Please welcome my guest author, Stan Hampton, Sr.
A Visit to the Clown Motel and Old Tonopah Cemetery
by Stan Hampton, Sr.
And Then…
The
thing about things that go bump in the night is that they can go bump in the
daylight too. And it doesn’t matter what the season is, though I suspect
Halloween adds to the possibility.
Recently
I had a chance to go with the Nevada Camera Club of Las Vegas, of which I am a
member, to photograph the International Car Forest of the Last Church just
outside of Goldfield, Nevada. Because it was an overnight trip, my youngest
son, his wife, the three grandchildren, and I decided we would stay in nearby
Tonopah, Nevada. Both towns were boom mining towns from the early 20th century,
and both, especially Tonopah, are noted for hauntings.
The
world famous Clown Motel—only happy clowns make up the some 600 clowns in the
lobby—sounded like a fun place to stay. Besides, as the front office assured
me, usually there was no paranormal activity in the office or the rooms. Only
when a lot of people visited the Old Tonopah Cemetery next door, otherwise
known as the Haunted Graveyard, was there some activity.
My
grandkids were excited about staying at the Clown Motel even if it wasn’t of
“It” fame. They sort of gave me a suspicious look though when I told them that
if they wanted to look out the window at the graveyard, make sure their mom or
dad looked first—no telling what might be looking back. My son kind of groaned
and I felt kind of, well, I guess not. When we stayed at the Clown Motel my
9-year old grandson turned on all of the room lights and the bathroom light.
Though
my grandkids and I visited the Haunted Graveyard that night and in the morning,
nothing untoward occurred. I guess all of the happy clowns kept—other things—at
bay.
Photographing
at the Car Forest was fun. There are some 40 cars, trucks, and buses partially
buried on several acres of land just south of Goldfield. The Car Forest is
visible from Highway 95, the road to Reno, Nevada. It is an ongoing art
project; and artists are welcome to visit and decorate the vehicles. It does
make for a different and exciting art project in the Nevada landscape.
As
the twilight descended on us we began working on photographing a pair of
vehicles beneath the Milky Way that rose into the night sky. I had photographed
at night before, but it was always something of a hit or miss affair. That
night I took enough notes and learned enough that I’m certain that with more
practice, someday I’ll become pretty good at photographing beneath the stars. And
when I had enough photographs, we headed for Tonopah and the Clown Motel to spend
the night.
As
I had told my son before we journeyed to Tonopah, we probably didn’t have to
worry about taking any anti-ghost precautions. We would only have to take
precautions if something followed us back from Tonopah. My son looked at me and
I felt—well, actually, no. I laughed.
HAPPY
HALLOWEEN!
PS: The next day we stopped at
Gemfield near Goldfield, where the grandkids looked for gems near the abandoned
mine. And further south we stopped briefly at the ghost town of Rhyolite, near
one of the entrance roads to Death Valley.
* * * *
TAG
LINE: You can run, but what if you find yourself aboard a space faring Flying
Dutchman?
BLURB: Luther
Raynor is a son of one of the world’s wealthiest and politically influential
families. When the Etava Virus appeared and spread across the world, mankind’s
very survival was in question. Luther used his family’s wealth to construct a
sleeper spacecraft to take the family into space, to orbit in safety around
Jupiter for a thousand years while in suspended animation. At the last minute
he changes the plan after calculating that upon awakening, survival supplies
for one would last far longer than for two dozen or more people. He flees into
space alone except for the Mobile Artificial Intelligence Image—May,
responsible for operation of the spacecraft. But, Luther had no idea of what
awaited him out there.
EXCERPT:
The dream was always the same. He was floating alone in an unknown darkness
until a pale dot emerged in the distance. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of
burning wood and something else, something that smelled like sizzling bacon.
His hand opened, fingers spread wide toward the dot that became a blue-green
world, blanketed with dirty white clouds that sailed across a starry blackness.
Dark, smoky clouds with a flickering yellow heart trailed the world whose
colors were fading as if losing their vitality. An unfamiliar low, deep keening
sounded from an unexplored deep…
* * * *
“This is the Deep Space Sleeper
Spacecraft Hope. Can anyone hear me?” After several moments of silence he
closed with the by-now routine, “Hope out.”
