwell.

So this story may just be an Urban Legend, like this video.

But the fact is as a writer I know that stories, all stories, were inspired by something or somebody

that was alive and real

That is,

until one day….

I should have been writing last night.

Instead I spent a lot of time staring at a picture that  I have hanging on  on my wall.

It’s a print of some fruit (grapes, bananas, plums) in a fancy fruit bowl, but when you look carefully at  you can see that the bowl is actually a hand and the stem under it is an arm.

It’s a subtle drawing with soft lines and it’s full of colors and shadows and all of it works together to hide that macabre message  ( as I think of it )

in plain sight.

Less then subtle in the foreground, where it’s not hiding at all, is something that looks like rose peals scattered on the beige colored linen table cloth below the bowl.

My Great Grandmother- we never called her Granny Or Grandma or Gran- she wasn’t into having her age addressed – we called her Nan- bought that print back in the 1920’s and nobody knows where it came from- it just showed up above her sideboard one day- so the story goes.

Over the years it seemed some of us realized what that was a picture of but no one ever pointed it out- it was sort of like a test- if you saw what was in the picture and told someone who already knew, you were in the club.

That’s what it felt like anyway.

Nan passed away when I was about 6 years old and when I moved out of my Mom’ and Dad’s just before I turned 19 my Mom gave me my Great Grandmother’s sideboard and the picture above it.

I thought it made my new place perfect- and when I invited my friends over I set my house warming buffet on top of it and watched to see who would notice or see what was in the picture.

It was about an hour into the party when I was standing next to the buffet talking to my cousin when I heard someone laugh and then yell, ” Hey Anita…think fast “…

and then this soccer ball buzzed right by my ear and smashed right into my Great Grandmother’s print.

The frame splintered and the glass cut the 60 plus year old print to ribbons and in less then a minute there wasn’t  enough left of the picture to hang on the wall.

I looked across the room to my friend

and

the first words out of my mouth were “What have you done? “

He cleaned up the remains of the picture and I watched him take the ruined frame and print out to the trash.

But instead of walking all the way down the path to the parking lot where the dumpster was I saw him walk to the flower beds and bury it- and when he came back upstairs he told me, ” that was one weird picture you know. “

He said some more- only I wasn’t  listening because I was thinking to myself the entire time he was talking  to me, ” It’s a good thing Nan is dead- because she’d kill you for that.”

My friend died a week later, he ran his car into the back of a parked truck- he was going over 80 miles an hour when he hit it. 

It happned just down the hill from my Parent’s house.

“ He was racing another car ” one of the Police Officers told my Mom. ” One of the witnesses thinks the other driver was a woman. “

What my Mom said will stay with me forever.

She said, ” I wouldn’t count on that.”

So how is it I was looking at that picture last night ?

Was it the same one from my childhood?

Of course it was.

Ten years ago we bought this house from my Mom and Dad and after they moved out she asked my husband to go up into the attic and pull down some furniture that she had room in her new place for after all.

He was up there for just a few minutes when I heard him call down to me, ” Hey, this would look great above your sideboard “

I remember walking to the trapdoor and reaching up and he handed me down the print and I took it, without looking at it and hung it above the sideboard…

where it is right now.

And to this day some people notice it for what it is and other people never do.

Just like this story.

Instead of watching a movie

last night I read this book that is full of stories- true stories- about people were buried alive

It all sounds frightening

and sure I can easily imagine what it would be like.

But as I’m reading it I’m thinking that the common thread in these accounts isn’t the horror of the situation that these people found themselves in in that time before their dark death.

It’s the terror these people felt when they realized

they were going to die alone and that nobody would ever know

what really happened to them.

I think I’m going to keep my light on for awhile after I go to bed tonight.

a.m.