Sounds of October

“Happy Halloween!”

The fresh-out-of-the-package door hanger fit perfectly across Trish’s screen door. It was the newest edition to the ‘Dollar Store decor’ that littered the gravelled front lawn of her doublewide. Every October, she took what little was left of her paycheck, put her employee discount to good use, and bought one or two new decorations for her lot. On October 1, she began to decorate.

Collected from years past, a disjointed skeleton lay sprawled in front of a shrine to Satan and paper mache tombstones. Reusable, pre-carved pumpkins already held tea lights and lined her parking spot. Wailing bats hung from the large oak tree that a worn witch commanded dominion over. The oak’s limbs were lined with purple and green lights, like poisoned veins, that leaked synthetic cobwebs and plastic spider rings.

Trish stood beside the pothole in the middle of Pebble Beach Way and marveled at her creation this year. In 30 short days, she would be sitting under the tree with a few scarecrows made of an ex’s flannels and the fallen leaves. If she cut down to one pack of cigarettes a day, she would be able to bring home a few more decorations on the next paycheck.

As the sounds of the trailer park life—kids riding bikes, a couple arguing, roaring cars from the interstate, and the smack of an aggressive screen door—filled her ears, she planned what she could add to the yard and puffed on a Pall Mall.

“Happy Halloween!”

Trish whipped her head around and caught a glimpse of a strobe light before being smacked in the face with the split ends of her ponytail. She would rather that slap in the face left her blind. When it didn’t happen, her hazel eyes were subjected to her first actual competition in years—only he waited until the 13th to set up.

The newest addition to the Riverside Mobile Home was, quite successfully, spreading his own cobwebs between the three, random fence poles that were firmly planted in the small stretch of grass that lay adjacent to his mobile home. He had already set up the strobe, most of the cobwebs, and a giant, screeching spider that hung from his protruding windowsill. A box of decorations still sat on the tailgate of his 2014 Dodge Ram.

As Trish took another drag from her cigarette, the taste was stronger, the inhale was harder, and the exhale was dragon-like. She was furious. Trish took one more puff, threw her half-smoked cigarette to the ground, and stormed inside. The gravel, then wood, echoed down the street under her heavy steps.

“Happy Halloween!”

A little boy with Kool Aid-stained lips and teeth smiled up at Trish from the other side of the counter. His mom was clutching a toddler with one arm as she dug through her purse for loose change with the other. Trish listened to the soothing yet unsettling sounds of ruffling receipts, jingling keys, gravel shuffling along cheap fabric, and frustrated sighs as she marveled at her coworker piecing together the Halloween pop-up.

Most of the decorations were the same as last year. The new additions, however, were gorgeous. Trish was already budgeting her next paycheck.

For five dollars, Trish could snag a pack of three hanging, fabric ghosts. For 10 dollars, she could get a singular, hanging, fabric ghost that howled at random intervals. For eight dollars, she could could hang a gothic candelabra from the oak; that didn’t make much sense in her mind. For seven dollars, she could post three “Enter If You Dare” signs in her yard. As she methodically thought of all the different placement ideas for each decoration, the woman on the other side of the counter snapped her back to reality.

“Happy Halloween!”

On Halloween Day, Trish stood in front of her rock lawn and bit at the hangnails that lined her fingers. Her eyes rapidly shifted as she examined the decorations that filled her lawn. This year’s newest additions included six small, hanging, fabric ghosts; two howling, hanging, fabric ghosts; nine “Enter If You Dare” signs that she transformed into a ladder; an empty noose; and two gothic candelabras.

She could hear her stomach shift as she looked at the pumpkin bucket filled with Smarties. It was the first food she had bought in nearly a week. She took loud, deep inhales to replace the nicotine she ditched two weeks ago. Occasionally the howling, hanging, fabric ghosts or wailing, hanging, bats would break the consistent growling.

The strobe from down the road replaced the sun around 7 p.m., and the sounds of adolescence began to fill the street. Trish sat down beside the flanneled scarecrow and waited for the first trick-or-treater to collect candy. Excited laughter came screeching down the road, and two witches sprinted through the light—their smiles shining brighter than the blinding,  fluorescent flashes.

“Happy Halloween!”

One of the young witches opened her plastic King Soopers bag revealing a king-size Snickers bar. Looking embarrassed for Trish, she dropped the Smarties on top of the chocolate. As the girls ran down the street, the crunch of gravel turned her attention to the right.

Her neighbor was walking towards her carrying a cigarette in one hand and a Reese’s Cup in the other. Her vision blurred as she heard the old fold-up chair squeak, a few more crunches of gravel, and a loud snap. The sounds of a body being dragged to the oak tree, rustling with a rope, her own grunting, tearing of a wrapper, the squeaking of her lawn chair, and a flick of a lighter guided her through the next moments until another neighborhood kid ran up with an empty grocery bag. She listened to the sound of a lifeless body thumping against the great oak until dawn.

“Happy Halloween!”