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Halloween Extravaganza: William Becker: STORY: The Secret Goldfish

megHan

“Mom,” the daughter called as her mother entered into the Louisiana homestead, “did you get anything that isn’t shit?”

Her mother had been at the supermarket for the majority of the day, leaving the daughter alone at home, forcing her to lie under the tin roof and listen to the sounds of the rain pattering against the roof of the shack. After the death of the Husband, it was just the two of them deep in the murky swamp among the mosquitos, alligators, copperheads, and bears. They lived in a messily strewn together shack that only had one room. Mother usually slept on a blowup mattress on the floor, while Daughter had the luxury of using their couch as a bed. Other than that, they had a record player, a bug zapping lamp, an ancient wood stove, some rusted silverware, and a refrigerator. Filling their yard was a sea of trash, that would have smelled hideously, but blended in with the scent of the mold, mud, and still water of the swamp. Mother was far too lazy to clean up or take any of the trash to the landfill when she went out to the supermarket. It wasn’t like she was a hard worker or anything, seeing as they lived off of welfare checks that were sent to the family for Mother’s “injuries.”

“Watch your language, please,” Mother quipped back at her, stepping over a mountain of cigarette cartons, fast food boxes, soda boxes, and laundry. She held the groceries tightly in her hands: more cigarettes and a giant box of Goldfish. She set one of the bags full of dozens of cigarette cartons on the floor, then started to shake the Goldfish box, as if she was jiggling a present to see what was inside. It was easy to hear them sloshing around on the inside. The smiling fish on the front cover seemed to mock the rest that would soon meet their fate. In a way, it was disturbing that Pepperidge Farms could be so egregious by killing millions without a second thought, but then again, it was all for the greater good.

“Goldfish for dinner again?” Daughter whined. Mother frowned at her ungratefulness, but shrugged it off; she wasn’t at all in the mood to get in a fight that night.

“A nice man gave me a discount,” Mother retorted, “we actually talked awhile. His name was Mark. He even gave me his telephone number!”

Daughter sighed, rolling her eyes back.

“I’m not rushing it again, you know that! Mommy has just been… really lonely. I asked him if he wanted to get dinner sometime.”

“What did he say?”

“He was such a nice man, really! He said he would love to do something with me. He even asked asked me if I wanted to go over to his house to watch some movies this weekend! He was just splendid!” There was that word again. Every time that Mother found a male interesting, she seemed to describe everything with him as splendid. She would often bring one of them over for a night or two, and Daughter would usually go for long walks when this happened, only for a new man to be in Mother’s Life within a month or so.

“That’s great, ma, that really is.” In the dim candlelight of the shack, Mother’s operculum looked smaller than usual. Daughter almost wanted to compliment her, but she didn’t have the energy.

“Are you hungry, baby? I bet you’ve been so bored all day,” she asked her child with a slow blink of her eye. Mother’s skin almost looked like a rainbow of colors, looking entrancingly beautiful in the light. How Daughter wished that skin would shed like that of a copperhead. Maybe if she was able to have Mother’s skin, the kids at school would make fun of her less. She wondered if Mother knew how jealous she was.”

“Starving! Let’s eat!” Daughter begged.

The two sat down in the sludge on top of the mattress, their unnaturally skinny legs crossed over each other. Mother sat the Goldfish in between them, letting the screams from the inside howl into the shack. She pulled two rusty forks from under the mattress, taking one for herself and giving the other to Daughter, who nervously eyed Mother’s red, gelatin-like eggs in one of the corners of the shack.

“Mother, you never told me, who is the father of them?”

“That isn’t your business, now is it?”

“Yes, it is. It’s pretty moist out here, Mother, so most of them will probably survive till adulthood. I wanna know who made my siblings. Why are they red?”

“We can’t support all of them, you know that. We’ll probably have to eat some to stay alive.”

Daughter kept her mouth shut. She knew how disturbing and vile the suggestion was. Even still, her gills flared up in anger. She watched as Mother pried open the cardboard container in front of them, then they both took a good whiff of the contents. Inside of the box was a gallon and a half of water, and dozens of meatball sized fish were rushing from side to side, urging for some kind of escape. Unfortunately, the fish were too small to leave the box, and even if they somehow scaled the walls the two would happily be able to devour them.

“Are you going to eat?” Mother asked, noticing that she was staring off into space.

“You said you were hungry! So you better eat! I spent good money on these!” Mother practically screamed, then jammed her fork into the box, piercing one of the fish like Poseidon’s trident. The blood of the fish instantly began to float through the water, making the rest of them violently rush into the walls to escape, but to no avail. Mother yanked the fork from the murky water but had only grazed the fish, poking through its stomach and piercing through its intestines. The scales easily crumbled away for the might of the rusty fork, forcing the intestines to leave the flapping body of the creature and wrap around the silver, like a macabre rope. The fish dangled in the air, violently convulsing and gasping for water. Daughter watched in horror at the amusement Mother found in the creature’s torture. After a few more agonizing moments that sent blood splattering onto the mattress, she brought the fork above her head, letting the fish dangle above her mouth. With a quick chomp of her teeth, which were some of the only parts of her that were still human, she swallowed the creature and separated it from the intestines wrapped around the fork, sending the black grime of its digested food splattered against her face. Mother gleefully giggled, running her fins over his lips and letting the fluid slowly drip into her mouth.

Daughter’s stomach grumbled, and suddenly, she found herself craving the salty taste of their scales, the irony taste of their blood, and the cool rubbery texture of their insides.

“Do you think my eggs will taste this good?” Mother finally asked after the two spent nearly ten minutes feasting on the squirming animals.

“I think they will, Ma,” Daughter replied, rubbing her stomach, “but I ate too much.”

“Maybe we can have them tomorrow,” Mother responded.

“Sure.”

“They don’t have to know that their mommy got a little hungry, do they? After all, I made them with love,” she said, softly purring, eyeing her children. They were puny inside of the translucent red eggs as they wobbled around. If only they could understand what the two were talking about. Would they be happy if the same woman who created them would be devouring them? Would they embrace death, or they would be afraid of their mother?

William Becker is an 18-year-old horror author with a mind for weirder sides of the universe. With an emphasis on complex and layered storylines that tug harshly on the reader to search for deeper meanings in the vein of Silent Hill and David Lynch, Becker is a force to be reckoned within the horror world. His works are constantly unfathomable, throwing terror into places never before seen, while also providing compelling storylines that transcend the predictable jumpscares of the popular modern horror.

