Author CJ Daley: Mr. Cody Doesn’t Want Us Here

In this month’s instalment of “Author(ized) Accounts of the Paranormal and Unexplained,” CJ Daly, author of Welcome to Cemetery, will tell us the story of a spooky experience he had as a child while visiting his aunt’s house…

I should start by sharing that I am well and truly of the skeptical variety. While I watch, read, write, and ingest all things horror, I in no way actually believe these things share our world. However, I have been a child and teen, and I have seen some things I’ve yet to explain…even now.

Once, while my aunt and uncle were vacationing, they asked my mother to housesit for them. As a youngling, that unfortunately meant I was included. However, to make it worthwhile, at least to my small mind, my mother said we could get some fast food and hang out. I was very simply appeased back then.

Now it may be important to note that before that night, my aunt had always made silly comments about “the man downstairs” or “Mr. Cody will come out and get you,” all things that I thought were just said to scare us or keep her own kids in check. It never stood out as anything else. For some reason though, on that specific night, there was something other in the air.

We entered the house, my mother telling me to get some plates and glasses out of the cabinet while she threw on a load of wash. While the fast food lured me here as a way to see the experience as worth it, doing a load of wash while we waited was my mother’s idea of worthwhile. She set it to normal cycle, and we sat down to a high calorie victory.

The conversation wasn’t anything out of the ordinary that I can recall. More than likely, due to my age, it was along the lines of “how was school?” and “fine.” Although my mother is awesome and could keep up in a conversation about the Lord of the Rings or The Boy Who Lived as we frequented the movies together.

As we finished dinner, my mother started up the hot water and got to work washing the dishes. Not that I was offering back then, but she’s definitely the kind of person that only feels like it’s done right if she does it, and so, I was the dish dryer. As she forked over the plates, I dried them one by one, placing them in the cabinet. I vividly remember watching and waiting, effervescent soap spilling from the sponge down the mouth of the glasses, the steam from the faucet turning the clear glass white with fog. She took an extra second to rinse the glasses out before handing me them one by one. They were hot to the touch, even through the towel, and I remember rushing to get them dry. I placed the first on the counter, then dried the second. As I placed the second on the counter, hurrying to get the hot glass out of my grip, my mother said, “don’t forget to put them away, too.”

I popped open the cabinet, and I remember firmly placing the two glasses mouth down in the cabinet. I should include the fact that I was an incredibly observant child. I counted turns when we went somewhere, able to tell you how many lefts or rights it would take to go back, I would know exactly what time it was, and I even paid attention to how softly I sat things down. Like glasses. They fit securely, and I shut the cabinet behind them. Because my aunt and uncle were gone, those two plates and two glasses were the only dirty dishes, nothing else was on the counter.

My mother asked me to follow her downstairs to help her with the wet wash. And as we reached the bottom of the stairs, the door still ajar above us, the cashushhh of a shattering glass could be heard above us on the kitchen floor. My blood ran cold, as I didn’t want to get in trouble, and I remembered meticulously setting them down, closing the cabinet shut behind them. When we ran back upstairs, the cabinet was still shut.

To this day, I would swear on my life that everything was put away—and neatly at that. There was no way for it to have fallen. Unless Mr. Cody hadn’t wanted it there?

Be on the lookout for the fictionalized version in my upcoming collection!

Author Interview

The Night Librarian: Ooh, so spooky! I’ll bet your aunt is pleased to know that her stories of Mr. Cody have stuck with you to this day! That leads nicely into my first question: Who was the biggest influence on your writing and/or your writing career?

CJ:  My friend Peter Bruno. He isn’t a fiction writer; however, he is an academic with a brain for in-depth thinking. I remember one day in the summer of 2018, I visited him in Queens, where he was living at the time. We decided to take a walk. We had discussed my desire to write and the ideas I had before, so it wasn’t so surprising that our conversation took a turn in that direction. I told him what I had, which at that point was the beginning chapters of a very pompous sounding science fiction novel, and I told him all about how I was getting stuck. I recall him asking me, “what do they want?” To which I could only answer, “what?” And he so simply explained, “what do your characters want? What do they get out of it?”

And I had absolutely no clue. I was speechless. What did they want? How should I know, they aren’t real?

It wasn’t until years later (2023) when a new idea came to mind, that I realized I knew exactly what the characters wanted…not only within the story, but from their entire lives. And that, is the idea that became my first full length writing attempt.

Thanks, Pete!

The Night Librarian: Do you have a peculiar writing process? Tell us about it!

CJ: Now to follow upon what I just said about knowing my characters truly and deeply, the funny thing about my writing process is that I am the epitome of a pantser. Not only was the idea fresh, but it was also my first attempt at a NaNo baby. My document for “Outline” stayed open the entire time I wrote, and 99% of the time it got filled in after I finished a chapter. I wouldn’t say I even just write off the fly, so much as I just entirely had no idea where I was going. For my upcoming debut, Welcome to Cemetery, I outlined so loosely that I didn’t know who would be involved in the twist until I finished writing it!

And that is why there have been so many drafts of it, I’m sure. But I do feel it also allowed for me to stumble and course correct. Is that entire last chapter a dud, trash? Maybe, but now I know what my main would say if she went there…did that…caused this.

The Night Librarian: Are you working on a new project right now? What can you tell us about it?

CJ: Currently, if am known at all for writing, it would be for my sampler novelette, BestGhost. I released it as a finished sample to get people possibly interested in my writing style, and also to start building a newsletter following. And although some people have mistaken this sampler as my actual debut (and I guess spiritually it has become one), it was always meant as nothing more than a little taste. And the funny thing is, that it isn’t exactly part of my main project either. As I foreshadow in the end of the novelette, it is part of a collection called Tales From Cemetery. A short story collection filled with horror shorts ranging from classical, to spooky, to funny. If anything, it’s meant as an almost ancillary release to my debut full length…although I am working with the immensely talented Matt Seff Barnes to bring Tales’ cover to life. Welcome to Cemetery is the title of the full length, and it is a crime and horror novel following two detectives as they try to solve a string of murders in my fictional town of Cemetery. A cover and blurb reveal are swiftly on their way!

Follow CJ: BlueSky | Instagram | Threads | Goodreads | BookBub | Storygraph

Armed with a slew of new equipment, the buddies set out to capture the paranormal hotspot that will make them famous—just maybe not in the way they were hoping.