I have an obsession with buried things. The idea of a found thing long since forgotten. Discovering treasures that have soaked into the soil and become one with the earth. Only to be dug up by curious eyes. There was a headline last week that made my wild heart flutter. A Witch Bottle Was Discovered in Virginia. This happened exactly one week ago. What they found: A glass bottle filled with rusted nails. What they really found: A popular talisman used to ward off evil spirits or evil magic. The Virginia Department of Transportation began widening work on In[...]
Category
Horrific History
0 Hello, my loves! Man, it has been a minute. Life, kids, divorce, blah blah blah you know the drill. But I'm trying to get ahead of all the resolution making and kick things off a couple months early. Hence, my glorious return to this twisted little corner of the interweb. Let's dive right in, shall we? Nearly 44 years ago to this very day, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald left port in Superior, Wisconsin. She carried a crew of 29 and a shipment of ore pellets, their path set to Detroit via Lake Superior. Now let's give you a little lake breakdown. Lake Superior is the l[...]
Hello, Kittens!! Long time, no chat! How the hell are you guys? How's your writing coming along? Comment if you have any new releases so I can check them out! It's the time of year that there's not much I love more than curling up with a book while watching the snow fall. Once the snow starts to pile, I find myself thinking about one story every year....The Dyatlov Pass Incident. Something about that story has stuck with me since I first heard about it many (many - ugh) years ago. Maybe it's the fact that the tent was ripped open from the insid[...]
You've seen those Hollywood creature features. You've hung out with Jenna as she compared Brendan Fraser & Tom Cruise in their respective Mummy movies. But that doesn't mean there still aren't secrets about mummies just waiting to be unearthed. I'll be the first to admit - I am OBSESSED with Ancient Egypt. I'm not even sure when it started. I mean, I hated history class in high school. But now, gimme a documentary on the History Channel about the latest discovery from Zahi Hawass and I'm there! So, a few years ago, I set out to write a mummy story. It gave[...]
This story happens by lamplight, under a copse of trees and at the top of a steep hill, predictably under the cover of night when only the most nefarious deeds are done. It's October and the ground is frosted, but there are men at work with spades and shovels, digging into the soil with some ardour, awaiting that telltale sound of metal striking a coffin. If you've ever dug up a grave yourself, I'm certain you'd know it: the timber of the strike changes as the wood buckles, and then splinters. It's an extra bit of give beneath the tool -- the result of the grav[...]
I got home from vacation and wanted to share a little day trip we took to Salem. Yes, Salem, Massachusetts...yup, the place of the horrific witch trials. A city dripping with history. The old buildings still stand, making it a neat place to visit. Because of time, I didn't get to see everything. Dude, I didn't even know about the everything there was to see. Note: Give yourself an entire day to see Salem. I thought it would be a cool place to see, but more than that, a fascinating place to just be. I wanted to walk the streets, to set foot where such terrible an[...]
Welcome to The Midnight Society’s #OctFearFest! You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants. - Stephen King When I sit down to think of the history of horror, lots of stuff comes into my mind (Frankenstein, of course) but if there's a type of horror I love best, it's comedy horror. There's nothing better than looking at something terrifying, and having a laugh. I'm sure that when people were first on this planet they were out there clubbing their dinner and laughing over the spray of blood, so the h[...]
You can leave out the ghosts and give me a derelict, once-enchanted-looking building, and I'd find a story in the remains. I won't complain if there's a haunting, but old houses, churches, barns, asylums, mansions, greenhouses, theatres, and the like are magical places all on their own. I set my creative roots often in settings, and let my imagination take me to the worlds where those old ruins once cast formidable shadows on their inhabitants. Settings become characters. Settings have their own stories locked away in the walls. Sometimes, you find a skeleton[...]
Hi everyone. I'm back to Real Life Creepy Places, after having two papers due today that I just sent off (talk about real life horror). Ladies and gentlemen, good news! Today's Real Life Creepy Place is for sale! Everyone get their credit cards ready, the starting bid is just under $500, 000 US (or the price of a modest duplex in a moderately crappy Montreal neighborhood.) And this is no duplex, this is a paradisaical island in Italy. Check out this view! So what gives? Well, it might be the thousands and thousands of dead bodies that make up half the island[...]
No wonder it took me so long to get to this week's Real Life Creepy Place, because it's so creepy even I didn't dare research it after 6 PM. And what's creepy about it isn't just some questionable rumors of hauntings and other supernatural happenings recorded by impressionable people. The Cecil Hotel has had a bad vibe and an unsavory reputation since the 1930's, and incredibly violent and creepy things continued to happen there until recently. It's been shut down and turned into a whole new hotel... whether the strange curse of this place will persist remains t[...]