I love it when there's a perfect storm of some of my favorite things in life — my lovely girlfriend, geocaching, scary stuff, wine, autumn, and a picturesque location — such as last night's Autumn Equinox geocaching event in the quaint village of Bethania, just up the road from Winston-Salem, NC. The host, Ms. Vicky "Honeychile" Hallenbeck, put together a wonderful little event at Belle La Vie Studio, featuring geocachers, wine, delicious snacks, personalized trackable items, and... the Fugue Devil! If you've read "Fugue Devil" or any of my blogs about it (such as "The Equinox Devil" from September 3), you'll know that the Fugue Devil is known to appear at midnight on the Autumn Equinox. If you know about it, it knows about you. And if you see it, it will come for you. A few weeks ago, I had mentioned in my "will attend" log for the Equinox event that this just might be the night the Fugue Devil appears to go about its ugly business. Much to my surprise, Ms. Honeychile apparently took the story to heart.
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| Ms. B. looking a little dangerous herself |
The business wasn't terribly ugly, but the Fugue Devil did appear last night. Ms. Honeychile not only placed a new cache called "Fugue Devil" near the Bethania Village Mill Shoppes, where the event was held, she also created a set of trackable buttons bearing the beast's image as it appears on the back cover of my collection Other Gods (art by M. Wayne Miller). These turned out to be so nice that, as an impromptu door prize, I decided to offer up one of my very few copies of the original edition of Fugue Devil & Other Weird Horrors, published by Macabre, Inc., in 1992 — long out of print and exceedingly rare. When I drew the name of the unlucky winner, who should it turn out to be but Mr. Tom "Night-hawk" Kidd — at which time a certain spontaneous expletive came unbidden to my lips. (No, I don't have Tourette's or anything; it's merely my involuntary response to insurance men.) I do hope no one was offended! (Sorry, Pastor Jay!) In any event, congratulations to the old man, and may he enjoy his prize without an accompanying visitation.
To make a nice evening nicer, Ms. B. and I had an excellent dinner at Silos Bistro in Reynolda Village, I got a first-to-find on a new cache in Winston, and we finished up with a last glass of wine at Rioja Wine Bar in Greensboro.
All I can say is, after these last few weeks, some good horror was just the ticket. I'm so pleased to have been able to share it with a great bunch of folks.
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| The (un)lucky winner with the writer and a lovely lady |