A Dark Visit

I watch Ghost Hunters and Paranormal State.

My son and his friends would watch A Haunting when they got home from school, and I got hooked into that one too. The entire time I watch there is a little voice in the back of my head that keeps me sane and un-scared. I shake my head with a smile on my face at 99% of the Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP). (Please listen here to what is touted as "The Most Horrifying EVP Ever Recorded:   http://paranormal.about.com/od/ghostaudiovideo/a/aa101507.htm )  It seems I can never hear the words they claim they are hearing. "I will kill you," usually sounds more to me like "kkkkkkk--static--kkkk", but maybe something is lost in the translation. The investigators hear many things, they swear that someone touched them, and they get lots of pictures of orbs floating around.  My father is a photographer and has explained why orbs actually happen (bits of dust or particulate too close to the lens that reflect light from a flash), so I am a bit skeptic of their paranormal interpretation.

And yet...

There is an even quieter voice that tells me some of what I am seeing may be true. That reason I smile while I watch these shows is because on some level I believe some of it. I have contemplated calling the Long Island Medium just to see what she says and to give myself another reason to either believe or disbelieve.  Here she is:  http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/tv/long-island-medium 

Dozens of not-quite explainable things have happened to me throughout my life, the most remarkable being the exorcism of my best friend. This was not interesting, or cool, or amazing--it was terrible and frightening. It is still scary to think about almost 35 years later. You can read about it here:  http://penelopecrowe.blogspot.com/2012/01/do-you-believe-in-possession-true-story.html

I had an experience that I would not consider paranormal but terrifying none-the-less.

Lambert Castle is located on a scenic hill Paterson, NJ, overlooking the New York skyline, and currently operates as a museum accessible to the public. In the late 80s I visited Lambert Castle with a friend late one night on a personal ghost hunting mission. We had previously visited graveyards and a supposed haunted house, but we never had anything to report other than being chased out of a cemetery one night by the police. Our Lambert castle visit was to be a bit different.

I drove my car up the long driveway, and parked past the gaslight lanterns. A fox scurried out of our way as we exited the car. We looked around the back towards the woods, but it was so dark I could not see a foot in front of myself, and we decided to climb the stairs around the front. The walkway and steps up the front of the building took us past windows and showed us opulent rooms filled with furniture covered with white sheets. The stair path wound around the side of the structure and we stopped momentarily to look at the view. I saw motion out of the corner of my eye coming from the back of the castle and turned to look to see where my friend was going. But this was not my friend. This was a figure in a hooded black robe, something from your bad dreams, something from hell. This was not a ghost or apparition, this was a person dressed in a black cloak moving slowly toward us. I could not see his face. I quickly turned and saw my friend about halfway down the stairs already, and I began to run too.

The figure never followed us, and after we got in the car and locked the doors, my hands shaking so badly I had a hard time getting the key in the ignition, we looked up at the steps and did not see the hooded figure any more.

I tell this story often as one of the scariest things that has ever happened to me. We still wonder if we interrupted a coven, or a mass, or that was a way Lambert Castle prevented hooligans from hanging around at night. I really do not want to know. Well--I want to know a little bit.

Part of me wants to attend a TAPS session and experience a paranormal expedition for myself, but the other part tells me NO!--don't mess with it, because I seem to have an uncanny ability to attract trouble from the dark side. Or that voice just might be my sister--she yells at me about this all the time.

Next weeks blog will be a bit scarier, and much more paranormal. Opening bathroom door including...

Terror by Red Death--My First Horror

Edgar Allan Poe was a brilliant and possibly mad poet and writer.

The genre of horror cannot be mentioned without including him in the conversation. He may have been depressed, alcoholic, and lovelorn--all of which provide fertile ground for all sorts of terrors. He also happened to be a master of words, and the combination makes for gorgeous and horrible tales.

When I was in third grade our teacher told us we were going read Masque of the Red Death in her class, and I was ecstatic, not because I was a fan of Poe and that young age, but because we were going to read something that had the word 'death' in it.

I considered myself a ghost story and horror fan at that age, but my interest leaned more to Tales from the Crypt comics from Oh! Johnnies, a store that sold everything from magazines to fountain sodas, and Dracula with Bella Lugosi. But then Mrs. Walsh, my third grade teacher that had a plastic peace sign on the chimney
of her house, gave us a thin books of Poe's stories right before lunch on an overcast spring day.

I read the first page and was astounded there was this kind of writing in the world. It resonated with something dark in me, even at eight years old. I walked home for lunch with my nose in the book, and told my mother all about it over a bowl of macaroni and cheese. She listened carefully as I told her of the colored rooms and how the matching glass windows infused the rooms with gorgeous light. I told her of the black room with the blood red window, and she told me she did not like that, and wrinkled her nose.  This tickled me.

By the weekend I had enlisted my poor five year old sister to be a victim in my Off-Broadway edition off the book. Being the director, I had to tell her a little bit about the plot, but she was not old enough to process the details, and heard only--blood, death, and monsters. She basically had a fit and cried for the next hour, and I got into a bit of trouble. All this drama somehow made the whole scenario more delectable to me, and I have never been the same. I ponder why I love the fear, the nerve-wracking tension, and the constant search for a book or movie that will actually scare me.

I read the story at least three more times before the teacher made us turn in the books. I went to the library to look up other stories from Poe, and although I liked others, especially The Black Cat, none affected me like dark tale of Prince Prospero, his opulent surroundings, and eventual demise because of the Red Death.

I considered doing a similar color theme as the chambers of Prince Prospero's castle to the bedrooms in my previous home, but there was something just a tick too dark for even me to live with, and the stained glass windows would certainly be tough to recreate.

Although I have read endless horror books, poems, and stories, The Red Death was my first love, and remains one on my favorite pieces of literature--and a clock chiming at the midnight hour will forever send a chill down my spine.

I wonder if it has anything to do with my love of short stories--and germ-phobia...

Please read the short but terrifying tale below.

http://www.online-literature.com/poe/36/

My short and bloody tale Absorbed on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Absorbed-ebook/dp/B005SUBYYI