Halloween Report

Halloween was kind of a letdown and very low key this year. Perhaps it was the unexpected snowstorm and power outages or maybe it's because it fell on a Monday, but we had very few kids this year. Three bags of candy and only went through less than one. Though that does have a positive aspect, since I get to finish the Reese's Cups. And I did get to hand out some Nightmare Club postcards. One little boy seemed pretty excited to get one, even.

Does anybody else feel a little weird handing out candy to Trick or Treaters who are obviously late teens and bigger than most adults? Seemed to be more of them this year. Of course, if you want to save washing eggs off your house, or worse, it's a good idea to just fork over the goods.

The annual Halloween party at the firehouse was also pretty lame this time. Same old magician, who now, along with his assistant, looks about 70. They cut out the haunted house and some of the other things for the tween kids. The pizza this year seemed to be...I dunno, moving. Everything felt very lackluster, which was a bummer, because I love Halloween. Maybe the piss poor economy put a crimp in it. Or maybe it was just my area.

But I think I'll extend Halloween another day and make pumpkin seeds and watch scary movies tomorrow night...after the dentist apportionment, which is far scarier. And eat a bag of Peanut Butter Cups. So there!

Looking for the perfect Halloween read? Order your copy of the paranormal horror series The Chloe Files on Kindle today!
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Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK
(Also in Nook and paperback)

Helloween Weekend

Well, a surprise October Nor'easter put a crimp in my pre-Halloween traditions. There are times I dislike living here in Maine and this weekend was one of them.

It's pretty rare when we see snow in October. I recall it once when I was a kid, around '73. But that was just enough to crunch a bit on the ground while trick or treating. This was a full blown--pardon the pun--storm, with heavy wet snow and winds gusting to 60 miles per hour.

It started Saturday night, coming out of the sky in juicy clumps of white. Since most of the trees still have leaves it didn't take long before the branches were groaning and cracking. There's a huge oak just outside my door; its branches were leaning on the house, scratching at my window.

Then the power went out. The power goes out here if you sneeze wrong sometimes, but going out and staying out for more than a day when the temp outside goes into the '20s is not so much fun. It's amazing how you become dependent on things like a TV, computer or...heat.

Temps in the house dropped into the 30s. You could hear snow thumping on the roof as it slid off the leaves.

Odd thing--or mocking thing--was the power was on about 100 yards down the road, and at a condo complex a street over. It was just a small pocket in my town, and I was right in the middle. I still can't feel parts of my body!

But it could have been worse. Some folks in lower New England are still without power and will be perhaps a week. I can catch up on Halloween viewing and traditions tonight, but they are having it much rougher and I hope they get their power back soon.

I am also hoping never to see snow again, but since it's Maine...not likely.


Looking for the perfect Halloween read? Order your copy of the paranormal horror series The Chloe Files on Kindle today!
Limited time Chloefest price $2.99
Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK
(Also in Nook and paperback)

Halloween Monsters: Modern Vampires?

I don’t quite get the new vampires of Twilight. The vampires I write in my books, such as my western vampire novel The Dark Riders, are vicious monsters. I understand the romantic appeal of living forever with your soulmate, though the reality of that might not be so pleasant . Certainly there are days in any relationship where you wake up on the wrong side of the coffin. Can you imagine arguing over who has the garlic breath for eternity?

I am not sure what is appealing about having two teeth jammed into your jugular, no matter what one of my ex-girlfriends says. I am a night person, though, so I guess I could deal with that aspect of it. And the not getting old part is nice.

As I’ve mentioned, I prefer my vampires of a monstrous nature, and not quite so superhuman as they are portrayed right now. They’ve become almost superheroes. The Vampire has become the ultimate Dark Knight. There’s a weird sense of control and surrender with them I don’t get, either. They can put the glamour on any woman or man and make them do or forget anything. It sort of takes the free will and equality out of a relationship, not that it might not come in handy in certain situations, especially where in-laws are involved. And since they are basically beasts who might at any time snap and suck all your blood there’s always that element of danger. An adrenaline junkie’s wet dream.

But, perhaps, it’s the fantasy, the sense that love might just be forever, albeit a bit one-sided love. But I hear the vampire divorce rate is rising and vamp alimony is a bitch…

But, for the us romantics, it’s nice to believe love can last through centuries. That your special someone will never get, er, long in the tooth.

Maybe that’s the big appeal of sparkly vampires? I don’t know. You tell me.


Looking for the perfect Halloween read? Order your copy of the paranormal horror series The Chloe Files on Kindle today!
Limited time Chloefest price $2.99
Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK(Also in Nook and paperback)

Secrets from The Chloe Files: Episode 4

Night shrouds the shore of the Ghost Coat again. This evening is full of ghosts here in New Salem, Maine. With each passing day they become more insistent, more...insatiable. For their freedom, and for the things promised by the dark witch...

A lonely man staggers home from a bar along the waterfront...he never sees the things that grasp him, pull him into the dark alley. He has no friends, no lover...no one. He will not be missed.

Another man, far from innocent, stalks a young woman. She should know better than to be about in New Salem on such a night. You can feel the spirits in the damp air. But the threat to her comes in much more human form...the New Salem Strangler has killed five.

She'll scream in a moment...but not for long...
--Chloe Everson
The Chloe Files

Looking for the perfect Halloween read? Order your copy of the paranormal horror series The Chloe Files on Kindle today!
Limited time Chloefest price $2.99
Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK
(Also in Nook and paperback)

Halloween Monsters: Top 10 Ghouls

One of the coolest things about writing paranormal horror series like The Chloe Files and The Nightmare Club is I get to work with a lot of groovy monsters. In fact, the hard part becomes which monster to use! There are so many to choose from and each is unique and a challenge to integrate into my series in a fresh manner. I've used ghosts and zombies in The Chloe Files, and ghosts, witches and headless spooks in The Nightmare Club.

So I thought it might be fun to narrow them down to a top ten list. These, in no particular order, are the monsters I think had the most influence on the horror genre, plus a couple personal favorites. Your list might be different. Please feel free to post your top ten in the comment section!

1 The vampire is obvious. Bram Stoker’s classic tale started the whole modern vampire thing. Now neck munchers are popping up everywhere.

2 Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde…the quintessential split personality/monster within. Huge influence on the genre. I've used him in my own fiction and I'm sure he'll be back.

3 The Wolfman…a variation will be appearing in the fourth Nightmare Club and always a personal favorite monster for me.

4 Frankenstein. Another obvious include, whether the Mary Shelly original or the Karloff incarnation.

5 The Mummy. The shambling bandaged kind. Can't wait to work one of them into a novel.

6 Creature from the Black Lagoon…the king fish of amphibian monsters.

7 The Zombie…no specific zombie, but the one from Kolchak: The Night Stalker works as my personal favorite. Or my own zombie, Chuckles, from Grimm--I'm kind of partial to him, though he was a bit psychotic and smelled funny.

8 The Witch…crone or hottie…they’ll put a spell on you…

9 The Ghost…in any of its spooky haunting forms…

10 The Invisible Man…more a human monster than supernatural, but I think he belongs on the list.

So let me know your favorites monsters. Who have I missed?

Looking for the perfect Halloween read? Order your copy of the paranormal horror series The Chloe Files on Kindle today!
Limited time Chloefest price $2.99
Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK
(Also in Nook and paperback)

Barnabas Collins, Vampire!

