Unmasking the Horror: A Deep Dive into the Mind of Award-Nominated Author Carver Pike

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Nightmare Engine Podcast with
your hosts, horror authors DavidViergutz and Jay Bower, where
they discuss all things horrorbooks, movies, stories.
Nothing is off limits, nothingis safe, and neither are you.

David Viergutz (00:29):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode
number seven of the NightmareEngine Podcast.
I am your host, David Viergutz,horror author.
I'm here with Mr Carver PikeAnd we're going to be sitting
down and have a cataclysmconversation today and just hear
what's happening on the eastcoast on Carver's Inn.
So, Carver man, how are wedoing?

Carver Pike (00:47):
What's going on?
Everything's fine Over here.
on my end.
the snow is finally melted, soweather's nice outside, finally,
but I'm still cooped up insideriding.
You know how it is.

Is it still sticking or is it all starting
to melt now Because of theweather?

It's finally melting, but man, we've been hit
with some crazy storms lately,so every time it melts it seems
to hit us again and then itsticks for a while.
But I'm up in the mountains, sothat's kind of how it is around
here.

Yeah, i remember trying to get a hold of you
last week and I was like, man,this is, this isn't kind of
funky on the east coast.
It's getting funky down here inTexas.
So over here they can't decideif they're going to freeze us to
death or burn us up.
It's just kind of weird.
But I'm glad to hear you'redoing all right.
I'm glad to see that we got youon And you're in episode number
seven and we haven't evenlaunched yet.

(01:30):
So this is going to be kind ofinteresting.
When this goes out There'sgoing to be a lot of episodes
for people to listen to.
So we've kind of talked alittle bit about me and the
previous episodes.
I don't tend to talk aboutmyself as much, but, carver,
let's hear from you, man.
So you write horror.
That's what is the Nightmare inGym Podcast.
So that makes sense.
So tell me a little bit aboutyou.
When did you start writing andwhat was your first book and
what was the inspiration behindit?

Yeah, so I started writing horror.
God man, it's funny because Iactually started.
I know we just said I wasn'tgoing to say much about the
romance side of things actually,but I kind of have to talk
about horror actually because Istarted writing horror.
I actually started writing DarkFantasy to begin with.

(02:11):
Dark Fantasy kind of horror.
My Edge of Reflection seriesthat I have out right now under
Carver Pike was my first seriesactually, and a friend of mine
read that and she said you know,i really think you'd do well
writing erotica.
Why don't you give erotica atry?
So I kind of tried it as a dareand started writing erotica for

(02:33):
a little while And then Ithought I could pull my horror
ideas over to the erotica sideand started writing erotica
books and then writing horror atthe same time under the same
name, which is Chris Genevies,and it didn't work so well.
First of all, you can't reallyromance readers don't
necessarily want to read horror.

(02:54):
I mean, there are somecrossover but it's not like you
think.
And horror readers don't reallywant to go to your Amazon page
and sift through all the youknow, the kinky romance and
stuff like that to try to figureout what is the horror.
And then I think maybe it waslike the OCD side of me that was
just I hated seeing my ownAmazon bookshelf and saying,

(03:15):
like a book called KinkyCarnival Games, you know, right
next to a foreign evil, my firstDiablo Snuf, you know book.
So it was driving me nuts aswell.
And then at some point I justsaid, okay, i needed to create a
horror pen name which is CarverPike, and separate the two.
So I would say probably around2016-ish, i think something like

(03:36):
that, carver Pike was born andfrom that point on I just
separated the horror and kind ofran with it from there.
So that's kind of how the, theso go ahead.

Had you always been a writer man, have you
always wanted to write something, or is it?
is this kind of a newrevelation around 2016?

No, i've been writing since I was in high
school.
Really I was kind of a I when Ilearned to type without looking
.
I guess I did, i guess I waskind of a dork, i don't know man
.
I was in a computer class andand I learned to write without
looking and I just had like afascination with it.
Once I learned to type and Iwas always typing like I'd be.
I played football and stuff andI would be on the bus on the

(04:15):
way to football games justpretending I was typing on the
seat back in front of me.
And so I found an old typewriterone time at my grandfather's
house and sat down to type atabout 16 years old and started
typing out my first book.
It was a young adult novel,real cheesy, stupid stuff.
And then once I went back toschool because I was during a

(04:37):
summer break I startedhandwriting my first horror book
, but it was the young adultkind of RL Stein types, you know
, stuff that was reading back inthose days, and so I guess
that's about the time I knew Iwanted to write and I just never
stopped Back then I was likehandwriting everything.

That's cool man.
And for those people listening,if you don't know, Mr Piker is
a award nominated horror author,so you did something right.
So let's talk about thoseawards man.
So you've gotten it's asplatter punk.
But has he gotten one splatterpunk that you've been nominated
for another?
Is that correct?

No, I was nominated last year for the splatter punk
awards for Slaughterbox, whichis actually the fourth book in
my Diablo Snuff series.
I was nominated for that andthey announced the winners for
that during Killer Con And I didnot win last year And then I
was nominated again.
I'm nominated this year for theMaddening, which is the fifth

(05:34):
and final book in my DiabloSnuff series.
So that's still going on rightnow.
So I'm nominated right now andthey will announce the winners
at Killer Con this year, whichtakes place in Austin, Texas, in
August.

We'll keep my fingers crossed.
Oh shoot, man, we got to gettogether.
I got to again.
I remind me of that becauseyou're, that's about 30 minutes
from my house, man, i got to goto that convention.
That'd be awesome.

