Halloween Haunts: HALLOWEEN, MY PAL MERV, AND THE SHADOW BEHIND THE WHEEL
By Cullen Bunn
Damn it, Merv.
You nearly got us all killed.
On Halloween night, 1980.
As ya do.
Back in those days, my friend Vardell threw these awesome Halloween parties. Vardell was the son of a reverend, and he lived in this sprawling old house with far too many rooms, some of which were secret. He would invite dozens of kids, all dressed in homegrown costumes or Ben Cooper masks or sometimes a clever combination of the two, to celebrate the spookiest of nights.
Some years, the church across the street from his house—his dad’s church—would put on haunted houses which, to this day of multi-million dollar mega haunted attractions, had some of the scariest, most elaborate fright scenes I think I’ve ever experienced.
It was a different time.
If the church wasn’t trying to terrify costumed children, the Jaycees were up to the challenge. That crumbling old Jaycees haunt down the street from Vardell’s house was full of Frankensteins, I tell you!
Frankensteins!
On Halloween night, 1980, though, we didn’t need haunted attractions to fill our souls with dread.
Because we had Merv.
Merv was, and is, a great friend. He was always up for rolling some D&D dice… or to throw some camo on and play war games out in the woods… or to talk about comic books and movies and TV shows. He knew a shocking amount about cars and ninjas and Jerry Clower. He was the kind of kid you wanted to have your back if the bullies were lurking nearby, because bullies didn’t like messing with Merv, because he was… unpredictable.
Merv was also the kid you just knew was going to get you into trouble.
We were having, as usual, a great time at Vardell’s party, eating snacks and watching black-and-white horror movies on TV. We decided—maybe a little later than Vardell’s parents liked—that we wanted to hit the neighborhood for a little trick-or-treating. Gathering up some grocery sacks and plastic pumpkins, we billowed out the front door and into the chilly night like a cloud of skeletons, aliens, vampires, and ghosts.
Our large band roamed from house to house, collecting Reese’s and Mary Janes and Snickers and candy corn in little plastic baggies. There must have been nearly a dozen of us, all told. Vardell and Joe and Carl. Kenny and Kevin and Doug. Merv, of course. And a bunch of others whose faces have been lost to time. We passed clusters of other trick-or-treaters dressed in costumes ranging from the store-bought to the amazing to the half-assed, all of which held a kind of magic in their own way. Our voices, our laughter… our joy… echoed out into the night.
As we crossed the street, a gigantic black car—I didn’t know the make and model, but I’m sure Merv did—turned the corner and cruised our way. The car was moving way too fast, especially on a Halloween night. Our trick-or-treating group hurried across the street just in time to avoid getting crushed beneath its wheels.
The driver pumped the brakes.
Just as it had been moving too fast, now it was moving far too slow.
The car’s windows were down. We could see four people inside, but they looked like nothing more than shadows. A shadow in the passenger seat. Two shadows in the back.
A shadow behind the wheel.
As the car crawled past, the driver yelled something at us. Maybe he insulted our costumes. Maybe he said he was going to kick our asses if we didn’t get out of the way. Maybe he called us nerds or one of the other insulting names creatively-boneless assholes liked to throw around in the early 80s.
I can’t really remember.
Nor do I recall what Merv yelled back.
It was some sort of blistering comeback, sure. Possibly even the dreaded “Your mama!” It seemed to jump unbidden and slightly muffled from beneath Merv’s mask.
The car’s engine roared. The beast of a vehicle accelerated, blasting down the street. For a second, we all cheered and hooted and hollered, thinking we had gotten one over on the driver. When the car’s brake lights flashed, though… when the tires squealed as the vehicle swung around in a sudden U-turn… when the headlights flared bright and washed across our faces… when the engine howled, the horn blared, and the car rocketed straight at us—
Do you know what a dozen 10-year-olds do when faced with the threat of getting pulped against a car’s grill or under the tires?
They scatter.
We pushed, shoved, jumped, fumbled, and scrambled in four different directions—four different directions at least—as we bounded across yards, ducked behind bushes, and shimmied into hiding places behind dull green residential transformer boxes. Some of the group dropped their bags or buckets of collected candy, while a few others threw handfuls of treats at the car as it roared past. Peanut M&Ms and Gobstoppers thumped against metal like hail. A few members of our band dropped their Ben Cooper masks to the street to be crushed into plastic fragments.
