31 Hideous Halloween Tales (Part One) (Tales 1-11)

*It’s that time of year again. Every year, on October, I post my own original Halloween tales on this site. I update this story every day in October with a new tale! Some of them are stuff I came up with this year and some are added on lore to characters from my previous Halloween tales. Some are gory like a horror movie, some are sweet like Trick-or-Treat candy, and some are just both. Either way, I hope that you enjoy these stories of spooks and screams…and have a happy month of Halloween! (Gacha Club character designs are under my forum “My character designs<33[2]”. Enjoy!*

Tale One-The moonlight is supposed to be a pretty sight

Clement opened up his weather app just to make sure one more time and sighed in relief when he saw that the next full moon was still only in five days. That was good. He couldn’t go on his first date as a…well, as a werewolf.

He wasn’t born a werewolf. He had gotten bitten by one last Halloween, when he was fifteen years old. He was leaving a loud and crowded Halloween that some popular person was holding for everyone at school, but before he walked out the door, a werewolf pulled him close and bit him.

Clement thought that it was someone in costume at first who didn’t know anything about personal space, but when full moons would come, he’d wake up covered in blood, his clothes in tatters, and would come home to see that the local news was covering a story about someone who had died from deep, gored wounds, even some witnesses saying that they saw a “wolf like creature” attack the video. He’d hear about it in school, at the grocery store, wherever he went.

Though Clement never fully remembered the attacks, he had the ghosts of screams in the back of his mind and the sense that he had done something unspeakably evil the night before.

So whenever there was to be a full moon at night, he would wait until his parents left for work and then he’d go to the garage and take the chains from there to his room. Once he got home from school and the night would come, Clement would tie a piece of cloth to his mouth, then tie himself to his chair so he wouldn’t hurt anyone. He wish that he had more things to keep him locked away or even a way to get rid of the curse entirely, but both seemed impossible for him, so he made do with what he had.

Nobody knew that he was a werewolf. Not his parents, not his friends, and he would make sure that the girl he liked since sixth grade, Franca, wouldn’t find out either.

He was dressed in his favorite faded out purple skeleton ribcage hoodie and black sweatpants, wearing black high top sneakers and headed out to the Halloween Fair, where Franca would be waiting, where they would eat candy apples, drink apple cider, and watch Halloween floats go throughout the street.

It was going to be spooktacular and absolutely no werewolf-related things would happen, because there was no full moon, and Clement had everything under control.

………………………………………………………………….

“I like your fit, it’s very spooky.” Franca beamed.

Clement had made it to the Halloween Fair and met up with Franca by the popcorn stand, her black and green two-toned hair in pigtails, her black lace dress hugging her body like a withered rose, her black fishnet stockings like stitches along her skin, her black boots shining under the orange LED string lights, her corpse paint making her green eyes seem to glitter like she was something more, something else.

“Thanks, but you are way spookier. You’re spooky all year round.” Clement said, unsure if he was being charming or just cringey.

Franca smiled and led Clement to all of the different food stands, the food stands being mostly popcorn, sweets, and other junk food, but eating them with Franca, the scary girl he drew pictures of in his school notebook, the girl who seemed to love Halloween more than life itself, the girl he fantasized would take him away and keep him as her own, made it feel like something that creatures of the night would do.

With the cool, crisp October air and the orange and brown leaves that crunched under their feet, it all felt just like his favorite Halloween movies, the kinds he used to watch when he was a little boy, before schoolwork became more grueling, before adults demanded more, before getting up felt like a chore, before full moons were something to fear.

And talking to Franca about the extraordinary and the boring with the dried grass under their feet and the bare, spindly trees wrapped with orange string lights helped solidify that soft, drifting away feeling in his heart. He couldn’t believe that she had given him a note in math class asking him out on a date, that she wanted to go out with him, that she even liked him at all.

Soon, they would watch the parade together, eating their candy apples, bonding by the elegant eeriness of Hallows’ Eve, the light of the orange moon shining above them and-

“Ah look, the full moon is out.” Franca said, pointing up to…to the sky…where a glowing, orange, full moon, was hanging in the duskiness of the night sky.

“The full moon? I thought that there wasn’t supposed to be a full moon tonight. I checked on my app…” Clement trailed off as he grabbed his phone, opened the app-

Full moon tonight. That was what it said. It didn’t change, didn’t turn into something else, just stayed as it was.

He felt his heart racing in his rib cage as thoughts of waking up stained with blood, possibly with Franca’s blood, flashed in his mind. His bones already felt like they were stretching, like they would break past his skin and so, he told Franca that he had to go and ran like his life depended on it.

