All Hallows' Eve's Tragedy

Almost everything was orange; a rich, warm, succulent orange. It was punctuated with purple and green and black, too, but mostly the street looked orange. Orange fairy lights with ghostly bunting, pumpkins piled on doorsteps and in porches, different shapes and sizes, like cairns rising high, ghastly designs carved into them with eyes of flame and the glowing furnace of a crooked grin. It looked like Halloween might look on a film set. Only, this was real life, and would be a night when one particular resident of the large family estate would come to regret stepping out of her comfort zone to join in the fun.

Eve pulled the net curtain back ever so slightly, getting a better view of the street. In a few hours it would be crawling with pint-sized demons, witches and goblins. Halloween always held a special fascination for her. As a child she would sit and watch the spectacle from her bedroom window, lights off, of course, Mother didn’t want any trick-or-treaters at their door. She would wonder at the costumes brought to life, walking around, stopping at the other houses, buckets filled with goodies. She wanted nothing more than to join in. A lack of friends to tag along with had always been one drawback, but even if she had anyone to go with there was no way Mother would ever allow her to venture out trick-or-treating, and Mother certainly would never have accompanied her on the spooky adventure.

Even now, as Eve stared lustfully at the autumnal decorations, she longed to join in. She had never so much as dressed up before, never entertained trick-or-treaters, never decorated her doorstep as a welcome sign to tiny killer clowns or adolescent axe murderers. Nobody in Eve’s neighbourhood bothered going to Eve’s house. They all knew that she spent Halloween keeping quiet in the dark. No visible light showing around the blackout curtains, no shadowy movement from the windows as a give-away that somebody was home. Nothing to suggest she was in. But they all knew she was there, sitting silently. She supposed, in that respect, a part of Mother had always stayed with her. That was, until tonight.

She stepped back from the window, letting the net curtain drop limply back into place, and stood in front of the mirror which hung above the fireplace. What she saw there made her heart leap just that little bit higher. She looked at the cold, waxy-white face, the ruby-red lips with blood trickle-lines running over wrinkles down to her chin (where there were already a few long and curly whiskers growing, not just for the effects of Halloween), and the large, black eyes, crinkly with age. An old, white dress, smothered in drying tomato sauce (which was currently being attacked by her small terrier’s tongue) hung from her bony frame. She was brimming with an immeasurable amount of glee. This was the first time in her life she had ever dressed up in a costume. School plays, nativities – any reason to pretend to be somebody or something else – had passed her by. The dress was Mother’s wedding dress. She wasn’t sure why she had decided to use it, she had other suitable dresses she could have worn, but she felt no guilt knowing Mother would disapprove. Perhaps it was her way of getting back at her for all those lost years of fun.

Eve took another peek around the curtains, causing minimal movement so as not to draw attention to the house (something learnt from years of wanting to hide away). The smaller children, along with their parents, now began to filter onto the streets, but Eve would wait until it was dark before she snuck out of the house. She looked again at her reflection, unable to help herself, to control her delight, shaking her fists with excitement and hopping from foot to foot. She didn’t even recognise herself. She would be able to wander the streets unseen as Eve. A real-life ghost.

Finally, the moment came for Eve to step over the threshold and into the world of night. Quivering with adrenaline she exited the house, shod in one of only two pairs of shoes she owned. She entered the night air by the shadow of the back door, scurried across the dark garden, through the back gate, and out into the quiet lane behind her house, giggling softly but going unnoticed. A shiver of excitement travelled Eve’s spine. She took in the cool night air, panting slightly, trying to catch her breath. She was, after all, no spring chicken.

The crowds she could see were taller and older than the ones she spied from her window, most of the smaller children had finished for the night, gobbling chocolate in front of the TV or tucked up in bed as now the darkness had fallen, hiding under their bedsheets at the thought of the monsters they had seen walking through the streets tonight. As Eve wandered along gazing in awe at the houses, evil pumpkins smiled back at her, in on her secret escapade, while orange lights blinked a ‘Welcome, if you dare’.

Groups of youths, now mostly without adult chaperones, wandered about. One boy’s treat bucket was so full he didn’t realise he was dropping sweets behind him as he was walking along, merrily swinging it. The evil clown with pigtails following behind him did, however, and scooped them up quickly before he noticed. She didn’t manage to collect all of them, so Eve, tiptoeing at a distance behind the girl, grabbed what she could and shoved them into the top of her dress for later.

With a dress now bulging in all the wrong places, Eve slipped behind a tree and watched one of the houses for about ten minutes, hypnotised. Every time the door opened, ominous organ music played to fog floating from the open doorway, and the trick-or-treaters had to push their way through fake cobwebs hanging from the doorframe to retrieve the sweets. Eve didn’t think she had ever seen anything so amazing and creative in all her life. She almost wished she possessed the confidence to dress up her own home and welcome trick-or-treaters through bits of dangling, stretched-out cotton wool. She could call it the House of Eve-il! Although, there was probably already enough genuine arachnid-produced gossamer around her doorway not to have to pretend.

A little later, Eve found herself watching one of the few remaining younger children still out trick-or-treating; a little girl crying to her mother. Someone had tripped over her witches broom as she dragged it along the floor behind her and the handle had snapped near the top. It was a long, homemade broom, clearly too big for the little girl, but it would still have been useable to someone taller. Except for the jagged, sharp edge it had left. The mother didn’t look very impressed. With a tut and a quick glance around, she shoved the broken broom in between two holly bushes lining one of the gardens, then quickly dragged her still-crying daughter away. Eve regarded them for a moment. It didn’t take long for the little witch to forget about the broom once she remembered she had a bucketful of sweets.

