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10.31.10

'Cuz this is...Thriller

Halloween has arrived. It's my favorite time of year and my favorite holiday. I fear nothing and look forward to every scary thing people can come up with. However there is one thing I cannot and will not tolerate ...

A song.

Sure Monster Mash and the Halloween theme and maybe even the Psycho theme will no doubt be on heavy rewind, and that's cool with me. But if Michael Jackson's THRILLER happens to play within ear shot, I lose my shit. Not a very lady like way of explaining things, but it's damn near perfect to what emotions well up in me the moment Vincent Price's voice comes booming out of the speakers.

Some people find this hilarious. Mostly because they don't understand my phobia. Just like some people fear tin foil, cotton balls and clowns, I fear Michael Jackson's greatest hit and the worlds first, original long format video.

I've had people play the song on purpose the moment I step into the room. People obviously like seeing me freak out. It has nothing to do with the ZOMBIES, because everyone and their momma knows I LOVE ZOMBIES. It doesn't even have anything to do with the late Michael Jackson, or werewolves or any of the other Hollywood Horror Cliches used in the video.

The fact is, when Vincent Price starts talking, I am propelled into a moment in time when something horrible happened to me. That's what phobias mean for some people. They are associations with past traumas. A few kids drop a spider in your locker, you freak out and for years later refuse to go near spiders.

My fear is no different.

I was nine years old when I became aware of phantom voices and their ability to incur the wrath of whatever evil exists. I was pretending to be a seer; creating an Ouija board from paper. It was ruled paper from a notebook. It had no mystical powers. It may have been a Mead. I carefully printed (with a number 2 pencil) the letters and numbers in a semi-circle.

I used a torn piece of paper that resembled a lopsided triangle as an eye.

And then I began. I called on the imaginary spirit of a witch named Priscilla. I imagined that she was tall, beautiful with dark long hair and dark eyes. I imagined that she was buried alive so that her coven could escape her wrath. I was pretty proud of my invention until my mother called me to the kitchen for dinner.

I crumpled the paper Ouija board in my hand and threw it on my bed.

As I exited the room I heard a cackling coming from the wall behind my dresser. It was unmistakably a womans voice. There was no one else around. As I ran to the kitchen I caught a glimpse of THRILLER playing on the television in my mothers room. I could hear Vincent Price's voice booming through the speakers.

"The midnight hour is close at hand..." he said.

A year or so later while I was home alone, lying across my mothers bed watching television, I was overcome with sleep paralysis. I tried to move but it was impossible. All that I could do was open my eyes and when I did, Freddy Kreuger was standing in the hallway flexing his razor blade covered fingers.

I fought to get out of my paralysis. I said the OUR FATHER. Eventually I overcame it. When I did, the television was still on. THRILLER was playing. Vincent Price was speaking. To me.

"Nothing can escape the evil of...the Thriller." I tried to shut off the television but the remote was dead. I was too afraid to get off the bed.

Over the years, many things have happened that have mysteriously coincided with the bizarre fact that THRILLER is always playing, and the same part is always on: Vincent Price's monologue.

I've learned to steer clear of the song altogether. In fact, I've come to discover that if I don't hear the song at all, nothing bizarre, scary, evil or just plain paranormal happens to me. Wolfmen don't chase me home, ghosts don't try to lay in my bed, TV's don't go on and off while the static turns into half-formed, pixelated shots of people moving within the screen. Phantom voices don't call my name and Shadow people don't lean over my bed and breath on me.

Those things don't happen when I don't hear that damn song.

It's the most popular tune played on Halloween, so I know I won't be able to avoid it. I will do my best to steer clear of it. But if the dead start crawling out of their graves, or the gates of hell open up and spill forth flesh eating demons...if anything like that happens, blame it on the idiot who thought it'd be funny to torture me with that song.

Blame it on the evil of the Thriller.


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