There's A Halloween Song We're Forbidden From Singing. I Found Out Why.

When I signed up for a National Teaching program, I pictured myself getting sent to the Chicago inner city, or somewhere deep in the South. Somewhere that needed me.

Instead I got this quaint, quiet little town in New Hampshire.

And I could never figure out why the place couldn't hold onto teachers — or any out-of-towner, really. There were always openings, which made no sense: basically no crime, friendly people, gorgeous countryside. When the leaves turned, the whole town looked like a postcard — yellows, flaming oranges, deep ruby reds on every hillside. Tourists drove for miles just to walk through the falling leaves or photograph mist rolling over apple orchards.

As someone who lives for pumpkin spice and Halloween and everything about fall, I was in heaven.

Starting in early October, my elementary kids decorated the classroom with paper ghosts and cobwebs. We carved pumpkins, bobbed for apples, read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. And to my surprise, I started getting phone calls from parents — good ones — telling me how much work I'd put in and how much their kids were loving my class. Principal Harris even pulled me aside to say how impressed he was, and that if I kept it up, he'd do everything he could to get me a permanent spot.

Everything was perfect. Right up until the Halloween sing-along.

I'd ordered a CD of spooky-but-kid-friendly songs. On the day, we turned off the lights, set candles burning inside the pumpkins we'd carved, and sat in a circle to sing.

I could feel the kids getting excited as I hit play. Some creepy sound effects first — fluttering bats, screams, witch cackles — and then the first track:

Have you seen the ghost of John?

Long white bones with the skin all gone...

Oooh, oo-oo-ooo-oo-ooh...

Wouldn't it be chilly with no skin on?

As the second verse kicked in, I looked around the circle.

Something was very wrong.

These kids loved singing. Now they were silent — except for a few who were crying. Most of them had their hands clamped over their ears. I'd expected spooky. This was something else entirely. Then I heard running footsteps, and Principal Harris sprinted across the classroom and switched off the CD player like a man defusing a bomb with one second left.

"Are you nuts?!" he panted.

"I—"

"We're going to have a talk about this after class. Don't ever play that song in this town again. Got it? Give them — I don't know — some notes to study or something."

The meeting after class was awkward, and I couldn't tell who felt worse, him or me. He kept picking things up off his desk and putting them back down, staring out the window, sighing, before finally getting to it.

"As you know," Harris said carefully, "this is a very old town. We've even got one of those 'George Washington Slept Here' bed-and-breakfasts." He tried to laugh. It died halfway out. "Anyway. Old, small towns like ours tend to have a lot of superstitions. They might sound silly to outsiders, but they matter a great deal to us."

It was clear who the outsider was in that room. Watching my dreams of a future here evaporate, I cleared my throat.

"If I've offended anyone, I'm sorry. That was never my intention. Is it — do folks here have a religious problem with Halloween, or—"

"No, no, nothing like that!" Harris scoffed. "We're not a bunch of Bible-thumping hillbillies up here. It's that specific song — and that specific story — that I'm asking you to stay away from."

"What? You mean that old folk song, 'The Ghost of Jo—'"

"Yes. That one. No need to say any more. Let's just not bring it up again, alright? You're doing wonderful work here, Miss. I'd hate to see it cut short over a silly misunderstanding."

"But why—"

"Let's just drop it, okay?" He was practically begging, like even discussing the song was too much for him. "Oh — one more thing. Expect some negative reactions around town when the kids tell their parents about today. Try not to take it personally. This is an extremely, extremely sensitive subject for us, Miss."

I walked out of the ugly fluorescent buzz of Principal Harris's office with a bad taste in my mouth and a fire of curiosity burning a hole in my chest. What could possibly be so terrible about a song — especially one that was hundreds of years old? I floated through the rest of the day, and the second I could, I headed for the library. The old building — red brick, shadowy white columns — was one of my favorite places in town. I'd spent hours there reading, prepping lessons, or just chatting with the librarian, Sarah Neumann.

"Hey Sarah!" I called to the frizzy cloud of hair at the front desk. "How's it going!"

