I always loved this time of year, ever since I was old enough to appreciate the joy in it. My father would get just as excited as I would when it was time to adorn our festive garb and begin the quest for sugary goodness. While we passed by other parents walking with their little ghouls and goblins, my dad would just smile at the expressions he would receive, being one of the few who took the season as seriously as the children.

Whatever costume I wore, he had something to match. If I dressed as a vampire, he would be my elder, watching over his apprentice. While we would sometimes choose a more fun theme, like the year we went as Shrek and Donkey, with me being the latter, we often went for something far more sinister.

Evil clowns, father and son zombies in search of brains to go with our candy, and of course, the aforementioned vampire duo, fit with fake blood splashed across our faces to assure any of the unsuspecting homeowners we would visit that we had our fill for the night; seeking only some goodies for dessert now.

I suppose it was that very thing that didn't cause me more than a second glance at the particularly unsettlingly dressed kid while I went door to door with my son last year. As always, the streets were positively packed with extravagantly dressed children; some walked alongside their folks, while others traveled in packs. This one, though; he strolled the sidewalks alone.

The first time we passed by him, I was honestly quite impressed by how realistically the blood spatter was applied to the leathery apron. The blank-faced mask that was designed to look like some sort of creepy porcelain doll, had more specs of those crimson stains, looking as though it had gushed from the left.

Given that was the hand in which he held the gore-lined butcher's knife, while the other swung the pillowcase half-filled with candy by his side, I had to admire the attention to detail. He was a little taller than my son, who was only eight at the time, but I still couldn't help but wonder why any parent would allow their child to walk the streets alone, even if there were a great many other children out that night.

For a moment, I considered approaching the boy to inquire if he needed help, or perhaps wanted to join us, but when Matty vigorously pulled my hand to the right, having noticed another house with their porch light shining brightly, I just let out a chuckle before allowing myself to be dragged to the side. By the time I turned my head back to the road, I saw no trace of the eerie little kid.

Following in my father's footsteps, I would never miss spending this time with my son. I carried the tradition of getting equally as dressed up as Matty, allowing him to choose the year's theme, as my dad had with me. Though my boy wasn't quite as much into the scary stuff as I was at his age, I managed to gently nudge him into dressing as zombie versions of his requested Captain America and Spider-kid.

"Spider-MAN, daddy!" he would insist whenever I called him that, but it was strangely adorable how flustered he would get in correcting me.

"Alright, three-foot Spider-Man," I said with a laugh, to which he giggled and playfully slugged me in the gut, before 'thwipping' to the next house.

It was maybe ten minutes later when we passed by the lone trick-or-treater in the porcelain mask again, but he looked a little different. There were a few rips across the sleeves of his stained white shirt, as well as the leather-like apron. It's very possible that I simply hadn't noticed before, but I could swear he had more blood splashed across him now.

"I like your costume," he said, not so much as glancing up at me when he walked by.

His voice was gravelly and monotone, almost making me think of a fifty-year-old, two-pack-a-day smoker, rather than a young boy. His tone was still as light as anyone whose voice had not yet broken, but the raspiness was nothing short of unnerving.

"I like yours too," I replied, mostly sincerely.

I glanced back at the kid after he walked by to see there was just as much blood across his back as his front. He creeped me out for sure, but I still convinced myself it was nothing more than an effective performance of one fully embracing their chosen character. The fact that his pillowcase appeared more bulging than the last time I saw him was enough for me to believe he was just really into the season.

Perhaps he had a water gun filled with red water tucked away under his apron, to apply more as the night went on. The sticky-looking gore on his knife looked no different than it did the last time, as far as I could tell anyway, so I just shook off my overactive imagination.

For the remainder of our night of trick or treating, I only caught one more glimpse of the boy; this time from a distance. Again, he looked as though he was even more bloody than before, but given how far away he was, as well as the darkness surrounding him between the sporadic street lamps, I didn't dwell on it.

Once Matty began to whine about his feet hurting, I felt content in the knowledge that we had accumulated more than enough goodies and it was time to head back home. The previously crowded sidewalks had only the occasional group making their way in one direction or another, each looking as wiped out as we were.

Moments later, I was carrying my son, with his overstuffed bag of candy looped around my shoulder. He had pulled up his mask to nuzzle his face into the nape of my neck and I couldn't help but smile as I recalled resting in my father's arms this way.

"Can I have some candy when we get home," he said, lifting his head, sounding as though he was on the brink of drifting away into Dreamland.

"I gotta check it all first, kiddo."

"I know, but can I pick something out and you can check that first? I just really wanna…"

A wide and exhausted yawn cut his words short, inspiring him to rest his head back into its previous spot.

"I just really wanna Reece's cup."

"We'll see when we…"

When I noticed the silhouetted figure limping out from behind a house on the corner; one that signified we had almost reached our destination, it took me a second to realize who it was. The boy held neither his bag of candy nor the gore-lined blade as he shuffled toward me.

"HELP!" he called out as he struggled to push himself onward.

It was then that I heard a rage-fueled scream; not from the kid, but from the man who pursued him. As he rounded the side of the house the boy was trying to escape, I saw the far more realistic blood-stained knife in his hand.

I knew I had to act quickly, but my first and most crucial task would be to secure the safety of my son. After another quick glance to assure myself the man chasing the boy down had only one target in mind, I set Matty down on the sidewalk, looping the candy bag around his arm. With our home being just on the other end of the street, just beyond the stoop ahead, I gave him one mission:

"Run home, Matty! Run home and don't look back! When you get there, tell mommy to call the police, okay?"

He just nodded and took off in the direction of our home. I felt my stomach lurch with the thought of him making his way back home on his own, even if it was only another minute or two on foot. Still, I knew I had to get him as far away as possible before I did what I had to.

