The most popular Halloween Costume the year you were born

The reservoir falls forty feet and a drowned town rises out of the mud — stone walls, a half-melted steeple, and a graveyard breaking the surface in neat pale rows. At the waterline Nora meets Edith, an old woman who has been watching for this since the water started to drop, because it happened to her once too: 1976, the summer it didn't rain, the summer her own drowned boy came home. Edith knows what's in Nora's house, what it wants, and how it feeds — on the keeping of it, hollowing out everyone real until there's no one left. And she knows the one way to send it back. The only trouble is that nobody ever can. Part 3 of a four-part story. It's Grace or the boy. She already chose — at the door, the first night.

By morning the boy is still cold — cold in the white July heat, cold to the touch at the breakfast table — and Nora makes her choice: she smiles, feeds him, and starts building the house of lies she's going to live in. Paul wants to call someone. Grace takes one look and says the thing no one else will. The dog won't come inside. And night after night the boy gets a little more solid, a little more right, learning the exact shape of the family he's wearing — while out in the valley, the reservoir keeps falling, and something dark begins to break the surface. Part 2 of a four-part story. It knew the worst thing she'd ever done. And it forgave her.

Episode 250. Thank you for 250 nights in the dark with us!

The storm finally breaks over the dead city, and the cool air Dana prayed for becomes the thing she fears most — because it clears the room, throws the curtains wide, and brings back the light she's spent weeks keeping out. In the lamplight she can no longer keep from knowing what she's been keeping. And when the rescue crews climb the nine dark flights and call her a hero, the woman who stayed, she lets them — because the truth she's carried out of that building is one only she will ever know. The heat is always coming. The conclusion of a four-part summer nightmare.

Johnny Mac shares five Halloween-themed good news stories, starting with candy reviews: Hi-Chew Mystery Mix is praised for flavors like green apple, cotton candy, and orange creamsicle (with a mystery flavor unrevealed until Halloween), while Brach’s Mellow Cream Spooky Graveyard is panned across its flavors and shapes; Kit Kat “Counts” are highlighted as a Halloween standout despite thicker chocolate, and Keebler Spooky Fudge Stripes are criticized. He then spotlights Aldi’s Halloween cheeses, including Death by Garlic cheddar, Scary Pumpkin Spice Wensleydale, and green Freaky Franken Sage Derby. The episode also promotes Los Angeles’ United Theater screening of Mario Bava’s 1961 “Hercules in the Haunted World” with live singers, orchestra, and a $10,000 costume contest, plus haunt attractions in Miami and Nebraska’s Kneeknocker Woods “Backwood Cannibals” Trail of Terror and Nana’s Corn Maze.