It's Halloween time. Time for something creepy. I'm sure everyone has a creepy tale in their experience, so here's mine. I haven't written about this before. If it ever appears in a novel, it will be highly embellished. What follows here are the bare facts without embellishment.
When we bought the home we currently live in, our real estate agent disclosed that a tragedy had occurred there. A previous owner, prior to the owners from whom we bought, had committed suicide. The knowledge didn't deter us from buying the house. We did not believe the house was infected with bad juju. If there was such a thing, it had not affected the family from whom we were buying. How long does the juju stay? Does it skip owners? It all seemed pretty silly. So we went ahead with the purchase and didn't inquire into the circumstances.
The first indication we had of what had happened was when we hired a steam cleaning service to clean our carpets. The technician said, "I remember this house. I cleaned it after the suicide."
The victim had slit his wrists so there was a lot of blood to clean up.
The creepy part was the shadow. We'd been in the house about a year when we became aware of a shadow on the bedroom wall that never seemed to go away. It was like a smudge that wouldn't wash off. In fact, it seemed to grow and take on more definition over time. I don't know if it actually became more distinct or if our eyes simply became more attuned to it, but eventually my son asked about the heart on the wall. Sure enough, we looked at it closely and were able to distinguish a crude heart followed by a quite distinct letter "U." Both were preceded by a messy spot that we came to realize was the letter "I."
"I heart U." The victim's final message written on the wall in his own blood.
We have since redecorated that room twice and covered the wall with several coats of paint, so the message is no longer visible. If and when I use the incident in a story, you can bet that no coat of paint will keep that message hidden. It will probably reveal itself in smoke and flame like the writing on the ark of the covenant box in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Do you have any creepy stories in your house?
Mark Troy
Hawaiian Eye Blog
http://www.marktroy.net
Showing posts with label Creepy stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Creepy stories. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The year in reading.
2009! What a great year for reading! Here are some highlights of the mysteries I read. Some were new in 2009 and others were ones I got to belatedly.
Creepy stories: John Lutz's Darker Than Night. Even though we meet the killer early on, the plot has the reader guessing to the last page. I'd like to see more of homicide detective Frank Quinn. Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island. This is a psychological thriller that has the reader questioning reality. Martin Scorsese's version will be one of the must-see movies of 2010.
Women of the year: Mercedes Lambert's Whitney Logan (Dogtown and Soultown) tops the list. She's an edgy, vulnerable and tough lawyer in Los Angeles's gritty ethnic communities. It is a tragedy for all of us that Lambert died before the third book, Ghosttown, could be published. Not as edgy, but very compelling is Denise Hamilton's Eve Diamond, the reporter protagonist of The Jasmine Trade. The action-woman of the year is Kristin Van Dijk, aka Baby Shark, in Robert Fate's Baby Shark's Beaumont Blues. Kristin is a young, gun-toting, P.I. and pool shark in Texas in the 1950's. The story has equal measures of action and atmosphere.
Paradise found: Mark Haskell Smith's Delicious is hilarious and sexy. It's about a Hawaiian chef whose catering business is threatened by a mainland company. He fights back in the only way he knows--by cooking. Dark is the operative word in Lono Waiwaiole's Dark Paradise. This is not an escape-from-reality beach read. It is stark reality. I was pleased to be able to interview Lono on this blog earlier in the year.
Murderers Row:. The big hitters, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, Lee Child and Robert Parker delivered. I hadn't read Blood Work before, though I thought I knew the story. I was wrong. This is a classic of twists and suspense. Robert Crais's Elvis Cole stories have become as predictable as Parker's Spenser. The surprise read was The Watchman with Joe Pike as the protagonist. Pike is the quintessential side kick, the guy who never says much nor shows much feeling, but in The Watchman he's a solid lead. My favorite Lee Child of the year was The Enemy, a prequel, you might say, to the Reacher series. In this story Reacher is still in the Army and we meet his mother and his brother and find out some of what makes him tick. Whenever I need a good, satisfying read, I turn to Robert Parker. Spenser never disappoints, but Night and Day with Jesse Stone did. The plot is thin but worse is the dialogue. Parker's dialogue is usually crisp and sparkling, but in this book it is pared to the bone.
