SUPERNATURAL FRIDAY: HAPPY HALLOWEEN! A Free Story!



The below flash fiction belongs to Pamela K. Kinney and is copyrighted to her only, so please share thr blog link to your friends and not take off this blog to put on yours, or on forums or websites. Thank you.

 Trick-Or-Treat

By

Pamela K. Kinney

Janie and Bobby dressed in costumes trudged up the sidewalk as they passed other similarly dressed children. It was Halloween, their favorite time of the year. When all children could go door to door, knock, and candy were poured into their waiting bags after yelling, ‘trick or treat.’ If the adult refused, the kids could play tricks on them and get away with it.

Janie and Bobby loved the treats, but they loved doing the tricks even more. They loved doing nasty, terrible tricks.

“It is tradition,” Mama told them. If the adults gave them candy, then fine and dandy, don’t do anything. But for that one who said, “No treats for you here, now go away!” they had permission to go ahead and do what their family had been doing since the early 1900s.

Janie and Bobby couldn’t wait. For the past couple of years they hadn’t been able to play any of their tricks, as every door they had knocked at the owners handed over candy, fruit, popcorn balls, tiny toys, and money. But when they woke up this morning, they sensed that this night would be different. They would finally be just like the rest of their family.

Nothing happened so far. Both of their bags laden heavy with the fruits of their labor, they stopped before the white picket fence that surrounded the yard of a pretty white Cape Cod home. It looked normal and so . . . suburbia.

This was it. They felt it. They would finally get what was owed them. They couldn’t wait.

Janie and Bobby tipped up their masks and looked at each other, shark grins flashing on their sweet, chubby faces. They pushed the gate open and wandered up the leaf strewn path to the front door. No Halloween decorations shown anywhere and no lit Jack-O-Lantern greeted them, just the closed door, painted a cheery blue.
They knocked and waited.

The door opened without one creak, and a little old lady stood on the other side. Her white hair was swept up in a bun and she wore a cheerful flowered print top and white pants. She peered at them, then blinked her eyes behind tortoiseshell glasses.

“Sorry,” she said, “but I forgot to buy candy to give out tonight.”

Bobby grinned. “That’s okay. We rather not have any treats. Tricks are oh so much cooler.” He tossed aside his bag and the sweets scattered across the front stoop.

He lifted his real axe. He had dressed as serial killer on purpose this morning. His sister was garbed as Lizzie Borden, her own axe gripped tight in her fist. She dropped her own bag and raised it high above her head.

The old lady stepped closer and smiled. “I know. I’ve been waiting for you, my dears. Human killers are not very smart. Not when inhuman ones have perfected their own bag of tricks for eons. My kind has been hunting their prey the hard way for centuries. Many still do. Not me though, I found a much easier way. Usually I decorate my place to attract regular human children on this night, but when I moved here and heard of the murders that been going on in this town for a very long time, I devised a different tactic.” She giggled. “It’s justice for the humans in this town after all and delivery food for me.”

Her face cracked and it split apart, falling to the floor. The rest of the body followed. Amidst the scattered pieces of the flesh, a giant shaggy wolf-like creature stood on clawed hind feet. It snatched both children to its breast. Bobby and Janie screamed, but the sounds were cut off when they were taken indoors and the door slammed shut behind them.

 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

A Dark and Terrible Thing is Coming

"A Dark and Terrible Thing is Coming!"

It’s coming,

Like a terrible thing

It’s scary,

Dark, and with a toothy grin.

So you better beware,

Have everything ready

Decorate appropriately,

For the end is near.

Just remember one thing,

It only comes but once a year

Halloween, costumed in orange and black,

A mask upon its gruesome face

Ringing your doorbell with persistence,

Innocent child or demonic being

Feed it candy, just to be safe.

Trick or Treat.

 I hoped you enjoyed this poem I wrote, "A Dark and Terrible Thing Is Coming!" It's an original poem and copyrighted to me, so do share the link with friends, not the poem, please. Thank you. 

It Will Be a Ghostly Halloween!

They haunt right alongside us, around us, and in places you never think would be haunted. They can be where the least you expect them. And spirits are not “trick ponies,” they will not perform on cue every night or day, so invisible, they might still be there, leaving you a feeling of being watched or even dread. Though the dread may be unintentional, as the phantom may not be evil (though there are times a bad one may be haunting the spot), but your own psychic attention may make you feel it.

