Lucid Dreams and Saturn Skies The Life and Writing of Andrew Kincaid

Tag Archives: Horror

Horror is a popular genre in books, film, and television shows. Horror as an emotion is characterized by a strong feeling of fear, and physical revulsion. Horror preys on the primal fears of its audience. Often the focus is upon supernatural or macabre events. Horror as a genre is often compared to a joke, as they have a similar format – set up, reveal, aftermath. For horror, terror is the set up – it is the buildup of tension and anxiety within the audience. Then there is the revelation, when the object of horror is finally revealed. The aftermath is horror – a feeling of shock, fear, and revulsion.

Sometimes You Just Gotta Cut Back…

May 15, 2013 12:49 pm / Leave a Comment /

Lately I’ve been…discontent. it has been tough go put my finger on exactly why because it seems to be everything at once. I’ve already rambled a bit on this topic not long ago so I won’t go into much more detail here for fear of sounding whiny again (we all need to vent now and then but making it a habit isn’t a good idea!)

Recently though I did figure out one thing I can do fo help myself. My writing has been simultaneously a source of great joy and frustration for me. Lately I was having difficulty working on my projects. They just could not hold my interest, and the writing was flat and uninspired. Once I sat down and looked at what I was doing, and realized my writing lacked focus. There are a lot of people who say a writer should have one genre associated with their name. Stephen King does horror. Terry Brooks does fantasy. That’s where they stakes their claims and made there names.

But me? I wanted go write epic fantasy. And horror novels. And novellas. And nonfiction books. My mind was constantly running down different rabbit holes, switching from one thing to another. Is it any surprise that I wound up exhausted and frustrated?

So I decided to go back to my roots as it were. Meaning, I returned to some short stories I wrote for my old horror anthology, intending to rewrite them from the ground up. Something odd happened; the short stories ballooned into full blown novel ideas, but more importantly I was enjoying myself again!

It hit me that focusing my efforts into one area would be my best bet both in terms of my personal enjoyment and from a business perspective when the time comes. There is such a thing of having too many choices. Sometimes a person has to limit themselves. Paradoxically there’s a freedom in limitation, because rather than being at the whim of fancy the person who decides to limit themselves can focus all there energy on the one thing they enjoy.

Long story short, I’m a horror author. Nothing else. The choice to pursue this genre, which chose me more than I chose it, involved foregoing my childhood dream of becoming a big fantasy author. But that’s okay. I tried it, and found while some of the ideas were sound there was a lot about writing straight fantasy that just doesn’t work for me. And that’s all right. Sometimes you have to admit something isn’t working for you, even if it’s something you’ve clung to for a long time. There’s no shame in it; the only shame is in not being honest with yourself and doing something that doesn’t work for you. Life’s too short to waste time chasing after something like that; sometimes you have to figure out what really matters and cut back everything else.

Posted in: Life & Writing / Tagged: , , , , ,

Proof of Hell Under the Siberian Tundra? …or Not.

May 10, 2013 2:02 pm / Leave a Comment /
The Kola Superdeep Borehole, putative site of the gateway to hell, now welded shut due to lack of funding. Image Credit: Rakot13

The Kola Superdeep Borehole, putative site of the gateway to hell, now welded shut due to lack of funding. Image Credit: Rakot13

It was the mid-1980′s, and the Cold War was still going strong. America had won the Space Race with the triumphant moon landings of the sixties and seventies. Now the superpowers  competed to pioneer a new space — the one beneath our feet.

To achieve those ends, the Soviet Union commissioned a deep drilling project in the icy wastes of Siberia. A team of geologists drilled about 14.4 kilometers (about 9 miles) beneath the Earth’s surface, when something strange happened — the bit started to spin wildly, and temperature sensors recorded temperatures over 2,000 degrees. No doubt baffled, the scientists lowered a mic down the well shaft to get a better idea of what they were dealing with. What they heard horrified them (the sounds start at about the 2:00 mark) and confirmed people’s worst fears for centuries; that Hell was real, and it lay right beneath our feet!

