from my writer’s journal 

When I as a kid we lived about a block west of Green Lake, in Seattle WA.

I grew up on a lot of stories about Green Lake- and given my family’s love of  Macabre Tales I never heard about the Picnic grounds at the lake which I believe were put in sometime before the 1900’s or the vision people had of creating a beautiful place where people could go and have beautiful thoughts about nature, life and themselves.

What I heard about were the dead people in the Lake.

I was left with the impression, as a child, that they drowned and that they never left Green Lake.

Here’s the story I heard:

Back during the 1920’s maybe the 1930’s,  people kept drowning in Green Lake-

they weren’t out there swimming alone, they would be out there swimming with a friend or in a group and all of the sudden one person would start thrashing around and screaming and then they went under and they stayed under….

sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours sometimes for days.

And then shortly after the bodies were recovered people would see the Floaters walking towards the lake.

Or back into the Lake.

Once the Lake got them, they couldn’t leave – they had to go back.

I am only mentioning this story because when I write my stories I usually mention a Lake or a body of water and the image I have in my mind’s eye is that of Green Lake.

The Green Lake that killed people and keeps their ghosts like trophies.

That story got to me over 40 years ago.

And like I said- once the Lake gets you, you have to go back.

a.m.

The man who brought you

An American Werewolf in London

is going to bring you

David ” Doctor Who Tennant ” Who as

William Hare.

Hare, in case you are not aware of it, was the other half of team Burke and Hare- and back in the day they were a couple of serial killers who found a very novel way of covering up their crimes.

They sold the evidence to a Medical College and the Medical College in turn used the corpses for dissection.

I know, I know, the story goes that Burke and Hare killed all of those people for the money.

But nobody does what Burke and Hare did for money, they did it because they liked it.

So that’s the story of Burke and Hare according to me.

According to John Landis the story of Burke and Hare

is a comedy / thriller.

in this youtube clip at about 10 minutes in Landis confirms David Tennants role in his upcoming film

Well, you know I guess that’s not to far away from the reality of the situation.

I can find something funny in the story of Burke and Hare.

After Burke was hung, they put his skeleton, death mask and items made from his tanned skin on display at the same college that was duped into helping him cover up his crimes ( Hell hath no furry like an College scorned )

And Hare disappeared without a trace.

I learned this from CSI- the TV Show- nobody disappears without a trace.

It’s just that there’s no telling where that trace will turn up.

The possibilities are dark, endless and dare I say

amusing.

LINKS

David Tennant Joins Simon Pegg in John Landis’ Burke and Hare

from

First Showing dot net

 David Tennant to star in ‘Burke And Hare’

from Digital Spy

Latest Casting for John Landis’ ‘Burke and Hare’

from Bloody Disgusting dot Com

Doctor Who Meets Shaun

from Joblo dot Com

 THE IMMORTAL PART

by A.E. Housman

(A Shropshire Lad was originally published in 1896. This Web edition is based on the 1908 edition printed by Ballantyne, Hanson, & Co.)

When I meet the morning beam,

Or lay me down at night to dream,

I hear my bones within me say,

“Another night, another day. 

“When shall this slough of sense be cast,

This dust of thoughts be laid at last,

The man of flesh and soul be slain

And the man of bone remain?

 

“This tongue that talks, these lungs that shout,

These thews that hustle us about,

This brain that fills the skull with schemes,

And its humming hive of dreams,–

 “These to-day are proud in power And lord it in their little hour:

The immortal bones obey control

Of dying flesh and dying soul.

 “‘Tis long till eve and morn are gone:

Slow the endless night comes on,

And late to fulness grows the birth

That shall last as long as earth.

 

“Wanderers eastward, wanderers west,

Know you why you cannot rest?

‘Tis that every mother’s son

Travails with a skeleton.

 

“Lie down in the bed of dust;

Bear the fruit that bear you must;

Bring the eternal seed to light,

And morn is all the same as night.

 

 

“Rest you so from trouble sore,

Fear the heat o’ the sun no more,

Nor the snowing winter wild,

Now you labour not with child.

“Empty vessel, garment cast,

We that wore you long shall last.

–Another night, another day.”

So my bones within me say.  

