A Cursed Atlanta Halloween

I glance out the storm door at the thick layer of red and golden leaves on the grass, interwoven together like a dewy quilt that heralds the upcoming Samhain. In the fading late afternoon light I nearly miss the dark figures over the stone wall that surrounds the backyard. Almost invisible against the misty forest, four cats perch atop the columns that break up the wall, unencumbered by the sudden wind. With their tails wagging, they leer into the darkened kitchen and at me for several minutes, as if waiting to be detected. As if their presence were a message in itself. Once noticed, the four cats turn to one another and proceed to carry out a bizarre show that could have been taught as much as it could have occurred naturally, such is the quality of felines. The cat on the leftmost column, a chunky gray tabby with flashing green eyes, suddenly pounces on the smaller black cat on the right. Despite the marked difference in corpulence, the black cat quickly flips itself under the tabby. With a calculated strike of the hind legs, the small cat pushes his attacker off the ledge and lands upright on top of it on the grass, knocking down two jack-o’-lanterns in the process. As the fight continues on the ground, the gray British shorthair on the rightmost column on the wall tries to cajole a starling into its open mouth. Confused and oblivious to the cat’s pleading, the starling allows it to paw at him gently. I watch in bewilderment, unsure whether to try to stop the ongoing fight between the first two cats or to allow this scene redolent of a Lewis Carrol story to unfold. The bird occasionally peers into the cat’s gaping mouth, as though he believes that to be the request. Then it tires of the cat’s insistence and flies away. The cat settles into a ball and resigns to observing the battle still taking place below. Meanwhile, an oversized raven has landed on the fourth cat, to the left of the British shorthair, and is pecking it aggressively in an attempt to kill it. The cat claws away at the corvid, and they both slip off the wall in a furious ball of black fur and feathers that unfurls mid-fall. A fraction of a second before they hit the ground, the raven captures the cat by the neck and flies off carrying it in its claws into the mist. Something breaks my concentration. A shuffling sound behind me. A sinister thought crosses my mind and envelops me like a waft of gelid air that floods my lungs and freezes my bones: was it all a distraction? The sound quickly draws close and caresses my neck. I try to turn, to flee, but I’m unable to move. I open my mouth to scream, but before I can produce a sound, it all fades into black. I come to in a room I don’t immediately recognize. A wisp of light through a crack in the curtains breaks the darkness to a level my eyes can adjust to. I make out the contours of my friend peering down at me. ‘Are you okay, boo?’ she asks. It was just a dream. A disturbing illusion that sets the mood for the day ahead. Jo is visiting me in Atlanta for Halloween and we haven’t been together since our magic mushroom adventure in Amsterdam, over a year prior. We’re eager to immerse our pragmatic, non-religious selves in the spirit of this haunted holiday. I was born and raised abroad by my atheist parents. My exposure to the supernatural is limited to attempting to hunt down Kaonashi and managing not to get a beating after totaling my parents’ car when I was in college. We wait until the sun has set and watch horror movies as shadows engulf the living room. Under thick blankets and a layer of spilled popcorn (the recommended protection against monsters and the like), we prime ourselves to the horrors that await us outside.

Atlantans always go all out with their holiday decorations. We have planned a chilling evening of exploring the Big Peach’s most haunted neighborhoods, and we selected Briers North Drive as our first stop. The neighborhood came highly recommended on Reddit and multiple websites for its top-notch Halloween decorations. We park the car in front of the house with the most adorned lawn and step out into the moonless night. Lawn lights illuminate all manner of blood-thirsty monsters and cast shadows on the walls of the silent houses. The revving roar from a decorative motorcycle with a skeleton atop is the only sign of life in the neighborhood, and an artificial one at that. We expected to encounter hordes of fellow ghost hunters, but the streets are completely deserted. ‘How’s that for creepy?’ Jo comments. ‘Where’s everyone?’ We amble around quietly for a while and observe the myriad threats that surround us. Possessed dolls, werewolves, vampires, human-sized arachnids… What if they were to come to life? In the still of the night, we almost expect them to; we stop taking pictures every few minutes to scope out our surroundings. Torn between curiosity and fear, we return to my car and pull up our next stop on Google Maps: Virginia Highland. I turn the key in the ignition, but nothing happens. No light flickering nor sounds. Jo and I glance at each other, confused. I try again with the same results. We didn’t leave the lights on when we parked the car, so we’re certain the issue mustn’t be the battery. ‘What’s the hell is happening?’ I ask with a nervous laugh. We insist patiently, but after ten more failed attempts we throw in the towel. It’s past 10 p.m. and I don’t want to call roadside assistance and wait. I call a Lyft to take us home and plan to return in the morning to get my car. What to do with it in the meantime? I don’t want to risk having it towed. ‘Wait here. I’m going to let these people know why I’m leaving my car parked in front of their house.’ The flickering eyes of a jack-o’-lantern seem to watch me as I make my way to the front porch. I ring the doorbell a few times and wait, but no one’s home. I try the next house. I can detect a faint orange light through the glazed glass, yet the repeated doorbell tune goes unanswered. What’s going on here? We can’t be the only people in the neighborhood! House after house, I ring doorbells in the hopes of finally talking to someone, without finding any signs of life inside. MUAHAHAHAHA! I’m startled by the mechanical laugh of the biker skeleton that roars behind me. I give up and rush back to my car. Briers North has already taken over my car. What follows? ‘What the fuck?’ Jo blurts out. ‘Where did everyone go? What’s wrong with this place?’ ‘No idea, but we got what we came here for! Let’s go home!’

* * *

Jo and I went back to retrieve my car the next day and the battery was indeed the reason it wouldn’t start. The terminals were completely corroded and prevented the battery from recharging, the AAA mechanic explained to us. Why the whole place seemed completely uninhabited, however, we will never know. Here are some pictures I took while we waited for roadside assistance. What about you? Have you ever had a creepy Halloween experience? Tell me about it!

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