by Christopher Hawkins Trick or treat. We say the words, but we don’t often give a lot of thought to them. They’ve become generic holiday words, not much more than a tidy slogan written in orange on black napkins or spelled out on window clings amid bats and spiders. For the kids that come to the door, they’re the gateway to getting candy in their bags, like the password spoken at the door of a speakeasy. As adults, we say them with a self-aware little laugh, borrowing a bit of that youthful insistence and making it our own, if only…

by David Sharp   One of my favorite Halloween traditions is going to haunted houses—not breaking and entering into an abandoned places where ghosts may dwell, but going to the commercial ones. Chasing the dragon of the adrenaline of fear is harder with age. In youth, I could find terror lurking in the shadows after watching a scary film or riding a roller coaster. Finding the frisson as an adult takes more effort. One of the best ways is to feed off the fear of a like-minded group—Imagination is the key. An ideal setting to psyche myself out into the…

by R.A. Stafne Sometimes Halloween plans just don’t work out. Indeed, they sometimes fall completely apart. This does not necessarily mean that Halloween won’t end up being scary and memorable, for that is just what happened to my husband and me one October 31. We invited a couple dozen folks to attend our Halloween party. Oftentimes in a new town, especially a small town, making friends with people to invite to a Halloween party can be difficult.  Thus, as in previous years, we found ourselves inviting a few people we didn’t know very well. One invitee in particular was an…

By Katherine Kerestman The Hallowmas Feast was held in The Cauldron Black, an occult shop in Salem, Massachusetts, on the wharf in Salem Harbor.  It is a close space with black walls and a sound system playing chanting New Age music, an emporium selling shirts, hoodies, and other garments black and screen-printed with white occult symbols.  The ware also includes wands, candles, boxes with many compartments, jewelry with pentacles and powers (crystals, pewters), books on various forms of witchcraft, incense and burners, poppets, many Egyptian figures, and oils. The Hallowmas Feast began with participants processing into the inner room, the doorway of which is hung…

by Jeremiah Dylan Cook I didn’t know true horror until the day my grandma died. Up until that point, no one I’d known closely had journeyed into the great unknown. That’s not to say I didn’t understand the concept of death. I’d learned that lesson when I’d watched the film adaptation of Richard Matheson’s What Dreams May Come at the age of eight. As the credits rolled on that bittersweet Robin Williams film, I burst into tears over the realization that my days were numbered. A year later, my grandma, Linda Springfield, would pass suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart…

by Clay McLeod Chapman   In our home, it’s always Halloween. The ceramic pumpkins and paper spiders tend to stay hung up throughout the house all year round. I have two sons. These boys were born in the Halloween season. They identify as Halloween children, born amidst jack o’ lanterns and candy corn pacifiers. When their classmates ask when’s their birthday, rather than give an exact date, they simply say— “Halloween.” This is mostly my fault, I’ll admit. I’ve nurtured a culture of creepiness in our home. I’ve tried not to exert my own affinity for all-things horrific into our…

by Lou Rera Those of us who live for this time of year when we can be someone or something else without raising eyebrows, know full well, Halloween is a day unlike any other. I suspect most HWA members are card carrying night people to some degree. This year Halloween and a full moon crash into our lives on the same day! Can you believe it? Some people might treasure the full moon the way the heretic pharaoh, Akhenaten (1350 BC) adored the sun. He tried to convert Egyptian society to worship and bring into daily life, the God RA…

By Jeffrey LeBlanc Children of Horror, The leaves are crisped and sere with a harvest moon brilliantly glowing. Goblins, ghouls, and ghosts trek chilled, fog-filled streets to trick or treat. And the living and undead dare the decrepit crypt and the haunted house to test their nerve on this unholiest of magical and macabre nights—Halloween! Hopefully…or not…they survive. Happy Halloween HWA family! We want to share with you fiends and friends this horrific poem in tune with the terrifying season. Being a child of Poe, Machen, Lovecraft, King, Anne Rice, and Matheson, we channeled our inner madness on Christmas Eve…

By Dr. Greg McWhorter Heh...heh...he...The wind is starting to blow. The bats are flapping around in the moonlight. Distant howls from wolves can be heard late into the night. Ah, yes...it’s Halloween time once again! And what better way to spend the witching season than by spinning some dead wax! Although I am a horror writer, I also have a radio show called the Record Graveyard where I play the vinyl records I collect as the Crypt-Keeper. In 2013, I shared some of my favorite Halloween records as part of the HWA Halloween Haunt (HWA 2013). Now I have risen…

