Halloween Haunts: Satansville: Collecting Ghost Stories by T. Fox Dunham

Local legend tells of a conclave of buildings hidden by dense forest and fences that can only be reached by haunted back roads. This urban legends draws ghost hunters and daring teens to a small patch of forest in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, deep in the Delaware Valley on the border of that name state. The locals call this domain Satansville, also been called the Cult House—a colonial building made of brown river stone sitting on a hill. And the stories abound, frighten and challenge.

The foundation of the building drank the blood of sacrificed virgins in rituals that called upon the dark lord. A family of small people live on the site, inbreeding, creating a clan of freaks and the insane. The inbreeding rumors came from the short walls of the building, and people assumed that the DuPonts were hiding their mutant children who stood below five feet tall. An antiquated church standing 30 feet high with a 15 foot cross was built in the corner of the property. Ghosts haunt the surrounding woods, and if you intrude on the property, trucks driven by shadow pilots force you from the property, blaring their horns. As is this case, this has become a popular stunt with the young, usually aided by substances or the need to prove sexual potency.

I researched the legend for my show, What Are You Afraid Of? Horror & Paranormal Podcast. The legend of Satansville or The Cult House is easily found on paranormal sites and Youtube. In reality, the property was owned by the wealthy and notorious DuPont Family, who were the local squires of Delaware Valley. Their wealth and power drew resentment from the locals, who told stories that their influence came from diabolical deals—an example of how folklore empowers the disenfranchised. Something else I learned in my research:

Every county has a Satansville.

Ghost stories always use a paradigm, a coeval architecture depending on their category. As we continue to collect the stories—either paranormal encounters that have happened to listeners or stories anchored to the location—they usually follow the same style: a little girl says goodbye to her grandmother and finds out she died that night; a family was murdered in the house and now ghosts haunt it; objects move and footsteps bang down the hall at night. We don’t judge the authenticity. We’re not paranormal investigators. We’re para-journalists.

As storytellers, there is much we can learn from these classic elements. As these stories are told from person to person, the elements that scare us are preserved, even enhanced, while we forget insipid details, often replacing the banal facts with entertaining nuances. A family with height-challenged genes becomes a clan of inbreed mutants—far more interesting.

And it’s amazing how quickly these stories are accepted as reality. For example, the south has been invaded by clowns, something I’ve been reporting on the podcast. Each week, news services report harlequin encounters. The clowns offer children candy, money, treats if they follow them into the woods. The reports started in Greensboro, North Carolina, and now children and collaborating adults have been accosted across several states. Rob Zombie has denied a viral marketing campaign for his new movie, and the police have threatened the perpetrators and anyone contributing to the hoax. Intoxicated couples have taken to doing on 911 calls. This isn’t a hoax. This is mass hysteria, and in the old days, this would end with a witch being burned. But it’s not real. There are no clowns, and I’ll tell you why. We live in a cyborg world of implants. Everyone carries a camera, and yet no actual evidence has been documented. But it’s real enough to have put three schools on lockdown after threats of violence were tweeted. Look it up! It happened.

People love to be scared. It provides a chemical release similar to rollercoaster rides. Fear can be as addictive as heroin. And we want to scare you.

We’re on Saturday nights at 6PM on PARA-X RADIO, then we’re featured on every major podcast sites such as iHeart Radio, Google Play and iTunes. We’re looking for guests, and we support indie artists, musicians and authors. Check us out for a major event this October with several personalities in the paranormal community, authors, ghost stories, indie music, history and fiction.

Phil & I want to tell your true ghost stories. You can find the guideline submissions on our website at www.whatareyouafraidofpodcast.com. We also provide previous episodes, articles, artwork, expanded content and a ghost story archive. In October, we’re exploring the ghosts of Gettysburg with paranormal historian, Mark Nesbitt—featured on the History Channel & the Discovery Channel. We’re also recording a show on location from the Doylestown Bookstore, featuring an interview with zombie master David Dunwoody and a lot of other treats. We’re exploring the darkness—and it’s so much fun. Join us this October. Embrace the darkness.

TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: T. Fox Dunham is giving away a free e-book copy of his novel Mercy from Blood Bound Books. Comment below or email membership@horror.org with the subject title HH Contest Entry for a chance to win.” Or, if you don’t want the book, we will summon a ghost to haunt you using ancient magic. We can do it, you know.

T. Fox Dunham lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Allison. He’s a lymphoma survivor, cancer patient, modern bard and historian. His first book, The Street Martyr, was published by Gutter Books. A major motion picture based on the book is being produced by Throughline Films. Destroying the Tangible Illusion of Reality or Searching for Andy Kaufman, a book about what it’s like to be dying of cancer, was recently released from Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing and Fox has a story in the Stargate Anthology Points of Origin from MGM and Fandemonium Books. Fox is an active member of the Horror Writers Association, and he’s had published hundreds of short stories and articles. He’s host and creator of What Are You Afraid Of? Horror & Paranormal podcast. His motto is wrecking civilization one story at a time. Blog: http://tfoxdunham.blogspot.com/ http://www.facebook.com/tfoxdunham & Twitter: @TFoxDunham

MERCY:

FANGORIA gives MERCY 3.5/4 Skulls – “Dunham has channeled his many brushes with the other side into the exquisitely rendered, lyrical supernatural hospital thriller MERCY.”

“MERCY” (Book Review)

“Part medical horror, part supernatural suspense, MERCY is a hard-hitting fever dream of a novel. I enjoyed the hell out of it!” ~ Tim Waggoner, author of The Way of All Flesh and Eat The Night

“Pain and poetry flow in equal measure through these pages. Dunham’s prose strikes deep and hits all the right notes. MERCY is unforgettably vivid.” ~ David Dunwoody, author of Hell Walks and The 3 Egos

William Saint is dying of cancer. On most days death seems like a humane alternative to the treatment. Stricken with fever, William is rushed to Mercy—notorious as a place to send the sickest of the poor and uninsured to be forgotten—and finds the hospital in even worse condition than his previous visit. The grounds are unkempt, the foundation is cracking, and like the wild mushrooms sprouting from fissures of decay around it, something is growing inside the hospital. Something dark. It’s feeding on the sickness and sustaining itself on the staff, changing them. And now it wants Willie.

Buy at Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Mercy-T-Fox-Dunham/dp/194025020X/

An Excerpt from Mercy by T. Fox Dunham

Willie had to rest, just for a little while. The hospital didn’t seem to mind his presence there. Slime dripped from the walls, down the cables and soiled the insulation that bundled like muscle. The hospital swelled and grew. As he let his eyelids fall, he stared at the filthy cement and watched as the kernels of material divided like cells, multiplying over the hours he lay there. He reached out to pet the wall and felt it bristle and purr to his touch. He could feel it considering—not exactly thinking or cogitating—but a being coming into existence, forming perhaps a gestalt mind. He felt its old soul and enjoyed touching the nascent body it became, and he questioned this new empathy and figured it probably came from his deep connection to the place. He’d breathed in its spores and drank up its juices in his veins since he’d arrived—and probably long before, ever since the night Kylie had tried mushrooms and come home to die in their bed.

He leaned against some copper pipes, and it warmed his chills. He wore its steam like a blanket and curled up, dreaming, always dreaming. Opiates and unnamed potions still circulated his system, and he knew the residual effects would haunt his mind for at least the short time he lived in this world. He knew he’d see Kylie again—her eyes shredded with rage, wild crimson hair flying in the wind. She beat as the heart to this world, this intrusion from an old world to another. He didn’t understand all the dimensions, the rules of the realm, but he knew the root, and he’d had the chance once to amputate it, chop it down and be done with it and life.

He shut his eyes and dreamed and longed to see Amy’s dark hair flow and the shadow eyes that had absorbed him so after Kylie’s death—the way he drowned in them as they sat on the balcony, sharing cigarettes and talking about the ways they planned to end their perfunctory lives, doing it under the noses of the orderlies in the psych ward, just to piss them off.

            A rusty fishing knife up the arm.
            A bottle of Drano down the throat like from Vonnegut.
            Piano wire around the neck. We’ll go out like Nazi traitors.
            Jump into the deepest trench of the ocean and be frozen in the cold, among the blind white fish and dumb green algae.