His first novel, Weeping of the Caverns, was written when he was 14. After eight months of writing, editing, and revising, the story arrived soon after his 15th birthday. During the writing sessions for his debut novel, he also wrote an ultra-controversial short story known as THE WHITE SHADE that focused on the horrors of a shooting. Living in a modern climate, it was impossible for THE WHITE SHADE to see the light of day. Following a psychedelic stint that consisted of bingeing David Lynch movies, weird art, and considering the depth of the allegory of the cave wall, he returned to writing with a second story, THE BLACK BOX, and soon after, his second novel, Grey Skies.

Weeping of the Caverns

A man is arrested after a strange series of barbaric animal killings in the Rocky Mountains. He is taken away from his family, and then placed behind bars, but not even the solid confines of prison can save him from the hellish nightmare that begins to unfold.

Grey Skies

Roman Toguri finds himself burying the body of a nun in Boone, North Carolina. As the skies darken and it begins to storm, he is forced to shove the corpse into his trunk and take it home for the night, unaware of the torment that playing God will bestow upon him.

Enter Hell with two bonus short stories: The White Shade, an ultra-violent look into the mind of a mass shooter, and The Black Box, a psychedelic dive into weird horror.

Halloween Extravaganza: Jessica McHugh: Wishing I Were Wolf Bait

megHan

Wishing I Were Wolf Bait

Part ONE

I used to dream of bloodthirsty wolves. I used to dream of apocalyptic warfare and loved ones with sloughing faces, who were either ripped from my arms or liquefied in my embrace. I used to dream of severed hands and broken teeth and corpses draped in antique lace, whose bones sounded like forest fires as they clambered and howled for my blood.

I think they dreamed of me too.

The dark was different when we were together, hazier, paler, like we were meeting in misty moorlands instead of my messy bedroom. As if entranced by this melding of worlds, I would open my eyes, sit up in bed, and see them as clearly as the words on this screen. There was never a tussle, never an attack. Just staring. Silent warnings and soft curses. I don’t know how long we dreamt of each other, but come morning it felt like I hadn’t slept a wink. Throughout my youth and well into adulthood, these waking dreams disrupted my sleep and caused bouts of insomnia that lasted days. And unfortunately, consuming horror fiction made matters worse.

Following my first viewing of Del Toro’s The Orphanage, Tomás, a young character who wears a burlap sack mask to hide his deformed face, entered my room. He stood beside my bed, his tiny fingers curling the burlap up his chin, threatening to show me the deformities the movie didn’t. Blinking hard, pinching my arm, and burying myself in covers didn’t help. It only brought us closer.

And then, a strange magic occurred. A phrase came into my mind, which I then repeated for reasons I can’t explain. I could still see Tomás with my eyes closed and blankets over my head, the burlap revealing new horrors by the second, but this phrase made him stop. It made him release the mask and back away. The phrase and its strange magic made him disappear.

The words I repeated that night were: “Danny Marble and the Application for Non-Scary Things.” It made no sense, but there was an undeniable power in it. The next day I began writing a book of the same name about a child with waking nightmares, and though it’s now out of print, I still regard it as one of my best stories.

I’ve written quite a lot thanks to nightmares, including one of my bestselling books, “Rabbits in the Garden,” but inspiration isn’t exactly a fair trade-off for insomnia. So, in attempt reduce the frequency of my nightmares, I stepped away from reading and watching horror. And unfortunately, it worked.

Creating horror didn’t affect me, but I noticed a drastic drop-off in nightmares when I reduced my intake. I didn’t hide it the change either. When I did panels at conventions, an inky cohort inevitably brought up how I, a horror writer, didn’t read or watch horror anymore, and we all had a good laugh at the contradiction.

As much as I missed my creepy inspirado, movies especially, I liked sleeping through the night more. My once frequent nightmares morphed into adventures. There were still scary elements, but with my cat Tyler as my trusty sidekick, there was nothing we couldn’t handle. We rode the avalanching debris of collapsing buildings. We slept in the trees of enchanted forests. And when we had to flee from danger, I picked him up and ran, pushing through crowds and leaping over downed power lines until my arms ached. Sometimes they even hurt the next morning. But over three years, throughout countless complex worlds I explored with Tyler, I didn’t experience one waking nightmare. I didn’t dream of wolves, and they didn’t dream of me.

Part TWO

My hands started shaking after Tyler died. For over a year, I watched him shrink from a squishy 20lbs beast to a 2lbs sack of bones, ignorant to how his sickness was also shrinking me. Not being able to afford the tests to identify the cancer, let alone remove it, hit me hard. Because I chose an artist’s life—a poor life—it felt like I’d condemned him to suffer. My best friend. My soul mate. My boy.

Surprisingly, Tyler’s physicality was the only thing that changed over the months. His personality remained the same: affectionate, dickish, and always at my side. Tiny as he became, he was still Tyler.

Until he wasn’t.

I knew it would be hard to let go, but I had no idea how it would irrevocably alter my life. After we said goodbye to our little man, I threw myself back into work. I’d been in the middle of writing a novel and decided to continue. In hindsight, it was a terrible idea, as I’m rewriting all of that horrible prose almost four years later. But at the time it seemed the only way I could cope.

I finished the novel and began a large flash fiction project soon after. A few weeks later, I noticed the trembling in my hands. I wrote it off as a symptom of grief, of which I had many, but as my mourning progressed and other symptoms receded, the shaking intensified. Even when my hands weren’t physically trembling, it sure as hell felt like they were. It came in waves, much like grief itself, feeling like insects hatching in my fingertips, skittering down my arms, and converging in my chest like a nest of restless beetles.

I hid it for months, which I’m certain made it worse. There were times it struck me while I was writing and I had to stop because I felt like my skin was going to shake right off my bones. One day while writing in a bar, the feeling hit me with such overwhelming agony I threw my pen as far as I could. After apologizing and retrieving it, I texted my husband and finally told him what was going on.

I also started speaking about it on the podcast I co-hosted with Jack Wallen. I decided it was probably best if I took a break from writing since it was obviously causing so much stress. But after spending the last decade with a pen almost constantly in hand, not writing was just as agonizing. So I occupied my hands with things that didn’t stress me out as much. I drew. I played handheld games like Professor Layton and Bejeweled.

But with no improvement, I had no choice but to drag my uninsured ass to a doctor. That’s when I began worrying about what else besides grief was causing the shakes. Maybe all the bouts of tendinitis I’d gotten from pipetting had taken a permanent toll. Or maybe it was something deeper; the fact that my father has cancer certainly heightened those fears.

But friends (and Google searches) kept bringing up the same question: Could this be as simple as anxiety and panic attacks?

