--THERE’S A LAST TIME FOR EVERYTHING

  The Things They Don’t Tell You About Real Horror Films

I hear someone in the bottom of Mother’s voice box rearranging furniture again, toppling the warped grandfather clock, dragging the toe-clawed bathtub across the ceiling while the light fixtures sizzle, burst and sweat red-black-red.

I’m in a bathtub myself right now, holding breath, which is holding time, which is holding nothing, holding the quarter-shaped stopper with the rusted metal chain, holding it down and tight so the water won’t escape, drain and expose me. 

My other hand is holding onto the neck of a faucet spewing sour, lemonade-looking water across my knobby knees, which, most times, flash a NO VACANCY sign with bulbs that need changing.

Now I hear my father herding bulls across the kitchen counter, using a heated prod, no doubt.  Dishes fly and clack.  Cupboards crunch.  Every room or seat or safe space I thought I knew goes inside out, turning cannibal, and just before I feel one sink its teeth into the back of my neck, there’s a sudden outage.

What a relief.

What’s a horror movie without the dark?