My next two novels will have mysticism and horror at their core which is a huge departure for me. Yet my fans shouldn’t worry, both are still populated by crime and criminals.
One is BETWIXT (where the dead things go) in which my main character, Max dies in the first chapter and finds himself in a timeless land which occupies the thin border between life and oblivion, reality and nothingness. In life, Max was an enforcer for an international motorcycle club and is used to being the one who is feared, but Max discovers fear himself for the first time in BETWIXT.
My current work in progress (which shall remain nameless until the date it’s published) is also steeped in mysticism and – one could say – horror. My main character is the narrator who is murdered just past the halfway point of the story, yet keeps telling the tale.
It is peculiar for me to embark on these two projects because I do not believe in gods nor spirits nor unexplained things that go bump in the night. I am a humanist – a civic humanist to be precise. For me, the lower breed of humans in this world keep us well supplied with all the horror that is unimaginable. I suppose that’s why we are drawn to horror novels, movies, and television shows; we know it’s make-believe so we can dip into it without damaging our sense of safety like a ten minute perusal of CNN headlines can.
Yet here’s the thing – my secret; I have experienced two encounters that I cannot explain, both holding the cachet of the supernatural. One was long ago when I was a field supervisor for a large security firm. My patrol drivers all complained about a new contract for a deserted building, saying it was spooky and that they heard unexplained voices. They all believed it was haunted. To prove them wrong, one night I did the midnight patrol. As I walked through the centre of the floor I was on, not near any doors or windows, from just over my right shoulder I heard a man’s bemused voice say; “Well, well, well.” I searched that building to ensure I was not being pranked by my patrol staff, but I was indeed alone with whatever made that distinct statement so close to my ear.
The other encounter was prolonged; I rented a house with a friend – 2288 Riverside Drive in North Vancouver. It was a pleasant home with some odd occurrences; electric clocks that were running properly the night before would be running backward in the morning; my friend’s cat would react to something unseen in the hallways, hissing and sometimes screaming; we both caught movement in reflective surfaces out of the corner of our eyes constantly. It hit its peak one night when I dreamed that a naked woman in her mid-thirties with a shag haircut – popular in the 70s – seduced me and led me to my bedroom. As we made passionate love, she suddenly gripped me painfully and began to scream, her body gushing blood. It was one of those dreams that felt real.
The next day when I told my friend about my dream, he paled; he had dreamt of the same woman in the same encounter the night before as well.
I don’t know if I encountered the psychic echoes left behind by living people or my own overactive imagination, I still do not believe in the supernatural. But even though science has yet to prove that ghosts exist, it is fun to experience these things and tell our stories on dark and stormy nights to allow our hunger for fright to be satisfied.
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