10.29.2002 Happy Halloween

It’s so freaky after turning the clocks back an hour. It gets dark so early now. I dub these the vampire months, cause its very seldom that I see sunlight during this time. Also, the weather coincidentally turns on the chilly side, always too suddenly. There’s this bedroom next to ours that used to be a nursery before we moved into this apartment that we pretty much abandoned and filled it up with our leftover packing boxes filled with junk that I refuse to throw away -- maybe one day. I had left the window open all summer and had recently went in there to shut it, which was tough to do, seeing how the windows are slightly aged.

The night after turning the clocks back, it seemed prematurely dark; actually, a little too dark for my taste. Elizabeth and I were finishing dinner out in the living room. We had decided to order in, which is something that we do on rare occasions, especially if we wanted to watch something special on TV and enjoy a quiet evening. I don’t remember why exactly why we did so that night though.

“I have to go get something,” she mentioned. It was a commercial break. She stood up from the couch, slowly at first, and suspiciously started to run slightly toward the other side of the apartment. She turned to look at me jokingly taunting me to follow her.

“Are you coming back? What are you getting?” I asked.

She didn’t say a word, instead adoringly giggled, and motioned me to follow her.

I stood up and took a step towards her. She darted into the darkened hallway, up the five-step mini-stairwell, and into the bedroom closing the door behind her. I heard her feet thump against the floor a few times, and then a pounce on the bed. “Peter! Peter!…,” she called for me. I could tell from the crack under the doorway that she had turned the bedside light on – rather than the big overhead one. That’s good -- she knew I preferred that one.

I staggered up the darkened stairs towards the door, slowly and deliberately stamping my feet on each one so as she could hear me approaching. She giggled waiting for me. Five .. four .. “Here I come!” I hollered. Her giggles stopped anticipating more steps. “Almost there!” Three... Something did not feel right. Two ... I felt a chill from the outside. But I thought I had closed that window. One … A woman emerged in the adjacent doorway of the abandoned bedroom. She wore a dress dated from the turn of the Twentieth Century that I’ve only seen in antiquated black and white photos. A piece of cloth, a black-checkered shawl, covered her head like cobwebs draping off the side of her face. She was angry, so very angry about something. She elevated her head towards me, her eyes intensified and lips sourly pursed, stared at me ragingly vengeful. She didn’t know me. I had never seen her before. She held something in her left hand, but I could not make it out.

I cautiously took another step towards the bedroom. Without blinking, the woman kept her vengeful stare on me. Slowly, I extended my hand out for the doorknob. She did not step toward me. She just stared. I was close enough. I grasped, turned my body, about to dart towards the door. It was locked. Locked. But that door did not have a lock. But, it was somehow locked.

From the corner of my eye, I wasn’t certain, but it seemed like she started to raise what was in her left hand and was about to step towards me. Frozen, I couldn’t turn to fully see. I grasped again. The door was still locked.

I woke up frantically. It was in the middle of the night. Elizabeth was at work. The television was on. The lights were on. I was in bed. The bedroom door was open. The window was slightly opened.

My freakin’ Halloween.