Halloween is time for the scariest costumes to be put on, and with thousands of myths or stories to be told. Adults and Kids are so pumped for Halloween. On this day, we can cosplay our favorite characters from the weirdest to the creepiest ones, or enjoy the best food which is only served on this day, even more fun, we can play a game called
“trick-or-treat”. It sounds like a fun day, huh? But my experience of Halloween turned into a complete nightmare after that day. The day that haunts me for life.
I live in a small town with my parents in Michigan, well, to be honest, My family has just lived here for 3 years but it feels like I have lived here for ages because the friendliness of the locals here made me feel like we are relatives. But like I said, that Halloween day that took place right in this beautiful place was the creepiest, saddest, and most unforgettable memory of my whole life. As I remember, a day before Halloween, everything went normal like those Halloweens in previous years, the locals in the town were in a rush to put on their houses with Halloween decorations, such as skeletons hanging on trees in the front yard and pumpkins laid below which were carved into them with eyes, and a candle was put inside each pumpkin, or more exactly we can call those pumpkins Jack-o’-lantern. Those spooky pumpkins and skeletons were not enough to make it more like a ghoulish atmosphere around the neighborhood.
Those trees on the street were the creepiest ones in my town because they were all decorated with spider webs and spooky red and green lights. Sometimes, you can see demonic symbols carved into the tree bodies, and human skulls can be seen both under the trees or hanging on the trees with blood-like liquid covered on them. Furthermore, the sound from owls could be another factor contributing to the creepy atmosphere. Every year, those owls from nowhere flew to our town on Halloween, and when the night covered the entire place, they raised their voice to sing the hair-raising melody which could be heard all over the place. the eerie and spooky atmosphere was more on the increase. Those street poles outside were illuminating the surroundings but they all failed to make it less spooky. Everyone included I was so excited for the next day to come.
The next morning came, bringing brightness and warmth to the entire place, and on the way to school with my friend, she suddenly asked me to join a group of people in the town including me, her, and a few around our age, the others were younger than both of us. We would together play the traditional game “trick-or-treat” on Halloween night. I was so excited that immediately agreed to join in. After school, I came home with excitement because this was the first time that I was going to play the “trick-or-treat” game with lots of friends.
Well, a bit about myself, I was an introverted person and I preferred to be alone, so making friends seemed to be a challenging task for me. But luckily, I was not being on my own for long, because on the first day at school in this new town, I helped a girl who was being bullied, and since then, she became my very first friend in this town. During Halloween in previous years, she was always my favorite person to play the “trick-or-treat” game with.
But for this year’s Halloween holiday, I would play that game not only with my bestie but also with those new friends in the neighborhood. We were all ready when the night fell. As I said, the nighttime made the surroundings spookier. Now, people in the town started walking around the town with their creepy costumes and I also had one for myself, it was the costume of spiderman, my favorite superhero. It was embarrassing when those friends put on creepy costumes like zombies, ghosts, devils, skeletons, and even my soulmate - she put on a very creepy witch costume, but she was attractive to my eyes. I couldn’t stop gazing at her until she asked me:
“ Hey, are you good, buddy?”
I replied:
“ Yeah, I’m okay”
She continued asking me
“Why are you staring at me?”
I falteringly responded:
“ Cuz you look so scary”
She continued asking me:
“Really?”
I said:
“ Yeah”
She asked me with a giggle:
“ So it’s not because you like me”
I embarrassingly said:
“ Huh, What are you talking about?”
She replied:
“Nothing”
She kept saying:
“ Okay, okay, let’s go, doobie”
I didn’t understand why she kept calling me that nickname. Her name is Jenny but I often called her J. Everyone in the group was wearing spooky costumes except me, who was wearing a superhero costume. I couldn’t describe how embarrassed I was at that time. We started moving from house to house and knocked on each door, shouting “trick-or-treat” and receiving the candies. After a while, we collected quite a good number of sweets. We carried on moving until J and I came to a house. This house was not decorated with spooky things like other houses. It was just a normal house, so I assumed that owner didn’t like Halloween.
I told J:
“ I don’t think we should be here”
She asked me with confusion
“ Huh, why not?”
I said:
“ I don’t know but it seems like the person who owns this house doesn’t like Halloween”
She continued asking me:
“ How do you know that”
I replied:
“ I looked around and saw no Halloween decorations”
She said while smiling:
“ Huh, just because of that, you tell me that we shouldn’t be here”
She kept saying:
“ Hey don’t be a chicken, bud”
We knocked on the door of the house, after a few minutes passed, the door slowly opened, and through the dim light of the street pole, a man’s face gradually appeared, he was quite old at first glance with a kind face and constantly had a happy smile on his lips, but it seemed as though his smile was genuine. Although I don’t talk much, I can predict other people’s feelings or thoughts. And with just a glance, I could recognize the man’s unusual expression. During the conversation, I noticed that his eyes were always looking far away and there was an unspeakable sadness in his eyes. At first thought, it was just an ordinary old man living alone in the house, but what he was about to say truly gave us goosebumps. He told us about a story in which two kids were playing around on Halloween night and one of them was brutally murdered. He kept saying that the murderer was nowhere to be found but there was a piece of paper left at the crime scene. On the paper, it said, “When the night falls, I will wake up and bring the nightmare to the world”_Death Bringer. After he had finished telling the story, the old man looked at me with a slight smile and told us to be careful when playing around at nighttime.