By Heddy Johannesen Horror has a seductive hold on us. Horror is like a tentacle crawling from the crypts of our darkest dreams to suck us into horrific nightmares. If done properly, it casts a dark magic, sending chills down readers’ spines. Now is the time, now is the hour. In my opinion, horror movies such as Insidious 1-2, The Possession of Hannah Grace, and Sinister aren’t scary to me. I am an avid writer of horror fiction and I am well read. In order to give readers or viewers the fright royale, readers should be too afraid to not leave the lights on all night and…

By Loren Rhoads   Halloween has always been my kid’s favorite holiday. I did everything I could to encourage Ezra in that, even letting her choose to stay home from a school sleepaway trip in fifth grade so she could trick-or-treat. What kind of monster schedules a school trip over the best holiday of the year? By the time Ezra reached junior high, some of her classmates were already outgrowing trick-or-treating, too cool for costumes. Not my kid! Since she’s an only child, we made dates for her to trick-or-treat with another seventh-grader. My husband Mason and I took them…

By David B. Riley I worked for many years in the hotel business in the mountains of Colorado.  At high altitude snow was a very real possibility for Halloween.  One day, as Halloween was approaching, snow seemed unlikely so I thought Halloween might be good for once. I asked why no one had decorated the lobby of the hotel.  I was shocked when I was informed it was no longer allowed.  The hotel had recently been taken over by another company. Apparently the new owners did not approve of Halloween and there would be no decorations or wearing of costumes…

by L. Marie Wood Pumpkins and goblins and witches galore… those are things that Halloween is for!  Ok, mayb e not, and I thank you for sitting through that random rhyming start – the rest of the post will be better… I promise.  😊 Lost of people talk about Halloween an its origins, what it means, and what you could (should) do on that day, but how many of you know about All Hallows Eve?  The day before the one where children dress up as Elsa and Batman, their only quest getting as much candy as they can fit into their…

By Meghan Arcuri   The fathers always took us. That’s just how it was. Maybe the dads liked it more. Maybe they thought they’d get extra candy. Maybe that’s the way it was done in my neighborhood. Regardless, most of my memories of trick-or-treating involve my dad. One year, my older brother tried to argue that we didn’t need Dad to come with us. Only in 4th grade, I wasn’t so sure I was old enough for that. Fortunately, my dad said no. I was old enough, however, to be aware of the shaving cream wars my brother and his…

by Amanda Trujillo Halloween is horror movie season. Actually, I enjoy horror movies year-round, but when Halloween draws near, I marathon my favorites. As a child, I’d watch my favorite films (mainly Universal) throughout October to get into the spirit of the season, sorting them by categories and devoting entire days to vampires, werewolves, haunted houses, etc. Nowadays, I need to begin watching my extensive collection in August and usually don’t finish until early November. I’ve also switched to viewing the most recent releases first and working my way backward to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Doing so allows me…

by Robert P. Ottone As long as I can remember, Halloween has been my favorite holiday. This isn’t an original concept, right? Every horror writer champions Halloween as the best night of the year, but for me, my affinity for the spookiest of all nights connects directly to my dad and our special way of celebrating the night. The last time I went Trick or Treating was in fifth grade. I dressed as Michael Meyers and went out with my friends Shawn and Chris, and came home with a large assortment of deliciousness. After that, there was no time to…

Dracula. Frankenstein. The Mummy. The Wolfman. Posters covered his walls, as did cotton cobwebs, rubber tarantulas, and bats strung with elastic. Dribbles of wax added authenticity to the gold-painted candelabra on shelves covered with Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror comics and antique Aurora monster models. Layered across this display fit for a wax museum was the season’s own finishing touch, stark claw-like shadows of brittle, bare branches cast through his window by the flickering streetlamp outside. As he stood gazing down at Marlborough Street, Jeff wished he were twelve again—old enough to go even a block ahead…

by Nicole M. Wolverton Hundreds of pairs of feet pounding on Millennium Bridge, the sound of it ricocheting off the River Liffey, was like being inside an enormous beating heart—the chaos and fury mirrored in my own chest. That we all blindly followed a massive puppet toward Wolftone Square to meet up with two other parades led by two different giant puppets didn’t seem strange at all. Neither did the wind rising eerily off the Liffey, nor the howls of Macnas’ street performers cavorting amongst us in the dark. The Summoning had begun. That was the scene in Dublin, Ireland…

By Jo Kaplan These are strange and terrifying times, my friends, but not the good kind. Not the kind of strange and terrifying when a full moon shines down on twenty-five hours of Halloween mayhem as the bars fill with grotesque creatures and the streets fill with hungry little monsters. Who knows what Halloween will bring us in this, our year of the pandemic? Perhaps the streets will be empty and hauntingly quiet; perhaps you would prefer to be safe in your home. Even so, let us not mourn the loss of this year’s Halloween, but find creative ways to…