Admittedly, I was a foolish and immature teenage girl when I graduated high school 23 years ago. While others were focused on securing military futures and/or furthering their education, I was really only looking forward to moving out of my parents’ home and moving in with my high school sweetheart. It would end up being a huge mistake that I regret to this day, but I digress.
For the sake of anonymity, we’ll call him Jack. Though we lived in different towns and attended different schools, Jack and I had been dating a few years prior to graduation. When we weren’t in school, we were inseparable, so it was no surprise to anyone when we started looking for a place to rent and move in together. What did come as a surprise, however, was Jack’s suggestion to share a place with 2 of his friends so that we could all split the bills. It wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but I was familiar with both of them and eventually (against my better judgment) agreed to having roommates.
The 4 of us soon moved into the upstairs apartment of an old 2-story house in a seedy neighborhood. Of course, it wasn’t long before shit hit the fan, as neither of the “roommates” consistently paid their share of the rent, and the place was overrun by people who didn’t live there. The constant drug use, fighting, property damage, kicking out random people sleeping on the couch, etc… It was pure chaos, and I was just an outcast, living somewhere I clearly didn’t belong. But the worst part of it all for me was that Jack and I had grown apart. It was as if I never really knew Jack at all… no pun intended.
Living in a house full of potheads and drug addicts for several months made me hate drugs, and even weed to be honest, yet I continued to smoke it myself in an attempt to find some semblance of peace and happiness. My own friends would visit often, which also helped me to cope with the hell I was living to some extent. But still, anytime I had a reason to get out of that house, I did… and so was the case on Halloween night of that year.
My friend, Steph (not her real name), had stopped by to hang out, and we both smoked for a bit before getting the munchies and realizing it was Halloween. Being that there was never any food in the house (because someone would always steal it), we quickly recognized the solution to our problem and set out on foot to relive our youth and score some free chocolate bars.
Now, I know what you might be thinking. Yes… we were too old for trick-or-treating. Yes… we should have been ashamed of ourselves for taking candy that was meant for little kids. Yes… we were selfish and immature. No… we didn’t care. We were just hungry.
The timing was perfect, as people had just started filing down the streets with kids in goofy costumes racing from door to door. Steph and I weren’t wearing costumes because, well, we were bums… and that’s the answer we gave every time we knocked on a door and they asked. I’m sure the ones who didn’t question us had already figured that out when they saw the used wrinkly Walmart bags we held open for candy though.
Having satisfied our munchies while eating candy along our little adventure, we decided to keep walking and knocking as long as we could to increase our future candy stash. It wasn’t until the streets were silent and empty, with nearly every porchlight turned off, before we finally called it quits and began our long trek back to the apartment in the dark.
The mood soon changed on the walk back, though. Up to that point, it had been a fun and memorable night, but for some reason, neither of us could shake this awful feeling of impending doom, as if we were about to star in our own real life horror movie. From a rational perspective, this fear was simply due to walking in the dark on Halloween, but the fact that we never told anyone where we were going or what we were doing stuck in our minds. We weren’t even sure if anyone knew that we left the apartment. Not that any of them would have cared… but the mere thought of nobody having a shred of information to share if we went missing somehow, was suddenly quite unsettling.
The night air grew colder by the time we finally found ourselves speeding down the hilly block of houses that led to my apartment, and we were both glad to see that the porchlight in front of my door was still on. We slowed our pace toward the bottom of the hill, and as we crossed the street toward the sidewalk, our fears soon became reality.
From behind a vehicle parked in our neighbor’s driveway, a very tall man quietly stepped out of the darkness. As silly as it sounds, he was wearing what appeared to be a large hairy werewolf mask draped over his entire head, paired with Freddy Krueger gloves on his hands. He stared intently, gently tapping the long spiky claws of one glove against his chest, as he rounded the bumper of the vehicle before slowly moving toward us with each step.
It was actually quite terrifying at first, but I quickly assumed that it must have been someone we knew from the apartment trying to scare us. So, brave little me started laughing and mocking his stupid outfit. What the man did next though chilled me to my core. Still silent, he stopped moving, cocked his head to one side, and lowered his hand from his chest. Then, he suddenly started speed-walking right toward us.
A second wave of fear coursed through my veins, as Steph and I instantly bolted across the sidewalk toward the front door. Steph made it through the threshold first, and I leapt inside soon after, quickly turning to slam the door and lock it. I saw the wolf mask facing me immediately behind the door as I did so, and just as I locked the deadbolt, he tried turning the handle from the other side of the door to get in. We were merely a split-second away from… whatever that was.
Steph and I collapsed on the floor trying to catch our breath, as we heard him scratching at the door with his claws. Someone eventually looked down the stairwell to see what the commotion was about, but by that time the scratching ceased. As we made our way upstairs to see who was (and who wasn’t) in the apartment, I was shocked to see a room full of people that included both of the guys I suspected of pulling the prank, as they were similar in height and build to the man outside.
One of the guys did go outside to see who might be trying to get in, but the man was long gone. Everyone in the apartment denied having anything to do with it, and they all could have cared less (including Jack), so it really didn’t seem like they were behind it. The only other possibility that crossed my mind was the guy who lived below us with his wife and baby on the first floor, but when I later asked his wife about it, she told me it couldn’t have been him because they were all inside that night, and they didn’t have any company.
Steph & I never did learn the true identity of the wolf-man, and we will never know what his true intentions were that night. Perhaps it was a well-orchestrated prank by someone we knew? Or maybe it was simply a prank by a random stranger? I prefer to think of it as a prank either way, because regardless of who was behind the mask, the thought of this being anything other than a prank is… very disturbing.
As for Jack, our relationship finally ended when I left him. After I moved out, he kicked his “friends” out of the apartment for not paying rent, and he was stuck cleaning up the mess they left behind. Great time to man up, Jack.
To anyone who made it this far… Trust your instincts! Stay smart, stay safe, and stay sane out there…