Top Ten Truly Terrifying Things We Should Worry About Instead of Vampires

Why do we love horror so much? Because it's escapism of the safe kind. Heck, it's even safer than, say, roller coasters when you consider there is a mortality rate for roller coaster riders, a supposedly "safe" way to face fear and get an adrenaline rush. I'm pretty sure horror movies haven't killed anyone, at least not directly, so we're going to go with that. (Whoops...I may soon be proven wrong on that one.)

This being Halloween week, I figured I would address the things in real life that are actually frightening. See, I love critter horror stories as much as the next person, and I've been thinking I should just become a cryptozoologist so I can go out and have all the fun. However, my true horror love is real-life terror. The scares that give me the biggest fear-thrills are things that could really happen. My personal focus tends to be on the human component: serial killers. Yes, I'm fascinated by human depravity, because it seems to me we all have this capacity within us. Some embrace it, some fight it, some have it so well hidden they don't even know it's there. But we all possess the ability to lose our ever-loving minds and go psycho on someone else. Some of us more than others.

There are plenty of things for us to truly be afraid of. Here's a partial list, in no particular order:

By OCAL, clker.com

10. Nature. While watching footage of something like Hurricane Katrina or the Waldo Canyon Fire, do you ever find yourself smugly thinking to yourself that you've chosen a safe place and all us idiots should just move out of the danger zone? I'm pretty certain I can say most of us in the Springs considered ourselves pretty darned safe. We've gone decades without any major natural disasters, and we had crappy planning in place due to the belief that this was a safe area. I think Mother Nature resented this complacency, so in the last few years she started throwing us a few curve balls: Waldo Canyon Fire; Black Forest Fire; Manitou flooding; a hail storm that caused major damage and had to be plowed up due to the insane depth; flooding in the eastern part of the city; a bloody tornado ON TOP OF PIKES PEAK, a mountain that is over 14,000 feet high; funnel clouds over the western part of the city on 4th of July a couple years ago; a tornado touching down on Academy Boulevard, a major thoroughfare in the city, that same 4th of July. Add to that the fact that we have minor earthquakes that occur along the mountains (minor enough we're not physically aware of them), dormant volcanoes along the front range, and the perfect setup for sinkholes galore, and...OH MY GOD, WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

Having said that, we are actually a really safe place. One that doesn't have a cyclical set of horrors that hit us each year. We're not part of tornado alley, we don't get tsunamis or hurricanes, we aren't exposed to mega-earthquakes, the ocean is not going to swallow us anytime soon, we rarely get major blizzards, so on and so forth. We ALL live in an area that is prone to some sort of natural disaster, even if it has been years since the last similar disaster. For instance, the flooding recently experienced in central Colorado last happened almost forty years ago. Long enough that people had no idea this was a possible issue unless they were in the area at the time, but recently enough that people living here had experienced it once before. Estes Park has flooded before, and it will flood again, despite safety measures put into place. Nature is as nature does. The gorgeous natural formations we enjoy so much were created by upheavals in nature. This earth was formed before we lived on it, with cycles we have no control over. Forests burn to clean themselves up and make way for new growth. Hurricanes occur due to heating of the ocean's currents. Everything has a reason for being, and here we stand in the middle of it all, with no way to defeat it, as much as we like to pretend we've got it down.

We won't even discuss insect infestations. What we will discuss is...

9. Nature, the Second Coming. What I mean by this is things that prey upon us. I'm not counting germs at this point. We'll get to those later. What I'm counting are those now infamous creatures that swim up urethras when you pee in the water (fella's...) and are attracted to blood in the water (ladies...). When we step out of our air-tight safety bubbles (oh wait, most of us don't have those?), we are exposed to all kinds of living things that want to kill us. And while, yes, large predators fit into this category, I figure they're usually the least of our worries. This from someone who lives in the wildland-urban interface. In this neighborhood, it is not unusual to find a mountain lion's deer kill, hear packs of coyotes yipping as they chase down an escaped dog, walk under a tree only to find there's a bear up there with her cubs, hear the rattle of a frightened rattlesnake warning us off, watch an owl carry off a cat from someone's yard, so on and so forth. That's life around here, and those of us who've lived in the area for awhile accept that (and we by golly keep our pets inside). But what really scares me are those stories I hear about, say a blowfly laying its eggs in your ear canal, then those maggots working their way deeper and deeper until they infiltrate your brain. Or what about those brain-eating amoebas? I'm prone to sinus infections, but I've learned that I can head them off with what I refer to as the holy trinity: Mucinex, Sudafed, and sinus lavage (neti-pot, sinus wash, whatever you want to call it). But that last one can KILL you if you don't boil the water first. Ask the man on the east coast who died from using a neti-pot, only to have a brain-eating amoeba...you guessed it...EAT HIS BRAIN! They're like zombie bugs. Who needs to fear the zombie apocalypse? It's already here, and it's microscopic!

