For the past few weeks, I've been writing a lot of horror, including two short stories which are now finished, and the beginning of a longer story that will be the first of a series heavily influenced by HP Lovecraft. All this horror had me thinking of certain events in my childhood that I think were somewhat responsible for planting the seeds of my interest in gruesome fiction. As more and more of these memories resurfaced, I decided it would make a good subject for a blog. I then thought it might be fun to present two writers' thoughts on the subject, so I invited my friend Wendy Potocki, author of horror novels including
Black Adagio and
Trillingham to join me. So here we have two essays about things in our childhoods that we suspect played a part in our growing up to be horror writers.
From the Cradle to Writing About Graves
By Aaron Smith
When it comes to writing, one thing I’m very happy
about is the fact that I’m able to write in many different genres. I’ve done
mysteries, thrillers, urban fantasy, science fiction, and even a western. But I
have to admit that one genre affects me in ways that most others don’t. It
feels, when working in this particular genre, like I’m digging deep into my
mind and pulling up, sometimes easily and other times forcibly, things that
have been buried deeply in there for most of my life. That genre is horror. In
some ways, horror is easier to write than other types of stories. At its best,
it feels natural. But, at other times, it can be difficult, and I can even,
when it’s really working, scare myself. Horror is powerful, personal, and
satisfying.
But
where does it begin? How does one acquire the impulse to explore and write
about the bizarre, the grotesque, and the terrible? What makes a person,
especially one who is essentially nice, quiet, and mostly gentle crave the act
of putting into words ideas designed to make readers cringe, squirm, have
nightmares, and maybe even get a bit nauseous?
As
I’ve been writing more horror lately, images and memories have been coming to
the surface of my mind. I’m seeing bits and pieces of the events, sights, words
that I now believe triggered the feelings of awe, wonder, fear, and dread that
eventually led to my interest in horror. What have been resurfacing are moments
of my childhood.
Stop!
Don’t make assumptions yet! I’m not about to reveal some deep, dark secrets or
tell the world that repressed memories of abuse or violence have jumped up and
shown themselves. It’s nothing like that.
For
the most part, I had a very happy childhood. I had good parents and
grandparents and some fine teachers. I wasn’t a popular kid and didn’t have
many close friends, but that was all right, since I was the solitary kind
anyway, an introvert who loved to read (which is another thing that made me a
writer).
So,
no, there are no traumatic memories to be spoken of in this essay. What I do
want to talk about are the ways in which innocent events of childhood can be
filtered through the imagination of a child and made into something deeper and
perhaps frightening. Those are the things that I believe contributed to my love
of the horror genre. You see, as a kid with a vivid imagination grows up, he or
she sees and hears things but can’t quite, due to being young and not having
sufficient life experience to form a frame of reference, understand them. So
the natural process is for that child to fill in the blanks, either knowingly
or unaware of the act, and come up with an explanation. Maybe it’s this
instinct to struggle for an explanation of what one doesn’t yet understand that
inspires some kids, the naturally curious kind, to grow up to be scientists,
and others of the same sort but with different inclinations, to become horror
writers (did I just hit upon the reason so many horror writers like HP
Lovecraft, Mary Shelley, Richard Matheson, and HG Wells incorporated
nightmarish versions of scientific progress into their work?).
Anyway,
I was that sort of child: curious, always wondering, and often easily
frightened by what I now realize were my own attempts to fill in the blanks in
my understanding of the world, its people, and its situations.
That’s
the reason I think I write horror now. It’s also the reason I felt a certain
sense of familiarity, like I was visiting a place I’d been before, when I first
read the works of such authors as Bram Stoker, JRR Tolkein (not strictly
horror, but there was some scary stuff in Middle Earth), and especially HP
Lovecraft, who was a master of writing about the world that sits just beyond
the edges of our known “reality,” and so really understood how the fill-in-the-blanks
mode of the mind can be a wonderfully terrifying thing.
Here
are some examples of what triggered my mind’s flights during childhood and sent
me down the road to embracing horror.
I
can blame my grandmother (or thank her, depending on your point of view) for
some of it. I think she was the person who introduced me to vampires, which are
a type of monster that really fascinated and scared me when I was young, so
much so that it was inevitable that I’d eventually write two (so far) novels
about them. But what was my first encounter with the blood-drinking undead? I’m
pretty sure it was the stories Grandma used to tell me when it was time for bed
(I’m not joking! Dracula was her idea of a good subject for a bedtime story,
and she also told me about Jack the Ripper; the murders by knife were included,
but she left out the fact that the victims were prostitutes). So, thanks to
her, I got an idea very early in life that there just might be creatures out
there that wanted to bite me and drink my blood!
