*ring*

*ring*

*ring*

*ri–*

Yeah?

Sue? It's me, David. I'm sorry to be calling at this hour, but I've only—

Wait, what time is it, three? Jesus, you asshole—

Look, I'm sorry. Sue, listen to me. I know it's late, but I couldn't call earlier—

God damn it, it's more than late! Where the hell were you, huh? I am not used to being stood up.

I'm trying to tell you, damn it. Please, just be quiet for a second and listen to me.

Okay. Okay, I'm listening. Might as well, I'm awake now, anyway. Pissed, too.

I'm sorry that I couldn't make it. I know that you changed your plans for this—

And missed a hell of a concert, from what I saw on the news.

Yeah, that too, but look, you've got to let me talk. Okay? I don't have much time—

Wait a minute, David, speak up some, I can hardly hear you. This is a really lousy connection. Where are you calling from, anyway?

I can't speak up, I'm not even supposed to be making this call. The guy who picked me up just had a sick sense of humor, I guess.

Picked you up? What the hell are you talking about?

Sue, I was in an accident.

An accident? What happened? Are you okay?

Well, no, that's what I'm calling about. See—

What happened, just tell me what happened!

Sue, you have got to let me talk without interrupting me. He's only letting me have one phone call, so I don't want to screw it up. It's just like in the movies—

Are you in jail, David?

No, but you have to let me explain. See, I was on my way to pick you up about seven-thirty, and it was raining a little down here. Not too bad, but enough to slick up the road. I know how you get when people are late, so I was pushing it some. More than I should've, I guess. Anyway, this old Buick wagon with no brake lights cuts me off at the Oakland Park exit, right as I was getting on the ramp. You know where it curves way around?

Oh, God, David! What happened?

Well, I lost control of the car, and it it swerved into the rail and smashed through. I was a little surprised, I didn't think that my little Ford weighed enough to break through the rail. Anyway, the car rolled down the embankment, and bounced a couple of times on the way down.

Shit! You're okay, right?

...

That's kind of what I'm calling about, Susan. I was thrown clear on the first bounce—

Thank God!

—but I landed on my left shoulder, hard, really hard. I was cut up pretty badly, too, not that it makes any difference, since it took them too long to find me.

Wait, what hospital are you at?

I don't know, but it isn't important. Susan, I need—

What the fuck do you mean, it isn't important? You're in an accident and call me up at three o'clock in the fucking morning to tell me about it, and then you won't tell me what hospital you're at? What kind of shit is this? If you are making this up I swear to God—

No, that isn't it at all. I apologize for calling you at all, I wanted to call someone else, but this is the only deal he offered me.

What the fuck are are you talking about? Who, the police?

Think about it, Susan. We've known each other for what, three months? Strictly a relationship in progress, we were barely even dating. But you know me a little better than that. Would I call you about something like this if I had a choice?

I don't know. I didn't think you'd've stood me up, either. I don't get it.

Listen, Susan. The accident well, I— shit. I didn't make it.

Okay, that's it! I'm hanging up. I don't know what kind of fucking freak you are, but just fuck you! This is some pretty stupid shit you're pulling—

Susan—

No, shut up, don't talk to me! Don't ever talk to me again, you asshole!

God, Susan, please don't hang up. Oh, God, please don't hang up. I didn't want to call you, but this is the only number he would let me dial. I told him I didn't know you that well, but he just laughed. Please, God, oh please don't hang up!

...

Susan?

...

I'm here. I don't know why, but I'm here. David, I think that you need to talk to somebody else. This is way out of my league. I just looked up a phone number for you, David. I want you to call these people—

You're not listening to me, damn it! There won't be another phone call for me. God, how can I make you understand? Just hear me out, Susan, please. I can promise you I won't call you again. Will you just stay on the line?

Okay. I will. First, though, I want you to tell me where you are right now.

...

Heh. I don't think you want to know.

...

Susan, are you there?

...

Yeah.

Listen. I need you to tell some people some things for me. I'm sorry that I've got to dump this on you, but I don't have a lot of choice. Get my ex-wife's number out of my office Rolodex, and call my daughter. Tell her that I love her very much. While you're at it, tell Darlene, that I forgive her, too. Then make sure that someone gets my cats. I don't want them starving before someone gets a court order to enter my apartment. There's a key in the back of my top right-hand desk drawer, behind the note cards. Also, I have a college friend, Jack Hawkins, he's in my file, too. Call him and ask him to execute what little estate Darlene left me. And—

This is really starting to creep me out, David. I don't like the way your voice sounds at all. Are you serious about this? Are you going to hurt yourself?

No. No, it is too late for that. I am really, truly sorry, Susan. You know, I think things might've worked out, for us, I mean. I guess I wasted too much time trying for a reconciliation. Listen, there's more I've—

*cl-click*

Susan, are you still there?

Yeah, that's my other line. Can you hold on? Jesus, who else is calling me at three? Hold—n.

...

...

...

David? Okay, now I'm a little freaked out. That was the sheriff's office. This is a joke, right, David? What's the punch line?

...

David?

...

Dav—

*click*

"If you would like to make a call, please hang up and dial again—"

Because I am lazy (and because I have found myself needing to work on my vacation), my antique Hallowe'en postcard gallery hasn't been updated for a while. Nonetheless, if you are interested in a look at early 20th century celebrations, you may enjoy them.

Two of my favorite childhood records were an LP of the music from Disney's Haunted Mansion, and a cheap LP called Thrilling, Chilling Sounds of the Haunted House. The former was primarily organ music — predictable selections like JSB's Toccatta and Fugue in D Minor — and a handful of melodies from the amusement ride itself. The latter was a split personality affair, with the A-side composed of sound effect tracks — wolves howling, creaking floors, and the like — while the flip side told brief stories using the same effects. I remember one in particular disturbed me, a tale of astronauts landing on Mars and being devoured by the Martians; it featured the crunch of celery stalks to represent the snapping of bones by strong alien teeth.

While both records vanished at some point in the past 35 years, thanks to the wonders of the Internet (and Amazon), I can slake my desire for aural terror with abandon. Here are links to a few choice compilations and sites.

• Oddio Overplay has put together some of the best Hallowe'en compilations I've found. The real treat, though, is that they are free to download. This year's offering is Calling All Fiends; previous releases include Munsterbeat and distributed Otis Fodder's two-volume Ghouls With Attitude.
• WFMU always delivers the goods, and even more so on Hallowe'en. This post has more links that I'm willing to copy and paste, all pure spooky delight.
• And even though I got the link from WFMU, I want to draw special attention to the absolutely fantastic Scar Stuff. Jason collects, rips, and distributes classic spooky LPs of the past, as is evidenced by the impressive collection on this page. A few highlights would include these: a quasi-ethno-musicologist recording of Haitian voudon ceremonies; Vincent Price reading various spooky stories; or an evening with Boris Karloff. Don't miss his Hallowe'en mixes, either!
• Lastly, although it is a time-sensitive link, This American Life has a Hallowe'en episode well worth a listen.

I've always though that audio serves the imagination better than video. Perhaps with these samples you'll agree.

As another re-run, here is 2005's Graveyards and Cemeteries gallery. Also, here are the Southern Memorial Cemetery photos I took earlier this year.

I find graveyards fascinating and relaxing, even at twilight. During vacations I like to visit them — I feel like I learn a little something about the people who live there by learning how they die. Undoubtedly this says something unfortunate about my character, but I'm not going to look too closely.

[O]n Halloween I believed in everything.

Given how often I invoke him you might think I'm sleeping with the fellow*, but Neil Gaiman is just one of my favorite authors. Here's a NYT essay by Neil about Hallowe'en.

*I'm not, it was just tea, and even that was in a dream.

As a child I liked scary movies. (I'm sure this comes as a surprise to you all.) Unfortunately, I seldom stayed up late enough to tune in the Pompano station which ran Creature Feature at 11:00pm on Saturday nights, so I made do with the Saturday afternoon antics of M.T. Graves on WKID, broadcasting from Pirate's World in Dania. That cadaverous clown was enough of a goofy host that I found myself laughing against my best intentions; then again, the movies he would show were generally pretty awful, anyway.

One in particular — some version of The Island of Doctor Moreau, I think — came with the warning that before the particularly horrifying scene they would play the "horror horn" to warn sensitive viewers to close their delicate eyes until the "all clear" was given. This may have been the only Saturday film I ever watched in its entirety, playing with my Strange Change Machine figures on the family room floor until it got to the good part.

There was no good part. When the horn sounded, there was a 2-3 second scene of a scalpel cutting a plucked chicken thigh, and then the horn sounded again. I am fairly certain that this was the biggest disappointment of my movie-viewing career. Fortunately, old M.T. came on with a "What, that's it?" look on his face, which dissipated my anger somewhat.

The horror host is a lost art these days. Fortunately a new documentary looks at the history of this strange and eerie art form. (Okay, okay, "art form" is probably a stretch, but can we agree on "a uniquely American phenomenon"?) I hope the producers of American Scary get the damned film finished soon.

It's too bad that they never offered up "horror host" at Career Day. I think I would have been good at it.

