The Red Light Beyond the Stoberry Park”

🎃 “The Red Light Beyond the Stoberry Park”
(by Kalpesh Patel)

 The villagers of Stoberry Park still whispered about William — the man who burned with his house on that dark, moonless Halloween night.

 But tonight, the bougainvillea bloomed red again, and the wall outside his ruin glowed with strange lights.

 A figure rose — tall, skeletal, with eyes that pulsed blue like dying stars. Its bony hand reached over the flowers, dripping faint ash that smelled of olive smoke.

 Someone laughed behind the wall — a soft, hollow echo that sounded like William’s old greeting:

 “Happy harvest… child.”

 By morning, the lights were gone. Only the scent of burning Stoberry trees on Moran Drive, of San Jose, remained — as it does even today.