Blog-o-ween 2024: Day 9

Lots of ‘Salem’s Lot

Part One

Chapter 6: The Lot (II)

Sections 1-4

Sunrise: 6:53 AM

Sunset: 6:25 PM

It is 28 September. It is the day of Danny Glick’s funeral. A line of cars pass through the gates of Harmony Hill Cemetery. (The same gates from which the lifeless body of Win Purinton’s dog, Doc, hung only weeks before.) Many in the town have made the trip to pay their last respects or, in the case of Mabel Werts, to gather intel of a sort. Father Donald Callahan, the local Catholic priest, intends for the service to be quick in order not to prolong the pain of the Glicks.

After the funeral, in which Tony Glick has a breakdown and Marjorie Glick faints dead away,  Mike Ryerson approaches the grave to fill it in. His partner, Royal Snow, has not shown up for work. Funny that. Working alone and with the sun quickly setting, Mike feels as though someone — or something — is watching him. Someone — or something — within Danny Glick’s coffin…

Short and sweet entry today.

We say good-bye to Danny Glick. But not to worry…I have a feeling we will be seeing him again. As will his poor, suffering parents. As will a great many people in town. You just can’t keep a good boy down.

First things first, however — because this is one of those “The Lot” chapters, we get a wide-angle view of the town and its environs. The first section of Chapter 6 is a nice meditation on the change in the seasons. As I write this, we are experiencing fall-like weather here in Southern California. What do I mean by “fall-like” in the land of golden sunshine? Well…

“…[W]hen fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since he last saw you.

“It stays on through October and, in rare years, on into November. Day after day the skies are a clear, hard blue, and the cloud that float across them, always west to east, are calm white ships with gray keels. The wind begins to blow by the day, and it is never still. It hurries you along as you walk the roads, crunching the leaves that have fallen in mad and variegated drift. The wind makes you ache in some place that is deeper than your bones. It may be that it touches something old in the human soul, a chord of race memory that says Migrate or die—migrate or die…”

Yeah, that’s what I mean by “fall-like.”

The quote above is one of the reasons why ‘Salem’s Lot is a fall favorite for me. I’ve lived in a bunch of different places across the United States — I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, but I’ve spent time in Savannah, GA, Raleigh, NC, and Albuquerque, NM. All of these places are quite different from each other topographically and meteorologically speaking, but as soon as days begin to get shorter, they all take on a similar feel. The air gets crisper, and one’s surroundings take on a Norman Rockwell-like nostalgic quality. It doesn’t matter if it’s 40 degrees out or 80. It doesn’t matter where you are, when fall rolls around, the human heart just knows it…and demands pumpkin spiced…well…everything!

Apropos of nothing, but there is another part of that quote that I’ve come to love for no other reason than it makes me think of something else I really enjoy. I don’t know about you, but when I hear the term “race memory” I can’t help but be reminded of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass and the Pit.

Originally broadcast over the BBC as a six-part serial in 1958, Quatermass and the Pit was the third installment of the adventures of Professor Bernard Quatermass, head of the British Experimental Rocket Group. In this serial, the good doctor investigates some strange early human fossils found in a London construction site. Also found nearby is what is at first thought to be an unexploded German V-rocket, but which later is determined to be a UFO!

It seems that Martians had been fiddling around with human development millions of years in the past. Into the human gene pool, the Martians planted their own DNA and through that the race memory of violent purges on Mars that come to life in earthly, human history from time to time as the “wild hunt.”

Asgårdsreien [The Wild Hunt of Odin] (1872) by Peter Nicolai Arbo

As I said, it has nothing to do with ‘Salem’s Lot, but it has connotations to something dark in the depths of the human heart, some nearly forgotten memory that only comes to life at certain times of the year, something that rises from the dead to live again…

Speaking of rising from the dead to live again…how’s about that scene between Mike and Danny Glick? Brr! Scary stuff!

We are about a quarter of the way through ‘Salem’s Lot. We’ve had a lot of suggestive scenes of horror, but nothing much in the way of vampirism has happened. Until now. Mike Ryerson does more than just open the lid of Danny Glick’s casket. As we shall see, poor Mike inadvertently opens the doors to the horrors of the novel proper. Now, we can get down to the nitty and the gritty of ‘Salem’s Lot. No more dancin’ around the hot pie…we got bloodsuckin’ to do!

