Little Monsters

Little Monsters


It was Halloween night, when the ‘Little Monsters’ came out to haunt the innocent. That’s what this story is about- a detailed accounting by one of the ‘Little Monsters’, who was just eight yrs old at the time. Halloween didn’t provide a good reason to celebrate really, but our school had made a big deal out of it. Besides, it was fun and any holiday was a good holiday.

Back in 1969, a year after Martin Luther King had been assassinated, Montgomery, Alabama wasn’t the end of the world, but you could see it from there. My Dad was stationed at Maxwell AFB, which landed my family in an older neighborhood that was a bit of a ‘throw-back’ to days gone by. All the houses in our neighborhood had been built back in the early 1930s, which added to the spooky, mystic of Halloween. The dark and dreary theme seemed to fit better somehow in our antiquated part of town. We even had closet doors in our house, that would open and close by themselves. The explanation was due simply to draftiness of the old 2-story house, but attributing the eerie and the ‘unexplained’ to the paranormal world of restless ghosts, gave it a bit more pizzazz, than the truth.

Halloween night had arrived and the first order of business was to piece together a real scary costume- one that would rival the Special Effects Artists in Hollywood. The fact that we had no money left us un-deterred. It wasn’t that we were poor, we had simply blown all of our ‘Halloween dough’ on fake vampire blood and ‘Glow-In-The-Dark’ fangs the day before.

A pirate costume seemed to be the order of the day. All you had to do was include a bandana, an over-sized earring, an eye-patch, and the rest didn’t matter much. The ensemble wasn’t exactly terrifying, but it met the requirements of a- ‘rather anemic’ shall we say, budget. All pirate had beards, so half the job was done. We’ll just cut up mom/’s wig for facial hair—it never does anything but sit there anyway!’.

Mom’s makeup drawer supplied all the finishing touches on a costume with all the carefully thought-out planning of a fire drill. Sure, we made a mess of her makeup drawer, but heck, the dumb ‘ole girls did that all year ‘round- this was a rare demand on these bathroom articles by the ‘men’, [at least until my little brother went through his ‘Planet of the Apes’ phase].

Topping it all off, was the addition of your standard ‘terrifying hook’ that glimmered in the light. The hook replaced a hand, that had surely been chewed off by a shark [apparently, this happened to all pirates]. This was done by fashioning a clothes hanger to stick out of our sleeve. We destroyed a couple of hangers, not to mention a roll of aluminum foil, [it never seems to roll back right]. But unless my mom had counted hangers, and our regular company of leftovers reproduced on their own, this casualty list would go unnoticed.

The law was simple. Either provide the little monsters, you hadn’t spoken to all year, with candy, or pay the consequences. Any non-participants, in this sugar-coated ritual, suffered greatly. Any lack of response to our knocking, was punishable by simply having their doormat tossed into the bushes. It required very little effort on our part, while satisyfying our sense of juvenile justice.

There was an odd bit of irony in Trick-Or-Treating in our old neighborhood. Because of the inflated number of kids going from one door to the next, it was the only night of the year we weren’t afraid to walk through these streets. Even though we had received special permission to stay out beyond our normal curfew, the hour was growing late.

The number of fellow goblins that ran from house to house became more sporadic. They were eventually disappearing from sight altogether. But 10 pounds of candy, that would eventually be responsible for one big stomachache, was simply not enough- we wanted more than enough.

Earlier that day, the activities of the coming night were discussed at some length, while playing another game of sandlot football, the forum where all matters of great importance were recognized:

The neighborhood football field was just a large, triangular plot of grass in the middle of nowhere. Technically, it only served to separate a couple of residential roads that had been mapped out by a wandering cow years before. A seldom-used ‘Yield’ sign served as one of the goaline markers. A dying tree served as the other, whose bark had been stripped as a result of deflecting too many errant passes, as well as a couple of receivers, who had taken off their glasses to play.

Out of bounds was the moving traffic on either side of ‘Scabby-Elbows Memorial Stadium’. Once in a while, we were forced to call an official timeout to pump up a flattened football that had landed under the speeding wheels of a passing car.

