The Coyote

Hey everyone! I'm beyond excited to announce that this short story has been commissioned by Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to promote their upcoming Halloween contest with Wattpad! I was asked to create a story based on the following prompt:

The peanut-butter filled Halloween favorite wants to hear your seasonal tale—make it spooky, make it weird, make it #sogooditscary.

Throw on your mad scientist hat and come up with the single scariest combination you can imagine, inspired by the greatest combination of all, a Reese's! Be it a werewolf-zombie mashup, or a Unicorn mixed with Frankenstein (a Frankencorn?), the only limit is your own diabolical imagination! Come up with your absolute freakiest combination in under 500 words in the prompt below and tag it with #Sogooditsscary to enter.

More information is on the Fright Wattpad profile, where you can learn how to enter yourself!

A BREATH OF ICY OCTOBER AIR fluttered through the leaves above us, creating a noise like crunching bones. Goosebumps crawled up my arms, and it wasn't just because I was wearing a thin Spider-Man t-shirt and jeans—a sorry excuse for a Halloween costume—or because autumn nights were rarely warm in Vermont.

The yowling was back.

From out in the woods, it yipped and bellowed over the town like some sort of deranged laugh. It always started slow and then revved up, coming to an eerie crescendo of cackles that never failed make my stomach bottom out.

"A coyote," the town had decided.

It had been showing up periodically for about five years now. No one had ever seen it, but we'd all heard its sounds at night—sometimes far off, distantly echoing. Sometimes threateningly close—like it was right in our town, waiting for someone to prey upon.

Tonight, it was closer than I'd ever heard it.

"Getting cold feet, Aiden?" my best friend Josh asked me from beneath his Jigsaw mask. The group of us walked down Maplewood Street, pillowcases already stuffed full of mini chocolate bars and bags of off-brand chips.

"No, I just feel like an idiot doing this," I said.

We hadn't been trick-or-treating since freshman year, and for good reason. No one wanted a group of guys that looked almost like men knocking on their door at night—as high school seniors, we were already way too old for it. But when we were kids, it was the tradition of my buddies and I—Josh, Amr, and Liam—to see how many full-sized candy bars we could seize from rich neighborhoods before the night was over.

            And this year, we decided to give it one last shot before we were really adults. Josh's girlfriend Erica and her best friend Rhiannon were here too, so it was easier to rationalize doing something ridiculous like this when we could say it was the girls' idea.

But the only real reason I had to be trick-or-treating at age seventeen was my twelve-year-old brother, Tommy, who my mom wouldn't let me leave the house without. I looked over my shoulder, where he trailed behind our group dressed up like a Ninja Turtle but without the mask, dragging his pillow case behind him. He always was like a little lost soul.

When the yowling started again, Erica and Rhiannon screamed a bit, and Josh took it as his opportunity to go comfort his girl. Liam and Amr traded chocolate bars at the front, a nostalgic echo of the past. I didn't hate the idea of reliving our childhood one last time, it just felt silly, and that occasional yowl was damn creepy.

Most people in our small town of Saint Kit had learned to ignore it. Sure, it weirded us out, but no one had ever been hurt. We just didn't go into the woods at night. But this was the richest street in town, and it was the farthest out, too. The forest bordered it. Behind the houses, you could walk right into foliage and get lost if you wanted to.

We went up to another million-dollar home and rang the doorbell, yelling TRICK-OR-TREAT when the old couple answered the door. They laughed at us and asked if we were too old to be doing this.

"Never too old for it!" Josh exclaimed.

"You kids are trouble," the old lady said with a kind smile. The light from inside her house was warm and inviting.

"At least there's one actual kid here," I told them with an uneasy laugh.

"Oh really?" the man asked with good-nature. "All I see are a bunch of trouble-makers!"

I laughed a bit at first, thinking he was kidding. But when I counted everyone's heads, I quickly realized Tommy was gone.

The yowling started back up again, this time, so close it caused everyone—even the older couple—to flinch.

"Maybe you kids should come in for a bit," the woman offered. "That coyote has been making noise all night. Your parents can come pick you up."

When I heard a scream, my blood ran cold.

I bolted away from the house, only to see a pillowcase strewn over the backyard.

"Tommy!" I shouted.

"Aiden!"

His voice came from the woods. I didn't think, I just ran.

Sticks and branches ripped at my jeans as I tore through the forest, following the sound of my brother's cries. My feet skidded to a halt in a clearing, lit by the cool blue moon.

My brother was on the ground, hands in the dirt. And standing before him was an animal.

It had a hunched over, hairy body like that of a wolf, but the way it struggled to stand on its hind legs was vaguely human. Tufts of thick fur gathered around the base of its throat, but then it was completely bald, leaving a long, bare neck that led to the face of something I could only compare to a goat. Pale, chalky skin. Eyes with empty, rectangular-shaped pupils that pierced into me—like it could see right through me. Then its neck craned back, long throat jutting out like the vertebrae of a spine. A sputter flapped from its lips, before they curled into a smile and the yipping sound erupted from its mouth. My eardrums rang. I couldn't think—I just grabbed my brother by his wrist and pulled him, running faster than I ever had in my life.

I barreled into the old couple's house and slammed the door shut, my heart pounding so loud I felt my ribcage was going to burst. I kept cursing over and over again while everyone tried to console me. I checked Tommy for wounds, but my mind was too caught up in whatever I had seen. Whatever that thing was.

When I told them, no one believed me.

And when I asked Tommy what he saw, all he said was, "A coyote."