Tales from The CryptKeeper's Daughter

You know what’s scarier than reading horror fiction?

Sharing your horror fiction with others!

Oh, and writing about yourself—that’s pretty terrifying too—at least the sending it out into the world part is. I tend to be on the painfully shy end of the introvert spectrum, so for me, getting ready to click “publish” is sort of like standing on the edge of a cliff, deciding whether or not to jump.

But, as Ray Bradbury would say, “Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.”

All right, Mr. Bradbury. Here goes nothing…

That’s me on the left and my fiancé, Sean on the right. 

Hellooooooooooooo!!! 

My name is Maegan and I guess you could say I’m a late bloomer. I’m 34 years old, engaged to be married for the first time this October, and have neither children nor published works of writing.

Now don’t get me wrong—waiting to get married has paid off (I get to do it with my soulmate and best friend), and until recently, the thought of giving birth to a human hadn’t even crossed my mind (although I may have pondered giving birth to a kitten once or twice).

My cat, Wendy.

But the thing that’s really been tugging at my heartstrings lately—what’s been sending a mixture of urgency and longing up and down my spine, making my nerves scream, You’ll just die if you don’t do it now!—has to do with writing.

Writing is what makes my heart pound with passion, but becoming a published author would make it skip with joy. Being published has been a dream of mine for some time, but I’ve always just brushed that aspiration aside, thinking it was too far-fetched or unrealistic to achieve. Then the obvious finally dawned on me: My dream will always remain out of reach unless I do something about it.

So I decided that instead of spending this year, and next year, and the year after that continuing to just fantasize about becoming an author, the time had come to take action. I set a goal and now am taking one step at a time until I reach it.

Want to come along for the journey?

Where it all Started

Thanks to my dad, I’ve loved the horror genre ever since I was a little kid. My memories from childhood are peppered with all the “horror” related things we used to do…

Listening to Dokken’s “Lost Behind the Wall” and “Dream Warriors” (from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3) on repeat as we drove down what Dad nicknamed “Hell Street” (W. West Street was the actual name) on our way to make the nightly deposit after the last show at the movie theater let out (More on the theater business later)…

Scrounging for change between the couch cushions, trying to come up with $2.50 to rent yet another scary movie. We made it our goal that summer to rent one new horror movie every single night, and by golly, with the help of B Movies, we did it…

Channeling the spirit of Jim Morrison during a seance where we used a The Best of the Doors album cover and a Ouija Board as means of communication, then got super excited when the candle flames flickered to unnatural heights (proof of a successful connection)…

I’ve got lots of little snippets like that—clips of memories that may have sparked my love for horror or kept the flame burning. I’ll never forget the ones that took place in our backyard.

Backyard, present day. Overgrown with time, but Dad’s swing has prevailed.

That’s where my sister, Gabby and I spent our summers. We had a swing set back there—simple but loaded with all the basic fittings: two swings, trapeze rings, and a slide. That setup would have been fine for most kids, but not for us. We rearranged it to make room for Dad. We ditched the rings, moved our swings to the left, and hung his giant porch swing on the hooks to the right.

The gargoyle always attended our fires.

Dusk would come, and after a few games of Ghost in the Graveyard, Gabby and I would gather sticks and help Dad build a bonfire. Then we’d sit in our swings and listen as he told his latest scary story. When he got to the end, he’d shoot out of his swing and take off sprinting full speed into the darkness, leaving the two of us behind screaming with giddy terror!

After a few calls of “Come out now” or “I’m scared,” Dad would re-emerge from the darkness wearing this glow-in-the-dark Jason mask (Friday the 13th) that he got one Halloween. I don’t know where he kept that thing, but it seemed like he always had it on hand, ready to put into use.

He loved to scare us, and we loved to be scared.

From the left: Maegan, Dad, and sister, Gabby.  Photo credit: Mom

Mom was not a fan of horror, but she always encouraged us to read, and she didn’t stifle our selection. If we got good grades on our report card, she and Dad would take us to Walden’s in the mall to pick out a new book as a reward.

For the most part, I could choose what I wanted. And what I wanted were Fear Street books by R.L. Stine. I gobbled them up like candy.

And horror comics—Tales from the Crypt, The Haunt of Fear, The Vault of Terror—I loved those too.

When I discovered Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, I became intrigued with the illustrations. I’d memorize the stories, then stare at the sketches until my mind entered them. They were like doors to alternate universes, and I could stay lost in those worlds for hours.

At bedtime, when Dad tucked me in, I’d ask him to read the “scary” stories from his book of fables (which upon investigation, turned out to be one of Mom’s college books, Anthology of Children’s Literature, 5th Edition). He’d pull that big dusty book out from under his bed and read me the “real” version of Cinderella. You know, the one where the sisters cut off parts of their feet while trying to force the glass slipper to fit.

Before long, I found myself carefully turning the pages of an Edgar Allen Poe collection that I found in the basement.

Maybe I was obsessed, but hey, what did that matter? Come October, everyone else was too!

