Halloween Has Arrived....

"While most foolish others treated it like any other Monday, Erasmus Burke stayed at home this Halloween. The day prior he spent boarding up the doors and windows of his little house as best he could, locking himself inside, making sure there was no way anybody or anything could make their way inside either by accident or by force.

The outside world viewed Erasmus as an odd little man. A loner who lived on the corner of one of the oldest graveyards of the city. It was his job to maintain the grounds and prepare the graves for incoming.....residents.

In recent months, during his daily duties in the graveyard, odd things started to transpire. At first it started as a slight whisper coming from nowhere in particular. Erasmus would dismiss it as the wind through the trees or the rustling of leaves on the ground. But, as time went on, the disembodied voice grew to several voices. They also became more clearer. Their message was one of their return from the grave to seek vengeance on the living this coming Halloween.

Erasmus took these warnings to heart. Prior to sealing off his doors and windows he lit the Jack-O-Lanterns on his front porch. These were the only way a house could be marked as safe from the ghouls that would soon be floating about the living world. At least, that's what the dead had told Erasmus. He'd seen a thing or two during his long tenure at the graveyard that proved the fact that you should never turn your back on the dead. So he readied his home for the oncoming resurrection of the dead.

The final plank against the door was nailed shut an hour before midnight on October 30th. Erasmus then turned off all of the lights and

Erasmus dove under the covers with minutes to spare with his head underneath the safety of his blankets. Soon the clock on the wall chimed midnight. the witching hour had begun.

The wind that had lightly been blowing outside had suddenly stopped. An uneasy silence had crept across the graveyard and moved throughout the city. It lasted a minute or two. Then the bedlam started to begin.

It started with what sounded like a moan from far off in the distance. Then a wail. Then another moan. Then a shriek. Then a blood curdling howl. Then the sounds of the unliving wailed, moaned and shrieked in unison. The wind picked up again far stronger than before the silence.

Erasmus squeezed against the edge of the blanket holding it firm so that nothing could tear it off of him.

That's when the scratching noises started. Against the walls of his house there came tearing and scraping sounds that chilled his bones.

This bedlam and ruckus went on all through the night. It didn't go away once the morning came. He feared it would never end. Hour after hour the same scraping noised and strong winds kept on. The only difference was the horrid sounds of the undeads' moans and cries and wails that would change in pitch with each different being making their own sounds of terror.

After what felt like an eternity the sounds of terror started to become less frequent. The scraping had stopped, the wind had died down and then Erasmus heard his last moan off in the distance. Then a peaceful silence overcame the town.

A minute later his clock struck midnight marking November 1st. In a clod sweat, Erasmus pulled himself from the bed and stated to tear down the planks he put up across his door and windows. By the time he was done, the sun started to rise. He ran outside to check on the state of the graveyard and his home.

The first thing that had amazed him was that there were no tear marks on his house. In fact his Jack-O-Lanterns were still lit. The second thing that took Erasmus by surprise was that the graveyard was in excellent shape. No stoned or graves showed any signs of being disturbed. In fact the grounds seemed to be in a little bit better condition than he remembered them being in a long while.

The third an final thing that Erasmus noticed was a bit more disturbing. As he looked down the street he noticed that there were a few houses that seemed to have been torn up a bit with broken windows and tear marks against the houses. But, there ware only a few houses that seemed disturbed along the street. There were also a fair amount of houses that weren't messed with at all. The one difference that Erasmus noticed in the houses ware the ones that didn't have any damage were ones that had Jack-O-Lanterns out.

Erasmus smiled to himself knowing that he would be safe every Halloween since he knew he had a special alliance with those that he looked over. And they in return would look over him and all of the others that celebrated Halloween.

So if you haven't yet, make sure you light up those smiling, orange faces this evening and every Halloween from now on. Because you never know what may be lurking about tonight trying to judge who celebrates their holiday......... and who does not."

I'm not sure where the frack I was going with that, or where it came from for that matter. That's the kind of mess I make when I decide to "free write". It's certainly not Stephen King, but the holiday got the best of my creative juices. It's my way of saying to all of you.........