Thirteen ghosts: A collection of spooky tales for Halloween (Part Four)

Ooh, it’s nearly here! The day I’ve been waiting for – Halloween.

I could happily have spent hours browsing through appropriate images for todays blog, there are so many, but instead, I picked the first one I came across in order to ensure that this post got out on time, because you wouldn’t have seen me for the rest of the day!

I don’t know why I love Halloween so much, I just do. This afternoon and this evening, the POA is curtains closed, chocolate and beer out of the fridge and a HUGE scare-athon on the TV! As many spooky (sometimes cringe-worthily poor), gory horror films as we can find! Can’t wait! And next weekend, in between Halloween and Bonfire night, we are having a themed night at my friend’s house, avec fireworks! She says it’s to celebrate her moving into her new home, when we all know it is just another chance for grown-ups to dress up and act like kids! Can’t wait!

So, over the last few days on SMoD&L, we have had spine-chilling collection of guest posts from some fabulous writers. I was thrilled to have every one on board and apologise to those who sent posts in but didn’t get a place. There were some awesome stories sent in, but I only had thirteen spots, so unlucky for some! But seriously, thanks anyway.

The penultimate post in this Halloween special is by Andrew Biss. Now this isn’t so much a spooky tale (although the connection is there with the film mentioned) more of a huge, great big, massive YEUGH! post. I’ll let Andrew explain, but if you’re squeamish (or just a girl) you might want to look away now:

“They say you are a man of good… taste.”

Many years ago, when I was still working as an actor, I was hired as Richard E. Grant’s photo double for the Francis Ford Coppola film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”. As a photo double it’s somewhat important to look vaguely like the actor you’re doubling (I don’t look like Richard particularly) but more important to have the same physical proportions/measurements, as youshare the same costumes and need to look proportionate in long shots, etc. One day on the set, the second unit director, Francis’ son Roman Coppola, asked me if I’d be interested in doing a stunt shot, which would include the added bonus of “stunt pay”. I immediately said yes, of course, without bothering to ask what the actual stunt entailed, the lure of stunt pay blinding me to everything else.

I was taken to a separate area of the studio where they had constructed a large, square wood pen. On one side of the pen was a camera and on the other a mock-up of a wall that leaned into the pen at a 45 degree angle, with a plank of wood at the bottom that acted as a sort of drawbridge between it and the pen. Near the top of the angled “wall” was a window, with the windowsill being perfectly horizontal…still with me?

Okay, so for the stunt, I was doubling not for Richard but for the actor Billy Campbell, who played Quincey P. Morris, the Texan living in London (now there’s a stretch!). I donned the big leather duster he wore, along with a huge pair of cowboy boots, and was asked to step into the pen. Sounds simple enough so far…except that the pen was crammed full of what had to be more than 100 rats, all jostling around and crawling on top of each other. I took a deep breath and in I stepped, being careful not to bring down one of those huge boots on top of anyone.

My job was to stand in front of the 45 degree angled wall, surrounded by the rats, and wait until the rat wranglers (yes, they exist), who were standing behind the window with little clickers in their hands, started making their clicking noises. The rats, you see, had been trained to recognise this sound as feeding time, and so when the clicking began and the plank was removed, they would rush en masse up the wall and through the window. Just as the last ones were making their way up and out, I had to fall onto the wall, holding my body completely straight, and slam my hands up against the windowsill.

In the finished scene in the film, Dracula, to escape his assailants, turns into a pack of rats which then run up a wall and escape through the window, with Quincey P. Morris rushing to the wall just as the last of them are making their escape. This is followed by a close-up shot of Quincey (me) arriving at the window and slamming his (my) hands against the windowsill.

The most frightening thing for me? Squashing one of those rats with my hands. You see, I was falling with all of my body weight against the wall, my hands held in a fixed position, and the rats would run scattershot across it. If one of them happened to be in the place where my hands hit it wouldn’t have stood a chance. But after many takes the shot was finally done and thankfully I’d managed to avoid taking a life, not to mention splattering the wall with rat blood

All of that work, all of that construction and filming, all for a shot that lasts but a couple of seconds.

Of course, the real stunt work that day was not done by me but by the rats, answering the call of duty – or at least clickers – in the hope of a morsel or two to nibble on. I certainly hope they were paid extra “stunt food” that day…though quite what that food would consist of, I shudder to think.

Andrew Biss is an award-winning author and playwright. Hi dark contemporary fantasy The End of the World is available at the below eBook retailers. His psychological thriller Schism will be released in November.

Amazon US 

Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Smashwords

Thanks Andrew, I think!

That story made me squirm. Not that I spend my days fearing that I will be forced to stand still and let rats crawl all over me (no, my phobia is much more rational, that a lion will smash through my front room window and maul us all) but still, it’s not something I would relish!

*shivers*

Hmmn, you get to meet some strange folk when you’re in the writing game. And speaking of strange (but nice) folk, meet our last, but by no means, least contributor; Steve Vernon. I saved Steve’s post until last for a reason, well, two reasons really. Not only does it bring the Thirteen ghosts theme to a lovely close, it has an extra message.

Read it, you’ll see what I mean.

Gallow-ween

         Halloween has always been my favorite time of the year.  I know that things have changed since I was young. You don’t see the crowds of kids in Superman costumes, hobo garb, clown suits and ghost sheets the way you used to. Nowadays kids are too cool for all that foolishness.

Nevertheless, I still celebrate it every chance I get. For years it was my great tradition to decorate my front lawn with as much booga-booga paraphernalia as I could manage.

What did I have?

Well, for starters, there was a great foamcore full moon, painted bright metallic gold and on the highest peak of my roof. In front of that full moon dangled a witch on a broomstick – made from a homemade scarecrow stuffed with sheets and rags and shirts that I had outgrown.

Lord, I have grown through an awful lot of shirts since then. From size medium to extra large – how the heck could I managed to shrink so much laundry?

On the front lawn was a pair of large sawhorses with an old door slung across them and a huge stuffed Frankenstein monster stretched out. A pair of diabolical looking juice jugs with plastic tubing served as a makeshift IV.

I’m not saying this was fancy, you understand, but it had all of the heart that I could manage to inject into it.

Speaking of heart, one year I found a garbage bag of stuffed animals on the curbside. I salvaged a fine fat stuffed penguin and laid him out on the top of huge wooden stump that I dragged from out back where it usually served as a chopping block for my firewood. I tied that stuffed penguin to the top of the chopping block, inserted a set of finely-crafted foamcore fangs into his beak, and then drove a wooden stake with the butt of my axe – directly into the heart of that vampiric tuxedoed penguin. A few artful dribbles of homemade blood and the work was complete.

My yew bush, a fine fat hunk of shrubbery grew long black plastic tentacles. At the foot of the yew bush I built a mouth with a pair of old stuffed jeans and some mildwed funkified workboots poked out from the jaws of the yew bush. The tentacles were arranged so that the trick or treaters would have to walk beneath the overhanging tentacles along the sidewalk to get to my door. Above my door hung a spider web crafted from the remnants of a hockey net. Above that spider web dangled a huge black fuzzy spider about as large as a bushel basket. Inside the web was a small stuffed Spiderman costume, with its arms and legs pretzelled into unmistakable dead-as-a-doornail angles.

