Mr. Norman's Longcut
The Horror After the Fest
by Ray Rexer

Sunday, May 14th. Mother's Day. A day to stop. A day to think. A day to reflect. A day to say, "Thanks Mom, thanks a lot." But also, as it turned out this year, a day to say goodbye to Estes Park, Colorado and Horrorfest '89.

It was the last day of Horrorfest and in keeping with the mood of the past weekend, the weather turned frightening. It was cold and wet - a real Tommyknocker of a day, so to speak. Lightning flashed in the distance as angry storm fronts elbowed for position around the Rockies. Windblown rain and sleet tormented conventioneers as they scurried between buildings at the infamous Stanley Hotel complex and packed their belongings into rented cars and shuttle buses.

It had been a fun and exciting weekend, a weekend of overdosing on Stephen King and horror fiction with other addicts of the genre. I had traveled to Colorado to attend the convention with a friend and fellow SK nut from Michigan named Leonard Norman. We came well-prepared, with a large supply of homemade "Tony" dolls (chop a finger off a glove, paint a face on it and practice saying "Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance") and REDRUM stickers at the ready. We saw and did just about everything we had planned to see and do. It was great. But now it was time to go.

12:15 p.m. We had just over three hours to make Stapleton International in time to catch our flight. Plenty of time. Leonard and I said our goodbyes and with the ghost of Jack Torrance in the back seat of our rented Pontiac, we headed for Denver.

Three convention attendees? Ray Rexer took a photo of an empty Stanley Hotel dining room only to discover mysterious images on the print after developing.

Kinda.

The weather waited just long enough for us to get far enough away from the security of anything resembling civilization before it got really serious. It was raining Churches and Cujos, so to speak. Water flowed down the sides of the Rockies in dazzling but dangerous rivulets and pooled onto the roadway. Len was driving. His skill at using both sides of the highway while hydroplanning through four inches of standing water was nothing short of breathtaking. And always the considerate driver, Leonard took the time to drive as close to the edge of the roadway as possible, allowing me spectacular views of deep valleys and rugged rock-strewn terrain. Had we not been the only car on the highway, I truly believe the other drivers would've pulled off the road to applaud.

Only car?

Uh-oh.

It was about this time that I began to realize that some of the terrain looked familiar. Now, we had traveled the same road on our way to Estes Park, so it should've...

"Len," I said softly, trying to formulate the question inoffensively -- fully aware that my life was in the hands of a man who had just spent the past three days writing REDRUM on bathroom mirrors with red lipstick, "this doesn't look the same as it did when we drove in." I smiled to show it wasn't important.

"Well, whaddya expect!" he barked. His hand jerked on the wheel and the car skidded left for a while before wandering back into our lane. "Whaddya expect? We were on the other side of the road comin' in. It's all perspective."

I love it when he uses big words like that. Perspective. It sounded so reassuring. It sounded so right. Now why didn't I think of that? Perspective. Sure. Maybe it was the thin mountain air, but he convinced me. We weren't lost, it was just perspective. I nodded and filed my doubts away, happy for the moment just to watch the road and the rain.

And it wasn't until the mountains started closing in on us and the snow started piling upon both sides of the highway that my doubts reappeared.

We had been on the road over an hour and we really hadn't seen much sign of life for the past thirty minutes or so. Oh, one or two cars passed us, but they were going the other way and Len and I had a good snicker at that 'cause we knew THEY were gonna get lost. I saw a couple of creatures in the rocks that may have been mountain goats or mountain men. The scenery was really quite stunning and I took it all in as we drove through the wind and the rain, knowing that I'd never seen this part of the country before and may never get a chance to see it again.

...had never seen?

Uh-oh.

I heard a moaning and figured the wind had picked up again, but it was just Leonard. He had just come to the same conclusion that I had: we were lost.

An overlook of the Stanley

"We're gonna die on this damn mountain," he wailed. It really was quite pitiful.

