HALLOWEEN

Halloween Night

by Mike Burton

The boy fell asleep smiling. His Halloween had gone well. His pirate costume won first prize in the school parade. The secret was the peg leg he and his dad rigged from an old crutch they got at the Goodwill store. Neighbors gasped and grinned as he went trick-or-treating.

His leg had been tightly folded up all afternoon and evening in the baggy raggy trousers he wore, and it was sore. He had spent the week of fall break practicing with the peg leg on his grandparents' farm, so he knew to expect that. Some Tylenol from his mom mostly took care of it.

Deep in the darkest part of the night a strange noise from the hallway woke him.

Thump ... thump ... thump...

A ghastly green glow leaked under the bedroom door. The sound drew ever closer.

Thump ... thump ... thump ...

Bang! The door flew open. An enormous peg-legged pirate, the fiercest-looking one anyone could have imagined, filled the doorway. The boy wanted to hide under the covers but he was paralyzed with fear.

Thump ... thump ... thump ...

The pirate came to the foot of the bed. He fixed a fiery stare at the boy. In a voice like thunder he asked, "Is this the boy that mocks me?" The boy wanted to explain that he didn't mean to mock anyone. All that came out of his mouth was "Ubba, ubba, ubba." The ginormous pirate pointed a bony finger at the boy. A huge green flash blinded the boy for several seconds.

When he recovered, the first thing the boy saw was the weird green glow from the hallway.

Thump ... thump ... thump ..., the sound faded.

The boy hopped out of bed to look and fell smack on his side. His leg was gone! He crawled on his hands and knee to the doorway. He pulled himself up on the door jamb and stood on his one leg as he watched the pirate at the end of the hall. The pirate looked over his shoulder at the boy, laughed an evil cackle and vanished.

The boy sat down in the doorway and wept and wept as he rubbed the little stump where his leg had been.

The boy woke in his bed, to the song of birds outside. Bright sunshine streamed around the curtains on the window. He threw off the covers. There were his two legs, just as they had always been. He thought, "It was all a nightmare." He got out of bed and limped slightly on his sore leg as he headed for the bathroom.

Then he saw those round dents every couple of feet in the hallway carpeting...