“But
one strange wild dark long year, Halloween came early. One year Halloween came on October 24, three
hours after midnight.”
If
you’re in the mood for a solidly spooky book, we recommend Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. I mean, if you’re
into horror or creepiness and haven’t read it yet, we really don’t know what’s
wrong with you, but this is the story that sets up the
evil-circus-comes-to-town. And because
it’s Bradbury, his words don’t need us to get in the way of them. Here’s a section of Chapter 37 where Charles
Halloway goes to the library and assembles a collection of books in order to better
understand the evil that arrived by rail.
An
autumn leaf, very crisp, fell somewhere in the dark. But it was only the page of a book, turning.
Off
in one of the catacombs, bent to a table under a grass-green-shaded lamp, lips
pursed, eyes narrowed, sat Charles Halloway, his hands trembling the pages,
lifting, rearranging the books, Now and then he hurried off to peer into the
autumn night, watchful of the streets. Then again he came back to paper-clip
pages, to insert papers, to scribble out quotations, whispering to himself.
…Wet
all over, cold to the bone, before night caught him he let the crowd protect,
warm, and bear him away up into town, to the library, and to most important
books …which he arranged in a great literary clock on a table, like someone
learning to tell a new time.
How to Commemorate
- Go to a circus or festival, anywhere with a mirror maze or a carousel.
- Get a tattoo.
- Laugh a lot. (Trust us on this.)
- Listen to the Dans Macabre.
Works
Cited
Something Wicked This Way Comes