"Hello." Mrs. Neumann answered flatly. "Can I help you?"

"Uh —" Her coldness threw me, but I wasn't leaving without answers. "I wanted to ask you—"

"I'm afraid I'm very busy." Sarah cut me off, adjusted her glasses, and went back to stamping books like she was trying to kill them. But I caught her glancing up, something almost like sympathy in her eyes. "If you want town history, try the newspaper archives. The October issues from 1989, 1972, and 1958 should do nicely." The stamp kept pounding. Conversation over.

So I spent the afternoon reading October headlines from 1989:

10/1: Students to Sing About Local Legend in Halloween Chorus

10/8: Protest Against 'Cursed' Singalong — Are Our Children in Danger?

10/15: A Spooky Success! Halloween Chorus Plays to A Full House!

10/22: Local Children Abducted! Police Suspect The Worst

10/29: Five Students Found Dead; Details Inside

Then October 1972:

10/1: New York Folklorist to Study Local Legend

10/8: A Stranger In Town! An Interview with Folklorist James Hatterwood

10/15: 'Stay Out Of Our Graves!' Hatterwood's Investigation Sparks Controversy

10/22: New York Folklorist James Hatterwood Missing; Volunteers Needed

10/29: An Unfinished Tale? Hatterwood Disappearance Remains Unsolved

And 1958:

10/5: Good-Time Girls and Hooligans! A Look Inside the Teen Motorcycle Craze

10/12: Miscreants or Misunderstood? City Council to Ban Teenage Bikers

10/19: Angry Greasers Adopt Local Legend As Their Mascot; Council Concerned

10/26: Accident or Foul Play? Parents Weep at Tragic 'Biker Club Pileup'

The newspaper room was in the basement, and I felt cold all over as I read. It wasn't hard to guess what the local legend was: the Ghost of John. I didn't believe in ghouls or curses, but I could see why it was a raw nerve here. I decided I would never mention it again. As I climbed the dim stairs back up, my phone buzzed hard enough to nearly jump me out of my skin. Dozens of missed calls.

I listened to the voicemails on the drive home, each worse than the last. Parents who'd called me a blessing days ago were now screaming at me, threatening my life, telling me to get out of town — some of them all three. I cried the whole way home. These were people who'd baked me cookies when I arrived! How could one little song turn them so cruel?

By the time I pulled in, the sadness had curdled into something hot and tight — anger, I guess, or that's what I tell myself to explain what I did next. None of this was fair! How was I supposed to know about some stupid superstition?! Still wiping my red, swollen eyes, I waved at the Volkers, my neighbors across the street.

Their two kids dropped their toys on the lawn and went inside without a word. Their parents followed, switching off the porch light as they went. Fresh tears burned down my cheeks. Without thinking, I grabbed the Halloween CD from my bag and shoved it into my car's player. Doors open, windows down, I skipped to the one track I wanted and played it at full blast:

Have you seen the ghost of John?

Long white bones with the skin all gone...

Oooh, oo-oo-ooo-oo-ooh...

Wouldn't it be chilly with no skin on?

I watched porch lights go out one by one up and down the street, watched people who'd been enjoying the autumn evening hurry back inside their houses. I sat alone in my rented driveway, sobbing into the smoky October twilight.

When I woke up the next morning, I had a few blissful seconds under the blankets before I remembered what I'd done. Then shame and anger hit me like a fist. My coffee did somersaults as I drove to school, dreading what waited.

To my shock — nothing. Nobody said a word. It was like the day before had never happened. Coworkers were suddenly guarded, but there were no furious parents, no dismissal letter, no crying children. The closest anyone came to mentioning the song was a boy in second period.

"Hey Miss, aren't we gonna finish the song?" he asked.

"Shut up, Clayton!" The girl beside him drove an elbow into his ribs.

"What?" Clayton shrugged. "I liked it. Just because our parents are all freaked out..."

"Clayton, we can't!" another girl hissed.

The class murmured, and I saw the teachable moment: back the superstition, or teach them to think for themselves.

