Halloween Party Horrors, Ghosts, Legends, & Cryptids

Joe, Suzy, Jennifer, Jamie, Scott, Samaire, Mark W., Kim W., Kimberly B., Terry, Beth;
the Front Man is behind the camera

The Front Man

'Tis done! Brugger and I put on our annual Halloween Party last night, which was—as expected—crashed by a plethora of frightful fiends. Sadly, several folks who'd anticipated attending weren't able to, but those who did, at least by my reckoning, somehow survived. There was cheese and there was meatballs (alas, no caviar), and long tall glasses of wine up to h'yar. Yes, we did have that and more. I think it's safe to say that no one left the premises hungry or thirsty.

We had a fun Halloween horror trivia contest — 13 questions about horror movies, books, and stories. I made most of the questions pretty easy for the layman, but a few of them required a bit more than casual horror knowledge. At least a couple of people correctly answered the question "Which 1982 horror classic featured the famous line, 'You've gotta be fucking kidding me!'" Go Suzy and Joe!

Now, I started out as the Front Man from Squid Games, but after a while the heat in there began to get to me, pretty seriously, so I changed into last year's slightly more casual costume, which still hung in our entryway closet (see below photo with Brugger). Temperature-wise, this provided some relief, and it also made it a hell of a lot easier to consume wine and vittles. In case I didn't mention it, we had lots and lots and lots of wine and vittles.

Some of us stayed up till the wee hours yakking about scary things, both real and unreal. Sadly, the real is overshadowing too much of the far more agreeable unreal. All in all, we had a fine time. Needless to say, the better part of this morning was spent on restoring the casa to habitable condition.

Horror trivia! Suzy, Joe, Beth, and Jamie won prizes.

This afternoon, I attended a presentation about the ghosts, legends, and cryptids of Martinsville and Henry County, given by Garrett Channel, who is the executive director of the Salem (Virginia) Museum. He provided a lively, very enjoyable talk that was perfect for the season. He related the legend of Sam Lion, a bit of local (very likely embellished) history, which I wrote about a few years ago (here). After his presentation, I talked briefly with him about my writing and interest in such creepy legends, and he told me he actually used my blog as one of his references. Well, I find that kinda cool, particularly since I use both the real and "altered" folklore of this area as a basis for many of my stories and books (most recently, The House at Black Tooth Pond).

As an added bonus, I ran into my seventh-grade American History teacher, Ms. Kerry Tillery, who lives up the street from us. She is a most wonderful person, and I'm so glad she is still around. It's always a pleasure to have the opportunity to talk with her.

"Castle Rock," I call it. I have a geocache here. This was supposedly a part of the original
"Sam Lion's Trail" of local legend.

THE HOUSE AT BLACK TOOTH POND: New Blurb, ARCs, Pre-orders

Author Michael Laimo just sent along a mighty fine blurb for The House at Black Tooth Pond, due in February from Crossroad Press. 'Tis here:

"Author Stephen Mark Rainey takes the abandoned house in the woods trope and turns it inside out as the walls of The House at Black Tooth Pond close in on the reader page by page, scene by scene. Rainey tells a dark, claustrophobic story bursting with atmosphere, with just enough dread to keep horror fans satisfied, and mystery to whet the appetites of thriller fans."—Michael Laimo, author of Dark Ride, Missed Connection, The Demonologist, and others

Reviewers: You may request a free, advance review copy (either paperback or ebook) from Crossroad Press here.

Pre-order your copy — either paperback or ebook — from Amazon.com here. The audiobook (narrated by Joshua Saxon) will be available in February 2025.

New Novel Complete — The House at Black Tooth Pond

After long, hard work for the past six months, I have finished my latest novel, The House at Black Tooth Pond. It's based on a story of the same title, which will be appearing in the anthology, Shunned Houses, edited by Katherine Kerestman & S.T. Joshi, this coming August (the launch is set for NecronomiCon 2024, in Providence, RI, which I'm planning to attend). Like many of my works of fiction, the novel is set in my fictitious version of Martinsville and Henry County, VA, called Aiken Mill and Sylvan County respectively. While the novel is not a direct sequel to any of my earlier works, it does feature recurring settings and characters from The Lebo Coven, Fugue Devil: Resurgence, and many others.