One quick little aside before we go — in Section 2, as Mike prepares Danny Glick’s grave for Father Callahan’s services, he recalls that that morning his buddy, Royal, wasn’t his usual chipper self. (We all know why Royal is feeling a bit down. Finding evidence of a possible child murder will do that to you.) Mike notes that his friend

“was usually full of little jokes and ditties about the work at hand (cracked, off-key tenor: ‘They wrap you up in a big white sheet, an’ put you down at least six feet…’)…”

The lyrics may vary from region to region, but those of you weaned on Alvin Schwartz’s seminal work Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark will immediately recognize the cadence those words carry. Royal is singing “The Hearse Song,” and according to Schwartz the song goes thusly:

The tune and lyrics to this song are quite old. The first known version was included by Matthew Lewis (no relation…though I wish!) in his 1796 gothic novel The Monk. American and British soldiers sang it in the trenches during the First World War. The poet and folk singer, Carl Sandburg, collected two versions of “The Hearse Song” in his 1927 book The American Songbag.

Poor Royal Snow was in good company and probably didn’t even know it.

Let’s break there for the day, kiddies. Tomorrow, we will finish talking about Part 1, Chapter 6: The Lot (II), Sections 5-9. We will discover the identity of “the boy” from the Prologue. We’ll talk rats at the dump with Dud. Why, we may even get to meet a certain antique dealer’s silent partner. But most of all, we will remember to…

Blog-o-ween 2023: The Urban Legends of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

We began this year’s Blog-o-ween 2023 by talking about one of the most famous and often-told oral tales out there, “The Hook.” It’s a tale that’s been cataloged and studied by folklorists, collected by anthologists, and even had its moment of cinematic stardom when it was used in the 1979 Bill Murray film, Meatballs. Not bad for a little cautionary tale about the dangers of parking and smooching...and allowing inmates at a hospital for the criminally insane to continue to wear their prosthetic stainless steel hooks.

Someone’s gonna lose their job over that decision.

For many kids, the tale of “The Hook” is best remembered as being a part of Alvin Schwartz’s 1981 folklore collection Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. That book was the culmination of years of research by Schwartz at the Firestone Library at Princeton University, as well as countless interviews the author conducted with many sources. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark brought together many types of legends, folklore and songs, both scary and silly. There were ghost stories, tales that ended with a jump scare, stories about witchcraft and voodoo, and that old ditty about death, “The Hearse Song.”

But my favorite stories were the ones gathered under the chapter heading, “Other Dangers.” As Schwartz notes in his introduction:

“Most of the scary stories in this book have been passed down over the years. But the ones in this chapter have been told only in recent times. They are stories that young people often tell about dangers we face in our lives today.”

“The Hook” is just one of these tales. Today, we are going to look at the other urban legends Schwartz collected. These are tales that you’ve probably heard over the years, and they are usually prefaced with “This really happened to my friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s cousin’s classmate...”. Heck, maybe you yourself have told them. (Maybe you’re the friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s cousin’s classmate! You do exist!) One or two of the following stories, like “The Hook” had their day in the cinematic sun.

Let’s go!

“The White Satin Evening Gown” is the tale of a poor girl who gets invited to a dance, but cannot afford a new dress. So, she goes to a pawn shop and finds the most beautiful white satin gown. It fits like a glove (natch), and she rents it for the evening. That night, she is the belle of the ball. She dances with everyone, and works up quite a sweat doing so. After the dance, she goes home and goes straight to bed. Unfortunately, she doesn’t wake up again. She’s dead! An autopsy discovers that embalming fluid on the gown entered her bloodstream through her perspiration (is that a thing?). They trace the dress to the pawn shop, and the pawnbroker says that he bought the dress from a undertaker who had taken it off a dead woman.

This story has got it all: the Cinderella-like set-up, the short-lived happiness, the death of the girl, and slightest suggestion of necrophilia (why else is the undertaker taking the clothing off of a young woman’s corpse, I ask you?). It also plays on that most American of fears — not being able to afford something new, so you get something used, and it ends up killing you. Caveat emptor, indeed!

“High Beams” is the story of a young high school student driving home from a basketball game. As she pulls out of the parking lot, she notices a truck following her. She thinks nothing of it, until the driver begins flashing their high beams at her. She tries to speed up and put distance between them, but the driver follows and flashes his headlights. She passes other cars. The truck follows and flashes its lights. She finally gets home and rushes into her house. The police are called, and when they arrive to arrest the man in the truck, he tells them that he was trying to warn the girl of a danger much closer to her than his truck. The police investigate and find a man with a knife crouched down in the back seat of her car. Every time he rose up to kill the girl, the truck driver flashed his high beams.

