HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: The Perils of Taking Your Family to Spirit Halloween by KC Grifant

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: The Perils of Taking Your Family to Spirit Halloween by KC Grifant The hoisting of the Spirit Halloween sign is an annual landmark for my family—as soon as we see the logo go up, we immediately plan the first of many visits to the store. From rows and rows of devilish and overpriced costumes, wacky accessories and deliciously frightful animatronics, we relish our time in the store. However, not everyone in our family feels that way. Our daughter used to not mind scary sights (she had even been to Midsummer Scream one year, peering out from her stroller…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: A Tribute To Shocktober by Michael Subjack

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: A Tribute To Shocktober by Michael Subjack   “Shocktober…on New York’s Movie Station!” Nothing signaled the arrival of the Halloween season for me more than those immortal words. These days, Spirit Halloween stores act as the unofficial start of the season when they open on August 1st. In the early nineties, however, it was Shocktober on WPIX, when the sky above Western New York was gray and ominous, and the colorful leaves had fallen, peppering the sidewalk like oversized confetti. The Shocktober commercial lives rent-free in my head. I watch it whenever I need a quick nostalgia fix,…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: Unsolved and Endless ~ Or How My Body and My Bicycle Became Cursed by Sumiko Saulson

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: Unsolved and Endless ~ Or How My Body and My Bicycle Became Cursed by Sumiko Saulson   In horror, death is dust and rot, but ancestor spirits live and breathe, a part of nature. Our DNA, the building blocks that create us, carries them. Surrounded by magic, we skip and dance through little puddles of it as we wander down the street, forgetting, or never knowing, what clings to our feet. The blood in my veins declared me pre-diabetic with an A1C of 6.0, while that in my poop demanded a colonoscopy. A mysterious shadow haunted my mammogram.…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: The Carnival by Sarah Faxon

Halloween Haunts: The Carnival by Sarah Faxon   As a child, I would count down the days until the Bay Park Elementary School Halloween Carnival. Christmas aside, the Saturday before Halloween was the most magical day of the year. Over the course of one weekend, my entire elementary school transformed. The dark skeletal hand of Halloween would stretch over the beige-toned single story halls, casting a magical shadow upon the lands. The PTO, teachers, staff, and parental volunteers stormed the halls with rolls of shimmering black garbage bags, concealing any hint of classrooms hiding behind the crinkled plastic walls. White…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: An Excerpt from the Novel Servant by Patrick R. Field

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: An Excerpt from the Novel Servant by Patrick R. Field   Gladys greets me in her usual loud, delightful soprano shrill, “Hello, Mitch! Happy Samhain!” “What is Sahween?” I ask. “Samhain is the original name for October thirty-first in the Gaelic calendar, the festival celebrating the end of the harvest. and the beginning of the darker days of the winter. Halloween is a combination of the pagan word Samhain and the Christian observance of All Hallow’s Eve. The pagans believed that this night was when the veil between the world of the dead and the living was the…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: There Was a Hand in the Darkness by Sharon Wagner

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: There Was a Hand in the Darkness by Sharon Wagner   “There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.” ~ Neil Gaiman   My hand grazed the doorframe, sliding over the smooth stubble of the painted wall as I reached for the light switch, finding it and flipping it on. Only darkness greeted me. I stepped into the room with an outstretched hand, fingering the air. Moonlight filtered through the curtains above the kitchen sink, glinting over the dishes piled high like a spoiled child’s toy box. Shame washed over me, but I didn’t…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: How to Kill a Hip-Thrusting Frankenstein by Suzanne Mattaboni

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: How to Kill a Hip-Thrusting Frankenstein by Suzanne Mattaboni   I realize that pitchforks and torches are the traditional method for ousting the Frankenstein monster. Not at my house. We’ve always been a Halloween family. When my kids were tykes (now married or touring Europe), one of our favorite fall activities was trolling Party City to check out the multitude of screaming and bloody animatronics on a weekly basis. Each we showed up, my five year-old son Louis would test his muster by stepping closer and closer to a seven-foot tall, motion-sensitive grim reaper that played creepy Vincent…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: Coming of Age in Costume by R. Ruhl