That's awesome, man , and I just found out.
Today.
I'm allowed to finally announce, too, that I'm going to be a
vendor at Killer Con also.
It takes place the 12th throughthe 14th in Austin.
If you go to Killer Con Austin,they sell the tickets still
there.
I think they're only sellingabout 200 tickets, so they're
going to go pretty fast.

(06:17):
But yeah, I'm able to get avendor table there.
So I'll be there all weekendwith my books and stuff there
signing books And hopefully keepmy fingers crossed for that
Flatterpunk win.
But there's some good books,man.

Yeah.
And so I've heard we've heardDiablo Snuff, we've heard The
Maddening.
So I think there's somemisconceptions and I even had
these misconceptions too thatyou and your writing have been
kind of piled into theSplatterpunk the gore, the shock
value, extreme horror.
I mean, that's not accurate,right?

(06:52):
You told me, i think of you amessenger.
That's not quite accurate.
Well, some of it.

That's the tough part is and it's funny.
Somebody just mentionedyesterday because I am part of
the written and read podcastwith Aaron Beauregard, daniel J
Volpe and Roland Bersie Jr Andpeople call us the gore four.
Somebody made a commentyesterday or a post and said
something about the gore fourthat were really helpful and
stuff And people lump me in withextreme horror and stuff like

(07:19):
that And some of my stuff isvery gory.
A lot of it has very graphicsex in it because I told you I
came from that erotic side ofhorror way back in the beginning
.
But most of that is that Diablosnuff series because it did
start out as kind of erotichorror.
But I would say that thatseries is kind of extreme horror
.
But not all of my books are So.

(07:41):
For example, i have a bookcalled Scalp that's about
parasitic headlice.
It's about a group of teenagersthat travel to this youth
leadership conference in WestVirginia And it's about these
headlice that you know.
it's almost a zombie type book.
They jump from person to person, digging into the scalp and
taking over the body And it's apretty sick book, but it's not.
I wouldn't say that it'sextreme horror.

Like not just shock value, right.

Right And Grad Night is a book about students
getting revenge on theirteachers And there's some kind
of sick stuff in it, but it'snot extreme, it's not.
I call it chasing the.
What the fuck is kind of my wayof putting it.
I don't write to chase the whatthe fuck.
I don't just try to get the youknow the readers to go what the
fuck on every page.
You know like.

(08:25):
I'm gonna write something likethis.
I mean, there is story behindit, and sometimes with extreme
horror not all, because there'svery well written extreme horror
out there too, but sometimespeople do just write for shock
value.
So I've had people tell me likeI've had other authors even
tell me that they were holdingoff on writing my work because

(08:46):
they're not too into extremehorror.
They thought it was just goingto be very sick twisted shit
just for the for that shockvalue.
And you know that kind ofbothers me because I do write
and I do have you know, writefor the story, there is a plot
there And so I just don't wantpeople to have that
misconception.
I don't write just for thatsick twisted, you know.

(09:07):
I don't just chase the what thefuck?

Yeah, yeah, i like that description, man.
Yeah, that helps a lot becauseyou know, and I had that
misconception is only because Ijust didn't know.
You know, and I listened toyour podcast, you know, when I
can And and it's kind of, i meanI like what you, what you have
with Aaron and Mr Volpe and allthat.
So that was a, you know, iguess it was.
I was kind of inspiration forthis one.

(09:31):
I wanted a little more intimate, so we just do the one on one
or the two on one, but I do likeyour y'all's podcast And so I
assume, because you were withthose guys, that that's that's
you were at.
So thank you for that And Ihope people listening that
they're, you know they get they.
You know they might take a lookat Mr Pike's books, because you
know, if you're not into,splatterpunky clearly does not
write Splatterpunky, you'regoing to find some, and so, okay

(09:52):
, let's talk about topics inyour books then.
On that note, so I write alongthe lines I like the paranormal
man, demons, ghosts, possessions, occult stuff, you know,
haunted houses, you know, butjust done a little bit different
.
That's kind of where I tend tostay.
What kind of stuff can we findin your books.
You mentioned Killer Con, youmentioned Gord.
You have a lot of serialkillers, or where do you think

(10:13):
you kind of lie?

I try to kind of switch it up with most of the
books because, like, really like, when people ask me where they
should start with my books, ialways ask them what they're
into, because if you tell meyou're mostly into like a
Stephen King type of book, iwould tell you probably to start
with Grad Knight, becausethat's more of a tame.
That's the one I told you thathas to do with students getting
revenge on their teachers.
It's more of like a thriller,horror type of book.

(10:38):
And then there's if you're intozombie type stuff, i would tell
you Scalp, because that's theparasitic head lice one.
I have a book called ShadowPuppets.
That's about Scarecrow's.
That's kind of an erotic horrorone.
If you like military horror,there's one called Red Grave
About a female military AirForce Security Forces member
who's locked in a confinementbuilding overnight with a serial

(11:02):
killer whose her job isbasically just to make sure he's
locked in his cell at night,but she's alone in there with
him And it's kind of a reallysuspenseful.
It's filled with dread, kind ofa slow burn.
The one I'm working on now,faces of Beth, is kind of a
possession story.
Okay, so Faces of Beth is a bitof a possession story.

(11:23):
I just wrote the blurb today.
I've been trying to figure outhow to explain it without giving
too much away, so I like toalmost with every book.
I kind of want to exploresomething different.
Red Grave would be my closestmilitary one I mentioned and
probably to be the closest to aslasher story, And I do plan to
write a full length novel withthat character.

(11:43):
So I kind of want to play inall the sandboxes and just kind
of, you know, try a little bitof everything.
So I wouldn't say that there'sany one style that really
defines what I write Really.

So yeah, i think there's.
I think, when it comes tohorror, that there's so much
variety, you know, and there'ssuch a huge emphasis on
character, like we want ourcharacters to be relatable.
You know, one of the thingsthat you mentioned was your, the
female security officer for AirForce.
You're a veteran, right?