Again, this is a story that just about everyone has heard at one time or another. Even though it’s kind of ludicrous in its set-up, it works because it plays on the very real fears and dangers felt by women in our society. What woman hasn’t felt as though she were being followed...heck, what woman hasn’t BEEN followed by a mysterious man, whether it’s on foot as she returns to her parked car or in a truck as she makes her way home? Sad, but oh so true.

If this scenario sounds familiar, it’s because it’s been used in countless movies and TV shows. The 1959 Twilight Zone episode “Perchance to Dream” (based on a short story by Blog-o-ween 2023 alumnus Charles Beaumont) makes passing mention of “that woman who was killed by a psychopath hiding in the back seat of her car.” The made-for-tv movie Nightmares (1983) depicts the tale. On a 1992 episode of The Simpsons, Otto the bus driver tells Lisa the tale as a bedtime story. (Good luck getting to sleep after that one, Lisa!) Perhaps most famously, “the killer in the backseat” trope was used to open the 1998 nu-slasher Urban Legend.

Last, but certainly not least, is “The Babysitter.” This one, along with “The Hook,” is probably the most well-known urban legend out there. And it’s well-known for a reason: it plays on the fears of every kid who’s ever been left alone at home — either your own or someone else’s — and charged with the responsibility of taking care of someone younger than you — a sibling, a relative, or just the kids next door. It’s one thing to accidentally spill Dr. Pepper on Mrs. Watkins’s new couch. It’s quite another to have what’s spilled be thicker and more red than mere pop...and I ain’t talking about Cherikee Red, friend-o.

The story goes like this: one night a babysitter and her two charges are sitting together in the living room and watching TV. The phone rings, and a man on the other end of the line laughs maniacally. The babysitter writes it off as a crank call. The phone rings again. It’s the laughing man again. He tells her, “One more hour!” The babysitter is scared. An hour later, the phone rings again, and the man tells the babysitter, “Pretty soon now!” The babysitter calls the operator to complain. The operator tells her that they will trace the call the next time. The next time comes pretty soon. The man calls and says, “Very soon now!” The babysitter hangs up, but the phone rings again immediately. It’s the operator. “We’ve traced the call,” the operator says. “It’s coming from another line inside the house!”

Woo! That’s an oldie, but a goodie! Like “High Beams,” the strength of the story is in the fact that the danger isn’t far away — it’s right behind you or it’s right upstairs. Technology collapses distance. While the telephone made it much easier to reach out and touch someone we loved with a phone call (so long as it was made after hours when long-distance rates were much lower), it also made it easier for those who have less affectionate ideas in mind to reach into our homes, our safe spaces, and touch us right back. It was just possible that a maniac could pick up the phone and let his fingers do the walking...through our disemboweled innards!

The tale of “The Babysitter” or “the phone call is coming from inside the house” trope has been used many times in movies and TV. Bob Clark used it to superb effect in his 1974 film Black Christmas. Anyone who has seen that holiday slasher can never forget the sounds the caller makes during his phone calls.

Most famously, the trope was used as the set-up to the 1979 film When a Stranger Calls, starring Carol Kane as the put-upon babysitter. Many people remember that scene, but few recall that that wasn’t the whole film. It was only the first twenty minutes or so.

Director Fred Walton and his co-writer Steve Feke had based their feature on a short film they made two years earlier called The Sitter. This short consisted solely of the babysitter being harassed on the phone. Even then, in my own humble opinion, I think it goes on a beat too long. The arrival of the police seem an unnecessary addition. I mean, once you learn that the killer was calling from inside the house, what more do you need to show? After the babysitter learns the truth from the operator, cut to the light filling the stairwell behind her. The end. Watch the film below, and let me know what you think. Does the ending work for you?

Well, that’s all for today, Blog-o-weeners. Hope you enjoyed these urban legends. Don’t let them stay on the page (be it a web page or one made of paper). Pick ‘em up, pass ‘em around, and put your own spin on ‘em. Now that we have cell phones, how would that change what happens in “The Babysitter” or “High Beams”? Make the stories fit your life and your circumstances. Let them present your fears in new ways. That’s the fun of telling these stories after all. Well, that and...the pleasant dreams they give us. Hmmmm? Heh-heh-heh!

Blog-o-ween 2023: "The Hook"

Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome to LARPing Real Life’s Blog-o-ween 2023! Glad you could make it, even after listening to yesterday’s prologue —— BBC Four’s adaptation of Stephen King’s ’Salem’s Lot. It was pretty good, right? Pretty scary, too, huh? Well for Blog-o-ween’s first official entry, you should probably double-knot the laces of your shoes, because this one is going to knock your socks off! Let’s begin this year’s Blog-o-ween by celebrating one of the simplest, most direct, most effective horror stories ever told: “The Tale of the Hook.”