So
now I had some idea about vampires, a frame of reference for when I began to
notice them popping up and creeping about in the fiction I was exposed to. And
since Grandma’s stories had embedded themselves in my mind and my imagination
had gone to work on the concept, any depiction of vampires I came across, no
matter how tame it really was, wound up being magnified a thousand times when
filtered through my brain. The space vampires episode of the not so great Buck
Rodgers TV series starring Gil Gerard scared me silly, as did the mere mention
of vampires in an episode of Thundarr the
Barbarian, an early 80s animated series. And when I got a tiny glimpse of
something vampire-related but didn’t get to see it through to its conclusion,
my mind had even more blanks to fill in and really went wild. I recall one
afternoon, a calm day when I was home being bored as my mother wandered around
the house doing laundry and cleaning. I was sitting in front of the TV while
she ironed. She came across Dracula,
Prince of Darkness on Channel 5. It’s one of those mid-60s Hammer horror
films with Christopher Lee as the count. It sounded interesting. I remember
seeing the ivy-covered exterior wall of a castle, a few actors in period
costumes, and then nothing. I fell asleep. When I woke up, the TV was off. I
asked what had happened to the movie. The only thing my mother, who is a very
squeamish person, I later realized, had to say was, “It was horrible!” I never
did see the rest of the movie until I was well into adulthood. I love the
Hammer movies now, and I see they’re mostly harmless, with very little actual
gore compared to what’s come later in horror films, but that one little
statement from Mom about how horrible it had been sent my mind racing with
images of blood far worse than anything in any movie of the time.
Perhaps
the ultimate vampire-related moment of my childhood was when I convinced myself
Dracula was buried only a ten minute drive from my home! In the town of West
Paterson, New Jersey (now renamed Woodland Park to avoid association with the
neighboring Paterson, which is a city with a bad reputation) is a memorial to
residents who served in the first World War (in fact, my great-grandfather’s
name is inscribed there). It’s a big stone block with a plaque on the front and
a sculpture of an eagle on top. But, driving past it at twilight, I thought it
was a grave with a bat perched above it. Therefore, I concluded, it just had to
be the burial site of the lord of vampires! Yes, I thought if I had the
misfortune to be stranded on that spot around midnight, I’d probably see a
pale, long-nailed hand dig its way out of the soil and Dracula would live again
and probably prey on the unfortunate kid who happened to be closest.
That
I was scared of vampires at that age makes sense, since they’re such a big part
of popular culture that one can’t help hearing about them from time to time. Even
had I not been exposed to them so early in life, I’m sure I would have
discovered vampires eventually and maybe been just as interested in them.
Vampires are designed to frighten people. Why else would so many writers of
books, movies, etc. feel compelled to use them as subject matter?
But
I can recall many other things, some of them quite mundane, which put
fascinating and frightening ideas in my mind. Those things, probably more than
Dracula and his kind did, added up to make me a horror fan and then a horror
creator.
I
didn’t read the work of my favorite horror writer, HP Lovecraft, until I was
about thirty, but when I finally did, it felt strangely familiar, almost as if
my mind worked in the same way as his. If I believed in reincarnation, I might
be tempted to come up with some theories about that, but I don’t, so I won’t.
Lovecraft’s
work often had to do with someone traveling into an unfamiliar area, an old
town or city with areas, or all of it, in a dilapidated condition, its citizens
exhibiting odd or hostile behavior, its streets and houses containing dark
secrets. That’s probably why I feel so at home in Lovecraft Country.
When
I was a boy, I loved traveling. I thrived on long rides through unfamiliar
regions, staring out the car windows and observing sights I was unused to. My
grandparents lived in Paterson, New Jersey, the same city in which I grew up.
Paterson is a big city as far as places in New Jersey go. It’s partially urban,
with the rest made up of tightly populated suburbs, block after block of homes
and businesses. I was used to the city. So, some of my favorite memories are of
the times my grandparents would take me up to their little country house on
Saturdays. They owned it for years, a small red cabin in the woods of
Westbrookville, New York. They visited it maybe two dozen times a year, took
the long drive up through the small towns of northern New Jersey, then deep
into rural New York State. I went with them a handful of times each year, in
all different seasons so that one time it might be the height of summer and
another time Grandpa might have to dig out a parking space in the long, unpaved
driveway a day or two after a heavy snowfall. I loved that property, with its
forest, the brook that babbled its way through, and the feeling of serene
separation from the constant background noise of home.