With a few exceptions, the modern vampire bears little resemblance to the blood-sucking ghoul of yesteryear, the Nosferatu, Dracula and his ilk. Thanks to writers like Stephenie Meyer and her Twilight books and Charlaine Harris and her Sookie Stackhouse novels, today’s vampires sparkle in sunlight, are charismatic control freaks and romantic figures for whom women eagerly present their neck. We used to scream when a vampire flashed his incisors preparatory to ripping the flesh from our throat; now we say, bite me…please.

But these modern vampires probably owe their thanks more to one blood-sucker in particular, and that’s not Dracula, Lord of the Undead. It is a much more modern creation who started as a villain but over a very short period became the swoon of millions of housewives and hero of many a school children running home to catch the vamp’s latest exploit.

The tragic vampire. The suffering hero, placed under a curse by a jealous malevolent witch. A man who has no wish to endure his plight, his fly-by-night existence. Dracula never really objected to his lot; in fact, he reveled in it. But this vampire feels guilty (usually) when he subsists on human blood, or finds himself forced to kill to protect his dark secret.

I’m talking of course about Barnabas Collins, tragic vampire of the 1960s’ gothic soap opera Dark Shadows. Dark Shadows had been running for about six months to less than spectacular ratings when producer Dan Curtis decided to take a chance. A huge chance. He introduced a vampire into the show in the person of Canadian-born actor Jonathan Frid. Frid was supposed to run for an arc and be destroyed, as is the lot of most vampires. But ratings soared and Frid’s nervous and unassuming charm propelled Barnabas Collins and Dark Shadows into TV cult history.

Within a very few months Barnabas Collins went from an obsessed kidnapping ghoul to charming vampire hero. He defined the romantic vampire for generations to come. Now the vampire was plagued by a curse, hated his existence and fell in love, or mourned for an eternity over a past love. Where women had once run in terror of the vampire, now they lined up to mother him and eagerly donate a pint or two. Much of the credit goes to Frid, who along with Dracula is now one of the most recognizable and famous fictional vampires ever.

After Dark Shadows, the vampire went briefly back to his monstrous form with movies like Kolchak: The Night Stalker and the mostly bad vamps populating TV shows like Buffy (with the exception of Angel, another tragic vamp who owed much to Barnabas.) But modern vampires have returned to the roadmap laid down by Barnabas and taken it further. The Vampires of True Blood are good and bad, heroic in the TV series Moonlight, and romantic in Meyer’s Twilight. You can either credit or blame Barnabas for that development, depending on how you like your blood-sucker.

But whatever the case, Barnabas Collins was an original in an antique genre and, along with the Hammer Dracula films, kept the legend alive and renewed for decades to come. With his upcoming return via the Johnny Depp movie expected for May of 2012, the legend will go on.

Looking for the perfect Halloween read? Order your copy of the paranormal horror series The Chloe Files on Kindle today!
Limited time Chloefest price $2.99
Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK
(Also in Nook and paperback)

Secrets from The Chloe Files: Episode 3

A steady rain continues to fall over the old streets of New Salem, Maine. It's funny how lulling the sound can be...when it doesn't sound like the dead murmuring. Tonight you can hear them whispering behind the veil, the haunting pleas of a legion of lost souls. They cannot rest...the dark witch that founded this Hell-cursed town won't let them. She lathers them with false promises and corrupt hope. She knows their most secret sins and desires.

A pity.

Because not only will it doom the living if it is not stopped, but the dead as well.
The door has been opened. Hell is coming through...
--Chloe Everson


Looking for the perfect Halloween read? Order your copy of the paranormal horror series The Chloe Files on Kindle today!
Limited time Chloefest price $2.99
Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK
(Also in Nook and paperback)

Halloween Monsters: The Vampire

Today’s paranormal fiction is filled with various vampires, romantic leads to nasty bloodsuckers, and from Bram Stoker’s evil incarnate Dracula, to the modern sparkly blood-suckers of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight, the vampire has remained popular in books, plays, movies and TV shows for nearly two centuries. There’s no denying in all of monsterland the Vampire reigns supreme. Vampires will soon be coming to New Salem in my paranormal horror series The Chloe Files and my western vampire novel The Dark Riders deals with a particularly vicious gang of vampire outlaws. You’d think readers would be tired of them by now but their appetite for neck-munchers seems as voracious as the undead’s need for O positive.

In its earliest form, the vampire was indeed a monster, no tragic figure cursed like the poor werewolf. Dracula was bad to the last drop and for the time period startlingly erotic. That eroticism plays a much bigger part nowadays, thanks to an explosion of vampire romance (I’m thinking getting two fangs jammed into your jugular looks a whole lot more sexy on screen than it would be in reality), but certainly has its roots in Stoker’s creation.

Over the decades, the vampire has changed back and forth, becoming more civilized, returning to its monstrous roots, then resurfacing as a enchanting dark figure, who, aside from that nasty little blood-drinking addiction, has become a sort of dark hero.

In literature and on film Dracula himself has gone from monster to romantic figure, even, pardon the usage, a sucky comedy figure thanks to George Hamilton. He’s even made it into a Saturday morning cartoon comedy in the Groovy Ghoulies.

Vampires and vampirism, of course, go back much farther than Dracula, who himself was based on Vlad (Tepes) the Impaler, Prince of Wallachia (1431-1436). It was merely Stoker’s novel that mainstreamed the vampire. The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of “The Vampyre” by John Polidori. But vampire lore goes back even farther. The first appearance of the word “vampire” in English comes from 1734, in a travelogue titled “Travels of Three English Gentlemen” and had seen discussion in German literature. The English term originates from the German “Vampir” (possibly via the French “Vampyre”). But the concept existed in cultures such as the Mesopotaimians, Hebrews, ancient Greeks and Romans, with tales of demons that were the predecessors of the modern vampire. The folklore we know today originates from the South-Eastern European verbal traditions, a time when the belief in vampires became so prevalent executions of folks thought to be the undead occurred in public (much like the Salem Witch hysteria in early America).

No definitive description of the folkloric vampire exists but several elements became commonplace in European legends. Vampires were usually reported as bloated in appearance, and purplish or dark in color. Those characteristics were usually attributed to the recent drinking of blood and blood was often seen snaking from the mouth and nose of the vampire in its coffin. The vampire was normally dressed in its burial linen shroud and its teeth, hair, and nails may have grown, though normally fangs were not a feature.

Many of the trappings we know today come from literature and film, with new traits being added over the past 30 years or so that allowed the vampire to walk in daylight, either through an amulet or piece of blessed jewelry of some kind, or some were simply able to walk about comfortably on cloudy days, ala Moonlight or Twilight. In modern vampire lore the undead have been even able to integrate themselves into society and become detectives or bar owners.

It’s clear that the vampire legend, while enduring, is also quite flexible and malleable. But it’s also certain that as long as we have horror stories we will have the vampire, good, bad, or sparkling…

Looking for the perfect Halloween read? Order your copy of the paranormal horror series The Chloe Files on Kindle today!
Limited time Chloefest price $2.99
Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK
(Also in Nook and paperback)

Introducing: Orville Turner

Name: Orville "Ace T" Turner (Orie)

Born: December 12. Aged 12

Hometown: Colorado Springs, Colorado, originally. Now, New Salem, Maine

Closest relatives: His mother. Has an abusive father back in Colorado with whom he has no contact.

