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Her Ghost, by Andy Hebb

31/10/2025

Editor's Choice

I saw the ghost; I saw her ghost, she who left me all alone after forty years.

These past twelve months she ought to have slammed doors and rattled on windows. Instead she gently urged me to eat and to wash sheets. She should have been eerie in the nights, not soothing me to sleep. She reminded me, kept me safe.

And now I've seen her. A fleeting flash was all, but it counts.

I kept myself going for her approval. Now she's finally ready for me. What will she softly whisper as I shorten my final day?

7 Comments

Dracula Sleeps, by Tony Covatta

31/10/2025

17 Comments

Dracula sleeps. It’s been a good Halloween. Across the globe, drones, missiles, aircraft bomb the homeless and helpless. Caribbean islands lie awash with hurricane detritus. Hungry children everywhere cry for food, shelter. Drac himself sucked the blood of a few innocent virgins and scared the daylights out of trick or treaters everywhere.

Dracula sleeps. Over the year to come many will continue his work, Ben, Vic, Vlad and their ilk force their wills on all subject to them. Here Don scurries to emulate them.

Dracula sleeps. Unless we drive the silver stake of human kindness through the heart of darkness.

17 Comments

A Witch Called Anna, by C. J. H. Dickens

31/10/2025

3 Comments

Anna had the darkest heart. They say there’s goodness in everybody, but there was none in Anna. Anna was that rare thing: a truly evil witch. She even looked like one: rake-thin, pointy hat, pointy nose and jet-black, penetrating eyes. Feared and hated, she did, and said, dreadful things.

Eventually, the community confronted her. Anna didn’t deny it; instead, she challenged them to prove it.

Which they did, burning Anna at the stake at Halloween. Naturally, being a witch, she was untouched – then took her revenge.

She turned every pumpkin lantern available into a Donald Trump. Finally, she had companions.

3 Comments

Night Raiders, by Pamela Kennedy

31/10/2025

6 Comments

°°°I think they're all sound asleep...no one will be the wiser.°°°

Quietly Ellie tiptoed down the stairs. There they were-two plastic pumpkins filled with treats.

°°°They won't notice anything missing...just a piece or two or three...ummm, so yummy...°°°

"Ellie! Caught in the act! Stealing candy from your own children. Shame on you. What do you have to say for yourself?"

°°°I'd answer you, Howard, but I have a mouthful of candy.°°°

"Ellie, are there any mini chocolate bars? The boys won't know. It's Halloween and right now we're just two big kids dressed up as adults."

6 Comments

Make-Believe, by Tom Baldwin

31/10/2025

4 Comments

‘I hate Halloween!’

‘Why, Billy? It’s fun, dressing up and going out with your friends and getting candy. It’ll do you good to get your head away from that screen.’

‘It’s all make-believe, with monsters and ghosts and so on. It’s like Christmas and the Easter Bunny – stupid make-believe, but with even sillier clothes. And don’t call me Billy! My name is Bill.’

‘But…’

‘Only math and logic are true, Mother. One day I’m going to write computer programs that will change the world.’

‘Let him alone, Mary. With his drive and intelligence he might just do that.’

4 Comments

Pumpkins, by Allison Symes

31/10/2025

6 Comments

‘You must be able to find a pumpkin.’

‘Ours go for soup, godmother.’

‘Do you eat much?’

The silence revealed everything.

‘When they next want pumpkin soup, ask them for more to bulk it out.’

‘They won’t want the expense. If I “lose” a pumpkin, they’ll punish me. Can you use something else?’

‘No. My neighbour is a keen gardener. I’ll cast a spell so she gets a glut. She won’t notice one missing. Sadly, I can’t magically create a pumpkin.’

‘Keen gardeners notice everything.’

‘She’ll have so many, I’ll be doing her, and you, a favour, Cinders. Back soon.’

6 Comments

Haunted House, by Ian Willey

31/10/2025

3 Comments

A year after Takashi and Emma move out and separate, the new owners of their house call Emma. Strange things are happening; shouting and crashing sounds rattle the basement. Would they please come and check it out?

