The Night Shift: A Halloween Crime Letter

Pull up a chair, friend. Pour yourself something amber and dangerous.

It’s Halloween night, and I’ve got some thoughts about masks that need sharing.

The monsters next door don’t howl. They mow lawns, pay bills, and wave good evening before they disappear into the dark.

When Every Day Is Halloween

You know what they don’t tell you about Halloween? It’s amateur night for the real ghouls.

While the rest of the world paints their faces and pretends for a few hours, there are folks who never take off their masks. You’ve met them. They’re serving you apple pie with smiles that don’t reach their eyes. Signing contracts with that have done deeds dark enough to shame the devil. Walking through suburban doors each evening to kiss families who don’t know they’re living with strangers.

For some folks, Halloween’s not a holiday. It’s a lifestyle. A habit. The year-round business of keeping up appearances while something cold and hollow walks around wearing their face.

The Masks We Choose, The Masks We Wear

I’ve spent years writing about these people. In Black Orchid Blues and in Harlem Redux (now masquerading as Lyrics of a Blackbird—even my books wear disguises), I keep circling the same truth: every good crime is a magic trick—just with blood instead of rabbits.

Your average murderer isn’t the wild-eyed stranger in the alley. It’s the neighbor who returns your hedge clippers. The spouse who remembers anniversaries. The partner who laughs at your jokes. They wear “normal” like a costume, and they’re so good at it, you’d swear it was skin.

Con artists don’t just steal your money—they steal your faith in faces. They understand what horror writers have always known: the scariest monsters look just like us. Stephen King’s creatures crawl back under the bed when the story ends. Mine fix breakfast in your kitchen come morning.

Cocktails and Consequences

Halloween parties. There’s something about them, isn’t there? All those masks, all that permission to be someone else. Mix in the kind of drinks that taste like candy but hit like confession, and you’ve got a perfect crime scene waiting to happen.

I’m not talking about poison in the glass—though Lord knows there’s enough of that—but the moment someone decides to drop the mask and let the Boogeyman boogie. You know how it starts—that little, pathetic

If only I could...

Then comes the whisper, soft and slick—

Why not tonight? Just this once. The costume, the liquor, the masks, the confusion—they’re cover enough.

By the time the lights flicker on, or the morning dawns, that thought’s turned mean:

No one will ever know.

Those poor souls who stumble home and vanish into the dark? Come on. We both know it doesn’t always have to do with drink. It’s ’cause somebody, somewhere—probably right next door—decided tonight was the night.

Time to stop faking it and—yeah, say it again—let the Boogeyman boogie.

Through the Secret Door

You want to know what really haunts us? Not ghosts. Not goblins. It’s the door we never knew was there. The one in our own house—or our own heart—that swings open one day to reveal rooms we never wanted to see.

Maybe it’s your daddy’s other family. Your mama’s other address. That padlocked shed where dear hubby keeps his extra special tools—the ones right next to the wood chipper. Or the alias dear wifey slips behind when the camera light turns red. Every betrayal is just another secret door, and behind each one, someone’s been living another life while you thought you knew the floor plan.

Crime writers, we’re architects of haunted houses. We know where the secret passages lead. We’ve mapped every hidden room where people store the selves they can’t let anyone see. Halloween just gives everyone else one night to play in our permanent residence.

The Walking Dead Among Us

Let’s talk about zombies. If you can get past the poor hygiene and lack of manners, you’ve got to admit one thing — they’re honest. You see them coming, shuffling and moaning. You know to run.

But the walking dead I write about? They’ve got mortgages and manners. Coach baseball on Saturday, sing hymns on Sunday. They’re respected. Admired. Trusted. You’d never think to look too deep into their eyes.

But if you did, you’d see it—the hunger.

You’d feel it when it flares.

And you might reconsider that invitation—the one where they asked you over for dinner but forgot to mention you’re the main course.

They’re hollowed out by secrets, animated by deceit, feeding on trust like it’s flesh. Every smile is practiced; every laugh, calculated. They’re so good at pretending that sometimes they believe their own lies. If nothing else, they’ll make sure you do. And the moment you don’t—well then.

These folks have a way of efficiently eliminating troublesome clutter from their lives.

An Invitation to the Masquerade

So here we are, friend—Halloween season—and me thinking about all the masks that never come off. The parties that never really end. The strangers we sleep beside. The ghosts we create when we think no one’s watching.

What’s more relevant to crime than masks? More essential to betrayal than lips that plant the kiss while a hand lifts to plant the blade? What could be more fitting, on Halloween, than to remember that everyone’s in costume—some folks just never admit it?

Horror writers get October. But folks like me, writing crime? We get every day someone smiles while lying. Every night someone doesn’t come home. Every morning someone wakes beside a killer they’ve called darling for twenty years.

We get the real Halloween—the one that runs all year long.

Until next time, keep your drinks covered and your doors locked. Not against the monsters outside—but against the ones you’ve already let in.

—Walker