Halloween! I friggin’ love Halloween. It is one of my favorite holidays of the year. The day where we celebrate the macabre, relive old pagan rituals and run around outside asking total strangers for candy hoping not to get poisoned or find a razor tucked in between a goodie somewhere. Okay, so maybe the last one is a bit cynical, but Halloween traditionally does ask “trick or treat,” does it not?  The treats are all fine and dandy, but it is the tricks I really enjoy. I love scaring some of the revelers as they march on through the neighborhood. Anything that will get a rise out of them - jumping from the bushes, following them for no reason, growling as I leap from a roof (but that one stopped one year after nearly breaking my ankle) - anything that I can do to add a little fright into this spooktacular night, I am Nfamous for that around my neighborhood. 

I also like being spooked a little myself. After all, turnabout is fair play. But then again, I never have been one for fair play. Still, on Halloween, I indulge others and let them try to get a fright out of me. It’s no secret what my fears are (and I will be sharing them with you later on), but I wanted to know what, if anything, spooks some of the other Nfamous writers. Four willing victims let their guards down for a second to share with you what they fear most. Some of it is actually rather surprising. But I will let you read on and decide for yourselves.

LargeMarge67

 

At the age of three, my mother exposed me to something that would become a lifelong obsession; horror movies. We had a ritual of watching them every Friday night on Channel 5. Initially, just the fact that she would let me stay up late was enough to get me excited, but after watching films such as Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy and The Wolfman I became a fanatic. These were the black-and-white, Universal monster movies so they were beyond tame compared to what would come later but they were just scary enough to delight and entertain a twisted little kid like me. They also became the barometer by which I measured all films of the horror genre in my early years. That is, until the day I went to a friend’s house and watched The Exorcist for the first time. I was 12-years-old and had no business seeing such an adult-oriented film but there were no parents around so, what could it hurt? The film started off pretty slowly and, based on the litany of horror titles I had seen previously, I was positive nothing had the stuff to frighten a seasoned pro like myself. Well…

I WAS WRONG!!! The Exorcist scared the living shit out of me! The fact that Regan and I were around the same age didn’t help matters, as I could truly relate to her in ways that weren’t possible with other horror film monsters. Add to that my fear of The Devil, revulsion to vomit and that “head-turning-around” thing…just everything about it made me want to curl up in the fetal position and suck my thumb. But I couldn’t. My friend was there so I was forced to take it like a man. After the movie ended I said to my soon-to-be ex-friend, “Aw, that wasn’t even scary” and jettisoned out of the house before he could reply. As I walked home that raspy demonic voice was in my head saying horrendous things and for a day or two I thought I might be possessed! Luckily, that wasn’t the case but the recurring nightmares I had gave me doubt. To this day, The Exorcist is the only movie that has affected me so strongly. I don’t have the nightmares anymore but I did… for years! Despite all of that I still love the movie. Every time I see it I am taken back to that day when I watched something that wasn’t for kids and survived. And could you do me a favor and not repeat this story to anyone? I’ve never told my mom about it and if she found out she would... never mind. Just do me that favor. Thanks.

Marron Marvel

 

Let's be honest: tough broads like me have a reputation to maintain, so when our Editor in Chief asked us to write about what scares us, I was inclined to answer, "Nothing." But... well, that's not entirely true. 

We all have our irrational fears. There’s something that most of us just plain don’t like, or we scream like a little girl whenever exposed to that certain thing. Spending some of my childhood in the Shriner’s Hospital, I have a deep rooted dislike for clowns, for instance. But what about those irrational fears? Things that creep, crawl, go bump in the night, or otherwise strike fear into our very souls?

As mentioned above, I’m scared of clowns. There is, however, one thing that I fear even more than grown men in face paint and colorful pajamas. Considering my love of Star Trek, it’s really quite amazing that I have this fear: 

I’m terrified of outer space.

It sounds, crazy, doesn’t it? It’s not like outer space came come rip my face off like a clown can, but space is scary. It’s HUGE. I mean, think about it: there are countless stars in the sky, more than we can even see — after all, we can only see 13 billion light years around the Earth, and I’m fairly sure the universe extends beyond that. Our earth is small, even compared to other planets in our solar system, and even our sun is tiny. Space is gigantic and awesome, and the vastness and hugeness of it is just terrifying.

Don’t believe me? Just watch this animated gif that shows the size of our planet and our sun compared to some of the other astronomical bodies out there:

That’s INSANE. Every time I watch this animated gif, my adrenaline starts pumping and I experience the most terrifying sense of panic. It’s ridiculous, I know, but space is just huge and scary.

Nightminx

 

Wanna see me cry like a baby?

Halloween is one of the coolest holidays I love to celebrate. I didn’t always like it though; I used to hate it with a passion. My family and I had season passes on and off to Knott's Berry Farm while I was growing up and would often go for just a couple of hours just to get out of the house. That would all change in the month of October because that is when it becomes Knott’s Scary Farm. Now my first experience with Scary Farm was when I was 9 and my aunt’s work had an exclusive night at Knott’s Scary Farm. At the time I was super excited to go since this was an event that was specified for mostly for teens and adults. Well, yeah, suffice it to say that night didn’t go as planned. I cried like a little baby and got scared at every turn and spent most of the night on the Soap Box Racers, (Ha, let’s see, who remembers those) - after that I pretty much hated October at Knott’s. So that was attempt number 1 - fail.

