“I still don’t understand how you did it,” I mused to Jasper as we trudged our way to the end of yet another neighborhood street, our candy haul already starting to weigh us down despite the palpable sensation that the night was still young.

“Or why,” Kyle chimed in from behind us. He’d been having trouble keeping up for a while. He’d brought two pillow cases this year to hold his candy and vowed to fill them both to capacity, the treats inside distributed evenly between them because he was worried an imbalance might pose an injury risk. I was already getting tired of him stopping constantly to readjust the weight, and it took everything I had not to say that the football team would survive losing the third-string linebacker. But I was trying to be nice this Halloween.

I was especially trying to be nice to Jasper, who’d pulled the single most epic prank of all time last year. Knowing we were all afraid of the giant house at the top of the haunted hill in our otherwise friendly cul-de-sac, he had staged a frightful scene with the homeowner behind our backs and pretended that he had lived there himself all along, and that it was some sort of demonic hellscape. It went over especially well since I’d always suspected Jasper might be a ghoul anyway.

Kyle had been so scared of making the trip up the hill in the first place that he’d faked an injury and run home, but Jasper and I dutifully climbed to what I briefly thought was my demise. Just when I was about to fully surrender to a cursed afterlife, I heard laughter, and not just Jasper’s raspy, high-pitched cackle, but the booming guffaw of an adult male. Upon introducing himself, I learned his name was Frank. Frank turned out to be super nice and had the best candy of all the houses we went to. Now I see him all the time in regular, non-haunted moments, and I’ll admit I’m not really sure why I was so scared of his house all those years.

“It was just a joke,” Jasper answered us with a shrug. “I didn’t expect it to work so well.”

“If you do it again, I’ll have to beat you up,” Kyle warned him. “I’m serious. I’ve been seeing some huge gains in the gym lately.”

Jasper ignored him. Kyle was especially insecure about Jasper’s growth over the summer; he’d shot up a full two inches, while Kyle had barely cleared one. Consequently, he’d spent the first few months of the school year threatening Jasper and occasionally resorting to scare tactics, like the time at lunch he made up a scientific fact that if you grow too tall too fast your bones can get stretched thin and shatter. Jasper ignored that too.

Despite Kyle’s slow pace and Jasper’s unsettling presence, Operation Candy Collection was off to a fine start this year. We’d already hit up our cul-de-sac of course. Frank was giving out king-size candy bars this year. Kyle demanded two so that he had one for each pillow case. He had carefully explained to Frank the importance of candy balance. Winking at us, Frank tricked Kyle by offering him an extra Snickers after we were all filled up. Kyle was so excited to get a bonus candy bar he forgot to keep the number in even increments. Frank was the best, and not at all some sort of demon overlord.

The cul-de-sac next to ours was another treasure trove. There wasn’t exactly another Frank giving out king sizes, because Frank was truly one of a kind, but we did pretty well. After hitting up yet another cul-de-sac, we were starting to get into a good rhythm.

“Cul-de-sacs really do have the nicest people with the best candy,” Jasper observed in his customary squeak. “It’s a good thing there are so many of them where we live.”

“It’s culs-de-sac,” Kyle said, his protest strangely meek, almost a whisper. Jasper ignored him.

“We need to branch out a little,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I was. This is exactly what happened last year, right before Jasper turned the evening into a horror film. I’d never really liked Jasper much, but I’d always thought he was harmless. Take Kyle, for instance. Kyle annoyed me most of the time, and sure I’d trade him in for a different friend if the option presented itself, but it hadn’t, and annoying was manageable and safe. I thought Jasper fit into that category, albeit odd and quiet whereas Kyle was brash and stupid, but equally harmless. In the year since learning Jasper was not harmless and in fact quite possibly deranged, I hadn’t really known how to categorize our friendship. I guess I respected him as a person more, but it would take a while for him to fully earn my trust back.

Kyle spoke up, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Why? There’s another cul-de-sac coming up. Or we could just go back to ours and make our way around the houses another time.”

“We’re not bothering Frank again,” I said. Kyle pouted a little, his shoulders sagging slightly. Maybe he had figured out he got an odd number of candy bars.

“Let’s try that brand new neighborhood,” Jasper offered.

“I’d like that idea a lot more if you hadn’t been the one to suggest it,” I responded.

“Seriously, Jasper,” Kyle interjected. “My tackling skills are a lot better this year. You’d better not be planning anything.”

“Calm down,” Jasper said. “I just want to see the new neighborhood.” I think he meant it sincerely and was trying to assure us nothing horrible was going to happen this time, but it was hard to tell. It seemed like he might have been smiling ever so slightly, but his lips were almost as pale as the rest of his skin and it blended together, so who knows?

Admittedly, I had been hoping to check out the new neighborhood too. Construction had started exactly at dusk on the first day of fall, and finished officially at midnight today, Halloween. I had asked mom if it was normal for entire neighborhoods to be built in only one month, but she had just chuckled nervously and said that the advances in construction technology were no joke. Then she asked what sounded good for dinner, and I forgot all about it.

“Let’s do it,” I announced, my feet already leading us that way before my mouth could even share my brain’s intentions. The others fell into step beside me, Kyle trailing behind just a little.

“What’s this new placed called again?” he asked.

