Рассказ "Halloween"⁠⁠

It seemed to be just another Halloween holiday when Robby and his friends, Bobby and Dolly, went hunting for sweets. At the beginning they were successful: the first basket soon became full of delicious goodies and the children started filling up the second one. They were so absorbed in the process that didn’t notice how far from their homes they had gone.

Once they had finished visiting all the houses, the little ones realised that there was not a single house they hadn’t “robbed” except for one old shack on the outskirts. That was exactly where the children headed to.

They were about to knock on the massive wooden door when Bobby suddenly groaned.

– What happened, dude? – Johnny asked Bobby.

– Don’t you know? – Bobby pointed with his finger to the door,– It’s the sombre Mr Feynman’s house. It must be haunted and really dangerous.

The mirth in the eyes of Johnny suddenly disappeared. Now he was thrilled too: the most scary thing for him was meeting a ghost.

– Ghosts do not exist,– Dolly said very convincingly and the boys felt shame that a girl was braver than all of them put together.

The girl was right. It would be silly to suppose that the house is haunted or an old man is able to hurt little kids. No, it was a type of evil that is much more powerful and ancient than any ghost. The point is that the town dwellers forgot about an old curse that existed for thousands of years: once a century on a Halloween night a citizen of the town had to be turned into a dreadful and terrible monster. Unfortunately for the kids, it was Mr Feynman’s turn, who was, actually, quite a sweet old man before that evening.

The boys didn’t have time to reply: to their surprise the door was opened and a creepy zombie was looking at the children. Actually, “looking” isn’t the right word as it didn’t have eyeballs; but still, it was pretending it had them and his empty eye sockets were turned in the children’s direction. Green skin, the absence of eyes and a really disgusting smell numbed the kids with fear.

– Trick-or-treat? – asked the zombie.

–T-t-treat, – whispered stuttering Johnny and gave the zombie all the treasure they had earned that gloomy evening.

–Thanks,– said the zombie, taking the goody bags and closing the door in the faces of the children.

It was truly the most terrible and cruel monster ever.