Video by Kathryn Scott, Special to The Colorado Sun. More on our Instagram page @thecoloradosun<\/a>.<\/p>\n And, of course, to the creative instincts that kick in every fall as he plots his next spooky scenario.<\/p>\n Art and stagecraft sometimes intersect. With a writer\u2019s sensibilities, he does tend to construct his displays with an eye for story. And just as an author considers audience, Wilson dedicates his Halloween efforts to the people he most wants to impress. And it\u2019s not just the kids.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI design it for their parents because the parents are the ones who appreciate it,\u201d he says. \u201cAlthough, sometimes you get the really analytical kids who are like, \u2018Oh, this is better than last year.\u2019 They really like deconstructing it. But the best are the parents. The best is when the kids are screaming and the parents are like, \u2018Dude, this is awesome.\u2019 I do it for those comments.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He does it, too, with a finger on the pulse of popular culture. When \u201cWalking Dead\u201d was huge, he went all in on zombies. When \u201cStranger Things\u201d landed, he constructed an entire underworld in his garage.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI just think about what\u2019s the main thing people are going to look at,\u201d he says, \u201cand what\u2019s the story behind it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n One year he employed devilish mannequins in \u201970s regalia behind \u201ca bar from hell,\u201d while speakers piped in the infectious beat of \u201cDisco Inferno<\/a>,\u201d beneath a mirror ball. The \u201cStranger Things\u201d installation, which included the show\u2019s Upside Down wormhole connecting a small Indiana town with another dimension, featured a leaping Demogorgon monster. Those two rank among his personal favorites \u2014 not necessarily for fear factor, but for pure production value.<\/p>\n Wilson used to stage his frightfest on the front porch, but eventually moved it into his garage to take advantage of more space. Once he has draped it with black burlap, he has the metaphorical blank page on which he can compose, for instance, the narrative of a haunted upstairs attic: Fog swirling amid furniture draped with white sheets. A mannequin of a young girl singing creepy songs. A baby doll springing from the shadows to provide the jumpscare.<\/p>\n The vibe is the thing. He doesn\u2019t do gore.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I did \u2018The Walking Dead,\u2019 there were some zombies and body parts,\u201d he allows, \u201cbut normally it\u2019s just this kind of a thing.\u201d<\/p>\n On average, Wilson estimates, he spends up to $1,000 and multiple weekends channeling his creepy creativity into scenarios that, except for a few mechanical components, he\u2019ll probably never use again. It\u2019s a point of honor. Eventually, most of his once-used props are given away through the online marketplace.<\/p>\n \u201cThe main thing is getting all the infrastructure up,\u201d he says. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s not the Taj Mahal I\u2019m building here. It\u2019s just sheets and stuff like that. The key is that once you black out everything and once you turn on the lighting and the fog machine, then anything looks cool, right?\u201d<\/p>\n Sometimes his imagination outruns his means. Last year, on the 50th anniversary of the movie \u201cJaws,\u201d he envisioned building a dock on the garage floor, somehow surrounding it with water.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then I start thinking, \u2018How the hell am I going to have time to do this?\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cSo I get some ideas that are bigger than my budget and my capabilities.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Wilson bemoans the fact that this year, early October found him exhausted. His latest literary thriller, \u201cWhen They Find Me,\u201d hits bookstores Nov. 10, and he\u2019s been traveling to promote it and also to tend to other business interests, his speaking engagements, instructional writing workshops<\/a> and producing a regular podcast<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, he worked on his next book, now in its first round of edits, and started on yet another that won\u2019t publish until at least 2028. So in addition to fatigue, Wilson is in the throes of something he calls \u201ccreative whiplash.