The Halloween after 9/11, a lot of kids went around dressed as firemen and policemen to honor those who died in the World Trade Center attacks.
A few went around as soldiers and officers to honor those who died at The Pentagon.
Did any go as pilots or flight attendants? Or passengers?
Or the stockbrokers and businesspeople who died in the buildings?
I just assumed that everyone who dressed as a ghost was the ghost of a 9/11 victim.
So, I shouted “TOO SOON!” at them all, and slammed the door.
Okay, so I forgot to buy candy.
Category: Halloween
Upstairs Leak
The psycho upstairs neighbor has a leak in their pipes, so we’ve got a trickle of water down the wall and into the cabinets.
It’s their kitchen sink’s drain pipe, so it’s the crap that’s going down their sink.
And it stinks.
I put on my shoes and get ready to walk upstairs to yell at them to stop using the sink when I notice that the water’s turned from clear… to red.
I rub my finger on it.
It feels like… blood?
I calmly sit back down, pick up the phone, and call maintenance.
Their problem, not mine.
Twins
The strangest Halloween costume I ever saw was the costume that the Smith Twins wore together.
They wore the same clothes, and walked around with a mirror frame between them.
Everything Pete did, Paul did in mirror-fashion. And vice versa.
They had the choreography down cold.
And yet, for all the effort, they didn’t get any candy.
Because each had his own bag, and one couldn’t accept candy without the other getting candy at the same time.
They said they’d just hold half of a shared bag next time, but they got run over by a truck and killed.
Together.
Ghost Operators
The first elevators used human operators.
They pulled levers to open and close the doors, or to lower or raise the car.
Then came automatic elevators that had buttons to select floors, automatic doors with safety bumpers, and no other controls.
People didn’t quite adjust to the new elevators. They looked for human operators.
Instead, there were voices in each elevator that welcomed the passengers and invited them to push buttons.
No, they were not on tape. These were the ghosts of the elevator operators.
People became more comfortable with the automated elevators.
Their purpose fulfilled, the ghosts moved on.
Hold My Calls
Winston’s last words were “hold my calls.”
And then, an hour later, he died from a heart attack.
Winston’s phone rang while the orderlies were moving his body down to the morgue for processing.
“Hey! Hey there!” shouted the phone, over and over.
It was Winston’s voice shouting as the ringtone, and it scared the fuck out of the orderlies.
“I warned you,” cackled Winston’s ghost.
Then his spirit wandered off to the emergency room, where he placed bets with the other ghosts on who would live or die.
Which was awkward when those dying patients became ghosts too.
The Wish
I hear screaming.
It is coming from the well.
They say it is a wishing well.
I pushed the bad man into the well.
I made a wish:
I wish the bad man would stop hurting me.
I asked him for some coins to throw into the well.
He took them out of his pocket, laughed, and said…
No.
So, I pushed him into the well.
Him, and the coins in his pocket.
And I made my wish.
But he’s climbing back out.
Angry.
Maybe, if I hit him on the head with a shovel, my wish will come true.
Haunted
Blake ran the video arcade at the mall until a poorly-grounded Galaga box electrocuted him.
When the real estate company tried to put a shoe store in that location, Blake’s ghost scared off all the customers with all his yelling and throwing things around.
Same with the novelty gift shop, the jeans outlet store, and the cell phone place.
Exorcists and supernatural “experts” failed to remove Blake.
So, we put a laser tag maze in the spot, but called it Ghost Hunters.
It would work better if Blake wore a sheet instead of a Pac Man tee-shirt and jeans, though.
Drag The Kids Around
It’s Halloween again.
There are only two houses on our street: ours and the Smiths.
When Halloween rolls around, the Smiths knock on our door for candy, and then we knock on their door.
No one else comes into our street to trick-or-treat. It’s just us.
We don’t even get out real candy. It’s play candy from some kind of preschool playset that we pass back and forth.
The kids don’t mind. They don’t like candy. Or much of anything, because they’re dead.
We dig them up to drag them around.
At least their pretty costumes will always fit them
The Event
The catastrophic event happened faster than we could respond.
We tried to reduce pressure in the tank, but it exploded, killing 22 workers.
We are budgeted for 60 casualties in a cycle.
The plant manager congratulated us, and gave us a bonus.
However, more workers died as a result of radiation sickness.
The casualty count increased rapidly.
Soon, we had surpassed our budget, and our bonus was revoked.
We received a reprimand.
However, we were not terminated, as the plant manager had died.
Not that this matters much to us, as we vomit blood and await our own horrible deaths.
Voices and Voices
When people hear the voice of a dead person, they’re either a psychic or suffering from a guilty conscience.
When people hear the voice of a muse, they’re either manifesting the creative process or finding a way to shift blame a third party when the resulting project does not turn out well.
When people hear the voice of God, they’re either a prophet or a madman.
This is why we don’t use the speakerphone to play games with Uncle Frank. He’s a bit sensitive to these things.
Hopefully, we can catch him before the police do, or he kills again.