I wanted Halloween to be special. You know what I mean, like in the movies or in those little sleepy towns that have their icons and legends which make Halloween so… perfect. Sleepy Hollow has the headless horseman, Salem has witches, hell, point pleasant has the Mothman. My town doesn’t have anything like those incredible stories, or at least it didn’t.
Halloween is such a special time of year, it’s so fun to see the black and orange decorations strung up in the windows of quaint homes, the ghostly decorations littering every yard, the late night monster movie marathon. It’s all so nostalgic, and that’s part of the problem. Halloween hasn’t been like that in a long time for me. Maybe it’s me growing up, or maybe people just don’t celebrate it like they used to. Whatever the reason, it lost its magic for a while. My town stopped having its festivals, trick or treating died out and now we are lucky if the doorbell rings 5 times for candy. Last year was the first time it really struck me and it bothered me for a very long time. All the way through September and into October, I was desperate for something to instill that whimsical spirit of the season, but it seemed like nobody in my town was nearly as interested as myself. That’s when I started researching.
Every time I googled “Best towns for Halloween” that all had something in common, a gimmick. Every town on the list took Halloween so seriously, and they all had some local legend or some icon that tied their town eternally to the fall of the year, and I realized that any town could have that, as long as something happened to make it so. That’s when I hatched an idea: I start the legend myself. It’s that simple, just do something that immortalizes the holiday and makes it synonymous with my town, and that way every year it would be something special. There was a major problem though: I am not, nor do I have access to mythical creatures, monsters, or ghostly spirits. I had to be creative.
Tell me, why is the Amityville house famous? Sure, most would say because it’s “haunted” but it’s really because of tragedy. Specifically, Murder. All it took was one violent crime, and now that stupid house is on everyone’s Halloween road trip map, it really is that easy. I thought pretty long and hard about how to emulate that general strategy without hurting anyone or getting arrested. I thought about putting nails in the road on Halloween night, and simply stirring up some chaos, maybe make people think there was some vengeful spirit of Samhain coming to reclaim its holy day or something, but none of that seemed worthy enough to start a legend.
The fact was, somebody had to get hurt. This was the hard part, I’ve never been a huge fan of real violence. Sure I watched some pretty nasty horror films but the real deal always grossed me out, I was never the type to visit shock sites. I also didn’t really have any enemies at the time, and most people had always treated me really well, which at first made all this even more difficult, but later ended up being the thing that helped most. I had a few friends who I spoke to about the whole “manufactured legend” idea and they all seemed really interested and a few of them seemed to be enthusiastic about it, so then came the first major obstacle, they already knew a little more than I’d like.
Three of them I particular, I spoke a little too loosely and to one of them I made a joke about murdering someone on Halloween night to make a legend, so at that point It was pretty clear that I’d be their first subject if some carved up corpse turned up the next day. It was really a shame because I really liked her. Sacrifices must be made though, so I called all three of them up about a week before the special day. I told them I wanted to start a ghost story that would reach a climax on Halloween night, but I would need their help.
We brainstormed ideas and we ended up agreeing on trying to stage a haunting at the cemetery. It’s not exactly in the town center, but that’s a good thing. Nobody would notice us setting stuff up, and it’s close enough that plenty of people would still see what’s going on and that’s how the word will spread. It started with some light vandalism. One of my friends spray painted some spooky stuff on the road just outside the graveyard, “Help!, “Save me!” and anything else a ghost would say. It was dumb but it would suffice. A few days later, a different friend started putting markings on the tombstones, hoping people would have gotten curious and would be snooping around. At that point it was nearly Halloween, and honestly, nobody really showed much interest. I’m hindsight it was all rather boring.
When Halloween finally arrived, I felt a bit empty. I felt like I totally missed my goal of starting a local legend, and in an act of desperation, I did what I had to do. They met me there at the cemetery, the night before Halloween. We were supposed to set up a few spooky items, burned candles, a spirit board, maybe some fake blood. Around midnight though, I had this deep urge inside me that made my veins feel like they were stretching out and tightening, almost like I was painfully frozen. We were split up so that we could cover more of the graveyard, so I was basically alone with one of my friends. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t expect it to get to this point, and I had already prepared myself. He was bent over trying to light a candle, which was totally futile because there was a gentle breeze. It was actually kind of funny how he’d just lit it before I stabbed him between his shoulder blades.
I should have expected a scream, but I guess movies make it seem like a simple stab is enough to kill someone. Thank god it was almost Halloween though, because my friends probably thought it was a really bad attempt to scare them. I guess the shock was enough to prevent him from really fighting back, because he turned really quickly and just had this scared look on his face. I honestly didn’t know how sharp a knife really was, I’ve seen them cut through pumpkins and meat and vegetables and stuff, but there was almost no resistance. I just swung it across his throat and it opened up, and the scared look went away. I had an urge to keep cutting him but I knew if I wasn’t careful I’d probably get caught, so I just moved on.
It was very clear that his scream didn’t have much effect, because my other friend was about 100 feet away, smoking a cigarette. Again, I’m thankful for the timing because the fact I was covered in blood, gripping a bloodied kitchen knife didn’t even seem to phase him. I don’t know what he tried to say or what he said. I don’t remember if the words ever left his mouth before I put it into his temple. I was better that time, no scream. He just went limp. At that point, my last friend, the one I really liked, had walked up on me. Now I knew this was how it was going to go, but a part of me wished that I could have screamed and acted like it wasn’t me, and she’d believe me and she’d get to see what I worked so hard for. The knife was pretty damning though.
She didn’t run like I thought she would, she just sort of stared forward. Honestly, if anyone else saw her they might’ve actually thought the place was haunted. She was white as a ghost. I had no choice, so I lunged at her and grabbed her by the shoulders. I started to apologize, but then she started screaming and pulling away, so I never even really got to say sorry. It doesn’t matter what anyone says, killing a vampire isn’t easy. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to actually hit the heart, especially if they’re not just laying still in a coffin. I could have sworn I knew anatomy better than that. When the knife went in, I sort of loosened up, thinking she’d fall down or collapse. She didn’t. She actually managed to pull away in time to take the knife with her, which was bad news for me as you can guess.
I guess at that point I started to panic because I didn’t really chase, instead I just sort of stood there with my finger against my lips asking her to be quiet. Naturally that didn’t work, so she took of running and immediately tripped on a root and fell down face first. Call it luck, but she actually fell onto the knife that was already in her chest, and I guess it was sort of like an off switch. She just hit the ground and immediately got quiet. Obviously I had to get the knife back, so I rolled her over onto her side, and luckily some of the handle was still poking out. It was just enough for me to get a grip and pull it out. Again, I was thinking ahead, so I was already wearing gloves and expendable clothes. It also helped that my friends all kept out meetings pretty secretive because the whole point was to fool our town.
I didn’t know how easy it would be and it honestly shocked me. The only time I was ever even approached by the cops was because they were basically talking to all their friends. To the best of my knowledge, I’m not even a suspect. I know it’s dumb but I keep the knife, never even cleaned it.
A few days ago it was “Halfoween” and it really got me excited. I’m going crazy thinking about what I’ll do this year.