The Last House On The Block

[image error]It was cold that night, way colder than any Halloween should have been;  so cold that my mom and her best friend, Melinda, didn't bother to get out of the car while my best friend and I stomped the sidewalk. I don't remember what we had dressed up as, just that my breath puffed out ahead of me and I could hear gravel crunch beneath the tires of my mom's puke-yellow hatchback. It was 1985, maybe '86, and Ruidoso New Mexico looked much the same as it does today–a tiny mountain town tucked...