Halloween is coming, and there will be talk of the most memorable Halloween's in our lives...MINE will always be the Halloween of '97...the night we scared the livin' daylites out of 120 teenagers, and I watched a few of them become heros and heroines on a lonely country road just outside of town. 

 

In 95, I had been asked to create one of SIX "scary experiences" for a six group road rally, where three or four cars filled with funloving kids, would visit six sites and experience something scary...I was assigned the rodeo grounds, someone else an abandoned house, another an old barn, one an old factory, one a pumping station, and the last one the lumber yard.  As it got dark each rally group was told to go to a different site, and find the clue which would direct them to the NEXT site...In about ten minutes we were expected to incite fear in  the most skeptical audience possible...I mean after Jason and Freddie, what will really scare our kids?...not much!... OUR clue was buried in a suitcase coffin with the bloody body of a kidnapped baby (ok a life like doll that probably didint fool anyone...), and to get that clue,  the groups had to hear a halloweenish story of maham and horror...which ended up with them digging and discovering the clue after following the directions on a ransom note...another location had the rally groups hearing about a family of cannibals in the area as they watched a man cut up a rib cage...(of a deer)...but hey...anyway...someone else did the chain saw bit, and others just had the kids sit and listen to ghost stories...

 

When 1997 rolled around, I was again tapped as one of the site planners for the halloween road rally, which would again include twenty or so kids and adults in each group, six groups total, touring these new and improved "scary sites"...there were some pretty good places but MINE was not one of them...it was a park near the river, geez what's scary about a PARK with a few willow trees?...I wondered if we could have someone buried alive theiir moving hand coming up out of the sandy soil...nahhh, I didnt have the technology... 

 

I thot about having ghosts and gobblins in the trees...nahhh...who's gonna believe that?....Then it hit me! I HAVE IT! I told Steve, my compadre in fright...(whisper whisper whisper)...WOW! he said, Do you think we can pull it off?...but of course! I told him...I have experience in these kinds of things...

 

That afternoon, we went to my company's bone yard to retrieve the spare dodge colt hatchback I had purchased for parts for repairing my IDENTICAL silver sales car.  We inflated the tires and gathered up an old ten speed bicycle, some dry ice, panes of glass, a few gallons of fake blood, and headed toward the park, towing the car.  When we reached the intersection near the wilderness park, we stopped, and began the execution of our plan...OK, I said to Steve, here is where we will create the scene.  Lets make it look absolutely REAL...we walked off the scenario that we would convey again and again and again and again and again and again over the the two hour "Fright Rally"...

 

The story went roughly like this...While preparing for the fright night, I had sent Alan, Bill, and my son Andy back to get some critical props we had forgotten, at the intersection nearest the park, where a road intersected at a 30 degree angle, John was pedaling towards us.  Since it was dark, and he didnt have a light on his bike, Alan didnt see him until it was too late, swerved the car...HERE...but still hit John, and FLIPPED THE CAR ONTO ITS TOP...HERE...we all tipped the car over and poured oil out on the street, busted glass with delight, and then positioned the cars occupants as if two had not had their seat belts on and one hanging upside down in the mashed car.  I ran over the bicycle with my truck to give it a totally realistic look, positioned it in the barbed wire fence, and John in a ditch nearby with adaquate amounts of blood covering him.  We then broke out a back side window and had the glass appear to have severed my sons neck, with the required make up to make him look dead...the other two were just badly hurt, and Alan had the clue inside his pocket where, he would tell the visitors, he had his heart medication...

 

As we set up the props, flipped the car and made the scene look as realistic as possible, several cars drove by and offered assistance, one cars occupants, even without the bodies in position, told us they would go for help before we could explain it was just a gag...and minutes later the police showed up, lights flashing...jumped out and were fairly upset until we explained the three ring circus we had put together...Had the chief of police not lived near me, I am sure they would  have made us remove the vehicle from the rarely traveled road...luckily they didnt...I knew then that we were on the verge of Halloween immotality,...or something akin to it...like dracula maybe...or frankenstein..

