Dear Readers,

Another Halloween is upon us! I want to take this time to thank everyone who supported my books this year. Hope your autumn is magical.

🧡 Jan

Wolf

Wolf (1994) is an American romantic horror film which stars Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, and James Spader. It’s currently free on Amazon Prime. This modern take on the werewolf is definitely vivid. It could be the perfect movie fix for Halloween!

 

Autumn arrived in my town!

The Blue Hour

There was talk of murder in the old house when I bought it in the late summer of 1975. It seems decades earlier a woman had escaped from an institution and shot a man. Maybe a wife...or girlfriend.

And now...there was a ghost.

But the house was empty when I moved in except for an old army uniform hanging in an upstairs bedroom closet.

The house was Gothic Revival, and I taught music at a private college in North Carolina.

Lauren, my grad assistant moved in with me at the time, but didn't stay long. "Something in there," she later said, "was watching me."

I didn't notice anything.

Then one night while a frost creeped along the alleyway - I woke up. I looked at the clock. It was a quarter past two.

Music seeped in under the door and in the dim light, I saw snow drifting from the ceiling. It accumulated in the folds of my blanket.

Moments later it was morning.

It was just a dream I told myself the next day.

Later that evening, an intoxicating smell of burning leaves filled the air. I had papers to grade but stepped out onto the front porch first to smoke. The sun was setting and from my perch I saw the brick buildings down the hill in town silhouetted against the blue hour.

A woman sitting in the creases of the impending darkness on my porch swing startled me as I turned to go back in.

She began talking in mid-sentence, as though we had been briefly interrupted. I expected her to say she was a neighbor or student of mine, but she didn't. She referred to herself as Jean. She spoke about another conversation with a man from another town at a different time. I let her talk. She seemed to know me, and I didn't want to be rude. She loved music and after an hour or so I felt I had known Jean my whole life. 

There was an elementary school down the street, and we ran toward it. We played on the swings and slides like children. Under the clear cool moon Jean spun the merry-go-round and jumped on. In a burst of laughter, she yelled, "Come on!"

But I didn't move.

The merry-go-round spun faster and faster until I could no longer see her at all. I only heard her laughter. It echoed into the trees and for a single moment I was terrified.

When the spinning stopped, she looked at me with her enormous eyes and shivered.

We walked back toward my house, but it wasn't until I reached the steps that I noticed I was alone. A figure made its way down Second Street and I assumed she had gone home.

I put my papers away and watched the news. Later as I got into bed I thought about Jean.

Sleep didn't come easy.

At 2:30 I heard a gunshot. It left a ringing in my ears. I walked out into the hall and heard music drifting. Farther down I saw a light coming from a room I used as a study. I pushed the door open and saw Jean sitting on the couch.

"Didn't mean to scare you," she said, smoke curling around her black hair. She looked surreal in a pink sleeveless dress holding an unlit cigarette. Her thin milky arms were translucent in the low light as she draped one across the back of the couch.

I gathered my senses. "What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you."

I looked across the low light at her pale skin. Her dark eyes fell silent and in that moment I knew what she was.

She pulled a worn photograph from a crack in the wall. It was of soldiers from a war. Her translucent finger brushed across the paper stopping at one face.

"Here you are," she said.

I looked at the photograph. At the soldiers. The face she had pointed to wasn't me, and I told her so.

She laughed hysterically.

And then the room went silent.

From: The Blue Hour: Flash Fiction

Available on Amazon

Photo: Pixabay

In The Woods

 As we crossed the field and entered the woods there was no sound from the road. The October day had been full of rain and the trees pulled the darkness close.

There wasn’t much to say. I mean, no one wanted to talk about Frances Howard’s murder, so we walked in silence. Up ahead past the curve someone smashed a pumpkin against a tree.

They said there was nothing Frances could do when the murderer came to her house. She was old and couldn’t get out of bed. But no one thought she would die like that. Her eyes carved into a permanent expression of fear. And we didn’t know why.

But we had the fear. Everyone did.

When we got to the other side of the woods we saw the road ahead. A slender man with a razor smile stepped out onto our path.

We trembled.

“Even the young can never escape,” he said, his black eyes biting our cheeks. Then he handed us a picture.

It was of Frances Howard. Dead.

We shoved our way past him and ran out to the road. We didn’t stop running until we got to town. It was hard for us to catch our breath.

Then we looked at the picture again.

And it was a picture of us. In the woods.

From The Blue Hour: Flash Fiction

Available on Amazon

The Skeleton Dance - Walt Disney - 1929

Witches

Wicked cold

Halloween old

Werewolf itch

Cat tails twitch

Broomsticks in flight

Knuckles that might

Knock on your door

Ghostly lore

Dreadful night

Screams with fright

Wrinkled up skin

Let us

Come 

In !!

From Autumn Poetry: A Collection for the Season

Available on Amazon

How Dare I

It’s one summer night

and I’m walking down a dark road.

Not because I live some place remote,

but because I can.

Probably not a good idea.

But no reckless car has passed by.

There are no strange sounds. 

I only hear the owls.

Still - I have no flashlight, and I start to wonder -

why am I doing this?

Then I remember - I love challenges.

I’m wearing short sleeves and shorts.

Mosquitoes buzz my ears.

Only a crazy person would do this I tell myself.

I step into a hole and my shoe gets soaked.

I remember that it rained the night before.

 

I left my car a mile back.

It didn’t break down.

I remember there’s an empty building up ahead.

What am I trying to prove?

I reach the building, the door is open.

With the help of the moonlight through a window

I find a tattered chair.

I sit down and hope there aren’t any snakes.

Just close your eyes.

Sleep for a while I say -

then you can walk back.

So, I sleep.

And when I wake it's morning.

I tell myself - see

you do like challenges.

I now feel invincible.

I start walking back to my car.

I think about getting breakfast at Panera.

Celebrate my bravery.

I see a car coming toward me.

It bounces across the ridges

and ruts in the road.

My car behind it is coming into view.

I breathe easy.

I stay to the side of the road.

Soon the car coming toward me

will pass.

But it doesn’t.

And when it gets closer

I see a man behind a cracked windshield

with a gun pointed right at me.

I ask myself –

are challenges really that important?

2024 (c) Jan Darrow

Dear Readers, 

Happy autumn. I’m looking forward to the changing leaves and cooler temperatures. I love this time of the year! How about you?

Tonight

the river is saffron

like the sun

arranged in bolts 

of heavy silk

and wild gold flowers

the color seeps

between trees 

and strands of dark

while along the bank 

reeds melt into the dusk 

clearing way 

for the stars

(C) Jan Darrow 2024

The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James was a 12 part series (gothic fiction) which was featured in Collier’s Weekly from January until April of 1898. It is a ghost story I’ve been meaning to read for a very long time. The story is told by a governess who comes to believe that the two children she is in charge of are visited by two former employees who died. The question is..are they really being haunted? Or is the governess descending into some kind of madness. See what you think! I do recommend!

The Lodger

The Lodger - 1927

Well..you know I love Alfred Hitchcock movies. And, I thought I had seen them all - but evidently not! I just finished this and I absolutely love it.

If you like silent films and you like mystery, you will love this Alfred Hitchcock mystery as much as I do!