Opened our door this morning and this beautiful turkey was randomly standing there. I take it as a sign of Fall.
By: ThePumpkinMan35
My mom dropped us off at the head of the street, telling Casey and I that she would meet us at the other end. We rushed out of the backseat after emptying our candy from the street prior in a big witch bowl, holding onto our plastic D.A.R.E. Halloween safety tip bags as if they were a floaty in the middle of the sea. It was now after sunset, on a surprisingly cool Halloween night.
We stood on one side of the road as my mom pulled away, enjoying autumn’s cool breath beneath our costumes. There weren’t many kids on this street yet, meaning the houses would still have the good candies in stock. We went to the first one, walking past the typical hanging skeleton and the sheet covered basketball and up to the front door which was concealed beneath a cartoonish Frankenstein covering.
Casey pushed the doorbell, and like most of the other houses, a little yapping dog started barking hysterically from inside. We heard an elderly woman behind the door tell the pup to hush, and surprisingly, it listened unlike other such ankle biters we had encountered that night.
The woman wasn’t dressed in a costume, but wore a pumpkin vest over a white striped shirt. She was probably in her sixties, gray hair in a nicely trimmed style. Glasses, tan pants, and house slippers but holding a big Halloween bucket full of all kinds of goodies.
“Trick or treat!” We exclaimed, and she said something approvingly of both of our costumes and happily put a handful of candy into our bags.
We thanked her, told her “Happy Halloween” and moved on.
The next house was unusually different for our little lake community. It was a simple stucco, white though instead of the typical brown, and had a sunken type of front porch with steps descending from the ground level and to the front door. Thick hedge bushes flanked the stairway, fake cobwebs laced through the branches. A yellowish, glowing porch light beamed its shine across a simple white door with three little diamond shaped windows.
“Hate to see what this porch looks like after a thunderstorm.” Casey said as we descended towards the front door.
“Yeah dude, I bet it’s a mess.”
The door bell was at the side of the entryway, just a few feet above a potted shrub with little pumpkins around the base. I did the honors this time, and the toll of the bell rang loudly in the house on the other side.
We stood anxiously waiting for the door to open. But there was no sound from the other side. Not even a “yapper” as we called the dogs.
“Maybe, ring it again?” Casey suggested.
I did. Once more, nothing.
“Guess they’re not home.” I said a bit disdainfully.
“Assholes,” Casey declared in a tough sounding fourth grader tone, “leaving their light on and making us think they’re handing out candy!”
“I know right,” I agreed, “freaking trick is what it is.”
“Well you know what,” Casey said, “I gotta a treat for them, then!”
I looked at him through the eye holes in my mask, already somewhat knowing what he was going to do.
“Dude, don’t man. What if they’re just old and haven’t made it to the door yet?”
“We would have already heard them moving around.” He replied, defiantly.
“No, these assholes are pranking us Ray! So, I’m gonna prank ‘em back. I’ve been feeling this one building up since we got out of the car.”
“Casey, don’t-“
I had only started the statement when I heard the bodily roar of the human cannon. It thundered loudly. It thundered grandly! If we had been in the locker room at PE class, it would have shook the walls like an F5 tornado. Casey would have been crowned a champion, no, a legend of the epic feats of flatulence amongst the memories of the student body of Llano Independent School District! It rumbled within the below ground level confines of the porch, like an atomic bomb of gas.
“Oh yeah!” Casey exclaimed as the fart finally, and fully, released. He took a deep breath, through his mouth and not his nose. “That, felt great. Suck it, assholes.”
I was just beginning to turn to flee the gas chamber, when we at long last heard footsteps coming up to the door. Casey wasn’t dressed as a ghost, but even below his red face paint, he suddenly turned as pale as one!
“Oh, shit.” He muttered as the door started to open, and there in the entryway stood one of the prettiest examples of a matured woman we had ever seen.
She started to open the door with a radiant smile, and what at first sounded like an apology for being late. But when she opened it fully, her beautiful face loosened into an expression that I can only describe as a mixture of shock, regret, and true Halloween horror.
“Oh, dear.” She quietly and unenthusiastically exclaimed. Her eyes, dropped immediately to Casey.
He froze with the look of a boy whose mother just walked in on him with an opened copy of Playboy in his hands, and a poster folded out from within.
“It was an accident. I didn’t mean too. I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, my gosh!” The woman hollered as she quickly threw her nose into her elbow to escape the lingering fumes. She held out a plastic jack-o-lantern with her other arm, extending it as far from her and as close to Casey as she could manage.
“Trick-“ Casey started, innocently.
“No,” she said in a muffled reply, “no need for that, just take some sweetie. Oh, it’s horrid! Just go, it’s okay.”
We both chunked a handful of candy into our bags and fled as fast as outlaws up the steps. I felt disrespectful, so after getting to ground level, I hollered to her:
“Happy Halloween!”
“It was an accident!” Casey followed up as the door slammed close. To this day, I often wonder if that beautiful woman ever did trick-or-treating again.
I just finished reading “The Orchard” by Charles Grant (1986) and I am very confused by it.
The book focuses on a seemingly cursed orchard on the outskirts of a larger New England township. Apparently, it has some sort of death curse on it that is similar to Crystal Lake in the F13th movies. Those who visit it, die shortly after.
It seems to have an interconnected storyline that stretches across four different stories. But where it loses me is that, these stories are not solely focused on the characters who visit the orchard in the first chapter. The curse even extends to ones who have never even visited the landmark at all, apparently, and suddenly become targets of these weird monster creatures. It’s never explained exactly what these things are even!
All-in-all, it’s got some good scary moments which increasingly get darker and more horrific as the book moves along. But that’s it. At the end of the book you’re just left in total confusion…about everything!
Not recommended in my opinion.