I had just caught a touchdown pass, so I would be the center of attention for about 2 minutes. We all walked back to create our ‘Keystone-Kops’ kickoff formation. The game was almost over since the sun had almost set, turning the sky to shades of purple and red. I was late for dinner- again-, an infraction that usually turned the sun to blood anyway. My football teammates, who were also late for dinner, gave me all the attention the brief spotlight demanded.


Her house was across the street and didn’t really look that much different than any of the others. It was old and needed a paint job- years ago! But you add all of our ghoulish stories, and you had one scary house.

As we walked to our positions, we all shot glances at the house belonging to the ‘witch’, having been dubbed so by our runny-nose council. I took full advantage of the waning seconds of ‘my moment’ and filled them with all the juicy tidbits I could imagine.

And since scaring the begeesus out of your friends was an undisputed sign of adolescent supremacy, her physical deformities must mean her mental state was abnormal as well.

“Ya…”, nodding up to the house from across the street, I innocently offered, “She’s probably watching us from her window right now- smacking her lips!”

The others awed by my incredible insight.

“ And my brother says you can hear loud noises coming from the house –‘real loud’!’”

My brother was an authority on witch annomalities and was not to be questioned

“,…And…she has to feed those big, fat legs of hers, by eating the cats she catches at night- that’s why you see so many cats hanging around there!”

Logic suggested that any animals would not hang around a place where they were likely to be eaten, but what the Hek!- I was rolling now! Then I saw in the dumbstruck faces of my comrades , that a more detailed description might enhance ‘my moment’ a bit longer still.

I looked down at my feet for added effect, “Ya, we used to have a cat.” I purposely left the insinuation hanging in the air. This was great! I couldn’t have written a better monologue! [By the way, we never did own a cat].

The entire group responded in unison “Eeeew!” I couldn’t help smiling, I was so pleased with myself to have elicited such a chorus of disgust!

My freckled-faced friend Alvin, pitched in, ‘I heard that she has really big legs because they tried to drown her for being a witch and her legs got water-logged and stayed that way!”

I sloughed off his uninvited addition to the discussion quickly, “Hmm…”. Any other time, his comments were welcome, and even encouraged, but this was my moment in the sun, and there was only so much room to catch the rays- he could stand in the shadows with the rest of my adoring public.

In an effort to quickly re-capture my captive audience, I scrambled for more spellbinding descriptions, “And…. And her eyes bug out… and are always bloodshot! And… and … her hair is slimy and dirty like snakes , …. and… it smells like pee in her house… and you can hear the walls bang sometimes, when the cats try escape from her clutches at night!”

In an attempt to reintroduce himself into MY spotlight, Alvin challenged me, ‘I’ll bet you a million dollars, that you wouldn’t go Trick-Or-Treating at the Witch’s house tonight!’

Well, I wasn’t sure if Alvin had a million dollars, but he did get a pretty good allowance. Nonetheless, the gauntlet had been laid down, and in front of all my peers, wiping their noses on their sleeve.

I panned around at all the eyes waiting eagerly- awaiting my response. Well, bullshit is my middle name [glad I have two names].

“Are you kidding? No problem. I’m not scared of her. I’ll even tell you what she hands out- I’ll even show you - if it lives long enough!

All my friends eyes widened, as they imagined what she might be handing out.

I folded my arms and smiled contentedly. Truly, I had put Alvin back in his place among the disbelievers. He had pulled the tail of the wrong tiger this time and now he would pay for it!

. The only trick now was to fake a sore throat!




Halloween night was in full swing. Little monsters scrambled from one door to the next shouting ‘Trick-Or-Treat!’ at the top of their lungs. They looked like runaway beads of water rolling over a hot griddle. Occasionally, the shrill chorus of calls overlapped each other, reminding any passing cars within earshot what night it was- if they had forgotten, we’d remind them.

I wasn’t going to pass on one of the most fun nights of the year faking a sore throat- witch or no. Faking illnesses was for test days at school. I would just knock on her door, wait a few- very few- seconds, and then promptly run like a deer. The next day, I would tell the others that there hadn’t been an answer- she must have been too busy boiling a cat.

But first, it was time to wring out the neighbors, for any unclaimed goodies they might have in their possession. We ran from house to house. I wasn’t going to leave any stone unturned.

The cold, night air continually reminded me where the holes were located in my pants. From what I could tell, pirates never seemed to have any holes in their pants, but this one did.

