It's Hallowe'en!

Another Hallowe’en and another tale for you:

OSTENSION

 It begins with a competition.

This Halloween, create a new fear.  Major rewards.

Looks fun.

An old photograph, small part of background carefully distorted, just enough to cause discomfort, a sense of wrongness, a feel of the uncanny, the creepy.  Play with photoshop.  It’s a laugh.

An impression of hair with a glow or nimbus behind it.  Features and limbs unseen though there are hints against the dark of things that seem sharp-edged and bone-white.

Photograph not quite enough.  Needs more.  Needs a caption.

‘He said glory would be our reward.  All we had to do was give.  We gave all.  We received out reward.’

That should do it.

It’s spreading.

Some wannabe film students muck around with their mates and a digital camera camera.  Ten shaky, blurry seconds of something.  Something that gives an impression of hair and bone.

‘God, what’s that?  What is it?’

‘Get out.  Just get out.  I’m right behind you!’

Sudden blackout with electronic screech.

All very Blair Witch/Paranormal Activity.

‘Tonight we want your calls about your spooky experiences!’

‘It was like the thing in the photograph, you know, the famous one of the playground.  Well I was haunted by that thing all my childhood.  It’s real.’

Result!  Losers out there think it’s true.  Tossers.

The Website That Let’s You Tell Your True Life Paranormal stories

They’ve given it a name.  They’ve given it a gender!

gloryboy

Is it too late to copyright?

A flicker in the mirror.  That which makes you suddenly check that there’s nothing behind you.  The light patch in the dark of  the trees that is suddenly wrong.

you’ve got gloryboy on your trail

Houston we have a meme!

Pastor Caleb Gems performs exorcisms to rid you of evil

‘I know that gloryboy exists’

‘There he was, watching me from the woods, a darkness darker than that around.  A strange glow.  Hair and bone’

‘In my bedroom, in the corner, just there for a moment I saw him from the corner of my eye.  I see him still.’

‘Please God, save me from gloryboy.’

“gloryboy: He Exists” by Pastor Caleb Gems, $10 special price when you click here.

Coming through.  Coming through.

At gloryboy.com you can get your gloryboy mugs, tee shirts, mouse mats and badges.  gloryboy is here with your reward!

A focal point.  New bogeyman.  Something is hungry.  Something is ready to feed.

There’s glory for You!

Follow the new hilarious gloryboy web-strip!  You’ll get your reward!

Coming through. 

Coming through.

Reward.

Where did that come from?  Be seeing old glory himself if not careful:)

Photograph from 1912 shows that gloryboy has been with us a long time.

Oh give me strength!

Does this medieval woodcut show gloryboy?

No it doesn’t.  It can’t.  I created him, it, two years ago for a competition.

Never did get my reward.

Latest gloryboy footage and testimony.  Is he after our children?

They’ve added so much to him.  Not just a name and a gender.  They’ve given him a look, motives, an MO.

It was meant to be something odd, a bit creepy, unsettling.  Not some comic book villain with complete backstory.

It’s not mine anymore.

He’s not mine anymore.

gloryboy has escaped.

And I think he’s coming home.

Tonight’s discussion.

The unexplained disappearance of the self-proclaimed creator of gloryboy continues to cause controversy.

Did he get his reward?

With apologies to Victor Surge

‘Ostension’ copyright © 2012 Alastair Chadwin

 Or you can read it, along with some comments about the its writing, over at Spring Heeled Jack.

Meanwhile, in the run up to Samhain this year I’ve been reading up on my ghostly literature.  Best of the batch so far, Dark Matter by Michelle Paver which I read, liked, admired, but was not overly scared or unnerved by it until this morning when I was in the bath.  No I don’t know why either.  Baths don’t feature in the book at all, as far as I can recall and as I only read it a week back, if they did they weren’t major plot drivers.  Odd.

I’ve come across this delayed reaction to ghost stories before, noticeably with MR James.  A detail from the story will suddenly pop back into my mind at an unexpected moment.  It can be inconvenient.

Another read was The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.  This was made into the famous 1963 film, The Haunting and the script there follows the novel very closely.  Interestingly though, the most famously scary sequence in the film is less so in the novel, while the novel’s most alarming scene comes across as somewhat melodramatic in the film. 

Disappointments have included a surprisingly clumsy and unsubtle effort by Henry James called The Romance of Certain Old Clothes.  I hope he gets his act together before I get to Turn of the Screw.

Finally, here’s a song from a film which, despite its title, has curiously little to do with Tim Burton:

And if you are out tonight, as always, be watchful for there may be things abroad which should not be.

A Tale for Hallowe'en

Hallowe'en approaches and so here to dismay you is a hopefully appropriate story:

EFFECTIVE TREATMENT

THE brief was simple and I was a special effects man, working in theatre rather than films or TV which would be why Dr Thorne approached me. I’m good too, which will be why he offered me enough of a fee that I quickly agreed despite it being the oddest job I’d ever been offered.