Yes.

And so I'm a veteran as well.
So let's tell me about that.
When did you serve, man?

I served back in.
Well, i got out of high schoolin 90, it was around 99, about
1999.
So in fact it's funny because,red Grave, that story is very
true to a point.
So I was that female military,but in male obviously.

But, originally.

When I wrote that book it was a male character and
it was in third person and Iwrote it.
So the base where I served Iwas up in Anchorage, alaska
There was a situation where thisguy was found off base.
I can't remember the specificsof it, but he was brought on
base and we didn't have.
I was a security forces memberand we really didn't.

(13:01):
In the military you reallydon't arrest at least up there
where we were at you reallydon't arrest that many military
members.
Most of the time whensomebody's doing something
illegal or they get in trouble,you usually just hand them over
to their chief master sergeant.
They're embarrassed, you knowthey get in trouble Sure.
You know, but you don't reallyput people in confinement cells
very often.
So something happened wherethis guy was caught off base

(13:23):
He'd gone AWOL or something likethat And so we actually needed
a confinement cell.
But our two actual jail cellson base were being used for like
storage.
I mean they had boxes andfurniture and stuff in them.
It was ridiculous.
So they had to use this oldbuilding in the middle of the
base.
And you got to understand, inAnchorage, alaska, the base is
massive, i mean it's.

(13:43):
I mean there's a ski slope onbase, i mean it just goes all
back into the wilderness andstuff.
So there's this building in themiddle of kind of nowhere on
base and they wanted to use itas a confinement cell.
So they were asking forvolunteers to be locked in this
building.
With this guy You had to beunarmed because you know
obviously if you tried to escapethey didn't want him to get
your weapon.

(14:04):
So you had to agree to beunarmed in there.
With them You could only have aflashlight.
Anybody that came to visit youon the post had to lock their
weapons in this safe beforeentering the building.
So you were in there with, ithink, a flashlight and like a
walkie talkie or radio, and thatwas pretty much it.
I mean, for the most part youwalked around every hour on the

(14:24):
hour You had to check theoutlets to make sure no fire was
starting and peek in this tinylittle confinement cell window
and make sure, because I workedthe night shift So you had to
make sure he was actually in bedasleep but he hadn't snuck out
somehow.
And that was it.
I mean me being a horror lover Iam.
I watched scary movies most ofthe night, got up every hour to
check on him and, you know, putmyself through mental hell

(14:46):
watching Texas Chainsaw Massacreand shit for 12 hours, you know
.
So my mind was going 100 milesan hour.
There were, there was creepyshit that's actually in the book
.
Like down in the basement therewas this one room that had this
metal chair just sitting in themiddle of this room, Who knows
what reason, and it just seemedreally weird.

(15:06):
It was like bolted to theground and you're just wondering
, like what was this chair usedfor?
You know, it was just so stupidand random, but it just got you
thinking.

Specifically to raise that question.
Yeah specifically to raise thatquestion.
That's why it was put there.

Exactly.
And then there were all theselike you know, the guys that
worked the day shift would haveall these things rumors about
things that happened during theday and the night shift would
have all the I mean this went onfor like a week or something,
so anyway.
So I just used this.
You know, the guy wasn't aserial killer I mean in real
life and stuff.
You know, i don't even knowwhat he did, but I used that
situation for this book.

(15:40):
But I decided to rewrite it infirst person, make it a female
character And because it wasback when I was still kind of in
the erotic world, you know, ithrew a little sex in there with
the upstairs guy.
I made it to where there wasanother.
Yeah, i work in post with herand stuff like that.
I mean.
So spice it up a little bit,but, yeah, made a little more

(16:00):
fun.

But yeah, that's some real world inspiration man
.

Yeah, exactly, a lot of the shit in there was
true.
I mean you know the noises andshit she hears and stuff in the
building and just the weird shitthat goes on in there, and I
mean other than the actualserial killer part of it.

But yeah, well, I can tell you that in you know,
I'm a cop And one of the thingsthat I can tell you is that in
the jails that I've ever been in, a lot of those extra cells are
used to storage.
So it's not uncommon.
Well, it's kind of funny, It'scool.

You like that's.
That's so unrealistic.
They would never lock somebodyin there unarmed and not wearing
a bulletproof vest.

And I'm like I did it.

I fucking know it's true because I did it.
I was the one that did it.

Yeah, we do We do those regular cops too, man.
Okay, so let's talk.
Let's talk a little bit ofprocess, man, because everybody,
even readers, they're alwayswanting to know, like, how do
people like us?
how do we sit down and say I'mgoing to write a 50,000 word
book?
you know 20,.
You know I'm going to write 200pages.
You know most people can't evenfathom, like their high school

(17:04):
essay, let alone Fifty thousandwords.
And we'll do it day in and dayout.
You know it's all about theword count, man.
So what's your word count?
and then what's your, what'syour process like?

Well, my process.
I used to be a more of apanster.
I used to not plot anything out, and that's how I was for a
long time And I still do that.
Sometimes, if I just cannotplot anything out, it happens,
and and sometimes it's more funto do it that way, i think.
But I've gotten to where I amable to plot out Quite a few of
my stories now, and the way thatI usually do it is all I'll

(17:38):
open up a word document And I'llput in chapter one, chapter two
, you know I'll just kind of layit out that way, and then what
I do is in all caps, i'll gounder chapter one and I'll just
kind of type out real quick whatI'd like to to happen in
chapter one, go down to chaptertwo, do the same thing, chapter
three, so that way, as I'mwriting it when I get there I'm
not completely lost, you know.

