31 October 2018
Story #931
R. Linda:
On Halloween, spread mischief and fear, for Halloween comes but once a year . . .
This year, in our tiny village located in rural New Hampshire, one of the farms decided to host a haunted hike. This entailed a mile-long trek through corn fields, apple orchards, up and down hills and dales, through a maze of scary scenes, made to scare the bejesus out of you. This type of thing was just up me whole family's street, and there was no way I was getting out of going.
So, one night last week, being the season for scares, we piled into the motor and drove down the dark, lamp-less back roads (have I mentioned that there are no streetlamps in NH? Well, there aren't). I had said if I was going, Mam had to go too. This she didn't object to, because like you, R. Linda, she be a Halloween freak. We also twisted Sean's arm; he had to go, and the kiddos had asked to take a friend each. While I was counting cash to ensure I had enough for everybody, Tonya told me her friend Kelsey is coming with her daughter. OK, the more the scarier, right?
We had taken two motors to carry us all, and I was to lead Kelsey, who had Sean with her and most of the kiddos, since she had a van. I had no clue where I was going. I was relying on Tonya to tell me, but she had an idea where it was, although she didn't have any concrete directions. She told me the place was up on the left. I turned left down another dark road, and she said, "No, not this left, the next one . . . I think." Great, so I came to a rather screeching halt with the van almost in me backseat, and we both turned around and went back out to the original dark road. There was a sign, not lighted, just a handmade sign on the side of the road telling me we had arrived. I pulled in on a dark, twisty farm road, two dirt tracks, a grassy middle, lots of bumps (again, no lights, no more signs), and hoped I was going to someplace where I could turn around. Just as I was giving up on this, we pulled into a clearing where there were people and motors! We had made it somehow.
I paid the witch in the shed $40 for the pleasure of taking me family for some scary exercise. But not before they all hit me up for cider, cider doughnuts, and candy apples served up by three ghouls who made me appetite-less than wanting. Being handed a red candy apple from a green slimed ghoul does nothing for the hunger pangs. The sugar heightened the kids' excitement even more, given their location in a dark place, where scary creatures were lurking and might get them. I had been worried about our five-year-old, thinking him too young, but he was growling, crouching, and trying to scare everyone. No worries there.
Before we proceed, let me tell you about Mam. She has very long, light hair. She had just got it done that day and was wearing it down, full length down her back. She be slim, and not at all bad to look at. She was dressed in tight-fitting jeans with boots. Uh-huh. In the dark, she looked 30, so just keep that in the back of your head -- the only woman with long, light hair.
We start off and are immediately inundated by excited teenagers who push past us, talk loudly, and behave... well, like teenagers. We decided to let them go by us until they were out of sight and then proceed so we could enjoy the scares.
First up, a creepy, crawly creature was in the swamp on our left; we could just make it out in the backdrop of solar lights as it stomped through water up to its calves. It was a cold thing to be doing on a windy night. The full moon lit him up in places, and he looked like a Bigfoot monster. He was growling and keeping a watery pace with us, so we were focused on him and didn't expect the two that came at us from the right, scaring everyone, including two kiddos who fell down in fright. That was pretty good.
After scraping them off the ground, we proceeded to where we could hear ominous moaning and groaning. Before we could get down to whatever was going on, we were met by the gravedigger's wife, blacked-out teeth, dirty Victorian dress, dishevelled hair, and smoke-smutted lantern dimly lighting our way.
"Ye must take a care ye must, fore ye are to pass by the undead, me hubby and his Charlie be reburying those that won't stay down!" And there she pointed as we came upon a graveyard, seven or so "corpses" half out of the ground, ghostly white-skinned, an array of torn and tattered clothing flapping in the wind, as their hands reached for the ankles of the wee ones who raced to get past.
Again I wondered how these "corpses" didn't catch their death half in the cold ground and half out, as the full moon lit the "graveyard" in its eerie light, the moans and groans adding to the fright and the sound of the gravedigger and his Charlie's shovels as they dug another grave for a chained body that lay inert nearby.
We came suddenly upon the apple orchard, and there on the ground was a witch, an apple in her mouth with a Gollum character putting a sign on her chest that read, "DON'T EAT THE APPLES," and as soon as he saw us, he scampered away into the brush.
We went up a hill to find a witch with a smouldering cauldron. She had red apples she was trying to force upon us. "Come, my pretties, eat Hecuba's special apples." The wee ones did not equate the apples with the dead witch we had just passed, so to remind them, the Gollum character came rushing out of the bushes to warn us, "The Apples are poison, my precious! Move on from here quickly!"
