When I was young, I always had trouble deciding on my favorite holiday. I was eternally stuck between the two commercial titans in American culture: Halloween and Christmas. You see, while many kids (especially those raised religious) would say Christmas is their favorite holiday hands down (between the free gifts, fanfare, and family gatherings), my mind was in a different place. I always valued the atmosphere of each holiday the most. And while the Christmas spirit was definitely pleasant, I also was charmed by the eerie, Autumn melancholy of the Halloween season. Not to mention, my birthday always came the very day after Halloween night. The point is, I really liked Halloween as a kid. However, one may notice I use the past tense here. This is because a particular Halloween night in my teenage years left me with a shift in feelings. A shift that made me fear Halloween more than anything else.
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It all started with the good old tradition of Trick or Treating. My childhood neighborhood was an older one, mostly built in the 1970s and 80s. The houses were primarily aged ranches, creating the perfect atmosphere for the Halloween motif. There was one section of the neighborhood however, that was built very soon after I moved in, somewhere around 2002 or so. The houses were large and expensive, meant to attract a wealthier group of people to our rural farm town. Being people of higher monetary status, many of them would go all out for the Halloween season, creating elaborate dioramas in their yards. On top of this, the candy they gave out was always top notch; even the houses with the lamest decorations would give you nice, big candy bars. Needless to say, this quickly became the most popular section of our old neighborhood on Halloween night.
Well, one particular man who lived in that newer section of neighborhood took the enthusiasm of his peers to a whole different level. In retrospect, I now believe this was not done out of kindness or love for the holiday, but out of sadistic malice. His house was bizarre, as it was the only one with a basement connected to the outside; a cellar if you will. It had typical cellar doors which were rusted and aged, despite belonging to a house that was only 8 or so years old by the time I was a teen. On Halloween night, the man would always set up an immense, white tent in his side yard, which also happened to encompass where the cellar doors were. He would also have unsettling music and sound effects on blast all night long, along with alarming, flashing lights that set the tent aglow like some scene out of a horror movie. Visiting this house was the pinnacle of the Halloween experience for all older Trick or Treaters in the neighborhood, and entering that tent was a test of courage for many.
Sadly, by the time my friends and I were approaching high school, we knew our Trick or Treating days were coming to an end. This ignited a new resolve within me to truly enjoy my last years of Halloween as a kid. As such, 2 years before High School on Halloween night, I invited some friends over from out of the neighborhood. Our goal was to make the most of our last couple of Trick or Treating opportunities. And I decided I was finally going to enter that tent. Up until that point, I had avoided it like the plague, only watching from afar. Ironically, despite loving the Halloween spirit, I absolutely despised horror as a kid. Well, the plan was simple, my 2 buddies and I were going to waltz on over to that section of the neighborhood when it got dark, and get ourselves some candy from the infamous tent man. Fast forward to when the time came, and we wasted no time thinking about it. My friends and I approached the house and briskly moved the flap of the tent to enter.
The inside was a sensory overload of lights, sounds, and even smells. I cannot recall exactly what the smells were, but I can say I remember being put off. In the dead center of the tent, blocking our view of the cellar entrance, was the man himself. He sat silently, in a terrifying, pure white, hockey mask. He was burly and imposing, a person who I could not identify at the time as someone I knew. Next to him was a bowl of candy. As we approached, he said nothing. Even as we reached for some candy bars, he sat still silently. As we left the tent, feeling like the whole thing was overhyped, I did notice one thing. The cellar doors behind the man seemed to be ever so slightly ajar. I brushed this off and followed my friends to the next house. We agreed to visit tent man one more time the next year, before we quit Trick or Treating for good.
So let’s fast forward one more time. The next year came around and this was it. Halloween was on a weekend, and we were prepared to make our last full blown Trick or Treating excursion a memorable one. I was dressed like a marine and frankly, felt like a badass. We let it get real late before we visited the tent man. All night long as we trekked from house to house, we heard the faint rumblings of music and sound effects no doubt coming from his tent. As we finally approached his house, we noticed that this year, the glow of the tent was pure red. No flashing, no light show. Just a droning, dark red glow. As for sound, at this point, all we could make out was a low, basal groaning. It droned throughout the air, the kind of sound that vibrates your chest. Well, this atmospheric shift didn’t seem to bother us too much, as we entered the tent just like the previous year.