I
felt safe at home. I felt safe “up the country,” as we used to call it. But the
stretch of in-between, the journey from Paterson to Westbrookville, was the
most interesting part. On those drives, with Grandpa behind the wheel
navigating the trip he’d made hundreds of times before, and me in the back of
his big Chevy Suburban, trying to see everything there was to see for those two
hours on the road, I began to (not quite consciously) ask the question I’ve now
come to refer to as, “What Hides Off the Highway?”
As
adults, we get used to the idea that people live differently in different
places and that not all towns or cities look the same. We absorb ideas for
years by reading, watching, or just living. But kids don’t have the experience
to possess such a frame of reference. To them, going to strange new places can
be as interesting and feel as alien as it might feel for Captain Kirk and his
crew to beam down to planets far, far away from Earth. So, imagine how
fascinating it was for me, at a young age, to travel out of the closely
populated, tightly built city I was used to and find myself passing through
rural roads that wound like snakes through tiny towns where the air smelled
like hay and cow manure, where rusty old silos stood guard over pumpkin
patches, where one could buy a fishing license at the only local deli, where hints
of dilapidation and decrepitude were present everywhere, and where shops,
restaurants, and homes often looked like they’d been frozen in time since the
60s or 50s or even since the Depression.
It
was a land of lifestyles I wasn’t used to seeing (farm life is much different
than city existence; just ask Oliver and Lisa Douglas. How many people reading
this know what I’m referencing?), a vast stretch of fields, cows, rust, and
woods that seemed to stretch on forever. How, I wondered, could such an alien
landscape not hold dark secrets? And so I was glad when we passed each turn off
the main highway (which itself was much narrower than the highways closer to
home) so we wouldn’t encounter any of the beasts or eccentrics that lurked
along the side routes. Yes, I loved and feared that feeling, enjoyed those
journeys tremendously. So much so that when, years later, I read the work of
Lovecraft, I knew exactly where he was coming from. It was the same effect that
made movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
seem so dreadfully real, because I’d been down those lonely, foreboding
roads myself at an age when the mind is most impressionable. Luckily, the
grandparents and I never ran into Leatherface or the cultists of Innsmouth or
anything worthy of Mulder and Scully’s attention, but I sure thought it was
possible that we might! Now, so many years later, I love to ponder dark,
strange places, towns where strangers are unwelcome and in danger, and even how
some areas really do seem frozen in a time long since passed in most of the
world (there’s a whole section about such a town in my first vampire novel, 100,000 Midnights).
Those
trips into New York State had a serious impact on me. Great memories combined
with frightening possibilities spring to mind whenever I think back to those
long drives.
As
I sit here typing, even more memories come to the surface. I think of the mall
close to where I lived. That place had its share of sights that made me wonder,
made me guess at the nature of things I didn’t yet understand, and even scared
me. I remember being there with my parents or grandparents, walking around with
them as they shopped, and seeing so many different kinds of people. It was the
early 80s and there were punks with their strange hair and makeup, looking like
creatures from space to me. There were the heavy metal fans too, and you know
what really scared me about them? Iron Maiden T-shirts! As a kid of five or six
years old, I had no idea Iron Maiden was a band, and they always had gruesome
(maybe not so scary to an adult, but to a child …) images on their shirts and
posters. Why, I wondered with my young mind, were these people walking around
with such horrific pictures decorating their clothes? I shuddered to think what
they did when they were away from the public, when those police who patrolled
the mall (security guards, not actual cops, I realized later) weren’t there to
keep an eye on them? They were just T-shirts, but they made a big impression on
me. I suspect, thinking about it now, that the art on those shirts may have
inspired my later interest in the gruesome illustrations in horror comics or
the fact that I always noticed horror movie posters and wanted to see the films
they represented, though I was, in many cases, too young to see them at the
times of their release.
