A Halloween Story

October 31, 2014
Day 184

As Halloweens go, this one had sucked.  The weather was bad, and Heather had to work late on top of it.  By the time she got home, it was half past nine, and whatever trick-or-treaters might have been around earlier had long since given up for the day.

So it came as a surprise just after 11 when the doorbell rang.  It startled her at first, because she'd already forgotten about the holiday, but she quickly muted the TV and went to the door.  Grabbing the bowl of chocolates she'd left on the table, she opened the door up wide.

"Trick or treat," the little girl in a pink princess costume said, a gleaming smile on her face.  "Aww, you look so cute!" Heather said, but as she opened up the screen door for her, the little girl ran inside instead.  "Hey!  No, no, no, you can't just come in here, little girl."  The girl was out of sight quickly, and had run into the darkness of the house's back rooms.  Heather put down the bowl, and started chasing after her now, until she heard the front door close behind her.

Stopping to look back, she saw a tall young man dressed in goth makeup and all black clothes standing inside her living room by the door.  Her heart skipped a beat, and she froze for a moment in terror as his hand reached for the light switch to turn it off.  He walked forward with just a step, and was lit now by just the flashes from the muted TV in the dark room, and the occasional lightning bolt from outside.

"Get out of here right now!" she managed to yell at him through panting breaths.  "I'm not going to hurt you," he whispered, "That's not what I do."  "I mean it!" Heather yelled, "Get out of my house right now or I'm calling the police!"  He wasn't moving any closer now, but one side of his mouth curved upward in a demented grin.  Heather was terrified.  She thought about how quickly she could get to the bathroom, which had a secure-enough lock to give her time to climb out the window.  She thought about the little girl, and whether this man had come for her too.  She thought about her cell phone, which was laying on the couch, closer to him than her.  And she thought about what horrible things he might do to her.  She thought about all of this, and then she felt the baseball bat slam hard into her head from behind. 

Whatever vision was still possible in that moment disappeared quickly, as Heather looked up from the ground at the little girl in the princess outfit standing above her smiling.  As consciousness slipped away, she heard the young man's voice whispering in her ear, "I told you I wasn't going to hurt you."

When Heather finally awoke in the darkness of her home, she saw the TV still silently blinking light from the living room.  The thunder and rain she'd heard earlier had all now stopped.  Her head was throbbing, the pain severe, but she was alive.  Breathless, she looked around for any signs of the intruders.  From where she laid, she could see the time on the kitchen microwave.  It was now after four in the morning.  Her head was wet and sticky, and blood had puddled across her wood floors, channeling down into the cracks.

She stood up slowly and looked around her.  Stumbling forward toward the living room, she grabbed her phone and called the police.  Walking toward the front door, she opened it up and looked outside.  No one was there, but she wasn't so sure about the rest of her house.  "Hello, what is your emergency?" the voice answered calmly.  Heather frantically called out what had happened, as well as her address and fears about the safety of the rest of her house.  The calm voice on the other end assured her the police and an ambulance would be sent right over, and offered to stay on the phone with her until they came.  "Yes, thank you," she said, as the awful sobs of anguish started bellowing from within her uncontrollably.  The calm voice tried to assure her it was over now, and she tried to thank him through her crying. 

After a few minutes, she finally heard a siren begin to approach her house.  As it grew closer, Heather thanked the voice one last time, and he hung up.  She walked to the door, and stood in the door frame crying.  The police siren was coming right down her block now, but as she watched, he just kept driving past, on his way to another call.

Heather looked down at her phone and started dialing again just in case, but that's when the voice came from the kitchen.  "You didn't believe me before, did you?"  The young man was staring at her from the other side of the house, and Heather jumped quickly with a scream.  She fumbled with the lock on the screen door, petrified the man would come closer, yet watching from one eye as he stayed where he was.  "My sister's out there waiting for you, so you might not want to leave yet."

She froze and looked back at him, trying to understand what any of this was.  "Who are you, and why are you doing this?!" she asked.  He stared back at her without any emotion now in his face, and after a moment, he said, "I'd do anything for my sister.  She likes this, so I help her."  Heather was torn now between horror and confusion, and was doing her best to hold back gasps of air and tears.  "She died.  She died and now she plays.  She plays with people, and she wanted to play with you.  Did it hurt you when she did that?"

Heather was beside herself with discomfort and fear.  Her head was still throbbing, and she kept hoping the sirens would get closer.  "I can stay on the line with you if you'd like," he said, his voice the same as the one she thought she spoke to at the police station.  Heather let out a horrified scream and quickly broke into sobs again as she spun around and unlocked the door.  She ran outside and turned toward the sidewalk as the bat slammed hard into her face.  As Heather died slowly on the ground, the little girl smiled down at her.  And from the front door, the young man called out, "She should have listened to me." 

He walked out calmly to the sidewalk, and looked down at Heather's dead body, her face smashed in and bloody from the bat.  Opening a piece of Halloween chocolate, he popped it in his mouth.  Then he offered one to his little sister, who smiled and took it with a nod.  They looked down at Heather one last time, and then the young man offered his sister his hand.  Together, they walked down the sidewalk a bit, until she stopped him in front of another house.  Looking in at the light of a TV on inside, the little girl said, "I wanna play with this one next."