Trixie stood unnaturally still in the cheerful kitchen She was wearing a dark shroud like dress while Honey pinned, clipped and folded to complete the alterations of the costume that Trixie would wear on Halloween night. Honey was fitting the garment so that it would be long enough to cover the hidden gadgets in the clothes, but but not long enough to trip Trixie as she walked around the haunted house.
They were both out of the main path of traffic over near the swinging door to the dining room. Even though Trixie was behaving well and not fidgeting during the course of the alterations, both girls jumped as someone suddenly tried to push open the swinging door from the dining room.
“Hey what’s going on?” called Brian.
“Why won’t the door open? asked Jim.
Honey giggled and replied, “We shot the bolt closed because we are working on a project here and didn’t want to get bumped. You can both go around through the back hall.”
When Brian, closely followed by Jim entered the kitchen they were surprised by what they saw. Not only was Trixie standing on a seamstress stool having a dress altered but Diana was sitting at one end of the kitchen table painting paper mache masks. Moms and Caroline Lynch were at the other end of the table decorating sugar cookies with orange and black icing.
Jim gently teased Diana, “Di, I am afraid you have as much paint on your face as you do on the masks. Only it is not your signature purple color”
Diana blushed and looked up through her dark thick lashes. “Well, I didn’t want to have anybody mistake the demons for ghostly royalty. Did you get everything?
Brian leaned over the table and laid out his loot. “Not quite. We got the blood packets, the knives and the fake meat, but we weren’t able to find a copy of the movie anywhere.”
Honey glared as Trixie finally lost her calm still demeanor and pouted, “No movie? This haunted house won’t work very well if we don’t have ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ to have running in the background.
Helen and Caroline looked up, gasped and shouted in unison. “No!”
Five pair of eyes turned to gaze at both mothers.
“Mummy?” cried Diana.
“Moms. You’re pale as a ghost” worried Brian.
Caroline took a calming breath, then said, “You are not playing that movie at my house and you are not making a haunted house to look like that move. Make a haunted house about Frankenstein. Do something about ‘The Exorcist’. For all I care, you can make tubs of green pea soup. But you are not doing, ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre!”
Diana laughed nervously. “But Mummy, the Monsignor surely wouldn’t approve of us doing The Exorcist.”
Caroline whispered, “Don’t bet on it Diana. He heard my terrified confession after I saw that movie. He worked half the night with both Helen and I to get us both calmed down enough to go home and sleep in our own beds. He even asked that night, “why did this movie bother you so much while The Exorcist didn’t.”
I told him, that seeing Exorcist in a movie theater surrounded by friends and a hundred or so other people was nothing. But going to a late night showing, by myself, so I could pick up Helen after she got off work was something else.”
That show started at 10.00 p.m. Helen wouldn’t get off until 11.00 after the concession stand closed. This was at the Drive In movie theater in White Plains. There were only a few other cars there, and we were all spaced far away from each other.”
I was being all brave about it just being a movie. I cracked the window so I could place the speaker on the glass. One of the opening scenes was of an old slaughter house. These five kids picked up a hitchhiker and then when he started telling weird stories about how his family has always been in meat, they dumped him off on the side of the road. Then they were in town and they stopped to eat and an old man at the diner told them that he had some good barbecue. They finally got directions to their grandfathers house. That scene was of an old two story house, like some of the old ones on Hawthorne street that have those old wrap-around porches. It wasn’t too long after that, that they showed the freezer with the dead bodies and then the man standing with the chainsaw in his hands.
That is when I put the speaker back on the pole, and went in to the concession stand to wait for Helen. There was no way that I could stand to sit in that car by myself watching that movie.”
The sudden revving of a chainsaw motor caused both women to scream.
Helen choked out, “I didn’t even see the movie. But Caroline was so scared that I got scared too. No. You will not be using ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ as a prop for your haunted house.
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