The Letdowns: Though Night and Day was a disappointment compared to other books in the series, the real letdowns were two books I finished the year with. The biggest disappointment was Gardner McKay's Toyer. McKay was the actor who sailed around the South Pacific on the schooner Tiki in Adventures in Paradise, one of the best shows to appear on the small screen. He was also a playwright and storyteller. Toyer is supposed to be a disturbing creep-out, but I found it boring and confusing. There are a lot of point of view characters in the story and at least one of them is dead. Each scene is identified by the POV character, but that doesn't guarantee the POV won't change in mid-scene. I'd hoped for something better from McKay. The final book of the year was Dan Brown's Deception Point. It's high concept like Brown's other books. In this case the concept is that NASA finds a fossil-bearing meteorite in the Arctic. The concept is so far-fetched, I found it hard to suspend disbelief. The main character is a female government security analyst who's personality is flat and uninteresting. But then I've been spoiled by Whitney Logan. The ending is a Rube Goldberg style Deus Ex Machina. I kept reading to see what outlandish plot twist would come up next. it was like watching a Boise State game for the trick plays.
On balance, 2009 was a great year for books. How was your year? What did you read?
Creepy stories: John Lutz's Darker Than Night. Even though we meet the killer early on, the plot has the reader guessing to the last page. I'd like to see more of homicide detective Frank Quinn. Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island. This is a psychological thriller that has the reader questioning reality. Martin Scorsese's version will be one of the must-see movies of 2010.
Women of the year: Mercedes Lambert's Whitney Logan (Dogtown and Soultown) tops the list. She's an edgy, vulnerable and tough lawyer in Los Angeles's gritty ethnic communities. It is a tragedy for all of us that Lambert died before the third book, Ghosttown, could be published. Not as edgy, but very compelling is Denise Hamilton's Eve Diamond, the reporter protagonist of The Jasmine Trade. The action-woman of the year is Kristin Van Dijk, aka Baby Shark, in Robert Fate's Baby Shark's Beaumont Blues. Kristin is a young, gun-toting, P.I. and pool shark in Texas in the 1950's. The story has equal measures of action and atmosphere.
Paradise found: Mark Haskell Smith's Delicious is hilarious and sexy. It's about a Hawaiian chef whose catering business is threatened by a mainland company. He fights back in the only way he knows--by cooking. Dark is the operative word in Lono Waiwaiole's Dark Paradise. This is not an escape-from-reality beach read. It is stark reality. I was pleased to be able to interview Lono on this blog earlier in the year.
Murderers Row:. The big hitters, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, Lee Child and Robert Parker delivered. I hadn't read Blood Work before, though I thought I knew the story. I was wrong. This is a classic of twists and suspense. Robert Crais's Elvis Cole stories have become as predictable as Parker's Spenser. The surprise read was The Watchman with Joe Pike as the protagonist. Pike is the quintessential side kick, the guy who never says much nor shows much feeling, but in The Watchman he's a solid lead. My favorite Lee Child of the year was The Enemy, a prequel, you might say, to the Reacher series. In this story Reacher is still in the Army and we meet his mother and his brother and find out some of what makes him tick. Whenever I need a good, satisfying read, I turn to Robert Parker. Spenser never disappoints, but Night and Day with Jesse Stone did. The plot is thin but worse is the dialogue. Parker's dialogue is usually crisp and sparkling, but in this book it is pared to the bone.
The Letdowns: Though Night and Day was a disappointment compared to other books in the series, the real letdowns were two books I finished the year with. The biggest disappointment was Gardner McKay's Toyer. McKay was the actor who sailed around the South Pacific on the schooner Tiki in Adventures in Paradise, one of the best shows to appear on the small screen. He was also a playwright and storyteller. Toyer is supposed to be a disturbing creep-out, but I found it boring and confusing. There are a lot of point of view characters in the story and at least one of them is dead. Each scene is identified by the POV character, but that doesn't guarantee the POV won't change in mid-scene. I'd hoped for something better from McKay. The final book of the year was Dan Brown's Deception Point. It's high concept like Brown's other books. In this case the concept is that NASA finds a fossil-bearing meteorite in the Arctic. The concept is so far-fetched, I found it hard to suspend disbelief. The main character is a female government security analyst who's personality is flat and uninteresting. But then I've been spoiled by Whitney Logan. The ending is a Rube Goldberg style Deus Ex Machina. I kept reading to see what outlandish plot twist would come up next. it was like watching a Boise State game for the trick plays.
On balance, 2009 was a great year for books. How was your year? What did you read?
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