This was originally a story I did for my grade eight English class, but I decided to edit it and fix some parts up. I'm still not particularly happy with the cheesiness of it, but 'tis the best I could do for now. I'll probably fix it again, no doubt, but not right now...

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Tricks, No Treats

“Trick or treat!” little Sarah, dressed up as a black cat, said enthusiastically as she knocked on the seeming large wooden door and it opened, but she then realized that no one appeared to be there. A look of confusion was on her face as she spoke her next words of question. “Uh, hello?” she asked, peering in the massive old looking house.

“What are you doing?” Megan, her impatient older sister, demanded when she saw Sarah begin to enter the house without warning and without being invited in.

Sarah ignored her and proceeded into the house curiously with her hazel eyes searching for anything living or interesting. She was always being nosey, but many supposed that that was just what came with her young age. Even if it wasn’t, that nosiness would no doubt get her into trouble sooner or later, even if it wasn’t that day.

Sighing, quite annoyed, Megan followed her into the house. She refrained from running up to her younger sibling and whacking her on the back of the head for trespassing. How could she even think of just walking into some stranger’s house, without being invited no less? Yet, she was about to do the same thing to retrieve her sister, so she couldn’t really scold her for it, she supposed.

The two girls looked around the dark house questionably, noting all at once that it was musty and old. If they didn’t know any better they would have thought that it was some fairy tale house and witches lived there with the way the spider webs clung to the walls and any other surface they could get on. The girls were startled when the front door slammed shut all too suddenly behind their trespassing forms. They jumped, literally, and glanced at the door and upon seeing it shut, they ran towards it.

“Hey! What’s the big idea?” Megan asked pulling on the door handle, only to find it strangely locked. “Let us out!” she yelled at the door as she looked for this lock so they could unlock it and get out.

“Why won’t the doors open?” Sarah asked fearfully, clinging to her sister’s sleeve with shaking hands.

“How would I know?” Megan finally let go of the door handle, giving up and glaring at it with daggers in her green eyes. “Let’s find another way out of here, or the person who lives here.” When she saw her sister nod in agreement, they continued on through the house.

Trick or treating on Halloween had just become frighteningly strange for them. They were locked in this creepy old house and didn’t know how to get out and there was no sign of any people in the house at all. The floorboards beneath their feet even seemed to be strangely overly creaky as each step they took gave away their presence without question. At every weird noise they heard, Sarah would say in a fearful voice, “What was that?” to which Megan would reply, “Nothing” or “I don’t know, let’s just keep moving” in an equally irritated voice.

There was a deafening cackle suddenly and the silhouette of a witch flying on a broomstick could be seen on the wall in front of them. It flew back and forth a few times with the cackle ringing out around them, before disappearing completely into the shadows it came from. A ghostly figure was the next to appear before them, but it didn’t shout the classic ‘boo!’ and it didn’t moan in its ghostly sorrows. It just hovered there and it scared them enough to cause them to shriek loudly, jumping backwards falling to the floor with a thud. The ghostly figure disappeared just as quickly as it had come, in the same fashion as the witch had.

They got up onto shaky legs and stood apprehensively for more than a minute. Peering around fearfully, they saw nothing more and decided to move on. The quicker they moved, the quicker they’d find an exit and get out, right?

Suddenly, Megan felt something, or someone grab her arm and thinking it was just her sister, she said, “Let go of me, Sarah!” However, when the hand didn’t let go, she turned to see who was grabbing her arm.

It was hard to see in the dark, but she could make out the outline of what appeared to be a monster. It’s hulking form towered over her and made her seem like nothing but a mere ant or some equivalent to that. Swearing she could actually feel the blood draining from her face, she remained motionless in her fear, but before long she screamed loudly and tried to free herself from the grip of the monster by twisting and pulling her arm, but the monster’s grip held strong.

“Let go of her!” Sarah yelled, trying to aid her sister by beating the creature’s arm.

A light came through the darkness and illuminated the monster as its grip began to loosen. Megan pulled her arm away at once and looked up at it in the clear light. It was all green, just as one would expect a monster to be and had creepy red eyes that glowed suddenly, though they hadn’t within the dark. A grunt emitted from within it as its form went limp and became a motionless statue standing before them.

“Hey, this is fake!” Megan exclaimed, as she felt pretty foolish for being afraid of it.

“It sure seemed real!” Sarah told her, surprised that the monster was fake.

They just realized it had gotten lighter in there though the light had enabled them to see their attacker. They turned, searching for the source of the light all around them, but they didn’t need to look long or hard, for they found who they were looking for.

There was a man standing there, he had a cane, but didn’t look that old due to the significant lack of lines on his face and lack of greying hair. They couldn’t guess his age though, for no matter what, their minds wanted to declare this man as being old. He walked closer to them, a limp evident in his steps. Perhaps he’d been in an accident?

“Oh I get it now!” Sarah declared, believing the man before them to be a robotic creature like the monster. Why she labeled it as a robot, she couldn’t be quite sure, but something about it didn’t seem at all real. “This is a haunted house! And the person running it is playing tricks on us!”

“Oh yah. I guess you’re right.” Megan agreed, as that seemed most logical. She made the same assumption as her sister about the man being a robot and watched as it began to speak.

“You have entered the Haunted House of the trickster Mr. Matthews and the only way to exit is through that door…” the man told them in a nearly incoherent voice, but they picked up enough of it to understand.

“What door?” Megan didn’t see any door, even in the light. All she could see were the walls and the furniture within the room they were now in and a dead end hall to their left.

“There!” Sarah shouted pointing at a door that seemed to have suddenly appeared at the end of the hall to their left.

They walked by the man anxiously as his eyes seemed to follow every movement they made, even though they both believed it to be a harmless robot. Their footsteps echoed in the hall as they went towards to door, opening it they exited happily. They found themselves on the front porch of the house and stopped immediately in their tracks and stared at the front lawn of the house. They looked at each other with confused gazes before questioning vocally the situation.

“This is weird.” Sarah said. “We’re right back where we started, but we didn’t even come out the same door.” She knew they hadn’t even been in the direction of the front yard either. They’d been heading towards the back of the house whether they could really see that or just assumed it.

Megan was also puzzled by the thought, but quickly brushed it aside, just glad to be outside. “Oh well, let’s just get out of here! I’ve had enough of Haunted Houses and fake monsters for one night.” Megan told her, walking away from the house.

Sarah followed her, jumping down the steps and as they walked away, they heard the door slam shut once again, but didn’t turn to look back at the house. When the sound of more terrified shrieks met their ears, they turned and looked at the house briefly, but didn’t go back to it nor did they really want to. Both stood there staring at the outer walls of the large house.

“Think we should go help them?” Sarah asked, curiously, hoping the answer would be no.

“Nah, they’ll figure it out.” Megan said and they both walked on to do more trick or treating.

End