Experience Writing Halloween Challenge 2026

Pinky

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Experiene Writing Halloween Prompt: DISEMBODIED

It started off with the her pinky finger on Lucia Hopkin’s left hand.

One day at work Lucia was at her desk writing a note to the sales rep who sold her office coffee and other hot drinks  and creamers. She was going to write that they needed to double their French Vanilla creamer order.

She looked down at her hand and something looked off.

It was her pinky finger.

It was arched gracefully on her desk, next to the post it. She tapped each of her fingers on the desk at a time and when she got to her pinky finger it took a second, just a second longer for it to tap after she told it too.

It was as if it had to think about tapping.

For the rest of the day she caught her pinky finger tapping lazily on it’s own and when she looked down at it, the tapping stopped. It just stood in place ignoring her. It had the nerve, the absoulte nerve to pretend as if was like the rest of her fingers.

But she knew better.

For two long months Lucia pretended that the pinky on her left hand was normal, that it was part of her, that one night someone did not sneak into her house, drug her and then amputated her pinky finger and attatched a finger from a total stranger onto her hand.

The problem was, Lucia was positive that was exactly what happened.

When her sister called she listed for any sign that her sister was hiding something- Lucia could always tell when Francie was hiding something because when she got stressed out she lisped.

She paid attention to her co-workers. She watched to see if any of them were paying attention to her hand. Did they avoid touching her hand? Or Was anyone touching her arm or hand more then normal as one sometimes did when they were talking to their friends.

Whoever had stolen her pinky finger was probably too smart to be tripped up by simple little trick. After all, stealing a body part and sewing it onto another body and then getting away with it took some skill.

Lucia began to loose weight. Her hair started to fall out. She was biting her lips so much they were chapped and as for the pinky finger on her left hand, it looked firm and straight and the nail bed was even healthy.

She didn’t know what to do about this, but she knew she couldn’t keep that finger on her hand for much longer. She was sure it was making her sick. That it was killing her. Maybe that’s why someone had attatched it to her hand.

Finaly, one night Lucia got out of bed and stumbled down the hall to her bathroom. Something felt different. Something was wrong. She could feel it.

Lucia put the toilet seat down and sat on it. Then she held her hand up and was relieved to see that the only thing that looked wrong was her imposter pinky finger.

Lucia stood up slowly, she went to the sink and turned the cold water faucet on. She splashed her face and looked up into the mirror.

She gasped. She reached out and touched the reflection of her nose and her ears.

” Oh no. “she cried ” Oh no no no. ‘

Lucia straighted up. She went to her kitchen and when she came back into the bathroom she had a fillet knife in her hand. She looked into the mirror and said, ” who could have done this to me? ”

Lucia  was sure she had spoken out loud, but the voice she heard wasn’t her own. So, her broken spirit said to her,  someone had stolen that too.

She held her knife up to the mirror and thought about the horrible inexplicable things people did to each other and then she began to cut.

 

Owen Cox Bugs Everyone

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For Experience Writing Halloween Prompt: CREEPY CRAWLIES

Overly Friendly Creepy Crawlies by Maria L. Berg 2026

Owen lives alone on the top floor in a small studio  apartment  called the Wetmore House.

The walls in his room are painted light green, so it’ looks like you’re underwater or maybe in a forest when the Sun shines through his curtainless windows. There’s a wooden kitchen table near his bed with one chair pushed under it, there’s a placard that says, ” Help Wanted ” taped to the closet door.

Owen works as a phlebotomist and he is hardly ever home. He works, he dines out, he goes to the library and sometimes to the park and stays out until bedtime.

Sometimes he sits listens to an old fashioned radio is a white case  with a face that glows in the dark.

Owen lives a solitary, quiet life.

Even though he doesn’t jump into conversations, he doesn’t shove his way to the front of lines or cut people off in traffic.

Owen bugs people and when he is to close to people they will back up and move away from him.

When he’s at work and drawing blood, people don’t like to look down at Owen’shands or into his face. They turn in the opposite direction so that they don’t have to face Owen.

AI Artwork by
By Irina Shamaeva

” He gives me the creeps. ” Owen’s Mother said as she held him for the first time after he was born. She held him out to the Nurse who took Owen in her arms and as quickly as she could she put him into his clear plastic basinett and wheeled him back to the Nursery.

At night before he crawls into bed, Owen  fluffs up the pillow next to the one he uses. He smooths the sheets and then he pads around to his side of the bed and fall  into it with a little sigh. He lays there for a moment and then he closes his eyes.

Owen Cox was  asleep by 9:00pm sharp everynight.

Owen had trained himself to fall asleep, to not turn and thrash around in his sleep. He taught himself to remain as rigid and stiff as a corpse in full rigor mortis.

If Owen took a jagged deep breath or jumped up to quickly, it made things – well, messy. Smooshy, sticky and unpleasant

By midnight Owen’s room which had been silent, started to wake up.

It’s started with ticks, small clicks and the sound of little legs desperately trying to make their way across an ocean of bed linens.

His walls begin to fill up with the shadows of bugs- and there are many different kinds of insects trying to find a spot in Owen’s room.

Remember, Owen’s room is small.