What are spirits? Where did the words come from?

In traditional belief, a ghost is the soul of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestations, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely: The mode of manifestation in photos or seen by the living’s eyes can range from an invisible presence, shadow people, translucent or wispy shapes, and orbs, to realistic, life-like visions—solids. The deliberate attempt to contact the spirit of a deceased person is known as a séance. Paranormal investigators use equipment to find proof of paranormal activity and to make contact with phantoms.

In many tales, ghosts were often thought to be deceased people looking for vengeance, or imprisoned on earth for bad things they did during life. The appearance of a ghost has often been regarded as an omen or portent of death. Seeing one's own ghostly double or "fetch" is a related omen of death.

Another widespread belief concerning apparitions are that they are composed of a misty, airy, or subtle material. Early beliefs were that ghosts were the person within the person (the person's spirit), most noticeable in ancient cultures as a person's breath, which upon exhaling in colder climates appears visibly as a white mist. This belief may have also fostered the metaphorical meaning of "breath" in certain languages, such as the Latin spiritus and the Greek pneuma, which by analogy became extended to mean the soul. In the Bible, God is depicted as animating Adam with a breath.

Ghosts are also termed spook, spirits, phantoms, fetch, haint (a common feature of southern oral and literary tradition), wraith, revenant, apparition, spectre, shade, and entity. Poltergeist, German for a “noisy spirit,” is for a spirit said to manifest itself by invisibly moving and influencing objects. The Bell Witch was considered a poltergeist.

Most times, a poltergeist is just mischievous, though there instances of it being sinister, not unlike the Bell Witch. Was the Bell Witch a poltergeist or more along demonic lines? Good question. It was an entity that tormented a pioneer family that lived in what was then Red River, Tennessee in 1817-1827 ( Red River is now known as Adams, Tennessee). It was substantiated by eyewitness accounts (other than the family), affidavits, and manuscripts written by those who witness the phenomenon. More about this interesting tale can be found in author Pat Fitzhugh, The Bell Witch: The Full Account.

Besides the poltergeist phenomena, there are three other types of hauntings. First are residual hauntings. These are a recorded playback of what happened in the past. Maybe it could even be a time warp (one idea of mine, though I can’t prove this, but who knows, a feasible one like any other theory). There is no interaction with the living -- the ghost does not see or hear you because the ghost is not actually there. Only his/her energy remains, it is a remnant of his living form that you are seeing, just like when you watch a video. This cycle continues in the same place at usually the same time of day or year indefinitely until the energy is exhausted or diminishes to a low enough level that it is undetectable by human perception. One account of residual hauntings are the Union soldiers marching into Centre Hill Mansion in Petersburg, Virginia every year at certain time on January 24th. An interesting fact about the steps the soldiers march up is that they are not even the original staircase, but a new one put in by Charles Davis. And yet, like clockwork, the soldiers march up those steps at the same time each January 24^th.  The mansion's tour last year now say it could be soldiers from the War of 1812 marching indoors and up the stairs and back down and out the door. That it was heard before the Civil War.  Again, maybe it is the Union soldiers taking over the house. Take the tour yourself, and decide for yourself.

The museum holds a Ghost Walk that you can reserve by calling the Petersburg Visitors Business Center at either 804-733-2401  after the first of January for prices and times. Do it quick and call early to reserve your spot as they fill up fast.

Traditional, or intelligent, hauntings are the second. Whether actual human spirits that had not crossed over into heaven and had some unfinished business with a living person, or a message they wanted to deliver before they could move on, or even those that just want to stay in a place they lived in life or be on our plane of existence (more and more, I suspect they can travel back and forth between here and the “other side.” These ghosts will unlock doors and open windows, run the faucets and even interact with you directly because they are an "intelligent" presence, the personality of a person who was once alive but has stayed behind rather than passing over.

The third type of haunting, and undoubtedly the most frightening, is a demonic, or inhuman, haunting. To me personally, I think when a human was evil in life, they too would be considered under demonic. There have been stories of where priests have gone in to exorcise a possessed person, and instead of a inhuman demon, this one claims to be the parent or someone alive once, tormenting the person.