Orie Facts: Has some anger issues and a problem getting into fights when he first moves to New Salem. Favorite saying is: Woo ha! He's the idea man of the group and tends to need attention. Can close one nostril and blow boogers out of his nose half a dozen feet. Just sayin'.

Occupation: Ghost chaser and leader of The Nightmare Club. Student.

Starring Role:

The Nightmare Club #2: The Deadly Dragon
The Nightmare Club #3: The Willow Witch

Author Comments: Orie is basically a good kid who needs to get his anger issues channeled and leading The Nightmare Club gives him the perfect opportunity to do that. That's not to say he still doesn't get into the occasional scuffle, but he is a natural born leader and wants to be a good example. He's in for a number of confrontations with the school bully "The Gibb," as he tries to protect the other members of the group. His mother is hiding from his father, trying to protect her son.


Where everyday is Halloween!

The Nightmare Club series on Kindle
#1 The Headless Paperboy http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0052O5AIQ
#2 The Deadly Dragon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005CFEIWY
#3 The Willow Witch http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005CK4RVQ
(Also available in Nook and paperback formats)

5 Out of 5 Stars for The Chloe Files

This review is from The Chloe Files #1: Ashes to Ashes

Wonderful Book, September 2, 2011
By CulturalFastFood/Romer's Reads

"...The book is good. Damn good...

Let's face reality. The whole world of paranormal, semi-horrific but not really horror books has rapidly approached completely recycled status for a while now. Characters are almost interchangeable between books by different authors and clichés rule over creativity. Hopkins avoids this nicely. His character, Chloe, is refreshing on a number of levels...

In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Hopkins books are one of the reasons the genre has legs left. It is possible to write in this environment without producing derivative crap, and he's proven it. There were echoes of Dean Koontz (Odd Thomas) and Jim Butcher (Dresden Files) but also just plain good plotting and characterization you can find in far too few of today's best sellers..."

READ the entire review and 10 others for The Chloe Files #1 at the Amazon.com/kindle store. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK

Halloween Monsters: From the Black Lagoon

In my own paranormal horror fiction series I haven’t yet dealt with sea creatures much, though that will be changing in The Nightmare Club series for kids, but I’ve always had a special affection for things that crawl out of the briny depths or dark lake beds. Not so much the plesiosaur types of Loch Ness (though I like them, too), but the manlike creatures who rise to wreak havoc.

Like the Gill-Man.

You just never know what’s going to be swimming around in a jungle lake…well, other than one hot girl—in the form of the exquisite Julia Adams--who you just know is going to become the object of obsession of some butt-ugly creature. In this case the creature has gills, webbed hands and feet, and a pretty pissed-off attitude for some scientists messing around in his territory. Who can blame him?

The Creature from the Black Lagoon is one of the best Universal monster movies. Released in 1954 it “spawned” two sequels, Revenge of the Creature and A Creature Walks among Us.

When a geological expedition to the dark Amazon uncovers evidence of some sort of web-handed missing link, they discover the link is not so missing after all, but alive and well in the Black Lagoon. The creature kills a number of the scientists before finally meeting its own “doom” at the end of the film…or does it? Guess not, since we already know about the two sequels.

The Gill-Man may not get quite the publicity as, say, Dracula or Frankenstein, but he’s every bit the classic monster they are. And despite the fact he looks a bit like a walking penis with scales he gets the girl…for a while, anyway. He’s appeared in other media such as a meeting with Abbot & Costello on The Colgate Comedy Hour, an excellent Aurora model kit, etc., and will reemerge an upcoming remake.

All the movies are available in a Universal DVD set. Run them back to back the week of Halloween…and stay out of any Amazon lagoons.

Looking for the perfect Halloween read? Order your copy of the paranormal horror series The Chloe Files on Kindle today! Limited time Chloefest price $2.99
Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK
(Also in Nook and paperback)

And Along Comes Snooki

Why does it seem some people are just born under a lucky star?

That no matter what they try they are successful at it while you scrape and scratch and even fail after putting in tons of work into an endeavor? I mean, really?

Authors in general are happy for other authors' successes. It proves it's doable and it is nice to see someone who has put a lot of hard work into writing a book succeed against the tough odds set up by the publishing industry. Authors have a kinship--for the most part, because certainly there are a few who think they are better than the rest and feel the need to tear down their fellow scribes and denigrate their material.

And then along comes Snooki.

She's small, she's mean, she's boobacious and she's orange. She's Snooki, loudmouthed breastonista of The Jersey Shore.

And she's got a ginormous book deal. For a stack of cash taller than she is in stocking feet. And a NY Times bestseller.

This annoys the living crap out of a lot of hardworking authors of both fiction and nonfiction. Assuming this book isn't written in crayon, I've got to think there's an underpaid ghostwriter somewhere because I have heard this woman speak and pearls of wisdom do not flow from her vulgar little mouth.

Let's be honest, most guys will overlook a lot when a rack that size is involved. But, sorry, this woman can make me turn the channel the minute she's opens her trap. I don't know if her dumb and drunken dumber act is a facade (and I sure hope it is) but just how does this person get a huge book deal and why do people pay to buy it? Really. I want to know. What am I missing here about her? Why does anyone pay money to read what she has to say?

I don't get it. A lot of authors don't get it. Most authors--myself included--claw and scratch for every single sale.

But maybe I have discovered the answer. Authors, your days of lagging sales are over. Listen closely. This is the secret to big time sales and best-selling fame.

Ready?

Tan in a can. Go ahead. Paint yourself orange. Your sales will skyrocket. While you're at it, invest in some saline. And don't forget to drink. A lot. Getting arrested may or may not be part of the equation.

Snook it up.

There. The secret is out. Happy writing.

Welcome to New Salem...Where Hell comes home...
The Chloe Files on Kindle & Nook and paperback
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK

Secrets from The Chloe Files: Episode 2

Rain splashes the hardpacked sand on the shore of New Salem, as the sea drags a wave back to its bosom. The tide is receding, leaving behind clues to the past: a shoe that once belonged to a little boy who drowned here ten years ago...a wedding ring washed up from the bony finger of some forgotten bride...

But don't worry. They'll both be back to claim their belongings. The dead don't stayed buried on the Ghost Coast.

A great crash of thunder shatters the silence and lightning illuminates the beach in stark ghostly relief. Did you glimpse the figure standing in an incoming wave? She glimpsed you...which is a pity.

They call her the Woman of the Sea. She calls those who dare venture out on nights like this...deceased...
--Chloe Everson


Looking for the perfect Halloween read? Order your copy of the paranormal horror series The Chloe Files on Kindle today!
Limited time Chloefest price $2.99
Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK
(Also in Nook and paperback)

Halloween Monsters: Feed My Frankenstein

If a completed novel or movie can be said to be the sum of its part, well, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein fulfills that concept in spades.

Mary Shelly wrote the novel at the age of 18, which if anything proves teenagers haven’t changed much when it comes to that dark period we call adolescence. The novel was published when she was 19 and her name did not even appear on the original London edition. Her novel is a classic warning of the limits of science, or pushing beyond those limits into things we perhaps should not, but her version varies considerably from the Universal Films’ adaptations of the 1930s, which is the monster I will focus on here.

