The sounds of children, doors and the occasional Halloween decorations echoed through the neighborhood. Candy was dumped into pumpkin buckets and pillowcases as kids in costumes ran around the active neighborhood. The night was warm, with a slight breeze drifting through the air.
A group of five kids, all dressed as different types of monsters, walked up the porch steps of the navy-blue house on Parker Drive. Frankenstein knocked on the door, and a woman dressed as an angel answered with a deep bowl of candy.
“Trick or treat!” the children all yelled, holding their buckets in front of them.
“Well, aren’t you all just terrifying,” the woman commented, grabbing a handful of candy and putting a few pieces into each kid's bag.
The kids thanked the women and left to move to the next house. A small boy in the back of the group, dressed as a zombie covered in fake blood, walked up to the angel, and held out his bag. This boy's name was Connor, and being so small and in the back of the group, he was often missed when candy was being handed out. But before the boy could speak, the woman had shut the door in his face.
This was happening all night to Connor. While everyone else’s buckets were almost to the brim with candy, Connor’s raggedy old pillowcase was basically empty. He debated knocking on the door again, but he looked and saw that the kids he was with were already two houses down. Not wanting to be left behind, he decided to try again at the next house.
After a few more houses, the group of kids decided that it was time to go back to Dracula’s house to sort through their candy and make their trades. As the kids walked down the road, Connor looked at his pillowcase, which only held a few pieces of candy, some empty wrappers and some lint. His shoulders dropped. He couldn’t understand why everyone else got so much candy, but not a single house had given him any. He understood that he was smaller and often not seen over the taller kids he was with, but he thought that his overly detailed costume would make him stand out a bit.
He had borrowed an old flannel from his father, putting cuts and tears into the fabric to give it that worn-out look. His white shirt underneath was the same, except it was no longer white as it had been covered in dirt and scuff marks. Connor's hair was untamed, and fake bruises and blood were covering his entire body. He even walked around with only one untied shoe. He looked exactly like a zombie, but for some reason, he was still heavily overlooked.
“Look at that,” a girl dressed as a witch said. Everyone stopped and looked at a poster stapled to a telephone pole. Of course, Connor was too short to see over the rest of the group’s shoulders.
“Can you believe it’s the 10-year anniversary of him going missing?” Dracula asked.
“It’s so sad,” the witch replied. “My sister would have graduated with his older brother, but apparently, he dropped out not long after his disappearance.”
“I heard the whole family kinda changed after that,” a mummy said. “The family moved a few years ago, but the brother decided to stay. Apparently, he was supposed to watch the kid when he went missing, but instead, he left him behind to be with some friends.”
Frankenstein pointed to the end of the street, “Speaking of the brother, there he is.”
The group all turned to see a man standing at the end of the block, staring into the forest's tree line across the street. The man was in his late twenties, but his untamed beard and hair and the bags under his eyes made him look much older.
“Are you guys looking at Bradly?” A girl dressed as Snow White appeared and asked them. The group nodded. “That’s the last place his brother was seen. My uncle was an officer on the case when it first came out. They spent weeks searching that forest, as well as every other forest in the county.”
“And they didn’t find anything?” the mummy asked.
“Only the kid’s shoe. You’ll often see Bradly around the forest, especially during this time of the year. I think he hopes that his brother will show up one day.”
Dracula looked at Snow White, “There’s no way he’s still alive, is there?”
Snow White shook her head, “It’s very unlikely.”
The group walked away from the telephone pole, Snow White returning to her parents and the other kids continuing their walk to Dracula’s place.
Connor stepped up to the pole, finally able to see the poster. It was a missing child poster, and on it was a smiling eight-year-old boy with brown hair and blue eyes. But it wasn’t any kid with brown hair and blue eyes: it was Connor.
He felt his heart sink into his stomach. Or was it his heart? Either way, it all made sense now. Why people kept slamming doors in his face and he was getting no candy. Why everyone seemed to overlook him. It was because he was dead.
Connor’s head began to spin with thoughts. How did he not realize he was dead? How have they not found his body after so long? How much of the bruises and blood were actually fake?
By the time his head finally stopped spinning, he realized he now stood at the edge of the forest. How he got there, whether by mindlessly walking or some ghostly magic, he wasn’t sure. But he was staring into the same tree line that Bradly stared into. He was being drawn to the forest, like his soul knew his body was in there, waiting to be found.
He began to walk forward, disappearing into the tree line.
Photo: Ayman Mustapha Nousa