Kelley Armstrong - The Halloween House

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The Halloween House

They called it the Halloween House. When Easter came and

everyone in the neighborhood competed to see who could hang

the most plastic eggs from their trees, the maples on the

lawn of 124 Meadowbrook were decorated only by spring buds.

They put no shamrocks on the door for St. Patrick's Day, no

gourds on the porch for Thanksgiving, no flag in the window

for Canada Day. Even at Christmas, they didn't so much as

string up lights. But on Halloween . . . that's when they

outshone everyone on the block, with tombstones, ghosts,

bats, skeletons, cobwebs, everything one could imagine. And

it all happened in one night. Like Christmas, we'd go to

bed on October 30th and the lawn at 124 Meadowbrook would be

festooned only with fallen leaves. But, come morning, it

would be transformed into a child's dream of Halloween come

true.

Despite all this work, the inhabitants of the Halloween House

never gave out candy. Occasionally, a new kid would ring

the doorbell, but most of us grew up knowing not to bother.

Who lived at 124 Meadowbrook? No one was quite sure.

Somebody did, we all knew that. Lights went on and off,

voices could be heard from the street, shadows passed over

the window. Some people said they'd seen people collecting

the mail or putting out the garbage, but no one could agree

on what they looked like. Grownups, and most of the kids,

seemed to accept this with an astounding lack of curiosity.

Randall and I did not.

Randall Parks and I been best friends since first grade,

when my mother baby-sat him, back in the days before my dad

left and Mom started teaching again. For as long as I could

remember, Randall and I had wondered about the Halloween

House. We made up stories about the inhabitants--axe-

murderers, fairies, vampires, you name it, we considered it.

Then, at the advanced age of eight, we decided we were old

enough to find out for ourselves and thus began the annual

Devil's Night Stakeout. Each October 30th, we'd sneak out,

armed with a thermos of hot chocolate and candy our parents

had bought for handouts. We'd creep through backyards to

the Halloween House, then slip into our special hiding nook

in the cedar shrubs and watch. We knew that whoever lived

there had to come out that night, to decorate the lawn. But

we never saw them. No matter how hard we tried to stay awake,

we always drifted off and, when we awoke, the work was done.

Not everyone in our neighborhood appreciated the glories of

the Halloween House. Some found it in bad taste. Others

complained it gave their children nightmares. I couldn't

understand that. There was nothing really scary at the house,

no severed heads or limbs, no bloody corpses, nothing worse

than the decorations our teachers hung up at school. I think

what really rattled the grownups was the tombstones.

Instead of the usual funny or scary Halloween inscriptions,

graves markers at 124 Meadowbrook bore real names, from real

people who'd lived and died in our neighborhood, with

inscriptions like 'Beloved Father and Husband', 'God has a

New Angel', 'She will Always be Missed'. The sayings were

always nice, but they still spooked some people.

The year I was ten, one of those people, Mrs. O'Malley started

a petition to tell the occupants of 124 Meadowbrook to cease-

and-desist. When she came by our house, Randall and I were

doing homework at the kitchen table. My mom answered the

door, listened to Mrs. O'Malley's spiel, then politely refused

to sign.

"Doesn't it bother you?" Mrs. O'Malley asked. "Having little

Katie exposed to things like that?"

"Exposed to what?" my mother asked. "To death?"

"To--to that--" Mrs. O'Malley jabbed her finger in the

direction of the Halloween House. "All those ghosts and

skeletons and gravestones."

"Reminders of death," my mother said. "Unpleasant, yes, but

a reality we all have to face. That's what Halloween is

for. To remind us that we're mortal."

"Memento mori," Randall said, looking up from his

multiplication tables. When both women turned to look at

him, he continued, "I read about that in a book. It means

something that reminds us of death, like ancient philosophers

who kept skulls on their desks as candleholders."

"Skulls?" I said. "Real skulls? Gross. That's so cool."

"It wasn't meant to be cool, Kate," my mother said. "It was

to make them think, if they died tomorrow, what would they

wish they'd done differently, what could they still do

differently."

Randall nodded. "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we

die."

Mrs. O'Malley stood there, following the conversation.

"But it isn't right," she said at last.

"No, it isn't," Mom said. "It isn't right and it isn't fair.

But it's an undeniable fact of life. We all die."

"No, no, I mean the house. The decorations. It isn't right."

"Freedom of expression," Mom said. "They have the right to

do it and we have the right not to take our kids to see it."

She opened the door. "I don't think the Changs are home,

but you might find someone over at the Reynolds."

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Kelley Armstrong - The Halloween House

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