All Saint's Day

My birthday is November first, All Saint’s Day. Every year I would go out trick or treating and stay up late watching scary movies until midnight to ring in my new year, and then have a giant party the next day. It was perfect.The day before my twelfth birthday changed my outlook on Halloween forever. I was in the upstairs bathroom, trying to finish up the final touches on my zombie makeup when I heard it.“James…” the voice was raspy, my name drawn out. I froze.“James…” it was there again. My mouth dropped open in shock. I looked around the bathroom for the source.“Who’s there?” I asked, seeing no one.“You have one year…”“Toby, is that you?” I hoped so much that this was my older brother’s idea of a prank. The voice didn’t reply.“Hello… who is that? What do you mean?” I was upset to hear my voice squeaking.“Who the hell are you talking to? Are you done yet, I gotta piss!” Toby’s voice sounded through the door. I whipped it open, Toby looked at me like I was insane.“Toby… was that you? Were you messing with me?”“Huh? Get out, dork, my eyeballs are floating!”Whatever had happened in there had unnerved me. I tried to dismiss it, telling myself that Toby had fooled me. But I had a hard time believing it.We went out to trick or treat after, Toby tasked with keeping me safe and getting me home by nine. I was jumpy that night. Every time I came up to someone’s door I was looking over my shoulder, double-checking that there weren’t any actual spooks sneaking up on me. It was hard to tell, some costumes nearly had me convinced I was about to die right before they were cheerfully filling their bags with candy.Towards the end of the night Toby seemed to pick up on this. He asked some older kids from the high school to scare me on my way back down a driveway. Suddenly, I was being grabbed by a half dozen hands through the hedges, screaming bloody murder. They howled with laughter, Toby falling onto the sidewalk, unable to breathe. The older kids were right there with him, pointing at me and mocking the way I had screamed for help.“Fuck you, losers! You’re not goddamn funny!” I cried, fighting back tears. This only made them laugh harder as my voice cracked. Furious, I stormed down the road, trying to get as far away from them as possible. I had spilled most of my candy when they scared me and hadn’t wanted to pick it up off the road. I tossed my bag onto a lawn, what good would a few pieces be.I knew my curfew was close, I hoped Toby would get an earful for losing me when he got back. After his last prank, I was more than certain that he had tried to scare me in the bathroom earlier. It had worked. Now I wanted revenge. How dare he ruin my favorite night of the year.Seething, I began walking the back way to the house, taking the train tracks to our side of town. I was scheming up ways to give Toby his own scare when the voice came again.“James… James…”I turned around, expecting to see Toby’s stupid grinning face, but what I saw instead shook me.It could have been a shadow, except it was more solid, like a black cutout of a person. It stood a few yards from me, its voice like rustling leaves and teeth grinding together. I backed away, tripping over backwards and landing on the tracks. The figure moved closer, seeming to look down at me. I screamed, trying to kick myself away from it.“James…”I wasn’t sure what to do, my flailing had not gotten me back on my feet. Whatever it was kept gliding toward me.“Leave me alone! What do you want?” I desperately wailed.“I have a message for you, James,” I didn’t think I wanted to hear it.“You have one year…Kill. Your. Brother…”I couldn’t believe it.“What? Who are you?”“A messenger,” its nasty voice made me cringe. I looked up at it, trying to find words. I blinked, and it was gone.I wondered if people who went crazy knew they were going crazy. I couldn’t believe what I had seen. I told myself it didn’t happen. All I could do was continue home in a daze.Toby got his ass chewed for losing me, just like I had been hoping. The next day I had my party. No sinister beings showed up, no ghostly voices terrorized me. There was nothing abnormal at all, besides my new fear of being in the bathroom.As the next Halloween came up, I had all but forgotten about the events from the year before. This year I had decided I was too cool to get into costume. Instead, I was planning on meeting friends to watch some movies and play video games. I rode my bike past tiny monsters and ghouls, a part of me wishing I was joining them on my favorite night. Toby would have made fun of me though. He was seventeen now and was still picking on me like he was getting paid to. Him and his friends had been over earlier, gathered in our basement, smoking weed and talking shit. I was too young to think they were losers, but they definitely were.I was nearly to my friend’s house when it appeared out of nowhere. In a split second, the shadow, or whatever it was, shot out of the ground, blocking my path. I braked hard, nearly crashing my bike to avoid going through it.“James…” it spoke. I was pretty tired of hearing my name like that. I waited, expecting it to say more. Eventually it hissed again.“Kill. Your. Brother.”“Why? Why would I do that?” I had to know. The being didn’t react. I was getting more and more heated.“Say something!”