No, because anxiety isn’t simple. Nor are panic attacks, clinical depression, or any other invisible illness, especially when you don’t have insurance. But I finally forced myself into a doctor’s office, where it became clear within minutes that I’d been experiencing severe anxiety and depression since Tyler’s death–and likely before. The doctor was kind enough to give me a discount and Zoloft for my depression and Xanax for panic attacks. Over three years later, I’m jazzed to report that my hands only shake when I have panic attacks, and even then, I’m able to cope with medication, yoga, and breathing techniques.

Depression and anxiety are as much a part of me as mourning Tyler. And they’ll be there forever, on the edge of my mind. But over time I’m learning to use them as stepping stones rather than brick walls.

Part THREE

If you Google Zoloft dreams, you’ll find posts from dozens of people who say the drug increases the vividness of their dreams, often to the point of nightmares. It’s not true in my case, but there has been a significant change since I started the drug.

I’m gorging myself on a healthy diet of horror again. In the four years since Tyler’s death, I’ve consumed more horror than I did in the decade preceding it, and I haven’t had one waking nightmare. I haven’t had much I’d even consider a “scary dream.”

But I also haven’t found a story in a dream in ages. I haven’t woken with monsters in my mind and inspiration in my guts, or had to rifle through my bedside table for a paper and pen before the idea vanished. Now my bad dreams consist of packing and unpacking everything I own, in new houses, in hotel rooms, always in a hurry. And then there are dreams of auditoriums full of friends and family telling me I’m a shitty person, that I’m untrustworthy and useless and undeserving of their love.

And you know what? I miss my monsters. They stole sleep from me, but they gave me inspiration. They made me cry out of fear, but they didn’t make me feel worthless. Perhaps it’s best that they’re gone, tucked away with childish things, but I can’t help wondering if there’s a magic I’m now missing. Would I have found more phrases like “Danny Marble and the Application for Non-Scary Things?” Would I have unlocked more doors, discovered more worlds, if I hadn’t interrupted the horror flow all those years ago?

I might never know the answer, but one thing is clear: it’s a fair trade-off now. I can ingest horror fiction and sleep through the night. I can use all manner of terrifying sources for inspiration and know that my hands won’t shake when I write. I can support my horror-writing friends again and find magic in their phrases instead.

Now that the sun has set and I’ve taken my pill, I’m off to watch Hold the Dark on Netflix. Here’s hoping it’s a beautiful nightmare.

Jessica McHugh is a novelist and internationally produced playwright running amok in the fields of horror, sci-fi, young adult, and wherever else her peculiar mind leads. She’s had twenty-three books published in eleven years, including her bizarro romp, The Green Kangaroos, her Post Mortem Press bestseller, Rabbits in the Garden, and her YA series, The Darla Decker Diaries. More information on her published and forthcoming fiction can be found on her website.

Website ** Amazon
The Green Kangaroos ** Tales from the Crust ** Burdizzo Mix Tapes Vol 1
The Darla Decker Diaries Vol 1-5

The Green Kangaroo

Perry Samson loves drugs. He’ll take what he can get, but raw atlys is his passion. Shot hard and fast into his testicles, atlys helps him forget that he lives in an abandoned Baltimore school, that his roommate exchanges lumps of flesh for drugs at the Kum Den Smokehouse, and that every day is a moldering motley of whores, cuntcutters, and disease. Unfortunately, atlys never helps Perry forget that, even though his older brother died from an atlys overdose, he will never stop being the tortured middle child.

Set in 2099, THE GREEN KANGAROOS explores the disgusting world of Perry’s addiction to atlys and the Samson family’s addiction to his sobriety.

Darla Decker Diaries 1: Darla Decker Hates to Wait

Patience is not Darla Decker’s strong suit. Surviving sixth grade is tough enough with an annoying older brother, a best friend acting distant, and schoolwork. After adding instructive kissing games and the torturous wait for a real date with her biggest crush, Darla is perpetually torn between behaving like an adult and throwing temper tantrums.

Games of flashlight tag, and the crazy cat lady roaming Shiloh Farms in a “demon bus,” serve as distractions during her parents’ quarrels and her anxiety about show choir auditions. Yet the more Darla waits for her adulthood to begin, the more she learns that summoning patience won’t be the hardest part of being eleven.

A frank and funny look at the path to adulthood, DARLA DECKER HATES TO WAIT begins a journey of love, loss, and the nitty-gritty of growing up through Darla Decker’s eyes.

Tales from the Crust

The toppings: Terror and torment.
The crust: Stuffed with dread and despair.
And the sauce: Well, the sauce is always red.

Whether you’re in the mood for a Chicago-style deep dish of darkness, or prefer a New York wide slice of thin-crusted carnage, or if you just have a hankering for the cheap, cheesy charms of cardboard-crusted, delivered-to-your-door devilry; we have just the slice for you.

Bring your most monstrous of appetites, because we’re serving suspense and horrors both chillingly cosmic and morbidly mundane from acclaimed horror authors such as Brian Evenson, Jessica McHugh, and Cody Goodfellow, as well as up-and-coming literary threats like Craig Wallwork, Sheri White, and Tony McMillen.

Tales From the Crust, stories you can devour in thirty minutes or less or the next one’s free. Whatever that means.

Rabbits in the Garden

At twelve years old, Avery Norton had everything: a boyfriend who was also her best friend, the entirety of Martha’s Vineyard as her playground, and her very own garden to tend. By thirteen, it was all over.The discovery of a secret crypt in the basement starts the Norton family down many unexpected avenues, including one that leads to Avery’s arrest for murder and her subsequent imprisonment in Taunton State Lunatic Asylum.

Set in 1950s Massachusetts, Rabbits in the Garden follows Avery Norton’s struggle to prove her innocence, exact her revenge, and escape Taunton with her mind intact.

Halloween Extravaganza: INTERVIEW: Jessica McHugh

megHan

Meghan: Hi, Jessica. I’ve not had the pleasure of interviewing you before, so welcome, welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Jessica McHugh: I’m an author of horror, sci-fi, young adult, and pretty much any other speculative genre that wriggles into my mind, especially if it’s a giant mash-up. While I primarily consider myself a novelist, I also write lots of short fiction, poetry, and am an internationally produced playwright. I love my amazing husband, my super cool cats, and my hometown in Maryland where I work as a tour guide for food and happy hour tours.

Meghan: What are five things most people don’t know about you?

Jessica McHugh:

  • My maiden name means “beautiful” but is also a variety of tuna.
  • I told Jakob Dylan from the Wallflowers to his face that I used to jerk off to a poster of his face.
  • My parents changed my middle name from Lynn to Brianne after I was baptized the same day as another Jessica Lynn.
  • I worked as a stripper in West Virginia for 7 months.
  • If you’ve read my book Pins, you already know the previous fact, so here’s a new thing. After my 2nd night at the club, my boyfriend at the time had to take me to urgent care because I’d thrown and slammed and twisted my body in so many ways I could barely move the next day.

