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It was like any other day, well, like any other October day. There were dead leaves everywhere and the autumn wind breezed away the stylized hair-sprayed hair of 17-year-old John MacTavish.
With a grunted groan he tries to gently push it back into its previous look with little luck.
“Dam’ wind.” John scoffs, sticking his sniffling nose into his overly huge scarf; the one his mom lent to him before he left the house. He could already feel the autumn air give him the chilly sniffles.
He continues his stroll down his neighborhood street, trying to find any house with porch lights on. He finds one, however, it’s more than a few houses down. John tried to look around for any other trick or treaters but not one kid was outside. He thinks back on how he should’ve taken his mother’s suggestion on her tagging along with him, but John felt he was big enough to do this on his own; it’s not like anybody would kidnap him in his own neighborhood, not in Scotland.
The laughs of other kids could be heard, which settled John a little. It was weird, he’d gone out plenty of times around his neighborhood especially at night and certainly alone. He didn’t know if it was the Halloween air or the feeling of constant eyes watching him, but it made his skin crawl.
John blows a breath of air out, “Thi’ house an’ I’m onto th’ next street, where th’ other kids are.”.
He squeezes the purple candy basket handle tight and quickly makes his way to the house.
He shivers at a particularly strong breeze, his budget friendly Cowboy outfit not making the cold air any friendlier to his chubby, rosy cheeks. He holds onto his Cowboy hat so that it doesn’t fly with the breeze.
He finally makes it to the house with the porch light on and goes to knock on the door. Before his knuckles touch the door, John hears a rustle in bushes behind him. He stops moving and for a minute, he stops breathing too. He can feel the hairs on his body rise and the skin bump along his body.
He slowly turns his head around to the bush and when he doesn’t immediately see anything, he breathes in.
He turns his body to face the bush and when he doesn’t hear anything again. He goes to knock on the door, this time his knuckles knock on the door four times and when he’s finished, he lets his arm fall back to his side. A minute goes by, and he knocks again before he turns to look around, turning his back to the door.
John focuses on a particular bush that the cold air gently moves, he feels uneasy from that bush. Like the bush is sentient and is watching him.
“Can I help you?” John jumps, turning around to the masculine voice behind him. The house owner, John assumes, is standing there in rumpled clothing and a scowl. John swallows down the building amount of saliva in his mouth before responding.
“Uh, yea’. Trick or Treat?” John raises his Candy basket and puts on a smile to the stranger.
The stranger scoffs, “I’m not doing this trick or treat bullshit, go bother someone else, Punk.”. With that, the man shuts the door and leaves John feeling disappointed.
John pouts and steps away from the rude man’s house, as he’s walking away the porch light is turned off.
John starts walking off the property and stops as he is only a few feet away from the bush, the same bush that John feels like is watching him. He stares before he decides to walk further away, around the bush.
Luckily, the house didn’t end in a dead-end and John could walk past to the next street over, where he could spot other kids; some young and some around his age.
He sighed in relief, but he could still feel eyes on him and not the ones of other trick or treaters, he couldn’t put his finger on what or why he was feeling like this.
John breathes in before walking to the nearest house with kids coming in and out of with big smiles and heavy baskets. John was going to get some candy today, today was his favorite day throughout the year after all.
John approached the house and the old lady who stood in the doorway held a big, black crate of fun sized pieces of candy, American most likely, John’s favorite.
John walked up with a big smile, “Trick o’ Treat!”. The old lady, who was dressed like a witch, laughed in the way old people do when they see something joyous.
“An’ wha’ are ye’ supposed t’ be?” She smiles while John frowns.
“Immae’ Cowboy,” John cringes, “Are ye’ serious?”.
Despite John’s forwardness (rudeness), the old lady chuckles. She grabs a handful of candy and puts it into his purple candy basket.
Before John can back away and let the next kid their turn for candy, the old lady grabs John’s arm, grip tight.
“Two from different worlds, one from the past, the other from the present, soon to be together in the future,” John tries to walk away but the old lady grips harder and yanks him closer, her breath ghosting his cold cheeks, “Life of pleasure, life of pain, together with his sacrifice,” John flinches at her strong grip and when he yanks his arm, she lets go, “Beware his eyes, they watch.” John backs away with fright and nearly trips on the stone path beneath his feet away from the old lady, who is shaking her head like she just woke up from a bad dream.
John runs off while he can hear the noises of concerned parents and teenagers fade away, the further he runs.
John runs until he loses his hat and when his legs start to hurt, which isn’t as far as he’d like to be. He reaches a fence, one that has kept kids away from entering the tall, dark, deep woods. He settles against it and takes in deep breaths, grabbing onto his knees, only to fall on his butt with his back against the fence.
John shakes with the cold air and he can feel his heart race faster than he can control. He heaves, closing his eyes, his ears ring, and his chest starts to hurt; he can feel his nose burn from his tears forming.
When he’s able to calm down enough to take a proper breath in, his cheeks are cold and wet, his hands are red and numb, and he’s shaking. Time has passed and since he ran away from the only busy street, there’s no one around.
He was alone.
Until he heard a rustle from behind the fence he leaned on. He froze, his throat contracted, and he could feel the hairs on his body rise. When a warm huff of air blew against him, he whimpered, closing his eyes.
Nothing happened, but John could feel those eyes on him, could hear it breathe against him.
It went on for a while until John could feel his eyes droop. He hadn’t noticed that he felt so tired, he tried to keep awake but the breathing behind the fence calmed him as much as it scared him.
