I don’t care if my books sell anymore, because I've just started a lucrative new career: House Consultant! That's right! If you buy a new home, simply subscribe to my app and I'll talk you through your purchase, asking the tough questions, and finally evaluating whether your house is haunted or not. First up, the Inman family, stars of Rick Hautala's 1986 book for Zebra, NIGHTSTONE.
One thing you have to say for NIGHTSTONE is it's got that partial hologram cover, or, as Zebra hyperventilates in its own blurb about itself:
"The fiery brilliance of the Zebra Horror Hologram which you see on the cover is created by 'laser holography.' This is the revolutionary process in which a powerful laser beam records light waves in diamond-like facets so tiny that 9,000,000 fit in a square inch. No print or photograph can match the vibrant colors and radiant glow of a hologram.
“So look for the Zebra Hologram whenever you buy a horror novel. It’s a shimmering reflection of our guarantee that you’ll find consistent quality between the covers!”
And, compared to Rick Hautala's previous book for Zebra, Moonbog, it's got waaay less underaged sodomy. So that's two things NIGHTSTONE has going for it.
Now, let's begin the House Evaluation:
ARE YOU BUYING THIS HOUSE BECAUSE YOU NEED A NEW BEGINNING?
Yes, I'm Don Inman and my wife, Jan, is the best realtor in Providence, RI, and our daughter, Beth is 12, and we need to move to the countryside to be more connected with nature. City living is just getting us down, you know.
DOES THE HOUSE HAVE A PAST?
My Finnish grandmother lived in this house until her son and husband both died there. I think they were crushed to death by menhirs or something and if you don't know what a menhir is that's a fancy name for a tall rock shaped like a dick. This book is full of tall rocks shaped like dicks. At one point, Jan saw the one in the basement and got all breathless and was like, "It's huuuuge," but you know how women are. They're easily impressed by menhirs. This book is so full of menhirs that I was going to title it The Menhir but then my agent told me I must have rocks in my head. Anyways, besides the deaths/murders and the fact that my grandmother becomes violent if she hears that anyone's living in the house and the fact that she made us all swear to never, ever live in it or rent it to anyone, nope. I wouldn't say it has "a past" at all.
DID YOUR DAUGHTER FIND A CREEPY DOLL WHEN YOU MOVE IN?
She sure did. She talks to it all the time, and it's unusually heavy, but she forgot all about it after we went to the rock quarry to go swimming and she got stung in the face by 5,000 wasps. She says a hand came out of a hole in the ground and held her there, but you know how kids are. She also sleepwalks around the back yard and chants to the moon and floats a few inches off the ground a couple of nights a week, but you know...that's just kids, right?
ANY OTHER OMENS AFTER YOU MOVED IN?
No, but I wish the previous tenants hadn't left the place so junky. I mean, there's my grandmother's ancient dream journal I found in the attic, and we keep turning up bones whenever we mow the front yard that kind of look human, but maybe they belong to cows. I don't know. I'm not a bone-ologist. We just mow right over them. I mean, you got to cut your grass unless you want a junky-looking front yard. Although, I have to confess that the long grass did a pretty good job of hiding all the bones.
ANYTHING ELSE?
I mean, yes, if you really want to count the pair of severed hands wrapped in ceremonial Native American beads I found under the old riding mower, but I gave those to a university and just plowed right over the spot. This lawn ain't going to mow itself.
HAVE YOUR PETS ACTED UNUSUAL SINCE MOVING IN?
Max, that's our dog, he's been a prince, but we finally caved and got Beth that pony she always wanted and now that you mention it, her horse sure has been acting strange. It doesn't help that Beth named him Goblin and then he threw her and she bit through her tongue and turned into an epileptic. He also trampled Max to death, then he attacked me and ran off into the woods where he started on a whole Jason Voorhees trip, sneaking up behind people and killing them. I went toe to toe with him and we battled for hours but he finally ran away and he's still out there, I think.
DO YOU FEEL LIKE THE HOUSE DOESN'T WANT YOU THERE?
I'll say!
IS THERE AN INDIAN BURIAL MOUND ON YOUR PROPERTY?
How did you know?
ARE YOU EASILY OBSESSED?
I admit, I'm a project guy. I teach high school shop and once I get started on a project like reshingling the house, I don't stop. Or, for example, if I call up my Native American neighbor and he uses his dowsing tripod to find an Indian burial mound on my property and then gets crushed to death while we unearth it, I will not stop until I've dug the thing out, opened it up, moved the human sacrifice altar to one side, crawled into the tunnel beneath it, and totally explored a world of darkness and decay. And if it looks like that huuuuge menhir in the basement conceals a secret passage that links to the burial mound, I'm going to try to connect the two. It's just the way I'm built.
IS THERE AN UNDEAD SKELETON ON YOUR PROPERTY THAT WANTS TO KILL YOU?
Bingo! Right after I explored the secret passage running from the house to the burial mound a skeleton jumped out screaming "Defiler! Die!" over and over again and chased me through the tunnels and Beth, who was possessed by her doll at this point, walled me up in the tunnel as that damn skeleton shot its detachable skeleton hands at me. I finally broke free and tossed her doll on the grill and it burst into flames and that made the whole house explode.
DID YOUR FAMILY DIE?
Well, Beth ran into the flames and the house collapsed on top of her, so she's definitely dead, and Jan left and has never spoken to me again and recently sent me a letter asking for a divorce. But you know, when God collapses a house on your child he sometimes opens a secret tunnel to an ancient burial mound. Isn’t that what they say? We moved here to be closer to nature and now I live in a sweet little mobile home on the property where I occasionally find a dead body tied to a menhir in the woods, and then I scream a little bit, but otherwise I'm doing great.
DID YOU MOVE TO MAINE?
Ogunquit! How'd you know?
EVALUATION:
Your home is haunted.
Discussion Questions
- Why does everyone who writes a horror novel for Zebra dedicate it to their mom and dad?
- The more epigraphs a book has, the more important it is, and the more it speaks to the essential human condition. For example, Grapes of Wrath has zero epigraphs, meaning it is trash. Nightstone, on the other hand, has 10, ranging from Shakespeare, to Confucius, to Sophocles, to Coleridge, and then more Shakespeare. It will live for eternity.
- "Varokaa kivia" is a phrase heard throughout the book. Apparently, it means, "Beware the stones!" Discuss.
- Random line, “Do you think it might be your uterus?”
Might be!
That's just a taste of the essential service I'm providing new home owners who are venturing out into a real estate market that is crowded with haunted, possessed, and cursed properties. You'll pay me once, but the peace of mind lasts a lifetime.