Halloween writing prompts 2024

The Visitor

/ animar64 / 1 Comment

For Writober Prompt: Fear of Haunting 

Photo By J.M. Moscoso

In my sister’s house

the floor boards do not creak

in the middle of the night

when everybody is asleep and

downstairs in the living room

their dog is curled up on the couch

with his eyes gently shut, he also snores.

His name is Stitch.

In my brother’s house

the doors stay shut, once they’ve been closed

they are obedient doors, the hinges are well oiled

there’s nothing unusual about my brother’s oak doors.

His cats have never used them for scratching post

and I doubt they ever will.

After I visit my brother’s house and after I’ve

returned from my sister’s house

I drift up the marble steps of my home, just before dawn

as quiet as a mouse.

 

I float through my iron gates,

I find my name upon the wall

near the doorway where dry autumn leaves

and dusty flower petals are littered upon the floor.

I close my eyes ( which are never really open ) and I sigh a sigh

that nobody ever hears.

In my home  all of the floors creak,

and all of the hinges groan

when you push them open and wake them up

in my quiet home, that I do not share with another soul

all of the cats and birds and rats that  shelter here with me

sit and sleep with their eyes lightly shut

and you should know that

when I am here and only here

can  I rest in peace.

  • written at SeaTac Airport

The Pumpkin Hunter

/ animar64 / 4 Comments

Flash Fiction inspired by Writober Prompt: ISOLATION

Photographer Unknown

Every year I carve a single pumpkin, a sugar pumpkin for Halloween and I leave it on my porch.

I like to carve sugar pumpkins because they do not yield easily to my carving knife.  Sugar Pumpkins put up a fight. They make me work if I want to change them. If I want to put a scream on their mouth, terror in their eyes, if I want to give them a new hairline or fangs I have to use a mallet or a hammer.

Despite their light and fluffy name, Sugar Pumpkins are tough.

That’s ok in my book. I’m up for the challenge.

Jamie Wyeth

After I’ve completed my carving, after I’ve put a tealight in my Sugar Pumpkins empty shell I take my pumpkins out to my porch and as I stand on the top step deciding where to place my pumpkin, sometimes one of my neighbors who may be out walking their dog or ‘getting in their steps’  will call up to me and ask what I’ve got there in my hands.

Of course they don’t really care what I have in my hands. I could have the Mona Lisa in one hand and a still beating and bloody heart in the other. People only ask what I have in my hands because they think they should ask. I’m standing there. They’re standing there. It’s just a thing that neighbors who don’t really know or pay attention to do.

I hold my pumpkin up and I smile.

” This year’s victim.” I call back cheerily.

” What?” They will ask, like they do every year as they stroll by,  ” What did you say?” they ask without really expecting an answer.

” My Halloween Pumpkin. ” I sing back.

They laugh.

I chuckle.

They smile without looking really looking at me or my sugar pumpkin and as they wish me a Happy Halloween and as they walk away,  sometimes I put my sugar pumpkin on the bottom step and sometimes I stand there with my re-purposed Halloween decoration- by that I mean a severed head that I may have harvested from the old cemetery outside of town and I think to myself- decorating for Halloween is fun.

I enjoy it because I am at peace with the fact that  I’m only ever doing it for myself.

It’s not like anyone ever notices.

My Dark Room

/ animar64 / Leave a comment

Flash Fiction inspired by the Writober Prompt: FEAR OF DARKNESS

Photographer Unknown

I don’t go upstairs to my attic very often. I don’t keep much up there.

By not much, what I mean is, I keep a mirror at the far end of my attic, it’s resting on the floor and it’s face is turned to the wall . Sometimes when it rains water from a crack in the ceiling drips down from the roof and onto it’s back like a zipper sewn onto it’s back by a not so skilled surgeon.

My mirror used to hang at the end of the hallway near my living room.

People used to like to look into it and fix their hair or straighten their ties before we would visit, Everyone loved to use that mirror. I think it had something to do with the lighting, or maybe seeing yourself framed in golden stars and  crowned by the Sun   made you feel prettier- or maybe even a bit God like. It didn’t just feed your ego. It stuffed it to bursting.

Sitting next to my  mirror in my dark attic is a shovel.

The shovel’s step is caked with gray dirt and a fine coat of dust and it’s blade is rusty red.

I don’t know where that shovel came from. It just turned up one day, someone knocked at my door and when I opened it the shovel was leaning under my door bell. I looked up and down my street before I grabbed it and took it inside.