Some nights I would sit out there on that front step beneath that spider web dressed in a big old homemade Frankenstein monster suit with a great black pea coat and a big old fabric head. I would sit just as still as I could until someone walked up and then I would stand and yell something profound like “Booga booga.”

The windows would be painted with black cats, and several carved pumpkins sometimes aided by our black cat who would stare balefully out the window at any approaching trick or treaters.

There were also several scarecrows staked out in front of our lawn – but the highlight was our cemetery. Every year I dragged the old tombstones – decorated with the names of various horror actors and authors – as well as their birth and death dates. Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, H.P. Lovecraft, Oscar Wilde, Bela Lugosi and many others were buried each year upon our front lawn.

Then, I would spend hours raking leaves from the backyard to the front. I would rake them from the curbside and the neighbour’s lawn. By the time I was finished that front yard would be covered with about a half a foot deep in multicolored dead autumn leaves. Then I would scatter plastic bones and chunks of driftwood and plastic machetes and cleavers and the like.

Yes sir and yes ma’m – I did Halloween up in a real big way.

But the strangest Halloween of all happened the year that I decided that my front yard needed an honest-to-god gallows. I constructed it out of scrap two by fours – artfully nailed together in a fashion that would make Red Green look skillful. I hung a huge scarecrow with a noose that was tied in a perfect hangman’s knot.

All right, so my wife tied the knot but I thought the idea up so I still get to wear my Old Spice manly cologne.

That gallows looked good, standing out there just behind the graveyard with a couple of orange floodlights shining on it.

Two days after the gallows went up a woman knocked on my door.

“Mister,” she told me. “My kids love your Halloween yard every year but they can’t walk by here without crying because my husband, in a fit of depression, hung himself in our basement just last year.”

You could not have stunned me harder if you had struck me full in the forehead with a caulking mallet.

I hastily apologized and promised the gallows would come down that very day. I called in to work and told them I had to stay home today. I cut the arm of the gallows and lowered the big old scarecrow down. Then I dressed the scarecrow up in drag – giving him a high peaked witch’s hat and a long black gown. My wife stitched up a hag’s beak and shoved his chin forward. Then I tied him to the two-by-four that stood upright. I built a heap of firewood and decorated it with red and yellow and orange cellophane-style wrapping paper. When I hit it with the orange floodlights it metamorphized from a hung scarecrow to a witch burning at the stake.

I figured I was safe.

There was no way that any neighbor would have burned themselves at the stake last year, the year before or the year before that.

It is a funny story, telling it now – but  I want you to know that I felt like ten kinds of stupid hearing about that woman’s crying kids. It showed me that there is another side to Halloween. It is a doorway from the happy of summer to the long bitter wake of cold winter. It is a time of when the old people would carry tribute to their recently dead and their thoughts would turn to the hereafter, and folks would gather around their woodstoves and talk of those who had passed away.

Halloween wasn’t always candy and trick or treaters.

Still, the story did have a happy ending.

I was so pleased with how the graveyard looked that I left it until Christmas before I finally took it down. Early that December, my wife’s sister decided to take advantage of a neighborhood bus tour that was tooling around the local streets admiring the various Christmas lights.

When they passed our house the tour guide kind of choked on his spit and gasped out “Who the heck lives there – the Adams Family?”

“No,” my sister-in-law quietly said. “That’s my sister’s house.”

Any truths that were stretched in the spinning of this yarn probably needed a good workout anyway.

Yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

Thanks Steve. Kinda sums it up eh?

Steve has not been well this week and neglected to send me any blurb or info on his books, so I took the liberty of finding out for myself just who this guy was. Check him out on Amazon. 

Steve Vernon has been writing dark fiction for a lot of years. You’ll find his work in the pages of Cemetery Dance, Tor’s Year’s Best Horror, The Horror Show, Flesh & Blood, Hot Blood, Horror Garage and many other tastefully titled markets and magazines. Steve’s ghost story collections Wicked Woods, Halifax Haunts, and Haunted Harbours (Nimbus) are available in many Maritime bookstores.

Beginning in 2011 Crossroad Press will be releasing an awful lot of Steve Vernon’s horror fiction in e-book format – including his dark superhero collection NOTHING TO LOSE, a never-before published second volume of Captain Nothing tales entitled NOTHING DOWN, his weird west cult novella LONG HORN, BIG SHAGGY and a never-before published novel of historical horror DEVIL TREE.

Steve’s first YA novel, Sinking Deeper – a touching tale of sea monsters and caber tossing – will be released in the spring of 2011 from Nimbus Publishing.

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

Thanks Steve, what a guy eh? And what a frightening feast of fiction (see what I did there?) we have had over the last few days. Brilliant!

So, it’s off to my sofa armed with crisps and beer for my horrorfest. I hope you all have a fabulous Halloween and remember, stay scared!

Saffi

PS. Why not pop over to my co-writer’s site and check out his Halloween special featuring the fabulous, best-selling author (and now fully-fledged writer under the MWiDP banner) Anne R. Allen and her new book ‘Ghostwriters in the sky‘, which we are thrilled to be publishing. Go on, you know you want to. MUHAHAHAHA.

Related articles

• Thirteen ghosts: A collection of spooky tales for Halloween (Part Three) (sapphicscribe.wordpress.com)
• Thirteen ghosts: A collection of spooky tales for Halloween (Part Two) (sapphicscribe.wordpress.com)
• Thirteen ghosts: A collection of spooky tales for Halloween (Part One) (sapphicscribe.wordpress.com)

Thirteen ghosts: A collection of spooky tales for Halloween (Part Three)

Sooo, Spooky Saturday is upon us and to kick us off today is an amazing story (made even more amazing by the fact that this is NON-FICTION and you can get a free book!) by Holly Grant. This one is a real frightener. So, if you’re setting comfortably, then Holly will begin:

Hollister Ann Grant

The Ghost in the Triangular Field: a true story

Mention ghosts and I used to be the world’s biggest skeptic. I thought that people who claimed they’d encountered ghosts were either lying or had goofy, romantic imaginations. You know, the kind of people who see Mother Teresa in their buttered toast.

My late husband Jack and I used to leave our home in Washington, D.C. on the weekend and drive 90 miles north to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to hike and photograph the boulder-strewn hills. The July 1863 battle was the American Civil War’s bloodiest fight with 51,000 casualties. Jack was a military history buff and was always reading five or six books about the war. One day he told me he’d read about a haunted triangular field on the southern side of the battlefield.

“People say a ghost interferes with cameras and video equipment,” he said.

The idea of a camera-wrecking ghost made me gleeful.

“Oh, wow, let’s go, then,” I told him.

We were using a film camera with new batteries at the time. When we came to the Triangular Field, we walked through a weathered gate into waist-high grass. Woods bordered the field on two sides. We passed several overgrown pits that Jack said were probably old burial pits; after the war ended, the military came back and tried to exhume the dead to bury them in cemeteries. The field had an ominous atmosphere that seemed to grow with every step we took. When we reached the bottom, we stood on a flat rock to get out of the weeds.

