This Is Estes!
Vampires aren’t real — But sometimes the way power drains the lifeblood out of a mountain community sure makes you wonder...
“This Is Estes!”
Colorado Switchblade — 2025 October / Halloween Special Edition
Every October, I like to dig up something strange from Estes Park’s underbelly — a story that smells like whiskey, pine smoke, and the weird hum that drifts down from the mountains after midnight on a dark, moonless night.
This year’s Halloween piece is called “This Is Estes!” — a supernatural short that starts with a D&D game at The Wheel and ends somewhere between small-town loyalty and cosmic horror. Think The Goonies shouting “This is Sparta!” — only it’s a crew of the Wheel’s regular misfits standing up to the kind of bureaucracy that hides in plain sight.
It’s fiction, of course. Monsters aren’t real.
But sometimes the way power drains the lifeblood out of a community sure makes you wonder.
I originally wrote this story as a script for a play I’d hoped to produce locally — for a close friend who’s fighting a battle not unlike one faced by the main character. A filmmaker friend was even planning to document the process. But life, as it tends to, threw a few hard hits. Financially, I just couldn’t pull it off alone.
So, I decided to convert it into a novella — one I plan to release as both a paperback and an eBook, with proceeds going toward a recovery fund for my friend. I’ll let you all know once that’s up and running.
A Few Updates from the Chaos Desk
Taking a breather from They Knew.
That story’s been chasing real headlines lately, and honestly, it’s gotten a little too close for comfort. For my own sanity, I’m setting it down for a bit. The world doesn’t need me unraveling right alongside my characters.
Finishing The Propagandist’s Daughters.
The good news: I’m in a full-blown writing frenzy on the final hundred pages of my dystopian novel, and I fully expect to have it ready in time for the holidays. It’s darker, faster, and maybe a little more personal than I planned — the kind of book that writes you back.
A new writing gig.
I’ve also begun working with a publication I’ve dreamed of writing for since I was nineteen. Out of superstition (and respect for the ink still drying), I won’t name it yet — but it’s the kind of outlet that made me fall in love with journalism in the first place.
And the book drops soon.
My new nonfiction work, AI Ink: Writing, Publishing, and Misinformation at the Dawn of the AI Age, hits shelves November 4th from Skyhorse Publishing. It’s my deep dive into how technology is reshaping the creative process — and what that means for those of us who still believe in words that bleed.
Thank you for coming back each year to share in the ghosts, weirdness, and stubborn hope that keep this little mountain town alive. Estes has always had its haunted places — some just happen to hold meetings there on Tuesdays.
So pour yourself something strong, turn down the lights, and when the grid hums and the wind starts whispering back, remember:
“THIS IS ESTES!”
Happy Halloween,
— Jason
Chapter One – Game Night at The Wheel
by Jason Van Tatenhove
The upstairs room of The Wheel smelled like old beer and older secrets. A chalkboard at the bottom of the stairs warned “Reserved for Private Event – D&D Group (Don’t Ask)”, as if the regulars downstairs might stumble into something they couldn’t unsee.
String lights sagged across the rafters, half of them dead, half fighting to stay alive. The mountain wind rattled the windowpanes, carrying the faint scent of pine smoke and snow.
Jase sat behind a scarred Dungeon-Master screen patched with duct tape and Post-its. Dice lay scattered across the felt tray like tiny crystal skulls. His leather notebook rested open beside a mug that had long since gone cold. From the window, he could glimpse the faint glow of Town Hall down the street—steady, watchful, like a heartbeat he didn’t trust.
The door banged open. Melody climbed the stairs with a tray balanced in one hand, eyeliner sharp enough to draw blood.
“Alright, degenerates—who ordered the Potion of I-Burned-My-Liver?”
Ken raised a hand—big guy, banker’s shoulders, still wearing his name tag from Estes Credit Union.
“That’d be me. Needed something high-yield.”
Melody thunked the drink down. “Congrats. You’re now resistant to sobriety for one-to-four hours. Compound interest may apply.”
Ken laughed a beat too loud. “Ha! I should use that at the office.”
“Please don’t,” Conner said, his chuckle breaking into a cough. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, color draining again.
Melody frowned. “You better not be contagious, Bard Boy.”
“Oh, just dust, lassie,” he said in his overdone Irish accent, flashing his infamous half-smirk. “Or karma.”
Marcus came up from the bar below, forearms slick from rinsing glasses, tattoos peeking from beneath rolled sleeves. A salt-and-pepper braid of hair snaked from beneath his ever-present hat.
“You two good? Need another round?”
Jase looked up. “Sit a minute. You’ve earned it.”
Marcus grinned. “Someone’s gotta keep an eye on the register—and on Ken before he mortgages his soul for another IPA.”
“Already did,” Ken shot back. “Best rate in the valley.”
Sammy had been quiet until now, eyes lit by the glow of his phone.
“Hey, before we roll—check this out. My drone caught something weird over the hospital last night.”
