Brief
Here is your prompt:
It's your first Halloween as a ghost!
No more than 1,000 words
Halloween, Bah Humbug!
Whatever the Halloween equivalent of Scrooge's 'Bah, Humbug' sentiment towards Christmas is, I caught it every October when I was alive.
I couldn't see my attitude changing now that I was dead. But stranger things have happened…
Even in a pandemic, kids were going yampy for Halloween, and trusty commerce proved eager to accommodate them.
Pumpkins, witches, and bats supplanted 'Back to School' kit on supermarket shelves: orange, green and black everywhere; Halloween was afoot!
As leaves turned tan on the trees, kids collected and carved pumpkins, lighting them in their windows at night.
I so wanted to scare the bejesus out of the little brats, but no: denied by the undead authoritarians!
My first Halloween as a ghost, and not allowed to appear to mundanes except on All Hallows' Eve itself. And then, only against certain criteria. Bah, Humbug!
To invigorate myself upon hearing this wretched news (from my undead 'sponsor'), I wafted out through suburbia, near where I'd lived before I died, looping-the-loop around telephone wires, making them vibrate and sing.
The faster I spiralled between the cables, the greater they bounced like jump-ropes in my jet stream, sending settled birds a-squawking into the mercurial October sky.
This was the most fun I'd had in the three-and-a-bit months since unwittingly discovering that, yes, there was indeed an afterlife.
In the street below, from stooping on the step outside a paint-flaking front door, a brat looked up towards the commotion I'd caused between the pylons. Shading his eyes against the silver clouds to better see, I thought he'd seen me.
Apparently—luckily—not. Once the cables settled and birds returned to roost, his attention refocused on the stick with which he was prying moss from between paving slabs that dissected a weed-strewn front 'garden'.
He was the only kid not bratting out about Trick or Treat. As lichen and dry, dusty dirt made his trousers and shoes filthier still, I found myself wondering why he was different.
Being translucent in daylight means that we, as ghosts, can't half snoop. Without him knowing, I settled beside him on the doorstep to see what was occurring.
Leaning backwards, my head and shoulders sinking through the door panel into the hallway beyond, utter silence from within told me he was waiting for someone to come home.
After five minutes of taking out whatever frustrations he had using his stick, a bus passed the front hole-where-a-gate-should-be. The kid stood up and waved to a flustered woman thereupon, who looked ready to alight.
He raced out the hole-where-a-gate-should-be, in that determined run that only pre-teens can effect, reaching the bus stop in time to relieve his mom of one of her bags.
"Look, Billy", she said, before even saying hello, "I couldn't stretch to a proper costume."
Billy's face turned down somewhat, but hardly looked surprised.
"I have got some of those silver bin bags, a funnel and some tin foil from the supplies cupboard at work, though. Tin Man be OK?" she asked her little trooper.
He smiled—with an effort, I thought—and nodded, his eyes reverting to the pavement, presumably so that he didn't impeach himself before his mom.
"Come on, then. Help me make tea, and I'll start on your costume ready for the big night tomorrow," mom said, turning the key to let them into their cold end terrace.
The whole scene had ignited some unpleasant memories in me.
A psychoanalyst would deduce that I despised Halloween due to how poor we'd been when I was Billy's age. Probably some truth in it, too.
I could do nothing for those memories, but maybe I could do something for Billy…
***
…I returned the next night, Halloween, at the same time. Yes, I'd assumed a lot.
One, that mom would arrive home the same time.
Two, there was no 'dad' on the scene.
Three, that Billy would be Trick and Treating solo, the cool kids converging in flocks of expensive costumes.
And, four: that this little guy would wait until the others had called at a house before he went, and was so often greeted with phrases that began, "I'm sorry…" that he expected and accepted them.
Again, I watched Billy run to meet mom off the bus. While he was dressing up as Tin Man inside (no time for tea tonight), I went on a reccy, see what other kids were up to.
Sure enough, like preened hyenas, they were already scavenging: no need for these kids to wait for the working parent to come home.
Thankfully, Billy wasn't long behind, and duly followed in the cool kids' wake.
The first house he called at was well stocked: he started on high, candy rattling into his bag.
But soon enough, snobbier homeowners took one look at his makeshift costume and began beating up Billy with excuses he'd heard a hundred times before.
I wasn't having this!
I decided to float some way behind him, still invisible, but close enough to gauge the reaction of whoever opened the door.
At the next house Billy received short shrift, I suddenly materialised from behind his back, flapping around like a bedsheet in a gale.
The homeowner near jumped out of her skin!
Billy, head bowed, didn't see this change, and was ready to leave empty handed; instead, the woman scooped a handful of sweets into his bag, congratulating him on his 'outfit'.
The look of awe on Billy's face said everything! He offered hearty thanks and positively ran to the next house.
I tailed him, materialising until his own confidence took over; then, his beaming face was all the convincing each homeowner needed.
When Billy eventually got home, his bag was overflowing, way outdoing the cool kids!
Perhaps this Halloween thing ain't so bad, after all…
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