"I made a mistake playing that song yesterday, Clayton," I said sweetly. "It upsets a lot of people, and we need to respect how they feel." I felt like a coward, but I didn't care. I just wanted it over. I wanted to go back to those first weeks — coffee in hand, watching the leaves fall.

A few quiet days passed. I started to think I'd survived the first big classroom scandal of my career — wiser, sadder, mostly fine. To celebrate, I drove out toward some kitschy tourist traps in the neighboring towns. On the way, the weather turned ugly.

The misty clouds went a strange yellowish-grey, and heavy rain started hammering down. Even with wipers on full, I could barely see. Something about this weather felt wrong, unnatural, and it set my teeth on edge. That's why I nearly jumped out of my skin at the loud revving behind me.

Who rides a motorcycle in weather like this?

The black riders came out of the rain like the Headless Horseman — except the logo on their leather jackets belonged to a different legend. Through the downpour I could read bone-white letters curving around a skeletal mascot: The Ghosts of John.

Music played over the rain — was that Elvis? Shake, Rattle and Roll. Six motorcycles boxed me in, three a side, and I couldn't hear the rain over their engines. Prank or not, it was working. I gripped the wheel hard, but my tires felt half-hydroplaned already. Their rain-torn shadows crept closer on both sides. Bodies — or long white bones? — hidden under black leather; faces — with the skin all gone? — anonymous behind scarred helmets. I couldn't move without their permission, and they knew it.

The rain became a grey curtain over everything. As the road curved, I realized they were herding me, forcing sharper and sharper turns to avoid hitting them. I might have risked it — except clipping one would wreck me too. How long it went on, I don't know — the cheesy fifties music, the deafening engines, the white-knuckle mind games. It was meant to soften me up. The Ghosts of John started slowing. They wanted me to stop — to face all six of them, alone, on a rain-beaten country road.

Heart slamming, I skidded to a halt in a gravel pull-off. They killed their engines; without the roar, only the wind-whipped rain remained. In unison, the dark figures dismounted. Slowly, one turned toward me and reached for his helmet, about to show me what was underneath —

I floored it. They'd left a gap dismounting their old bikes, and I went for it — luck or something otherworldly, I couldn't say. I fishtailed wildly on the slick roads, nearly went through a bridge guardrail into the churning water below. Maybe that had been the point. I drove home as fast as the miserable weather allowed.

Whether it was the damp, the stress, or something else, the encounter put me in bed with chills and a fever. Sleep and waking, dreams and hallucinations bled together. Like the man pacing through my house, muttering — long seventies bowl cut and beard, elbow-patched professor's jacket. When my eyes fluttered open I'd catch him at my desk, poring over yellowed manuscripts. Almost comforting — at first. Then his moods started swinging wildly, from pure joy to plate-smashing fury.

I'm sure I imagined what came next, because no living person could have survived it. Deep in the fever, in the lost hours of the night, I dragged myself to the kitchen for tea. When I came back, the Professor stood there backlit by the lamp, surrounded by hanging skeletal puppets dangling from every surface, an antique wooden trunk before him, a bowie knife in his hand — laughing.

"Of course, of course!" I thought I heard him giggle. "So simple! Why didn't I see it before?" Humming the song, the professor peeled thick, juicy strips of his own flesh away, and kept going until nothing was left. Then he folded the skin-suit into the trunk, sealed it, and carried it off, still chuckling.

I blinked. The vision was gone. I crawled back under the covers and sipped my tea, wondering what my fevered brain would dream up next.

By Monday I felt better. The hallucinations had stopped, but I had more questions than answers, so I went to see Sarah at the library again. The moment she saw me, she scurried off. I cornered her in the stacks.

"You're avoiding me," I said.

"Oh, I have no idea what you're ta—"

"I did the research you suggested. I even played the song again." Sarah went white, checking both ends of the aisle like she expected monsters.