Walking brusquely, Mark and I approached the house of a kid I knew in school, that no one really liked. They had built a Haunted House of sorts. Apparently, this night, his dad was as corny as the kid was everyday.

Piercing the night, was a well-known recording of moaning ghosts, complete with dragging chains and a sporadic woman’s scream for good measure. We never did know if the woman’s scream really originated from the recording, or his Mom, when she saw what they had done to her porch.

Spider webs draped over a black tarp covering the entrance to their front porchhaunted house. My friend stood at the base of the steps. The majority of his costume consisted of a white lab coat, with lots of pens in the pocket- it was the basic wardrobe of all mad scientists. His mom had teased his red hair to achieve that ‘wild, crazed’ appearance, but it hadn’t required much coaxing to attain that ‘unkept look’.

To his right side, hung a stuffed witch, riding her broom. Underneath a black dress, her upper torso was constructed from his little brother’s Batman pillow. The head had been rapidly built out of paper mache that was still drying. It had been spray-painted green for effect. His older sister provided a brown wig for the hair, which was truly scary-looking when she actually wore the thing [thought all witches had black hair? Oh well, artistic license].

A green zucchini had been hastily stabbed under her magic-marker eyes, and would be playing the part of her nose in tonight’s production. Just the thought of zucchini from torturous dinner’s past, sent shivers down my spine. This was truly the scariest part of the entire Haunted House- not for the reasons they intended, but they would take what they could get.

The kid’s Mom had unknowingly provided the black dress that she had only bought for mandatory funeral appearances. The lower half hung down over the broomstick the witch was riding, with the false assumption that it would be adequate in representing her curled-up legs. A couple of wires dangled down to the front and back of the broomstick. It was hard to tell if she was taking off or landing, it kind of depended on the time of night you looked at it.

A pointed witch’s hat topped off the ensemble and was the only halfway authentic piece of the whole costume.

Beside him, was the cymbal from his drum set- not exactly the large gong you would see in the movies, but he was on a ‘limited’ budget as well.

We walked up to him and muttered the obligatory ‘Trick-Or-Treat’, trying to look both hard as nails, and take part in a really fun holiday tradition, at the same time. A knowing look passed between the both of us. It belied the fact, that this temporary, mutual respect was only valid for the duration of the event- tomorrow at school, his routine beatings would resume as they had before.

He slowly and deliberately struck the cymbal with the velvet pedal from his drum set. This was more use than the drum set had experienced all year, sounded better too! The result was a tin-ee , crass reverberation, but it wasn’t half bad considering the meager investment in stage props.

Out of the dark doorway, emerged his dad wearing a rubber mask, which might have been a cross between a caveman and a gangster [didn’t make any sense to me either]. His hands were covered with a similar styled monster hands, giving the impression of hairy knuckles, not that his real hairy knuckles underneath wouldn’t have sufficed.

Hanging precariously from one of the hands, was a plastic Jack-O-Lantern filled with candy, that he hadn’t allowed his son to eat earlier that night. We cautiously fished out pieces of black and orange hard candy from the bucket [what was that stuff anyway?]. we never removed our eyes from his face- the mask could fall off and the real terror would begin!


Onto the real witch’s house.

The colorful description of the ‘witch’, which I had gone to such great lengths to create, paled in comparison to the actual description of the house itself at night. The house had two, glowing windows in the front. The outside walls were kind of a grayish, non-descript color, that didn’t show anyway after the sun went down. Time had long since ‘struck midnight’ on whatever color it had once been.

Matching, weathered columns kept an old rickety roof from collapsing on a equally rickety front porch. The houses of that era were elevated a little, providing a small crawl-space for access to the underside for workmen- a perfect hiding place for spiders, snakes, and any other disjointed members of the undead an 8 year old, who watched too many monster movies, could conjure. In fact, I was quite convinced that ‘The Fly’ [another marvel of movie-magic], spent his spare time, when he wasn’t busy ‘evolving’ in his laboratory, hanging out under old, southern porches, just waiting to scare the Hell out of imaginative kids like me.

The sloped, roof on the front porch, bracketed by those glowing windows on either side, gave the house kind of a ghoulish face that seemed to grin at me as we approached.