Halloween was our favorite holiday. We’d carve pumpkins during the day (I always liked to pick out the biggest pumpkin I could find), go trick-or-treating at night (Mom and Dad would take us to the next town over because it was way better than our lonely lane of only eight neighbors with zero porch lights on), stop at Burger King for dinner, then go home to sort candy and check for razor blades.

Gabby and me. Sisters are different pumpkins from the same garden.

We’d give Mom her Resee’s Cups, then it was on to our own special tradition, the one we looked forward to year after year. We’d sit in the living room, Dad in his wooden rocker, Gabby and me huddled together on the bare floor, turn off all the lights, and listen to our favorite Halloween record crackling through the speakers: The Ride of the Headless Horseman.

One year we even made our very own scary Halloween video (Mom was at work and had no knowledge of these shenanigans!!!). We put white powder on our cheeks and staggered around the house twisting our faces into deranged contortions while “Hells Bells” blared in the background. Gabby was just a toddler, but that didn’t stop Dad from letting her hold the big butcher knife that he had smeared with ketchup.

Funny, I never wondered what the neighbors thought until now…

Theater Influence

Before I was born, my great-grandpa Otto bought a handful of movie theaters, all of which he ended up selling when he retired. One of them, the Strand Theater in Sturgis, Michigan (which my Dad owns now) is where I spent a lot of time in my early years.

The Strand

My parents were pretty young when they had me, and it took them a little while to get their feet on the ground. Both of them worked at the movie theater, so to save money, it made sense to live there too.  So, for a short time when I was around three years old, the movie theater was my home.

It was my kingdom.

I remember sitting under the popcorn popper sipping on Sprite, while the concession girls ran the registers, pausing every now and then to remind me to tell my mom it was water if she asked.

When I got older, my dad would hand me a flashlight, and between shows, let me scour the seats and floors for change. I got to keep whatever I found, even if it was covered with pop syrup.

A secret painting at the Strand.

Of course, there were the unlimited movies to watch too.

Since I was pretty young and the first born (or as my fiancé, Sean, would say, “the burnt pancake”), my folks let me watch just about anything.

I can remember sitting in the back row of our big vaudeville stage theater (it was a single screen back then, with over 600 seats at the time) watching Stand by Me over and over again. Then the credits would roll, the patrons would leave, and Dad put me up on the stage and let me dance to Ben E. King while he pulled the red velvet curtains closed.

Behind the silver screen was the backstage, a storage area filled with old pop machines and backdrops. Whenever Dad took us back there, he always made it a point to locate the “ghost”, which was really just a white sheet tied up in a ball and hanging from a rope. Dad made it come to life though. He’d point, and you’d look…then somehow the light would hit it just right, the rope would fade away, and the next thing you knew, that ghost seemed to float.

A magical place to be a kid.

You could go below the stage too. On the way down, an old organ sat to the right, tucked behind brass guardrails that were anchored to the floor. Creaky wooden stairs led to a basement with many rooms. One was filled with what looked like the organ’s intestines, another was the boiler room, and the rest were old dressing rooms that the stage actors used to use.

When Gabby and I were feeling brave, we’d hold hands and hunt for treasures down there. Sometimes we’d score a skeleton key or salvage a vaudeville voting ballot. We’d stay down there for as long as we could stand it, then a creepy feeling would set in, and we’d get the urge to run like hell: up the stairs, through the theater aisle, past the hallway, and into the lobby where daylight was—where the only windows in the building were.

Dad is the true ghost of the Strand.

On Writing

Writing has always been my favorite pastime. My first journal goes back to when I was about five years old. I kept all of them; my only regret is that I used to erase some of what I wrote or tear out pages. I keep them locked away in a trunk, but every now and then I open it up and visit my old self. They’re like my little time capsules.

My trunk of notebooks.

From an early age, I have always had vivid dreams, the most memorable being nightmares. My first recurring one was of a man wearing a clear face shield and coming at me with a needle aimed at my eye and jabbing like a reciprocating saw. After that, it was dreams of tsunami waves threatening to drown me. When I was on the nicotine patch, the nightmares were so real and frightening that I had to take the sticker off to sleep through the night. Luckily, I still quit smoking.

First horror story – age 11.

I’ve always hated that we have to die and have always been hyper-conscious of and skittish around situations that could cause my early departure. Yet I love to read and write about death. I guess it helps me come to terms with my inevitable encounter with it, or maybe I will figure out a way to avoid it altogether. Maybe it’s just another excuse for my attraction to the supernatural and the idea that somewhere there’s a loophole.

Could I find a way to become a vampire? A ghost? Could I achieve immortality through writing?

If I could, I certainly would.

Well, folks, that’s me in a nutshell. Thanks for sticking around until the end and getting to know me. I’m going to get back to it—writing that is. I’ve got a completed novel to edit (my first ever!) and a handful of short stories in the works. I’m just starting out, so I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me, but I hope you’ll stay tuned for my first story. In the meantime, come back and visit whenever you like.

Until next time,

Maegan