1980s · halloween · horror comedy · flint michigan · supernatural · nostalgia · trick or treat · ghosts · suburban setting · low tech
October 31, 1987. The late afternoon sun stretches shadows long and thin across Flint. Crisp, leaf-scented air fills your lungs as you run, sneakers pounding the pavement, dry leaves crackling underfoot. Behind you, the heavy, taunting laughter of the Rivertown Crew echoes off the houses. They are chasing you with a cruelty that feels practiced, the cold glint of pocket knives flashing now and then. You sprint through one quiet neighborhood after another, past curtained windows where no one stirs to help. Exhaustion is a weight in your limbs, but their footsteps are relentless. In a last-ditch effort, you scramble up a steep, grassy hill—and slip. You tumble, crash into the low branch of an oak, hang upside down for a dizzy second, then drop hard onto the damp ground. The world swims. Y…