I first heard of the The Winchester Mystery House in Alan Moore's Swamp Thing comic. As with most of the readers, I initially assumed it was something he had created, just as many people assume Neil Gaiman created The House on the Rock for American Gods. The house, though, along with its improbable origin, is real.

The sprawling, haphazard, and completely bizarre is located in San Jose, California. It's an old and legendary home, allegedly built by the heir to the Winchester fortune at the direction of some architecturally-perverse spirits. I had a chance to visit it back many, many years ago, and was admittedly a bit disappointed. Instead of the spooky old mansion I had envisioned in my mind's eye, it was a touristy location in the middle of town, next to a Taco Bell and a gas station. (Now that I think of it, in that sense it's rather like Miami's Coral Castle.) I guess the original 600+ acre estate couldn't survive in the face of real estate values. Still, it was an entertaining tour.

Now there's a blog with photos, purportedly by someone who was once a tour guide there. It provides a bit more information that the web site, but that isn't saying much. The best source of information — as is often the case — is Wikipedia.

An anonymous commenter asks, "Why do u spell Halloween that way? :(". It's a valid question, so here are two answers.

Long answer: The original name of the holiday as celebrated today is All Hallows Evening, the night before All Saints (or Hallows) Day. As time passed the name became shorter, and during the early golden age of Hallowe'en (1895–1935) had been shorted to All Hallows Even, then Hallows E'en, then Hallowe'en. In the latter part of the golden age the name started to lose its apostrophe, and has now been settled for a while at Halloween. However, since I am a bit of a traditionalist, I use the more archaic spelling.

Short answer: It's a pointless affectation. So sue me.

Candle-lit pumpkin,
crudely carved in human guise,
illuminates fear.

Old abandoned house,
filled with spiderwebs and dust—
memories are ghosts.

Black October cat,
dwell in shadows on this night!
Children are monsters.

Hallowe'en is my most important holiday. I am not a pagan, born-again or otherwise, although I have nothing against members of those ancient and venerable (or new-age and invented) orders. However, my sentiment has nothing to do with any religion, organized or not, so we can safely leave those discussions out of this particular story. No, my love of All Hallows Eve is a little more personal.

When I was a child, Christmas was fun. Not having been raised in a very religious atmosphere, it was primarily a season of visiting relatives, eating cookies and candy, playing in snow, and getting presents. We followed many of the same rituals as other families of our class and background: enormous Christmas trees, house lights, waking bleary-eyed parents at 6:00am to see what Santa had left (even though we would always peek in the doorway while Daddy struggled with his 8mm movie camera), and all the rest. But, it was, in a way, too ritualized. We knew all the moves ahead of time; only the specific details changed from year to year.

The Fourth of July offered its own type of excitement, too, with firecrackers, bottle rockets, and bar-be-ques. The thrill was spiked a bit whenever we would visit my grandparents, because Grandpa Palmer had a small cannon he would load with black powder and shredded newspaper to show up all the other kids. That was always pretty neat, though in retrospect, I'm not sure why. It just made a tremendously loud BANG, and that was it. Just a little confetti drifting down afterwards.

But Hallowe'en was always different. For one, I had influence on it. You see, my mother was a frustrated artist, who lived for the opportunity to use her skills. Holidays were always been the best time for this. At Christmas, we had a tree-full of hand-made ornaments; there were intricately decorated cookies to eat; on our lawn painted plywood Peanuts characters acted out the end of that perennial TV favorite, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Easter brought heaping baskets of candy, and tons of elaborately decorated eggs. But Hallowe'en brought costumes! And, I got to choose what type.

Every year we would begin a ritual. My mother would ask me what kind of a costume I wanted, and I would go crazy trying to decide. As do most young boys, I had an intense monster fetish. Wolfman, Frankenstein (it wasn't until years later that I discovered that Franky was the doctor, not the monster), Dracula, various ghosts, witch doctors, alien creatures, and other mind-numbing horrors were considered each year, but only one could be chosen. Ah, the exquisite agony of decision!

Eventually, often with Mama's prompting, I would decide. Then my mother would begin the arduous process of getting a boy with little concept of how these things work to sit still for several fittings, and assist in the choice of colors for the mask which I would wear to complete the disguise. This was not a simple process at all, for Mama's artistic ingenuity knew no bounds. As an example, one year, I was to be a Witch Doctor. A tight-fitting chocolate brown costume was made, along with a grass skirt and an over-sized paper mach‚ mask. But, for the finishing touch, she put some chicken bones in vinegar for weeks, to make them soft and rubbery, then strung them together into a necklace. It was perfect. (Politically correct, it was not, and I admit to a certain horror at the memory now. But those were less enlightened times.)

