Thread: What is your scariest Halloween memory

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For myself, It was a Halloween when I was fourteen, we were up to our usually tricks for Halloween, soaping tping etc, when a guy from the local town went bonkers. The guy was wondering around town with a butcher knife, threating everyone he came in contact with, which of course, happened to be me and my friends. We were spending the night in an old moble home, let me tell you that is not the place to be cornered buy a psycho. Anyway, we survived the night and our local psycho got hauled off to Central State. Of course this was the early 1980's and Halloween was still fresh in our minds.

I never actually had a really threatening encounter like yours, not on Halloween night.

I did however stumble onto a creepy scene that got my adrenaline going. It was the late 80s, and the Satanic Panic was rampant across middle America. Churches were having special services, cops were out in force, blond & blue eyed girls were encouraged to stay home, candy was being x-rayed and the television was awash with special documentaries about satanic sacrifice, evil rituals and devil worshippers infiltrating all levels of society.

I was about 16, driving around town with a few friends watching the crowds and listening to the local pop station, which was playing Halloween tunes. We were deciding what to do with our Halloween - go to someones house and watch a few horror flicks? Cruise the drag? Maybe give the local cemetery our respects, just for the sake of tradition?

Someone recommended we go out to a patch in the country rumored to be a gathering place for satanists. The locale was a creepy old wash, a low spot near a bridge and within sight of an abandoned farmhouse. It was the sort of place that took on the horror of each passing generation. In earlier times it was a place were aliens landed, then the story was a madman butchered kids down there for meat. Now it was the prefered spot for our local devil worshippers.

So out we go, under a waning moon, bumping down dirt roads, the dust kicking up red in our tail lights, until we came within sight of the place. We turned off the engine and rolled down the windows to listen, just in case there really were a couple of drugged-out lunatics obsessed with the occult in the vicinity.
No noise.
No lights.
No cars.
Nothing.

So we got out of the car and made our way down into the wash, flashlights in hand, snickering and joking with each other.

We found a ring of stones filled with charred wood, wood that was still smoking.
That put us on edge, so we began heading back to the car, flashlight beams sweeping the area for any movement or unwelcome object. One of the beams panned under the nearby bridge, and we froze when we saw something dark red glistening under the rafters.

Some yahoos had decided they wanted to be evil, to really play out the fears of the community, to do what everyone was worried someone would do. They'd taken a lamb and hung it by it's neck with a rope under the bridge and stabbed the poor thing to death. It wasn't surrounded by candle stumps or burnt offerings, it was ringed round instead with beer cans and cigarette butts.
All around the lamb on the concrete slopes were spray-painted band names, like Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Iron Maiden, etc, as well as a few "666" combos, "Satan Rules" and the old reverse pentacle. Nothing a real occultist would have done. It was the work of moronic teenage rubes in a small town, a disgusting act of cruelty born of a media-fueled fear.

We didn't call the cops. The last thing we wanted was to be associated with the scene, especially since half the cops were well-known church-goers and bought into the satanic stuff hook, line and sinker. They had a rep for giving kids serious trouble over rock music and role-playing games. We simply got in the car and drove off, knowing some farmer or local kid with the FAA was wondering where a lamb was.

That was the night I honestly began to worry, that first adult moment of asking "what the hell is wrong with my country?" I imagined feeling the same way some observers did of the Witch Panic in Salem, wondering how we had reached the point that the whole town saw the Devil everywhere, and what future generations were going to believe.

It was the most sobering Halloween I've ever had.

Originally Posted by Spats

I never actually had a really threatening encounter like yours, not on Halloween night.

I did however stumble onto a creepy scene that got my adrenaline going. It was the late 80s...

Whoa, what a creepy story and you're a very good writer too!

Thanks, Kallie.

One Halloween my husband and I decided to watch The Ring. It was one of the scariest movies I've ever seen. It was after 9, and we declared trick or treating over, so we kept the lights off while we watched because there were several bands of late night teens wandering around still ringing doorbells. When the movie ended, I was pretty well freaked out. My husband grinned at me, and said, "Well, I'm going down to work on the computer. Goodnight!" And he LEFT ME! IN THE DARK! Me, the professional ghost story teller was too afraid to walk up the stairs to my superdark bedroom because some evil little girl might get me! I had to go turn on all the lights in the house, before I could make my way upstairs to go to bed.

