What is Halloween all about? Dressing up in costumes? Pumpkin carving? Scary movies? When it comes to this holiday, many people don’t know the purpose or the origin—just that it’s a fun time to hang out with friends and capitalize on free cavities. This is the Halloween of today. The Halloween of yesterday is a little more creepy.
The Celtics, who celebrated their New Year on November 1st, considered the last day in their calendar to be a time in which the barrier between the worlds of the living and the dead became thinner and more permeable. Ghosts would cross over into our world—some very sinister, some just a little bit mischievous—and to ward off the spirits, the Celtics wore terrifying masks and dressed as the dead.
Like I said before, these days it’s more about having fun with friends dressing silly or scary, and trick-or-treating. Those with a gut for horror laugh at the idea of ghosts and hauntings (especially in movie theatres where, while I’m shielding myself from the visual assaults, people often cackle at jump-scares). Others, like myself, sleep with the lights on. But it’s not the outrageous Hollywood hauntings we should be concerned about—it’s the everyday stories of horrible happenings that should ring a few alarm bells. And though you might not be able to stop envisioning the Nun every night, standing and watching you from your closet, it’s not the Nun you should be worried about. Let me tell you a true story.
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It’s the winter of 1979, in the capital of Latvia. My aunt Julia lives in a ratty old apartment, post-communism, with concrete stairwells and hallways leading all the way up to the 11th floor. Sandwiched right in the middle, she has a good view and a small balcony on which she often watches neighbours in opposing apartment buildings.
It’s horribly cold, as usual. The tips of her fingers feel foreign, frozen to the point of numbness. She shivers, breathes into her hands, and reaches for another blanket. It wouldn’t be so bad, if the worn heater was still working. With no heater, and not even hot water (the repairs on old buildings are endless), she needs something to warm her up.
Matches. There were matches on the kitchen countertop. She could light the gas stoves with them—the warmth would radiate from the fire. But the box was empty. And the cold only seems to grow colder, like a dense ocean rising in the apartment.
It’s getting dark, but a slice of golden light streams over the tufts of snow outside, drawing a path to a nearby convenience store. It would only be a few minutes. Julia couldn’t stand the thought of just sitting, still freezing, in her wool and fleece cocoon. She slips on her jacket, her boots, and unbolts the door, letting a massive shadow douse the room in charcoal blackness. The golden sliver dims, like a dying candle, and only a thick and musty darkness greets her in the hallway. She can’t see anything. Something brushes against her leg and thorns prickle her skin, but she sucks in a breath and continues through the door frame.
The lights are off (black out, maybe) and the elevator button doesn’t work. She faces the six flights of stairs, every footstep like a dripping stalactite, followed by a hollow echo. A groan from below. Julia hesitates on the steps, but faces onward. Again, a groan, an empty drowning groan.
She reaches the sixth floor, and as soon as she turns her head to squint through the impenetrable shadow in the hallway, she makes out a shape. It isn’t unusual for homeless men to seek out buildings like this for the night. There is no lobby, no staff—only the landlord who lives on the first floor. If you follow someone in, you have no trouble hiding in the corners after dark.
This man hides just there. His soft moans and heavy breaths bounce across the walls. They slow. They still. He freezes in time. His moans, which came in harmony with each second, stop. Another figure, flowing in and out of view, part of and yet separate from the darkness, like smoke is separate from the air, leans over the man.
The overwhelming silence draws attention to Julia’s breaths. No matter how much air she pulls in, she feels empty and suffocates on the cold. Each attempt to rise above the ocean is a loud struggle, a splash, and the shadow above the body slowly turns its head and locks its eyes with Julia. All-consuming darkness. For a moment, she can’t see, can’t feel anything, like she’s floating in space, void of all sense. The only sign of her life is her struggle to breathe and the speed of her heart as it desperately beats against her chest. She is squeezed, twisted, compressed by the weight of the darkness.
By the time her vision clears, she is on the floor, her shaking legs unable to keep her upright, her eyes still facing the figure. Silence.
Suddenly it comes for her, darts at her, and she stumbles up the stairs in a panic. Quickly, never stopping, never taking a chance to look back, she trips into her apartment and slams the door behind her, pushing with her full weight, fingers fumbling to close every single lock.
The homeless man had died that night. She finds out in the morning, as an ambulance pulls up to the side of the building, as residents pool out of their homes to watch the police wrap the icy body and take it away.
When Julia tells this story, she admits she still doesn’t really know what happened. People tell her it was paranoia that conjured the shadow, the incredible darkness feeding into her hallucination. But she’s convinced that’s not all there is to it.
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This Halloween, have fun! Cake on that makeup, pull on those costumes and go get that candy. But don’t forget this story. It’s fun to scream, fun to watch horror films and visit haunted houses… but only as long as the horror stays on the screen, and the ghosts don’t follow you home…