Dance Macabre

By Morwenna Wilde

Mary planned All Hallows’ Eve to perfection. Gothic ballroom, flickering obsidian candles and scattered scarlet rose petals. 

The string quartet eased into a waltz and long, lean Thomas, with his black mane, alabaster skin and surprising strength, whisked her around the dancefloor.

Having dressed for eternity, she entertained fantasies of crimson drips from moonlit fangs splashed across flawless corseted breasts, as his breath caressed her throat.

Fractured shards of a scream prompted his abrupt withdrawal and pale, confused eyes. 

“But you asked me to bite you…” 

“To immortalise my youth and beauty…” she shrieked. “Not give me a freakin’ hickey!”

Before the Hollowing

By Joel O'Flaherty

We’ve waited months for this moment.

Huddled together, blanketed by soft loam. The bittersweet taste of the earth and the metallic scent of the autumn winds. 

We are juvenile no more. Beautiful orange flesh ballooning, plumping, ripe and firm and full of life. Now is our season. No more excited speculation about life beyond the field, no more whispered rumours, or eager tales. 

We are ready for picking.

Welly-booted children wend between the rows, angelic faces alight with a delight matching our own. They seem such gentle, adoring creatures, so harmless.

We wonder what delights await us within their homes.

Plastic Pumpkins

By Ann Marie Struck

The year Night of the Living Dead premiered, my younger brother and I were a couple of hobos. Baggy pants, tattered jackets, shabby fedoras, ivory cheeks charcoal-rubbed. In chilly dense fog, we were lone trick-or-treaters; our plastic pumpkins jingling with goodies.

A flickering red speck accented a silhouette approaching from the rural roadside. We gave each other a what's that look.

“Run.”

Brother shivered, no way.

“Let’s race. Ready. Set. Go.”

He bolted. I tripped. Candy spilled from the plastic pumpkins into a puddle. A smoldering cigarette butt flew into the mix, hissing. Whiskey breath, smacking me in the face.

Guising

By Sarah Heald

Anna’s feet, slithering on wet leaves, ached in her special skeleton shoes.

Few doors opened to her quiet knocking, and she hated sticky sweeties.

She knew to haunt Mum’s friends only, but, behind the gnarled yew hedge at the end of Hallow Lane, huddled a moss-laden hovel.

“They must feel lonely. I’ll cheer them up.”

Dark thorns snagged her painted tights.

The cracked door creaked open. A thin voice hissed,

“Skeletons I like. Enter, my plump little friend.”

A wide grin with pointed teeth.

The long arm snaked out. Clawed fingers gripped Anna’s trembling shoulder, dragging her in.

Gimme Candy

By Lisa H. Owens

Cemeteries,

Poison berries,

Broken urns, their flowers dead.

Hooting owls, 

Werewolves' howls,

Bloody footsteps, lightly tread.

Goblins and ghouls,

Puddles and pools

Of putrid stinking wretched gore.

Puce sticky ichor,

Masked eyeballs flicker,

Tarantulas creep across the floor.

Black hissing cats,

Vampire bats,

Frankenstein lurching down the street.

A windswept sheet,

Two eyes that peek,

Ring the bell, demanding treats.

Trick or treat. 

Smell my feet. 

Gimme something good to eat.

Gimme candy... or else!

Costume Party

By Sarah Turner

I was supposed to be many things. Chairman of the company. Inheritor of my father's legacy. Master of a suburban house with manicured lawn and creeping ivy that blistered the skin.

Not a dreamer staring into hazy, shifting visions of the future; not drifting from job to job, riding the highway through vast plains to parched, restless deserts. 
But that's not what the man was asking. 

Bandages smothered his face, and in the dim room at his back I glimpsed black cloaks, cheap tulle and bloody smears. 

“Vampire,” I said, baring my plastic fangs.

Graveyard Rock

By Julie Turland

Sleep tight, children; your trick-or-treating is finally done. Now, it's time for me to have some fun.

Shrouded in mystery, an abandoned graveyard is my latest haunt. I won’t need make-up for this Halloween ball.

Beneath the earth, skeletal hands are rising. Cracked tombstones creak as spooks come alive. Gruesome ghouls gather, ready to gorge. Rattle those bones and hear Dracula groan. The King of Rock is our star guest. Disjointed limbs do the twist as Elvis adjusts his quiff.

Welcome to The Graveyard Rock, all those who are dead.

I bet you never knew dying was such fun.

The Revenge of Spotty Umbrella

By Liz Carroll

Spotty Umbrella lay in the cellar, 

neglected and dry as a bone.

