I’ve always felt as though I missed the boat on Halloween. I’ve been under the impression that Halloween is supposed to be a time of almost legendary excitement or extremely mischievous adventure, but it’s never really panned out like that for me. I’ve never been to any kind of cool costume party, nor have I found myself drawn into some kind of epic story. Come to think of it, I’ve pretty much recycled lame costume ideas for the last five years, which certainly screams “stuck in a rut.” (Not even a haunted rut, at that.) All that said, I do at least have the satisfaction of knowing that -- in a small way -- I contributed to the Halloween adventure of some deserving children years ago.

My freshman year of college, back when I and the other residents of my dorm still had that “new college kid” thing going on, our Resident Assistant told us during a hall meeting about an annual competition between dorm floors: decorate the hall and play host to a gang of trick-or-treating underprivileged kids. To the winner of the best decorated hall go the spoils, and in this case… pizza, the currency of the ivy-covered academic big house.

Now, the residents of my hall -- second-floor Ackerman, oldest and crappiest dorm on campus -- were an interesting collection of collegiate rookies, to say the least. One third were music majors, like myself. Add in a handful of extremely bizarre nerds, geeks, and people with personality disorders (surprisingly NOT the music majors), and then round out the population of our 22-person hall with jocks. Freshman football players. Upon reflection, the strangest thing about the situation was that we all got along pretty well, even if the opposite nature of some of the parties involved led to occasional head scratching. This was to be our finest moment of esprit de corps, to be certain, as we all agreed that not only would we take part in the competition, but that we would destroy everyone else involved.

The planning began. The kids would be paraded from one end of the hall down to the lounge and then back the way they had come, so we agreed that we’d blow off the more traditional “door to door” format in favor of a trek down to the lounge, where they could grab bunches of candy at one time. And by forcing them to make this trip, we could subject them to our own idea of a fun house. We wanted smoke. We wanted flashing lights. We wanted to scare the bejesus out of these little kids.

If you were to have been in the group that night, the ordeal would’ve unfolded before you something like this:

Upon entering the hall from the stairway, the first thing you notice is… nothing. It’s pitch black because someone has unscrewed all of the light bulbs. You’re just about to ask what’s going on, when two figures appear out of nowhere, each carrying a candle (while technically contraband in the dorm, our R.A. gladly looked the other way on this one, as he too was hungry for the bragging rights of a victory). The figures approach you, and you see that one is a red-robed monk. The other is… well, it looks like a zombie version of the guy from A Clockwork Orange, thanks to the Derby hat that he’s wearing. (Not the most natural pairing, monk and zombie, but we live in enlightened times.) The monk raises the candle nearer to his face, and casts back his hood…

“Welcome, my children… I am brother Stephen, and I have been chosen to guide you through this hall of TERROR.”

I should admit at this point that I was the monk. I really threw myself into the part, man. Lots of gravitas… “The power of Christ compels you” and whatnot; not that the kids would really understand an Exorcist reference.

You are led into the hall proper by the monk and the zombie, (who has begun to shout things like, “You’re all doomed! This place is bad… BAD!” to counterbalance the monk’s slightly calmer, “Stay close to the light and you will be safe, children.”) and suddenly, you’re walking on something uneven and springy -- almost as if someone has lined the floor with mattresses from the surrounding dorm rooms. You make your way down the hall, amidst the shouting and shaky footing, when you begin to be brushed by cobwebs and other things hanging from the ceiling. Loud music starts to blare from the vicinity of the lounge, a hellish electronic version of some Bach organ music, causing some of the little kids around you to squeal and shriek.

From your left, a door flies open and you are accosted by monsters! Monsters that, upon closer inspection, seem to be wearing sweat suits. But you don’t notice that! You’re too busy being scared by their hideous masks! The monk pulls you further along the corridor, which is now pulsing with the flash of a strobe light. Then, finally, you turn into the lounge…

We had done a particularly outstanding job with the lounge. Someone on the hall was a theatre major and had managed to borrow a prop coffin, which we laid out on display in the center of the area. We surrounded it by some flowers, covered the remaining furniture with sheets, and lit the entire room with black lights and another strobe. In the coffin, laid out in his best suit, was my scrawny pre-law roommate. Finally, at the base of this display, there were several buckets of candy. Mark, our RA mastermind, was blown away when the coffin arrived, and then spent the rest of prep time fuming about the fact that we couldn’t find any dry ice to generate a fog around it.

The monk leading you sweeps aside, and gravely intones, “Take your candy now, but be respectful of our departed friend…”

As you and the other kids quickly load up on candy, the monk whispers urgently, “Come now, and let us leave this evil place!” But as you turn to go, the zombie steps in front of you and shouts, “Look! He is alive!” As you spin to look, the dead guy in the coffin sits straight up and goes yells, “Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!” with arms reaching out for you and your friends.

“Quickly, back the way you came!”

As you turn to run back down the mattress-covered hallway, another door opens and you see… three guys dressed in white briefs, cowboy boots, and hats, each with a lasso.

Now, frankly, I don’t remember exactly who thought this was an appropriate idea, but the nearly-nude cowboy thing came about at the last minute. I think most of us thought they were joking when they said that’s what they were using for costumes, but sure enough… there were three of the jocks prancing around in their underwear.

Let’s assume that you and the other kids are too confused (or scared) by this frightening scene to notice that the monk and the zombie that are pushing you back down the hall are trying to stop laughing.

Finally, you reach the stairwell, and with it safety! The zombie and the monk bid you farewell, and offer a few last handfuls of candy as you leave for another floor, which is going to seem incredibly lame after what you just went through.

Needless to say, we won the competition hands-down. About three months later, we finally got our pizza party. So I suppose it’s far to say that I have been involved in a wild Halloween story of some sort. But after that, I guess it’s not really fair to expect Halloween to be as fun, especially as an adult. Even if one does get dressed up for the occasion at this point, it’s hard to top an experience like the Haunted Hallway of 1995 -- especially if you do manage to find erotic cowboys to join in the fun.