 

Therefore they shall do my will

To-day while I am master still,

And flesh and soul, now both are strong,

Shall hale the sullen slaves along,

 

Before this fire of sense decay,

This smoke of thought blow clean away,

And leave with ancient night alone

The stedfast and enduring bone.

I THINK I SMELL A RAT

BY

WHITE STRIPES

” Did you see this? ” Marlene asked her friend Beset Lee as she handed her the morning newspaper.

Beset Lee, who was a Witch and her friend Marlene who was also a Witch were chosing out their Halloween costumes from a trunk in Beset Lee’s  attic.

Every year they liked to dress up like something candy related. Don’t ask me why, I’m just telling this story.

” I don’t like to concern myself with current events on Holidays.” Beset Lee said waving the paper away.

” I know, it puts you in a bad mood, ” Marlene told her friend ” that’s why I waited until now to show you this.” Marlene smooshed the paper in Beset’s face. ” Read it. I really, really think you should.”

” I can’t breathe.” Beset Lee said from behind the newspaper.

” Oh sorry. But read it. Please. Now. It’s just awful what they are saying.”

Beset Lee took the paper from Marlene and warned her: ” If this kills my buzz I am going to cast an evil spell on you and it will involve spiders”

Beset Lee set the paper down after she read the story and said, ” I think that this year I want to be a that candy bar with the pirates on the wrapper. That way I can carry around a sword.”

“I  hate to tell you this Beset Lee but they’re not Pirates. They’re musketeers. Now what are we going to do about this story?”

” Why should we do anything? It’s wrong. The Press, they can’t get anything right, can they? Where is that silver tunic?” Beset Lee went back to work digging through the trunk.

” That’s not the point. Hey, why don’t we ever dress up as anything other than food?” Marlene asked.

” So what’s the point. And food is fun. Especially candy.”

” The point is, people will know we are up to something.” Marlene said.

” Marlene, we are Witches we are always up to something- especially on Halloween. Everybody with a brain knows that. For Pete’s sake, even the ones who don’t have a brain knows that.”

” When you are right, you are really right Beset Lee. I still think that story is just awful.  I’d go as far as to call it disgraceful. As if we would curse candy.”

” Besides it’s a stupid plan all around. ” Marlene continued as she started to feel better about their situation.  ”As if everyone eats candy on Halloween. Besides that we love candy we must eat a mountain of it ourselves on Halloween.”

” Exactly.”

Beset Lee  found the silver tunic at bottom of the trunk of and  she said as she pulled it out with a flourish, ” That’s why every year we use my plan to curse toothpaste for Halloween .”

He was in every story she ever wrote;

sometimes he was a hero, sometimes a villain sometimes he was a face in a crowd but he was always there.

It was his voice she heard when she wrote.

Her name was Violet Hunter.

Violet’s stories passed in and out of fashion a very long time ago but  on Halloween somebody somewhere tells a version of one of her stories and when they do they don’t realize that Violet Hunter was born on Halloween and died on Halloween

comes back to life, for a little while.

Both  Violet Hunter the writer and the young man whose name was Milo Playfair

Once years ago, it was at Halloween Party, somebody told a story about Milo and the shade of Violet Hunter sat next to the storyteller like she sometimes does and in her mind’s eye Violet was watching Milo live again when she heard someone say:

” Those stories are so weird, have you ever thought of developing them into a play or something ?” asked a woman who was dressed as witch and whose real name was Karla.

” Actually, I was thinking about turning one of them into screenplay. These stories are amazing. They’re visual you know? They’re just made to be put on the screen. I’m not sure, but back in the sixties I think someone was working on a screenplay based on one of her stories – it was called Typical Trixie. Nothing ever came of it. The project died the way some them do. Still. I think I would like the chance to do an interpretation of one. You know, make it my own- in a way. “  Bailey told Karla.

Violet would have narrowed her eyes, but she didn’t have them anymore- she hadn’t for years. But she could see fine as mist a man with his hair slicked back. He was wearing a cape.

Violet was not amused.

Bailey the screenwriter told Karla, “ Her life was made for the screen too.  Violet started to write after her boyfriend disappeared without a trace on her birthday-. He had  been gone for a few years  when Violet ups and starts writing all these horror novels . So everyone figures she had something to do with his disappearance.   It turns out to he was in an accident, a stupid car accident and they find this kid in his car at the bottom of the Duwamish River fifty years after he disappears. But really it probably helped to make her career. Who wouldn’t be intrigued by stories written by a suspected murderess?”

