October 30, 2022- A Halloween Story

 

Halloween Story

By: Carrie Keiser

The constant nightly scratching from under the bed had nearly driven her mad.  She had been hearing it for months and was very cautiously avoiding the floor near the edge of the bed in the darkness.  She had put up an elaborate set of strings to switch on and off the light, because the noises stop when the light is present. She tried to explain it to her parents but they just laughed it off telling her things that go bump in the night and monsters under the bed didn’t really exists. But they have never seen the claws slipping from under the bed and they won’t sit on the bed in the dark to hear the scratching, so she is left alone to deal with whatever resides under the bed.

There is a little bit of curiosity nagging on her tempting her to lift the dust cover and peek under the bed to see what the whole the monster looks like.  All she’s seen are the long thick claws that have slipped out every once in a while when she isn’t quick with the light switch. She also has been wondering why the monster chose her bed to hide out under, like couldn’t it have been happier under her neighbors bed? Where had it come from?  

She left the lights on and hurried across the floor hopping into the bed.  She pulled the cover all the way up to her nose.  She didn’t want to turn the light off, but her parents had gotten into an habit of checking on her and switching the light off after she has fallen asleep. So she grabbed the string and plunged the room into darkness. The instant the light left, the scratching sounds started, then a little bump from under the bed and a sliding scraping sound.  Her heart started to beat faster and a bead of sweat ran down her forehead and across the bridge of her nose.  Fear was really mounting, she squeezed her eyes shut and prayed that she had actually lost her mind.  What 17 year old is scared of monsters under the bed? She heard footsteps coming down the hall to check on her…. With their approach, the sounds under the bed silenced.  

By: Ryanne Leavitt

Halloween was over, and her belly was filled with all the candy and sweets Sally could have hoped for.  Now it was time to go to bed.  Her sister, Susan, had retired earlier, and was gently snoring away, peacefully sleeping.  She hastily pulled one sock from her foot, and dropped it casually to the floor. She heard a rustling noise and checked on Susan.  But she was still in the same position.  What was that noise.  Sally peeked her head over the edge of her four poster bed. 

Sally could see her sock, and as she watched it some how was sliding  part way under the bed.  She gasped and the movement stopped. Sally listened as she watched that sneaky sock and could hear a barely audible raspy intake of air emanate from somewhere near by.  

Her sister had warned her about leaving things too close to the underside of the bed and monsters and such, but she thought Susan was just trying to scare her, like the time she had Sally convinced that if she walked too close to the Johnston’s oak tree it would grab her and pull her into the crypt under it..it was a whole year before Sally would even walk on the same side of the the Johnston’s street (Susan had paid a friend to pretend to disappear as Sally came around the corner), but now Sally wasn’t so sure.

She watched the sock with rapt attention, waiting to see what would happen.  There was a scratching  followed by another shallow breath, and a faintly familiar odor emanated from below.

Sally pulled the blankets closer and tried to yell out for Susan who was blissfully unaware and peacefully snore in the bed across the room.  As she watched the sock in the dim light from her unicorn nightlight, it disappeared under the bed in one quick whoosh., followed promptly with lip smacking and a tiny burp!

What the what, thought Sally!  Did a beast from down under just gobble up her favorite sock?

Mustering all of her courage, she hung, she pulled the draping covers up, hung her head over the side and came face to face with the cutest monster she could every had dreamt up.  

It was covered in bubble gum pink fur that seemed as fully as cotton candy.  It had large round eyes the color of emeralds, and instead of horrible long sharp claws, they were beautifully manicured and rainbow painted!  

When the monster saw Sally’s head appear out of nowhere, it squealed and shrunk back, trying with all its might to disappear.  The stared wide-eyed at each other for minutes or maybe hours, each apprehensively waiting for the other to make the first move.  Then, Sally decided to to put her “big girl pants on” and slid off the bed, pillow and all and laid down on the floor.  Phew, so far so good, it hadn’t lunged at her and bitten her face off.  

The monster edged slowly closer to Sally.  She lay motionless, wondering if this was the dumbest thing she had ever done and if she was about to be the main course.  It continued on until they were nose to snout.  Then, in a heavy accent the beastie ask if there was any chance for getting any more of those tasty morsels.

“Tasty what”, Sally asked, more loudly than she had meant.  Susan moaned something unintelligible and rolled over, and the monster, taken aback by the raised voice had shrunk back to the other side of the bed.  

“What I mean to say, is um, that little snack you left there was too irresistible and smelled so divinely decadent I could not contain my hunger and ate it, and well, errr, was hoping to trouble you for some more.”

Sally was good and truly befuddled, she had not dropped even one crumb on the floor.  The monster stared hopefully at her as Sally tried to puzzle it out.  Then, as the little monster’s stomach rumbled, understanding dawned, that little pink bundle of cuteness was talking about her sock.  

