Our October challenge was to write a short piece about Halloween. Lots of fun was had with spooky goings on. See what we came up with. And a little piece of advice… it’s probably best not to read these after dark…
[cue spooky laughter]
In The Bleak October by Vivien Eden
I sensed it before I felt it. It was whilst I was explaining in the written form why I was the perfect candidate to lurk unseen between the hours of two and six am whilst generating tiny magical clinks in the darkness which transformed empty glass bottles into ghostly milky-white ones. Doorstep sorcery. The depravity of society at that hour would indeed be something to behold, but I needed to nourish my blood. My usual fodder was proving more difficult to secure these days. The tapping of my long thin fingers slowed, then stopped. The abundant hairs pricked up on my arms. Unbeknown to me, it had entered the house.
It caused there to be still, heavy air all around me. I didn’t want to inhale it as I knew what it would do to me. And if it were to touch me, the sensation as it reddened my skin… it didn’t bear thinking about. I pulled down my sleeves to safely cocoon my hands. I had to get out of that room. Retreating upstairs seemed the safest option – downstairs in the cellar was certainly the last place one would ever want to be in a situation like this and, as I recalled, mine was currently devoid of a working lightbulb. I rushed past a blurred view of home-grown garlic bulbs on the windowsill whilst the crucifix on the landing wall taunted me. Was it even possible for Jesus to save me? Those who I had believed would look after me certainly hadn’t lately. My faith was waning.
Sadly, this was not a completely unexpected scenario. I had done my best to prepare for it – shrouding my body in layers of protection for it always happened about the time of All Hallows’ Eve. I ascended and traversed my residence from north to south. Entering the bedchamber, I glanced outside and the view of the sun-drenched apple-tree in my very own Garden of Eden imprinted itself upon my retina. I blinked and there it remained. Distracted by this vision, it took a moment before the horror revealed itself to me – for I had left the door ajar! I hastened to shut it to reinforce the physical barrier between me, and it. I had bought myself, what, five minutes, maybe half an hour before it managed to find me.
There was nothing for it. I edged towards the window, towards the holy light. As it started to seep through to my flesh, I experienced a fiery feeling. It was the most euphoric of times as I basked in that light – all my troubles forgotten. Then it faded and I felt the vulnerability and bleakness of my predicament: to let the coldness take me in its grasp… or to turn the heating on.
A Halloween Mystery by Robyn Kayes
The crisp autumn air fills her mind with pleasantness, as she jogs along the road. The earlier uneasiness has disappeared, the sky is blue, and she feels more able to face all her demons, and defeat them single-handedly. The pep talk keeps her going until she reaches the main road leading to her house. The clear light begins to fade as she opens her gate. A voice cuts through the gloom. ‘Hello, miss, trick-or-treat?’
‘Who’s there? Billy, is that you?’ she calls, trying to calm herself. Billy is the 9-year-old child living in the next-door house. ‘Or should I say, Captain, is that you?’ as she admires his pirate’s costume.
‘Yes, miss, it’s me. Mum hasn’t come home from work yet and I don’t like today, it’s very scary.’
‘Well, it’s Halloween so it’s supposed to be scary. I also get very nervous as it gets darker.’ Uh-oh, she thinks, why did I blurt that out to a child, he’s looking for protection, not confessions!
As they walk up the path to the front door, she says, ‘Come along in, Billy, I’ve got some sweets ….’ Suddenly, a black cat appears in the garden, meowing and hissing as it races up to them. ‘Where did he come from?’ says Billy, nervously. ‘Is he yours?’ she says, simultaneously. And they both laugh, and the scariness disappears, as they ponder on the origins of the cat.
‘Actually, he’s mine!’ A tall man stands at the gate, in full evening dress. He lifts his top-hat as his black cloak swirls around him. ‘May I introduce you to “Emperor Nero”, or just plain “Nero”, if you prefer. He disappeared and I’ve been looking for him. I moved into the house over the road a few days ago, and he’s not used to the new home yet.’
‘I know you, says Billy. ‘You’re… Mago the Magician. You were at my friend’s party.’.
‘Well spotted, Captain. Indeed, I am, and please introduce me to your lovely friend.’
‘This is Miss Terry, she’s my teacher,’ replies Billy, as the magician bows and shakes her hand.
‘Aha! A beautiful “mystery”! I’m Jamie, by the way,’ says the magician, with a wink.