“Well, here goes,” I said with a laugh. “Let’s see if the ghost messes up our camera.”

I clicked the camera and the batteries died. They not only died, they died with a loud descending sound as if something had drained them on the spot.

“I can’t believe this,” I said, irritated.

I popped the batteries out, adjusted them, and tried to shoot again. The batteries made the same sound and died completely, as if something had drained the final drops of juice.

“Well, maybe there is a ghost,” I said, a little uneasy, but I was mostly annoyed because we couldn’t shoot any more photos.

We drove into the town, bought a disposable camera, the kind you wind after every shot, and returned with our new toy to the same flat rock.

“Okay,” I said, feeling foolish. “If there really is a ghost here, show us why our camera died and what happened on this rock.” Then I shot the flat rock, half-expecting the disposable camera to stop working, too, but it held up.

After we developed our film, we found a strange photo of a misty cloud hovering over the rock. Jack thought the cloud seemed to be in motion, as if someone had been running and fell when they were shot. During the battle, rebel soldiers had scaled a low wall that borders the field and run over the flat rock on their way up the hill.

That was our first strange experience in the Triangular Field. Many people have written about similar experiences they’ve had in this field. The area has been tested for geological anomalies that might interfere with equipment and nothing turned up. We also showed our photographs to the head photographer at the newspaper where I worked and asked if any camera defects could cause the same effects and she shook her head no.

Over the years Jack took thousands of film and digital photos of the Gettysburg battlefield, including mysterious mists, orbs, and a spiral that resembles the tunnel some people say they passed through in near-death experiences. It took some kicking and screaming on my part, but I’ve changed from a skeptic to a reluctant believer. I now think that some people are so traumatized after death that they can’t let go of this world and want to show us that they still exist.

***

Hollister Ann Grant is the author of Haunted Ground: Ghost Photos from the Gettysburg Battlefield. The book provides directions to every photo location, a summary of what happened there during the battle, and travel information about the town and the Gettysburg National Military Park – and the book is free right now on Amazon, iTunes, and Smashwords. Contact Holly at grantstories@gmail.com, @hollistergrant on Twitter, or http://hollistergrant.blogspot.com.

Amazon.com

Amazon UK

iTunes

Smashwords

Here’s the photo:

Wow! Seriously spooky huh? Holly tells me that she is hoping to get the book free on Amazon UK soon, but you can still download a free copy from Smahwords at the link above. That has got to be worth a read over Halloween. Thanks Holly! Brilliant post.

Next up we have Tracy Marchini (seriously, stop with the cool names already!) to tell us why we shouldn’t ask her to go Ghost hunting!

Why You Shouldn’t Invite Me To A Haunted House

My sixth grade character, Juliet, is 100 times braver than I am.

When I was ten, I was browsing the bookstore and read that people are most likely to see a ghost between the ages of eight and twelve.  I nearly peed myself right then and there – I was right in the “ghost sweet spot,” and had two years to go!

I (thankfully) managed to make it to twelve without seeing a ghost, but I never could finish one of R. L. Stine’s Fear Street books without waiting till daylight.  To this day, I can only watch Ghost Hunters because I’m 99.9% sure that all the EVP evidence is just a bunch of distorted noise.  (I mean, if we can auto-tune the women of the Real Housewives, we can certainly make some spooky sounding whispers.)  And my friends never invite me to a scary movie, because I spend the whole time clenching their arm and screaming.  (Or doing the cough-and-look-at-the-floor-during-the-scary-part trick, which they’ve probably figured out by now as well.)

The scariest thing I do each year is a corn maze, and this is only because my best-friend loves the corn maze, and it opens around her birthday.  (She is not above rustling the corn behind us as we go through it.  One day, I will not be above using Google Maps for an aerial view, so that I can get in and out as soon as possible.)

In short, Juliet would think that I was a big chicken – which is why I decided to stick her in a haunted house.

In Haunting At Heidelburgh Mansion (A Hot Ticket Short Story), Juliet crashes the Un-Halloween Party of the most popular girl in school – Cindy Newsome.  But when her best-friend, Lucy, disappears, it’s up to Juliet to find a way to get her friend back from the headless bride – or risk losing her friend forever.

Now, I’m not saying that if this happened to me, I would immediately go running from the house, leaving my friend to certain doom.  But unlike Juliet, I would at least consider it.*

Juliet though, has chutzpah.  Cajones.  And she’ll need it too… because if there’s anything scarier than the headless bride, it’s the most popular girl in her school – Cindy Newsome.

(*Don’t worry, if we were really in a haunted house together and you were captured by a ghost and I suddenly took off running and screaming, it would only be to find help.  Or better cell phone reception to call 555-2368.)

About the Author:

Tracy Marchini is a freelance writer and editorial consultant. Before launching her own editorial service, she worked at a literary agency, as a children’s book reviewer, a newspaper correspondent and a freelance copywriter. She may also be known as the worst kickball player to ever grace her schoolyard.

Haunting at Heidelburgh Mansion is a 35 page middle grade short story in the Hot Ticket series.

Thanks Tracy, I’m with you, you can stay in the maze for now!

Our next spectral scribe is the fabulously talented Kealan Patrick Burke (right, I mean it, I have HAD it with the name thing!). Now, I am soooo busy just now, that I get very little chance to read, but read ‘The Turtle Boy’ I did and well, WOW! I haven’t been that captivated by a writers’ voice for a long time. You MUST read that book. I can’t wait to start ‘Kin’!

Here’s Kealan to tell us why Halloween never dies:

THE LAST HALLOWEEN

As a writer of the dark stuff, it should come as no surprise that autumn is my favorite season, October my favorite month, and Halloween my favorite holiday. As soon as the leaves change color and begin to fall, it’s time for the coat to go on and for long walks in the woods.

In my youth it was no different. In school, it was the one time of the year in which it was okay to have portraits of slavering monsters festooning the classroom walls, pumpkins wearing expressions comical and malevolent lined in rows on the long tables beneath them. We bobbed for apples, and played games all day instead of learning anything of value. Even our teachers seemed infected by the Halloween spirit and dispensed candy to the sweet-toothed students with all the fervor of kings tossing coins to the poor. We were allowed to come to class in the costumes we intended to wear for Halloween. There were competitions for the best. Then, once school was out, we walked home, watching the younger children whose trick-or-treating was confined to daylight hours (out of fear of monsters both very real and dangerous), and discussed the best neighborhoods to hit for the most amount of candy. Every year, it was pretty much the same.

Until the last one.

I was thirteen, and aware that I was toeing the line of being too old for trick-or-treating. From what I had seen, once you passed a certain age, your idea of what constituted fun began to change. For some, this meant tormenting the younger kids with eggs and flour and water balloons, or toilet-papering houses. Or worse. For others, it meant staying at home watching horror movies with their parents and handing out candy, often with a look of regret that they had outgrown the privilege of being on the other side of things. I probably belonged to this latter category on the night I decided to go trick-or-treating for the last time.

