blogtoberfest – Page 2

Blogtoberfest – Colors in Darkness Halloween Party

The 1st Multicultural Celebration of Horror, Paranormal and Dark Fantasy!

Come and Celebrate With The Fear! There will be contests, excerpts and more!

Have you marked your calendars? On October 29th, you must attend the first Colors in Darkness Halloween Party. Come hang out with writers of color who love spinning dark fiction, horror, paranormal and dark fantasy. If you like all things scary, , you’ll love the party that we have planned. Author excerpts, prizes, trivia and all around scary fun. Come and discover a new Gothic author, a super-scary horror author, or on the lighter side, a dark paranormal with a little romance.

Spread the word about this event…..click to tweet below….and see you at the end of October!

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[bctt tweet=”Come celebrate your fear! Multicultural celebration of horror, paranormal and dark fiction. http://on.fb.me/1OQ2R8h” via=”no”]

[bctt tweet=”Like scary stuff? Colors in Darkness Halloween Party. Stop on by! http://on.fb.me/1OQ2R8h” via=”no”]

[bctt tweet=” We’re going to have a wicked good time! Colors in Darkness Halloween Party. http://on.fb.me/1OQ2R8h” via=”no”]

Blogtoberfest – Scary Stories – Pet Sematary

Horror is different for everyone. I don’t think the “experts” can agree on what horror is and thus there are tons of movies and books that represent the horror

Cover of "Pet Sematary (Special Collector... — Cover via Amazon

genre, as it should be.

I also believe that horror is different depending on where you are in your life. What’s represents horror for a twenty-year-old might be old-hat to a forty year old. Books that resounded for me in my twenties are just “eh” now that I’m a lovely seasoned woman of a certain age.

But Stephen King’s Pet Semetary broke that mold. It’s just as frightening now as when I first read it many years ago.

Here’s the blurb

“Sometimes dead is better….”When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true: physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son — and now an idyllic home. As a family, they’ve got it all…right down to the friendly cat.

But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth — more terrifying than death itself…and hideously more powerful.

SPOILERS SPOILERS sort of SPOILERS sort of SPOILERS SPOILERS

My goodness, what a story. It runs the gamut from the “real-life” horror of the death of a child and the grief that follows, to the otherworldly horror that awaits when the family tries to alleviate the grief that follows the death of a family pet.

The first time I read the story the scene on the hill wasn’t so horrifying. You know why? Because I didn’t have children of my own. I think I was more touched by the death of the pet than I was by the other. However, when I read it now, that scene on the hill makes my gut twinge and jump. After reading it, I had to go “check on the children”. Having children of my own makes the following scenes more poignant and so much more touching.

Sympathy turning to empathy.

SPOILERS END (they were half-assed anyway)

My theory of horror if you’re “just watching” it makes it a lot less scary. “This could never happen to me because blah blah”. When an ordinary situation turns into a “horror” situation, something that could happen to anyone, something that is plausible (with a little “what if” thrown in) that’s when the true terror begins.

Pet Sematary is about grief, loss and at its core, the horror of not letting go and where it can get you.

Blogtoberfest – Urban Legends to Keep You Up at Night – Part 2

The Thousand Steps

Behind a rusty, broken gate at the top of the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi in Eagle Point Park (Clinton, Iowa) is an ancient set of steps plagued with tragedy and wrought with mysteries and fables. Locals call them the “Thousand Steps”, and they were built in the 1930’s along with the rest of the neighboring park to allow access from the top of the bluffs to the beach below. Although originally used frequently by families and other people looking for a scenic hike, the stairs soon fell into disuse and began to decay- becoming filled with holes, structural cracks, and covered in slippery moss, making them very dangerous to use.

But of course, nothing compels children to do something more than being told not to do it.

In the 1960’s, it soon became a right of passage to descend the stairs and live- which many children and adults did successfully, but many others did not. Dozens of children died attempting to master the stairs every year all the way the 70’s, when attempts finally slowed and with it, the death toll until it was down to one per year, where it remains at today.

However, an obviously dangerous set of steps does not a legend make – it’s what began to happen after the many deaths that make the steps so intriguing. Frequent reports of ghost sightings, the confirmed discovery of human remains and even rumors that the sight used to be a Native American “Indian” burial ground began to circulate and gain credibility over the years.

