The boys waved from the window as the Reef “Caddywagon,” or “Beef,” as Gunther’s dad called it, drove down Lystrick Street then turned onto Barting Road and drifted out of sight. The growing winds outside marked the event by skittering a small flood of leaves across the road. The crackle and scrape of the dry leaves reached up to them. Their mutual grins spread ear to ear.

“Monster night! Monster night! Monster night!”

Taddy started the chant off slow and low, as if almost a whisper. Gunther joined in while still waving.

“Monster night! Monster night! Monster night!”

The instant the van disappeared the click of freedom was nearly audible. The night was theirs.

“Monster night! Monster night! Monster night!”

The chant grew louder and faster as the boys began to stomp around the coffee table near the center of the room.

“Monster night! Monster night! Monster night!”

Hoots and hollers embellished the base sentiment until the boys were hopping and dancing their way around the room. Their arms shot up and down as they stomped and posed, stomped and posed to the rhythm of their words.

“Monster night! Monster night! Monster night!”

Eventually, in a manic and crazed release of energy, they ran and jumped and hopped and skipped and laughed until they collapsed on the small couch, breathing heavy in the afterglow and the wonder of their youth.

“Oh yeah,” Gunther said. “Monster night at last.”

While this was the sixth monster night for the boys, it was their first where they would be left entirely on their own. At least until their parents worked their way through a “ double date night” out in Beaumont. That would give them at least until midnight, and of course, Gunther would stay over anyway so it was really the best of all possible worlds.

Pulling themselves up from the couch they headed to the kitchen for supplies before settling in up in the attic. Debi Markum had ordered the boys a pizza for dinner and made sure it arrived just prior to their leaving so that the boys would not have let the pizza man know that they were there alone. Taddy tried to protest, saying they might want the pizza later in the night and that they could handle paying the pizza man and making sure the lock was set, but Debi stood firm. It was early pizza or no pizza. The boys agreed that monster night required pizza, period.

In the kitchen, Taddy gave Gunther the pizza and gently stacked a bag of potato chips, a bag of pretzels, a bag of corn chips and a large bag of popped corn on top. He then grabbed the six-pack of Gremlin cola from the counter, a special Halloween-themed brew from Capri Beverages, and perfect for and evening like this, along with a package of Jelli-Strings cherry licorice, a bag of chocolate-caramel Knots, the gum, and, at his mother’s insistence, a large roll of paper towels.

Loaded for bear, they trudged carefully down the foyer an up the two sets of stairs to their new lair in the converted attic.

Taddy’s dad practically made the space specifically for them as his bedroom was so small. The attic space was small too, but provided plenty of room for them to spread out sleeping bags and pillows in front of a large old television that sat under a small round window, place to stash the food, two large benches that converted to boxes for toys and games.

The boys had gathered their potential movie selections after trimming back the list of about 35 possibilities from a list they developed over the last week to about twelve sure to be scary winners.

“Ok, we have to kick off this thing right,” Taddy said.

“There’s only one choice then,” said Gunther, pulling the pizza box to him and flipping open the lid. A grin spread across his face as the pizza was revealed. “Bog Man’s Revenge.”

“We can’t watch Bog Man’s Revenge before we watch Bog Man’s Attack.”

“We’ve already seen Bog Man’s Attack.”

“Then why did it make the list? You said it would be great to watch them both back to back. You said that.”

“Oh, yeah,” Gunther said through a mouthful of pizza. “Then how about The Gore Creature from Nicronus?”

Taddy flipped through the discs. “That works,” he said, but not convinced. “There’s this.” He held up a movie case for Gunther to see.

“The Cult of the Bleeding Eye,” Gunther said in his go to spooky voice. As he pondered the title, he stopped chewing and looked up at Taddy. Without a moment’s pause, they both drew slow breaths.

“WINNER!”

Taddy popped the disk into the machine and hit play. The room filled with the dancing blue light from the large screen. Tiny bits of debris tapped against the small window as if the wind was trying to get their attention.