About Trick or Treat

by Rob Rosen
8 pages / 3010words
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc, epub, Sony-optimized pdf

Peter is exhausted after trick or treating with his sibling's offspring, so he slips away as soon as he can, hoping no one will mind his crocodile get-up. What he finds instead of the 7-Eleven he's looking for is a stately old mansion with a perfectly wonderful treat inside, wrapped in the proverbial bed sheet. Will things look as good in the light of day as they do on a haunted Halloween night?
 

Sample

Tentatively, I poked my head inside. The foyer was dimly lit, the only light coming from the upstairs windows resting high above a massive oak staircase. No noise except my raspy breathing. “Hello?” I tried again, moving the rest of the way in. The door instantly slammed behind me in a loud bang that set my teeth on edge.

Where the door once rested open, now stood a man, tall, slim, a sheet over his head, white and billowing. “Nice costume,” I managed. “If not a bit, um, trite.”

He pointed to my own, a finger-shaped sheeted lump moving from my mask to my tail.

“Yeah, I get your point. But this was forced on me. What’s your excuse?”

The head beneath the sheet nodded in reply.

“Same, huh?” I asked, again eliciting a nod, then a pause, the house eerily dead silent. “Well, um, like I said, trick or treat?”

There was still no response. I waited and watched, my heart pounding out a samba in my chest. Then his finger went up again, the digit in the form of a number one.

“Trick? Why’s that, no treats in this entire place? I mean, come on, Willie Wonka could set up shop in here.”

The covered head shook from side to side.

“Uh-huh, I see,” I said. “No candy. Well, you’re in luck, because I don’t have any toilet paper. So, um, no tricks coming from me, pal.”

His finger rose again, adamant. I scratched my head. Guy wanted a trick. Why was that? Who’d want a trick? That, of course, was when the proverbial lightbulb went off above my not-so-proverbial head, trick having more than one meaning I recalled.

“You, um, don’t want a trick, you want to trick?” My breath got caught in my throat as his head went from side to side to up and down. “No offense, buddy, but I don’t even know what you look like.”

Again the pause came, again enveloping me in silence. I stared ahead, the sheet suddenly tenting in the center, the material rising up and out, inch after inch after, gulp, inch.

I coughed and moved forward, my hand instinctively reaching out to grab it. And then, at last, a sound, a moan. A moan that swirled all around us, filling up the entryway before rising up to the rafters. I hopped back, almost ready to run out the door. Almost.