Frankenstein’s monster, mistakenly referred to as just Frankenstein by many—Frankenstein was the scientist, not the creature—shambles his way through the classic film starring Boris Karloff. Henry Frankenstein assembles a collection of body parts and harnesses a bit of electricity in an effort to create life—and he succeeds, but that life is a grunting groaning monster with a pretty bad attitude. Unfortunately when a brain was needed for the creature, the wrong one was used, that of a criminal, and the creation knows only murder and mayhem when it rises. Flat of head, big of feet, with bolts sticking out of his neck, he becomes the terror of the village, hunted and maligned. In the end he meets death—at least until the sequels.

The movie varies so much from the novel it would be too long a compassion to go into here, except to say, for one of the few times in Hollywood’s history, the story becomes not one but two classic works. One, Shelly’s fictional masterpiece, and the other a brilliant piece of horror filmmaking. Boris Karloff brings the creature to life without words, simply a masterful performance. The film spawns Bride of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (my personal favorite) and other sequels. Other film adaptations that stuck closer to the book all fell flat compared to the Universal movie. And the creature became a Halloween archetype.

The theme was used in numerous other movie and TV shows as well. Dark Shadows did a take off on the book, creating Adam under the guidance of mad Dr. Lang, even adding a bride called Eve. Herman Munster portrayed a comical slant on the creature and Frankie appeared in the cartoon The Groovy Ghoulies, and a ‘60s’ Saturday morning cartoon called Frankenstein, Jr. A scene from the movie—originally cut—where the creature encounters a little girl, accidentally killing her, was paid homage to in the first Incredible Hulk telefilm. I’m pretty sure at some point the monster—or one very much like him—will make an appearance in The Chloe Files or The Nightmare Club. He’s just too good a monster not to.

Looking for the perfect Halloween read? Order your copy of the paranormal horror series The Chloe Files on Kindle today! Limited time Chloefest price $2.99
Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK

Halloween Monsters: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The dichotomy between our inner demons and expected human behavior is something I like to explore quite a bit in my own fiction. Man himself can often be a much worse monster than anything created in fiction or on a Hollywood screen. Many of the characters I create in my books struggle with their deeper dark side, as do we to some extent every day of our lives, some of us more than others. Who wins, the human or the animal?

We all have this dark side, a side we—usually—keep hidden or suppressed. Sometimes that side emerges during fits of anger, great emotional turmoil or through the use of chemicals. We make not like it, but sometimes it’s beyond control, and maybe that’s why is scares us so much in our fiction.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, a novella written by the Scottish author in 1886, exemplifies this as well as any work of literature, and has put the demonic Mr. Hyde into our mainstream monster lexicon. The duality of human nature fascinated Stevenson and the novella was one of the prolific author’s best-selling works. It concerned the case of a lawyer named Utterson investigating the mysterious occurrences connected to his Friend Dr. Henry Jekyll and a certain vicious Edward Hyde. Unfortunately for Dr. Jekyll, the transformations into Hyde become ever-increasing and permanent, the potion he uses to stave them off and transform back running out of its necessary ingredient.

The fictional concept was pretty unique at the time but is now the basis of many monster fictions—from the werewolf to the Incredible Hulk. Take offs on the Mr. Hyde script can be seen in many movies, TV and book adaptations, as well as original uses of the now public domain character. The 1960s gothic soap Dark Shadow even featured a play on the novella as one Cyrus Longworth in Parallel Time became the rapacious John Yeager. The creator of the show, Dan Curtis, produced one of the best adaptations to TV movie in the ‘70s, starring the inimitable Jack Palance.

I read the novella back in seventh grade, but it stuck with me, so much so that Mr. Hyde returned in my own fiction in a widescreen comic book from Moonstone entitled The Strange Case of The Spider and Mr. Hyde in The Spider: Judgement Knight series. The Spider, a split personality pulp hero with mega-violent tendencies of his own, seemed a perfect mirror for the monsters Hyde. I’ve plans to include a Mr. Hyde-like character in The Chloe Files, my paranormal horror series.

The novella can be obtained free online, as it is now public domain. Many of the movie adaptations are available on DVD. Halloween seems like a perfect time to revisit Mr. Hyde…and take a look at the dark demon inside us all…

Looking for the perfect Halloween read?
Order your copy of the paranormal horror series The Chloe Files on Kindle today!
Limited time Chloefest price $2.99
Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK
(Also available on Nook and in paperback)

Secrets from The Chloe Files: Episode 1

The full moon rises again over the Ghost Coast of New Salem, Maine. It's glow turns the incoming waves to liquid alabaster. Its pull is stronger in October, the memories it brings more poignant and soul-wrenching...

The Witching Moon. The Ghost Moon. The Demon Moon. All names it goes by, but they have one thing in common--they are a harbinger of Evil.

The ghost of the little girl with the face of my sister stands by the shore, the chilled waves lapping over her bare feet. She's wearing the yellow Easter dress she got for her seventh birthday. A strange smile washes onto her lips, as if she knows I am watching. The smile says she is allowing only a glimpse...And that glimpse foretells the terrifying events about to claim the days and nights of my tomorrows.

Then, she is gone, vanished like a figment of moonlight. But the portent of terror remains...

The dead are restless, the veil fragile, the time...too late...

--Chloe Everson

Welcome to New Salem...Where Hell comes home...
The Chloe Files by Howard Hopkins
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Writing the Nightbeat

Serendipity. It's amazing how many times things in my life have come to that, especially in writing. In fact, it happened again tonight when I realized something while reading writer/editor Tommy Hancock's piece for the Radio Archives Newsletter (Radio Archives is a great company that produces CDs of old time radio shows such as The Shadow, Inner Sanctum, Etc., as well as audio books and, soon, fiction anthologies. Check them out at http://www.radioarchives.com/).

Tommy recently invited me to write a novella for Radio Archives' very first fiction anthology, which will be based on a '50s crime noir show called Nightbeat. Nightbeat involves a reporter who stumbles onto sometimes grisly crimes on the night-shrouded streets of Chicago. The original pilot for the show was called--The Elevator.

Many moons ago, when I first began my fiction writing career, I got to apprentice with a great science fiction writer named Ardath Mayhar. An absolutely lovely person, she went over my first short story numerous times and offered a great deal of support and encouragement for a guy who felt he had no talent at all.

The title of my first story--which I sold, incidentally, and years later rewrote heavily for my short story anthology Dark Harbors--was The Elevator!

Coincidence or the big cosmic monkey? You decide. Of course, my story was a Christmas horror piece, an homage to Dickens' A Christmas Carol, but it tickles the paranormal writer in me that twenty-six years later I get to write for a series that started its life with a story titled the same as the one I did to start my fiction journey. There's got to be a fortune cookie in that, right?


I read to escape...I write to help others escape. That is exactly what I am trying to give y'all, dear readers, with The Chloe Files. A chance to get away from the things distressing you for just a bit. Yep, I am asking you to break open your piggy bank and count up 300 pennies, but it's less than a gallon of gas and goes twice as far! And she's environmentally friendly. I hope you'll let Chloe lead you through the misty cursed streets of New Salem, Maine, as she goes on her paranormal adventures. I believe you'll enjoy the journey and want more--oh, but watch where you step, there's demons everywhere!
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Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK

Halloween Monsters: The Mummy

I haven’t yet used a mummy in The Chloe Files or The Nightmare Club, but they will most certainly be shambling through my books in the not too distant future. Mummies are just too cool not to appear in New Salem, where both horror series take place. And there IS a mysterious and secret-laden Museum of Natural History in town run by a very peculiar yet hauntingly familiar curator named Genie Lansing. Some say the museum is cursed, but you’ll have to wait to find out that…

Mummies. No matter how many times archeologists are warned against breaking into Egyptian tombs…the results are always the same. It’s balderdash, poppycock…until that shambling creature of bandages returns to choke the living crap out of them. The tombs always carry a curse, so you’d think they’d have learned their lesson by now. Nope. But, really, what fun would that be?