Well, not so much his life, but the lives of others.

………………………………………………………………….

It hurt him to be running alone, to have his curse keep him from having fun, but if he ran fast enough, Clement would be able to go home and tie himself up, then he wouldn’t hurt anyone, then-

“W-where d-d-do you think you are g-g-going?!” Franca’s voice asked behind him, seeming to struggle with words.

Wait, Franca?!

Clement turned around, his vision already lopsided and hazy, but he could see, standing amongst the trees of the local woods, was Franca herself, her body twisting, morphing, seeming to grow…grow? Or was it in his mind?

“I…I’m sorry you feel hurt by this. But this isn’t anything to be afraid of. Sure, s-s-some people will die, but we h-h-have to eat. Besides, creatures like us make this town more interesting and if I have to be a monster…I’ll do it with you.”

Clement blinked, Franca’s words, half of it sounding more like growls than human speech, spiraling in his mind. He could feel his mind slipping away into something more akin to an animal, instinctively licking his lips as images of blood on torn-apart skin flickered in his brain, but his human thoughts were asking if Franca were like him, if she knew his curse, and then, back to her sparkling, murky swamp green eyes, the eyes that looked like they could save or ensnare, the eyes that were soft and sharp, the eyes-

The eyes of the werewolf that bit him at the party.

And then, Clement’s human side descended into darkness.

Tale Two-Hearts of porcelain still feel

Delania lay in bed, staring at her window where pale moonlight glistened from the cracks of her blinds. She could see the silhouettes of all of her porcelain dolls on the shelves, her prized possessions, except for one empty, sad spot.

That was the spot where her doll, Elara, used to stand. Elara had fawn brown skin dotted with freckles that weren’t just on her face, but on her arms and legs as well. Her curly hair was a chestnut brown and her headband was decorated with silver butterflies that shimmered like a million tiny rainbows in the sunlight. She wore a lavender rose smocked ruffle dress and silver sandals with little butterflies that matched her headband, but most of all, her big, cocoa brown eyes looked like they were full to the brim with love.

None of Delania’s dolls were family heirlooms. In fact, they all creeped out her brother and her parents. She bought them from the local thrift store ever since she was seven years old and hadn’t stopped buying since then, still collecting dolls at the age of eighteen.

She supposed it was a bit strange to her peers that she would be collecting dolls at her age, but she didn’t care. Each and every one of her dolls felt like they were alive, like they were her children and that she had to give them all the love that she had, that she couldn’t leave them behind, and that she had to change their outfits once a month so that they wouldn’t feel uncomfortable or dirty.

Sometimes, Delania wondered if her dolls were actually possessed by ghosts, because one of the things she did in her free time was watch ghost hunting shows and a common occurrence was that a spirit would be possessing a doll, most of the time it was a child. Sometimes it was a demon, but that was rare.

Nothing paranormal or out of the ordinary happened with Delania’s dolls, no matter how many times she tried to speak to them, but she still loved them all the same, because the last thing she would want was for a spirit to feel more trapped than they already were.

And that was one of the reasons why, when she looked at the spot where Elara used to stand, Delania’s heart felt like it was twisting with her lungs, cutting off her breathing and her blood.

It had happened two months ago, in August. Delania was still seventeen years old then, her birthday would be coming up on September 15th. She was dusting her room and putting her dolls on her bed so that they wouldn’t be in the way. She had gotten up to a high part of a shelf in her room and was standing on a stool for balance. There was music playing on her phone to keep her motivated, she was going to grab Elara and place her on the bed, but then…

Somehow, Delania’s fingers slipped and Elara fell to the ground, her freckled face shattering into shards that wouldn’t fit together, wouldn’t make a complete face, wouldn’t save her from being headless.

It had all happened so fast, too fast for Delania to grab Elara before she could fall and so, not knowing what to do, she called her Mom over to help.

Mom took one look at Elara’s broken body and said that she had to be thrown out, there was no use salvaging her. Delania wanted to do the best she could at supergluing Elara’s face together, but Mom shook her head and said that it wouldn’t work. Delania had her doubts, but she thought that maybe, if she kept Elara’s shattered pieces and her headless body, then she could be fixed.

So Delania had asked to keep Elara even if she had no head, leaving out the part about wanting to fix her and that even if she was never able to put Elara together, she’d still love the doll, but Mom had told her it would be “creepy” to own a headless doll.

