Day 31: Why I Love Halloween

Probably a question to those of you who have read more than one post through this whole endeavour is why did I decide to do this 31 days of Blogtober challenge?

Well, there are a couple of reasons for it.

The first is that because I’m just starting up on this blog and want to allow my readers to get to know me a little a better. I’m a huge fan of transparency, and this seemed like a really good way of helping with that. So, I’m trying to put myself out there so you guys can know who I am and where I’m coming from.

The second reason is that I love Halloween and everything to do with fall, and I thought this was a really good idea. And I’ll be honest, this was a lot of fun.

Now, as to why I love Halloween.

It’s a magical time of the year for me. As a kid dressing up and getting mountains of candy. As I got older and developed a love for horror and the supernatural it became more interesting. The veil between worlds is thinner tonight than is usually is, after all.

I’ve always liked dressing up as someone else and pretending to be someone who isn’t me. I’ve loved the idea of magic and creatures you wouldn’t normally think to exist, existing.

I love pumpkins. I just love everything having to do with it. I could go on and on for a very long time, but eventually, I’d get frustrated because I can’t properly explain all of my reasoning for it. I just love everything about it, it brings up really good memories. I love the aesthetic. Just, everything about it I love.

Thank you for joining me for the LAST DAY of my Blogtober challenge, which was me posting a fall or Halloween themed post every day for the month of October. As of today, all of these posts will be up for you to look through as you like if you’re interested. I will be resuming my regular posting schedule of one logical post on Fridays and additional bonus content throughout the week as things come up. I hope all of you have a happy and safe Halloween, and you get a lot of candy. I will see you next time.

-T.R. Flynn.

Day 30: What I’m Doing for Halloween

I don’t have a lot of plans for Halloween this year. I intend to stay in and hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters and watch horror movies while I do that.

I ended up spending the day getting the house decorated and ready for tomorrow night. You might be asking why I didn’t do that sooner. Well, I wanted to. But we live in a not so great neighborhood so putting out the decorations early and leaving them there will result in them getting stolen. We don’t want to do that.

I’ve also spent the day getting together bags of candy for them too. We’re the kind of people who’ll get a bunch of different kinds of candy and give them out. To make it fair so everyone gets the same amount we started giving them out in bags. And the ones we got this year are really cute too!

I like handing out candy because I get to see all the happy kids get their candy and their cute, and sometimes amazing, costumes.

I don’t know, maybe I’m weird and you guys don’t like handing out candy.

Let me know what you guys are doing tomorrow, I’d love to know.

Thank you for joining me for day 30 or my Blogtober challenge. If you liked what you saw here, I have one last post tomorrow for you so come back and see it then. The rest of the posts are all up for you to see if you’d like to check them out. I hope you have a very happy and safe Halloween, and you get a lot of candy. If you don’t celebrate Halloween I hope you have a great day. I will see you next time.

-T.R. Flynn.

Day 29: My Biggest Fears

You guys are going to get to know me really well by the end of this.

So, fears! We all have at least one. Some of them are irrational, some are rational, some are deeply seeded, others are just things that unnerve us. But we’re talking about biggest fears today. Fears that leave you petrified at the sight or sound of them. That rip the breath from your throat so you can’t even scream.

Specifically, my own fears that leave me petrified, and terrorized, and makes me want to curl up into a ball and cry as I have a panic attack.

The first thing that comes to mind is a fear I’m certain a lot of you have too.

Arachnophobia. The fear of spiders. I hate spiders! I’ve had bad experiences with spiders when I was a little kid, I can not stand them anymore. Little house spiders are fine, same with little garden spiders as long as they don’t touch me. Large spiders, like tarantulas, or wolf spiders, or anything like that, I will run screaming out of the room like the little girl I am! I am terrified of them!

My sister and I went to this reptile house one day, and they teach you about these exotic animals and you get to touch, play with, and interact with them. A couple of those animals were scorpions, and two were spiders. I was about to walk into that room where they had them, they had the spider, it was a tarantula, out and people were allowed to hold it. I nopped the hell out of there. I was not going to step foot in that room as long as it was out. Thankfully they put it away pretty fast, but still. Had I been in that room when it came out a panic attack probably would have ensued.

Bones sticking out of the body. I don’t know if there’s an actual term for this fear, but there it is. Broken bones, bones sticking out and poking at the skin, bones literally breaking through the skin and visible. I can’t stand any of that. When I was a kid I wanted to be a doctor, my how things have changed, I could not get over the idea of bones coming out of the body. I can’t stand it. I can’t stomach it. It makes me cringe and squirm and completely uncomfortable. Not sure if this counts as a fear, but it gets under my skin in all the wrong ways.

My greatest fear and this is probably going to be the one people understand and/or relate to the least, is my own imagination.

Allow me to explain. I have an overactive imagination. I’ve always had an overactive imagination. I know, consciously, that there is not a demon or creature that wants to tear me apart in the deepest shadow of my closet. But my mind, my imagination, puts it there. Walking through a dark alley, I wouldn’t be afraid of getting mugged or jumped or anything like that, I’d be terrified of a monster coming up behind me, or of the darkness consuming me.