The steps still stand today, as dangerous and mystifying as they were 50 years ago. If none of the legends are true – the burial ground, the human remains, or the ghosts – the death toll still stands. More than 20 people lost their lives on those steps, and the question remains… Who is the next victim?

From: http://urbanlegendsonline.com/thousand-steps/

Chapel Still Appears at Night in Flames

There is a site located in Quinton on the outskirts of Salem that was home to an African-American Church when slavery was still intact. The church was built in the woods by a pastor named Berry. It was burned down twice. The first time no harm was done to anyone, the second time the entire congregation died, including Berry. There are many stories surrounding the burned down church and remaining graveyard, which also became a teenage drinking spot along with a supposed cult meeting ground.

They say on many nights if you go out there, you can see the church fully intact and burning and you can see and hear the parishioners dancing and praising. [bctt tweet=”They also say you can hear metal scraping and people screaming. ” via=”no”]Berry himself was also buried here and his grave is marked by a stone with his name, but for some reason he was buried farther into the woods and no one can ever seem to find his gravesite. –Shannon (From http://weirdnj.com/weird-news/berrys-chapel/ )

Enjoy!

Dahlia

Blogtoberfest – American Gothic Roots Music – Rachel Brooke

Welcome to today’s Blogtoberfest post! It’s another dark country/roots song by artist Rachel Brooke.

“Take everything you think you know about country music and throw it out the window. That pop rock crap y’all call country is nothing compared to what Rachel Brooke is laying down. She’s an old soul in the way Hank Williams and Memphis Minnie were, culling together both country and country blues into an album that is easily digestible for anyone who gets scared off by real country music. Etta James once said that the blues and country music were kissing cousins. Rachel Brooke is their love child.” -Chip McCabe

and

“Producing and playing most of the instruments herself, Rachel demonstrates her immense talent and diversity on this album. (Down in the Barnyard 2011) The song writing is top notch, her voice is eerily old-time-authentic, and the whole album has the ability to whisk you away on the country technicolor lullaby head trip that she has painted during it’s near-hour long set. Rachel is just hitting her stride, but with this release is proving that we should all be keeping our eyes on her.” –Shooter Jennings, ”- Moonrunners”

Blogtoberfest – Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

In another life, I was an elementary school teacher, which meant nearly every holiday was a par-tay. Valentine’s Day parties were the most stressful, because, as a teacher, you really had to sit on the “who likes whom” bit and keep it all nice and friendly. Christmas was nice, but the overabundance of cookies was a little much. The party that hit the perfect spot (besides the end of school party) was Halloween.

Between the Halloween-themed worksheets, coloring sheets, Halloween parade and Charlie Brown, the whole day was a whirlwind of costumes and candy. The best part for me, and I hope the class, was when I read from Scary Stories to Read in the Dark. First of all, take a look at this cover. It’s the stuff of nightmares, sorry. I’d keep the book face down on the desk if I had a softcover, and remove the dustjacket if I were using a hardcover that year.

Note. Yes, I do write about zombies, but only before 2 pm. I’ll tell you a little story – when I was editing Loving Among the Dead, my first zombie book, I stayed up late at night, making sure everything was super scary and ended up giving myself nightmares! So now, yeah, early afternoon is as far as I”ll go with working, watching or reading scary stuff!

Back to the the main story. There is a story in the book called “The Big Toe” and it ends with a jump scare. The story goes like this: A boy digs in the garden and finds a big toe. He takes it to his father and the father cuts the toe up into three pieces so the family can have something to eat. Later in the evening, a voice comes ’round saying “Who’s got my toooooooe? Who’s got my tooooooooe?”

I would walk around the classroom repeating Who’s got my toooooooe? in a spooky voice until I jumped at one child and yell: “YOU’VE GOT IT!” The resounding screams, well, now I know a little of how satisfied Alfred Hitchcock felt when audience screamed during the shower scene in Psycho.

So, pick up the book. There are three of them, but the first one has the best stories and weirdest drawings. Like this one:

scary-stories-to-tell-in-the-dark-3 — She cut off her nose to….SPIDERFACE!!!

Pleasant dreams!