As we walked up the narrow, cracked walkway, I could have sworn I heard that maniacal cackle of hers. Hurriedly, I tried to think of a good reason to turn back without betraying the facade of bravery we had worked so hard to maintain. I could picture her thunderous legs slamming down on the cement, cracking the helpless walkway, as she stroked the neighbor’s cat, who would be her guest for dinner.

I blurted out, ‘Do you think we have enough candy?

Mark ignored the comment, not even slowing his determined jaunt towards the splintery front door. We both knew there was no such thing as ‘enough candy’.

He non-challantly knocked on the door, sluggishly, like it was something our Dad was making him do.

After waiting a full three seconds, Mark spun on his heels, while bending downward to scoop up her doormat. Ritualistically, he flipped it into the front hedges like he was performing some sort of fragile ballet, which he was. The shrubs were still shaking from the added weight of the dusty old mat, when the door slowly creaked open.

Enough of appearing brave. Mark took off like a scorched cat, hurtling the hedge on the other side by inches. You can’t see a cloud of dust in the dark, but a glittering pirate’s belt buckle, growing smaller and smaller by the second, told me he wouldn’t be back any time soon.

A cold sweat immediately broke out onto my forehead. Trembling, all I could do is stand there and wipe my Mom’s eye shadow out of my eye. My legs refused to move. I think I was in mild shock due to a complete and total fear, that refused to allow me to run- either it was that or that cold, clammy feeling you get when you wet your pants.

I knew I was face to face with the witch, but I could barely see anything, as I tried in vain to wipe that confounded makeup out of my eyes. I had a pretty good idea of how decaying, cat-flesh must smell though- I smelled something like it whenever I opened my sock drawer. I sniffed and sniffed, but all I could smell was my own soggy pants.

Weakly, I offered a ‘Trick–or-Treat’ to the soft outline of the witch, who surely would deliver my doom. My heart was blocking my throat, so my voice sounded like it came from a shy mouse, who had been gargling with crushed glass.

The old lady had to laugh, and had seen all of Mark’s earlier exploits from the window. She had been sitting there most of the night, watching the other kids abruptly skip passed her house every time- nobody wanted any part of the witch’s house.

Her eyebrows raised a little, as she shot a quick glance at the new location of her doormat, though she didn’t say a word about it. Rather, she was much more content to turn her attention to the little terrified one left behind. Actually, I hadn’t exactly been left, as much as I was just too stupid to run.

Her chuckle was winding down, but warmly said, “Ooh aren’t we scary?” The eye shadow continued to run down my face. “Did your Mom help you with such a scary pirate costume?’

Mustering up my voice, that had gone south for the winter, or the night anyway, I boldly responded, “uh-huh!”

The old woman looked over my shoulder, hoping that there might be some other kids, but there hadn’t been any all night.

A hurt look flashed across her eyes, she exhaled and said, “Not too many Trick-or-Treaters tonight- or at least they didn’t stop by here!’ I looked down at my pirate/Sunday shoes, knowing all too well my own big mouth had been largely responsible for this coolish response from the others.

“Well, since you’re one of my only visitors tonight, you might as well come on in!” Inside! And I had thought that I couldn’t feel worse than I had seconds earlier.

As I walked in, my head jerked frantically from side to side, wildly scanning the scarred, wooden floor for signs of cat carcasses. Instead, about a half dozen, fat cats swarmed over me- and they were anything, but wounded. Some weaved between my legs. Others ran out the front door, because, like cats, they were just bored- not mistreated.

All of them were of varying colors, their family trees must of had a lot of branches. She had taken them all in and fed them, when no one else would. None of them looked even close to being abused- quite the opposite- they were all overly affectionate and quite convinced I had made a special trip just to visit them.

“Oh, don’t mind them, they’re just interested in a rare visitor- and your bag, more than what’s in it!’

Color me ‘inquisitive’, but I WAS interested in what was ‘in the bag’, plus the contents staying ‘in the bag’! –except for these new probing heads that were delving deeper and deeper into the unknown.

I defensively lifted the bag up a little, so that only a giraffe could stick it’s head in the top. They ‘rose’ to the occasion. I think they must have had a slinky surgically implanted into their spines.

A large, wooden stairway greeted the entrance. A multitude of cobwebs between the steps and the railing, indicated that it hadn’t been used much- climbing a dozen stairs just to look at a junk-filled second floor, usually didn’t make her ‘To Do’ list on most days.

