Halloween Haunts: Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet, Don’t Give Me Peeps To Eat! by Pamela K. Kinney
When one is a child, Halloween is about trick-or-treating for candy. Treats as in Halloween, and not from any other holiday. Except in 1965, I learn the horror of Easter peeps. Those marshmallow treats in shapes of yellow chicks.
We lived in Ontario, California. Friends of mine, Jenny and Cindy, lived with their parents in the same complex as my parents and I did. We had agreed to go trick-or-treating together and my mother would be shepherding us, to make their parents happy. Wearing our costumes and bags in hand, we left the complex after a quick trick-or-treat there. I hoped we could convince Mom to let us stay out later than an hour—to really get the bag full.
An hour later, Mom agreed to one more block. Each house added more candy to our bags. Midway, we stopped at a long, darkened driveway that ended at a house. My friends and I begged Mom to let us go alone. She agreed, though with hesitation.
A long, dark driveway. A lone house. Most might think only fools would go knock on the door—if you watch horror movies. But none of us had in mind serial killers or monsters. Just candy. Evil, seductive Hershey bars and gum balls.
Jenny knocked. Suddenly, the door swung open and the porch light glowed to life. A monster? No, just a lady. She almost stumbled out of the doorway as she bent to peer at us, clutching a beer. I understood. The lady was drunk. Behind her, I saw a crowd of adults in a lit room. A party.
“How adorable! Trick-or-treaters! You want candy?”
My friends nodded.
“Well, you have to come in and watch me do something first. Okay?”
My friends shoved past me and entered. I bolted back to my mother.
Mom said, “Where are the others?”
“They are inside the drunk lady’s house.”
“What?” Just as she was about to head to the house, my friends came trotting up. Cindy shoved a package containing yellow somethings at me. “See what you miss getting, Pam?”
I wrinkled my nose at the yellow marshmallow chicks in the package. “Peeps?
“For watching her dance on a table.”
“Really? You watched some drunk lady dance on a table for old candy from six months ago? From Easter? Yuck.”
Mom told us that ended trick-or-treating. My friends protested, but they quieted when my mother started walking, telling us to come on. When we got back to the complex and before they stepped inside their homes, they teased me about having more candy then me because I had been too chicken.
I knew better. Who wants to eat something the Easter Bunny left you six months ago?
TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: Pamela is offering one signed paperback copy of Paranormal Petersburg, Virginia, and the Tri-Cities Area. Enter for the prize by posting in the comments section. Winners will be chosen at random and notified by e-mail. You may enter once for each giveaway, and all entrants may be considered for other giveaways if they don’t win on the day they post. You may also enter by e-mailingmembership@horror.org and putting HH CONTEST ENTRY in the header.
PAMELA K. KINNEY is the author of Haunted Richmond, Haunted Richmond II, Haunted Virginia: Legends, Myths, and True Tales, Virginia’s Haunted Historic Triangle” Williamsburg, Yorktown, Jamestown, and Other Haunted Locations, and Paranormal Petersburg, Virginia, and the Tri-Cities Area. She has written fiction that enables her readers to journey to worlds of fantasy, go beyond the stars, and dive into the vortex of terror. One of her stories proved heart-stopping enough to be runner up for the 2013 WSFA Small Press Award. As Sapphire Phelan, she also writes bestselling paranormal romance with dark heroes and heroines with bite! Find out more about her at http://www.PamelaKKinney.com and her pseudonym, Sapphire Phelan, at http://www.SapphirePhelan.com.
