My cousin, Ken, has a favorite story about our Granny. He says when he was little, he used to sneak up on her to scare her. One day, my aunt caught him. “Don’t scare your Granny like that!” she scolded. Now, you and I both know that my aunt was afraid Granny’s old heart couldn’t take that kind of exercise. But later on, Granny pulled Ken aside and told him to keep doing what he’d been doing. “I like the way it makes me feel,” she said.
My oldest sister (she insists we say “eldest”) was terrified of vampires yet she was 
addicted to Dark Shadows. Although Barnabas Collins gave her serious nightmares, she’d rush in after school each weekday to watch. When those nightmares got the best of her, she climbed into bed with me.
My youngest sister was always glued to the television no matter what we were watching–scary or not. The second the intense music began, she’d put her hands over her eyes and scream, “Don’t let me look!” But we couldn’t stop her. No matter how scared she was, she always spread her fingers and peeked between them.
I wasn’t afraid of vampires. Reruns of Perry Mason gave me bad dreams. Human monsters scare the hell out of me. Always have.
Lately, at the encouragement of my friend, Robynn Sheahan, I’ve been catching up on my Dean Koontz.
Talk about human monsters.
I’m scared. But I’m peeking between my fingers.
Woo Hoo! Dean Koontz. I vaguely remember Dark Shadows. They made a movie, didn’t they? An old British movie called The Haunting was, and still is the scariest I’ve ever watched. Not the new version with Liam Neeson, Owen Wilson, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. The original.
Believe it or not…now that I am a ‘grown-up’…I peek out from under my hand !!! I soooo remember those times like it was yesterday. The Outer Limits and Twilight Zone always scared me too. But as I remember it, I didn’t miss too much while peeking through my fingers.