Emma calls Takashi; he agrees, reluctantly, to meet one afternoon at their old house. After arriving in separate cars, they go down to the basement, where they see younger versions of themselves, fighting away.

“Stop,” says Emma. “You don’t have to fight. See? We stopped. Everything’s okay now.”

“Is that how you feel?” asks Takashi.

“Shh,” says Emma. “Don’t take away their hope.”

3 Comments

The Machine in the Ghost, by Bill Cox

31/10/2025

5 Comments

I’m haunted. Not by people, mind you. It’s the machines. I’m haunted by the spirits of the machines I kill.

I’m one of those rare people whose body, aura, morphic field or whatever, disrupts electrical contraptions. Anything electric I touch, I invariably break. Or kill. It turns out machines have souls too. Who knew?

And now, my house is full of ghosts. Dead fridges, lifeless toasters, deceased computers, Hellbound hot tubs. All haunting me with spooky hums, clicks and gurgles.

So much stress! Now, the doctors tell me I have heart problems.

They say I’ll need a pacemaker.

I’m doomed!

5 Comments

Fortunately Unrecognizable, by Louise Arnott

31/10/2025

7 Comments

Jen was cajoled into wearing the witch’s costume to the senior students’ Hallowe’en dance. Suitably dressed in black, wearing a scraggly blonde wig and hideous green makeup, the teacher was unrecognizable.

Getting into character, Jen entered the gym on her broom. Out of nowhere Jamie charged her, screaming, “Bad, bad witch, go to office.”

He flipped Jen over his muscular frame and raced down the narrow hallway. Rounding the corner, he threw her into a chair in the Principal’s office. “She bad. You give her hell.”

Danger averted, Jamie expected high praise for brave actions. Jen requested several strong shots.

7 Comments

The Rocking Chair, by Krystyna Fedosejevs

31/10/2025

8 Comments

Cheryl loved listening to stories on Grandmother’s lap.

Daytime sessions were accompanied with homemade cookies. At bedtime Grandmother sang lullabies following storytelling. Their chair rocked gently. Its smell of rich mahogany was soothing.

One day when returning home from school, Cheryl found her mother crying— Grandmother had died.

Cheryl was to inherit the rocking chair. It was placed in the basement recreation-room, next to her bedroom.

At times she paused, certain the chair was moving. But how could it? No one was visibly there.

Then it struck her. Grandmother looked over her in death as she lovingly did in life.

8 Comments

The Bargain of a Deathtime, by Christa Loughrey

31/10/2025

9 Comments

To cut the burgeoning costs of pensions, the government offered a significant, bequeathable lump sum to all state pensioners who agreed to voluntary euthanasia on Hallowe’en.

There was a huge take-up. Masses of impoverished pensioners readily subscribed, desperate to help out their equally impoverished relatives.

While the pensioners were doing their fiscal duty at the specially organised euthanasia clinics, the government quietly clarified:

-The lump sums would be not paid out until beneficiaries themselves reached pension age

-Payments would be frozen at current rates, and

-All payments would be means tested and liable to taxation.

9 Comments

Grooving with the Ghouls, by Julie Turland

31/10/2025

8 Comments

Fancy a party this Halloween?

See the spectral blood moon hanging high, its light guiding the way into an abandoned graveyard.

From beneath the muddy earth, skeletal fingers reach with a chilling grasp. Cracked tombstones groan with age as ghostly figures peek out. Gruesome ghouls gather as Dracula’s haunting groan is punctuated by the sound of rattling bones.

Elvis, the King of Rock, takes the stage, adjusting his iconic quiff. Disjointed limbs do the twist; his pelvis shakes and sends me all a quiver.

The Graveyard Rock is the grooviest gig around. Just one requirement: you need to be dead.

8 Comments

A Halloween To Remember, by Scott C. Holstad

31/10/2025

4 Comments

Georgie loved Halloween, trick or treating and costumes. He loved vampires and had watched every classic Dracula film.