Then the fun would begin. Back in those simpler days, before the rules of fun were written by toy manufacturers, there were always costume parties in school. I don't think that I won any, because there were always richer kids who could have professional costumes made. But the other kids always thought my costumes were the coolest, making it one of the few times that I was accepted by my peers. A Sav-mart Spider-man costume with a flimsy plastic mask just didn't cut it next to my silver and blue alien jumpsuit and helmet, or a glow-in-the-dark Green Ghost costume.

And then, the ultimate event, the High Mass of All Hallow's Eve: Trick-Or-Treating. We would begin the preparations shortly after dark, with my father putting a bowl of candy inside by the front door, for those other "lost souls" who might come by. My brother and I had, by this time, been forced to eat dinner. Our diet for the next few days would consist largely of Three Musketeers, Butterfingers, and Atomic Fireballs, so I suppose it was a last meal, of sorts. Afterwards we would whine and beg and be generally irritating until we would be allowed to get into costume for the evening's performance. After a final checking over of all scare-systems, we would be off.

We would travel in packs, with several other neighborhood kids. The fathers would travel discreetly behind, even then, often carrying empty highball glasses for their own "treats" at discerning homes. We would run wild, carrying on like the madmen and ghouls we represented, but still finding time to stop at every house for a hearty cry of "TRICK OR TREAT!" It was rare that we would ever even consider a trick, because everyone knew the rules: if you give the kids candy, then they have a good time; if you don't, they'll be confused at the break from tradition, and call you stupid names. After a few hours, though, we would have gone as far as our fathers' legs could carry them, and they would herd us toward home, where two final rituals awaited.

The first was the checking of the count. Why it was first begun, I'm not sure, probably idle curiosity, but my mother counted every single trick-or-treater who came to the door, and dutifully reported to my father as to their number. (In later years, this became a sad barometer of how effectively the true monsters were killing this holiday, as the numbers dwindled down from hundreds, to tens, to less than ten). The second arcane rite was the dividing of the spoils, my brother and I each pouring the contents of our brightly smiling plastic jack o'lanterns into carefully distinct piles on the floor. With a fervor which would make a futures trader proud, we would bid and barter to get the candy we wanted, and stick the other with the undesirable black licorice bits and stale popcorn balls. My mother went through the heaps first, though, as the concept of razor blades in apples, though quaint by today's standards, was the real menace then. Funny how no-one thought that the holiday needed to be banned then; parents just protected their children by going through the bag before the kids ate anything.

Then, sugar-stuffed and bone-tired, we would complain and head off to bed. I would usually try to stay awake for a while, thinking of ghoulish and ghastly things. But, inevitably, sleep would come, bringing with it the threat of another ordinary day tomorrow — a threat that was always carried out.

But all these childhood memories are just part of the reason. Besides the personal considerations, to my mind Hallowe'en fills a very real need in the world: it is the only holiday glorifying the imagination. Ghoulies and ghosties scare us because we can imagine them; we can cut two holes in a sheet and become a lost soul, or don a set of plastic fangs and become the lord of the undead; we can tell and re-tell dark tales and revel in the crawling of gooseflesh. No other holiday even pays lip service to the wonders of the creative spirit. Other holidays may have their charms, but their primary purpose is the celebration of tradition, containing little room for anything more than habit.

The very soul of All Hallow's Eve is mystery. Christmas is still, at heart, Christmas. The Fourth of July is part of the past, relived once a year. The Easter story has been told, and is fixed and unchanging, likewise with most holidays. But, Hallowe'en is new and frightening every time. There are always new stories to tell on Hallowe'en, tales which have never been told before.

And, it encompasses so very much. Christians, spiritualists, and atheists alike can share this occasion. Anyone must still see the need for the ability to see what is not there, or what might yet come to be. How else can great inventions be conceived, or great books written? All that separates man from other life on the planet is his imagination. Isn't that worthy of celebration?

I suppose that in the end, Hallowe'en is religious for me. I have my rituals: carved pumpkins, candy, scary stories told in the dark. I have my traditions and gospels as well, when I sit in the dark and tell the story of the Haunted Elevator, or remember the costumes my mother used to make for me. On Hallowe'en I celebrate all the wonders of the limitless human imagination.

Today I watched the 1959 version of The House on Haunted Hill. When I was a child this film was shown at my middle school, and something about it scared the hell out of me. Well, okay, I know exactly what it was. There is a scene where a woman opens her closet, only to find a human head hanging by its hair from the clothes rod. It freaked me right out, and it took me years to be able to open my closet door at night, even with the lights on.

I picked up the DVD on a budget rack somewhere for a couple of bucks, as part of a Vincent Price double feature with The Last Man on Earth. I was not expecting it to scare me, and for a change I was correct. (Full disclosure, however, requires me to tell you that I did watch it during the day, just in case.) The movie is not exactly frightening, by today's standards.

