Trick-or-Treat

By the time the streetlights flickered on, the cul-de-sac was already empty. Pumpkins lay sideways on porches, their candles out, their smiles melted. Gwen stood at the end of the street, costume wrinkled, pillowcase empty.

Every year, she’d been too old, or too busy, or too something. But tonight she’d put on the old monster mask and told herself she’d go trick-or-treating one last time.

But every house’s windows were dark. Finally, one light burned at the very end of the street. Gwen approached it, her sneakers quietly scratching against the pavement. She could see someone inside, a figure, sitting very still, staring out at her.

When she knocked, the door swung open with a long sigh. Inside, the walls were lined with old photographs. They were all of children in Halloween costumes and in the middle of each photo was Gwen. Younger, grinning, holding a pillowcase.

She stepped closer. Her reflection in the glass of one photo didn’t match her now, it was still smiling, while she was just frozen staring into it.

The figure spoke, voice dry as autumn leaves.

“Trick-or-treat?”

Gwen tried to laugh off the eeriness, but the air felt too heavy.

“I guess… trick?” she whispered.

The figure stood, and as it did, every photo flickered to life, little faces glowing with candlelight. Gwen’s younger self looked out at all of them at once, the same mask tilted, the same pillowcase candy-filled.

She dropped her pillowcase and backed away. The mask on her face began to crack down the middle.

When the neighbors entered the house the next morning, there was no light, no sound, only a new photograph on the wall. A girl in a faded costume, smiling too wide, holding an empty pillowcase.