Now 12, Georgie was going trick or treating with his parents one last time and while excited about his friends next year, he wanted this to be “One To Remember.” Dracula!

Costume – black cape, fingernails, fangs, makeup. Forgetting anything? Dracula’s hair was slicked! How? He grabbed some Vaseline and doused his hair, slicking for eternity.

Mom freaked. Upon returning, she started scrubbing his hair immediately. It took 41 washings to get out of his hair! This Halloween HAD been “One To Remember.”

4 Comments

No T. REXES, by David Sydney

31/10/2025

2 Comments

The hand-lettered sign on Freida's porch read – NO T. REXES!
Little Herman Fromkin, dressed in his cheap T. rex Halloween costume, rang Freida's doorbell.
She was upset.
“Can't you read?”
She pointed to her sign.
“Well… I'm a platypus.”
Herman thought quickly on his feet. And it was true.
He looked like a platypus.
Just the way Frieda's husband Fred had looked in his cheap T. rex outfit the night he took off, never to be seen again, leaving Freida with all the bills and his gambling debts.
That Halloween Costume Party night 18 – or was it 19 – years before…

2 Comments

The Witch's Regret, by Sherri Bale

31/10/2025

4 Comments

Her hair is a mating ball of tangled snakes. They feast on the angry arachnids crawling in the unkempt, stinking mass.

Forest creatures run from her, but her hyena laugh doesn’t scare the serpents. She glides above the trees on her horsehair broom, a Griffon vulture trying to escape her own wicked foulness.

In the cold, damp corners of the witch’s mind, the innocent youth resides, forever haunting her.

The hag truly laments the blood she drained from the boy for her potions. She vows to reform, to become human again. But it is too late for her sweet son.

4 Comments

The Witching Hour, by Eric Delong

31/10/2025

2 Comments

“Double, double, toil and trouble,” the three witches Griselda, Agatha and Drusilla chanted as they danced around the seething cauldron.

“Eye of Newt” Griselda intoned. “Damn it to hell! We have none!” and glared at Drusilla.

“I’m sorry, I can’t help myself. You just can’t have just one.”

“I know, Agatha said. “Taste like caviar.”

“Let me consult my grimoire,” Griselda replied. She leafed through a book: “Ah! If thou dost lack the eye of Newt / Eye of Serpent will substitute.”

The clock struck one.

“Too late!” Griselda exclaimed. “I must flee. I have a hexercise class to attend.”

2 Comments

BooBoo, by E. Melanie Watt

31/10/2025

5 Comments

“I’m scared,” Bobby admitted to the short ghost standing beside him. “This is my first time trick or treating.”

“Me too,” said George. “Everyone else is bigger than we are.”

“Their costumes are too creepy. I like that we are friendly ghosts.”

The young ones became confident, enthusiastically holding out their bags and yelling “Trick or Treat”. Giggling, they raced between houses.

Eventually Bobby said, “This is my house.”

As his Mom opened the door, Bobby said “Mom, this is George.”

“But Bobby,” said his Mom, “there’s no one there.”

Bobby turned and waved.
“Bye George, see you next year.”

5 Comments

Gretel's Revenge, by Susan A. Anthony

31/10/2025

3 Comments

Hansel grabbed Gretel’s hand, swallowed it whole, pausing to crunch the elbow joint. The old witch looked on astonished, a plate of warm raisin cookies in her hands. Hansel continued to devour his sister, lest she get one more cookie than he.

Gretel punched Hansel in the face with her remaining hand, smashing his head against the oven, knocking his legs from under him, pouncing as he fell to the ground, pushing the stub of her arm into the oven to cauterize the wound. Hansel was out cold.

Turning, she took two cookies, smiled and mouthed thanks to their host.

3 Comments

Out of Reach, by Robert P. Bishop

31/10/2025

10 Comments

Mitchel poured a coffee, finished reading the op-eds and LTEs then flipped to the obituaries and saw his picture in one.

