Freaked Out!

by Chrysa Smith

I walked across the maze of yard, paint and home repair supplies that is my garage. A loud, girly scream and I was back into the house like a flash. ‘There’s a dead rat out there! It’s right by the work bench!‘ I shakily told my husband. After his own inspection, I got what you’d expect from a Montana guy, ‘It’s not a rat, it’s a possum. I bet it had that bird flu and looked for a warm place to curl up.’ Yikes! Not only a varmant with perhaps rabies or some ‘droppings’ to clean up, but now another thing to freak out about—bird flu?

Maybe it was God’s snarly sense of Halloween humor that left this city girl a ratty, little surprise. Or maybe it’s the fact that there’s a farm on one side of the street and some woods on the other. But just a bit earlier that week, home alone in the evening, the door bell rang. I looked out the glass panel and there was nobody in sight. I looked out the windows on either side of the door and nobody, no car, nothing at all. Uhhhhhhhhh–let’s just say I drew all the blinds, checked the locks and held the attack poodles close. Again, maybe it was nothing, but these two events, in the month of October, got me to thinking about all of the creepy, crawly, scary stuff that Halloween is made of; and just what it is that sends shivers up and down your spine.

Here’s my short list. Oh wait, it’s better when you read it to this soundtrack: