It was a dark and stormy night.
Okay, not really. It could have been.
It should have been, given everything that happened after.
But it was actually the hottest Halloween on record.
(Doesn't it sound better to say it was a dark and stormy night?)
The air was sticky and thick, the kind of humidity that my Gran always said meant you could wring out the sky like a rag. The sky looked like melted caramel, a liquid sunset that changed from golden to a kind of sickly brown as I lit the jack-o-lanterns on the stoop.
I wish I could tell you that a shiver of fear worked it's way down my spine, or that I looked at that weird sky and had a sense of foreboding. I wish I could tell you that my sixth sense tingled and my third eye opened wide and I knew, without a doubt, that something wicked was coming.But I can't tell you that. Those kinds of foreshadowing elements seem to only happen on the page or the screen.
The smiling face of the jack-o-lantern my little brother had carved glowed with orange light, an oddly cheerful contrast to the grossness of the setting sun. The youngest kids on our street were already making the rounds, parents pulling wagons or carrying small ones, toddlers marching along beside. Our neighborhood always goes all out for Halloween, and this unseasonably hot year was no exception. Everyone was decked out in costumes of varying creativity and complexity, and every porch light was on. Decorations up and down the street ranged from cheesy inflatables to cobweb-draped haunted houses and everything in between. Our across the street neighbor, Mrs. Fritz, had even painted her front door deep purple a week ago to go with her witchy decorations.
I waved to a family of three standing near our mailbox, and they waved back, scooping a few pieces of candy from the cauldron I'd placed on a card table at the end of the drive. Even though my folks would be in the house all evening, putting the candy cauldron by the road was easier. Sure, we'd probably run out sooner than if the candy was being distributed by hand, but we'd gotten into the habit of socially distanced candy ever since the pandemic began, especially when we realized how treacherous our driveway was for trick-or-treaters once it was really dark. None of Mom's garden gnomes or my protection bundles scattered around the property could fix the way large rocks would go missing, leaving holes the right size to trip a small foot. My brother had sprained his ankle just walking back from the mailbox last week, right after Mom had suggested having the candy on the porch again like we used to. That was the end of that discussion: the candy cauldron stayed.
A breath of hot air brushed my cheeks, and I closed my eyes, trying to listen to whatever was on the wind. But all I heard were the calls of "trick or treat!" and "thank you!" and "happy Halloween!". I glanced at my watch and hurried inside to finish putting on my costume, wishing I hadn't been quite so creative this year.
