Autumn Lives Here- Vol. 1
An Introduction: There Will Be Cobwebs and Candy
Summer is the worst. It's a sticky awful hell and I hate it. Let's start with that.
At first glance it makes no sense to launch a blog or newsletter, whatever this is, all about Autumn and Halloween during the hottest part of the year. The season when we're giving the sun the finger as we run from house to car. On the other hand, it makes all the sense in the world, because I'm white-knuckling it until we get to a month that has “er” in the ending. So this may be a project born of spite, along with my adoration for all things Autumn. Mostly the Autumn part.
Work with me here. Get yourself into a dark room, turn a fan on high, and escape to Autumn. All year long. Gray skies and chilly nights. Apple picking and maple festivals, pumpkin cakes and cocktails, haunted houses, costumes, creepy short stories, book reviews, Halloween events, tv specials and horror movies, and bowls of fun-sized candies. The kind that make you feel like you're having just a bite but you've actually eaten two full-sized Hershey bars, a Butterfinger, three Snickers and a theater sized box of Runts.
I'm Jennifer and I've been hosting an Autumn-long party on a book cataloging site for nearly ten years, in addition to hosting spooky group reads, so that's why you'll find lots of scary and seasonal book reviews here. I read 100 books a year, minimum, and though not all of that number are spooky, you'll find all the seasonal reads here.
My cakes and cookies have won lots of blue ribbons at my state fair, and I like maple so much that I wrote a book about it, so that's why you'll find recipes for sweets and other Autumn foods here. The cocktails are just because I like 'em.
I've been reading true crime since I was a kid, 300 years ago. Growing up, my little local library had a series of books of Scotland Yard murder cases, along with quite a collection of other books on crime. Why? And who read them besides an elementary school girl who had been voted “weirdest” in her Brownie troop? Dunno, but it started a life-long interest in true crime and that's why I'm going to recount some true crime to you. Sorry.
I have a Scare Scale, scientifically proven to weigh the amount of fright a book contains and makes it easy to see if a book is right for you. I read across the genre, from Goosebumps to Stephen King. This scale is intended only to measure the amount of scare, not the overall quality of the book.
Official Scare Scale
*Scare Scale 1- Not scary at all, but may not be intended to be scary, such as a cookbook. Like watching Scooby Doo, a 1 won't keep you awake.
*SS2- Some tension and maybe a jump scare or two, like eating a bran muffin before an important meeting.
*SS3- Good scares or high tension. Think Shirley Jackson.
*SS4- Randall Flagg is chasing you. Stop crying.
You'll also come across travel and event information here. My giant and I like to attend events like the Sleepy Hollow Jack O' Lantern Blaze, or the Halloween parade in downtown Las Vegas.
I hope you'll return again and again, try a recipe, find your next read, or just have a laugh. Your comments are always welcome as long as you admire everything I do and agree with everything I say.
Whether you like the sweet or the scary parts of Autumn, there's something for you here.
It's time to open the doors to Autumn. Let the season begin.
Get It In The Ground
If you plan on growing your own pumpkins from seed this year, you need to sow them now while we're still in early-ish summer. Most squash seeds take 90-120 days from sowing to harvest, so as long as all chance of frost is over, it's time to start.
You'll need moist, rich soil and a spot that gets eight full hours of sun, and while most varieties need plenty of room to spread out and grow to the size of about a basketball, you can grow mini varieties of pumpkins in a container on a small balcony. You can even train pumpkins vines to grow up a trellis, cutting down further on how much room you'll need.
Remember to provide an inch of water per week but to water without wetting the leaves, which will result in mildew. A spout type watering can or a soaker hose work best, and once the pumpkin begins to form, you'll need to raise it out of the dirt on a platform or ledge so that it doesn't soften on the underside and rot.
For small spaces, look for seeds of the New England Pie variety, probably the most popular cooking variety. It grows to around 8 lbs. You can grow the even smaller Jack Be Little, with fruit that reaches 3-4 inches across when mature. These are often bought for decoration but they are edible and make perfect soup bowls.
