When the leaves began to fall that first week in October so many years ago, I could not have been less prepared for what would ultimately alter the course of my life and any foreseeable future linked to it. Autumn was the time of year that I would spring to life, even as God and …
My name isn’t really important, but for now, I’ll go by Monty. A little backstory, I grew up in a small town just outside of Hartford, Connecticut. Real nice place where everyone knew everyone, you never locked your doors, had a real charm to it. Nicest bunch of folks you could ever meet, really. We …
This is a story about an old Welsh witch. It was All Hallows’ Day, 1 November 1974, when the people of my village awoke to find that my house had burnt down. My parents’ charred bodies were found and identified, but the investigators were unable to find and identify my remains, and therefore I was …
Moving day. A chance to start fresh in a new place. New opportunities, new community, new home. Home. Not just a house. To Eric Sherman, this was a place he could finally call home. No ex-wives to hound him for alimony. No disapproving parents to question his absence of faith and Atheist lifestyle. No bitchy …
My family and I moved to Denver about two years ago. I work for an art school that transferred me from my remote Orlando office, and the city that I had called home for the past fifteen years, to the main college campus that is situated just outside of downtown Denver. I love it here. …
I know they say Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, but for me it’s Halloween. I deck the hall with cobwebs and fake spiders. It’s just such a special time. Autumn is here and the leaves are beginning to fall. It’s a time for dressing up and suspending reality. We sit in …
I live in a country where, unfortunately, Halloween is not a big thing. It’s almost not a thing at all, and this fact disappoints me to no end. I’m a bored 19-year-old living in a small town where everyone I know still acts like they did when they were 14. So you understand why I …
I have a confession to make. I have been trying so hard to forget what I saw, but now that Halloween is right around the corner again, all these memories resurfaced all of a sudden. I now know it was wrong to keep my mouth shut. But before I tell my husband about it and …
Most towns have a library. They’re public buildings, institutions of knowledge and fantasy. The books held within are almost sacred; librarians and their assistants: the priests and acolytes of knowledge and lore. Some libraries, however, are not public. They hold forbidden secrets and untold stories. Congratulations, reader. This is your invitation. Welcome to the Library …
Grandma Elouise had strictly forbidden everyone in the family from going into the attic of her old farmhouse. She insisted that the ceiling door was far too heavy, and that someone would throw out their back, get a splinter, or smash their fingers if they tried to lift it. She was so adamant about it, …
“Dude, you’ve never heard of Bunnyman Bridge?” I had been living in Virginia for less than six months when my buddy Scott asked me this question. I was a recent transplant from New Jersey and had no idea what he was talking about. We were sitting on the lawn outside of the house we rented …
I’ve always enjoyed Halloween. It’s a great holiday, it’s fun, and above all, I like getting scared. All these reasons make it like Christmas for me and my family. My parents actually like it as much as me. Besides trick-or-treating, they’d watch horror movies with me and take me to all the local haunted attractions. …
My Boyfriend Investigated A Strange Noise on Halloween Read More »
God, I wish we hadn’t changed our Halloween routine last year. For three years, ever since they have been old enough, we have done the same thing, go trick or treating in the village with some of my daughter’s school friends. Last year we decided to mix it up a little and try a local …
I Found a Lost Little Girl at a Halloween Attraction Read More »
“The Candy Man can ’cause he mixes it with love, and makes the world taste good.” ~Willy Wonka Every town has its ghost stories. Maybe it’s the haunted house on the other side of the railroad tracks, or the spirit that haunts the tunnel in the woods, but people love talking about things that go …
For seven consecutive years, no one has gone trick-or-treating in Bigelow County. In fact, no one in that rural, God-fearing little town celebrates Halloween. At all. Under pressure from concerned parents, elderly residents – who make up the majority of the electorate, and the four churches – all of some form of Protestantism, the October …
The sun shone dimly through gray skies, barely illuminating a vague dirt road upon which a young teen walked. The young man was tired, fighting off fatigue as he forced one foot in front of the other, desperate to find an inn. His perseverance was soon rewarded by the sight of a familiarly dilapidated building. …
It’s that time of the year again. I know how I’m going to be spending Halloween. Same way I have for the past two years, slowly nursing a beer in the bar. Watching the glass sweat on that smooth wooden counter, staring at it till it goes warm in my hand. I’m not there to …
When I was just a little kid, my grandmother on my mother’s side once scared the living shit out of me. I’ve never forgotten that terrifying moment of my youth. Until now, it was just a fond memory of a silly little boy in his Scooby-Doo pajamas running down the hall and screaming at the …
The Stanwyck Ghost Tours used to be a tradition in my hometown around Halloween. It was always cheap and heavy on the schlock. Hammy tour guides, cheesy music, cheap decorations. Picture Monster Mash as a two-hour ghost tour, and you get the idea. But given the town’s limited history and questionable urban legends, I couldn’t …
Sometimes when you’re a kid, you dream shit that you don’t tell your parents. And it’s not because what you dreamt was so bad, but because you have no words to explain what the fuck it was you dreamt. Add that I’d had the dream the night before Halloween. Add that on Halloween night, we’d …
Jamie Lee Curtis and the Night They Filmed Halloween On Our Street Read More »
After my dad shared his Halloween tale about the disappearance of his best friend Jake and the town’s O-Lantern Man urban legend, I asked him if he would tell me another story…and he did, several. We were actually up pretty late that night talking about my dad’s childhood. My dad said he had experienced so many terrifying and bizarre encounters, he figured it would be best to start from the beginning.
Growing up, my dad would tell me scary stories, ones he claimed he experienced during his childhood. His stories would both fascinate and terrify me. As I grew older, the stories he would share became less frequent until they eventually came to an end. Maybe because I stopped believing. I had come to the conclusion, …
Detective Martinez dragged on his filter-tipped cigarette, watching the fiery cherry rapidly descend to the orange paper. He heaved a deep sigh on the exhale, regretting having to work into the wee hours. The spent cigarette tumbled from his hand, landing on the wet Tarmac with a fizz. He reached inside his raincoat and withdrew …
Being poor is tough, but it hits especially hard during the holidays. Halloween is the first reminder that you don’t have the disposable income for your kid’s happiness. I took Austin down to a local thrift store we visited frequently. They had a rack of reject costumes from supermarkets, a few cheap latex masks, corny …