“The Hook,” or “The Hookman” is an urban legend, one of those stories passed from person to person, usually beginning with the words “What I’m about to tell you really happened, and it happened not far from here...” You know, the kind of story whose details slightly shift depending on who is telling it. A story that is told around a campfire or in a darkened bedroom during a sleepover, preferably with a lit flashlight held below the chin. Stephen King, in his 1981 history of horror Danse Macabre, called this tale “the most basic horror story I know,” and my rendition of it goes something like this:

This guy and girl are out on a date. They drive out to Lover’s Lane and start to cuddle and kiss. The guy has the radio on so’s they can listen to romantic music while they make-out. Suddenly, the radio announcer breaks into the broadcast and says that an insane killer has escaped from the local sanitarium and was last seen heading south. Towards the Lover’s Lane area, natch. The announcer says to be on the look-out for a man who stands well over six feet, weighs over 250 pounds, and has a sharpened hook instead of a right hand.

The girl gets scared, but the guy says not to worry. They go back to necking, but the girl hears something outside. Something like the branches of the underbrush being moved around. She wants to leave. There’s nothing out there, the guy says, and they start smooching again. The girl breaks it off. This time she says she hears the sound of sticks snapping under foot. Can’t we go, she asks the guy. The guy says it was nothing, and besides, if it was anything, he’d protect her, wouldn’t he? So they start kissing again. And then the girl stops again, because this time she says she’s heard something scratching against her door. She demands to be taken home.

The guy is fed up by this point. He starts the car, slams it into reverse, and then peels out, driving off like a drag racer. They get to the girl’s house. The guy goes around the car to open her door. He turns white as a sheet and faints dead away. The girl gets out of the car to see if the guy is all right. When she closes her door, she hears something thud against the side of the car. When she looks back, she sees hanging there on the handle of the door a bloody hook!

That’s just sheer perfection, is it not? I told that story just off the top of my head. I think I hit all the necessary plot points. Maybe you’ve heard the story, too? Heard it in a different way, perhaps, with different details, but essentially the same in its shape. As King says,

“The story of The Hook is a simple, brutal classic of horror. It offers no characterization, no theme, no particular artifice; it does not aspire to symbolic beauty or try to summarize the times, the mind, or the human spirit...No, the story of The Hook exists for one reason and one reason alone: to scare the shit out of little kids after the sun goes down.”

What other reason do you need, really?

Jan Harold Brunvand collected “The Tale of the Hook” in his 1981 book The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings. One of the sources of the urban legend, Brunvand discovered, was a letter published on Tuesday, November 8, 1960, in a nationally syndicated newspaper column by Abigail Van Buren, better known as Dear Abby.

In said letter, a young woman tells an even more abbreviated version of the story. The young woman starts her tale by saying “I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but it doesn’t matter because it served its purpose for me.” and ends it with “I don’t think I will ever park to make out as long as I live. I hope this does the same for other kids.” Brunvand goes on to trace the story back further, into the 1950s, to the post-war years when the Baby Boomers were just hitting adolescence, as well as the road. With their newfound mobility and freedom, kids headed off to out of the way places like their local Lover’s Lane and the local drive-in movie theater in their cars. “The Tale of the Hook,” then, as the young woman points out in her letter to Dear Abby, served as a way to scare those kids straight. You want go off alone and make whoopee in the back seat of your car? Fine, go right ahead, but be warned there’s an escaped maniac out there just look for an easy kill!

Also in 1981 (What is it with that year? Why so many discussions about spooky stories?), folklorist Alvin Schwartz included the story in his groundbreaking collection of oral tales for kids, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Accompanied by some of the most disturbing illustrations ever set down on paper by Stephen Gammell, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark helped take the “sleep” out of sleepovers for an entire generation of kids.

(We will be coming back to Schwartz and his collection of oral tales and legends later in the month. Be on the lookout for stories like “The White Satin Evening Gown” and that classic “The Babysitter.”)

One of my favorite renditions of “The Hook” is from the 1979 summer camp film Meatballs. In it, Bill Murray plays head counselor Tripper who has a gaggle of wet-behind-the-ears CITs (Counselors-In-Training) out on a weekend camping trip. Around the campfire, Tripper shares the story of “The Hook,” and you gotta admit...it's a doozy:

Tomorrow, we'll take a look at a short story by Robert Bloch. Until then...pleasant dreams...hmmm? Heh-heh-heh!