Although
I saw those T-shirts, it wasn’t until years later that I actually heard the
music of Iron Maiden. But music did have an ability to make me ponder some
rather dark ideas when I was a child. And it wasn’t intentionally scary music
like heavy metal that did it (although I did find Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”
a bit frightening, especially the part spoken by Vincent Price. Years later, I
wouldn’t consider myself a Jackson fan, but I sure as hell love many of Vincent
Price’s films). Rather, it was the 60s and 70s soft rock my parents listened
to. That was, after all, the majority of the music I was exposed to then.
Whatever they had playing on the car radio was what I had no choice but to
hear. When I hear those songs now, I understand more of the lyrical content. I
get it now, but back then a stray scrap of words could send my mind running
down some morbid paths. One example that springs to mind is Don McLean’s
masterpiece, “American Pie,” which I now know is a complicated, wonderful poem
on the history of rock during its first two decades or so. Back then, though,
that tangled mass of lyrics was mostly indecipherable to me, but what jumped
out was the chorus’s repeated, “This will be the day that I die.” How scary
would that sound to a little kid? Somebody stating out loud the certain
knowledge that the end of their life is about to occur!
And,
since we’re on the subject of death (a topic which is, undoubtedly, at the very
core of most horror fiction) I’m now thinking about the first few times my life
was touched by the grim reaper.
I
was lucky. Nobody I was close to ever died abruptly during my childhood, so I
never really felt the shock of death. Two of my grandparents and the only
great-grandmother I knew are now gone, but those losses were not especially
painful ones. My maternal grandmother and great-grandmother both lived very
long, full, mostly healthy lives (87 and 97, respectively), so there was no
sorrow at their passing. My grandfather died after a long illness during which
that once strong, confident man was reduced to a pain-ridden, fragile shell of
what he’d been, so his leaving this life was, in many ways, a relief to me. By
the time anyone I knew well died in any way that might be perceived as tragic
(at least when I was aware of the cause of death), I was an adult and far
better equipped to handle it. However, I do have one strong memory of death
from when I was about six or seven. I think what scared me at that point in my
life wasn’t so much the idea that someone had died, but the fact that I was
given too little information about how it had happened. That being said, I
can’t blame my parents in this case, for what they told me was too little, but
the whole truth would have been far too much for me to take at that age.
I
walked into the kitchen one day to find my mother crying. I asked what was
wrong. She told me my great-aunt had died (I didn’t know her very well, so I
didn’t get upset. I also suspect that I didn’t yet understand the true meaning
of death: its permanence, the way it changes the lives of everyone who knew the
deceased). Of course, I asked what had happened. My mother told me, simply,
that Aunt ___ had been sick for a long time. I let it go at that. Of course, my
imagination took over. What was “a long time?” To a kid, that might mean an
hour! What was “sick?” To a kid, that might mean a stomach ache or a cold. That
was all the explanation I got, so the next time I got “sick” I was terrified,
and the longer the illness went on (which was probably a day or two, but that
can seem like forever to a child) the more convinced I was that I’d end up dead
too!
As
for the true details, the poor woman had long suffered from depression and had
committed suicide, which is something I didn’t learn until I was grown up, so
now I can understand why my mother’s explanation was so vague.
With
time, of course, I understood the difference between a “long time” and a truly
long time. I also understood the difference between serious illness of the
potentially fatal kind and minor illnesses that seem like horrible ordeals for
the brief span they last. Time teaches lessons and time heals wounds, and time
is also responsible for giving us history, which is a subject that’s always
fascinated me. I enjoy reading about what life was like in the past, whether
mere decades ago or centuries or even longer. And it’s not just words on the
pages of history books that interest me. It’s also images or objects of the
past, or, to take it a step further and combine the two, objects that bear
images of the past. In other words, the art of days long ago is always
interesting to see, for there we find ideas and thoughts as the people of those
times actually considered them. One particular example of old art comes to mind
as I explore the memories of my childhood.
I’ll
never forget the evening I first saw one. On the second floor of the mall (the
same mall where I’d first seen those Iron Maiden T-shirts) was a little shop
that sold the sort of junk my mother liked to decorate the house with,
craft-type stuff and wreaths and baskets and cast iron napkin holders and
plaques bearing silly sayings that are supposed to be clever or inspiring. I was bored out of my mind during one visit to
the place when a set of placemats, of all things, caught my attention and
wouldn’t let go. Printed on those mats was one of those old-fashioned maps of
the world. Continents were represented with some degree of accuracy, though not
entirely accurate. But it was the spaces between land masses that captivated
me. These were not empty blue oceans, but vast stretches of sea populated in
certain spots by sea monsters! I’m sure you’ve seen these maps. The watery
sections are punctuated by a giant serpent here, a tentacle monstrosity there,
a scattered assortment of things you wouldn’t want suddenly rising up out of
churning waves to dwarf your ship (like in the wonderful two-page spread drawn
by Michael Zulli in one of the later issues of Neil Gaiman’s brilliant comic
book series Sandman). I was
fascinated by the idea that massive creatures of the deep, much more menacing
than whales, might have once lived. I was too young to see Jaws and probably would have freaked out if I had, even if the
great white shark was tame in comparison to the species on the map.
