Dear Reader:

The first chill winds of Autumn begin to blow and the days grow short as leaden clouds scrape across dull skies, scouring the last of summer’s sunshine from our futures. October is rampant and on its thick sylvan legs it rears, looking down at us with a glint of mischief in its grey eye, it contemplates the rains and winds and falling leaves it plans for us these next days. And it fairly bursts with glee considering the super-natural return to the earth it will signal for those hibernating creatures and dying foliage that will miss the adventures to ensue.

In the coming nights, skeletal trees, bending to the wild winds, will herald our footsteps down darkened city streets and reminders of death will dance beneath our feet calling attention to our eventual surrender to the same earth that calls the season to rest and opens the way for the cold clasp of winter.

To mark this transition from the balmy song of summer to the icy intonations of dead winter, autumn stands as usher to herd the one to the other. But not without a sense of impish play and a nod to the restless spirits released into the October nights to stretch their ghoulish tendons and assuage their long constrained desires to reclaim the world of the living, if only as reflections of our imaginations and memories of our youth, and if only for this brief, rich time of year.

The ghosts of October return every season to revel with us—those who open themselves to their presence—and celebrate the final days until the world recedes into the ice and sleet of winter’s hoary clutch. But for the moment, the demons and ghosts and devils and spirits of unrest are free to mingle with us and cavort in the freshening of brisk breezes and quaint colorings of the dying world.

To help us celebrate the tenth anniversary of Writer’s Cramp’s Hallowee’en Issue, we offer three new stories dedicated to the supernatural in various ways—but all connected by mysterious museums.

Sharon K Gilbert takes us on a field trip into Hell with her thoroughly disturbing story, The Kirlian Room. Join the kids as teacher’s aid Monica Kuppler and her obstinate wannabe boyfriend Stephen Chandler (of the Louisville Chandlers) take them to the Ledbetter Museum in the troubled town of Job’s Lament. You’ll want to leave your cameras at home—pictures can come back to haunt you.

Ann Huseman is back with another of her amazingly crafted side-trips into Caleb’s Crossing in Time of the Glorious Dead. This haunting hamlet is that oddly inbred den of witches and waifs, hexers and magic weavers, soul catchers and soul destroyers. The rich tapestry that is Caleb’s Crossing and the deep characterization of those blessed to live there—and those cursed to visit there—is once again woven with style, detail, panache and mastery. You will wish this place a wide birth.

And Robert G Liberty serves up a hard boiled detective worthy of facing down the otherworldly intruders that break through into our own dimension through an accidental leaving open of a certain door, between life and somewhere else, which should have been closed. In The Curse of St Edward's Ghoul, private security operativeWilliam Brand is visited by a nervous client who needs his help in ridding herself of a desert ghoul determined to slaughter her and retrieve an eon-old amulet that carries a deadly curse from before the Crusades. Can his partner Juris help keep him and his client alive long enough to defeat the ghoul? Anything can happen when the gates of hell are left ajar.

And along with these, we will be serving up tricks and treats from the past ten years’ Hallowee’en Issues of Writer’s Cramp.

As always, and especially at this hauntingly unique season of the year, enjoy.

Sincerely,
Robert G Liberty
Founding Editor
Writer’s Cramp Online Magazine