X-tra Scary Halloween: A Ghostly Tale

©2012 Susan Noyes Anderson

One All Hallow's Eve, we got dressed up like ghosts

and went down to the graveyard at night.

Two of my buddies and I were excited

to give our kid brothers a fright.

Our town's cemetery was right on the way

to the homes that gave out the best treats.

We remembered how scary those shadowed tombs seemed,
so we lay in wait, cloaked in white sheets.

With the sun sinking down and the moon rising high and

no brothers as yet, we got bored.

My friend, Jack, let loose on two girls with a moan,

but his efforts to scare were ignored.

As more kids went by, we helped Jack out a bit

with a chorus of howls, wails, and shrieks.

We laughed when a glance at our ghastly attire

stole the color right out of their cheeks.

Still no brothers in view, but we had lots to do.

We were scaring those punks off their feet!

At times, we stayed hidden and screeched like the dead.

Other times, we chased them down the street.

This was Halloween fun to the max. Tricks, not treats.

We could terrorize toddlers forever.

Some ran for their lives; a few fell down and cried.

It was SICK. Our best Halloween ever!!

We were kings of the graveyard––the ghosts with the mostest.

Dude, we had fake haunting perfected.

Our screams were so chilling, our sighs so unearthly

not one of our victims suspected.

The night was our stage. Maybe we could do better...
make even the older kids squeal!

A new sound erupted from Jack, and I grinned.

Super spooky! This guy was for real.

Jack's groan was so gruesome, in fact, that it made 

every hair on my head stand up straight.

I looked his direction to flash the thumbs-up,

but I froze when my gaze caught the gate.

The creepy old gate to the crypts glowed blood red,

gargoyles beckoning, urging me near.

The temperature dropped and grew cold as dry ice,

while green mist floated in, thick as fear.

I tried to resist, but that putrid green mist

entered me with its mind-numbing chill.

It crept up my back, and it lodged in my brain

till it robbed me of freedom and will.

I made myself focus both eyes on the gate.
Big mistake. What I saw made me moan.

It was Jack. He was hanging there, feet off the ground,

with his flesh eaten down to the bone.

His form was more skeleton now and less ghost.

Pitch-black eyes had rolled back in his head.

And the creature beside him was every bad nightmare

that ever filled children with dread.

In horror, I clutched at our other friend’s hand,

but Dan pushed me away and cried, “JAAAACK!”

Dan started towards him, but when the ground opened,

Dan took off and never looked back.

I would have run, too, but my legs wouldn’t work.

I was paralyzed, frozen by fear.

The graves were releasing their dead, and the sound

of their keening was awful to hear.

Zombies and wraiths slipped around me and through me.

Worms passed in and out of my skin.

My soul turned to ice, and my heart beat in rhythms

of terror, as evil crept in.

I was lost, and I knew it. Was this how Jack felt

when they took him and made him their own?

Would the fiends claim my body forever? I could not

withstand them much longer alone.

And then came The Voice. Distant, yet so familiar

it entered my spirit like gold.

 “Hey guys, whatcha doin’? Are you in the graveyard??

We heard what you did, and WE TOLD!

“You’re really in trouble, especially Jack.

All our friends said that he was so mean.

"You’re gonna be grounded. You shoulda known better

than scaring us on Halloween.”

It was my little brother! The punk sounded good,

like the trill of a silvery flute.

His whining and tattling almost seemed welcome,

compared to the grave’s grim salute.

Salvation was ours in an instant. There’s nothing

so fearful as women prepared

to teach their kids lessons that they need to know.

Watch out, phantoms! NO ONE would be spared.

The underworld quaked as my mother’s "mad" voice

mowed down demons and devils and ghouls.

“You get out here this instant! All three of you. NOW.

Did you think that your mothers were fools?”

Jack slid off the gate, re-embodied himself,

and walked over to me with a smile.

The undead had fled to their graves, quite undone, so

we hugged and high-fived for a while.

Nearby a bush rustled, and out of the dark

came the third of our three musketeers.

“I couldn’t just leave, so I came back and hid,”

Dan said softly. We met him with cheers!

“All for one, one for all,” were the words that we said,

and we meant them, in good times or bad.

We spent the next 14 days stuck in the house.

And you know what? We felt mostly glad. 

 No more ghostly graveyards or hauntings for us,

just a tip from my terrorized crew...
(Heed it well, or this day you will rue.)

NEXT TIME, THEY COULD BE COMING FOR YOU!

Don't pass by a graveyard until the sun shines.
Take warning from s-h-i-v-e-r-y chills up your spines.
Be kind to small children, whatever you do, and
BEWARE what you wear. Sometimes, costumes come true!

With lots of love and plenty of scary good wishes
to our awesomely gruesome grandchildren
from
Ghostma and Ghoulpa Anderson

=)

If you like this one, check out the ones from past years:

2009
2010
2011

for more X(tra scary) posts, click below