I'm sitting here in the McDonald's parking lot on Wise Avenue. For the most part Dundalk still feels like the same town I grew up in. But it's not, not really. You can't go home again, so they say. Most of my family and friends have left. So have many stores. The Pizza Hut was razed where I used to play the cocktail arcade game; there was this huge, round fireplace in the center of the restaurant. The Dennys had been here for over 40 years; it's boarded up now and has been since the pandemic, all set to become another car cleaner. I moved out about 10 years ago to get a new house with my girlfriend, though I argued to stay. My parents left over 5 years ago, and my aunt and uncle left years before. And now we've lost our bridge.   I'm not ready to go inside yet. It's nice out, anyway. But I need to make sure I'm cool before I head in. All I want to do is air-punch! I want to let it out, whatever it is. I want to shake this feeling that holds me like a...

I found this cool lil Halloween Pumkin man on Etsy months ago and forgot he was in the closet. He's made himself at home here, and honestly, he scared T, and she doesn't want him running around the house. So, he's stuck in my office for the time being. I don't know that I'll be able to keep him cooped up during Halloweentober, however. Really, it's not his fault, it's mine. I had her watch Terrortory with me, a local Maryland horror anthology, and Smiling Jack freaked her the hell out... Smiling Jack could be this guy's dad, the resemblance is uncanny. Smiling Jack is a dark, mirrored pumpkin pail candy bucket-headed supernatural killer in the woods. Terrortory is a film set in a Bermuda-Triangle-like land of horrors in Western Maryland where monsters of all kinds will kill you, if you don't follow the rules. The rules become evident throughout the two films, while the sequel's plot is outright dependent on it. I found Terrortory I and II on Tub...

I wanted to talk about Tom Shellenberger. When I was barely a young kid there was a man who would dress up as Dracula and walk around Dundalk, my hometown. Dundalk is like the underarm of Baltimore. Dundalk is the punching bag for the suburbs of Baltimore, always has and always will be. But I don't mind, I love growing up there. I miss it. I love Dundalk. People like Tom are Dundalk. I have always had an affinity for vampires. I grew up with a Hollywood obsessed with the undead. Check out this list!: Once Bitten, Fright Night, Vamp, My Best Friend is a Vampire, Near Dark, The Lost Boys. All of these films came out in the mid-1980s and I watched them all, over and over again. I am still obsessed with these movies! I read everything I could find in the library on vampires as early as elementary school. In high school I found the Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice's vampire universe, and later, other writers, like Michael Romkey, Laurell K. Hamilton, John Steakley, Charlaine Harris and...