Peter Counter - Be Scared of Everythng

Invisible Publishing produces fine Canadian literature for those who enjoy such things. As an independent, not-for-profit publisher, our work includes building communities that sustain and encourage engaging, literary, and current writing.

Invisible Publishing has been in operation for over a decade. We released our first fiction titles in the spring of 2007, and our catalogue has come to include works of graphic fiction and non-fiction, pop culture biographies, experimental poetry, and prose.

We are committed to publishing diverse voices and experiences. In acknowledging historical and systemic barriers, and the limits of our existing catalogue, we strongly encourage writers from LGBTQ2SIA+ communities, Indigenous writers, and writers of colour to submit their work.

Invisible Publishing is also home to the Bibliophonic series of music books and the Throwback series of CanLit reissues.

If youd like to know more, please get in touch: info@invisiblepublishing.com

Be Scared of Everything

Horror Essays

Peter Counter

Invisible Publishing

Halifax & Prince Edward County

Peter Counter, 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any method, without the prior written consent of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or, in the case of photocopying in Canada, a licence from Access Copyright.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Be scared of everything : horror essays / Peter Counter.

Names: Counter, Peter, 1987- author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200289896 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200290088 | ISBN 9781988784564 (softcover) | ISBN 9781988784625 (HTML)

Subjects: LCSH: Counter, Peter, 1987- | LCSH: Horror in mass media. | LCSH: Horror filmsHistory and criticism. | LCSH: Horror television programsHistory and criticism. | LCSH: Horror talesHistory and criticism. | LCSH: Horror. | LCGFT: Essays.

Classification: LCC P96.H65 C68 2020 | DDC 700/.4164dc23

Edited by Andrew Faulkner

Cover design by Megan Fildes

Invisible Publishing | Halifax & Prince Edward County

www.invisiblepublishing.com

Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada.

The names and identifying details of the humans mentioned in this book have been changed to protect their privacy, with the exception of public figures and consenting persons.

The names of the demons mentioned in this book have remained unchanged. Read aloud at your own risk.

For my brother Nick.

For my partner Emma.

Do what thou wilt.

These content notes are made available so readers can inform themselves; some readers may also consider these notes to be spoilers. This book includes references to self-harm, suicide, gun violence, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Interviews with My Family Ouija Board

Celebration of Life

A World Made of Train Tracks

Please Add Me to Your Zombie Survival Network

The FBIs Basement Office

Too-Loo

Corporate Personhood

The New Necronomicon

The Shattered Teacup

On the Horror of Comedy

Manufacturing Mephistopheles

Beeps and Boops

Manifest Doom

Five Litres

Fighting Ghosts

100 Seconds to Midnight

Metaphysical Graffiti

Silent Ruins

Where the Creepypastas Are

Broken Nightmare Telephone

Fear of the Shark

Audient Void, Authorial Void

Extrasensory

On Madness

Cannibal Symposium

Wallpaper

Devils Nostril

Santa Claus versus the Smoke Monster

When the Screaming Stops

Acknowledgements

1

9

13

17

31

39

43

49

57

67

71

79

83

87

89

93

97

109

115

121

125

135

137

147

153

157

167

171

183

Jackie placed a glass of tap water on the bookshelf, put a dark stone on the ledge, and I lit incense on the table behind us. Aside from the single naked light bulb above the old coffee table, the glow of a wood stove provided most of our light. The four elements, all in their right placeswater in the north, fire in the south, air in the east, and earth in the westwere supposed to protect us from what came next. Jackie joined my brother, our mother, Emma, and me, surrounding the Ouija board.

Im sorry, said Jackie, my brothers partner. This was her first Christmas with us in the small, lonely house on the bay. This is serious for me.

We took turns pairing off and conducting the ritual: placing two fingers from each hand at the base of a teardrop-shaped planchette, we rotated the cursor three times and asked, Is anybody there?

Thats how we got the first communications. Initials and ages for Jackies dead relatives, something that called itself Frudmug, and an entity named Devur that told us about Devon who lives in Heaven and listens to you when you syn.

When I paired with my mom after those initial summonings, kneeling next to each other, something changed. She asked the first question, usually answered with a hissing slide of the planchette to the top left corner of the board where YES is printed, but instead the pointer moved directly forward, encircling the games title.

Do you have a message for someone in this room? asked Mom.

Yes, said the board. Then it spelled her name.

What is your message?

I will see you.

Where will I see you?

Where you wish.

Who is this message from? I asked.

You.

The words were agreeable. At least, thats how Mom read them. After the family seance ended, we disassembled the protective circle, and Jackie had us take a moment to offer silent gratitude for the elements. I later found Mom standing in the kitchen alone.

It makes sense the message was so strong and clear, she said. I think it remembered me. It used to be my board, back in the sixties.

Fifty years before the board talked to her in Jackies circle of protection, only a half-hour drive from where our ritual took place, Mom was a preteen at the Central Wire Christmas party. Her dad, my opa, worked for Central Wire as a diamond die polisher, and every year the tradesmen and their families celebrated the holidays at Farrell Hall, a community centre that was used for mass on Sundays. When Santa arrived at the party and passed out presents to the kids, he handed little Trudy Zegger, my future mother, a Ouija board.

Unwrapping her present and lifting the lid off the box, Trudy found a grey-brown particle board with a large sticker on its front to make it look wooden. The words YES and NO were printed in the top left and right corners, next to illustrations of the sun and moon that looked down on the alphabet, which was presented in two curved rows that arch above the numbers zero through nine. The bottom of the board said GOOD BYE, and at the very top was the name of the gameOuija.