Long Island Ruins – King Zog’s Castle – Haunted Places

Long Island Ruins – King Zog’s Castle

Creepy Halloween Hiking

A hike through the trails in one North shore, Long Island preserve will lead you to the ruins of King Zog’s Castle.

 

The trails are wooded and dense, running through the quiet nature preserve. Many trails criss-cross, which could easily lead you to being lost. When you come around a bend you run into an eerie sight, the ruins of King Zog’s Castle.

King Zog was an Albanian King in the early 1900’s. He had purchase the property and built the castle on the Long Island Gold Coast. When his monarchy was overthrown, he had to go into hiding and abandoned the castle.

Now, 100 years later, nature is well on its way to reclaiming the land. Entering the area gives you a creepy feeling. Often times you’ll get the feeling that someone is watching you, but when you turn around, no one is there.

My writing in 2013 – an overview

Fun facts about my Fiction:

My favorite horror story I’ve written this year: Motel Impressions is a ghost story that takes place in a motel room. It is set in Long Beach NY and was sparked by a true story (of a murder, not ghosts) for which I built a fictional story around.

My favorite creature/monster that I created: The giant tentacled worm from The Gates of Lament is part Lovecraft and partly inspired by my post, Scariest Creatures of the Sea

My best opening line in a story: Upstanding Citizen  – The moment old lady Ambrose bent over to look in my basement window, I hit her in the back of the head with a hammer… (read more at the Carnage Conservatory)

My favorite character: Jason from The Suitcase is probably most like myself. This story takes place on Long Island and was written in 2011 when the state police were finding the remains of several female victims off of Ocean Parkway.

My favorite message/bigger meaning in a story: Holiday Icon demonstrates the hypocrisy of people during the Christmas holiday. Most of my stories have some alter/bigger meaning, moral or message. Some are more obvious than others.

The two demons in Lessons in Demonology are named after the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos – Greek mythological words that translate to ‘fear’and ‘terror’

In The Gates of Lament, there are three blatant nods to 1970’s Americana in the names of the characters.

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A list of published works for 2013:

(story title/place where published/date published)

Upstanding Citizen – the Carnage Conservatory (website) 2/6/13

The Suitcase – From Beyond the Grave (anthology) 4/15/13

Lessons in Demonology – Twisted Dreams Magazine 6/1/13

Pig – Shadow Masters: An Anthology From the Horror Zine – 6/23/13

X-Ray Specs – SNM Horror Magazine (website) – 7/1/13

Maynard’s Secret – SNM Horror Magazine (website) – 8/1/13

Awakening – Twisted Dreams Magazine – 10/1/13

Bloodsuckers – Infernal Ink Magazine – 10/1/13

Uninvited – 100 Doors To Madness (anthology) – 10/12/13

The Memory Thief – Dark Eclipse Magazine – 11/3/13

Motel Impressions – Miseria’s Chorale (anthology) – 11/26/13

The Gates of Lament – Cellar Door II (anthology) – 12/06/13

Holiday Icon – Oh, Little Town of Deathlehem (anthology) – 12/24/13

total: 13 for 2013 – more info on my Bio page
– published stories in the horror fiction short-story market to date – 24

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Visit my Amazon.com Authors Page: Michael Thomas-Knight

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I would like to thank the editors of all the publications for taking the time to work with my fiction and for seeing something original and provoking enough to accept them for publication. Look forward to working with you all in the coming year.

   

The Old Burying Ground and Tombstone Bread

The Old Burying Ground and Tombstone Bread

Huntington, Long Island, NY – Revolutionary war heroes buried in Huntington
and the legend/origin of TOMBSTONE BREAD

Near the end of the Revolutionary War, the British erected Fort Golgotha (loosely translated; Place of Skulls). They removed 100 tombstones from the top of the hill in the burial ground to build the fort; they did not remove the bodies from the graves. From that vantage point the Brits, under command of officer, Benjamin Thompson, could keep a close watch on Huntington Harbor. Not letting any materials go to waste, the tombstones were used to build stone ovens for baking bread. The bread baked in these ovens were therefore imprinted with names, dates, and epitaphs from the engraved stone and were thusly called, Tombstone Bread.

When the British retreated, the fort was torn down in 1784, but it’s foundation blocks are still in the ground.

