Happy Halloween

I looked outside my living room window tentatively, trying to avoid the eager gazes of the trick or treaters clamoring excitedly in front of every door on my street. There it was again, Halloween – I ought to have gotten rid of my doorbell that night, since it rang every few minutes. I opened my front door with a grim face, held out the bag of candy which I wanted to throw out on the street, and ignored the exuberant faces before me.  

Feeling sick of opening the door, I decided on a whim to visit my neighbor next door. Mr. Peters was an old man who didn’t come out of his house for months on end, clearly enjoying the pleasures of retirement. I figured he wouldn’t have any plans that night and maybe the two of us could sit in front of the television and watch sports together. I opened my oven to the scent of the freshly baked pie I had made after calling up my mother for its recipe.  

I expected to hear a lot of shuffling and heavy footsteps after I knocked, but to my surprise the door was opened in seconds and there stood a young man smiling at me.  

“Um, I was looking for Mr. Peters,” my voice trailed off uncertainly.  

“That was my grandfather,” the man said, “but he’s been dead ten years now,” he said without letting that smile of his waver.  

More than a little confused, I scratched my neck and remembered just last month when I waved to the old man as he watered his plants while going off to work. “But I clearly remember seeing him,” I said.  

“It must have been a trick your mind played on you,” he said laughingly with such confidence that I began to feel that he was pulling my leg right then. “Come on inside,” he said, glancing at the covered plate in my hands. I followed him inside and glanced around uneasily as he closed the door behind me. The click of the lock sounded ominous for some reason. 

The house was dimly lit, shrouded mostly in darkness. Eerie shadows loomed over from the corners, which were dusty with grey cobwebs. I shuddered as I saw a spider crawling over the scratched dining table, which looked like it had not been used in years. The house looked like it was falling apart at the seams, with no signs of life anywhere. I guessed the old man was not in a fit state to look after his house – but then I recalled seeing him a month ago and I decided his grandson was indeed lying about his death.  

“I’m Nate, and you?” he asked me, all smiles as he handed me a cup of coffee. “Jake,” I introduced myself, trying to avoid looking around the rundown kitchen. “So, if your grandfather has been dead all this time, why don’t you sell the house?” I asked abruptly, realizing a second too late that it was a personal question and it was not my place to ask it.  

Nate didn’t seem to mind at all, though. His eyes appeared bright and full of merriment as he looked directly at me while he answered. “Well, that’s exactly why I’m here today. I just got the keys and came to see what the house looks like – which isn’t exactly the Hilton, as you can see,” he gestured lightly, not seeming to mind that a stranger had walked into that mess.  

I was bursting with more questions about Mr. Peters, such as how could it be possible that he had been dead all these years but I remembered occasional moments where I had seen him walking around his lawn, waving at me, him coming back from the grocery store in his car. I couldn’t seem to wrap my mind around it.  

“Let’s go sit in the lounge,” Nate suggested, and of course I followed him without saying that I felt uneasy in such dimly lit rooms. I remembered seeing a spider walking on the television too, and cringed inside. We sat on dusty sofas which could have been any color in their prime. I sneezed as a cloud of dust rose up from the seat I was on.  

“I can see you’re still doubtful about whether my grandfather is dead or not,” Nate said with a smirk. I hesitated, wanting to ask a lot of questions but not knowing how to word them.  

“People die all the time, Jake, it’s not a big deal,” he laughed, and for a second it seemed like his face contorted in the dull yellow light into something sinister. I could almost swear that his features turned a little skeletal in those few seconds. Frightened much more than before, I looked down at my coffee mug and saw a bug crawling out of it. Without a second thought, I threw it in on the ground and saw it shatter into a thousand pieces.  

Nate seemed to find the incident hilarious. He threw his head back and laughed, and his skin withered away to something brown and leathery. He turned to face me again and I saw holes where his eyes should have been. Bugs crawled out of the sockets and fell down on the floor. I sat there and gazed at him, horrified, terrified and unable to scream as I was frozen in a bubble of fear.  

Nate, or whatever the specter was got up from the sofa unsteadily, while the faded brown flesh fell apart to reveal bones rotting in many places, with cracks all over the skeletal figure. Tattered bits of cloth hung over the frame while it made its way across the room towards me. I finally found the strength to get up and screamed as loud as I could, hoping someone would come and rescue me. “Where are you headed off to, Jake? It’s me, Peters. Just wanted to show you that I’m dead!” rasped the figure, while I passed out cold. It has been five years since this incident and nobody believes what I saw.