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, San Jose, remained — as it does even today.