This
interest in sea monsters went even deeper when I first visited one of my
favorite places in the world, the American Museum of Natural History in New
York City. Most kids, I suspect, are most impressed by the bones of the
tyrannosaurus or the triceratops, but I was entranced by the ocean-dwelling
beasts of the prehistoric age, like the menacing Mosasaur with its enormous
size, fast swimming speed, and rows of razor-sharp fangs.
Oh,
and I absolutely refused, refused, refused to stand under the huge replica blue
whale that hangs from the ceiling of the Hall of Ocean Life. I didn’t care if
it had been successfully and safely secured up there for years and years. I was
sure it would choose the precise moment of my arrival in its awesome shadow to
come down and crush the life out of me!
My
interest in the things that once stalked, or, I hoped, still stalk the deep wet
places of the world increased exponentially after that visit to the museum, but
that wasn’t all I got from my trip to that wonderful building.
The
American Museum of Natural History literally and permanently changed my life in
ways that are most certainly reflected in my writing now, over thirty years
later. Suddenly seeing, in one busy day, hundreds of animal species and dozens of
artifacts from long-ago historical periods, learning about how people lived
ages before the present, and gaining for the first time a fraction of an
understanding of some of the strange ancient superstitions and religious
beliefs once held by members of the human race had an enormous impact on my
mind. I truly believe that day may have been the instigator of my interests in
history, mythology, science, and other subjects, all of which have encouraged
me to gather knowledge and conceive ideas that have shown up in my writing,
including my fantasy and horror stories. While it’s impossible now to trace all
the paths of thought that led me to where I am today, I’d bet a good portion of
those roads were first stepped onto on that wonderful day.
Incidentally,
my favorite room in the museum has become, over the course of many visits over
the years, the Hall of Northwest Indians. That room probably triggered, more
than any other place I’ve been, my fascination with religion, superstition, and
the supernatural (not that I believe in any of that, but it’s amazing,
inspiring, and not just a little frightening that so many people have in the
past and still do today). I was absolutely delighted when I learned years later
that one of my favorite authors, world famous expert on mythology, Joseph
Campbell, credited that very same room with jumpstarting his interest in the
subject.
That
room, with its high ceiling, wooden floors that make footsteps echo, huge totem
poles, and grotesque ceremonial masks, has been left mostly as it’s been since
Campbell saw it as a child decades before I did. I suspect that if that room is
ever remodeled, a segment of my soul will shrivel and die.
So
there you have it. I’ve just talked about a handful of experiences from my
childhood that I think had a lot to do with me growing up to be a horror
writer. There are other memories too, little moments, sights, and thoughts that
made their own contributions to the morbid neighborhoods of my mind. Things
like my grandfather’s stories of Europe during World War II. I still have a few
of the souvenirs he brought home from the war: the Nazi armband with the
bloodstains and bullet hole, and the binoculars he claimed to have taken from a
headless German corpse. I also remember that he never ate chicken after the
war; a meal they fed the troops made him so sick he couldn’t bear the thought
of ever eating that particular kind of bird ever again.
There
were dreams too, certain nighttime movies that played in my head repeatedly
during the years I was growing up, like the one about the girl on the beach
running from something, begging me to help her hide. I never did find out what
had frightened her so, but I’ll never forget the vivid streaks of blood on her
white shirt. There were also dreams of the underground tunnels one could crawl
into if one dared go through the hole under the lowest shelf of the storage
closet in the back of the basement (this idea has a prominent place in the
horror story I’m working on right now). If one ventured far enough into those
passages, he’d hear chanting and maybe even catch a glimpse of the robed
subterranean monks that apparently lived under Paterson. Come to think of it,
maybe that’s where a few of my grammar school teachers lived when they weren’t
at school. That would explain a lot!
Wow!