As we closed the tent flap behind us, all sounds of Halloween bustle outside seemed to drown underneath the low bass, which at this distance was overpowering. I remember my ears vibrating as I basked in the demonic, red glow. The man’s chair and candy bowl still sat in the center of the tent. But the man himself was gone; only his mask sat upon the empty chair. My one friend noticed that the rusted cellar doors were propped open, revealing a dark stairwell. I was hit with that weird smell from the previous year, seemingly wafting from the looming darkness of the cellar. At that point, my instincts told me to turn around and leave. Forget the candy, and ignore the cellar. Of course though, in typical teenage boy fashion, my buddy who noticed the open doors, convinced us all to take a peek within. Why I said yes is still beyond me. Sure enough though, a peek turned into all three of us fully opening the cellar and plodding down the stairs. As my second buddy followed me down, he accidentally slipped his hand off the cellar doors and they slammed shut. The red glow was quenched in an instant and we were left in absolute darkness. The only stimuli left were the unsettling smell and the basal tones.
At that point, I was pretty much pissing my pants in panic, alarmed by the slam and not knowing why the low groaning was still happening. Not to mention, I was deathly afraid of the dark well into my teenage years, so I really wanted out. Unfortunately, my blundering friend was unable to reopen the cellar doors, so we decided to keep going into the dark. The stairs weren’t too deep, quickly opening up to a pitch black room. I couldn’t tell how large it was, but I did notice a familiar musty scent underneath the ever-present strange odor. I knew that musty scent from my dad’s stone cellar. It seemed to me at the time that the cellar was far older than the house it sat under. I decided to just stand right at the base of the stairs; I was done being brave. My two friends however, split up and traveled into the dark. I’m not sure why, but I decided to quietly plod back up the stairs and attempt to jostle the doors open. As I did this, I silently counted the seconds in my head. ‘1, 2, 3,…’ After about 15 seconds (maybe) I was able to actually pry the doors open a crack once again. Honestly, I thank my lucky stars to this day I did that.
After about maybe 40 more seconds (I really don’t remember the exact numbers here), I heard a loud bang and an almost inhuman shouting overpower the bass still assaulting my ears. “HEY! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE YOU LITTLE RATS!” Those were the exact words to a T. I will never forget them. Right after this, my one friend shrieked and both of them returned to me within seconds. They were truly hauling ass, and we all blasted the cellar doors fully open, tore across the tent, and dove through the flap. We landed in a heap on top of one another, jumped up, and ran out of that section of the neighborhood.
My friends went on to describe to me what exactly happened in the mere minutes I spent opening the cellar doors. Though they split up, they somehow ended back together farther into the cellar. They found a dimly lit room near one end, with that same red glow as outside. They told me they thought this was where both the smell and bass was coming from. Well, like fools, the both of them apparently entered that room. They saw what they told me at the time was “a fake cadaver or something on a table, with fake blood everywhere”. The smell was apparently overwhelming and they wanted to turn around and come back to me. Before they got the chance, that’s when another door at the opposite end of the red room blasted open, revealing the tent man. He was wearing a different hockey mask, covered in fake blood. This is when he screamed at my friends, lunging towards them. Let’s just say they were very happy I managed to get the cellar open.
I wish the story just ended there, but there is one more critical piece to the puzzle. The day after Halloween (my birthday), I drove past the tent man’s house on my way to lunch with my family. I noticed a police cruiser parked outside the man’s yard and yellow caution tape completely surrounding the tent. The entrance flap was coned off and had some sort of warning plastered on it. A couple men in trench coats stood there near the entrance, talking and writing something down on a pad. As we continued past the house, I remember a morbid thought popping into my head. What if that body my friends saw wasn’t a prop? What if that “fake” blood was in fact, the real thing? To this day, I don’t know the answers to these questions. Now, I could look it all up in the town police archives, but I think I’d rather not. I’m already scared enough by Halloween to this day. Be careful who you trust, and try to avoid dark cellars that don’t belong to you.