Tales of Horror

When Mo was little, she went through a spell where she made me read her horror stories before bed and when she realized that those weren’t scary enough she asked me to make them up. I don’t like scary things, at least I thought I didn’t, and at first my stories were dull and frustrating. More scary, she’d say in her deep little alligator voice. I started to make up stories that took place in our very house, where a man in raggedy clothes crawled in through a window and killed the mother and buried her in the basement, only he didn’t really kill her and she’d start scratching on the floorboards. I’d get myself so freaked out that I couldn’t look out the window; when I heard a slight noise, I’d freeze myself to stillness, but Mo would just say Good night Mommy, and roll over.

When I was about 12, I put a stocking over my face (if you don’t already know how scary that looks, I recommend you find a pair of pantyhose right now and try it) and woke my brother up at 3 am. He shit his pants. I didn’t even enjoy it. His reaction, his scream, his profound horror almost gave me a heart attack. He got back at me though when we were in Rhode Island in the summer and hung a noose outside my window.

I’m not scared of that, I yelled from my room to Pete and my cousin Miles who were outside arguing in whispers.

Although I kind of was: a swinging rope outside in the dark was creepy. Pete remedied that the next day by climbing up and trying to make it look as though he hung himself although he slipped and almost really did hang himself.

That would have been really scary.

I’m thinking all these things because Mo and Ryan gave me a book for Christmas called Shake The Devil Off, which is a true story about an Iraq vet who killed his girlfriend, cut her body into pieces, stored them in the fridg and then threw himself off a building. And this is what I read at night before I fall asleep.