After having written these nearly 5,000 words about possible influences on my
desire to write the scary stuff, I feel like I’ve just been catapulted back to
my childhood, spun around in the cement mixer of my mind a few thousand times,
and spit back to the present! I’ve had enough for now, although I’m sure I’ll
remember a few dozen things I’ll wish I’d included. As an adult and a writer,
it’s sometimes easy and sometimes difficult to pinpoint the various themes that
seem to occur frequently in my stories. Trying to trace those concepts back to
their deeply buried roots has been a lot of fun, and a little disturbing at
times. I hope you found it interesting. That’s enough about me for now. My
characters need my attention.
If anyone reading this hasn't sampled any of my horror writing, I'm happy to report that my zombie novel, Chicago Fell First, is on sale for Kindle this week, at only 99 cents, so now's your chance!
And now, on to Wendy's part of the blog!
The World Where
Children Live
By Wendy Potocki
When the idea of writing on this subject was first presented
to me, I was intrigued. Not so much by what happened to me as to me as a child,
but more by what I’d forgotten. Tender perspectives, attitudes, fears and
uncertainty had been erased from my thinking patterns and put in some back
drawer where dust collected on youthful promise. I’m not sure why that happened
since there is something so decidedly charming about the time spent as a youth
Put succinctly, it’s magical.
I suppose the main reason for childhood being a perpetual
anything-can-happen high is because children are not miniature adults. Repeat NOT.
Never were and never will be—at least not until we hit puberty. Then all that
enchantment goes away and we never think we see dragons in the closet again. But
until that happens, wee ones live in a universe adults could never comprehend. But
like Neverland, we outgrow this domain—and the memories, too. At least I did,
and it’s a real shame. So here’s a refresher course in what I went through and chose
to forget until that talemeister Aaron Smith rattled my chains.
The realm I inhabited as a child was a highly-charged affair.
In this domain, the ability to imagine was encouraged and flourished to the
point of overflowing like an unattended tub. While this dreamlike state was the
norm, the use of mental weaponry in conjuring up dangerous ideas caused a few
consequences. Just as dreams sometimes morph into nightmares, my undeveloped
frontal cortex allowed some pretty strange thoughts to intrude and take over
the mundane affair of growing up in a household that was about as exciting as a
tennis racket with no strings. But my neurons firing on the toddler setting
turned all that around. Hence the food that was served by my loving mom became
a source of contention. Instead of ingesting the nutritious offering, I probed one
of numerous charred cubes with suspicion while forking it to death in order to
learn what it really was. After all, I couldn’t really trust my mother, could I?
And whose word did I have that she was even who she claimed to be? For all I
knew, she could be an imposter, as phony as the piece of unrecognizable protein
that was set before me. And so I speared at it with sharp prongs, watching a
slightly pinkish-brown liquid spill out a new set of holes. It was clearly not
pork … or chicken. But how about an alien form of life? Could be … could very
well be. It’s how the family dog became the official taste tester. I figured if
he didn’t sprout another leg or tail by the end of next week, that piece of
meat might just be chewed and swallowed by the intended recipient the next
time. I’m sure it’s how Gordon Ramsay got his start.
As spelled out above, my youth was damned by odd stirrings
of dramatic non sequiturs. They’d pull me out of reality, putting me on the
Road of Tangents faster than my father could yell, “Finish your homework or
it’s no TV!” It’s not that I wasn’t trying to learn what the heck prime numbers
were, but these bouts with delirium would send me pinging off imaginary walls
for hours, days and weeks at a time. The mental obsessions I created would
sometimes disappear along with the trolls that once inhabited the backyard, but
sometimes they’d morph into my own personal urban legends. Like that house I used
to pass on my walk to school every day … the stone one … covered in English
ivy.
Why didn’t anyone else notice how weird it was? How it gave off
strange vibes and seemed to watch when someone passed by? How the front lawn
was always manicured to perfection, but by who? No one ever came or went. Nor
did a child living in it attend our school. That had to tell you something
right there because everyone had kids. And I mean, everyone. Then there were the windows. Why were they always dark?
It could be explained in the daytime, but how about when my father drove past
it at night? See what I mean? Crazy Town, right? I’d press my nose against the
backseat window and wait to see if something had changed, but it was always the
same. No lights were ever on. It signified to me that no human occupied that
territory. A giant red X was mentally spray painted over the entirety of the
structure. Satan surely had to be in there somewhere … just waiting to suck out
my soul.