Meghan: What is the first book you remember reading?

Jessica McHugh: Fox in Socks. I remember telling my oldest brother I thought the Fox was mean.

Meghan: What are you reading now?

Jessica McHugh: Devil’s Creek by Todd Keisling. It’s actually great culty inspirado for my work-in-progress.

Meghan: What’s a book you really enjoyed that others wouldn’t expect you to have liked?

Jessica McHugh: I honestly can’t think of one. I think most people know I have eclectic reading habits.

Meghan: What made you decide you want to write? When did you begin writing?

Jessica McHugh: I’ve always been a bookworm and loved making up stories/ playing pretend, but in 4th grade when a teacher introduced short stories and the writing process, I fell in love with the revelation that the authors of my favorite books were once just kids like me. I also discovered my love of crafting horror during that time. I wrote my first scary story, and though a note from my teacher suggested I “avoid gory topics,” I clearly ignored that advice. I did turn more toward poetry and scriptwriting in high school, but I dove back into writing short stories and novels in a huge way when I was 19.

Meghan: Do you have a special place you like to write?

Jessica McHugh: I moved a few months ago after 11 years in the same place so I’m still sussing out my favorite writing spot. It’s also a weird transition time for me cuz I’m trying to type more than handwrite as I’ve been doing for years, so I’m all over the place right now. I do enjoy typing in our little dining nook, though, and I’m lucky to have a bunch of amazing bars in walking distance where I can get my people-watching inspirado. I do enjoy writing in public quite a bit.

Meghan: Do you have any quirks or processes that you go through when you write?

Jessica McHugh: I wouldn’t call it quirky, per se, but it seems a lot of my inky cohorts don’t do this, soooo… I do an auditory revision as my last step before submission. In other words, I have my computer read my story aloud so I can hear how the dialogue flows and catch any issues my eyes missed. It’s extremely helpful and probably the least stressful part of the writing process, as I can relax with a glass of wine and jump in here and there to fix things.

Meghan: Is there anything about writing you find most challenging?

Jessica McHugh: Everything about writing has been challenging since my cat Tyler died almost four years ago. He was an integral part of my writing life, and it’s been a struggle finding my way back to the comfort and joy I felt before. At one point last year I even considered leaving the writing world entirely. Obviously I didn’t do that. Couldn’t, really, because I love story creation too much. So I’m working my ass off–not to regain what I lost, but to appreciate the life I had before and nurture the one I’m cultivating for the future.

Meghan: What’s the most satisfying thing you’ve written so far?

Jessica McHugh: I believe my novel The Green Kangaroos is the best book I’ve written, and it was the funnest first draft experience, so it definitely gives me a lot of satisfaction. Because it had such personal content dealing with addiction, it was therapeutic to get out those feelings. The bizarro elements, however, disconnected me enough from the traumatic truth of the tale to have a lot of fun.

Meghan: What books have most inspired you? Who are some authors that have inspired your writing style?

Jessica McHugh: I feel like every new book I read is an inspiration, especially those from small press authors like me. I read slowly these days because of my hectic deadline schedule, so I value the time I get to spend in my worlds of my inky cohorts. They make me a better writer. I think the biggest influences on my style are Anne Rice and Bret Easton Ellis. I enjoy writing honest and raw prose like Ellis, but I also love going crazy on description, especially when it comes to world building and gory bits, which Rice excels at without going too purple with the prose.

Meghan: What do you think makes a good story?

Jessica McHugh: For me, it’s all about the characters. A unique plot and rad setting helps for sure, but if the characters aren’t compelling or making realistic decisions according to their personalities, I won’t care about all the radtacularity around them.

Meghan: What does it take for you to love a character? How do you utilize that when creating your characters?

Jessica McHugh: Flaws. Most real people are carrying around a lot of damage, whether caused by outside trauma or self-inflicted. If a character can coast through story conflicts as if the world was built just for them, I’m out. I especially love “unlikable” characters, which I feel are pretty much just… humans… so I tend to write a lot of those folks.

Meghan: Which, of all your characters, do you think is the most like you?

Jessica McHugh: The main character of my young adult series, Darla Decker, is a version of me with bigger balls. She takes more risks and talks about her feelings with more ease, but I do think I’ve improved on both those counts, partly because I learned a lot about myself while writing her character over five books.

Meghan: Are you turned off by a bad cover? To what degree were you involved in creating your book covers?

Jessica McHugh: You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but… come on… some covers are so bad you can’t help but think the story will follow suit. And unfortunately that’s a risk of indie and small press. Not to say the rash of covers with headless regency females released by big presses are much better at enticing me. As for my own, I wish I was better at envisioning what they should be. I usually just throw out some ideas and hope the cover artist/ publisher can make sense of it.

Meghan: What have you learned creating your books?

Jessica McHugh: Much of what I learned and took joy in during my first decade plus of writing was unfortunately rewritten during my grief process over my cat. No embellishment, everything about my writing life changed. Four years later, I’m still far from where I was when it comes to productivity. I used to think nothing could ever derail my drive to write, but… well, here we are. So I guess I’m still learning who I am, every day, with every word I write, without him.

Meghan: What has been the hardest scene for you to write so far?

Jessica McHugh: About a decade before Tyler’s death, I wrote a death scene for a character based off him in my sword and sorcery series, The Tales of Dominhydor. Actually, since the first book exists in the mind of the main character (this isn’t a spoiler; it’s in the first line of the novel) and the second book covers the reality of what’s happening in Dominhydor, I wrote that scene twice, each filled with lost love and overwhelming sorrow I had no idea would cling to me years later.

Meghan: What makes your books different from others out there in this genre?

Jessica McHugh: The fact that I won’t stick to only this genre. Even if it’s undoubtedly a horror book, there will also be elements of suspense, comedy, action, romance, fantasy, science-fiction, and maybe some nods to bizarro. Real life is a genre goulash, and I want my stories to feel like that too. Even if it makes the book seem a bit bonkers, I prefer bonkers over boring.

Meghan: How important is the book title, how hard is it to choose the best one, and how did you choose yours (of course, with no spoilers)?

Jessica McHugh: I think it’s really important. I just happen to be terrible at it. Oh titles… one of my least favorite parts if I don’t have one at the get-go. I think the title is extremely important, so I definitely stress over it. I’ve chosen titles in different ways, from posting options online and having my fans pick (like with Rabbits in the Garden) or putting keywords into a form and generating random options (like with “Camelot Lost”). I also once posted that I wanted to write “a motherfucking heist novel” one day, and one of my inky cohorts begged me to make that the actual title, so I did. However, the family-friendly version is “A Melonfarming Heist Novel.” My current work-in-progress is a sequel to Rabbits in the Garden, so the title “Hares in the Hedgerow” came about organically. As did the third book I’m planning to write, “The Witches in Our Warrens.” But I usually agonize over this part of the writing process.