I went alone, as my friends had decided that this was the year that they were going to retire from the nightworld, a decision that disappointed me greatly. I was unwilling to relinquish the feel of the one night in which I got to play the monster, and in truth, I think I was afraid of the greater implications of being too old to trick or treat. If I was too old for that, what else was I too old for? Christmas? Riding my bike to the old abandoned house at the end of the neighborhood? Writing love notes to girls I had crushes on? It was as if, in taking off my mask, I would be taking off the face of my childhood, and the thought depressed me. So, to hell with it, I thought, and off I went—a dime-store Dracula with a cape, capsules of foamy blood syrup in my mouth, and a talcum-powder pallor to my skin.

But almost immediately, I knew things had changed. The younger kids had already gone home, and there were fewer kids my own age roaming around by the time I stepped out into the night. The air smelled different, the electricity gone, and as I went from house to house the people who opened the door to me seemed less enthusiastic, less engaged by the ritual, as if they too had grown exhausted of the pretense, or perhaps, were just nonplussed by mine. It was a season for children, after all, so what was I doing here, an adolescent, too old for it all, holding out my bag with a forced grin on my bloody mouth and nothing to say?

As the night went on, it became evident that I had been fooling myself. The streets were dark and empty, the spirit I had grown to cherish gone, already carried home in the hearts of the younger children, with none reserved for me. In getting older, I had given up the right. And as I pondered this, a slump-shouldered vampire heading back to his crypt for the night, I was set upon by four tall monsters, teenagers toeing their own line of grown-up responsibility as their twenties loomed on the horizon. I weathered their assault of eggs, flour, and water balloons without complaint until, howling and hollering at the moon, they moved on in search of another victim.

I remember standing there for a long time outside a house in which all the lights were off—a sign for you to move along, please, no candy here—chewing a fistful of gummy worms as cold egg yolk slithered down the back of neck, and realizing that no amount of denial would ever change the fact that it was my last Halloween.

But again, I was wrong.

When I got home that night, sullen and miserable, my mother looked at me, grinning, and told me to go get cleaned up. After a shower, I felt better, and the night ended with me and my mother sitting in the dark watching horror movies on television while we shared the candy. This, I realized, was my Halloween now, and as much as I tried, as much as I lamented the loss of the spirit that had characterized the Halloweens of years past, I couldn’t find reason to complain about it. It was, as a matter of fact, just fine.

It was the last Halloween only in the sense of celebrating it as a child.

It was the first Halloween for the adult I was becoming.

Nowadays, when this time of year comes around, I still feel something of the old magic. There is an equal amount of fun to be found in making it fun for others. I love when the costumed children come around and being one of those people who does leave the lights on, does open the door and spoils them with tons of candy. And my girlfriend and I have made something of a big deal, not only about Halloween, but the whole season. Starting on October 1^st, we begin to decorate the house with Gothic candles, skulls, lights, and various bits of Halloween paraphernalia. We watch horror movies and read horror novels all month long. This year, I’ve even handed my blog over to some of my favorite horror authors as a venue for their own thoughts about the season.

I love this time of year, and have realized that it’s only ever the last Halloween if you let it be. Eventually, of course, time itself will give you your last Halloween, but even then, even when we’re ushered quietly into the realm of the spirits, Halloween night will still be ours, and like that kid too old to trick-or-treat, we’ll simply be doing it in our own way on the other side of things.

– Kealan Patrick Burke

October 27^th, 2011

Kealan Patrick Burke is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Turtle Boy, The Hides, Vessels, Currency of Souls, Master of the Moors, and Kin. You can find him on the web at www.kealanpatrickburke.com or at his blog: www.kealanpatrick.wordpress.com

Find him, seriously. This Turtle Boy will go far! Thanks Kealan, brilliant post!

You can find Kealan’s Halloween themed stories here

Last up for this special, scary Saturday is Deanna Chase with a fabulous frightener:

Happy Halloween! I’m Deanna Chase, author of Haunted on Bourbon Street. What better way to celebrate than with a ghost story or two?

After giving it some thought, it seems logical that people in the UK would have a lot more ghost stories than those of us on the other side of the pond. Considering the age of England verses the age of the US it only makes sense, right? In my thirty-something years of living I have lived in about a dozen different places and all but two have either been brand new or less than thirty years old.

The first older place I lived in was a nineteen-twenty’s apartment. The building had three or four dozen units and the walls were paper-thin. Any odd noises or smells were mostly likely blamed on the neighbors. In any case, I never once noticed anything out of the ordinary, except for the guy in the house next door that had people who showed up at all hours of the night. Unless he was a vampire, I’m fairly certain he was dealing illegal substances.

My current house is over one-hundred years old. We have neighbors, but we don’t share walls, and there is a good distance between our houses. So when I smell cigar smoke, flowery perfume, and the occasional distinct stench of marijuana, I’m left wondering who exactly is in my house. My husband is allergic to perfume, so I don’t wear any. Also we are strictly non-smoking home. I know I’m not smoking anything, and the husband gets asthma. It’s either someone outside or our place is haunted. I’m willing to concede the smoke could be coming in from outside. But the perfume? That doesn’t make sense to me

Normally I wouldn’t be so quick to jump to conclusions, but late at night when I’m writing I often hear footsteps. It isn’t the dogs. They are always asleep at my feet. It isn’t the husband. I know because I can hear his snoring in the next room. (Sorry G). Unless he’s sleepwalking, which in our fifteen years together I’ve never known him to do, my only logical guess is a ghost. Almost every night I’m up late I can hear the distinct sounds of heavy footsteps on my hardwood floors. My house is pretty quiet. It’s a hard thing to miss.

The cool thing is that none of this freaks me out. I don’t have the weird feeling someone is watching me or in my space. It just is. As long as the ghost isn’t bothering me, he or she can stay as long as they want. I actually find it cool that while I’m writing my ghost stories I might have one roaming in the background.

Since I live in Louisiana it’s easy to draw inspiration from New Orleans and the French Quarter especially. It’s an old city, founded in the early seventeen-hundreds. That’s old by US standards. It also has a sordid history with pirates and slavery. These days there are cemetery, ghost, and vampire tours. It seems every building in the French Quarter has some sort of ghost lore attached to it. The people of New Orleans say Saint Peters Street is the most haunted street in the US. Of course if you go to Salem, MA I’m sure someone there will say Salem is the most haunted city. Still, it’s fun stuff for storytellers.

I can only imagine what the inspiration would be like living in and near all the old buildings in Europe. The castles especially. With all the history and wars fought through the centuries the place must be teaming with ghosts. Some day I’d love to spend a year living abroad just soaking it all in. I’m sure a ghost story or two would be born.

In the mean time, you can read about Jade and the French Quarter in Haunted on Bourbon Street. Jade’s ghost story is much more gripping than mine.

Jade loves her new apartment—until a ghost joins her in the shower.