Here's an excerpt from the book I posted a while back: "Work-in-Progress Excerpt: The House at Black Tooth Pond"

The setting of the novel (and the original story), is based on a couple of places that actually exist in this area. The painting above, by friend and fine artist Charles Hill, is one he did based on some of our old visits out to the place. The drawing below is one that I did, back around 1990, which depicts an old abandoned house my brother and I discovered in the woods of Henry County way back when. In the novel, the two settings are combined to create what I think is an exceptionally creepy location at which terrifying events do happen, which I hope will scare the pants of of ye.

More news about the book's publication will follow at the earliest possibility. For more information on "Black Tooth Pond," the real location, check this out: "Black Tooth Pond"

At First Just Ghostly

Do you see anything a little creepy in this photograph? I took it at the old homestead in Martinsville on Friday night. A friend was trying to recollect the layout of the rooms there, so I took a shot of the wall with the cameo silhouettes of my brother and me (above and to the right of the lamp; they were rendered by an artist at Walt Disney World in May 1975). The dark room on the right is the dining room. Hanging on the far dining room wall is a framed, oval mirror, and... yes... when I looked at the photo on my phone screen, I clearly saw what appeared to be the reflection of a human figure — where there could not possibly be a human figure.

For a scant few seconds, I was pretty creeped out. Then — almost to my disappointment — I realized there was some shmutz on the phone screen that happened to be slightly reflective and perfectly positioned to create a weird illusion. What you see above is actually a Photoshop rendering of what my eyes saw. I’m posting the actual photo, sans shmutz, just below.

But for that one brief moment, my face at first just ghostly turned a whiter shade of pale.

A Summer With the Dead

In Sherry Decker's newest novel, A Summer With the Dead, a young woman named Maya Pedersen goes to spend a summer at her aunt Elly's farmhouse in rural Washington state, anticipating a relaxing few months following an emotionally exhausting break-up with her abusive husband. Complicating matters, Maya suffers an array of obsessive-compulsive behaviors as well as occasional hallucinations, which she hopes will vanish as her state of mind improves in the remote, tranquil setting.

Naturally, nothing is ever so simple. It isn't long before Elly reveals her own share of peculiarities, including the occasional personality swap with a gruff male Maya comes to call "Mr. Elly." A hired hand, a young man named Coty, appears to take delight in scaring the devil out of Maya, yet she finds herself strangely drawn to him. A fall down a dark well and a desperate crawl to safety through a tight subterranean passage do little to soothe her frayed nerves.

As Maya's dreams of an idyllic summer fade, strange apparitions, disembodied voices, and a disturbing sense of some dark presence—or presences—around the farm cause her to further doubt her own perceptions. Coty turns out to be anything but what he initially seemed. And as time goes on, Elly reveals her deepest, most secretive side to Maya, which at first repulses her but eventually comes to fascinate her.

As the dark torrents of Elly's life sweep Maya up, the fates of both women become inextricably entwined.

Decker's authorial voice is generally strong, especially early in the novel, with an appealing focus on the eeriness of the setting and the gradual deepening of the mysteries around the farm. Her portrayal of the characters leans toward the utilitarian, with dialogue being the primary conveyor of emotion and motivation, mostly to good effect, though at times the characters' laconic responses to increasing preternatural chaos challenge the reader's grip on the tale's internal logic. The climax, while almost cathartic, suffers from too skeletal a rendering of both external and internal conflicts.

Despite these occasional weak elements, A Summer With the Dead overall succeeds as an engaging supernatural mystery. Three and a half out of five Damned Rodan's Dirty Firetinis.

The Haunted for Halloween

Supernatural hauntings are a source of endless fascination for me. Not that I even remotely believe in ghosts, marauding spirits, demons, or other inhuman entities, but there's something about the prospect of them that have, since I was a little kid, sent the most wonderful shiver down my spine. I generally prefer stories rooted in the supernatural to those based on the mundane, regardless of twists, turns, and degrees of probability. It's when the improbability of the supernatural is portrayed as ultimately believable that I most tend to stand up and take notice.

A good many years ago, I found myself watching a TV movie called The Haunted with my ex-wife, initially drawn in because it starred Jeffrey DeMunn, whom I've always admired as a character actor. At first, I took it to be just another low-budget, cringe-worthy melodrama, the kind that dominated the Lifetime network and its ilk in the 1990s. But as I continued to watch, I found myself feeling less contemptuous and more unsettled. And when it comes to movies, unsettling is a pretty admirable quality.