 

As the first group came up the road to the park, we timed our sprint from the park so they could see us arriving at the scene of the accident just before they arrived and got out of the cars.  The wheels were still spinning, the smoke and steam came from the car, the glass, the bike, Johnathan moaning in agonizing pain...Steve pretending that it had JUST happened, and that he needed help because I was losing it over the discovery of my "dead son". I sat near the car and sobbed as I stroked his head which appeared to be nearly severed from his body...the groups were enlisted in the emergency...some were directed to help John, others to unbuckle Alan, and some to drag Bill away from the dripping "gasoline"...heavily diluted with water.   The scene was sureal, and I watched with some interest amidst my sobbing and tears as they were first skeptical, then totally involved...so much so that when they came across the clue...which directed them to the NEXT FRIGHT SITE...they simply discarded it as unimportant...FINALLY Steve had to TELL THEM it was a gag...insist they get in their cars and move to the next event. They still couldnt comprehend it was just a Halloween skit.. 

 

The first group hadnt been gone for ten minutes when the organizers came speeding up to the scene, having heard from the first group about the terrible accident they had witnessed, some of them still not understanding that  it was just part of the show.  Luckily the second group was delayed so we had time to explain to the organizers it was OUR fright site, and not a real accident...there were a few eyebrows raised but they let us continue...one said, you scared the hell out of the football players in that group, I hope the younger kids can handle this...

 

The second group reacted much like the first but by the time the third group arrived we had added a few elements that made it even more realistic...I was almost hysterical, Johnathan was in more pain...Bill was more lifeless, and Alan suspended in his seat belt had broken bones and cried out for help...

 

Then something happened as Steve recruited the onlookers to help him give first aid and comfort...two girls who were somewhat social animals, realized that Johnathan might just die, right there on the street, and they immediately went to the car for blankets and something to prop his head up, and to wipe the blood from his eyes.  I listened as they encouraged him to live...I know we havent been very nice to you John, one of them said, but I promise if you will not give up, we will never treat you like that again...ever...just hang on..an ambulance is on its way...it was then, I think, that real tears replaced my fake ones...

 

A police car drove up during that third act and the chief of police played right along with the entire skit...he insisted that the group leave and go on, cause there were too many cars for an ambulance to park...they got directions to the next site from him and were on their way, never knowing it was just a Halloween spoof, of a terrible automobile accident...the fourth group had friends of my son in it and they just stood petrified, looking at his "dead body" as I pretended the worst...I watched them thru my tears, and they were as stiff as statues...until one of the leaders of that caravan pulled them back to the car while they never took their eyes off him...they were really shaken...

 

The fifth group had a few boys who didnt buy all the road rally get scared stuff...talking in "im not afraid" assertions..that is until they saw the blood dripping from my son's ears and nose...the inverted car, the smells, the glass, Johnathan screaming in pain...and Steve forced them to pull Bill from the wreckage before it exploded...one of them tried to get me away too...you cant do anything for him, he told me...get away before it explodes and you get burned....I DONT CARE! I shouted as they pulled me away...I wanna die...no you dont they pleaded with me as they held me back, from returning to danger..

 

The sixth group was like the others, but had more adults, and they had been told about it so were expecting it...and still they were shocked at the grusomeness of the entire scene...one came up and whispered to me as I sat holding my "dead son's" hand...(if you dont get an award for this...there is no justice in this world)...I grabbed her and held her as if I were seeking comfort, and whispered back...(thats for dang sure)...

 

As they all gathered for refreshments, we returned the car back to the boneyard and drove up in the one that actually ran.  We were met by a fair amount of hostility from the kids themselves,  for having gone way too far...One of them who had given her heart and soul in the effort to keep John alive was angry, and relieved, and embarassed about her gullibility. Until I told her that even the police and organizers were totally taken in...

 

I have often recalled that Halloween evening...and how I tried to create the identical feelings I had once felt on that fall day when I was just 10, and we had witnessed a terrible accident, when a young teenager ran a stop sign and hit an older couple...I tried to create the atmosphere I had experienced as I held her bloody hand while she moaned and cried while lying on the sidewalk, covered  with my dad's marine blanket, that he kept on his truck seat.  I tried to have them understand the feelings I had as a 15 year old baseball coach when my nine year old catcher was hit by a car, and thrown 50 feet in the air to land on his head on that black asphalt apron...where I watched the blood pool up around him...all the while pleading with God...and with him not to die...

 

You see, I have never been much afraid of ghosts and goblins and imagages from movies...I have always been more afraid of the pain I witnessed...the helplessness I experienced, and the hurt I felt...when I heard that she had died...and when I saw my little catcher in a hospital bed for weeks and a body cast for months after that accident ...

 

I think it was the best Halloween ever...mostly for how I saw those who witnessed it, in some way, reaffirm their own love of life...oh yes, and in the way they confronted our REAL fears...