The Mummy is a pretty intimidating monster, albeit you have to wonder why he got so many victims, considering how slowly he drags about. He was first realized in the 1932 Universal horror movie staring Boris Karloff as the swathed priest Imhotep. An excellent movie for its time, still better than the CGI laden remakes today, the film was shot in the Mojave Desert and spawned a number of sequels.

My personal favorite is the 1959 Hammer Films’ version starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Lee made a particularly imposing Mummy, shambling and grunting, and conveying utter menace with his eyes alone. Virtually indestructible, he gets a hankering for the leading lady of the film, who just happens to resemble more than a little his lost priestess love. Guys in bandages always get the chicks, though they don’t usually hold onto them for long.

The Mummy has made it into a number of mainstream TV shows, such as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Ghost Whisperer, spawned a take off on the legend in a movie of the week called The Cat Creature (like a vampire turns into a bat, this Mummy turns into a cat or a lovely priestess), and has even appeared in pulp hero novels (The Avenger: The Blood Ring and Doc Savage: Resurrection Day, to name two) and a Marvel Comics mag of his own titled The Living Mummy.

What is your favorite Mummy movie? Do you like the classic raggedy version or modern films?

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Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK
(Also available in Nook and paperback)

Do You Always Write Your Best?

The other day I heard a writer--who shall remain nameless--utter something that kind of threw me for a loop. She said: "I'm not getting paid for this story so I'm not going to put much work into it and do edits."

Um, huh? Really? I felt like asking, "Is that the way you really want to go? Because your name will be on it, right?"

I understand the mindset, but I can't say I agree with it in the least.

I relate it to resume writing. If this woman--or anyone else writing one, for that matter--was writing her resume, I assume she would do the best possible job on it, because that resume is what would get her the interview or job for which she was applying. Yes? You want that resume to sparkle.

As far as I am concerned every story a writer puts out there is a resume. It's an example of their talent and professionalism. Should it not be treated as such? I put the same amount of time and work into EVERY story and novel I write. Whether I am being paid for it or not. Because my name is on it and it is an advertisement for my work. I am befuddled by the attitude this writer--and she is not alone--has regarding her work.

I spend countless hours writing my novels and stories, sweating blood over them. I am a fast writer, true, but I work hard to polish them to the best of my ability. I work with professional editors to go over them. Do mistakes slip through? Yes. Do I make blunders? Yes. I'm human and such is life. No book or story, whether it comes from a huge publishing company or an independent self-publisher, is error free. I can find a mistake in anybody's book. But so what?

All I can advise writers like this woman is, you're putting your work out there. Give it the best you've got, no matter how much or how little you are being paid. Make it shine. It may be the piece that gets you noticed, and you don't want to be noticed in a bad way.

So perhaps in the final tally, the statement should not be "I'm not putting much effort into this because I'm not getting paid," but "I'm putting the best I've got into this because it will pay off in the end."

My two cents. Writers, readers--what do YOU think?

Welcome to New Salem...The dead are waiting...
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Halloween Haunts: The Headless Horseman

With Halloween upon us in a bit over a week, and autumn leaves swirling in the air, I find myself starting to think about monsters—the werewolf, the witch, the vampire and any of the plethora of others who haunted my trick or treating childhood. I write about monsters now, in The Chloe Files and even vampires in my western horror novel, The Dark Riders. I love the classic monster, from the Universal films of the ‘30s and ‘40s to the Hammer films of the ‘60s. Mean or misunderstood, the monster is a staple of horror and getting to write tales of the supernatural is like being a kid in a Halloween candy store.

One of my all-time favorite monsters is The Headless Horseman from Washington Irving’s, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. This is the first tale I recall my father reading to me just before Halloween when I was a child and it left an indelible impression.

The story focuses a schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane, who competes with burly “Brom Bones” for the hand of the lovely Katrina Van Tassel (does that sound like a stripper name to anyone else?), daughter of a wealthy farm owner. But as Ichabod leaves a party one night, he is chased by the headless ghost of a Hessian soldier whose head was shot off by a cannonball in an unnamed battle. Ichabod vanishes after the encounter, never to be seen again. The story indicates it was merely a clever disguise by Brom Bones to scare off the lanky schoolmaster, but the imagery of the Headless Horseman has burned itself into the monster lexicon. The story was based on an earlier German folktale by Karl Musaus and told brilliantly by Irving.

Real ghost or clever get-up, The Horseman is as much a part of the Halloween monster myth as the vampire or werewolf. Numerous movies, plays, and adaptations have interpreted or given nod to the ghastly rider. I was a big fan of the Disney cartoon version as a kid. I still have the 45rpm with the Headless Horseman and Ichabod Crane songs.

Another excellent nod to the classic story occurs in the old Kolchak: The Night Stalker TV series episode, “Chopper”, wherein, in a twist, the rider is now a motorcycle gang member accidentally beheaded by other members, upon whom he returns to seek revenge. More recently, the Horseman appeared in episodes of TV’s Charmed and Ghost Whisperer series.

Since this particular monster left such a lasting impression on me, I paid homage to him in the first book of my children’s horror series, The Nightmare Club: The Headless Paperboy. In my book, the kids of The Nightmare Club are terrorized by the headless ghost of a banana-seated stingray bicycle rider, looking for vengeance on the kids who made him nogginless, hurling flaming newspapers at anyone daring to venture near the old New Salem Cemetery. He returns each Halloween, searching for more kids—and their heads—to swipe.

There’s just something inherently creepy about a reanimated headless spook to begin with, but he’s a perfect monster for those shortening October days leading to Halloween. So if you are out with the moon is high and the leaves scratch across the frost-covered ground…and the ghostly echo of hoofbeats drums in the night…beware! And hold onto your head…


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Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK
(Also available on Nook and in paperback)

Introduction: Chloe Everson

Miss Chloe Everson

Born: October 31, 19--something. (A girl can't be too free with her age, right?)

Hometown: New Salem, Maine

Closest relatives: Her parents died when she was seven; twin sister's whereabouts unknown.

Chloe Facts: Engaged to Detective Sergeant Arlo Grimm. Has a rescue cat (owner met a grisly death at the hand of witches) named Puddin' head and a spider plant named Bogey. Has latent powers and secrets of which she is presently unaware. Can tie cherry stems together with her tongue.

Occupation: Exotic dancer at the Red Lagoon, demon ass kicker.

Starring Role:

The Chloe Files #1: Ashes to Ashes
The Chloe Files #2: Sliver of Darkness

Appearances:

Grimm #1

Author Comments: When Chloe Everson first came to me, asking me to turn her journal notes into books, I was skeptical. I mean, she was telling me some pretty strange and unbelievable things. Six-hundred-year-old monkeys and demons, c'mon! But the more I got to know her and spend time with her, the more I read the things she had written in her journal--the more I saw how deeply scared she was, though she was facing something unknown with more courage than I'd have, the more I began to believe her. And know the word had to go out, warn others what was happening, no matter the risk to myself. Like she says, there's Evil out there...waiting.

