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Halloween memories with area authors
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With Halloween upon us we thought it might be fun to collect some true stories, from the storytellers themselves, so we asked several local authors to share with us their favorite memories from Halloween seasons past. Happily, they obliged by sharing their time, and recollections with us, and have allowed us to shared those tales with you, our readers.
YA author Lynne Hansen tells us:
One Halloween, my husband and I flew to Salem, Massachusetts and did 12 haunted houses in 3 days. My favorite was a tiny, generally unremarkable attraction in the center of the tourist district. While we waited in the holding area, the genial host in a mad scientist’s lab coat chatted with us, asking our names (Lynne and Jeff), where we were from (Florida), how we were enjoying Salem (bunches), and what had scared me the most in previous haunted houses (rats).
Tip for anyone waiting in line for a haunted house: NEVER chat with the genial host. Once inside the labyrinth, a raspy voice taunted me from behind the walls. “Do you hear the rats gnawing at the walls, Lynne? There are GIANT rats in Florida. They’re coming for you, you know. Right now. Jeff can’t protect you. Wait--was that one scurrying across your toes?” Best scares of the entire trip!
From Horror/Sinisteria Mistress Andrea Dean Van Scoyoc:
My favorite Halloween memory was when hubby and I went to a friend's house to give out candy to the kids. They live in a small town where everyone knows everyone and you don't fear walking the streets at night.
My friend and I left our husbands at home and walked all over the historical town, looking at all the houses, talking and checking out the decorations.
The night was so peaceful...no cars, no loud, drunken people and no worrying about being robbed or raped by losers...unlike the larger town where I live.
It was almost like traveling back in time to a simpler era...one of quiet nights where one could simply enjoy being at one with the darkness with no fears of anything...not even those things that go bump in the night.
Macabre Jester Jeff Strand offers this memory of a horrific marathon:
My favorite Halloween memory involved an endurance test: watching all eight (at the time) Friday the 13th movies back-to-back at the Cla-Zel Theatre in Bowling Green, Ohio, starting at midnight. I’d also watched the remake of Night of the Living Dead at 8:00 that same evening in the same theatre. I walked in to the movie marathon thinking that nobody else could be so foolhardy as to attempt this endeavor, but the theatre was packed with hundreds of masochists. The audience was loud and enthusiastic...but most of ‘em didn’t have what it takes, and most of the crowd had departed after only the second movie. I laughed at their cowardice and happily watched Part III and Part IV: The Final Chapter. (I believe that Friday the 13th is the only series to have two different installments proclaim themselves “The Final Chapter” and to still have more movies follow.)
But then there were some rough spots. Part V really, really, really sucks, and we were getting into 7:00 AM. But I found my happy place and endured. Part VI? No problem. Best of the bunch. Part VII, however, is almost unwatchable even when you haven’t sat there for six previous installments, and my eyes were starting to roll into the back of my head, and I began to feel the first moments of true doubt. Could I really do this? We were down to about ten people in the theatre now, and exhaustion was becoming a horrific beast, clamping its jaws upon my skull and trying to make me abandon my quest. But I did battle with that beast and emerged victorious, nearly weeping (not really) as the Part VII credits rolled. With the end so close within my grasp, Part VIII was no problem. I staggered out of the theatre around 12:30 PM, eyes burning in the sunlight, knowing that I had accomplished what few others even dared, and that it would be a legendary Halloween memory.
Mystery/horror author Patty G. Henderson shared with us this creepy tale from her youth:
What better Halloween story on Halloween than one that actually happened? In our early teens, anything remotely tainted as "taboo" or "dangerous" always sounded more like excitement....well, at least to my band of thrill seekers.
On Halloween night, all those many decades ago, myself, my sister and several cousins and friends, too old and sophisticated (so we thought) for going door-to-door begging for candy, decided to put an old Quija Board I had to the test.
We gathered at a friend's house in the backyard of a not well traveled street just off Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa, where by candle light, we began to talk to the dead...or to demons, as it turned out. The night was quiet and pitch black, humid and warm, typical of Florida in October. Our parents were inside, indulging us in our request to give us some privacy. I'm certain they were laughing and peeking out the windows as we seriously and deliberately each took our turns at putting our nervous, sweaty fingers on the planchette.
We went back and forth, asking questions.....and getting answers. With each answer, we all became quiet. A demon was speaking through the Quija Board. As we all licked our lips in fearful anticipation, one of us decided to ask the demon his name.
"Vayuto," it said. As the planchette stopped on the last letter of the demon's name, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye on the overgrown shed that sat abandoned to the right of the yard. Everyone else turned their attention to the shed.
Standing behind a clump of tall, dried bushes, was a solid black figure, a hood draped over the head. It just stood there, looking in our direction. I screamed and the others did as well. We flung the Ouija Board in the air and scrambled over each other trying to get away from the darkness outside and the figure we all knew was the demon Vayuto coming to kill us.
We hastily talked over each other as we tried to explain to our parents inside what had happened. My heart was racing as I remembered some of the adults going outside to take a look. They found nothing, of course.