The whole affair was enough to start me probing my friends
for answers. What was their opinion of the House with Nobody Home? At first, I
received blank stares when the topic was raised, but I smart-assedly crossed my
arms and dug in. If they thought they could prove me wrong, let ‘em try. “Offer
me solid evidence,” I insisted in language probably dumbed down by the lack of a
few decades and the ingestion of Twinkies. And Twinkies is its own food group
you know. I should since I scarfed down enough to be intimately acquainted. But
their dismissive smirks were soon history. I knew they couldn’t prove jack shit
so I piled on the evidence.
“Why are there no holiday decorations? Ever? Like at
Christmas?” I continued. I knew I was onto something. Every other father in the
neighborhood was up there teetering on ladders and swearing at holiday time. It
was where most of us learned our best four-letter words. And just
happenstancily, it was right around Octoberfest. In a couple of weeks it would
be the big “H”, “A” double “L,” “O” time. Add in weenie, and you had yourself a holiday that would make your teeth
ache for it to occur more often. A quick glance around the neighborhood confirmed
every other house was already outfitted in tacky orange and black decorations. Witches,
black cats and Jack O’ Lanterns abounded, but not on the Nobody Home property. Even
the steps were bare. In my mind, it read “Guilty,” and I was ready to throw the
switch.
When an annoying friend tried to explain away the
discrepancy by saying the occupants might not know of the holiday, I fired back
the definitive defense. “Who doesn’t know about Halloween?” Ha! The argument
was as conclusive as a .24 caliber bullet entering her brain. That would teach
her. My summation stopped all those that would have latched onto the pathetic
excuse and I ended up winning the day. It’s how I initiated all my friends into
the charmed circle of those that knew the Nobody Home home was to be avoided at
all costs. It meant running by it when walking alone and never, ever ringing
the doorbell on October 31st. No telling what might answer. But that
wasn’t the end of my terror-filled, halcyon days. There was that clock.
It was merely a present. A trinket given to cheer me up. I’d
taken ill and had been moping in bed with nothing to do other than drink orange
juice. My mother insisted it cured everything, and I guess she was right
because I am still here. Anyway, I was taking the high temperatures and sweats
in stride like the good little trooper I was, and so my dad brought home this
gift as some sort of reward. It was a clock—one suiting a five-year-old child.
It was shaped like a dog, a yellow one. I supposed it was intended to be a
stylized cocker spaniel, but it was really hard to tell. All I can say is that
it had long black ears, black eyes and a little red tongue that lolled out of
its mouth. I was delighted when I first opened the package, but I hadn’t yet discovered
that it was cursed.
It took a few hours for me to realize the full dimensions of
the act of kindness. Until then, the dog clock was a Good Housekeeping
approved, blue-medal-winning child’s toy. I held it in my hands, laughing at
the silly expression and stroking the plastic that was painted to resemble soft
fur. Placing it on my pillow, I confided in the perennially happy puppy how
sick I was of being sick, and how I couldn’t wait to get outside and play. All
the while, the toy remained the safe, inanimate item it purported to be. But
around five o’clock, that all changed for the worse when the unimaginable
happened. My father came into the room and … PLUGGED IT IN!
Oh, my God! A nightmare was launched—birthed right in my
very own bedroom! With the horrible sound of w-www-ww-u-uu-u-r-rrr-rrrrr, those pit-of-hell eyes began to move.
Back and forth they shifted as the tongue swung from side-to-side like a
machete in the hand of a psychopath. I was dumbfounded! I listened to that
fearsome grinding wishing that a bomb would drop from the sky and blast it out
of existence, but did I tell my parents of my fears? Of course not! I took it
upon my tiny shoulders to fight this demon anyway I could.
Shortly after all the happiness officially ended for me—and
we’re talking forever—I was served my supper on a little pink tray, but the
irritating noise and fitful jerking motions continued. A diabolical staredown
began in earnest. I’d determined that I could not look away, because if I did, that
mechanical monster would surely attack. The not looking away made eating
difficult, but I could forego one supper. Groping for the juice glass, I tried
to figure out what my father had been thinking in purchasing the travesty. Didn’t
he know that automatons were programmed to kill children in their sleep? But
maybe that was the point. Maybe he wanted me dead.