Delania had cried as she begged Mom not to throw out Elara, to let Delania keep her, but it was too late.

Mom threw her out. The only thing Delania had left of her was one of her silver sandals and as she lay in bed, replaying the moment Elara broke beyond repair, she wondered if she had done enough to save her, to keep her, if Elara had a soul that needed to be saved, if Delania had doomed a little girl, if…if…

Tears streamed down Delania’s face and stained her pillow. Even if Elara was just a regular doll, it still felt like murder and Delania wished so, so badly, that her fingers had not slipped.

………………………………………………………………….

Delania opened her eyes and…and…she wasn’t in her room.

She was lying on a bed with white cotton sheets that had pink roses printed on it. The walls were painted a pale pink, the shelves and dresser drawers were white, but there were toys strewn on the floor and shelves of many different colors, an array of rainbows right before Delania’s eyes.

Delania sat up in the bed, rubbing her eyes to see if it’d all go away.

No, she was still in the bedroom and even more so, it looked like there was a hazy film over her eyes, like she was looking at the room through a vintage camera or perhaps, a dream.

She noticed that there were pink curtains hanging above the bed in an elegant, Princess-like manner, which told Delania that she was lying in a canopy bed. In the distance, she could hear children’s voices laughing as if nothing mattered to them.

She could see out the window, the white curtains that had butterflies and smiley faces of rainbow colors printed on them left partly open, the sky awash with a brilliant orange color, the sun sinking low, the trees bare and black, like eldritch, damned claws grasping for infinity.

Delania sighed, not quite believing her eyes. It was beautiful. All of it. The room, the children’s laughter, the sky. Everything was so peaceful and safe and light and-

“This was my last Halloween.”

Delania turned towards the sound of a little girl’s voice and found that standing next to one of the dressers was a young girl who looked to be about seven years old. She wore a gray dress that hung over her black lace-up boots, and her chocolate-toned face was covered with white, ghostly makeup that looked like the dust from a cemetery. Her big brown eyes were circled by black, ghoulish rings that streamed down in inky, clunky tears, and her black curls had a white, vaguely lined out halo hovering above them.

On her back were white wings that glowed like watercolors in a picture book, like something that Delania would half-remember from her childhood. The little girl held a plastic pumpkin bucket that had dirt and mold cluttered on the hard surface, as if it were trying to eat away at the pumpkin’s smile.

“I went Trick-or-Treating in 1984 and somebody from one of the houses grabbed me. I don’t remember what she did to kill me, but I remember waking up in one of my favorite dolls and I wasn’t able to get out…until you broke it. Now that you’ve broken the doll, I can finally go to Heaven. I can have all the Halloweens that I want, without anything bad happening to me. You saved me.” The little girl smiled.

Delania blinked, trying to take it all in. By breaking Elara, she saved the little girl’s soul? Was Delania in the little girl’s version of Heaven? But if the doll really was possessed by a little girl, then…

“Why didn’t you talk to me before?” Delania asked, wondering if it was something she did, something she said, that would make the little girl keep quiet.

“I did, but you didn’t hear me. I tried to talk to you because the other dolls weren’t ghosts like me, but you never heard anything I said. It didn’t matter how loud I was because it would always come out like a whisper. That’s okay. I’m safe now and it’s all thanks to you.”

Delania wanted to grin, to be happy for her, but she felt bad for not hearing the little girl’s voice before. How could she go on in life without hearing the girl’s cries? Without listening carefully? If only Delania really listened, then maybe-

“What’s your name?” Delania asked, because she wanted to remember the child’s name and keep it close to her heart, forevermore.

“It’s Magnolia. But you can call me Maggie. That’s what my friends called me.” Maggie said.

Her tone was light, but her eyes seemed to go cloudy with tears, the heaviness of death weighing on her greatly.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t hear you.” Delania said, knowing that the words may not be much, but hoping that they would be something, that would be enough for her.

“It’s okay. You hear me now. And you still talked to me even if you couldn’t hear me. You still loved me.”

Maggie then ran up to Delania and hugged her fiercely, as if they were sisters. Delania hugged her back, still not feeling quite deserving of such affection, but glad that she was okay, that she was free.

As the room began to fade with Maggie and Delania could see her own bedroom coming back, Delania made sure to remember every detail of her room, her face, her voice, so that she would be able to draw it out, to write it down.

So that she wouldn’t forget Maggie, ever.

Tale Three-Halloween’s horrors

Eerie smiled with her sharp-toothed teeth as she walked throughout her haunted house. She had used her magic to make herself invisible to the human eye, so anyone who wasn’t a monster wouldn’t be able to perceive her.

