With Halloween looming (lurking?) just around the corner, I thought I'd repost this piece written some years ago....
A caravan in winter; a frigid wind whistling through the gum trees that shelter the furthest reaches of the all but empty holiday park. Two little girls, tucked up in the hand knitted blankets that adorn their bunk beds, each shivering but not from the cold.
The usually softly spoken father has adopted a melodramatic tone, his face shadowed by the torch he is holding under his chin as he begins the story:
“On a dark, dark night, in a dark, dark wood....”
Even now, all these years later I still recall how my sister and I snuggled closer, our hearts beating faster as our father continued the story in a slow and rhythmic tone. Even though we’d heard the story numerous times before, we never knew what would leap out from the mysterious dark, dark box that emerged from the dark, dark cupboard. The loud shout as some object was thrown from the box at the end of the story always resulted in squeals of mock terror.
The scratch of the gum tree branches on the caravan walls after the lights were turned off and we were instructed to go to sleep, could have really been a witches claws, a terrified mouse, a vengeful skeleton, a slobbering hound or worse still, some other terror without a name. The soft voices of my parents and the close confines of the caravan meant that nothing outside could really harm my sister and I.
Several years later, while still in primary school, my best friend’s older brother sat us down in a darkened lounge room with the promise of telling us the scariest story he knew. He related the tale of two young people, who despite all warnings, on a night of the full-moon left the main road and drove their car down a track through the moor, hoping to spend some time alone. Of course the car ran out of petrol and the young man left to walk back to the village, instructing his girlfriend not to get out of the car or even wind down the window “no matter what you might hear.”
Our wide eyes, fear-struck faces and gasps of horror were apparently particularly satisfying to our teenage teller and he left us shaking in the dark as he walked away with a smirk on his face. Leaving the (relative) safety of my friend’s warm lounge room, to wait with her at the front of her house in the dark for my father to arrive to drive me home, was still one of the bravest things either of us has ever done.
The Headless Horseman, the Banshee, the tragic crew of the Flying Dutchman, various spectral children and numerous ghostly women who frequented fog-bound country lanes populate my story memories of childhood. Hearing those tales told again as an adult revives delicious quiver-prone associations of family evenings and holidays, when terror was a welcome but controlled sensation, and for a brief time the familiar walls of home disappeared, to be replaced by shadowy vales where anything was possible and horror lurked just over the half-seen horizon.
As an adult storyteller, story listener and story lover, the words, “Let me tell you a scary story”, are guaranteed to get my attention and bring a smile of anticipation to my face. Those stories that rely on suspense, a build-up of atmosphere and a satisfying ending are far better, to my way of thinking, than those blood thirsty tales that populate horror movies. Give me a good ghost story any night.
A caravan in winter; a frigid wind whistling through the gum trees that shelter the furthest reaches of the all but empty holiday park. Two little girls, tucked up in the hand knitted blankets that adorn their bunk beds, each shivering but not from the cold.
The usually softly spoken father has adopted a melodramatic tone, his face shadowed by the torch he is holding under his chin as he begins the story:
“On a dark, dark night, in a dark, dark wood....”
Even now, all these years later I still recall how my sister and I snuggled closer, our hearts beating faster as our father continued the story in a slow and rhythmic tone. Even though we’d heard the story numerous times before, we never knew what would leap out from the mysterious dark, dark box that emerged from the dark, dark cupboard. The loud shout as some object was thrown from the box at the end of the story always resulted in squeals of mock terror.
The scratch of the gum tree branches on the caravan walls after the lights were turned off and we were instructed to go to sleep, could have really been a witches claws, a terrified mouse, a vengeful skeleton, a slobbering hound or worse still, some other terror without a name. The soft voices of my parents and the close confines of the caravan meant that nothing outside could really harm my sister and I.
Several years later, while still in primary school, my best friend’s older brother sat us down in a darkened lounge room with the promise of telling us the scariest story he knew. He related the tale of two young people, who despite all warnings, on a night of the full-moon left the main road and drove their car down a track through the moor, hoping to spend some time alone. Of course the car ran out of petrol and the young man left to walk back to the village, instructing his girlfriend not to get out of the car or even wind down the window “no matter what you might hear.”
Our wide eyes, fear-struck faces and gasps of horror were apparently particularly satisfying to our teenage teller and he left us shaking in the dark as he walked away with a smirk on his face. Leaving the (relative) safety of my friend’s warm lounge room, to wait with her at the front of her house in the dark for my father to arrive to drive me home, was still one of the bravest things either of us has ever done.
The Headless Horseman, the Banshee, the tragic crew of the Flying Dutchman, various spectral children and numerous ghostly women who frequented fog-bound country lanes populate my story memories of childhood. Hearing those tales told again as an adult revives delicious quiver-prone associations of family evenings and holidays, when terror was a welcome but controlled sensation, and for a brief time the familiar walls of home disappeared, to be replaced by shadowy vales where anything was possible and horror lurked just over the half-seen horizon.
As an adult storyteller, story listener and story lover, the words, “Let me tell you a scary story”, are guaranteed to get my attention and bring a smile of anticipation to my face. Those stories that rely on suspense, a build-up of atmosphere and a satisfying ending are far better, to my way of thinking, than those blood thirsty tales that populate horror movies. Give me a good ghost story any night.
RSS Feed