"The Stranger at the Door"

It was Halloween night, and Greg had just finished setting up his front porch—pumpkins with crooked smiles, flickering candles, and plastic ghosts swaying in the chilly autumn breeze. He wasn’t much for the holiday, but the kids in the neighborhood loved it, and they always came in droves.

Around 8:00 p.m., the steady stream of trick-or-treaters began to thin out. Greg was about to call it a night when there was a soft knock at the door. Strange, he thought. Most kids rang the doorbell or shouted “trick or treat” from the sidewalk. This knock was too quiet. Too deliberate.

He opened the door to find a single child standing on the porch. Dressed in an old-fashioned black suit with a wide-brimmed hat, the boy couldn’t have been more than seven or eight. His face was pale, almost gray, and his dark eyes glistened in the candlelight. No costume, no trick-or-treat bag. Just him.

"Trick or treat," the boy said in a soft, flat voice. It didn’t sound like a question.

Greg hesitated. There was something unsettling about this kid. But, thinking he might be one of the latecomers from down the street, he reached for the candy bowl.

"Here you go, buddy," Greg said, dropping a handful of candy into the boy’s hand. The boy didn’t move, didn’t say thank you. He just stared at Greg with those hollow, dark eyes.

"Is something wrong?" Greg asked, his voice faltering.

The boy didn’t respond. Instead, he lifted his hand, slowly dropping the candy onto the porch one piece at a time. The thuds of each candy hitting the wood echoed in the silent night.

"You didn’t take it?" Greg asked, confused. The boy tilted his head, a small, eerie smile creeping across his face.

"I’m not here for candy," the boy whispered, his voice now colder than the wind that had suddenly picked up. "I’m here for you."

Greg’s stomach tightened as an icy chill ran down his spine. He tried to laugh it off, but it came out forced. "Okay, kid, that’s enough. Time to head home."

The boy’s smile widened as he took a step closer. Greg blinked, and in that instant, the boy was no longer standing in front of him—he was inside the house, right behind him.

Greg spun around, heart pounding, but the boy wasn’t there. His pulse raced as he scanned the room. It was empty. Silent.

Then came a whisper, barely audible but cutting through the air like a knife: "You invited me in."

Greg froze. His breath caught in his throat as a cold presence crept closer, wrapping itself around him like a shroud. The shadows in the room seemed to stretch and grow, moving toward him, closing in.

He turned back toward the door, but it slammed shut on its own, the lock clicking into place.

Greg tried to scream, but the words wouldn’t come. The air thickened, and in the dim glow of the candles outside, he saw the boy standing in the hallway—his face now twisted and deformed, eyes black as coal, and a grin too wide for his face.

"You let me in," the boy repeated, his voice echoing in Greg’s ears.

And before Greg could move, before he could even take another breath, the boy stepped forward and everything went dark.

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