Eerie was a faerie who first came to Earth on October 31st, sometime in the sixteen-hundreds. Her entrance to Earth had accidentally killed an entire town and so, with the presence of ghosts all around her, Eerie made it her mission to bring about the morbid, marvelous joy of Halloween to all, appearing to many as a little girl in a witch costume, but sometimes as a spider humanoid monster, and other times as something that humans couldn’t comprehend. Eerie could be any terrifying thing that she wanted to be and the only “cute” form she had was her witch form.

She lived in the town where she was “born”, a town called “Dahlia” and she had created a “haunted house attraction” that glowed with purple and green lights on the outside and scare “actors” on the inside. (They were all real monsters, but the humans didn’t need to know that.) It was part of a much bigger Halloween Fair that most of the people in town attended and it made Eerie feel whole, feel complete.

A lot of people in Dahlia loved Halloween, but Eerie never saw the rest of the world and she wanted to know, did the world love Halloween like Dahlia did?

That was why when Eerie stepped out of the haunted house, she decided to convert her body into orange and black sparkles that floated into the sky, that would be able to watch all of Earth, and then…

She would know how strong the spirit of Halloween really was.

………………………………………………………………….

Flickering, fiery bolts of sadness and fury coursed through Eerie’s stitchings of enchantment that vaguely resembled veins as she thought of what her orange snake pupil eyes had witnessed.

She couldn’t be too mad that every place in the world didn’t celebrate Halloween, for she had a sense that it had to do with something cultural, something that they believed in, but, in the places that were supposed to celebrate Halloween, there wasn’t much of anything! Humans did not want to go out and Trick-or-Treat, they didn’t want to put on their costumes, and they had such a ridiculous rule that “Anyone past the age of twelve was too old to Trick-or-Treat”. Too old! The absolute nerve humans had to put an age on fun!

Eerie was sitting on the entrance steps to her haunted house, still invisible, with her head in her hands, feeling utterly small, defeated, and worst of all, human. How was she going to make the humans celebrate Halloween? She could turn all of them into monsters permanently, but if she did that, then there wouldn’t be much humans left to scare and life wouldn’t be so fun for her…

Unless she didn’t actually turn them into monsters, but made them all dream that they did. She could slip into their minds and make them dream that they were cursed and when they would woke up, they would have the subconscious fear that something bad would happen to them if they didn’t celebrate Halloween. Humans would be decorating houses, wearing costumes, and Trick-or-Treating just like the humans did in Dahlia! Eerie’s special day would be saved!

Eerie grinned as she focused on becoming energy, on projecting the monster nightmare to those that deserved it.

Nothing would be hopeless for her.

Tale Four-Witch’s woe

Peggy leafed through the spell book, searching for something that would work, something that would really get her. She wasn’t born a witch, but she learned some spells from her school’s spell books.

Peggy was dressed as a weeping ghost, ready to go to her school’s Halloween party, a party that she was sure ninety percent of the students would attend, including her, Lindsay, the “best friend stealer.”

Lindsay, with her luscious blond hair, her bright blue eyes, her chiming, charismatic nature that made nearly everyone like her…her only problems in life probably had to do with figuring out who to hang out with or how much makeup she wanted to wear. It was why Peggy’s best and only friend, Kyrin, started dated her, why he stopped hanging out with Peggy.

She could do nothing but give Lindsay dirty looks, until, one day, when she was in the school library, she found occult spell books and checked them out at the desk. The librarian didn’t even stop her from getting them, she just made a hmph sound and gave them to Peggy.

Peggy didn’t know if the book would actually help her, but she tried some of the more tame spells, like give a random stray cat extra sharp claws and adding more thorns to the roses in her family’s garden.

They all worked, but they were easy. She was trying to find a spell that would be harder to do but would absolutely destroy Lindsay. Once Lindsay was gone, Peggy would have Kyrin again, and everything would be back to normal, as it should have been.

She had to make the spell worth it.

…………………………………………………………………

A few hours had passed since Peggy looked at the spell book. She was at the school Halloween party, which was being held at the gym, holding a red plastic cup of soda. She saw Lindsay at the party in a stupid bunny costume and Kyrin in a beautiful ghost costume that would go well with hers.

She had kept to herself at the party, glaring at Lindsay whenever she could, and when Lindsay stormed out, Peggy put down her cup of soda and followed her into the school hallway.

“I don’t get why he likes you.” Peggy said, wanting to grab Lindsay’s attention when they were both alone.

