Tiny's Halloween

A few weeks ago I received an email from a young man, Doug, whose big sister used to babysit for my son when he was 5 years old. He had come across our short video, “A Nice Drive”, on You Tube and said “I know those people!” So he contacted me. He’s all grown up now and his passion is making short, scary videos for a website he started called “Scared Stiff”. Whore that I am, I immediately asked for work and, last night, drove into the woods of North Stamford to shoot a Halloween mini-special. The directions were vague but I plugged the address into Mapquest and was on my way. For those who don’t know the southwestern tip of Connecticut, it is an odd combination of major cities and dense forests with houses tucked among very old trees and narrow, winding roads. It is amazing how quickly you can drive from a bustling highway to a dark, lonely, haunted looking landscape with gnarly tree limbs hovering over slim slips of blacktop bound by New England’s famous handmade stone walls. There are few, if any, lights.
I zipped off the highway and headed north away from the city. Moments later I edged my car on to a narrower road, passing the Bartlett Arboretum, a museum of trees where we used to take our son for Halloween Festivals. Spectacular in the daytime, especially in the fall, it is just a dark forest at night. I drove slowly, reading the street signs. A line of cars followed closely, annoyed at my slow pace on what was to me unfamiliar territory. I found my street and turned left on to an even narrower road. None of the cars turned with me. The road snaked through the forest. It was a while before I saw the first mailbox: old, rusty, pitched to the side as if it were too tired to stand up. I read the number and realized I had a way to go. I drove slowly, reading the numbers on sporadically placed passing mailboxes. Bright lights came toward me as a faster car approached. I swerved to avoid him on a curve, blinded by his high beams. Alone again, I put on my own brights. That was better. The numbers continued to climb: 233, 357, 425… I was looking for 441. There was a stop sign ahead and another sign that said “Dead End”. Did I miss it? No. There was a smaller sign telling me to turn right to stay on this road. I did. An old mailbox with faded numbers told me I had reached my destination. But it was dark.
The director had told me to look for the blue night lights they would use to film outdoors. I saw none. I pulled into the tree-canopied driveway and looked toward the house, almost invisible from the road. I saw a man inside through the windows. I got out of the car and started across the lawn to ask if I was in the right place. The lawn was wet and muddy and my high heeled shoes sank into the ground. I couldn’t see where I was going and the man inside disappeared into another room. I thought, “What the hell am I doing?” and got back into the car. I pulled out of the driveway and rode a little further, looking for the blue lights. I tried calling the director but the call went right to voice mail. I checked my instructions; that was the address. I drove back to the house, pulled into the driveway again and noticed the driveway went around to the back of the house. Doors locked, I followed the path. Around the back I saw the lights. Relief swept over me and I felt a little foolish at my anxiety. I approached the house.
The door was unlocked and I let myself in. It was an old door, with latches instead of doorknobs. This house had to be 200 years old! The ceilings were low with wooden beams that were dark and rough hewn as if they had been hand-cut. “Hello?” No answer. I entered a sparsely furnished, small, dark kitchen. The smell of cat hit my nostrils. Beyond the kitchen was a tiny dining room. There was plaster on the floor and a portion of the ceiling revealed the wooden supports above. Everything was old, dark, creepy. “Hello? Anybody here?” Okay, I thought, this is really stupid. If this were a movie, this would be the part where I start screaming to the girl to get out of there. Could this be an elaborate prank? Could the little boy I knew, and whose whole family I knew… Could he have turned out to be an axe murdered? There was an indoor porch beyond the dining room and beautiful beveled glass doors revealed a living room beyond them where the man from the window sat watching TV. I knocked. “Hello?” He got up and walked past me to another door. I knocked again. “No, over here.” “What am I doing,” I thought. I just walked into a stranger’s home. It’s just him and me and THIS IS NOT DOUG!” How did I know this was not the person I was looking for? I hadn’t seen him in almost 17 years. I knew because Doug was white and the man on the other side of the glass door was black. He looked at me and smiled. “Am I in the right place,” I asked, trying to sound …not stupid. “Yes.”
I’m writing this, so obviously you know I’m okay. I was in the right place. This was not “Scream 80” or “Saw 253”. The guy in the house was the house-sitter and was playing the lunatic in the script. Everybody else was late. Doug, I learned, was always late. He showed up about fifteen minutes later and we shot the video. Check it out on www.scaredstiff.tv starting next week. It’s called “Tiny’s Halloween”, about a trick-or-treating psychopath. Great neighborhood for it. Great house for a horror story. Just don’t ever ask me to spend a night there.