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Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...T
HE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK
(Also available in Nook and paperback formats)

Clap for the Wolfman

While sparkly vampires are all the rage right now my favorite monster has turned into sort of a back up player in the fang gang books. I’m thinking pretty soon the fur is gonna fly, as we werewolf lovers unite! Or, I should say, more accurately, we Wolfman type werewolf lovers! I will be using them soon in my own two paranormal horror thriller series, The Nightmare Club for kids (book 4) and The Chloe Files for grown up readers, and they will be your classic Wolfman types, not big dogs with attitudes!

Probably one of the very first horror movies I ever saw was Universal’s The Wolfman with Lon Chaney playing the gypsy-cursed Larry Talbot. Then, of course, came Dark Shadows and Quentin Collins who not only turned into a werewolf with the full moon, but dropped about half a foot in height when he did (note to TV show producers, when you hire a stunt double to take on the werewolf role of your lead actor, find one around the same height and build.)

It was a werewolf on the cover of Brand of the Werewolf that started me on a life-long reading journey with the Doc Savage series. To this day, that werewolf painting it still one of my favorites.

A number of my favorite TV episodes featured the werewolf as well. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea carried at least three werewolf episodes, one where David Hedison, the co-lead, turned into a poorly made-up lycanthrope. But it was pretty thrilling when I was six. Same goes for the Werewolf episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, where a nasty beastie with a bad fuzz mask terrorizes a singles cruise.

There was a pretty good series on the new Fox network in 1987-88 called Werewolf. It starred John J. York as college student Eric Cord, who undergoes the transformation every full moon after a pentagram in blood appears on his palm. Shows were a half-hour but nicely written and followed Cord’s quest to rid himself of the curse. The wolf hunter in the show, played by Chuck Conners in his last TV role, was, incidentally, named after the vampire in the first Night Stalker telefilm, Janos Skorzeny. The series is available on DVD.

It’s time again for the werewolf to reemerge. The recent Wolfman remake was an excellent start and a Twitter writing pal tells me Anne Rice will soon be throwing her paws back into the fray.

What are your favorite werewolf movies, books or TV shows?

Looking for a spooky Halloween read? Order your copy of the paranormal horror series The Chloe Files on Kindle today! Limited time Chloefest price $2.99
Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK
(Also available on Nook, in paperback and in i formats)

Where Did Halloween Come From?

It’s that time again. Leaves are turning gold and scarlet, a chill is in the air and glowing pumpkins reign. Halloween, one of my favorite times of the year. I love the trick-or-treating, Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin special, roasted pumpkin seeds and all the spooky trappings of Halloween. I love the smell of autumn leaves and the way they crackle under your feet. The day and night of All Hallows’ Eve just feels somehow different, shivery, magical. It’s a time to believe in the unseen, release your inhibitions and create new traditions.

But where did Halloween come from?

The ancient Celts believed that on October 31st the boundary between the living and the dead vanished. Halloween, in fact, began with the Celts, as a celebration of the end of harvest known as Samhain (pronounced “sow-wen” in the ancient Gaelic, but, according to Wiccan dictionaries, the pronunciations vary, such as “SAM-hayne”, meaning “End of Summer”). It was sometimes known as the Celtic New Year, and a time for Celtic pagans to take stock of supplies for the coming winter. Costumes and masks harkens back to a tradition of trying to copy or placate evil spirits. In Scotland, young men impersonated the dead by blackening their faces or wearing masks or veils, while dressing in white.

Halloween is a shortened form of All Hallows’ Even (Eve), or the night before the Christian-adopted All Saints Day (though originally these both occurred on the same day. Some have All Saints Day as November 7, as well) On All Hallows’ eve, the ancient Celts placed a lantern carved from a turnip on a window sill, believing the head to be the most powerful part of the body, containing the spirit and the knowledge. Welsh, Irish and English myth are full of legends of the brazen head, which is said by some scholars to go back to the widespread ancient Celtic practice of headhunting, and nailing the noggin to a door lintel or placing it by the fireside to speak their wisdom (I don’t know about you, but I don’t want any talking heads by my fireplace, wise or not). The namfriends and family and to experience the stress release of a good healthy scare! Whether your own traditions involve the ancient origins or more modern spooky observances, I think, especially in hard economic times, it is doubly important to just enjoy the occasion. It is, of course, the horror writer’s New Year too--or maybe Christmas--in many ways, and we just love scaring the crap out of the kiddies! No, not really…well, maybe just a bit! Or maybe it’s the horror writer’s Mardi Gras—hmm, now maybe we could start new traditions with black and orange beads and the flashing of pumpkins…


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Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK

It's Chloefest

October is Chloefest, so Chloephiles, if you're looking for a spooky Halloween read, you need look no further.

Walk the midnight haunted streets of New Salem, Maine, with Chloe Everson, ass-kicking demon hunter and exotic dancer. Leaves are falling and so is Evil. Follow her as she unlocks the secrets of not only the cursed town established by a renegade band of Salem dark witches, but the terrible things hidden in her past.

Right now for a limited time you can order your copy of the paranormal horror series The Chloe Files #1: Ashes to Ashes on Kindle for the special Chloefest price of $2.99 That's less than a gallon of gas and it'll take you twice as far! Click the link below to order your copy today.

Once Chloe hits the 5000 downbload mark I'll be giving away Chloe mugs and T-shirts and maybe even a monkey, though I will need to check with the ASPCA on that...

Also available on Nook, in iApps and paperback.

Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES #1: Ashes to Ashes by Howard Hopkins
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK

Halloween Memories

Times have changed, even from when I was a kid. Halloween has become more commercialized and influenced by an unfortunately unsafe modern world. Old traditions are slowly fading, especially trick or treating. Each year I see fewer trick or treaters because the world has become filled with more and more crazies tainting candy or grabbing kids. Of course, some of that has always existed—my parents, when I was a kid, checked my haul of goodies over very carefully and we were warned about razor blades in apples even in the mid ‘60s. But it’s more prevalent nowadays, so more people are taking their kids to town-sponsored parties and such.

I find it sad in some ways, because my warmest memories of Halloween are of my father taking me around the neighborhood in one of those boxed costumes that dripped with the condensation of your breath after a few houses, had that interesting plastic scent and no peripheral vision so I was constantly stumbling over something. But that was part of the experience, part of the fun. The scent of autumn leaves sweetened the air and the moon glowed like a big bright pumpkin in a glittering skull-studded sky. There was the thrill of finding “the good candy”, meaning something that wasn’t a pack of Sweet Tarts or fireballs or, god forbid, fruit.

When I was a kid, our (my sister and I) costumes weren’t always from a box. Sure, I had the regular Casper or Superman plastic mask kinds, but one special year when I was six or maybe seven, my parents made our costumes. My mother—who made dresses and such—created a bunny costume for my sister, while my father spent a few weeks after working 12-hour shifts making me a Tin Man costume from the Wizard of Oz (Yes, in the pic, that's one of my monkeys in the cage in the background I had as a kid). He used sturdy cardboard to make the body barrel, ax head and funnel, covered with tin foil. He spray-painted the pants, shirt and store-mask (which, if I recall, was Spider-man) silver. I can still remember watching him doing the painting in the cellar. I was never more excited and proud of a Halloween costume and even won a school costume award that night (despite the local politics that governed whose kids usually won, no matter what type of unoriginality they paraded around in). I think it’s the only award I ever won for anything, so I guess, though it actually should go to my father, it makes me look back at that particular Halloween even more fondly.