As we dashed to our hiding spots, the car reached the end of the block and took a hard left.
Watching from behind a tree, I saw the headlights go dark.
Vardell, Doug, Merv, and I rushed across a yard, commando-crawled behind a parked pickup, and hunkered down in a darkened carport. From there, we saw the car moving slowly up and down the neighborhood streets.
Hunting.
Like a shark sensing blood in the water.
Sometimes, it would slowly roll past, turn a corner, and disappear into the surrounding darkness. It always returned, though, rolling in the other direction. Whether we saw it or not, we knew it was there. Every now and then, we’d hear the tires squealing or… maybe more horribly… we’d hear one of the doors open and slam shut, as if one of the passengers had hopped out and was stalking us on foot. The driver kept the lights off, only turning them on when he thought he had spotted prey. Then, the lights flashed brightly as the engine revved and the car blazed down the street.
We might have stayed under that carport for the rest of the night, but a gigantic, frothy-mouthed German Shepherd found us. It rounded the corner and flew into a surprised rage, barking and snapping and chasing us as we scrambled out of hiding.
To be sure, a hellhound in service to the shadowy driver.
Ditching the dog, we crossed a few streets, ducking between houses and climbing back yard fences, as we made our way toward Vardell’s house. We only spotted the car once more as we made our way back. Looking toward an intersection, we saw the vehicle cruise past, its lights still dark. We crouched down. I held my breath. The car slipped past and vanished from sight.
As far as I know, the car’s still out there, still cruising the streets in the night.
Still hunting.
It wasn’t long before the other members of our group found their way to Vardell’s house, all of us catching our breath as we recounted tales of close calls and narrow escapes. We excitedly discussed the mysterious car and the ominous figures—the shadows—within.
Yeah, yeah.
They were probably just teenagers looking for a little trouble and fun.
Maybe they just wanted to steal candy.
Or maybe they were serial killers.
Childhood imagination, of course, veered toward the more sinister option.
And worse.
After all, the veil between worlds is thin on Halloween.
Regardless, we were thankful to be alive, and we knew we were alive because our hearts were racing and our blood was pumping. We laughed. We made fun of each other. We couldn’t wait to tell kids at school about what happened. It was all right that many of us lost our candy during the escape. We didn’t need the sugar high of fun-sized candy bars to keep us buzzing late into the night.
In the decades since, I’ve lost contact with most of those guys. Every now and then, I glimpse what they’re up to on social media. I still talk to Merv pretty regularly, though. We still play Dungeons & Dragons a couple of times a month.
I recently asked him if he remembered that Halloween adventure, and he did. He didn’t recall what the guys in the car yelled at us. Nor did he remember what he yelled back.
“They definitely said something first,” he said. “I don’t remember ever mouthing off first. But I always responded.”
That pretty much sums up the “code of honor” we lived by back in the day.
The code we still live by.
I think about that night, those friends, that terrifying car quite a bit. It cruises out of the depths of my memory from time to time, and I can vividly hear the roar of the engine, the screams of my friends, the barking of that infernal dog, and the laughter. One of my favorite things to do on a cold Halloween night—after the last of the candy has been passed out, after most of the trick-or-treaters have gone home—is to sit outside and just listen.
To the distant laughter of kids having adventures on the spookiest of holidays.
Damn it, Merv.
You nearly got us all killed.
And it was one of the best nights of my life.
CULLEN BUNN is the New York Times Bestselling writer of comic books such as Deluge, The Sixth Gun, Harrow County, Regression, The Empty Man, and Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe. Cullen has written comics for nearly all major publishers, including Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, Vault, Valiant, Boom, Oni Press, Titan, IDW, Dynamite, Outland Entertainment, New England Comics, and many others. His first full-length prose horror novel, Bones of Our Stars, Blood of Our World, comes out from Gallery Books in November. In addition, Cullen hosts the horror-centric YouTube channel, The Cullenoscopy. Visit his website at www.cullenbunn.com and subscribe to his newsletter at https://cullenbunn.substack.com/ .
Read an excerpt from Cullen Bunn’s new novel Bones of Our Stars, Blood of Our World:
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