Jase sighed. “If this is another raccoon conspiracy video, I’m banning technology from the table.”
“Not this time.” Sammy tapped the screen. The group leaned in. The image wavered—grainy footage of the hospital roof under moonlight.
“Wait for it… second-floor window.”
A flicker. Something moved behind the glass—slow, deliberate.
Melody squinted. “That’s just glare.”
“Glare doesn’t breathe,” Sammy said.
Jase leaned closer. “Back it up ten seconds.”
Sammy did. The screen pulsed, light and shadow rearranging themselves until Jase saw it clearly—something human-shaped but hollow. Then it vanished in a flash, like a memory given bones. His stomach turned.
“You good?” Marcus asked.
“Yeah,” Jase lied.
Melody studied his face. “You look like you just saw a beholder with your late wife’s face.”
Jase managed a thin smile. “Something like that.”
Ford’s voice drifted from the shadowed window. “It isn’t glare. The grid’s humming again—like a thing alive.”
The room went still. The fantasy soundtrack looped into a minor key.
Jase swallowed hard and forced a grin. “Alright. Enough ghost videos. You’re all standing in a tomb that smells like regret and unshowered tourists. Roll initiative.”
Dice rattled across the table, a dozen tiny skittering claps. For a moment, the laughter around him blurred. The hum didn’t stop—it only changed pitch, becoming the buzz of a fluorescent light.
The Hospital – Two Years Earlier
The hallway stretched forever, color leached out of the walls. A single gurney waited in the corridor, wheels locked, a sheet draped over something that might have been a person. A faint red EXIT sign glowed at the far end, bleeding light into the sterile gray.
Jase stumbled in from the left, breathless, clutching a coat. Sweat rolled down his forehead despite the cold. The fluorescent above him flickered in time with his pulse.
The dream again, he thought. But this time I remember more.
He whispered to the emptiness, “They said… second floor… ICU. Room 204.”
His shoes squeaked against tile as he moved forward, checking each door window. Every room was empty. Lights winked out behind him as he passed, one by one, like the building was swallowing its own glow.
“Shy?” he called softly.
A distorted intercom crackled overhead, words warped into static.
“This town can’t keep a vending machine working,” he muttered. “What kind of hospital is this?”
He turned a corner. One unmarked door hung slightly open, pale light spilling across the floor. A low hum vibrated through the air like the throat of some sleeping machine.
He pushed the door wider. Inside, shadowed figures bent over a strapped-down patient. Ribbons of silver-gray mist floated from the body, siphoned toward the ceiling.
A voice behind him: “You shouldn’t be here.”
He spun. A nurse stood in the hall, motionless, face smooth and wrong—like wax warmed too long.
“What is that?” Jase asked. “What are they doing to her?”
“She’s gone,” the nurse said evenly. “You were too late.”
Then, after a beat: “But you weren’t supposed to see this.”
Jase backed away. “Is this real? What are those things?”
One of the figures turned, its face stretched tight as parchment, eyes sunk deep, skin webbed with pulsing veins that shifted purple and scarlet. The grin that followed froze him—too wide, too many yellow teeth.
“Wait,” the nurse commanded. The figures froze, the mist sliding back into the patient’s chest as though rewound.
She stepped closer, opening a small metal case that seemed to materialize under her arm. Inside, syringes gleamed beneath the flicker.
“You’re Jase,” she said. “The writer. The one who used to poke into things. Stir the pot. Ask too many questions.”
The hum grew louder. Cold air bit his skin.
“Your record already has a few… missteps, doesn’t it?”
“What?”
“It’s easier if this is just another relapse.” She primed the syringe, holding it up to the light, tapping the air out. The sound echoed louder than it should have.
“You’ve done it before—2019, ‘psychotic break, drug relapse, suspension from the paper,’ if I remember right. It won’t take much. You were grieving. You used. You hallucinated. That’s the story.”
She smiled—small, false, an echo of that ghastly grin he’d just seen above his wife’s pale face.
“Unless you’d rather lose your girls. You won’t have your wife to help this time…”
The words hit harder than the cold. He stumbled backward until his shoulder struck the wall.
“No one would blame you,” she said softly. “Sweet dreams, Jase.”
The needle flashed.
Blackness surged from every corner of the hall. A long, shrill beep filled his ears. Then came whispers—dozens of them, overlapping, chanting: Grief… guilt… forget… forget…it’s just a dream…
Back at the Table
Dice rolled across the felt.
Jase blinked hard. The table, the laughter, the music—back again. His throat tasted of disinfectant.
Sammy stared at him. “Dude, you okay? You look like you just saw a ghost.”
Jase forced a thin smile. “Something like that.”
Laughter bubbled around him, awkward but real. The hum in his ears faded into the steady drone of the refrigerator in the upstairs kitchen area.
He picked up the dice, feeling their weight in his palm. “Alright,” he said quietly, “let’s keep playing.”
Outside, through the upstairs window, the single light above Town Hall flickered—on, off, then out—matching the echo of a flatline no one else could hear.
