On the 2nd Night of Halloween...

... 2 little ghosts

and a crow in a weeping willow

Two ghosts, their drapes spread across the grass, relaxed around a small campfire, watching the dancing flames.

"Hey man, imagine if, like, humans exist," one began slowly. He paused, then added: "And what if, like, they tell ghost stories instead of telling human stories."

"Yeah that's...that's really deep man," his friend replied.

"What if, we were alive at some point, and we used to tell ghost stories?"

"Woah, that's- yeah that's def far out." There was another pause.

"Hey man, I got an idea. Let's, like, do a ghost story thing. Like, I'll tell one, and you listen."

"Okay, yeah, that's cool. Def cool. I'm liking the irony here man, I'm liking it."

"Okay, I'll go now. This one's called..."

The Perfect Couple 

  I finished unpacking the last of the boxes, heaving a loud sigh. We had finally moved in! I turned to my wife and saw that she had, at that same moment, finished dusting the shelves. We smiled and laughed like normal couples do. She twirled across the living room and into my arms, because this was supposed to be a whimsical moment. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch her, and she went crashing into a pile of empty cardboard boxes, clouds of dust flying into the air.

“Ouch,” she said, and we laughed again. Our old neighbors would avoid us, saying we had “plastic smiles, and soulless beady looking eyes”, but I disagree. Our smiles are made of steal. Quite literally, as a matter of fact. My wife and I both wear braces, because we believe that as good citizens it is our duty to have good teeth.

“Our new house is looking mighty fine!” she said, brushing the dust off of her red, polka-dotted a-line skirt. I clenched my hands, so as to look manly before placing them on my hips in agreement. My stomach growled.

“I’ll go and make us some lunch,” she proclaimed cheerfully.

  In the meantime, I decided to visit our new neighbors. Stepping outside under the musky October sky, I paused to look at our wonderful new house. It was dilapidated, with partially boarded up windows, the roof caving in, old egg stains from sugar high trick-or-treaters of past Halloweens stuck to the façade, and a dead yellow lawn. It was perfect. The neighboring ones, in contrast, were all cream colored with two windows, and a red door. I figured I’d go for the one on the right, and knocked on the door.

“Hello?” a tentative looking young boy cracked open the door. I stuck my face into the gap, smiling, the metal in my mouth gleaming in the light. You have to let kids know that you’re friendly. He whimpered, and ran crying “there’s a funny man at the door!”.

“Tell him we don’t want a Bible,” I heard a voice answer. Soon after, a boy was tugging his mother towards the entryway.

“Wadda you want?” she asked. Curlers were in her hair, and she was wearing a pink bathrobe. I motioned towards our house.

“Oh, you’re the one that lives in the shack?” I wanted to add that my wife lived there too, but she cut me off with:

“I thought they’d given up on selling that thing. You know you shouldn’t have bothered, you can’t even renovate. Can’t sell it. Tear it down maybe, but nobody’s gonna want whatever you build on top. Some weird folks used to live there, and now nobody wants nothing to do with it.”

  I heard my wife call for lunch, and waved goodbye to the woman as she stared at me with intense curiosity and a hint of repulsion. When I stepped into the house, it was silent. I could hear no sign of life, and certainly smell no lunch. Suddenly, I felt something hit my back, as though I were being punched. I fell to the floor and noticed blood running along the wooden boards. The room span, I had to concentrate for every breath I took. Slowly, the corners of my vision grew dark, the lights started fading out. The last thing I saw was my wife’s smiling metal mouth.

When I woke up, I was in the same spot I had left off. Only this time, something was different. I stood up, looked around, and to my grand disbelief saw that my body was still lying on the floor. Yet, somehow, I had managed to successfully stand up. I ran frantically upstairs towards the bathroom, looking for a mirror. I stared at my reflection. It was definitely me. I hit my head against the wall and felt no pain. This could only mean one thing: I was dead and a ghost. This was not a dream; only irrational people would have come to a conclusion like that. As if to confirm this, I heard noises going on downstairs. I hurried to inspect, and found my wife dragging my body across the floor with incredible strength. “She must have worked out while I was not looking,” I thought, before abruptly switching my focus to that the fact that she had, it seemed, been implicated in my death. A knife was lying on the floor, bathing in the pool of blood. She had obviously stabbed me with it. I felt more horrified than sad. How could you live with someone for so long only to have them stab you? They should use poison, like everybody else. This was embarrassing. I watched her drag my body towards…the kitchen? What was she going to do, cook me? I then realized that she hadn’t made lunch and was probably starving by now, especially after hauling a corpse through the house. My insubstantial heart leapt as she brandished a butcher’s knife and chopped off my left arm. I began to cry. That was not the correct way to prepare a body, she was doing it all wrong!

  She then proceeded to wash the limb with dishwashing liquid before seasoning it and placing it in the oven. I stepped into the kitchen and kneeled down, peering into the oven window. I was invisible to her. The skin on my arm slowly crackled and curled under the heat. Oddly enough, I began feeling pain. I felt as though I were being sucked into the oven, the unbearable heat surrounding me. Before long, it was as though I were in the oven. As a matter of fact, I was in the oven. I tried to move, to get out, but all I could do was crinkle my fingers. I saw my wife’s face on the other side of the window, chuckling. She had done this on purpose. Somehow, she had managed to transfer my soul into my arm. I was alive again, but not in the way anyone would ever want to be. As my skin slowly peeled back, like a sticky band-aid being ripped off an unhealed wound, I wanted to shout “Ow! This hurts more than a thousand paper cuts dipped in lemons!” Unfortunately, only writhing fingers could express my excruciating torment. After what felt like years, I was removed from the oven, the cold air burning against my naked flesh, and placed onto a platter. My wife sharpened a large knife. An icy blade sliced through me, and I felt my bones crack as she cut me to pieces. I was submerged in gravy and cut as she feasted. I could feel every crunch, every bite, in her mouth. I slid down her throats and landed into the bile of her stomach. It would have been fun, had it not been so painful. I could feel her digestive fluids working, and prayed that it stop there. Finally, it did. I could no longer feel anything, except claustrophobic. Everything was dark.

“Now you’ll be with me forever darling,” I heard her merry voice say from outside.

  That’s when I fully realized what she had done. She had simply transferred my soul to a modest portion of my body so as to eat it, thus conserving me forever. Why my wife was just the smartest! We could now be together for the rest of our lives, thanks to her mature decision. I suggested to her, from the depths of her gastric fluids, that maybe the neighbors would like to try. She agreed, before adding: “Shush! Don’t tell them. It will be a surprise.”

I could almost see that beautiful metallic smile as she began carving her knife.

The End

"Woah man, woah," the ghost said, after hearing the story.

"I know right?" he lay down on the grass and stared at the stars.

"I met a human once..." he sat silent for dramatic effect.

"No way."

"Yeah... but I can't tell you much because I ATE IT!"

They howled with laughter for the next several hours, until the breath they didn't have left their lungs. The only thing ghosts love more than stories is telling them. 

Disclaimer: this is not an accurate representation of cannibals, nor does it attempt to be. It is, however, an accurate representation of people with braces.

Remember to check tomorrow's surprise, as it's sure to carve a smile on your face!