We did, as the kiddos shouted and fake-screamed in terror, running down the hill until they suddenly stopped, one falling over the other. When we got to them, they were picking themselves up and pointing to a field down the hill. There was a lit pumpkin and the upper torso of a man floating in the field at an incredible speed. We were all mesmerised as we got closer, it was then we could hear the beat of hooves in time with the torso and pumpkin's speed around the field. As we got to the fence, we could just make out a ghostly white horse with a rider. His soldier's coat was lit up in a ghostly, bluish-white light, and the pumpkin he carried under his arm, alight with orange light, floated up to us. It was the headless horsemen! The sword came up out of nowhere, all bluish-white light raised over his head. Then, some poor soul whose eyes were blackened along with the hollows of his cheeks, came running up in a tricorn hat and tattered colonial costume, pleading with us to run, "It's the Hessian, run or my name isn't Ichabod Crane! Follow me."
And so the kiddos ran after Ichabod up the next hill as we adults admired the horsemanship of riding in the dark and how cool the effect was.
We got up to Ichabod, who was telling us to be careful, as the children of the corn were in the cornfields this night, looking for fresh blood. And with that, he sent us on our way. The corn rattled in the wind, and all was quiet but for that. The kiddos looked from one side to the other as we were in a corn row, tall stalks on both sides. We trekked for a bit, and the kiddos decided nothing was going to jump out at them, so they became their silly selves, and just as this happened, scarecrows, three in number, slipped from their perches and came running at us. This had real screams and jumping around from not only the kiddos, but also the adults. I had seen the scarecrows on their perches, and I was suspicious, but they did not move as we passed by two of them, and as I was beginning to doubt they were real actors, that's when they slid from the perches and ran at us.
Once we were out of their clutches, we came to the top of another hill where there was an old, beat-up truck we could see on the opposite hill. The lights were amber, and they would flash at us occasionally. No one wanted to go there, so we followed the trail of ghostly solar lights and headed the other way. As we neared the bottom of the hill, we could hear footsteps behind us. When we turned around, a burly man dressed in black, wearing a skull mask, was walking alongside us. This set the kiddos to one loud scream and off to running ahead, but not Mam. She turned to Tonya and said, "That's my kinda man." To which the walking skull said, "You're my kinda woman."
Oh boy, I thought. And as we walked to catch up with the kiddos, Mam and the skull were flirting away, or more accurately, trading quick quips (which were actually pretty funny). Tonya stayed with her as I strode on with Kelsey and Sean to catch up with the youngsters.
I found out later the skull had asked me, Mam, out. She did refuse because she said she had no idea what was behind that mask. Then she thought about it and said, "For that matter, he has no idea how old I be. In this light, I be sure it flatters me wrinkles to disappear and I know he thinks I be a platinum blond when me hair be really white." And she laughed her arse off thinking how that meeting might have been, her seeing either a really young handsome devil under that mask or a really bad-looking teenaged demon with pimples, and he being treated to not the twenty-something blond in the red jacket, but the 70-year-old granny with three grandsons in tow.
"Be a Horrifying experience for 'em." She laughed.
"I'd pay another $40 bucks to see that," I said.
I'd like to say that was the end of it, but skull man was smitten with her caustic wit and reappeared waiting for us at the next hilltop. For a moment there, we thought it was another one, but no, it was the same guy. He resumed his chat with her as we walked on. When he discovered her accent was Irish, not Scottish as he had initially thought, she became even more attractive, telling her that he had Irish ancestry and would love to visit Ireland with her. Yup, and her quip was, "Only if yer payin' fer it there, handsome." This sort of chat went on almost the entire way. He finally remembered he had a job to do and had to get back to work. He reluctantly left us, but not after asking her for her phone number, which she wasn't about to give him. Defeated, he disappeared in the mists of the fields and was saved from seeing her in the brighter lights at the end of the hike.
For all I know, he might have been even more smitten with her sarcastic self. He did say in parting he hoped she'd retake the hike so they could "talk some more and maybe I can wear ya down to going out." From his voice, he had to be youngish, so this had to be a treat to Mam's ego. She has said nothing more about it, nor has she taken the hike a second time. I do think of skull man all alone on that windy hilltop, the mists swirling around him, waiting in the hopes she would reappear, but like a ghost, she came and went, and that was probably a good thing.