Slowly Sally reached down to her foot and pulled her other sock from her foot and pushed it toward the monster’s outstretched arm.  It breathed deeply, as Sally might when coming home to smell fresh baked bread, then in one gobbly gulp the sock was gone and a grin stretched across the monsters face.

Then, from outside the room at the nearly the moment the monster had eaten her sock, Sally heard her mom coming up the stairs.  She hastily climbed back in bed and pulled her covers up, just in time for her mum to poke her nose in the room, making sure her little angels were sleeping.

Sally drifted off to sleep, dreaming of pink monsters rummaging through her dirty laundry, and awoke to the sound of Susan’s alarm clock annoyingly buzzing from across the room.

Fuzzy recollections of monsters and socks ran through Sally’s head as she quickly draped over the edge to try and spot her little pink friend.  Nothing!  No sight of the fluff of bubble gum pink cuteness.  Nothing but a dust bunny or two.  

Well, thought Sally as she went about getting ready for school, that was the strangest dream I have had in an extremely long time!  She went about her humdrum routine, pulled on her socks and shoes and headed out the door.  From under the bed, tucked behind the rumble of Sally’s bed-cloth,  two emerald green eyes watched as the door was pulled closed.

When the room was devoid of what she assumed were humans, the little monster emerged from her cozy cave and rambled across the vast distance separating her lair  and the other one in the room, where she was greeted by a larger, much grumpier monster.  

This one had a deeper pink fur, but was just as fluffy.  It reached out strong arms and embraced the little one in a motherly way. As she led her, she did as any good momster would do, she read her the riot act. 

“Yurrinna, I have told you time and again, humans are dangerous and will try to eat you!  I never want to see you endanger yourself in such a way again! You don’t know, that next time they will use those tasty morsels to lure you out, so they may eat you! Do you need to come back home or can I trust you to remain out of sight snug and safe in your own lair?”  The scolding seemed too severe thought little Yurrinna, but she swore never to make herself known to that funny looking creature known as Sally the human.

As for Sally, she went through her life thinking that funny pink monster had been the product of a candy induced dream state, but did on occasion she did wonder just how her socks kept disappearing.

Story Slingers

Halloween

Oct 29, 2022

Daren Flynn

TRICK or TREAT

Listen my children

As I inform you

Of a Halloween

Story oh so true.

It was back in time

When it was still safe

For kids to go out

And moms did not chafe.

When Trick or Treating 

Was the thing to do

When knocking a door

Might produce a BOO!

And treats in a bag

For kids in a mask

Was sure to be safe

And you need not ask.

For non slipped in drugs

Or things of danger

To make kids sick

Never sharp razor.

Some opened the door

And thought it was fair

To dress as a ghoul

And give kids a scare.

It happened to me

When I was a kid

To my TRICK or TREAT

This is what he did.

Clothed as a humpback

He uttered a growl

Handed me a bowl

Oh! the smell was foul.

But in that big dish

Good candy was seen

Grabbing some I ran

Yards, my steps, between.

When I back home I found

The candy was good

Safe treats for all kids

It was understood.

Now it's TRUNK or TREAT

Parents with their kids

And all the trunks open

Their cars parked in grids.

Because times have changed

Now kids out alone

Are always at risk

By DEMONS unknown.

By: Aaron Leavitt

A dark and stormy night. Really? Sometimes life is so cliche. I guess that’s what you get when you put off getting a pumpkin until the evening before. I’d thought I had time when I left home, but by the time I got to the pumpkin patch my friends recommended the sun had gone and clouds and rain had settled in.

I let out a small sigh, and opened my car door to trudge out and see what I could find with my tiny flashlight. Then I felt it. All the hairs on my arms slowly stood on end and the air seemed to tingle. Oh crud! I hopped back into the car quickly and closed the door, and my eyes. Just In time, as the next moment the whole world seemed to turn to light, and a crack like the world splitting apart. It took me a few minutes to re-orient myself. I reached for the keys to start my car, when I caught a glow from the corner of my eye. A little remaining fire maybe? I looked to my left, and dropped my jaw and my keys.

In the middle of the patch, surrounded by carnage, 10 pumpkins sat glowing brightly. That wasn’t what had so completely shocked my though. They all hung in the air at exactly the same height, hovering unsupported spinning slowly. I opened the door slowly and took a few steps into the field, and realized they were humming in a low tone as they spun at roughly eye level, acting exactly the way pumpkins are never ever supposed act. The rain had stopped, and the wind had begun to kick up, but the pumpkins stayed pinned to their spots, still slowly rotating. 

