Speaker 1: My friends and I were trigger treating a few years
ago when we were thirteen to fourteen years old. This
was our second year going without any of our parents
coming with us, so we were pretty excited to run
around the neighborhood collecting candy and just having a good time,
something we'd do every year. Before Halloween. Was plan out
our trigger treating route so that we could go to
all the biggest houses and hopes to get full sized
candy bars. Earlier this year, a whole street of newly
built luxury homes were finally finished and people had moved in,
so we decided to start there and then make our
way around to the other neighborhoods afterwards. This new street
of houses wasn't too far from my place, so we
all met at my house on Halloween evening, then we
headed out to begin trigger treating. We stopped at a
few houses on the way just for some extra candy,
and then turned down the sidewalk that led to the
new streets. To our surprise, we didn't see any other
kids walking around here. We figured we were the first ones,
and we got really excited and ran over to the
first house. A kind older man opened the door and
gave us each a full sized Hershey's chocolate bar. Once
we were out of the driveway, we all got super excited,
as we were already off to a good start, but
as we rang the next door bell, nobody answered, and
neither did the next house or the one after that.
One thing about this street was that each house had
a really big yard, so the walk between them would
take almost two to three minutes. After about ten houses
not answering, we were starting to feel like we were
wasting our Halloween here and not getting anything. We could
see the next house, though, and it was the biggest
one on the street as far as we could see,
so we agreed to try there first. This house had
a really long driveway and led to an even larger
circle driveway. As we were walking up, I saw a
woman looking at us from the small window right next
to the door, but as soon as I made eye
contact with her, she quickly backed away. I figured she
was just waiting for trick or treaters, and I was
just glad to see that someone was home and hopefully
had some candy for us. We got up onto the
porch and I rang the doorbell. Almost immediately a woman
opens the door, and standing behind her was another older woman,
the same one that I'd seen in the window. They
both smile as we say trick or treat. Then she
opens the door wider, revealing a huge round table set
up inside of their large entrance room. On the table
was pretty much every kind of candy you could find
at a store. I couldn't believe someone would spend this
much on Halloween candy, but with a house like this,
I guess it made sense. She told us to come
in and choose two of whichever candy we wanted. Without hesitating,
we all ran in and over to the table to
look at everything they had. All of us, in that
moment were so happy getting to decide on pretty much
whatever candy we wanted. But as I was trying to
decide on what my second choice would be, I heard
the door slam shut. All of us turned and looked
at the woman standing right by the door, still smiling
at us. She then asks us to stay here for
just a minute, as she'd forgotten to put out some
dessert for us to have on our way out, and
then she walked away Quickly. I looked around, noticing the
other woman wasn't there anymore either, I could tell all
of us were panicking and scared. Only seconds later, footsteps
started coming towards us from down the hall. I immediately ran
for the door and opened it, letting all of us outside.
As we could hear the woman call out for us
to wait. We all ran down the driveway and didn't
stop until we got all the way back to my house.
We sat on my driveway, terrified and confused as to
watch us happened. We thought about telling my parents, but
we knew they'd yell at us for stupidly going into
the house when we were told so many times before
to not go into anyone's home, so we didn't say anything.
After a little bit, we ended up continuing our trick
or treating in my neighborhood, being a lot more cautious
and trying to make sure we weren't the only kids
walking around. It was definitely the weirdest thing that happened
to me on Halloween, and my friends and I still
talk every Halloween about what we think those women were
trying to do and what would have happened if we
stayed in their house for the dessert. Last year was
the first time that I had ever lived completely alone,
in a house, as I had just rented a small
place in a new neighborhood that was closer to my work.
I moved in in early October, but it seemed like
most of the neighbors kept to themselves, so I did
as well. But everything it was pretty normal otherwise for
the first few weeks. Anyways, it was Halloween now and
I noticed only a couple houses actually had decorations up.
They didn't have anything crazy, just a few pumpkins or signs,
but it was more than any of the other houses.
I decided to put up a small trigger treat sign
on my door, and I bought a small bag of
candies to hand out. Where I used to live, i'd
buy three or four big bags, but I didn't get
the feeling that these people really celebrated Halloween here, so
I figured one bag would be enough. The afternoon came
and I got a few small groups of kids, but
that was pretty much it. I was a little bit disappointed,
as I always found Halloween to be enjoyable, even if
I was just the one handing out treats at my house. Anyways,
it started getting late around ten PM, so I put
the bag of candy in my pantry and sat on
the couch to watch a scary movie to end the
night on. I think I was halfway through the movie
before I heard the doorbell ring. A little bit confused
and annoyed, I got up and looked out the peephole
to see who was there. I saw what looked like
a small boy, maybe ten or eleven, standing at the
door in a homemade costume. It didn't look like anything specific,
just black cloth with red accents and a black mask.
I opened the door and he said trick or treat.
By now, it was almost eleven, so I was a
little worried that he was alone walking door to door.
I smiled and told him to wait a minute while
I'll get him some of the candy that I'd put away.
I went back to my pantry and grabbed a big
handful and then brought them back to the door and
dropped him in the boy's pillowcase. Then I looked around
behind him to see if his parents were on the sidewalk,
or maybe a group of friends, but I didn't see anyone.
He turned around and started walking away, but I stayed
in the doorway for a few seconds just to make
sure he was okay. But again I didn't see anything
or anyone, so I closed the door and went back
to the couch. A couple more minutes went by before
the doorbell rang again. This time, I went to the
pantry first and got the bag of candy, and then
headed for the door. When I opened it, I was
surprised to see the same kid standing there, but without
a pillowcase or a bag. This time, concerned, I asked
him if he was okay, to which he didn't reply.