Now let’s move forward 5 years, 8th grade year and some friends from my class and I plan a group trip. I ended up hanging on to one of the dads who chaperoned. I freaked and cried and couldn’t go through the mazes. I ended up hanging with the adults. Attempt number 2; FAIL!

So on to the following year, freshman year, my friends and I decide to head to Knott’s and I know it might not end well. I had my aunt drop me off and I met my friends at the front gates and we entered in. I was having a great time in the beginning; we got scared I freaked out, in a good way. It was pretty fun. It was going great and then we head to Big Foot Rapids. Ah Big Foot Rapids, it turned out the line for the ride was a maze… FUCK ME!

So if you have ever been on that ride you now the line is pretty long and narrow. Well unfortunately for me they made the line a maze with every creature popping out at you as you walk the line and if you ended up waiting there they continued to scare you!  I was not a happy camper I cried so hard and I just wanted to get out of there. So my best friend who I went with that night played my protector and walked me all the way through the line and when we reached the ride I didn’t want to go on and she walked me all the way out the exit (which had monsters and stuff also). So pretty much I walked the whole line and exit and didn’t even get on the ride which I found out later there weren’t any monsters or anything scary. At the time I was scared shitless but now I can look back and laugh at what a cry baby I was!

NuyoRiquena

I’d like to believe I’m pretty bad-ass, and well, I am for the most part.  I was raised with street smarts and taught to be ever vigilant so I don’t scare easily, but there are one or two things that have been known to make me a bit apprehensive. 

I think claustrophobia, agoraphobia and acrophobia are relatively common fears so I won’t bother detailing them.  The problem with my aversion to tight spaces and heights is my daily requirement to get into an elevator to head to the top floor of my building.  As for crowds, the E3 convention floor is a freaking picnic – and by picnic I mean the kind where fire ants crawl up your leg while you are trying to enjoy a sandwich.  But I deal, because I am tough.  Grr. 

 

 

There is a fear however, which plagues me.  It is known as orthoptera. By definition, fears are irrational but most people find my fear of crickets particularly irrational with a side of lunacy.  The very sound their hideously, creepy little legs make send a surge of goose pimples that envelopes every inch of my body as my eyes grow to twice their normal size in an effort to find the beast faster knowing I will be uneasy until I know exactly where it is or immediately depart the vicinity of the sound.  Of course once found, my heart will go from beating twice its typical speed to triple and two things will happen.  One, I will flee in the opposite direction as quickly and manically as possible until the monstrosity is executed and two, I will continue to fidget and scratch for at least an hour after the traumatic event because I can always “feel them still crawling on me.”  Just writing this out is making my skin crawl.  On the bright side, the cricket is the only disgusting life form that affects me this way.  And bees.  Forgot about those.

There you have it folks. These four brave souls bared themselves out to you so you could see that they are no totally without faults. But I did promise you I would also let you all in on my secret fear. I guess I should keep my promise. I would ask you not to laugh at my weakness, but I know it is impossible as even I look back at this and laugh myself silly.

Arcee

 

I do not admit this readily, but I have several base fears that occupy my mind from time to time. Mostly rational fears that many people in life would share. I have a fear of someone hurting my children. I have a fear of losing my family. I have a fear of being alone. And even though I am not afraid of dying, per se, I am afraid of it being painful. In all honesty, when I die, I hope it is quick and as painless as possible. But now I am rambling. Most of the fears I have are ones that many of us  share. However, I do have one fear above everything else that will literally scare the hell out of me. I am not kidding: the way this paranoia grips me is beyond reason or sane explanation. It has caused me to pass out. It has caused me to strike the person next to me. It has caused me to even break down in tears and curl up on the floor. (Yeah, I don’t know why I just admitted to that either.) The one huge irrational fear I have is that of syringes. Oh yeah, I am scared to death of needles – trypanophobia.

Why is that relevant to what we do here at Nfamous? Well, it goes back to a movie I watched some years ago that had a scene that involved syringes and had me quivering with fear. I was watching the movie Saw II at home with my wife, buddy Brian and his girlfriend Lesly. If you know anything about the Saw movie series you know that with the second movie, the series went on to try and shock you more than scare you. Well, about half way through the film, there is a scene where Jigsaw’s victims come across a pit full of used syringes. And in order to move on to the next clue, the big tough gangster guy Xavier (Franky G.) must go into the pit and retrieve the antidote. But instead of going in the pit himself, he throws in Amanda (Shawnee Smith) instead to search for the antidote. As soon as I saw the pit of needles I knew someone was going in it. I just didn’t expect for someone to actually be thrown into it. That scene had me cringing in fear and terror – and it did the same for my buddy Brian who apparently has the same fear as I do. I am so lucky I didn’t just faint at that moment. 

Happy Halloween!