After receiving the candies from that old man. We quickly came back to the group. But from the moment we got out of that house. A sense of someone or something’s presence kept increasingly haunting me. On the dirt path, footsteps kept echoing from behind me, it seemed normal at first, but I picked up on one strange thing, every time we stopped by a house for candies. The echo of footsteps of someone following us stopped and as we kept on moving, I heard it once more. I told J about it:
“ Hey J, it feels like someone is following us”
She looked at me with surprise and responded:
“ Huh, there’s someone following us”
She looked around and said:
“ I see no one following us”
I replied:
“ Are you an idiot? no one on earth will let you know when they stalk you”
She smiled and said:
“ I think you’re just imagining it. We are not rich and we have nothing but candies so there’s no reason for someone to stalk us”
I replied:
“ Okay, okay, okay”
I then ignored it and kept on moving around the neighborhood with our group of friends for a while, and then we returned home. I was the first one who returned home. After saying goodbye and telling her to be careful on the way back home. When I arrived home, I immediately got into bed and slept until the next day. The morning came, and everything went normal until I texted J. No response. I wondered if she was still sleeping. 1 hour, 2 hours then 3 hours passed. it was now 11 am but I hadn’t yet received any message from J. I didn’t think much about it, I just thought that she might’ve been sleeping because we returned home quite late at night. The bell chimed, it was now midday, but I still hadn’t received any response from her. A bad feeling came. I decided to pay a visit to her house, but when I arrived and asked her mother whether she was at home. I was stunned when she said that J hadn’t returned home. I asked her mother:
“ But do you know where she is right now?”
I knew that was a pretty dumb question to ask, but after hearing that J hadn’t returned home, I couldn’t remain calm anymore.
Her mother said to me:
“ I don’t know where she is right now but I have a bad feeling that something bad has happened to my little daughter”
She eventually couldn’t control her emotions and started to cry. We then called the police and told them about the disappearance of a girl, and a search of the whole area began.
The search began with a lot of difficulties but everything quickly got better. The very first piece of evidence was found. It was a pair of earrings and there were blood drops on the dirt path which led to the nearby woods. At that time, I was sure that she was murdered, but her dead body hadn’t been found, so there was still hope that she was alive. Two hours had passed, and the gloomy atmosphere covered the entire place. The wind blew gently through the trees. Everything was so gloomily peaceful. Then, a sudden scream. Everyone quickly ran to that spot.
A bloody scene appeared in front of me. I couldn’t hold but throw up right after seeing it. Everyone at that time also threw up like me. It was a corpse, covered in blood, with four limbs amputated. There was a cut in the stomach and the internal organs were all taken out.
The police told everyone to get out of the crime scene, which they covered with barricade tape. Later that day, while I was at my friend’s house to wait for the information about J from the police. The phone call came, after hanging up the phone, J’s mother and father, and I drove to the police station. When we arrived, J’s mother ran inside. A police officer came and took us to an office room. He said the identity of the dead body was discovered, it belonged to a girl whose name was Jenny. He knew that a family was reporting that their child was missing, and that was a reason why he called us to come and check if that girl was their daughter.
He then took us to the room where the dead body was stored. When we pulled down the white cloth. It was her, my friend, but now, in front of me, it was not the lovely girl who always made jokes about me but a soulless corpse lying in the freezing room. Her mother after seeing her poor little daughter in that state couldn’t stay calm and she fainted. We took her to another room to rest. That police officer told us that she was killed by a metal weapon based on the injury at the back of the neck of the victim, and it could’ve been a baseball bat, but up to this point, they hadn’t yet found it. After knowing the truth, we came home. I said goodbye to them and returned home. On the way back home, I couldn’t control myself. I started to laugh and then cry. There was a great joy and a deep sorrow within me. That mixed feeling was like tearing me apart both physically and mentally. I finally put it under my control and then kept moving back home. I couldn’t sleep that night. I kept dreaming about J, She came back to me and asked for help but in her voice, there was anger. Due to the anger, I could feel from her, I woke up the next morning with a tired body. I still had to go to school but I couldn’t concentrate on lessons at school, and because of that, my grade at school started to fall.
Every night I had the same dream and it exhausted me. My health gradually got worse to the point that I had to stay at the hospital for three days. After going back home from the hospital, my health got better and better. But I still felt there was a missing piece in my heart. The death of my J was so sudden that it made me in depression. Four days had passed since that day. The police were looking for the murderer in hopelessness. I could only help to find the truth behind my friend’s death within my limited ability by asking those friends who were around J that night. they all told me that she also returned home a few minutes later and had no clue what had happened afterward.
Well, the day that I was with J’s parents at the police station. I told the police about that old man and a strange person followed both of us that night. When they came to that old man’s house for investigation. They found that the old man was brutally murdered. The limbless corpse was hanging in the middle of the house with his limbs laid below. There was now another death found in our town and strangely, the murder was similar to the one that happened to my friend. It was thought that the investigation would go to a dead end until there was a piece of paper found inside the corpse. It said, “ The death will come when I wake up “_ Death Bringer. The police tried to search for the one who left that piece of paper at the crime scene but they all failed to do so.
And once again, the investigation went to a dead end. The two brutal deaths and the identity of the murderer remain a mystery.
No one will ever find out the truth behind it.