The scariest place this Halloween isn’t the Winchester Mystery House. Nor is it watching the Zombie Apocalypse in 3-D.

It’s Sacramento.

Instead of just one chamber of horrors it has two - the California Assembly and the California State Senate.

It is in these two chambers that the grotesque transformation of California from a vibrant, economically muscular, and healthy soul into the scary monster that it is today has taken place. Californistein - as Boris Karloff would affectionately call the mutant government that was created by manipulating the genes of common sense and adding unabashed greed inspired by special interests - destroys everything in its path. Antidotes are powerless to stop it. Initiative?  It’s ineffective against Californistein’s twisted business DNA. Resourcefulness? It’s smothered by Californistein’s oppressive regulatory gene. World-class freeways? Californistein is turning them into crack alleys with its addiction to high speed. Intelligence? Californistein’s is short circuiting it with jolts to funding and a lethal injection of classroom meddling from afar.

Then there are 120 faithful Igors of the Democrat and Republican parties laboring in the chambers doing their best to give the Golden State a Transylvania twist.

High on their bucket list is transfusing tax dollars into the growing bureaucratic blob by bleeding taxpayers.

Then there are the vampires roaming the halls of the State Capitol that are known in the Politically Correct realm as lobbyists. They exist for one reason and one reason only - to take bites out of the proverbial neck of California. They will ruthlessly feast until the day arrives where they have successfully sucked the life out of California to further the goals of special interests.

Down the halls a ways from the California Chamber of Horrors you’ll find the governing sorcerer’s domain.

It is here that numbers are magically mixed to create illusions of balanced budgets. That old budget magic can convince the masses that one dollar is five dollars, 50 percent funding is full funding, spending cuts are poison, the only tax is a bigger tax, and that continually borrowing from the future makes the state healthy, wealthy, and wise.

The sorcerer is also an alchemist. He can conjure up more water for everyone by creating the invisible Peripheral Canal better known as the $18 billion Twin Bores.

He can solve all of the state’s pressing transit needs by moving the chosen who can afford one-way tickets at $110 a pop on a magic rail.

Then there are the zombies created by the Chamber of Horrors in concert with the sorcerer to serve as a dead government that responds neither to the people or the Igors that helped create them.

They establish air quality rules and land use rules via super regional agencies. If they come up with dictates that common sense tells you will economically bleed to death virtually every living human that they regulate there is nothing you can do to kill them. You can’t drive a stake through their hearts at election time because they aren’t elected. They have no overseers in Scary-tamento as they were given everlasting life.

Sacramento, as you can see, is the ultimate place for trick or treating.

The voters get tricked and the bureaucracy that ate California plus special interests get all the treats.

Scary-tamento is such a horrid place these days that the ghosts of leaders past - Leland Stanford, Hiram Johnson, Earl Warren, Pat Brown, and Ronald Reagan -  have long since fled to more reasonable haunts.

This time of year with the scariest day in the calendar soon to arrive - Election Day - the goblins, ghouls and other operatives of the 120 Igors, Igor wannabes, vampires, and the sorcerer are out in full force roaming California trying to collect souls or what the politically correct folks refer to as votes.

So when you hear a knock on your door this Election Day, turn off the lights and close the blinds.

But if you’re brave enough to open the door be prepared to hear the words that will make your blood curl: “I’m from Sacramento and I’m here to help.”

This column is the opinion of managing editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Bulletin or Morris Newspaper Corp. of CA. He can be contacted at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com or 209-249-3519.