Find seeds of the Jack O' Lantern variety to grow a mid-sized pumpkin of 10-18 lbs that is good for both cooking and carving.
A large pumpkin variety that looks good in a display is the Cinderella. It has a flatter appearance, sweet flesh and averages around 23 lbs. Downside is that it doesn't store as well as most varieties.
Jumbo pumpkins are what you find in pumpkin competitions, weighing in at 400 lbs for a small entry. Growing a jumbo requires lots of attention but it's become a popular and lucrative hobby. You probably won't find the seed variety required to grow one of these at your average nursery, so shop online.
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in Missouri sells Big Max variety seeds. This variety over grows to over 100 lbs, and is good for baking lots and lots of pies or for decorations. https://www.rareseeds.com/
The Atlantic Giant is the variety grown by world pumpkin growing champ Ron Wallace, who has produced pumpkins over 2000 lbs. https://wallacewow.com/
Growing your own is really the only way to ensure it's sincere enough for The Great Pumpkin.
Something Like News
Tim Burton has a Netflix series coming this fall. Wednesday will be an update of the Wednesday Addams character featuring Jenna Ortega in the title role, Luis Guzman as Gomez, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia, and Christina Ricci will have an as yet unnamed role.
Rob Zombie's The Munsters will be in theaters this Halloween. It stars Jeff Daniel Phillips as Herman, Sheri Moon Zombie as Lily, Daniel Roebuck as Grandpa, with appearances by Cassandra Peterson and Pat Priest, who played Marilyn in the original show.
What We Do in the Shadows returns for the 4th season on July 12th on FX. I'm waiting to see who has to change baby Colin Robinson's diapers.
We would usually start seeing Autumn and Halloween merch in certain national chains such as Michael's, At Home, JoAnne Fabrics and Home Goods by now. These tend to be the really early stockers (stalkers?) of seasonal stuff, but so far, I haven't spotted a single fabric leaf. No doubt that shipping problems are to blame. Comment below if you've found Autumn near you.
Spooky Booky
HORRORSTOR by Grady Hendrix Quirk Books, 2014
Genres have their tropes, and horror is no exception. Monsters, the supernatural, demons, serial killers, and then there are the sub-genres of each...quick, count off all the “ghost with unfinished business” stories you can.
My favorite is the haunted house story, a set-up that can be a prim Victorian setting or contemporary, featuring a lone fleer or, as in this book, a whole buncha fleers. That's what I'm calling these poor characters, as “victim” doesn't seem to fit when there's a good chance the character will survive, and “haunted”, as in being actively pursued by the supernatural, makes me picture a ghost super-gluing themselves to the living characters and riding them like horse jockeys.
As you can see from the book cover, this is a modern setting that doesn't take place in a house but in the retail facility that sells mass-market home furnishings. ORSK is an IKEA knock-off selling even cheaper minimalist furniture and home goods. The facility is massive, the employees a range of personalities as you'd find in any retail staff: some love their jobs and see opportunities while others are hoping it's temporary, a paycheck until something better comes along. As with any mega-corporation, the customer's visits have been calculated in every way, from how long the average visit to how much is spent in the average visit. The employees are encouraged to memorize the statistics.
The Cuyahoga County, Ohio store employs Basil, a by-the-book Assistant Manager, Ruth Anne, a middle-aged cashier who loves her co-workers and customers, and Trinity and Matt, younger employees who are convinced the store is haunted because the morning crew keeps finding stinky, stained furniture when they open. Then there's Amy, desperate to hold onto an unfulfilling job because it's the only thing keeping a roof over her head, but not reliable enough to show up for work on time.
It's this unreliability that gives Amy her first fright, because when she is called into Basil's office that morning she's convinced she's going to be fired. But then, why would Ruth Anne, the store's most cheerful cashier, also be there waiting? It turns out that Basil needs two employees to help him that night, with the plan being that the three will be locked into the store until morning, searching the premises for what Basil suspects is a trespasser hiding in the cavernous store before closing and having fun all night ruining the merchandise with poop. Basil had asked several other employees to help him but had been turned down, and Amy is so relieved that she isn't fired that she agrees. And because it pays double overtime. Ruth Anne agrees because she's a dedicated employee.