Meghan: What makes you feel more fulfilled: Writing a novel or writing a short story?

Jessica McHugh: In the past I’ve gotten more satisfaction from developing and writing novels, but since it’s been a few years since I started and completed a new novel, I have to show short stories some serious love. They’ve buoyed me as I’ve navigated the stormy waters of grief and depression. Without the magic of short stories, I might’ve drifted out to sea, never to write again, but they kept me paddling, striving to reach a glittering shore I once called home. Whether I’ll reach that satisfying shore of novel inspirado again, I don’t know, but I’m taking what fulfillment I can from the various short stories that have come and gone over the last few years.

Meghan: Tell us a little bit about your books, your target audience, and what you would like readers to take away from your stories. I could spend the next few pages rattling on about my books (and definitely have before) but I’ll just say this: because of all the different genres in which I write, you might not enjoy all of my books, but I guarantee there’s at least one book in my catalog that’s up your alley. Except for the Darla Decker Diaries, I don’t usually write for a target audience–and even those were written for adults to enjoy too. And enjoyment is exactly what I want the reader to take away. Whether they derive it from stories about blossoming friendships or a stripper’s face being obliterated by a malfunctioning pinsetter, I want my readers to have a fun, complicated, messy, bonkers, devastating, hilarious time in the McHughniverse.

Meghan: Can you tell us about some of the deleted scenes/stuff that got left out of your work?

Jessica McHugh: I do save most of what I cut for possible use in other projects, but most of it will probably just chill in a folder until the end of time. As much as it hurts cutting cool scenes and lovely lines sometimes, I’ve learned to recognize when something simply doesn’t belong in a story. If it’s not telling the reader anything new about the characters or moving the plot forward, it’s gotta go.

Meghan: What is in your “trunk”?

Jessica McHugh: I wrote a historical fiction novel about playwright Christopher Marlowe’s secret life as a spy for Queen Elizabeth I. I loved it at the time, but anxiety about historical accuracy halted me.

Meghan: What can we expect from you in the future?

Jessica McHugh: My latest novel “Hares in the Hedgerow” will likely be out from Post Mortem Press in 2020, but I have several short stories due out at the end of the year. “When the Moon Hits Your Eye,” a bloody tale of a home-invasion gone wrong is in the now famous pizza horror anthology, Tales from the Crust, from Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing in October. “This Can Happen to You” is a story about a reluctant lottery winner navigating the ills of fame while trying to protect her baby that will appear in the Sara Tantlinger-edited anthology “Not All Monsters” from Strangehouse Books. I used the Fleetwood Mac song Gold Dust Woman as inspirado for my story “Pick Your Path and I’ll Pray,” which is part of the Burdizzo Mix Tape Volume 1, now available from Burdizzo Books, and my story “My Partner Went First,” which focuses heavily on a cat’s grief as it deals with the unexpected death of its owner will appear in Volume 2 of From a Cat’s View from Post-2-Print Publishing.

Meghan: Where can we find you?

Jessica McHugh: I’m on Instagram and Twitter, and I also run a Patreon page that folks can join for as little as $1 a month. I post a short story from my experimental compound novel, “WEBWORM,” as well as stories inspired by patron votes on polls about setting/genre. For $5 I’ll record a singing video to entertain my neighbors, of which patrons can request as many as they want every month, and I also mail out physical copies of one-of-a-kind blackout poetry for $10/ month. I’m probably most active on Instagram, though, so come find me!

Meghan: Do you have any closing words for your fans or anything you’d like to say that we didn’t get to cover in this interview?

Jessica McHugh: I just want to thank all of my fans and friendos who’ve supported me these past eleven years. Whether it’s reading and reviewing my books, subscribing on Patreon, buying my blackout poetry, or donating when times got rough, you have all made me feel like I (and my stories) really matter in this crazy and often fickle publishing world. It’s a gift I feel like I can only repay by creating more art. Which, thanks to your encouragement, I fully intend to do.

Jessica McHugh is a novelist and internationally produced playwright running amok in the fields of horror, sci-fi, young adult, and wherever else her peculiar mind leads. She’s had twenty-three books published in eleven years, including her bizarro romp, The Green Kangaroos, her Post Mortem Press bestseller, Rabbits in the Garden, and her YA series, The Darla Decker Diaries. More information on her published and forthcoming fiction can be found on her website.

Website ** Amazon
The Green Kangaroos ** Tales from the Crust ** Burdizzo Mix Tapes Vol 1
The Darla Decker Diaries Vol 1-5

The Green Kangaroo

Perry Samson loves drugs. He’ll take what he can get, but raw atlys is his passion. Shot hard and fast into his testicles, atlys helps him forget that he lives in an abandoned Baltimore school, that his roommate exchanges lumps of flesh for drugs at the Kum Den Smokehouse, and that every day is a moldering motley of whores, cuntcutters, and disease. Unfortunately, atlys never helps Perry forget that, even though his older brother died from an atlys overdose, he will never stop being the tortured middle child.

Set in 2099, THE GREEN KANGAROOS explores the disgusting world of Perry’s addiction to atlys and the Samson family’s addiction to his sobriety.

Darla Decker Diaries 1: Darla Decker Hates to Wait

Patience is not Darla Decker’s strong suit. Surviving sixth grade is tough enough with an annoying older brother, a best friend acting distant, and schoolwork. After adding instructive kissing games and the torturous wait for a real date with her biggest crush, Darla is perpetually torn between behaving like an adult and throwing temper tantrums.

Games of flashlight tag, and the crazy cat lady roaming Shiloh Farms in a “demon bus,” serve as distractions during her parents’ quarrels and her anxiety about show choir auditions. Yet the more Darla waits for her adulthood to begin, the more she learns that summoning patience won’t be the hardest part of being eleven.

A frank and funny look at the path to adulthood, DARLA DECKER HATES TO WAIT begins a journey of love, loss, and the nitty-gritty of growing up through Darla Decker’s eyes.

Tales from the Crust

The toppings: Terror and torment.
The crust: Stuffed with dread and despair.
And the sauce: Well, the sauce is always red.

Whether you’re in the mood for a Chicago-style deep dish of darkness, or prefer a New York wide slice of thin-crusted carnage, or if you just have a hankering for the cheap, cheesy charms of cardboard-crusted, delivered-to-your-door devilry; we have just the slice for you.

