Halloween Story

by Mike Hultquist

My wife and I are both in love with Halloween. It is by far our favorite holiday. We spend more on Halloween decor than most people spend on Christmas. We have a huge bar in our basement and usually by mid September it is loaded with pumpkins, full sized zombies and other assorted nastiness. No cute Halloween decor allowed down there! Our favorite decorations, though, are the enormous pumpkins we purchase each year. We look for the largest pumpkins we can move into our pumpkin-colored Xterra (Yes, it’s true, our only vehicle is the wonderful color of orange) and I usually require the help of a neighbor to get those suckers down from the back of the truck.

It’s fun each Halloween night to watch the families move from door to door. Invariably, kids’ faces alight when they see the enormous pumpkins in the driveway and on the porch, pumpkins weighing more than they do, well over 100 pounds each. Parents take photos of their children sitting on the pumpkins and we’ve become a mini stop for them in the neighborhood. My only fear is that when some of these kids get older, they may be tempted to smash a few pumpkins and I’ll find several hundred pounds of pumpkin matter scattered around the yard. Still, they’d need a really big sledgehammer to knock some of these pumpkins down!

Mike Hultquist is an author, screenwriter, web development professional and total foodie with an obsession with chili peppers. His latest script, Arena, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Kellan Lutz is due on DVD on October 11th. You can learn more about Mike’s works at http://www.michaelhultquist.com.

TODAY’S GIVEAWAY:

Mike Hultquist will be giving away one signed, paperback copy each of his novel Off Track and the anthology Harvest Hills: 31 Tales of Halloween Horror, which he co-edited. Enter now by posting in the comments section below or e-mailing memoutreach@horror.org. Winners will be chosen at random. Contestants may enter once to be considered for all giveaways, but multiple entries are permitted.