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It starts with the creaking of the attic door. Slowly the occupants of our attic make their way into the upstairs guest room. Behind the closed door I begin to hear the clinking of metal on metal and dull muffled thumps of unknown things dropped on the floor. Soon the subtle hiss of air travelling through a plastic tube followed by the rat-a-tat-tat of a small air compressor begin to dominate the sounds of the house each evening. Mr. Homeless Clown takes to sitting in my living room on my antique sofa while Mrs. Witch gently tinkles the ivory keys on my antique, quite out of tune, piano. Little zombie babies begin hanging out in my living room window. People on the sidewalk start to feel as if they are being watched as the devil on the roof keeps tabs on their passing.
Finally, it is time! Tombstones pop up around a giant yawning tree. The mourning lady takes her post in the graveyard. The zombie lays down next to the sidewalk ready to reach out and grab at anyone who passes by. Bats assemble themselves in the tree over the sidewalk and a huge spider fills his reservoir so that he will be ready to spray those that dare walk too close by. Ghostly fingers of fog creep across the ground and wisp up into the air. The stillness of the night is broken by flashes of lightning, crashes of thunder, munching of monsters, screaming of children, laughing of adults, whoops of surprise and yes, sometimes the crying of scared little children.
A talking skeleton sitting in his rocking chair and welcomes you to the sidewalk of horror. You must run the gauntlet past a coffin, its lid banging up and down as someone or something inside tries to escape. Past a pit of vipers that hiss and snip at your ankles as you make your way in the dark. Past the chanting witches gathered around their caldron while the man they have captured struggles to jump out of their pot. Past the ever watchful Chucky that has somehow acquired a submachine gun for this year’s festivities.
Past the snarling zombie dog that lunges out from his makeshift house. Past a large box of explosives that blasts air against your legs as you pass and up the stairs to the porch where the ghost of the house floats gracefully in the foyer. Past the table of horrors where someone thought they could preserve their beauty by putting their face in formaldehyde, where fish was served some untold number of years ago for dinner, flies and mice taking up refuge in its carcass while their cousin the Rat munches on some unidentified part of something that has also become unidentifiable. Finally, sitting on the porch swing you’ll find a cute little old lady wearing a witch’s hat with flame orange hair gracing her shoulders and a cute little old man with blue curly hair wearing a baseball cap giving out candy from a black witch’s caldron.
Oh, the sweet sights and sounds of Halloween at the Allen’s house.