Bring your most monstrous of appetites, because we’re serving suspense and horrors both chillingly cosmic and morbidly mundane from acclaimed horror authors such as Brian Evenson, Jessica McHugh, and Cody Goodfellow, as well as up-and-coming literary threats like Craig Wallwork, Sheri White, and Tony McMillen.

Tales From the Crust, stories you can devour in thirty minutes or less or the next one’s free. Whatever that means.

Rabbits in the Garden

At twelve years old, Avery Norton had everything: a boyfriend who was also her best friend, the entirety of Martha’s Vineyard as her playground, and her very own garden to tend. By thirteen, it was all over.The discovery of a secret crypt in the basement starts the Norton family down many unexpected avenues, including one that leads to Avery’s arrest for murder and her subsequent imprisonment in Taunton State Lunatic Asylum.

Set in 1950s Massachusetts, Rabbits in the Garden follows Avery Norton’s struggle to prove her innocence, exact her revenge, and escape Taunton with her mind intact.

Halloween Extravaganza: INTERVIEW: William Becker

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Meghan: Hi, William. Welcome to Halloween Extravaganza. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

William Becker: My name is William Becker. I currently live in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. My second novel, Grey Skies, released on June 9th, 2019. I was adopted from Saint Petersburg, Russia when I was only eight months old. Outside of writing, I produce and direct film with my best friend,Travis Hill, and together we have formed Becker Hill Films, our first work being the music video for Bury Me In Black’s song Pharaoh, which can be found on YouTube currently. I listen to a ton of really experimental music, which partially inspired Grey Skies. I read semi-regularly, kind of dabbling in whatever book happens to catch my interest. Beyond that, I practice meditation nightly.

Meghan: What are five things most people don’t know about you?

William Becker: I enjoy Stephen King, but he is in no way an inspiration to me stylistically or with what I write about. When I tell people that I don’t know that I’m a horror writer, they always immediately jump to, “so like Stephen King?” No, not really, sorry.

I love studying religion. A lot of people say that and just focus on one, but any religion is pretty interesting to me. While I’m not personally very religious, I find any religion fascinating. I’ve made it a goal to go through the holy books of a lot of the major religions and just try and learn as much as I possibly can. I think if there’s one thing that can be expected from me in the future, it’s that I’ll write about the concepts of religion.

People assume I only listen to metal, but my music taste is really varied. I can go from listening to something like Dillinger Escape Plan or Behemoth, back into bands like The Smashing Pumpkins, then into stuff like Colter Wall, Johnny Cash, or Eric Church, then flip on some Tyler, The Creator, Śuicide Boys, or Ghostemane

I love poetry that isn’t by Robert Frost.

I’m really passionate politically but I have no desire to shove my positions down anyone’s throat.

Meghan: What is the first book you remember reading?

William Becker: Oh gosh, probably Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney. I didn’t read it, but my mom read it to me every night and would get me to read a long. I remember reading Goosebumps at a pretty decently young age.

Meghan: What are you reading now?

William Becker: I just finished Midnight by Dean Koontz.

Meghan: What’s a book you really enjoyed that others wouldn’t expect you to have liked?

William Becker: I LOATHE self-help books but I really enjoyed The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. I think it’s basically eastern philosophies dressed up for millennials and with lots of swearing and modern examples. I think a lot of people who are younger/very stressed out by life should check it out at some point. It’s certainly not for everyone, because some people find the book obnoxious, but there are some valuable lessons about how many fucks one should give.

Meghan: What made you decide you want to write? When did you begin writing?

William Becker: I think the first dive into writing is when I was 12 years old. I had a really big crush on this girl I had just met. I wrote really angsty stuff that I didn’t entirely feel to impress her. In a classic way, she didn’t like me back and ended up with some asshole that I hated and was really awful to her. My work became more depressing and something that I felt more, and I quickly stopped liking her. Not long after, she became one of my best friends.

Meghan: Do you have a special place you like to write?

William Becker: Adaptability is everything. I love to write in school, probably more than I like writing at home. Just the chaos of everything kind of prevents distractions in a strange way. I’m not likely to dick around and end up reading threads about Donald Trump on reddit if I don’t have too much flexibility. Anywhere that’s busy always works well for me.

Meghan: Do you have any quirks or processes that you go through when you write?

William Becker: I stop every few paragraphs, re-examine them, send them to a friend or two, often rewriting sentences and doing research on tiny details that probably don’t matter. It can sometimes take obnoxious amounts of time for me to write a page.

Meghan: What’s the most satisfying thing you’ve written so far?

William Becker: My answer to this will change almost every time I write something new, but Grey Skies gets that title. The symbolism, the subtle details, the ciphers, the ending, and the buildup make the story really interesting to re-read. It wears its influences on its sleeve, but in a way, is completely able to stand on its own. I remember posting the story on Wattpad way back when and watching everyone struggle to comprehend each new chapter, as if people were gazing upon a newborn child. I recognize how pretentious that sounds, but people’s reactions to the novel have always been so interesting to me. It’s a confusing, complex, and weird piece of work, but it’s currently my favorite thing that I’ve ever done

Meghan: What books have most inspired you? Who are some authors that have inspired your writing style?

William Becker: Of Mice and Men really influenced my writing style. The way that John Steinbeck writes each scene has been my basis for a while. He writes his work like a movie, describing the setting at the beginning of each scene and rarely interrupting the action with description that doesn’t matter. Of course, some people find that overwhelming, which is completely understandable, but it’s always kept things organized for me.

Meghan: What do you think makes a good story?

William Becker: A good story is like any other piece of good art: it must either provoke or entertain the audience. A great story can do both.

Meghan: What does it take for you to love a character? How do you utilize that when creating your characters?

William Becker: It’s always more realistic to have characters be in a morally grey area. People who are evil for the sake of being evil or are overtly good for no reason are boring. I don’t have to be in love with the main character to love the story. Walter White is a fantastic example. He has good motivations in the beginning, but he’s inherently selfish and kind of a manipulative jackass to Jesse. I think that to truly love a character, they have to be relatable in some way to the audience, or at least interesting. James Carver from THE WHITE SHADE, which is one of the two stories attached to Grey Skies is relatable, even though he isn’t considered a good person by the end of the novel.

Meghan: Which, of all your characters, do you think is the most like you?

William Becker: Answering this will put me in jail.

Meghan: Are you turned off by a bad cover? To what degree were you involved in creating your book covers?

