Johnny and Tony, my uncles, were crazy |
And often delighted in causing me pain. |
So once, in October, when autumn was hazy |
And dark clouds were looming and threatening
rain, |
I took me some cover inside a small cabin |
Out back of my grandparents' home on the
farm |
And started to read about Halloween madmen |
In library stories, which caused me alarm. |
|
I read of the Ripper, and Charley the
Zipper |
And Alice the Ogre who made them look
tame. |
The Wolfman was charming, but often alarming, |
And Bela Lugosi of Dracula fame |
Would leap from the pages in blood seeking
rages |
While Frankenstein stumbled on legs that
looked lame. |
But I, lost in terror, made one fatal
error |
Forgetting how Johnny and Tony played
games. |
|
So there I was reading of zombies retreating |
From garlic and crosses and things of
that kind, |
When Tony did slowly slip under my window |
And hidden from me, the door latch he did
find, |
While Johnny was hoisting himself up a
ladder |
To give him a boost to the cabin rooftop. |
Then I in my reverie suddenly noticed |
A face at the window that made my heart
stop! |
|
"It's only you, Tony," I said
feeling lonely |
And then asked him why he had scared me
so much. |
"I came here to tell you there's
something you must do |
For this is the eve of great monsters
and such. |
So this you must know now, one Halloween
evening, |
Just four or five autumns gone by, |
In this very cabin, a young by was reading |
When gruesomely, fatally dead did he die. |
|
But this is not all the bad news of this
story |
For not only dead did he die here that
day, |
But also his body was stuffed in the attic, |
And here in this attic his body did stay. |
And generally harmless, for as you have
noticed |
There's no one of us who would fear to
come in, |
Except, I should mention, on Halloween
evening, |
When he in the attic does look for a twin |
|
Or someone to share in his lonely, cold
attic, |
Alone in that attic these four or five
years." |
Then I, in that moment, heard scratches
above me |
And started to worry my greatest of fears. |
From where I was standing, the door was
just inches, |
But it seemed to take me an hour or so |
To reach for the door knob and find it
was bolted. |
So straight through the window I proceeded
to go! |
|
All running in terror and screaming for
Mother, |
And wondering, maybe, it all could be
true? |
For Johnny and Tony, my uncles, were crazy, |
And who is to say what bad deeds they
might do? |