Real Spooks © 2012 Cynthia Kinkel

There’s nothing like a walk down Tybee’s Strand Avenue on a chilly, rainy night in December after the bars and restaurants are closed and the south end is completely deserted. Store fronts rattle and vacant condo facades resound with the echos of pounding breakers just yards away. Not even the island’s feral cats are stirring, as brisk vapors of salty dampness roll in to fill empty streets and parking lots. 

No sugarplum fairies dance around these silent palms, regardless how festively they’re wound – only the howling winter wind off the dark ocean like a wailing banshee on holiday…