If Your Kids Go Out to Trick-or-Treat - Don't Let Them Go Down Wicker Street

It started out like any other Halloween. My friends Ted, Joe, Kevin and I were a team every year, flawlessly figuring out how to get the most candy by any means necessary.

We all met outside Joe’s house. He lived across the street from me. Ted and Kevin only lived a few blocks away. They ditched their bikes in the garage at Joe’s place and we all set off down the street, just as dusk was darkening into night, a bloated orange crescent moon emerging from behind clouds on the horizon.

The plan was to hit as many houses as we possibly could. Our weapons of choice - jumbo pillowcases that would be stuffed to the brim with candy by the end of the night if everything went as expected. Spoiler alert, it didn’t.

Ted was wearing a black and red striped sweater with a Freddy Kreuger mask. On his hand was a gardening glove with butter knives attached to the back of it - terrifying, I know. Kevin was wearing a pale blue mechanic’s uniform which said “Bob” on the breast pocket and had grease smeared on his hands and nose, leaving smudges of it everywhere. He wore a tool belt around his waist with wrenches and screwdrivers dangling from it. Joe was wearing a Chewbacca mask and a furry costume that looked like it was made of old brown shag carpeting - or maybe a couple dozen used wigs.

All of us kept taking off our masks between houses, since they were far too hot and sweaty to walk around in. I kept envying Kevin who was the only one of us who had opted not to wear one.

“Told you guys you’d be sweating your faces off in those things,” he said, smirking at us as we pulled them off for the dozenth time.

“Yeah, well, my costume doesn’t really work without it,” said Ted, looking down at his Freddy Kreuger getup.

“Mine either,” I said, holding the Batman mask in my hand. It kinda ruined the illusion if I didn’t wear it - making it look like the Gotham City Detective had forgotten his cowl and pointy ears at home. It was just a cheap plastic mask with tiny holes cut out for seeing and for breathing out of. My costume was mostly homemade as well, except for the flimsy plastic breastplate with the Batman symbol on it.

“At least mine’s a real costume,” Joe chided. “Kevin's parents are so poor they couldn’t afford one. Where'd they buy that mechanic shirt for you? The thrift store?”

His voice was that of someone joking around, but I could tell that he wasn’t. I didn’t say anything since I had actually gotten parts of my costume at a thrift store and didn’t want the attention redirected towards me.

Kevin didn't say anything back, just looked quietly upset and brooding for a while. I felt bad for Joe’s remark. He'd been a dick to Kevin all week due to some dispute I wasn't privy to. Still, I knew Kevin well enough to know that Joe would get his comeuppance for the underhanded insult. Kevin was never one to let shit like that go. He'd blow up later on and the results would be shocking. He always stored his pent-up rage and then unleashed it in brutal outbursts. As we continued walking to the next house, I couldn’t help but recall when I had personally been the victim of one of those outbursts.

Once, during school recess, I had said something to him as a joke - something so innocuous that I can’t even remember what it was. Kevin had been upset by it, although he hadn't said anything at the time. Instead, he waited several minutes until my back was turned and then kicked me as hard as he could in the ass. The only thing was, he “missed” my ass - the toe of his shoe went through my legs and hit me hard in the balls. I couldn’t sit down comfortably for months afterwards.

"You're on my list now," he'd tell people when they pissed him off badly enough - and none of us were ever entirely sure if he was kidding or not.

We made our way around the neighbourhood in the vicinity of our own homes, working our way outwards, moving with the practiced efficiency of kids who had done this sort of thing many times before. Skipping the dark, windows-blacked-out houses and the ones where we knew they gave out raisins, apples, or (God forbid) dental floss. Our route had been planned ahead of time for weeks and we had all the best houses from the year before plotted out, knowing which ones gave out full-sized chocolate bars, cans of pop, and goodie bags.

The results were unprecedented. By eight o’clock our pillowcases were practically overflowing and we had to stop by my house to drop off the excess. My mom supplied garbage bags and we heaped our candy into them under her concerned watch. I could see her racking up the dental bills in her mind as I shovelled a few tootsie rolls into my mouth and we set off once more, hoping to get another hour’s worth of pillaging in.

“Be safe,” she shouted after us. “Don’t eat any more candy until I get a chance to go through them all! I have to check them for razor blades!”

“Okay, mom!” I yelled back, pedalling off on my bike, pulling a Starburst out of my pocket and jamming it into my already crowded mouth.

Devoid of any other nearby options, we rode towards the other end of town, where the houses were spaced a bit further apart, making them less appealing choices. They all looked the same to me, and I didn’t have a preference which road we went down.

“How about this one?” Joe asked, stopping at the end of a street I didn’t recognize.

“Yeah, sure. Doesn’t matter to me,” I said, hopping off my bicycle.