(17:58):
I mean, i have some idea of whatI'd like to happen throughout.
Sometimes I'll do this on myphone.
I hate to say there's no wastedminute in a day, but when I'm
not laying down with my fiancewatching TV and stuff like that,
you know, i'm usually on myphone at least typing some notes
up for a book or something likethat.
Well, a lot of people will tellyou to not try to focus on a

(18:19):
word count, to let the bookDecide, let the story decide.
I wish I could say that that'sthe truth for me.
I try to keep it to aroundthree thousand words per chapter
.
I don't focus on pages, i focuson word count.
I try to keep the chaptersaround three thousand because I
have fucked that up before.
Are we allowed to curse on this?

(18:40):
I have a few times.

Yeah, you're good.

We're trying to keep this.
I should.

This is horror man.

So I have a.
I forgot where I was going withthat.
What was I saying?

I'm talking about chapter.
You fucked up the chapterlength before.

Oh yeah, so when I first wrote the second book in
the Diablo snuff series, ididn't really focus on Word
count.
I just wrote man, i wrote thechapters out and I actually I
published it that way and Ididn't think at all about the
word count in the chapters.
I don't know what was wrongwith me.
When I wrote that book I was insome kind of like fever dream.
I was just typing my ass off,published the book, loved what I

(19:20):
wrote, put it up, and then Ihad a couple of reviews that
said, man, these I love the book.
But the chapters were long, likeI had to take some breaks
between the chapters.
And I went and looked at it andI said, damn the right, like
it's a novel and I only havelike Six chapters or something.
Now it was like I want to saylike ten chapters or something
and it was a novel.
And so I went back and I lookedat it and I was like, really I

(19:41):
should break it up here, here,here.
You know, it was only like mysecond book or something like
that, you know.
And I went back and looked atit and then I started asking
some of my writer friends andespecially some of my romance
writer friends That have beendoing this a while and I was it
seemed consistent that Aroundthe three thousand word mark is
a good break for readers like.
That just seems to be a goodconsistent spot.

(20:02):
That Isn't too much, it's justa good break, you know.
So I try to keep it there or alittle bit shorter.
Lately I've seen who was.
I reading Nick Cutters the deep.
He wrote really short chapterswhich I thought was kind of cool
For me as a reader.
I liked that short break and Imay try that.
I've heard some readers saythat was kind of annoying, But

(20:25):
um, I liked that some of hischapters were like a page and a
half long.
I mean they were really shortand as a reader who sometimes
only reads it at night as I'mgoing to bed, i thought that was
kind of refreshing, you know.
I mean, i only had to commit tolike a page and a half, then I
could decide at that point.
Do I want to read another page?
It actually kind of kept mereading because I knew I didn't

(20:47):
have to commit to a really longchapter.
So yeah, around 3000 words orsomething like that.
That's kind of my process ofhow to lay it out and write it.

Yeah, and you used a term a little while back.
He said plotter and pancer andwe have a lot of readers here
and may not be Not too familiarwith that.
Can you briefly tell me what apancer and a plotter is?

Yeah, good point.
So pancer is somebody who sitsdown and just just wings it just
sits down and writes.
They don't always know Wherethey're going next to their
pants right.
They just write from the seat oftheir pants.
I'm still, even when I plot.
A lot of times I don't know theend of the book.
Sometimes I'll know the end andI don't know the middle.
A lot of people, though, whenthey're pantsing it like that,

(21:29):
they don't know any of it.
Sometimes they just sit down.
They have a very general ideawhere the story might go, or
they know the characters, orthey know They want to write a
book about a guy who haunts yourdreams and has a claw On his
hand, and that's all they know.
And they want to sit down,they're just going to write, and
whatever comes to mind They'regoing to write it, and that's
how they have fun writing.
That's how a lot of people are.

(21:50):
And then there are plotters whocan't.
They can't sit down and writeunless they know every chapter
exactly how it's going to godown beginning, middle, end.
That's just how they write.
They can't do it unless theywrite it out like that.
So right that's how I describedit to, but So I'm somewhere in
the I tend to outline.

Yeah, i tend to outline, but my outline goes out
the window plenty of times.
I mean it just gives me a point, i don't.
I have a weird fear of a blankpage And so I'll copy and paste
the couple of sentences I wrotefrom outline at the top of the
page, just so I'm not staring ata blank cursor.
You know, just because that'sit's nerve-wracking Man's like
I've got an entire book to goand I've got a blank page and
it's just kind of apsychological thing.

(22:30):
So one of the one of the commonquestions we have on this on
this podcast and it's a lot offun to ask is and Since Jay's
not here, my co-host, i'llexplain his fear because he's
not here.
I love making fun of him.
I'll tell you mine.
So Jay's fear He doesn't likehaunted houses, and I don't mean
like haunted houses like thisstory, i'm talking about the
ones at Halloween, the fun ones.

(22:51):
You know Where.
You go there and you runthrough with all your friends
and somebody in just blablesschainsaw jumps out of you.
He doesn't like those.
It scares the hell out of him.
He won't go in them and that'skind of funny to hear from a
horror author now and and myfears are a little bit different
And I got weird fears.
So I don't like locomotives,like old locomotives, like old
trains, cold trains.
Yeah, i won't touch him, won'tgo near him.
I don't want anything to dowith him and I don't like black

(23:13):
holes.
So if you've ever seen StarTrek, that scene in like the
second, newer Star Trek, whenthe big ship's coming out of the
black hole, i want nothing todo with it.
Man, that's that scared thehell out man to turn it off.
I don't know why.
So Irrational fears coming froma horror author man.
So so tell me what scares youit's.