They soon get their first surprise, being joined by Trinity and Matt, laden with motion detectors and infrared cameras for the ghost hunting video they plan on filming in the store. They believe this is their shot at fame. Despite Basil's best intentions of following corporate policy for employee safety, despite Amy and Ruth Anne's plan to make minimal effort while collecting some easy overtime, they find that ORSK's problems go deeper than a trespasser. The night turns to terror, with each department of affordable home furnishings becoming a place to hide, and in some cases, the last place an employee will ever be seen.
This was the first Hendrix book I'd ever read, though it wasn't his first book. I recently read it again and it gave me just as much of a thrill because it's both scary and funny while also being an original spin on the haunted house trope. The reader is taken through the mundane company culture that is ORSK, complete with furniture drawings and product blurbs that run the gamut from the Drittsekk, “...a storage solution and a place to rest, a modular seating arrangement that transforms even the smallest space into a wide-open room.” to the Kraanjk, “a rustic handle mounted on resistance gears to encourage eternal turning. Enter a meditative state of despair...”
Contemporary readers will laugh at the familiar corporate mantras, where every conceivable action has a solution in the official handbook except for the things the employees find on this night. No HR problem solving is going to save them, though it seems like the company's employee handbook would like to remind employees that policies must be obeyed even if evil forces are trying to kill them.
At the same time, these terrorized employees are working at ORSK because they need to. Amy in particular experiences this horror because she is the definition of the working poor, right on the edge of being kicked out of her apartment, while Matt and Trinity hope to engage with a spirit so they can become famous and leave retail work behind. It makes this story more relatable to modern readers than the standard “your rich uncle has left you his mansion” story. It truly delivers the scares while also presenting the everyday worries of its characters. As the reader is assured on the book flap, “...Horrorstor delivers the psychological terror you need in the elegant package you deserve.”
Rating- SS4. You're gonna sleep with the lights on.
Look for Hendrix's next book, How To Sell a Haunted House, out July 12th.
True Crime!
The Andrews family home.
The Andrews Family Haunting
I have to talk about this because it's about the most twisted story I've ever heard. And it's true.
In 1986 the Andrews family was living in Townsend, Massachusetts, a small town in the northwest of the state. Incorporated in 1732, the town retains much of its Colonial history, and even now the population remains under 10,000, yet it has produced two state governors. And one of the accusers in the Salem witch trials lived there as an adult.
The Andrews family had an older traditional New England style home. From the street it was a barn style two-storied home with a dark shingled roof coming halfway down to sit right on top of the front door, with the matching dark wood frame running in horizontal slats the bottom half.
The family consisted of father Brian and his two daughters, fifteen year-old Annie and eight year-old Jessica. Their mother, Brian's wife, had recently died of cancer, leaving the family grief-stricken. Her loss figures prominently in this story.
The girls were grieving but they were still kids, so when a teenage boy called Annie unexpectedly, she listened as he explained that they had mutual friends who had given him her phone number. He lived in the neighborhood and had seen her, then asked friends fo her number. She was flattered and felt comfortable that they knew the same kids, even though she couldn't place him. He described himself to her: tall, blonde and athletic, but she still couldn't remember seeing him, but he was nice and a welcome distraction. He called a few more times before asking her out.
When Danny came to pick Annie up for their date he looked nothing like he'd described. Here was a boy with dark, greasy hair and a thin build. He might have been average looking if not for the severe acne, but Annie didn't know how to address the obvious lies so she went to the fair with him. During that date she noticed that he wasn't as well-mannered as he'd been on the phone. Somehow the topic of her mother's death was brought up and Danny became intensely interested. He kept returning to the subject and went so far as to ask Annie to describe her feelings when she learned her mother had died. Annie was so creeped out by him that she left the fair on her own after about an hour.
