Fun, and also a bit frightening. In a 1940's kind of way.

I love this day. Halloween. I really should have become a writer of Horror. Pure, rattle-your-bones, make-you-look-over-your-shoulder, run-up-the-stairs-hoping-the-hand-doesn’t-snag-your-foot horror stories. My cousin, Kathy, and I used to tell scary stories to each other growing up. Campfire stories. You remember them, right?

The escaped killer with the hook, stalking lovers in their cars in the dark. That was a favorite. Also one she made up (I think) called “One Step, Two Step” about a goblin in the basement of our grandfather’s house, making its way up to the first floor, second floor, and then the terrified child’s ROOM.

When I was young—a reader for as long as I could remember—I devoured Stephen King. I know a lot of people did, but I imagined writing those stories myself. I lived inside them, studying the elemental terror infused by one of the great horror writers of our time.

I remember even younger days, reading all of the Poe classics: The Tell-Tale Heart, The Imp of the Perverse, The Fall of the House of Usher, Hop-Frog, and my favorite, The Pit and the Pendulum.

Another magnificent horror story I always seem to ascribe to Poe in my mind, but was actually written by W.W. Jacobs is The Monkey’s Paw.

Classics, all.

Each year for this big day, we buy several cases of full-size candy bars and I put on the DVD of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein. Lon Chaney, Jr playing the Wolfman; Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula; Glenn Strange as the Frankenstein Monster. I looove that movie. Its not Halloween in the Guthrie household without it.

Actual phone SK used to send in his last story, Mile 81.

So why didn’t I become an author of Horror? Honestly, I haven’t ruled it out. One of the reasons, I think, is that I stopped finding quality horror out there to inspire me. I feel like King has been phoning it in for a number of years. His last short story, Mile 81—well, if I’d read that in the eighth grade, written by a fellow classmate, I’d have enjoyed it immensely. After waiting for its release, then shelling out $2.99 for 80 pages? Let’s just say I was less than impressed.

And I haven’t been truly affected by a horror movie (or book) since Se7en. (And yes, it’s a bit of a stretch to classify the Morgan Freeman/Brad Pitt classic as “horror” but that remains in my mind one of the last movies to have honestly kept me up at night.)

I truly enjoyed The Blair Witch Project (failed Internet hype notwithstanding). The first Paranormal Activity had its moments. But what has happened to the great horror film (and, I am afraid, great horror literature)? I do have an answer to my own question (figured you’d be excited to realize I wasn’t actually calling on you):

Bow to the MASTER.

Alfred Hitchcock. Film makers, writers, and creators in general seem to have forgotten the core style of the greatest architect of suspense we may ever know. Less is better. Show, don’t tell. Sorry, but I cannot imagine the creators of Saw (or its, what, seventeen sequels) have even seen Rear Window or Psycho.

It’s funny—even after becoming a writer, and having always believed I would one day write in the Horror genre, I still find myself waiting for the next King heir-apparent. Not that I could be that heir. But I sometimes think I should put my hat in the ring. No, not The Ring (although that was another close shot, in my opinion).

So with Halloween upon us, I share with you a flash fiction piece that I wrote a month or two back for a blog. You know the kind, 60 words or less, a particular setting (kneeling in a church), an element you have to include. It ain’t great, but it’s HERE, and using means I can phone one it and finish this post without having to write any more original material.

(Yes, Alfie is likely rolling over in his grave. But he’s not going overboard with it.)

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THE CONFESSION

The man knelt, abject before the church. Alone in the pooled sunlight leaking through colored glass.

“She was a good girl,” he said to God’s empty cathedral.

Rope fibers crisscrossed the caked blood on steeple hands.

“Take this cup from me,” he prayed.

The sudden, cataclysmic pain at the core of his chest felt—heavenly.

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The blank page is dead…long live the blank page.

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And if you are looking for a good Horror read, or any other read, come load your Kindle at the launch party for Melissa Foster’s new book “Come Back to Me”, where you’ll find Melissa’s book + 35 others priced for three days only at 99 cents! [Featured in the Horror/Thriller genre are Carrie Green, Micheal Rivers (a real life paranormal investigator), Keith Weaver, Emerald Barnes, MJ Rose, and James P. Wilcox!]