The Apprentice.

Daniel stood at the window looking out over the busy two-lane highway. “Where the hell am I?” Daniel didn’t recognise anything, but he knew this wasn’t his office building.

He couldn’t remember anything since he went to bed to try to ease his headaches.

Daniel had been having very bad headaches for the last month or so and he intended to go to see his GP, but had been putting it off, today the headache seemed to have gone.

He turned around and started to walk towards the door of the room, but realised he still had his white- rabbit- pattern, pyjamas on.

“Oh Daniel, why didn’t you go to the Doctor?” “You promised me you would go!”

Daniel stopped in the middle of the room and turned towards the bed in the corner.

He stood there with his mouth open, not believing what he was seeing.

His sister Mary was slumped across the still figure lying on the bed, crying her eyes out.

Daniel walked over to the bed to console her.

“Mary what is it?” Why are you so upset?” Mary didn’t move, didn’t answer, just stayed slumped on the bed, as she cried desperately.

Daniel walked around the bed to see who the figure was.

He found himself looking down at a very familiar face, in fact a face he knew every inch of. Daniel was looking at himself.

“No, no, it can’t be!” “It has to be someone who looks like me.”

“Who is that?” He put out his hand to touch the arm of the figure on the bed, but it went straight through it, like it wasn’t even there. He tried to touch the face and the same thing happened. That’s when he saw the tattoo on the arm, his tattoo. Daniel stepped backward and fell to the floor, knocking a lamp from the small side-table.

“Is that you Daniel?” Mary looked around the room with wet, red-ringed eyes, searching. “Are you still here?”

 “I am so mad at you!” “What am I going to do now you’re gone?” “Am I supposed to run the company all by myself?” Mary burst into tears again as she slumped back down on the bed.

“Oh my ---, I am really dead!” “That’s me lying there!” “Guess I should have gone to the Doctor!” “Forgive me Mary, I am so sorry to leave you alone!”

Just then the door opened, several doctors and nurses entered and started talking to Mary, about the blood clot in Daniel’s head.

Daniel decided to make his escape, as he didn’t want to hear all the gory details about what had happened to him. He was gone, and there was no going back now.

 He decided not to worry about wearing his pyjamas, as nobody could see him anyway. It wasn’t long before he realised he could walk through doors without opening them, but if he had strong emotions he could move things!

By the time he walked out the front of the building it was starting to get dark and Daniel noticed everyone looked a little strange. They were all dressed in costume. There were witches and elves, robots and wolves, vampires and ghosts (with white sheets on). “This is great!” “It’s Halloween!” He thought. “I fit in really well!”

Daniel forgot to step out of the way, as a young man dressed as a vampire walked right through him.

“Hey, cut that out!” He kicked an empty drink can which caught the vampire on the back of his leg. The young man spun around with intentions of taking on anyone he thought had thrown the can, but nobody was there.

Daniel chuckled to himself. “This should be a lot of fun!’

He came to a house all done up for Halloween, with lights and pumpkins, witches on brooms and lots of little scary faces hanging everywhere. A couple of young girls were standing admiring the witch on a broom, hanging from the tree. Suddenly the whole thing began flying around between them, zooming up and down, as the girls ran screaming from the front of the house. People were running in all directions.

 Daniel dropped the witch and broom on the ground, and collapsed beside it in fits of laughter.

He had never had this much fun when he was alive.

He continued on down the dark street, trailing behind a young couple and their teenage son. They stopped at a house, rang the bell and waited. When the owner answered they all yelled “trick or treat!” The lady of the house came out with a basket full of lollies and sweets and started to hand them out to the family.

Suddenly the basket of sweets flew up in the air, dropping lollies and bon-bons and snakes all over the young family, then crashing to the floor at the feet of the House owners.

The young couple and their son ran screeching down the path, the owners hastily slammed and locked the front door and put out all the lights, as if they weren’t there at all.

Daniel was writhing on the ground laughing his head off.

If he had known being dead was this much fun, he might have got here earlier.

Daniel spent the rest of the night causing havoc. Pulling down lights, blowing up pumpkins, tripping people over, until the sun began to rise above the hills and everyone had gone home to bed.

Suddenly Daniel didn’t know what to do or where to go, and felt lonely again.

He found the Hospital and returned to the room where he had left his body. The body was gone, it had been taken to the morgue and his Sister had gone home.

Daniel was getting weary of following everyone around, and it wasn’t as funny anymore. He decided to go to the morgue. Daniel found his body still on a trolley and lay down for a rest.

He felt very tired, but he promised himself he would wake up again next year, and he would come out again at Halloween. Just to scare the pants off another lot of Halloweenies!