October 2020 Storytime Blog Hop

Welcome to October’s Blog Hop, where authors from all over the world tag each other so visitors can follow the links and read all of their stories in one sitting. Enjoy my story, then pick a link below and check out the others.

Unwelcome Visitors

Halloween. After midnight. I’d frightened away the greedy children I dreaded each year.

Alone…finally.

For ambience I read my Alfred Hitchcock macabre using a small flashlight with the window open in my upstairs library. I pulled the afghan over my shivering naked body. I couldn’t put the book down.

Until I heard voices.

I quickly clicked off the flashlight, leaving me in complete darkness.

Three boys, not yet teenagers judging from their high-pitched voices. Here to snoop around the old haunted house, no doubt. Being that young, they wouldn’t stick around long before pissing their pants and running home to mommy.

I returned to my seat to wait them out.

At the crashing of my downstairs window I leapt from my chair.

By the time I arrived, two of the three stood inside my living room.

One wore a cap with a wildcat on front. The other, a tank top that revealed goose bumps up and down his arms. I determined to watch him flee in tears. I guess the third chickened out.

Tank Top tried to record but I slapped the phone then crushed it under foot as the pair screamed and ran.

Two beams of light searched the room as the boys hugged each other like their life depended on it.

Tank Top pointed his flashlight at the debris that had been his phone. “D-d-did…did you see that?”

Wildcat managed between breaths, “I heard someone whisper, ‘Who are you?’”

No. All I said was ‘boo.’

I slammed the broken window shut and locked it. They sprinted up the stairway that sat behind them. Not their smartest move. 

I slowly crept upstairs, making sure to hit every creaky step.

They ran into my library and slammed the door. Stupid kids.

I slowly turned the knob so they would get the full horror-movie effect.

Pushing open the door, I slid inside while their beams fixed on the empty doorway. Hitchcock lay on the floor beside Wildcat; my bookmark a foot away. Those worthless punks. I replaced the bookmark and set the book on my chair.

“It’s—it’s a ghost!”

I’m flesh and blood, but better they believe I’m a ghost than to know the truth.

The boys backed toward the wall, flailing their flashlights wildly around the room looking for what they could not see—me.

A beam of light hit my eyes. I blindly grabbed a book from the shelf and hurled it their direction. My eyes readjusted to the darkness in time to see Wildcat stumble backwards and disappear through the window.

“NO!” Tank Top and I screamed at the same time.

The kid shined his light my direction. His lip quivered, his chest heaved, and he wept while his body worked up the courage to move. Then he screamed and fled the room sobbing. I bet his crotch was wet, too.

I leaned out the window; Wildcat’s body lay motionless on my patio below.

Just wonderful—now the authorities would come snooping around.

Good thing I’m invisible.

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Check out the other stories in the blog hop and leave us comments.

The Witch at the End of the Road by Katharina Gerlach
Unraveled by Bonnie Burns
Holiday Guest by Sabrina Rosen
Home by Barbara Lund
Missing Parts by Jemma Weir
A Perfect Match by V. S. Stark
The Glistening Bat by Karen Lynn
II-The Priestess by Raven O’Fiernan
The Old Ways by Nic Steven
Halloween Pest by Elizabeth McCleary
Tales From the Pumpkin Patch by Marilyn Flower
Immortality by Juneta Key