Deadly Trick-or-Treating

PART 1
Halloween, 1999

It was Halloween night, in the year 1999. I was 10 years old, in the fifth grade. I lived in a town in New Hampshire, and I had 3 best friends, who I will refer to as Allison, Emma, and Meredith in this story. On Halloween night, we all met up at my house, then we set off on a trick-or-treating adventure in our neighborhood. Our goal was to go to lots of houses and collect as much candy as we could. This year, all of our parents let us go out on our own. It was us four girls on an adventure on Halloween night.

Everything went well. We collected lots of candy, and we really enjoyed ourselves. The four of us realized it was getting pretty late, and a majority of the trick-or-treaters had already gone home by this point. Halloween was on a Sunday that year, which meant that we all had to go home and get to bed so we’d be ready for school the next day. We began to head in the direction of our houses, which were all pretty close together. As we were walking down a dark street, we saw somebody come out from behind a tree. The person was quite tall, and they were wearing a Ghostface costume from the Scream movies. We thought it was just some older kid trying to give us girls a scare. All of us brushed it off and continued on our way. As we continued heading home, I happened to glance behind me and noticed the same guy we saw by the tree. He was following us. I whispered to my friends that the creepy guy was behind us, and urged them to walk faster to try and get away. Emma, who was the tough, brave girl in our group, decided to turn around and confront this mysterious guy. She called him a creep and asked what the hell he was doing. Then, the guy pulled something out from under his cape. I realized it was a small pocket knife. All of a sudden, he started running towards us. The four of started to run like hell away from this crazy person. It seriously felt like we were in a horror film.

We continued to run as fast as our legs would carry us, and we never looked back for a second. Eventually, we lost him. We all sat down to take a breather, and we were glad we had outrun this creep. Then, I realized something. There were only 3 of us now. It was me, Allison and Meredith, but Emma was nowhere to be seen. We thought maybe Emma had ran off in a different direction than we did. Our minds tried not to jump to the worst case scenario, that the creep had captured our friend and did something horrible to her. Just then, we saw somebody limping towards us. It was Emma. We noticed she had blood running down her right leg. She told us that the guy had grabbed her and took her behind some trees. He stabbed her leg, but she punched him in the face and got way. Like I said, Emma was the tough girl in the group, and she wasn’t one to be messed with.

Then, something happened. While Emma was telling her story of how she fought off the creepy, knife-wielding guy, she collapsed to the ground. We then noticed that she had a gaping stab wound on her lower back. Apparently, the guy must have stabbed her while she was trying to fight him off. Emma was unconscious, and we thought she had just died in front of us. We ran to the nearest house we saw that had front porch lights on. We frantically rang the doorbell, and an older man came out of the house. We told him that our friend had been injured and needed an ambulance. The man came with us, while he told his wife to call the police. The man helped us carry Emma back to the house, and we all waited there for an ambulance to arrive. Within 5 minutes, the ambulance arrived and took Emma to the hospital. The police also showed up, and one of the officers questioned Allison, Meredith and I about what happened to our friend. We told him that a guy in a Ghostface costume started following us, then ran after us with a knife. We said that he stabbed Emma while she was struggling to get away from him. The officer took our statement. Shortly after, all of our parents arrived to the scene. They were all worried sick, as we had been gone for several hours, and it was well past all of our bedtimes. We all went home, and prayed that Emma would be all right.

So… There’s good news and bad news.
The good news is that Emma survived. She had to stay in the hospital for a little while, but she eventually made a full recovery. Emma and her parents moved away towards the end of the year, mostly due to the fact that their only child was nearly murdered on Halloween night in a town that was considered to be very safe, and almost never had any violent crimes take place. Although Emma appeared to be brave and tough about the incident on the outside, on the inside, she was terrified and very shaken up about it.
The bad news is that the police didn’t find the crazy guy who chased us down and nearly murdered our friend. After we gave them our statement on halloween, they conducted an investigation to try and track down the guy who was responsible. However, there wasn’t enough evidence to charge anybody. The police urged the people in our town to be very cautious when traveling the streets late at night.

PART 2
Halloween, 2000

It had been exactly one year since the terrifying ordeal we went through last Halloween. I was still close with Allison and Meredith. I still kept in contact with Emma, who was now living in Pennsylvania. We were now in the 6th grade, in middle school, and we were getting ready to go trick-or-treating again. This year, we were extra cautious, as were all the other children in our neighborhood who went trick-or-treating that night. My friends and I decided to go trick-or-treating earlier this year, and to not stay out for too late this time. Nothing bad happened this year. No knife-wielding creeps trying to kill us, or anything like that.