However, it is actually pretty good, in a B-movie way. Vincent Price chews through scenery like a dog worrying a bone, yet gracefully walks the tightrope between dry humor and self-parody. The plot is surprisingly intricate for a cheap movie, and the dialogue is witty, if often delivered rather stiffly by the lackluster supporting cast. I admit, I was a bit surprised at how well I was entertained by this movie. Since you can probably pick up the DVD at Walgreens for a dollar, you can't go wrong.

Meanwhile, I will try to convince myself that the times were different then, and that it wouldn't really take a loser of epic proportions to be scared of that obviously fake paper maché head hanging in the closet.

When I was about four or five years old my family spent Hallowe'en with my grandparents in Paducah. After roaming the neighborhood with my little brother and father, trick-or-treating in my devil costume, we returned home to count our spoils, sorting the Mary Janes from the candy corn, the Bazooka Joe from the lollipops. As usual, it was a pretty big haul, and a lot of it was marked for immediate consumption.

With the kind of hindsight that comes from forty more years experience, I should've been suspicious when there was a knock on the door and my dad and grandpa told me to answer the door. But riding a sugar rush as high as the full moon I jumped to the door, plastic pitchfork in hand, only to be greeted by a wrathful spirit from the depths of hell itself.

The howling, shrieking beast at the door grabbed me, and I started beating the crap out if it with my pitchfork, for all the good it did. I was yelling and crying as though it was the end of the world, and would likely still be screaming today if not for my father and grandfather starting to laugh like mad. That's when I realized I had been set up, but I wasn't convinced until my uncle took off the fright mask. When he did I whacked him a good one with the pitchfork, then ran out of the room.

I'm sure that many people would use this as an example of why Hallowe'en is a wicked, evil holiday. Many more would use it to explain the way I have turned out as an adult. (I can't mount a convincing counter-argument to that one, either.) But for years following this incident, I was cautious about answering the door if I wasn't absolutely certain who was on the other side. A little caution is never a bad thing.

Reviewing the classic horror films has proven to be more challenging than I had anticipated, not because they were unwatchable, but because discussing them deserves more effort than I can give right now. But in the interest of educating you, gentle readers, here is a quick overview.

Dracula (1931): If someone made this today it would be marketed as an art film. There is exactly one drop of blood in the entire film, you never actually see Dracula bite anyone, and even the big stake-out happens off-camera. Still, the set design is tremendous, the acting is good, and the atmosphere surreal and dreamlike, reminding me of Cocteau's 1946 Beauty and the Beast. The horror in this is purely in your imagination.

Frankenstein (1931): More of an action film than Dracula, this provides our first on-screen violence, even if there is still a noticeable lack of overt horror. There was much more humor in it than I would have guessed, much of it at the expense of the German villagers. The climactic scene with the monster at the windmill is fairly tense, though. However, Karloff's acting (and the makeup artist's creation) make it a classic.

The Mummy (1932): Karloff again, this time in Egyptian garb as the titular reanimated corpse. After having his eternal rest disturbed, the monster goes on the hunt for the reincarnation of his lost love. It could be a chick-flick, except for the (mostly off-screen) killing of people who get in his way. Boris turns in a good performance, but just for your information, he only wears the bandages for a short time at the start of the film.

The Invisible Man (1933): Okay, this guy does wear the bandages. For the time the special effects were pretty good, with a battle in the snow showing footprints appearing from nowhere, and the classic scene where he unwraps his head revealing nothingness. The sociopathic scientist gets a bit more down and dirty than the previous monsters, too, clubbing people to death and so on.

The Wolf Man (1941): Lon Chaney, Junior, doesn't get to walk with the queen, in case you were wondering. He does get to chew the scenery rather thoroughly in this surprisingly touching (and again, bloodless) film. Everything that can possibly go wrong for Larry Talbot does so, from getting turned into a werewolf to failing to live up to his father's expectations. Suspenseful in places, but never scary, the film's horror comes from the inexorable approach of Larry's fate.

The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954): This was originally released to the theaters in glorious 3-D, but I only have the black and white version. Even so, this was the most modern of my initial six films, and it shows. The acting is more cinematic and less stage-y, they made extensive use of underwater photography and location shooting (a lot of it was shot at Silver Springs), and the Gill-man is still a pretty convincing monster. Well, except that he isn't really a monster, just a creature that wants to be left alone and has a wholly understandably attraction to Julie Adams, the swimsuit-clad love interest. (She's a dead ringer for Jennifer Connelly, by the way, and has a small role on Lost.)