” So what happened to her?” Karla asked Bailey.

” The day they bury her friend’s bones, she’s  was in her early 70’s by then, she disappears from the graveyard.”

” Come on.” Karla laughed

” Seriously. They found her car in the lot in front of the Funeral Home and she’s gone. They never found her” Bailey insisted.

The shade of Violet reaches out and traces a line on the back of the neck of the woman dressed as a Witch and when the Witch reaches back to warm the cold that is creeping up and down her spine Violet whispers into her ear, ” maybe there was nothing for anyone to find.”

” Maybe there was nothing for anyone to find.”

” What?”

” Oh. Nothing. So she disappeared from the cemetery?”

” Yes.”

” Well. In my opinion that’s your movie. An old school horror writers from the what- 1940’s disappears from a cemetery. And what’s going on that day? The body of her friend- who she was falsely accused of killing is laid to rest. Now that’s a movie I’d pay to see Bailey.”

” I know, but I can’t get away from it. Those stories of her’s  it’s like they’re alive. “

” So you say.”

Bailey says more to himself then to Karla, ” I want those stories of hers.”

Violet stands up, walks behind Bailey and puts her hands on his shoulders.

She squeezes and Bailey turns his head painfully from left to right.

” I wonder how she did that, made those stories live like that.” Bailey says.

Violet leans down and whispers in Bailey’s ear, ” Milo.”

Violet covers Bailey’s mouth and nose with her hand and he begins to cough. She pulls her hand away and he takes a breath. ” I wonder why no one has ever tried to do this before. Those stories are just made to go up on the screen.”

Violet covers Bailey’s mouth and nose with her hand and this time as he struggles for air  she does not let go.

Instead, she tells Bailey who is desperately clawing at his face, ‘ Like you said,  a long time ago somebody did try to make one of my stories their own- but the project died the way they sometimes do.”

” What are you looking at Jingle? “  Milo Hungerford asked his wife.

Jingle was standing in front of their bathroom mirror with her hairbrush in her hand and she turned slowly towards him and said, ” I don’t know. “

He came up behind her and stared into glass and shook his head.

” That’s not right Jingle. “

She put her hand to her face and looked into the mirror again and when she turned back towards Milo she started to cry. ” Milo what’s happening to me? “

Milo  pulled Jingle to his chest and turned her away from the looking glass.

” Is it still there Milo? “

Milo held Jingle tighter and said, ” yes. “

” The one in the foyer- let’s try that one too. “

” Jingle- it won’t…” he started to say and then when he saw the look on her face he nodded. “okay, we’ll try that one too.”

Milo held his wife’s hand and they walked down the dark halls to the entrance to their home and together they looked into the mirror there and Jingle burst into tears and grabbed her face.

” Oh Milo- oh Milo what’s happening to me? ” she cried.

Milo looked into the mirror and there in the glass he saw his wife holding her hairbrush, her dark hair framing her face- all alone except for the darkness that was their home and he turned her gently towards him and said,

” I don’t know how it happened Jingle…but I think you’re alive. “

 front yard.

Not in the back yard, not hidden in the side yard.

But right in

THE FRONT YARD.

If I can’t have that I’m hoping that one day I’ll at least have haunted furniture like Max has.

Check it out HERE

When I first found this picture on the  Vintage Resources site I grabbed it because at a glance it looked perfect to illustrate a story I’d just finished.

Once I put the story and clip together though I noticed something strange on the left hand side of the picture that I hadn’t noticed when I’d first pulled it down from the Clip Art site.

There was a faded image of a child leaning against the railing and that child seemed to be present in a way that the more visible children weren’t.

I could think of at least three reasons for that image to be there and two of them made me glad I wasn’t in the house alone- so with all the lights in my work area on I put the picture up all alone at my Owl Creek Bridge with a caption that read ‘Almost There’.

Later I found out that child wasn’t a ghost- not in the way you’d define ghost-  but at the time this picture was taken the ‘ Almost There’ child was indeed dead.