I know that’s not going to happen. But I cannot stop it from putting forth that idea. And once that seed is sown, it’s fertilized, watered, and growing strong. I cannot stop it. I cannot change it. And sometimes I cannot let it go. And that is terrifying.

I am safe in my bed at night, in my house. I have three dogs, one of which is a ridiculously sensitive guard dog. There is no way that anyone could break into this house without someone knowing about it and alerting everyone else. But in the shadowed corner of my room, there’s something here that can kill me, drag me into a portal to hell, rip off my skin, eat me, subject me to the worst kinds of pain imaginable. And I create that to torment myself.

If that is not the most horrifying thing you can think of, I don’t know what is.

Well, you don’t have to go into as much detail as I have, but if you’d like to share what your fears are in the comments, I’d love to read them.

Thank you for joining me for day 29 of my Blogtober challenge, which is where I post a fall or Halloween themed post every day for the month of October. And what is more befitting Halloween than fears? If you liked what you saw here you can come back tomorrow and see what I have for you then. Or, if it’s after the 31st all of these are up and you can check them all out. I hope you are having a great day/afternoon/evening/night, and I will see you next time.

-T.R. Flynn.

Day 28: Do You Believe in the Supernatural?

This is probably going to be the most controversial post I make, potentially ever. People are either strongly one way or the other, very rarely will you get people in the middle.

The short answer to this question is yes, I do.

The long answer isn’t quite that clear cut.

First, to explain myself I’m going to need to talk about my family.

My dad is a firm skeptic. He does not believe anything having to do with the supernatural or the paranormal or anything like that. Whenever someone brings it up he’ll either roll his eyes or he’ll dismiss whatever they have to say. And this is despite the fact that my Nana, his mother, was an adamant believer. I can’t speak for my Poppy, I didn’t really know my grandparents because they died when I was young. But from my understanding, they were both believers as well.

According to my mom, he used to believe, but then something happened and he refuses to believe it. What exactly happened, I can’t tell you because he refuses to talk about it.

My mom is a firm believer in the supernatural and paranormal. She believes in ghosts, guardian angels. I’m not sure if she believes in cryptids but it’s not something that genuinely comes up.

My sister is a firm believer in it all as well. Cryptids included.

My brother is a skeptic. He’s not quite as narrow minded as my dad but he’s always trying to find a logical and scientific reasoning behind something. Most of the time if something happens he can chalk it up to one of our pets.

My reasoning goes back a little further because on both sides of my family we sort of have a connection with it. There’s a string of Wicca and paganism on my mom’s side. On my dad’s side, there’s also a bit of Wicca from my Nana. From my Poppy, his family had practiced the religion of Voodoo and Hoodoo I believe.

There’s a lot of unexplained things that have gone on in my family. Something I’m trying to explore now that I’m older and capable of understanding it.

When I was younger I was more sensitive to the supernatural world around me. Talking to my sister about it, she’s still quite sensitive to the world around her, she thinks that I might have blocked out part of my ability to see the supernatural world because it terrified me as a kid.

Thinking about it, it makes sense to me. I’ve always had an overactive imagination that terrified me, I didn’t need that as well. And I had blocked out a lot of things from when I was younger due to bad memories. I got bullied a lot, I don’t want to relive it.

Beyond all of that, I do believe that there are things that cannot be explained. I’m not going to immediately jump to it’s a ghost. But there are stories about creatures like black dogs, Wendigos, skinwalkers, vampires, werewolves, etc. A lot of them span over various countries and continents, there is at least a thread of truth in them somewhere. There are creepy and crazy and disturbing things that we already know about, that terrify us. Why can’t a ten foot tall, ape-human creature exist?

But that’s my opinion. What do you guys believe?

Thank you so much for joining me for day 28 of my Blogtober challenge, which is where I post a fall or Halloween themed post every day for the month of October. So, if you liked what you saw here you can come back tomorrow and see what I have for you then. Or, if it’s after the 31st then all of these are up and you check them all out if you’d like. Thank you again for joining me, I hope you have a great day/afternoon/evening/night, and I will see you next time.

-T.R. Flynn.

Day 27: Scary Story

He home from setting traps that day. Passing dozens of skulls along the fence. Scaled skins were stretched out on frames along the side of the house, drying in the strong sunlight. He made a mental note to wipe them off tomorrow before too much dust could settle on them.

He paused at the door. The screen door was closed but the door was wide open. It shouldn’t have been that way. The air was on and Mary was always anal about keeping it closed to keep costs down.

He eased himself inside. Humidity clung to him like a second skin. The air was off.

“Mary?” He called out, hoping to hear his wife call for him and say that the air conditioner was broken.

He heard babbling from the nursery and hurried to the door, trying to be as silent as he could.

The door was wide open. Laying sprawled out on the floor, face down was his wife. Her long brown hair sprayed everywhere.

Sitting in the rocking chair holding his infant son was a woman that looked scarily like Mary. Her skin was scaley and a sickly dark green. His son’s skin was beginning to turn scaly and green as well.

A gasp escaped him at the sight.

The woman looked up. Her yellow eyes striking fear into his very core. She smiled at him, her lips parted revealing dozens of sharp, reptilian teeth.

In her face, he saw every single innocent alligator he had ever hunted. And she was here for revenge.