“You shouldn’t sleep out in the cold.” A deep voice rasped behind him, making John jolt and gasp loudly. John turned around and met face to face with the fence, and between the slits, the streetlights reflected a pair of red eyes.
John was scared speechless; he shook harder in the cold air. He stared back at the glowing eyes and hoped they would disappear but no matter how long time went, they both stayed.
When the eyes did happen to finally move, they landed on the candy basket that tipped over and spilled its contents. John looked down at the candy and back at the pair of red eyes.
John picked up a piece of candy, the eyes followed the movement, out of curiosity, John moved his hand to the left and when the eyes followed, John felt a little safer knowing that whatever was behind the fence only wanted what was in his hand.
“Y-Yer’ hungry?” The eyes flickered back into John’s own and stared into them.
“Yes.” The eyes answered back. John expected it to ask for the candy, but the eyes just stared back at him.
With a burst of unknown confidence John slowly pushes the candy to the fence, he tries to push it past the gap but it’s too small of a gap, when he goes to pull back, the candy gets yanked forward.
Unfortunately, the candy was durable and refused to go with the wrapper, landing on the ground on John’s side.
Whatever was on the other side of the fence didn’t seem to care about what it was and immediately ate it.
“Bleh, is this what you eat?” The ‘eyes’ spit out, what John assumes was the wrapper, “Not amongst my taste.” John giggles in shocked curiosity.
“You’re no’ supposed t’ eat th’ wrapper, th’ candy didnae’ go through th’ fence.” John watches as the eyes appear and disappear in a way which resembles blinking; The ‘thing’ blinks at him.
“That…Also makes sense, yes. You Humans do love your harmful trash.” The voice was oddly deep in a melodic way, one that John found he wouldn’t mind falling asleep to, which hadn’t been too off sense he nearly fell asleep to its breathing.
“What are you?” John dared to get closer to the fence, turning his head to the side. “I’ve nae’ seen eyes like yers’ before,” John raised his eyebrows when the ‘thing’ backed up when John got closer, “S-sorry, I didnae’ mean t’ offend ye’.”. John could hear a scoff from it.
“Offend? Hardly. I just don’t like kids.” It huffed, making John pout his lips out.
“No’ a kid, nearly a full adult and I bet yer’ jus’ ugly.” It chuckled deeply, earning a shiver from John.
“Quite the opposite.” John hums in disbelief.
“I doubt tha’.” John doesn’t receive a response back, but he can still see those glowing red eyes.
John shivers again but from the cold air and notices that lights are being turned off from porches, indicating the stop of trick or treating. John hadn’t done much but it was all he could handle for the day and maybe many years to come.
“You should head back, it’s cold out.” John looks back at its red eyes and instead of doing exactly that, he gets comfortable and picks up another piece of candy, this time taking the wrapper off.
“Wha’ abou’ you?” John receives no response again, until the candy that had been pushed to the fence is taken.
“It’s not as good as I thought it would be.” It coughs and the eyes blink again. John huffs a laugh, picking up a different piece of candy and taking the wrapper off.
“Try this one, it’s one o’ my favorites.” John leans forward the fence and pushes the candy to the gap in the fence and watches closely. John notices two slightly thin, black fingers, nails black and pointy, grab the piece of candy and slowly scrape it between the gape to its side.
A little over thirty secs before John receives a response, “That was better. Though, not very filling.”.
John smiles and grabs his candy bucket.
“That’s because ye’ have t’ eat a bunch o’ this stuff t’ feel full. Though, ye’ gotta’ be careful because ye’ can get a stomachache eattin’ too much o’ it.” John explained while unwrapping another piece of candy and pushing it against the fence.
“Seems like a waste of time an’ effort to eat so much, only to get a stomachache. No more for me, I don’t want a stomachache.” John throws the candy away from himself and the fence and somewhere in the grass on his side.
John goes to speak again until he hears a familiar voice call out from afar, “John!”, his Mother yells. He can hear the worry from her nearing voice. He turns his head to where he hears the sound, from afar, he can see his mother and older sister walking with flashlights, looking and calling for him.
When John looks back, it’s not there anymore. The eyes, gone, indicating it left.
John sighs, picking up his body from the ground and then his basket afterwards. He looks down at his mother and sister and thinks he has enough time for one more thing. He holds the candy basket from the bottom and uses all his strength to chuck it over the eight-foot-tall fence.
He listens for the sound of the basket impacting the ground but that doesn’t come. John smiles, “See ye’ next time, ugly.”. He runs, meeting his mother and sister down the road.
His mother notices him first and hugs him deeply, while his sister scoffs and holds the cowboy hat of his closer to herself.
“I thought tha’ hag had scared ye’ off fer’ good. Had me thankin’ I’ was gon’ t’ have t’ fight her.” John’s mother exclaimed, she cupped John’s cheeks, “Next time, bug, come t’ me when tha’ eejit does or says anthan’, yeah?”. John nods, looking over at his sister who walks over putting his hat on for him.
“Found this on Ms. McConnels yard, ran far, ya’ did.” His sister smirked, punching his shoulder slightly.
John scoffed lightly; the scoff played down by the smile he shared with his sister.
“Let’s get ye’ home, ya’ been out ta’ long. I’ll make some hot chocolate.” His mother squeezed him onto her side and started to walk in the direction of their house, his sister following on foot.
While they walked, John turned his head, looking in the direction of the fence.
He could’ve sworn he’d seen those red eyes once more, staring down his direction. Much like the eyes he felt before watching him, prior to the encounter.
In the back of John’s head instead of the word monster or creature, the word ‘Ghost’ popped in his head when he thought about it. About him.
So, John named him ‘Ghost’, mentally.
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