VARSITY VIEW — Popping up in residential areas throughout October are countless displays of spooky scenes on lawns and in windows. Cotton cobwebs, plastic grave markers and jack-o’-lanterns are staples of the game, with some homeowners employing more creative items like crime-scene tape or steaming cauldrons.

For the passersby, these annual folklore facades are often welcome breaks of levity — a signifier that the residents responsible are observers of the congruent holiday. The decorations generally range from cute to crafty to cult, while the truly scary-as-shit decor is hidden out of the public eye and usually only available by donation.

Amy Cortez, a fourth-year Edwards School of Business student, says that her neighbours’ lawn display seems more nefarious than most and believes this is cause for alarm.

“There’s [blood] spatters in the windows and just a bunch of bloody medical equipment dumped on the front lawn. It honestly doesn’t look like anyone’s even been back inside since the decorations went up,” Cortez said.

Cortez has never met her neighbours, but says she saw them moving in four months ago.

“I’ve heard some weird noises coming from their house at weird hours — like a deep hum or some kind of chanting. I thought it was some ASMR shit, maybe,” Cortez said.

Cortez says it never occurred to her to conclude that her neighbours’ behaviour might be at all suspicious, but given only these two examples, she wonders whether the convenient calendar timing is hiding a darker truth.

“I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I have been a little bored in my social life lately, and the stuff is just, like, a lot,” Cortez said.

Cortez’s neighbours could not be reached for comment. Daniel Combes, a Sheaf Fake News fact-checker, reports that the lawn display was, at the time of print, a little fucked up.