The entity is similar to a traditional haunting because the spirit is intelligent and are existing in the present moment with you. These spirits are malevolent and hostile, suffering from psychological instability or distress stemming from an unresolved conflict with the people who are being subjected to the demonic activity. Demonic presences tend to be ‘unleashed' in order for them to manifest. This is one reason why the use of an Ouija Board is customarily discouraged among many ghost hunters. So if you find one in the game section of the store, don’t buy one. Not understanding and without protection, one can open up a portal, letting in things they can not handle and most times, demonic in nature.

With Halloween nearly here, ghosts are more so on people’s minds. When you step out into the night for that Halloween party or that haunted house or trails attraction, do be unnerved if you see shadows move in the darkness. It may be just shadow people. Spirits roam Halloween as it is said the opening from the “Other Side” is more so on certain days of the years then the rest. And they want to party just like the living—right?

Again, it may be your imagination, least, you tell yourself that. Then again. . . wait. . .is those shadows closer than before? Watch out—

Check out the four nonfiction ghost books I wrote:  Haunted Richmond, Virginia, Haunted Richmond II, Haunted Virginia: Legends, Myths and True Tales, and

Virginia's Haunted Historic Triangle: Williamsburg,Yorktown, Jamestown,and Other Haunted Locations. In Spring 2015, I will have a new one about Petersburg and the Tri-Cities area available from Schiffer Publishing.

Fear and Halloween

Fear is an emotional response to a perceived threat. It's a basic reaction to a stimulus, such as pain or dangerous threat. Fear is separate from anxiety, which occurs without external threat. It means to terrify, or to frighten.

 

The fear response arises from the perception of danger leading to confrontation with or escape from/avoiding the threat (also known as the fight-or-flight response), which in extreme cases of fear (horror and terror) can be a freeze response or paralysis.

In humans and animals, fear is modulated by the process of cognition and learning. Thus fear is judged as rational or appropriate and irrational or inappropriate. An irrational fear is called a phobia.

People develop specific fears as a result of learning or experiencing. Psychology calls this fear conditioning. John B. Watson's Little Albert experiment in 1920 might be the beginning of this. After observing a child with an irrational fear of dogs, the  study of an 11-month-old boy had him conditioned to fear a white rat in the laboratory. The fear became generalized to include other white, furry objects, such as a rabbit, dog, and even a ball of cotton.

Fear can be learned by experiencing or watching a frightening traumatic accident. For example, if a child falls from a swing or falls off a boat into a lake and almost drowns and he or she may develop a fear of heights (acrophobia), enclosed spaces (claustrophobia), or water (aquaphobia). I myself had the near drowning experience at age four to keep me from learning to swim.
Studies of the areas of the brain that are affected in relation to fear have been done. When looking at these areas (such as the amygdala), it was proposed that a person learns to fear regardless of whether they themselves have experienced trauma, or if they have observed the fear in others. The amygdala affected two subjects when one observed someone else being submitted to an aversive event, knowing that the same treatment awaited themselves, and when subjects were subsequently placed in a fear-provoking situation. This suggests that fear can develop in both conditions, not just simply from personal history.
 
 

Physical reactions from fear are:

Rapid heart rate

Increased blood pressure

Tightening of muscles

Sharpened or redirected senses

Dilation of the pupils

Increased sweating

Guess that could partly what Halloween is all about. The need to scare ourselves silly. And yet once the masks are off and the decorations put away, we laugh and say it was all for fun. That we weren't really frightened. But what if the monsters and ghosts are real (Doing paranormal investigating, I believe ghosts to be real--demons too.)? Serial killers are real. Spiders are. Some are poisonous, some like the brown recluse can kill you with its bite. Bats can give you rabies with a bite.

It all began with a Celtic festival called Samhain ( pronounced sow in or sow an), and even a Christian one called All Soul's Day (November 1st). Though some folklorists claim that it goes farther back to a Roman feast of Pomona, goddess of seeds and fruits, or even to a festival of the dead, Parentalia. The Celts on Samhain built bonfires on All Hallow's Eve, where they burned animals and crops as sacrifices to Celtic deities.