When empath Jade Calhoun moves into an apartment above a strip bar on Bourbon Street, she expects life to get interesting. What she doesn’t count on is making friends with an exotic dancer, attracting a powerful spirit, and developing feelings for Kane, her sexy landlord.

Being an empath has never been easy on Jade’s relationships. It’s no wonder she keeps her gift a secret. But when the ghost moves from spooking Jade to terrorizing Pyper, the dancer, it’s up to Jade to use her unique ability to save her. Except she’ll need Kane’s help—and he’s betrayed her with a secret of his own—to do it. Can she find a way to trust him and herself before Pyper is lost?

Available on:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

Itunes

Smashwords

All Romance

Deanna Chase
Website
Sign up for my newsletter to be informed of new releases and giveaways

Thanks Deanna, great way to finish up!

See you all tomorrow for the final two Halloween tales from Steve Vernon and Andrew Biss.

Have a super, spooky Saturday.

Saffi

Related articles

• Thirteen ghosts: A collection of spooky tales for Halloween (Part One) (sapphicscribe.wordpress.com)
• On the Trail…of Gettysburg Ghosts (bethchristopher.com)
• Using “Free” On Standalone Books – Guest Post by Indie Author Hollister Ann Grant (davidgaughran.wordpress.com)

Thirteen ghosts: A collection of spooky tales for Halloween (Part Two)

Well hello and Happy nearly Halloween day!

Yesterday on SMoD&L, we featured tales from Nick Spalding, Leonard D. Hilley II (I am still smarting over that name) and Ruth Barrett. Thanks guys, it was a pleasure.

Today, I have not three, but four brilliant and equally devilish writers for your mischief and merriment.

Over to you to open the show, Robin Morris!

Happy Halloween

by Robin Morris

A vampire, a demon, and a zombie stood on the sidewalk looking at the dark, quiet house.

“That’s old man Jansen’s place,” Billy said. The night was beginning to turn cold. The crowds of kids in colorful costumes had turned into a few stragglers. Most houses in the neighborhood were still lit up, welcoming trick-or-treaters and decorated with plastic skeletons and witches.

The Jansen house was unlit, unwelcoming.

“It’s perfect,” Jimmy said with a grin. “He doesn’t give us nothing, we got a reason for a trick.” Jimmy was a vampire, fangs and a cape and a predatory smile.

“He’s mean,” Billy said. Billy was a demon, red skin, horns, and a tail.

“So are we,” Bobby said. Bobby was a zombie, dead and hungry. “We’re monsters, we’re not afraid of an old man.”

“Come on.” Billy led the way, as he always did.

The two story house was not friendly. The porch light was off, no lights showed on the first floor. One upstairs room had dim light in the window.

A vampire, a demon, and a zombie walked up the stairs. A rocking chair on the porch creaked as it rocked in the wind.

Billy knocked on the door. Hard.

There was no answer.

“He’s not coming down.” Bobby said.

“Let’s go,” Jimmy said after a full minute passed.

“He’ll come,” Billy said. He knocked even harder.

Another moment, and Billy was proven right. The steps inside creaked, and the light behind the door came on.

Old man Jensen opened the door. White hair blowing over a bare scalp, sagging face, wearing a bathrobe.

“TRICK OR TREAT!” the vampire, demon, and zombie shouted in unison.

“Go away,” Old Man Jensen said. “I leave the light off, that means I don’t do this.”

“Trick,” Billy said, “or treat.” He held out his bag of  treats, heavy with candy gathered at other houses. Jimmy and Bobby did the same.

“I got nothing for you. You do anything to my house, I call your parents.”

“No treat?” Jimmy asked.

“No.”

“Then trick,” Billy said.

“And we don’t got parents,” Bobby said.

All three rushed the old man, Jimmy sinking fangs into his leg, Billy jumping and landing on his chest, digging into him with razor sharp claws. Bobby got behind him, making him fall as the others pushed.

When he was on the ground, Bobby shut the door so the neighborhood wouldn’t hear the old man scream.

A vampire, a demon, and a zombie feasted.

Read more of Robin’s work here:

Mama (Amazon)

Mama (Smashwords)

Halloween Sky and other nightmares (Amazon)

Halloween Sky and other nightmares (Smashwords)

Thanks Robin! I know what my answer to the ‘Trick or treat’ question this Halloween will be, that’s for sure!

And speaking yesterday of fabulously named writers, here’s another one I wish I’d been christened/thought of. Please take your bow, Artemis Hunt!

‘Psychotic’ was the first horror story I ever wrote. You can see it here at:

Amazon

I wrote it back in 2005. There’s a funny story attached to it. As a freelance journalist, I was interviewing a bestselling author (who subsequently became a friend) who wrote a book about her adventures as an airline stewardess. In a moment of clarity, I figured “If she can do it, I can do it too.” And so I set out to write a story.

I had this idea running in my head about a woman in a city stalked by a serial killer, only I didn’t want it to be like any other serial killer story I’ve ever read. Once I put down the first word on my computer, the story kind of took hold of me and wouldn’t let go. I finished it within a day and looked at it in satisfaction. Especially at the twist in the end. People still come up to me today and tell me they just didn’t see that twist coming!

“Needs more stories to go with it,” my friend, a newspaper editor, said. “Then you can make an anthology out of it.”

And you know what? I did. I just got a new job, and my horror short stories grew out of the new people I went to work with I titled the book ‘Dark City’, went out to seek an agent, who got me a publisher within a day, and the book was released. It shot up the bestseller lists to as high as No. 2 in the major bookstores. (Those were the times we didn’t have Kindle.) I got rave reviews (89% on my personal Tomatometer One of my stories was even serialized in a newspaper.

Flash forward to 2011. E-publishing was all the rage with success stories like Joe Konrath, Amanda Hocking, Saffina Desforges… I kept reading them and reading them till my eyes blurred over. So what was I waiting for? I took the plunge. I started releasing a few of those horror shorts one by one, and put one up with Saffina Desforges Presents (to be out in Nov)

The one that is doing the best so far, maybe because it was the first being released is ‘Psychotic’. It shot up to No. 23 on the Horror charts in Amazon UK and has 2 5-star reviews to date. I’m proudest of it, because it was the first story I ever wrote. Strangely, since ‘Dark City’, I never wrote horror again.

Since 2007, I began to branch into Young Adult books and tried to get an American agent (as I am not American). Lots of requests from very huge houses, but no takers. You can see some of the books I wrote here at my blog:

http://artemishunt.blogspot.com/

And to be honest, the manuscripts of some of these books are at agents even as I write, because I’m one of those who want to straddle both worlds. My long time beta reader just got a 100K deal at a Big Six within one week of being on submission (and with a book I helped beta), so I’m convinced it CAN be done

So far, I’ve been exactly 2 months into indie publishing, and I’m enjoying every moment of it. I tried my hand at different genres – so far I’ve got my YA fantasy (THE HUNT FOR THE CATALYST), my paranormal chick lit (THE BODY SNATCHER WEARS LIPSTICK), my YA sci-fi/romance (SNOW WHITE AND THE ALIEN), all who have received great reviews so far. Am I doing well? Not Saffina Desforges well, certainly! I haven’t had a home run with anything I wrote yet – and what I mean by a home run is a book that gets into the Amazon Top 500! But I’ve seen my sales grow like this:

Aug (1 week): 14 (1 book)
Sept: 44 (released 2 more books and 2 short stories at the end of the month)
Oct: 584 (as of Oct 26th) – started writing short stories in another genre and pen name ……erotica!!

