Comments on: Spooky times

By: Kevin A. Lewis

Kevin A. Lewis — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 23:23:37 +0000

Well, I see from the sparse number of entries that a lot of people who cruise this site probably turn off their lights and pretend to be out when the trick-or-treaters arrive, so here’s another Halloween lit story: When I discovered H.P. Lovecraft in high school, I was impressed enough to take out a map of New England and try to see if places like Innsmouth and Dunwich really existed. I loaned the book to a buddy of mine who asked to see it who was a born-again Christian with his own mythological set of presumptions (hey, it’s a small town of west Texas, I’ve gotta hang out with somebody…) who got halfway through “The Haunter Of The Dark” and tore my mass-market paperback to shreds because he felt that Satan lurked therein. I had to threaten to send him to the pearly gates early to get my 1.95 back, and preemtorily refused to loan him my new Moody Blues album as an addition sanction for his silliness. (I doubt if he’d have found that satanic, but one errs on the side of caution when you’re on a high-school budget) Anyway, I like to think that H.P. would’ve found the episode vaguely flattering.

By: Kevin A. Lewis

Kevin A. Lewis — Sat, 12 Oct 2013 21:30:52 +0000

As a kid, I was a hard-bitten monster nut who could watch the Wolfman snarling and collected every Creepy & Eerie magazine I could get my hands on without turning a hair until I tuned in on a Saturday afternoon showing of Dracula’s Daughter, an old Universal film from 1935. No blood, fangs, or overt violence…Just an ominous-looking woman with really big eyes and loads of foggy atmosphere which scared the holy crap out of my poor 8-year-old self and made me sleep with the lights on for 2 weeks. One of my favorites now-trouble then was that I freaked out and turned off the TV when things were getting weird, and when curiousity got the best of me 5 minutes later, I turned back on just in time to miss the comic relief scenes and found myself right back in the middle of another scary part. It’s a must-own film that you’ll never find at Redbox, to say the least…..

By: Gill Avila

Gill Avila — Sat, 12 Oct 2013 11:34:51 +0000

Once on a campout I related the Derleth/Lovecraft story “Wentworth’s Day” as if it had happened to me. A traveling salesman’s car conks out and he seeks shelter at a lonely country house. He knocks, the owner shouts “That you Wentworth?” The salesman says no and is let in. After a bit of chat the owner says that years ago his shotgun accidentally went off and killed Wentworth. Every year after that Wentworth comes at midnight on the anniversary and pounds on the door seeking revenge. Suddenly there’s a pounding on the door and thee owner checks his watch. “Past midnight” he says and opens the door. The salesman checks his watch and sees that the owner’s watch is 5 minutes fast.// My story was the last related that night. One woman had to be escorted back to her tent, she was so terrified!

By: Regina

Regina — Fri, 11 Oct 2013 22:11:11 +0000

Growing up, I had a set of three hardback books – The Bumper Book, Gateway to Storyland, and Stories that Never Grow Old. I believe they were published in the 1930s. I loved these old books. They had classics like “The Owl and the Pussycat,” “The Little Red Hen,” “The Pied Piper,” and “The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat.”

There was also a very strange story, entitled “Teeny-Tiny.” It was about this little old woman in a little old house, and one day she noticed a little scarecrow with a nice dress, and she stole that dress, even though her conscience told her not to.

The little old woman looked remarkably like my own grandmother, which probably made it really stand out in my mind.

Well, at the end of the day, she hung the dress in the closet, and then she heard this voice from her closet, saying “Give me my clothes!” and it got louder and louder until she shouted, at the climax, to take them back.

And as a bonus, the closet was one of those old-fashioned not-built-in type of things, and the handles on the cabinets looked like eyes. And they were looking right at the little old woman. It was terrible. Truly terrible, nestled in among the ugly duckling stories and Robert Louis Stevenson poems.

So yeah. I’ve seen horrific movies, gone through dozens of haunted houses, read every Stephen King book and scared myself silly in all kinds of ways, but when I think of what scared me as a kid, it’s Teeny-Tiny. Creepy, creepy Teeny-Tiny.