Candy and Other Nightmares

Rod Senter

Description

Seven cryptic journeys to the unknown, unexpected and unfathomable. And while our expedition may not call for shiny crosses or vials of special water, packing a few probably wouldn't hurt. And a keen eye to the nearest marked exit might also be wise. Just in case...

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 07 avril 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781780929439
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page
CANDY
And Other Nightmares
Rod Senter



Publisher Information
First Edition published in 2016 by
MX Publishing
335 Princess Park Manor
Royal Drive,
London, N11 3GX
www.mxpublishing.co.uk
Digital edition converted and distributed by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
© Copyright 2016 Rod Senter
The right of Rod Senter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of MX Publishing or Andrews UK.
Cover design by www .thecovercollection.com



Quote
“I didn’t publish ghost stories but Candy changed my mind...too bad I didn’t get more higher caliber material from everyone else who submitted.”
Arthur Breach, editor of Dagger of the Mind, Beyond the Realms of Imagination.



Acknowledgements
It seems only fair to give some credit to my varied sources of inspiration.
First, my childhood. I was lucky enough to have spent it in one of Cincinnati’s older neighborhoods whose homes were, architecturally speaking, the products of an era long gone. Judging by appearances, I could have sworn that a third of the houses on my street were as haunted all get-out. And while they usually weren’t, I delighted through many a twilight hour thinking about it.
Ms. Chris Woodyard, author of the regionally famous Haunted Ohio book series. In one of her more recent editions, she used a story which I had written in a newsletter on psychic phenomena some years earlier. During a time when she and I were corresponding, I had asked her opinion of a book idea which I was kicking around at the time. She didn’t like it. Fortunately, it wasn’t this book we were discussing. In any case, I finally resolved that if Chris could write successfully, so could I.
Mr. Rod Serling, who had produced the Twilight Zone series in the 1960’s, and had written most of the show’s exceptional scripts. He was also a contributing writer for a series called Night Gallery , among other television and film credits. Although I recognize various people and events as sources of my inspiration to write, the truth is that if it hadn’t been for Serling’s writing, the only thing I would have written was a grocery list.
And special thanks to my wife, Laura, who encouraged me in a literary pursuit which had lain comatose in desk drawers and file folders for several decades. She thought I was good enough for the bigger leagues when I’d had my doubts, both about my ability and my chances at success (two entirely different matters which were by no means related or mutually supporting).
Thanks also to you, who saw this book on line, or in a catalog or a bookstore, and bought it. You could have bought the latest Stephen King offering, but you picked up my book instead. Frankly, that makes me feel pretty darned good.
I hope I’ll be doing the same for you before you put it down.
RS



Introduction
My adolescence was pretty much like everyone else’s, or so I had imagined. I went to the same schools, ran from the same bullies, and grazed on the same grease-laden paper-bag carbohydrates as most people. In the evenings, I watched Bonanza , Playhouse 90 and The Patty Duke Show as a dutiful subject of 1960’s television culture. And frankly, I had a hell of a crush on Patty Duke at the time.
But there was one show that I fancied leaps and bounds above the rest. In 1959, an American screenwriter created a television world that he described as “... the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. ” A dimly-lit zone by most accounts, it was routinely haunted by the unknown, unexpected, and at times unthinkable. And as we recall from the days of vacuum tube television - its snowy images garnished with depth and shadow rather than color - many a hapless soul who entered that eerie and obscure dimension never came back.
The lucky ones who did had found themselves the better or worse for wear, often depending on the actions, desires or prejudices that had sent them there in the first place. Equally important were the harrowing experiences themselves, and their uncanny knack for kicking sand in the face every known law that presumed to tell us what was and wasn’t possible.
Although I loved having the holy bejeesus scared out of me, I found that I had become particular about how it was done. I began to differentiate between fear resulting from blatant (and often hokey) images that were seen, versus what wasn’t seen. I could appreciate that fear skillfully wrought from the latter was the product of a level of writing which was rapidly vanishing from the face of television, even then.
This may be why I consider Rod Serling, creator and producer of The Twilight Zone , far and away the greatest writer of modern times, whose work was chiefly displayed in the medium of television. In a single half-hour, he could frighten, perplex, amuse, and provoke disturbing thought about the human condition. But even more importantly (to me anyway), is that he had inspired me to become a writer myself.
What follows are seven stories I’ve written, which I hope will be as much fun to read as they were to write.
Chickamauga’s Dead is a story which was inspired by a movie I saw years ago called, The Supernaturals. The film was mediocre, but the visual effects were stunning. So much so that I was moved take similar imagery and subject matter, and weave them into a better story. At least, that was my hope.
A would-be paranormal investigator camps out in a field where thirty thousand men had once died in a matter of hours. Unexplained occurrences are said to be abundant there, and he’s looking to witness a few for himself. Before it’s over, the last thing he’ll be is disappointed.
Indian Summer explores the possibility of death being a great deal more relative than we like to think. At Arlington National Cemetery, Staff Sergeant Glenn Dennis learns that not all of the dead are under the ground. And several of those on the wrong side of the grass have been trying to tell him something - for a long, long time.
Last of the Shadows is based on the house next door to where I lived as a child. The Shadows is a gang of young Hell’s Angel wannabes, known for staging horrific pranks so elaborate that they sometimes make the local news. Tonight they will find they’ve pulled one prank too many. This time they’ll not only wake the neighbors, they’ll wake the dead.
Call Me Angie shows us that not all hauntings are in houses and graveyards. Sometimes we spawn them ourselves. What begins as a seemingly harmless curiosity plunges into a full-blown obsession which Ben Marlow can no longer control. Pretty soon, the line between dreams and reality is blurred beyond recognition. Even more disturbingly, any similarity to real events is not necessarily a coincidence.
In terms of subject matter, Relatively Dead is easily the most macabre piece I’ve ever written. Like most people, thirteen-year-old Kevin Connors was taught that what is buried in the ground is generally preferred to stay in the ground. But, of course, not everyone sees it that way.
To Die For is my first serious attempt at science fiction. The two primary characters are Dr. James Rollins and Sergeant Raymond North. Amazingly, these two men actually meet, even though they’re from different worlds. And millennia.
Candy is the result of tossing suspense, mystery and murder into a blender and turning the dial to “puree.” Like Angie , this story also has ties to reality. The very haunted split-level house on Amazon Avenue is based on a real house I had known in my youth... I’d gone Trick or Treating there as a child and for years thereafter had passed by it coming in and out of the neighborhood. Of all the stories I’ve written, this one scared me the most - by far. Just the same, Candy actually has a happy ending. Just not for everyone.
Sure, suspense fiction may be fun, but it’s not like any of this stuff could actually happen , right? Sometimes I’m not so sure. Let me tell you why: The neighborhood in which I had spent the first twenty-odd years of my life was called Clifton, an older suburb of Cincinnati, known for its quiet streets, century-old homes and the eerie flicker of gas-lit street lamps from the 1890’s. The truth is, those lamps did a sorry job of lighting the streets at night.
But lighting the imagination - now that was another story altogether. To me, the effect of seeing an endless row of tiny, dancing flames perched on wrought iron poles in the dead of night, was delightfully chilling - even hypnotic. And if a foot or two of slow-moving fog should begin waltzing by - as it often did on summer nights just before dawn - it haunted and fantasized the scene even more.
In those late-night hours in Clifton, when all was quiet and still, I had believed quite sincerely that anything - and I mean anything - could happen. I believed that the present could fade into a hundred years ago, and back again at any