Yes, I’ve branched out to write erotica as well, and found that they do quite well despite me being a new author to the field, and I can even charge $2.99 per story.

So far, this whole thing is an adventure for me, and I can keep you posted as to how things pan out.

Back to horror. Will I ever write another horror story again? (grins) Why not?

Artemis Hunt (who writes as A.R. Hunt under the ‘horror’ genre). I’m too embarrassed to tell you what my erotica handle is.

Thanks Artemis. Oh go on, tell us! (My apologies that there is no author photo of Artemis, but as you can tell from the above post, she’s very shy!)

Next in line for their stint on the boards, is Natasha Salnikova. Now, Natasha’s post is very short, but definitely not sweet!

When I think about something scary and spooky, I think about my own head. That’s the scariest place on a planet for me. I don’t know any other place with so many monsters, serial killers, psychopaths and lunatics collected together. Somehow they live peacefully with each other and they don’t go out much. When I feel they get restless, I throw one of them out. My head doesn’t feel lighter, there are always new guys in town, but letting out some monsters does feel good. And you think I’m crazy? … Well, you’re right. Just read my books. You don’t need other prove and many people agree.
Happy Halloween! Say Hi to your own Monsters. They like it.

Natasha A. Salnikova

And here’s links to my books if you need it.

Amazon.com

Amazon UK

B&N

Facebook

Thanks Natasha!

Finally for this frightening Friday, we have the fabulous Tallulah Grace (how did I find so many writers with such great names?) Take it away Tallulah! Make sure you check out Tallulah’s youtube/book trailer vid for a little scare too!

What’s Halloween without the delicious tingle that a truly frightening story can bring? The scariest part of this short story lies in the fact that it contains more than a few kernels of truth…

The sickeningly sweet aroma of Beautiful perfume surrounded Keri as she sat alone in the quiet room. Rolling her eyes with exasperation, she spoke to the unseen.

“Go away. You don’t frighten me.” Picking up a magazine, she prepared to ignore her visitor while wishing that the dead woman preferred a more subtle fragrance. Or at least understood the concept of less is more.

At first these nightly visits had Keri running for the door, but after two months in her new home, the malodorous visitor was merely a nuisance. Aside from permeating the room to announce her presence, the spirit was never inappropriate. An occasional curtain flutter and a few rearranged objects were the only bits of physical evidence she left behind. Typically, her visits were brief, but lately she had begun to linger longer.

“It’s almost Halloween, maybe she expects a treat.” Keri mused aloud as she waited for the scent to evaporate.

The sudden crash of books landing on the hardwoods punctuated Keri’s comment.

“Hey,” Keri leapt from the sofa, dropping the magazine as she whirled towards the noise. “Stop that.” She watched in burgeoning anger as her precious books began to scatter across the room. Before she could move, the old cuckoo clock began to chime. Turning her attention to the broken clock, Keri watched the tiny bird move frantically in and out of a small doorway that hadn’t opened in years.

Anger quickly turned to fear as music began to blare from her iPod. The one with no speakers attached.

As her visitor’s aroma became almost overpowering, Keri found that she was locked into place. Nothing worked. Her legs, her hands, her arms, even her voice was frozen.

“It’s time.” The disembodied voice came as a whisper, so close that Keri could feel the cold breath touch her left cheek. Chills spread to the top of her head and the tips of her toes. Still, she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.

She watched in mute horror as the French doors flew open. The cold October wind ushered in dead and dying leaves along with a nauseatingly familiar smell of cigar smoke and sweat.

It can’t be, Keri thought. Even in the face of the unthinkable, she refused to believe that he was back.

“I killed you.” Her silent screams had no impact, but the dark presence heard her cry.

Deep laughter rippled eerily through the space as it replied, “I came to return the favor.”

A good friend actually experienced several of the events described in the story. Specifically, the perfumed visits from a gentle spirit never seemed to bother her, but nocturnal crashes when books and small appliances jumped from the shelves to the floor prompted her to move. I’ve always been enthralled with all things paranormal. So much so, that the main characters in my first three romantic suspense novels have special abilities. Future plans include helping my friend document a collection of true stories describing the paranormal events that she lived through. Watch for updates at http://www.tallulahgrace.com.

Books: Timeless Trilogy, Books One, Two & Three

FATE Book One of Timeless Trilogy Book Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-L4WfsCqFs

Brrrr! Thanks for that Tallulah! Now I am looking over my shoulder as I type! I couldn’t find an author pic of Tallulah, so you can have one of her ooh cover instead, as it is rather cool and quite befitting of the theme!

So, that concludes our pre-Halloween fun for today, check back tomorrow for some Spooky Saturday going’s on!

See you then, don’t be late – be scared!

Saffi

Thirteen ghosts: A collection of spooky tales for Halloween (Part One)

Ooh, it’s my absolute favourite time of year again. I love it. End of September and into October, Autumn (or as my American friends call it: Fall).

“Yeah, me too,”  I hear you say. “The nights pull in, the leaves turn all sorts of glorious colours before taking their final descent to a frost-kissed floor and early morning mist hangs around the hills like an ethereal spirit.” Er, no. *screeches to an abrupt halt*

(Well, yes, obviously, but not on this occasion.)

No, those aren’t the reasons that I love this time of year. I love it because I LOVE being scared. I actually like being frightened.

Whaaa? Yup, it’s true. Love it! Well, in small doses at least. I will always remember that feeling as a child when a teacher or relative told a spooky story. When you started painting and drawing scary pictures at school and planned your Halloween costume. For us, it was always the same. A black bin liner each, a tube of foil, some glue and a turnip. I think we may have depleted my ma’s talc and flour stocks too in order to make our faces deathly white; wonderful  memories. We would sit for hours cutting out moons and stars and sticking them on our costumes, arguing over who was having the largest swede/turnip (obviously, it should have been me, because I’m the oldest) and begging my parents to let us go out on our own. In those days, you could – not so much now, but a host of fabulous memories that I will treasure forever. It was probably also the time that I realised I was a bit strange.

When all the other kids were crying because an over-enthusiastic dad had answered the door without a head, I used to wish that the night would last forever. I would retire to bed from a fruitful night of Trick-or-Treating, armed with sweets that had probably been hiding in the back of our neighbour’s cupboards since the Christmas before and a carrier bag full of small change, tired, with hair still spiked from a concoction of sugar and water and a smile on my face. Waiting, patiently in the shadows for the witching hour. Hardly daring to breath, wondering what would happen when midnight came. Would I see a witch whizzing past on her broom or hear the sound of a useless limb being dragged across the roof as the undead walked the earth? Hear the cry of hell-dogs braying at a full moon whilst cats stole breath from sleeping children and turned all the grown-ups into pumpkins? Well, as you can probably guess, none of that ever happened, but I felt like it might and that is the magic of Halloween. Enjoy.