In the course of watching these films I realized a common thread linking them, and differentiating them from the more modern brand of horror. In these early films the danger was largely spiritual or psychological — cursed immortality, blasphemy, the loss of self-control — whereas in the modern films the danger is almost always physical death or mutilation. Perhaps a people who no longer concern themselves with philosophical or spiritual matters can only find terror in the more mundane threat of physical harm.

By day the glade's a sunny, pleasant place—
a stand of oaks which rings an open space
where flowers grow, and children come to play
as long as lasts the clear, bright light of day.

But dusk does fall, and children run to home,
as deep'ning dark starts stirrings in the loam.
For long ago this glade was oft the site
of gruesome deeds, and bloody, evil rites.

The twilight fades the flowers' springtime hues
to ghastly jaundiced shades and ghostly blues.
And murmurs on the wind from far away
foretell the birth of night--the death of day.

A hush throughout the wood does quickly fall
as Darkness shrieks its silent, spectral call.
Then midnight shadows cloak the ancient bower
as solemn bells announce the spirits' hour.

As sulph'rous mist, from earth the Spectres rise
they have no face, save glowing crimson eyes
which burn so bright with unrelenting hate
for those who once consigned them to this fate.

The from the trees a pulsing rhythm grows
which snares the twisted spirits in the throes
of wanton dance; a mournful, eerie sight
to see such phantoms writhing in the light

Of distant stars. And then begins to wail
of souls long lost to realms beyond the veil
of Death. This most unholy music makes
the stoutest heart to fail, and souls to break.

The lesser things are tainted here as well,
the puny fauna of the pits of hell:
the things that hop and sting and fly,
things that should not live, yet cannot die.

And other things do live here in this glade
foul creatures which our Maker never made.
Things that also caper in the light
of ghostly stars, and yearn for that which might

Release them from their bondage to this place.
For then they would repay the day-time race
in kind for deeds done long ago by men
who longed for Pow'r, and sought it in this glen.

For hours this madness in the glade goes on
until a light presages birth of dawn
and death of night. And thus, with just a hiss
of steam, the demons turn again to mist.

The horrors of the night soon fade away,
dispersed again by power of the day.
The Darkness calls its troops back from a rout
to calmly wait the night when they will out.

Soon the games of children will be found
where eldritch evil waits close underground.
And pretty blooms look not the least forlorn
where shadows sleep, and wait to be reborn.

[NB: I wrote this for a BritLit class many mango seasons ago, in an attempt to create the unholy offspring of H.P. Lovecraft and John Donne. I should clean up some of the more egregiously dissonant turns, but why? Your mileage, as they say, may vary.]

My friend (and extraordinarily talented illustrator) John Lacko subjected me to this.

There isn't much I can add, I suppose.

I looked across the dark lawn from my porch at the silvery-green eyes peering from under my car.

"You may as well come out, I can see you. Why are you staring at me?"

Why are you outside during our time? The sleek grey cat stretched as he strolled out of the shadows. You should be sleeping.

He doesn't sleep much these days, the fatter of the pair replied as she waddled out. The one he calls Goblin told me.

"Is that any of your business? And why are you talking to my cats, anyway?" It irritates me that these nameless and nosy outsiders are prying into my life.

We inquire after you because it is in our interest. You leave food out for us, and then we don't have to chase down our own prey. We like that. But why aren't you sleeping?

"It's October, and that's a difficult month for me."

Why? The larger shadow crouched, then pounced on something small.

"October is one of the worst months of the year for my office." The first cat twisted to groom himself. "It's also the anniversary of a lot of unpleasantness: my house was burglarized twice in October, I got divorced in October, Hurricane Wilma was in October..."

Hallowe'en is in October, too.

"True, but these days the holiday only stresses me out. I set my expectations too high, the world's attitude toward the celebration has changed so much that it has lost most of its wonder for me. I end up sad."

Your people become sad during your holidays. We know this from living with single people.

The fatter cat lifted her face from whatever she'd been gnawing. This is your holiday and you cannot enjoy it. Most do not even celebrate, so you cannot share your anger. This is why you cannot sleep.

"So then tell me, O wise cats, how I can solve this situation. How can I regain some of the spirit of the holiday and bring joy back into my life?"

Their eyes vanished into blackness as they turned away from me.

"That's it? No answers? Just wander into the shadows and leave?"

Twin blurs leapt through the streetlight's circle into the shrubbery and were gone. I picked up my glass and struggled to my feet. Four o'clock, I thought, as I entered the house.

Badfoot was waiting by the door. "Hey, tell me something. In August I had a conversation with Greywhite on the porch and he didn't reply in such a direct fashion. Why's that?"

As I walked toward the bedroom, I heard him say: It's October now.

