The Thrill of Halloween

Eleanor was a pretty young girl who had just started her first grade of middle school. One thing that she loved more than anything in the whole world was Halloween. She looked forward to it all year long and now that the ending of September was quickly approaching she was more excited than ever for the start of Halloween season and could practically smell the pumpkin scented air.

She was currently in her classroom, sketching out a costume for this year’s Halloween, she was lucky that her mother was an exceptional seamstress and could sew into existence any silly costume that came to Eleanor’s mind. For this year’s Halloween she planned to dress up as a hybrid of the red riding hood and the big bad wolf, she wanted to have the red hood but on top of it she planned to put a pair of wolf ears and instead of the whole robe being red she wanted to have a white robe, partially covered in red, that represented the blood from the wolf’s victims and as she was trying to draw the perfect costume, one of her classmates, a girl named Spencer approached her.

“What are you doing there?” Spencer asked, looking down at Eleanor’s sketchbook.

“Uh, nothing, I’m sketching a costume for Halloween.” Eleanor responded.

“Aw, is it for your little sister?” Spencer wondered.

“No, it’s for me.”

At that response Spencer made a sound as if she was holding back her laughter and quickly called over two of her other friends who immediately rushed over.

“Our dear Eleanor over here is drawing a costume for herself for this year’s Halloween.” Spencer explained to her two friends as the two of them started giggling amongst each other.

With that Spencer took a seat next to Eleanor and said:”Listen, I’m telling you for your own sake, did you forget that you’re in middle school now, you’re too old to be dressing up in childish costumes. Just think about it.”

And with that Spencer and her two friends went back to their seats.

Although Eleanor was somewhat shaken by what her classmate had told her she decided that she won’t dwell on it any further and that no one will make her lose her love for Halloween. So once her classes were over Eleanor decided to do what she did every year around Halloween season and pass by the store in her town to see if the Halloween decorations and costumes have started selling. Unfortunately there were still no Halloween themed items in the shop so Eleanor was headed home.

Since the store was on the opposite side of the town from her house Eleanor decided to take a shortcut to get home faster, by going through a remote part of her town.

She couldn’t help but admire the scenery of the town. The autumn season that had arrived fairly recently already took its toll on the town as it slowly started painting all the green leaves with a crimson or a golden color. As her thoughts drifted as if they were being carried by the wind from one tree to the other Eleanor noticed a person sitting on a porch of an old house. It was an old man and he had a bowl full of apples sitting by his side and as he went to pick on out, it fell out of the bowl and it rolled over right to Eleanor’s feet. She picked it up and looked at the old man and decided to bring it over to him.

She held it in front of his face and it seemed as if only then he had noticed that Eleanor was there.

“Oh hello young lady didn’t see you there.” The old man said somewhat startled.

Eleanor started scanning the old man before her, on top of his head he was wearing a green hat, and he had a long grey beard that looked unkempt, his face was wrinkled but his eyes were a bright shade of green and seemed to be full of life and energy, which greatly contrasted the otherwise old, worn out look of the old man.

“Hello sir, you dropped you apple.” Eleanor said as she put the apple back in the bowl when she realized that old man had no intention of taking the apple from her hands.

“I’ll be going now.” Eleanor said awkwardly.

“Hold on a second.” The old man said. “You look really upset, what happened?”

“Oh it’s nothing; I just had a long day at school.” Eleanor brushed it off and was about to leave when the old man spoke up again.

“No, come on, you can tell me anything, I’m just an old man, I swear I’ll keep it a secret.” The old man said.

Eleanor thought about it for a second and then got closer to the old man and decided to sit down next to him on the porch.

“It’s my classmates. You see I love Halloween more than anything and whenever this time of the year comes around I can’t hide my excitement, I start coming up with ideas for costumes and start decorating my house but my classmates don’t seem to share same kind of enthusiasm for this holiday, they made fun of me today, saying that I’m too old for that.” Eleanor explained.

The old man was visibly reacting to everything that Eleanor was saying.

“How dare they?” The old man exclaimed after an audible gasp. “What a treacherous thing to say about this wonderful holiday.”

“You love Halloween too?” Eleanor asked excitedly.

