It was scary, it was spooky and it was even a little silly and that meant everything went just right. What else would you expect when you go on Halloween night to hear tales from the dark side at the Emmaus Public Library?

To pull this off, it takes an expert storyteller with a penchant for performance and drama. Performers Rob Aptaker and Judy England McCarthy were able to do that. The two Lehigh Valley Storytelling Guild representatives weaved stories that combined psychological thrillers and chillers, while providing family-friendly entertainment.

Aptaker’s tale involved a monster who eats dimwitted people until he meets his match and near death and is reduced to sending mosquitoes out into the air to “suck the blood out of humans!” McCarthy told a tale of a man named “Jack” who would acquire modest wealth and real estate provided he could survive a night in a ghoulishly haunted house.

By his own account Aptaker is “a physical guy” and sometimes used his body to captivate his listeners. He often was moving around, acting out parts of the story, making faces and pained expressions along with utilizing scary voices. He expertly used drama when the hero in his story was slowly pulling back his bow to unleash an arrow to shoot through the story’s scary monster’s heart which was, oddly enough located in one of the monster’s ankles.

McCarthy did much the same, using her voice expertly and using cadence to captivate some of the younger listeners. Both storytellers also used humor - a tactic not always indigenous to horror stories - effectively. One example, was when McCarthy talked about how the hero, Jack, used a finger that was burning and pulled out of someone’s hand to provide some light “more or less,” to an otherwise dark basement devoid of electricity.

The Lehigh Valley Storytelling Guild features professional and amateur storytellers, poets and actors who perform throughout the region.