The old woman had resigned herself to the ground floor. Walking was hard enough with cats weaving in and out, between her legs- risking their own lives and hers, at the same time.

On the walls was worn out wallpaper of cherry blossoms, which carried the same theme as the rest of the house, it had seen better days. And as hard as I looked, I couldn’t find a splash of cat blood anywhere- fur balls- yes, but no blood. There just wasn’t a trace of animal cruelty to be found. How boring!

The front room to the left of the stairway, simply had two pieces of furniture in it. One, was a beat up, cracked, faded-brown, leather leisure chair. The cotton stuffing pouring out of it’s insides, reaching for the floor, told infrequent guests that it wouldn’t look out of place on any junk pile at a Salvation Army Depot. Second, sat a small, black and white TV on wobbly TV tray in the corner of the room. The remote controls of today were still decades away, so the channel stayed on whichever of the three existing networks offered more game shows.



I followed her cautiously to the back of the house.

I found myself staring at her enormous calves as she walked. They demanded slow movement on her part- swinging more than they stepped-now, it was easy to see the reason it had taken a little longer for her to answer the door.

No one had ever pondered why she’d never used her supposed ‘magical powers’, to cure her own afflictions. There was no way she could have prevented the disease. The disease she had, Elephantitus, was caused by parasitic worms, transmitted by some cursed mosquito, when she was young. Open windows in Alabama during the summertime, was commonplace.

The doctors did whatever Medicare would pay for in those days, which amounted to prescribing anti-flammatory medication which kept her up at nights- enter bloodshot eyes. And besides being bloodshot, they didn’t work real well to begin with. Maybe glasses would have helped, not too many optometrists make house calls though. Bad eyesight, diseased legs, and several kamikaze cats, contributed to those occasional thumps we loved to talk about.

The only escape she got from this homespun Hell was watching that old G.E., black and white portable late into the night. That explained why the two front windows always ‘glowed’.

Entertainment gems such as ‘What’s My Line’ and ‘To Tell the Truth’ was the only source of humor in her life, dismal as they were. Sometimes, she would laugh at her own success, and criticize contestants who seemed to have the intelligence of a beheaded earthworm. These one-sided conversations could oftentimes be heard outside, where they were quickly assigned some diabolical meaning. Again, the truth just wasn’t exciting enough for the kids on my block.


A swinging door separated the kitchen from the rest of the house. The door swung back and forth on squeaky hinges. Ah! This is where I could make my escape. Once inside the kitchen, she’d turn around to find her visitor had bolted for the door.

“Come on back!”, she called over her shoulder, as she stirred a saucepan on the stove.

The biggest cat, which looked like it had been in a paint fight- and lost-, had already followed the lady through the swinging door. It was always the first in line for chow, and instinctively knew that there was ‘food around the corner’- which also explained why it was the biggest cat.

The other two were still entranced with the possibilities that lie within my Trick-Or-Treat bag. I shooed them away with my bag hoping to stall their advance for a short second, long enough to slip through the kitchen door. Suddenly, I wanted to escape them more than their owner. They reluctantly retreated.

In that second of reprieve, I didn’t try to escape out the front door as I had planned, but instead took advantage of the back swing of the door. I quickly stepped through the brief opening. A second later, a resounding double-thud came from the door as it abruptly came to a stop- evidently, the cat’s sense of timing wasn’t as good as mine in this instance.


The combination of the warmth and good smell coming from the oven, gave me the courage I would have normally lacked to go farther into the room.

Next to the saucepan, lay a sheet of caramel apples. A bowl of nuts stood on the side of that, as some had taken a roll already. Now, I had been collecting candy all night, but hadn’t eaten anything, including the dinner I had only dissected earlier.

“Those should be cool about now- take one of the ones with nuts!”

She didn’t have to repeat herself. Hurriedly, I grabbed one, knowing full well it could be a whole two minutes before I would ever eat again!

I hungrily bit into it. It was great! I just wished I had two mouths! Through the sticky wall of hot caramel, I blurted out, “Rank-Ru!” Tiny pieces of apple fired out of my mouth, and onto the awaiting face of the cat. It’s fat head darted around, searching for the elusive bits of apple, but the search was short-lived. It gave up never knowing that I had shotgun-blasted it all over it’s whiskers. My manners ranked right up there with costume design.