The story, supposedly based on actual events, is commonplace enough: the Smurl family moves into a new home and strange things begin happening to them, such as household items disappearing and reappearing somewhere else, unplugged appliances catching fire, light fixtures crashing down on unsuspecting children, and — finally — formless apparitions frightening family members and then vanishing. At first, the weirdest events only happen in Janet Smurl's (Sally Kirkland) presence, so that her husband, Jack (DeMunn), is initially skeptical. But one night, while they're lying in bed, Janet hears whispered voices seemingly coming from her pillow, and when Jack lays his head on her pillow, he hears them as well. Being devout Catholics, they seek help from their church, but the best that good Father Larson (John O'Leary) can offer them is marriage counseling and an offer to bless their house. He comes to perform his blessing ritual, only to discover there actually is some dark presence in the house. After reporting his finding to the church, he is forced to inform the Smurls, with some obvious personal relief, that the bishop will not allow him to help them with their spirit problem.

Not knowing where else to turn, the Smurls make contact with paranormal investigators Ed (Stephen Markle) and Lorraine Warren (Diane Baker), who agree to check out their claims. The Warrens, who came to prominence as investigators in the case of The Amityville Horror (and have since appeared in numerous other fiction-based films, such as The Conjuring and Annabelle) confirm the Smurls's worst nightmare — that an actual demon has latched onto them with the intent of destroying the family. The Warrens attempt to drive the demon and its minions out, but this endeavor appears only to anger the supernatural visitor, for after a brief period of silence, just long enough to make the Smurls believe it has been defeated, the entity returns with a vengeance.

A sympathetic priest from an Episcopal church attempts a full-fledged exorcism, but this attempt also backfires. Having alerted the press to their plight — in hopes of finding someone who can vanquish the force that seems determined to overwhelm them — the Smurls are dismayed when, instead of assistance, all they receive is an onslaught of reporters, cranks, and vandals, who allow them not a moment's peace. At last, a group from the Sacred Heart Society comes for a visit and, in a vast show of love and affection for the family, appears to be successful in driving away the evil spirits.

The Smurls, no longer able to live in their house due to endless invasions of their privacy, move to a new community, seemingly free from any further supernatural torment. As they are settling into their new house, however, they receive a rude reminder that escaping a demon's wrath may not be as easy as all that.

Jack (Jeffrey Demunn) and Janet Smurl (Sally Kirkland)

The fact that The Haunted doesn't rely on a big-budget special effects or lavish sets works measurably in its favor. Over the first hour of the movie, tension rises because of the increasing transformation of the familiar and safe into the unfamiliar and dangerous. One of the best moments in the movie is an early scene of Janet hearing the voice of her mother-in-law, Mary (Louise Latham), calling her from another room. When Janet replies that she is in the kitchen, the voice calls out again, louder and more plaintive. Impatient, Janet repeats her call to her mother-in-law, but now Mary's voice comes from inside the otherwise empty room. A reprise of this scene at the end of the film makes for perhaps an even more chilling effect, since we now understand the disturbing significance of this fakery.

Another effective scene takes place in the Smurls's bedroom, while they are asleep. Janet wakes up hearing whispering voices, seemingly from her pillow. At first incredulous, Jack insists that she is merely imagining things, but when he places his head on her pillow and a soft voice whispers something indecipherable to him, he reacts with near-violent fear. Shortly afterward, Janet feels cold fingers touching her leg. Jack places his leg over hers and then he feels the questing fingers, prompting another strong, fearful reaction.

The first apparition of the demonic force is its best — it's merely a dark, formless shadow that creeps across the screen, only briefly revealing contours that appear more or less human. In a couple of scenes, we see very typical, translucent human figures that are not particularly scary, though it's rather refreshing, even for the film's time, that they are not accompanied by garish light shows or other spectacular, over-the-top special effects. The only true physical manifestation of the entity comes when a rather maniacal-looking young woman spontaneously appears on the stairway and assaults Jack Smurl. The woman transforms into a heavyset, ogre-like brute who seems intent on sexually molesting a disbelieving Jack.

The actors in the production are uniformly convincing, with DeMunn and Kirkland standing out in their parts (Kirkland received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in this movie, though she lost to Judy Davis for One Against the Wind). Granted, the whiter-than-white, 1980s middle-class characters might ring less true for today's audiences than they did at the time, but the verisimilitude of characters, setting, and events in The Haunted outshines that of most far bigger productions of similar theme, such as The Conjuring and Annabelle, which I mentioned above. These characters are people you know — perhaps they're your family — and the fact they are not exaggerated, as is too often the case, makes them both believable and sympathetic, traits too rare in too many horror movies. You don't have to be religious — or a believer at all — to understand the natural compulsion for these people to seek assistance from the church, which proves itself not only impotent but irrelevant. Even paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who may in real life be seen only as opportunistic frauds, are portrayed with respect and depth, which for the purposes of this fiction adds another, agreeable layer of verisimilitude.

