FAVORITE BEDTIME STORIES

Why do we like scary?

Learning to be storytellers from Mom.

            In our young-adult horror series, Dimensions in Death, our protagonists fight for their lives in a battle with monsters that seem to come from nowhere around an old, abandoned mansion in Trona, California, an actual, small, mining town located on the Searles Valley dry-lake bed in a desolate region of the Mojave Desert, near Death Valley, and in fact, death is a good description of the environment.  Very few kinds of plant or animal life can survive there, let alone grow naturally, and many of those that can grow there are deadly.           

Welcome to Searles Valley --
Andy takes in the view.

            Trona is a real town and the desert environment around Searles Valley is the perfect stage for this kind of horror story.  While the events of the tale are limited only by our imaginations, the location of each event is firmly anchored in the reality of what is Trona and its Mojave Desert location.

Trona Cemetery in foreground with
Searles Valley Chemical Plant
seen in the background.

            Both Berk and I grew up in Trona (and later in Ridgecrest, located 25 miles west), and we knew the area well, but we still return there on occasion to make sure our descriptions of the local geography are accurate.  All natural landmarks (and some unnatural landmarks) described in the books actually exist, and their descriptions add to the bleakness of the story.  A desolate landscape is a great backdrop for the giant, marauding, alien predators that are preying on the townsfolk and visitors of Trona.

             In addition, we have researched some far-out theories of astro-physics, so that Mojave Green can answer the questions raised in Pitch Green, and also, so that Fatal Green can answer other questions raised in both of the prior books.  But remember, this is not a science fiction series.

            The tale is fast-paced horror, suspense and mystery thriller, based on pseudo-science, rather than magic and mysticism.  In the end, everything our heroes encounter must have some kind of plausible explanation for what is going on and for where the monsters are coming from.  And, there must be some way for the protagonists to defend themselves, fight back, and maybe in the end, prevail.

            Both of us have always enjoyed hearing and telling good scary stories.  It was a basic part of our growing up experience.  We don’t remember a time when we weren’t telling spine-chilling tales.  We vividly recall lying awake for hours as small children after hearing a horrifying saga told right at bed time, leaving us thinking that every creaking noise, every whisper of wind, was the latest monster coming to eat us alive.

            Once, as children, we heard some mysterious thing scratching on the window screen of our bedroom, which was an extra room, shared by three brothers, built on the back of the house.  All of us dived under the beds, screaming for help.  Turns out, it was our mom—we should have known.  She was bringing clothes in from the line and stopped to pick up a stick to reach up and scrape across our window screen.  She was full of surprises, and we grew up thinking all moms were like that.

            Mom was always thinking of new ways to scare her own children, or anyone else for that matter.  Once, when still a newlywed, she snuck up the basement stairs of Grandma Washburn’s old house and flung open the kitchen door, shouting “BOO!” startling her mother-in-law, sister-in-law and two-year-old niece.  Grandma was not fond of such hijinks.  Pointing an accusing finger at our mother, Grandma exclaimed, “Clara!  For shame! For shame!”  By the time our father got there to see what was going on, everyone in the room was in tears.  He thought someone in the family had died.

            That did not cure Mom though.  She had a talent for scaring anyone and everyone.  One Halloween when I was in junior high, an older brother and sister, Allen and Linda, received permission to throw a big Halloween party for their high school friends.  The culmination of the party, its climax, was a scary story told by Mom.  She said she woke up about 2:00 am, and the story just came to her as she lie there in bed.

            At the party, Mom sat on the fireplace hearth in the front room.  About twenty teens sat on the floor around her feet.  The lights were off.  Only a few rays from an outside streetlight found their way into the room through the window curtains and drapes.

            Telling the story in a hushed, grim voice, Mom spoke as if she were sounding a deadly-serious warning.  Soon, some girls started to whimper.  The boys were “obviously” too brave to complain, but at one point, an older boy suddenly got up and left the room, not to come back until the story was over.

            As Mom talked, Allen crept around the outside of the house to an unlocked front-room window.  When Mom reached the zenith of horror in the story, Allen opened the window and climbed into the house.  He was wearing a full-head mask, colored with glow marks along the dark-red gore painted on the distorted face.

            The screaming and crying was glorious.  Even some guys screamed and tried to run away.

            That was, without a doubt, one of the best Halloweens EVER!

            You could say our love for scary stories is nothing more or less than a chromosomal phenomenon.  However we came by our fascination for horror stories, we love them still and hope to keep telling them for a long, long time to come.  If Mom were still here, she would be so proud.