\u201d While doing interviews for \u201cWhen They Find Me,<\/a>\u201d he has to keep reminding himself what it\u2019s about. (Thriller fans can get a taste, plus hear more from Wilson, in the Nov. 8 edition of SunLit<\/a>.)<\/p>\n The craziness of his schedule put him behind on planning this season\u2019s Halloween scenario. Rather than entertain higher-concept projects, he set his sights on something basic.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo this year,\u201d he says, \u201cI\u2019m doing spiders.\u201d<\/p>\n An early ghost story<\/p>\n While Wilson has always had an affinity for the spooky fun of Halloween, he does share a real-life ghost story that shook him as a college student in upstate New York. For one semester, he and a roommate shared half of a two-story, century-old house that sat at the bottom of a hill.<\/p>\n \u201cThe hill,\u201d he recalls, \u201cwas a graveyard.\u201d<\/p>\n When things started happening \u2014 \u201cnothing crazy, but weird, like the TV would turn on by itself\u201d \u2014 they would joke about living in a haunted house. But then one afternoon Wilson came back from classes, laid down on his bed and shut his eyes for a few minutes, resting but not sleeping. That\u2019s when things started to get crazy.<\/p>\n He heard a woman\u2019s voice speaking to him, clearly but at the same time unintelligible. It lasted just a few seconds, but when he jolted to attention, he found no one there. The incident seemed strange enough that he resolved not to mention it to his roommate, who had already grown uneasy with the house\u2019s idiosyncracies.<\/p>\n The next day, he came home and found his roommate in tears. When he asked what was wrong, she recounted an experience identical to his. When he came clean and told her he\u2019d heard the same thing, she was so shaken that she moved out for two weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n Later, near the end of the semester, they were sitting together at a computer on the first floor, working on a school project into the wee hours of the morning. Suddenly, from upstairs they heard what he recalls as \u201cjust this massive scream.\u201d<\/p>\n His roommate had a \u201cvisceral, physical reaction,\u201d he recounts, and turned bright red and immediately broke out in a sweat. Wilson scrambled upstairs \u2014 and, of course, found nothing. They moved out.<\/p>\n In the years since, he has visited the house and spoken with people who\u2019ve lived there. When he asks, they tell him, \u201cOh yeah, stuff happens all the time.\u201d Once agnostic when it comes to ghosts, Wilson has changed his story.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a believer,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Getting into the spirit<\/p>\n As mid-October approached, Wilson moved about his garage with purpose and enthusiasm, energized by the anticipated delivery of a mechanical arm he ordered to animate part of his display. A banner hanging from his front porch hints at what lies ahead: \u201cErie Poisonous Spider Petting Zoo & Life Insurance Company.\u201d<\/p>\n Sometimes all the narrative needs is a jolt of adrenaline.<\/p>\n Wilson moved to Colorado in his late 20s and on those Halloween nights would do something fun and simple, a single prop that might employ a household gadget like a leaf blower. True to his childhood memory of that one spooky house, people loved even a basic effort.<\/p>\n Eventually, he designed and built his house in what was then a new subdivision called Erie Village. The idea behind the development required residents to link their design to turn-of-the-19th-century Colorado, which resulted in a definite Victorian energy. He eventually added one year-round literary touch: The \u201cOnce Upon a Crime\u201d tiny free library perched by the sidewalk features only mysteries and thrillers. Opening the door triggers a recording of a long, sinister laugh.<\/p>\n LEFT: A banner hanging from the front porch warns: \u201cErie Poisonous Spider Petting Zoo & Life Insurance Company.\u201d RIGHT: The \u201cOnce Upon a Crime\u201d tiny free library perched by the sidewalk features only mysteries and thrillers. (Kathryn Scott, Special to The Colorado Sun)<\/p>\n Wilson\u2019s seasonal workspace fills the two-car garage. Even illuminated for optimal working conditions, the scaffolding of his creepy-crawly horror hints at the fun ahead. Dozens of spiders appear to crawl down a wall, thanks to a loop of video images projected from behind a thin sheet. When Wilson activates the sound effects \u2014 echoing high-decibel knocks, squeaks and screeches \u2014 they trigger a flashlight that appears to scan the wall and reveal a disturbing swarm of arachnids. A footstep on a nearby covered pressure plate releases a giant, spring-loaded specimen.