All Hallows Eve

     On this, All Hallows Eve, it happens also to be my dear granddaughter, Rebeca's, birthday.  This little çmunchkin has brought us so much joy, happiness, and pride, it is difficult to think she's a young womanè now at nineteen years of age.

     It is only proper camping here in the darkness of Croton's RV park to go back in time to when we were young and scoured our neighborhoods for what was then "good, clean, mischievous fun." There were no worries and incidents such as we read about today.  Times have changed and no one you talk to disagrees.

     With tomorrow night being Halloween, I've been hearing through the grapevine that one of my previous posts written about my "Nighttime Exploration of the Campsite" made it past the realm of fantasy and my love of writing into the world of reality for some readers.  I think there should be a thank you inserted here if you thought it was true.  Alas, it was not.

     However, Halloween does bring back one memory, one incident that does linger for me.  It was a typical chilly October afternoon--late afternoon--just about the time parents would want children home to get ready for dinner.  We kids were trying for those last few minutes to finish a great afternoon of fun.  Late October, however, was the time that brought darkness at 5:30 - 6:00 p.m.  My friends and I loved to play in the field nearby.  The chill nipped but the type of active play caused it to go unnoticed.  The thought had passed through my mind that I should stop now and head back home.  That would take another ten minutes.

          The abandoned house at the other side of the field had always intrigued me.  It beckoned me in an eerie way and for some reason when it was suggested we go over and look around, I joined in and went right along with my two other friends.  The house was partially boarded up but not enough to keep anyone out.  It wasn't the haunted type as kids would rumor, but still...it was secluded, out of the way, and nestled among tall pines.

          Once inside, the air, of course, was colder; it was darker and the lack of afternoon sun gave us only a view of objects nearby.  We've never been here before and as the darkness obscured even shadows now, we found ourselves in the basement.  The old style house had three floors with a full basement and wooden, creaky staircases.  It must have been our desire to look for old valuable objects that drew us down there.   But once there, few words were spoken.  The dirt floor was dry and dusty.  The walls were damp and it must have been this dampness that caused the musty odor of mildew.

           There were three of us here but in this eerie darkness, I saw no one.  The cellar windows were boarded up and I knew the stairs were over my left shoulder.  What increased my anxiety was the lack of noise, especially with three young boys present.  Typical of my friends, they would purposely not answer my whispered call.  To show they didn't get to me with this childish prank, I continued to find my way by feeling along the wall.  It was then that I knew I was wrong.  I was wrong for being there...in this situation...at this time.  I was wrong for not getting home at the time requested by my mother.  It was wrong for the other two guys not to consider the situation and say something of their whereabouts in this inky, empty place.  The word 'empty' quickly left my mind when I heard the noise.  Ground level; a few feet in front of me.  The noise (the only noise I had heard since I began my somewhat secure trip around the perimeter of this cellar) was like a heavy boot being let down rather hard onto soft earth: sort of a thud! The wall my nervous hands probed had all sorts of nooks and crannies as I would have ex­pected for an earthen bank.  All of a sudden, the texture of the wall changed.  I felt a rough smoothness, like that of wool.  It wasn't earth.  It was clothing.  This change of texture sent chills that caused a pain in the nape of my neck, hairs on the back of my head to stand, and a cold sweat to form on my already frigid face.  Screaming or calling out was out of the question.  The woolen piece of clothing had no substance to it.  To push in on it or to apply the slightest pressure caused it to give.  I would have been relieved to find it firm as if it hung on some sort of board.  This did not.  

     My hands continued to grope ever so softly but quickly.  Doing this gave me the outline of a human figure too large to be one of my friends.  My worst fear was realized when I drew my hands upward to where a face should have been and there--above my head--there it was; warm flesh.  A beard-stubbled face.  A person was as tight against the wall as he could get.  This is what caused the shocking pain to race throughout my body as I jerked my hand away and ran to where I thought the stairs should be.  With hands outstretched feeling my way, I stumbled twice over my own feet.  Once at the stairs, I felt I would scream..and did.  With a racing, heart-pounding beat I leaped up the first three steps when the hand grabbed my ankle.  The grip was tight; forceful! I was yanked downward two steps before I could cushion my head and face with my crooked arm.  By the time I was at ground level, my lungs were filled with the dirt and loose dust created by the sweeping action of my dragged body.  I knew that my strength was no match for that which held me but once I was on the flat bumpy surface, I used my other foot to scrape off the vise-like clasp of a still hidden form.  One or two stomps of one foot on the gloved hand holding my other foot at last freed me.  These events were an eternity of but a few seconds.  My terrified, piercing scream echoed in this danky, horror-filled dungeon.  With my sense of direction completely gone, I flung myself a few yards forward and crashed into a wall that crumbled, collapsed, and sent me reeling through a wooden door.  Bewildered and stunned, I was conscious as I held my breath and listened.  My heart surely could be heard pounding for miles.  I could feel hot blood rushing through veins in my neck and close to the surface of my skin.  I'm sure one could see the pulsations of greatly expanded vessels.  I heard not a pin drop.  

     I felt safe for now I was able to scan my immediate surroundings and at long last realized I was outside at the rear of the house. I raced home across the field, threw open the door and incoherently related the incident to my parents.  They immediately called the police who, after hours of searching, could find no trace of my two friends.  Throughout the next day in the warm security of a bright sun the search continued.  Their whereabouts remained unknown.  This Halloween incident continues to haunt me and the mystery remains.

     By now it should be no mystery to the reader that I have a thing for abandoned structures, dark, silent nights, and disappearing bodies.  I wrote this piece of fiction about twenty years ago.  Have a safe and fun Halloween anyway.