It was a dark and stormy NIGHT

As fright night approaches, Times staff writer Bettijane Levine asked some local authors to conjure tales with the creepiest starting line of all: ‘It was a dark and stormy night . . . ‘

Close the windows, lock the doors and turn off ‘Jerry Springer.’ These stories are way more strange.

ALONE, AGAIN / By MARK LEE

It was a dark and stormy night as I sat alone in the innermost chamber of my mansion. I could hear the grumble of distant thunder, then a creaking sound outside the door, as one of my bodyguards shuffled down the hallway.

The mansion was hundreds of years old, and a score of madmen had lived here before me. Their pain and rage had been absorbed by the walls, and no amount of new paint could conceal the smell of decay.

I was alone. My only child had been sent off to a distant land. My wife was a pale wraith who haunted the stairways at night. Lately, I had heard rumors of a ghoul wandering through the countryside, drooling and gibbering as he feasted on the companions of my youth. Only I could break this spell. Only I could reach out to someone whose blood was still red and warm. I rang the bell, and she appeared in an instant.

“Monica?” I whispered.

*

Lee is the author of “The Lost Tribe” (Picador USA, 1998).

LAST WRITES / By DENNIS ETCHISON

It was a dark and stormy night. No, I thought, a bubble of blood on my lips. There was no time to get literary about it.

I touched my mouth and then the wall, trying to scrawl the words in blood. This would be my last and most important work, the one that counted . . . the name of the monster who killed me.

I needed more red ink. There was plenty, coursing out of the two tiny holes in my neck and down my arm. I found the strength and raised my hand again.

It had to be legible. For my wife.

I could write “I love you,” but she knew that. The name was more important--so the police could stop him.

How do you arrest a vampire? Cops don’t carry holy water or stakes. Even with a death sentence, he’d be back to kill again. And next time it might be my wife. . . .

There is only one person who can protect her, I realized. Someone who is neither alive nor dead, but undead. Like the one who did this to me. But one who would come back from beyond the grave to keep her safe.

I could do it. The infection was already in me.

Let it happen now, I thought. Let me die and be reborn, before he gets to her.

I tore at the puncture wounds, releasing the last of the blood in a rush. To end it quickly so I could rise again.

While I waited to die, I lifted my hand and wrote the name of the one who finally killed me, who finished the job and set me free to watch over her. I scratched the words in shaky red letters, praying they were large enough for her to read, before I blacked out.

My own name.

*

Etchison is the author of “Double Edge” (Pumpkin Books, 1998).

SLEEP / By GARY BRANDNER

It was a dark and stormy night. So dark you can’t see the hand in front of your face. You can’t see it because the hand is gripping the back of your neck. It begins to squeeze. And squeeze. And squeeeeze. The night turns darker. The storm rages stormier. You try to cry out, but only muffled grunts escape your parched lips.

You turn your head. Ah, there. Now you see the face. The pale, threatening face looms over you, eyes glowing, teeth bared. And then the terrible, croaking voice, close to your ear, roaring like thunder: “Are you going to get up and go to school, or do I have to drag you out of bed?”

*

randner is the author of “The Howling” (Fawcett/Gold Medal, 1990).

UNFINISHED GHOST STORY / By WANDA COLEMAN

On the prerequisite moonless, dark and stormy night, there was a lull in the rainfall. An ancient kerosene lamp smoldered in the window of Apartment 18, half-concealed by toile and heavy velvet.

Who burned kerosene these days? He had been checking the weather for months, nearly as closely as he’d been checking her door. He knew every splinter in it, had stealthily, in wee hours, laid his ear to it, heard her movements, the rustling of her long, dark skirts, the low contralto of her laughter. He had inhaled the aromas from her kitchen until his stomach ached. He knew the fragrant oils she rubbed into her skin. He had counted the footsteps of her remarkable visitors who arrived one at a time yet never returned. And only on nights like this.

Her name was scratched off the mailbox. The other tenants didn’t know she existed. His questions to the management company went unanswered, news of tenants confidential. One office clerk asserted Apartment 18 had been inexplicably vacant for years. That report fed his compulsion. Why, he wondered, did her visitors arrive promptly at 10 p.m. and leave at five minutes after midnight? Why were they always old men, as grayed, as rheumy-eyed as he? And why, when they left, did they seem decades younger, spry and happy?

