Fictitious Musings

It’s the sixth day of the Keepers of the Crypt event and we have plenty of exciting things coming your way. Sign up for our newsletter so that you don’t miss any of the excitement this month. Today I’m pleased to welcome author Armand Rosamilia back to Fictitious Musings today. He’s here to share his favorite Halloween with us? Do you have a favorite book related memory of Halloween? Let us know in the comments.

Thirteen Year Old Me, Halloween and HP Lovecraft

 As a kid, I loved to read my mother’s horror books. It was mostly Dean Koontz paperbacks and anything with a monster, spider or haunted house on the cover. I started finding books at the school library, but these were cheesy and written for elementary and junior high kids, not for me. I read the adult stuff, and my mother would black out the sex and drugs and bad cursing for me.

I also read anything by Robert E. Howard I could find, loving Conan the Barbarian. There was a flea market my family would go to out in the middle of nowhere, and a guy there had a ton of comic books and books I would spend hours looking at. My parents would always buy me whichever Conan I was still missing.

Then I saw it. I’m not sure what exact collection it was, but I remember the book looked well-read and even had a dog-eared corner on the cover. But it was by someone named HP Lovecraft, the cover was strange and I wanted it.

I remember my mother pursing her lips and looking at my father, not knowing whether or not I should have it. She hadn’t screened it yet and I was all of thirteen. I can still remember begging her for it, standing there in a dusty aisle of a flea market, like my life depended on this used book. They bought it for me.

By the time we got back to the car I was already reading it, and it blew me away. I can remember asking her a million questions on the ride about what this and that word meant, and she did her best to answer me. I’m sure at this point she thought it was a big mistake.

I also remember buying the book in late October, because it was just starting to get too cold to be outside playing kickball, football and kill the man with the ball. And Halloween was approaching.

When I was thirteen and a month before my fourteenth birthday, I told my mother I was too old for trick or treating. Was I? I doubt it. But I knew at that point in my short life Halloween was a sham. There was nothing scary about it, just sore feet and a pillow case filled with candy.

The real horror was in the pages of my new book. As I write this I can still see myself crashed on my bed, feet kicking as I started The Shadow Over Innsmouth. I had never read something as creepy or as sinister as that story up to this point, and most likely never afterward.

It literally scared me so much I wanted to sleep with the lights on, but I shared a room with my younger brother (who got a pillow case of candy that year), and was freaked out. We lived on a dead end street in New Jersey, with woods next to us. I knew the people of Innsmouth were out there, hiding and waiting until I fell asleep.

I don’t think I got all the subtle HP Lovecraft nuances as a kid, but I knew a creepy story when I read it. I also couldn’t wait to finish reading it and devouring more from whoever this HP guy or girl was. I assumed he was like Dean Koontz and still out there, writing new books.

Imagine my dismay when I found out he’d died so long ago. But I hunted down as many of his books as I could find over the years and became a huge fan, even writing my ongoing Keyport Cthulhu series as homage to what scared me as a kid.

To this day, I look back and think of that as my favorite Halloween ever. And with good reason.

About the Author

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Armand Rosamilia is a New Jersey boy currently living in sunny Florida, where he writes when he’s not watching zombie movies, the Boston Red Sox and listening to Heavy Metal music…

“Highway To Hell” and “Dying Days” extreme zombie novellas are part of the growing Extreme Undead series of books/stories created by Armand…

He is also an editor for Rymfire Books, helping with several horror anthologies, including “Vermin” and the “State of Horror” series, as well as the creator and energy behind Carnifex Metal Books, putting out the “Metal Queens Monthly” series of non-fiction books about females into Metal…

e-mail him to talk about zombies, baseball and Metal: armandrosamilia@gmail.com

Keyport Cthulhu Series only 99 cents each

Ancient – Two short stories with a Lovecraftian slant… In “Ancient” a couple visits a home near the beach, both having different ideas of what to do while in Keyport… “Cthulhunicorn” is a tongue-in-cheek flash fiction piece written between author Armand Rosamilia and his daughter, Katelynn Rosamilia, combining two awesome things… Cthulhu and unicorns.

Barren - A short story with a Lovecraftian slant… In “Barren” (the second in the Keyport Cthulhu short story series) a biker, on the run from the motorcycle club he betrayed, finds something far worse than former friends to contend with.

Cabal – Coming Soon

Dagon – Coming Soon

Evil – Coming Soon

Tags:Ancient, Armand Rosamilia, Barren, Cabal, Dagon, Evil, Horror, HP Lovecraft, Keepers of the Crypt, Keepers of the Crypt event, Keyport Cthulhu Series, Keyport Cthulhu Tale, Rymfire Books, Short Stories