By OCAL, clker.com

8. The Plague. Here's where we get really microscopic. Viruses and bacteria wipe out millions of people. The Black Death swept across Europe, killing between 75 and 200 million people. These things are constantly multiplying and mutating. Right when we think we have okay control over one scourge, another one breaks out, this time paired with monkey, bird, or swine DNA. They find new incubators. They develop new strains and new resistances. We have MRSA and other diseases that stand up to our best antibiotics. We will never, ever escape every little tiny cellular level murderer that comes our way, no matter how many vaccinations we pump into our kids. Nature is a bitch, and she wins. All we can do is scurry to keep up as best we can.

H.H. Holmes
By Postdlf [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

7. Psychos. Yep, I just said it. Know why? I don't have a Ph.D., so I can call them psychos if I want to. Serial killers, spree killers, twisted mother effers that delight in killing others, often in the most horrible ways imaginable (and unimaginable.) The worst part about these folks? They blend in. We have not been able to really study psycho-/sociopaths, because the REALLY smart ones DON'T GET CAUGHT. Get that? The ones we're questioning in prison, even the ones with high IQ's, were just the ones we caught. There are countless homicidal maniacs out there who have eluded the law and always will. Profilers base their knowledge of murderers off the ones they've been able to actually interview. Again, those are the ones who slipped up and got caught. I posted about the Original Night Stalker during the A-to-Z. Never caught. Zodiac Killer? Never caught. Jack the Ripper? Never caught. And our most frightening killers frequently go undetected, because they defy patterns, move around to different states/countries, etc. Think of how many out there have committed multiple awful crimes that have never been put together with their counterparts. Think of how high their body counts might be. Now consider your neighbors. All friendly, you say? You all get together, are all members of the neighborhood watch? Upstanding citizens? Well, read interviews about how well liked Ted Bundy was. John Wayne Gacy? A pillar of the community. Look up H.H. Holmes; he was a charmer...one who built his very own torture house during the Chicago World's Fair of 1893.

By Mohamed Ibrahim, CLKER.com

6. Vehicles. Speaking of high mortality rates, let's talk about our cars, shall we? Over 30,000 people die in car accidents each year. (Interestingly, the numbers are decreasing over time.) That's just the ones who die, mind you. There are over 6 million car accidents each year, with about 3 million injuries resulting. Planes crash, boats sink, people fall off tractors. I think you get the picture here.

5. Our own clumsiness. The CDC reports over 120,000 unintentional injury deaths per year in the U.S. alone. People fall down stairs, trip and slam their heads into counters, fall out of bed and crack their heads on nightstands, fall into holes, drown in hot tubs and baths, cut themselves with power tools and bleed to death, and more. You could walk under a falling piano today. It's out of your hands.

4. Space murder. If you listen to the paranoid, space is trying to kill us all the time. Killer comets, hungry meteorites, space debris, solar flares. Space is jealous that we're so pretty, what with our lovely blue jewel of a water-bearing planet and all. It's angry. It wants to eat Earth's face off. We don't know what's out there. Aliens? Maybe. They're already experimenting on us to find all our weaknesses. I figure those weaknesses should be fairly obvious, considering we're so easy to kidnap from our own beds or on back roads in the middle of the night. Come on! What killed the dinosaurs? Could it have been something falling out of space? Maybe. How many times have we gotten lucky when a huge piece of space murder has made it through our atmosphere and hit unpopulated areas? Seen Starman? That crater really exists. Ask Siberia about catastrophic space injuries they've suffered (look up the Tunguska Event.) Stuff is constantly penetrating our atmosphere in the hopes of finally being the space monster that gets to wipe us out. Beware the skies, for they bring a fiery death our way. Woooooo-ooo-oo. Oh, sorry, cough, cough.

