Halloween Haunts: Celebrate the Bad Times by John F.D. Taff

Halloween.  It’s trite that this holiday would be the favorite of a horror writer, but there it is.  Halloween is my favorite holiday, better than that blissed-out full feeling at Thanksgiving.  Better than a pile of presents at Christmas or rockets red glare on an Independence Day evening. Why?  Well, it’s unlike any other holiday.  Whatever its original intent, it isn’t celebrated today to honor anyone or anything’s birthday.  It’s doesn’t honor a deity, usher in a new year or even give thanks for anything.  In fact, what it celebrates is something that people spend their entire lives studiously ignoring;…

Halloween Haunts: Be Careful Who You Scare: A Halloween Cautionary Tale by Laura Benedict

We had a marvelously terrifying basement in our house in Western Virginia, a perfect setting for a Halloween party. The room at the bottom of the kitchen stairs was unsettling enough: a blocked-off fireplace, peeling vinyl flooring with a slick, unearthly sheen, flimsy paneling that hinted at having been hastily installed to hide bloodstains on the walls. It was damp. Always cold. The adjacent laundry room had spider-filled, broken cabinets, a cracked concrete floor, and an open closet which still held the dusty hunting clothes of a previous occupant. But the third and fourth rooms truly completed the Silence of…

Halloween Haunts: Diary of a Horror Writer–Entry 62 by Russell James

“What is that monstrosity in the driveway?” I knew those would be my wife’s first words when she got home.  I went to kiss her hello.  Her eyes burned through me. I paused at a safe distance. “It’s a hearse,” I said.  My enthusiastic grin bounced off her like rain on granite. “I know it’s a hearse.  Why the hell is it here?” A hell-oriented pun of a reply died on my lips.  “We own it,” I said. “Oh no.  We don’t.  What were you thinking when you bought it? ‘I’ve always wanted a car that transported dead people.’?” “I…

Halloween Haunts: Tricks, Treats, and Chainsaws by James Chambers

I’m certain I’m not the only horror writer who’s ever wondered what they would do if they found themselves in the real-life equivalent of a chainsaw slasher flick. I’d venture, in fact, that this is something horror writers spend far more time considering than the average non-horror writer. We probably spend slightly more time thinking about this than figuring out our survival plan for a zombie apocalypse but not quite as much time as we spend imagining what we’d do if we were vampires. However, I think it’s also safe to say not many horror writers ever get to learn…