Its handle all rotted, it lay there and 

plotted revenge on all in the home.

One dark Halloween, it prayed for the means 

to wreak awful havoc and fright

so Wicked old Witch with barely a hitch 

gave it teeth and the power of flight.

Children knocked on the door 

then shook to their core

as Spotty began to unfurl

But one little girl did a Supergirl twirl, 

grabbing a fan from the shelf.

A terrible shout as it blew inside out –

And the umbrella devoured itself.

Harvest

By Penny Durham

They took Halloween decorations more seriously in this town, Jamie thought. No plastic pumpkins or fake cobwebs, but small body parts on fences. 

To have a skeleton dangling from the balcony wasn’t that unusual, but the colour – and the smell – made him wonder what it was made of. 

His costume felt tight. At thirteen he was too old for this, but he couldn’t let Emily go alone. The children at their new school had just stared when they’d asked about going together. 

He wanted to skip this house, but Emily was already through the gate and knocking. 

“Trick or–”

Smirk

By Rachel L. Tilley

As October progresses, the visions intensify.

Six years since burying your body… I hate that you’re still in my dreams. 

Last night you locked the bedroom door, then clambered up beside me; sticky blood pouring from the angry wounds I’d cut. 

When drained, you laid down and clung to my arm, pressing your fingertips in deeply. Most chilling of all was the way you smiled – as though you’d won this time.

My alarm went and I escaped the nightmare, but the relief was short-lived.

The veil is thin on all Hallow’s Eve…

Your bony hand reached out and pressed snooze.

Welcome

By Heather Haigh

Bare-throated in the moonlight, you toss back ebony locks and say, 'Come, monsters all. Welcome.'

You quaff lurid green cocktails, shimmy in black taffeta to the beat of Somebody's Watching Me, and run your tongue over crimson lips. 

Frankenstein nuzzles Medusa while a werewolf slinks off with Morticia. Two fake vampires discard plastic fangs along with their clothing. I choose not to take offence.

You move closer and caress my cheek. 'So cold,' you whisper. 'With this heating.'

I graze your neck.

Your pulse quickens.

I inhale the scent of coconut lotion, a delicious garnish. 'Glad you invited me in.'

A Goblin Feast

By Connor Roberts

Greedy goblins dancing, squealing, piping merry songs. A jubilant feast beneath sepulchre soil. Scrawny servers bear trays of delights beneath the will-o-wisp glow. A bubbling cauldron stew saturated with ghoulish marrow; delectable bread loaves baked with sour graveyard soil. To accompany? Jellied jackalope eyes and zombie digits eager to flee.

Dessert! Pumpkin pie dusted with a crushed dream, served with clots of ectoplasm cream. Ivory goblets flow with belladonna beer. Many cries of goblin cheer. 

The child sits in the seat of honour; Jolly and plump, blotched with stains, gorging the feast. Greedy goblins slabber, bellies growling, waiting to eat.

Trick

By Jasmine Brown

Crickle, crackle, curled-up leaves, scrape along the cobbled street.

Hushing wind, pushing east, tries to trip my silent feet.

But like these forty years before, my knock brings no one to their door.

I rap the wood but make no sound. An empty bag forever more.

Who knew that trick would go so wrong that night in 1983?

My neighbour’s eyes went black as sin. The joke, I guess, was played on me.

Crickle, crackle, curled-up leaves, scrape beneath my shrouding sheet.

Dressed as the ghost that no one sees, still no one hears my “Trick or treat.”

Halloween Decorations

By Chris Morris

I hate Halloween. But at least it’s the one night of the year I can get away with such extreme décor.

I hang them.

Two more teenagers appear. They compliment my grinning pumpkin decorations. Ugh. A werewolf and a vampire. How irritating.

A thud at the door.

Slam.

I grab my hammer. Flash a smile back at my pumpkins. Next to them, a ghostly face wails.

A little adjustment. Now it’ll stop moving so much.

Rope. That’ll do the trick. Hold the squirmy thing in place.

Another trick-or-treater. Wearing a white ghost mask.

I invite him in.

Best read upwards.

Nos Calan Gaeaf

By Ben Wakefield

I wrote my name on my stone and added it to the pile beside hers, beneath the pyramid of tallowed branches. If our names are burned clean, our wishes will be granted.

At nightfall we danced in circles around the bonfire, Rhiannon pulling me along, cheeks flushed, red hair streaming.

When midnight struck, we children should have run home, lest the White Lady catch us and devour our souls. Instead, Rhiannon dragged me into Morgan’s barn.

“What about Y Ladi Wen?” I asked.

She grabbed my ears and kissed me.

