Part 1 of an 8 part series
We’re gearing up at goblinhaus.com for our favorite time of year and along with reviews and links of current haunted house attractions, I thought it would be nice to post some stories about haunted houses from my past and Halloween in general. Though this is the first in an 8 part series, don’t fret about continuity. If you miss one it won’t matter as each article will cover different time frames. This first one goes way back to my youth.
. Halloween Moonlight .
I went trick or treating only twice in my life. Maybe that’s why I get
so hyped for Halloween as an adult. The first time I went I was 6 years old
and my mother got me a clown suit. I was disappointed since I didn’t
think I was very scary. My cousin Freddy got to be a skeleton so he was much
spookier. I was to go to his house last.
One reason
why I didn’t trick or treat was that we usually lived in the country.
My parents didn’t want to have to haul me all over creation just for
some candy they could just as easily buy at the store for me. They were also
morbidly afraid of somebody slipping me an apple with a razor blade in it.
I thought that was goofy since I wouldn’t eat a candy apple anyways.
Every Halloween I would hear them recite the litany of urban legends about
poisoned candy as a reason for me to stay home. I must have really nagged
my mother when I was 6 to get her to take me trick of treating.
We drove all over the dark countryside stopping at a very few houses of people
my mother knew. I had wanted to be Dracula so I could frighten folks silly,
but instead I was greeted with cries of how cute or adorable I was at every
door. I wouldn’t need the makeup on my face if ladies didn’t quit
pinching my cheeks. The women my mother knew were cheap too, since my bag
barely had enough candy to last me an hour when we were finished knocking
on doors.
Finally we
got to Freddy’s place. He had racked up on candy in one of the new subdivisions
that were springing up near his home. I figured he did better because he was
a skeleton and not because he had went to more houses. The October weather
was windy but warm, so while the adults stayed inside and talked, we played
on the front patio. The clouds were racing across the sky and the moon shined
like a light house in the night. We used to play on this patio on similar
evenings and these times run together through my memory in a film strip symphony
moon clouds, Hot Wheels, and the dirt roads we made beside the patio.
The patio was well lit, but as you ventured into the dirt the shadows began.
The farther one got from the front door the darker it got until finally one
was left with the night, that even with the moonlight was still a very dim
place to be. It was into these shadows that we explored to show who was the
bravest. Halloween only escalated our contest. We were convinced that monsters
lurked where the light didn’t reach and we would work ourselves into
a frenzy of imaginary scenarios. We just knew that one of us was going to
wander too far into the unknown where we would meet our end.
One of us would go and come screaming back. This repeated itself for what seemed like hours, but was likely only minutes. Then we would concede that neither of us was all that brave since it was Halloween and all the ghosts and goblins were out. We combined forces and timidly walked together to the edge of darkness, took steps into the night deeper then we had ever gone alone and then both ran screaming for the front door where my mother was ready to take me home .
Though I was only a clown and I don’t recall the trick or treating being as grand as I had been led to believe it would be that Halloween was still a magical night. No pictures of me in the clown suit exist, but I can still see its polka dotted patterns. The monsters that crowd the gloomy corners are still waiting to drain the blood out of Freddy and me. Grey clouds still glide by a moon grown fat from the fear and awe of children. This Halloween memory is like a long lasting hard candy that never grows stale, but only tastes richer and more mysterious over time. I still wish I could have been the skeleton.
Read
Part 2: Manson Pike Astral Fright
(series index) (halloween '04) [home]