Following over the next few days are some brilliant stories or posts that I thought you might like. Happy Halloween. And just remember, that stooped, hairy-faced witch with the fake wart that you thought was your Aunty Irene dressing up after too many sherries, might just not be all as she seems.

First up is the wickedly funny, Nick Spalding:

The perils of trick or treating & How to alienate a million Twilight fans

At this happy time of year I’m reminded of an embarrassing episode in my childhood when I went trick or treating dressed as a Knight Of The Round Table. I was going through a stage of loving everything related to King Arthur, so the idea of sallying forth in my own set of armour delighted me immensely.

Lacking the skills or materials of the average thirteenth century blacksmith I spent the best part of a month putting together the costume, which was entirely made out of cardboard. Hours were spent slaving over the design. Further hours were spent cutting out breastplates, greaves and helmet. Weeks were spent trying to clean the cat after it got in the way of me covering the entire ensemble with grey spray paint. When it was finished the costume was a monstrosity of such epic proportions I could barely lift the bloody thing. If the real knights had to walk around in this kind of stuff it’s a wonder they ever had the energy to anything chivalrous like saving damsels in distress from belligerent dragons.

Nevertheless, off I tottered into the gloomy late October evening in my multi-piece armour, ready and willing to liberate everybody I could find of their sugary confectionary.

At home, stood in a heated lounge, the armour had felt uncomfortably warm. I’d therefore decided it was best to wear nothing underneath other than my vest, pants, socks and trainers. I hadn’t factored in the biting British autumn wind and rain outside, of course.

Surprisingly, it turns out cardboard is not good at fending off the elements. By seven thirty I was blue with cold and half the costume had fallen off with a wet plop. Local residents were somewhat taken aback to open their doors to a hypothermic ten year old in a pair of Batman underpants and soaking wet cardboard helmet, streaks of grey paint running down his shivering arms and a look on his face that suggested an imminent slide into soul-destroying madness.

By the end of the evening I’d bagged a good haul of sweets, but I suspect most were obtained largely out of pity.

Anyway…

To celebrate Halloween this year, rather than dressing up and embarrassing myself in front of the neighbours (I’ll save that for Christmas) I’ve released a new horror short story to Amazon and Smashwords.

In what can cheerfully be described as a blatant attempt to appeal to readers of a popular genre, this one is all about vampires.

Proper vampires, mind… ones that are big, nasty and don’t fall in love teenage girls at the drop of a sodding hat.

In fact, that’s the gist of the whole story really:

FEEDBACK – A VAMPIRE STORY

Be careful who you write about…

Keating the vampire used to love the stories that humans would write about his species. They had endlessly amused him – and allowed him to operate safe in the knowledge nobody believed he existed.

Madeline De Martine had changed all that though.

From terrifying, bloodthirsty creatures of the night… to maudlin, effeminate idiots obsessed with pubescent American girls, De Martine’s blockbuster romances had irrevocably ruined the image of the vampire as far as Keating was concerned.

So tonight he’s paying the multi-millionaire writer a visit, to offer some constructive feedback and show her the error of her ways…

Available at:            

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Smashwords

I got the idea from a conversation I had with a friend a few weeks ago. He’d made a valiant, but ultimately doomed attempt to watch Twilight, finally giving up right around the time R Patts started to twinkle majestically in the sunlight, making that miserable looking girl with the bug eyes go all gooey and misty-eyed.

Having spent a good twenty minutes bemoaning the way in which vampires are treated these days, I wondered aloud what a ‘real’ vampire would make of it all… and lo and behold the idea for a story was born.

I would apologise to Stephenie Meyer at this point, but she probably wouldn’t be able to hear me from the top of that mountain of cash.

Happy Halloween everybody!

Thanks Nick! Brilliant!

Next onto the darkened stage of SMoD&L is the wondrously named Leonard D. Hilley II. Take it away, Leonard…

Why I Love Halloween

From an early age I have always like the spookiness of Halloween.  I was four years old the first time I was exposed to Halloween trick-or-treaters.  I remember my grandfather grumbling about all the kids crossing the street and hurrying from house to house to fill their bags with candy.

When someone knocked on the door, my Dad told me to answer it.  I opened the door to a skinny clown-masked kid and all I did was stare at him, wondering why he was dressed like that.  On top of this I had to part with some of the beloved candies in the dish for a strange clown?  It hardly seemed worth it.

Halloween became more endearing the older I got.  Not for the candy.  But for the dark, mysterious sensation of the unexpected.  My brothers and sisters loved telling ghost stories late at night.  We read scary comics like Witching Hour, Tales of the Unexpected, House of Secrets, and House of Mystery.  Some nights we scared ourselves into sleeplessness.  We held hands before we eventually fell asleep, assuring one another that if something tried to take one of us, the rest of us would awaken and fight it off.

In my early teens, a friend and I explored an old abandoned house as dusk settled.  No one had been inside the house in over twenty years.  The floorboards creaked when we walked.  The smell of mildew and dust filled the air as we sifted through old letters and junk from the 1940s.  Even though we were the only two in the house, there was that strange feeling that we were being watched.  It was eerie.  When the old house foundation settled or the wind brushed a tree branch against a window, we turned around quickly, thinking someone had stepped into the room.  But no one else was there.

It is these experiences that are part of the reason I write dark novels.  Fear is exciting because it elevates a person’s endorphins and gives a rush of excitement.  Putting that type of fear on the page isn’t always an easy task, but I try.  And for the most part, readers tell me that I succeed with packing emotion and horror into my thrillers.  To receive such feedback is satisfying and humbling.

Happy Halloween!

You can read Leonard’s books on Amazon and B&N:

Links here:

Predator of Darkness: Aftermath

Beyond the Darkness

The Game of Pawns

Devils’ Den

Many thanks, Leonard and I am soooo jealous of your name!

Next up and last, but not least today, is the lovely Ruth Barrett. Come on, Ruth, let’s hear from the girls!

Ah, Halloween.

As a kid, this was my favourite day. Oh sure, I loved my birthday and Christmas– but Halloween had that sinister je ne sais quoi about it. I have to admit: I was a morbidly imaginative child. I loved disguises and darkness and running around to different houses all decked out with cobwebs and glowing jack-o-lanterns. The candy horde was a bonus. Just thinking about it now, I can almost smell fallen leaves on the damp streets and the chill in the air that meant the seasons were turning.

Morphing into my teen years, I was fascinated by Ouija boards and trying to speak with the ‘other side’. I voraciously read horror novels, particularly John Saul, Peter Straub and (of course!) Stephen King. I remember being so very freaked out by scenes in some books that I threw them across the room in fright. It was delicious.