I took a completely informal survey of my workmates last week, asking them this question: "Names three classic movie monsters." I confess, I was a bit surprised how long it took for someone to come up with one of the original classics (and she said "Bela Lugosi"). I got plenty of answers of Freddie and Jason and Chucky, and even some Candyman and "you know, that guy from Halloween," but no-one seems to remember Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the Wolfman, the Mummy, or the rest of their archetypal cohort.

If we go back to the holiday's earliest modern roots, the stars of our show should be ghosts, devils, and witches. After all, legends says that All Hallow's Eve is the night when the wall between this world and the next is thin — spirits walk the earth, imps cause mischief (and more), and those wise in the old ways work their will on the world. Once the media — in the form of popular novels and early Hollywood films — figured out that people are willing to pay to be frightened, it was a short jump to the creation — and exploitation — of the horror genre, and the pillaging of literary (or pseudo-literary) sources for material. In fact, many of the earliest motion pictures could be classified as horror, or at the least, fantasies.

But even though I grew up with an unhealthy fascination with creatures of the night, until recently I had not seen many of the classic monster movies. To correct this gap in my education, I have spent the last week watching as many of these as possible. Now, in my self-appointed role as cultural crypt-keeper and monstrous maven of the macabre, I'll pass this knowledge along to you. I'm willing to bet that for many readers these films would be considered classics in the Twain sense: movies which people praise and don't watch.

I am no longer particularly squeamish about spiders. In fact, I've become rather attached to having a few of them around to keep the insects under control, particularly on the front porch. Right now there is a huge mass of webs in the open beams near the front door, filled with recently hatched spiderlings. I'm hoping that they will reduce the mosquito population a bit, although I suspect that not even spiders will eat those winged demons.

There are some things which will eat spiders, though, and that seems to include humans. Cambodian humans, anyway, and the occasional westerner with a taste for the unusual. If the idea of eating deep-fried tarantula doesn't put you off your feed, or if your boundless curiosity gets the better of your common sense, or if — heavens help us — eating giant hairy spiders sounds delish, the read all about the spiderwomen of Skuon.

Fair warning, though. The link contains photos of fried tarantulas heaped on a platter like cheese fries, if cheese fries had hair and eyes.

I've been battling a few of my own demons lately. Don't worry — so far I'm winning.

One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.

 —Emily Dickinson

Several years ago my brother and I were talking about practical jokes we had played, stupid pranks and whatnot. My dad was around, and was laughing at the stories he hadn't heard before, and pointing out the times we hadn't been nearly as clever as we had thought. Now, my dad has a prankster's heart, and we were fairly sure he had pulled off some good ones in his day, so we asked him about it. He laughed, and regaled us with the following tale.

One Hallowe'en back in the early 1940s my dad and his pals were looking for a trick to pull on the unsuspecting citizens of Paducah, Kentucky, my home town. Now Paducah was named for Chief Paduke, a (probably mythical) Indian chief who "sold" some general the land which became Paducah. To venerate this brave warrior the people built a rather dignified granite statue of the chief in the middle of town.

So my dad and the other hooligans thought it would be cool as heck to light up ol' Chief Paduke for Hallowe'en, and make him look all scary for the kids in the neighborhood. They went scouting around until they found a construction area, and ... ahem ... borrowed a flaming smudge pot, and placed it carefully on Paduke's proudly crossed arms.

The effect, to hear him tell it, was quite striking. Here's this solemn granite face a dozen feet in the air, lit from below with a fiery orange glow. I'm sure quite a few tykes nearly wet their ghost-sheets at the sight. It' s the kind of thing folks would talk about for days to come.

In fact, all of Paducah was talking about it the next morning. Not, mind you, in the way my dad and his cronies had hoped, however. You see, in their glee at finding a suitable light source, they failed to take into account that smudge pots burn crude oil, producing copious amounts of thick, black, oily smoke, smoke which over the course of Hallowe'en night turned Chief Paduke black as midnight from the arms up. The city had to pay a considerable sum to have the statue sandblasted, and a general reward went out for information concerning the vandals responsible.

It should go without saying that my father did not confess.

All three of us had a good laugh about the story, and then filed it away.

A few years later, my family visited Paducah to see my grandparents. According to reports everyone — aunts, uncles, cousins, and so on — was sitting around my Grandma Hall's living room, telling stories as my family tends to do. My father told some kind of (undoubtedly true) tale at my brother's expense, and my brother replied, "Well, at least I never turned Chief Paduke black!"

A hush fell, and then my Grandma Hall looked my father in the eye and said "Jimmy? You mean that it was you who did that? You ought to be ashamed of yourself! If Daddy Hall was still here he'd give you a whooping!" And according to my brother, my dad looked as sheepish as he'd ever seen him. For fifty years he'd gotten away with his crime, and suddenly it was all over.