At this point we still felt like bandits after a flawless robbery spree, ready to hit one last big score.

Parking our bikes at the end of the little road called Wicker Street, we locked them up to some small trees and set off for a final walk around the unknown neighbourhood. In retrospect, we should have just been satisfied with what we had back at home. It was already getting late and most of the other trick-or-treaters had finished for the night. There were only a few other stragglers out still.

I hadn’t spent much time at this end of town, and it looked foreign and strange to me as we ambled along the street lined with tall trees, our pillowcases now empty once again.

The strange thing was, all the houses around there were blacked out. None of them were lit up or displayed with cobwebs, skeletons, or jack-o-lanterns. There was no spooky music playing from hidden speakers, no neighbours dressed up as scarecrows who’d jump out and frighten you when you walked by. No other kids walking around, either. Not on this particular street.

The four of us walked silently up the darkened road. A very few lamp posts illuminated our path, but I noticed many were dead or flickering with dim, intermittent blue light. We walked through long stretches where I could barely see, except by the light of the moon.

Something scurried past us in the darkness suddenly, making me jump. Part of me really wanted to turn around and run back home, but I ignored that feeling and continued on with my friends, each step more shaky than the last.

None of the houses seemed to be welcoming to trick-or-treaters, and we were starting to get concerned. At least I was.

“Maybe it’s getting too late already,” I said nervously. “What time is it, Kevin?”

He was the only one of us who wore a wristwatch but he pretended not to hear me. He was still sulking from earlier when Joe had taken that cheap shot about his costume. I decided not to push it and just guessed it was about nine-thirty, judging by when we had left my house.

That was usually when folks started turning off their lights and calling it a night, wasn’t it? And yet this whole neighbourhood felt awake and conscious of us, despite the darkness. Like there were eyes watching us from every angle.

“You guys want to start heading back soon? It looks like we already hit all the good places," I said, hoping my voice didn't sound as nervous as I felt.

Ted was about to say something when Joe pointed up ahead. I heard a faint sound of screaming and figured it was one of those Halloween sound effect tapes.

“There’s one house lit up at the end there. Come on, let’s see if they’ve got anything decent, then we can go down the next street over on the way back to get the bikes.”

We all agreed and kept walking down the unknown road, the houses getting darker, dirtier, more run-down and decrepit as we went along. The trees and shrubbery around the homes seemed to become more deformed as well, the thick vegetation crowded closer and closer together until you could barely see the houses behind the trees anymore.

Finally, we reached the place at the very end - a squat, old, grey house that looked like a giant poisonous mushroom with a sunken black roof for its cap. Gnarled and twisted fruit trees surrounded it and the sour-sweet smell of rotting crabapples hung in the air as we approached. A hand-written plank board sign was set up out front that had been hammered down into the dirt on a wooden post.

On it were scrawled these strange letters and symbols. Or something like it:

“☼wϱ±ƒê☼”

We went past the sign without giving it much thought. The sounds of screaming could be heard again from inside, louder this time, and I thought whatever Halloween sound effect tape they had purchased must have been expensive, since it was a very well-produced recording. The shrill cries emanating from within the house sounded completely lifelike and realistic.

A woman dressed in dark, tattered clothing was standing on the front porch waiting for us, grinning with crooked brown and yellow teeth. Her face looked ancient - covered in boils and warts and reflecting a greenish hue in the moonlight. Quite a mask, I thought at the time. It was so realistic-looking.

She opened the wooden front door and it swung wide with a squeal. Strangely, she held it open, as if inviting us as guests into her home.

“Greetings, young ones! Greetings! And blessings from the dark one on this glorious Samhain to each of you.”

“Uh, thanks,” I said, feeling suddenly very concerned. “Trick-or-treat?”

We held out our pillowcases and the old woman cackled with apparent delight.

“Oh my, what wonderful creatures! But you will have to come inside to get your candy! We’ve set up a little maze for you - the winner gets a special prize!” Her voice was cackling and song-like, a mirthfulness and something else indistinguishable disguised within it. Anticipation, perhaps.

The four of us climbed the crumbling porch steps slowly and with caution. I noticed the entrance of the house had been altered, taped off with black-dyed bed sheets and an open cardboard box which led further into another one, and another. We would have to get down on our hands and knees to go through.

Past the initial cardboard box tunnel all I could see was darkness.

“In there?” I asked, the first one in line. I didn’t like the looks of this. But Joe shoved me from behind, anxious to get more candy at the end of the maze.

“Go, man. Stop being such a wuss.”

I got down on my hands and knees and began crawling forward slowly into the darkness.

Joe, Ted, and Kevin all followed behind me and I heard their breathing echoing around me in the narrow, confined space, as well as my own.

