Flashback Friday #10

A Halloween Thriller

In my first edition of Flashback Friday I told my faithful readers that sometimes you would have jump the timeline with me. This is one of those time, because with this being Halloween, here is my favorite Halloween story as a child.

We fast forward six years from my Florida vacation posts. I am now 16, and my brother, Sir Gattabout is in the U.S. Army, stationed at Fort Bragg, NC. Since he moved out, I commandeered his old bedroom, because we had set up a pool table in the other upstairs bedroom (more on that in a future post). When he came home on leave, he would sleep over at old friend's houses, or sleep on the couch. He just happened to come home around Halloween.

Prior to him coming home, some friends and I went to the semi-local movie theater (at the county seat, 25 minutes away), and saw "Halloween". The movie house showed second run movies, and just happened to be showing this movie the week of Halloween. This movie is the grandfather of the slasher movie genre that was HUGE in the 80's, and is still popular today. Probably everyone reading this has seen it, but if you haven't , it is quite the thriller.

As I stated, I saw the movie prior to my brother coming home. When he came home, I asked him if he wanted to go see it. "Nah, I don't do indoor movies (We still had drive-in theaters then). That night, he went out with some friend, while I did my homework, watched TV, and finally went to bed after the news.

If you have never slept in a house with a tin roof, it sounds like someone is walking on the roof when the wind blows. Our house had a tin roof as the main roof, and also as the small roof over our parents bedroom, which was outside my bedroom window.

I woke up about 1AM with what sounded like a terrible storm in the making. "Boy, the wind must really be blowing, it sounds like someone's on the roof". Then the window started rattling. "Man, that wind is really picking up." I thought. Just then the bottom of the window starts to rise, and a leg starts coming slowly into my bedroom.My eyes got really big. I thought my heart would stop. If I wasn't fully awake during the noises, I sure was now! I sprang from my bed and flipped on the light to discover my brother entering my bedroom through my window.

"What are you doing?" I asked. "You nearly scared me to death!" " I forgot my house key when I left." he said. "Since this used to be my room, I figured that Dad hadn't fixed the lock on the window, and I could still unlock it from outside like I used to do when I would come in late. All you have to do is climb onto the fuel oil tank, boost yourself onto the small roof, and slide into the room. I would tell Mom I forgot to wake her when I came in. It sure saved me from a lot of groundings."Needless to say, I was far too wired to get back to sleep.

I only saw a few horror flicks after that, mostly at the request of my girlfriend. With a vivid imagination like I had (And still have), there were people on the roof all the time. I even installed a new lock on the window myself.

I got a call from my brother yesterday. He asked If I was going to be home at 5 PM. I told him that Lady Nottaguy-TYG and I had plans to go out to eat. "That too bad, I was looking out the TV listings, and saw that "The Tingler" was going to be on. I told him that it was probably scarier in my imagination than in real life. He agreed, and we both got a laugh.