By Tvanbr (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

3. Natural causes of death. We walk around with heaven knows what going wrong in our bodies at any given time. Cancer, heart attacks, strokes, diseases lying dormant in our DNA. (Heart disease is the most common cause of death in the U.S.) Short of developing full-body scans that we use annually (we're working on it), there's no way to know what awaits you within your own genetic makeup. Okay, well, there are some markers and such you can test for, but you don't know for certain it will hit you, or when. There could be a freak blood clot floating around in your brain right now, just waiting to get stuck and throw you a major stroke. Your heart could even now be fighting along, trying to stave off the heart attack that will rip itself apart. Any day now you could start exhibiting symptoms of Parkinson's, Lou Gherig's, Multiple Sclerosis, and countless more options. I don't know about you, but this scares the living crap out of me. When my insurance starts offering annual full-body scans, I'm all over that business. Cancer terrifies me. All of these diseases scare me to death. I don't want to die like that. I want to die quickly and painlessly in my sleep. Don't we all??

2. War. I mentioned one kind of human killers, but this is another entirely. Acts of war kill people year-round, every year. Civil wars, world wars, desert wars, wars of all kinds. Acts of terrorism could be included in either category under humans killing other humans. We lose soldiers every day. Civilians get caught in the middle and killed each day. And I could go one step further and include genocide of all kinds here. People kill other people out of necessity, out of religious differences, political differences, to save others, to gain territory, to gain riches and things that will make them rich, to prove a point, to protect their countries, and for so many other reasons. War takes its toll in so many ways.

See page for author [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)
or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)],
via Wikimedia Commons

1. Our minds. Our minds can kill us from multiple directions. Mental health issues, such as Alzheimer's can cause death. Depression can lead one to suicide. I'd written more on this topic, but the point of this post was to be scary, not depressing, so I will leave it at this: Alzheimer's is 6th for leading cause of death in the U.S., suicide is 10th.

Finally, in the spirit of Halloween, riddle me this: Do you believe a human being can be scared to death? Science says you can. Wouldn't that be yet another example of your mind killing you? How do you protect against that other than by never being frightened? HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

What would you add to this list? What are you most scared of, monsters or humanity? Ready for Halloween? What's your costume going to be?

May you find your Muse.

Top Ten People You See at Cons

Howdy, folks! I'm back from Mile Hi Con, and I'm exhausted, so I thought I'd just do a Top Ten list of the types of people you see at a sci-fi/fantasy/horror convention (though it was almost entirely lacking horror topics, despite having many horror authors there). This is not to be confused with a writer's conference, though this one does have writers as the speakers/presenters.

10. Monopolizers - Folks in the audience who think they know more than the speaker/panelists. They pipe up, interrupt, answer questions, etc. They wear that terribly smug expression that proclaims "I'm a genius," when, in fact, they often have no idea what they're talking about, and when they do, nobody wants to hear it, anyway. I remember these folks from high school and I don't like them anymore now than I did then.

9. Twitchers - Listen, I've got ADHD (actually diagnosed, not that type people like to claim they have because they seek an excuse for not getting things done), yet I can control how I exhibit any hyperactivity. I've learned coping mechanisms that allow me to not shake my leg, tap my foot, kick seat-backs, click pens (for the love of all that is holy, make them stop!), so on and so forth. But apparently there are many who haven't mastered this control. Unfortunately, ADHD makes me hyper-aware of every little thing going on around me, which means these people distract me to no end and drive me nuts. Just...WHY? I'll also tentatively add the package crinklers to this crowd, but I'm only counting those who voraciously stuffed their faces while crinkling never-ending bags of chips, or cookies, or whatever comes in the loudest packaging possible.

8. Unwashed Masses  and The Diseased - I feel a little mean throwing this one out there, but there were so many people I was stuck sitting next to that smelled. Like they didn't bathe frequently or maybe just didn't use deodorant (though I must say I saw other things that indicated lack of bathing, like limp, matted hair). and many seem to have never been taught what a toothbrush is. There were several instances where I struggled to hold my breath through much of an hour long panel/workshop thanks to someone who was really that odoriferous who had me trapped. Oh, please, if you're going to go to a public gathering (or into public, in general), please, please bathe and use deodorant. Wash your clothes. Brush your teeth (oh, hell, just use mouthwash, I don't care). Do whatever keeps you from smelling like concentrated b.o. and mustiness.

