Interview: Story Spotlight: “Haunting Chloe” by James Pyles
A frozen lake, a lonely winter break, and a boy who doesn’t belong among the living—Chloe’s quiet holiday is about to turn unforgettable.
In “Haunting Chloe,” James Pyles crafts a quietly eerie tale of loneliness, intuition, and the dangerous charm of the unknown. When Chloe meets a strange boy on the ice during a winter vacation, she faces the kind of choice that lingers long after the snow has melted. Blending middle-grade accessibility with genuine emotional weight, this story captures that uneasy moment between innocence and understanding, where not every friendship is meant to last.
Interview Questions
What does “haunted” mean to you—and how does that idea show up in your
story?
For me, a place is haunted when a presence has a highly emotional and traumatic attachment to the location. My understanding is that spirits of the dead haunt a place where they died through tragic or even malevolent means. In my story, Davy haunts the frozen lake where he died by drowning, unable to forgive his sister for, as he sees it, abandoning him. He can’t leave but that doesn’t mean he isn’t seeking companionship.
Chloe’s first glimpse of Davy is so quiet, so distant—it feels like something’s not right, but everything appears to be normal. What drew you to that kind of haunting, where the danger creeps in slowly?
I’m actually not much of a horror fan. I don’t find being scared to death entertaining, especially if the content involves dismemberment or other gruesome biological “ickiness.” I grew up on the old Universal Studios horror movies of the 1930s through ‘50s and prefer more psychological horror. The idea of Davy being a ghost and his gradually luring Chloe into his world is much scarier to me than some guy in a hockey mask chopping people to pieces. It also highlights to the reader that what is horrifying can happen in their “ordinary” world too.
The lake and the cove feel very vivid. Are they based on a real place?
Yes. No place I’ve ever visited, but I did an online search of lakes in Idaho where I live, and I came up with Alice Lake in the Sawtooth Mountains. It captured the winter beauty as well as the sense of isolation and even harshness I wanted to convey. Of course, I tweaked a bunch of details, so the lake and surrounding area in my story are wholly fictional.
What made you want to write about a haunting that’s tied to guilt—not just fear?
In some ways, guilt is a more powerful emotion. Being afraid doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with an individual beyond a biological response to danger. Guilt involves you personally. It says that the horror you are caught in is or could be what you made for yourself. You can escape fear by escaping danger, but guilt can follow you sometimes for the rest of your life.
There’s a deep current of loneliness and longing under all the horror. Were those themes there from the beginning, or did they grow as Chloe’s story unfolded?
I tried to imagine what it would be like to be trapped in an isolated environment for all those decades. Especially since almost no one visits the place where Davy died, he’s been terribly alone. That was a big part of how I developed the story and why Davy is so “unhinged” in his desire for companionship, even to the point off trying to lure Chloe to her death. Some people will do anything to avoid being alone or lonely and that’s amplified in Davy’s haunting of the lake.
What are you working on now—and what’s fun or exciting about it?
I’m editing the first draft of a fantasy novel that has been brewing in my imagination for about six years now. I tried selling the first chapter as a short story last Fall, and while it was rejected, the publisher asked me to develop the concept into novel form (little did he know). I had to almost completely rework the story because what I came up with originally sounded so lame to me when I revisited it.
It’s the quest of five siblings, ages 5 through 13 who are mysteriously transported into a realm of dragons, demons, and fairies with almost no memory of where they came from or who they are beyond their basic identity. The journey of discovery isn’t just learning about this new and dangerous world, but how who they are ties into the salvation of an exiled race of dragons (and much more).
Like a lot of writers, I find editing tedious sometimes, but it’s fun to watch my newly created world come to life. Sometimes even I don’t know what’s going to happen next until I write it.
About the Author
James Pyles is a science fiction and fantasy writer and technology author. Since 2019, over sixty of his short stories have been featured in anthologies and periodicals. His novellas include Time’s Abyss, Ice, The Fallen Shall Rise, and The Haunting of the Ginger’s Regret.
Find James at: poweredbyrobots.com
Read the Story
“Haunting Chloe” appears in Haunted Places, available now from Blackbird Publishing.
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