The Impact of Salem's Lot

     I was young at age, probably around 7 years old.  I was at the mercy of my older sister, who was 7 years my senior, while my mom went off to evening college classes.  One evening she put in a movie in the VCR and popped up some popcorn and we sat around the TV to watch the show.  I wasn't sure what movie it was, at the time.  I was happy to be spending this quality time with my sister whom I looked up to. 

     This wasn't a family friendly movie at all.  We were watching Steven King's Salem's Lot.  I don't remember much of the movie.  I remember children being in the movie, especially a boy.  One scene a boy laid in bed and he looked out of what would be glass doors to a patio or a porch.  A type of green faced, human-demonistic creature came up to the windows in a mist and tried scratching at the window (or door) for the boy to open it up.  I think I hid my face in a pillow at that part because I don't remember what happened next.  I remember asking my sister what happened to the children or the parents and she told me that they turned into ghosts and floated into the walls of the house. 

     My details of the movie may have been vague as I was a young child watching this.  Salem's Lot was probably my first horror movie that I watched.  I have seen others throughout my lifetime but none had left such an eerie impression upon my life.  After that when my sister had to watch me she would find it amusing by telling me that the creatures were outside ready to get me.  She would have my older brother hide outside my window and knock at it making me think the creature was actually there.  To make me stay in bed she would tell me if I got out of bed the creature would get me.  In terror I would hide under the covers, as if the covers had some magical protection powers of their own, and refuse to come out of the bed.  I wouldn't even dare to stick my hand or foot over the bed's edge in case the creatures would pull me under the bed and devour me.  When my sister would be in a real playful mood she would go into the other room and scream like she was being attacked and I would freeze in horror on my bed with the door shut praying the morning would soon come and mom would be there giving comfort to the home. 

     For the longest time I couldn't look out the window at night.  I still find it difficult to do so.  When I walk around the house my eyes avoid the window's in fear of finding a face staring back at me.  I have become so used to not looking at a window at night that I don't have to remind myself not to look.  It just comes naturally. 

     I flat out refuse to watch that movie ever again.  My sister will call me and tell me when it is playing on a certain channel to tease me.  That fear and terror that was inside of me was too intense to ever want those feelings again.  I have watched other horror movies growing up but none has left such an effect on me.  But I am going to overcome my fear.  Just today, actually, I stopped at a yard sale and they had the Salem's Lot movie.  I purchased it.  Thirty years later I am sure I will look at the movie differently.  I probably will realize that the movie really isn't all that scary and it is probably cheesy with the old film technology.  I just need the courage and the endurance to watch it. 

A Morbid Christmas

     As I sit and reminisce about the times of Christmas past I recall one memory that wasn't so merry.  Most families, when it comes time to trimming the Christmas tree, will play holiday music or have a holiday show playing on the TV in the background.  That was certainly not the case at our household one Christmas. 

     The year was probably 1987 or 1988.  I must of been 10 or 11 years old.  My sister and brother rented movies from American Video to watch while we helped our mother decorate the tree.  My mom popped us up some popcorn and fixed kool-aid to drink.  Afterwards she hauled out box after box of Christmas lights, tinsel and ornaments out of the basement.  During this time we were already engrossed with what was on tv.  Our mom unraveled the lights and started to string them around the tree.  She pulled out the different colored tinsel and wound that around our artificial tree happily humming to herself and not really paying attention to what was on the television set. 

     A loud torturous scream caught our mother's attention.  "This is NOT a Christmas show!"  she bellowed. 

     My sibilings and I would quickly shush our mom not taking our glance away from the TV.  We sat there   numbingly dishing popcorn into our mouths in anticipation of what was going to happen next.  We were watching the horror/slasher movie Truth or Dare.  It wasn't a huge hit of a movie but it was certainly odd to say the least.

     In a nutshell, the main character catches his wife cheating and he mentally loses it.  He starts playing Truth or Dare with people he comes in contact with, and some people were just from his imagination.  Some of the dares were cutting his chest open, taking his eyeball out with a nail, cutting off his tongue.  Another guy was dared to put a grenade in his mouth and blow his head off.  I don't remember exactly how it ended but it was just a gory movie.  It wasn't even that scary, just bloody.

     My mom was appalled that we were watching a movie like that.  She tried to get us to put something else on but we didn't listen.  We eventually pulled ourselves away from watching the movie to help put on the ornaments but our ears were still in tune with the television.  My mom couldn't believe that here we were, decorating the Christmas tree, with a slasher movie going on.

     For the next couple years it turned into a tradition of having a horror movie on in the background while we decorate the tree.  After moving out of the house and having a family of my own I have put that tradition to rest.  A part of me still wants to see a horror movie while I decorate our tree but I know it isn't best for my children to see.  I don't know if it was the movie I liked so much or the bonding moments I had with my sibilings and our mom.  I do know that the memory of it still puts a smile on my face.

