by Abbie Doll<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cTRICK ORRR TREAAAAT!\u201d<\/p>\n
A kid hollers while hammering my door, the bangs an artillery assault. The candy\u2019s already outside, a bulging bowl front and center; you can\u2019t miss it. Come on kid, figure it out. Everyone else tonight has managed to pull off this so-easy-it-oughta-be-a-trap heist. Grab a bar and go, nothing to it. Hell, take five, I don\u2019t care; whatever gets you off my stoop.<\/p>\n
This particular trick-or-treater ought to be well on his way to the next house by now, but he knocks again, fist on wood, insistent.<\/p>\n
Doesn\u2019t he know time is candy? This grab-bag opportunity comes but once a year, and he\u2019s straight up wasting it.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, I\u2019m couched and cozy, a glass of blood wine in one hand, a battered, dog-eared copy of Shirley Jackson\u2019s The Haunting of Hill House<\/em> in the other. I don\u2019t like kids. Or people, for that matter, but books, I like. Halloween, I like. Got nothing against this sugar-high holiday. But I prefer it quiet. Interruption free. Which is why the candy is where it is\u2014out there, right where it belongs, where the next generation of menaces are tiptoe traipsing through the streets.<\/p>\n All these brain-picking knocks, though, are intruding my carefully cultivated calm, eroding my ideal fright night. That kid out there must be bat-blind, a total dingbat, if you ask me; any trick-or-treater that can\u2019t work this simple system doesn\u2019t deserve its sweet, sweet spoils. I\u2019m not about to get up to help and God forbid, force myself to engage.<\/p>\n I do, however, open my digital doorbell app to assess the situation. The candy bowl is still full, as suspected\u2014shiny metallic wrappers peeking over the sides like closeted monsters peering through slats, studying the sugary delight within reach: that bedded, mummy-wrapped kid.<\/p>\n But this kid\u2019s just standing there; the candy\u2019s not even on his radar. He\u2019s sporting one of those classic ghost costumes, the sheet-draped-over-your-head kind\u2014physical-to-ethereal transformation complete\u2014basic black oval voids for eyes, no expression of any kind, which if you pause to consider, is the creepiest component a costume of that caliber can carry. There\u2019s an unsettling uncertainty that comes with being expressionless. We rely on our ability to read people, to read situations.<\/p>\n Or at least I do. Me, I prefer clarity over confusion. Not a big fan of the unknown, nor of this kid UFO-hovering on my doorstep, demanding something beyond the one thing I\u2019m suburban obligated to provide on this oh-so-tedious night. If I liked congenial interactions, the whole having to say, well, don\u2019t you look scary<\/em>, the bowl would be in here with me. But as I\u2019ve said, it\u2019s not. It\u2019s out there with him<\/em>. And if his parents had done their one responsible task tonight and tagged along, they could\u2019ve done the whole neighborhood a massive favor by explaining to him the ins and outs of this festive exchange.<\/p>\n For good measure, I even constructed a little cardboard sign and placed it next to the bowl that reads: Help yourself. <\/em>Easy. Can\u2019t help but wonder if this kid\u2019s illiterate.<\/p>\n I sigh and put my phone down, go back to the book, back to the wine. Back to my own blanketed serenity.<\/p>\n But still, the knocks persist. I try my best to ignore, but my attention\u2019s drifting to the door. Annoyance soon shapeshifts to anxiety, and a pumpkin-vine-tendril tremble creeps through my fingers\u2014spreading, making itself known, the glass seizuring in my grasp.<\/p>\n All the while, the white, cotton-sheathed fist continues its contact. The child and his uncommunicated needs have a rhythmic persistence, like a jarring metronome keeping time for some unheard musician nowhere in sight.<\/p>\n I pull up the app again, just to keep an eye on things, and I gotta hand it to the kid\u2014he did a much better job with scissors than Charlie Brown ever managed. But let\u2019s face it, this ghostly attire is probably storebought; the majority of costumes nowadays are because we\u2019re stuck in whatever late-ass stage of capitalism where we\u2019re all accustomed to sacrificing creativity for efficiency. Creation costs time and effort, things we don\u2019t like to expel so much anymore.<\/p>\n Determined to monitor but not interfere, I keep one eye on the feed, one eye on the window, lying in wait in case the little punk\u2019s pranks devolve into anything heinous. We\u2019re just a stone\u2019s throw from vandalism here. Whatever weird juju this kid\u2019s lugging around, he can keep it outside my home, and preferably off my lawn. I\u2019m not about to invite any mystery guests in on Halloween, no sir.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n So, it\u2019s been about twenty minutes since the little urchin first knocked. He\u2019s still there, I\u2019m still here.<\/p>\n Watching\u2026<\/p>\n Waiting\u2026<\/p>\n I\u2019ve gotten off the couch and am spying from the peephole now, which sounds too much like people, I want a new word for it. Fresh motion catches my eye. He\u2019s stepped back from the door and is staring at the frame, head cocked at a forty-five-degree angle. It\u2019s so unsettling that I can\u2019t help but feel his eyes pop out the other side of this slab barrier between us\u2014as if I\u2019m a kid in a nightie again, and he\u2019s the goblin shadow in the hall, eyes glued to the mountain range of my side-sleeping body, devouring me with his psychopathic gaze.<\/p>\n Harm doesn\u2019t seem imminent, yet, but it\u2019s not off the table.