I am standing up in the water's edge in my dream
I cannot make a single sound as you scream
It can't be that cold, the ground is still warm to touch
We touch, this place is so quiet sensing the storm
Red rain is coming down
Red Rain
Red rain is pouring down
Pouring down all over me
Peter Gabriel
'Red Rain'.
Imagine yourself reading late at night. Maybe it is storming outside, maybe it is merely still and humid, and dark with no moon and obscured starlight. And let's say you are either alone or whoever you are with is sleeping in another room, or another part of the bed. And what you are reading is a tale of horror. A really, really well written one; a tale that sets the atmosphere just right, that paces itself perfectly and that springs a horror on you at just the right time. Something you always found scary. Perhaps something that haunted your dreams from a way back when you were a child and very susceptible to the terrors that came in the night.
Suddenly the familiar creaking of your house doesn't sound so familiar anymore. Adult though you are, the shadows seem more menacing, the comfort of well worn possessions go away, and the unexpected noises startle more than they usually do. It is hard to avoid nervously glancing around; not that you think the monster has really come out of the pages, no, but what if it might have come. There is that little chill down the back of the neck, like rubbing alcohol dripped there with an eyedropper. Then the book becomes very hard indeed to put down, no matter how frightening it is - the monster has to be read to its conclusion.
And then, if the book is really good, you remember that feeling, in a deep down way. In a way such that you can re-read the story, and no matter what the setting still remember that inner feeling. That chill, even if you are walking around in the middle of a hot spring day in bright sunlight, still is there. Or its ghost is. The hot day, the park and the people recede and some part of your mind is back reading your horror tale and utterly absorbed, being a little scared and part of your mind enjoying being scared that way.
Come below the fold with me, if you dare. . .