The next morning, I saw something terrifying on the local news. There was a report about a 10 year-old girl who had disappeared while she was out trick-or-treating the previous night. Allison, Meredith and I were all scared, and the memories of the horrors we went through last Halloween hit us like a ton of bricks.

A few days later, a headless body was found in a creek. The remains couldn’t be identified, but the police speculated that the remains belonged to the girl who disappeared on Halloween night, as the remains appeared to be those of a young girl who was between 9-10 years of age. We decided to not tell Emma anything about what happened, as we did not want to trigger bad memories for her. However, Emma called us up later that day and asked if we were all right. She had heard about what happened from a friend of her parents that lived in our town.

The police conducted another investigation. But this time, the killer was found. A few days after the girl’s body was discovered, a teenage girl came into the town’s police station. She told officers that her boyfriend had what appeared to be a real, decomposing human head in his basement. The police searched the boyfriend’s house, and discovered the severed head. The head was positively identified from dental records as the young girl who had gone missing on Halloween night. The police also found other disturbing things, like the bloody remains of dead cats, dogs, and other animals. The police now knew who was responsible for the murder, and the boyfriend was arrested.

The killer was a 19 year old man. When the police questioned him, he talked about killing the young girl with joy and pleasure. He also said that a voice told him that every Halloween, he has to kill a young child, or something horrible would happen to him. He said that he almost killed a little girl the year before, but she got away from him. That girl was our friend, Emma. Now we all knew the identity of the guy who terrorized us on Halloween in 1999. We’re grateful that Emma lived, but we felt so awful for the poor girl who didn’t survive.

The man was going to be charged with second degree murder, and one count of attempted murder, but he was acquitted by reason of insanity, and placed in a mental institution somewhere in New Hampshire. My friends and I were relieved to know that this sick psychopath was now locked up. We continued living out our childhood days, but we never forgot about the Halloween horrors we experienced.

PART 3
Present Day, 2017

It’s been 18 years since the terrifying ordeal we went through as kids. I’m now 28 years old and living a big city life in NYC. I’m still in contact with Allison and Meredith through social media. Sadly, we lost Emma last year, on Halloween. She committed suicide after many years of battling severe depression and anxiety.

Allison and I decided to come back to our hometown in New Hampshire for a visit. While we were there, we met up with Meredith, who still resides in our hometown. We started reminiscing about our childhood memories, and the terrifying events we endured on Halloween back in 1999 and 2000 came up in the conversation. Thankfully, there have been no violent crimes in our hometown since then, and the town is once again considered to be a safe community. The next day, I left to go back home to New York City. Allison stayed there for a few extra days with her family. I said my goodbyes to my 2 childhood friends, and went back home.

A few weeks later, the day after Halloween, I got a phone call from Allison. She had terrible news.

Meredith was found brutally murdered in her apartment in our New Hampshire hometown. I was in complete shock, horror and disbelief. I simply couldn’t believe somebody did that to Meredith. Unfortunately, it was real. Meredith was now gone, along with Emma. Two of my best friends in childhood, now dead. It was strange that both of them died on the exact same day just one year apart. Even though Emma’s death was ruled as a suicide, I’m still very suspicious, and thinking this might not be just a coincidental thing.

My fears were confirmed later that day when I returned home. I walked into my NYC apartment and fell back in horror. There was a bloody message written on my wall that read “You’re next.” I turned the corner to go into the living room, and I fell back in horror once again when I saw my dead cat hanging from the ceiling fan. My sweet cat had been gutted, and that frightening message on the wall had been written in his blood. I called the police, but there wasn’t a whole lot they could do other than determine that my apartment had been broken into. They said they’d try to figure out who might be behind this, but I already knew who it was.

I knew the person responsible was that sick lunatic who terrorized my friends and I when we were children. I’m guessing he must’ve escaped the mental institution, and now he’s back to finish what he started 18 years ago. I think that night, he had planned on killing all four of us girls. Now, he’s out of the institution and killing my friends. First was Emma, then Meredith, and apparently, I’m next, probably followed by Allison. Then his murderous rage will be complete, when all of us our dead. He has only murdered people on Halloween, so I’m assuming he’ll be back for me next Halloween. I have no idea how this sick psycho found out where I live. Needles to say, I’m absolutely terrified, and I don’t know what I should do now. I’m seriously considering changing my identity, or even leaving the country just to get away from this psychopath. I’m advising Allison to do the same, since he’s after her too.

All I can do now is pray that this psycho won’t find me, and somebody will find him and put him back where he belongs, so he won’t terrorize anyone ever again.

CREDIT : Brandt Minden