"You shouldn't have done that," she whispered. "The more you play it, the more you talk about it, the more you think about it... the worse it gets." Her eyes darted around. "It's too dim back here. We're alone. We... we shouldn't even be talking about this."

"But how did it start? If it's even real, there has to be a way to stop it, right?"

"If it's even real?!" Sarah hissed. "I can see in your face that it has started happening to you too — and you still doubt it? If you've let the song into your life this far and you're still alive, I don't know what to tell you. Get out and forget about it, if it isn't already too late... I am NOT having this conversation..."

I told her about the bikers. She looked miserable — half wanting to cover her ears, half desperate to hear more.

"Leaving town is out, then," she murmured. "It'll get you on the roads."

I told her about the professor.

"It's in your house already, then," Sarah frowned. "It is too late." She squeezed my shoulder. "I'm sorry..." Hurrying off, she called back: "and we did NOT have this conversation!"

I was due back at school the next day. Back among my sheet music and little-kid instruments, I could barely remember where I'd left off — but the students' welcome warmed me. To them, I'd just been out sick. They had no idea about the nightmare I'd been living since I played the song. I needed a distraction, so I did something I'd sworn I'd never do: I played Christmas music in October. The kids were baffled, but it did me good. Singing Jingle Bells in my classroom, it was easy to pretend I'd never heard of ghosts or Halloween.

Outside the school, though, the late-autumn air kept reminding me. Dead brown leaves swirled under the bare skeletons of trees. Houses wore fake cobwebs and wooden tombstones. Children in costumes struck me — for the first time — as grotesque and twisted and wrong. When trick-or-treaters leapt out from behind hay bales, their masked faces scared me far more than the kids they were jumping out at, who just ran off shrieking with laughter.

What was fun for them had become deadly serious for me.

I realized how deeply it had gotten to me when I looked out my kitchen window a few nights before Halloween. I screamed without making a sound when I saw the

(long white bones)

of a skeleton under the twisted apple tree in front of my house. It was watching me.

I don't know how long I stood there, staring into the black pits of its eyes, its awful bony grin, its dead intensity... but finally I realized it wasn't moving. Knife shaking in my fist, I crept outside to face it.

I saw the string. I shoved the skeleton. Plastic. I was still laughing at how pathetic I was when I felt a tug on my elbow that made me turn around. A child stood there — one of my students?

"Excuse me, Miss," the child rasped, "can I have some of your skin?"

"...What?" I was sure I'd misheard.

"Can I have your skin, Miss? It sure is chilly with no skin on..."

That's when I understood the child wasn't wearing a costume. What stood in front of me was draped in a plain blanket, like a mortuary sheet, stained red. The kind of stain you'd get from a small body with all its flesh flayed off, I thought. There were no eye or mouth holes for a child to see or breathe through the blood-soaked cloth, and it held a single tallow candle for light. I backed away slowly.

I didn't start running until four more identical shapes drifted out of the dark, their candles flickering behind faceless wrappings. Small as they were, and blind as they had to be, they came after me fast through the cracked bracken and mud and piles of leaves. They'd cut me off from my rented house, and like a panicked animal I bolted straight ahead —

— and ran right into the woods behind my house.

Soon the only light anywhere was the candles carried by the five child-sized figures chasing me through the damp, foggy dark. Tripping and sliding over twisted roots and rotten logs, I understood with horror that I was being herded. The destination was obvious: a silvery clearing with a single dead tree standing in the middle of it.

Now that I've stood in that clearing, I can say that I have, truly, seen the Ghost of John.

Oh yes — we've all seen it. The five student singers. Professor Hatterwood. The town's first motorcycle gang. Others too old to have names. And still others who walked those woods before names even existed. We have all seen those long white bones.

I don't know why I was allowed to walk out of that clearing. Maybe the ghost wants its song and its story spread... or maybe it knows I'll be back before All Hallow's Eve.

You see, where that haunted child touched my elbow, a grey spot started to grow. Little by little, the flesh around it turned pale and crumbled away like dust. Most of my left arm is bone now, and the change seems to be spreading faster.

It sure is going to be chilly with no skin on.