…er, except not.

This one is pretty classic in terms of urban legends. It isn’t exactly certain where the story began, and it has been elaborated on extensively over time. I remember seeing lurid headlines in the Weekly World News as a kid in the 90′s talking about the Devil coming screaming out of a well to hell drilled in Alaska, incinerating all the unfortunate scientists at the site and spreading doom and gloom all around. The story freaked me out as a kid, as the one-two punch of being A) a kid and B) a Bible literalist tends to make one a bit credulous. Even as a teen, hearing the clip featured in the above video scared the crap out of me.

Evidently a lot of people feel the same way, because this one still makes the rounds on paranormal and religious sites of all kinds. And why not? If Hell really did exist in a real, physical place, that would be a really scary thing. It would confirm many people’s worst anxieties about the after life and their potential place in it. It would also raise some pretty uncomfortable moral and theological implications, which we won’t get into here. The point is that Hell is scary, and that fear is what gives this urban legend (and most others while we’re at it) its staying power.

Needless to say, it isn’t true. The recording is believed to be a looped recording of a scene from the B-grade horror flick Baron Blood. To me it almost sounds like it could be a doctored recording of any public space, looped and made to sound all sinister. There is a small kernel of truth behind this sordid tale, as is the case with most good urban legends. There really was a deep drilling well that reached close to 9 miles underground in Soviet Russia. It was located on the Kola Peninsula, not in Siberia. The drill did hit an empty pocket, but there were no hellish sounds from within. Temperatures reached a toasty 180 degrees, and the geologists found water and natural gas, among other things of scientific interest.

The truth is a whole lot less exciting than a literal gateway to hell, but being the compassionate sort I’d rather that be the fact than to have millions of people suffering and burning forever.

Posted in: Monsters & Mythology, Our Weird World, Visions of Hell / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Elmer McCurdy, the Funhouse Mummy

May 3, 2013 12:57 am / Leave a Comment /

Elmer_McCurdy_in_coffinSome people write great works of literature. Others discover the secrets of the universe, while still others are great humanitarians, entertainers, or warriors. Elmer McCurdy, however, was none of these things. Point of fact, his life was unremarkable in almost every way.

You see, old Elmer was a screw up. He was born in Maine in 1880. And up until a year before his death, that’s about it. In 1910 he joined the US Army, where he learned to work with explosives (albeit he had a bad reputation with the stuff). A year later, after wandering to Oklahoma, he had the bright idea to change careers and enter the up and coming field of train robbery.

In his first attempt, Elmer managed to blow the safe out the side of the train and melt $2000 worth of silver into slag. He and his gang managed to recover a small amount of the metal, and the other robbers dumped Elmer. Undeterred, our plucky hero(?) decided to continue his nefarious career, and his second try with a new gang he was successful: he made off with the princely sum of $46 and some whiskey. The authorities soon hunted Elmer down, and shot him dead in a gunfight.

The story should have ended there. However, the local embalmer was so proud of his work on poor old Elmer that he propped the former bandit up in the back of his funeral parlor and charged the local townspeople a nickel to see “The Bandit Who Wouldn’t Give Up.” Visitors popped their hard earned change into the corpse’s mouth, which is pretty ghoulish when you think about it. Especially when it came time to collect.

In any case, Elmer’s afterlife as a small town attraction continued a few years, since he didn’t have next of kin to claim the body. In 1915, two carnies claiming to be Elmer’s brother hauled the body off and Elmer began his new life on the side show circuit. He bounced around from owner to owner over the next sixty some years, until people lost track of the fact that their “mannequin” was actually a mummy.