Tonight, he intended to satisfy his curiosity. He would pose as a visitor. At 10 o’clock, he stood before her door, mentally rehearsed the excuse concocted for his intrusion and knocked, The door opened. Her ageless darkness awakened a storm of emotions within him. His tongue was lost in stammers as her fleshy arms coiled around his and yanked him inside. Her sepia eyes sparkled, the rouged thickness of her lips parted and her toothy smile claimed him. The calico purred loudly at his feet.

“High time!” she laughed as her door slammed behind him. “Near ‘bout took you forever!”

*

Coleman’s stories can be found in “A War of Eyes” (Black Sparrow Press, 1998).

HELL’S KITCHEN / By PETER LANCE

It was a dark and stormy night, but the rain on West 55th Street wasn’t enough to stop the inferno. Eddie Burke, supervising fire marshal, heard the alarm as he roared up 8th Avenue in his red Suburban. It was a 10-75: request for three engines, two ladders and a battalion chief response.

No. 105 truck was hosing down the black burnt-out shell of a tenement when Eddie arrived. He spoke to the chief, switched on his halogen, went inside. Right away, there was a stench. A dull, sick smell that caught him in the throat as he followed the hose to the point of origin: a small, one-room apartment. The body on the bed was now a single piece of charcoal. It was crouched in the fetal position of terror that all corpses assume just before death by fire. Eddie’s eyes swept the room. Something was wrong. No incendiaries. No volatile liquids. No signs of the tools of ignition--a lighter, matches, cigarettes. He checked the wall boxes. This was not an electrical fire. The little corpse had simply ignited.

Eddie canvassed the building. The victim was an old, white-haired man named Zebub, who kept to himself. Lately the building had experienced a series of power outages. Four young mothers had miscarried. And there was a constant stench of sewage in the basement. Even an infestation of flies. This late in the fall, it didn’t figure. But then Eddie noted the address: 666 W. 55th St. The hairs went up on his neck. B.L. Zebub was the name.

Eddie’s Milton was a little rusty, but he knew that name. He took in the stench again. A smell that had permeated the city in the early ‘50s when the Mad Bomber was loose. And again in the ‘70s, when the Son of Sam was at work . And here it was again. Beelzebub. The Lord of the Flies. Eddie checked his watch. It was a few minutes after midnight on Oct. 31. Now he knew it for sure.

The Devil was back in town.

*

Lance is a five-time Emmy winner and author of “First Degree Burn” (Berkley Paperback, 1997).

BAD DATE / By CAROLE MARKIN

It was a dark and stormy night, but I was all excited because I had a Halloween date with a man I’d met in passing. Tall, polite and polished, he said he wanted a change from his investment banker’s suit and would be wearing something monstrous. I promised a sexy Princess Xena costume.

Ten minutes late, a Frankenstein type in full head mask appeared at my door and escorted me to his Lexus. I was nervous and chattered about nothing when suddenly I realized my date hadn’t said a word.

“How was your day at the investment bank?” I inquired, figuring it was an easy subject.

“What makes you think I’m an investment banker?” he replied, with a mocking sneer. “Do I have the hands of an investment banker?” he asked, as he wriggled grimy digits. “Do I have the teeth of an investment banker?” he continued, as he flashed a rotten, crooked grin.

“Then who are you?” I gulped, breathing hard.

“The man who kidnapped your date,” he scoffed cockily. “He said he’d give me a bigger ‘ransom treat’ if I brought you along.”

I thought: “If he’s the banker, this could he fun. But if he isn’t, this weirdo could kill me.” But what were my options? The doors were locked. I had no weapon. And I was a 100-pound woman in a skimpy outfit.

So, I launched into the scariest story I’d ever told. How I’d had premonitions of people’s deaths: especially of recent boyfriends.

“It’s an eerie coincidence,” I said, as the Lexus hit a puddle and began to plane and skid, “but they all met their fates behind the wheel of a car . . .”

The monster bolted. I drove home, called the police and never went out in costume with a relative stranger again.

*

arkin is the author of “More Bad Dates--and Other Tales From the Dark Side of Love” (Renaissance Books, 1998).

