The Boy Under the Bridge

When I was a teenager one of my favorite things to do was drive around at night with my friends.

Listening to cool songs under the moonlight left me plenty of warmhearted memories.

One night, while listening to Moonlight Drive by The Doors, someone in the car told a story as we drove over a small bridge. It was about a boy who drowned in the lake below.

The story says if you stop on the bridge at midnight on March 19th, the last full day of winter, and throw a penny in the water and make a wish, a milky eyed boy will float up from the depth and try and take the coin.

Rumor has it the boy's brother held him under the icy water just a bit too long, and was not able to pull him back out after his game backfired.

It's a terrible tale, but supposedly true.

Please tell me any urban legends that YOU know--I love them all.

xo

The Man With the Hat

When your little sister tells you she sees a face in her closet, you ignore her.

When she insists it is staring at her, you tell her to shut up, and maybe furrow your brow a bit.

As she drags you to her closet by the arm you laugh, but hope you don't see anything. 

She points and you look. You are ready to tell her she is being a baby...but there it is. Just a bit beyond the bottom of her hanging clothes...you reach out to move them aside and there he is...

A boy--a boy with big, light blue eyes. And he's smiling. Does he have fangs?? He's glowing...

Your stomach falls to the floor and your heart stops because this is not your imagination. His over sized eyes are staring, unblinking, right into yours.

Your sister has her face buried in your back, and she quietly asks if you can see him...and you quietly answer back.

Yes.

And you both scream. You scream because the nightmare came true, and you can't unsee those eyes...

But as you move your hand away from the clothes, you see the boy is no longer glowing. He is just a faint outline behind the shoes. So you peek in again, and reach past the sneakers and clogs and grab for the face, and pull out a Fangoria magazine.

You and your sister laugh and feel relief and disappointed at the same time. For a moment, the supernatural was REAL. All those things you were told were make-believe were honest to goodness, genuinely TRUE. But at least you did not have to worry about a vampire.

But what about the other things that you've seen or heard? 

Night after night I would lie in my bed, sleepless, and wonder and worry about the things kids worry about. Boys, clothes, school, etc. I would look at the closets in my bedroom, and wonder if my sister was asleep. The wood grains formed shapes: a bird, the profile of a thin woman, a bear, and the face of a werewolf. 

If the closets were closed, all was well, but if I was forgetful and left my door opened a bit, I would see the man with the hat.

He was tall and thin, and I could never see his face. Somehow I knew he was looking at me. His hat was an odd mixture of fedora and bowler. He never moved, and he would be there as I fell asleep. He was partly benign and partly menacing, and I would almost forget about him by morning...until I saw him again.

After several visits, I told my sister, and her eyes got big and filled with tears that never fell. She had seen the man with the hat too.

We didn't talk about him much for some reason, but we kept our closets closed every night.

Recently, I was reading a story about the black eyed children, and something seemed familiar. At the end of the article, it said some are unlucky enough to be visited by the children, and many others have seen a shadowy man with a hat.

I was floored. I thought this was a personal terror that was only shared by my sister and me. I have not told her that others have seen our man with the hat--and I'm wondering how she will feel when she reads this blog. I think I may have been visited by the black eyed children too, but that story is for another post. 

If you have any of these experiences, I'd love to know.

Sorry Tinya ;)

More on the Shadow People

The Gorey Details

A friend recently asked me to draw a picture to be included in her book.  The original drawing was a bit light, so I added some crosshatching to make it a bit more detailed and darker.

Happily she liked the results, and so did I.

The drawing reminded me of something, but I could not put my finger on it.  I walked away to get the phone and when I came back it hit me...it reminded me of Edward Gorey.

Please do not think I am comparing my skills to the incredible skills of Mr. Gorey, but it was neat to see a bit of similarity in style.  His work fascinated me since I was a kid when my Aunt Annie got his book AMPHIGOREY for Christmas one year.  I was especially intrigued by the cartoons that were captioned in French thinking they must be especially terrible.  I read that he has been compared to Poe and Tim Burton, or a combination of the two. 

His work is dark, beautiful, and disturbing, and my parents worried that I liked him and the group KISS.  The Bug Book was written just for kids, but lacked his dark edge, so it was not my favorite. 

A favorite of mine was his alphabet book.  These books were traditionally a happy and cheerful way for children to learn their A,B,C's.  Gorey's version was dark and macabre and so far away from child-appropriate that it was glorious.  Here is a sample:

A is for Amy who fell down the stairs--
B is for Basil assaulted by bears--
C is for Clara who wasted away--
D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh...

Bloody and dismal pictures graced every page.

You get the idea.

The aforementioned Amphigorey contains fifteen of his works, and is worthy of any library.
 http://www.amazon.com/Amphigorey-Fifteen-Books-Edward-Gorey/dp/0399504338

So if you like dark, dismal, creepy, disturbing and wonderful--look for Edward Gorey.  I am so glad I thought of him today.    :)

A very nice blog that features Gorey's pictures up-close and creepy:
 http://beyondtheblackgate.blogspot.com/2011/07/lazy-blog-post-edward-gorey.html

Goreyography:
http://www.goreyography.com/default.html

Sequel Alert! Stephen King Writing Sequel to the Shining

I don't know about you, but I get excited every time I hear Stephen King is putting out another book.  After reading his short story, Mile 81, a Tales from the Crypt-like visit to an abandonded rest stop, I was ready for more.

I was thrilled to read a sequel to The Shining, called Dr. Sleep, will be about a grown -up Danny Torrence, of REDRUM fame, and a pack of traveling  psychic vampires called The Tribe.

What this book will develop into is to be seen, but whatever it is, I'm ready and waiting.

The link below shows Stephen King at an appearance at George Mason University last week, reading a chapter from his new book.

http://dailydead.com/stephen-king-announces-the-shining-sequel-dr-sleep/