It wasn’t until 1976 that the truth was revealed. A crew member at a shoot for The Six Million Dollar Man accidentally jostled a side show prop. The “prop’s” arm fell off, revealing a human bone. It was only after that the strange history of Elmer McCurdy came to light. After a thorough investigation to ascertain the corpse’s identity, the medical examiner ordered McCurdy’s mummy buried in Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, OK. Two cubic yards of concrete were poured over the coffin, ensuring that unless there are some truly determined and well equipped grave robbers out there, Elmer McCurdy’s strange odyssey is over.

Posted in: Ghost Stories, Monsters & Mythology, Our Weird World / Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Mystery, Mayhem, and Quantum Physics: The Bermuda Triangle and the Hutchinson Effect

April 25, 2013 1:06 pm / 1 Comment /

Bermuda_TriangleWell, it was inevitable. Anyone who writes about the weird stuff that happens in this world has to, at some point, tackle two topics: Bigfoot, and the Bermuda Triangle. Not that the two are in anyway related; rather, they’re both arguably the most popular paranormal subjects out there. Usually I try to find more exotic fare for the blog, but when a friend mentioned the Bermuda Triangle in conjunction with something called the Hutchinson Effect, I decided I’d dive in since it was a two-fer.

The Bermuda Triangle is such a facet of pop culture at this point that I won’t spend a ton of time describing it. It is described as a big slice of ocean (between half a million and 1.5 million square miles) that forms, big shock here, a triangle, with the vertices centered in Bermuda, Miami, and San Juan. The Triangle is alleged to be the site of strange phenomena: metallic fogs, strange magnetic disturbances, freak storms, and unexplained lights in the sky. Believers claim that the Triangle swallows ships and planes whole, leaving not a trace for befuddled rescuers to recover.

Believers posit various reasons for the phenomena. Perhaps Atlantis sank beneath the waves under the Triangle, or there’s an alien colony on the sea floor abducting people for nefarious purposes. Since those of us who don’t regularly sport tinfoil hats can easily discount those two, let’s move on to a third, more entertaining option: the Hutchinson Effect.

Known was the H-Effect, it was allegedly discovered by an eccentric inventor named John Hutchinson, who was monkeying around with the various electronic gizmos that he packed his apartment with over the years when, lo and behold,  something (it’s never said what) whacked him in the shoulder! Turns out whatever it was had started levitating due to…something. Something that can also cause unlike materials (metal and wood, for example) to meld together, metals to melt without heat, and other strange phenomena, including metallic fogs similar to those allegedly reported above the Bermuda Triangle.. The best explanation that supporters can come up with for the alleged effect is that scalar waves tap into zero point energy, thus producing the phenomena observed. How exactly that happens, they have no explanation.

The story goes that the H-effect occurs over the Triangle all the time, due to vortexes in the Earth’s electromagnetic field over the area. The strange phenomena associated with the H-effect are, they say, responsible for the disappearances. Never mind that the H-Effect has never been independently verified, and Hutchinson himself admits he hasn’t been able to replicate it since 1991. Not only that, he’s faked demonstrations since then, using magnets and string to simulate levitation and other phenomena associated with the H-Effect.

TBF Avengers flying in formation. Similar planes made up Flight 19, one of the most infamous disappearances to occur over the Bermuda Triangle

TBF Avengers flying in formation. Similar planes made up Flight 19, one of the most infamous disappearances to occur over the Bermuda Triangle

“Scalar waves” are apparently made up — I can find no reliable source mentioning them at all, nor explaining what they are. Zero point energy is a real thing though. It is the lowest possible amount of energy in a quantum mechanical system. Since I majored in Biology rather than quantum physics, I can’t comment much on how it works since I don’t understand it myself. Every source I’ve seen says that it is either impossible or impractical to tap into zero point energy as an energy source. Given the dubious veracity of Hutchinson’s demonstrations, the lack of independent proof, and the fact that physics as we know it doesn’t allow for it, it’s pretty safe to say that the H-Effect lay more in the realm of pseudoscience than reality.