In the cramped dimly lit cockpit
cabin Luther Raynor covered his mouth with a trembling hand. Beyond the
surrounding windows above the numerous instrument panels was a primordial night
deeper than that of an unlit cave.
He listened intently. Beyond the
dull hiss of circulating air he knew a stealthy creak issued from the narrow
corridor through the open hatchway behind him. The sound would have been more
at home on a haunted wooden sailing ship drifting aimlessly on a mysterious
ocean rather than in a brightly lit spacecraft of which he was the only
occupant. He was sure, after several frantic searches, that he was the only one
aboard. But still…
Luther swallowed uneasily and
ignored a faint groan. He touched the screens set in the control panel before
him to activate another sensor and visual scan.
He was lost in the depths of
unknown darkness, but knew he was a long way from Jupiter and the four moons
discovered by Galileo Galilei - Callisto, Ganymede, Europa, and Io. After a
months long journey the Hope was supposed to slide into position behind Europa,
the moon with a possible planet wide ocean beneath an icy crust, and thought to
have the best possibility for life outside of Earth. From there the gas giant,
almost 700,000 kilometers distant with its myriad of misty blue, gray, orange,
white and purple pastel bands, would fill the windows of the spacecraft. He
would have a bird’s eye view of the mysterious Giant Red Spot, the
hurricane-like storm that always was and always would be, as it grew and shrank
according to its whim.
For a thousand years the five
Galileans would circle that failed sun, after which the automatic flight
systems would activate the return sequence and with a flare of rockets the
powerful Zama Drive, descendant of the early 21st century Cannae Drive, would
fling Hope away from its companions. Because of the speed generated by the Zama
Drive, the world of his birth would soon appear in the spacecraft windows
again.
At least, that was what was supposed
to happen.
* * * *
The darkness was fading before a
kaleidoscope of spinning colors. A biting cold made moving difficult and
painful.
Luther opened his eyes and after
several moments of blinking against dim, yet painful lights, and blurriness, he
realized he was still firmly secured within the titanium alloy suspended
animation chamber.
Elation filled him—he was alive! The
emotion was replaced by confusion—where was he? But then, there was elation
again—at least he was alive.
Luther examined the inside of the
chamber with its maze of monitoring wires, electrodes, suspension fluid tubes,
chemical nutrient tubes and waste tubes—the Personal Environmental Control and
Life Support System—all connected to him through a layer of protective clothing
by implanted plugs. There was a thick glass window above his face and one to
either side of his head. Through the window all he could see was the ceiling of
the cargo bay.
Luther frowned at a dim memory of
being thrown around violently, but perhaps it was only a dream.
He had
no idea how long he lay in the chamber lit by tiny lights from small instrument
panels. When no one peeked through the chamber windows, he fumbled with the
communication switch and in a hoarse voice painfully whispered, “Hello?”
AUTHOR BIO
Stan Hampton, Sr. is a full-blood Choctaw of the Choctaw
Nation of Oklahoma, a divorced grandfather with numerous grandchildren, and a
published author, photographer and photojournalist. He served in the active
duty Army and Army Reserve before enlisting in the Nevada Army National Guard;
Hampton retired in 2013 from the Army National Guard with the rank of Sergeant
First Class. He is a veteran of Operations Noble Eagle and Iraqi Freedom, with
deployment to northern Kuwait and several convoy security missions into Iraq.
He has shown two solo photographic exhibitions and
curated a multi-media exhibit. His writings have appeared as stand-alone
stories and in anthologies from Dark Opus Press, Edge Science Fiction &
Fantasy, Melange Books, Musa Publishing, MuseItUp Publishing, Ravenous Romance,
and in Horror Bound Magazine, The Harrow, and River Walk Journal, among others.
Hampton has an Associate of Applied Science Degree in
Photography – Commercial Photography Emphasis, from the College of Southern
Nevada. He is studying at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas with a double
major in Art and English. Hampton also spent a cold, rainy Spring 2017 semester
studying at a university in southwestern France in the shadow of the Pyrenees
Mountains, where he developed a fondness for sugar crepes and hot chocolate
with marshmallows, and a love for the French lifestyle.
After almost 20 years of desert in the American Southwest
and Southwest Asia, he still misses the Rocky Mountains, yellow aspens in the
fall, running rivers, and a warm fireplace during snowy winters.
Hampton can be found at:
