October 25th

"I hate all that LARPer crap," said Russell, looking at his roommate dressed in medieval attire.

"Live Acton Role Playing is awesome," said Roger. "It makes you feel like a kid again. You get to pretend you are a warrior, or a villain, or a wizard… or even a king."

"I grew up a long time ago," said Russell. "None of that's real. There is no fantasy world where the imaginary worlds of medieval fiction actually took place. There are no elf warriors, goblins, or wizards."

"Some people believe magic is real," said Roger. "It's just a lost art."

"And I suppose you're one of those people."

"No, but it's cool."

He left to go back to his room. Inside the top drawer to his dresser, Roger reached inside and carefully pulled out the book. It seemed old, but was it real? The guy on Craigslist seemed to be legit, but for all he knew, it was just something the guy found at an old bookstore. The cover was elaborately designed with no words. There was no actual title to the book. When you opened it up, it immediately began with the first spell. With a lack of a contents table, it took Roger a while to find the one he wanted to try first, but when he happened upon it, he knew it was perfect.

He translated the phrase online. It said "Control the Dead" — the perfect spell for this time of year. He couldn't wait for the actual night of Halloween. He was too excited. That evening just after dusk, he took the book and drove to the cemetery. There were no cars around when he arrived, making the situation perfect. He couldn't afford any interruptions. Sitting next to the gate leading into the graveyard rested a jack-o'-lantern with a skull face carved into it. He smiled at this.

Roger marched to the center of the gravestones, held open the book, and chanted. He had practiced silently reading the words earlier in the day, and now he believed he had their pronunciation perfect. As he called out, the wind blew through his hair. He spoke the words with determination. Trees swayed in the sudden wind, the air whistling as it passed his ears. He reached the last line of the spell, now shouting, almost demanding that the spell work. The moment the last syllable left his lips, he felt the fingers gripping around his ankle. He jumped back, and saw skeleton fingers reaching through the dirt. All around, in front of each grave, they pulled themselves from the ground, skinless, fleshless skeletons of the long deceased.

"You are mine to command," he shouted with glee. "You are my army."

They came towards him, a great multitude of them, and grabbed his arms.

"What are you doing?" he asked. "You're mine. I control you."

The skeletons did not have the ears to hear or the minds to comprehend his words. They moved with deliberation towards their own agenda. Dozens of them held him down, and he struggled against their grasp. Some he managed to knock away, but there were too many of them to stop. He found himself pinned to the ground. One of them reached into his pocket and retrieved a knife. It flipped the blade open, and it used it to cut flesh. Roger screamed as the pulled away the skin and muscle. The pain was unbearable, but he figured out what they were doing to him, and this knowledge made the experience exponentially worse. They were making him one of them. They were skinning him alive.

 Go to October 24th                                Go to October 26th

October 24th

Gerome blared his horn as the guy cut him off. He sped up and drove so he was side-by-side with the jerk on the road.

"What's wrong with you, jackass?" he shouted. The other driver held up his middle finger. Gerome responded with the same gesture. Suddenly the man in the truck sped up. Gerome wanted to floor his pedal, but decided it wasn't worth it. He kept driving, forgot about the truck after a few minutes, then felt like somebody was looking at him. He glanced to his left and saw the truck beside him, keeping the same speed as his own vehicle. The driver stared at him. Not smiling, not frowning, not angry — just staring. He rapidly sped up again, swerved in front of Gerome, and slammed on his brakes. Before Gerome could respond, he felt the impact of the crash, then the pressure of the airbag against his face. It was late at night, and there weren't too many drivers on the road. Gerome knew some of his bones had broken. He felt himself drift in and out of consciousness as somebody dragged him from his vehicle. The impact of the hard truck bed against his cracked shoulder blade made him scream in pain when he landed onto it, tossed into the back of the truck like a rag doll.

It was dark and the street lights overhead were gone. They were someplace else, someplace away from public eye. The man lifted Gerome from the truck bed.

"Why are you doing this?" asked Gerome, still in so much pain he couldn't hardly move. He hoped this man was taking him to the hospital, but he had no idea at this point. The man did not say a word. He held Gerome out and dropped him.

Gerome felt the rush of wind as he fell, watching the steep wall of the cliff pass him quickly. Seconds before impact, before his body hit the hard rocks below with such force that his blood burst out like a popped water balloon, he saw a pumpkin resting on the ground. He did not see the carving on the shell, but his blood splashed the orange orb. Red dripped down into the cracks of the carved image — a picture of an oncoming truck.

 Go to October 23rd                               Go to October 25th

October 23rd

He was never a very good ventriloquist until his mother sent him this new dummy. It wasn't wearing the typical bowtie and tuxedo, but rather looked like a businessman, with a black necktie, a black suit, and a dark grey shirt beneath. The face of the dummy was almost a mocking smolder, like it knew something you didn't.

When he started using it, he tried all of his old jokes. They were cheesy, but he found himself much better at not moving his lips. He felt like a natural. The dummy responded and moved smoothly, its eyes seemed to move before he made them, as though it were expecting his actions.

It was just before dinner when he felt the dummy calling to him — not an audible call, but it was a feeling that he needed to put it onto his arm, to give it life with his finger movements and his voice. He sat at a chair next to the table, his steak dinner waiting for him, steaming and juicy.

"So, Don," he began. " Everything alright? How are you feeling tonight?"
On its own, the dummy reached over to the steak knife on the table and swiftly stabbed his master in the chest.

"I'm doing great," said the dummy in a deep voice, nothing like one would expect from a ventriloquist's pet. "Got your arm inside me. That's what matters. It's what keeps me alive, whether you live or not. I figured at this point I could get along without you controlling me."

The ventriloquist coughed up blood that splattered onto the dummy's suit.

"Getting rid of you's going to become a messy job. Too bad I couldn't change clothes before." He looked down at his master. "You got a saw anywhere?"

The ventriloquist tried to respond, but he couldn't catch his breath with a punctured lung.

"Never mind," said the dummy. "I'll find it."

He stabbed the ventriloquist once more in the neck, and the man stopped moving.

Several hours later, a women admired the neighborhood Halloween decorations as she walked. On the ground close to the sidewalk she saw a pumpkin with a ventriloquist dummy carved into it.

"How clever," she said to herself, kneeling down to get a closer look.

When she continued in, she saw what she thought was a small child. She almost couldn't believe a kid this young would be out this late. As she approached, she stared in confusion.

"I'm Don," the dummy said once it was only a few feet away. The woman saw the bloody stump of a severed arm hanging behind the dummy, and she screamed.

Go to October 22nd                              Go to October 24th

October 22nd

Now I lay me down to sleep

The young man closed his eyes in his bed, knowing the nightmares would plague his dreams. They always came, and he always awoke with bruises and scratches. The doctors called it night terrors, but he wondered how accurate this diagnosis was. All that he knew was that once he was in the realm of imagination, in the world where only his mind was in control, the monsters arrived. Sleep was inevitable. It came, and so did they, shrieking and screaming with their skull heads and bat wings.

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

It was only a dream. He knew it was, and this knowledge should have put him in control, but he couldn't get away from them. He ran and they charged, baring razor sharp claws. Some of them were the sized of crows; others, the size of eagles. The smaller ones were faster, and they reached him first. He batted them away, but one of them bit down on his hand, drawing blood with its sharp teeth.

If I should die before I wake

The ground shook as a tall figure approached, towering at least seven feet, looking down upon him. The dreamer closed his eyes and whispered to himself.

"It's only a dream. It's only a dream. It's only a dream."

"I am your dream master!" a voice boomed. "It does not matter if this is just a dream.  I control it, and I control your destiny."

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

The dreamer shot up in his bed, the alarm awakening him just in time. It was time to get ready for work. His bed was wet, soaked in sweat. These dreams were getting worse — more real. He pushed himself up and winced in pain. Looking down at his hand he saw blood oozing, thick and red.

"It wasn't real," he said aloud to himself.

"It's always real," the dream master said. "I'm real. And you are mine."

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Outside the house, a flame inside a pumpkin crackled and burned. The face of  the jack-o'-lantern showed eyes closed and sleeping. Inside the house, through the closed windows, one could hear the thunder of hundreds of wings fluttering and flapping. Muffled beneath this, one could hear the dreamer's screams.

Go to October 21st                              Go to October 23rd

October 21st

"Everybody’s going to know what you did," the voice said.

"Shut up," screamed Tina. She was filthy, barefoot, and had walked through the woods for days. Her lacerations on the souls of her feet continued to open up and bleed with each step. She was oblivious to the pain, completely incoherent, and badly injured from the car accident. She'd been driving fast, that was clear from the impact of the truck on the tree. Her memories were hazy at best. She was unsure of her own name, her home, family, or any of her actions leading up to her current state. All she had was the voice — her voice, or at least a version of it. It kept taunting her, telling her she was going to be caught for what she'd done. What had she done? She couldn't remember. What kind of trouble was she in? She continued stumbling among the trees until she stepped into a clearing. Cars rushed by on the highway, their headlights bright and blinding in the nighttime darkness. She remained along the side of the road, walking slowly.

"You killed them," the voice said. "You're a killer."

"No, I'm not. Shut up. You did it."

"You are me," the voice said. "We did it. And I — we — will do it again."

"I'm not a bad person," she muttered to herself. "I'm not a killer. Not bad. I don't kill."

"You do kill," the voice said. "You have killed." The voice paused for a moment. "You love to kill."

"Shut up!" she screamed. "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

She stumbled into the road. Horns blared as cars approached. She felt her legs weaken and collapse beneath her.

***

"Wake up, sleepy head."

