Facade

09 || psycho

~ Alejandra ~

Everything is scarier in October.

There's a reason that once the clock strikes twelve am after September thirtieth, it becomes "spooky season."

Creatures like witches, vampires, ghosts and ghouls alike all come out to play, but not all who come out are make believe.

Murderers, serial killers and psychopaths come out of the woodwork too. This is the only time of year deemed "appropriate" to become the most evil of beings.

Villains, real and pretend, are all celebrated on this extremely fucked up occasion because Halloween isn't just on the thirty first; It's all of October.

Kind of the same way Christmas is all of December. The only difference is that December doesn't make it's life mission to scare the living shit out of you.

Well, not unless you've watched Krampus.

While I am a hard person to scare, October does make things seem a lot creepier than they naturally are.

For example, being followed home from work.

It doesn't matter if it's Halloween day or any day in between the next spooky season; if you're from the projects in the ghetto or from the glass palaces on the Upper East and West Side.

New York City is a hunting ground for girls walking home alone at night.

I've been followed, catcalled, groped at, the ladder. Each and every time, whether I out ran them, cursed at them or kneed them in the balls, I've gotten out fine.

Maybe it was the fact that this time I was being tailed by a black mustang at almost twelve o'clock at night or the fact that Halloween was a week away, but it was enough to make my adrenaline kick into high gear and the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up.

At first, the car was going slow enough at a safe distance away for me to soothe myself by saying, "Maybe they're just looking for parking."

After the second block of the car being too close for comfort, I won't lie, I started to panic.

I tried keeping my cool, making it look like I didn't realize while also planning out my escape route. Once I got to Avenue C, I bolted.

Low and behold, so did the mustang.

Since I was almost up the block from whoever was behind the wheel, I got a good enough head start to round the corner and head down a one way street.

I zigzagged down, rounding back to Avenue C on a street closer to my house and ran the rest of the way home.

Even when I got to my block, which is nothing but brown public housing as far as the eye can see, I ran all the way to the lobby of my building.

My heart was still hammering even as I was still in the elevator and all the way till I was finally locked safely in my apartment.

The safety didn't last long since once I turned around, daddy dearest was there, drunk and riled up.

When he came at me, I was already in fight or flight mode so I made it off easy with only a bruised right wrist and a bruised left cheek.

He caught me by the wrist right at the door and threw a punch that knocked me to the ground.

It lead me to kick him as hard as I could in the shin to distract him so I could make it back to my room, almost completely unscathed.

While he pounded on the door, threatening to kill me, I went about my night as if I couldn't hear anything beyond my barricaded walls.

My vanity, while not huge, makes a pretty good block for the door.