“What’s this?” Mitchel read carefully, noting the details in the obit were accurate and listed significant events in his life. The obit ended with ‘Mitchel James died in his home at 7:54 AM, October 31st.’

“Hey, today is October 31st,” Mitchel said. Then he looked at his watch: 7:53 A.M. “Oh my god,” he cried, “I’ve got to get out of here!”

His body was found near the front door, arms stretched out, as if reaching for the doorknob.

10 Comments

Cuisine Art, by Nick Di Carlo

31/10/2025

2 Comments

Neighbors joked that Old Mr. Peterson had a portrait in his attic that got uglier every day, as, oddly, the old man appeared more youthful daily. One less wrinkle around an eye, a jet-black hank of hair where a shock of gray had been. A spring in his step that made fifty-year-olds envy him.

Peterson’s other oddity: he hired a new, young cleaning woman every week. On evenings after his maids’ weekly visits, tantalizing aromas emanated from Peterson’s kitchen. Neighbors, awestruck by Peterson’s apparent culinary skills, speculated that the old man’s diet lay at the heart of his newfound vitality.

2 Comments

The Evoker, by John O’Keefe

31/10/2025

1 Comment

“Be an evoker,” muttered the wounded man.

The reporter, uncertain if the sergeant was going to make it, replied, “Yes, I’m going to be an evoker.”

Now, a decade later, a renowned TV news personality, he finishes his broadcasts with the same sentence: “I am but a simple evoker.”

People in the profession often come to him with complex issues. He generally gives cryptic answers they can’t comprehend but try to figure out. Sometimes they think they’ve succeeded. Without the least hesitation they take the credit but deep down they know it was the evoker who gave the right guidance.

1 Comment

So Close, by Don Tassone

31/10/2025

13 Comments

He spotted her in the soup aisle. She was standing at the other end, looking over the cans.

She looked older but even more beautiful. He wanted to run to her, embrace her and hold her again.

But what would he say? That he missed her terribly? That he still loved her? That no one could ever take her place?

She reached toward the shelf and made her choice. He wondered if he’d made the right choice.

He turned around and walked out. As much as he’d wanted to say hello, he simply couldn’t bear to say goodbye again.

13 Comments

Contrition, by Chris Lihou

31/10/2025

2 Comments

I am melancholic, soaked in whiskey, saturated with rain. She’s dumped me. The armature that held me together has crumpled.
Staggering, swaying, somehow I find my front door — a door to an empty house filled only with her echo. I don’t just miss her. I am now missing.
Perhaps, more Speyside liquor will help me find myself or at least numb this gut-wrenching loss. Tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow, when I’m sober, I’ll apologise, make her understand, beg for forgiveness. The transgression was, after all, fleeting, physical, and meant nothing to me. But it upended everything.
What a bloody eejit I’ve been!

2 Comments

An Eye for a Life, by Bridget Daly

31/10/2025

5 Comments

She could have popped the eye back in its socket but she didn’t. She picked it up and put it in her mouth, her tongue tasting unshed tears. Then she placed it in a ziplock bag and slid it into the fridge. Though the knife she had used to defend her mother had slipped and left her with the bloody hollow, his defeat was worth the pain. Since she was no longer the belle of the ball, she wore a patch, styled her hair into spikes and didn’t bother covering the cuts on her arms her friends had never seen.

5 Comments

Stranded, by Virginia Ashberry

31/10/2025

2 Comments

Taking one last stroll in New York’s Central Park has cost Shelly one hell of a lot.

Two young shits knocked her down, slashed her purse strap, grabbed it and ran.

As she stands here, scanning the distance for a cop, Shelly realizes that she has nothing. No cash, cards, passport, phone, or ticket for her flight home in 5 hours… nothing. Everything she needs right now is in her purse.

And everything about her life is on her cell phone. The only number she knows is her own.

Shelly had laughed at her mother’s offer of a money belt.

2 Comments

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