"No we're not," I assured him, knowing full well that we probably would.

"Well, we'll starve then! That's worse than dying!" Leonard suffered panic attacks if he didn't have fast food regularly. I searched the glovebox and came up with an Oreo. I handed it to Len, who picked the lint off and popped it in his mouth. He smiled, his concern for survival temporarily eased by a sugar rush.

"I think we're in Drake," I said, studying the map I'd brought along for just such an emergency and noticing the small town about fifteen miles northeast of Estes Park. "No problem. We just gotta turn around and start over."

Leonard agreed. He pulled a nifty 180 and we headed back towards the Stanley Hotel. Even with the weather what it was, which was miserable, I figured the hotel couldn't have been more than a half-hour away. We still had time to make our plane.

Sure enough, in just over twenty minutes we approached the outskirts of a town. I gave the thumbs up to Leonard.

"We got it knocked," he smiled. I nodded and read the rustic wooden road sign as we approached.

"Drake."

Uh-oh.

Even to this day I can't figure out what went wrong, how we could've turned around in Drake and then ended back up in Drake. Leonard thinks we accidentally "flipped" into the Territories and wandered around in the Blasted Lands for a while. He says when we "flipped" back our perspective was all screwed up and that's why nothing looked familiar. Hmmm.

Doubling back to Drake had a strange affect on Leonard. He went into a kind of driving frenzy, hands white-knuckled on the wheel, eyes little beads of red staring straight ahead. "I'll get us to the friggin' airport," he said, "even if it's the last thing I ever do!"

What could I say? Such blind determination. Such dedication to the cause. I was touched. I was stunned.

I was scared.

It was still raining, and rocks were starting to put in an appearance on the roadway, having danced a merry jig off the mountain in fist-to-football size chunks. Leonard didn't notice. He didn't seem to be paying much attention to the road anymore. He was just staring straight ahead and driving.

"I'll get us there."

"Lots of rocks in the road," I pointed out casually.

The good, the bad and the ugly. From left, Ray Rexer, Len Norman and Paddy McKillop perform a dance routine they call "the Redrum Polka."

"Well why do you think they call them the ROCKIES!" he snapped. "Huh?" Even facing death Leonard could get in a good one now and then. "Anyway," he continued, "we paid an extra thirty bucks for damage insurance on this baby. Just maybe we'll get some use out of it."

He turned and looked at me smugly and then nodded. I thought, what a great epitaph that would make: "Here lies Ray and Len they got their thirty bucks worth." But I didn't say anything.

All of a sudden Leonard spotted a mountaintype cabin and he powerbraked the car and wheeled it into the gravel drive. He ordered me out. I thought for a moment that our friendship had come to an end on this cold and miserable day in the Colorado Rockies. But all he wanted was for me to get directions. Now there's a thought. Directions.

I went into the cabin and a human grizzly bear in white shorts and a red flannel shirt shot me a maniacal grin and said, "You're lost." And I thought, Thank you so much for pointing that out to me. But I didn't say that. I just nodded dumbly. The man looked like he ate smart-asses for breakfast and I didn't feel like being his next meal.

The grizzly's name was Jack. Talking slowly and using terms usually reserved for the feebleminded, he explained to me how to get to Boulder and then on to Denver without any further problems. And I understood.

We were finally on our way, almost two hours after having started out. We descended from somewhere around forty thousand feet, I think, to a level of breathable air again. Soon the snow melted, the road widened and our spirits brightened. Road signs started to reappear (road signs are rarer than a limited Gunslinger in Colorado) and we knew at last that we were headed in the right direction.

God bless you, Mountain Jack!

We were on U.S. 36 making good time toward Boulder when the hailstorm struck.

It let up after only a few minutes, just long enough for us to breathe a sigh of relief, before it reasserted itself with a passion. Hail the size of maligned Fornits pelted our car. The noise was deafening. Leaves were shredded from trees and fell in drifts with the hail. Leonard began moaning again - or maybe that was me, I'm not sure. Lightning flared alt around us. Hail piled up to a depth of several inches on the roadway and the Pontiac felt like it was riding on a sea of marbles. Cars began slipping and sliding and pulling off the highway in droves.

And we continued on.

Maybe it was bravery, maybe stupidity, but we couldn't stop. We had a rendezvous with destiny, whatever that means, and nothing was gonna keep us from it.

Although I DID have to go to the bathroom and the gas gauge WAS on empty.

Leonard told me later that he couldn't have stopped even if he wanted to, not even for gas. I told him that I knew just what he meant, that I had felt the same way, that we had come too far and had gone through too much to just throw it all away like a couple of wimps by pulling over to the side of the highway and calling it quits. He looked at me when I had finished and said this: "No, you dickhead, I mean I COULDN'T stop. It was too damn slippery."

Ray and Len shared this room with Paddy McKillop. They didn't want to, says Ray, "it was strictly economics."

Well, be that as it may, the hail finally let up and because most sane drivers were still off the road, the way was free and clear and we made fairly good time.

We had a couple of tense moments just before making it to the Alamo Rent-A-Car. Our Pontiac started hitching and coughing for more gas - something I found I had too much of myself (stress related), and my bladder started hitching and coughing for reasons of its own. The car made it on fumes; I crossed my legs.

At the Alamo, Leonard rushed to the express check-in lane to dump off the car and get our deposit back while I ran to flag down a shuttle bus to take us to the airport. The rain was coming down in straight sheets now and we were soon both drenched. Lightning ripped the area with great blinding spears of white. We knew we were cutting it close, maybe too close, but we had come this far and we still had a chance and, by God, we WERE gonna make it or die trying! Alot depended on being able to get a bus right away; we just didn't have time to wait for one. Len yelled something to me from the check-in window, but his voice was taken away by a blast of thunder. A plane passed low overhead and I had the sudden sure thought that it was ours. But it couldn't be...we still had time! "No fair, daddy!" I shouted up at the plane. "No fair!" Leonard looked over at me with some concern. I just shook my head. And then I spotted a shuttle bus and ran like a Banshee to flag it down. Hot damn! I grabbed our bags; the driver stepped out and took them from me and then bounded back into his bus. Leonard spotted us and gave me a big thumbs up. Things were lookin' good.

And then I got hit by lightning.

Honest.

Just like that. Wham! My right arm twitched and went numb from elbow to wrist, my thumb gave a little throb and started to ache. I couldn't believe it. No fair, daddy, no fair! The bus driver let loose a scream and dropped my bags. The pansy. He was protected by the bus, for chrissakes, I was the one outside fighting the elements barehanded. I was still standing, although a bit dazed, and as near as I could figure, I was still alive. It had just been a glancing blow. But it was more than enough to convince me that it was time to boogie right the hell out of Colorado. I turned and yelled to Leonard, "I give up! Let's get outta here!"

Enough was enough, after ail.

Well, we made our plane. There was fog at the airport of course, and the takeoff was downright rocky...so to speak. I noticed many empty seats on the big DC-10. At the time, and in the frame of mind I was in, I thought that was good - I thought that the empty seats just meant that there'd be that many fewer casualties when we finally crashed and burned over Omaha or wherever.

But now I don't think we were ever meant to crash, anymore than we were meant to die on a slippery mountain road or lose it to lightning at the Alamo Rent-A-Car. I think it was just the Overlook toying with us, the Overlook and the ghost of Jack Torrance. The psychic remnants of Horrorfest '89 looking for one last big scare. And did they find it? Did they find the last big scare?

You bet they did. You bet!

Ray Rexer was the Fan Guest of Honor at Horrorfest. He is from Essexville, MI.

Castle Rock Jul 1989 Vol. 5, #7, pp. 1, 4