DYNAMITE DAD

PEOPLE WATCHING:   The Skill of Character Development

A Call to Grow Up.

                 When people ask my brother, Andy, what he recommends to new writers, he usually says three things:   (1) keep writing – write about anything and everything,  (2) visit new places – keep traveling both near and far,  and (3) study people – pay attention to the people around you and take note of what they say and do.  This week, I’m still talking about the benefits of people watching.

                 From my earliest days, one of the people I watched most closely was my Dad.  I have many memories of Dad, but one sticks out in my mind from my high school senior year in Trona, California.  Dad was the only dentist in town and active in community service.  For many years, he served on the local school board.

                Trona is an isolated, small town, located deep in the Mojave Desert.  The principal employers in the area are the local mineral processing plants and the railroad.  The surrounding desert is studded with old mines and active prospecting sites, where stashes of dynamite have been abandoned, ready for the taking by curious teenagers.

                During one school board meeting, the recreational use of dynamite by high school students became a hot issue.  Recently, someone had blown up a small bridge at the Trona golf course.  (It wasn’t me.)  The local golf course was just one big sand trap.  It had no grass, but Dad sometimes played it.  In that board meeting, Dad waxed a bit hot under the collar on what should be done about this problem, until another board member interrupted to say, “AlDean, your son is one of the ringleaders.”

Looking West From Trona
Past the Old Trona Golf Course
Toward T Mountain in the Argus Range

                That stopped Dad cold.  Until that moment, it had never occurred to him that I might have dynamite.

                I confess.  I was guilty as charged.  For several years, my friends and I had collected dynamite.  With the hard caliche layer in our desert soils, the use of dynamite was common both in construction as well as in mining, and dynamite didn’t scare me.  I had researched the use of dynamite in a large university library while I was staying on campus at a week-long, youth conference for high school kids.  Along with learning the basics of setting a blast, I had researched safety issues.

               What could go wrong?

                I was late that night coming home from football practice.  We lived in Pioneer Point, north of Trona.  As I walked in, I saw Dad sitting on a straight-back chair in the living room, facing the front door, staring at me.  This was unusual.  I had never found him waiting for me before.

                “Come here and sit on the couch,” he instructed curtly.  “We need to talk.”  His unblinking eyes were stone hard, and I could see his cheek muscles tensing as he gritted his teeth.

                 Uh-oh.  My thoughts raced as I tried to think of what I might have done.

                “At the school board meeting tonight, someone said you were one of the kids using dynamite around town.  Is this true?”

                “Yes, but I never blown up anything around town—just out in the desert.” I never lied to Dad.

                He proceeded to tell me what a numb-skull thing that was.  He said I would get myself killed or, worse yet, kill someone else.  “What are you thinking?” he finished.

                “I never blow up anything that is worth anything to anyone, Dad.  Just big rocks out in the desert and old abandoned cars and other desert junk.  Things like that.  And I am always careful.”

                Dad glared at me, shaking his index finger.  “Do you have any dynamite right now?”

Looking East from Pioneer Point
Toward the Searles Dry Lake Bed
And the Slate Range Mountains

                “Yes”

                “Where is it?

                “Hidden out in the desert.”

                That stopped him for a moment.  “Well, get rid of it.”

                “Dad, how am I supposed to do that?  I can’t just put it out on the curb for the trash collector to pick up on garbage day.”

                Dad stared at me for a second in thought.  “Well, this weekend, go out into the desert and blow it all up.  Just be careful!  And, don’t get yourself killed.”

                “Okay, Dad.  I’ll be careful, and I’ll get rid of it.”

                His face relaxed a little, then stiffened again.  “And do not tell your Mom about any of this!”

                I’m not sure now who came with me that Saturday.  It might have been my good buddy, Ed Rockdale, who lived just down the street from me, but that weekend we had a blast blowing up 50 or 60 sticks of dynamite in some of the largest explosions we had ever engineered.

                A good dynamite blast is a real science.  Depending on how well the charge is set, the blast can range from just a loud boom with a sharp shockwave to a spectacular explosion throwing debris hundreds of feet into the air and significantly altering the face of the landscape.  The size of the explosion doesn’t necessarily depend upon the number of sticks of dynamite used if the charge is set deep in a confined space.  We usually rationed out the dynamite, but that Saturday we experimented with new variations on our normal blasting procedures and were rewarded with some spectacular results.

                Saturday evening, Dad asked me if I still had any dynamite.

