Halloween Haunts 2013: Candy Corn Memories by Amy Grech

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. Growing up, I relished Halloween’s approach even more than Christmas. Santa had nothing on Halloween with Jack o‘Lanterns, costumes and candy…

Every year the crisp October air prompted my father to take my twin brother, mother and me to the local farm on Long Island to choose the biggest pumpkin we could find for the momentous occasion. That same night, after the dinner dishes had been cleared, Dad would put some old newspaper on the kitchen table, and hand my brother and me black magic markers and together we would draw a scary face for my father to carve with a sharp knife. We all looked on, fascinated, as he gutted the thing, scooping its innards into a bowl. When he finished, my mother would produce a thick white candle to place inside. We’d carry it gently outside, set it down on the front porch next to the front door, and my mother would light the wick, giving the Jack o‘Lantern an eerie glow for all to see.

Halloween is the most magical time of year when adults and children can transform themselves into anyone or anything they like! It’s a day to embrace your darkest imagination and put it on display for the world to see.

My elementary school hosted a Ragamuffin Parade each Halloween. My friends and I got to dress up in our Halloween costumes. I remember some of the boys went as members of the band Kiss, with black and white make-up and all.

Possessing an overactive imagination and embracing my dark side at a very early age, one year, I decided to be an octopus. Somehow, my father altered a rather large cardboard box so that it had a round top and a frayed bottom to represent tentacles. We painted it black and added silver for contrast around the eye, nose, mouth and arm holes. It was very hard to walk in that cardboard concoction—I almost toppled over several times—but I managed to stand my ground.

My brother, our friends and I all marched around the school parking lot in a long, curvy line snaking our way this way and that while our parents cheered us on! My Octopus won best costume that year! My prize: a plastic Jack’o Lantern filled to the brim with tasty treats, a monster candy haul, which my brother and friends were more than happy to help me devour; all gone in less than an hour.

This year, you’ll find me at the NYC Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village. Just look for the girl with skeleton hands!

AMY GRECH has sold over one hundred stories and three poems to various anthologies and magazines including: Apex Magazine, Beat to a Pulp: Hardboiled, Fear on Demand, eFiction Magazine, Funeral Party 2, Inhuman Magazine, Needle Magazine, Space & Time, The Uninvited Magazine, and many others. Damnation Books published her second collection, Blanket of White. She has a story forthcoming in Expiration Date. Amy is an Active Member of the Horror Writers Association who lives in Brooklyn. Visit her website: http://www.crimsonscreams.com. Follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/amy_grech.