The Celts believed that the veil between the mortal world and the spirit world was thinnest on this one day of the year. That spirits, demons, monsters, and other frightful beings, could enter more easily. Harmless ghosts of ancestors were made welcome by family, while those who meant harm to mortals were warded off.

No doubt this was how the wearing of masks and costumes came about. Someone wanted to get home, or go to a friend's or relative's. They wore a costume and mask, looking like a dark spirit, so that they would be safe from any supernatural threat. 

Today, scary movies and stories in novels and short stories, even the haunts set up in October, most likely don't help. They have become our own self induced fear conditioning. Even once November 1st rolls around and we look forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas, that fear conditioning remains, coming out at unexpected times. 

Halloween has much to answer for.  But you know what, I do not care. I love it. And as a writer of dark fantasy, if my readers want feel the safe thrill of the monsters that inhabit my novels, short stories, poetry and nonfiction ghost books, well that is fine with me. None of it is real. 

Neither is that lit Jack-O-Lantern on the porch, the ghost drifting down the street is just a trick-or-treater in a sheet , and the haunt you just entered with your buddies nothing more than people made up and animatronics.

Maybe.... 

Just beware of when you go out that night. After all, the worlds of the living and the dead are blurred this very day. And that partner you're dancing with just might not be human....or alive!

 

 

Monsters Don't Exist (Yes, They Do!)

Enjoy this original poem of mine, which I first posted on this blog in 2012. It is copyrighted by me, so just share the link with friends, not the poem. Thank you.

Monsters Don’t Exist

By

Pamela K. Kinney

Mother said that monsters didn’t exist

That they came from fast food or scary movies.

She lied!

And kept lying when the monster came that night

He instructed Daddy to change and attack,

To rip her throat out and tear out her heart.

Her eyes pleading as she screamed,

“Run! Don’t let the monsters catch you!”

But I didn’t run,

Why would I?

Then the monster held out its clawed paw to me,

And I took it, asking, “Can we play?”

He called me his dear child, the promised one,

“I’ll teach you all I know, how to do what I do,”

He said, “Just as the one before me taught me.”

And so among the fires and slaughter we went,

I skipped beside him, only stopping

To play catch with bodiless heads.

When we left that place near to morning

What remained of the township right behind us

Inhuman sheep leaving for desolate pastures.

Supernatural Friday: A Ghoulish Friday in October

"They are neither man nor woman

They are neither brute nor human

They are Ghouls"

— Edgar Allan Poe

 

When George Romero's Night of the Living Dead came out, the press called the undead in that film zombies. Except Romero never coined them that way. Instead he had called them ghouls. Which would be the right term, as zombies are connected to voodoo and people are drugged and controlled, and are not flesh eating monsters.

What are ghouls? A ghoul is a legendary evil being that robs graves and feeds on corpses.  It is one who shows morbid interest in things considered shocking or repulsive and supposedly lives in burial grounds. In Arabic folklore, ghouls are a type of jinn that could change their shapes but had one unchanging feature: donkey's hooves for feet. Even more horrible, it kills young children and even can lure unwary folk into abandoned places. By extension, the word ghoul is also used derogatorily to refer to a person who delights in the macabre, or whose profession is linked directly to death, such as a gravedigger.

Ghoul is from the Arabic ghul, from ghala "to seize." It is even thought to come from Gallu, a Mesopotamian demon. In Sumerian and Akkadian  mythology, the Gallus (also called gallu demons or gallas [Akkadian: gallû]) were great demons/devils of the underworld. Their job was to haul off unfortunate victims to the underworld and even accompanied Istar when she headed down to the underworld.

The ghul is a fiendish type of jinn believed to be sired by Iblis, known to the Devil in Islam. A ghoul is a desert-dwelling shapeshifting demon that can assume the guise of an animal especially a hyena. It lures unwary people into the desert wastes or abandoned places to slay and devour them. The creature also preys on young children, drinks blood, steals coins, and eats the dead, taking the form of the person most recently eaten. In the Arabic language, the female form is given as ghouleh and the plural is ghilan. In colloquial Arabic, the term is sometimes used to describe a greedy or gluttonous individual.

In stories and films, I think Gollum as closest to the idea of a ghoul, and wouldn't be surprised this is what Tolkien had in mind when he wrote him into The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Supernatural Friday: Did a Black Cat Cross Your Path Today?