“Ghost Village,” I answered him, pointing to the prominently displayed sign hanging over the entrance to the street. It was a really well-made sign, a little rustic but with a modern touch. It was an ominous name, to be sure, but honestly it couldn’t be any scarier than the dense forest that our street had been pressed up against my whole life. When the construction company had shown up and started clearing out the land in late September, I was relieved. Nothing good ever happens in a forest.

“It’s a gated community,” Jasper said as we approached Ghost Village, taking in the impressive wrought iron gate that blocked our entrance.

“Maybe there’s an intercom system,” Kyle said.

“What would we tell them if there was?” I snapped, losing my patience with Kyle for the first time tonight. “We’re kids from a nearby neighborhood here on urgent trick-or-treating business, let us in?”

Jasper ignored us, taking in the gate quietly, his pale face aglow from the streetlight above. For a second, I swear the light penetrated right through his skin and I could see his skeleton underneath, but I think that was just his normal translucence. I shook myself calm and approached the gate the way all brave people approach gates.

There was a giant skull in the middle, intricately designed as the center point so that it would split in half upon opening. Instinctively, as if I had been here before in a different life, I placed my hand on the skull and rested it there gently. It was a chilly night, and getting increasingly dark very quickly, but the skull was slightly warm to the touch. I thought I felt a little vibration, maybe the sensation of a deep, rumbling laughter, and then the gate opened, slowly and with a prolonged creak.

“That’s not a very practical security system,” Kyle said as we passed through the entrance area. “Just touch the skull and anyone can get in.”

“It may not be so easy getting out,” Jasper said in a whisper.

“Whatever,” I replied, picking up the pace as the first house on the right grew closer. “It’s just a normal neighborhood, Jasper. You touch the skull, you enter, you get candy, you touch the skull, you leave. Quit making it such a big deal.”

“Why is there no one else here?” Kyle asked. It was true. While the houses all seemed normal and welcoming enough, and the streets were well-lit, there was not a soul to be seen except for us. There weren’t even any cars in driveways or along the streets.

“They just finished the neighborhood at midnight,” I said with a shrug. “Everyone’s still getting settled in. I’m sure they’ll all be happy to take a break from moving in to give us some candy.”

We had arrived in the driveway of the first house. It was enormous, like all the houses in Ghost Village. I couldn’t help but notice that the exterior was solid back except for the front door, which was bright red, and that the moon seemed to be looming directly behind, veiled ever so slightly by a cloudy mist. Ignoring the unease slowly spreading through my entire body, I forced my trembling arm forward and pressed the doorbell. I heard it chiming on the inside, echoing distantly throughout the house as if it were an empty cathedral.

We waited a solid thirty seconds. No one appeared. Everyone exhaled at once.

“Ghost Village sucks,” Kyle said, trying to make himself laugh. “No one’s moved in yet, or they’re just too embarrassed that they don’t have any candy to show themselves. Let’s get out of here.”

“For once, you’re probably right, Kyle,” I said, relief flooding my body and filling me with a sense of giddiness.

I had faced my fears, and just like last year, it turned out there was nothing to them in the first place. Growing up was like that, I thought, feeling suddenly very wise. Life throws small tests at you along the way, and once you figure out the solution, you find the only obstacles were the ones you created for yourself.

“Let’s go! Sorry Jasper, looks like you don’t get to ruin anything this ye—”

Just as I had turned away from the door in triumph, it swung open, interrupting me mid-sentence. Cold air hit us directly in the back, air that was much colder than the outside temperature. Chills creeping their way down my arms and neck, I froze. None of us had turned around yet. I made eye contact with Jasper, who seemed genuinely scared. Whatever was behind us, he had nothing to do with it.

“I told you it wouldn’t be so easy to leave,” he said.

Kyle, sensing something very wrong was about to take place, was the first to move, naturally away from the house and toward the front gate. Because his pillow cases were so unbalanced, he quickly fell, where he started writhing in pain on the ground and clasping his shoulder.

Slowly, knowing there was no other option, I turned back to the door. Jasper was frozen to the spot. He didn’t turn around with me or even attempt to run as Kyle had. Jasper was so weird.

Standing in the doorway, looking honestly more confused than menacing, was Frank. Well, he had the physical features of Frank, I should say, but with significantly less opacity. In fact, I could see right through Frank, and not in the way I could with Jasper. Frank, it was plain to see, was an actual ghost.

“Frank?” I said, mostly because that was all that came out.

Ghost Frank looked at us from the doorway, realization slowly dawning on his ghostly face as he took in the scene.

“You touched the skull, didn’t you?” he asked, clearly saddened. “I’m sorry. You kids don’t belong in Ghost Village, not yet.”

“We’ll go!” I said, my voice breaking. But I knew we couldn’t. I knew it was too late for that.

“I told you it wouldn’t be so easy to leave,” Jasper said, still staring intently at the other side of the street.

“You touched the skull,” Frank said in reply to me, shaking his head. “No one leaves after touching the skull.”

“What is this place?” I asked, my mouth going dry.

“Ghost Village,” Jasper replied in the same flat tone he’d been using since the door opened. He finally turned to me, his eyes burning into mine. “We live here now.”

By Spencer Hendricks