Lindsay turned around, a smile on her face, her eyes glittering with delight and asked:

“What’s up?”

What? How could Lindsay have the nerve to ask Peggy what was “up”? They weren’t friends and they would never be, and Peggy had to let her know, right then and there:

“You’re fake. You’re out here because this all ruins your perfect image. You’re the cool popular chick who thinks that the whole world revolves-“

“And how do you know that? You never even talked to me!” Lindsay cried out, her eyes brimming with tears that seemed fueled with anger.

But Peggy wasn’t done.

“When did you meet Kyrin? Last year? You’ll break up with him soon. He’s not cool enough for you. He won’t understand, though. He’s blinded by your beauty. He doesn’t understand that I know him more than you do, that he deserves to be with me, that we were made for each other.” Peggy said softly, already imagining life without Lindsay in it.

Lindsay laughed without humor, a laugh that sounded as pointed as a knife and then she said:

“Did you just decide to hate me because I’m different from you? You could have become Kyrin’s girlfriend before I met him. Long before high school, you could have told him how you felt. You had all this time and you didn’t do anything. It’s not my fault that you were too nervous to do anything. You can’t just think all of those things about me either. You don’t know what I’ve gone through. You-“

“What was the worst thing that ever happened to you? Couldn’t decide what shoes to buy?” Peggy snapped, irritated that Lindsay could even suggest that she had experienced anything deeper than what she actually went through, anything deeper than what she already was.

“I hope that you have fun tonight.” Lindsay said, no hate or malice in her voice, just…sadness.

But Lindsay wouldn’t fool her. While Lindsay was walking away, Peggy would recite the spell to fruition.

“You take away all of his energy. Because of you, he’s no fun. You’re such a leech. You’re no good for him and for anyone. The only thing you will ever be good for are your looks and you know it.” Peggy said.

It was more than just words, though. She had made sure to put all of her energy and heart into the word “leech” and envisioned Lindsay becoming just as what she was meant to be, her body bending and breaking into something small, her skin becoming an oily, charcoal black, many sets of teeth jutting from her mouth, until…

What lay in the puddle of the bunny costume was a leech. A fat, sickly leech that no one would love, that no one would want. Finally, Peggy and Kyrin could be together, they could have a relationship, they could-

Kyrin pushed past Peggy, right towards where Lindsay lay, as if he somehow knew it was her-but that was impossible! How would he be able to know it was her? Wouldn’t he not want anything to do with a leech? Wouldn’t…wouldn’t…

But as Peggy fell to the floor, hearing the crack of her skull before her surroundings had popped out of existence, she saw Kyrin speaking to the leech in that same sweet, buttery tone he always used for Lindsay and she knew, right then and there…

He would always love Lindsay. No matter what.

Tale Five-Creeping in the corner

In the corner of her room

On a bright summer’s day

Delania sits on a chair

Holding her doll, Elara, close

Watching Hallows’ Eve commercials from the eighties

On her laptop that she’s propped on a little table

While kids her age are working summer jobs

And going out on beach vacations

She’s “alone” in her room

Surrounded by the wide, sweet eyes of her dolls

Fuzzy, dreamlike Halloween commercials playing on her laptop

For back then was a different time

Where community was ever-so-tied

When nobody was left behind

Delania made some summer plans with her friends

But they never texted back, once again

That’s okay

She won’t hold any hate

For October’s getting closer

Soon it will be that frightful date

Her closest friends are her dolls

They stay with her all the time

When she watches those spooky old commercials

She feels right and fine

In those moments, the scariest things are witches with clawed fingers and demons with glowing eyes

And not that sense of growing emptiness

That comes with losing a little bit of that childlike light

Tale Six-The spookiest, scariest wedding!

Hallows’ Eve can be frightful fun

Or chilling creeps

Either way, it brings to many

Great, delighted screams!

But with the warm orange lights

And the scent of pumpkin spice

Love is also found in the cobwebbed, shadowed corners

On such a dastardly night

For there once was a clown called Spooky

Dressed in orange and black was she

On October Thirty-First, she gave out cookies and candy

She loved fuzzy autumn music

And surprises that brought out laughter!

