It was Halloween night, a time for goblins and ghouls to prance and witches to brew up an evil scheme. Well, that’s what it said in the stories anyway. Halloween is really a time to dress up and ring on doorbells and get free candy. I was dressed up this year as a black cat, you know the ones with the headband ears and the eyeliner whiskers and nose. Yeah, that was me.

So, the candy gathering had just begun when the sun began to set a beautiful orange-red. I had walked up the street and had got one-fourth of my bag worth of candy already. Then, I noticed this decaying house on the end of the street, I had never laid eyes on it before. Was it there all this time, I thought. Being adventurous, I began to approach it. It looked dark and dreary and it didn’t look like anyone had been in it for years. I trotted through the yard full of leaves and weeds and suddenly tripped on a stump. “Ahhhhhh!” I moaned when I fell hitting my jaw on the sidewalk leading up to the house. I laid there for a minute, my jaw and foot throbbing with pain. Then, I noticed something out of the ordinary. There was blood trailing on the sidewalk.

I jumped up, it’s probably just spray paint or fruit punch, I thought. It has to be. I started to approach the steps leading up to the front porch of the mysterious house, then I saw the sign. “KEEP OUT” read the sign posted on the rotting front door. I became frantic. My mouth became dry and it began to back away. Black widows were crawling on the exterior of the house, making it even less inviting. I stopped. A slight breeze came over me and I began to shiver.

My breathe became hard and I thought I was going to die. Just then, a group of boys, maybe a little older then me, began to walk causally up to the house. I stood frozen in my tracks and watched. They rang the doorbell, laughing and talking to each other. There was no response. Finally, one of them realized and began to beat on the front door. There was a response this time. The door creaked open making a horrid sound that got all of their attention. All you could see inside the house was nothingness. It was pitch-black in there. The boys looked confused. One of them then began to say “Trick or-” and was cut off by a nasty hand that pulled them inside the house. Everyone screamed. And everyone, including me, ran away from the property and as far away as they could from that place. I was panting when I got inside my house. I shut every window, locked all the doors, and sat in the safety of my bed, with tears streaking my face. I wondered how that poor boy was, locked inside that house. “Trick or what…” I said. “Trick or trick“…Halloween was not a treat, it would now haunt me forever.

I sat there thinking, and then finally dared to look out my window towards the house. It wasn’t there.