I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-“The Haunted House” (MGM Grand Garden Arena, Friday 10, 31, 2014).

In honor of Halloween, these Ghost Box stories will be attached to a recent Phish Halloween show [with quoted material from various reviews]. 

Known for dawning musical costumes to celebrate [Halloween], Phish broke with tradition last year to offer a set of original music.  The Phish Bill read that Phish’s musical costume would be a 1964 Disney album of sound effects – Chilling, Thrilling Sounds Of The Haunted House.  But it wasn’t a cover set. Phish played original music set amongst an incredibly psychedelic, theatrical graveyard stage accentuated by zombie dancers and a ghoulish MC.  At the start of the set, the stage was cleared before a graveyard came to the foreground.  Smoke filled the air, zombie dancers appeared, and music filled the venue. A haunted house was brought to the front of the stage, which eventually exploded, and all four-band members appeared, dressed in white like zombies. 

After playing the spoken narration from the record, “You are a bold and courageous person afraid of nothing…” the band plays a fast thumping melody as the song builds in intensity.  It’s a bit dark and eerie with staccato piano and a slow, menacing riff.  It feels very zombie-like (on stage zombies came out from behind the gravestones).

There’s a slow menacing solo played over the top of the (over the top) screams and moans from the record.  It ends with a gong.

[READ: October 16, 2017] “The Night Wire”

Just in time for Halloween, from the people who brought me The Short Story Advent Calendar comes The Ghost Box.

This is a nifty little box (with a magnetic opening) that contains 11 stories for Halloween.  It is lovingly described thusly:

A collection of chilly, spooky, hair-raising-y stories to get you in that Hallowe’en spirit, edited and introduced by comedian and horror aficionado Patton Oswalt.

There is no explicit “order” to these books; however, on the inside cover, one “window” of the 11 boxes is “folded.”  I am taking that as a suggested order

This story seems like it may have been the template for many stories that followed.  Which means to a reader nearly 100 years later it’s not that suspenseful or spurring.  But at the time it was probably pretty awesome.

And frankly, the writing does lend to some wonderfully creepy moments.

The narrator for this story works as The Night Wire–his job is to read news wires as they come in from all over the world.  He works the overnight shift in a dark skyscraper.  It’s just him and the guy who types up the messages.

The typist was John Morgan–and he was one of the best.  He was  double typist and could type on two different machines at the same time–one with each hand.  This was a rare gift and it suited the man perfectly as when it got busy he didn’t need to slow down.  Otherwise he was quiet and kept to himself.

But that night John start to feel funny.  In the three years they’s worked together, this was the only time the narrator had heard John Morgan make a sound about himself.  He said it was feeling rather close in the room.  The narrator suggested he open a window.

That’s when the narrator saw the messages that were coming in on the otherwise dead send line.  They came from a place called Xebico.

There was report of dense fog.  It was so thick, traffic had halted.  Scientists were reporting a foul order along with the fog.

Then news came in that the fog had begun in the town graveyard, and that the pastor of the church was saying prayers for anyone afraid–there were screams and cries from the houses next to the graveyard.  Search parties went in to look for victims and never came back.  Rescue parties similarly failed to return.

The final message came through as a first person account of a man’s last minutes there.

What can John Morgan have thought of all of this?  The ending is definitely creepy.