31 Short Horror Stories for Halloween

Novelty Items

He loved buying novelty items that went on sale around Halloween. It was a shame they only appeared on shelves during one specific month of the year. If he liked something enough, he would have to wait a whole year to try to find it again. They weren't exactly branded and mass-produced so that meant he normally wouldn't be able to find the same thing next year.

Still, he liked the weird ghost shaped balloons, the pumpkin scented erasers, the orange candy, the black pencils with cobweb patterns, the silly soda cans that featured monsters. He bought a lot of these things and that year, a new store opened up. The woman behind the counter looked like she belonged in a library. She ignored him while he browsed the shelves. A notebook caught his eyes, 'Death's Notebook' it read. He took it up to the counter to pay.

'Be careful with that' the woman said in a bored voice as she took his money and put it in the register, 'you write a name in there, and the person just drops dead'

He laughed. She'd stolen that story from a Japanese cartoon. The notebook was awesome; it had a dark black cover with spidery writing on it that said Death's Notebook. The pages inside were grey and thick and parchment like. He took it to school the next day and someone tried to trade him for it. The kids in his class really liked it. Someone even suggested they use it to write scary stories in. When he came home, he told him mom all about it.

'You should write your name in it so that it doesn't get lost' his mom advised. He opened the first page up and wrote down, This notebook belongs to Mark Wayde. He dropped dead.