Books! Stephen King

In keeping with my spooky Halloween week posts, let's spend a few minutes with author Stephen King. I first started reading Big Steve when I was nine or ten, and I have loved him ever since. If you stop to think about it, how many things do you still love now that you loved when you were nine or ten? Right. His first four novels are some of my favorite books of all time. In the past few weeks, I've reread those four books--Carrie, 'Salem's Lot, The Shining, and The Stand--along with his first collection of short stories, Night Shift. I'm ready to make the following declaration.

Stephen King is one of the greatest writers of our generation, just based on these four books alone.

I know, these books are in the horror genre, and intellectuals don't take them seriously. They were immensely popular. How can he be a great author? Easy. He creates believable characters that we grow to care about. He then places those beloved characters into difficult situations. Yes, these situations involve telekinesis, haunted hotels, vampires and the end of the world. But, within those larger horror situations, he creates the real world situations--a relationship failing due to an alcoholic spouse, a man trying to get over the death of his wife and exorcise childhood demons, a high school outcast trying to fit in--and those realistic smaller situations make the bigger spooky situations more real.

Stephen King is a master storyteller, meaning that he starts the ball rolling from page one, and he doesn't let up until you get to "The End." His stories move move move. I have always said that The Stand will be taught in college courses a few generations from now, just like we study Poe now. I would say now that all four of these books make for great literature, while also accurately giving snapshots of our modern culture. When I pulled out my copy of The Shining, I thought, "Wow, I've had this book since I was ten, and I still want to read it."

That's magic right there. Spooky magic.

TV! Ghost Hunters

This is the flip side of Ghost Adventures, the show I wrote about yesterday. Ghost Hunters is on the SciFi channel (yes, SyFy, but I can't deal with SyFy, ick), and they also investigate haunted buildings all over the world, concentrating often on creaky prisons, cobwebbed filled asylums, and rickety rusty hospitals. However, I can take the Ghost Hunters a little more seriously. Why? What are the differences between the fellows from Ghost Hunters and the dudes from Ghost Adventures?

1. The Ghost Hunters are plumbers. Serious, blue collar plumbers with matching jackets. I find that comforting. They can fix your leaky faucet and hunt for your ghosts, all on one bill.

2. These guys are actually out to debunk ghost claims. They don't go into a situation assuming that there are spirits who are ready to fight them. They go into a situation looking for a rational explanation for whatever anomalies might appear. Sometimes, there are no rational explanations.

3. They don't use a lot of bizarro ghostly machines and gadgets that change the air into spirit voices or feed the ghosts electromagnetic Twinkies to get them all worked up.

4. They don't openly antagonize the ghosts until the ghosts whack them.

5. The Ghost Hunters very rarely refer to one another, or the ghosts for that matter, as "dude."

Seriously, this show can be interesting and believable. Usually, they're able to explain most of the weird things that occur. When they can't, though, it's a great moment. They came to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, just up the road from me, and something kept turning their flashlight off and on. Very cool.

Also, they're doing a live broadcast on Halloween, and you can watch along with a lot of worked up people online who see spooky spirit shadows and feel bad energy through their television screens. Well worth a watch. On SyyyyyyyyFyyyyyyyyyy.

TV! Ghost Adventures

Ghost Adventures is a show on the Travel Channel that features these three fearless ghost hunting dudes--Zak, Nick and Aaron--as they investigate allegedly haunted buildings all over the world, especially favoring creaky old prisons, asylums and hospitals. They research the hauntings, and then get locked down overnight with infra red cameras, and spooky special ghost voice recorders, and EMF stuff, and other specialized gadgets.

Okay, I have to say that this show entertains the stuffing out of me. Why? Because these guys crack me up. I know that's the wrong reaction, but I can't help it. They spend the majority of their time screaming, "Dude, did you see/hear that? Did you?!" Or "Dude, something totally just touched me!" Or "Dude, this magical ghost meter is reading off the charts for invisible ghostly presence stuff." Or "Dude, I'm gonna shout at this ghost and see if I can't make it mad enough to whack you." Or "Dude, I am totally possessed by the spirit of a crazy murderer right now, and I'm 'bout to get you back for drinking the last Bud Lite last night."

Look, I have no idea if ghosts exist or not, but this show is great comedy. The way these lads approach ghosts is hysterical, and, if I were a ghost, I would absolutely steal their beer and turn their magical ghost translation machines off and on in time to "We Will Rock You."

Ghost story

I've lived for over ten years in the same apartment. It's one unit in a four unit building, and a lot of other people have come and gone during my time here. A few years ago, an older fellow lived next door to me. I believe he was a Vietnam vet, and he was a bit of a hermit. He worked up at the American Legion, but, other than that, he didn't leave his apartment often, and never had visitors. Whenever I saw him, I always said hi and tried to talk to him, but he was a quiet, introverted fellow. Days would go by without him leaving his apartment or getting his mail, and I said to several people, including my landlady, that it worried me that he might pass away over there, and no one would know.

That's exactly what happened. A few days before Christmas, one of my other neighbors knocked on the door and told me that they'd found the fellow's body in the apartment. He'd died of a massive heart attack either three or four days before he was found, and had been in the apartment all that time. Honestly, I found it more deeply sad than creepy, that this poor man died alone next door, and it took that long for someone to miss him.

Within the past six months, I've had some strange experiences in my own apartment. Now, I'm a born skeptic, not one to freak out easily. However, some of these incidents are impossible to explain. Franklin, my cat, on certain nights between 11:30 and midnight, will wake up from a dead sleep and pace through the apartment, sniffing the air, almost distraught over something he senses or smells. I have a really good nose, and I have never smelled anything. The first time he did it, I actually believed that the building might be on fire because he was so agitated. This happens on a fairly regular basis, always at the same time of evening. I could dismiss this because, well, cats are weird and they do strange things.

Often, I catch glimpses of something dark out of the corner of my eye. When I turn, there's nothing there. Again, this is highly dismissable, and no kind of proof.

One night, though, there was some kind of bright yellowy light in my hallway. No lights coming in from the windows could reflect there. The light hung in the air for a moment, and then moved up the hall. The cats also saw the light. When I went down the hall, I saw nothing to explain it.

There's been a recent development that I can in no way explain. I have a heavy insulated drape hanging at my back patio door in the living room. On three occasions in the past couple of months, this curtain has moved or riffled as though someone were walking between the curtain and the door. It's been a cold winter, so the door and no windows were open. I was sitting right next to the door, both cats were accounted for, and there was no one else in the apartment. I can't rationalize this away. Can anyone else?

And I've had the feeling that someone is here many many times. It's hard to describe, just the sensation of someone being in the room with me.

Now, although the curtain thing startles me when it happens, and it can be a little unsettling to see someone or something regularly out of the corner of your eye that's not actually there, I'm not afraid of whatever may be here. It's not a menacing sensation at all, not scary, just strange.

What do you guys think? Do you believe in ghosts? Because I'm really starting to think that my apartment is haunted.