I can't think of a one thing specifically like that
.
That scares me and it's kind offunny because we had this kind
of talk on our podcast aboutthis And the the first thing
that I could think of really wasthat What, what scares me and
what I and I kind of like to useit in my books a lot is Things
that just don't make sense, thatdon't, that are abnormal and
just don't make sense in asituation.

(23:51):
So, for example, one of thebooks that I'm writing I started
it out with uh, the dad'sasleep and the kid wakes him up
and says dad, there's a manoutside playing basketball And
he says you must be seeingthings.
It's the middle of the winter,it's three o'clock in the
morning.
Because that just doesn't makesense.
Who the hell would be outsideplaying basketball at three

(24:11):
o'clock?
in the morning In the middle ofthe winter, and then he hears of
the dribbling of a basketball,you know, and he gets up and he
looks out the window and, sureenough, there's a man standing
outside under the basketball whoholding the basketball.
And to me, just now, like justnow, that kind of gave me the
chills and like that kind ofshit, just Things that make no
sense, like shouldn't be there.

(24:31):
Like erin explained one time onhis podcast because he has one
called evil exam, and It wassupposedly a true story about
this girl that was taking a walkAt night well, like walking her
dog or something And there wasa man in the middle of the
street doing like a waltz And hehad like a big smile and he was
just doing this really creepydance for no reason.

(24:51):
And then when he noticed herwatching, he stopped and ran at
her And then got close to thevideo.
Yeah, And like shit like that.
That just doesn't make anysense, is, i find, really scary,
like if you can put somethingthat Doesn't belong in a
situation, that's like splittingup in the middle of a horror
movie.
What's that?

Yeah, splitting up like splitting up in the
middle of a horror movie.

Yeah.

Like, yeah, we should really split up and cover
more ground.

Exactly.

Well, i think you got to ask the question if
you're, if you're walking around, you're like you got to ask
This is the checks, this is acheck on.
Are you about to do somethingstupid, like are you about to be
a statistic?
and the question you ask is amI in a horror?
Is this a plot point for ahorror movie?
You know, so I like I likesimple concepts, like that man
too.
I like um, and so we talk aboutmovies and stuff too, and so

(25:41):
some of my favorite movies thatare more recent, that are
actually done a little bitbetter on very simple concepts,
um, are uh, it follows.
I don't know if you've seenthat one.

Yeah, i liked it, it was good.

Yeah, it's simple and terrifying, It was
perfect.
And then the other one waslights out and I admit, on
lights out, i jumped every fewseconds.
It was horrifying.

That was.
I liked the con.
I think the two conjure.
I didn't like the third one toomuch, but the two conjuring
movies To me were two of thescariest movies that have come
out recently.
I liked the new.
I liked antlers I just saw thatthe other night.
That was pretty cool.
I didn't know that was a whento go story when I started
watching it and that wasactually.

I love the when to go.

That was pretty good.

I love the one to go and I was really
disappointed with antlers man.

Really.

And I, you know, i wrote my own when to go book.
You know I wrote it based onthe lore Um, and I wrote it in a
way that terrified me, becausethat's one of the only stories
that scares me And that's a.
That's a scary ass monster man.
I tell you what.

But maybe because I didn't know much about it,
because I don't know a whole lotabout the when to go story.
So maybe that's why, like, if Ihad known more probably, maybe
I would have been disappointedin it too.

Yeah, i mean it was good for, for what it was,
you know, but the the happy,feel good ending was just kind
of It was.
It was a little over the topfor me, you know.
But to each his own on that oneI just liked.
I liked it because there's awhen to go story, you know, i
just like the when to go, so Iwas okay with it.
Last week We talked to LeeMountford.
He loved the paranormalactivity movies.
Since a lot of people hate themand I just I love them to death

(27:09):
, man, all of them, all thefound footage movies, man, i
love them, i don't care how badit is.

I haven't seen the last.
Uh, i liked him a lot up andand then I didn't see the last
couple of them.
I think I want to say I sawlike the first three or
something like that.
I didn't watch the last coupleof them.
Now, the good the question,though That brings up a lot of
arguments on facebook Did youlike mid-summer?

I did because I like Colts, i like the.
I'm the same way I loved themid-summer.

I didn't care so much for hereditary, though.

I hated that movie man.

Okay, see, we're okay.
We're on the same page then,but we probably just lost half
of your listeners.

Nobody wants to see a little girl's head get
taken off heated about man onfacebook.

People get so heated about the hereditary
mid-summer argument.
Seems like.

Well, nobody wants to see little girls get
her head taken off.

I mean, come on, yeah, not on video You gotta say
that was the only part of themovie that I don't want to say I
liked, but it was like shocking.
You know what I mean.
So it was like that's the partthat I was like, oh shit.

And then I don't know.
It kind of came out of nowhere,but it did feel kind of
gratuitous, kind of felt withshock value, like we'll just
throw it in there.
I can see you could have had hergo missing and Could have had
her go missing, done the samething and the mom still would
have gone crazy, you know, andBut I so the part that got me
with mid-summer, the creep, theheebie-jeebies, is one.
They, they stuck that dude inthe um, in in the bear.

(28:30):
I was like wow, like like as ifthe uh, what is it the What
they do with the lungs when they, you know the, the angel thing
when they do with the hung thatguy up.
Oh yeah, that was that wasn'tenough.
See cult creep me.

Let's put cults creep me out.
Actually, now that we'retalking, we were talking about
things that scare you.
Cults scare me because they'rejust the fact that so many
people can follow like onepersons.
Just I, like I just at wall.
I was at Walmart the other dayand they had one of those
magazines that are wayoverpriced.
They cost more than like a buck.
I mean it was 13 bucks for sure.

