He ran right past me, as fast as he could. I turned and tried to follow him but my stomach was cramping from the fits of laughter and he left me for dead. I figured that he would run straight home and that I would be able to meet up with him later at his house.
How wrong I was!
About half an hour later I made it to his house, his parents were unaware as to his whereabouts, they thought that he was out with me trick-or-treating.
The next day I learn that they found him at four o'clock in the morning, stark naked in a storm water drain babbling something about monsters, ghouls and demons. His parents had agreed that he be taken to hospital to under go physcological evaluation.
That was the last I saw of Mike, the next day he was admitted to an institute for the mentally insane.
Now I know what you are all thinking, what in the hell had he seen in the Fletcher house? This is the part that I need to jump back to the events that occurred earlier in the day.
Firstly let me tell you that I am telling this to clear my conscience, not to brag. I am not proud about what I did, or what happened to my friend Mike. Actually I am totally disgusted with my actions and foolishness. It had been hard for me to go on from one day to another knowing that I had ruined the life of two other human beings. That�s right, two other people, Mike and old Mr. Fletcher.
At three o'clock that afternoon I had paid a visit to the Fletcher house. I was a little nervous myself but it was broad daylight and I knew that there wasn't really anything to be scared of.
Anyway I had planned to talk to Mr. Fletcher and persuade him into letting me use his house to play a joke on my friend Mike. What I had figured for that night was to wait for Mike to enter the house and then I would sneak in after him and scare the shit out of him. Nothing but a bit of harmless fun.
I knock on the door and wait, I hear heavy footfalls on the wooden floorboards inside the house. They get closer to the front door. My mouth dries up and my stomach starts to churn, I wanted to turn about and run. But I told myself that there was nothing to be afraid of, so I stayed there on the porch and waited for Mr. Fletcher to open the door.
The door squeaked open and a huge hairy hand shot out and grabbed hold of my shirt, it dragged me into the dimly lit house and slammed the door shut behind me. I was that scared that I pissed my pants, a scream was stuck deep in my throat unable to escape.
Standing in front of me stood a monster that would have scared Dr Frankenstein himself. It was huge and hairy, it grunted and moaned loudly. I looked around the room, hoping to find an escape route. My mouth fell open at what I saw, half a dozen mangled bodies of kids, some decapitated, some disemboweled, all covered in blood.
I knew at that time that my only chance of survival was to fight my way out of the house. The monster stood between the door and me. Mustering up all the courage I had, I leapt at the hideous ogre, knocking it off its feet. I tripped and fell next to it, a hairy hand grabbed hold of me again. I rolled and broke loose from its deathly clutches; I scrambled to my feet and picked up a solid wooden coffee table. I don't know where I got the strength to pick up the table, but when faced with death the human body is capable of some marvelous feats. I raised the table above my head and slammed it down hard on the ogre's disgusting head. The table smashed and the ogre let out a cry of pain. His chest rose and then fell for the last time, with the last shudder of life leaving its body the mask fell off of Mr. Fletcher's head.
I stood there stunned, mouth hanging agape, my heart racing at a thousand beats a minute. I had just killed old Mr. Fletcher. I looked around the room at the other dead bodies. Dummies, mannequins, all looking as real as life.
What was this guy doing with all of this gear? Why had he attacked me? I was irrational, not thinking straight. I was blaming Mr. Fletcher for his own death; obviously he was just having a little Halloween fun himself.
I had to do something with Mr. Fletcher's body; I couldn't just leave him laying there in the front room. Moving from room to room looking for a decent hiding place for the body, I stumble into Mr. Fletcher's workshop. Rows and rows of gruesome masks lined one wall, matching bodies hanging below them. A bench ran along the opposite wall and was covered in moulds and tools. Another wall was covered in photos of all sorts of hideous creatures, some of which I recognized from horror flicks that I had watched.
Mr. Fletcher had been a special effects artist in his younger days.
I dragged the body into the workshop and hung him amongst the other costumes, he looked like he belonged there.
Using other mannequins and dummies, in the front room, I created the most horrific scene that I could come up with. I was sure that it would be enough to scare Mike.
Leaving the house I eased the front door shut making sure that the lock didn't catch. That way Mike would be guaranteed entry into the house of horrors.
They didn't find Mr. Fletchers body until three months later, when a relative from out of state came to visit him.
So that was the story of my sixteenth Halloween, the worst day of my life. The day that I lost my best friend Mike. The day that changed my life forever.