HORRORS! / By LISA MORTON

It was a dark and stormy night, but that was the way Lindsey liked her Halloweens. She loved the fact that one night a year was set aside for fright. Every year she dressed as a fearsome witch, a terrifying vampire, a horrific possessed child. This year (probably her last--she was 11, after all), she was a scarecrow, complete with straw stuffing spilling out like grassy guts, and a rotting, half-caved-in pumpkin head.

But much as Lindsey liked her scares, this house always gave her hesitation. It was the last house on her trick-or-treat route, and she always stopped before going to the door. Last year, an uncomfortably realistic rotting corpse had been propped by the door; two years ago, a knock on the door had brought a ghoul leaping out from inside, flinging candy toward screaming, running victims.

Finally, Lindsey took a deep breath and walked up to the door. Four pumpkins sat on the porch, candles sputtering. Cobwebs hung from the corners and eaves. Eerie wails sounded from speakers hidden nearby. Before she could even finish her knock, the door was yanked open to reveal a ghost bride, with pale face and disintegrating satin gown. The specter raised its dusty arms and wailed at her.

“Hi, mom,” Lindsey sighed, as she stepped into the house. At least this year’s ghost costume wasn’t too embarrassing.

*

Morton is the author of “Horrors!: 365 Scary Stories” (Barnes & Noble, 1998).

HOTFOOT / By RICHARD DAVIS

It was a dark and stormy night and the Klieg light of the moon was missing in the gray leftovers of the El Nin~o summer. The air, if not crisp, was cool.

I slowly went about my Halloween chore of removing all objects not bolted down in the yard, placing them in the garage, away from expected goblins. The cellophane of bulging bags of miniature candies sparkled in the candlelight.

My heart leaped. What? A knock?

What met my eyes filled me with more dread than a trip to a dentist who didn’t believe in Novocain, or a scheduled coffee date with an ex-girlfriend.

It wasn’t the trick-or-treaters--a small boy dressed as Ken Starr and a girl dressed as Courtney Love--that sent my skin on a crawl that could swim the Channel. No, it was their parents. Their feet were covered in a fashion statement so hideous, so grisly, so horrific, I can barely speak it even now. Forgive me, dear reader: sandals with white socks!

*

Davis is coauthor of “Growing Up Catholic” (Doubleday, 1985).

HEADSTRONG / By SHIRLEE TAYLOR HAIZLIP

It was a dark and stormy night as Dr. Sanstete guided his Porsche through fog on Pacific Coast Highway. He had spent the day discussing surgical decapitation to preserve the head of a terminally ill man. Decapitation had always fascinated him. He had seen a film of the last guillotining in France, with a clear image of the severed head tumbling toward the receptacle that would embrace it. As Sanstete wondered how long the head remained sentient, how long thought and feeling were retained, the Porsche ran into the back of a slow-moving flatbed truck with a sheet of aluminum jutting out over the tailgate. He felt a sharp blow to his neck.

From the back seat, his eyes came to rest on his wristwatch. It was 10 p.m. Moving up the arm, he saw the empty, blood-drenched collar. His head had come off at C7, as if precisely detached by one of his colleagues. Pain rammed the outer edges of his neck. His mind began to cloud. But he could still see, could still feel, could still think. The watch showed 10:05 p.m. He moved his lips, his eyebrows, his eyelids. He wrinkled his forehead and wriggled his ears. He stuck out his tongue. As he drifted off, he heard police sirens. How he wished he could tell them what he knew. His closing eyes registered his last earthly time as 10:09 p.m. It was longer than he ever would have expected.

*

Haizlip is coauthor, with her husband, Harold, of “In the Garden of Our Dreams: Memoirs of a Marriage” (Kodansha, 1998).

GIRL-POWER / By SUSAN STRAIGHT

It was a dark and stormy night, and the costumes from hell still weren’t done. My three daughters stood in the living room while my neighbor Juli and I sewed, the slippery fabric oozing from under the machine needles, making fabric puddles on the rug. The girls had to be Josephine Baker the singer, Jo the writer from “Little Women” and Po the Teletubby.

