“TRICK OR TREAT!!” The kids threw out their Halloween bags. I stood there and viewed each of their respective costumes. There was Batman, a ballerina, a police officer, and Batman. (Everybody loves Batman) I gave each of them a small handful of candy; careful as not to give them the prank ketchup packets –which I had given to the teenagers who didn’t even try to dress up- stored among the pieces in my bucket. I gave the pieces to them evenly, three each so they wouldn’t fight among each other later. As soon as I had dropped the candy into their baskets they took off down the side walk; probably trying to get as much candy as they could before their parents called them home. I turned and headed back into the warm glow of my home. Setting the bucket aside, I walked into my living room and fell back into my welcoming recliner. I fumbled my hands between the seats of my chair looking for the remote and knowing that I don’t put it on the nice coffee table where it would rather be. Pulling the remote out of the abyss of loose change, and crumbs, I had managed to turn on the, bigger than I really need but I still need it, TV. The TV displayed one of the many cartoon Halloween specials that were on air that time of year. The story was about a boy who had stolen another’s candy, then decided that it was a great idea to go to a cemetery in the dead of Halloween night. Since this child “doesn’t afraid of anything” he planned on hiding inside a mausoleum. But I couldn’t go any further after the skeletons started to climb out of their graves and tried to nibble his head off. I switched off the TV leaving only the reflection of my chair and just sighed at my own reflection. The way I slouched always bugged me. But the doorbell had rang, its eerie tone through my darkened house. I sat up as fast as I could, grabbed the bucket of candy and walked toward the bell. The door seemed to open with no effort I don’t remember if I had touched the knob, but as I opened it in the doorway stood a hooded man. He stood there with long, shoddy looking black cloak that covered his face in the darkness of my porch and a scythe that was standing taller than him. Then he held out a burlap sack and stood there silently. I assumed he wanted candy and that’s what I gave him, but I also assumed that he would be my last visitor for the night and I still had a few tricks I wanted to pull. I handed him a handful of 3 pieces, one was a lollipop, the second was a miniature chocolate bar, but the third was a pack of fancy ketchup. I dropped them in his burlap sack and watched to make sure he didn’t notice. He lowered his sack and turned away; I did the latter and closed my front door. Then I heard a knocking behind me coming from the door. I turned and the knocking grew into a banging that shook and rattled my door. Then the doorbell rang, and rang, and rang overlapping its sound till it pained my ears. Then it all stopped just as sudden as it had started. I looked at the door and it looked back at me, we shared blank expressions. Then the door opened its mouth and in it stood the hooded man. He lifted his finger and started to glide toward me. As soon as I saw his hand, his bony skinless hand, I froze unable to move. He got closer, and as I tried to move I feel over unable to maneuver myself away from him. He got close to me and leaned into my face. I stared into his hood and the saw the face of a skeleton. Emotionless and evil, his eyeholes stared into my face and said “Trick or Treat”. Then he took his skeletal and spewed ketchup all over my shirt.