By the time I reached the front yard of the house the boy in the blood-stained apron was staggering away from, the tall and well-built man was almost on top of him.

"HEY!" I yelled out as I ran towards them, hoping to get the attention of the man who seemed to growl as he ran for the kid.

Taking no time to second guess my actions, I tackled the guy as he lunged at the kid. It was as I raised from the man I had planted to the grass, knocking the knife out of his hand, that I saw the four deep and grizzled gashes across the right side of his face. When the boy in the porcelain mask walked up beside me, pointing his finger at the man, I noticed the fresh blood and tissue caked to his fingernails.

"He stabbed me!" he said, hiccupping with tears trickling down his mask, "I didn't do nothin' to him, but he cut me anyway!"

The man gazed up at the kid with wide and almost shocked eyes, while still attempting to break free. When I called out, hoping to get the attention of some of the neighbors, he caught me across the face with his fist, instantly causing my head to spin. As he took the opportunity to lunge for the kid a second time, I felt my body roll to the ground while the boy let out a high-pitched yelp.

It only took a few seconds for my senses to return, but when I looked up to see the man clutching the child in the blood-soaked apron by his good leg, I had no time to waste. Again, I jumped on the guy, deflecting another attempted attack on my swelling face, while jabbing at his midsection.

"Run, kid!" I said, trying to grab the writhing man by his arms to hold him in place.

As the boy began to back away, a few other people left their homes to see what was going on. Some of them ran up, quickly assisting me in keeping the man from reaching his target. When I was able to release my grasp on the guy, trying to ignore the pulsing pain from where he had clocked me, I turned to look back at the likely traumatized boy.

When I saw no trace of him, I was momentarily worried someone had snatched him up amid all the craziness. I suppose that's just that fatherly instinct, to go straight to a worst-case scenario when it was far more likely that he headed back to his home after such a fright. Still, though I hadn't had a chance to see how badly he was wounded, I knew he would require medical assistance.

After a while, the police arrived at the scene, wasting little time in cuffing the man whose blood was still dripping on his shoulder. Paramedics rolled up moments later; one of whom checked me out to make sure my swollen shut eye was nothing more than a well-cleaned clock, while the other attended to the guy with his hands bound behind his back.

Nobody knew anything about the kid in the blood-stained apron, nor did anyone have any idea where he'd run off to. Over the next few hours, several more cars rolled up to the house on the corner, just past the stoop. The yellow tape had already sealed the place away from the public by that point, but I had to stick around for a bit to answer some questions.

Once I was permitted to leave, I returned to my home to find Matty passed out on the couch, with a few empty Reese's wrappers on the coffee table beside him. I explained everything that had occurred to my wife, before taking a well-earned shower. Becca prepared an ice pack for my eye while I cleaned myself up, which honestly felt heavenly when I held it to my puffy face.

It wasn't until the following morning that I walked out to meet the group of onlookers, to see a healthy amount of police doing their job, taking little note of the curious observers. It would seem I had arrived just in time to watch them remove the bodies from the house; those that were buried in the basement.

I watched in horror while they carried out the body bags; seven of them in all. The idea that someone capable of such acts lived so close to us was bad enough, but the fact that the subdivision was filled with kids the previous night, many of whom may have knocked on his door, almost caused my breakfast to escape.

When one of the officers who had questioned me waved me over as I stared on from the other side of the street, I wasn't sure what else I could offer to the investigation. As two other cops opened up a large trunk they had retrieved; the box that held the 'trophies' this bastard kept to commemorate his foul deeds, I found myself truly lost for words.

The blood-spattered, porcelain doll mask sat upon a variety of other objects, each wearing its own faded crimson stains. From what I could tell, all of the items the chest held were from one child's Halloween costume or another, as this was the season in which the sinister owner of the house liked to hunt.

The officer kept me somewhat in the loop of the investigation over the weeks that followed, as she was just as befuddled as I was about the child who somehow tore into the face of his murderer from beyond the grave. She admitted she had witnessed more than her fair share of bizarre things since joining the force, but we were both saddened and heartbroken by the crimes they uncovered.

After the identities of the victims were discovered and their grieving parents were given the news of the truth of their children's disappearance, we finally had a name for the lone trick-or-treater. The eleven-year-old Zachary Walsh had somehow gotten separated from the group he walked sidewalks with that Halloween night, the year before.

He lived in a neighborhood many miles away, but just about everyone in that subdivision looked for him for hours after hearing about his disappearance. Unfortunately, he had likely already been snatched up by the time the search party even had a chance. My heart aches for the boy, as well as the others who lost their lives to that son of a bitch, but I hope their parents at least have some closure now.

Given that young Zachary was the most recent of the sick bastard's victims, I can't say why he chose to skip this Halloween, with it being his hunting season and all. I wonder if perhaps we managed to stop him before he had the chance. Maybe that was the young boy's mission all along; to stop his killer before he was able to add a new trophy to his precious box.

Halloween feels a little different this year. Yes, Matty is just as excited as ever, but I don't know if it'll ever be the same for me. My son gave me free rein on what our costumes would be this time, as he is quite the perceptive kid. I'm sure he can tell that I'm far more distracted than usual, but maybe dusting off the old vampire outfits my father and I wore so many years ago will get me back into the spirit.

Take from this tale what you will; be it just another spooky story for the haunting hour or even the ravings of a gullible idiot. Whatever the case, just please do me one favor:

Keep a close eye on your children. Whether they're by your side as they go door to door in search of goodies, or traversing the sidewalks in a group of fellow candy seekers, make sure they know not to stray.

You can never tell if the truly horrific monsters of this world look anything like the personification of their nature, or live just a few doors down from where you rest your weary bones each night.