This one is getting two paragraphs, because I'm lumping two similar, but mostly unrelated categories together. The Diseased is how I'll refer to the ones who hacked and coughed, or cleared their throats in terribly phlegmy manners throughout entire workshops. I had one sitting behind me Friday night who was so fastidiously clearing her throat that I kept expecting a wad to hit me in the back of the head. No, seriously. That was grody. But other than her (shudder), there were plenty carrying around Con Crud, as a friend refers to it. Fingers crossed I don't get sick!

7. Knitters - I was surprised how many people were knitting through the workshops. I'm in no way complaining about this one (except for the woman in front of me who kept moving her chair back in an already packed room to make space for her knitting until she finally slammed into my knee so hard that I had to shove her chair forward to get my leg untrapped - I have long legs as it is, and her backward movement already had me crammed into an awkward position; she didn't bother apologizing, and, in fact, craned her neck to see if *I* could move farther back...I couldn't). They were, however, a surprisingly sizable group. Perhaps if the Twitchers took up knitting, we could solve a lot of problems.

6. Clockwork Crowd - There was quite an array of people in steampunk get-ups of all sorts. While it's not a genre I'm into as a reader or writer, I enjoyed seeing all the various costumes. They varied from complicated truly clockwork costumes, to period pieces, to little feathered hats perched on people's heads. Many corsets were slung, short skirts showed striped tights, and brightly colored wigs abounded. I'm also including those outliers who weren't necessarily steampunk, so much as period dressed for various time frames.

5. Furries - I actually only saw one of these this year, a significant change from last year. These are the people who dress up in furry animal costumes. I always figure they're way warmer than I am when the heat turns off for the evening. This year's was Winnie the Pooh. Does that even count? Last year there were a lot of felines.

4. Sci-fi/Fantasy Addicts...er...Fans - There were tons of Star Trek uniforms/costumes/t-shirts, etc., as well as a contingent of Star Wars costumes and the like. These people are serious about their preferred Star genre. One can add Firefly and Dr. Who peeps to this grouping, as well. And I'm sure there are others, including some I don't recognize (such as the people with bird masks, armor, and REAL bird wings attached to their costumes...anyone?)

3. Writers - Yep, plenty of writers there. There were quite a few writers who fell into one (or many) of the other categories, as well. We're the ones scribbling notes, people watching, and staring off into space as we work through plots, create characters, fantasize through a storyline, so on and so forth.

2. The Gamers - I didn't interact with these folks (though there are many in the other categories that fit this one, as well, but I'm mostly talking about those into whose territory I did not roam). There are whole areas dedicated to games of all kinds. Black cloth-covered tabletops roared with conversation, often strictly about the game. There were cards, dice, you name it. The truly gung-ho were still going strong when I left the bar around 2:30 AM. They were up well before I was. They took meals at these tables.

1. The Lost - I'm pretty much one of these. When I wasn't with the few people I knew there, I felt isolated and unsure of myself. I'm not a hardcore sci-fi or fantasy fan, and they (sci-fi/fantasy peeps) are by far (obviously) the most concentrated group, enveloping all of the above groups. The Lost wander around, keeping to themselves, hiding in their rooms when not in a workshop. They're overwhelmed. While they're enjoying the con, they're also counting down the hours to when they can leave. Well, I was, and I did enjoy the panels and workshops I attended, as well as the time spent with friends. And, you know, I enjoyed the time locked away in my hotel room, sans kiddos, listening to music, working on some writing. It's always a nice feeling, conflicting with missing my hubby and babies. Nothing like getting away to make you appreciate home.

So...what category(ies) did I miss? Who do you notice at cons? Do you fit into one (or more) of these categories? Which ones?

May you find your Muse.

To Contest or Not to Contest

That is the question.

I haven't entered a writing contest in a couple years and I've got a new novel that might be worthwhile to enter, but I'm not sure it's at the point where I should enter it or whether I actually want to. There are various reasons for and against it.

So how about a Top Ten?