After trick or treating, it was home to sort out the candy, carve a pumpkin and roast the seeds. It was a different world then, and perhaps today’s kids grow up too fast and miss out on some of that. I get to vicariously relive those moments by taking my niece around the neighborhood, carving pumpkins with her beforehand and watching It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown together.

Sometimes, it’s just no fun growing up (though few would accuse me of that! That’s why I write spooky series like The Chloe Files and The Nightmare Club, after all.) Fortunately, Halloween is a time, for at least a few hours, we don’t have to. I think it’s something precious to hold onto--perhaps even embrace for the rest of the year leading to and coming after this spooky night.


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Welcome to New Salem...The Dead are waiting...
THE CHLOE FILES by Howard Hopkins
On Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK
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Michael and the Monsters (What can Michael Jackson’s Death Teach us?)

In my paranormal horror series The Chloe Files, readers (Chloephiles, I like to call them, because they are THAT cool) pretty much expect that whatever trouble the impulsive Miss Everson gets into she’ll also find a way out of. That no matter how terrifying, the monsters she encounters she will overcome—or at least escape to fight them another day.

Unfortunately, real life is not always so well-scripted. And personal monsters rarely return for an engagement because they do their—often irreversible—damage the first time. Whether these demons be childhood abuse, emotional illness, drugs or alcohol addiction they commonly wind up destroying their victim and sometimes even those who care about and/or love them.

I am poignantly reminded of that as the trial of Conrad Murray, the doctor accused of overdosing pop idol Michael Jackson, fills the headlines. It’s not the first time a famous human being has perished in such an utterly tragic but preventable manner and it won’t be the last, nor the last time it becomes a media circus ignoring the true sadness behind the event. Elvis, Morrison, Joplin, Winehouse—the list is as long as it is heartbreaking.

While I was never a fan of Michael Jackson, I recognize his contributions to his art, and his talent, but even more so, I recognize that another human being has died needlessly, because the people surrounding him were willing to take everything he had to offer yet deny what was needed to save his life. Perhaps it’s even worse in this case, since the man who swore an oath to save lives appears to have aided and abetted in ending one.

Michael Jackson seems to have been deeply troubled, an adolescent trapped in a man’s body, unable to come to terms with the childhood he was denied. There’s no refuting he had too much of everything, especially “yes men,” but was lacking in the one thing all human beings need—someone who gives a damn. Instead, those around him, more concerned with their selfishness and greed, gave him whatever he demanded, like indulgent parents handing a child a butcher knife to stop him/her from throwing a tantrum.

And he died.

Not that that absolves him of personal responsibility or accountability for some of the things he did (or may or may not have done). It does not. No one forced him to take drugs. But we do not, even as individuals, function in a vacuum. Our interactions with others shape our outlooks and patterns. Would it be beneficial if we chose those with whom we associated better? Well, yes. But it’s not always that black and white. We can’t choose our parents. In Jackson’s case this meant an abusive greedy father who appears to have cared more about promoting his record label than with saving his son’s life.

Whatever the case, Michael Jackson was a man plagued by monsters. Personal monsters. And the ending of the tale, unlike my fiction, proved a sad one. Michael Jackson leaves a legacy musically, but by his tragic death he also leaves a more important legacy, if we choose to view it that way, if we look past the ghoulish glitter and media exploitation.

It is a legacy that serves as a reminder not to enable and look the other way when someone is suffering or in need of help. To offer our time and concern instead of offering excuses. To try. That’s all that can be asked, and should be expected of us. To think of the other instead of ourselves, and what’s in it for us. Perhaps then we can save a life. And perhaps then that person’s talents, whether is be music like Michael, art or simply a donation of our time, can then make someone else’s world a better place.


Welcome to New Salem...the Dead are waiting...
Three-hundred years ago, the tragic events that occurred in Salem, Massachusetts set free an Evil that escaped the Witch Trials and cursed the small seaside town of New Salem, Maine. That Evil now claims its due and the dark secrets long buried are rising to the surface. The war has begun. And exotic dancer, demon-ass kicker Chloe Everson is the front line between Hell on Earth and Salvation.

The Chloe Files #1: Ashes to Ashes
Pick up your copy on Kindle, Nook or in paperback today!
The monkey thanks you...
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK

Would You Like to Scare Your Kids this Halloween?

October--when the leaves turn to honey and crimson and the air is scented with apple spice and splattered pumpkin, the night is haunted by ghosts and witches and those scary little imps we call--Trick or Treaters. October is Halloween, the time kids loved to be scared and parents love to scare 'em!

One of the fondest memories I have as a kid is that each October my father read me The Legend of Sleepy Hollow before I went to bed. It was one of the biggest thrills of my life. I remember the shivers and awe I felt as I imagined those spooky Catskills with their ghostly rider. I even owned the Disney 45 record from the cartoon and played it on my old box record player. I still have the 45, in fact.

The Headless Horseman WAS Halloween to me as a kid and as we walked the neighborhood in our creepy costumes, banging on doors and pandering for candy, I swore sometimes I heard the beating of the spectral big black horse's hoofs pounding along the street and glimpsed that fiery pumpkin blazing in the night.

To this day the tale gives me a thrill and that's one reason I wrote The Nightmare Club spooky series for kids. The Nightmare Club is a group of kids who don't quite fit in with their peers, so they band together to solve New Salem's ghostly mysteries. With a tomboy named Allie who wants to shove her way into the group and an irascible potbellied pig named Barnabas, the series' regulars--Nerd, Sparks, Moose, October and Orie--investigate eerie happenings in the mist-shrouded seaside town of New Salem, Maine.

And not coincidentally, their very first spooky adventure involves a Headless Paperboy who appears out of the night on his squeaky banana seat bicycle every Halloween, hurling flaming newspapers and looking for some heads to steal!

The Nightmare Club is the perfect Halloween pumpkin stuffer for ages 8-12+ and is thrill for adults too. Read it to or with your children this Halloween when the moon is bright and create the memories that will last a lifetime. I know your kids will love following the gang. Besides, isn't it fun to scare them just a bit? C'mon, you know you want to!

Pick up your copy of The Nightmare Club 1, 2 & 3 today on Kindle, Nook or in paperback!

The Nightmare Club—Where everyday is Halloween!

The Nightmare Club #1: The Headless Paperboy http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0052O5AIQ

The Nightmare Club #2: The Deadly Dragon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005CFEIWY

The Nightmare Club #3: The Willow Witch http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005CK4RVQ

In Praise of Witches

I’ve always had a thing for witches. And that feeling gets stronger every year at this time. October, when the foliage turns to gold and scarlet, the air carries the scent of autumn leaves and the moon is somehow bigger and brighter and a wee bit menacing. Mysterious things pervade the month and resurrect fond memories of Halloweens past.

One reason I really love October and Halloween is because it lets me be a kid again and have fun with the iconic versions of supernatural characters such as spooky ghosts, vampires, werewolves and, my personal favorite, witches.

Not Wiccan witches (which is a faith and completely different), but the iconic representations of them you’d spot on a sign in Salem, Massachusetts.

I am not sure whether it comes from watching Wendy and Casper as a child or episodes of Bewitched, but I have always found the representation of the witch, whether the nasty old crone or, better yet, the sexy witch, fascinating. I love visiting Salem (though it is also a sobering experience when you see the markers for those innocents murdered by zealots in the late 1600s) and get a kick out of Hocus Pocus (which takes place there).

