{"id":46451,"date":"2022-09-22T08:30:55","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T12:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=46451"},"modified":"2022-09-22T08:30:55","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T12:30:55","slug":"clay-mcleod-chapman-just-so-were-clear-the-terror-of-clear-plastic-tarps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2022\/09\/22\/clay-mcleod-chapman-just-so-were-clear-the-terror-of-clear-plastic-tarps\/","title":{"rendered":"Clay McLeod Chapman: Just So We\u2019re Clear (The Terror of Clear Plastic Tarps)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From the acclaimed author of The Remaking and Whisper Down the Lane, this terrifying supernatural page-turner will make you think twice about opening doors to the unknown.<\/strong>
<\/em>
Erin hasn\u2019t been able to set a single boundary with her charismatic but reckless college ex-boyfriend, Silas. When he asks her to bail him out of rehab\u2014again\u2014she knows she needs to cut him off. But days after he gets out, Silas turns up dead of an overdose in their hometown of Richmond, Virginia, and Erin\u2019s world falls apart.
<\/em> 
Then a friend tells her about Ghost, a new drug that allows users to see the dead. Wanna get haunted? he asks. Grieving and desperate for closure with Silas, Erin agrees to a pill-popping \u201cs\u00e9ance.\u201d But the drug has unfathomable side effects\u2014and once you take it, you can never go back.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s talk about tarps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clear plastic tarps in particular. I\u2019m going to go on record as saying there is nothing more frightening than a simple strip of transparent polyethylene. You can buy rolls of the stuff at your local hardware store, over a hundred feet long. Four<\/em> hundred feet. The sheeting shields your furniture from dust during construction demos. It prevents soil erosion, creating a protective barrier for asbestos abatement. Winter insulation. Leaky roofs. You name it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I find them terrifying. Why? Wes Craven. That\u2019s why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s go back to 1984. A Nightmare On Elm Street<\/em> is out and disrupting our sleep cycles. I\u2019m far too young to be watching this film, but of course that\u2019s not stopping me from sneaking a peak at Freddy Krueger invading the dreams of Nancy and her circle of friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everybody\u2019s got their favorite moment from this film. Watching Johnny Depp get sucked into his bed and then regurgitated in a geyser of blood, or Freddy\u2019s tongue slipping out from the telephone, or perhaps his gloved hand rising up from the bathtub as Nancy drifts off to sleep\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, though, there\u2019s one scene in particular that has seared its way into my subconsciousness. It\u2019s the moment when Nancy dozes off in class<\/a>, quickly slipping into dreamland, only to discover the corpse of her closest pal Tina standing in the hallway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s in a body bag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not just any kind of body bag, though\u2026 For some perverse reason, Craven crams Tina\u2019s corpse into a carrier made from some kind of transparent plastic material better suited for a construction site\u2026 not the removal of a dead body. In my horror film\/true crime mind, body bags are always an industrial black. In any other movie, the camera catches one last glimpse of the deceased before the coroner zzzzzzips<\/em> up the bag, concealing the corpse for the rest of the film. Not this one. Tina\u2019s body bag isn\u2019t opaque at all. Nancy\u2014and therefor the audience\u2014can see right through to Tina, dead, eviscerated and bleeding, shrink-wrapped within her own cellophane container. The plastic is frosted just enough that her features are blurred. Her breath\u2014how can she still be breathing<\/em>?!\u2014fogs over the other side of her Saran Wrap sarcophagus, along with all her dribbling bodily fluids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tina reaches her bloodied hand out to her friend, but it\u2019s trapped behind this plastic barrier. She calls out for Nancy before her body bag is dragged down the hall by her feet\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And years\u2019 worth of childhood trauma was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every time I see a clear plastic tarp these days, I can\u2019t help but think of the barrier between me and whatever rests on the other side. It\u2019s so thin. You can see through it\u2014and yet, no oxygen can pass. No dust particles. Nothing is breaking through that sheeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the strangest of ways, these transparent tarpaulins remind me of the barrier between the living and dead. The veil seems so exceedingly slim, there and somehow not there at the same time. All you have to do is poke your finger and\u2026 break on through to the other side. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was writing my new novel GHOST EATERS<\/a>, which is all about a haunted drug slowly insinuating itself through a small group of friends, I found myself focusing on my favorite ghost story tropes and seeing if there was a new spin to put on them. How could I recalibrate the gothic sensibilities of our favorite haunted housers and come up with something different, if not entirely new? When it came to ghosts\u2014actual spooooky ghosts\u2014I kept obsessing over the essentials: a bedsheet with two holes cut out for the eyes. It\u2019s so simple and yet has so much supernatural tonnage to it. The sheet is what gives definition to the apparition. Without it, the ghost itself is invisible. You need the sheet to see the spirit\u2026 but even then, you\u2019re not looking at the ghost, but the receptacle that encases it. Cloaks it. It\u2019s all gift wrap and no gift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So\u2026 what if the sheet were transparent? What if we could see behind the paranormal curtain? Is there a chance to peer beyond the veil by simply changing the outer covering?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My book has so many ghosts in it. Like, too many. In my afterlife, I posit that what ghosts want most is definition. Parameters to cozy up in. That means a house to haunt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That means a sheet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without these quaint containers, these spirits are untethered. Unmoored. They wander. All they\u2019re after is a roof over their head, a house to haunt. They just want a sheet to wrap themselves up in and define themselves by. How else are we going to see them? But in lieu of bedsheets, I gave my ghosts tarps. Clear plastic tarps. This simple shift permits my protagonist to see directly through the veil and peer into what\u2019s waiting for us all on the other side\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s not pretty. But it suggests that we\u2019re so focused on the surface of these spirits and not, you know, what\u2019s on the inside. All we see is the sheet. Not the ghost itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clear plastic changes all that. It allows us to look even further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who knows? Maybe clear plastic tarps will be all the rage for ghosts this season. Don\u2019t be so surprised if the next apparition you encounter is sporting their own polyethylene sheet\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clay McLeod Chapman writes books, comic books, children\u2019s books, and for film\/TV. His most recent horror novels include Ghost Eaters, Whisper Down the Lane, and The Remaking. You can find him at www.claymcleodchapman.com<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the acclaimed author of The Remaking and Whisper Down the Lane, this terrifying supernatural page-turner will make you think twice about opening doors to the unknown.Erin hasn\u2019t been able to set a single boundary with her charismatic but reckless college ex-boyfriend, Silas. When he asks her to bail him out of rehab\u2014again\u2014she knows she needs to cut […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-46451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-c5d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46451"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46474,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46451\/revisions\/46474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}