While researching the subject of Post Mortem photography for questions I had received about something I’d written, I learned that this sort of photograph was created as a memorial to people who had passed on.

This is the way it was done:

The family would pose for a picture and then an image of the deceased was superimposed onto the new photograph.

That’s what was done with this photograph…that’s why it was created- it’s a memorial to a dead child.

Like I said, there were two reasons I could think of for that image to be there and when they first creeped into my head I was glad I wasn’t in the house alone.

I wish that were true right now.

amm

I work in an underground warehouse in a building in Pioneer Square

and this clip shows what would happen three blocks away from where I work if a 7.o magnitude earthquake were to hit Seattle.

I was there in Pioneer Square fo when the Nisqually Quake hit in 2001 which was a 6.8.

I suppose there’s a reason why I write about things coming out of the ground a lot now days.

It would not be Halloween

without Werewolves.

It could be Halloween without

Vampires.

I feel that way because I think Vampires suck.

 A few years ago my friend and I went on a ghost tour of Seattle.

One of the stories has stayed with me, not because it was creepy or scary.

It has stayed with me because it is such a tragic event.

In the story a woman checks into a nice hotel, with no luggage and no wedding ring- in those days I guess nice women didn’t visit nice hotels with no luggage. She told the Clerk that her luggage was on its way, would he please let her into her room so she could get some rest?

She had been traveling for so long, so the story goes.

A few hours later the woman’s luggage did show up and when they took it up to her they found her dead on her bed.

The room was undisturbed, nothing out-of-place. It looked like she had walked in, laid down on the bed and died.

Of course she just didn’t just die- she had committed suicide and she had used cyanide to do it.

Nobody was ever able to trace where the cyanide could have come from, her luggage gave no clues to her identity. There were no personal effects in them. She had, it appeared, taken great care to establish a new identity and she was so good at it that  over 50 years later it’s the only ID she is known by:

Jane Doe.

Jane Doe came back to haunt me, in her subtle way when I was watching a show about ghosts and came across a story from the 1800’s  about a husband and wife who arrived on a mysterious ship. The woman was ill when she arrived and her condition worsened as the days went on.

When she died her husband swore the people around them to secrecy. He asked that they never reveal their identities and they never did.

And the only story I can offer here is from my own travels.

One Summer I left work early and decided to take a side trip.

I wanted to poke around in one of those abandoned buildings I had seen while driving to an out of the way Doctor’s Office to get a Death certificate signed.

It was a little hotel- I think at one time it had been painted white with blue trim which I suppose was supposed to give it a seaside resort feel, but this hotel was inland and the closest body of water was a lake about 40 miles away.

Well.

I pulled in, got out and went to the room I had parked in front of. That way I figured, if I had to leave quicly my car would be right there. Not that I expected any trouble of course.

The door wasn’t locked. In fact, the door almost fell in when I turned the knob and went in. The only furniture in that room was a little nightstand sitting where a bed used to be. To the right of the night stand was a bathroom door.

It was shut.

I went over, put my hand on the knob when I looked down on the table and there was a pink rat tail comb, a tube of lipstick and a handful of bobby pins. They were covered with dirt and mold and looked like they had been here for a very long time.

I looked around the room.

There was nothing in that room but dirt and that little table and what was on top of it.

Without thinking I turned the knob…and it wasn’t locked.

It was stuck.

The knob wouldn’t even turn.

” I’m sorry, ” I called out ” I think I’m in the wrong room.”

I backed away from the door and as I did I thought I smelled perfume.

I think what unsettles me about these stories is not that these women were nameless, its as if they had no faces.

I wonder if they ever did.

RESOURCES:

The Stranger

The Story Of The Female Stranger

The Ghost Of The Female Stranger

HAUNTED HOTELS:

Top Ten Haunted Hotels of The United States

Haunted Hotels, Inns and Castles

Washington State Ghost Towns

Photograph(s) copyright Shaun O’Boyle

Mia and Akela were sitting on a park bench just across the street from the Lander House and they saw the camera crews and the ghost hunters and the famous Medium, Mr Newport doing whatever it was one does to get ready to tape a tv show.

” I think Mr Newport is so debonair.” Mia sighed. ” I wish I lived in a haunted house. I would love to have him sit across from me and take my hand in his and help me bring light to the dark places that haunt us all”

” The where? Are you serious here Mia?  He’s a ghost hunter. Tell me. What does one do with a ghost they’ve hunted?”