Tina opened her eyes. She stared up from the bed. Her vision was blurry at first, but when it came into focus, she saw a pumpkin sitting on a table across the room. It began as a single base but split off towards the top, to where it had two stems and became two separate pumpkins in a distorted heart-like shape. It had two faces carved into each side with a mouth that joined at the base.

A person leaned over her. She recognized the face. It was her. A reflection of herself, but the face staring back was cold and dark. There was no soul in those eyes.

“How are you there?” she murmured, slowly coming back to consciousness. “You’re a voice in my head.”

“Not anymore,” she said. “You can’t stop me any more than you can stop yourself. We’re the same, you and I. So stop kidding yourself and give in to those urges you know you have deep down.”

Tina saw a pen lying next to her hospital bed. She swung it violently towards her alter ego’s neck. The blood sprayed out, covering both of their clothes in scarlet — bright, shiny, and slick.

 Nurses and security guards ran into the room to find a doctor lying dead on the floor, blood pouring from the wound in his throat. As they dragged Tina away, she kept screaming.

"She can't make me kill! I stopped her! She can't make me kill!"

Go to October 20th                              Go to October 22nd

October 20th

Donald wasn't too surprised when his neighbor was evicted. The man was disgusting. His teeth were rotten and black, his hair was always oily and matted, and he consistently had a uniquely disgusting odor that hovered around him. The day after his eviction, people came into the house in hazmat suits, carried out the carpet and leftover belongings and loaded this into a truck, sealing it off so nobody could smell it. He suspected that the neighbor was cooking meth, and felt lucky his own house had never been collateral damage in an explosion.

When he looked up police calls online, he noticed that there was indeed a drug related arrest in his area, although the details beyond this were not available. It was a relief to him, not having to deal with the erratic behaviors of a man who knocked down his fence because he decided to chop down a tree with a hatchet, a man who attempted to build a log cabin in the backyard, who picked up road kill for use as fertilizer — he was just weird.

The night after he was gone, Donald went outside to take out the trash. He noticed a pumpkin with a rat carved into it, a candle burning on the inside. It sat on the vacant house's porch. When he looked at the house, he realized the windows were all open. All of the screens were missing. He stared into one of them and saw the carpet removed with the bare concrete slab showing. He let curiosity get the best of him, and lifted himself up on the ledge to climb through the window. The house was dark, the smell of drugs still wavering, not completely aired out — and might never be. He walked through the house, exploring it, curious as to how bad the strange man had destroyed everything.

He came to a room in the back corner and found his neighbor, squatting on the floor, completely nude.

"You were evicted," Donald said.

His neighbor looked up at him, blood dripping down his chin and onto his chest. He smiled and revealed his black teeth, soaked in red blood. In his hand was a dead rat, its head severed. He could see fur in his neighbor's teeth. The neighbor lunged towards him, attempting to attack. Donald punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground.

"You sick son of a bitch," he said. "You need help, rehab, something."

The neighbor let out a raspy, hoarse breath. Before Donald could understand what was happening, rats from all directions lunged towards him. They bit his flesh, tore his skin, ate into his belly, into his organs beneath. Donald screamed in pain as they ripped at his heart until it stopped beating. His neighbor emitted a raspy laugh, spraying rat's blood from his lips.

Go to October 19th                              Go to October 21st

October 19th

The graveyard shift started at 10pm and ended at seven in the morning. When Daniel arrived, he did not know what to expect. It had been an eventful month so far. Some guy was found hanging in his field like a scarecrow; another two men were pecked to death by birds. They found this girl last night, her body parts all over the place like she'd swallowed a bomb. He'd seen a fatal dog attack, a family chewed apart by what looked like raccoons, and even some guy's skin with no body. It was a gruesome October, but then again things always became more morbid as Halloween approached. He clocked in and his predecessor from the previous shift left. Daniel was all alone with the bodies. One of the drawers rattled. The only thing inside of it was a corpse. Another drawer shook, its occupant banging around. The newest body on the table moved its fingers.

"No… freaking… way," he said. The corpse stood up and walked towards him. The bodies in the drawers managed to open their enclosure, and they climbed out. More bodies rose and came after him. Daniel turned around and took off towards the front door. They weren't slow, lumbering, undead zombies. These bodies sprinted towards him, cutting him off before he could get out of the building. He looked into the eyes of one of the corpses, and it gave him a gruesome smile. The dead body's eyes turned yellow. Daniel screamed when they closed in, crying out in pain as they bit his skin and tore his flesh.

At eleven-thirty, an ambulance driver pulled up to deliver a new body. When he walked in, he saw Daniel on the ground, twitching and staring up at the ceiling. All the bodies were where they should have been, and the place was clean with no sign of anything that would have attacked. On the table in the center of the morgue rested a jack-o'-lantern, a lumbering zombie carved into the skin and a bright orange flame on the inside flickering. Daniel stood to his feet behind the ambulance driver. His eyes turned yellow, he stepped forward, and bit into the man's neck, tearing out his throat.

Go to October 18th                              Go to October 20th