My first horror experience happened on a Friday morning. I was eight. I got up early and turned on the TV. We still had black and white with the rounded screen and my mother considered it to be a great babysitter. A lot of commercials were simple still shots. Panavision hadn’t even been invented yet.  Suddenly, there it was. A giant gorilla was astride the Empire State Building and he had bi-planes in his fists. It was, as I said just a still frame, but I had never seen anything like it. I had heard my mom and dad talk about scary movies, but I had never seen one. My father was a Bible scholar, a Baptist, and he didn’t believe in going to movies. He also couldn’t get into comic books and rock’n’roll. It wasn’t so much what one would see during the movie, but what they showed before and after. The film might be for kids, but the previews were adult in nature. Not much has changed in that regard; they do the same thing today.  I didn’t see a feature film until I was fifteen. It was 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. 
     This movie with the gorilla would be on a couple of hours before he got home and I called my friends. They all piled into my living room and we were glued to the screen. The movie, of course, was King Kong. At one point during the film, my mom came into the room and grabbed us from behind, growling like a tiger. We screamed like a bunch of girls and that was probably what did it. I saw the power of the scary story. There was the  cultural deprivation  imposed by my father and that one moment. 
     Since then I have watched hundreds of horror films. I’ve seen movies that made me ashamed to walk out of the theater. I felt dirty in the light of day. I couldn’t look into the eyes of the others who had been subjected to the same hour and a half. As in any genre, there are the greats and the not so greats. 
     Early on I noticed certain things. The monster was introduced about one third of the way in. It would show its power, reveal a possible weakness and then the men would kill it. My mom would usually show up at the end just to see how they did that. She didn’t want to see anything else. There were animals, giants, aliens, and supernaturals. The animal types were very cool. Giant gorillas like Kong and Mighty Joe Young and “Son ofs” as in Son of you-name-it, started a whole industry. Almost every insect and reptile has at some point been represented. Then of course there were the hybrids. Godzilla and Gorgo, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, and the hundreds of huge creatures spawned by the Japanese filmmakers have stomped their way across movie history. Though they were awesome in their strength and shear size, I always thought they lacked finesse and subtlety. 

      Then came the werewolves and vampires. That was finesse. Those monsters had it together. They had a history and entire cultures that feared them. You couldn’t read about the legend of Gorgo because he had just been discovered in that film. Later on Godzilla had a history, but it was only loosely implied. But Dracula was hundreds of years old and existed quite independently from his screen persona. What hooked me about history was that the thing could have really walked the earth somewhere. The best horror writers created validation for their scary creatures. Guy DeMaupassant made you believe in the Horla because it lived in the peripheral vision. How many of us haven’t seen something flicker just out of sight? We could identify with the man in the story and that made it all the more suspenseful. 
     Most of us can agree that men are the true monsters. With the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, humans became more frightening than giant reptiles. The new Godzilla with all its marvelous special effects didn’t even scare my eleven year old. We want anthropomorphic guys and gals lurking behind the bushes. 
     Call me deranged, but I’ve always thought that teeth and claws were the best. I love Freddie Kruger and Michael Myers, but the thought of a man changing into something uncontrollable makes my skin crawl. I just love things that scratch and bite. 
      Please believe me when I tell you I began to write Lobesomen before I ever heard of Ann Rice. My supporters tell me that my story shares no similarity with her great works, but somewhere deep inside I know it’s not true. We all share something with our contemporaries. Edgar Rice Burrows and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle live inside me as surely and Lestat and Louie. As an author, I have a deep respect for my fellow storytellers. Originality is a daunting pursuit. If Stephen King had said he couldn’t write about vampires because it’s been done we would have been deprived of some of the greatest stuff ever written on the subject. That would be like Picasso saying he couldn’t use blue because Gainesboro had used it. We owe everything to the Greeks anyway. 
     Taking a long look at the horror genre, I wanted to invent a new monster. The problem with familiarity is that it dulls the senses. We can’t be scared of Frankenstein (even if Robert DeNiro does him) because we know the story and retelling it true to Mary Shelly doesn’t change that. The story is beautiful and fascinating but it doesn’t frighten. Audiences need to be fooled. They need to know that they haven’t a clue what will happen next. Alien gave us that. 
     When you watch a rattlesnake strike at the camera or see a grizzly shake an elk carcass you get that frost along the spine. You say, “That could be happening to me.” Or as Norman P. Kirk would call it, frostbite. Publishers won’t take a manuscript anymore if you’re honest and call it horror. You have to tell them it’s a supernatural thriller. Call it anything you like, the gore the merrier. I have the heart of a small boy; I keep it in a jar. 

 1982
 FORT LAUDERDALE, FL
 Dixie Highway

      I was drinking with a couple of friends. We sat in the well-lit Florida room enjoying the breeze coming through the jalousies. One of these guys was from Brazil and the other from Portugal. The little guy, Dino, kept saying that he had stories to tell. If, said he, he could get someone to write them down, they could be rich. I coaxed him to tell. Finally with great feigned reluctance he began to spin a tale. 
     Lobesomen opens after the discovery of a dead child with the farm in Portugal. This is an accurate reenactment of what Dino told me that night. He had seen his grandfather fighting something on the other side of the door. He would propel a sharp stick through a hole and try to pierce the thing outside. I was hooked. I listened throughout the night to what Dino swore was the truth. I had no doubt that he believed what he was saying. If it touched you, you would become a Lobesomen. 
      Recently I have come to understand that it is pronounced lobeshomin and it has been known in Africa, Brazil and Portugal. It is a small monkey-like creature that is an excellent climber and likes to bite women who then become nymphomaniacs. I had thought that it was completely unknown. 
     One day while painting a wall I overheard one of the workers say he was from Portugal. Just for the heck of it, I asked it he had ever heard of my monster. He actually jumped back (and we were on a ledge) saying that he didn’t mess with that shit. He said they had caught one in his town when he was a kid. He couldn’t say what it looked like. He said that no one had ever seen the Lobesomen. That’s when I knew it was real. The aspect of the shape changer had intrigues me for a long time. They weren’t as popular twenty years ago as they are now. At the time, I thought I was really on to something. 
     I have embellished. 
     In the course of writing this novel, I have given the Lobesomen attributes that Dino never dreamed of. I can’t help myself, I love to write. So I have spun a tale of horror of which I am very proud. Dino said he wanted ten percent of whatever I made on the book. 
     Nah. 
     So, there you have it. I believe there is a place for horror in our lives. I think, like so many of my brother writers in the field that people like to be frightened. There is something that I must address at this point and that is, violence against women. I do not believe that a book can hurt anyone. I don’t believe that women can be harmed by images. I have read all the horror and violence I could get my hands on throughout my life and I have never killed a fellow human being. An argument could be made that the weaker, sicker minds among us will become copycat killers in the style of whatever film or book is popular at the moment. That argument could be made, but why then don’t they walk around dressed as Mickey Mouse or the Pillsbury Doughboy?  Never once do we fear that a kid who rides the roller coaster will build one in his back yard. But some among us would attempt to contain the content of our books and stories as though that would solve the problems of bad parenting, lackluster teachers and a mental health industry that’s more interested in breaking up families than keeping them together. If they want to emulate what they see, why do they choose the messy and dangerous act of hurting each other? Perhaps it’s because they tend to do that to begin with. Would they not tear the flesh of their girlfriend if they hadn’t seen it on the silver screen? Who can know. If they’re that dumb then they probably don’t read and I’m off the hook.
     Alfred Hitchcock said that the blonde, like drops of blood on new fallen snow, made the best victim.  Some imperative deep within calls for a dragon. Think of those great old posters of Robie the Robot carrying a slender woman in her nightclothes. We love to see the young scantly clad babe tied to a tree in fear for her life. We want to trounce the beast and carefully, carefully, untie the damsel. As Ripley would say, “Get away from her you bitch!”
     For some reason that I can’t fully understand, I love the sequel, the idea that the horror continues. For that reason, I love to let the monster win. He may not win by much, but the humans will never be completely rid of him. I love those monsters as I love a great painting, as I love a good card trick, like a fine dinner. Maybe it’s because I just don’t want this cool world to end. Maybe I have a microscopic depraved little gene that wants to be gobbled up by a leathery winged demon. The image of St. Sebastian was used in my first book. The Temptation of St. Anthony will be a focus in Book Two.  Thanks a million for coming to my site and reading whatever you can afford. If you wake up sweating some night and swear something is breathing in your ear, don’t blame me, you’re the reader. Besides, it’s just a dream. 

     End.