An Unsettling Encounter...

“Trick or Treat!” came the loud shout as I opened my door to yet another bunch of kids dressed up for Halloween.

“Treat!” I replied, handing out the candies I had kept ready on the console table near the main door.

A festive mood permeated the air and I could hear children screaming in excitement as they ran between floors and between blocks in the large apartment complex that we lived in. My husband was expected late from work and my son was out with his friends wearing weird face masks, scaring unsuspecting neighbours and demanding candy from the apartments who announced that they hosting the “Trick or Treat”-ers.

Being alone at home, I made myself comfortable in an armchair close to the main door and waited till the next batch of little made-up ghosts rang the doorbell. A few minutes later, the doorbell rang and I opened it, expecting yet another chorus of “Trick or Treat”. But I was surprised to see just one kid standing there. I could not make out if it was a boy or a girl because of the outfit the pretend ghost was wearing.

It was something that I had seen many times before. A white ghost mask, the one with the elongated face with its hollowed-out eyes and the long hollow mouth that reaches below the chin. Though the light from my foyer shone on the kid, he or she was standing about 2 feet away from my door so I could not see the kid’s eyes through the mask. The rest of the outfit was a long black gown that covered the kid from head to toe, making me wonder if it was a boy or girl hiding in there.

 

But there were a couple of things that disquieted me about this little ghost. First, the kid stood too still, as if a Halloween statue had been placed in front of my door as a prank. I marvelled at the kid’s patience as I did not know a single kid who would stand still for even a second. The other thing was the lack of a bag or a pumpkin basket that the kids usually carry to collect candies. I noticed that the kid’s hands were not visible at all. I assumed that the kid had kept his or her hands within the gown to make the effect more spooky.

 

“I have no tricks planned, but I can give you a treat!” I said, holding up a few candies. But the kid did not move or show any reaction. 

 

“Hey, don’t you want it” I asked, but still had no reply from the still-as-a-statue ghost who stood before me.

 

I debated shaking the kid or asking something else but then decided not to bother. Some parents had an issue with their kids being touched by strangers and I did not want to find myself in an unnecessarily messy situation. The next best thing to do, I thought, was to close the door and wait for the kid to move on.

 

Smiling once at the kid, I closed the door. The door was about two inches from closing when suddenly the kid’s four fingers appeared in the gap and curled around the door as if preventing me from closing it. I screamed in surprise and shock, one because I was scared of jamming the kid’s fingers and secondly because the fingers that appeared in front of me, were not human. They were long and wrinkled, almost black, the nails sharp and bent… a dirty brown colour. 

 

Their appearance made me jump back from the door in shock and the door swung open again. As sweat poured off my forehead and shivers ran down my spine, I realised that the kid was standing in the same position as I had seen when closing the door.

 

 Once again, no hands were visible and there was no way that the kid could have moved 2 feet, grabbed the door and moved back all in a few seconds. The long black gown that the kid wore was also still. For sure, with such a quick movement the gown would have been flying all over the place, but that was not the case. Also shocking was that the fingers had appeared in front of my face when the kid was much shorter and could not have reached so high.

 

As I stood quaking silently and wondering what the apparition in front of me was, the lift bell dinged and out poured another bunch of kids. Distracted for a minute I looked back to see that the ghost had disappeared. I was perplexed as the only other exit was far down the corridor and I would have surely seen the kid running through the corridor.

 

Shivering in fear, I somehow managed to distribute candies to the kids who had come. I pulled out the “Happy Halloween – I have candy!” board from outside my door and sat in the armchair until my husband and son came home.

 

They both debunked my story and said that some kid had pranked me. My son was sure that he had seen a couple of “ghost face” kids running around. A bit relieved I agreed with them and convinced myself that I had imagined the whole thing and there was nothing to be scared of. 

 

It was only the next morning when I was sending my son off to school and I closed the main door, that I saw the four deep scratch marks the ghost had left when clawing at my door.