Soon I couldn't even see my hands in front of my own face. Pitch blackness surrounded me on all sides as I shuffled forward on my hands and knees, the hard floor uncomfortable beneath me.

My heart began to pound as the blackness became even blacker somehow, and I heard the soft CLICK of the door closing shut behind us in the darkness, as if someone had locked it as quietly as they could.

“Guys, I don’t like this,” I said, still slowly crawling forward. “Can we just go back?”

“Oh shut up you wuss!” Joe said in that mocking voice of his. “Keep moving, it’s just a stupid fake haunted house. The old bat will probably jump out and try to scare us at the end. Just pretend like you're surprised.”

I didn’t have a lot of faith in his theories, but decided I didn't have any choice other than to continue moving forward.

Cobwebs stuck to my face at the next section and I noticed it smelled old and musty in there, as if the box maze had been there for a long, long time. Dirt and small pebbles bit into my knees painfully. I felt a spider or some other bug crawling in my hair, going down my back, and let out a yelp of fear that Joe quickly made fun of me for.

I tried to convince myself these were all just scare gags, already knowing that was just wishful thinking. Still, I kept crawling along, sick to my stomach and feeling more and more worried by the second.

Suddenly something could be felt breathing on me from my right - a hot, humid stink of halitosis in my nostrils. The sound of something very large could be heard moving around, inhaling and exhaling in the blacked-out maze.

My hands reached up instinctively to shield my face and smacked right into the cardboard box which was still surrounding me on all sides except in front and behind.

“What the hell?” I muttered, feeling disoriented.

“Keep moving, asshole,” said Joe from right behind me, annoyed that I had stopped. "It's hot as hell in here."

He was right, I realized. It was getting warmer.

I shuffled forward, figuring I had just imagined the feeling of something large looming over us and breathing its stinking breath on me. The claustrophobia was horrible as the boxes seemed to get smaller with every movement forward. Then it suddenly branched off into three different directions.

“Whoa,” I said, stopping in my tracks. “Hey, which way should I go? There’s three choices - forward, right, or left.”

Nobody answered.

I turned my head around as well as I could in the darkness.

“Guys?”

Still nothing. No response. And I could somehow sense the emptiness of the tunnel behind me. My friends were gone.

Feeling terrified and wanting badly to get out of this place now, I tried to turn around. The walls around me were cardboard, I had thought, but they were sturdy somehow, utterly unyielding.

And it was far too narrow to turn around now.

My heart racing, my breaths coming fast and yet still feeling like no air was reaching my lungs, I continued forward, ignoring the other two options going left and right. The rational part of my mind told me that everything was okay, that this was just a game, that my friends had gone down some other side tunnel that I hadn’t noticed. Or maybe the lady running the maze had snuck them out to scare me, or had altered the maze after I went past, causing them to separate from me.

All these thoughts seemed plausible, but I knew they weren’t what had happened.

This wasn’t an ordinary house and this wasn’t an ordinary maze. That was the truth. I had known it before even stepping inside - I should have trusted my instincts, I told myself bitterly.

The hot, humid air was difficult to breathe and I could feel sweat pouring down my face, stinging my eyes.

Crawling forward, the tunnel continued on and on, sloping downwards gradually.

The blackness which surrounded me was oppressive, suffocating. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face from an inch away, which terrified me more than anything somehow. I hadn’t even known it was possible for a place to be this dark, this completely pitch-black and lightless.

I heard a loud, piercing scream coming from ahead, the voice behind it familiar to my ears. Joe.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THEM!?” I yelled, angry and afraid of what would happen next, unable to control my temper. "LEAVE MY FRIENDS ALONE!"

There was no reply and I had only one choice - to continue moving forward.

The maze was branching off into different side tunnels occasionally but I kept heading towards the sound of the screams, straight ahead.

I felt the presence of something again, a hot breath on my neck and a sensation of being watched.

"Who's there?" I asked, hoping that nobody answered, that maybe it was just my imagination again, but instead I heard a voice. It sounded ancient, deep and powerful. Dark and poisonous.

"You're almost at the end, boy. But when you get there you'll have to make a choice," the voice told me, its "S's" stretched out and elongated as if a snake was speaking to me. "You'll have to pick one of your friendssssss."

"Pick one of them for what?"

I asked, but the presence was already gone.

Suddenly, I began to slide. The floor was sloping so steeply downwards now there was no stopping it. Falling faster and faster with no sense of my velocity or how close I was to the ground, I began to scream.

I landed hard on the ground, hurting my tailbone and causing my jaw to slap shut painfully.

The space had opened up and I was able to stand, at least. There was a dirt floor beneath my feet and I got the impression I was in a basement.

"He's here," a whispered voice said from the other end of the room. Other hushed voices responded, too quiet to hear.