That solution to the puzzle hit home as tears filled my
unwavering eyes. Could my very own father hate me that much? Sure I squeezed
the toothpaste in the middle and left the cap off, but was that enough? The
proof was before me, but wait! I was leaving out the fact that my dad was not
the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. Sure, he earned a good living and
allegedly graduated from an Ivy League institution, but as concerns life?
Clueless. I mean, my mom would never have bought something lethal and planted
it in my room. The unwholesome character analysis pacified my anxiety. Giving
my father a pass for being a doofus, the crime he committed was reduced from
first-degree, premeditated murder to manslaughter. Whew!
While the lessening of the charge gladdened the heart
beating wildly in my chest, the glaring standoff continued. For three more
hours, I warded off the beast set to strike with laser beams that I shot out my
eyes, but it couldn’t last forever. The inevitability of bedtime rolled around
and, I mean, I couldn’t not sleep, could I? I decided to try. Long after the
lights were turned off and I was tucked in, I bravely struggled to keep my
eyelids from closing, but even I realized it was a losing battle. Keeping a
vigilant watch by means of the light shining beneath the door, I drifted off
for a second. The lapse in consciousness made the alarm bells sound. The exigency
of the situation demanded action. Throwing the covers back, I crept towards the
maniacal, rabid dog, reciting the Lord’s prayer as I went. I oh so carefully
lifted the thing from the wall and saw that the tongue was hooked on. It was
something I could disable. With a quick tug, the blood-red tongue came off in
my hand.
I rested the clock back down satisfied that it could no
longer taste or lick me. Tossing the metal piece into the trash, I’d teach this
cur not to mess with me. When I jumped back into bed, I figured out a new
strategy for staying alive. Burying myself under the sheets, I figured what the
creature couldn’t see, it couldn’t find and destroy. And that’s how I slept …
for weeks. When I woke in the morning that horrible whirring noise would be
there to greet me along with that malevolent grin sans the tongue. It was
within that span of time that I learned the truism that evil never rests.
In the ensuing days, I spent as little time as I could in
that room, never turning my back on that skinky little devil. Eyeing it as I
reached for my socks, I’d throw it a superior look, trying to show who was
boss, but it wasn’t fooled. It knew it was. And so after a month and a half of
torment, I took drastic action. Upon arriving home from school, I strode into
my room and did what I should have done a long time ago—I pulled the plug.
While disconnecting it returned to its former state, the
damage had been done. I could never really trust it, and so after a couple more
days, it got dumped in the back of my closet. Things never returned from being
put into that black hole. I was proven
right a short time later by my mother asking whatever happened to that clock my
dad had bought me. I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head, giving her that
dumb look that mouth-breathing, carbon-based units are famous for. It sufficed
to convey that I had no freakin’ idea, but, of course, I did. It was then I
learned a second truism which is that not
everyone needs to know everything. It’s a paradigm that has come in very
handy over the years and one that I still use almost every day. And to think I
owe learning that lesson to a clock.
Now whether these experiences fed into me becoming a writer
of horror, I don’t know. It certainly proves that I had a tankful of
overactive imagination and no brakes. That I will give you. But since I
often use stream of consciousness to pen tales, it could be that these
experiences are regifted and used to spawn wild tales. Then there’s the aspect
of feeling vulnerable. I was excruciatingly aware of this emotion all through
those formative years. It’s possible that my feeling weak and at the mercy of
circumstances also played a part, but conjecture doesn’t make it true. Of
course, I harbor my own personal theory and it comes down to this: It was the ingesting
of those Twinkies that did it. I just know it’s because of Twinkies that I’m a
writer.
Wendy
Potocki lives and writes in NYC. If that isn't scary enough, she writes
in the genre of horror. She feels creating good horror is an art form.
She religiously devotes herself to pursuing it over hill and dale -- and
in the crevices of her keyboard.
Named one of the Top Ten "New"
Horror Authors by Horror Novel Reviews, she has eight self-published
novels. Book trailers for many of her works may be found on her official
website listed below. Her latest frightmare is TRILLINGHAM, a book
that'll give you chills faster than you can yell, "Help!" She's
currently working on THE RECKONING, the third and last installment in
her very popular Addune Vampire Trilogy.
In her spare time, she
loves to go for long walks, drink Starbucks Apple Chai Lattes, make
devotional offerings to her cat named Persephone and be stilled by the
grace, beauty and magic of ballet. Her novel BLACK ADAGIO was written in
tribute to the passion of dance.
