Soul Window

This story, Soul Window, is an update of the previously (self)published short story, Lunar Doom (itself the result of a writing prompt by Nina Pelletier on the awesome [but now defunct] Google+).

Ducky Smith chose this updated version for inclusion in the Sci Fi Roundtable's Halloween Newsletter. I am humbled.

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Soul Window, by Jason Darrell

December taps its icy fingernails on the bedroom windowpane, tempting me to peer into its misty bowels once again. Outside, darkness reigns. Short days, long nights; the perfect season for creatures who stalk the night.

Legends of Scotland’s eastern shoreline, sat smothered in a broiling mist beyond my bedroom window, impress upon my psyche.

Arc-sodium incandescence filters through the fog’s silent invasion, washing the panorama with its sombre light. Regimented lampposts stand to attention along the coastal road, hanging onto the tarmac for dear life as the road crumbles abruptly into clifftop not a yard before their guard.

My Halloween story, inspired by Claire Buss's Friday Flash Fiction prompt:

Brief

Here is your prompt:

It's your first Halloween as a ghost!

No more than 1,000 words

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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!