FREE, Creepy, Haunting, Halloween Story

BLOODY REVENGE
by
C.S. Davidson

*Sometimes, all we have is the dark side.*

“Scratch, scratch, scratch!” His desperate cry for help at low hanging windows and locked doors continues, but no one answers. No one dares! The creature he’d become terrified all who knew of him now. For now, he killed to survive. Living off the blood of the innocent in his search for the guilty.
He awakens when the full moon beckons. Crawling through the darkness on the only path he knows; urged on by one thought, one desire. Revenge. His dismal mission for all eternity is to search out and find the one who murdered the girl he loved. He will search forever but in vain because the person he seeks, lies motionless in a cold grave . . . Next to his own!
It happened ten years ago, when Ricky Truman moved to Middleport. He inherited the old house on the hill above the graveyard. Truman mansion looked inviting from the town below but inside the old house, a raw chill caused boards to creak and intruder’s to look over their shoulders. The creaking floors and bare walls were mirrored in black window panes that gaped at all who came near.
Ricky Truman didn’t seem to mind the place being ruin down, he was eager to move in. He wasted no time, making it his home. He had been on his own until he got his inheritance from a step-grandfather who he had never met. After settling in, he started fixing up the ruin-down place. Ricky wasn’t afraid of work, he enjoyed fixing things. Besides, this was his home now.
The house was creepy at night when the hollow walls amplified weird noises; noises not heard in the daytime. The cemetery was over-grown with weeds. Trees cast long shadows across the grounds at sunset. The old tombstones were worn and unreadable; others had fallen from decay. It was going to be a challenge but Ricky was a fighter. He worked on the house every evening after school. On weekends he did odd jobs around the neighborhood to support himself.
It was at one of these jobs that he met Julie, Mr. Weirton’s daughter. She had been helping her mom clean junk
from their attic for Ricky to haul away. He fell in love with her that first day. She was a dish in her blue tee-shirt and cut-offs. Her red hair was pulled back into a pony-tail that hung across her shoulder.
Julie and Ricky were in the same classes at school so they saw each other a lot. By the end of the school year, they were both in love and Ricky gave her his class ring. Everything was great in his life now. Julie was sweet and beautiful. The house was coming along little by little. Ricky decided to ask Julie to marry him. But then . . . things started changing. Little things like a nasty look, an unanswered phone call, a few broken dates.
Fall came and they were invited to a Halloween party. A full moon cast long shadows as they walked toward Thomas Bowden’s house. Pumpkins lined the front steps. Inside music blared and hairy bats swung from the ceiling. Thomas came to greet them, dressed in a vampire costume.
“Hi, glad you could come,” he said smiling at Julie. Thomas was a football player but he was a no good. Often bragging about the girls he had made out with. Jokingly laughing about the gullibility of girls.
“Is everyone here?” Julie asked, looking around. She was overly friendly, it was her nature. And, she had never gotten over handsome Thomas Bowden. He had used her in the past but
she was still drawn to him.
“Yeh, now that you guys are here,” he said. They both grinned at each other and looked down. What was he up to? wondered Ricky. Him and Julie had dated once but Julie had said that was over. “Come on, Julie said, let’s mingle.” The party was really rocking. They walked around the wall toward the group in the corner.
“What was that all about?” asked Ricky, flashing his
eyes in Thomas‘s direction. He felt that Thomas was probably up to something. Why had Julie encouraged him?
“What?” She asked, “he’s just being friendly. Come on, he didn’t mean anything. Julie flung her red hair across her shoulder and kissed Ricky. Now come on.”
After joining their friends, Julie went to the kitchen for something else to drink. Soon, Ricky got tired waiting and went to look for her. She was not in the kitchen nor was she anywhere downstairs, neither was Thomas. Ricky threw down his drink and started up the stairs. He grabbed the banister to pull himself faster. Hot sweat covered his forehead, the knot in his stomach was jerking as he opened the first door, then another, then there, on the bed lay Julie, naked! In Thomas Bowden’s arms! A pain shot through Ricky’s stomach as he pounced on Thomas.
Thomas seeing Ricky’s rage, pulled a pistol from the bed-side table and tried to aim at Ricky. Julie grabbed his neck to choke him when that didn’t work she reach for the pistol and he blew her hand off. Ricky took the pistol from Thomas and shot him in the head, then he shot himself.
A week later on Halloween, three coffins were carried to Truman cemetery. To this day, Julie’s hand with Ricky’s ring has never been found. But from that time on, strange things started happening in the neighborhood on moonlit nights. The Weirton’s thought they saw Ricky looking through their bedroom window. The Bowden’s heard scratching at their doors. The old mansion on Truman Hill stands empty but lights mysteriously go off and on by themselves.
Nobody goes trick-or-treating in Middleport anymore. If they hear scratching or knocking at night, they don’t dare open their doors. Ricky has never given up his search for the killer. Until this day, he crawls through the thick darkness thirsting for the blood of a murderer.

© 2003 Sue D. Frye
Frye is the winner Mochamemoirs.com Halloween contest.