But what about the Bermuda Triangle? Even if the H-Effect is bunk, isn’t it still true that there’s a deadly area of sea off the US coast?  Turns out the answer is “no, not at all.” The US Navy, who know a thing or two about the ocean, doesn’t believe it exists. The US Board of Geographic Names doesn’t recognized “Bermuda Triangle” as an official name. The Coast Guard, who would know a dangerous hot spot pretty intimately since it is their job to rescue endangered sailors, also discounts the Triangle’s existence. The fact is that the Triangle is no more dangerous than any other stretch of ocean. It is a busy shipping area, so accidents are bound to happen. The Gulf Stream, a powerful ocean current, passes through the area, and it is prone to severe storms (in part due to the Gulf Stream). The combination of a lot of ships moving through, strong currents, bad weather, and inevitable human error have given rise to the myth of the Bermuda Triangle.

Posted in: Monsters & Mythology, Our Weird World / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Forays into Flash Fiction: The Black-Eyed Kids

April 11, 2013 3:44 pm / 2 Comments /

Once again, Angela Goff has inspired a bit of microfiction with her Visual Dares. She said that she was looking forward to seeing my entry this week, and I hope it doesn’t disappoint. I modified the theme a bit (you can see the photo that inspired this at Angela’s blog, Anonymous Legacy) to include one of my favorite modern urban legends — the Black Eyed Kids. Enjoy!

***

Night had fallen, and I had just slipped into my easy chair after a long day’s work.

Someone knocked on my door.

“Who could that be?” I grumbled, wondering at the same time why a feeling of cold dread had settled in my gut. It grew as I approached the door and opened it.

Two children, a boy and a girl, dressed in clothing from another century stood on my doorstep.

“Can I help you?” I said, voice quivering.

“May we use your telephone?” the boy said. The girl stared at me, silent.

I nearly said yes, despite my fear. They’re just kids, I thought.

Then I noticed their eyes.

They were completely black.

Needless to say, I didn’t let them in.

Now every knock gives me a panic attack. I can’t step outside without wondering if those black-eyed kids are nearby. Watching…

Posted in: Flash Fiction, Life & Writing / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thirty Years Later, and Nobody Learned Not to Open the Necronomicon: A Review of Evil Dead (2013)

April 9, 2013 11:24 am / 2 Comments /
Evil Dead poster, from IMDB.com. You can see the hype =P

Evil Dead poster, from IMDB.com. You can see the hype =P

I will admit it — the red band trailer has had me excited for Evil Dead for months now. Now, normally I don’t get excited about much of anything, especially a modern horror flick and ESPECIALLY a remake. but my normal guardedness fell away for some reason with Evil Dead. I really like the original trilogy (I own all three), and frankly I haven’t seen a decent horror flick in the theater for a long time.

And that was what Evil Dead shaped up to be — a decent horror flick. It really doesn’t live up to the legacy of the original Evil Dead, but that’s how it is with remakes most of the time. It was a pretty solid movie, I thought. It was very well shot, and the sound effects were done very well. It had some downright creepy scenes, and I thought it did a good job ratcheting up the tension overall.

However, despite its technical proficiency, there was something missing. Despite having a bigger budget, better special effects, and the benefit of modern film technology, it wasn’t as creepy or fun as the original. Some of it had to do with the protagonist, and the fact that he was as dense as granite. Word to the wise: when people are carving their face off with broken glass, it probably isn’t because of a virus, especially if your hippie-looking (stupidly) read from a mysterious, flesh bound book only a couple hours ago. Some of it had to do with the contrived nature of the set up — for example, I’m certified to teach high school, but nowhere in the process did they teach me to read ancient Sumerian.
Not that I would read it to myself, out loud, when the book CLEARLY SAYS NOT TO!

