The Halloween Party

It was October 31st, Halloween day. My friends, Spike and Jake, and I were getting ready to go out to a big Halloween party. I decided to show them that humans weren’t as bad as we were told and also to have a bit of fun. The world would one day accept us, that’s for sure. We dressed in business suits. We looked professional, nice, and human, not scary at all.

You may wonder, “Why dress up so nice on Halloween? Why not wear a scary costume or something like that?” Well, we aren’t human; we are ghosts, -more specifically, werewolf-ghosts. We can do things ghosts do, except for floating and going through walls- we are already scary. People naturally fear us, so if we want to go anywhere near humans, we must look as normal as possible. I know this because I’ve seen it in several movies. People accept you when you look like them, and what would be better than looking like a professional businessman?

We brushed our hair and teeth, made sure we all looked good, and headed out of our house to the party. We walked down the street for a mile or so. On the way, people, mostly little kids, saw us and screamed and ran trying to find their mothers. We just ignored them. Finally, we reached the house where the party was to take place.

“You sure they won’t be afraid, Lowell? That they'll accept us?” Jake asked me.

“We’ll be fine. Besides, there'll be too many people in there and it'll be too dark for anyone to notice us.” I patted his shoulder. “C’mon, bro. Let’s have the best time of our immortal lives!”

With that, we knocked on the door and were received by someone dressed as a Stormtrooper. He looked at us and said he liked the costumes, and then he told us to come to the party and offered us some drinks. We refused them mainly because we were ghosts and grabbing and moving an object would require a lot of energy from us, and we were already using some of our energy trying to keep our clothing on; and even if we did, we couldn’t drink it either way. So the guy just told us to enjoy the party and then disappeared among the crowd of people.

“See,” I told them, “nobody noticed we’re ghosts. The guy even thought we were wearing costumes!”

“Yeah,” Jake said skeptically. “We were saved only because today is Halloween and this is a party. On a regular day, they could've found out we’re ghosts. You know what happened to Buck when he got discovered. Now he... he's gone. Forever!”

“Well, it’s not that bad!” I said.

“Not bad?!” he snapped back. “You know people call those guys who are experts in destroying ghosts! If they catch you, you're done for. There's no afterlife, no way to come back. Buck didn't listen, and look what happened to him!”

He was right. Maybe this party wasn’t a good idea after all. Maybe it was best for everyone. Maybe- “Hey, those are great costumes!" a guy yelled. "You know, y’all should come over to the front for our costume contest. I bet you'll win!” The guy called over some other people whom I supposed were his friends and told them about us, then he told us to come to the front with them.

The contestants were all in one row on a wooden stage in the middle of the vast living room. We were told to go in there, and so we did. People had five minutes to vote for their favorite costume, and we ended up being the winners. We got suspicious and angry looks from other contestants and then we were told by the party’s host, who was dressed as a knight, to come down to get our trophy.

“Well, it’s all yours,” he said as he held it out waiting for us to take it. He waited for ten seconds and then said, “Well, aren't you taking it, guys? It’s all yours. You earned it!”

“No, thanks,” I said nervously as I shoved Spike and Jake to tell them to leave. “I don’t think- I mean, we don’t think we want that trophy, right guys?”

“Yep,” they said.

We started heading casually out when someone tried to grab me by the arm, but obviously couldn’t because we were ghosts, so the person just ended up taking my shirt off and revealing my overly hairy chest and arms.

“How did you take his shirt off?”

“Is that a werewolf-ghost?”

“Wait. Ghosts?!”

"How did these dudes get in?"

“Get the ghost hunters! They’ll finish them off!”

A cold sweat ran through my back. I looked at my friends and then we all ran away from there and looked for the exit, but people chased after us. Finally, we found the front door and ran out of the house.

We tried to run, but after about ten meters, we collapsed onto the pavement. I felt something inside of me. I looked at the moon and realized it was full. The people were in danger.

“Back off!” I hissed at them. “Back off if you wanna live!”

But they didn’t hear my warnings or my friends' warnings. I felt myself transforming into something bigger, scarier, more powerful, something I couldn’t control, but at the same time, it felt liberating. It all then went black and I can only remember the cries for help that came from helpless, terrified souls.

When I became conscious again, I woke up on my house’s sofa and my hands and face were bloody.

What had happened? I wondered.

My friends were also there lying on the sofa, all bloody. I dozed off again and woke up an hour later along with them. We talked for a bit about last night and how it had unfolded. We finally just laughed it off.

“Well,” Spike said, “we warned them. It wasn’t our fault they didn’t listen.”

“Do you think we harmed them? That they’re ok?” Jake asked.

“Are you really concerned about those people?” Spike asked him. “You know, they were about to call in those ghost exterminators to kill us!”

Jake looked at his hands. “Yeah, you’re right.” Then he looked at me. “Hey, Lowell, when can we do this again? I mean, it was really fun getting to go out with y’all.”

I smiled. “I told you you’d like it.” I looked at the calendar on the wall. “Hmm. What do you guys think about Christmas, huh?”

They nodded in approbation. One day, the world will accept us, not try to exterminate us. Ghosts would be accepted, like humans.