Greetings Trick or Treaters please come in and find stump around the campfire to sit down on. We might cook S’mores later for those who survive the evening. Don’t mind the bones, some folks stay a real long time…
The theme for my Halloween blog is frightening memories. Everyone has them. Some may have suppressed them or refuse to talk about them but everyone has at least one good creepy story, just like every lake has at least one huge fish lurking in the murky waters. I want to hear yours! So fair is fair…if you are going to share something sinister and dark it’s only fair that I should share also.
First though, I want to introduce myself so you know the man in charge of keeping the fire stoked out here. My name is Erik Gustafson and I am a horror writer. I live in small town Iowa now after spending 20 years roaming the world courtesy of the US Air Force. If you want to know more about me, you can click on About Me above.
What have I written? I thought you might ask! I released my first horror novel this year. Its titled “Fall Leaves and the Black Dragon.”
It’s a coming of age horror story about a young man trying to outrun a tragic fire from childhood – he is being pursued by something he doesn’t understand but its demonic and powerful. I also have several short stories. One about Mitch and his murder of crows. One about a possessed garden. One about a father and son fishing trip turned survival frenzy. One about the imagination of a child going horribly wrong. One about a psychopath obsessed with sharks. You can read all about my work in more detail by clicking on My Writings up at the top.
My scariest memory happened when I was around eight I believe. It involves my dad (aren’t dad’s great for that?) My parents had a friend that lived out on a farm way out in the middle of nowhere. We went out there quite often. Most of the drive was along dusty, gravel roads. Along one of the roads, there was a small graveyard. When I say along the road I literally mean just that. The cemetery was an island in the road! There was an old willow tree and maybe 10 or 12 old headstones bordered by a wrought iron fence. You had to actually drive around it to go past. Well one night we headed out to my father’s friends house and my dad was really playing up how the full moon brings out the spirits and he had heard there were ghost sightings at the cemetery lately.
So as we approached the graveyard he pretended like the car died and it slowed to a crawl right next to the graveyard, then as the car stopped he pushed the lights off. My sister and I were screaming. My dad said he couldn’t get the car started. I was about to come out of my skin. Then he said he saw something moving around by one of the headstones. He said he was going to check it out. I begged him to stay in the car; just get it started. He got out and started walking up to the fence. He opened the gate….then two figures dressed completely in white emerged from the graves and charged my dad. My dad screamed and ran back to the car. We were screaming. He jumped in the car, started it and sped away. To this day he swears he didn’t know there was anybody in the graveyard hiding…looking back, I guess there were a couple of kids drinking or smoking pot or something and saw an opportunity to be funny.
Trick or Treaters, let’s get down to business…share your most terrifying memory and I will pick three of the scariest tales to receive a coupon code for an ebook copy of Fall Leaves and the Black Dragon on Smashwords!! After you are done here, get back to JLB Creative’s Blog to visit all the other great writers and see what they are offering you!
Stay scared.