See, that’s what bothered me the most, I think. The original is 32 years old and shot on a quarter million dollar budget, yet the writing is tighter and it is overall a much creepier movie. I mean, look at how they got around the pretty ridiculous scene I mentioned above — in the original, they find the Necronomicon in the basement beside a recorder containing the notes of an archeologist who is studying it. They play a section of the recorder where the archeologist reads an incantation from the book out loud, and thus accidentally summon the demons that torment them that night. Much more elegant, and it has a creep-factor bonus, since a fairly innocuous action brought about horrific consequences.

It isn’t really fair to compare a remake to the original. On the other hand, Evil Dead has been remade before — Evil Dead 2 was basically a remake, despite being billed as a sequel, and many regard it as better than the original. So perhaps it is a fair comparison. Don’t get the wrong impression though — I did like the Evil Dead remake. It was gory, creepy, and generally fun to watch in a theater full of squawking teenagers. But it doesn’t hold a candle to the original.

Posted in: Movie Reviews, Reviews / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Project SUNSHINE, or the Time When Your Government Became Bodysnatchers

March 28, 2013 12:26 pm / Leave a Comment /

US Atomic Energy Commission LogoThe Cold War was a strange, strange era. The U.S. and the USSR jockeyed for supremacy in every field, but no field of the simmering conflict was fiercer nor more potentially disastrous than the competition to build a better Bomb. Both sides engaged in atmospheric nuclear tests until the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963, when both sides agreed to a moratorium on the practice.

What could bring two opposing super powers to the table to make such a historical agreement? Well, both sides increasingly worried over the effect nuclear fall out was having on the biosphere. These days we take for granted our understanding of radiation and its dangers, but it is good to bear in mind that back in the Cold War, especially in the late 40′s clear through the 60′s, there was a lot we didn’t know about radiation and how it might effect people and the environment.

That of course didn’t stop us from detonating hundreds of nuclear weapons out in the deserts of the Southwest, and out in the Pacific. Still, the Atomic Energy Commission was interested in discovering just how nasty radiation could be to the biosphere. So they commissioned Project GABRIEL to discover the impact of radioactive fallout. The study found that Strontium-90 was the worst culprit in terms of its impact on biology. The next step was to figure out the impact of radiation on the world’s population, which led the AEC to commission the innocuously named Project SUNSHINE in 1953.

That’s where things started to get ghoulish.

You see, the goal of the project was to figure out the global dispersion of Sr-90. To do this, the researchers measured the concentrations of the isotope in dead flesh and bones, particularly the remains of infants as their growing bones accumulate Sr-90 more readily. Now that sounds bad enough, but when you get into science you’re used to dealing with weird stuff. Besides, it wasn’t like the researchers just went out and yanked bodies out of graves without telling anyone, right? …right?

Wrong, unfortunately. This is a quote from AEC Commissioner Willard Libby: “So human samples are of prime importance and if anybody knows how to do a good job of body snatching, they will really be serving their country.”

So, yeah. A government agency actively engaged in body snatching for God and Country. If that’s not mad science, I don’t know what is.

Posted in: Our Weird World, Weird Science / Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

Bizarre Buddhism– The Tulpa

March 21, 2013 2:02 pm / Leave a Comment /
Friar Tuck, carrying Robin Hood on his back. Alexandra David-Neel claimed to manifest a tulpa in the image of Friar Tuck

Friar Tuck, carrying Robin Hood on his back. Alexandra David-Neel claimed to manifest a tulpa in the image of Friar Tuck

Imagine being able to create a being or object with only your thoughts. No, not in the way that writers do when they conjure a story; rather, an actual physical manifestation that others can see. Does it sound far fetched? Maybe, but adherents of traditional Tibetan Buddhism believe it is possible to do so, if a person can attain enough sustained concentration. The resulting beings are called tulpa, or thought-forms as we in the West might call them.