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: Coming of Age in Costume by R. Ruhl   The autumn season is a time for reflecting on change and the connections between the past and present. I can trace a distinct narrative thread through my own life through the lens of remembering each year’s Halloween costume. Life started in costumes sewn by my grandma, a woman who inspired my mother’s love of horror and Halloween and thus my own. Every year since I was 8, my mom has hosted a Halloween party. I can trace times and changes throughout my life along with annual costumes. A princess…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: Punk Rock Cemetery by Dean Cade

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: Punk Rock Cemetery by Dean Cade   When I was a wayward teenager in 1986, my best friend, Sean, and I discovered a cemetery. I was traversing two worlds at the time, suburbia and the streets. We’d become fast friends upon my release from the institution, and both of us had a penchant for trouble. Sean had a violent stepfather, so we had run away earlier in the year and were expelled from school. In the chaotic aftermath, he was living in motels with his mom, and I was bored at home until our paths crossed again. Our…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: Homemade Cemetery Oracle Cards by Heddy Johannesen

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: Homemade Cemetery Oracle Cards By Heddy Johannesen   Greetings darklings: Today's post is about my homemade cemetery oracle cards. I volunteered for the Horror Writers Association by taking photos in cemeteries in Halifax where I live. I sent the photos to the newsletter staff for the Horror Writers Association and they placed the photos in their monthly newsletter. Over time, I collected many photos of cemeteries. Recently, I got the idea that since I now have an impressive collection of photos that I should make my own oracle deck. The deck is something I have always wanted to…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: ONE HUNDRED HOURS OF ROTTING SOLITUDE by Rosemary Thorne

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: ONE HUNDRED HOURS OF ROTTING SOLITUDE Rosemary Thorne   It is thus, by the transformation of the body, that I have learned to become spirit. Zosimos   ONE She woke up to light and felt part of the jungle, breathing through it. An explosion of exotic colors. Mesmerizing leaves and petals with unusual shapes.  Somewhere, water fell over stone. Birds sang in the most fabulous language. Unapologetic beauty. She smiled to it. The smile awakened the pain. It did not come all at once. It grew slowly, like another being waking up inside her. She tried to move…

Halloween Haunts: Halloween Treats, No Tricks By Patrick Tumblety

Halloween Haunts: Halloween Treats, No Tricks By Patrick Tumblety   Dear Ghouls and Goblins, With dripping fangs and too much hair (not supernatural related), I come to you with terrible tidings of awful displeasure… HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Two Halloween-themed releases and a creeptastic anthology have made this spooky season especially special! I have provided details on these new releases below, but I wanted to share with you three pieces that were not included in my all-ages illustrated book, The October Children. I did not include them in the final book because they will either be included in a future collection or…

Halloween Haunts: Halloween Traditions Come Full Circle by Amber Jourdan

Halloween Haunts: Halloween Traditions Come Full Circle                                           by Amber Jourdan   Traditions of Halloween Growing up tradition has always been a strong and present concept in our home.  It was very important to my mother that she instill tradition into our life experience.  Of course, the holidays were ripe territory for tradition.  Every holiday governed over it's own set of traditions, administering them fairly stringently, not missing a beat until my latter teen years.  As the youngest I saw all of our traditions wane against the rising tide of years.  Fitting as most holidays mark the passage of time…
Halloween Haunts: SETTING THE STAGE & THE BROWN COUNTY JACK-O-LANTERN