” How should I know?”

” Well. You’re such a fan. So take a stab at it. Do they cut their heads off and nail them to a wall? Turn them into rugs or belts or umbrella stands? All hunters take trophies Mia. It’s the nature of the beast.”

” You have no Soul Akela. None. You could travel around the world and end up sitting on this park bench across the street from that awful building and still wonder if Becks still makes strawberry milkshakes with fresh strawberries and not frozen.”

” Becks makes the best strawberry milkshakes Mia.”

“ Well. I don’t care what you say. Mr Newport is my favorite TV star. I think he really believes in what he’s doing and he helps people Akela. What’s wrong with that? Look. It’s not like he’s actually hurting anyone. I mean. Seriously. He can’t, can he now?”

” He certainly cannot.”

” I’m glad you agree with me.”

” I’m not agreeing with you, I’m stating a fact. ” Akela told Mia.

” I just don’t understand why you hate him so.”

” I hate him, ” Akela said for the hundredth time that month, ” because he’s vain and stupid and that accent of his has got to be fake. That’s the worst. That stupid accent. I mean, he doesn’t even try to be convincing. He has got to be the worst actor on the face of the earth and he must have a million fans. How does something like that happen?”

Mia shrugged and looked away from Akela.

” Mia. This guy is so bad. Look over there. The Lander House. The Infamous Hospital where the story says  the staff disappeared and the patients were all found murdered in their beds and instead of taking all those dead people to a cemetery they buried them on the grounds behind the hospital because there was so little left of the bodies to bury. Why Mia did he chose the Lander House to look for ghosts?”

” Because it was the scene of a terrible tragedy and sometimes tragic events imprint themselves onto things in the physical world and they get replayed over and over again.”

” You got that from the tv show, didn’t you?”

” So?”

” So the Lander House wasn’t the hospital, The Prefontaine Hotel-” Akela pointed to a large brick building behind them ” was the hospital where the staff did disappear and twenty patients died and they were buried on the grounds because the Prefontaine was a charity hospital and in the old days that’s what they did to people who died there. The only weird thing was them turning it into a Hotel. Still.  Do you know who gets that history wrong? Historians and Ghost Hunters- and do you know who duped them into looking at the wrong building? The Developers that turned the Hospital into a hotel.”

“  Well. The Lander House was a hospital and I’m sure there are ghosts there.”

” Mia, there isn’t a single one. It’s just a building with a bunch of junk in the halls and paint peeling off of the walls. That’s it.”

” Well. I think Mr. Newport’s heart is in the right place. I think he really does want to understand the next world. I can see it in his eyes.”

” Oh Geeze.”

” Mia, I don’t care that he’s never actually seen a real ghost or been to a real haunted house or that he’s got a silly accent. He wants to find those things. He’s a true romantic.”

“Well. He’s not going to find them over there. That’s for sure. And if you and me went over there right now and told them that boring brick building across the street was the…”

” Hotbed of paranormal activity.”

Akela took a deep breath and ignored that last comment from her friend. ” real scene a terrible tragedy and mystery they wouldn’t care because that…” she pointed to the Lander House ” looks better on film than that…” she said waving her hand at the Prefontaine.

” He could be sensing something at the Lander.”

” No, he isn’t.”

” Well. He’s not going to sense anything at the Prefontaine either.”

” No kidding.”

” Poor Mr. Newport.” Mia said.

” I wonder what his real name is.” Akela asked.

Before Mia could answer they saw a woman from the Ghost Hunter crew pointing towards them and then she waved at them and crossed the street to where they were.

” Hi, nice afternoon isn’t it?” the young woman held her hand out and said ” my name is Lissy Peterman, I’m with the crew.”

Akela kept her arms folded across her chest and Mia said:

” I love your show.”

“Wow.  Thank you. We appreciate that.  I was wondering if you ladies would like to be in one of our interview segments.”

Akela told Lissy Peterman, ” there aren’t any ghosts over there  you know.”

“I think there are. ” Mia added.

” Well, if you know any background about the Lander- we’d love to hear your stories.”

Akela looked at Mia.