It was said that the practice of manifesting tulpas was a feat that could be performed by bhodisattvas, or practitioners who have attained a level of spiritual enlightenment just below that of the Buddha. The goal of doing this was to project phantom versions of themselves into many worlds, all at once, to shine the light of the Dharma there. However, one did not have to be the Buddhist equivalent of a demi-god to perform the feat; really, anyone with the right knowledge and practice could do so. Precisely what practices are performed aren’t clear, but allegedly some of them could be found in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, a tome full of cryptic Tibetan practices and religious rights.

However, like many things, just because you can do them doesn’t mean you should. Accounts from Tibetan mystics of all stripes claim that manifesting a tulpa is not a process to be undertaken lightly, that the process can be dangerous or even deadly for those who lack deep spiritual discipline. After a certain point, when the tulpa has manifested and grown strong, it will outgrow its master, and begin to slip the leash. It can become a menace at that point, even killing its master.

A woman by the name of Alexandra David-Neel gives an eerie account of her own attempt at making a tulpa. She is credited with introducing the tulpa to the West, where it later became folded into extant occult traditions as a ‘thought-form’. David-Neel was one of the first Westerners allowed into Tibet to study their traditions and culture. She became fascinated with the various mystical practices among the Tibetans, particularly the tulpa. She decided to try the practice for herself, and claimed she manifested a tulpa who looked like a jolly Friar Tuck.

However, the monk began to take on a life of its own. She claimed it appeared when she was not thinking of it, and that others in the camp began to ask her who the robed stranger was. Over time, she noticed the once jolly monk creature began to slim down and grow malevolent in appearance. She decided it was time to do away with it at that point, and after a six month struggle she was able to absorb it back into her own mind.

Does it sound like something out of a fantasy novel? Certainly. But then, we know the capacity for the human mind to deceive itself. Cryptids of all stripes live on in the conscience of society at large, taking on a life apart from their dubious biological existence. You could consider beings like Bigfoot, the Beast of Bray Road, and otherstulpa, who exist only because the human imagination gives them life. In that way, tulpa are very real.

Posted in: Abnormal Psychology, Ghost Stories, Monsters & Mythology, Our Weird World / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Phantom Barber of Pascagoula

February 28, 2013 8:22 am / 2 Comments /
Credit: Smithsonian National Museum of American History

A barber’s kit. Somehow I doubt the Phantom Barber used standard hair cutting procedure…

Last year in and around Bergholz, Ohio, a breakaway sect of Amish went on a hair clipping, beard cutting rampage that resulted in hate crime charges for the groups ringleader, Sam Mullet Sr., and thirteen others. The attacks came as a result of disagreements over religious matters; apparently, Mr. Mullet is the leader of a cult who rebels against Amish custom. Predictably, an uncomfortable amount of old man sex was supposedly involved.

Why mention it? Well, hair cutting attacks aren’t a strictly Amish phenomena. As weird as that sounds, about seventy years ago there was a series of attacks in Pascagoula, Mississippi by an unknown assailant who became known as “The Phantom Barber of Pascagoula”.

The year was 1942. America was at war. As her men and boys went off to fight in foreign fields, her towns geared themselves up to produce the materiel the troops would need to win the war. The small town of Pascagoula was no exception. Indeed, the war was a boom time for the town–its population increased by 15,000 in just two years. Pascagoula was involved in the manufacture of war ships, a crucial industry for a nation involved in a two front war on two oceans.

However, the influx of so many people into what was once such a small town lead to tensions. It was the perfect recipe for a panic, what with the social upheaval and the phantom of warfare hanging overhead. Soon enough, there was indeed a panic, one that seems similar in many ways to the Mad Gasser of Mattoon episode, which has become a textbook case of mass hysteria. However there are some crucial differences between the cases: the first being that there was actual physical evidence, in the form of missing locks of hair, in the Phantom Barber case, and that police apprehended a suspect.

