By Jim Mcleod 
What is the most potent horror you faced as a child? For author William J Donahue, it wasn’t werewolves or nuclear war, but a frail, elderly woman named Minerva who embodied his deep-seated terror of aging and illness. In this poignant and unsettling article, Donahue explores how a formative encounter in a retirement community haunted him for decades, shaping his perspective on mortality and directly inspiring his forthcoming horror novel, Find Your Way Back to Me.
He delves into the real-life dread of physical decay and how it translates into a supernatural tale of love, sacrifice, and confronting the demons, both metaphorical and literal, that time brings. Discover how a childhood fear of the inevitable becomes the heart of a story about fighting for the ones you love, no matter the cost.
Childhood Confronting the Unseen Horror of Aging: William J Donahue on Childhood Fears and His New Novel, Find Your Way Back to Me,
A lot of things scared me in my formative years—werewolves, white sharks, lightning, and, given the fact that I came of age in the late 1980s, the threats of AIDS and having to live out my days tramping a black-skied, fire-scorched landscape after a nuclear war. A woman named Minerva scared me more than anything else. Why? Because the horror she represented was not only close enough to touch but also seemingly inescapable.
I would have been sixteen when I saw Minerva for the first time, at a retirement community in suburban Philadelphia, the site of my first “real job.” My job title: dishwasher, meaning I spent most of my time in the dark, hot, and dingy recesses of the kitchen, where I cleaned dishes, scrubbed pots and pans, and stacked pallets of glassware. (I once got a fork lodged in my forehead, but that’s a story for a different day.)
For some reason my responsibilities included transporting a trio of meal carts to the community’s hospital wing, to provide nourishment for residents considered too ill or infirm to live among their independent peers. I suppose the responsibility fell to me because no one else wanted to do it.
On my first day of working the weekend shift, I wheeled one of the meal carts through the double doors for the medical wing. I was nervous, though not quite sure why—I guess because I was entering a place that was thick with sick people, and by nature humans are fearful of sickness.
I had just about reached my destination when members of the medical staff wheeled one room’s occupant into the hall so she could be transported to a nearby hospital for a medical emergency. The nameplate on the wall told me her identity: first name Minerva, and I will withhold her last time for the sake of privacy. Based on her withered appearance, she would have been in her nineties, even past a hundred. Her face’s sunken appearance suggested she had lost all or most of her teeth. I mean no disrespect, but to my young mind she seemed almost inhuman—a shell of what a human being was supposed to look like.
To see this woman so old and brittle, so near death, rattled me to my core. The rest of the day passed with me sick to my stomach. Decades later, I still think about that day, about that moment when she and I crossed paths. I can only imagine the look of horror on my face, a look I hope Minerva had not seen.
My experience with older folks up until that point had been limited; both of my grandfathers had died before I was born, and I saw my grandmothers sporadically. I just couldn’t fathom why people would allow themselves to “grow old,” so as I came of age, I nurtured the idea that I would somehow outfox the aging process. Whereas other people hadn’t been paying enough attention, I would find a way to live longer, better, and more healthfully than my parents and every other adult in my life. I would defy Father Time.
I had been fascinated with the aging process ever since, and I have taken reasonable precautions to beat back the ticking clock: eating well, exercising, limiting alcohol intake, spending time in nature. Maybe five years ago, as I was thinking about the topic for my next novel, I decided I would focus on an older couple—older, not old—who had devoted their lives to each other. I wanted to see how the introduction of a personal catastrophe would alter their relationship, as well as their individual identities.
This led me to Jodi and Martin, the protagonists of my forthcoming novel, Find Your Way Back to Me, published by Manta Press. It’s a horror story about family secrets, sacrifice, and the power of love in the face of unholy terror. When we meet the retired couple, both of whom are in their mid-sixties, they have abandoned their long-time home in suburban Phoenix in favor of a falling-down farmhouse on the edge of Navajo territory—a choice they made not for peace and quiet, but to try to outrun a seemingly malevolent entity that has been hectoring Martin since childhood.
The personal catastrophe Martin experiences in the book is unique, but the aftermath of what happens to him may look familiar. Just about all of us have had the unfortunate experience of seeing a family member, friend, or loved one have their lives upended by a heart attack, a stroke, cancer, and some other malady, often later in life. I wanted to explore what it would be like, not only from Martin’s perspective, but also from the perspectives of his spouse, his progeny, and his closest friends.
The story has a strong supernatural undercurrent and an ample amount of violence, including some tasteful gore, but I also wanted it to have a lot of heart. We see how Jodi and Martin’s relationship evolves over time, how the pains of life and the rigors of age shape them, and in some ways lessen them, dull them. And we see how, when all things come to an end, nothing in this world exceeds the love we have for our family and closest friends.
I’m certainly not the first writer to shine a light on the horrors of aging. The novelists Stephen King (Insomnia), Michael McDowell (Blackwater), and Avni Doshi (Burnt Sugar) have done it earlier and better. As did W. S. Merwin and Donald Hall, two late U.S. poet laureates whose poetry and essays have done more to inform my understanding of aging and illness than anyone else. Without, Hall’s trim book of poetry about his wife’s illness and death, read like a novel—beautiful and brutal—and he told the story with skill, clarity, and unflinching honesty. Good, bad, and ugly—he left all of it on the page.
I saw Minerva only a few times after that first encounter in the hall of my workplace. Her room would become vacant within a few months, only to be claimed by someone else days later she left it for the last time. I will never forget her name, nor will I forget the horrifying look on her face, and the husk to which she had been reduced by age and illness.
I haven’t figured out how to avoid the same fate, and I suppose I have come to the realization that her outcome will likely one day become my own—my body withered and weathered, my faculties failing—if I am fortunate to have as much time on the earth as she had.
Find Your Way Back To Me by William J. Donahue, a new novel that releases on Oct. 23, 2025
Retirees Jodi and Martin have fled their home in Phoenix and absconded to a falling-down farmhouse on the edge of Navajo territory. They chose the remote location not for its peace and quiet, but to evade a malignant otherworldly entity named Pappaduffus who has been terrorizing Martin since childhood.
When a mysterious and catastrophic infection lands Martin in the ICU, his medical team traces his ailment to an absurd origin: the sting of a rare and deadly scorpion from the other side of the globe. Jodi suspects the work of Pappaduffus. As Martin’s condition deteriorates, Jodi realizes she must confront her husband’s demonic oppressor—and go through hell in the process—for any hope of pulling him back from the brink of death.
WILLIAM J. DONAHUE
WILLIAM J. DONAHUE’s published works include the novels Find Your Way Back to Me (October 2025), Only Monsters Remain, Crawl on Your Belly All the Days of Your Life, and Burn Beautiful Soul. His short fiction has appeared in The Horror Zine, as well as in the horror anthologies Vampire Hunters: An Incomplete Record of Historical Accounts, Cry Baby Bridge, Heavy Metal Nightmares, and House of Haunts. He lives in a small but well-guarded fortress somewhere on the map between Philadelphia and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Although his home lacks a proper moat, it does have plenty of snakes.Learn more at wjdonahue.com.
WEBSITE LINKS
https://www.facebook.com/wmjdonahue
https://www.instagram.com/williamdonahue1959
https://www.goodreads.com/wjdonahuewrites
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