“We’re not children anymore,” she replied.

Hazardous to Health

By Lin Whitehouse

We called it Halloween House. It was rundown, like the old man with a waist-length beard who resided there. The front garden was so overgrown, the postman complained he’d have to take a scythe to it, if ever there was post to deliver. The dirt-blackened, un-curtained, rotting windows were never lit from inside; chunks of concrete fell from the walls. We waited for the day it would crumble, like a digestive biscuit. 

We dared the new kid.

‘Trick or treat please, Mister,’ he muttered when the door was opened a crack.

He came away with a tenner for being polite.

All Hallows’ Eve

By Lisa Vercelli

I lay the table for two, which hasn’t been necessary in a while. The marigold centrepiece breathes life into a dank October night. Her favourite enchiladas are baking, her best sweater over the chair. I haven’t seen my baby for so long. Since she’s been gone the house has felt soulless. I’ve felt soulless. The hardest part of being a mother is having to let go, but tonight I will see her again. Even if only for a few hours. But first I need to call her. I light three candles and place my fingers lightly on the planchette.

Us, who's come before and them what's come after.

By Katie Challis 

'It's the same for most of us these days. The descendants don't even know they're born.' 

'Or don't know we were, more like.'

A line of recent and long-since deceased grumbled as they mooched through the mists. 

'Forgot about us, innit. I miss the whole shebang; fruits, turnips, lights, bit of a sing-song, you know, the good old days.'

'Aye.'

'Look at those lucky buggers; Mexican crew. Dia de los Muertos!' 

'Aye, now that's a feast I'd love an invite to. Oh, well, off to Rotherham we go.'

'We'll grab us some kids' sweets. An offering's an offering after all.'

In The Dead of Night

By Martin Barker

She negotiates gravestones like a phantom, pallid moonlight guiding her steps. A child alone at midnight; her bright red raincoat incongruous among the cold grey slabs. A soft lullaby permeates the frosty night air; perhaps she sings to muster courage, perhaps to pacify the dead. At last, she stops and kneels amidst rotting leaves. All Hallows’ Eve - when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest - so she’s been told. She places a single flower against the shiny black headstone.

        “I miss you, Daddy,” she whispers, as her father stands over her and weeps.

Misheard Advice

By Terri Mertz

The other witches sat by the fire, celebrating the Coven’s annual Fete of Lost Souls. Screeching and cackling, they gulped warm bats’ blood from vintage skulls and carved pumpkins with knives fashioned from resurrected skeletons. Wanda, however, had to pull cauldron duty. She observed enviously, hating how the fumes from the boiling liquid triggered her allergies, how her long black sleeves dragged in the hot liquid, scalding her arms, and how her cat preferred being over there. She wished she had listened more carefully to her mother—then she would have known to join a convent instead.

Smashing Pumpkins

By Claire Louise Marsh

Cynthia had an award-reprising surprise. Heartingvale won Best Decorated Neighbourhood every Halloween. Until ex-residents of number twelve trashed it with non-rainproof toilet roll mummies. This year, it’s ours. 

“There you are, Gordon.” She placed her creation on his doorstep, a pumpkin bespoke for each neighbour.

The judges watched number three enact lawn-dance of the dead, number twenty-five murder his wife, throw her out the window and bury her in his vegetable patch. 

At midnight, Cynthia’s incantation sparked. 

They emerged. Arms outstretched, legs stumbling, her neighbours’ heads were flaming orange animated pumpkins carved into photographic likenesses. The judges were in pieces.

Knock Knock

By Steve Patmore

Knock Knock 

There’s a demon at your door.

Knock knock 

You’ve given, but still it wants more.

Knock Knock

Through the peephole, a mercury moon gleams bright,

Knock Knock

and nothing more other than night.

Knock knock

It’s out there, but then again not, 

tormenting you with its hurried Knock Knocks.

Tricks that help to tenderise its meat,

Knock Knock

within its purgatory plot of trick or treat.

Knock knock

Something wicked melts through the dark,

clenching its claws around your heart, 

Knock Knock

pulling you deeper into the shadows,

Knock knock

to end this deadliest eve of all Hallows.

Afterlife

By Johanne Barth

Footsteps, somewhere outside. In another room, if there are rooms here, a piano is playing. Downstairs, if there is a downstairs, a clock is chiming. It might be midnight. It might always have been midnight. You don't remember how you came to be here. You don't know where here is. You have lost time, as if time is a lover who has turned from you. Someone is coming. It is written in red letters on the peeling, yellow wallpaper. Someone is coming. The room you are in has no door. Footsteps. Closer, this time. Someone is surely coming.