Basically, it was one of Thorne’s patients. Thorne was a Harley Street man so this patient, Mr Marlowe, was not short of the readies. I hadn’t heard of him myself, but Thorne reckoned he was one of the richest men in Britain, in Europe maybe, even richer than those Russians who buy football clubs. Mr Marlowe had two.

So what was the problem and why did the richest man in London want the help of a special effects wizard. Well, not for his daughter’s wedding which was what I had assumed. In fact, he didn’t want me at all. He didn’t know I existed. No, it was Thorne that wanted me.

What it was see, was that this Marlowe had had some kind of breakdown and was convinced that his success was down to his selling his soul to the devil and the problem was the devil was due to collect the next week. Nothing Thorne could do would persuade him otherwise and he had brought in other doctors, scientists and priests even. Nothing would persuade Marlowe that he was not going to Hell at midnight the next Wednesday.

So what was the problem? I asked. Just wait until then and when nothing happens, result. Thorne wasn’t having it. No, Marlowe so much believed this idea that Thorne was scared that he would actually hallucinate seeing the devil and would believe that his soul was gone. At worse he might give himself a heart attack, at best he would be completely mad.

So this was Thorne’s bright idea. Marlowe was off flying round the world for a last look round and so his family would let me into his house, I would put up my gizmos and bits and bobs (no, you’re not getting any of my trade secrets) so that come Wednesday I would make an image of the devil appear and tell him that the deal was off and he could keep his soul. Then Mr Marlowe could relax and Thorne could get on with charging, I mean, curing him.

Like I said. Odd.

But the money was more than good and it would a story to tell the kids so I agreed.

And it all went to plan. I put in my bits and bods in the library, which was where the devil was going to appear apparently, and with a hidden CCTV link I was in the kitchen able to watch and operate what needed to be operated.

WELL you probably remember what happened, it was all over the news for long enough. Thorne got struck off, tried to make out that it was practical joke gone wrong, then when that didn’t work, started hinting that it was a murder plot put together by the family. So they sued and with the help of the recordings I had made of our conversations when he had been briefing me (I’m not so green…) they pretty much took him for every penny.

And what about me? Not as bad as you’d think. Legit theatre wouldn’t touch me, Cameron McIntosh didn’t want to know. Can’t say I’m surprised. Who’d want to employ an FX man who’d scared someone to death? Turns out those ‘death metal’ bands do. Looks great on the posters for their gigs. Pays well enough and the perks are brilliant. So I’m all right.

EXCEPT, well, except that sometimes I can’t sleep and all I can see is Mr Marlowe on his knees, horror struck, and all I can hear is his last scream. And sometimes it sounds like what he’s screaming could be:

‘Dear God, there are two of them!’

And for those who seem to think that disneyfy is a synonym for sweeten, from Fantasia:

And once again, if you are abroad on Monday e'en, beware for there are things that will be walking that night that should not.

There's something out there...

A tale for Hallowe’en:

‘HULLO? Hey! Anyone there? Where am I? Why is it so dark?’

‘I want it to be dark. I prefer it that way.’

‘What? Who are you? Where am I? You want money or something? I’m a rich man. Oh Christ, that’s it, isn’t it? I’ve been kidnapped, haven't I.'

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘Look, let me go and we’ll say nothing more about it. I’m powerful. I know where the bodies are buried.’

‘As it happens, so do I.’

‘You can’t keep me hidden for long. The police will be here soon enough.’

‘I have no doubt that most of them will arrive here when their time comes. But right now it is just you. You have been a bad man, have you not? You have been ruthless to those less fortunate than yourself. That is why you are here.’

‘What? Is this some kind of political thing? Look, that way of thinking went down with the Berlin Wall. You make your own opportunities out there. Dog eat dog. If you step on a few people, well they should learn to move out of the way.’

‘That is your philosophy?’

‘That’s being realistic.’

‘You do not repent?’

'Repent?'

‘With all your heart?’

‘Of what? Of course not.’

‘Then let there be light.’

‘Oh my God!’

‘Not quite.’

‘Oh bloody hell.’

‘Precisely.’

And then there this story that I read or heard many years ago and cannot remember who told or wrote it, but it went something like this:

IT was a dark and stormy night and the traveller was still some distance from the inn. The landscape was wild and harsh, with shadows made to dart by the scudding clouds obscuring the full moon. The traveller was a rational man but he could not stop the unease rising in him, could not avoid starting at the lightning flash or the crack of thunder, could not cease from glancing fearfully behind. After a time he spoke to himself aloud thus:

‘Why this is ridiculous. I am no child. I am a grown man. Furthermore I am a good man, kind to my wife and children, generous to those who have not shared my luck, gentle with my animals and thoughtful and accommodating with my neighbours. Why…’ Here he laughed aloud to himself, ‘why if I were to meet a spirit or demon tonight, it would mean that there is truly no justice in this universe!’

And a voice at his ear said:

‘There isn’t.’

Finally, here’s a short film from Tim Burton:

Safe Hallowe’en and if you must venture out, then watch out for that which should walk alone may not do so tonight.