Witches are scary fun. The Witching Hour, an old radio show hosted by a cackling witch, made for some pretty spooky entertainment. Angelique, the witch on Dark Shadows, was one nasty gal, though most guys probably wouldn’t complain if she put a spell on them.

I have used the witch in two of my own series, The Chloe Files for adults and The Nightmare Club for children. In The Nightmare Club, the Willow Witch is looking to snatch seven kids so that she might live eternally. She appears as a crone to the girl in the group and as a beautiful woman to the boys in the group. Hey, no one said we authors couldn’t work out our latent fantasies in our writing, right? In The Chloe Files (actually the witch, or sorceress, Angelique Ficatier started in Grimm, which The Chloe Files sequels from) a particular island witch, presently amongst the land of the dead, is working on coming back to wreak havoc. She tormented Chloe in Grimm, and isn’t about to let a little thing like death stop her from continuing to do so.

I think that is one of the things I find most fun about reading and writing horror—I get to work with all those spooky things I grew up with. Being a horror writer is sort of like getting to play Halloween everyday of the year. I get to live vicariously through Chloe or the kids

So, one night this month, when the moon is bloated and orange and wispy clouds look like talons, look up and imagine a shadowy figure on a broomstick passing across its cratered face. Listen for its shivery cackle. And if you do see one…run like hell. Unless it’s a sexy witch in fishnets. I am still waiting to be whisked away by one of those. But, alas, just my luck, I’d be the one turned into a toad.

My Big Fat Halloween Fear (Or How to Keep Your Skin When You’re Seven)

Looking back, some of the things that frightened us as kids seem rather silly from an adult perspective. As we grow we acquire more real world fears, things that are actual threats to our livelihood, family or existence. And of course our everyday run-of-the-mill fears our anxiety blows out of proportion.

But those things that frightened us as a child—the dark, the thing in the closet or under the bed, that two-inches taller little girl in the third grade who knocks you down in the school parking lot, sits atop you, then smooches you in front of all your snickering classmates—seemed oh-so-terrifyingly real at the time. And it’s an unfortunate fact that some children have all too genuine fears, whether from bullies or abuse in the home.

Then there are those things we either misheard or mistook that caused us, as children, nights of shivering terror. I recall having on Halloween ruined that way.

Now, since I’m a horror/paranormal writer, you can probably surmise I have always loved Halloween, so it was quite an ordeal to my seven-year-old self to have that holiday turned into an authentic fear fest.

I was generally a tame kid. I didn’t get into a whole lot of trouble, at least at seven, though I had my moments. However, my own actions inadvertently caused this fear.

I was up the street playing at another kid’s house, in her backyard. The neighbor closest to her had a ledge he’d built out of stones and soil, to separate the back yard from a fairly decent drop-off into the woods. While we were doing whatever kids do, I accidentally—that’s my story and I’m sticking to it—dislodged a couple of the rocks. In fairness, at the time, I didn’t even realize it was a man made formation. I thought it was natural.

I thought nothing more of it—until the next day when one of the bullies kindly informed me the man who owned the house and, hence, had built the rock ledge, was furious with me for my bit of accidental mischief. The bully also kindly informed him who had done the deed.

To which the man responded: “When I see that Hopkins kid I’ll skin him alive!”

Omigod!

Folks who know me know I am a bit literal. When someone says to me, “We’ll do lunch soon,” I actually used to think that meant we would be having lunch within a few days, not that is was just something you said in parting and didn’t mean.

So when that man uttered the phrase, “I’ll skin him alive,” guess what?

Yep, I took it quite literally. And that bully knew it. I could tell by his malicious grin and the glint of unadulterated devil glee in his eyes.

This was a week before Halloween.

The proceeding week was hell for me. Because the bus stop was at the end of the street—right where the skinner’s house lay.

Gulp.

Seems funny now but at the time I waited at that stop in a cold sweat, legs trembling, heart pounding. I rarely took my gaze off that house, ready to bolt at the first sign of him stepping out onto his front porch carrying a butcher knife with my name on it. I had terrible visions and nightmares of me running home skinless. Probably being a dark Shadows fan didn’t help.

By the time All Hallows Eve rolled around I was in a state of living terror. I knew I would have to Trick or Treat at that house.

I could imagine it all. Me in my boxed Casper the Friendly Ghost costume on the doorstep, Skinner leaping out with his gleaming knife, screaming: “I’ve got you now, you little turd! Off with your skin!”

And I never told a soul about it, not my parents or sister. I suffered in shivering silence. I was a goner.

Halloween night I tried to pretend I was ill. And I was, indeed, though not psychically sick. Sheer terror had played hell with my gastro-intestinal slippy slide and imagined horrors had turned me into a quivering Casper.

My dad, who was taking us Trick or Treating, well knew how much I loved Halloween and I’m sure he thought he was doing a good thing by forcing me to go.

I am pretty sure he knew something un-kosher was up, though he didn’t say anything. I’m also sure he heard my knees knocking the whole way.

You know how steam builds up on the inside of those plastic masks? Well, water was running out of the bottom of mine like Niagara Falls by the time we got to this guy’s house.
My complaining of stomach cramps finally had the desired effect and my father let me stay away from that doorstep. I’m sure he suspected something or I would have had to go.

From the street I watched my sister and the neighbor tribe with whom we were traveling collect their candy. I saw him there, leering at me, with his huge butcher knife in hand. Could he see right through my Casper mask? Oh God, oh God, oh God!

Oh wait. That wasn’t a knife. It was Reese’s Cups. Damn. I loved Reese’s Cups.

The door closed. He was gone. I was able to complete the rest of the street’s Trick or Treats, relief flooding me with every step away from that Hell House and its flesh-slicing occupant.

As weeks turned into months, and I held on to my skin, I gradually got over the fear—mostly.

Closure (I hate that word, because nothing is ever truly closed—it leaves a mark) came a few years later, a month after we had moved into another home. This home was a house in the woods with no others around, so for my final year of Trick or Treating my mother decided to take us back to the old neighborhood.

Oh, crap.

Old fears resurfaced. But I went. And in whatever costume and mask I was wearing that year I went to that house.

And kept my skin. And lost some—not all—of my fear.

I know, funny funny now, but then…not so much.

In a way it probably helped shape some of who I am. I use it in my fiction, especially with my kids’ horror series, The Nightmare Club. That group of misfits goes through the same fears I did and I understand how they feel—though their ghosts are real. But overall it taught me a valuable lesson when it comes to raising or relating to kids—to treat what fears they have seriously and try to understand it from their perspective. Not indulge or enable, but empathize and try to allay. To try to help them understand fear and the things they are going through. I aim to do that in The Nightmare Club and in my real life relations with children.

So the next time your child is afraid, maybe stop what you’re doing and give him/her a serious listen. It may just pay dividends down the road and save you the cost of therapy in their teenage years.

Oh, and girl named Laurie in the third grade—I’m ready to be knocked down and smooched again…

Click the link—Read the book—Escape reality…
Three-hundred years ago, the tragic events that occurred in Salem, Massachusetts set free an Evil that escaped the Witch Trials and cursed the small seaside town of New Salem, Maine. That Evil now claims its due and the dark secrets long buried are rising to the surface. The war has begun. And exotic dancer, demon-ass kicker Chloe Everson is the front line between Hell on Earth and Salvation.
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