Top Ten Reasons to Enter Writing Contests:

10. To get your arse in gear and get that manuscript polished
9. Practice for submitting things
8. Something to put in a query letter/bio/reference
7. Money
6. Acclaim
5. Writing experience
4. Feedback (general, plus scores)
3. Critique (formal critique)
2. To get an agent/editor offer from a judge
1. To win (duh)

I was tempted to arrange it in a much different order, because I don't think winning is the most important part of a contest. When I first entered a writing contest, I did it to win. Plain and simple. The second time I entered a contest I did it for the critique. At this time, I think the most important aspects are the feedback, critique, and experience. Each writing contest you enter means practice writing and practice submitting something. However, I don't think I'd enter another contest unless I felt I actually had a winner. A story isn't a winner until YOU think it is.

So what should a person look at before entering a contest?

1. That the contest fits with what you write/enjoy writing/your personality
2. The organization running it is respected and honest
3. The cost - Is it reasonable? is it worth it?
4. The cost versus the prize money
5. The status of your manuscript (for novel contests) - Is it ready? Polished?
6. An explanation of the entry fee - If there's a cash prize, it's reasonable to figure much of the entry fee is going to that. If there are "celebrity" judges, you can likely assume they are being paid some amount, which would come out of the entry fee. Is it being donated? Are they a non-profit? If they're a non-profit, they hope to have some portion of the fee to keep for funds to run the non-profit once they've met costs.
7. Will the winning entries be published in some way?
8. The judges - Are they known? Do they have publishing experience?
9. Is this their first contest or has this contest been around for awhile? If it hasn't been around for awhile, has the organization running it?
10. What do YOU want out of entering this contest? What's your main goal? Will this contest help you to achieve what you want from it?

I guess that's sort of a top ten, too, eh? But it's in no particular order.

Just a gathering of thoughts. I'm leaning toward not entering right now, but I've got some time to decide.

So what are your thoughts? Do you enter contests? Do you want to? Have you in the past? Why do or don't you?

May you find your Muse.

Blog Post Lite - Top Ten

As I'm in frantic studying mode today, how about a little Blog Post Lite with a Top Ten?

Top Ten Reasons to Imbibe in Horror:

10. It burns calories. Don't believe me? Check out this Telegraph article on the subject.

9. It teaches you what NOT to do if you ever find yourself in a scary situation. Don't know the rules? Here's a clip from Scream. Big no no!

8. It confirms your fears. Here's a list of things we won't do thanks to scary movies, BUT how many people already had these fears? (Admit it, you were already scared of blond children...)

7. It makes your problems look a tad smaller, at least for a short time. What are your problems compared to being trapped on a plane...with snakes! Gah!

6. It's cathartic. Though I don't entirely buy this article, it will give you something to think about.

5. Sometimes you get to see someone you don't like eat it in horrific ways. (You applauded, didn't you?) And it's especially satisfying when it involves character karma and the serving of justice. Karma.

4. Where else do you get to be horrified, terrified, and sickened, yet enjoy a little comic relief in the process?

3. You get to feel smarter than someone else, like that girl who trips fifty times before the bad guy eats her face. Or the girl who hides under the giant table in plain sight. (I mean, really, at that point, what choice does the psycho have?? If he didn't kill her, his thrill-murderer friends would laugh at him and call him Nancy-boy.)

2. The fictional horror can never come close to horror that lives in reality, but it can help us forget it for awhile. And terror can help you release pent-up emotion of all kinds in a way you're more comfortable with. Like screaming.

1. Good usually wins over evil. Bullies never win.

Bonus: 100 Greatest Horror Movie Quotes of All Time

What's your favorite reason? What are your favorite horror movie or book scenes? What scared the living daylights out of you?

May you find your Muse.

Solomon's Compass Cover Reveal

Many of you know of Carol Kilgore from Under the Tiki Hut, a warm and welcoming place where we writers get to visit the beach, maybe have a drink, and discuss things relevant to all of us.

Well, today is the cover reveal for Carol's upcoming release, Solomon's Compass. To introduce the reveal, I'd like to set it up with the Top Ten reasons you should check out Solomon's Compass.

10. U.S. Coast Guard
9. Former Navy Seal...sexy!
8. Romance
7. Mystery
6. Risk
5. The Compass Points
4. A quest
3. Buried treasure
2. Carol wrote it!
1. The awesome cover!!

And here it is...

Gorgeous, is it not?

Now a little information about Solomon's Compass:

Taylor is in Rock Harbor, Texas, on a quest to unearth her uncle’s treasure—a journey far outside the realm of her real life. There’s one glitch. Taylor's certain the buried treasure was all in Uncle Randy's dementia-riddled mind. Now he’s dead.