The Haunted was based on the book by the Warrens, along with Jack Smurl and Robert Curran, supposedly the true chronicle of events at the Smurl house. I don't believe the movie is available on DVD, though it can be viewed in its entirety for free on YouTube.

The Haunted makes for some mighty fine Halloween viewing, I can tell you. Four out of five Damned Rodan's Dirty Firetinis (at least one of which I am currently due for).

The first apparition of the demon — a dark, moving stain in the air that passes through walls

A face only a mugger could love? A sex-starved demon appears to menace hapless Jack Smurl.

That Which Ought Not Be

I bet you think you're looking at a very red-tinted photo of Droolie up there. Not exactly. You're looking at a very red-tinted photo of something that ought not be.

Look down near the left-hand corner of the pic. There's a dark, solid-looking round thing on top of the covers, which — given the position in which I was lying in the bed — would have been resting on my stomach. And clearly visible to me, as my head was propped up on the pillow, just out of view of the camera lens. It looks like a hockey puck. Or perhaps a lid to an insulated coffee mug. Its left edge is reflecting the lamp light from the nightstand. It casts a shadow.

I took this photo of Droolie the other night and was just going to delete it because the lighting was so funky. But then I noticed that object in the corner. And it's no use, I've got to post this: at the time, there was nothing there. Nothing like that rested on the covers, in the bed, in my bedroom, in my house. In that bed, there was Droolie, and there was me. That dark object, whatever it is, was not there.

I was on the phone with Ms. Brugger at the time, and I immediately remarked to her, "What the hell is that thing?" In no way does it appear to be an optical illusion — no gap in the covers, given some sense of dimension by the lighting. There's no weird trick of perspective, evidenced by the fact that the focus is consistent across the frame.

There was nothing there. Given where my head was in relation to that object, there's no way I could not have seen it, if something was actually there. There wasn't. Subsequent photos revealed nothing on the covers, so I didn't save them. I tore apart the bed — the whole room, basically — to see if some object, something which might explain that, might reveal itself. Nope.

So I'm left with a photo of something I can't explain, and while you may have no reason to even believe it, I'm telling you God's honest truth: there's something in that photo, and I cannot account for it. No doubt there's some prosaic explanation, but I don't know what it could be.

Mainly, I have this fear that some ghostly hockey player, somewhere, is missing his puck, and may be in foul humor over it. I'm pretty sure I don't want to meet him.

The City Built on the Dead

My birthday was Saturday, and to help me cope with the number of candles on the cake*, Ms. Brugger and I made a long weekend of it in Savannah, GA. I'd visited that town a couple of times in years past, first during in my college days (where I had my introduction to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, an experience I'm not likely to ever forget), and then again in 2009, which was the last trip Mrs. Death and I took before our permanent parting of the ways. Ms. B. had never been, and I've enjoyed my experiences there, so we settled on Savannah for a brief but invigorating Spring trip together. We headed down on Friday morning, naturally laying claim to a few interesting geocaches on the drive, and rolled into town early in the evening. We had made a reservation for a fairly late birthday dinner at Alligator Soul in the historic district, so we trucked down there from our hotel in Pooler, making a first stop at the nearby Jazz'd tapas and wine bar for a couple of glasses of vino. Both locations proved satisfying and then some. Alligator Soul is anything but inexpensive, but that is why we have really nice girlfriends. (Heavens, though — mine has an upcoming birthday too, so there will be fair turnabout.) When I saw that Alligator Soul had bison hanger steak on their menu, that pretty much sewed up my choice. The steak was perfectly prepared and presented, our server first-rate, and I don't think I could have been happier with a birthday dinner. Ms. B. was equally taken with the vegetarian fare she ordered (I don't even know). We spent the rest of the evening wandering about the historic district and grabbing a few caches. This part of Savannah is gorgeous at any time of day, but it is especially appealing by night. It's the ghosts, don't you know. More on that shortly.

*Hell no, there was no cake, and thus no actual candles.

On a nighttime walkabout in Savannah's historical district — near one of the caches I hunted.

