Two Horror Stories

I have been asked, on a couple of occasions, to talk about the horror genre to librarians who don't normally read horror but want to help their patrons who do.

I started the sessions by announcing that I have two stories to tell. They both happened to me.

The Ghost Story:

This morning I had to travel across Cleveland to get to my library an hour before opening for the Early Bird Meeting. I dashed out into the frigid night air, carelessly shutting the door behind me. I reached the last stair before I froze. Did I lock the front door?

As I retraced my steps back to the porch, a small sphere of light began to glow in the screen door and grew in size as I approached it. A fearful wonder filled me. I'd never seen anything like that in my life except in grainy black and white photos reprinted in children's books about ghosts and haunted houses.

I didn't know my place was haunted

My first thought was I didn't know my place was haunted. I experienced a tingling in my gut which spread throughout my body as I realized I didn't actually want a ghost in my home.

No, I thought. I turned and discovered the culprit - a street lamp across the street was beaming brightly on the glass of my screen door. Relieved, I chuckled as I locked the front door. The fear had been banished and I felt euphoric and energized. I enjoyed the moment of fear and the tingle, as well as the happiness that bubbled up when the moment of fear passed.

I felt these same emotions when I read City of Masks by Daniel Hecht, the first novel in many years to scare me. It's addictive.

The Horror Story:

My family had been invited by my wife's boss to attend an all day staff outing at Geauga Park, an amusement park almost 20 miles from where I live. We got off the highway and hit a long stretch of rural road going 40 miles an hour. We crest a hill and saw the park in the distance. Closer, about 500 feet, was a long line of fifteen cars held up by a police officer citing another driver for a traffic violation.

My family and I were going to crash into the last car in line

We were going uncomfortably fast so I stepped on the brake. Nothing. I tried again. Nothing. I pumped the brake and we slowed a little but not nearly enough. My family and I were going to crash into the last car in line. I swore many profanities.

My stomach turned. I felt sick and scared silly. I pumped the brake quickly, downshifted viciously (to heck with my transmission) and turned the car off. We were still traveling way too fast. I swerved on to the berm which thankfully was a rural road width, so I could shoot past the last car without touching it. I could barely breathe as we passed one car and then another and then another.

By the time we reached the fourth car, we'd slowed to a stop. I had to force myself to breathe and not soil my clothes. My stomach lurched. I was happy we were alive. I was angry that the car was broken. I was afraid of the repair cost and unsure how we were going to get home.

I spent the rest of the day alternating between depression and fearfulness. It was not an experience I could recommend to anyone.

The Moral of the Stories:

The librarians immediately caught the difference between horror as entertainment and horror as a real life experience in a way they'd never understood before. I won't say I converted anyone to horror reading and a life long pursuit of the scare, but I did bring home to each of them the value of the genre and the legitimacy of the reading experience.

Tell me, did this work for you? Did you gleam any insights from it? What were they? Is this something you might be able to use in your own conversations about horror? If this would be helpful to you, you may use it under the rules Creative Commons License below. Click on the graphic to see what you can and cannot do with these stories.





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(Originally posted in . . . With Intent to Commit Horror)