This scary halloween story starts with a flyer in my mailbox and a house that went all out for trick-or-treaters. I filled out the raffle sheet like everybody else, and on November first, the prize came to my door.
I don’t usually do Halloween. I live alone in a duplex, I work early, and I’m the person who turns the porch light off at seven and watches a movie.
But that year my sister had a work thing, so I had my nephew Tobias for the night. He was six and he was a shark. Not a scary shark. A shark with a little felt tongue sticking out.
That Monday, five days before Halloween, there was a flyer in my mailbox. Orange paper, printed at home, a clip-art pumpkin in the corner.
MAPLE COURT HALLOWEEN RAFFLE. STOP BY 412 MAPLE FOR A CHANCE TO WIN A FULL-SIZE CANDY BASKET. DELIVERED NOVEMBER 1ST.
I remember thinking it was a sweet idea. I remember thinking it was a lot of effort for a street that mostly put out a bowl and a sign that said take two. I put the flyer on the fridge under a magnet because I figured Tobias would like it.
Halloween was cold. Low forties, wet leaves, that kind of air that gets into your sleeves. We started at six. My street, then the cul-de-sac behind it, then Maple.
You could see 412 from the corner.
It was the best house on the block. Orange lights along the gutters. Fake gravestones in the yard with real names painted on them, just first names. A fog machine somewhere near the bushes, pushing low smoke across the walk. A speaker playing that old organ music.
And on the porch, in a wooden chair, sat a scarecrow.
Burlap face. Straw sticking out of the cuffs. Flannel shirt, overalls, work gloves. It was slumped forward with its hands on its knees, and next to it was a little card table with a bowl of candy and a clipboard.
Tobias stopped at the bottom of the steps.
“That’s a guy,” he said.
“It’s a decoration,” I said. “It’s stuffed. Watch.”
Every house has one of those. You walk up, it jumps, everybody screams, everybody laughs. I was ready for it. I walked up first so Tobias could see it was fine.
It didn’t jump. It didn’t move at all.
Signing the Scary Halloween Raffle Sheet
The clipboard had a pen attached with a little silver chain, like at a bank. The sheet had three columns. NAME. ADDRESS. AGE.
The page was almost full. Kid handwriting, parent handwriting. A whole street’s worth of names and house numbers. I flipped up the top sheet and there were more pages under it. Full ones.
I remember that bugged me a little. It was only six thirty.
I told myself it was a busy street. I told myself the neighborhood Facebook group had probably shared the flyer.
I wrote my name. I wrote my address. I didn’t write Tobias down because he didn’t live there, and honestly I didn’t think about it much. I put my age as thirty-one and felt dumb about it.
Tobias took two pieces of candy. I said, “Tell the scarecrow thank you.”
And Tobias said, “Thank you, scarecrow.”
And the scarecrow said, “You’re welcome, Tobias.”
It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t a spooky voice. It was just a man’s voice, a little hoarse, like he hadn’t used it all night.
The head didn’t come up. The hands stayed on the knees.
Tobias laughed because he thought it was a trick. I laughed too, because what else do you do. I said, “Okay, you got us,” and I took his hand and we went down the steps.
At the bottom I looked back. The scarecrow was still slumped over, exactly the same.
I told myself he’d heard me say the name. I’d said it on the walk. Of course he had. That’s the whole job of the guy in the chair. You listen and you use what you hear.
We did the rest of Maple and went home. I gave Tobias back to my sister at nine. I didn’t tell her about the scarecrow because there was nothing to tell.
The Prize on My Doormat
November first was a Saturday.
I got up at ten. I opened my front door to get the paper and there was a basket on my mat.
A real basket, wicker, with orange cellophane around it and a curled ribbon. Full-size candy bars, the good ones. A little card tied on with string.
I actually smiled. I thought, huh, I won.
Then I read the card.
CONGRATULATIONS TOBIAS.
I stood there in my socks with the door open and the cold coming in.
I didn’t write his name. I didn’t write his age. I didn’t write his address, because he doesn’t live with me. And the basket was at my door, the address I did write, with his name on it.
So whoever made it knew both. The name he heard, and the door I gave him.
I called my sister first. Then I called the non-emergency line.
The Deputy Who Went Quiet
A deputy came out around noon. Older guy, very calm, very polite. He looked at the basket and the card and asked me to tell it from the start. When I got to the part about 412 Maple he wrote it down and went quiet for a second.
“That house is for sale,” he said.
I said I knew. I’d seen a sign. I figured they were still living there while it sold.
He said he’d drive by. He came back about an hour later and stood on my porch instead of coming in.
The house at 412 Maple had been empty since August. The owners had moved to Arizona. The realtor, when he called her, said she hadn’t been there in two weeks and she certainly hadn’t put up any decorations.
When the deputy got there, the decorations were gone. All of them. The lights, the gravestones, the fog machine, the chair. The lockbox on the front door had been pried open and closed back up so you’d only notice if you tried it.
The card table was still on the porch. Folded up, leaning against the railing.
No clipboard.
He asked me if I still had the flyer. I did. It was on my fridge. He put it in a plastic bag and asked if I’d noticed anything about it.
I hadn’t, until he pointed it out.
There was no name on it. No phone number. No “hosted by the Garcias.” Nothing to say who was running the raffle. Just the address of a house nobody lived in, and the date the prizes would be delivered.
He said a couple of other people on Maple had called that morning, too. He didn’t say how many. He didn’t say what their cards said.
I asked him what it was. What the point was.
He said, “Could be a prank. Somebody with too much time.” Then he said they’d be doing extra patrols for a while, and that I should keep my sister’s address to myself, which was a strange thing to have to be told.
The candy went in the trash. The basket went with the deputy.
Here’s the part I keep coming back to. I counted the pages on that clipboard in my head a hundred times. At least four, maybe five, and it was only six thirty. Names, ages, house numbers. Every kid on every street around Maple Court, written down neatly by their own parents, because a nice house asked them to.
He didn’t need to follow anybody home. We all just told him.
My sister moved the next spring, for other reasons, mostly. Tobias is eight now. He still talks about the scarecrow that knew his name like it was the best trick he’s ever seen.
I don’t put my address on anything anymore. Not raffles, not sign-up sheets, not the clipboard at the farmers market.
And every Halloween, when the kids come to my door, I don’t ask their names.
Have a scary Halloween story of your own?
Did a house on your street ever go a little too far for trick-or-treaters? Tell us your scary Halloween story, or the trick or treat horror story you still think about every October, in the comments below.
How scary was it?
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