Okay, now that I tell it that was more funny than scary.

My other experience didn't take place on Halloween, but it was last year in the middle of October during my second ghost tour. I love ghost stories and ghost tours, but in truth, I'm wasn't sure I was a believer in the stories I was telling. I'd never had any ghostly encounters, and didn't really expect to have any. That night, the tour was at the Masonic Temple, and I was telling the story of Charlie Valentine. He was a very active Mason in life, so in death, his wife donated his ashes to the lodge. He's haunted it ever since, and is supposed to be a pretty active ghost. I finish my story, and as the bus is pulling away, I notice that there is a service access type door on the ground floor of the temple. There in the doorway was the outline of a person. The outline was darker on the outside, growing lighter on the inside. There were no features, no face, clothes, details of any kind- almost as if it was a cardboard silhouette of a person stuck against the door. I saw it, and my brain short circuited. I simply couldn't accept what I was seeing, and I wasn't even a good tour guide to point out, "Does anybody else see that?" I simply paused in the middle of my talking, rejected what I had seen, and started the next story. Later, when we got off the bus at the Salt Lake City cemetery, I was cornered by a bunch of the guests wanting to know what on earth that was at the Masonic Temple. They had seen it too!

@Spats~Dude! You spin a good yarn! Thanks for sharing!
Like you, I never did "the naughties" on Halloween, and not just because I was a good Catholic girl! But because I absolutely LOVED the Holiday! And I didn't want to do anything that would make people try and stop ToTing!

@Primrose~We love ghost tours but never see anything, how awesome is that! But at least we do get some interesting pics, lots of Orbs of course, but we have gotten some faces and mist. So much fun!

There is a 2 story house at the end of the street. They have a big picture window where you can see the staircase going upstairs. I was standing in the street & see the Grim Reaper walking down the stairs to answer the door for some kids that are ringing the bell.

That was the end of my ToTing for that nite & for many years after!!

I guess I was 5 or so, not sure but I know both my mother & father took me & they were sorta together when I was that age in 1972.

yes. i'm old.

Spats, truely an interesting story and you are right, I had forgotten about the hysteria that the media created over satanic cults. I also agree that it is sad that a poor animal was tortured in this manner, and unfortunately society has gotten worse instead of better. That being said, I think providing a scary haunt for Halloween is one of the best avenues, to redirect the energies of our youth today. I have several teens in my neighborhood that delight in helping with the haunt and we tend to be a destination for many more because they love the decorations and watching others be scared just a wee bit on Halloween!

I love a good ghost story Primrose, and the Masonic Temple and it's mysteries lend a perfect setting for shades with unfinished business in the mortal realm.

Nothing to compare with finding real-life sacrificial offerings, but I proffer the following:

The first seven years of my life were spent near Boston, MA. My parents lived next door to my paternal grandfather, who had a huge two-story house and an even more huge back yard.

I think I was six years old, and my daddy was about to take me trick-or-treating. It was a chilly, windy night - that's the thing about being so far north, it was often too cold to ToT without your coat, and that covered up part of your costume.... bummer. But I had a plastic treat-pail molded into the shape of a jack-o-lantern and I was ready to go. We was standing in the back yard about to set off, when suddenly my father said "Just a minute" and took off into the night with my pumpkin treat-pail and the flashlight, leaving me alone with only the back porch light on. And I wasn't too happy about that.

A minute or two passed, when suddenly a glowing orange jack-o-lantern appeared around the far corner of my grandpa's house, held at head-height. My dad had put the flashlight inside my pumpkin-pail and was trying to make it look like a monster was coming around the corner. And he was doing a pretty good job.... especially to a nervous six-year-old girl.

"DADDY....!" I screamed across the yard.

Just one of many fun Halloween memories. My parents knew how to get into the spirit of a holiday.... especially my dad.