Trick or Scare Short Story For Halloween
The streets were lit up for the Halloween celebrations with amazing Halloween decorations but Dave wasn’t feeling it. It wasn’t that he hated Halloween, he just felt it was useless since he had just turned 18 and was more or less an adult. He had his life ahead of him with really good prospects so he didn’t want the hassle of childish antics trailing him wherever he went.
Dave Carter, a boy with too many freckles and a mop of brown hair that didn’t serve him in any way. Weak chins, small eyes, and a mind of jelly. He decided to cast his past aside because he was turning into a man. That Halloween was when he intended to show it to the world. Dave Carter wasn’t a boy anymore, he’d grown. He needed everybody to see that and stop making fun of him.
“Hey, wimpy Dave. Do you have a beef with the gym?” Santos, a mean bully who picked on Dave at any chance he got, said to Dave. Dave pointedly ignored as he pushed his bicycle forward. He didn’t have the time to engage in banters. He had a destination.
“Hey, dimwit. Are you ignoring me?” Santos asked, standing in the way of Dave going forward with his bicycle. He couldn’t understand why Santos bothered with him at all, he wasn’t the type of person to raise troubles. He was the kind of person who steered clear of trouble, completely.
By logic, Santos shouldn’t have bothered him at all, since he always hunted for trouble. But Dave knew Santos was a wimp, an even bigger wimp than he was. But he couldn’t say it because of Santos goons, two thick-set boys who did whatever he wanted. Dave considered it pathetic.
After Santos realized that he couldn’t rile Dave, he pushed Dave’s bicycle to the ground and smashed the chains. He was grinning like a madman but Dave didn’t show the slightest bit of emotion. Santos’s beady eyes bulged in frustration as his face contorted into rage.
“Why don’t you get angry? What’s wrong with you, ya bozzo! React, for dam sake!” Santos pulled Dave by the shirt but Dave stared pointedly at him, already tired of the charade. That Halloween was his growth. He didn’t care what Santos did, it wasn’t going to change his manliness after Halloween. After pulling him for a while, Santos let go of him as he grabbed his bicycle and continued on his way home. It was a short walk.
Dave was beside himself with relief. But little did he know, his world was going to come crashing down on the night of Halloween. The night started fairly well enough, with children in costumes stopping by his door with the usual scream of “trick or treat!” Dave loved it, strangely, since giving them candy made him feel like a grown-up. But then, he heard a shrill scream from across the street. His heart froze because he knew that voice anywhere. It was his childhood friend, Zara.
He took off in a run, praying it was one of her pranks again. He didn’t hear the shrill scream after that, but he knew that he wasn’t hallucinating. Zara was a practical joker but she didn’t scream for no reason. At the end of the street was an alley, he could barely see. He considered walking into the alley but he decided that stumbling wouldn’t be good in such conditions. So, he turned on the flashlight of his phone. The sight he was met with was enough to make a grown man retch.
Mangled bodies that looked as though they went through intense torture before they were put out of their misery. Shattered bones and heads turned 180°with tongues sticking out. He placed his hands over his mouth to stop himself from screaming. It couldn’t be real, it wasn’t real. He chanted to himself. He moved his flashlight over the bodies until it landed on something he should have never seen.
It was Zara with the whites of her eyes staring at nothingness, a bloodied tongue protruding from her mouth as though she chewed on it. It was too much, way too much for Dave. Then, he heard a voice that chilled him to his bone marrow.
“Now, that’s what a true human expression is like. You always turn your nose down at others. You feel you’re better than us, don’t you? It doesn’t matter, that expression on your face is the real present for today. Don’t you like my present, Dave?” Santos emerged from the shadows as Dave dropped his phone, and it shattered on the asphalt.
“This is your Halloween present. I’m glad you liked it.” Santos said with an evil smirk as Dave began to laugh, then his laugh morphed into a scream of pure horror. Santos walked out of the alley and Dave could hear the sound of sirens in the distance but everything else faded as the last sight of the mangled body of Zara hunted his mind. He was still screaming when the police came, and he didn’t know just when the world went straight to hell.
“Kids nowadays, taking drugs and whatnots. Imagine this boy, screaming at nothing in an alleyway. Just goes to show this new generation is cracked in the head.” One of the cops said, shaking his head from side to side as they held Dave down and injected him with a sedative.
That was the last thing he heard before his consciousness blacked out.
On the other side of the town, a great evil lurked in the form of a boy who refused to grow up. Santos.
“The bait worked. Now, let’s see if you’ll survive the hell you created. Welcome to adulthood.” He chuckled, flinging a set of cards into the air. A Joker flew out of the bunch and latched itself on the asphalt as a car drove over it.
The game had just begun. He couldn’t wait for the grand finale. Dave was going to break, like a thread unraveling at the seams till nothing was left.
It was a taste of adulthood, the cruelest kind.
Copyright Halloween Costume Themes