” Okay. Sure. Why not ” Akela said. ” We’ve got the time.”

Mia stood up first and smoothed her white Nurses Uniform with her pale hands and as Akela did the same  she whispered into Akela’s ear ” take it back.”

” Hey. There aren’t any ghosts at the Lander….yet.” 

Lizzie Borden- she was a woman- she was a killer -and she got away with two of the most hands on brutal killings in American History.

To refresh your memory, Lizzie lived in a state where  ( in 1692 anyway )  you could just accuse a woman of being a witch and have her executed…just like that.

Another thing to keep in mind is that in 1892 women ( including Lizzie ) didn’t even have the right to vote-

that didn’t happen until 1920.

Anway- I think she did it but to this day Lizzie has her supporters and they say she’s innocent.

One of the arguments in her defense- which I think underscores the fact that Lizzie was found innocent because of her sex- was based on the time lines established for the killings.

Lizzie’s  Stepmother was supposed to have been killed an hour or so before her Father.

The theory is that it was very unlikely that  someone ( like a WOMAN ) who inflicted that kind of damage on a  person with an AX could have left a dead mutilated body upstairs and gone on with her day  and then come back later and did the same to someone else.

Have you ever seen the pictures of Andrew Borden?

Whoever did that was good and angry, they had worked themselves up into a mindless rage and that kind of rage can happen in the blink of an eye or it can build up…

say…

over an hour or so.

Links:

Link Photos From: The Chancery House

And visit: Lizzie Borden Virtual Museum and Library

” How did you get so good at carving pumpkins? “

” Practice.” Enid told her Granddaughter as she delicately put the tip of her butcher’s knife against the side pumpkin’s blank face. ” Lots and lots of practice.”

She pushed the knife into he pumpkin’s flesh and as she broke the skin she told Aubrey, ” I love that smell.”

” That pumpkin smell?”

Enid looked over the pumpkin and said, ” That what?”

” That pumpkin smell.”

Enid shrugged and then pulled the knife up and dropped it down into the pumpkin in one clean motion after another.

Instead of answering her Aubrey Enid hummed.

When she was finished she put her knife down and wrapped her fingers around the pumpkins stem. She took a breath, closed her eyes and smiled as lifted and  heard the pop and rip as the top of the pumkin’s skull came away in her hand.

Enid opened her eyes and sighed and then  she answered her Granddaughter. ” No. I don’t mean that smell. I mean that other smell.”

” I can’t smell anything except for Pumpkin.”

” Really?” Enid said, ” You can’t smell that?”

Enid set the top of the pumpkin’s head down and she reached for a large wooden spoon and plunged into the pumpkin and began to scrape it out.

” Go ahead. Take a sniff. You really can’t smell that?”

Aubrey leaned over the pumpkin and sniffed.

” What is it? What should I be able to smell?”

As Enid  stood up she picked the knife up off the table and said  to the back of her Granddaughters neck:

 ” Why. The Fear of course.”

On the fourth day of Halloween I Visit:

The Valley Of The Bones

Enter

HERE

I thought I’d post these Halloween Story Starters, they’re fun and you can either use them to write a story or have a few to put into the old brain for something to talk about with your friends on Halloween Night.

Myself, when I tell stories on Halloween Night, I will swear up and down they’re true. To pull that off you need to have a story ready to go…just an FYI.

These are basic, but the best stories are.

Have Fun!

a.m.

 1.It was a cold Halloween night when I saw the…

 2.The mad scientist was creating a new monster that could…

 3.The large cauldron of  liquid started to boil when…

4.I got an eerie feeling when I heard…

 5.The mysterious object started floating in the air and…

 6.The Halloween pumpkin turned into a…

7.The black cat started to crouch and hiss when…

 8.Something in the closet was making a strange noise, so I opened the door and…

9.I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw…

10.As I carefully entered the haunted house, the door shut behind me and…

11. Something in the window…

12. It’s teeth were…

13. We have always called it the Witch’s House..

14. The Halloween Shop on the corner..

15. I never believed in monsters until…

16. The key to the basement…

17. Ogilby was a gravedigger and last Halloween…

18. We  found the Halloween Costumes in my Grandma’s attic…

19 .Make up your own Scary Starter.

 Adapted from A Cauldron of Halloween Ideas