“He must die, he must die tonight.”And then it was gone.I didn’t feel like hanging out anymore, I turned around and started home. All the way I thought about the shadow. It seemed that it could only appear to me on Halloween. Having almost driven the event from last year out of my mind, this time I was much more rattled by it. If what it said was true, this may have been my last time encountering it. I didn’t know what to do. I certainly wasn’t going to hurt Toby.When I got home I was surprised to see that my parents were gone. The station wagon was missing, a few ratty cars that belonged to my brother’s friends were there instead, parked crookedly all the way up our driveway. I walked my bike up to the front door and leaned it against the railing. I made my way inside, tiptoeing so the group assembled under me wouldn’t hear me coming in. As soundlessly as I could, I crept over to the basement door. I put my ear to it, holding my breath so I could listen better.There was a faint murmuring coming from down there, it sounded like it could have been Toby speaking, but I couldn’t be sure. I got lower on the door, lying on my stomach to put my ear to the crack near the floor.I barely had enough time to retreat from my position on the floor when I heard the steps creaking. I scrambled away, crawling to the living room and diving behind the couch.The basement door opened, someone I vaguely recognized walked through, carrying something heavy by the way he was grunting. He walked up the steps and into the bathroom. I could hear him moving around directly above my head. I strained myself to listen to what he was doing, realizing at the last second that more footsteps were coming up from the basement. In a split second decision, I dove into the kitchen and hid in the pantry, trying to keep my breathing from being noticeable.I peeked through the shutter doors, watching my brother and his friends make their way upstairs. They were all laughing and making a lot of noise, then they came back down the stairs. Toby had a sinister grin on his face as he walked into the kitchen, just feet from me, and opened the fridge.“Ah, dude, you didn’t bring the rest of the beer in!” he complained, the guy to his right shrugged.“You can put them in ice in the tub, probably warm though” he responded. Toby and his friends grumbled at the guy who forgot the beers, deciding they would get some more at the store down the road while they waited. They shuffled outside, giving the guy shit the whole time.It was now or never. The feeling in my stomach told me I had to find out what was upstairs, currently sitting in a tub of ice. I opened the door, bolting out of the pantry and heading for the stairs. I made it to the door, pushing it open and looking around the corner nervously.I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There were human heads looking back at me from the bathtub, their faces carved like Jack-O-Lanterns.I would have vomited if I had time to. Instead I heard the front door open up. Toby was speaking.“…Well, his fucking bike is here, let’s just get it done now!”I didn’t have to wonder what that might mean. I felt like I was moving through quicksand but I had to act. In the hallway I heard the stairs creaking. Out of options, I ducked down behind the banister and waited for whoever it was to come into view.I didn’t know his name, but I recognized his face. As our eyes locked he opened his mouth to shout back that he had found me. In that split second I raised the toilet tank cover over my head and swung it with all my might. The sound it made still haunts me. Before he could hit the ground, I caught him, nearly falling to the floor myself. He was either dead or unconscious, I had no time to wonder. Around his waist I found his knife, holstered but still covered in gore.I left him lying in the hallway and looked down the stairs. From where I was I could see the other three in the kitchen. Toby was leaned against the counter tipping a beer down his throat. I had never felt such hatred for him. He was a disgusting person, he deserved to die. I watched him growing impatient.“Karl, is he up there or what?!”I glanced over at Karl. He was still bleeding form the head and lay silent. Toby threw his empty beer can at the fridge and grumbled, then started up the steps. I waited for him to turn the corner before I struck. Karl’s knife sank into his thigh like cutting through butter. He made a sound I can’t really describe.Instantly, the other two shitheads were charging up the stairs. I ripped the knife out of Toby’s leg and used it to stab the first one in the throat, then kicked him backwards, taking out his buddy in the process. They rolled down the stairs, a sickening cracking sound came from the bottom of the steps. Toby was gripping his leg, looking at me with murder in his eyes. I picked up the toilet cover again, bringing it down on Toby’s head again and again. He stopped moving after a while, his brain decorating the hallway walls. I was out of strength to keep going when I looked up and saw the shadow again.It was hovering above Toby, a sound coming from it similar to laughing.“Well done,” it rasped, reaching into Toby’s head and pulling out pieces of his brain. It began to push it to where its mouth would be, making a horrible sucking sound. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I ran to the toilet.In the bathroom I saw the tub again in the mirror. The human heads were gone. In their place was a keg painted like a Jack-O-Lantern, and three carved pumpkins. “Happy Friday Your 13th!” was written on the side of the keg in spooky lettering. via /r/HalloweenStories https://ift.tt/3nSjTJy