She had the smiles of children to keep her going

Yet like the humans around her, her heart longed for love…

In a haunted house attraction

Where monsters were forced to jumpscare humans

And paid not a single cent

There was a clown who answered to “Scary”

With wide, white eyes

Sharpened, bloodied teeth

Claws that could slice through bone

Nobody wanted to be with her, they’d rather be alone

She lived in the colors purple and black

Living up to her name got the humans to come back

Scaring them all made her smile

But it was short lived and she wished someone would stay awhile

Spooky sometimes watched Scary go off to that haunted house

Likewise, Scary would lurk by Spooky’s cookie stand

Both felt their hearts flutter like frenzied spiders at the sight of one another

Neither wanted to approach the other

And they’d think to themselves:

“She likes Halloween, but in a different way.

How can it be that she will ever like me?”

The longing and loneliness made itself more known with each passing year

It seemed that simply talking was what they most feared

But a friend of Spooky’s couldn’t stand it any longer!

She, Konfetti, wanted Spooky’s forever to be something to remember

Konfetti pushed and pushed and pushed Spooky to go to that haunted house

Until Spooky pushed aside her doubts as best as she could

And made it up to where Scary would hide

She let out her heart as best as she could

Scary never heard such kind words

Scary never felt like she could share her blackened heart till then

Since that first date went so well

They kept seeing each other, again and again

Their spindly hearts connecting with every second they shared

Until one night, Scary proposed with a maggot ring

And the night after, when Trick-or-Treaters walked the streets

When the air was filled with screeches and treats

Spooky wore a dress of orange cobwebs and black stripes

Scary wore her own of purple zigzags and black roses

With ghostly black veils and pointed tooth grins

They married on Halloween night

Different from each other they may have been

But it was their differences that kept them by one another’s side

Because at the end of the day

If such a love is true

Then throughout all the dreadful days and nervewracking nights

It will stay, all throughout time

Tale Seven-Spiraling thoughts at the graveyard

Fiametta stood by her grave, watching the sky fade off into orange and golden watercolors of the October evening. She could hear the violinists practicing for the late night Halloween concert at the music theater next to the graveyard, along with the voices of children excitedly going on their journey for candy.

The cemetery was devoid of the living. Only the ghosts came out, either to visit loved ones, frighten humans, reminisce of their past, or all three.

The cemetery hadn’t always been quiet like that, though. Middle-aged adults used to come to the cemetery to throw parties. Why they did it, nobody knew. Maybe it was so they could feel fulfilled in their lives? Maybe they were the same teenagers who would do stupid dares at the graveyard, but much older? Fiametta thought that it could have possibly been both.

But only a few weeks earlier, the people that owned the cemetery forbid any such parties from happening with a hefty fine and that rule had made things tremendously better for the ghosts. Maybe it upset the living, but who cared? The living took over enough already.

The peacefulness of the cemetery made it easier for Fiametta to think about her death, about what had caused her to die. It had always bothered her that she could only remember falling asleep after a night of Trick-or-Treating and seeing a silhouette of a woman next to her, reaching out towards Fiametta.

So, she thought back to lying in bed, looking at the wall, thinking of all the candy she got…all the Trick-or-Treating she did…just like the living children near her…but wait…there was a woman next to her…a woman with claws..and black goo coming out of her mouth and-

“Child, I’ve come to collect your soul! Don’t cry, I don’t like those loud, shrieking sounds.”

That was what the woman had said to her, her teeth upturned in a vicious, jagged grin, a smile on her…Fiametta caught a glimpse of her face. It was pale. Pale like death, like the moon, like bones, like the whites of eyes, like-

Who was that? Walking on the sidewalk? Her skin was so, so pale, her eyes were so wide, and her white dress swept the ground just like her long, black hair. The woman could have been wearing a costume, but Fiametta had been dead since 1912, she had a lot of time watching the humans on Halloween night and it just didn’t seem like there was body paint on the woman. Her dress did not look like cheap fabric and her gray, hulking claws didn’t look like they were bought and-

Her mouth. Fiametta couldn’t see super clearly from where she was, but she could tell from the lines dripping from the woman’s mouth that it was goo, sickly, horrible goo, like the color of Fiametta’s blood when she saw her own body at the morgue, a few days after she died…

It had clicked to her. Right then and there, something had snapped in her mind, maybe something it was some supernatural force of energy telling her, but she knew then that the woman’s name was Morgue. Morgue brought about death, Morgue loved death and as soon as Fiametta had realized it…

Morgue was gone.

Tale Eight-Not even the monsters are company

Risna blinked her eyes, adjusting them to the blurry red light that was surrounding her. The leech woman who clawed at her was nowhere in sight and instead, she was in what looked to be a “seance room” in the haunted house attraction, a black satin tablecloth and crystal ball glittering in the darkly lit room.

