Creepy Crawler’s

       Twas’ the night before Halloween and all the neighborhood was abuzz. Everyone was excited to dress up and go trick or treating! The stores were crowded with people buying candy and last-minute decorations. A young boy named George had some mixed feelings about Halloween, he liked the idea of dressing up and getting candy all night but his least favorite part of Halloween was everyone else’s favorite part. George wasn’t exactly crazy about all the scary parts of Halloween which made trick or treating a little more difficult.

  He decided to invite his best friend Jack to come with him while trick or treating. Jack is 14 and he was the classic fearless type, plus he was taller and stronger than George so he figured it would be a good idea to invite Jack along just in case anything too scary happened. George was going to trick or treat in a panda costume, his favorite animal. Ding Dong, the doorbell rang and George rushed to open it. There stood his friend Jack dressed in a very convincing Kratos costume from the God of War. “You ready?” his friend asked.

“Yea I’m ready” George replied. “My mom said I can stay out until 10:30pm sharp.”  “10:30? But it’s already 8:00!” Jack complained. “Well 10:30 works for me, who knows what might happen if we stay out too long.” George said “Alright fair enough, hey what happened to your glasses?” George had switched his glasses out for a pair of contacts, he thought it would look a little awkward for a panda to be wearing glasses. “I put on contacts instead, they look better with the costume.” “Oh ok, that’s cool. Come on let’s get going, we don’t have that much time to fill up these sacks and I don’t want a repeat of last year.”

The year before George only had until 9:00 to finish trick or treating and he had called Jack along with him again. Jack arrived at 8:15 then George had to help his dad finish up the last decorations which ended at 8:30. Then George’s mom lectured him on staying safe while trick or treating which took until 8:40, leaving only 20 minutes to trick or treat and the end result was an almost empty sack. That wasn’t the best Halloween experience so they wanted to get out before Jack’s dad finished hooking up the dark red lights to make everything creepier.

The second they stepped out the door they felt the cold chill of the October weather. They began walking down the street. “God its freezing out here! I hope you weren’t going for a scary look with that costume” Jack said. “I wasn’t trust me, this outfit is nice and warm plus not all costumes have to be scary.” “Yea but it makes them so much cooler. Speaking of cool, want to see something that is pretty cool?” Jack said.  “Okay why not? What is it?” Jack pulled out 2 pairs of sunglasses. “Uh sunglasses? I can think of 50 different reasons why it’s a really bad idea to put those on this time of night. NIGHT I remind you.” “Well your reasons don’t matter because these aren’t sunglasses.” Jack said

“They’re not?” George asked. “Nope! They’re supposed to make Halloween even more amazing than it already is!” “And just how do they do that?” George asked. “I don’t know, my friend Marcus gave them to me last month and said to put them on tonight. He said it would change the way you see things.” George was skeptical about putting on the glasses. He wanted to know what he was going to go through before putting them on. “They’re not gonna do anything bad to our eyes, right?” “I don’t know, he said we could just take them off anytime.”

“Well… I don’t know.” George didn’t want these glasses ruining his eyes or something. “Oh, come on, don’t worry. Live a little, besides you wear glasses all the time, what’s the difference now?” George gave it some thought and finally agreed. “Alright fine...” George said reluctantly. “If I lose my eyesight I’m blaming you.” They both put on the glasses and waited for the changes to happen. “Uh I don’t know about you but everything looks the same to me.” Jack said. George hadn’t experienced any changes either so he was about to take them off when everything got noticeably darker. “Woah, everything just got really dark!”

“Huh? Nothing’s happening to me. Must be the glasses, I think only yours work. What do you see?” For Jack everything looked normal but for George everything was dark and scary. An eerie fog slowly rolled in. “Uh something weird is happening but I don’t know what.” A low crackling noise crept into only George’s ears. “What’s that noise!?” George exclaimed. “What noise?? I don’t hear anything!” Jack said quickly. Now the glasses affected more than just eyesight, they affected all the senses. The glasses changed the way things were seen by making everything much more scary and vivid by showing your worst fear. Jack didn’t have any fears so the glasses didn’t affect him. George however, had plenty of fears.

“Jack, are you hearing this?? I don’t know what it is but it’s getting closer! Let’s get outta h-” George’s sentence was cut short by a huge spider the size of a dog jumped out. “AHH! RUN! HUGE SPIDER!” George took off running down the sidewalk! “Huh? Where? I don’t see anything! George, wait up!” Jack had to chase after George and while he was chasing him down he figured out what was going on. Once Jack was within shouting distance he yelled “George take off the glasses!” George heard what he had said and stopped running, then he snatched off the glasses and threw them far away.