Amityville Slaughter House

     I do not know why men think women are dainty creatures that needs protecting.  Perhaps some women do faint at the sight of blood or scream at the sight of a snake crawling across the floor but not me.  I was raised with the enjoyment of blood, guts, and gore.  While some girls I knew found gratification of looking at clothes and jewerly, I was finding pleasure in horror movies and getting down and dirty.  As a child my sister and I would watch the movie series Friday the 13th and our VCR had a slow motion button to it.  There was a scene where a cop ran through the woods trying to chase Jason Voorheis.  The cop came to a small run-down cabin.  He is looking through some things when Jason comes up behind him and slams the hammer claw into the back of the cops head.  My sister and I would click the slow motion button and watch how the cops eyes would look as if are popping out of his face once the hammer was entering the back of his head.  Morbid, I know, but my sister and I were laughing too hard to care.  My family is twisted.

     I was only dating Brian a few weeks when he asked if I wanted to join him in the semi-truck to make a pick up in Chicago.  It sounded exciting and it was.  Sitting up high in the semi-truck you can see everything.  You felt powerful and tall.  In Chicago traffic you can look down into people's cars and see what they are doing or little children will look up and beg for the air horn to be blown.  Sometimes Brian would blow it and the kids in the car would hoot with delight. 

     He was scheduled to pick up meat from a slaughterhouse in Chicago.  It was called the Amityville Slaughter House and it lived up to its name.  He told me to wait in the cab as he went inside to deal with the paperwork.  I looked around through the cab's windows and there wasn't much to look at.  Older looking cars were in the parking lot, weeds vined up the broken down fence that surrounded the building, and the building looked old.  I even watched a pig being escorted in the air by a Bobcat 4-wheeler across the parking lot.  Little did this pig know but its final ride would lead him become bacon and ham. Did my mouth just water, I thought.

     After a while an uncomforting feeling came across me.  I needed a bathroom.  Oh how I envied men who can just stand hidden in a corner to use it or relieve themselves in a bottle or jug.  God just did not make women that way.  I looked at the mulitple doors to the building.  I didn't know which door to go into.  I looked around for another business, perhaps a gas station would be nearby.  There was nothing but old, run-downed, two story homes.  Please God, let Brian come out soon! I anguished.  After what seemed like forever Brian came back to the truck to check on me.  The shippers were still messing with the paperwork.  I told him I needed to use the bathroom.  He asked if I could hold it.  I have him a look of urgency.  He begged me to hold it because this wasn't a nice place to use the bathroom.  "I don't care," I pleaded, "I am about to squat in front of this truck if I don't get to a bathroom now!"

     He comes around the truck and opens the door for me.  "I don't want you looking around.  Keep your eyes on the floor.  There is disgusting things in here." he says tenderly as we approach a set of doors.

     Disgusting things?  Did that ever get my curiousity going!  We entered the first set of doors and a lady sat behind a window with papers shuffled across her desk.  Brian asked where the bathroom was for me.  The lady gave him instruction through the factory maze. We entered another set of doors.  It was loud and smelled nasty.  As we rounded a corner the floor turned red.  It's wasn't paint either.  But I was mindful and still kept my eyes on the ground, mostly because I didn't want to step on the chunks that was litered on the ground. We entered another area and he told me that when he says "GO!" we have to move quickly forward.  I couldn't look down any longer.  The urge to look up was too great.  I told Brian I can handle this.  I looked up and gasped out loud.  Brian was so concerned and disappointed that the image I seen was terrifing to me.  On the contrary that was a gasp of excitment. 

     This is a part of our food chain that most people don't get to see and here I was observing it.  Up above were skinless headless pigs hanging on hooks through its feet cascading around on a system that looked like a cruel roller coaster ride.  It went from an upper level and down across the room we were in and into a lower level room for more processing.  As we passed through the room, we had to dodge between the hanging pig corpses.  It was thrilling.  A smile even emerged from my face which confused Brian.

     We went down a flight of grated stairs.  I placed my hands on the railing.  It was sticky and gooie feeling.  I knew it was because of pig blood.  I quickly let go of the railing.  Just because I found this experience interesting I didn't want to feel it.  We finally found the bathroom.  It wasn't pretty, to say the least.  It looked as bad as it did the slaughter house.  I didn't care.  I had to use it.  A toilet was a toilet and I was thankful.

     We made our way back up the sticky stairs, dodged the hanging carcas of pork, and back around to the lady at the window.  Brian walked me back to the truck apologizing for the sights that I seen and that a lady shouldn't of seen something to that degree.  I told him I found it rather interested and I liked it but he didn't understand how someone could like something so grusome.  I climbed back into the truck and Brian went back inside to finish up on the paperwork.  I sat there wishing how I could see the rest of the factory and how a pig goes from being carried on bobcat to becoming bacon on our breakfast plates.

     After some time Brian comes running to the truck.  "We have to go now!" he says urgently, "The inspectors are closing the factory down!  They just finished loading our truck and we have to leave before they lock up the gates."  He gets the truck moving fast and starts shifting gears.  A few other trucks were in line of leaving the premises quickly.

     We get back on the road and Brian says, "I bet after that you won't want to eat meat anymore."

     I looked at him, smiled, and replied, "Actually a grilled ham and cheese sandwich does sound good."  Then we rode off on the highway.  I think Brian then realized that I was different than the other girls he knew.