“It’s not an act, Risna. All the monsters are real. I made them that way.” Eerie’s voice-Eerie?! The faerie who gave her a fantastical Halloween like no other, the same faerie who wouldn’t let Risna become a monster?

Risna got out of the clawed grip and turned around to face…Eerie in her humanoid spider monster form, the very being that had snatched her from the leech woman.

She was absolutely a little stunned to hear that there were actual monsters in the haunted house attraction, but she felt more blazing hot anger at the fact that Eerie still wouldn’t let her be a monster, that she still kept Risna as a human, that…that…

“You have a whole haunted house attraction and you still won’t make me a monster? If you actually cared about me, you would have made me one of them! You-“

“Do you honestly think that being a monster will somehow make things easier for you?! They can’t do the things that they could have done as humans, like go outside in the daylight without getting stared at. They can’t ever see their families again because they have to be here and again, because of what they look like. And who said I cared about you? The only reason I saved you is because killing is too easy. I don’t believe in it. I know it hurts you more to be human than to be a monster.”

Eerie’s words circled through Risna’s mind, like the orange smoke that was growing around her, the smoke that must have been coming from Eerie. Eerie had said before that Risna meant nothing to her, but to hear her say those words, in such a boring, cruel tone, it made her wonder…

Why couldn’t Eerie just give her what she wanted? Why couldn’t they be friends? Sure, Risna was a human and Eerie was a faerie, but couldn’t what was mundane be close to the supernatural?

Risna could see her street more clearly than the seance room, could see that Eerie was taking her home, and still, more than ever, Risna felt alone.

Tale Nine-True meaning of Halloween

In the town of Dahlia, there was a haunted house attraction filled with “scare actors”, all of them being real monsters, but the humans did not know that and they never would.

The haunted house attraction would be open to the public during Halloween season, from 5:00 PM to 10: 00 PM, and while the monsters very much acted the part and scared quite a number of humans, nobody outside of the houseknew that many of the monsters were once humans themselves and acted just as mortal as those who visited. Even the monsters who were never human had their “mortal moments”.

Such an example of this happened on October 12th, 2025, when it was still the bright daylight afternoon, when the haunted house was not yet open.

…………………………………………………………………

“Halloween…is…supposed to be scary. Stop…using…pink.” Gabbie said, shaking her head in displeasure.

The haunted house had a zombie room, a room that was made to look like some abandoned town that was overtaken by the apocalypse, complete with chain link fences covered in caution tape and yellow biohazard signs. The zombie room was full of real zombies, not actors, but none of the zombies bit the visitors. They only bit people they either wanted to be a zombie with them or people they didn’t like.

For eleven year old Gabbie, she bit twelve year old Kristen when she visited because she wanted her friend to be around. It was a decision Gabbie sometimes regretted, almost as much as going backstage at the haunted house attraction and asking a zombie too many questions.

Gabbie liked all things frightful and unsettling, like spiders and rotted teeth and cracked dolls, Kristen was more of a girly-girl who liked pink and flowers and sparkles. It was something that they both always knew about each other, something that didn’t stop them from being apart, but…

Kristen was decorating the chain link fences with pink bows and pink skulls and pink cobwebs. Gabbie knew that she wouldn’t stop there, so she wanted to make it known that what Kristen was doing was bad and wrong.

“Why…do…you…care? I…like…pink!” Kristen spat, her glassy eyes vividly glowing with anger. A bit of blood had sputtered out of Kristen’s peeling lips and onto Gabbie’s eyes, so Gabbie had to wipe it off very carefully so as not to accidentally pull out her eyes.

“You…always…make…everything pink! Pink! Pink! Pink! Not everything should…should be pink! Halloween is not…not for PINK! It was bad enough that you never wanted to wear scary costumes, but now this? Kristen you have-have to-“

Gabbie started to cough violently, a storm of blood shooting out of her mouth. She had spoken too fast, as though she were still living, and her body was taking a toll for it. Her rib cage felt like it was about to crumble along with her lungs, but it didn’t hurt as much as seeing Kristen continue to, as Gabbie called it in her mind: Absolutely massacre Halloween with the color pink.

“I…never…wanted…to be…a zombie. You…made…me…this…way. I…am…ugly…now. Finian will…never…like me…now! Let…me…have this!” Kristen cried out as she still put up the bubblegum pink decorations that Gabbie was certain she stole from a homeware store or at least found somewhere backstage.

