Halloween (part 1)

So I haven’t seen Joyce since before the World Series. She’s the first girlfriend I’ve had who’s let me do my thing and watch the playoffs. I gotta say, it was pretty awesome of her. She waited until Monday to call me and say she was sorry about the Dodgers, and to remind me we had plans for Halloween.

I’m not Mr. Halloween. I dressed up and trick or treated when I was a kid, and then I was one of those 12 and 13 year old boys who did stupid shit on Halloween night (toilet paper and eggs mostly), but that was pretty much it. By high school I was over it, and older kids usually didn’t make such a big deal out of it in Maryville. I reckon I went around trick or treating with Portia or Cordelia, but I really don’t remember. I certainly didn’t put on a dumbass costume to go with them.

The big thing at MT for Halloween was a bonfire and (duh) drinking. It was in one of those bonfires that we burned my list of the 30 chicks I’d slept with in October, 2015. After that, I figured that I was done with Halloween, but then I got invited to some lameass Halloween party the first year I was in Los Angeles. Since you had to put on a costume, I put on…my Crawdads uniform. Real original, I know. Some of the people there had been working on their costumes for months from the looks of it. I remember one dude sewed his own Jack Skellington costume. It looked amazing…and he looked as gay as I reckoned he was.

Crawdads uniforms are red, and I know red is a good color on me.  So, even if it was lameass as a costume, I looked good.  Good enough to get me a hot girlfriend.  That was the night I met Monica.

And now this year with Joyce.

Joyce knows that Halloween’s not my thing, and she told me I didn’t need a costume for what we were doing. (Although she did say she wanted to see me in my Crawdads uniform sometime lol.) I didn’t reckon she was going to take me to some lameass party, since her friends like that Muffy woman I met didn’t certainly didn’t have Halloween parties. So I had no idea what Joyce had in store.

So I drove up to her house, and when I got there…

She’d turned her house into a haunted house. I don’t mean that she hung some cobwebs on the door and put a pumpkin in the front yard. She went all the way. And then some. The front yard had some tombstones and a ghost hanging from the big tree, plus eerie lighting and all this fog on the ground.

There was even eerie music.

It was around 8, so there were no trick or treaters around, but some of her neighbors did come by to have a look at what she’d done. I’m telling you, if there was an Altadena prize for haunted house decorating, Joyce would win it.

There was no sign of Joyce when I got to the door. I used the knocker like I usually do, then I used the bell…and there was no answer. I was caught between thinking this was cool and this was scary. I mean, I had no idea what was going to be inside when I got there.

So I tried the doorknob. It turned, and I opened the door. It made this really loud creak.  It was pitch dark inside. I walked in, and the minute I got through the door a bunch of spiders came down on my head. I like to think that I’m at least as tough as most guys, but the spiders practically made me jump three feet in the air. There was one that kept brushing up against the back of my neck, so I could swear they were moving.

I took a few steps forward to get away from the spiders…and the next thing I knew I was caught in a giant spider web. This scary green light lit it up so I could see where I was…and there was this big plastic spider moving towards me.

Then the door closed behind me. With a slam.

I jumped again. Almost out of my shoes.

Part of me was thinking it was funny and pretty awesome of Joyce. I mean, I knew it was Joyce’s house and I’d been there plenty of times and this was only decoration, but it was real well done and already pretty scary. And, hey, getting scared out of your mind can be pretty fun.

So I got myself out of the sticky spider web…plenty of it was still clinging to me…and took another step in towards the living room. It was pitch dark again, and then I heard this bloodcurdling scream from what seemed like nowhere. I jumped again. I mean it was a terrifying scream. Like someone was having their head chopped open or something. When you hear something like that and you’re standing in total darkness, you’re going to jump.

Then some lights came on, all green and eerie, lighting up things like skeletons and vampire bats. I could hear MooMoo and Numnums throwing themselves against the door of the guest room…which only made it scarier. It sounded like someone was locked in and was trying to get out.

I don’t remember how it all happened in order, but, at one point, a fire broke out in the fireplace. I was having a good time, but I began wondering if I was gonna have a heart attack.

Finally a flickery light hit the door of the bedroom. There was a sign that said “enter at your own risk” or something…so I obviously had to go inside. There were scary noises coming from inside, and, as I went to turn the doorknob, everything went dark again.

I opened the door…and then I really did get scared totally shitless. I still don’t know how it worked, but this glowing green ghost appeared out of nowhere and flew right into me. And next thing I knew I was covered in ice cold ghost guts. I’ll admit it: I screamed like a girl. If you’re standing in the dark and have gross shit all over you that you don’t know what it is and you don’t know how to get it off, believe me, it’s scary as hell.

Then some more green light came on, this time lighting up the bed, where a skeleton was chained to the bedposts…wearing a Dodger hat. And with this pumping heart inside its ribcage. I was still freaked out from the ghost guts, so seeing myself as a skeleton made me jump again. Especially when the pounding heart sounds got louder and louder.

I got the hell out of the bedroom and went back to the living room, where the skeletons and bats were lit up…and then a red glow came out of the kitchen. A red glow like fire, not just a light. The door opened, and I saw a figure that looked like a woman silhouetted against the black.

“Joyce??”

(there’s more)