Cathy Marvin is in her element at the Adams County Health Center. For eight hours a day Cathy works alone in the lab, surrounded by blood. But she's OK with that. Because the lab, like Frankenstein, the blood, like Dracula, it all helps connect Cathy to her favorite holiday.
"Halloween. Overall, Halloween," said Cathy.
As if her choice of attire and office adornment doesn't give it away.
"I figure it's the only time of the year where I can dress up, act kooky, do what I want to," said Cathy, wearing a Halloween-inspired smock with spider earrings and bats hanging from her eyeglasses. "Nobody really cares because they know I like Halloween the best."
Accessorizing an office is one thing but every afternoon the full-time phlebotomist heads to her second job and her love of all things All-Hallowed follows her.
Five days a week Cathy drives a bus for the Council School District. And you can guess which bus is hers.
Loading up at Council Elementary School you meet the reasons Cathy covers her school bus in skeletons. Cathy says she was a kid when she fell in love with Halloween and wanted to keep those memories alive, as well as help make new ones for these little ones.
"So when I became a bus driver, I thought I'm going to take my holiday and I'm going to make it fun for them," said Cathy. "So I started decorating my bus."
That was 13 years ago. Now it's a morbid menagerie that keeps multiplying, making it possibly the coolest school bus in Idaho.
"Well, I hear it's probably the only school bus in Idaho that does this," said Cathy.
Between all the hanging heads, the lingering limbs, and the barely hanging-on bones it might be too freaky for some. But Cathy doesn't do it to be scary.
"I don't even watch horror movies, I don't like 'em," said Cathy. "I don't like that feeling of being scared. But Halloween, to me, is not scary."
These Council kids agree.
"Yeah, it's fun," said Jacob Shumway, a 7th-grader who remembers his first October ride in Cathy's bus six years ago. "It was kind of weird. I liked it though, 'cause I like Halloween."
From October 1st through the 31st Cathy rumbles along her 14-mile route, under many watchful and wraith like eyes. Then the day after Halloween it all comes down. And Cathy's Monster Mobile goes back to being a boring old school bus. And Cathy is left looking forward to new decorations for next year.
"I gotta get down to the store and hit those sales and get those closeouts," said Cathy.
On Monday, Halloween, Cathy will go "whole Halloween" and dress up as a witch while driving the school bus.