Gabbie groaned at comment Kristen made about Finian, because she was seriously still thinking of that one boy? He would have rejected her anyway! He probably would have found Kristen “annoying”, like he did with everyone who wasn’t in his friend circle. Come to think of it, the only people Finian seemed to genuinely like were his male friends and even that was a bit of a stretch, since he didn’t spare them from humiliation.

It was crazy that Kristen even wanted him, but even more crazy that she was still putting up the abhorrent pink Halloween decorations!

“Finian…is…old…news…he…doesn’t…deserve…you…but more importantly…stop using pink! It…is…bad…and-“

“It…never…bothered…you…before.”

Gabbie paused. Kristen was right. Gabbie was never annoyed with her persistent perkiness in life, it was just that when they were both zombies that she felt mad.

But maybe it wasn’t even about all of the pink. Maybe it was-

“I…guess…I just…miss celebrating Halloween…as a…as a human…and I…want things…to be…the same…as it was…before.”

“It won’t…be the same. Ever. So…we…can…just…celebrate…together…our…own…ways.” Kristen said.

Gabbie thought about it. Kristen was her friend and perhaps she didn’t like pink the way Kristen did, but wasn’t the true meaning of Halloween about celebrating the spooks no matter what? Wasn’t it pointless to get mad at Kristen?

Besides, the zombie apocalypse decorations would still be there. They’d just have a little added flair.

“Sorry…I got…mad. I’ll help.” Gabbie said.

Kristen smiled with yellowed teeth and gestured to the pile of pink Halloween decorations on the floor and then, the two of them got to work, ready to celebrate their first Halloween together as zombies.

Tale Ten-It all comes full circle

On Halloween the year before, Lauriel Loughty gave her two children, Dax and Nola, candies with razor blades in them. She had done it to teach them a lesson about not believing in the razor blade stories and it had worked.

Sure, her children died, but she and her husband, Hendrix, had more time together and they got everyone else in their neighborhood to fear razor blade Halloween candies, just as it was supposed to be! Of course, fear wasn’t enough and sometimes, Lauriel had to put razor blades in the candies she gave out other kids, but it didn’t happen often and nobody was ever able to trace her as the one with razor blade candies.

It was late into the night on Halloween. Lauriel was walking down the stairs, craving a midnight snack. The inside and outside of her house was all decorated for the season, so she had to be careful not to bump into animatronics. It was a little hard, but she could still get around fine, for she knew the layout of her own house and could identify the silhouette of things.

When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she went over to the living room couch and grabbed the orange plastic bowl with black bats printed on the surface, filled with small scraps of leftover candy.

Lauriel smiled as she unwrapped a piece, the crinkling, sparkling plastic reminding her of when the hour was dark on her childhood Halloweens. In fact, that year of Halloween was just like when she was a kid. The abundance of children Trick-or-Treating, the fear of what could be in Halloween candy, and an all-around feeling of community. Maybe she and Hendrix could keep it going. Maybe they could restore the magic of Halloween. Maybe-

Lauriel coughed, her throat feeling it was constricting itself, thinning out into nothingness. She tried to call out for Hendrix, but only blood trickled out of her mouth.

What? What? Didn’t she give out all the razor blade candy? Didn’t she always check? Why was she bleeding…why? Why?

In that moment, a memory of the Halloween before flashed in Lauriel’s mind. Before the kids went out Trick-or-Treating, they were sitting on the couch, Nola scared of razor blade candies, Dax trying to comfort her, both watching cartoons.

It was the last they’d sat on that couch and as the tears brimmed in Lauriel’s eyes, she feared that it’d be her last, too.

Tale Eleven-Violence is vibrant

There once was a clown called Mallow

Who gave out balloons to all in town

She’d give out candy when Halloween came around

But nobody ever said “thank you”

Nobody wanted to get to know her

So Mallow lost it

And broke off all their white, feeble bones

Somewhere along the line

Mallow morphed into a monster

She then ran off to live into a house, abandoned by time

Years went by, she’d kill anybody who would come near

Till a human named Asa opened her heart

He was the “something else” to bring her spark

The both of them had clown children of their own

Scary, a girl named for her twisted face and contorting cackle

And Pierce, a boy named for his jagged gaze and extra-sharp claws

All of them had a ghoulish ol’ time

But Asa wanted to film Mallow for his horror movie

He wanted to tell the whole world that she was a real monster clown

Mallow couldn’t let him do such a thing

Her torn heart broke a bit more

As she cut him to pieces, until he was a mess of gore

She loved him, but she loved herself more

Now she raises her children with this mantra in mind:

“Violence is vibrant, it’s the only way you’ll survive.”