I own a black cat. Love her.  I can’t ever see her as devilish or evil. And yet, black cats are in the United States considered bad luck if one crosses your path. Plus they are associated with witches around Halloween. What started this for our furry black felines?

These obsidian felines were not always feared or a part of superstitious lore. Dating back as far as 3000 BC in Egypt, cats of all colors, including black ones, were held in high esteem. To kill one was considered a capital crime.

The Nordic goddess, Freya was also a fierce warrior as shared with us by Ethan S. One of the many names by which she was known was the Mistress of the Cats, and it was said that the chariot in which she sat was drawn by a pairs of great cats with fur blacker than the midnight sky.

Then around medieval times, cats taken care of by old women who practiced healing and lived alone were considered familiars if the old woman (and sometimes man) were accused of witchcraft and convicted, burned at the stake. As for why particularly black cats, it seem to superstitious people, once the cat went out into the dark of night they appeared to disappear, except for their yellow or green eyes. The same would go for black dogs too. Of course, we know that the animal having black fur and the night being pitch black, well, yeah, they seemed to vanish.  Plus black cats born in May seemed to be strongly associated with witchcraft and were often drowned. It is bad luck to discuss family matters when a black cat is present, lest it be a witch in disguise.

Evil omens and harboring the ability to change into human shape to act as a spy or messenger for witches or demons are some of the mostly widely known legends of black cats (in the US). When settlers arrived in the Americas, they already had a deepening suspicion of anything associated with the devil. Due to the sisterhood of witch and black cat, anyone caught with a black cat was severely punished or even killed. Similar superstitions led people to kill black cats during the Middle Ages, increasing the rat population and the spread of the bubonic plague.

A legend in Wales tells about one black cat. When people arrived in this town that had been ravaged by the Black Plague, the only living creature they found was a single black cat. The black cat is now the traditional mascot of Kidwelly!

In Great Britain and in Ireland, black cats are considered good luck. One way this might be so, English monarch Charles I held a belief that when his treasured black cat passed, he claimed that his luck was gone and he was arrested the very next day and charged with high treason.  Also, in the UK, a black cat crossing your patch is a sign of good luck.

Some bad luck a black cat might deliver:

If you are driving and a black cat crosses in front of you, you should turn your car around or receive bad luck.

The gambling world holds the belief that as you are driving to a casino, if a black cat runs across your road or path, you should not go to the casino. Most players believe that black cats bring bad luck.

Crossing paths of a person is considered an omen of misfortune and death—kind of like the banshee’s scream heralds death for the person who hears it. Things are a bit more complicated in Germany. In Germany though, if a black cat crosses a person’s path from right to left, that is a bad omen, and yet, if done from left to right,  the cat is granting favorable times.

Pirates in the 19th Century believed that if a black cat walks towards someone, that person will have bad luck. But if it walks away from someone, that will bring good luck to that person. If a black cat walks onto a ship and then walks off it, the ship is doomed to sink on its next trip.

Sailors often sought out a black cat to become a ship’s cat, as it brought good luck. Fishermen’s wives kept black cats at home in the hope that they would be able to use their influence to protect their husbands while at sea.

In Japan, black manekineko (beckoning cats) are a wish for good health.

Dreaming of a black cat us considered lucky for the dreamer.

Black cats protect their human’s house from evil spirits, and it is said, take away the bad energy in the house.

From Scottish lore, a strange black cat on a porch brings prosperity to the owner.

It is believed that a lady who owns a black cat will have many suitors. So, for those looking for a boyfriend, get a black cat!

Not just black cats, but all:

Cats should never be bought with money. Doing so means they will be bad mousers. (Shelters looking to get their cats adopted, this might be a good ploy to use.)

And last, but not least, a story about a black cat by Edgar Allan Poe.   Black Cat

 

Supernatural Friday: Eleven Spooky Supernatural Reads for October

For this Supernatural Friday, I decided to do eleven spooky reads perfect for October and Halloween. Not to say, they aren't wonderful, to read any other time. There are more creepy novels and short stories I can tell you about, but then that might go into the hundreds. Instead, I feel these eleven will be a great start for you. Plus at the end, there is a link for my own scary ghost story that made the top seven stories for Small Press Award 2013.  Now get reading!