William Becker: I personally can’t stand covers that just feature some person standing in front of a backdrop or some abstract symbol. There was so much potential in books like A Game of Thrones to have a great, really interesting looking cover, but they always seem to cheap out and use something that isn’t very interesting. Maybe I shouldn’t talk, considering my first novel is just a picture of a house edited to look like Texas Chainsaw, and it’s shallow to judge a book by its cover, but still, there’s so much potential with covers. It won’t put me off from reading a book, but it’s certainly pretty lame. There are very few books that I look at and think, “wow, what a nice cover!” However, The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge has one of my favorite book covers of all time.

Meghan: What have you learned creating your books?

William Becker: That not everyone is going to like your work, especially as you go in a more experimental direction. Don’t do it to please others, do it because you love it.

Meghan: What has been the hardest scene for you to write so far?

William Becker: Very few scenes are hard to write. Sometimes, making complex description interesting is nearly impossible, especially considering a lot of people tend to skip over description that they find overwhelming.

Meghan: What makes your books different from others out there in this genre?

William Becker: It’s weirder, more complex, and more confusing. It’s a lot less straightforward than most horror and has a lot more symbolism.

Meghan: How important is the book title, how hard is it to choose the best one, and how did you choose yours (of course, with no spoilers)?

William Becker: The name is both literal and figurative. I’ll try and make it as condensed as possible. Most of the book features rain, Grey Skies bring rain. Rain is more of a metaphor for torment. Drowning and asphyxiation are important to the central idea of the novel. As is the whole “fingerprints don’t show well in the rain” idea.

Meghan: What makes you feel more fulfilled: Writing a novel or writing a short story?

William Becker: Short stories are more fun and way easier to do, but I always feel more proud of my novels. Life is so short and it takes a lot of dedication to write a full piece of work. It always feels like I achieved something great whenever I finish a novel. They’re much longer, more packed full of characterization, etc. Don’t get me wrong I love my short stories (most of them can be found on Wattpad) but there’s something that feels amazing about finishing a novel.

Meghan: Tell us a little bit about your books, your target audience, and what you would like readers to take away from your stories.

William Becker: Anyone who has an open mind or just wants to read a good story. I would love to say that no one under 18 should read my story, but I worked on most of my first novel when I was 14, so you can honestly do whatever the Fuck you want.

Meghan: Can you tell us about some of the deleted scenes/stuff that got left out of your work?

William Becker: I am such a perfectionist that I never write anything that I can’t even attempt to use. Usually, the “deleted scenes” get scrapped before they’re written.

Meghan: What is in your “trunk”?

William Becker: There’s a few hints in Grey Skies (cough, cough, the only picture in the entire novel).

Meghan: What can we expect from you in the future?

William Becker: Expect nothing, then you’ll be always pleasantly surprised. I have no plans to stick with any genre. My only consistency is that my work will stay dark and close to the heart.

Meghan: Where can we find you?

William Becker: I have two Instagram accounts (one and two), and I have a Goodreads account which is just my name.

Meghan: Do you have any closing words for your fans or anything you’d like to say that we didn’t get to cover in this interview?

William Becker: Don’t do drugs.

William Becker is an 18-year-old horror author with a mind for weirder sides of the universe. With an emphasis on complex and layered storylines that tug harshly on the reader to search for deeper meanings in the vein of Silent Hill and David Lynch, Becker is a force to be reckoned within the horror world. His works are constantly unfathomable, throwing terror into places never before seen, while also providing compelling storylines that transcend the predictable jumpscares of the popular modern horror.

His first novel, Weeping of the Caverns, was written when he was 14. After eight months of writing, editing, and revising, the story arrived soon after his 15th birthday. During the writing sessions for his debut novel, he also wrote an ultra-controversial short story known as THE WHITE SHADE that focused on the horrors of a shooting. Living in a modern climate, it was impossible for THE WHITE SHADE to see the light of day. Following a psychedelic stint that consisted of bingeing David Lynch movies, weird art, and considering the depth of the allegory of the cave wall, he returned to writing with a second story, THE BLACK BOX, and soon after, his second novel, Grey Skies.

Weeping of the Caverns

A man is arrested after a strange series of barbaric animal killings in the Rocky Mountains. He is taken away from his family, and then placed behind bars, but not even the solid confines of prison can save him from the hellish nightmare that begins to unfold.

Grey Skies

Roman Toguri finds himself burying the body of a nun in Boone, North Carolina. As the skies darken and it begins to storm, he is forced to shove the corpse into his trunk and take it home for the night, unaware of the torment that playing God will bestow upon him.

Enter Hell with two bonus short stories: The White Shade, an ultra-violent look into the mind of a mass shooter, and The Black Box, a psychedelic dive into weird horror.

Halloween Extravaganza: Christa Carmen: It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

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Looking back, I don’t remember loving Halloween any more than my peers. Sure, pillowcases bursting with candy and trekking through my neighborhood after dark with friends was fun, and my mom was great at coming up with unique costumes she fashioned on her Singer sewing machine (a bushel of grapes, a fortune teller, and an evil queen are a few that come to mind). But for the most part, Halloween was one more exciting day in a childhood that I was extremely fortunate to experience as having its fair share of them.

Still, I did enjoy the darker aspects of other youthful pastimes. My bookshelves and OG TBR, i.e., the Scholastic book fair newsletter, were full of Bunnicula volumes, Nancy Drew titles, and the R.L. Stine Goosebumps and Fear Street series, and this appreciation for horror literature eventually morphed into a love of horror films. I saw John Carpenter’s Halloween a few months after I turned thirteen, and the Scream / I Know What You Did Last Summer / Urban Legend era of the late nineties solidified this infatuation. Now, twenty years later, my adoration of All Hallows’ Eve and all things horror is fully-formed and multifaceted. Here are the top five reasons why I love Halloween… maybe you love the holiday for some of the very same reasons.

1. The General public expresses their appreciation for all things spooky.

From November to September, my house is not going to be confused with the Halloween section of Michael’s, however, my wardrobe usually revolves around one particular end of the color spectrum and my home office remains decorated year-round with Stephen King-inspired artwork, black flowers, and skull-and-raven bookends. Some late weekend in September, I cart the Halloween bins up from the basement and let the black cats and cotton cobwebs infiltrate every corner of my house. The remote-control tray on the coffee table is replaced with a black-and-silver skull dish; the salad tongs become skeleton hands, the soap dispensers get their witch hats on, and every single candle is swapped with its pumpkin spice or cinnamon apple-scented counterpart.