At home, Annie and Jessica decided to hold a séance in their basement, just the two of them, trying to contact their mother. Nothing happened. But later, when Annie went to bed, she heard knocking on her bedroom wall. They had done it, their mother was responding.
The nightly knocking would continue for months, then the haunting escalated. The girls noticed that their things were being moved, they were certain that belongings were being rearranged. Eventually they were coming home to find the furniture moved from one side of the room to the other. Now they were convinced that their séance hadn't put them in touch with their mother but had actually brought an evil entity into their house. They were frightened enough that they finally told their dad what was happening, who naturally interpreted their story as expressions of grief that were coming out in an unusual way. The girls were either making this story up completely or desperately seeing signs of the supernatural in the hope that their mother was still near.
Christmas and the New Year of 1987 passed. On a January night, after months of knocking and moved items, the girls were home alone. The knocking began but it wasn't in the bedroom as usual. The girls determined that it was coming from the basement. They took a kitchen knife and went down the stairs together. On the basement wall, written in blood, was the message I'm in your room. Come and find me. The girls fled to a neighbor's house and called Brian. When he arrived he listened to their latest ghost story and decided to send his daughters to counseling.
The knocking subsided for the next few weeks and the girls must have wondered if they had indeed imagined it. But it started up suddenly one night, again while Brian wasn't home.
The girls followed the sound to its source, Annie's room. Written in blood on the wall was I'm back. Find me if you can. Terrified, the girls fled again to the neighbors and called Brian. He arrived determined to prove to his daughters that their home wasn't haunted. He listened to their story and to the neighbor, who had gone into the home and saw the wall. Brian went straight to his house. He could tell right away that someone had been in his house between the time the neighbor had looked in and his own arrival. The house had not been a mess when he had left home and surely the neighbor would have mentioned seeing the house in such disarray.
He went to Annie's room and saw the writing, but now, below the original message, more bloody writing added Marry me. Brian heard a noise behind him, turned, and saw a boy dressed in the clothes, blonde wig and make-up of Brian's late wife. He was holding a hatchet.
The two fought briefly but then the boy slipped away and was just gone. To Brian's horrified mind, one moment the boy was there and then he wasn't. The police were called. A search of Annie's bedroom had the police pulling a cupboard away from the wall to reveal a secret crawlspace, and in it was the boy, seventeen year-old Daniel LaPlante, who had taken Annie to the fair months ago. It's likely that Daniel had heard someone in the room and crawled out of the wall with the expectation that Annie had returned.
A search of the house revealed that LaPlante had been living in the walls of the house for months. He had dug tunnels to reach throughout the home and had created peep holes all over to watch Annie wherever she went. He had been terrorizing the girls by knocking from inside the walls, had been moving things, and the messages had been written in ketchup. He had been listening in the walls to Annie's phone calls and that's how he learned the names of her friends, and it's believed that he discovered the Andrews' phone number by breaking into the home before taking up residence in the walls. LaPlante was arrested and confined to a juvenile facility for just a few months.
LaPlante was released from custody in October 1987. On December 1st, he broke into the home of Priscilla Gustafson, a 33 year-old pregnant nursery school teacher living with her family less than a mile from the Andrews. LaPlante, raped and killed Priscilla, then murdered her seven year-old daughter and five year-old son.
LaPlante was found hiding in a dumpster two days later. At his trial, his defense talked about LaPlante's childhood, filled with abuse by several adults in his life, including the therapist who was treating the boy for previous abuse. He was sentenced to multiple life sentences for the murders. In 2017 he was granted a hearing for possible re-sentencing due to a change in the law concerning inmates who had suffered traumatic childhoods, but this was unsuccessful as a psychiatric evaluation found that he had no remorse for his crimes.
For more about this story, look for the upcoming book by Joe Turner called The Boy in the Walls. Turner has researched this story for several years and much of this information comes from him. You can also listen to episode #137 of the My Favorite Murder podcast.
That's it, Volume One is done, over, taking a dirt nap. I hope to see you again for the next volume in a week or so. Leave a comment or, hot damn, go ahead and subscribe.