It was so hot! I was pouring sweat, my eyes searching desperately for any light that might mean an exit was nearby.

“Please, just let me out. I don’t want to be here anymore,” I begged, unable to stop myself from crying.

The whispered voices were moving closer. They seemed to be chanting something under their breath. Whatever it was made the hair stand up on the back of my neck and made my stomach queasy.

I heard my friends sniffling and crying in the background as well.

A flame suddenly came into view, as a door with rusty hinges swung open like a mouth in the darkness, despite the fact that nobody was standing anywhere near it. It was a wood-burning furnace, I realized - its orange glow flickering and casting the room in dull light, allowing me to see the horrifying details of what lay around me.

My eyes quickly scanned the space and I saw my friends were bound with ropes and had been laid out on flat wooden boards. They were tied down and unable to move, being drawn in towards the fire by some invisible force.

Ted, Joe, and Kevin began to scream when they saw me. Their faces were red and sweaty from being so close to the flames.

The chanting, whispering voices were all around me now, surrounding me and speaking furiously in my ear - their voices only audible within my mind.

They told me what had to be done. There was only one way out for us. Only one thing would appease them.

"No, I won't. I won't! You can't make me!" I yelled out, the voices ignoring my protests and whispering harsh, threatening words and telling me what would happen if I refused to listen.

The fire was getting hotter by the second. It would only begin to settle once it had been fed. Only then would it be satisfied, at least for now.

I did the only thing I could do. Grabbing a butter knife from the glove of Ted’s Freddy Kreuger costume, I began to cut at the ropes holding him down. The fire was getting larger and hotter by the second and there was no way to slow it down. All I could do was cut at the ropes.

Crouching back even as far as I was, the flames burnt my eyebrows and gave me scars that I still have to this day. But Kevin and Joe got it the worst, especially Joe.

With the flames growing larger and larger by the second, Joe’s skin began to melt. It sloughed from his face and he wailed and screamed to "Make it stop!"

I cut as fast as I could but the ropes were sturdy and strong. It felt like it was taking hours to cut through them. Meanwhile the howling screams of agony continued. Although Kevin was strangely quiet, as if listening.

After finally cutting Ted free I noticed Kevin too had gotten out of his bonds, using the screwdriver from his costume’s tool belt to cut the ropes. He looked frantic, his face horribly burnt and mangled, his smoke-reddened eyes wide and crazed.

He made no effort to help Joe. I couldn’t help but think about the fight the two of them had, and the insult Joe had made earlier.

Stumbling over towards Joe, I saw Kevin had the wrench gripped tightly in his fist. He stood over him for a moment, watching him scream and melt.

Then he brought the wrench down hard on Joe's forehead, caving in his skull. The sound was like a hammer smashing a watermelon. He brought it down again. And again. And again. Blood spattered in the air and sprayed everywhere.

I ran over, grabbing his wrist, trying to stop him, but it was already too late. Joe was dead, his face unrecognizable, utterly ruined by the swings of Kevin's wrench.

“Only way. It was the only way,” I heard him quietly mutter afterwards. "Had to do it or they wouldn't let us leave…"

A dim light was suddenly visible and I realized we were alone again. The whispering, chanting voices had fled, temporarily appeased by the sacrifice of our friend, it seemed. Part of me wondered if they had ever been there to begin with. Regardless of their physical presence, there was a powerful magic surrounding this place, capable of influencing others to do its bidding.

Dull blue light was filtering through boards above us at the edge of the room, and I moved towards it. I was desperate to get free from the blistering heat of the furnace room. Except it wasn't really hot in there anymore, I realized. In fact it was quite cool, making me shiver as the sweat turned cold on my skin.

I bumped into a ladder and began to climb, pushing up the trap door at the top and taking in fresh, cool air in heaving breaths.

Ted and Kevin followed me up and we realized we were standing amongst the ruins of an old, burnt down house, neglected and abandoned in the middle of a forested area.

Disoriented, we began to walk back towards the light of the nearby neighborhood which could be glimpsed through the thick trees. We were a great distance away from it. I couldn't help but wonder if most of Wicker Street had just been a conjured illusion.

With some alarm, I noticed that Kevin still had a blank look on his face, betraying no emotion after what had just occurred. I looked at Ted and saw he was terribly shaken, unable to speak.

I wanted to ask them what we would do now. What would we tell Joe's parents?

Instead I said nothing, too scared of Kevin to confront him after what he had done.

The three of us never really spoke again after that night. Except in the police interviews.

Kevin said one last thing to me as they took him away in handcuffs.

"You're on my list now, Jordan. And I'm putting YOU at the very TOP."

I haven't slept well lately. Not since the news. I just found out… They sent me a letter, as a courtesy.

After all these years, Kevin is finally being released from prison this Halloween.

TCC