Shadows of Halloween Night

Halloween Night. A strange night, for all of us, and made stranger for those who experience things at just that night. Although, it is given that it is only like that to people with an active imagination and children who run around calling "Trick or treat"…

Or…?

A young woman with long brown hair took her handbag in one hand as she shut of her computer with the other. A man looked over to her from a table nearby, observing as she looked at herself thoughtfully in the mirror.

"Hey, Veronica!", the man called to his college. "Going home? You shouldn't be overworking this late on days like today!"

Veronica King smiled. "Yes, Tom, I am going home. And why are you so suspicious of Halloween, either way? It is just a holiday for the kids."

Tom shook his head. "You keep telling yourself that", he replied seriously. "Just be careful. You'll never know when a monster sneaks up behind you." He gave her a worried look.

"In that case, the monster would be a human monster", she shrugged. "I'll see you tomorrow, Tom!"

As she left, Tom could only look after her. "If you only knew…"

Her hand twitched ever so slightly and she looked behind her, searching from where the sound came from. The sound had been that of a whisper, but the words hadn't been loud enough for her to make them out, and there was not a soul behind her. The logical answer was that it was a figment of her imagination. She was a scientist, nothing would scare her.

As she kept walking, she heard that noise soon again, a bit closer this time. A hiss. But as she looked over her shoulder, there was still no one there. She shook her head and grumbled to herself as she kept walking, but not without the feeling of being watched.

Tom could have right; it was something with the atmosphere with Halloween that scared even the more logic minds. Perhaps it was only so in this city, or it was so in many other cities, she wouldn't know, but something wasn't right.

She needed to reach her house.

She quickly decided to take the shortcut through the park, although she knew it was probably a stupid move. If she only was quick enough…

With that mindset set she headed off though the park, and the feeling followed her.

The park was surprisingly empty, even for being a night, and there was some strange mist that hadn't disappeared from there during the day. She stopped for a second, her heart skipping a beat, as she saw a pair of glowing orange eyes in the middle of the mist. She gulped and took a step towards them, but then they were gone. Brushing the thought of them out of her mind, although a bit more uneasy, she continued.

She passed a three when something brushed her leg, and she flinched pretty badly. Looking down she saw something black, in the size of a cat, stand beside her. She laughed, but the laughter got stuck in her throat as the "cat" suddenly untangled into a black, tentacle-like mass and shoot forward, blinding itself around her leg.

A sudden pull from the tentacle made her fall to the ground and she screamed, but the scream was cut short by another tentacle shooting up from the ground and covering her mouth. She breathed in through her mouth in shock, filling her mouth with whatever the tentacle was made of.

The tentacles dragged her into the shadows and forced her head to look up. She thus found herself locking eyes with the glowing orange eyes she had seen earlier. The figure on which head those eyes were chuckled, a echoing sound as the tentacles tightened their grip and two new tentacles grabbed her arms and pulled her up.

A hand, black as the tentacles holding Veronica, brushed stray hairs from her face, before something impaled her through the chest, the last thing she saw was the thing in front of her opening what can only be described as a mouth that glowed the same ominously orange shade as its eyes.