Halloween Story — Tracy Dunham

It’s been a while - we’ve been in Europe and packing for our travels seems to have consumed forever. Home now and glad to be here. Don’t need to cross the Pond again, at least not for a bit. Too much to see here, enjoy here, support here in the U.S. We have so much natural beauty all around us. I am truly grateful.

The annual Halloween story is hot off the press. Hope you all enjoy it.

Halloween 2025

The Dead never Die

The old army Humvee, a stripped down model, had all the whistles and bells added after Chad bought it at an auction last year. Lane change warning, big screen backup camera, etc., nothing was too fancy for the old dinosaur. He’d loved the vehicle since he was a kid, and driving it while he was stationed overseas in the army had solidified the attraction. This was more than a car. This was his personal happy place, and he went to it whenever he could. The vehicle had also saved his life in Afghanistan.

It wasn’t new, but then, neither was he. Nightmares of the wild highs and terrible lows of his tours of duty in Afghanistan still left him gasping in the middle of the night, but not as often these days. He’d used the GI bill to put himself through law school, then he’d locked in a partnership with a prestigious law firm in D.C., doing acquisitions and mergers. No excitement there. Just the way he liked it. No one died when a merger fell through. No explosions over signing an acquisition agreement.

In a way, his winning bid for the Humvee went against everything he’d tried to forget. Still, he couldn’t resist the buy, hoping all the fancy upgrades and new paint job would even out the slight worry that he was jumping back into Nightmare Alley all by himself. The sand colored Humvee had saved his life once, and he had no plans to put it or himself in any dangerous situations where it had to repeat the performance.

Weekends he used to spend working, ever the diligent law partner with no personal life, started to become his own. Driving the Humvee onto the back roads of the far corners of the state gave him a new release. Interestingly enough, the more he took time to cruise the back mountain roads and find dirt trails through the woods, the fewer the nightmares. Never one to over-analyze his own issues, he decided to accept the peace those hours brought him. His triggering thoughts slipped more and more into a dark alley he didn’t need to traverse. He even hoped to not just avoid those alleys, but to banish them entirely from his thinking.

Colleagues and staff at the office noticed he’d become quieter, less laser-focused on clients and the ever-present pressure to bill big hours. The pleasant façade he’d cultivated for years became unimportant. He still did his job, but he didn’t try as hard, as if he were channeling his energies in new ways. When he started driving the Humvee to work, leaving the Porsche garaged at his townhouse, office chatter grew louder. What was Chad doing in that old thing? It wasn’t the image a top-flight lawyer from their firm wanted. Partners held whispered mini-conferences in the men’s room. Office assistants worried he was losing his edge. Everyone knew he was a vet. Was this some form of PTSD? Should they try to get him to a shrink?

The truth was, Chad didn’t care what anyone thought or said. When he started taking

Fridays off to take the Humvee to some remote place, the gossip got louder. Still, he didn’t give a rat’s ass. For those hours when he was alone in the Humvee that had once saved his life and was now saving his sanity, Chad felt like himself. Not the lawyer in thousand-dollar suits. He started dressing in his old camo, tired and worn though the uniform was. His beard grew scruffy, He found a pair of old aviator sunglasses like the ones he wore when he was in fatigues as a younger man. His combat boots came out of the trunk. They felt better than any leather loafer in his closet.

This October day, Chad drove down a leaf and acorn-strewn logging trail, marveling at the golden colors showering him. Humming a song from 1995, he was pleasantly immune to the bad memories and glorying in the spectacular Fall day. The Hummer felt alive through the steering wheel. For just a second, it was if he and the machine had become one.

Next thing he knew, he instinctively slammed on the brakes. Four ghostly images surrounded the picture of the Humvee on the screen. Afraid he’d hit someone, he threw the Hummer into park and stared hard at the images. Not one was clearly defined. An amorphous gray, clearly, they were human-shaped, but not distinct. Tapping the screen, he hoped they’d disappear. They didn’t. Almost afraid to look, he poked his head out the window and stared at the spot where the shape closest to the driver’s side had appeared.

Nothing. Nothing but the swirl of leaves and the golden sunlight pouring through the thick canopy overhanging the trail. What the hell? Chad threw the Hummer into gear and pressed on the gas. The screen displayed the gray figures striding beside him, keeping up with each move he made, swinging the Hummer from side to side, slowing down, increasing speed. Nothing shook them off.

Just as in Afghanistan, when worry clung to everyone like a skunk’s stink, he felt a deeper despair. In the Humvee on patrol, because they knew it had been too long since an attack, no one talked. Too many days since an IED had blown one of their vehicles into the air like a kicked football had them all on edge. The old song died within him.

Too long since someone had died. He was back in Afghanistan. The gray men kept pace and Chad knew he was in trouble. The kind of trouble that can break a man in two.

The autumnal light glowing through the trees shifted. A glare as bright as a sun flare surrounded him. Keep coolhe told himself. Don’t panic. Anticipate. Take evasive action.

“Keep back,” he shouted, gesturing through the windshield. “I won’t stop!” Hitting the gas, he clung to the steering wheel as the Hummer bounced and gyrated over the logging path’s ruts and rocks.

A quick glance at the screen showed him the grays clung to his fenders, to the doors. Jamming on the brakes, he thought for sure he’d send some of them under the Hummer’s big wheels. But no, there they stood. Turning to face him, four gray figures morphed into men. Men in fatigues. Men with half their faces blown off. Men with gaping holes in their chests. Men he recognized at once. They were his men. His dead comrades. Four men who’d died when he alone survived.

He’d avoided thinking about them as long as he could. Now, he knew he’d never escape their faces, their names, their ends on this earth. He’d harbored the guilt that he’d survived like a dirty secret, never allowing the grief he carried to be seen by anyone. Not even by himself.

“I’m sorry!” he cried aloud. “I should have been there for you!”

Silently, one by one, each man opened the Hummer’s doors and climbed in. Facing forward, they reached over the seat backs to place their hands on his shoulders. Chad felt warmth from their skin soaking into his. They were alive, at least to him. With a nod, his old friend Allen pointed forward and gestured for Chad to drive. Slipping the Humvee into gear, Chad did as ordered.

Chad never showed up for work the following Monday. His family cleaned out his townhouse after a year, and seven years later, he was declared legally dead.