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Never have I been much for spooks, goblins and the ghoulish trickery of Halloween. For me, it's all about funny costumes and free candy.

Ever since the shower scene in "Psycho," I swore off scary movies. My son took me to see one of the vampire movies, but I walked out during the opening scene and saw, instead, the feature in the theater next door - "The Lion King." My sister insisted we watch "Alien" and I dreamed about that slime-drooling dragon for weeks.

Not that horror is an unworthy or low-class form of entertainment. One of America's shinning literary icons is/was the master of the macabre, the sinister and the downright terrifying.

I went to high school in Richmond, Va., a city that has as one of its popular tourist attractions The Edgar Allen Poe Museum where his life and work is presented in user-friendly fashion, and you can buy Poe memorabilia, including slouchy Poe action figures, Gold Bug key rings, Raven cocktail napkins and T-shirts with howling black cat, front and back.

The closest writer here in America for literary champion of horror would be Stephen King. Perhaps King's name is on the reading list in high schools, but back in my day it was Poe who was held up as the best of the best in classic chiller.

On my required reading list in high school English was, of course, his most famous works: "The Black Cat," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "The Fall of the House of Usher." By then I was old enough to know there were no monsters camped out in my closet or homicidal maniacs loose in our backyard, but Poe was so convincing that it was hard to shake off thoughts of bodies buried in the wall or the crazed ghosts of former occupants sneaking up the steps.

When I was little, my brothers did a good job convincing me there were wolves under my bed, hoping to chow down on a leg or arm if I happened to let one hang over the side of the bed while I was asleep during the night. I still sleep in a ball. You never know.

With a writer like Poe in your reading repertoire, and with brothers like I had, things that go bump in the night are always just around the corner of memory lane.

Poe himself was a spooky man. The fears and visions, bad dreams and bad scenarios came, in large part, out of his own life. He suffered bouts of depression and alcoholism. Both parents died within a year of each other when he was just a kid and he was sent to live with relatives: one in Baltimore, and when that didn't work out, one in Richmond. His brother died young and his sister went insane.

In 1844, in a story titled "The Premature Burial," Poe wrote these words:

<I>"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends and where the other begins?"</I>

So here's my advice for Halloween night: Bolt tight the windows; keep a mirror handy; don't answer the door. And don't let an arm or leg dangle over the side of the bed.

Ina Hughs may be reached at inamackie@yahoo.com.