Johnny Halloween Read Online Free PDF Page B

Believe me, Woody, they won’t forget what happened here anytime soon. They’ll be on guard from this day forward, and without our little drama, that would never have happened.”
    “Still, the look in that little girl’s eyes…. The way she stared at me, without fear, as if she could see through my mask, as if she possessed some righteous power—”
    Brother Bishop gripped the reverend’s arm. “That was the Evil One, Woody. Don’t you see? That was Lucifer himself, tempting you.”
    The reverend nodded. He leaned back, closed his eyes, and massaged his cheeks, which were dotted with swollen red blotches.
    “Bishop,” he said, “I don’t want to smell or see or feel burlap…ever again.”
     
     
     

 
    THE MAN WHO KILLED HALLOWEEN
     
     
    For kids growing up in the sixties, Halloween was the best of holidays. Costumed boys and girls hit the streets in packs. As night fell entire neighborhoods were transformed into creepshow carnivals.
    Judging by today’s Spookshow Superstore standards, Halloween wasn’t anywhere near wild. In suburban America circa 1968, you’d be hard pressed to find a house with a full-on animatronic display in the front yard featuring giant wriggling arachnids, the way you can today. “Professional” haunted houses with chainsaw-wielding actors and soon-to-be bisected actresses were unknown as well, and you sure weren’t going to see any adult stepping out in full Rocky Horror regalia. Stuff like that just didn’t exist. In those days Halloween meant monsters, and America served up the old cinematic standards who’d been creeping around since the thirties: Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man and the Mummy.
    So ’68 wasn’t exactly the Halloween that dripped blood. It wasn’t plug-in, and it wasn’t sexy. What it was was a hand-carved pumpkin on the porch, a big bowl of candy behind the front door, and a TV tuned to an old Universal Studios chiller. Barring the occasional old lady who’d dress up as a witch to scare any kiddies who dared to ring her doorbell, few adults wore costumes, or had parties, or did much more than dole out candy.
    In those days, Halloween was for kids. Those who’d reached double digits age-wise mostly made their own costumes, while the under-ten population dressed in outfits purchased at the local five-and-dime. Kids transformed themselves into cut-rate fairy princesses and witches, hippies and soldiers, Tarzan of the Apes and George of the Jungle, and all four Beatles. They made the rounds of the neighborhood, collecting their booty in pillowcases or grocery bags, ringing as many doorbells as possible before the clock ticked its way toward the inexorable parental curfew.
    If you started early and moved fast, you could get enough candy to last a month. And if you planned ahead and hit the right houses early enough, you could score stuff that was better than candy—some folks actually gave out homemade treats like popcorn balls and candy apples, and recipients didn’t worry that they’d end up choking on razor blades secreted in same. I mean, you got this stuff from your neighbors . You knew where they lived .
    That’s the way it was in the town where I grew up. Vallejo, California, was home to Mare Island Naval Shipyard. The Yard brought lots of people to town during World War II, and many of them stayed once the war was over. By the time the sixties rolled around, Mare Island was turning out nuclear submarines and business was booming. Economically more blue collar than white, Vallejo was the kind of place where most of the dads worked at the shipyard and most of the moms stayed home to tend the kids.
    That last score was a little different in my family. Both my parents worked. Mom was a railroad clerk, and Dad was a truck driver. The old man, in particular, loved Halloween, and in ’68 he went all out. That year he pulled up in the driveway after work, his pickup loaded with big cardboard boxes. It didn’t take me long to figure out that