Former SEAL Jake Solomon is in Rock Harbor under false pretenses to protect Taylor from the fate that befell her uncle and the other members of a tight circle of Coast Guardsmen called the Compass Points who served together on Point boats in Vietnam.

Jake is definitely not supposed to become involved with Taylor. That was his first mistake. Taylor is attracted to Jake as well, but she refuses to wait for him to locate the killer when she knows her plan will force her uncle’s murderer into action.

But the killer's actions are just what Jake is afraid of.

Carol Kilgore has always had stories and characters in her head, but she didn’t know she should write them down until about a dozen years ago. Once she started, she couldn’t stop.

Her first published short story won the Derringer Award for Best Short-Short Mystery. She continued to write short fiction for a few years and also enjoyed a small success as a freelancer before giving it all up for her true love—novels.

Carol writes a blend of mystery, suspense, and romance she calls Crime Fiction with a Kiss. Always at least one crime; always a love story. Solomon’s Compass is her second published novel.

As the wife of a Coast Guard officer, Carol has lived in locations across the U.S. She and her husband now live in a San Antonio suburb and share their home and patio with two active herding dogs that keep them free from all danger, real or imagined.

You can find Carol here:

website . blog . facebook . twitter . goodreads . amazon

Before I let you go, be sure to check out the new A-to-Z badges for 2013.  We'll be announcing the new team of co-hosts soon, along with some new information, and sign-ups will open at the end of this month, so stay tuned!

What do you think of Carol's cover?  Are you excited to read Solomon's Compass?  Have you grabbed your new 2013 A-to-Z badge or banner yet?

May you find your Muse.

Top Ten Signs You Watch, Read or Write Too Much Horror

**Images were removed once I learned a little more about the laws concerning using others' photos.**

To start off this top ten list, why don't I start with a little tale of a late-night walk I took last week?

I headed out for my usual walk at around 11:30pm. The moon was drifting in and out of visibility behind dark, patchy clouds. Halfway up the hill, I heard a noise and looked up only to see what looked like a man crouching at the top of the hill. I could see his head and part of his torso, which was nude. I froze. At first I was just trying to figure out if my eyes were playing a trick on me or if there was really some freak crouched at the top of the hill. He was just staring back at me, unmoving.

What would you assume if you saw this? Choose your own adventure:

A. Assume it is just a neighbor checking his lawn at 11:30pm at night, partially clothed. Walk by and call a friendly hello.
B. Think perhaps some guy got locked out of his house without his clothes on when he poked out onto his porch to grab the paper he never picked up earlier. call up asking if he's decent.
C. Oh my gosh, it's a fracking werewolf! Throw your hands up in the air and run, screaming, back to your home, hoping against hope he won't catch you before you can make it.

Your selection may say a lot about you...

Without further ado, here are the top ten signs you watch, read or write too much horror:

10. You always look up when you walk into a darkened room.

Oh, please, I knew you'd be up there. Most predictable move in the book!

9. Descending stairs with no backing into a dark basement is akin to Chinese Water Torture. You will tell them anything they want to know, so long as they don't make you go down there for a jar of pickles.

8. You profile your neighbors, specifically watching neighbor-kids for signs of the serial killer triad. You even go so far as to ask, "So, when did Little Johnny stop wetting the bed?"

7. You're prepared for the zombie-pocalypse, but could care less about the nuclear apocalypse.

6. You feel safer if you've had a bit of garlic with your dinner.

What? You don't like my new perfume?

5. You own silver bullets.

Where's your full moon NOW?

4. You've ever screamed "Double tap!" at an inappropriate time.

He's not really dead; come on!

3. You wonder if the mystery meat is human or animal.

For today's special, we have a CNA from Detroit, aged nicely.

2. You greet the shrill ringing of the telephone with sheer terror.

Who is this? What do you want? Why are you doing this? Oh, mom, is that you?

1. It crosses your mind that the weird guy crouched at the top of the hill might be a werewolf.

I'd love to hear some of your signs that you watch/read/write too much horror! Which option did you pick?

P.S. I have not forgotten Feature Friday. However, I am having issues with Google Reader and can only randomly access the list of the blogs I follow. This also explains why I have not commented on anyone's blog unless they've commented on mine first. Please bear with me while I work on the issue, thanks!