Halloween Is Coming
What’s the scardest you’ve ever been?
Our bio-clocks tick in bodies built of ancient stuff, with primal alarms still set. Autumn’s fading light sets off those alarms big time. Three hours had drained from our days between the 15 hours of the Summer Solstice, June 21, and the 12 hours of the Autumnal Equinox on September 23. Soon after Halloween, the night of the spirits, our daylight hours have shrunk to 10, with worse to come. By the Winter Solstice, December 21, we have light for a mere nine hours.
In so much darkness, the underworld rises into touching distance. Who knows what might rise out of all that darkness? We know in our dreams — and in our archetypes — and we fear.
The living dead used to be the worst we could imagine — before B-movies brought them into the mainstream. Are zombies, vampires, ghouls and ghosts scarier than real life? That’s the question I posed to Bay Weekly writers this Halloween season.
To chill and thrill our readers, I challenged, tell us your stories of sheer terror rising from real life. I bet you’ve hidden just such a story deep in the vaults of your chamber of repressed fright. Now’s the time to bring the reclusive little monster up into the light.
Read on and prepare to be scared …
For most of us love to be scared, at least a little, especially if we’re watching from at a safe distance as the sticky hands of dread take hold of somebody else’s neck.
Sandra Olivetti Martin
Editor and publisher; [email protected]