                “It’s all gone,” I answered truthfully.  I did do more dynamiting while away at college in another state, with dynamite purchased from a construction company, but never again at home.

                After that, Dad never brought up the subject again.  In Dad’s economy of words, the topic of dynamite was forever behind us.  He was never backward about letting me know when I had messed up, but then, once the issue was resolved, the subject was in the past forever.  Dad didn’t hold my mistakes over my head, and even as a teenager, I felt he truly respected me.  I know I truly respected him.

                As I grew into adulthood, with a family of my own, Dad became one of my best friends.  I always valued his wisdom and advice.  I miss him a lot, now that he is gone.  I know that everyone thinks they have the best Dad, but I’m pretty sure that I did.

 

DYNAMITE DATE

PEOPLE-WATCHING:  A Spectator Sport.

Thank Heaven for Good Friends, who Survive.

            We’re still talking about the benefits of watching people.  Last week, I told you about my buddy, Jay Bell, and how by blind luck we all survived the rotten old ladders of Ruth Mine.  This week I’m going to tell a story about two more of my high school friends.  These are people who helped me understand a lot about human nature, and this is a survival story as well.

            I think it was during my junior year.  Debate class had gotten past the opening business, and we were breaking into small groups for individual work when Elaine Arnold slipped into the desk next to me.  Elaine was a year younger than me.  Good-looking, a straight-A student, and always a teacher’s favorite at Trona High School, she was a straight arrow if ever there was one and a good debate buddy.  I learned a lot from both her debate as well as her extemporaneous techniques.

            She spoke softly, leaning over the gap between us, so only I could hear.  “I’ve got a question.”

            I pulled back a bit.  “Oh?”  I was usually asking her the questions.

            “I know it’s ridiculous, but I’ve heard stories.”  She glanced around.  Everyone was busy.  “Do you go out in the desert blowing things up for fun?”  She shrugged.  “I just wondered.  Do you?”

            My shoulders relaxed.  I had imagined a hard question.  “Of course.  Doesn’t everybody?”

            I don’t know how I had earned the “mild-mannered reporter” label.  It always surprised me that everyone—except those who really knew me—saw me as the quiet guy who never did anything exciting or dangerous.  Most people incorrectly assumed that I was the careful, quiet type.

Put the Pedal to the Metal

            True, I was an introvert, hiding my shyness by being overly courteous to others, but that was just my outer shell.  Underneath, I hungered for the maximum speeds and loudest noises I could find. My definition of R&R included fast cars and high explosions.

            Elaine stared at me in earnest for a moment, analyzing what I’d said.  I wasn’t sure how she was reacting to this new revelation and was starting to feel nervous.

            She leaned in close again and whispered, “Will you take me with you sometime?”

            “Sure,” I said with a relieved grin.  “How about this Saturday?”  Saturday was a safe day to go out dynamiting.  The Sheriff from San Bernardino only came through town on Thursday.

             On Saturday morning, I got another long-time buddy, Ken Corbridge, to come along with us.  Ken was always available for a new adventure, but as I look back now, I realize that I may have made a mistake.  When we were exploring, if any one got hurt, it was always Ken. He had commemorative scars from all the big adventures.  He was the yin to Jay Bell’s yang.

            Whereas Jay Bell had a guardian angel who worked overtime, protecting him.  If Ken had a guardian angel at all, his angel had been missing in action for years.  In Ruth Mine, it was a good thing Jay came up the ladder last and not Ken, or Jay may have been the only one to get out alive.

            We picked up Elaine in my old dune buggy (with a Pontiac straight-eight engine) and drove out to our dynamite stash.  Elaine’s eyes got really big, but she made no comment.  The dune buggy had no sides, roll bars, or seat belts, and only one long bench seat.  We put Elaine in the middle of the seat, with me driving on one side and Ken seated on her other side to keep her from falling out.

            Ken held the dynamite in his lap.

            “We’re going to Gold Bottom Mine,” I explained to Elaine as we drove out of town.

            Before Airport Road, I turned off onto a wide, flat dirt road that circled around the dry lake bed of Searles Lake.  The mineral companies that mined the lake deposits kept the road in good condition, so I knew I could get up some real speed, which I hoped would impress Elaine.  The road, clearly visible through the many holes in the floorboard beneath our feet, whizzed by at ever increasing speeds.

