Not that the Fox Valley is lacking cool haunting sites.
Throughout the years I’ve had fun exploring a number of places the spirits of dead people are reputed to hang out in Elgin, Aurora and Naperville — the latter of which is where John Everson, an award-winning writer of horror stories, has lived for the past 11 years.
But when Everson, who has been putting out these novels for a quarter century, for the first time set one of his spooky supernatural thrillers in a real honest-to-gosh place, he went back to his Cook County childhood home in Midlothian, where he grew up just “down the road” from a graveyard arguably the most haunted in the state, if not in America.
Even if you weren’t raised on the Southwest Side of Chicago, chances are you’ve heard of Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery, where blue orbs and said to hover over graves and where that semi-famous photo of a transparent woman sitting on a tombstone was taken … a ghostly apparition that could or could not be the oft-spotted Madonna in White, who could or could not have a babe in arms, depending on when she happens to be floating around.
Like most of the kids in that area, Everson, now 52, grew up hearing all the Bachelor’s Grove stories around campfires. But he never visited the cemetery until the late 1980s when he was a young reporter with what was then the Star Newspapers and wrote a feature on the graveyard that has become a popular destination for ghost hunters and pranksters alike.
I know all about how eerie the place is because about a decade ago my husband and I visited the old cemetery — carefully patrolled by cops, especially around this time of year — and were not only puzzled but a little creeped out by the fact our otherwise brave and obedient Wheaten terrier absolutely refused to go past a certain point on the trail as we drew near the cemetery.
All of which helped pique my curiosity when I found out about the Naperville resident’s 10th and latest novel, “The House by the Cemetery,” that was just released by the London-based Flame Tree Press and focuses on this old cemetery near Rubio Woods Forest Preserve.
According to numerous reports, there have been dozens of ghost sightings over the years in this graveyard founded in 1832 by English laborers and quickly abandoned. But in addition to the blue orbs and white Madonna, the most common apparition is a farmhouse that is often seen shimmering in the distance and then vanishes as one draws closer.
In Everson’s fictional book, that house really exists and the Cook County Forest Preserve decides that, as a way to make money for the upkeep of the often-abused cemetery, they would rehab the old farmhouse and turn it into a Halloween haunted house, where they could charge admission.
Which, as Everson pointed out, is a “bad idea if the place really is haunted,” especially for the protagonists, an older carpenter and the house designer who were hired to turn it into a nifty Halloween attraction.
To give you an idea of how deep and dark the plot goes, supposedly lots of devil worship really was taking place in the ’60s and ’70s in Bachelor’s Grove — so one of Everson’s antagonists is a witch from that time period who is haunting the house as she stages a big comeback.
“There is,” he promised, “’a high body count by the end of it.” And of course, lots of blood. (The author can tell you more about it at his book-signing from 2-5 p.m. Saturday at the Naperville Barnes & Noble.)
Like many who grew up on “Halloween,” “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Friday the 13th,” Everson, who is also a digital artist and musician, never outgrew his fascination for dark fantasy that he developed in childhood. According to his website, the deep purple den he hangs out in at his Naperville home is surrounded by a collection of fake skulls and twisted skeletal fairies, not to mention a cockatiel and cockatoo.
But Everson is also happy to report he’s just a regular middle-aged suburban husband and dad who works for a medical association by day and writes really scary stuff in his spare time.
In addition to the weekend, according to the author’s bio, he managed to complete “House by the Cemetery” by also setting aside one writing night a week, where he goes to a local pub after work that has “good music and comfortable seats,” and where “people bring me beer and finger food.”
By giving up things like golf and TV, Everson says he’s managed to write over 100 short stories, which have appeared in more than 50 magazines and multiple anthologies, as well as 10 novels, including his first in 2005 that was awarded the prestigious Bram Stoker Award; and his 2007 book that was a finalist for the award named after the Irish author of “Dracula.”
Despite using Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery in a couple of his short stories, Everson told me he never went back to the cemetery since that feature article for The Star … that is, until recently, when a Chicago TV station took him out there to film a segment on his new novel.
While the Forest Preserve has tried to maintain the property over the years — pranksters had recently carved a series of 6-6-6’s into one of the trees — there is no denying the eeriness of the place, he noted.
Desolate. Desecrated. Vandalized. Melancholy.
But, I asked him, is it haunted?
“If it is possible, then this would be the place,” Everson replied. “I’m naturally a skeptic. I hope ghosts exist but until I see one…”
The thing is, this ghost writer has no interest in seeking them out. Except in his imagination.
“What makes writing horror so fun is the chill factor,” Everson said. “And part of that chill is the unknown.”