I stood, mouth agape, trying to make sense of what my senses were telling me, wondering at some level if this was some side effect of a concussion, or electrocution. Then I noticed the hum again. It had started at a level that I nearly felt in my bones, while I’d been walking around this incredible sight, the tone had ever so slowly been rising in pitch. If I looked closely they were rotating a tiny bit more quickly too. Unsettled once more I stepped back, leaning against my car. 

A minute or so later, each pumpkin in sequence leapt a foot higher, and began to spin more rapidly, as they all began to zip in a circle, orbiting some unseen center. The hum rose until the whole ring seemed one continuous light, and the pitch ascended out of the range I could hear. Then with another crack of noise, the ethereal glowing ring shot into the sky pulling dirt and leaves and vines into the void left behind. Then nothing. I fumbled with the door, dropped into the seat and started the car. I slowly drove home with one clear thought: that next year a store bought pumpkin would probably fit the bill just fine.

Halloween on the Rocky Mountain Front

Flynn Family Story Slingers

30 October 2022

By Cary Holmquist

When I was a kid, growing up on the windswept eastern slopes the the Rocky Mountains, I was always excited about Halloween, like all kids.  Who could not be excited about the prospect of getting handouts of candy and other sweet goodies?  

And there was the fun of getting dressed up in costumes of all kinds, getting to be even more active in the fantasies kids have about being pirates and princesses, firemen, honey bees, cowboys and superheroes of all kinds.  And add to that the candy—free for the asking the nearly magical phrase, “Trick or Treat.”

But after a couple years of doing this, I became a little jaded about it all. Because when Halloween comes at the end of October, in eastern Montana, full winter is only a few weeks away.  At 47 degrees North latitude and 3500 feet altitude and with the Rocky Mountains just out the back door, the weather is already, well…winter.  

By Halloween in the 1960s and 1970s—before these current years of drought—we almost always had snow on the ground and as soon as the sun went down, the temperature dropped 20 degrees or more.  And the almost constant wind blew hard, which brought the chill down even lower.  And the dark was ominous, since only a few farms had more than a weak yard light and headlight beams did little to penetrate beyond the narrow strip of road ahead of you. 

Meanwhile, for the several days before 31st of October, with our Moms fully participating, we had put together costumes to be Superman or clowns, doctors or nurses or veterinarians or policemen, gypsies or hobos, witches or fairies or all sorts of other stuff that we could pull together with masks and prop clothing and makeup.  At school, we often had little class parties, which really ramped up the anticipation for the after-school Main Attraction.

But what was the point? 

As soon as we went to head out the door to go trick or treating, which in rural Montana meant Mom or Dad driving us around from farmhouse to farmhouse along the snowy dirt roads in the community.  Yes, I said snowy, because it almost always was snowy by then.  

Which meant we had put on our winter coats and snow boots and stocking caps and scarves—all covering over those costumes we had so carefully and fervently put on earlier.  The frills and uniforms and crowns were all covered up by the daily wear of protecting us from the cold and wind and snow.  All covered up so that anyone who saw us might see maybe a bit of clown nose or a Frankenstein mask or cheeks rosy from rouge.   And then the puffing of long sleeved and zipped up coats and boots.  All that preparation covered up and for nothing.  What was the point?

Sometimes we would have a party organized at the school by the 4-H club and leaders, which featured a haunted house at the grade school.  We could get out of the coats then, but in order to participate, we would have to wear blindfolds to go through the dining area that had been turned into the haunted house.  Our hands were dipped into goo and cooked whatnot and told that we were feeling eyeballs and brains, intestines and cut-off ears and mummy legs.  Other stuff went on too, as we were coached into being scared by the occasion, stuff that we were supposed to laugh about, before admitting to our nightmares.  But we were blindfolded and our costumes again went unseen.  What was the point?

However, one bright spot happened when we came to my Grandma Vance’s house.  She was the cook for the school’s hot lunch program and so she knew every kid in the community.  Halloween and April Fools Day were her favorite holidays so she got to play pranks and tell tall tales and whoop it up.  

When kids came to her house on Halloween, they were not allowed to stop at the door for their tricks or treats—which were a substantial haul at her house, being tasty popcorn balls or candied apples or cookies of all kinds.  

Nope.  No trick or treat and dash off.  Every kid had to come into her kitchen and she would insist the coats come off and she would ooh and aah about the costumes and try to guess which kid—by name—was under all those layers of makeup and masks and costumes.  It was contest between her and the kids.  But eventually she would win and the prize was that the kid got the chewing gum or brownies or Rice Krispy treats that she was famous for.   

Other than a few paper black cats on the windows and maybe a real jack-o-lantern on the back step, Grandma did not decorate her house for Halloween.  The real party and decorations at her house were when the kids came through the door and got to pull off their coats, all to the whoops and aahs of Mrs. and Mr. Vance.  The warmth of laughter followed the kids all the way out Grandma’s kitchen door with treats in their bags and hearts full of merry.