Ghouls Just want to Have Fun

(This story has a few horror/Halloween tropes including descriptions of a scary movie)

Mary Ellen was thankful that the cable was working. She could watch the 7:30 horror movie in between answering the door for trick-or treaters. Norm and the kids had just left the house for trick-or-treating and were supposed to be home by 9:30. Mary Ellen had as much time as she wanted to savor her favorite holiday. She’d stayed up Friday night to finish all her grading so she and Norm help the kids with their costumes the next day. This year they were the Addams Family; Mary Ellen in her black dress and wig, Norm in a striped suit, Cody in a striped shirt and black shorts and Ashley wore a collared dress and braids. She and Norm had hung yellow and black caution tape the front door and she had carved the pumpkin this year. They had everything organized for a perfect Halloween.

Mary Ellen picked up the remote and skipped channels until reaching the one she wanted. The host wished the viewers a blood-curdling night and played the opening titles. It was a dark and stormy night in the movie, and a girl was walking up the stairs with a candlestick in one hand. With every step she moved closer and closer to the top of the stairs and then…and then...

Above the protagonist’s scream, the doorbell rang. Mary Ellen scrabbled for the remote and turned down the movie. She picked up the candy dish and answered the door. The first group of the night was her colleague Chantal, wearing a yellow and orange 70s jumpsuit, along with her children, a miniature Geordi LaForge with an aluminum foil goggle and a Winnie the Pooh in a stroller, who looked uncertain about what was going on and who this other lady was.

“Trick or treat!”

Mary Ellen handled Chantal a gold wrapper. Chantal put it in her son Georgie’s bag and said “Tell Mary Ellen thank you, sweetheart.”

“Thank you,” Georgie answered.

“He made the goggle,” Chantal explained. “I asked him, can you see in that?”

“I put it on when we go to somebody’s house,” huffed Georgie.

Mary Ellen snickered and handed Chantal another gold wrapper. “Here’s one for Mom. Is Natasha old enough for this candy?”

“I’ll share with her and cut it up,” Chantal replied. “You look good.”

“Thanks. You do too.”

“I had such a hard time figuring out my costume,” Chantal answered. “Georgie knew exactly who he wanted to be.”

Georgie smiled. “We have to go find Captain Picard.”

Mary Ellen laughed. “Good luck finding the Enterprise crew.”

Mary Ellen sat back down again once Chantal and her children left. It was good to see her out of the classroom. Ashley once told her that her friend Lauren said that teachers slept in coffins on weekends, and Mary Ellen reminded her that she slept in a bed. The movie’s protagonist was running through a forest, away from the old castle, until the doorbell rang again. This group consisted of Darth Vader, a ghost with a pumpkin bucket and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

“Oh, you all look so spooky tonight! Here you go,” Mary Ellen handed the Creature a gold wrapper. “Here you go,” she handed the Sith Lord a gold wrapper. He dropped the candy in his pillow case. The Creature dropped her candy in her bucket with a thunk and they both thanked Mary Ellen as they left, the porch light illuminating the Creature’s scales and Vader’s mask.

The little ghost lingered, holding his or her pumpkin bucket. The paint on one of the pumpkin’s eyes was smudged, and Mary Ellen saw that there wasn’t much candy in the bucket. She must not have gone to many houses yet, Mary Ellen thought. “Here you go,” Mary Ellen said as she offered a gold wrapper to the ghost. The ghost reached out a small hand and put the gold-wrapped treat in the bucket without a sound. “Have a good night,” Mary Ellen added, and shut the door.

When she looked through the window, Mary Ellen saw the little ghost was still on the porch. I hope he has a good evening, she thought. It could have been a little girl; that hand had been small. The ghost reminded her of the quieter kids in her class. Those other kids walked right past the ghost like the kid didn’t exist.

As she sat back down on the couch, Mary Ellen decided the movie was getting to her. It was almost over anyway, when the protagonist thought she had escaped but the carriage driver turned out to be undead. She’d watched it before with her friends and with Norm when they were dating and when they married. The movie should not have affected her after all the times she’d watched it. It was that kid in the ghost costume. Something about that kid unnerved her.

The doorbell rang, startling Mary Ellen and relieving the chill running down her spine. She almost tripped on the edges of her black dress as she grabbed the candy dish. She threw open the screen and the door and found one child standing on the porch. It was the little ghost with the pumpkin bucket; she recognized the scraped paint. Did he leave my porch? Why was he ringing the bell again so soon? With misgivings, she stepped out on the porch and bent down to the ghost.

“Are you here for another one? I don’t know if I have enough. Are you by yourself?”

The little ghost said nothing.

