Debra Webb | Tales Your Grandmother Told
When I was a kid my grandmother always told me not to go too deeply into the woods or the boogeyman would get me. The boogeyman, she insisted, lived in the deepest, darkest area of the woods and he loved snacking on kids who got lost in those woods. Though I had certainly never seen a boogeyman in the woods or any place else, my grandmother had lived a lot longer than me and I wasn’t taking any chances. So, each time I ventured into the woods (which was most everyday in the summer—usually with my younger brother in tow), I would stop at a certain point and turn back. I wasn’t risking running into the boogeyman. As a kid, those types of warnings scared me to death but actually kept me from getting into trouble.Then there were the other tales, the ones about certain people or particular houses. Every community has them. Some folks believe there’s some truth to the old stories, others insist they’re just stories that maybe evolved from gossip or flat out lies. The villages along Maine’s southern coast are no different. There are tales related to unsolved murders and folks who went missing never to be seen again. Like the tales from my childhood, some are supernatural in their foundation.
Whatever the tales and wherever you grew up, chances are you heard your share. In my new release, FIND ME, Sarah Newton is a total nonbeliever in anything but the facts. Because of her own painful history, the truth is very important to her. Sarah operates on fact and she trusts no one but herself—a lesson she learned the hard way. As an investigative journalist for Truth Magazine, Sarah is in her element when on assignment. She travels to places where high profile homicides and abductions have occurred and those heinous crimes are swaddled in the area’s folklore and quirky traditions. As she tells Kale Conner, the guy charged with keeping her inline and out of trouble, she isn’t there to make friends or even to make nice. She’s after the truth and she’ll step on toes and piss people off to find it. She has no preconceived notions about the folks in the community. As far as Sarah is concerned they’re all suspects.
For research purposes, my family and I moved to the southern coast of Maine and immersed ourselves in that world while I wrote the book. I found the place and the people immensely interesting and extraordinarily charming and caring. The centuries of history and folklore were mesmerizing. And the architecture of the glorious old houses—I was in heaven.
Hopefully, your childhood wasn’t as terrifying as Sarah Newton’s, but I’d love to hear the tales you heard as a kid. Did the boogeyman live in your woods?
Debra is giving away THREE signed copies of FIND ME to readers who tell their most unusual child hood stories either below in the comments or Click Here
Debra Webb
Visit www.debrawebb.com
Labels: debra webb, find me
posted by Fresh Fiction @ 1:00 AM
14 Comments:
My memory isn't good enough to remember what spooky tales I might have heard as a kid, but I do remember one night looking up into the overheard light in my room, and it being divided into quarters and there being 4 very different very vibrant scary things staring down at me in my bed. Then I remember things coming out of the closet. Yes, you might tell me it was a nightmare, and not real, but to me at whatever age that was it was totally real, and scary! For years I couldn't sleep if the closet door was open, and if my husband left it cracked when he'd come home from working late it would wake me if the door wasn't shut, he's like how do you know? No clue...I just knew!
Thanks for sharing, Sandi. I was a nightlight kid. Couldn't sleep without the light. My youngest daughter is exactly the same way. It was like I could see images and movement in the darkness--I had to have some light to dispel those images!
Yes we couldn't go into the woods because the boogeyman would get you and by all means you should never swing on the grape vines, but we did swing on those grape vines, but we never went to far into the woods. We also had a few of those grape vine break on us. It is a wonder we didn't break our necks back then.
Virginia, you are so right. My little brother and I used to climb as high into the trees as possible. We also liked swinging on any kind of vine that looked as if it would hold us--didn't always work!
Hey Deb
For me it was snakes under the bed. My older sister convinced me that if I ever let my foot hang over the side of the bed at night, they'd get me. And of course, I believed her. Might be why I often still sleep with my sox on :o)
Well I guess I am in the minority here, no one tried to scare me as a child. My brother and I are only a year apart in age but I was more bossy so he never tried any tricks on me. Even my parents and grandparents never tried anything, not even the 'If you keep making that face it will stay like that forever' threat. What a boring childhood I had.
Cindy,
Oh snakes! Those always scared me to death!
LJ, I too had the younger brother and LOVED bossing him around! We're still very close.
We've never lived in a spooky house and there were no boogeymen in the woods, but my brother made it his duty to scare me. "Hellraiser" remains the scariest movie I ever saw and I remember him hiding behind the doors in the house and scaring me every chance he got. At least my brother didn't look like Pinhead.
Snakes fit perfectly inside those tiny milk cartons they gave us with our grade-school lunch. I was so proud of my ability to catch garter snakes and blue racers, I brought home several a week. My mother, however, was not so impressed, and forbid me from keeping them in my bedroom menagerie. Being the child snake expert I was, I knew they would love the cool darkness of the crawl space under our house.
One day I heard a loud scream coming from outside. I ran out, to find my father stumbling backwards out from under the house. Apparently, not only had the snakes loved the space, but so did their children, and their children, and...
Jane, I never watched those movies but even the trailers for them were frightening! Kind of like reading a Stephen King novel.
Victoria! Your father must have freaked. My husband hates when he has to crawl under the house for plumbing problems. When we bought the house we're currently renovating, my husband couldn't be here to inspect it. He was in Maine (where we lived while I wrote FIND ME!). He said I would need to go under the house with a flashlight and my cell phone so I could tell him what I saw and answer any questions he had. I was like, are you kidding? So I paid my son-in-law to do it for me while I watched from the comfort and safety of the crawl space opening.
Debra,
I know I'm a little late, but just wanted to say that I enjoyed your blog. Cindy, that is funny because I too was petrified of letting a finger or toe hang over the bed because of the alligators that were under there. Not that anyone tried to make me scared. Guess I just had a vivid imagination. But those vampires hiding in the closet just waiting for me to fall asleep were real!
Julie
Thanks for chiming in, Julie! As all of you have related your stories, I have recalled so many more of my own. Funny, how the things we think nothing of now (like the dust bunnies under the bed) were scary as heck as kids.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home