The Horrifying Tale of Milk Stealing Kevin and the Haunted House

Isn't it funny that there are some extremely religious people who would call themselves Christians and be very concerned and outraged by people celebrating Halloween? Considering the day is believed to come from early Christian festivities (All Hallows' Eve coming before All Hallows' Day and All Souls' Day).

Anyhoo (Anyboo?) Happy Halloween. I was thinking of watching and live blogging a Halloween movie but I have to admit I'm not a great lover of watching horror movies. I do not handle jump scares well. Part cowardice, part petty angry-ice, any jump scares just take me out of the story and get me annoyed. I do like reading horror stories though. Actually I should listen to more audiobooks. I like gothic horror. I really like Dracula. I'm going to mention, if anyone hasn't seen this on Twitter already, but my friend and writer Elizabeth Ditty has a great screenplay set in the Dracula universe. It puts Mina Harker at the center of the tale and feels very familiar while also being its own thing. Really loved it. So go ask her can you give it a read if you're looking for a fun read.

Another reason for not live blogging a movie is I think if I was to do that, I would end up making fun of the movie and being needlessly critical. I wouldn't mean it in a harsh way but it could come off like that which is not fair. I don't like criticizing movies. Sure, one reason for that is as a writer who would like to work fully in the film and T.V industry. It might not be a good look if I am slating stories as laughable and then asking people to work with me on my own storytelling adventures. However, my main reason for not wanting to write reviews of movies is people work really hard on those projects. If you think of a "bad" film or T.V show you've watched recently. You might have spent roughly 2 hours watching the story. Not enjoying it. Wondering how could anyone be proud of this tripe. Now I would suggest that is 2 hours you spent sitting down watching a T.V screen. In comparison, there are dozens of people in the cast and crew who have spent weeks, months, years of long hours working on that project. Some people might have had a horrendous time, not wanting to go to work but they have to, stressed, under pressure. They (probably) genuinely tried their best. So weighing both amounts of time spent and the effort involved in creating versus watching, I think it is unfair for me to bash something that I put no real effort into.

Of course, like most people, I'm somewhat hypocritical because there are times I'll briefly mention I didn't like this movie or that movie. Some early 2000's spoof movies come to mind. I did live tweet my viewing of Wild Mountain Thyme too, where I did mention I apologize to everyone who worked on it because I'm sure they did their best. My excuse for that was I found it partly offensive in its depiction of Ireland so found it best to wave it off as laughable and make a joke of it. So I guess I only have a general rule of - try not to bash a movie.

Hence no live blog of a movie!

But I have to keep this blog some bit Halloween themed. So I am going to relay a story of the spooky, haunted house that is a 5 minute walk from my childhood home.

That's a glass of milk. You're welcome.

Ooh spooky!

Now to set the scene a little. I grew up in a small bungalow in the Irish countryside. A hurling field to the right of us. My grandfathers field to the left and behind us. When I was a youngster, me and some friends would cycle 30 mins to the shops to buy ourselves cans of coke, taytos (that's crisps for you non-Irish) and heist sweets from one particular shop that was incredibly easy to do so.

.....Oh and yes, I was a cold-blooded delinquent in my youth.

Anyway, when we would cycle home, we would normally take a different route because it involved mostly cycling down hill. Plus we could look to steal a carton of milk or two from outside people's homes. (I was a real menace!!)

As we cycled back home we would pass this stone wall with an overgrown hedge on the otherside of it. Along with the hedge would be a large tree with leaves hanging down low. These hid a two story old looking house. You could tell there was a short stone covered entrance in to the house with the old rusty gates usually open. As we cycled past the mysterious house (did anyone even live there?) beside it was a very large field of grass with a single small tree in the center. Surrounding the field was another overgrown hedge except this one included plenty of nettles and prickly briars.

So we would move on. No milk was worth going near that house to loot.

At some point in time, I learned that this house did have people living in it. OK, it turned out I went to secondary school with someone who lived there. Again, I'm talking secondary school is for ages 12 - 17. So from the age of 12 onwards I had unknowingly become friendly with a boy who lived in the house. Of course I wasn't going to walk up tot he boy and say "Hey punk, you're house is creepy and makes me lose my nerve for milk stealing". I wasn't that confrontational.

So imagine my shock when I found out this house did have a reputation for being haunted!

It made so much sense! Overgrown hedge, old looking two story house. It all adds up!