She just smiled to herself, too busy pouring some warm apple cider into a mug from an old teapot she had just taken off the burner.

“Haven’t been a whole lot of Trick-or-Treaters here tonight, can’t imagine what happened to them all.”

I shrugged my shoulders, like I was more enthralled in the stupidity of the cat, which remained oblivious to the bits of caramel apple dangling from it’s whiskers and forehead.

But I knew. I knew that the kids had been dodging her place all night. Her’s was the real “haunted house’ on the block, only the incredibly brave/stupid need apply. This is where the witch with the huge legs lived.

I looked down again at the silly-looking cat, who returned my gaze, determined not to miss anything else that might come flying out of my mouth. I woofed down the apple in record time and then chewed nervously on the naked pop sickle stick, contemplating whether or not it was edible too.

I looked back up to see her piloting a warm cup of apple cider at me.

“Here! Chase it down with a cup of this!”

It tasted even better than the apple!- and I didn’t think that would have been possible! I had been freezing my butt off all night, under the thin veil of a Captain Bluebeard costume [pirates didn’t wear winter coats- no matter how many times they had been chastised by their mothers]. So I was half-tempted to pour down the rear of my pants, but I already had a wet stain down the front- didn’t want to overdo it.

“Thanks!” I purposely swallowed the cider first this time before speaking, to the disappointment of the cat. I gulped all of it down, except for the part dribbling down my chin. My throat made these pulsating, gurgling sounds, like I was swallowing a reptile whole.

She smiled at my lack of social graces, “How about some more?”

A guttural ‘yummy sound’, accompanied my nodding head- Sometimes words are just not adequate. The cat smartly looked away from me, and resumed it’s post at the foot of the stove, as if to say, ‘if you’re not even going to spit food out of your mouth, the Hek with you!’

The kind old woman still held the teapot in her hand, slightly leery of the possibility that I might start gnawing on the furniture if my mouth were left idle for too long. Therefore, she hastily refilled my cup.

I slammed it down with all the Neanderthal finesse I had shown with the first mug.

Turning towards the kitchen door, she called after me, “Don’t forget your Goody!”

Goody? There was more? I was going to get something else, when I wouldn’t have gotten anything had I been more adept at ‘cat-hurdling’ on the way to the kitchen?

From the oven, she pulled out a cookie sheet and then scooped up a pumpkin-shaped cookie with icing. Carefully, she wrapped the hot cookie in wax paper and place it in my tattered paper bag, which already contained more sugar than the state of Hawaii.

I slowly made my way out of the house, reunited by two bothersome cats, with bumps on their heads. Their affection for my Trick-Or-Treat bag had not faded with the passage of time, or the separation provided by the kitchen door. The smell of a warm, pumpkin-bread cookie, didn’t exactly turn them off either- Hek, I was half-tempted to stick my head in there!

Despite some unyielding feline curiosity, leaving the house was easy, if not a little sad now. Departure had not even been close to the ‘One-way ticket’ I had told the ‘Boogar Brigade’ it was.

She hobbled farther and farther behind me, and for the first time, I genuinely felt bad about her affliction. No wonder we had made up stories about her- the truth was just too hard.

She waved at me as I walked down her front walkway, a much shorter trip this time. The cats quickly became disinterested in me, as it became obvious that I wasn’t returning to the kitchen- right away!

I waved back, knowing my retelling of the truth wouldn’t be nearly as ‘colorful’ as my hypothetical stories had been earlier. There was nothing to be afraid of now.

As I walked back to my own house, I glance over at the stuffed witch, hanging on for dear-life to the wires. She had been terrorizing the neighborhood all night, but now slumped over her broom, another victim to the ravages of gravity. She looked like a 3D poster for the Mother Against Drunk-Driving- ‘Don’t Drink and Fly’! It look like she had ignored both warnings.

The walk home was uneventful like usual. Thanks to a brisk pace, I had eluded the terrible ‘Forces of Evil’, which lived on my block.

Somehow, you could feel the return to boredom settling back onto the neighborhood. I was to learn that the anticipation of an event often differs from the actual event itself.

My brother watched me walk up to the house. Behind him, he cradled an egg in one hand. I soon had something real to fear.