A married couple who were outside their Orinda home assumed it was a prank when two men in Halloween masks demanded their cash, but they learned it was real when they were pistol-whipped and shot, police said.

Carol Brown and her husband, Tom Spalding, were followed driving from the grocery store Monday night to their home east of Berkeley, police said.

As the couple unloaded their car, two men in Halloween masks walked up to them and told them to “give it up,” the couple’s son, Micah Spalding, told KGO.

“My parents weren’t taking it seriously at first because they didn’t expect it. They thought it was me joking around or something,” Spalding said. “Once they saw the guns, they realized it was real.”

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