Halloween Haunts 2013: Halloween as a Kid by Michael J. McCann
When I was a kid, the excitement leading up to Halloween night was second only to that of Christmas Eve. The leaves had fallen and made a wonderful noise when you tramped through them; summer was a memory but hockey season had begun; and it was cold out there with just a costume, but somehow as a kid I never noticed. The really rich kids had store-bought costumes, but I had more fun dreaming up my own. My mom and dad were always great sports: helping me out and proclaiming that this year’s costume was even scarier than last year’s.
The secret of which costume you would wear was, of course, guarded as closely as Fort Knox. There were also the stories—shared among friends—of past Halloweens: which houses had the scariest decorations or the meanest dogs; which neighbors gave out apples (to be avoided because they were healthy); and which people dished out the real goods (bags of chips and small chocolate bars that you could count afterward to see if you had surpassed last year’s record).
Halloween Day seemed endless until the school bell rang and I grabbed my UNICEF box and headed home to “get ready.” Having graduated to bigger kid status, I could go out with some neighborhood friends. We timed it to avoid the little kids walking with their parents when there was still daylight, at one end, and the teenagers who came out when it was really dark, at the other. The mean ones would try to frighten you and steal your candy. I learned from experience to make a tight knot in the top of the white pillowcase my mom had sacrificed to the Halloween cause. Then I could run like heck when the teenagers approached, and the knot helped me avoid losing any of that precious candy.
Halloween was the Great Equalizer because you got neat stuff regardless of whether you were rich or poor (or had a “lame” costume). And you didn’t even have to give up that carefully-guarded paper route money and buy gifts in return. Of course, there was the odd house with “old people” who wanted you to reveal who you were or sing a song for the candy, but a seasoned kid knew how to avoid these places.
And then when my friends and I were so tired that we decided to forgo the last of the houses, we would trudge back to our homes to examine our loot. I would proudly display the night’s booty to my parents, who would then let me pick out some favorite treats and eat them before going to bed.
And if I was really lucky, I could make that stash last until that other great day came and my Christmas stocking brought more candy.
TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: Michael is offering five digital copies for Kindle The Ghost Man.
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MICHAEL J. MCCANN is a Canadian author of crime fiction and supernatural thrillers. His Donaghue and Stainer Crime Novel series includes Blood Passage, Marcie’s Murder, The Fregoli Delusion, and The Rainy Day Killer. He is the author of the supernatural thriller, The Ghost Man, and is currently working on another supernatural thriller involving a hostage negotiator who discovers to his horror that he is negotiating with a ghost. His website is www.mjmccann.com. He has three blog sites: The Overnight Bestseller at http://michaeljmccannsblog.blogspot.ca/; Open Investigations at http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4724806.Michael_J_McCann/blog; and Behind the Walls of Nightmare at http://wallsofnightmare.blogspot.ca/. He can also be reached through Twitter (@MichaelJMcCann1) and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Michael-J-McCann/130617140389341 and would love to hear from you.
About The Ghost Man
First there was the car accident that claimed his beloved wife. Then came the grueling months of recuperation from his injuries. Now his constant companions are ghosts seeking worldly release. His new home is haunted by the ghost of a young girl demanding his help. His friends and neighbors are under attack by strange, destructive forces. Who is the Angry Man who haunts his dreams … and what does the demon controlling him want of Simon Guthrie?
Order the trade paperback online from:
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The Ghost Man is available in eBook format from Amazon as a Kindle Select exclusive publication:
Read an excerpt from The Ghost Man by Michael J. McCann:
The First Day
1
Simon Guthrie awoke later in the morning than usual, a few minutes after eight o’clock. He rolled out of bed and went into the bathroom, his mind still under the influence of the Dream. He stood for a long time under the shower, watching tendrils of soap foam flow down the drain between his feet, thinking about the little girl running between the monuments, the sudden darkness descending over the cemetery, the black mist coiling across the ground toward him. Clenching his teeth, he shampooed his hair and forced the Dream out of his head. There were other, more immediate problems to face. . . .
At the bottom of the stairs he found the portable phone on the floor. He picked it up and put it back in its cradle. On his left, separating the foyer from the kitchen, was an island with bar stools where he often ate his meals. The stools had been stacked on top of the island. One on top of the other, all four of them, balanced with impossible precision in the mathematical centre of the island. He carefully returned them to their places on the floor. The carafe had tumbled out of the coffee maker and sat on its lid on the counter. He checked it for damage, found none, and proceeded to make coffee. As he carried the grounds from last night’s pot of coffee to the trash bin he looked at the calendar on the wall. One of his chef’s knives was impaled in today’s date. Sighing, he stepped on the lever, dumped the coffee grounds in the trash, rescued his knife and dropped it in the dishwasher.
He finished making the coffee, and as it began to percolate he took a quick look around. Yesterday morning there had been a severed raccoon head in his kitchen sink. The morning before that, all the furniture in the great room had been covered with a disgusting slime that had taken more than two hours to clean up. He felt as though he were getting off easy this morning, although the knife trick was a little unsettling. He didn’t want to be around when his cutlery began to remove itself from the drawer and fly through the air.
Was that a message for him? Was today the day? The day for what? Who knew? After two weeks it was all starting to get a little tiresome. . . .
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This reminds me so much of my own Halloweens as a kid! Unfortunately, these types of things are falling by the wayside as adults become more and more wary of letting their kids roam among strangers, but those nights were some of my fondest memories. Nice post!
I can totally relate to your stories of the past. Love the line “Halloween was the Great Equalizer.” I sometimes worry my kids are missing out on some of that old time Halloween fun with the holiday being limited so much.