Reputation

Some neighborhoods get the reputation for being good places to Trick or Treat, giving out full-sized candy bars and other goodies.
Others get a reputation for being lousy, with lots of porch lights turned off or sugar-free dentist office candy.
This year, word got around that my neighborhood was prime territory.
Communities rented buses and brought their kids here from miles around.
The streets filled up like a refugee camp. Screaming kids, roaming everywhere, bloody and frightened.
Relief agencies air-dropped insulin, dental floss, and ritalin.
The governor declared a disaster area.
Maybe next year, we’ll just do a haunted house.

Santa’s Ghost

You’ve got your lights and your inflatable reindeer.
I’ve got you beat.
I own a robot Santa Claus that bows and says HO! HO! HO! and hands out presents.
I put it out on the lawn for Halloween.
Well, covered with a sheet. So it’s a creepy ghost. That hands out candy.
Oh, and I change the tape so it goes BOO! and screams now and then.
When Halloween is over, I remove the sheet, change the tape, and he’s back to being Santa Claus.
Sure, it’s a bit early, but he’s a heavy son of a bitch to move.

Digger

Ever go to the cemetery?
I go there a lot.
People talk to the headstones.
I like to switch the headstones around.
People lay flowers on the wrong graves. Or they pour out beer or wine into the wrong grave.
It’s not about the dead for them. It’s about the living.
The living mow the grass. The living blow the leaves off of the sidewalks.
I’m not here for the living. I’m here for the dead.
I’ve got a shovel, a burlap sack, and a dark witch down the street who buys finger bones.
Need anything while I’m down there?

Will Work For… Food

The guy’s sign said WILL WORK FOR FOOD.
“Any good at raking leaves?” I asked.
He nodded.
Turns out, he was really good at it. He raked the front and back yards, and bagged everything.
“Well done,” I said. “What do you want to eat?”
He sank his fangs into my neck and drank my blood.
I almost laughed at the cleverness of his sign. After all, he had done work for me, his food.
Somehow, I managed to jam the rake handle through his chest to kill him.
Thank goodness I didn’t ask him to mow the lawn, too.

KFC

Have you ever noticed that you never see werewolves eating Kentucky Fried Chicken?
I suspect that one of the eleven secret herbs and spices is wolvesbane.
I’m pretty sure that one of the others is garlic, although that has nothing to do with why vampires won’t eat Kentucky Fried Chicken.
First off, vampires are snappy dressers, and fried chicken is greasy and disgusting.
And secondly, vampires drink blood. They do not eat fried chicken.
This would not stop either a vampire or a werewolf from eating a KFC employee, of course.
So don’t forget your silver bullets, cross, and hairnet.

Batman

Mom got me a Batman costume for Halloween.
“I’m Batman!”
I turned my bike into the Batmobile.
Then, I turned the basement into the Batcave.
You know. So I can fight crime.
I was on my Batcomputer when Mom told me to come upstairs for dinner.
“I’m Batman!” I growled.
“Does Batman want a hamburger or doesn’t he?” she asked.
I threw my cape in front of my face, dropped a smoke bomb, and grabbed a hamburger on my way out the door.
As I got on my bike, I growled another “I’m Batman!” and pedaled off to the Library.

King Size

Why is a king-sized candy bar that size?
No, it’s not because there was a king who liked candy that size.
It was because there was a king who was that size.
Well, a king who had a penis that size.
Which king? None other than the Reverend Martin Luther King, Junior himself.
You know how the King Family earns royalties on his speeches? Well, they do the same with king-sized candy.
That’s why you don’t see much candy in that size.
It’s all fun-size and junior-size.
What?
No, junior’s not named for him either.
His penis was huge, man.

Ghost Stories

Long ago, we used to tell ghost stories around the fire.
But now that we’re all dead and burning in Hell, we tell ghost stories in the fire.
The same stories. Over and over.
I suppose all stories are ghost stories when you’re a ghost.
Especially when the demons go around with whips to flog those ghosts telling happy stories, or stories about really good meals or memories.
You never get used to the flames. An impressive feat, really. Acclimation and desensitization never set in.
Hotter and hotter, while the ghost stories get duller and duller.
Here comes the whip.

The Witch

Gertie the Witch insisted on mixing potions from memory.
“I don’t need my spell book!” she’d screech at the Fire Department. “I’ve still got it all up here!”
He’d tap her forehead.. and noticed that her pointed hat was on fire.
The moment the firemen left, she was back in the kitchen.
Eye of bat…
Tongue of newt…
…or was it the other way around?
Her handwriting hadn’t been the best, even in her good days. And years of smoke damage had left the contents of her supply closet a grimy, sooty mystery.
I call dibs on her magic broom.

Greater Than Less Than

Some people learned that the greater than symbol is an alligator that eats the bigger number.
Other people learned that the less than symbol is an arrow that points at the smaller number.
My second grade Math teacher, Mr. Henson, taught us both.
“It’s up to you to decide,” he said.
The next day, when we arrived at school, there was a bloody trail leading into Mr. Henson’s room.
The room was a ghastly horror.
Last night, an alligator had broken into the school, and when Mr. Henson arrived, the beast attacked and ate him.
We all pointed and screamed.