It's Andy Fish!

I love Fall, I love the crisp evenings, even if the daytime temps have bee a little on the high side. I like spooky stuff, and I can say with certainty it’s pretty hard to scare me.

A few years ago when my DRACULA Graphic Novel was being published I got a call from an entertainment reporter at my local newspaper- The Telegram & Gazette. She was excited to do an interview and in these dark days of excitement towards this new internet thing she wanted to do a video interview to go with it. Since it was near Halloween Season and it was DRACULA after all, she made an interesting suggestion for the interview location and time;

“How about Spider-Gates Cemetery at Midnight?” She was clearly loving this idea.

“Okay with me. Have you been to Spider-Gates at night?” I asked.

“Oh sure, back in high school.”

I wasn’t sure how long ago that was but if she knew what she was getting into and was excited for the idea, I was game.

In Central MA and through much of New England Spider-Gates, actually known as The Quaker Cemetery is in Leicester Mass and is a private cemetery maintained by the Worcester Friends Meeting Group. It’s an active cemetery so I’ve always been aware that it requires proper respect, and as a private cemetery technically we would be trespassing after dark, but I figured the T&G would handle the due diligence.

Local folklore paints it as a haunted place, home to everything from devil worship to a tragic suicide at one of the larger trees that surround the circular grounds where a young boy allegedly hung himself and occasionally re-appears. As a high school kid I teamed up with a fellow classmate to explore the haunted nature of the place by setting up tape recorders all around the area and letting them record while we went off for Hot Dogs at nearby Hot Dog Annie’s. It’s also worth noting that the cemetery is extremely hard to find, and is about ¾ of a mile from anything you could call a main road. There is a dirt road that goes down to it but it’s often blocked off, so you park your car up at the main road and hoof down some serious terrain.

Back to the high school day visit- when we went to retrieve the recorders it was deadly silent, and as I ventured into the location of the furthest one we had placed, I heard, and I’m not making this up, children singing. I turned my head to ask my partner if they’d heard it too as I saw the tail lights of his pickup truck come to life, realizing not only did he hear it, but he was making a hasty exit. I grabbed the recorder and ran faster than I ever had and landed in the back of the truck just as it pulled away.

The recordings themselves picked up a few odd things but no singing. I think we abandoned the project.

On the night of the interview I parked up on the main road, the access road was indeed blocked off. Seeing no news truck or even another car I waited for a few minutes. I was about fifteen minutes early.

At ten of or so I remembered there was another access road on the opposite side about three miles from me, and thought that they may be down there waiting for me, so using a penlight I made my way down to the stone wall and the iron gates that looked like spider webs that announced that I was in the right place. The cemetery, located in the thick of the woods, was pitch dark, so I walked in, found a comfortable place to wait and quietly admonished myself for not bringing gloves.

At about 4 past midnight I heard the ruffling of feet coming down the path and what looked like a spotlight lighting the way. The crew had used the camera light to guide them, and the reporter, dressed in heels for a business meeting struggled on the loose gravel road.

I walked towards them as they came through the gate, and they each screamed when they saw me. By that time my eyes had adjusted to the darkness while theirs had not.

“Oh my god, you were like Dracula coming at us like that!” She exclaimed. “Wait! That’s how we’ll open the interview!”

I didn’t love the idea of coming across like some dime store Stephen King, but I played along, it was late and I was cold and hungry.

I don’t remember much about the interview other than the reporter had actually read my book, but from the questions it was clear she’d never read Stoker’s original and all of her knowledge of the character came from the movies.

It was a harmless interview, I never ended up seeing it because back in those days they couldn’t send you a Final Cut copy for approval because we were all still on dial up, and I grabbed a hot coffee and some eggs at the Boulevard Diner.