SHORT HORROR STORIES

DARK ORIGINS OF HALLOWEEN

JACK O LANTERN
Jack was born in a small town; his parents were religious and god fearing. Jack was the youngest in the family, thus he was pampered alot by his mother. He was taught and trained with all the rules and regulations one must know to survive in this world. But alas no knew that Jack was born with an extraordinary talent, a talent which is considered to be curse by humans.

Children his age would play with toys, built sand castles and ride tricycles. Jack would spend his entire day carving crosses from wood, they would be of different sizes and then he would colour them. He also had a great passion of collecting Holy water from the church in his drinking bottle. His actions seemed naive, one night whiles the family and Jack was asleep. Jack was awakened by a crashing noise he saw some sought hideous creature spasming controllably on his crosses which was scattered on the floor. It appeared to be burnt by the touch of the crosses.

Jack realized that he had finally captured a demon and immediately placed it in a jar of holy water. He was extremely happy, you see I had mentioned earlier that he had an extraordinary talent well that talent was that he was able to see demons. Demons exist around us yet they are invisible to the human eyes, Jack was the only person who was able to see them and feel their ominous presence, their only motive was to lash themselves on to the most vulnerable humans and feed from their energy, making them weak. The monsters were extremely hideous to look as they existed in different body shapes and varying facial features.

He would spent hours thinking how to get rid of them, eventually he started making crosses. The demon in the Jar began begging to Jack to set him free but he was adamant on his decision and did not give in, that was until the demon began bargaining with him for his freedom exchange in return for riches. Jack's mind became clouded with greed he made the bargain and set the demon free after making it swear that it will not hurt him.

Soon afterwards he became vastly wealthy but he used it all up in his wild lifestyle. He again decided to trap a demon and bargain it for riches, he was successful yet again and this time he built a lavish mansion. Despite being so rich Jack did not donate money in charity, rather than that he became ruthless in character, his family broke ties with him long ago and the town people dis not communicate with him.

Despite being so rich, Jack lived a rather lonely and miserable life. He had a large tree on his front yard, one day he found a black creature on it picking fruits. Thinking it to be a demon he placed multiple crosses on the ground around the tree. The creature began to burn from its heat and begged Jack to remove them. Jack on the other hand wanted to make a bargain yet again. The creature confessed that he was Satan himself and could grant him a wish far greater than any of the demons can. Jack thought for awhile he did not want any riches; he had lived his life to the fullest. After much pondering he came to a decision, he made the devil promise to not to collect his soul after he died and take him to hell. Satan agreed and Jack set him free, after afew years Jack died from deterioting health. His soul was released from the body and it began moving from one place to another. He became tired and frustrated as he shifted from place to another.

Just then Satan appeared in front of him and reminded him of his promise. According to it he will not rise to the abode of heaven as he was an occultist or be dragged down to the depths of hell and ofcourse earth is no place for the dead to stay. Laughing hysterically, Satan tossed a hollow turnip towards him and threw fire inside it. Jack took it and used it as a torch and continued roaming the earth for eternity looking for a place to rest. Every Halloween people carve scary faces on pumpkins, well little do they know that they are actually creating the anguish expressions of Jack as he lives his dreadful curse?