The attacks began in early June 1942, when the Phantom Barber cut the hair of Mary Evelyn Briggs and Edna Marie Hydel in their bedroom at the convent of Our Lady of Victories. By the end of that week, three people received unwanted hair cuts at the shears of the Phantom Barber. None saw their attacker. The town was understandably in a panic. It got to the point where the Army even modified its blackout regulations (blackouts were procedures to defend against air raids) in order to help police hunt the Barber. The Phantom Barber primarily struck on Monday and Friday evenings, and entered through a slit in window screens.

Credit: archives.gov

Welders who worked at Shipbuilding Corp in Pascagoula. Women filled many jobs previously only occupied by men, as able bodied men shipped off to fight.

A week after the first attack, the Phantom Barber struck the home of David G. Peattie, shearing his daughter Carol’s hair. The parents found a bare footprint near the window. The following Friday, the attacks became violent: the Phantom allegedly entered the house of Mr. and Mrs. ST Heidelberg, and proceeded to beat them with an iron bar.  The final attack happened on a Sunday, two weeks later. The Phantom clipped a two inch lock of hair from the head of Mrs. RR Taylor. Mrs. Taylor reported a sickening smell and something being pressed to her face, which authorities assumed to be a chloroform rag. All told, about ten homes were broken into during the Phantom Barber’s reign of terror.

In August, the police apprehended a suspect that they concluded was the Phantom Barber. His name was William Dolan, a 57 year old German chemist with reported German sympathies and a grudge against the Heidelbergs. Mr. Heidelberg’s father was a local judge who had refused to lower Dolan’s bail on a trespassing charge several months before. Dolan was charged with the attempted murder of the Heidelbergs, but curiously he was never charged with one of the Phantom Barber attacks, despite the FBI finding a bundle of human hair behind his house, some of which belonged to Carol Peattrie, who you will remember was the Barber’s fourth victim. Dolan denied being the phantom barber. He received ten years for the attempted murder charge. After his arrest, the Phantom Barber attacks ceased.

It isn’t clear whether Dolan really was the Barber though. His attack was uncharacteristically violent compared to the Barber’s attacks. One could argue that the Barber attacks were practice runs leading up to the assault on the Heidelberg’s, but if that were the case, why do another Barber-style attack after the Heidelberg assault? Also, if they were practice runs, why cut hair? It sounds like something sexually motivated, like the person had a fetish involving hair. If that were the case and Dolan were the assailant, why keep his prizes in the back yard? Also, it doesn’t seem that the footprint in Carol Peattrie’s room was ever analyzed, a definite oversight on the part of the police.

As is often the case, there are no definitive answers in this case. The fact that the events occurred about seventy years ago doesn’t help matters. Likely, we will never know the true identity of the Phantom Barber of Pascagoula.

Posted in: Ghost Stories, Monsters & Mythology, Our Weird World / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Forays into Flash Fiction: Harbinger

February 26, 2013 8:54 pm / 4 Comments /

In lieu of a regular blog post, I’m dusting off my flash fiction section and presenting another one of my super short stories. This is again inspired by the lovely Angela Goff’s VisDare. I strongly suggest you check it out if you have any interest in trying flash fiction. It’s a fun time and good for helping you become more concise. Without further ado, I present “Harbinger”:

***

Everyone in these parts know that the black and white cat with its too bright eyes means Death.

Nobody knows where it came from. It just drifted into town like a thunderhead in summertime. People who’ve seen it and lived long enough to tell claim you feel its eyes on you first, drilling into your back like twin augurs. The itch is so strong you can’t help but turn and look. Then it has you.

Oh and there’s one other thing too–dogs don’t much like it. There are lots of them these days, since cats make folks nervous. They make a big fuss when He comes around, yelping like someone lit a fire under their paws.

I write this with an itch between my shoulder blades and howling in my ears. I’m shaking, trying to fight the urge to look. Maybe just a peek…

***

Posted in: Flash Fiction, Life & Writing / Tagged: , , , , , , ,
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