By John Carlson—
First came “The Mummy’s Ghost.”
At the time I didn’t realize it, but for me that movie made Halloween the addictively exciting event so many of us enjoy.
A horror genre classic shot in black-and-white and starring the legendary Lon Chaney, “The Mummy’s Ghost” was playing on my buddy Kenny’s TV one crisp October night. Or should I say, the end of the movie was playing on Kenny’s TV one crisp October night?
But the movie had started in the half light of dusk. Therefore, even as a nervous 10-year-old distinguished only by an insatiable lust for Hostess Twinkies, crossing the LaDow family’s forty-foot lawn to get to Kenny’s house had been a cinch.
But seventy-one minutes later?
Now it was pitch black outside, with a spooky moon rising. More to the point, I’d spent those seventy-one minutes, the movie’s running time, having the bejesus scared out of me. Stepping outside Kenny’s house to head for home, the lawn I had crossed not long before now looked like midnight in a fog-shrouded peat bog where wolves howled and the mummy’s ghost waited, just itching to get its mummified fingers around my neck.
That’s when my adrenaline kicked in.
Blasting across the LaDows’ yard, I shot like a blubbery rocket propelled by the pent up power of ten thousand Twinkies, the rubber soles of my Red Ball Jets leaving a scorched path in the grass. Pretty sure I was back home and safely behind locked doors in under four seconds.
All I could think was, “That was a close one!”
Five years later I was a newspaper kid delivering The Cleveland Plain Dealer seven mornings a week. Spring and summer it would entail an enjoyable dawn ramble through our peaceful neighborhood. But come autumn, with movies like “The Bride of Frankenstein” all over TV, I’d deliver those newspapers in half the normal time.
The reason was leaves. Dead, brittle leaves. In the early morning darkness those wind-blown leaves tumbled along the sidewalks of Pasadena Avenue sounding like rats’ feet, their sharp scuttling claws scratching the pavement. But then out of the blue I’d think, wait a minute. Wouldn’t Mrs. Frankenstein’s pointy fingernails sound like that, too? So every now and then, just to be on the safe side, I’d glance behind to make sure the only thing following me was my shadow under the streetlights.
Nevertheless, I’d also move a little quicker. And hearing more leaves scuttling, I’d move quicker still. Eventually I’d find myself in that final mile, hauling heinie for home while tossing Plain Dealers to anywhere within thirty feet of my customers’ front porches.
When I finally quit that paper route, my boss congratulated me for doing the right thing.
Of course, even a true chicken can’t always be on the receiving end of Halloween scares. Sometimes a fella has to let others enjoy some movie-related terror, too.
So I’m in college at Taylor U and my roomie comes back to our dormitory from a Friday night date, but he’s a changed young man. He’s shaking. His voice is trembling. If he wasn’t way too skinny to sweat much, his perspiration would be pooling on the floor. That’s because he’s just seen the Clint Eastwood stalker movie “Play Misty For Me,” and it has truly scared him.
Perhaps thinking some steamy water will help soak away this trauma, he heads to the showers. Hmmmm, I think. Maybe I should just check to make sure he’s all right.
So I do. But first I stop in a bathroom stall, unspool about twenty yards of toilet paper and wrap it loosely around my pants legs, my shirt, my head, you name it. Then with my arms outstretched while walking in a zombie-like shuffle, I round the corner to the shower area and surprise him with a friendly greeting.
“AAARRRRRRRGGGGGGG!!!!”
Let’s just say this shower room’s acoustics were outstanding. By that, I mean folks in Matthews probably heard my roomie’s bloodcurdling wail of terror.
For a long time after that he hated my guts.
Can’t say I blamed him.
Other movies followed. “The Exorcist” left me shaking. “Halloween,” meaning the original one, almost made me choke to death on my theatre popcorn, which would have been ironic. Then came Steven King’s “Pet Sematary,” meaning the novel, not the movie.
By now I was thirty-five, an adult, sharing our house with my wife Nancy, daughter Katie and son Johnny, and no longer susceptible to unfounded childish fears. So late this particular October night, my wife and children were sleeping while I was stretched out on the living room couch happily reading my horror novel.
Unfortunately, with each page I flipped, my pucker factor grew exponentially. Now, nearing the book’s horrifying climax, I became more and more aware of every little creak, thump and knock in the house.
I would read a page, then sneak a quick peek behind me, read a page, sneak a peek and so on, my neck hairs standing stiff as hairbrush bristles. That’s because by now, the protagonist’s dead wife had dug her way out of her tomb, shuffled up behind her unsuspecting husband, laid a dirt-fouled hand on his shoulder and in a gritty, gravelly voice, moaned, “Darling …”
Age thirty-five notwithstanding, I loosed a terrified little chicken shriek.
Since then I’ve often wondered what would have happened if, at that moment, just for a joke, Nancy had walked up from behind to check on me, laid her hand on my shoulder and then grittily said, “Darling …”
The answer is I would have croaked right there on the couch, but I’m sure my old college roommate would have given Nancy an enthusiastic thumbs up for the payback.
After all, it was just Halloween fun.
John’s weekly columns are sponsored by Beasley & Gilkison, Muncie’s trusted attorneys for over 120 years.
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A former longtime feature writer and columnist for The Star Press in Muncie, Indiana, John Carlson is a storyteller with an unflagging appreciation for the wonderful people of East Central Indiana and the tales of their lives, be they funny, poignant, inspirational or all three. John’s columns appear on MuncieJournal.com every Friday.
