Sometimes scary things happen, things for which there’s no explanation. We’ve all heard stories sitting around the campfire or when we were snug and safe in our own living rooms. They gave us a case of the mild shivers…nothing really terrifying, just kind of spooky and cozy at the same time.
My son and I were talking the other day about noises we’ve heard in years past. These sounds were never explained, so make of them what you will. However, they really happened. So pour a cup of coffee and pull up a chair.
One year, it was a very cold winter, a lot of Cherokee County heard loud pops that seemed to be coming above houses. We heard them too, at Manos Meadows. I mean, they were not just house-settling kind of cracks, they were loud. Possible explanations included some sort of atmospheric reaction to very cold, very dry air, but nobody ever settled on one specific cause. These sounds even made a news story in our local paper.
Then there was the time when we seemed to hear noises from under our house. These were loud, not to be ignored sounds. Yes, we did have a crawl space. Our house was built before the popularity of concrete slabs instead of crawl spaces. But, there was no way an animal could have gotten under the house. So, what caused them? We never knew.
And the time I heard what sounded like somebody coming along our fence line whacking each wood fence post with a board. The noise finally died away. Did I look to see what it could have been? Are you kidding? Anyway, it was dark.
Darcy Campbell, in The Cemetery Club, had the mild shivers more than once and several times she was just downright scared spitless. Such was the time she and Flora found themselves caught between two killers on the outside of a cave and the darkness that surrounded them as they inched their way downward into an unknown and unseen danger.
Would we suddenly step off into a bottomless pit and disappear forever? Silently, I prayed that God would guide us. What a time to remember stories of rattlesnake dens hidden far underground. My shivering shot into high gear. Memories of teenage tales told at slumber parties or around a campfire crept up on me and I could not dispel them. Stories of unexplained lights flickering near old graveyards, of strangers who mysteriously disappeared, of eerie nighttime noises–these fears not only knocked on my mind’s door, they moved in and took up residence. — The Cemetery Club, Chapter 24, Page 152.
A case of the shivers is what I look for in a cozy mystery. I like page turners, a story line that keeps me wondering what’s going to happen next and a conclusion that lets me draw a long breath and relax after all that excitement.
Ireland
If this is the kind of story you like, I invite you to pay Darcy and Flora or Ned McNeil a visit. I’m sure you’ll feel right at home. Ned’s newest book, By the Fright of the Silvery Moon is due to be released in a little more than two weeks. And, if you haven’t read her first book, Moonlight Can Be Murder, I think you’ll enjoy it. Amazon is also running a contest for a free print copy at https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/c7b75d3c8e3ee1b3
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