“Why of course I do young lady, I live for Halloween, it’s the only time of the year where I feel most alive, and I feel like I can do anything.” The old man shouted raising his arms into the air.

Eleanor couldn’t help but laugh at the eccentricity of this old man.

“So you don’t think that it’s childish to dress up in costumes for Halloween.” Eleanor asked.

“Of course not, let me tell you this, your classmates are probably just scared of Halloween but they are ashamed to admit it, only the ones who are brave enough dare to love this marvelous holiday.” The old man explained.

“Thank you so much.” Eleanor said to the old man and explained that it was time for her to go home because it was getting dark. “Goodbye.”

The old man waved her goodbye.

After that interaction Eleanor felt encouraged to start sketching her costumes once more, first she only did it at home but as the time passed she started doing so in school again and just three days before Halloween Spencer and her friends caught her in act.

“I see you’re still going at it.” Spencer said. “Gosh, you’re such an embarrassment to everyone.”

With that she snatched the sketchbook from Eleanor and ripped it into pieces. Eleanor tried to stop her but the two other girls held her back.

“Just grow up already.” Spencer said as she threw the ripped pages on the floor.

Distraught and hurt, Eleanor couldn’t stay until the end of her classes so she picked up her stuff and got out of school and was immediately headed to the old man’s house. She hasn’t passed by his house ever since that day but she really needed to talk to someone who could truly understand her.

When she got to the old man’s house, she saw that he was sitting on his porch with a bowl of apples next to him, everything was exactly the same as the day she had met him which was over three weeks ago now. Once again Eleanor had to get as close to the old man as possible in order for him to notice her and only when she waved her hand in front of his eyes he seemed to have woken up from his trance.

“Oh young lady, you still haven’t gone home.” Old man said.

Eleanor just looked at him in confusion.

“How long has it been since we last spoke again?” The old man asked.

“Around three weeks.” Eleanor responded.

“Oh right, right, don’t mind me I tend to be quite forgetful these days. But forget about me, what’s bothering you, you look like you’ve been crying.” Old man asked.

“It’s my classmates again. After your words of encouragement, I started sketching costumes again and preparing for Halloween, which is in three days now, but today those same three classmates saw me sketching and they called me an embarrassment and they even ripped apart my sketchbook.” Eleanor explained trough tears.

“Those nasty little creatures, they really have no shame do they.” The old man said, rubbing his beard.

“No they don’t, I don’t understand what their problem is, and I wish they would just disappear.” Eleanor said.

“Now, now young lady, those are some harsh words, I’m sure you don’t mean it.” Old man said calmly.

“I mean it; I’m so tired of them. If they were gone I would be able to enjoy Halloween again” Eleanor said and with that she had had enough she stood up and stormed off home.

The old man called after her but she didn’t turn back.

In the following days Eleanor avoided both the old man and her three bullies and finally, it was Halloween, but Eleanor didn’t care, she wasn’t excited about it anymore and she planned to spend the night in her room, watching movies.

When the clock had struck midnight Eleanor received a text message. She opened it and the message read: “Hello, it’s me, Spencer, I feel really bad for what I had done to you and I want to apologize, come to my house as soon as you can and maybe afterwards we can go trick or treating together.”

Eleanor was confused by this message, it didn’t make sense why Spencer would do it, why the sudden change of heart, why now, but since Eleanor already felt terrible and had lost the Halloween spirit she didn’t see how the situation could get any worse so she decided to go to Spencer’s house and see what’s the deal with her.

Spencer’s house wasn’t too far off from Eleanor so she quickly got there. All the lights in Spencer’s house were turned off, Eleanor tried ringing the doorbell but no one answered, when she tried opening the door she realized that it was unlocked so she stepped inside.

“Spencer, are you here, why did you call me, is this some kind of prank.”

The inside of the house was pitch black so Eleanor decided to turn on the lights, she stumbled through the dark and managed to find the switch and once she turned on the lights, she was met with a horrific image that made her scream. Her three bullies were lying on the ground, their throats ripped out, their arms and legs twisted and contorted, their blood covering every inch of the living room and on the wall there was a message written.

“Happy Halloween young lady, if you need my help again you’ll know where to find me.”