Halloween in Noon is Spooktacular!

Halloween in Noon resembles Halloween throughout the deep south. At least on the surface. Children scamper from house to house, shouting, “Trick or treat, smell my feet!” and collecting candy. Mostly candy, anyway. Miss Annise Higgenbotham sometimes loaded their bags with jars of pickled okra from her garden if Mr. Percy ate all the homemade divinity while watching the televised roller derby. One year Robbie O’Brien handed out vitamin packets he bought in the mistaken belief he could get rich in a multi-level marketing plan.

Decorations run the usual gamut of ghosts, skeletons, and carved pumpkins. Mr. Percy Higgenbotham hosts a bell pepper carving contest most years but draws no contestants except himself. Curious children gather to watch and to hear his war stories of derring-do in the jungles of Burma Shave.

Hookman Bridge draws big crowds, eager to see if Hookman or his Gamma-Goblins will emerge from the river mists. High school kids sometimes dress up and leap out of the shadows, prompting screams that can be heard clear to Courthouse Square. The Presbyterian’s spook house couldn’t compete with Hookman Bridge, so they gave it up.

Teens like to visit Noon’s cemetery after leaving Hookman Bridge. They dare one another to stay longer but most go home when nothing scary happens. A few hold out until past midnight and wind up grounded for missing their curfew. The wee hours see true afficionados stop by the grave of the infamous bootlegger, Toots McGraw, and pour a libation on her headstone. Town lore claims that a local wild teen used to sit atop the headstone and insist on drinking the libations, but Claire McClanahan says there’s no evidence it was her.

To learn about the real mysteries of Noon, read one of the novels featuring the McClanahan clan and other eccentrics of this small Mississippi town. There is plenty to uncover when the seemingly placid waters of St. Pierre County bubble with trouble.

Buy the Noon Series on Amazon in Kindle, paperback or Audible here.