Digging up GHOUL (Part 3)

So far, we've looked at deleted scenes from the novel (one of which made it back into the film) and the book's original synopsis (which differed from the final version). Today, we look at my inspiration for the novel and how I prepared myself for writing it. This essay first appeared in the now out-of-print The New Fear.

OLD GHOSTS, NEW BOOK

Recently, while sitting on the toilet reading Papillion, I remembered that I have a book due to Leisure at the end of January—Ghoul. Upon realizing this, I thought, "Shit, that's less than two months away. I suppose I'd better start writing it." Then I flushed and got to work.

Ghoul is my love letter to late-70's/early-80's horror, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. If, as a kid, you thought Phantasm was the greatest movie ever, Amityville Horror was the scariest book ever written, and Marvel's Steve Gerber was the better than Jesus, then this book will be for you.

But a novel has to be more than that. It can't just be wink-wink, nudge-nudge. It has to have heart. Without heart, you're just phoning it in. Without heart, Terminal would have been just another bank robbery novel and The Rising would have been a book about a zombie goldfish and not much else.

Usually, I get my heart from past experiences. Usually bad ones. I call them ghosts.

I grew up across from a cemetery. The graveyard was our playground, and served as everything from the Death Star to a World War II battlefield. We had a clubhouse there, built over one long summer. A hole in the ground, deep enough for us to stand up in and wide enough to put a card table and four chairs inside; covered with planks (which we then covered with sod), and a trapdoor to let us get in an out. It was filled with the kind of treasures common to any twelve-year-old boy's fort: comic books, Hustler magazines, and junk food. We called it The Dugout, and it sat right at the edge of the cemetery.

Right at the edge of our known world…

I knew that Ghoul was going to take place in that cemetery. It says so in the synopsis I used to sell the book to Leisure: "Timmy and his friends all live next to the Lutheran Cemetery."

The problem was this—my memories of that time were happy ones. There were no ghosts. Maybe my memory had dimmed with time, or maybe I was just happier then. But when I searched my mind—no ghosts.

Earlier this week, I took a drive out to my parent's house. This wasn't a friendly visit. I was working, and as such, I went armed with:

Toshiba satellite laptop

RCA digital voice recorder

Leather Jacket (because it's cold outside)

Nicotine and other Mind-Altering Drugs

Shovel

My parents weren't home, but that was okay. To be honest, I preferred it that way. Visiting with my folks is always fun, but it wasn't their son pulling into the driveway that morning. It was the Magus. And the Magus couldn't be bothered to explain this wasn't a social call or to explain that yes, he was actually writing, even if it didn't look that way. Most importantly, even at age thirty-six, I'd still feel funny about taking mind-altering drugs in the presence of my parents.

And take them I did, right there in the driveway. Washed them down with a sip from my Knob Creek flask.

(Don't follow my example, kids. It's too late for me, but you can turn out differently. Avoid things like nicotine and drugs, and stay in school. If you do, I promise that I'll write you another zombie novel).

The medicine kicked in. Mood properly altered, I went walkabout.

With the recorder in one hand and the shovel slung over my shoulder, I tromped through frozen fields and winter woods and each step was a walk through memory. I rambled into the recorder; a stream-of-consciousness tour through childhood, haphazard notes and musings that, hopefully, could later be shaped into something usable.

"We used to name the cows in this field. My sister always named her things like Snowball and Cupcake. I always named mine things like Mephisto and Beezlebub. The ones I named always died. I used to hide things inside this hollow tree trunk; Matchbox cars and marbles, money and plastic dinosaurs. The tree trunk is gone now, along with my possessions. Here was where we shot the dove with our B.B. guns, and felt bad for days afterward. There was where we built a little house for the neighborhood's stray cat, Maguire, who all of the local kids collectively adopted. We used to sneak table scraps off our plates and bring them to him, because nobody's parents would let them have another cat."

I crossed over into the cemetery. The old wrought-iron gates still stood. Back in the day, they were the door's to a medieval fortress, the blast doors on the Death Star, a pirate ship, Doctor Doom's hideout, a prison for bank robbers, and the safe base for many games of tag and hide-n-seek.

I said into the recorder, "The cemetery has little pathways running through, barely wide enough for one car. We used to race down these on skateboards and BMX bikes. I learned to ride my bike here. So did all the other kids in the neighborhood."

I heard the sound of children laughing. It came to me on the wind, which should have been cold and bitter, but somehow seemed warm, as if fueled by my memories. Or maybe that was just the drugs talking. I don't know and I don't care.

I stopped and smiled.

I put the shovel in the hard, frozen ground and began to dig.

A man strolled by, walking his dog. I nodded politely. He nodded back. The look on his face asked, "Who is this person out here digging around in the cemetery and should I call the police?

I grinned, trying to make friends with the dog and silently wishing the man would go away, because he was disturbing the spell. The man continued staring at me. I did not know him, but he knew me. You could see the recognition suddenly sweep across his face.

"Aren't you the Keene boy? The one what wrote them books?"

"Yes sir, I am."

"You out here to visit your parents?"

"Not today. Actually, I'm writing."

"Don't you need paper for that?"

I held up the digital voice recorder, which was still running. "It's all in here."

He frowned. "What you digging for?"

"Ghosts."

His frown deepened. He bid me farewell and hurried the dog along. I'm sure my parents will get a phone call later.

I returned to the job at hand. Didn't take me long. A few thrusts of the shovel and the blade struck something hard. On hands and knees, I brushed the soil out of the way and found a wooden plank. After all these years, it was still there. Our clubhouse… buried amongst the ghosts. A little worse for the wear. Falling apart, crumbling with age. But still there.

And then I remembered.

I remembered a kid who slept with a butcher knife under their pillow and locked their bedroom door from the inside. All the other kids knew it was going on. They just didn't talk about it. Another kid always had bruises and scrapes. Fell a lot, was the explanation offered. But all the other kids knew. They just didn't talk about it. A third kid had freedom, at least from all the other kids' perspective. Yet deep down inside, they knew this kid was able to come and go because their mother never noticed they were missing. All the other kids knew. They just didn't talk about it. And there was another kid, one with a pretty decent home life, who was a natural-born storyteller. He was driven by the other children's demons, even at that early age. All the other kids knew it. They just didn't talk about it.

And he'd forgotten about it. Blocked it from his mind when he grew up.

Sometimes, violence and fear are our heritage, passed down to us by our parents. The sound of children laughing often sounds like screaming. The happiest days of our lives are nothing more than a defense mechanism. Who are the real monsters? The ones under the bed, or the ones in charge of the world?

I knew, now. I remembered. I'd gone out to the cemetery and found new old ghosts. It was time to talk about them. I returned to the car, got the laptop, walked back to the cemetery, sat down on a tombstone, and wrote the first three chapters of Ghoul.

I'll let you see it when I'm finished.