All over but the hilarity, that is. Everyone present burst out laughing at both the revelation and my father's response to it. Personally, I suspect my dad likes his Chief Paduke story even more, now. These days he gets to tell how he woulda gotten away with it, if it wasn't for his blabbermouth son.

Grandma Hall died a couple of years later, but the story of old Chief Paduke lives on. Earlier this year we went back to Paducah, me, my father, and my brother, and while we were there we revisited the scene of my father's crime.

You know, from looking at this picture, I don't think he's ashamed of himself at all.

[The preceding story first appeared on Hidden City August 24, 2004.]

Goblins and witches
demand treats in exchange for
freedom from their tricks.

Candy is not cheap;
the economy is bad.
Kids don't understand.

A knock in the night,
scurrying sounds at the door.
A flaming bag? What...?

The improbably tall man stood in front of the glass wall, his ivory complexion catching the moonlight in the shadows of the lightless office. He was as motionless as marble, staring out into the night, seemingly lost in thought.

With a nearly imperceptible sigh he turned from the window and stepped back into the shadows of the office. He paused to observe the scene: blue-tinged light spilling across a well-appointed office, bookcases and credenza along the walls, massive desk facing the door, a large leather chair overturned in a struggle. Stepping carefully over the ruined areas of the carpet, he moved to the chair and bent from the waist to right it. Untidiness disturbed him, unless it served his purpose, and he had no need of it now. With age comes conservatism, or so he'd heard, and in his case it was certainly true. In his youth he'd been more flexible, his work more improvised and spontaneous, almost — but never quite — free-form. Somewhere he'd become complacent, though; he'd been following the same patterns for his entire adult career, and his improvisational youth was long past.

He crouched behind the desk and picked up the chair's former occupant, arranging him in the seat as best he could. Surveying his efforts, he frowned. The fat and dark-suited figure slumped in the burgundy leather chair had his eyes closed. He knew, of course, that the man had died of a heart attack before he had even begun his work, but he almost failed to note that the eyes were closed. That was not acceptable, not at all.

He gently slid up the eyelids, his long fingers deftly arranging cooling muscle and skin into an aspect of stark terror. Perhaps the years of soft living had provided the man with a shortcut out of his life, but there was no reason for it to be so obvious to anyone else. The tale, pale man had standards to uphold.

When he was satisfied with the tableau the police would find, he wiped his bone-handled razor carefully on his handkerchief and slipped it into his pants pocket, then deliberately placed the cloth under the chair. As an afterthought he opened the humidor on the desk and removed several cigars. He sniffed them as if a connoisseur — though he had never before held a cigar — and knew instinctively that they were Cuban-made. Nodding to himself he slipped them in the vest pocket of his jacket. It seemed important, somehow.

He looked through the few dry papers on the blotter, but nothing felt significant, so he inspected the desk. A swift and strong pull opened the single locked drawer; he reached in, withdrew some folders, and rolled and pocketed them.

As he prepared to leave the office he allowed himself another moment in front of the window. Far below he could see the expensive cars and expensive people responsible for this neighborhood's reputation; in the glass he saw his own pale skin and heavy black coat, and thought of his own reputation, earned long ago.

He started to turn from the window, then caught himself and turned back. Studying his reflection, he concentrated for a moment, then rewrote his heavy black clothing into a cream-colored linen suit. As he did so, his alabaster skin darkened to olive, and his thin white hair turned thick and black.

He smiled at his handiwork, taking a cigar from his pocket and trimming it expertly. As he locked the door behind him, he thought, this is my first trip to Miami. Perhaps it's time for a change.

In the Midwest of my youth October First signaled the start of a hallowed season. The leaves had turned from rich yellow and gold to dull and lifeless brown, and most had fallen into drifts awaiting the rakes of pipe-smoking suburban fathers. Mothers admonished their boys to put on jackets before going outside, then wiped their hands on their aprons and returned to their homemaking duties. The children would run through the streets in indigo twilight, taking shortcuts through well-trimmed lawns to whatever wild areas remained, and sprawled in brittle foliage to discuss matters of the utmost importance — costumes, tricks, and haunted houses. Hallowe'en was on its way!

To celebrate this season, Hidden City is devoting the month of October to the only holiday dedicated to the celebration of the imagination. Barring something unforeseen — always a possibility around Hallowe'en — there will be thirty-one tricks and treats for your sampling before the dawn of All Saint's Day. Some will be truth, some lies, but most will be somewhere in-between. After all, this is Hallowe'en in the Hidden City.