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Halloween
Halloween Haunts: When Taboo Becomes Tradition by Carrie Lee South
Halloween Haunts: When Taboo Becomes Tradition
by Carrie Lee South
When I tell non-horror people I write dark fiction, their response is often something like “Why? Don’t you want to think about something more positive?” But then autumn’s cold breath brings crisp leaves and suddenly, everyone “gets it.” Halloween. That most American of all holidays. Once a year, the neighborhoods parade out the fake skeletons and tombstones and we all invite death into our lives for a while.
Halloween Haunts: The Facts in the Case of Edgar Allan Poe by Joseph Maddrey
Halloween Haunts: The Facts in the Case of Edgar Allan Poe
by Joseph Maddrey
When I moved to Richmond, Virginia in 2021, after fifteen years in Los Angeles, I was disappointed about Halloween. Nobody celebrates Halloween like people in L.A. and I expected Halloween in Richmond to be anticlimactic, so I immediately started looking for the local horror crowd. In September, I gravitated toward the Edgar Allan Poe Museum and decided to embrace my new home by dressing up as its native master of horror on October 31st.
Halloween Haunts: Halloween on Blood Mountain by Jeffrey LeBlanc
Halloween Haunts: Halloween on Blood Mountain
By Jeffrey LeBlanc
Golden and crimson leaves fall majestically from the ageless trees of Blood Mountain. As they drift along nearing the forest floor, I watch the wind wisp them up into swirls across the rocky bald, and shadowed crags of Blood Mountain. I smile warmly and place my hand to my brow shading my eyes from the crossing sun. I narrow my blue eyes and furrow my brow trying to trace the track of the turbulent leaf storm as it rolls and glimmers as elfin gold in a late-afternoon sun. It truly is a glorious October afternoon in Nature’s splendor.
Halloween Haunts – HWA and Halloween-Inspired Horrorky by Paul Lonardo
Halloween Haunts – HWA and Halloween-Inspired Horrorky
by Paul Lonardo
As a writer whose focus has always been prose, I had never even considered attempting writing in verse. The thought of composing a poem had always been intimidating to me. Just the mention of iambic pentameter makes me break out in a cold sweat. I was of the belief that poetry was something for deep-thinking, brooding, scholarly types who possessed some arcane ability to plumb the depths of the human soul and mortal existence with strings of words that held meaning I did not understand, nor even capable of comprehending.
HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: THE RURAL HEART OF DARKNESS AND ITS MONSTERS by Nicole M. Wolverton
HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: THE RURAL HEART OF DARKNESS AND ITS MONSTERS
by Nicole M. Wolverton
The rural Pennsylvania hinterlands beg for monsters. It’s more than just the setting—sprawling cornfields, more than a few reputedly haunted covered bridges, dark forests, desolate mountains, and sparsely populated towns—it’s that there isn’t very much to do. Boredom breeds imagination. It sure did in my case. I grew up in a tiny northeastern PA town called Berwick, and that is where my monsters were born.
Halloween Haunts: What the Drive-In Means to Me by David Sharp
The drive-in has always held a special place for me in regards to horror. It was an awesome place to hang out and watch a double feature with friends. I would go no matter the weather; being in the car with an outside screen and FM radio frequency was cool as hell. And as fall came into effect, as much as Houston, Texas would let it, it was a definitive Halloween season destination, especially around the full moon.
Halloween Haunts: The Lighthouse by Elizabeth Mitchell
Halloween Haunts: The Lighthouse
by Elizabeth Mitchell
I love St. Augustine. It’s a part of Florida that feels unlike Florida—or it did when I went there as a child. It was a slice of Europe with a splash of American tourism dusted in pirates. When my grandparents rented a condo there one year, I had a laundry list of things I wanted to do. Visiting the beach was at the bottom of the list. Museums, old homes, the lighthouse, and the ghost tour were at the top.
Halloween Haunts: Helen Creighton: The Ghost Lady by Heddy Johannesen
Halloween Haunts: Helen Creighton: The Ghost Lady
by Heddy Johannesen
Helen Creighton was a celebrated folklorist, author, and pioneer researcher. She is best known for her book Bluenose Ghosts about firsthand accounts of spine-chilling tales. Creighton excelled at collecting local folk ballads, folk tales and ghost stories. She is also known for her skill at collecting local dances, games, cures and proverbs.
She was born with a caul. A person born with a caul will have a warning before danger. This proved true when Creighton explored the province in search of folk tales. One night she stayed at an inn the night before the Miramichi Folk Festival and had a dream of a child coming towards her. The next day a deer jumped in front of her car on the highway. She would have several of these portentous experiences including her own doppelganger warning her of danger. It made her the perfect person to lend an empathetic ear to those sharing their own experiences.
HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: THE GHOST OF YOUNGER ME, STILL LAUGHING BY MY SIDE by Ronald J. Murray
HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: THE GHOST OF YOUNGER ME, STILL LAUGHING BY MY SIDE
by Ronald J. Murray
My earliest taste of bringing others frightful fun came on Halloween during my twelfth year. Almost annually, Halloweens were spent at my grandmother’s when I was a kid. I could see downtown Pittsburgh from her front porch, so the trick-or-treater traffic was abundant. This particular year, I wore one of those faceless, hooded ghost costumes, and instead of trick-or-treating, I decided to hang back and have a different kind of fun.
HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: A KIWI KALEIDOSCOPE by Lee Murray (and friends)
HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: A KIWI KALEIDOSCOPE
by Lee Murray (and friends)
Recently, I asked the contributors of Kiwi horror anthology Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa (Clan Destine Press, 1 October 2023) what they thought about Halloween in New Zealand. Is it a thing? Yes, or no? What’s your take? My colleagues’ responses were both varied and insightful.
Halloween Haunts: Evans City Cemetery by Katherine Kerestman
Halloween Haunts: Evans City Cemetery
by Katherine Kerestman
For this cat, The Night of the Living Dead is an essential component of the Halloween season, having its place of honor alongside the stories of Poe, Lovecraft, and Stoker; thus, it was a matter of destiny that on a chill and overcast October day I made my way to the Evans City Cemetery, which is every bit as atmospheric in real life as it is in the movie. The Evans City Cemetery is a macabre destination covered in my first book, Creepy Cat’s Macabre Travels: Prowling around Haunted Towers, Crumbling Cathedral, and Ghoulish Graveyards (WordCrafts Press, 2020). For photos of these travels, as well as my research into my upcoming second macabre travel book, please see www.creepycatlair.com. Creepy Cat loves to poke into the mouseholes of the Macabre.