This might have been a mistake

If you know me, you’re well aware that I love anything horror-related – with the exception of clowns – and thrive on dark fantasy fiction, both in print and on the screen. It’s only logical, since I’m a member of the Haunted Trail group in Holcombe, a coordinator of the annual Spooky Stacker Stomp and liberally decorate for the festive Halloween holiday, as early as I can get away with it in the office. At home...well, let’s just say that a few decorations might be up all year long. I love movies that make me jump and scream, as well as scary books. Anyway, this past weekend, I went on a “that’s it, I’m tossing everything” kick and started sorting through books I haven’t read. Not going to lie, I have four big stacks of them piled up in the house, but I’ve only scratched the surface, so far. Since a lot of them are young adult books, I was able to weed through them pretty quickly, as the print is big and the plots weren’t long, but I learned something while doing it. I REALLY need to read the ghost/horror books during the daytime. I was so engrossed in the one book, I couldn’t put it down, the one night. “Night” is the key word. I didn’t even start the book until about 11 p.m., and by the time I finished it, it was well after midnight. The witching hour, I thought. Immediately, I heard a noise. Please be a mouse, I prayed. Another noise. Two mice? Wait, what was that shadow that passed over? If you haven’t figured it out by now, I was in plain old scaredy cat mode. I pulled my feet up on the couch and shivered (could be that I had the air set on 66 degrees), wondering how I could ever go to bed and rest comfortably (I slept a solid nine hours straight). If it hadn’t been so late at night, I was tempted to call one of the neighbor guys to come over and walk me into the dark rooms to turn the lights on, which, in itself, would have been an oxymoron, since I would have had to leave the lighted living room and travel through two pitch black rooms, to unlock the door so they could come in. Zach, Dan, Terry, Mike, Jason, Nick, you lucked out this time. Don’t be a chicken, I told myself. So, not wanting to be thought of as poultry, I pushed myself off the couch and did the only thing I could think of. I raced to the bathroom, then the bedroom, turning on all the lights and singing at the top of my lungs, to show any spirits I wasn’t afraid. To any neighbors who may have heard me slaughtering Wicked songs, I do apologize, but I never claimed to be a great singer; I was just trying not to die of a self-inflicted fright. However, I survived the ordeal and made sure I did not repeat the infraction. I kept to that, too. The next night, I read my ghost books, then read Diary of a Wimpy Kid, to switch the tone before I headed for bed. See? I’m no dummy.