All Hallow"s Eve

              It’s Halloween and my parents are out. I’m alone and it’s dark out now. I’m scared, but my parents don’t know. They can’t know. Never.

         The house creaks and moans in the night. No lights are on. So scared. I shake silently. I’m on my feet now; the ice cold floor freezes my soles. The old boards scream under my presence. So cold. I’m so cold.

         There is someone in my house! I can hear the back door bang open and dull thuds echo around me. I’m scared! Mommy, daddy, anyone! I’m frozen stiff at the foot of the stairs. I can hear them laugh in the kitchen. My kitchen.

         I’m not as scared now, more angry really. They are in my house, MY house. Mommy and Daddy won’t be happy with me, not at all. No, now I’m scared again, not of the intruders, but of the wrath that will follow.

         I’m running now, toward the kitchen. My bare feet smack the floor violently as I go. I’m screaming too. Screaming, “Noooooooo! Get out! Mommy and Daddy won’t like it! Leave!”

         The intruders start screaming too. They run out of my house as fast as their feet will take them. That’s good. Mommy mustn’t find out. Never.

         There’s a door in the kitchen. I don’t like it. It’s cracked open now, like a monster awaiting it’s prey. I don’t want to go down there. No way. But what if the intruders went down there and messed with something? What if Mommy found out!?

         So I slide in through the tiny crack, and slip down the staircase. The darkness intends to swallow me up. I’m scared. So scared. My feet hit the dirt floor. There’s almost nothing down here. Something’s wrong, I don’t like it down here.

         Something smells. It smells so bad that I think I’m going to throw up. The air is rank with the stench. My body moves without warning, guiding me to the back wall. No. No. NO! I don’t want to go there. No. no. no. no.

         I can see it now. It’s curled up in a ball in the back of the room. A small corpse. A lonely and forgotten corpse. Mommy and Daddy aren’t coming back. They will never come back, even after locking me in here.

         It is then that I remember. Just like every year, every Halloween. No one is coming back for me. No one will save me. No one can. They’d be too late. I’m dead.