Hordes had already come by, and it wasn’t even an hour past sundown. The kids wanted the good candy; the adults pawed through the kids’ loot before they left my porch steps, looking for the baby Milky Ways and Snickers. I confess to having done that myself, but I try to make it to the sidewalk, and I usually only pick on my baby girl, who actually doesn’t like chocolate. Really.

We finished the Teletubby and made our rounds. Our neighborhood takes Halloween seriously. Headless bodies dangle from every tree; lawns are obliterated by headstones; porches are full of ghouls, ghosts and ghastly grown-ups who look worse than the kids. My baby girl was scared to Teletubby tears. One man cruised past and said to me, “What the hell are you supposed to be?”

I looked down at my jeans and T-shirt and said, “A tired, cold, single mom. You got a problem with that?”

Juli glowered, adding, “And you’re a natural zombie, right?”

Back home, the last and loudest knock came way after 10. It was him, the man with the zombie-grin, leaning hard into the screen saying, “Trick or treat.”

“We’re out of candy,” I said.

“Then gimme a beer,” he ordered.

Juli opened the door and shoved hard. He landed in the sticky spider webs, twisting and tangling himself in silvery filaments.

“Witches,” we heard him say, as he stumbled off. We laughed, slammed the door and popped some Snickers.

*

Straight is the author of “The Gettin Place” (Anchor, 1997).

WEATHER SCARE / By APRIL SMITH

It was a dark and stormy night. A cold front spawned a line of thundershowers, which dropped 3 inches of rain on Kansas City. More heavy storms were expected in the Ohio River valley and possibly even some tornadoes as the low-pressure system produced a disruption in the jet stream.

Meanwhile, the Central Plains were threatened with snowfall and locally heavy cloud conditions. Sunny skies prevailed over the Northeast, thanks to a high-pressure front settling in from Ontario, Canada, with temperatures in the mid-60s--ideal conditions for viewing the peak fall foliage.

And the Pacific Coast enjoyed unseasonably warm, dry air brought by pleasant offshore breezes.

*

Smith is the author of “North of Montana” (Ballantine, 1996).

RAY, IS THAT YOU? / By WILLIAM F. NOLAN

It was a dark and stormy night. Wife out of town, cat asleep, me alone in my den working on a vampire story. Goose bumps on both arms. Vampires are scary. Kept feeling my neck to make sure no fangs had punctured my skin.

Suddenly, the wind died. The rain ceased. Utter silence. Until he spoke. Right behind my chair. The ghost of Raymond Chandler. What he said was: “Hi there.” I jumped up so fast I hit my head on the desk lamp. “Bet that hurt,” he said. Not out loud, but inside my brain. Telepathy. Ghosts can handle stuff like that.

I asked him why he was here, and he said because I’d been writing a lot about him and he hated being misquoted. Example: I’d quoted a line of his as “She was the kind of blond that made bishops kick holes in stain-glass windows.” Yeah, so?

“So the line went, ‘She was a blond to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.’ See the difference?”

I said yes and that I was sorry. He handed me a plastic calling card and told me that whenever I needed to know anything about him--but no sex questions, please--to just pop the card into my mouth and he’d show up. “I hate being misquoted.”

And he left. The wind came up again. The rain pelted down. I put the card in my wallet and went back to my desk. My goose bumps were gone. Somehow, after facing Chandler’s ghost, vampires didn’t seem so scary.

*

Nolan is author of the sci-fi classic “Logan’s Run” and the Black Mask mystery series (St. Martin’s Press).

WHAT JIMMY SAW / By RICHARD LAYMON

It was a dark and stormy night.

In his house beside the graveyard, Jimmy was kneeling on his bed, staring out the window. The glass felt cold against his forehead and the tip of his nose.

What was that? he wondered. Using his pajama sleeve, he wiped his breath-fog off the glass.

He’d glimpsed something down there in the wind and pouring rain the last time the lightning flashed. A quick, lurching something by the side of that crooked tombstone. Maybe a person. Maybe something else.

What was it? Jimmy wondered.

He should probably wake up Mom and Dad, but first he needed to figure out what he’d seen.

He sure wished the lightning would flash again.

Then it did.

And Jimmy saw the thing again.

Letting out a squeak, he ducked below the window sill and prayed it hadn’t seen him too.

*

Laymon is the author of 30 novels, most recently “The Midnight Tour” (Cemetery Dance, 1998).