Thin beams of light broke up the darkness in the cavernous room.
Smoke hung in the air like the echo of a muttered threat. Around
us, half-concealed shapes pressed closer, their full menace
thankfully concealed by the shadows. All eyes turned in one
direction as a black curtain creaked open.
At first nothing to be seen. Then the flickering of a strobe
light. Shapes and colours began to emerge.
Bones. Headstones. Blood.
A cloaked, scuttling figure. And five human corpses, hanging by
the neck.
The cloaked figure approached the first body and, with a massive
syringe, injected some glowing substance of unspeakable origin into
its blood-sodden neck. The corpse woke, pulled the noose from its
neck and stumbled down off the scaffold. The second cadaver was
resurrected in the same way, then the third and so on down the
line, until five zombie-like forms stood before us. Unblinking,
rotten-flesh translucent in the pale light, they moved as one and
took their places. Then they picked up their guitars and played one
of my favourite songs: Ghostbusters.
And they say Halloween is for kids!
Mr B and I, and a mini-bus of mates, were at the annual gig of
Lou Ciffer and the Living Dead, a rock-tribute band normally known
as MFU (Men From Uranus) - yes, I know, much more grown up! Once a
year, MFU like to cast off their respectable nature and reveal
their dark side.
Well, don't we all?
There are two kinds of people in this world, it seems to me.
Those who have something of the night about them: and those who are
in denial. You only had to glance round Chinnor Village Hall last
night to see hoards of middle aged, middle class professionals
relishing the chance to be zombies, vampires, were-wolves, the grim
reaper and a rather buxom Little Red Riding Hood. (Actually, I
suspect she does it more than once a year, that costume didn't look
new)
Tomorrow morning they'll go back to their jobs at the bank, the
solicitors' office, the estate agency, but for one night they were
as bad as can be and loving it. We all have a dark side, we're all
fascinated by the wicked and the unnatural, and we all leap at the
chance to explore it a little further.
Stephen King says he was "born with a love of the night and the
unquiet coffin." I think he speaks for us all. We all love the
night and things that go bump in it.
Lucky for me we do; lucky also for thousands of others the world
over who make their living from the dark, the creepy, the thrilling
and the downright terrifying. And lucky for the rest of you too,
because you need us.
Being scared is essential to the human condition. The world
around us is perilous and full of danger and torment. We live every
second knowing that fear, misery and death may be waiting just
round the corner and we deal with it by mocking it, by exploring it
in the safety of fiction, by surviving it vicariously - through the
experience of others - in our stories. We need our scary books,
plays, TV shows and films, we need to tell each other ghost stories
by candlelight, we need our fascination with serial killers and the
worst of human crimes, because all these things help us cope with
the fear that is constantly peering over our shoulders. We need
Halloween.
And those of you who don't accept this? Who hate this ridiculous
annual charade that menaces pensioners and rots teeth in equal
measure.
Stay away - you scare me.
NB: MFU are extremely talented, know how to rock a room, and
make decomposing flesh look quite sexy. They are available for
birthdays, weddings, baptisms, Bar Mitzvahs and high-school proms
in and around the Buckinghamshire area. If you're interested, leave
a message on the blog and I'll pass on your details.
Thanks to Kirk Goble for taking the pics and allowing me to use
them.