On a side note; about a half mile up the road, General George Washington delivered a speech to townspeople and local militiamen to rally them against the British. The site is marked with a patriotically painted building. During Washington’s Long Island visit, he was an overnight guest at Sagtikos Manor where an assassination attempt was thwarted by the host family. He also dined at Hart’s Tavern a short walk from the manor. Hart’s Tavern is no longer standing.

Impressions:
The Old Burying Ground – My resident psychic tells me there is a spirit on the grounds by the name of Andrew or Mathew, or perhaps some combination of the two. We could not find a tombstone to verify this. The presence watches over the cemetery to protect it from British soldiers.
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Gravestones in the 1700’s were made from slate (brown stones), which holds its engraving very well, even though many are broken.
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The broken façade of the tombstone seems to reveal a face.
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Familiar Long Island family names mark the tombstones. (Van Wyck, Ketcham)
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Suffolk County in the 1700’s was considered part of New England (not New York).

The Following and filming location pics

The Following and On Location pics

Don’t know if anyone has been watching, The Following, but I finally caught up with the season finale which originally aired Mon. 4/28/13

The Following is an FBI serial-killer, crime drama, starring Kevin Bacon as Ryan Hardy, the down and out agent, called back to duty, in order to recapture convicted serial killer Joe Caroll. The escaped killer has a penchant for Poe, and is writing a book about the true-life crime-drama that he is creating, while taunting the FBI.

It captured my interest early on and was interesting enough to keep me watching. To my surprise, all of the outside scenes of the season finale were filmed at The Fire Island Lighthouse, which is close to where I live. It was one of those, Oh, My God! I know where that is…, moments.

So I thought I would share some pics from my family outing a while back – our last visit to the light house.

This road was washed away by Hurricane Sandy

Have you ever had one of those moments where you see a location in a movie or show that is in your neighborhood or surrounding areas?

Hurricane Sandy – Long Island, NY – a local view

Pics from Hurricane Sandy, Long Island, NY

We don’t live on the water so damage was limited to fallen trees. Sandy made landfall on Oct. 29th and we had no power for 15 days following. The eye of the storm fell upon NJ, which was the hardest hit area. Here are some pics of my neighborhood the day after:

  
Trees uprooted, fell on houses and blocked streets.

  

 
No traffic lights, that’s okay, Long Island is closed today!

 
LIPA urged its customers to go to thier website to see the progress they were making in restoring power. How were we supposed to do this when we had NO POWER!!!? A few days later we went to a local shelter that had WiFi. As you can see by the map, not much progress has been made. (circles and triangles indicate outages – pretty much all of Long Island)

The one area that shows no outages, circled on the left, is known as The Pine Barrens. There are no homes there, only woods.

 

Fire was the only way to keep warm. We have no pics of the snow storm a few days later because our cameras and phones had no charge.

Long Island Noir – book review

Long Island Noir – Akashic Books

Akashic Books have a novel approach to their ‘Noir’ series books; they are anthologies that all pertain to a certain city or area delegated by the title. This one contains stories from Long Island, NY – edited by Kaylie Jones. While a few of these stories could have taken place anywhere, most are ideas and aspects one would only know about if you had lived on Long Island. They are written by local authors to capture the authenticity of their tales. Ideas touched upon in this anthology include the socio-political border between Mastic Beach and the Hamptons, Political climates in LI religious sects, and the perfect Garden City Homes – facades that often hide less than perfect lives.

These stories are admittedly not traditional noir, no hard-boiled detectives, gangster stories or petty thieves trying to gain notoriety in the seedy life of the underworld. These stories convey the darker side of real citizens – our friends and neighbors. Long Island’s underbelly will reveal, divorce, cheating spouses, out-of-control gamblers, rampant drug use, and people cheating the system and each other in order to ‘one-up’ their neighbors – middle aged and middle-class people in a desperate battle to seem successful in a judgmental environment.

While I originally purchased this book for the casual read and its treatment of familiar territories, most stories mirrored people I know or knew from growing up and living on Long Island. They conveyed a real sense of the area, climate and struggles of Long Islanders. I intend to purchase more of the ‘Noir’ series to absorb the real feel of the other cities and regions that they have covered to date, which include; Miami, Detroit, Las Vegas, New Jersey, Boston, the Twin Cities, Kansas City, Seattle, Dublin, London, Toronto and Copenhagen, to name a few. Chances are, if you live near a city, you can find a collection in this series. Just put the word ‘Noir’ after your city name and look it up.

http://www.akashicbooks.com/noirseries.htm