I tried to run upstairs with it, but my legs were shaking and I couldn’t take a deep breath. I felt liked I  drifted in slow motion  up each creaking step. When I got to the landing I tip toed into the attic. I stared at my mirror across the room from me and when I was sure it was in the same exact spot it has always been in, I walked with a little more purpose in my step to the mirror and set the shovel next to it.

My attic is cavernous, but that shovel and the mirror seem to take up every square inch of it.

Photographer Unknown

I took my mirror up to my attic, two days before Halloween- I’m not sure how many years it’s been.

It was late the night I moved it upstairs. I had spent a solid week emptying my attic of old furniture and boxes books and record albums. I moved  trunks of clothes and household items. What I couldn’t fit down into my basement I put into one of my guest rooms.

It was late, like I said when I finished cleaning out my dark room and just when I thought I could not take another step I went to my mirror and took it off of the wall without looking directly into it,

I carried it to the  attic stairs in the dark.

When I got to to my attic, I reached through the doorway and snapped the light off. I walked to the back of the attic- where it was always dark even when the light was on and I put my mirror down.

Then I looked into it.

I saw my face, I saw my shirt covered with dark maroon droplets standing out upon a mist of red.

I saw a smile on my reflection’s mouth, I could see my shovel leaning against the wall behind me.

I whirled around and of course the shovel wasn’t there. It was in a dumpster behind a restaurant  twenty miles from my house. When I turned back and looked down into my mirror for the last time, I saw my face- it was dusty and sweaty, my shirt wasn’t covered in a mist of red it was covered with cobwebs and dirt.

I turned my mirror  away from me, but I will be honest I don’t think it matters.

That face I saw in it, the secret it captured  is still  there staring at my attic wall

 

Photographer Unknown

Callie

/ animar64 / 2 Comments

Writober Flash Fiction Prompt: Impostor Syndrome

Photographer Unknown

We are a family of four.

There is my sister Kimberly, my Dad Lionel and our Mother Beth.

My name is Callie.

We have always lived in our small gray house on Green Lake. Before we lived there my Great Grandparents lived there. In fact, they built our small gray house.

After they took over the  house, my Dad planted the cherry tree  and two apple trees in the back yard. My Mom planted the roses along the walkway from the sidewalk to our porch steps before me and Kimberly were born. My Great Grandfather buried his favorite dog along the fence line, but he’s not sure exactly where Tippy is buried.

Sometimes I think I can see Tippy, late at night,  strolling around the fence, looking for her unmarked grave.

Just before Halloween, I was in the back yard raking leaves when my Dad walked up behind me. He asked me if I knew what time Mom would be home and when I turned around to answer him, I dropped my rake. I felt an cold icy stream of sweat roll from the base of my neck down my spine.

The man standing there under the cherry tree my Dad had planted and had just asked where my Mom was- he looked like my Dad, he sounded like my Dad, but when he tilted his head down and waited for my answer- I knew it. There was a dark light shining from his eyes. That’s when I knew it for certain. I felt it in my bones- that man standing there was not my Dad and it took everything I had not to scream.

I finished raking the leaves. I bagged them. Then I walked around the side yard to the front yard and when I was sure I was alone I took sat down on the steps and waited for my Mom to come home.

When I saw her drive up with my sister riding shotgun I nearly cried in relief. I ran to the the car.

From the driver’s seat my Mom saw me standing there, my arms crossed across my chest. I was shifting from one foot to another. I felt cold. I was freezing.

I watched her turn to my Sister, then I saw my Mom nod. They got out of the car and my Mom asked why I was standing out here looking like I was about to wet myself. Did I get locked out of the house? Why didn’t I just go to the neighbors house and use their bathroom? What the heck was the matter with me?

Typical practical Mom stuff- I almost cried but this time it was in relief, then my Sister looked at me. She turned to my Mom and shook her head.

I heard her say to my Mom as they walked into the house:

” I’m telling you Mom, it’s not her. It looks like Callie, but it’s not her. ”

My Mom looked at my sister, then she looked at me and I saw that same dark light in my Mom’s eyes. I looked at my Sister and that same shadow was shining just a little bit in my Sister’s left eye.

When I was sure the coast was clear, I snuck into the house. I went into the bathroom. I looked into the mirror.

I am Callie. I knew it. I am Callie.

I have always lived in this house with my Mom and Dad and my Sister and my Great Grandfather’s dog that’s buried in our back yard somewhere.

I put my hand on my reflection’s face. I saw shadow spill from my right eye. It was crept to my left eye.

I am Callie I told my reflection.

Now.