I looked around behind him again, but this time I
noticed someone standing in my neighbor's driveway across the street,
watching us. It looked like a full grown man, but
he was wearing a similar costume to the kids. Is
that your dad over there, I asked nicely. The kid
waited a second and then said yes. Then I asked
him why he came back to my house, to which
the boy responded asking for more candy. I was even
more confused by this because he didn't have his pillowcase,
but I held out my bag of candy for him
to take out of but the boy looked, almost annoyed
for some reason, then reluctantly reaches in and grabs a
single piece before running off. That whole interaction creeped me
out a bit, so I made sure to lock my door,
and then I went back and finished the movie. It
was pretty late at this point, so I decided to
get ready for bed. I got up from the couch
and began walking over to the stairs, but out of
the corner of my eye, I saw a light flash
from outside one of my windows. I nervously went over
and looked outside, and then realized that it was the
motion sensor lights that were by my garage. I stayed
in the window looking around for a few minutes, as
I was getting pretty creeped out now, but nothing else happened,
so I closed the blinds and headed upstairs to my bedroom.
I laid in bed for probably thirty minutes, thinking about
that boy from earlier and how strange the whole thing was.
But as I started adrift into sleep, I heard a
soft ruffling noise followed by loud thumping bangs on my
front door. I shot up and jumped out of bed,
then quietly made my way downstairs and over to the
front door. Just before I looked into the people, three
more loud bangs shook the door and made me jump
back a little. I waited there for a few seconds,
then looked. It was the man that I'd seen across
the street from earlier, that the kid had said was
his dad. He was standing there just inches away from
the door, still wearing that creepy black and red costume
and a mask. I could tell something was in his hand,
but he was too close to the door for me
to see what it was. There was no way I
was opening that door, as I had no idea what
this guy could possibly want from me. I knew this
was either some sick joke or something much worse. I
ran back upstairs and grabbed my phone, then locked myself
in the room and called nine one one. The man
continued banking on the door for probably a whole minute
before it went silent. I waited in fear, hoping he
had left for good. Then I got up and looked
out of my bedroom window, which had a small view
of the sidewalk that led to the front door. But
as I was looking, the sudden sound of glass shattering
came from what sounded like the kitchen downstairs. I was
completely terrified at this point, with no way to defend
myself if they came upstairs. Thankfully. Just moments later, I
could hear police sirens down the road, followed by footsteps
rushing outside from downstairs. I waited for the police to
call for me at the front door before I made
my way downstairs to let them in. They searched the
house to make sure the man was gone, and noticed
a broken window in my kitchen, where it was obvious
the man had entered. I ended up staying at a
hotel for the next few days just to be safe,
but I guess the guy never came back. I run
through the whole night in my head a lot, wondering
if he was just using his kid as some weird
way to gain entry into my house. I don't really
know for sure, but nothing was stolen, though, which makes
me question what the man was really trying to do
breaking in my house. Anyways, It's been almost a year
now and Halloween is in just a couple of weeks,
and I'm starting to get pretty paranoid that the man
from last year might come back to finish what he started.
When I was a kid, I lived with my parents
in a small neighborhood. Halloween was never really a big
thing as far as trigger treating and stuff. So we'd
always do something else. One thing my dad and I
always loved doing on Halloween was exploring creepy or abandoned
places together. It's funny. I would never do this kind
of thing alone or even with friends, but with him,
I felt safe and I was never scared of what
we might find, at least up until this day. After
driving around for a while, we found a worn down barn.
This thing had to be vacant for years. The sighting
was half gone and the roof was carved in. If
it wasn't for the little slivers of paint here and there,
you would have never known it was red. We maneuvered
around broken glass and slabs of wood, finding left behind
tools and garbage, and then I saw it. A cute
little scarecrow perched up on the side of the barn.
I pointed to it and my dad led the way.
But the closer we got, the worse it started to smell.
Poor guy, I heard my dad say. As I looked down,
there was a big wild raccoon lying motionless, not too
far from the scarecrow's feet. What do you think killed it?
I asked. He examined it for a bit as I
looked back up towards the figure. But then I froze.
It was staring right at me. I could have sworn
it was looking straight off into the distance before, but
now its eyes have shifted on to me, still smiling
and sitting upright, but just the eyes had moved. Dad
he didn't respond. I looked over at him, and he
pointed at the raccoon with a more disgusted look this time.
Then I saw what he was looking at. All of
its insides were missing, and usually there would be a
big mess or something. But the strange part about this
was that it was heartily noticeable unless you looked closely.
I didn't want to, but I looked up at the
scarecrow once more. My stomach sank as I realized it
was still staring at me, but its eyebrows that were
once raised were now furrowed, and its smile was gone.
Then I started to notice the scattered blood stains seeping
through its raggedy clothes. I felt a sickness come over me,
and I got really dizzy until my dad put his
hand on my shoulder. Probably just a coyote, he said,
then started leading the way out. His words made me
feel better, but I wasn't too sure if I believed it.
As we walked away, I looked back at the scarecrow,
and it was just how we found it, looking off
into the distance and smiling with its eyebrows high. I
never told my dad, as I wasn't quite sure if
what I saw was real or not, and I didn't
want him to worry that I was seeing things and
not take me on adventures anymore. I still have no
idea what I was seeing, or if it was even
real at all. But what creeped me out the most
was that my dad went back a few days later
to sketch the barn with my brother, and when he
came back, he showed me the pictures, but on them
was no scarecrow.