(29:05):
One of those magazines It saidlike cults or something It just
said like cults on the front ofit, and I bought it right and
I'm reading through it slowly.
I mean it's only like very Theinformation that's in it.
Yeah, it's not very deep, imean it, but it gives you enough
information to go look for moreif you want.
So just has a little bitinformation about each of the
Colts that are in there.
But, um, i want to write a bookthat has something to do with a

(29:28):
cult.
I've done it on the romanceside of things, like a sick kind
of Motorcycle club kind ofstory.
But, yeah, yeah, like to methat shit.
Just, i mean just read.
I knew most of the stories thatwere in there because of course
they go over the Manson familyand stuff like that and ones
that you know.
We've all heard a thousand gofor some of the shit in there, i
never.
Yeah, they go over all those,but there are some in there that

(29:48):
I hadn't heard of, and I meanthere's some sick shit.

That made for some good reading.
Those are listening was.
You know, did a lot ofcommuting for a little while
listening to Stuff about, likeDavid Koresh We talked about
David Koresh last week but youknow about about Waco and about
Jonestown and And it's just it'skind of crazy to think that
these people got so infatuatedand it would normally.
And I was listening to upanother podcast online and it

(30:12):
was talking about how thesecults get started.
Number one They start sayingthe first thing they say is I, i
can hear Jesus.
And then the second step theysay is I can, i am Jesus.
And then the third step is I amJesus And I need to take the
burden of having sex with yourwife off of you so you can focus
on me.

(30:35):
It's gonna be a double-edgedsword sometimes.
Oh man, like imagine if it was.
Like how do you have to explainthat away?
if you're like, if you'relooking, you know, like No, not,
not that wife you know like,how do you?
Yeah, so it's Kind of a wild.
The horror is kind of like awild west man.
It's kind of, and I think Ithink there's a lot of times

(30:57):
that people mistake horror asShock value, you know, but and,
and I think that's kind oftroublesome, i think that, think
that a traditional mark is kindof screwed over horror too.
But just pushing Stephen Kingfor the last 50 years or however
, how much a hundred years, howold he is, you know he's gonna
be dead and still writing horrorbooks, somehow They're gonna
find a secret stash of like ahundred manuscripts somewhere.

You know it's gonna be like two-part, i think
people do music.

He's still alive .
You can show up in Nashville,that'd be all right.
Yeah, no, it's it.
He's like Elvis.
I just spotted He said I justbought a Stephen King.
Yeah right, horror man, it's,it's a spectrum and it and the
idea is, i think, the idea ofany explain to people, because
you know I, whenever I explainto people I'm a horror writer,
they're like oh So you had afucked up childhood.
Huh, like no man had a goodchildhood.

(31:48):
But I just, like you know, youthink about, like dark fantasy.
So you got dark fantasy, whichis, you know, you got
fantastical elements, butelements of things that are you
know terrible and scary andhorrifying and atmospheric, and
so you know you got the fantasyelements and that that creates
dark fantasy.
And then you know you, you'vewritten erotic horror, which is
the you know erotic Is.
You know which is the sex partof it plus the horrific elements

(32:10):
.
You know The scary monsters anddemons and all that.
But when you think about youthink about horror.
One of the things we talk abouton this podcast a lot is that
horrors the genre of hope youneed to have.
Hope, you know, hope that yourcharacters and survive.
Otherwise you just have somegratuitous Situation where you
know the the character is gonnadie and there's not real, no
real substance behind it.
You know.

(32:30):
So you have to have hope, and Ilike to think that you know.
Horror is the situations thatpeople don't want to deal with.
Yeah you know so.
So what do you feel about thatman?
Do you think that there's a lotof hope in horror?

Yeah, i think I think there has to be and I
think it also goes back to.
It's funny because if you watcha lot of the Documentaries and
stuff about Like it, those in Ithink they're called into the
darkness and stuff, where theygo back They show like all the
80s videos and stuff like that.
And if you watch a lot of theLately there's been a lot of
documentaries and things aboutThe 80s slashers and stuff like

(33:02):
that.
And one thing you seeconsistently is there's always
at least one episode where theyfocus on the final girl And they
talk about how there was thattime when Those movies were
being slammed for saying thatthey were just exploiting women
and you know, just, it was allabout women's nudity and stuff
like that and that they weretreating women like shit and

(33:23):
stuff.
And a lot of the Actresses inthere are always saying it
wasn't like that at all.
They're saying actually Itshowed them as heroic.
You know it was always a womanin the end who came back and
beat the final girl.
They were the final girl.
They came back.
It showed That they were badassand came back and destroyed the
villain.
They kicked his ass.
I mean, some of those womenwere fucking brutal man, you

(33:46):
know right.
And I think it showed a lot ofhope and stuff like that and
showed I think it goes all theway back to that and and I think
a lot.
It's kind of funny because Iwrite I considered myself a man
of faith first of all andbecause there was a lot of talk
about a while back because ofyou know, godless and stuff like

(34:07):
that and Even even Drew Stepick, who runs Godless.
He made a video about Religionand stuff like that and and
Godless and so he used me as anexample because one of the
things we talked about When Ifirst considered putting my
books on Godless and stuff wasthat I do consider myself a man
of faith and I Don't preach inmy books, but in my books good

(34:30):
always beats evil.
For the most part it might takea book or two to get there.
I mean, if it's a sure you knowwhat I mean, like the Diablo
snuff series.
Yeah, it's about an evil,sinister kind of organization,
but good is still battling eviland in my eyes good will
ultimately win at some point.
It just might take a littlewhile to get there, so I got.

(34:50):
I don't know if that answersyour question.

