[,puz][PDF][Solution] 🩸🩸🩸🩸🙀 Difficulty: 2.5/5

Quick post today, as I’m 0% prepared for the trick-or-treaters who descend in droves on our double t-junctioned street here in Cambridge. We’re not dressing up beyond whatever I cobble together this afternoon because we’ve been neck deep in getting Jessie ready for *job interviews*. She’s got a few fly-outs in the coming weeks, and I’m already spoOoOoky proud of her. Plus, our roommate is a literal black cat, and I get the sense that she’s deeply embarrassed for us whenever we get ready to leave the house in any kind of seasonally-appropriate garb.

A couple of thoughts/spoilers for “Will These Hands Ne’er Be Clean?” after the jump. Stay safe out there, friends. You never know what kind of political ideology folks are spiking the candy with…

This grid is scaAaAary unconventional, specifically because of the placement of the DRIPPING BLOOD revealer all the way on the left side of the puzzle. I had to stash it over there because the theme set was spoOoOoOokily constrained, with BLOOMFIELD and BLOCK PERIOD being the only or near-only answers I could find that distributed the B-L-O-O-Ds in that way. Then, of course, to get the DRIPPING effect, they have to be ordered correctly left-to-right.

Kudos as always to AmuseLabs for giving us the creative flexibility to spatter our Halloween puzzles in neon gore. Happy Halloween and happy solving, friends!

-Ross