Ailsa’s photo challenge this week is Spooky.
This photo from my backyard reminded me of the spookiest author I have ever read, Edgar Allen Poe. The Tell Tale Heart and The Raven both messed me up as a kid.
And previews of The Blob (1958 version, of all things) haunted my youth into my adulthood, but that is another story.
However, the spookiest thing I have ever experienced as an adult was traveling through the Scottish hills along the edge of a loch on a foggy day. Places where there has been tragic death, such as battlegrounds, give me the same feeling.
In addition, there is a lonesome spookiness in places such as mountains like Pike’s Peak in Colorado.
And I really do not like being underground. Something about the Mammoth Caves in KY give me shivers, sort of like “someone walking over your grave”. There is the feeling of tons of earth above that could always come crashing down on top of us.
Or worse, blocking the way out, leaving us to slowly suffocate, knowing our fate… (see, the influence of Poe early on in my life)… yeah, I don’t do well with situations like that. My imagination runs riot.
a vacation in my mind 
Talk about spooky … you say Tale Tell Heart and I can hear the heart beating loudly in my ear.
And it is, Betty… Check your floorboards. Ok, thanks… Now I can not sleep!
Edgar Allan Poe does have that kind of an effect – his works have been transformed and illustrated as well by Gris Grimly in Tales of Death and Dementia and Tales of Mystery and Madness – the artwork has rendered the story an even more scary nuance. Great photos you have here. 🙂
Thank you for the warning about Gris Grimly. Although I am now going to have to hunt up some of the artwork just to see what you are talking about. 🙂 I will have only myself to blame if it gives me nightmares, though.
Great images…the landscapes make me feel that at any moment a werewolf could pop up and rip your throat out. Oh well…there goes my night’s rest
Your imagination seems a bit on the wild side too! I had not thought of werewolves, but I can say I was glad I was not up there on at peak alone!