            After the road curved south, I increased our speed on the wide, dirt road.  Elaine was enjoying the ride.  Suddenly, I saw the road leading to Gold Bottom Mine turning off on the left.  I spun the wheel, and we skidded sideways, throwing clouds of dirt into the air and massacring some bushes before finally straightening out onto the narrow, rutted mine road.

            Enveloped in dust, I felt Elaine tugging at my arm.  “We lost Kenny,” she yelled in my ear.  I glanced over.  Sure enough, it was just Elaine and me on the seat.  Ken was gone.

            I slammed on the breaks, slid to a stop, and backed up along the rutted track to return to the Searles Lake road.  Through the swirling dust, I saw Kenny lying flat on his back in the middle of the road, holding the dynamite tightly to his chest.  Jumping out, we ran to him.

            “Ken, are you okay?” I called.  “Are you okay?”

            I got to him first and stood looking down. “Ken?  Ken!  Are you all right?”

            Ken wasn’t answering.  It looked like he had some road burn on one arm.  Eyes closed tight, he lay perfectly flat and still.

            When Elaine joined me, she leaned over and commented, “He’s still holding the dynamite.”

            As soon as she spoke, Ken came alive.  Both eyes flew open.  Raising the dynamite above his chest, he set it over on the road away from him, and then pulled his hands back onto his chest again.

            I stared down at him, smiling.  “It’s too late for that, Ken.  If that dynamite were going to blow, it would have happened already.  With your luck, I’m surprised it didn’t blow.”

            “Don’t give me that crap,” Ken growled, using the one swear word he had not yet given up.

Abandoned Desert Junk

            After a couple minutes, Ken was up dusting himself off, complaining about the road rash on his arm.  It was bleeding and burning, but he had seen worse.  Elaine seemed fascinated by his quick recovery, so I explained that this kind of thing happened to Ken all the time.  I didn’t mention that it usually happened when I was driving.

            For the rest of the drive to Gold Bottom Mine, Ken insisted that Elaine hold the dynamite since she was in the middle and less likely to fall out.  Since Elaine was holding the dynamite, she insisted that I drive slow.  After all, the road to the mine was bumpy.

            I don’t remember specifically what we found that day to destroy, but we had a great time blowing up rocks and assorted, abandoned desert junk.  Elaine was suitably impressed with the power of dynamite, and being a quick study, soon had the science of dynamiting figured out.

            For my own part, I came away with a newly found appreciation of the power of dynamite in guaranteeing a successful date.  For the rest of my high school days and into my college career, I was never turned down once for a dynamite date, when I explained that we were really going to blow something up.  In fact, before we were married, I took my wife on a dynamite date, but I’ll let her tell that story.

TRONA

       

          Let me tell you about Trona.  Trona is where the story for our first book, “Pitch Green” takes place.  It is where I went to grade school and Berk went to junior high and high school.  It is a very small town stretched out along a desert highway in California’s high desert.

 

              It is hot, (damn hot) in the summer and cold enough in the winter.  Because it is situated next to a giant alkaline dry lake bed, it is impossible to grow grass there.  However, cactus does very well.

 

            The main industry consists of sucking chemicals out of this giant alkaline dry lake bed and shipping them by the thousands of tons all over the world.  As a result there is a constant sulfuric or rotten egg smell that permeates the entire town.

 

            We lived in a small home, not small by Trona standards though, on the North of town, near the edge of the desert.  But then, because the town is stretched out along the highway that runs through it, basically everyone lives on the edge.  In more ways than one.

            Our description of Trona in our book and the lifestyle there is very, very accurate, except for the fact that there is no giant stone mansion in the middle of town, and people are not being eaten on a regular basis by some unknown, creepy monster.  Nevertheless, if you have ever been to Trona, it would not be difficult to imagine these types of things going on there.

            Stephen King wrote about a similar, but fictional, town in Nevada in his book “Desperation”.  Our plot is very different (we would never copy “The King” of horror), but the mood set by the two towns is, well, familiar to each other.  It is the type of place that if you were driving through it, and your car broke down, you might imagine that something sinister and nefarious could happen to you.

 

            Having set the mood, or tried to anyway, I must add that I loved living in Trona when I was a child.  It was nice that everyone knew everyone.  It was fun that almost the whole town would show up at the huge community swimming pool on scorching hot summer days.  And I dearly loved that I could walk from my front door to the desert and freely roam, with our dog Ginger, as and when I pleased.  That is a freedom that I miss even now, fifty years later.

            I think, without a doubt, that Trona is a good place to set a scary story.  But, it is still, on its own merits, also just a good place, too.