‘And I’m Teresa, or Terry for short. Great costumes, both of you!’ She laughs as she offers them both some sweets.
Taking Sweets From Strangers by Mike Moss
Gerald opened the door.
‘Trick or treat!’ Five children, in unison not harmony, dressed as witches and things.
‘Trick or treat,’ Gerald repeated slowly. ‘And what is the trick?’
‘We’ll spray your house with gunk,’ spat a zombie, probably female.
‘Well, it’s treat. Here you are, have a couple each.’ Gerald held out a white paper bag and the children took their sweets, wrapped up mints, and ran off to the next street, giggling. Gerald watched them go, a sickly smile on his face, before shutting the door. It wasn’t long before the door bell rang again.
‘Happy Halloween!’ Another collection of zombies and witches.
‘No tricks, then?’
‘No, sir, just happy Halloween.’
Gerald held out a brown paper bag and the children took their sweets, assorted mini choc bars, thanked him and walked on.
This was repeated a few more time before things quietened down and Gerald, satisfied, put his feet up until midnight. Every so often he would chuckle to himself. Trick or treaters, the white bag, happy Hallowe’eners, the brown bag, their choice and, boy, what a choice.
The following morning the local news was awash with the number of children rushed to A&E. Every newscast, every half hour, the toll had risen, ten, twelve, fourteen critically ill, fifteen now, one dead. Parents were told to remove all sweets from children and call the Police, who would come and collect them. Queues formed at schools as teachers inspected children’s bags for contraband.
Detective Sergeant Emily Malone had been called just after midnight. She started to compile a list of affected children and the routes they took the previous evening. It was laborious, pressured. More police were drafted in. A chief inspector arrived to take control. At last, a breakthrough. A child who survived remembered where she had been given the mint that made her ill. She gave the address to Emily. The last house on Nelson St, with a red door, next to the gas works. The man said he was called Gerald.
Emily took two officers and drove to Nelson Street as dusk crept over the horizon. She pulled up near the end house and sent one PC around the back. Emily knocked on the door, though it was blue, not red like the girl had told her. A grey-haired woman answered. Emily flashed her warrant card.
‘I need to speak to someone called Gerald.’
The woman looked puzzled. ‘I think you’re at the wrong house, dear.’
As Emily stepped into the house, the woman called out, ‘Bob, the police are here. They’re looking for someone called Gerald.’
There were two large suitcases in the hall. Emily pointed. ‘Are you going somewhere?’
‘No, just got back. From a wedding in South Africa.’
Emily frowned and asked for ‘Bob’s’ ID. Sure enough his name was Robert.
‘The only Gerald I ever knew was Gerald Manning,’ volunteered Bob, ‘but that was a long time ago. Probably before your time.’
Emily shook her head, impatiently. This was not helping. Bob continued.
‘You know, the child murderer. Did terrible things. Poisoned the children. You lot finally caught him, but too late for his poor victims. He hanged himself in gaol.’
‘That’s right,’ joined in Bob’s wife, ‘good riddance, and to think he lived next door, and his front door was red as if that wasn’t warning enough.’
‘Red? Next door?’ asked Emily. So we’ve come to the wrong house, she thought, but hang on, this is the end house.
‘Of course,‘ continued Bob, ‘after everything that happened they demolished his house. It used to be the end house.’
Emily went outside and looked at the space where Mannings’ house had been. There must be some mistake, she thought. A sudden chill made her shiver and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she heard distant laughter echo into the dark night.
The Witch by Wendy Gregory
I awoke with a start to the smell of burning flesh, charred meat on a barbecue. I sniffed. With horror I realised that the burning flesh was my own. It was mingled with the smell of thick, suffocating smoke and cloying body sweat.
I jolted awake and sat up. Nothing. My bedroom looked the same. I sniffed, at the room, at myself, but the soothing scent of lavender was all I could detect. Relief swept through me. It was a bad dream, nothing more. I lay back down, closed my eyes and contemplated whether people could smell things in dreams. Mm. I must Google it later. I drifted off.
Starting to surface I was aware of noise – crackling, hissing, screaming. Again the shock of realising that the screams were coming from me. Then shouting: a man’s voice. “Do it in the name of God! Finish It!” I couldn’t breathe, something was pressing hard on my neck. I opened my eyes. They stung. I was drenched in sweat. Christ what an awful dream!
I needed a shower and a strong coffee. In the bathroom I looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes were bloodshot, my hair matted. But what the fuck was wrong with my neck? I had a choker of purplish blue bruising, with a large, round medallion centre front. It looked for all the world as if I’d been garotted.