<\/p>\n He starts to hum a melody-less tune, starts to run his sheet-buried fingers over the perimeter, tracing the outline\u2014well, as high as he can reach anyway. Kid\u2019s not even four feet tall. Definitely too young to be out unsupervised.<\/p>\n Come to think of it, he doesn\u2019t appear to have a sack either. No vessel for candy transport, which, dude, come on, that\u2019s trick-or-treating 101. But clearly, he\u2019s not here for that. He hasn\u2019t shown any interest in the goodies on display; whatever he\u2019s after is out of reach, and I\u2019m doing my best to keep it that way.<\/p>\n His fingers continue to trace the miniature rectangle of a door, the hypnotic pattern they\u2019ve established, picking up the pace with each lap\u2014bit by bit, like a whirlpool forming in mid-air.<\/p>\n Ever since this spooky little specter showed up, no other kids have even bothered to approach the house. Guess I\u2019m stuck with this little weirdo\u2026still not going out there though. He can do whatever witchcraft he wants with that door, I\u2019m not coming out, and he\u2019s not coming in.<\/p>\n I will light up a smoke, though, need to calm these snowballing nerves. I\u2019m getting jittery, can\u2019t have whatever\u2019s out there getting a whiff of my fear.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n At least he\u2019s stopped knocking. It\u2019s quieter now. I wouldn\u2019t say peaceful per se, but the disembodied heart-thumping has ceased. And besides, trick-or-treat will be over soon. Another fifteen minutes and I can shut off the light, ditch this miniature maniac, and go to bed.<\/p>\n I\u2019m plopped on the entryway steps, now, back on the app, watching the feed, waiting to see what this kid will do next. He appears to be done with his invisible doorway tracing, and he\u2019s back to standing there, oval-eyed, gawking at the camera like we\u2019re locked in the midst of a staring contest. If only that were sufficient to settle matters\u2014he\u2019d be gone in a second, if it were up to me. But if he won, who the hell knows.<\/p>\n The possibilities make me shudder. Silly, silly me, I should know there\u2019s no beating those unblinking eyes. Such a cheater.<\/p>\n The kid in disguise knows where the odds lie. And as if to demonstrate his confidence, his commitment to this terror-driven nonsense, he pulls out a black mass from underneath his sheet, holds it up to the camera for me to see.<\/p>\n He does it smooth, magic-man smooth, rabbit-out-of-the-hat smooth. It\u2019s a bird, taller than his torso. Blacker than those fabric eyes, blacker than the night encircling us both.<\/p>\n He holds it up\u2014with the same little fist that pulled off front-door thunder clenching that feathered neck. As far as I can tell, the bird\u2019s dead. It\u2019s not moving, but it\u2019s not like I can take a pulse from here, not that I would if I could.<\/p>\n He takes his other ghoulish hand and puts it atop the bird\u2019s head, begins to twist, twirling the neck \u2018round and \u2018round like a molar being screwed out, roots and all. It\u2019s quiet where I\u2019m at, but still, I hear this gruesome storm of bird bones popping, ligaments snapping, tendons crashing.<\/p>\n And a moment later, it pops off. He drops the rest of the bird atop my go-away doormat, which I regret leaving out. This monstrosity\u2019s not welcome here.<\/p>\n As if that\u2019s not enough, he grips the head by the beak and starts tracing the severed side along the outline, spreading a smear of blood, I suspect, all the while giggling to himself\u2014a slight shiver running through his faint shoulder mound impressions.<\/p>\n I\u2019m definitely not going out there now. About to call the cops, reinforce this door with the bookcase from the parlor. Anything to keep that thing out<\/em>.<\/p>\n I should do these things, I really should, but I can\u2019t stop studying the scene. It\u2019s too hypnotic.<\/p>\n When he\u2019s done tracing the perimeter, he picks up the remainder of the bird\u2019s body and starts plucking the feathers off, one by one by one.<\/p>\n His sheet\u2019s getting dirty. Blood-stained.<\/p>\n A minute or two later, another crow lands on the bush behind him, starts to caw, screaming into the night at the horror unfolding before his beady solar-eclipse eyes. Or, perhaps, he\u2019s here accompanying this child on his unfathomable quest for entry.<\/p>\n The second crow flies into the door. Suicide-bomber dives at the door. Most likely, dies at the door.<\/p>\n And the kid is pounding again. The fury of his fists unleashed.<\/p>\n Another bird flaps in and dives.<\/p>\n Thuds.<\/p>\n Again, and again. Total bombardment.<\/p>\n I step back, half expecting the door to fly off its hinges, waiting for this flood of unannounced evil to drown me down, down, down.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a whole murder on the porch now. Caws deafening yet somehow growing louder. Louder. Even louder still.<\/p>\n The kid is cawing with them now too, flapping his dirty white wings, ready to fly through whatever gateway my door possesses.<\/p>\n And me? I retreat. Grab the axe from the garage, arming myself. Praying like hell I won\u2019t need to chop anything down. Praying this ca-cawcophony ceases soon. And praying, praying, praying this damn door holds.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Abbie Doll is a writer residing in Columbus, OH, with an MFA from Lindenwood University and is a Fiction Editor at Identity Theory<\/em>. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Door Is a Jar Magazine<\/em>, 3:AM Magazine<\/em>, and Pinch Journal Online<\/em>, among others. Connect on socials @AbbieDollWrites.<\/p>\n
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