Halloween Spirit
Find the spirit, or the spirit could find you!
Prison Cat
Sanji was being bad! So, she had to do some hard time…
…Time for this week’s story…
Halloween Spirit
Under gray skies after a fresh rainfall, Gio pulled into a strip mall full with people bustling to and fro. While the traffic was annoying, the costumes and halloween spirit were what he found unbearable.
“It's more than a week until Halloween, and all these jerk offs are just wearing their costumes out like it's Halloween night. Full-grown adults acting like little kids.”
“Woah, Gio, be careful with that temper of yours. Didn't your doctor tell you to try not to be so angry?” asked Luca.
“Yeah, yeah. I stopped cursing, smoking, and killing people for a living, but grown adults acting like mother fff…friggin’ children because it's a holiday pisses me off. You gotta grow up. The holiday has lost its charm. Hold on, I gotta switch to my headset.” Gio put on his earpiece and stepped out of his car.
“What about Halloween night? Do you at least leave candy out?”
“I leave a giant empty bowl with a sign that says, ‘please take one’.” Gio cackled menacingly, strutting through the parking lot lighting up a cigarette.
“That's diabolical.”
“What? I didn't want to get my house egged by little me’s.” Gio collided with a child and threw his hands in the air in an accusatory fashion. “Hey! Watch where you're going, stupid kid.”
From beneath a pointy hat, an old woman peeked at Gio. She got up and brushed herself off with a harrumph.
“Oh it's not a kid, it's a dork in a costume. Grow up, loser.”
“Grow up, you say?” The old woman turned around to face him. “For someone so tall, you don't see much. We don't all grow up, but we do grow old.”
“Not everyone, lady,” Gio said with a smirk, proudly thinking back to the people he had killed as a hired gun.
“I see. Well then… Grow up, grow old, let time unfold, bring back enemies of old. Hath vengeance pay, whence come the pain, judge you the night of All Hallows’ Day.”
The woman waved her arm in the air as she spoke, pointing at Gio with the final line. He looked back at her confused, trying to figure out what she said. With a smile, the woman wished him a happy Halloween and departed gleefully.
“See, Luca, this is what I'm talking about. These people are weirdos. Oh look, of course, that old hag is going into Sweetie’s Cupcakes.”
“Isn't that the place you're trying to run out of business?”
“Yep. My little girl wants her own cupcake store right here in this block, and my little girl gets what she wants. I'm buying the property and jacking up their rent. Lou is putting together some paperwork for me right now.”
“You'll get a lot of business if you put your shop in the same spot.”
“You think I'm stupid? Of course we're doing that. I offered to buy their business and they said no. Ungrateful pricks. I gotta go, the owner is here.”
“See ya later, Gio.”
After the meeting, Gio returned home to relax. He sat in a chair under a tree in his backyard enjoying a beer. He liked watching the birds eat from the feeders and the squirrels fling themselves off the squirrel-proof stands. In the middle of his pleasant afternoon, the rear bar on his foldout chair sank slightly into the ground.
To his frustration, the ground there was wet. He moved his chair away and enjoyed his afternoon reading and watching the birds. A few days later he returned to find the wet spot under the tree had grown, forcing him to move his seat again. After examining the growing sinkhole, he called a plumber. Since it was a Friday, the soonest they could come out was Monday.
Monday came, and the sinkhole had grown. The plumber looked at the property and plumbing, but everything was fine. There was no leak, and no water pipe ran under the tree. Unhappy with the evaluation, Gio called another plumber, then another, and another. They all told him the same thing.
Gio complained that it was ruining his beautiful yard. The wet spot reached his back door, turning the entire yard into a marsh, which ended at his property line. The bird feeders were sinking and tilting. Neither birds nor squirrels tried to eat the food. The only good news was that Lou had all his paperwork ready and would come by the day after Halloween.
Halloween came, and Gio put his empty bowl and sign on his porch to keep the kids from knocking. He delighted in their dismay at the empty bowl. When the darkness came, the children retreated home. Gio brought his stuff inside, then poured himself a tall glass of wine. He relaxed in his living room watching a slasher movie.
It was an ideal evening until someone knocked at his front door. Begrudgingly, he got off his recliner with a huff and opened the door. There was nobody there. He stepped outside to look around, but saw nobody. He closed the door and waited by it, expecting to catch a teenager playing pranks the next time he heard a knock.
Knock-knock
“Gotcha you little…” Gio yanked the door open, but there was nobody there. Then, there was a knock at his back door. He slammed his front door shut and locked it, then hurried to pull a pistol from underneath his coffee table. Another knock at the back door. Gio cursed the children he hoped were playing pranks and opened the door.
Instead of a child, there was a full grown man with gunshots through his head and chest. Gio screamed, firing point blank into the man's chest but that didn't phase him. He grabbed Gio despite continued gunfire. Then, hands reached up from the mud and grabbed Gio’s legs. Men and women crawled out of the mud to grab him. He cried for help and tried to fight them off but their iron grips pulled him into the ground.