St. Elmo’s by Kanthé
It was back in ‘94 when I bought my first house. Saint Elmo’s it was called. I later found out that it was named after a saint who was tortured to death…Lovely eh? One month before we married – we got the keys. It used to be a farmhouse – hard to imagine, I know, a farmhouse smack bang in the bustle of Telford. But there it was; complete with outbuildings of faded blue corrugated steel out at the back and two fields of pasture at the side for cows.
All that’s gone now of course – the cows and the farming. We’re just left with a couple of manky old out-buildings falling apart; and a big square plot of land. The undergrowth overgrowing – the thick dark brambles and weeds rising up and reclaiming what it had lost.
I remember as a child – the two fields and the little bordered path that divided them. Walking up and down it countless times as a shortcut…gathering hazelnuts in the summer. But strangely I never remembered the house itself. Even where the cinder path split right in front of it. That house was a big blank hulking space in my mind.
It was a strange house. Actually 2 different houses joined together. An odd mish-mash of the old and new that suited us fine. I liked the cottage side with its big blackened beam in the upstairs bedroom ceiling looking down. My wife liked fitting out the oak kitchen with its terracotta tiles and latticed windows. Ripping out the old, putting in the new; that was her.
It had originally been two single white cottages side by side. But one had been burnt out after some terrible incident and the new modern wing was built in its place. So that you could have the marvels of a modern bathroom suite and indoor toilets. Modern luxury to forget a fragile broken past. A past stretching well over 200 years on the cottage side.
Two sisters originally owned the farmhouse – they toiled the land during the war. Their husbands – killed in Europe. When one of them died – the other couldn’t cope and the place was sold; eventually…to me – ramshackled and over-run. I got it cheap and spent my days before my marriage cutting the never- ending grass in the big square garden at the back – over 1.3 acres in total. Pruning the hedgerow at the front as October blazed around me.
My fiance, who stayed on in Wolves until our wedding, came up to help out – occasionally. She found a portrait of one of the ladies in the attic. An old woman wearing Victorian black. It looked grim and sepia with age. My beloved wouldn’t have it in the house. I ended up putting it in the summerhouse with the rest of the odds and sods and looked up at the house looming dark against the night sky. One baleful light in the downstairs cottage sitting-room as I made my way back into my empty old house and locked all the doors and windows…twice.
As I settle down with my cocoa, I can still hear the soft whisper of footsteps in the cottage bedroom above. The narrow door creaks open and the sound of aged footsteps coming down the stairs. Matching the creak of my armchair rocking…the gold handle of the sitting room door turning as I ponder how you can remove an image of an unwanted person but the spirit, as ever…remains…to reclaim that which is…her’s.
Halloween 2022
It was Tuesday, bin collection day. My downstairs neighbours Jill and John’s black and blue wheelies were outside the house, John’s refusal to share them apparently down to his OCD.
‘Morning Jill. How’s your mum?’
Moving on down the road I saw Patricia slowly walking her family’s aged and tiredlooking golden Labradors, the dogs probably weeks away from being put down.
‘Hiya.’
Then Dan, the friend who had been a best buddy but was now ensconced in a seemingly idyllic relationship with a Polish girl, and newly anti-social.
‘So, when are you getting married then?’
The bin lorry appeared in the distance, holding up the traffic in looming and noisy
presence. Patrick, the deep-thinking IT manager hurried past.
‘Hi mate, in a rush as usual?’
From number 48 emerged Nurse Jane, shouting a goodbye to her home-working
husband.
‘Hey Jane, coffee soon?’
Cars moved forward and reversed out of parking spaces, schoolchildren and parents emerged from homes as life slowly rippled through the neighbourhood.
My phone displayed its final message to the world: “In your breath, you probably have around one atom that was at one point a part of any breath ever breathed in human history.” Life really is too short.
Each human breath contains approximately 101,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms, which means that even in our well-mixed atmosphere. You probably have around one atom that was at one point a part of any breath ever breathed in human history*
*Source: Forbes
Photo by James Wheeler
And if you’d like to move on from Halloween pretty promptly after that, remember Windsor Christmas Tales is available to order now directly from us!
The official book launch is only 2 weeks away! Come and join us on 10th Nov and get yourself a great price on Windsor Christmas Tales. Free event. Author signings.
Windsor Writers' Group 