Our Spook House

© Design Bolts

Elmer Grape, my late husband, loved Halloween as much as Christmas, maybe even a little more. He always said kids liked to be scared. Nothing to hurt them, just something fun scary. And I guess he was right. Every time he jumped out at one of the kids or at me, we laughed. So when Halloween rolled around, he was like a little kid himself. Every October 31^st, I think of our Spook House in the mid-1970s.

Our house in Houston had a sidewalk leading from the driveway to the front door located under an overhang porch, a little wider than the walkway. He worked commercial construction and had access to rolls of black plastic, Visqueen. Like garbage bags but thicker and blacker. He hung the plastic from the overhang making a dark corridor to our front door where an evil looking Jack-O-Lantern sat. Kids would have to walk the ten feet to the front door, ring the doorbell. I dressed in a long black dress and ratted my dark hair out, giving me a witchy look.

Elmer sat in our dark garage, which had small windows where he could look out at the kids who walked up our driveway to ring the doorbell and say "Trick or Treat." He rigged up a PA system and with his normally deep voice he'd say, "Fee Fie Fo Fum, I Smell The Blood of an Englishman." Parents standing at the bottom of the driveway, were giggling and encouraging their kids to go to the front door. I usually had to open the front door and coax them to come up the walkway corridor to get candy. E would usually add, "I'll grind his bones to make my bread." One little boy about 6, was hesitant so I finally walked halfway to him to give him candy. Then Elmer said, "I'll get him next year." The little boy looked at his mom and said, "Let's don't come back here next year."

The next year we had moved to Memphis, Tennessee. In August before school stated our son Phil, who had been playing Little League football in Houston, still wanted to play and I thought this would be a good way for us to get acquainted with kids and parents. We signed Phil up. We discovered the PTA had a fall festival in mid-October, as a fund raiser, their version of a Halloween Carnival. The previous year they'd had very successful a spook house. Without thinking twice about it, Elmer and I signed up to be the chairpersons for that. I won't detail what all we did, because this is about "OUR" spook houses, but I will say, Elmer built a wooden coffin to use in the school event. It was shaped like the ones you'd see in all those old Western movies. You know, with the angles at the top end. He painted it flat black, and it was long enough for him to lay his 6 foot, two inch body down inside. As kids came inside the room they saw the coffin, as they got near, he'd raise up, sometimes laughing maniacally. Our spook house was a huge success, many kids coming through several times.

Two weeks later was October 31^st. "Halloween." Mr. Grape had already planned for it with that coffin. Again using the black Visqueen, he turned our carport into a spooky room and we didn't charge them anything. I once again dressed witchy, in my long black dress. I had my little story, inviting kids inside, telling them of my friend who had been killed in a horrible accident. If they wanted, they could view his body and his parts if they would just come inside.

I had a box with cold spaghetti for them to put their hand down in to feel. Another box & bowl with some peeled grapes for eyeballs. E had added one new feature to his coffin, which was resting on a couple of sawhorses and draped with the black plastic, he cut an opening in the coffin side in order to stick his arm out and pretend to grab at a kid's arms or hand. He was also wearing a horrible rubber mask with a plastic eyeball hanging out. It had slits in order from him to see. As a kid got close he could raise up or grab, whichever seemed to work.

As the doorkeeper, I would have 2 or 3 kids come in at once. Usually, they were traveling in groups. Kids had so much fun, they went home and got their mom and dad to come see the spook house. No one in this neighborhood had ever done such a thing. One mom got so shook at the coffin watching another mom scream jump, she said, "I think I just wet my pants." Elmer heard this and when he raised up, was laughing so hard he had trouble making a scary sound.

The next year we had to change it up. We set up our living room with the coffin against the far wall. We had a large cloth dummy we put inside. We had some big moving blankets on the floor so when you walked in floor felt funny to walk on. Dim lights in the room. The evil Jack-O-Lantern set up with electric candle inside. I told my little story of my friend who had the accident and had the "guts and eyeballs" for them to feel. And steered them towards the coffin and while they're concentrating there, E came out of the coat closet by the front door with his horrible mask, a flashlight in his belt shinning up towards his face, making a moaning noise.

Some of the parents came inside, one mom started screaming, "Damn you, Elmer Grape, I thought you were in that coffin."

Kids mostly stopped Trick or Treating soon after. Mean people put razor blades or poison in candy and it became too dangerous. However, in the nineties after we moved back to Texas, we lived in Austin where a few kids would walk their own neighborhood with parents. Our great niece, Tiffany, lived behind us. She and her best friend, Amber would walk around the block. Somewhere along the way, Uncle Elmer would jump out and scare them. So along the whole way they were expecting him but never knowing exactly when. The girls are now adults with nearly grown kids of their own but at Halloween they always tell the story of being scared and how much fun it always was.

So is it any wonder that I started writing murder mysteries? Or that we owned a mystery bookstore in Austin for nine years? It's just a shame there are no photos or videos. People didn't have cell phones or digital cameras then and even if I'd thought of it, I was too busy telling the story and handing out treats.