by tony tremblay
Tony Tremblay makes the second of three stops at Ginger Nuts of Horror to celebrate the launch of of his new novel The Moore House . Tony has written three articles about his real life experiences with the supernatural, they are not fiction, these are not stories, these a Trio of Tangible Terror.
This is the third and last essay on how the supernatural has intersected with my life. As in the other two instances, you can take out of my experiences what you will. I’m sure someone can explain them away, but unless they were in my shoes, no one can appreciate the confusion and terror I was subjected to. I have never used any of these occurrences in my fiction, nor do I plan to do so. Though I have shared them with others over the years, I consider the episodes too personal to capitalize on—they are not fodder for monetary gain.
In May of 1979, I was fresh out of college and working for a company that manufactured vinyl siding for homes. Up to this point in my life, most of my supernatural occurrences were minor in nature. For instance, when a relative died, a strange banging against the side of the house would happen. I would know in advance which song was going to play on the radio (this used to freak my friends out). A knack for knowing what my bosses wanted ahead of them asking, happened to me often. These instances, except the episode with my friend Tom that I detailed in the first essay, were nothing to cause me worry. That changed in May of 1979. It was in the beginning of May that year when the first episode of a recurring nightmare started. In the dream, I am standing at a chain link fence, leaning against it, looking through the spaces. It was apparent that I was at a large airport, but from where I was located, I only saw a section of runway and some small buildings in the distance. To my left, a jet was taking off. It was huge, on its side a long stripe painted blue with a red logo. As I watched it taxi, the nose lifted and the jet was airborne. I observed it for a few moments, listening to the roar of its engines as it cut through the air, seemingly to climb vertically more than it was capable. Then, something terrible happened. The plane tilted sharply to the left. When I say tilted, I mean the left wing of the plane dipped so low the jet was sailing through the air sideways. Something fell from the plane, rushing toward the ground. I grabbed the chain link fence in disbelief when the jet continued to tilt. It wouldn’t stop. The plane tilted so much it rotated until it was completely upside down. The roar of the engines cut out and, like dead weight falling from the sky, the jet fell onto the concrete runway. The noise from the crash was deafening. The jet exploded, braking into flaming sections that scattered across the concrete. My vision turned red. I saw blood everywhere. It covered the ground, the fence, my body, spewing from the plane segments in streams. The dead littered the ground. Severed limbs were everywhere. Men, women, babies, some mutilated, lay still on the tarmac. I could smell the death. The emotions of horror and sadness that overtook me were so profound that I kept telling myself to wake up. The next thing I remember is sitting up in bed, screaming. My heart was beating like hell, and I could still see images of the dead and all that blood. The next night, the nightmare returned. It was exactly the same as the night before. For the next five nights, I endured the horror of reliving that nightmare. Eight nights after the initial nightmare, there was a reprieve. The eighth day was May, 25, 1979. That afternoon, American Airlines Flight 191 crashed at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. I watched the news along with the rest of the world and learned of the specifics. The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 with its blue stripe and red logo appearing on the side, lost an engine after takeoff. It climbed, tilted to its side, and turned upside down before it crashed. It exploded in a fireball at the end of the runway, next to a trailer park. All 271 people on the flight lost their lives. As I watched the news, there was no doubt in my mind that I had a premonition of the disaster. For years after the crash, I thought about my nightmare, wondering if I was supposed to do something about it. If I was, I failed. As strange as it might sound to anyone, I did carry some guilt, but managed to temper it to a good degree when I considered the circumstances. It was at about five years later when I came upon an article in book highlighting the crash. Though I was familiar with the details, one section caught my eye. The article mentioned that in the weeks before Flight 191 went down, American Airlines had received calls from a small number of people saying they had nightmares about one of their jetliners crashing. The article did not say how the airline handled the calls or if they took them seriously, the author speculated what their reaction would be. As morbid as it might sound, I did take some comfort that I was not the only person who had the premonition, and I was glad that those who did, acted on it. My story doesn’t end there. Eight years after the crash, the company I worked for sent me to Chicago to attend a seminar called, Cause and Effect. The seminar’s goal was to teach us how to analyze a quality control problem by going to its root cause. I was dumbstruck when one of the examples they used was the crash of Flight 191. By then, everyone knew the cause of the crash had been a bolt affixing the engine to the wing had failed. Only, the company (the presenters of the seminar) that had been hired to investigate the crash went further. They listened to the voice chatter of other pilots taking off and landing from that runway prior to the crash. They heard nothing unusual in any of the landing chatter, but they did hear something that was off on some of the planes that took off. During takeoff, some of the tapes revealed a thunk sound, including the takeoff of Flight 191. The company went down to the runway and what they discovered placed another piece in the puzzle of why the jet went down. On the concrete pads that make up the runway, there is a space between the sections of the pads to allow for expansion and contraction. One of the concrete pads had expanded, lifting a substantial amount, enough so that any plane’s wheels encountering it would be jarred. The presenters of the seminar proffered that when the wheels of the jet hit that section of concrete, it jarred the engine, setting in motion the rest of the events that followed. After attending the seminar, I felt I had come full circle. It was a way of putting the nightmares to rest in my mind. Of course, I still think of them occasionally, and I’ve mentioned it to others. As to those who have heard me tell these stories and to those who are reading these essays for the first time, it doesn’t faze me if you have an explanation (reasonable or not) for each incident, though I suspect if you are reading these essay’s in the first place, you tend to have an open mind. I’ve come to terms with each incident and how they have affected who I am, and what I write. If you have questions or comments, feel free to hit me up with them and I’ll do the best to answer them. To conclude, I would like to add that except for one incident that occurred around six years ago, I have been precognition free. I prefer it that way. check out our review of The Moore House by clicking here
Tony Tremblay is the writer of numerous short stories that have been published in various horror anthologies, horror magazines, and webzines under his pen name, T T Zuma. Tremblay has also worked as a reviewer of horror fiction for Cemetery Dance Magazine and Horror World. In addition to his print work, Tremblay is the host of That Taco Society Presents, a cable T. V. show (also available on You Tube) that features discussions on horror as well as guest interviews with horror authors. The author lives in New Hampshire. The Moore House is released next month by Haverhill House Publishing, but in the meantime make sure to to check out Tony's other books by clicking here
With The Moore House, Tony Tremblay (author of The Seeds of Nightmares) takes us on a terrifying journey. Three excommunicated nuns, Nora, Agnes, and Celeste, join a paranormal unit sanctioned by the Catholic Church, in the hopes for redemption in God’s eyes. As empaths, their jobs are to verify reports of demonic possession, and when their boss, Father MacLeod, is persuaded to investigate a house in a small New Hampshire town, the three women are chosen to assess these claims. Goffstown police files detail numerous extraordinary occurrences at the Moore House, including seven gruesome, unsolved killings. For this reason, the three empaths are instructed not to enter the dwelling, but to employ their abilities while circling outside the house. Nora, Agnes, and Celeste proclaim it free of supernatural forces, but they are wrong…dead wrong.
The three women discover their presence is part of a larger plan. The Moore House is not only possessed, but it soon possesses them, forcing them to relive the sins that had resulted in their excommunications. Their belief in God and redemption dissolving, they becomes pawns in a demonic scheme, a means to an end, in which Father MacLeod is their only hope. But Father MacLeod has made his own deal with the devil, and the devil is ready to collect. The Moore House, a novel described as Ghost Story meets The exorcist, will posses you as well. 
BOOK REVIEW: THE MOORE HOUSE BY TONY TREMBLAYComments are closed.
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