Everything changed the night before Halloween. My parents got invited to an event of unknown origins on Halloween and left us alone to our own devices. They were being evasive on where they were going, but tried to play it off like nothing unusual was happening. Which made me even more suspicious. My brother could barely contain his excitement about possibly spending the whole night of Halloween without our parents. The closer my parents got to leaving, the more nervous they seemed to be. Their furtive glances at each other made me more unnerved and suspicious as the night went on. They were up to something and I didn’t know what.
They finally left after making us swear up and down we would not leave the house and would not even look out the windows at the trick-or-treaters. Because we would not be handing out candy. Obviously. As soon as they were out the door and we knew they were not coming back, we had our costumes on and were hitting the houses. But obviously not our neighbors as many of them would report straight back to our parents. My parents warning of staying home all night was in the back of my mind and I wondered what it would be like if they showed up and we were not there. The lure of taking my brother trick-or-treating for the first time took me away from my better judgement. Little did I know this one decision would save our lives.
Standing Room Only 