Gabe
Copyright © 2018 All rights reserved
Story #931
R. Linda:
On Halloween, spread mischief and fear, for Halloween comes but once a year . . .
This year, in our tiny village located in rural New Hampshire, one of the farms decided to host a haunted hike. This entailed a mile-long trek through corn fields, apple orchards, up and down hills and dales, through a maze of scary scenes, made to scare the bejesus out of you. This type of thing was just up me whole family's street, and there was no way I was getting out of going.
So, one night last week, being the season for scares, we piled into the motor and drove down the dark, lamp-less back roads (have I mentioned that there are no streetlamps in NH? Well, there aren't). I had said if I was going, Mam had to go too. This she didn't object to, because like you, R. Linda, she be a Halloween freak. We also twisted Sean's arm; he had to go, and the kiddos had asked to take a friend each. While I was counting cash to ensure I had enough for everybody, Tonya told me her friend Kelsey is coming with her daughter. OK, the more the scarier, right?
We had taken two motors to carry us all, and I was to lead Kelsey, who had Sean with her and most of the kiddos, since she had a van. I had no clue where I was going. I was relying on Tonya to tell me, but she had an idea where it was, although she didn't have any concrete directions. She told me the place was up on the left. I turned left down another dark road, and she said, "No, not this left, the next one . . . I think." Great, so I came to a rather screeching halt with the van almost in me backseat, and we both turned around and went back out to the original dark road. There was a sign, not lighted, just a handmade sign on the side of the road telling me we had arrived. I pulled in on a dark, twisty farm road, two dirt tracks, a grassy middle, lots of bumps (again, no lights, no more signs), and hoped I was going to someplace where I could turn around. Just as I was giving up on this, we pulled into a clearing where there were people and motors! We had made it somehow.
I paid the witch in the shed $40 for the pleasure of taking me family for some scary exercise. But not before they all hit me up for cider, cider doughnuts, and candy apples served up by three ghouls who made me appetite-less than wanting. Being handed a red candy apple from a green slimed ghoul does nothing for the hunger pangs. The sugar heightened the kids' excitement even more, given their location in a dark place, where scary creatures were lurking and might get them. I had been worried about our five-year-old, thinking him too young, but he was growling, crouching, and trying to scare everyone. No worries there.
Before we proceed, let me tell you about Mam. She has very long, light hair. She had just got it done that day and was wearing it down, full length down her back. She be slim, and not at all bad to look at. She was dressed in tight-fitting jeans with boots. Uh-huh. In the dark, she looked 30, so just keep that in the back of your head -- the only woman with long, light hair.
We start off and are immediately inundated by excited teenagers who push past us, talk loudly, and behave... well, like teenagers. We decided to let them go by us until they were out of sight and then proceed so we could enjoy the scares.
First up, a creepy, crawly creature was in the swamp on our left; we could just make it out in the backdrop of solar lights as it stomped through water up to its calves. It was a cold thing to be doing on a windy night. The full moon lit him up in places, and he looked like a Bigfoot monster. He was growling and keeping a watery pace with us, so we were focused on him and didn't expect the two that came at us from the right, scaring everyone, including two kiddos who fell down in fright. That was pretty good.
After scraping them off the ground, we proceeded to where we could hear ominous moaning and groaning. Before we could get down to whatever was going on, we were met by the gravedigger's wife, blacked-out teeth, dirty Victorian dress, dishevelled hair, and smoke-smutted lantern dimly lighting our way.
"Ye must take a care ye must, fore ye are to pass by the undead, me hubby and his Charlie be reburying those that won't stay down!" And there she pointed as we came upon a graveyard, seven or so "corpses" half out of the ground, ghostly white-skinned, an array of torn and tattered clothing flapping in the wind, as their hands reached for the ankles of the wee ones who raced to get past.
Again I wondered how these "corpses" didn't catch their death half in the cold ground and half out, as the full moon lit the "graveyard" in its eerie light, the moans and groans adding to the fright and the sound of the gravedigger and his Charlie's shovels as they dug another grave for a chained body that lay inert nearby.
We came suddenly upon the apple orchard, and there on the ground was a witch, an apple in her mouth with a Gollum character putting a sign on her chest that read, "DON'T EAT THE APPLES," and as soon as he saw us, he scampered away into the brush.
We went up a hill to find a witch with a smouldering cauldron. She had red apples she was trying to force upon us. "Come, my pretties, eat Hecuba's special apples." The wee ones did not equate the apples with the dead witch we had just passed, so to remind them, the Gollum character came rushing out of the bushes to warn us, "The Apples are poison, my precious! Move on from here quickly!"