“George, are you okay?” Jack said once he had finally caught up with George. “Yeah I’m okay.” George said, out of breath. “Sheesh, sorry about that George. I guess the glasses made everything scarier. I didn’t see anything because I’m not afraid of anything.” “Lucky you…” George muttered. “It’s already 10:00, I guess we should start heading ho-” George was cut off once again by the same crackling noise. “Jack, I hear the noise again. What’s going on?!?” “What? You took off the glasses though!” Jack was getting confused again, not sure what was going on. George was about to say that they should get some help from an adult when a hoard of spiders came out crawling straight towards him!

“Oh no not again!” George exclaimed! Spiders were coming from almost all directions except for one direction leading down a different street which would take him into another neighborhood. George didn’t care where he was going, as long as he got away from the spiders. He took off again running down the street! “Oh, come on!” Jack said as he took off running after George. George began taking many turns and twists down the neighborhood streets, getting lost the whole time and not even noticing. Eventually he ran into a roundabout but luckily, he had lost the spiders. Jack was right behind him by the time he stopped. “Jack what did those glasses do?” George said. “I don’t know, I think they were supposed to show you your worst fear but the effect was only supposed to be on the glasses!”

 Jack then had an idea. “I know! I’ll call my friend, Marcus, and ask him what to do.” “Ok, sounds good,” said George. About a minute later Jack had Marcus on the phone. “Hey Marcus, I gotta make this quick before something else comes. Listen, me and my friend put on those glasses and nothing happened to me. But now he’s seeing his worst fear and it won’t go away!” *Just tell him to take off the glasses* “That’s the problem.” Jack said. “He already did!” *What? That’s not possible. If he took off the glasses the effects should be gone. He isn’t wearing any smaller glasses underneath them or contacts, right? *

“Uh oh” Jack said. “What? What’s he saying” George asked. He hadn’t been able to hear a word Marcus had said. “You never took off those contacts, right?” “No, was I supposed to?” The effects had transferred from the glasses to the contact lenses. “Wait so all I have to do is take the contacts off, right?”

Marcus heard this statement from over the phone and quickly warned him against it. *No don’t! If you take them off the effect will transfer straight to your eyes and it WILL be permanent! The only way to get rid of the effect is to not be scared anymore. Then and ONLY then can you take off the contacts. The effect is already on the contacts. You need to throw the contacts away or burn them, you don’t want to risk accidently putting them back on and getting a new fear or letting someone else put them on. *

“Ok thanks Marcus.” Jack then quickly told George what Marcus told him. “And how am I supposed to get rid of my fear??” Just then the swarm of spiders returned from the only entrance to the roundabout and began crawling over each other and towering up slowly becoming one huge, ugly spider. “Oh god! I can’t do this!” Jack couldn’t see anything so he had no idea how severe George’s fear really was but he knew it must be bad from how his friend was reacting. “Don’t worry George!” The big spider slowly crept forward on all its six legs made from smaller spiders. “Think about it this way! All spiders are just small ugly bugs! They may look ugly but one step and they’re gone! You’re a bigger threat to them than they are to you!”

George than began thinking of all his experiences with spiders. One time a spider found its way into George’s bedroom and his dad simply came in and stepped on it. Then he got it up and flushed it down toilet. Or the other time a spider got trampled by kids on a playground. Or when George, not even noticing the spider stepped on it by accident. Each time the spiders were easily crushed by even George. “They’re just ugly bugs.” George said slowly. The big spider stopped in it’s tracks and began backing up slowly. “YOUR just an overgrown bug!” George said more confidently! The giant spider let out a high-pitched screeching noise as it slowly melted away in many small spiders that crumbled up and turned into dust.

 George had no more fear; thus, the effect was slowly being reversed and eventually the spiders melted away into nothingness. “It’s gone” George said gladly. “Yeah that’s what I’m talking about!” Jack said enthusiastically! “I knew you could do it! Now c’mon, get those contacts off before something else happens.” George grinned and took the contacts off. “So how are we gonna get rid of them?” Jack asked. George immediately dropped them on the ground and crushed them to powder under his sneaker.

“Well that’s one way to do it.” Jack laughed. Then George’s mother pulled up into the roundabout. “Where have you been!?!” she exclaimed. “Its 10 minutes to 12:00 midnight! I was so worried about you and- are those your contacts? You have a lot of explaining to do young man!”  “Oof, I better get going. Thanks for everything Jack.” “Don’t mention it, sucks we didn’t get any candy though.” Jack said slightly disappointed. “I think I don’t mind waiting another 365 days just for some candy. George grinned. “AHEM” his mother interrupted. “What happened anyways?” “It’s a long story mom, one your probably gonna want to sit down for. But the short version is I faced my fears and I’m no longer afraid of spiders!”

“Oh, I’m gonna love this story.” Georges mom said. “See you tomorrow Jack!” “Bye George!”

The End