Yeah, no, it's, it's great insight, man, and and
I've been asked that too, i wasactually asked that question in
person.
They said you know, oh, youwrite horror, but you're, so
we're, i think I'm, so, I'm aLutheran, so which is just a you
know, form of Christianity.

Yeah.

But I got asked you know how does that work?
as a horror writer, i'm likewhat do you mean?
like do you think I'm justsitting in a, sitting on a, on a
pentagram with a bunch ofskulls around me?
you know, just writing terriblethings, like it's?
it's not like that.
She had this weird perceptionof what horror writing really
was and all horror really is.
Man, it's just fear, just fear,whatever day people are afraid
of.
You know it's not any kind ofevil doing.

(35:29):
You know it is talking aboutevil and there might be
different types of evil, but,like even the sci-fi book that
I'm writing, there is evil inthat, but the evil is coming
from a person instead of from ateam And it's the same thing,
you know it's just how youdescribe it, what type of
reaction you're trying to getout of people.
So, yeah, no I.
I'm happy to tell people thatI'm a fable man.
I'm happy to tell people thatI'm a Christian, that I'm you
know, i'm raising my girls to beChristian and and that I'm

(35:51):
happy to write horror as well,because all I do is write what
people are afraid of, that's all.

I remember when because I mentioned living in
Alaska a while back when I wasin the military And I was dating
this girl and things werepretty serious with her until I
met her parents They were veryreligious, like the mom gave me
a copy of the oath by FrankParedi and I actually mentioned
this on Facebook last nightbecause people were talking
about Frank Paredi's books and Imentioned how the mom had given

(36:17):
me a copy of the oath and waslike You need to read this and
and I was like, alright, youknow, i read it.
It was interesting, it was verypreachy, because Frank Paredi
is kind of like that sometimes,but the book itself was a lot
about cheating and about, youknow, like in pure thoughts And
I don't know if you've ever readthe oath by Frank Paredi, so
that had a lot to do with likecheating spouses and stuff like
that, you know.
So I was like, okay, i see whatshe's saying here, you know,

(36:38):
it's kind of like a warning, youknow.
So anyways, i read it and Istarted learning her parents
were very like the mom would notlet the dad watch Star Wars
Because she believed the darkside of the force was like evil
and stuff like this the dad Ifound out would sneak down into
the basement to watch it, so themom wouldn't find out, and
stuff like that.

That's.

I told you things were getting kind of serious
with them until, um, we got intoa big argument because the girl
I was dating just kind of cameout one day and was like uh, you
know you, i'd like you to stopwriting, whore, basically stop
writing the stuff I was writing.
She said do you really thinkyou're gonna go to heaven
Writing what you write?
Yeah, i was just like I reallydon't give a shit.

(37:19):
What do you think?
and you know you're you can'tmake that decision.
That's between me and God andYou know I guess that's the end
of it for us.
So we just kind of that's whenwe called it quits, and you know
that was it.
But I mean, uh, yeah, it's justcrazy.
Oh, it surprises me that living, especially since I moved to
West Virginia And people haveasked me and I say I'm a whore
writer, no one's really come atme with that.

(37:40):
I would like I expected morepeople to, you know, be against
it or to challenge me a littlebit with it, but so far no one's
really said anything.
Most people actually have saidlike, oh, really, like I love
whore stuff, or you know so.

Yeah, and I've been pretty good at successfully
getting people to See me as theperson you know, see me, the
author, talk to me and then sayokay, now that you've talked to
me a little bit, read my books.
You know, when you talk to me,i'm a normal dude.
Like you know, i'm a father oftwo girls, of a cop.
You know I work out, i've gottwo dogs, i live in a golf

(38:14):
course.
You know I'm a normal dude, andso I think that helps a lot to
remove some of the stigmas thatmight be attached to whore.
And I've turned some people onto whore because of you know
being who I am And not somecreepy dark guy in the attic of
his, of his or the, or thebasement or whatever, whichever
one's scarier.
You know I'm not some creepyguy just sitting in the in the
dark writing down my mostterrible thoughts.

(38:34):
You know, one of the thingsthat we talked about too, is
that you know we're so cool, youwere so chill because all the
scary shit that we imagined isall on the page instead of, like
in our minds, trapped there.

You know it's something a lot of people will
tell you that, like on socialmedia and stuff like that, the
people the readers and theauthors in the horror world are
some of the nicest people You'llever meet.
I mean, i've talked to peoplein so many different genres,
having written in differentgenres, and I can tell you that
the Horror world they're theless catty of the of the genres.

(39:04):
They don't so far from whatI've seen, they don't.
They're not as dramatic andfighting and constantly the
bullying and the stuff that yousee from a lot of the genres.
They're just more peaceful andit is almost like you get it out
, you purge it onto the page.
You know, I mean you just kindof get it out of your system And
stuff like that.
And I actually wanted to tokind of backtrack a little bit

(39:25):
and something I'd said earlier Ijust want to make sure it
didn't come out the wrong waywhen I talked about being called
one of the gore four and stuffLike that, an extreme sure I
actually have nothing wrong withbeing called extreme whore.
I actually like the term extremehorror.
I just wish there was adifference between extreme
horror And the extreme whorethat doesn't have a plot.

(39:45):
That's not.
That is just for shock value, ifthat makes sense, because
Sometimes things there should bea difference between the horror
that is more tame and The stuffthat I write, because I do most
of my stuff will have prettyTwisted scenes in it and some
sex or just I mean just I writewith a lot of foul language and

(40:07):
stuff that some whore authorswouldn't use and stuff like that
, but So I don't mind.
Like I always I was comfortablewith extreme horror,
identifying that, like sayingthat my book is a work of
extreme horror and stuff likethat.
But somehow The works thatstarted coming out that were
just for shock value, with noplot and stuff like that, are
also being called extreme whores.

