In honor of Halloween, our staffers decided to embrace their creative sides and write-up some spooky stories for your enjoyment. None of us are Anne Rice or Agatha Christie, but we hope to send some chills up your spine. Enjoy,
and happy Halloween! MUAHAHAHAAA!!!!!!
‘Spilled milk’
WRITTEN BY SAMANTHA REARDON
Kalli saw it before it happened. But it didn’t feel real. Her head pounded as she grabbed tufts of her hair and yanked so hard that when she dropped her hands to her sides, chunks of it fell to the ground.
How could he let this happen? What the hell was he thinking? He promised her – promised – that it was locked away, restrained, never to see daylight.
Without another thought, Kalli grabbed the phone and punched his number in, almost dropping it. Her hand was covered in sweat.
Her manager gave her a confused look as she ducked under her station and counted each ring.
“Answer the phone!” Kalli screamed into the receiver. Her mind raced. She was going to get fired over this shit, if they came out of it alive.
Finally.
“Hello?”
Kalli mustered her voice.
“It’s here, at the store, it’s here and
it’s all your fucking fault! You said you took care of this but it’s here – and they’re going to see, and we’re fucked, and–“
“Kalli!” Andy yelled back over the receiver. “Stop! What the hell is going on?”
Kalli was shaking with emotion. Fear, anger. She wanted to run. She scanned the store.
There it was. Produce.
The zombie reached under a shopper’s arm for a peach. The arms were different – one was pink, full of living veins and pumping blood; the other, grey, bone and flesh exposed under the fluorescent lights.
“AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!”
Terror paralyzed the woman’s face as she stared at the rotting corpse in front of her. Her grocery bags fell to the floor. Spilled milk pooled around her feet.
She turned to run. But the milk puddle was there, unavoidable, and she slipped, falling. Cracking bones on the tile floor.
Kalli’s mouth fell open. She could hear the shopper’s screams, muffled. She could feel them running, she could see them pushing each other, crowding the doorway. But she couldn’t move.
Thump thump thump. She was waiting for her brain to catch up, to make herself move.
The phone was dead. Kallie was alone with only the monster and the woman lifelessly lying on the floor.
The zombie raised a peach to its mouth and took a bite. The crack of the peach’s skin and the phantom sound of sirens were the only sounds in the void.
Juice ran down the zombie’s chin. Their eyes locked. Kalli screamed.
‘Deadly doubts’
WRITTEN BY LAURA APPERSON
The fire crackled in the pause of the story, creating the only sound besides the howling wind running through the trees. All eyes fixed on the storyteller, a girl dressed in a witch’s hat and dress, a fake mole drawn just above her lip.
“…and that is how the coven became the most powerful in the world,” she finished dramatically, intensely staring at her audience.
The silence lasted only a moment as listeners decided whether her story was true.
“But, did that really happen?”
The witch turned her head sharply to the questioner.
“OF COURSE it happened,” she replied without hesitation. “The Sa- lem Witch Trials were real and so are the witches that survived them.” She picked up a marshmallow and popped it on a stick, placing it in the fire to create another s’more. “I don’t think we should take these things lightly. Witches still exist, and here in New Orleans it’s even more likely.”
“I don’t know, dude,” a tall, skinny boy with a Scream mask asked as he tried to eat his s’more without taking off his mask. “It seems like a whole lot of made up stuff if you ask me.”
The wind started to pick up, and the s’more supplies flew around the bonfire. As Bob Marleys and Dorothys and Elvis’s scrambled to collect them, the witch sat stoically at her place in front of the fire.
“I don’t know. You shouldn’t question it,” she said as Scream reached to pick up a bag of Hershey’s that had moved away from the supplies.
He looked up at her just as she slightly leaned her head towards a tree above her. A noose was hanging from its lone branch, waving in the wind. Perched on top of the tree was a small, black crow, its red eyes boring into him.
“You never know what could happen if you do.”
‘Love always, Charlie’
WRITTEN BY ADJOA D. DANSO
Jamie unlocked the car with the clicker. He opened the door with one hand, his phone pressed between his ear and his shoulder, his other hand full of grocery bags.
“Yeah, I’m leaving now. Yes, I got it. Yep, that too. Yeah—Ok, Charlie.” He laughed and hung up. Jamie closed the door and started the car. He pulled his seatbelt across his chest and paused. When they met, Charlotte wouldn’t start the car unless Jamie had his seatbelt fastened. It took three years for her to get him to wear his seatbelt consistently. By the time they were married, he was reminding Charlotte to put her own seatbelt on. She denies it, but it happened. At least a few times. Maybe once or twice.
It took the same amount of time to get home by the back roads as it did by the interstate, but Jamie loved the easiness of the interstate. No traffic lights, no stop signs.
Jamie squinted at a blue sedan changing into his lane in the rearview. A green pickup truck two lanes over turned it’s blinker on. The truck unexpectedly swerved into Jamie’s lane. Time seemed to slow down. Jamie went deaf at the sound of car horns. The air smelled of burnt rubber. Glass flew into Jamie’s face.
****
Charlotte got home late, exhausted. She set her bags down and stepped into the kitchen. Both the refrigerator and freezer were warm from being so bare. Eighteen months later and she was still lost. Jamie always did the cooking and nothing Charlotte made was ever as satisfying. Even when he walked her through the recipe step-by-step it just didn’t taste the same. Some days Charlotte could swear that she saw Jamie standing in the corner of some fast food restaurant shaking
his head as she waited for her burger and fries. Other days she’d see him outside their favorite coffee shop. Maybe she was crazy.
When Charlotte turned around there was a man seated at her table. She smiled to herself.
“Hey, Charlie.”
Charlotte sat down across from him. It was incredible how he was exactly the same. The way he tapped his fingers against the rim of his mug to the beat of “Blackbird.” The way he squinted every now and then as though it hurt just to look at things. Charlotte stared at him wondering how there wasn’t a single scar on his face.
“What are you doing here?”
“I figured the least I could do was drop in and say good-bye.”
“‘Drop in and say goodbye.’ You make it sound so normal. This isn’t normal.”
They sat in silence not looking at each other. Jamie stared and squint- ed around the kitchen. Charlotte had thought about what she’d do if she ever got the chance to speak to him again. Here he was now and, somehow, it was enough.
“I’m going to go soon.”
“You’re already gone.”
Jamie extended a hand across the table. It was colder than Charlotte had expected.
“No one is going to believe this…”
“If you know they won’t believe you, don’t ask them to.”
He glanced at a watch that wasn’t there, and she looked at the man who wasn’t in her kitchen. Jamie stood behind Charlotte with his arms around her shoulders.
She closed her eyes as he let go of her. “Don’t open them til I’m gone.”
Charlotte took three deep breaths before opening her eyes. On the table was a pristine wedding band inscribed, “Love always, Charlie.”