Some of the bugs are small and round. Some are long and have wispy antenna.   There are spiders, there are mites that move like fog rolling up from the ocean.

The bugs, millions of flying, crawling, limping and rolling bugs pour from Owens bed onto the floor and out of his window, some scuttle under his front door, others fly down the drains in the bathroom and kitchen.

And then Owen is in his room alone  until dawn.

  Before sunrise the bugs make their way back into Owen’s room and up onto his bed. They scuttle across the pillow and sheets and blankets and then they crawl up onto Owen’s face. They make their way into his ears, the corner of his eyes, up his nose and down his throat and through it all Owen is asleep and he hardly takes a breath.

The insects that call Owen home are grateful for that because most of the time for reason they just don’t understand- Owen kind of bugs them.

 

 

 

Snaps and Crackles

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Experience Writing Halloween Fun Writing Activity for ” Hybrid “

 

I keep a paper clip on my desk.

Bone paperclip with silver gums

My paperclip is crafted  from metal and bone. It feels light and tastes, faintly of celery and when I slide it into place it clicks and snaps against paper and plastic with equal parts of hunger and voraciousness

Sometimes I use my paperclip as a book mark, sometimes I use it to fish the batteries out of my Jeep’s Fob. Sometimes I work it between my fingers and let it snap open and shut against the tip of my finger. Sometimes I put it to my lips and I chew on it, just a nibble when I’m feeling bored, but I do that quickly.

I think if you were to see my paperclip, sitting on top of my book, or marking my page and you thought I wasn’t looking and you picked it up and pulled inside arch towards you, it might give in and allow you to bend it out of shape.

Of course,  it has teeth and I hope you can move quicker then it can when it snaps and crackles back into shape.

But I’m not selfish, go ahead and try it if you see my paperclip sitting unattended, I’m dying to see what happens.

Silver paperclip lying diagonally on graph paper

A shiny metal paperclip rests diagonally across a softly textured sheet of graph paper.

Perfect

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Benedict and Patricia Payne were relatives of mine and the only thing that was more off putting then that would have been had you been neighbors of theirs.

Benedict liked his grass to be mowed a certain way, he wanted his gardens and orchards to be planted in neat pristine rows that were more reminiscent of a neatly laid out graveyard then an living breathing collection of plants and flowers.

Patricia and Benedict demanded that their children’s manners be executed to perfection. The children were dressed neatly. Their hands were always clean and their finger nails were clipped and trimmed. The girls wore their hair loose and the boys hair was cut short and combed.

In this well constructed neighborhood, Mrs Munson lived across the street from the Payne’s and she was the one neighbor who wasn’t afraid to stride up the steps to the Payne’s front door and knock on it.

She would stand straight and tall at their front door, chin out and tilted up just a little and she would inquire if The Payne’s were interested in attending a church function, if they had seen Mr. McFarland’s dog Shep who was known to roam the neighborhood from time to time.

Or if this time they had seen or heard anything out of the ordinary from the house behind theirs.

” I can’t say that I have heard anything from the Sharp’s place. Not since, ” Patricia said delicately ‘ the tragedy. ”

Most people would have referred to the ‘tragedy’ at the Sharp Farm as a ” blood bath or a massacre ” but Patricia was cool and collected and she never said a word that could bring drama to her carefully crafted conversations.

” Yes. The tragedy,  so you have heard nothing recently- ”

Patricia lifted her hair up from her right ear, ” this one is working just fine. So I am positive I haven’t heard anything recently.”

Patricia smiled her prim and proper smile and Mrs Munson wondered as she looked into that smile if Patricia and Mr McFarland were related. Her smile looked exactly like his late Aunt’s smile. She even had that moon shaped birthmark just under the left corner of her mouth.

” Well. If that’s all Mrs. Munson, excuse me- children hurry in and don’t dawdle. ”

Patricia’s children said good afternoon to Mrs Munson and she watched them walk through the front door.

The little girl was dragging her left foot a little and when Mrs Munson looked up Patricia was already looking at her. ” I’m going to have to tend to that, aren’t I? I’m afraid I’m have to leave town for that. ”

Mrs Muson wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say so she just nodded.

” Keeping up appearances is a full time job, isn’t it Mrs Munson? One needs the steady hand of a tailor and the patience of a Saint”

Mrs Muson stepped back from the door and as Patricia closed it Mrs Muson put her hand up to her throat and Patricia pushed the screen door open and stepped outside.

She put a soft hand on Mrs. Munson’s forearm.

” May I say Mrs Munson, you have lovely hands. Just lovely. What I wouldn’t do to have a set like that. ”

” Well.  Yes. Thank you. ” Then Mrs. Muscon tried to make a quick retreat from the porch to the safety of the sidewalk outside the front gate. She made it most of the way there without slipping or tripping and that wasn’t easy because she was shaking.

She heard Patricia  hear her call out to someone inside of her  husband,  ” I found the perfect set Benedict. They’re absolutely perfect. Let’s fetch them tonight, is that alright with you darling? ”

Human-hornbill Hybrid by Maria L. Berg 2026

Inspired by “ Hybrids ” Photo Prompt at Experience Writing