Halloween Haunts: SETTING THE STAGE & THE BROWN COUNTY JACK-O-LANTERN

Halloween Haunts: Setting the Stage & the Brown County Jack-o-Lantern by K.A. Schultz   It is not terribly late, but the sun is about to set, its last lighted dregs trickling out from beneath the gathering wall of clouds. The rays tint the air a pinkish gray, imbuing the autumnal dusk, the wet leaves, and the shiny sidewalks with a quick-fading warmth. From my second-floor apartment, I see costumed children making their way down the block; the youngest ones have already finished with their rounds. I see patches of candle glow on porches and in windows below, lopsided grins and sinister…
Halloween Haunts: THE PERSONAL NATURE OF HORROR

Halloween Haunts: THE PERSONAL NATURE OF HORROR

Halloween Haunts: The Personal Nature of Horror Eugen Bacon   As writers of horror, there are many motivations that spur us to write this kind of fiction. Some, perhaps like Eric LaRocca, there’s a certain glee in unsettling the reader. But in an interview on their book This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances, he shares that horror is, to him, a form of healing. There’s blood and brutality, the Lovecraftian in cosmic horror. In the horrific is a certain truth: ‘awful things happen to everyone’. This is one reason I write horror—it reflects reality. You have only to…
Halloween Haunts: HAVE A BLUETOOTH HALLOWEEN

Halloween Haunts: HAVE A BLUETOOTH HALLOWEEN

Halloween Haunts: Have a Bluetooth Halloween By Lisa Morton   Bluetooth. Who could’ve predicted ten years ago that Bluetooth technology would be one of the major future advances in the art of the Halloween haunt? But it’s happened, and it’s fantastic. Bluetooth, that nearly-magical energy that allows us to connect our phones to other devices, first entered the Halloween haunt arena a few years ago by allowing haunters to use Bluetooth speakers throughout their mazes. The speakers, which are surprisingly powerful but may be no bigger than a hockey puck or a box of crackers, are controlled by phone apps,…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: DO GO IN THE BASEMENT

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: DO GO IN THE BASEMENT BY TIM WAGGONER   When I was child in the mid-1960s to the mid-1970’s, I attended a Quaker church in my small southwestern Ohio town. My parents, as far as I know, never attended a church (at least not as adults). My maternal grandmother and great-grandmother did, however, and for reasons I’m not entirely clear on, my parents let them take me. I mostly went to Sunday school, though. My family thought it was too difficult for kids to sit through a full church service, and they didn’t make me try. I did…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: UNDERWORLD CONNECTIONS

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: UNDERWORLD CONNECTIONS By Lee Murray   Another spooky season is upon us and, once again, I’m scratching my head, trying to come up with something to contribute to our HWA Halloween Haunts blog. Because, as I’ve said many times before, Halloween isn’t really a thing down here in Aotearoa New Zealand. There are lots of reasons: the mostly secular nature of the nation, the bouncy southern hemisphere spring-lamb timing, and the fact that uncanny supernatural things are a part of our everyday, so perhaps we don’t see the need for a unique celebration of the macabre. Very few…

Halloween Haunts: THE LEGEND OF STINGY JACK

Halloween Haunts: THE LEGEND OF STINGY JACK by Debra Every   Herein lies a tale fit nary for babe nor child. Only the brave shall know the legend of Stingy Jack. In a town long gone, nestled ‘tween the McGillycuddy Reeks of Killarney, lived John Finnegan O’Connell, a blacksmith by trade; a wastrel by pleasure. Born under a black moon, he grew from churlish child to mean-spirited man. A trickster. A drunkard. A miser of coin and conscience. He stole bread from the sick, clothes from the poor, coin from the clergy. And ne’er did he help his brethren in…

Halloween Haunts: The Great Pumpkin Massacre

Halloween Haunts: The Great Pumpkin Massacre By Paul Carro   Okay, we all know one. A neighbor. Yeah, that neighbor. The one that might not quite be a demon but certainly knows them personally. My neighbor (let’s call him Toby) was my friend by proximity. He lived two doors down from me, but make no mistake, in any other universe, I would have run in the other direction were I to encounter him in the streets. It is with some pride that I admit I survived the Toby experience. Then again, I became a horror author, so I guess we…