“For some, autumn comes early, stays late....For these beings, fall is ever the normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond. Where do they come from? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir their veins? No: the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks from their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eye? The snake. What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars. They sift the human storm for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth....Such are the autumn people. Beware of them.” - Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

I am one of them. Autumn stirs my soul, Halloween fills my veins. Walk with me in the chill air with dead leaves swirling around your feet under the harvest moon."Where are we going?", you ask. You will find out soon enough. We are going to meet them.

“The stuff of nightmare is their plain bread. They butter it with pain. They set their clocks by deathwatch beetles, and thrive the centuries." - Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

The streets are deserted. The trick-or-treaters have disappeared from the streets, their echoes of laughter long dead, with their hauls of candy safely stashed away against parental thievery. Even the unruly teenagers have retired from their pranks with shattered pumpkins in the streets and toilet paper evidencing their passage. Many have fallen asleep to horror movies played deep into the small hours of the night and are still facing screens of static with sleeping unseeing eyes as they repose like the dead on couches in dark houses. We are not likely to encounter many, well living souls anyway, save perhaps a body-snatcher or grave robber. Ghosts and goblins there will be plenty.

“The wind outside nested in each tree, prowled the sidewalks in invisible treads like unseen cats.
... Anyone could see that the wind was a special wind this night, and the darkness took on a special feel because it was All Hallows' Eve. Everything seemed cut from soft black velvet or gold or orange velvet." - Ray Bradbury, The Halloween Tree

Evidence of the celebration of the early evening is apparent, empty bowls on porches, carved Jack-O'-Lanterns with leering grins now dark as their flames have sputtered and died, decorated lawns with tombstones and skeletons, candy wrappers mingle with the blown leaves dropped by sticky fingered horrors, as they raced from house to house.



Blow mold pumpkins and ghosts still glowing feebly in windows, but the porch lights are out. Halloween cut outs in windows are nearly impossible to see by their faint light.

Peering through the eye holes of your mask as you stalk your prey do you imagine you are the monster you are dressed up to be?

Let us light a lantern or perhaps a Jack-O'-Lantern to light our way. We are reaching the edge of town and approaching the cemetery and woods beyond.

The only ones to see our passing are the owl and raven.

"Thus, under the dripping trees, and environed by huge and moving shadows, they reached the scene of their unhallowed labours." - Robert Louis Stevenson, The Body-Snatcher

It is nearly dawn. If you fear the night it is nearly over. But I suspect you love its cool embrace as do I or you would not have journeyed with me this night. They are here and have been watching. They know of your love of Halloween and your delight in the spooky and scary happenings on this night. They will accept you into their fold. But there is a price and no turning back. You have become one with the dark and are now one of the Autumn people. You may pass silently as the wind through the trees and hide in shadow. Your journey is complete. Now we must hurry back for your body where we left it. The only witnesses in town peering through curtain slits will say they saw you walking alone when they question your disappearance. They will not know it was only your ghost and that your body will never take another step.

“All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew darker and darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, approaching the very place where many of the scenes of the ghost stories had been laid.” - Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow