When Carl took on a Vampire or Demon he did it with his wits.

He didn’t work out in a gym, he didn’t shoot them over his shoulder with a hi-tech stake gun he didn’t wear leather.

He  went after Zombies with stuff you could pick up at the Dollar Store.

It was simple, efficient and when he took the monsters down it was  oh  so  very glorious.

But this is the best part.

When he was done he wrote about it.

I guess I  really did spend a long summer working with Kolchak when I was about 13 , I was doing a lot of babysitting ( I used to get a lot of jobs. I never raided the fridge, I never used the phone and I used to like to play board games) so I actually spent time with the kids I ‘sat on’.

That was also the summer I learned to play the guitar and I was writing and reading a lot of horror stories so my imagination was working overtime.

This is how my adventures with Kolchak went:

I remember at the  beginning of each episode Kolchak would do a voiceover and from nowhere that voice used to pop into my head when I was walking home late at night after babysitting:

Anita Godfrey, ( Carl would say )  after a long night of babysitting three of the weirdest kids to ever be born,  only had to walk down five doors to the safety of her own home one late June night.

She only made it as far as three doors.

( Monster attacks here )

Anita screams and tries to run.

Muncha Muncha Cruncha.

You’d think in those scenarios I’d have made myself the fearless hero, but I could see those monsters run straight at me. I could see their eyes, their teeth their twisted faces covered with dirt from the graves they had crawled out of or covered with cobwebs and dust  from the attics they hid in until sunset.

I wouldn’t have traded that point of view for the world.

Besides a story is a story and I would die to find a good one to tell.

I’m sure Kolchak would approve.