Excerpt: Hellhound's Puppies

PEARL STREET MALL
The Pearl Street Mall was quiet at the moment. Just before noon on October 31st the shopkeepers are getting ready to close early the barkeepers had scheduled extra staff and are holding meetings to go over what is to come in the next few hours and the mayhem that will escalate until midnight when hell lets loose the demons. A few people in costume are appearing suddenly on the streets to meet up with friends over lunch and make plans on when and where they will meet up for the revelry that is to begin in a few hours. Most will head home after work to transform into who they will become for the night, others will just mingle with the crowd and slowly transform into who they actually are every night, and believe me, they are the scariest of all.

The only shop not open at this time, but will be at nightfall, is Hellhound’s Puppies, a mystical, new-age shop that caters to the demons hell will let loose at midnight, and to those who dabble in the occult and the earth-mother types buying sage and smudge pots to clarify their environment. Joy Heavens (nee Jessie Holbrook) the proprietor of this numinous establishment is not even out of bed yet, but at any moment her eyes will open and she will realize she cannot put off the inevitable. Her devout staff will be arriving at the shop at the western end of Pearl Street, in preparation for the onslaught that will begin at sundown on the streets of Boulder, but more so in preparation of what will occur at the witching hour on All Hallows Eve within the confines of Hellhound’s Puppies.

OLD PEARL STREET
At one time, the only people who ventured to Pearl Street in downtown Boulder were rummies, cowboys, bikers and Buddhists. The rummies drank from morning till closing at Walt’s Tavern on the corner of Pearl and 11th, and at night Pearl Street came alive with cowboys and bikers heading up the street to Shannon’s, known for live entertainment; bands and brawls. The Buddhists were always there as Naropa Institute took up the entire second floor of the building on the other corner of Pearl and 11th, all except for the corner apartment overlooking the street where Joy Heavens lives. When the city fathers decided to revitalize downtown and create a pedestrian mall and cultural center in hopes of bringing the locals, students and tourists back to city center, the rummies, cowboys and bikers moved further east on Pearl to the Broken Drum where everyone drank, even the Buddhists. The Buddhists still hung out at Pearl and 11th forever waiting in long queues for an audience with Trungpa Rinpoche, the Tibetan teacher who founded Naropa. Pearl Streets transformation was less of a cultural center than a collection of upscale boutiques, art galleries, restaurants and fern bars lining the pedestrian walkway, where residents and wealthy parents, visiting their spoilt University of Colorado students, watched street theater and each other while imbibing alcohol at outdoor tables. However, on Halloween the Pearl Street Mall is the gathering place for the assortment of characters improvised by anyone brave enough to dress in costume and join the throng for the Boulder Mall Crawl, which in Boulder was almost everyone. And on All Hallows Eve the street theater is a bit more sinister.