Mary Ellen took out another gold wrapper and offered it to the ghost. The ghost didn’t take it, so she put It in the bucket. The candy made no sound as it hit the bucket, just like before. The ghost remained silent and looked at her with colorless eyes from the eye holes in the sheets. She saw dark pupils but no iris. Those must be good contacts, she thought. The little ghost’s eyes searched her face. She couldn’t tell what the child was looking for, and the chill had come back. Without a sound, the ghost’s sheet began turning in on itself and Mary Ellen’s chill became full goose-pimples. The sheet twisted and crumpled and grew smaller and smaller. It finally balled up and vanished, pumpkin bucket and all. Mary Ellen couldn’t move. The sheet reappeared within seconds and unfolded, then fell to the ground. The pumpkin bucket hit the grass with a soft smick, spilling the night’s accumulated candy in a faded rainbow. The gold wrapper lay among the candies; Mary Ellen couldn’t help staring at it. She looked back up at the street. A few costumed adults and children were strolling through the neighborhood and stopping at a few houses. No one seemed to be paying attention to the strange lady standing over a blanket and a candy bucket. The sheet was small and a little worn, with frayed edges besides the eye holes. How could a small child have been wearing this, she thought. It looked like a twin size that could have come from her childrens’ beds. The bucket was not new either; it was a metal, maybe hand painted. What was she going to do with the sheet and the candy? Why was she concerned about the sheet and the candy? Oh, maybe because whoever had been wearing the sheet and holding the bucket with the candy had vanished in front of her. Were they cursed? Would they dissolve too? Was she imagining things?

She was shocked out of her thoughts by children’s laughter, which was not comforting to her in this situation.

Norm, Ashley and Cody were walking through the grass towards her.

“Sorry we’re late. Cody couldn’t believe two houses in a row were giving out Hot Tamales and wanted to go back to both of them, and Ashley saw Lauren from school and we walked her home.”

“Look, Mom!” Cody waved a box of Hot Tamales.

Norm frowned.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, one of the trick of treaters lost something off their costume. I don’t know who it was and I don’t know what to do with it. Don’t step on the candy.”

Ashley tried to take a box from the pile but Mary Ellen slapped her hand away.

“But Mom!”

“That isn’t your candy. I’m going to put it on the porch and see if someone comes back for it.”

Ashley sighed and rummaged in her own bucket. Norm shepherded the two children back into the house while Mary Ellen scooped the candy into the ghost’s bucket. She put the bucket on the porch and followed them inside. She picked up the sheet and folded it up, then put it in the pumpkin bucket. I don’t know if she’ll come back for it, but it’s here.

Norm came back to the porch and Mary Ellen looked around them. When she noticed there were no new trick-or-treaters around, she stood up on her tiptoes and embraced him.

“What was that for?”

“Thank you for taking the kids out tonight. I’ll take them next year.”

“Of course, cara mia.”

“I’m sorry about earlier. I’ve seen Curse of the Castle a hundred times and for some reason it really bothered me tonight.”

He frowned “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she added. Don’t say anything about the kid in the ghost costume. Not yet. Maybe tonight?

“We could stay up for the next movie,” Norm suggested.

“No, it’s fine.”

They both stood on the porch, listening to the occasional evil laugh from a neighbor’s prop. Mary Ellen spoke first.

“I had a wonderful evening and you helped make it happen. I have a wonderful life with you and I’m glad we can share this with each other and our children. We had just the right amount of trick-or-treaters tonight and it couldn’t have been better.”

Norm looked at her.

“Is this when I say ‘You must allow me to tell you how much I ardently love you and respect you?’ I know that isn’t the exact line, but it is true.”

It was Mary Ellen’s turn to laugh. “Let’s go in. We have children to put to bed.”

“I’ll be the toothbrush supervisor and you can lock us up for the night,” Norm suggested.

“About Cody,” she began. “You didn’t let him go back to those houses, did you?”

Norm sighed.

“To one house. Don’t look at me like that. They didn’t mind because they were closing for the night and had leftover candy.”

Mary Ellen frowned.

“When his teeth fall out in November and our insurance won’t cover it, I’ll remind you about the Hot Tamales at Halloween.”

Norm chuckled and went back inside.

Mary Ellen looked through the screen at the other houses in the neighborhood. Most of them had turned off their lights and lay silent. A few had extinguished pumpkins outside. Paper bats blew in a light breeze above the doorway of the house across from them. She loved this holiday and was fortunate that she’d met a guy who liked it too. She thought back to the little ghost in the old sheet Who was that? What was that? She would tell Norm another time, maybe even tonight, after he’d wiped off the painted mustache and put away his costume. Would the kids believe her if she told them? She thought they would, but she didn’t want to frighten them. She was in her thirties; she was an educator, a mother, a spouse. Other adults would say she shouldn’t believe in monsters. What fun was that? She wanted a perfectly spooky Halloween with her family and she got one. She couldn’t think of anyone else who was that lucky.

She stepped out on the porch and stooped to the jack 0’lantern. The pumpkin bucket and the sheet were gone. As Mary Ellen blew out the candle, she heard a whisper. She couldn’t tell where it came from; there wasn’t anyone else on the porch except her.

Thank you.