(40:28):
So then it becomes How do youseparate the two?
Like how do you separate justthe shock value extreme horror
from the full length novels andstuff that are extreme horror
that A lot of work went into?
you know what I mean?
And there's more Of a plotthere and stuff like that.
That's the only thing I wastrying to say.
Like the guys that I do thepodcast with, they all write

(40:50):
full stories and stuff I meanwith plot and everything there.
So they all fall into what I'mtalking about as far as extreme
horror with An actual storythere.
But there are books coming outwhere it's clear that And that's
fine people eat that shit up.
They want to have just theshock value and just get right
to the you know, the dirty, thenitty-gritty, and I just wish

(41:11):
there was more.
I don't know how, i don't knowwhat label you'd put on that
like.
I feel like there should beanother category for that.

Well, sometimes you don't even need the labels,
and the reason I say that isthat I think our readers are
pretty Pretty personal with usas the author and you know we
don't my books Don't get spreadaround by their name, they get
spread around by my name, and Ithink that's important, that
There's a connection that Ithink that horror readers have
with their, the authors thatthey like.
I think they're very loyal fans.

(41:38):
You know, i carry the, the samefans that they bought my books,
the same ones who have alwaysbought my books, and the ones
who are coming on board Thatstick around tend to be the ones
that stick around for a longtime.
You know, when I got a newsomething, you know something
new out, they want to support meAnd I think there's a loyalty
there that comes with horrorwriting that does not come, and
I think it's because that carnallevel that we get on with With

(42:00):
our readers we are writing whatscares us or what we think might
scare somebody else, and fearis something that can unite
people because, like you said,with the final girl At the end,
you want to see that hero dosomething good, or at least
there'd be some resolution tothe story To the thing that made
them scared.
You know, so that's I.
I think the horror Genre wishthere were more labels, but I

(42:21):
don't think it would make muchof a difference because in the
end They're gonna go for carverpike book.
You know, i'm saying they'regonna go for.
You know they're gonna.
They might find it like hey,i'm looking for parasites in the
head type book and then theysay okay, well, carver pike
wrote one.
Then they like carver pike fromthat point on, because they like
that book, you know they mightnot be looking for the next
parasite book, they're justlooking for the next book that
they like.
And so, you know, i think um, ithink that's one of the

(42:44):
blessings that we have is horrorwriters is being able to
connect with our readers likethat, because they just seem,
they seem so chilled, man, theyseem like they always want to
know how we're doing and youknow, and See what's up next,
and, and I'm really thankful forthem, man, i really like my
readers.

Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, I totally get what you'resaying is true.

Well, man, we are, we're getting to a close
here, We're right up, right upto the to the mark.
So that's, that's great timing,man, and I'm glad we could
finally make this happen,because I know we've been trying
to do this for a couple ofweeks, and scheduling and winter
weather and everything else, itjust kind of gets in the way
sometimes.
And that's life, man, it iswhat it is.
There'll be deal.
I'm just glad it worked out theway it did.
So thank you, thank you forcoming on today.

I had blast man, it was awesome talking to you, so
Conversation just kind of flowedright.
It was nice.

Yeah, and that's how it always is, man.
Just a casual conversation likewhat we might do and sit down,
have coffee with one invitedreaders, just kind of sit down,
have coffee with us.
So that's, that's where we'reat with things.
So this, take this next moment,man.
Let let let people know wherethey can find you, let people
know what book they should bereading.
You know, let them know whatyou got coming out.
Just take a few seconds andjust self plug, because that's
what this is for them to findnew books and new authors to

(43:49):
read.
So what you got, man.

All right, thanks, man.
Yeah, i'm everywhere, i'm onsocial media and I have my
website.
Everything is Carver Pike.
So my website is Carver Pike.
Calm, i'm on social.
All the social media is ticktock Facebook, instagram,
everything is Carver Pike.
Twitter, all those.
And If you want to get startedon something of mine and you
don't mind, kind of that, someof the graphic sexual content

(44:12):
I'd love for you to startreading the Diablo snuff series.
It starts with a book called aforeign evil.
The second book is the grindhouse, and then there are two
side stories that really shouldhave been marked as book three
and four.
It's passion and pain andslaughter box, because that'll
lead you to my most recent book,which is the Maddening, which

(44:32):
is the fifth and final book inthat series.
I think that's my best work todate.
That's the one that's nominatedfor the spotter punk award.
And then keep your eyes openfor Faces of Beth, which I
should have out.
I'm trying to get that oneready for these scares that care
Author con.
That's right at the beginningof April.
I should have that one outright around that time or just
before then, hopefully towardsthe end of March, i'll have that

(44:54):
one out Faces of Beth bad-assman.

So I'll make sure that the links to your all
your social media accounts inyour And Amazon and your email
and face and Website and allthat stuff is gonna be in the
comment section of this, of thispodcast.
So I'll make sure we get thatfor me at the end of this and
hopefully I'll send me areminder later on this year when
you Get ready for a killer con.
That way I can at least swingby, even if I don't get a vendor
table.
See how, how work, what worklets me do.

(45:18):
So that's gonna be awesome.
It's gonna be cool to see youhere in Austin and you know well
, i'll take you around and, youknow, show you things if you
like.
That'd be really cool to seeyou.

Awesome man, Thank you.

All right, folks .
This is it for today.
You're listening to thenightmare engine podcast.
This is episode number seven,with author Carver Pike and your
host David.
Very good.
Once again, folks, thank youfor being here and have a good
night.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
Thanks for listening to the nightmare engine podcast
with your hosts, horror authorsDavid Virgoots and Jay Bauer,
where nothing is off limits,nothing is safe, and neither are
you.

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