We did, as the kiddos shouted and fake-screamed in terror, running down the hill until they suddenly stopped, one falling over the other. When we got to them, they were picking themselves up and pointing to a field down the hill. There was a lit pumpkin and the upper torso of a man floating in the field at an incredible speed. We were all mesmerised as we got closer, it was then we could hear the beat of hooves in time with the torso and pumpkin's speed around the field. As we got to the fence, we could just make out a ghostly white horse with a rider. His soldier's coat was lit up in a ghostly, bluish-white light, and the pumpkin he carried under his arm, alight with orange light, floated up to us. It was the headless horsemen! The sword came up out of nowhere, all bluish-white light raised over his head. Then, some poor soul whose eyes were blackened along with the hollows of his cheeks, came running up in a tricorn hat and tattered colonial costume, pleading with us to run, "It's the Hessian, run or my name isn't Ichabod Crane! Follow me."
And so the kiddos ran after Ichabod up the next hill as we adults admired the horsemanship of riding in the dark and how cool the effect was.
We got up to Ichabod, who was telling us to be careful, as the children of the corn were in the cornfields this night, looking for fresh blood. And with that, he sent us on our way. The corn rattled in the wind, and all was quiet but for that. The kiddos looked from one side to the other as we were in a corn row, tall stalks on both sides. We trekked for a bit, and the kiddos decided nothing was going to jump out at them, so they became their silly selves, and just as this happened, scarecrows, three in number, slipped from their perches and came running at us. This had real screams and jumping around from not only the kiddos, but also the adults. I had seen the scarecrows on their perches, and I was suspicious, but they did not move as we passed by two of them, and as I was beginning to doubt they were real actors, that's when they slid from the perches and ran at us.
Once we were out of their clutches, we came to the top of another hill where there was an old, beat-up truck we could see on the opposite hill. The lights were amber, and they would flash at us occasionally. No one wanted to go there, so we followed the trail of ghostly solar lights and headed the other way. As we neared the bottom of the hill, we could hear footsteps behind us. When we turned around, a burly man dressed in black, wearing a skull mask, was walking alongside us. This set the kiddos to one loud scream and off to running ahead, but not Mam. She turned to Tonya and said, "That's my kinda man." To which the walking skull said, "You're my kinda woman."
Oh boy, I thought. And as we walked to catch up with the kiddos, Mam and the skull were flirting away, or more accurately, trading quick quips (which were actually pretty funny). Tonya stayed with her as I strode on with Kelsey and Sean to catch up with the youngsters.
I found out later the skull had asked me, Mam, out. She did refuse because she said she had no idea what was behind that mask. Then she thought about it and said, "For that matter, he has no idea how old I be. In this light, I be sure it flatters me wrinkles to disappear and I know he thinks I be a platinum blond when me hair be really white." And she laughed her arse off thinking how that meeting might have been, her seeing either a really young handsome devil under that mask or a really bad-looking teenaged demon with pimples, and he being treated to not the twenty-something blond in the red jacket, but the 70-year-old granny with three grandsons in tow.
"Be a Horrifying experience for 'em." She laughed.
"I'd pay another $40 bucks to see that," I said.
I'd like to say that was the end of it, but skull man was smitten with her caustic wit and reappeared waiting for us at the next hilltop. For a moment there, we thought it was another one, but no, it was the same guy. He resumed his chat with her as we walked on. When he discovered her accent was Irish, not Scottish as he had initially thought, she became even more attractive, telling her that he had Irish ancestry and would love to visit Ireland with her. Yup, and her quip was, "Only if yer payin' fer it there, handsome." This sort of chat went on almost the entire way. He finally remembered he had a job to do and had to get back to work. He reluctantly left us, but not after asking her for her phone number, which she wasn't about to give him. Defeated, he disappeared in the mists of the fields and was saved from seeing her in the brighter lights at the end of the hike.
For all I know, he might have been even more smitten with her sarcastic self. He did say in parting he hoped she'd retake the hike so they could "talk some more and maybe I can wear ya down to going out." From his voice, he had to be youngish, so this had to be a treat to Mam's ego. She has said nothing more about it, nor has she taken the hike a second time. I do think of skull man all alone on that windy hilltop, the mists swirling around him, waiting in the hopes she would reappear, but like a ghost, she came and went, and that was probably a good thing.
Gabe
Copyright © 2018 All rights reserved
