🎃 What I Am Reading for Halloween: "Penpal" by Dathan Auerbach
I'm glad I saved this book for last in my Halloween pile, even though it turned out to be a re-read for me. This is a bound version of what actually started out as a creepypasta (essentially an internet horror story, perhaps presented as true) on Reddit, which you can read here, and it gives me a chance to talk about creepypastas a bit.
The story is a series of posts recounting bizarre incidents in the narrator's childhood, which he eventually pieces together (with some additional info and context from his mother) to learn that he was the victim of a stalker. I won't say any more, because I'd encourage you (yes, you!) to just go ahead and read the story.
The reason it is fitting is because I find myself consuming a considerable amount of internet horror during Allhallowtide. This might come as a surprise to some who know that I am often skeptical of internet culture, but I think creepypasta can be very good, if it is presented in the right manner. I don't like creepypasta that is explicitly presented as creepypasta and posted on a forum or wiki explicitly for creepypasta for the benefit of other creepypasta writers. I like to encounter organic, free-range creepypasta, or creepypasta in the wild, almost like an ARG. I’ve been perusing the site The Ghost in my Machine, which I found earlier this year while reading the Six Stories novels, and have found that the writer, Lucia Peters, does a pretty good job of chasing the origins of stories back to their earliest iteration,. This can add a layer of interest to even the hacked out or formulaic items. When a story did arise organically or was initially presented with a straight face, this folkloric archaeology is really just the next generation of the work that Jan Harold Brunvand does chasing down urban legends.
With Halloween tomorrow, I will leave you with notes on some of my other favorite creepypastas. Read these at night, when you are alone in the house:
The Books of Sand, which I still hold out hopes for future updates to, is presented as transcriptions from notebooks that a younger brother found; written by his older brother and friends as they searched out "weird shit" in their unnamed Latin American city. Like Penpal, it conjures the sensation of dimly-remembered but fondly-recalled childhood adventures, when the world is a bigger and scarier place (be sure to read oldest-to-newest).
Calgary's Giden Keys, a guide to strange and magical spots in Calgary. It has less stress on the horror content; as far as anyone can tell, a "Gideon key" is a magical formula executed by reciting passages from Gideon's Bible in a specific order in order to grant a boon. These follow the formula of an objective accomplished, though usually with a more sinister cast.
Finally, the one I intend to check out myself this Halloween was found from The Ghost in my Machine (which again has a much more extensive list, as well as many other fun things). Who Is Ed Kann is dedicated to the search for the barely-documented author of a widely-loathed horror story, "The Noise Coming from Inside Children."
Did It Scare Me?
It was chilling the first time, on Reddit.
(Happy Halloween).