I was 12 -- it was 1983 and I was trick or treating for what would become the last time. My little troop and I stood in front of the large, three story house that occupied a lonely stretch of land on the corner of Western and Avalon. The house was only a few neighbourhoods away from the town's core, but it might have been in a whole other kingdom. Tall, slim iron bars topped with pointy ends surrounded the house. The house itself was covered in red bricks the colour of dried blood and the side opposite the sunrise crawled with long vines, sinewy like angry snakes.
I was accompanied by goblins and vampires -- I was dressed like the scamp from the old black and white movies. The gang decided that because I wore a coat and tie, I was perfectly attired to approach the Piege house. Everybody said the people who lived there must be friends with the old ghosts that haunted the place -- but us kids, we knew. We knew there were only the ghosts.
With a mouth full of pop rocks for courage, I walked past the tall, gaping maw of the house's iron gate and walked towards the looming front door. I looked over my shoulder and my troop was waving at me and pointing towards the carved pumpkins that adorned the tops of the spikes surrounding the house -- like heads. My eyes were playing tricks on me as I thought I saw giant spiders glaring at me from the shadows on each side of the house.
But I made it to the front steps without shitting myself and I walked up to the front door -- if I was to be doomed, it would already have happened to me, right?
I found the door bell and rang it and the entire house seemed to rumble as a series of low chimes steadily grew louder. I swallowed hard and my knees were screaming to be turned away from the house as my skin crawled but I stood there with my opened pillowcase, awaiting my offering -- or was I being offered?
After a few endless seconds, the front door creaked opened and I was standing in front of a young woman. She was like an angel dressed black but she could not step beyond the door. Her eyes were green and she reached out to me with a delicate hand. A small pack of old looking gum dropped into my pillowcase.
"You're the one, aren't you?" she asked, hey eyes wide with terror. "Help me!"
She screamed the last words before something grabbed her by the neck and yanked her back into the inner abyss of the house and the door slammed shut. I stood there, frozen except for the warm stream that slid down my legs and I watched as the all the windows of the house filled with images of her face pressed against the glass, screaming for help.
I backed away and nearly fell down the steps of the Piege house and ran away from there, my crotch now drenched in pee while the speared pumpkins seemed to laugh at me -- I ran past my friends and they laughed until one noticed the terror on my face.
We all ran, that night.
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As I grew older, her image had become clearer and more detailed: She had been in her 20s, tall and slim with rounded hips and breasts that swelled beneath her black dress. Her neck had been delicate when she was pulled away from me. But my friends had believed what I'd seen, but as many things their childish belief faded with age and responsibility.
Yet, I fell in love that night, and I knew the angel had my heart and would be the first to have my flesh. But I had to prepare for her -- so that was when I started to practice. The papers called them murders but they were liberations. I always left a freshly carved pumpkin after a liberation -- the same tools I used to liberate an angel were used to carve the pumpkins.
I was an artist, in a way.
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Twenty years had passed and I was back in my hometown -- the town had grown and it teemed with lights and life. Everywhere I turned the streets were full with the reflections of Halloween -- but as I was able to see angels, I was able to see demons too, and I could pick them from those merely costumed. Real demons always had blood soaked spiders dancing in their shadows.
But my attention was focused on the Piege house and I drove my Ford Taurus through the side winding streets that lead to the old mansion and to my angel. I was struck by how this part of town was left to slowly decompose -- the houses were dark and without Halloween adornment and it seemed like the neighbourhoods had become architectural graveyards.
I pulled into the poorly lit parking lot of a convenience store and went to my trunk and pulled out my costume. A monk's habit and a featureless white mask. I wore surgical gloves beneath leather gloves and carried a pillow case in which I had placed a small gutted pumpkin. My costume was lined with pockets containing my tools and I was ready to free my final angel.
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I was brazen this night as I walked towards the Piege house -- I encountered the occasional fear seeker coming from the direction of the local legend but they always gave me a wide berth. They must have felt I was moving towards a culmination and my pace quickened.
It wasn't long and I was standing at the gates of the Piege house. The iron spikes of the gate seemed smaller than when I was twelve but they were still topped with pumpkins, but this time they were rotten and putrid. The grass bordering the walk towards the house was long and unkept, weeds warring for dominance of the yard while the blood red bricks of the house were blackened and the majestic vines that had once lined the walls were dried and brittle. Even the spiders in the shadows were lifeless carcasses.