What is it about the visceral attraction to being spooked out that keeps lovers of the macabre so hooked? Even now, I am drawn to the darker side of things. Why? In everyday life I am friendly and cheerful. I like order, calm and bright sunny days. Real violence and horrible situations repel me… and yet, I wear black head to toe most of the time. I look at everyone around me and wonder what disguise they are wearing, what mask they use to hide their inner selves– because all of us have secret sides. Sinister sides. It’s in our natures. When kept in perspective, ritualizing the Dark Side with harmless outlets like Halloween, scary movies, horror novels, comic books, S&M, role play and gaming keeps us sane and perhaps exorcises our personal demons.

And that larger, far more serious question hangs over all the fun and games: as we all live, so must all of us die. And then what? That must be the strange attraction– the fear of the ‘undiscovered country’ lies at the heart of Halloween. The pagan festival of Samhain– when the veil between worlds grows thin– used to be a time to celebrate harvest and honour our departed ancestors. Life and death. Light and dark. To embrace the fear of the unknown and make it a cause of celebration. We’ve lost that. Now kids dress up as Spiderman and eat mini chocolate bars until they feel sick.

In recent years, I’ve had real brushes with mortality. Three times, in fact– and more than just a casual visit. I have truly fought to fend off the grim reaper. It gave me new insight, and even a bit of added Sight at times. I am aware– like a cold hand on the back of my neck– that there is that Other Side standing parallel to us at all times. Waiting for us to notice. Or trying to get our attention.

Next time you have that feeling– that there is something in the room– turn and face it. Say hello.

Happy Halloween!

Ruth Barrett is the author of Base Spirits- a new supernatural thriller with a historical core. It’s available in e-book format at:

Amazon Kindle

Smashwords

Nook

Paperbacks are available through Stratford, Ontario independent booksellers:

Fanfare Books– fanfare@cyg.net

or Callan Books–  jcallan@orc.ca

Books can be personally inscribed by request before shipping, with a bonus postcard!

Please follow Ruth on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/LadyCalverley

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Spirited-Words-Book-Co/101014656667433

Blog: http://ruth-barrett-spiritedwords.blogspot.com/

Wonderful Ruth and thanks to my first three guests. Not only have you captured the essence of Halloween brilliantly, you have made me feel a little less strange.

More wonderfully weird tales tomorrow. Don’t be late!

Saffi

Related articles

• The Origins of the Jack-o-Lantern (designtimesfour.com)
• 8 Spooky Sets of Social Halloween Icons (mashable.com)

What’s so funny about being dead?

Hallo!

Well, it’s getting nearer isn’t it? My favourite time of the year. All Hallows’ Eve. Mischievous night. HALLOWEEN.

I love it!

Look, proof! Halloween party at ours in 2009.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

So, some time back, I asked for submissions for the ‘dark side’ of SMoD&L. Phew! What a mistake that was!

Scared? You will be! I didn’t sleep for a week. There’s some strange people out there. Dexter has nothing on some of them!

Anyway, once I had sifted through the submissions (and changed my address and phone number) I stumbled across this one from Jesse Petersen.

It is perfect for this blog and captures beautifully the whole theme. So, Jesse, without further ado..

Back in June Saffina put out the call for independent paranormal writers and I raised my hand, waved it around and thought, ok I’m going to write about a “dark” subject. And I thought about it. And thought about it. I started writing things and I stopped. Along the way, I realized something:

I’m Jesse Petersen, I write urban fantasy with zombies and post-apocalyptic subjects, I kill friends and neighbors and loved ones of my characters. And I don’t write dark books.

Ok, that’s not strictly true since my books do include all those elements I listed above. I do kill people (zombies and people). It’s pretty ghoulish and gross, which is so fun to write. But I do it all with a tongue firmly in cheek. I joke in my books. A lot. My characters are snarky and although they are changed by their circumstances, they all keep a pretty healthy sense of humor. That’s the kind of horror I like to read or watch as a movie or TV show.

It’s not that I don’t love DARK dark. I am a huge fan of The Walking Dead, 28 Days Later, a lot of true crime… stuff that makes your toes curl and gives me nightmares if I dare to watch it when I’m home alone. I love that stuff. I love that tingle up my spine and the nervousness is right at the back of my throat. But when it comes to writing “scary” or dark… I just have to add something funny.  For example:

My heroine Sarah comes back from her first encounter with a zombie and has to pee. In the bathroom, she finds her neighbor, totally zombied out. Without a weapon, what does she do? Scream? Cower? Pull out a gat? Not so much. In my world, she beats him to death, first with a Dr. Phil book and then with a toilet seat. Yeah. That’s how I roll. Dark? Sure. But also funny. And fun to write. In my latest release, the independently published IN THE DEAD: Volume 1, I have video gamers who have no idea there is a zombie outbreak, sisters looking for a way to go home with the help of a MacGyver-esque character and even feral children in trees who are compared to Justin Beiber.

So that’s my version of dark. Do you like humor with your darkness? Or are you just for the terror.

Thanks, Jesse

If you want to check out Jesse Petersen, here’s the linky stuff:

Amazon.com

B&N

My kinda gal!

Anyway, thanks for stopping by and taking time out of your busy stalking schedules.

Pop back in a few weeks and check in for a fab Halloween special!

Stay dark.

Saffi

Welcome along!

Another two fabulous authors joining the ever-growing MWiDP fold are featured here on SMoD&L today.

Both very different books and writers but prefect for this blog!

First, here’s Prue Batten with ‘A thousand glass flowers‘

Two people… one an extraordinary young woman, the other an embittered immortal man. Both seeking concealed spells that could annihilate Life.
In a quest through a world where Others lace their way in and out of the lives of mortals, this is a story of legend, love, and clashing ideals. A story of murder, regret and revenge… a story that journeys across a world too hauntingly like our own.

‘A sweeping, gorgeously written tale of magic, adventure, intrigue–and the very human power of enduring love. It held me spellbound.’ – Anna Elliott, author of The Avalon Trilogy

‘A magnificent evocation of a parallel world whose joys and sorrows are our own. Beautifully done.’ — Ann Swinfen, author of In Defence of Fantasy.

And with his story of friendship, love and loyalty, here’s G.S. Johnston with Consumption: A Novel

Who can a girl with a broken heart rely on if not her gay best friend?

Sara Sexton and Martin Blake are besties so it was natural for her to flee to him after breaking up with a Greek lover. But Martin has changed, preoccupied with his new business. In Hong Kong, he’s a high-profile, high-dollar interior designer.

When Sara meets Andy Harris, a romantic with a bubble-butt, Martin’s still on the market and not happy. Seems Martin’s only happy when Sara’s alone and miserable. Got any ‘friends’ like that? Now Sara has to juggle a consuming old friendship and a blossoming romance… And how does a girl do that? And what happens when she’s forced to choose between the past and the future?

For more, visit www.gsjohnston.com

CONSUMPTION: A NOVEL is 85000 words

Both are available from Amazon, now.

I am so excited by the wonderful tribe of writers joining us at MWiDP  next week, I will be featuring books from Sarah Woodbury, Anne R. Allen and Karin Cox.

Look out for the fab new series (among others) The Beautiful People by Danielle Blanchard Benson too!

Have a great Sunday!

Saffi

Related articles

• MWiDP proudly presents…Cheryl Shireman (sapphicscribe.wordpress.com)