leatherface, originally uploaded by visualkaos.

I’m not sure exactly how we ended up here but our street is populated by mostly older folks.
Older homes, older people living in them.
As a result, there are not a lot of kids who are of trick or treating age around here. In fact, we had exactly two groups.
But earlier, after seeing some signs posted nearby we took a drive around some of the streets in the vicinity and found that Halloween is still a pretty big deal in neighborhoods where a lot of kids live.
We’ve always known this town to be really big on Christmas lights. I think Valencia alone drains half the power grid for Los Angeles County during the holidays.
But tonight we found out how much people still love Halloween.
The streets were crawling with little bees and goblins and axe murderers and slutty little 16-year-olds with garters holding up knee-highs.
One house had, in addition to jack-o-lanterns, a graveyard on the front lawn, smoke and scream effects, spider webs and illuminated body parts lighting the walkway.
Another, at clearly some expense and effort, built an elaborate maze/haunted house in their garage.
I want to tell you that I’m a grown man. I’ve been through some shit.
But I was nervous when I walked through the blood-soaked entrance to this thing. I really didn’t know what to expect except that I knew there would be some guy at the end with a chainsaw.
When I finally got to him, having had the shit scared out of me no less than three times, and he came at me from pitch darkness, chainsaw blaring and gasoline exhaust choking the space, I wanted to turn and run. Then, GRRRAANNNNNGGGGGG, somehow he comes at me from the opposite direction.
Kid is probably 16 and I almost handed him my digital 5D to keep him from carving me up like a Christmas goose.