Norm and author Kevin Anderson discuss the horror genre, the origins of Cryptkeeper Norm, and of course, the hit story “The Box-Born Wraith” featured as Drabblecast episode 87 back in 2008 and published as our second official Halloween Special.
“We all die in the dark, Benny…”
Another Drabblecast Director’s Cut bringing more detail and author insights to a fan favorite episode.
After a year in San Francisco, my legs grew strong again. A hill and a half lay between the bookstore where I found work and the apartment I shared with the Kotos. Every morning and evening I walked, breathing mist and rain into my desert-scarred lungs, and every morning the walk was a little easier. Even at the beginning, when my feet ached all day from the unaccustomed strain, it was a hill and a half that I hadn’t been permitted for seventeen years.
“I don’t want to die in the dark!”
“We all die in the dark, Benny…”
Norm spends this episode doing his very best cheesy Vincent Price styled horror show host (Note: not a Vincent Price imitation, but an imitation of a really bad Vincent Price imitator), complete with an interminable string of puns about “ghouls” and “ghosts.” As this year’s Halloween treat, Norm selects a truly terrifying story from frequently heard contributor Kevin David Anderson, also seen in Dark Animus, and numerous other publications which include the word “Dark” in their titles. In “The Box Born Wraith,” an unexpected encounter between a condemned mobster and a tribe of hungry ghouls changes both the captive and the captors. Finally, still in character, Norm urges listeners to face the horrors of the voting booth in November’s election.
This letter is to inform you of my resignation. As you know, I have spent the last fifteen years of my life working in your department store, from the age of twelve when I was hired as a stock boy, to my years spent in the jewellery department, to my time in management. I have loved working here, and I am very sorry to leave, but I fear that if I remain any longer, my health and my sanity will be forfeit. Perhaps if I explain the events of weeks, it will become clearer why I have to quit.
It used to be that the sun would go down and the streetlamps would come on and make pools of this wet, yellow light. No matter where you stood, you could see the lights on somewhere. You could run from streetlamp to streetlamp and you could look down the streets and you’d never drown in the dark…
The wicked witch business wasn’t what it used to be. It had been such a simple thing, to lure children with candy; back in the old days when candy had been hard to come by…
In this episode’s Drabble, a moth eloquently expresses her attraction to a bright light and her own subsequent destruction. The feature story, The Wicked Witch Looks at 40 (Decades), follows Winnie the witch through her (long overdue) midlife crisis. After a particularly discouraging Halloween, where not a single child is captured, she takes the advice of an article in Martha Stewart Living magazine, changing her house and her lifestyle.
“I don’t want to die in the dark!”
“We all die in the dark, Benny…”
Norm spends this episode doing his very best cheesy Vincent Price styled horror show host (Note: not a Vincent Price imitation, but an imitation of a really bad Vincent Price imitator), complete with an interminable string of puns about “ghouls” and “ghosts.” As this year’s Halloween treat, Norm selects a truly terrifying story from frequently heard contributor Kevin David Anderson, also seen in Dark Animus, and numerous other publications which include the word “Dark” in their titles. In “The Box Born Wraith,” an unexpected encounter between a condemned mobster and a tribe of hungry ghouls changes both the captive and the captors. Finally, still in character, Norm urges listeners to face the horrors of the voting booth in November’s election.
Their orange gazes came from devilishly carved eyes and their vigilant stares sent a chill up Kincade’s neck. He had never liked the gutted vegetables that people found hauntingly ornamental this time of year…