Yesterday, the actual day of the dreaded birthday event, we left the hotel early and booked over to Bonaventure Cemetery, which is huge, a lot older than I am, and quite picturesque. We spent a good hour and half exploring its graves, crypts, and haunted corners, then headed back to the historical district, where we found a fair lunch at The Flying Monk Noodle Bar. I had a dish of spicy red noodles and calamari, while Ms. B. opted for spicy noodles with tofu. Service was a little spotty here, but the food was satisfactory. Then we wandered and cached, cached and wandered, and wandered yet some more. Our friends Terry and Beth from Winston-Salem had been on a Caribbean cruise and were heading through Savannah on their way back, so, early in the evening, we met them for drinks and dinner. Since Kimberly and I had enjoyed the atmosphere at Jazz'd and also found their tapas menu rather alluring, we decided to go back and give them a go for dinner. What a great choice this turned out to be. We had several different small plates, including shrimp spring rolls, chicken lettuce rolls, fried mushrooms, lasagne with goat cheese, and asparagus & prosciutto flatbread. Good food, good service, and good friends made for an unexpectedly fine second birthday dinner. From there, we headed over to In Vino Veritas wine bar, which offered an excellent selection of wines — all with a smile from our congenial server who than took better-than-good care of of us. Another Savannah winner, this. I'd go back just to get the grenache they served straight from the keg. Lovely stuff.

Finally, though the evening was wearing down, part of it was really just beginning. Ms. B. had booked us a late-night ghost tour of the historical district, and though we were starting to feel the effects of walking many miles over the course of the day, we perked up and trekked over to Colonial Park Cemetery, the oldest in Savannah — interestingly, also where Nathanael Greene, for whom Greensboro is named, is buried. Colonial Park is also filled with corpses of victims of Yellow Fever, which plagued Savannah just after the War Between the States. Back then, it was not common knowledge, as it is today, that malaria is carried by mosquitoes, and lying amid the marshes as it does, Savannah has more than its fair share (not to mention stinging sand gnats, which assailed us mercilessly over the weekend). With countless casualties of both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars also buried in areas that are now part of the historical district, Savannah truly is a city built atop the bodies of the dead — a fact that, according to our ghost tour guide — accounts for its plentiful hauntings. No, I'm not a believer in such things, but I do find the history and many of the decidedly grim stories of life and death from the past most intriguing.

One thing I did miss from my past trips to Savannah was the giant spider invasion, which occurs in late summer and early fall. Massive numbers of huge nephilim spiders invade the city and spin webs amid the buildings and trees, sometimes three or more stories high. I recall in 2009 seeing entire building facades covered by webs and these huge red and gold spiders, with leg spans up to five inches, hanging in their midst. I also recall, in no uncertain terms, hunting for a cache on the ground, standing upright, and finding myself face to face with one of the spiders, hanging just inches away. Now, I'm nowhere near as arachnophobic as I was in my younger days, but while these huge creatures are fascinating, they can also be a tad unnerving. Next time we go back, it's gotta be in the fall.

This morning, I made an intriguing discovery at our hotel. As I was returning to my room from the lobby area with a cup of fresh coffee, I heard a demonic child caterwauling. I know it was a demonic child because it had a really gruff, deep voice — gah-wooh-gah-wooh-oooh — and it was coming from behind a hotel room door that was padlocked from the outside. Really, honestly, I don't know what gives here, but given the town's character, this just seemed so Savannah. I'm sure there was a perfectly rational explanation for it; maybe the kid I heard was actually out in the courtyard beyond that room's window so it only sounded like the crying was coming from inside. Whatever, I don't know. Agreeably unnerving, that's what it was.

Finally, after a brief stop at the National Museum of the Mighty 8th Air Force, both to get a cache and to satisfy this old military aviation fanatic, we hit the road again for Greensboro. It seemed a very long return trip; I did stop for a handful of caches, as usual, but our forward progress was twice impeded by very long, very slow funeral processions, which dragged on no end. I gotta tell you... it's one thing to show respect for the dead, but it's a whole 'nuther to stop the world so they can parade on by. Me, I want no such thing. When I go, get me cremated, put my ashes in a travel bug so I can see the world by way of geocaches, and fuck the funeral procession. I won't have it.

Despite it being just another day in the forward progress toward that funeral procession I refuse, it was a damned fine birthday. A bit different, I think, than what Kimberly and I had expected — whatever we might have expected — but I reckon that's just one of the great things about living, don't you think?

Yep.

Beth, Terry, Ms. B., and old dude at In Vino Veritas

Old Rodan with F4C Phantom at the National Museum of the Mighty 8th Air Force