It's that special time for sharing sage advice with the teen in your household. It's College Tour Time! You’ve spent the last few years being stalked by killers through your high school and neighborhood. You've dealt with high school drama, maybe even gotten your heart broken. But you survived! Now you’re touring colleges. This is a big decision, choosing that next step in life, but you're going to nail it. Find your people. College won’t always be easy, but people to study and hang out with will make it easier. You'll end up going throu[...]
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MidnightSocietyVicki
0 “What’s the matter, Mr. Pratt? Bugs got your tongue?” And with that, the horror of Creepshow overtakes us. We’re already on edge watching the cockroaches skitter through Mr. Pratt’s immaculate home. They pop out and dart into the light. It's unnerving. Moments before Mr. Pratt is overcome with cockroaches, before they pour from his mouth and burst out of his split skin, we are already imagining it. Bugs. On his tongue. In his mouth. Imagine them crawling around in there, their spiky little legs scraping against your teeth. If you are shuddering b[...]
She ate the water hemlock because she knew it was poisonous. The white blossoms were tasteless, but the leaves tasted green, like a stalk of celery. The first cramp was brutal, and that was it. She died there on the trail, just where it got muddy as it skirted around the marsh. Her spirit drifted right up from the spot where she fell. Her body had landed in an awkward position, partway into the tall grass. So much for a graceful departure. Her body looked wretched. She didn’t remember any of the thrashing and pain that showed on her gaping mouth and twisted l[...]
Steps from the White House, hanging from a red brick building lit from below like someone holding a flashlight under their chin to tell a ghost story, the banner read, “Murder Is Her Hobby.” Well now. I was instantly drawn in to Renwick Gallery and Murder Is Her Hobby: Frances Glessner Lee and The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, an exhibit that highlights her contributions to forensic science and delightfully macabre craftwork. In a time when women were expected to pursue ladylike hobbies, Frances Glessner Lee (1878-1962) directed her money[...]
I grew up celebrating Thanksgiving on the edge of a Florida swamp. Our cabin was perched in the crook of a bend of the Little Withlacoochee River. It stood on eight-foot posts because sometimes the blackwater river would come out of its banks and spread through the swamp. You’d have to wade to the cabin then, shuffling to find the hidden logs, your legs lost in the dark water. It was pretty great. Thanksgiving Day was spent fishing, exploring the woods and making holiday crafts my mother devised. One year, we traced each other’s outlines on butcher paper. E[...]
Wednesday Addams, the Headless Horseman, and Velma from Scooby Doo walked into a horror convention. They walked with me from the parking garage to Spooky Empire, along with gender-swapped Beetlejuice and more than one Pennywise. Sam from Trick r Treat greeted me when I walked in. I love Sam, and Halloween was only a few days away, but I had a writing panel to catch. Spooky Empire started in 2003, and it’s grown to be one of the largest horror conventions in the nation. The self-proclaimed ‘dark side of Comic Con’ is held in Orlando, Florida nowadays[...]
You wake up alone, locked in an empty room. You lift up the phone from its cradle, and a scratchy voice intones, “All that you touch, you change.” The message repeats, no matter how many times you try to use the phone. It’s flat. Insistent. Its cadence is off, like something trying to sound human. So begins Cube Escape: Seasons, the first in a series of surreal horror games set around, and beneath, Rusty Lake. On the surface, the Cube Escape games are lovely, pastel escape rooms. Haunting music plays as you explore. You find objects while exploring each[...]
Stephen King was a gateway to horror for me. I grew up loving monster movies and doing school reports on Edgar Allen Poe and the Salem witch trials. Then, at ten years old, my uncle took me to see The Shining. I pestered my mom until she let me read her movie tie-in paperback, and I was captivated. I’d never read anything like Stephen King before. I fell completely into the worlds he built. The scenery surrounded me; his characters felt like people I knew. In the whirl of supernatural beings and evil forces, Stephen King’s stories felt more rea[...]