The best part of this transformation? Pier 1, TJ Maxx, Target, The Home Depot, pretty much every well-known chain and massive department store is packed to the rafters with dark delights. Ouija board throw pillows, tombstone yard accents, Gothic tea sets, and creepy clown dishware, you can find any manner of Halloween or horror-themed household item as easily as you can buy a loaf of bread. I love strolling the aisles of Home Goods and running into an Ann-Taylor-garbed housewife with a shopping cart full of yoga mats and leisurewear reaching for a bat-bedecked candelabra worthy of Morticia’s dining room table. When school starts and the September equinox looms, mainstream America offers up affordable tricks and adorable treats for perpetual horror lovers and Halloween-enthusiasts alike.

2. Horror film snobs relax their horror snobbery.

I’ve expressed my annoyance at this phenomenon before, but one of my biggest pet peeves is when people turn up their nose at the horror genre then claim their all-time favorite movie is The Silence of the Lambs. “That movie can’t be horror,” they say. “Did you know it won the Oscar for Best Picture?” Cue eye roll. October is the one time of the year when movie lovers seem to relax their highbrow opinion of horror films and embrace vampires, serial killers, and buckets of (fake) blood. Zombieland: Double Tap was released this October, though I can all but guarantee that scores of folks too busy and uninterested to see earlier horror releases of 2019 will stream The Curse of La Lorna, Pet Sematary, Us, Happy Death Day 2U, and The Prodigy before the month is out. Similarly, The Terror, Castle Rock, The Haunting of Hill House, and American Horror Story will likely see an uptick in viewers.

And you know what? Bring it on. Sure, it’s obnoxious when some know-it-all film buff wants to eschew horror will simultaneously discoursing on the genius of the Duffer Brothers, but I will talk all October long with every summertime-horror-hater and Christmas-splatter-film-skeptic about their theory that Hopper is still alive or whether the ending of the Pet Sematary remake was better than the original. You know why? Because there’s room at the table for the fair-weather-horror fans, and, as my next section will detail, Halloween equals love.

3. Horror-centric couples express their love for one another.

Halloween and love go together like milk chocolate and peanut butter in a Reese’s pumpkin cup, and my husband and I are just two of many individuals who chose to cement our relationship on the day of the year dedicated to remembering the dead. Other couples who have mixed love and spook: Rob and Sheri Moon Zombie, Jack Skellington and ragdoll Sally, Morticia and Gomez Addams, Frankenstein and his lovely bride, Herman and Lily Munster, demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, Beetlejuice’s nemeses Adam and Barbara Maitland, and, despite some mid-movie meddling by the eponymous corpse bride, Victor and Victoria.

So why do so many real-life couples and fictional sweethearts find that horror and/or Halloween strengthens their bonds? Marriage is no cakewalk, and yet plenty of newlyweds find themselves unprepared for the trials that come with long-term commitment: steep mortgages and the rising cost of living, the decision of whether or not to have children, illness and loss, in-laws and the ebb and flow of friendships with other people, growing old and keeping your relationship new. Couples that interweave commitment with the acknowledgment of inevitable death could potentially be more in tune with the bleaker but necessary aspects of the human condition. What’s a bit of adversity when you know your partner can stomach Cannibal Holocaust, or that they once performed a madcap but heartbreakingly unsuccessful experiment to try and resurrect their childhood dog, Frankenweenie-style? They do say that the couple that slays together, stays together (I think the ‘they’ in this sentence refers to the marketing team behind Santa Clarita Diet, but hey, it works, and Sheila and Joel Hammond are another great example of a couple made stronger by ghouls and gore).

4. Haunted attractions become the norm.

Here are some of the Halloween activities in which I have partaken: haunted hayrides, haunted corn mazes, haunted houses (or a haunted factory, or asylum, or whatever that year’s or location’s theme happens to be), a paranormal excursion and theatrical séance at the Stanley Hotel, an overnight stay at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast Museum, a daytrip to Salem, Massachusetts, a visit to the gravesite of alleged vampire Mercy Brown, a journey through the nationally acclaimed Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular at Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, and a historic ghost tour in that same city.

All those haunted houses and ghostly tours were, if not actually frightening then completely entertaining, but according to Halloween New England, I haven’t even scratched the surface of haunted attractions in Rhode Island or the surrounding states. Here is a (radically incomplete) selection of activities across New England that I still have left to pursue: in Connecticut, the Trolley Museum’s Pumpkin Patch ride; in Maine, a special FX make-up class or a ghostly Bangor walking tour; in Massachusetts, a flashlight maze at Connors Farm or a date with the Ghost Hunters Paranormal Society; in Rhode Island, a Ghosts of Newport excursion; in New Hampshire, Screeemfest at Canobie Lake Park; and in Vermont, a haunted hayride at Gaines Farm called Vengeance in the Valley that promises both the undead and flesh-eating extra-terrestrials. I’ve now lost the thread of this paragraph on haunted attractions and must systematically enter the ten different Halloween New England website-sponsored giveaways as well as purchase tickets to the Haunted Graveyard at Lake Compounce before I can move on to my final point.

5. The boundary between the living and the dead is penetrable.

My final reason for loving Halloween is not commercial, social, or societal in nature. When you strip away the candy and the costumes and the Stephen King movie marathons on AMC, when you remove the ghost-dog dish towels and witch-cat coffee mugs from the shelves of TJ Maxx, Halloween is the time of the year when the boundary between the physical and the spiritual worlds is the thinnest. It’s the perfect time to engage in respective personal and cultural traditions, whether that’s baking soul cakes, leaving an offering for a deceased relative, or lighting a bonfire in celebration of Samhain. If spirits and faeries can enter our world more easily at this lush, liminal time, than I am of the mind to give them the widest possible gateway through which to pass.

Tarot cards, oracle decks, candle magic, Ouija boards, graveyard séances, scary stories around a campfire, or any of the other tools employed for spiritual enlightenment and fulfillment throughout the year take on new meaning once darkness descends on October thirty-first. So, this Halloween, gather up your friends and dance a danse macabre in honor of death. I hope your path to the grave is one of mind-bending horror movies and cider-scented hayrides, of delicious cupcakes with R.I.P. frosted across Peppermint Pattie tombstones and relationships on par with Gomez and Morticia’s l’amour vrai. In other words, I wish you one long, spooky, spectacular walk past the ghosts and goblins, through the dark and cobweb-draped corridors, and all the way to the end of the haunted, hallowed corn maze.

Christa Carmen’s work has been featured in anthologies, ezines, and podcasts such as Fireside Fiction, Year’s Best Hardcore Horror, Outpost 28, and Tales to Terrify. Her debut collection, Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked, is available now from Unnerving, and won the 2018 Indie Horror Book Award for Best Debut Collection. Christa lives in Rhode Island with her husband and their bluetick beagle. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in English and psychology, a master’s degree from Boston College in counseling psychology, and is an MFA candidate at the Stonecoast Creative Writing program, of the University of Southern Maine. You can find her online at her website.