1.     The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (It’s not Halloween without a great, scary ghost story. This is the only novel to scare me during the daytime, in a room full of middle school student. My parents landlady had given this book and Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle (another good read), so after getting my work in class done early the teacher said I could read my book, so I did. The scene I read freaked me out.)

 

2.     The Wolfen by Whitley Strieber (A werewolf horror novel, but where the werewolves are shifters, but a race living alongside humans since prehistoric times.  Though no longer in print (you can find it used—I did—it is available of Kindle and Nook.

 Book blurb: In the dark, they are watching...
They are waiting for you. No one has ever lived to tell the horrifying truth about them. Yet even now the Wolfen are gathered in the night-dark alleys ... unseen, poised ... ready to destroy their helpless human prey. Only one man and one woman, trained cops, willing to risk their lives, stand in the way.)

3. Bad Wolf by Tim McGregor (I got this free on Kindle—which I see it is again—and though self-published, it was good. Enough for me to buy the second two in the Bad Wolf Chronicles trilogy.

 Book blurb: Detective Lara Mendes’s hard work finally pays off   when she gets the chance to join the homicide detail. There’s only one catch; she has to partner up with a cop no one wants to work with.

John Gallagher is a veteran homicide detective who loves stomping bad guys and hates partners. When the Lieutenant saddles him with this green kid named Mendes, his first reaction is to ditch her but a call comes in about a body on the river bank and the rotation says they’re up.

What they find are human remains, mutilated and partially devoured. Their investigation reveals a killer stalking the city with a pack of vicious, feral dogs.
And the suspect believes he is a werewolf.

But this is Portland, where crazy bastards outnumber normal ones ten to one. Except there’s another catch. The crazy werewolf guy? He isn’t crazy...  

4.     Dracula by Bram Stoker( Forgot that Twilight junk and read the vampire that start it all (even though there was a vamp novel before him). With ‘Dracula Untold’ coming to movie theaters, showing how he became the monstrous Count, I would suggest start reading the book. And no, he may walk in the daytime, but he does not sparkle! If cannot afford the book or eBook, or it’s out at your library, you can read it free here: http://www.literature.org/authors/stoker-bram/dracula/  or get it at Gutenberg as download for free: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/345 Read the short story, “Dracula’s Guest” for free at http://www.literature.org/authors/stoker-bram/draculas-guest/ or get it at Gutenberg too, as free download: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10150

 

5.     Hell House by Richard Matheson (You think it was Hill House again, but it is not. What really haunts Hell House?

6.     “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs (Not a novel, but a very, scary ghost story. Remember that motto, “Be careful what you wish for?” as this story fits it so well. Sometimes the dead should remain dead.) The Monkey’s Paw,” one of the most bone-chilling and frequently anthologized stories of all time. Readers will find it difficult to believe that W(illiam) W(ymark) Jacobs (1863-1943) gained his fame as a writer of humorous tales, as there is no hilarity to be found here. It has been adapted relentlessly: for radio, as a 1907 play, motion pictures (several silent films as well as a 1933 talkie and a 1948 remake), for television as episodes of Suspense, Great Ghost Tales, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and Great Mysteries, and for three operas. “The Monkey’s Paw” was first published in the September 1902 issue of Harper’s Monthly; it was collected in The Lady of the Barge (London, Harper, 1902). You can read it here for free.

7.     All of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories and novels (Something about the Old Ones that can creep to a person, don’t you agree?)

 

8.     Salem’s Lot and It by Stephen King (I compiled these two together, as both scared me when I read both books alone in my bedroom, just before bedtime. )

     

9.    Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (I love all of Ray Bradbury's works, but this one is a great favorite of mine.

Few American novels written this century have endured in th heart and mind as has this one-Ray Bradbury's incomparable masterwork of the dark fantastic. A carnival rolls in sometime after the midnight hour on a chill Midwestern October eve, ushering in Halloween a week before its time. A calliope's shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister. 

 

10.     Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin (Got to have one demon or Devil story with witches to read for Halloween. Forget The Exorcist—that bored me—but this one stuck in my mind for years.

 

11.  Complete Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe (You thought I would forget him? Heck, no! He’s is perfect for this time of the year.)

 

Now read my fictional ghost story, Bottled Spirits at BuzzyMag.com for free.