Snug Harbor is crisp this October, but not the type of crisp you normally associate with a frosty mid-October evening. After an insanely hot Summer, we’re glad to see Autumn finally come strolling down the road. Except that it seems to have stopped to look at something lying in the ditch along the way. And now it’s chatting with crazy old Mr. Richardson who likes to sit on an old milk crate on his front porch and chew on ginseng roots.

Oh, great. Autumn just pulled up a crate and chomped down on a root of its own. Nevermind that it’s late for work and Summer is starting to get ticked off. There were a couple of tornado touchdowns just a few miles away from Snug Harbor last week. That’s what happens when Summer has to stick around late (four weeks now) because the guy who’s scheduled to close hasn’t shown up for work yet. Somebody needs to say something to the Boss.

Anyway, the undead don’t care if it’s 93 degrees. They’re just glad to be out terrorizing again.

Click here for the Spooky Hollow 2007 Gallery

Category: Stuff  

Zombies awaken from their dusty slumber and muster out for roll call as Autumn arrives and Snug Harbor morphs into Spooky Hollow.

Everything outside has been baking since May and is a nice golden brown. The grass is so dry and dusty that every time a grasshopper jumps another one sneezes. And there, down the road in the neighbor’s front yard is a pumpkin. Two houses in the other direction is a light-up skeleton and some plastic ghosts fluttering around in the tree.

And then there’s our house.

You know how every neighborhood has that one house that everyone talks about at Christmas or Halloween. I’m pretty sure that’s us. We build character for the rest of the neighborhood, or bring down property values depending on who you talk to.

New additions to our happy haunt include a pair of ghastly gourds named the Moth Brothers. They’re a terrible team, a dreadful duo, twin traumas with orange eyes and saw blade teeth. And the flamingos are attracted to them for some bizarre reason. Unbelievably, none of the pink birds have gone missing.

It has been a hot summer, and I mean hot!

But it was worth it. The time and sweat that is invested into these stupid lumps of paper and glue every summer is paid back in full when a kid, riding by on his bike, turns around and comes back to stand at the end of the driveway and stare.

Maybe that will be the magical moment when he realizes that even though he’s going to be too old to trick-or-treat someday, he doesn’t have to leave Halloween behind with his Legos and Star Wars action figures. Halloween doesn’t have to end.

Or he’s gauging how far he can chuck the egg in his pocket and whether he’ll have time to get away before the crazy people come running after him.

Category: Halloween  

“What is Halloween? How did it start? Where? Why? What for?”

The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury is one of my all-time favorite books. A group of boys is whisked across the horizon to the Undiscovered Country in pursuit of their pal Pipkin. They tour the dark history of Halloween and their guide is none other than Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud, a menacing, but ultimately friendly figure of Death who… well, read the book. If you like Halloween without a safety switch, read the book. If you remember what it was like to jump over neighbors’ fences, face covered in greasepaint, a bag filled with candy, read the book.

Now… in 1992 an animated version of The Halloween Tree appeared. If Bradbury’s book is a glass of cherry Koolaid, whoever mixed the cartoon used about half the sugar. Standing on its own, it’s a pretty good story about Halloween, but it doesn’t have quite the edge that this story deserves.

Even so, a Halloween cartoon is a Halloween cartoon. Enjoy!

Hallowen Tree – Part 1
Halloween Tree – Part 2

Halloween Tree – Part 3

Halloween Tree – Part 4

Halloween Tree – Part 5

Halloween Tree – Part 6

Halloween Tree – Part 7

Category: Halloween  

The following is a list of survival tips that should be helpful during the next outbreak of t-virus, rage, radioactive mutant plague, whatever.

You’ve been watching the news and the inexorable advance of the undead as the outbreak approaches your location. At first it was just an unusual diversion on TV – something frightening, but safe because it was happening far away from you and the authorities were doing something about it.

But then things get more serious as the talking heads begin to look scared. The national guard is called out, but they’re overwhelmed. One by one, checkpoints are overrun as infection spreads. What was once a small quarantine zone on the news has suddenly grown much larger. Whole towns are abandoned as the rate of infection grows exponentially and the undead spread at a terrifying rate.

At about the same time that news feeds start to disappear, leaving anchors staring blankly at their monitors, you begin to realize that roadblocks and national guardsmen aren’t going to be enough.

Your local TV station preempts national coverage of the epidemic to announce that the undead have appeared in the streets of your own city. Somebody cranks up the tornado siren over by the fire station and the TV goes to static. Now you’re sitting in your living room staring at a screen full of snow listening to that mournful wail of the sirens in the distance, and it feels like the end of the world.

More >>

— Yes, this is a reprint of a SpookyBlue feature I wrote a long time ago. But it’s still important information to keep handy in case the deaders start to get a little bitey.

Category: Stuff