Eve walked over to the broken broom between the hedges and carefully tugged it out, leaving a sprinkling of twigs and holly leaves on the floor. It really was quite a large broom for a little girl. Well, the girl’s mother may not want her to use it anymore, but it would serve Eve just fine. Now she felt like a real member of the Halloween club.

The teenage trick-or-treaters now dominating the streets were beginning to get rather too shouty for Eve’s liking. The noises made her jump and she was getting edgy. Calm down, she told herself. Over the years, older children had made a game of knocking on Eve’s front door and then running away. She saw them do it sometimes, egging each other on as they neared the door then running away laughing, like it was the most fun they had ever had. Eve didn’t really resent them for it, she almost envied the entertainment they were making for themselves, another joy she had been denied as a child. But when the knocking caught her unawares, when it was very dark and quiet outside, she would get jittery, the sudden banging would make her jump, her heartrate rising rapidly. That was how she felt now whenever gangs of youths walked past her. It was one thing to be at home where she was safe, but now she was out in this new world.

Crowds were beginning to disperse and not all of the teenagers wandering the streets were dressed up for Halloween, so Eve knew that her night was drawing to a close. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself by being one of the last in costume to go home. Looking around her, she could see very few young children now, they were all much taller, more like young adults. Her jittery nerves were returning. It was time to head home. Off she trotted along the pavement, staying close to the hedges lining the gardens of the houses, as if that would somehow provide her coverage to hide from the rowdy cliques. Her trot soon became more of a skip, then a half jog as her eagerness to get home increased.

Finally, she reached the end of the row of houses, after which she could take the sharp bend around the side of the last house and along the alleyway which terminated only a few streets away from her own home. She rounded the bend and shot into the darkness. After only a few steps, Eve’s foot hit something hard on the floor, maybe a large stone sticking out of the ground or a tree root poking through the earth, and she lost her balance, her steps forward becoming large and frantic as her free arm swung out, trying its best to keep Eve upright but only serving to send her off-balance even more.

Eve’s breath was shunted out of her, her forward momentum stopping very suddenly as she barged into something. In her frenzy, she hadn’t seen the small group of teenagers standing a short distance into the alleyway. The mask on the teen standing in front of her had fallen off, but the face underneath filled Eve with more horror than any mask could. He seemed to be the only thing lit in the dark alleyway. Eve looked down; the top of the broomstick she was holding had pierced the body of the boy in front of her, right in the middle of his chest. The accuracy of the centre of the target was like hitting a morbid bullseye. His blood was somehow managing to pour down the front of his top and squirt back at Eve at the same time, drenching both himself and Eve’s dress, mixing in with the dried tomato sauce and spraying droplets onto her face. Eve let out a strangled scream, yanked the wood out of the boy’s torso, and ran up the dark alleyway before any of his friends realised what had happened.

As old and tired as she was, Eve ran as well as she could through the streets back home, trying to stay in the shadows of any trees. She passed a few groups of people, all laughing at her with glee, no doubt delighting in the fantastic costume she was wearing.

Eve arrived back in her garden much redder than when she left, and it wasn’t just from the running. She entered the house, closed the kitchen door behind her and looked around in a panic. What should she do? She held the guilty broom out in front of her, congealing blood making a slow journey down its length and onto her fingers. She let out a small squeal and wiped the blood from the broom and her hand with her dress, so it no longer felt wet. Her terrier came running up to her excitedly. He jumped up and began to lick at the tomato sauce dress once again. ‘No!’ she yelled out at the dog.

She began to shake, she felt very cold. She stood like that for a few minutes, taking in deep, steady breaths, her heartrate slowing just a little bit with each minute that passed. On autopilot, she lit a fire in the grate and knelt down on the rug in front of it, staring unmoving into the new flames. After Eve gave it one last waft of the hand to stop it licking at the tomato sauce and Lord knew what else on her dress, her terrier came to settle beside her. She was still holding the broom and used it to stoke up the flames. She placed the broom down on the flagstone floor, the end still in the fire, and absentmindedly shook the sweets she had found on the floor earlier in the night from her dress before taking it off and tossing it into the fire like it was possessed. She crunched and chewed through a few of the sweets, sitting in her underwear and shoes, before her thoughts came back around. Flames were beginning to travel along the length of the thick broom, the end still in the fire, so she moved the broom forwards a little and began to move the logs around again.

Eve soon warmed up this way, and the extra wood from the broomstick, which was now burning nicely in the fire, certainly helped. She sat like this for a while, finishing off her Halloween bounty.

The weeks following Halloween proved eventful for the town. Halloween had always been lively, but there had never before been a fatality. People were interviewed, statements taken. Phone footage and pictures examined where it was available. Identifying everyone in their costumes at night was proving to be a laborious task to say the least. The friendship group of the unfortunate stabbing victim were cross-examined more than once, some people in the community even pointing the finger at them, but no evidence was found to convict them, or anyone, for that matter. Right now, everyone in the town was a suspect, all eyeing each other suspiciously. They all agreed on one thing though, the only person that definitely wouldn’t have been out that night and therefore the only person they could definitively rule out, was the solitary and slightly eccentric old lady called Eve. She never, ever left the house on Halloween night.