October, Horror

Beware the Autumn People

“Oh God, midnight’s not bad, you wake and go back to sleep, one or two’s not bad, you toss but sleep again. Five or six in the morning, there’s hope, for dawn’s just under the horizon. But three, now, Christ, three A.M.! Doctors say the body’s at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You’re the nearest to dead you’ll ever be save dying. Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open. God, if you had strength to rouse up, you’d slaughter your half-dreams with buckshot! But no, you lie pinned to a deep well-bottom that’s burned dry. The moon rolls by to look at you down there, with its idiot face. It’s a long way back to sunset, a far way on to dawn, so you summon all the fool things of your life, the stupid lovely things done with people known so very well who are now so very dead – And wasn’t it true, had he read somewhere, more people in hospitals die at 3 A.M. than at any other time...”

 ― Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

I’ve been having a hard time sleeping. This morning I woke up, got out of bed, and started towards the bathroom, ready to start my day, only to look at my phone and realize it was a bit past 1 AM. It took me another hour or two to go back to sleep.

 The insomnia is not unexpected. After all this past week I’ve driven over 2,500 miles, Pacific to the Atlantic. From the beaches of Ventura County to the moss-covered marshes of South Carolinas Low Country. I drove through and spent time in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Georgia. Flagstaff, Santa Fe, Oklahoma City, Hot Springs, and Nashville. My last stay was cut short to race East ahead of Hurricane Ian which was heading towards my final destination. 

Now I’m in a hotel room. My wife and daughter are sleeping. The dog is curled up on my blanket, and I can’t sleep. Tomorrow, we get a tour of the house we are buying and if everything goes according to plan we will sign and get the keys the following day. After that, we unpack, go shopping for furniture, and begin the long process of turning the new house into our home. It’s going to be a long and exhausting process but I look forward to it. 

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October

Today was the 1st of October. Halloween season. The first day of fall was on the 22nd. At that time I was in Flagstaff Arizona but I made a note in my journal but did not write anything else about it. Today, as I walked through the historical district of my new home, between trees covered in Spanish Moss and two hundred-year-old gothic houses aged by saltwater and sand, I was overwhelmed by the melancholy liminal feeling that accompanies transition and change. Here I was, on the cusp of turning forty, leaving my West Coast life behind only to arrive in the old South on the same day as the hurricane. I could smell the spiritual energy. 

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Autumn 

I’ve always had a fear of fall. It’s a season where the beginning of the end finds its home. Summer ends, school begins again, the weather changes, and the days get shorter. It’s a season of dying, which is a lot worse than death. My father died in December, at the start of Winter, but he died throughout that autumn. 

October Country . . . that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and mid-nights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain. . .

I fear becoming an Autumn Person, aged and bitter, devoid of interest and joy, happiness and hope at things to come. I’m afraid of not having anything to look forward to. I’m afraid of aging. Sometimes the gray hairs that have covered my head these past few months horrify me. My father died at 46. I’m turning 40 soon. 

Sitting by the pool in Hot Springs Arkansas I chatted with an old friend I’ve neglected this past decade. I spent the better part of my Middle School and High School weekends at her house. Her family was from Arkansas and the drive through the beautiful southwestern part of that state compelled me to message her and tell her about it. We talked about things we used to do together and in the middle somewhere I realized that we were talking about events that took place over two decades ago. Her father, who as a teenager I considered a wise old man was 36 years old at that time, younger than I am now. I don’t consider myself a wise old man. 

“For some, autumn comes early, stays late through life where October follows September and November touches October and then instead of December and Christ's birth, there is no Bethlehem Star, no rejoicing, but September comes again and old October and so on down the years, with no winter, spring, or revivifying summer. For these beings, fall is the ever normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond. Where do they come from? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir their veins? No: the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks from their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eye? The snake. What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars. They sift the human storm for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth. In gusts they beetle-scurry, creep, thread, filter, motion, make all moons sullen, and surely cloud all clear-run waters. The spider-web hears them, trembles--breaks. Such are the autumn people. Beware of them.”

 ― Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

I dread joining the ranks of the Autumn Court, and when I feel the slumber beginning to grip me I look at my daughter, my greatest accomplishment, and the cobwebs fall off my eyes and I see the world through her eyes, bright blue and filled with the joys of spring and summer. 

Horror

A few years ago a review on one of my stories complained that it was a horror story in a collection of fantasy stories. The review was right and I made the realization that almost everything I write is horror. I find the mystical and mysterious equally attractive and terrifying. I love the weird, the uncanny, and the grotesque. Horror out of all the genres is the most honest, the most truthful. Terror is the proper feeling for one who contemplates beholding the face of God. It is mercy we ask for in the greatest of all prayers. 

With October upon us, I wanted to list a few horror novels and collections I’ve enjoyed and recommend. 

Ghost Story by the recently departed this September, Peter Straub. Ghost Story is a horror novel about a group of aged men, at the end of their lives, telling each other ghost stories, as their past comes back to haunt them. This is a winter novel, a modern American Gothic ghost story about a small town under supernatural attack and the group of friends in the middle of it. A horror genre masterpiece. I also recommend Shadowlands, a novel that is a cross between Fowles The Magus and Priest’s The Prestige but with the supernatural being real.  

Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. This is my favorite horror novel. A small midwestern town, a group of young kids, an idyllic summer, and an unspeakable ancient evil. A novel ultimately about growing up, childhood independence, the freedom of youth, and the loss of innocence. One of the best I’ve ever read. 

The Elementals by Michael McDowell. A Southern Gothic haunted house novel by the man who wrote the screenplays for Beetlejuice and A Nightmare Before Christmas, but whose novels seem to have gone out of print before his death and only recently reprinted due to the efforts of Stephen King. The Elementals is Southern Gothic horror that replaces the windy castles and ruins of Europe and the universities and puritan towns of New England with moss-covered mansions sweltering in the heat and humidity of the sandy gulf coast of Alabama. Character-driven, with one of the best characters being a proto Lydia Deetz, The Elementals is a unique horror novel about two families dealing with the strange evil in their shared past. McDowell’s work is fantastic, I also read his masterpiece The Blackwater Saga a few months ago and could not put it down. I hope more people come across his work because it deserves wider appreciation. 

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. The above quotes are from this novel about a small town, two boys, a father, and an evil that comes for them. Masterpiece.

Grab one of the above this October and come back here to let me know what you think. Also, please let me know what your favorite horror novels are, I always appreciate recommendations.