Halloween is right around the corner and that means, for the next month, the world will be obsessed with all things gruesome, spooky and creepy.
The Internet will churn out all kinds of scary stories packed with demons, blood, gore and monsters that will be sure to keep people sleeping with the lights on for days - and I’ll likely be one of them.
I’ve liked reading scary stories since I was a kid. I should also mention I’m a scaredy cat. Call it a guilty pleasure or a bad habit, my reading scary stories usually ends the same: Me wide awake at 2 a.m. straining to hear every little noise and waiting for the shadows on my walls to transform into something menacing.
When I was around 10, I bought “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” along with its two sequels and proceeded to give myself enough nightmare fodder for the rest of my life. For those of you who have read these, I think we can all agree the original illustrations are what truly make them freaky.
Now as an adult, I turn to the online world where my favorite reads are of “true” stories people tell of weird or horrifying things that have happened to them.
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Even if most of them are fabricated, they have the scare factor of possibly happening. Not likely, but still possible.
As in, it’s not likely a serial killer armed with a machete slipped into my apartment while I was at work and hid in my bathroom closet, but it’s not an impossible scenario - though it’s one I hope to never find myself in.
I’m not sure what it is about a scary story that makes me want to keep reading even though I know I will be checking my closets for killers or waiting for disembodied voices to whisper my name when the lights go out.
Maybe it’s wanting answers to the unknown or trying to find rational explanations to the seemingly unexplainable. Maybe I want an idea of what really happens when we die.
Maybe my brain thinks I sleep too much and this is its way of keeping me up.
All I know is as the candy corn appears on store shelves and Jack-O-Lanterns take their post on porches, I’ll be sitting in my room curled up with a laptop and a golf club - you know, just in case there’s a mouse or something.
Call Jewett at (701) 780-1108, (800) 477-6572 ext. 1108 or send email to bjewett@gfherald.com .