<\/p>\n The sound, Wilson notes, makes all the difference when the garage is dark and the fog machine adds to the atmosphere. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t take much to freak out kids,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n He moves to other spots in the garage where motion sensors will drop spiders from above. He hangs strips of sheer ribbon from anchors overhead so visitors will brush them as they pass, adding a tactile element to the experience. He carries another large spider he plans to mount on the soon-to-arrive mechanical arm, and ponders how best to make it spring to life with the help of a motion sensor and air compressor. He\u2019s also ordered a mechanical spider that moves about on its own.\u00a0<\/p>\n His fatigue has faded, replaced by the creative energy of the season.<\/p>\n \u201cHow many people screamed.\u201d<\/p>\n Behind the scenes, Wilson adds technical expertise required to hook up control boards, air compressors, motion sensors and other hardware to animate the horror. Before trick-or-treaters and their parents arrive, he\u2019ll mount some video cameras to capture the shrieks and laughter \u2014 and often, the exchanges just outside the garage between parents and their suddenly hesitant kids.<\/p>\n A self-described \u201cdata guy,\u201d Wilson meticulously tracks each Halloween\u2019s metrics.<\/p>\n \u201cWe keep count by hour,\u201d he says. \u201cI have sheets going back 15 years, 20 years, just handwritten sheets that are like: This was the theme. This was the weather. First kid came at this time. Last kid came at this time. Here\u2019s how many per hour. How many people screamed.\u201d<\/p>\n In nice fall weather, he\u2019ll have up to 400 kids pass through his display, a healthy number bolstered by the fact that, in Erie Village, a lot of people go all out for the holiday. True to his data roots, he doesn\u2019t count kids who pass through his display a second time \u201cbecause I don\u2019t want to inflate my numbers.\u201d He does compare notes with neighbors. Invariably, he finds that they have a higher kid count, which he attributes to the trick-or-treaters who approach his garage but then think better of stepping inside.<\/p>\n Still, the vast majority want to check out the story. So maybe Wilson is composing more of a narrative than he realizes in the moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe main thing I go for is that it\u2019s just creepy, intense, and then there\u2019s a release at the end,\u201d he says. \u201cIf that\u2019s a parallel for a thriller, yeah. But the twist is always at the end, and there\u2019s always a buildup.\u201d<\/p>\n Also at the end, kids can knock at the door that leads from the garage to the mud room, and be rewarded with something sweet. And cheap. Don\u2019t come for the show and expect a full-size Snickers on your way out.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not going to spend another $300 on candy,\u201d Wilson laughs. \u201cTheir treat is the display.\u201d<\/p>\n This story first appeared in Colorado Sunday, a premium magazine newsletter for members. Experience the best in Colorado news at a slower pace, with thoughtful articles, unique adventures and a reading list that\u2019s perfect for Sunday morning.<\/p>\n Type of Story: News<\/p>\n Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.<\/p>\n \t![\"Three](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/20221009_202134-1200x910.jpg\")
Thriller author Carter Wilson previously created a Halloween display in his garage that reflected a 1970s vibe while piped in music blared the hit song \u201cDisco Inferno.\u201d (Provided by Carter Wilson)<\/p>\n![\"Close-up](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/SPIDER-GARAGE-KS-10102026114-1200x800.jpg\")
Carter Wilson creates a haunted space in his garage with a different theme each year. This year, he\u2019s all in on the spookiness of spiders. (Kathryn Scott, Special to The Colorado Sun)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/SPIDER-GARAGE-KS-10102026042-edited-1200x800.jpg\")
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Thriller novelist Carter Wilson keeps stats on the turnout every Halloween and says he thinks some kids are scared to knock on the door for a treat after touring his haunted garage. (Kathryn Scott, Special to The Colorado Sun)<\/p>\n![\"Colorado](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/cosunday-263-3.png\")
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