So what made the house haunted, you ask? Well two instances of very scary happenings going on. Number one: the very frightening instances of people disappearing inside the house at night!! That's right! Falling asleep in the house made you disappear from your bed!.....into another room where you would wake the next morning. So not disappearing in a "Kevin hasn't been seen since" sort of way. It was more like if you fell asleep in your room, you woke up in the kitchen in the morning. But on a family wide scale!! Every family member would go to sleep and wake up the next morning all in different rooms. Or so the legend goes. It partly explained why my friend (I'm going to call him BOB) would often come to school in his younger sisters clothes or his fathers chef uniform. Imagine the headache of having to wake up every morning and go to another room to get your clothes! Fine, it's less scary and more annoying but it was a story told to me that was blamed on ghosts in the house. Ghosts, obviously malevolent, who were probably furious that Bob's family had the parents bedroom upstairs to the left when clearly they should be sleeping downstairs where the kitchen is. These were evil spirits who watched too much Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

Now you could ask me, well did Bob ever confirm this legend? And I would answer: Are you mad? I can't ever ask Bob about it? It's awkward and he might think I'm rude. Plus it really isn't any of my business anyway.

Now, back to gossiping about him and his family house.

That was a little scary but what was the real nightmare to the house was that large field beside them. That was also haunted. (Oh, side note for any ghost hunters. When an evil spirit haunts a house they will also look into the property owned by the homeowners and haunt them too. Most ghosts actually make good property claims managers too). So, the field. This was alarming....do you dare read on?....

You still there? Good. OK, so legend has it. If you were to enter the field at night, you would not be able to escape until the next morning! I can only theorize the field is connected in some way to an evil dimension of some kind. Yes, the legend is that on entering the field under moonlight, no matter how hard you try and get back out.

You.

Can.

Not.

What's more, being Ireland and usually dealing with a windy, cold, rainy night. You only have that small lone tree in its center for shelter. Terrifying!! Now don't worry. Unlike Bob waking up inside in his toilet the next morning. This legend doesn't require blind faith and a refusal to ask Bob anything. This legend has witnesses to the spooky phenomenon!

One night, many moons ago, a local man, Tony and his friend decided to walk home from the pub. Perhaps a little drunk. This is decades ago, before drink driving was seen as a horrendous, terrible, awful idea. So the fact these two decided then, that they were too drunk to drive! , it might mean they staggered home more than walked. Anyway, on their way home, they decided to take a shortcut through the field.

Just a writer's note here. I know where Tony lived. I know the road he was walking. It wasn't exactly a shortcut. Unless taking a shortcut meant he was going in the wrong direction. But anyway....

So Tony and friend enter the field. A rainy, winters night for them as they plodded through the wet grass. They then suddenly realized they could not find any gate or obvious exit. It was dark, rain was pelting down. It seemed they couldn't find the way out. So the two drunk men could only shelter under the spindly tree in the field. Huddled together, they survived the night until the morning. Finally able to see the gate they came in. The two men escaped the dreaded field with their lives. Also escaped with an awful hangover but I have no idea where that came from.

Oh, the field was pretty safe during the day. As I grew a bit older, I would sometimes end up in the field smoking cigarettes with friends (couldn't have our parents see us smoking!) and no evil dimension came for us. Probably weren't too keen on second hand smoke to be fair. Can't say I blame them. So that is the very true, very scary haunted house (and field) that I somehow lived beside as I grew up. Yes, I am brave. I even visited the house to see Bob once. It did look like an old house inside as well as outside. Furniture was old but nice enough. I looked around as best I could because I figured every room would have spare sets of pillows and duvets for the nightly room moving. But I didn't see a thing. Did the ghosts move the bedclothes along with the people? I never found out. Other than that, playing soccer near the tree and overgrown hedge was OK. A lot of leaves around. They could have done a better job cleaning them up to be honest.

So I can say in all truthfulness, that I went inside a haunted house and survived. It's not up to any of us to grade the level of haunted-ness around houses so don't go poking holes in it. It was claimed to be haunted. So that's what it is.

Did I partly befriend Bob to gain entry into the house and steal his milk?

Oh most definitely.

After searching the house and seeing no obvious signs of ghosts, could I have walked over to the fridge and pilfered it of milk?

But of course!

But I didn't. Confronting this haunted house turned me away from a life of lactose related crime. When you stare malignant forces in the face (via half-assed tales from your parents) the thrill of milk stealing goes away.

Plus Bob's mother was sleeping upside down in the fridge for some reason.

Happy Halloween.

Kevin