Is it possible to call forth evil beings into this world through the Ouija Board? Some in the paranormal field agree that you can and consider the Ouija Board a portal that can be opened. I'm not the only one who still believes we saw something that Halloween night so many decades ago. I've never, to this day, forgotten how dark and menacing that mysterious figure appeared and the fear it brought.
The memory of it was so real to me at the time, that I remember checking into demonic names to see if I could prove such a demon existed. I couldn't find the name "Vayuto" associated with demons. But what if it really wasn't a demon as we perceive demons to be? Certainly, there are legions of evil spirits in distant universes ready to spring into this world. Is the Quija Board indeed a door that can be innocently opened by kids or naïve adults who think of it as a game?
Halloween night is a powerful time and with real energy swirling in the night wind. Treat thee seriously the powers of darkness.....and the little goblins that come calling at your door. Who knows whence they came from?
Nikki Styx creator, Terri Garey gives us her recollections of her own personal Haunted Halloween fiesta:
A few years ago, a neighbor and I joined forces and went all out on our Halloween decorations, creating Madame Zelda's Haunted Graveyard - a spooky pathway through a darkened graveyard (my back yard), past the Black Lagoon (the backyard pool), and into an ancient and spooky witch's hut (my garden shed), where Madame Zelda (my neighbor Stefani) lay in wait to tell the fortune of brave trick-or-treaters. The first couple of years it was mostly just for fun, but two years ago, we made it an official "fundraiser" for the Freedom Playground Foundation (of which Stefani is the founder), and thanks to some very generous and anonymous Halloween lover/donors, we raised over $40,000 to complete Tampa's first all-access, barrier-free playground for children with disabilities. We had great fun, too!
From (soon to be published) Historical Romance author Anna Small:
When I was 6 years old, my mom was getting us three kids ready to go trick-or-treating. My brother's costume was a headless man, and as he pulled on his coat (that covered his head!) a bee was somehow in the coat and stung him. This caused a flurry of problems, as we were just about ready to leave the house. My mom knew my sister and I wouldn't share our candy with our out-of-commission brother, so she threw a bedspread over her head, cut out some eyes, and went as a chenille ghost! She went with us, house to house, and kept silent as she held out my brother's candy bag for his share. All the neighbors thought it was my brother underneath the blanket, and my sister and I giggled the whole time, thinking how we were fooling everyone.
This next little tale comes to us from soon-to-be published paranormal romance author Maureen Sevilla:
I was six-years-old the year my father made me a paper Mache’ pumpkin head with a nose that lit up. My mother’s contribution was a costume she made out of a plastic table cloth covered in little pictures of pumpkins. I thought it was the best costume ever and couldn’t wait to go Trick or Treating through the housing development where we lived. The bounty from all those apartments looked plentiful. All that day the kids at school shrieked in delight, anticipating the evening’s events, until finally... Halloween night arrived. My head hurt most of the day and the tablecloth was hot. I couldn’t eat; my stomach was so upset from the excitement. Or was it? My ears were still ringing from the noise at school, and by the time my pumpkin head was in place my ears hurt so bad I started crying. My mother removed my costume took my temperature and hustled me off to bed. Sick again! Six–years–old and I’d never been Trick-or-Treating. Every Halloween up until then I got sick and missed the fun. I was fed up. So a few months later in January, I got a bright idea one Saturday afternoon. I pulled out my Pumpkin head and my tablecloth, picked up a paper bag out of the kitchen and headed out on my mission. When I explained to all the neighbors how I always missed Halloween, they generously looked for something to put in my bag—poor little beggar that I was. I was happy as a clam when I returned home with a sack full of candy and pennies. My mother was horrified, and my father smiled. “How’d they like the nose?” he asked.
And last but not least, I'd like to share my own little Halloween story with you:
One Halloween when I was a teenager, we lived in an apartment in South Carolina, well, the other complex residents decided they wanted to do a haunted house for the surrounding neighborhood, anyone who didn’t want to participate in the actual staging, etc. So we got all the snacks and decorations, partitions, and so forth together and transformed the communal room into the haunted house. I got to play a part, my brother, my father and mom, my boyfriend, etc. Halloween night, we all got into costume, took our places, and the tour groups started traipsing through. We’d rattle chains and boo and hiss, jump out from behind things, and howl our hearts out, and the visitors had a good ole time, to tell by the racket.
Well, finally this lady walked in with her little kids: the first ghoul jumped out. She screamed. The second, she screamed even louder and so on. Finally she got to the end of the circuit, our last actor sat up in his coffin. The lady screamed like the dickens and went running. Then she saw what she thought was someone running towards her. But what it really was, was a set of double doors, one open, one closed, with a mirror. She screamed at her own reflection, and ran smack into the mirror.
Oops!
And she kept on running—beelined around the door, and out into the night, still screaming, and we never saw her again. :) Poor thing! Anyway, of all my Halloween memories, that’s the one that our family always tosses around the, ahem, cauldron, once a year.
So there you have it: Halloween from the perspective of a few of the area’s best storytellers. :) I'd like to thank everyone who took time out to participate in this little project, and I hope you’ve all enjoyed this segment, and that this Halloween adds to your collection of favorite memories. Have a happy, and safe, one!
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