Happy Halloween!

trick or treat - a community storytelling event

The air is thick with smoke and sugar. Somewhere, a porch light sputters. Doors stand half open on every street, breathing warmth into the fog.

This is the Trick or Treat Index, a candlelit map of this year’s horrors and delights. Roam the mysterious Macabre Monday neighborhood streets. Twenty-five houses. Twenty-five stories. Behind each door is an offering from our writers: some will charm, some will chill, all will linger.

Choose carefully.

Click a house, and find out if there is a trick or a treat waiting for you on the other side. The night is yours.

---

The air is syrup-thick with fog and burnt sugar. Porch lights wink on one by one, like eyes learning to see again.

You follow the uneven sidewalk past fences draped in cobwebs. Somewhere behind you, a door closes, softly, like a sigh.

A radio hums through the mist, an old familiar tune. It fades when you walk up.

The next house smells like apples and smoke. A single pumpkin flickers at the base of the steps, its grin carved too wide.

A crow watches from a telephone wire, head cocked. It seems to recognize you. You don’t look back.

Ahead, the street forks. To the left, laughter, a way familiar to you. To the right, silence, houses that you’ve never seen before. You choose silence, and walk on.

The asphalt shines with liquid darker than rain.

Children’s chalk drawings mark the curb. Symbols, names, warnings.

Someone whispers “trick” as you pass, but you can’t find the voice.

The wind carries the smell of iron and lilies.

Each mailbox bears the same name, written in trembling ink.

You swear the house numbers change every time you blink.

A pale dog trots ahead, always just out of sight, vanishing around every corner.

Lights flicker inside the next house’s boarded windows, blinking morse code.

A jack-o’-lantern burns cold, its flame blue, its smile cruel.

You find a house with the door ajar. No porch light on, nothing but a smeared note next to an empty bowl of candy: Take One.

The power lines hum. They sound almost human.

When does this road end? Every time you look around, there seems to be another house, then another.

The air goes still. You make your way up to another door.

There’s one last porch light burning ahead, steady, waiting.

The remaining houses are dark, save for the flickering candles shining from the caved in faces of rotting jack-o-lanterns.

“Come, take what you need,” a voice calls from a porch, but when you look, no one is there.

Your footsteps echo on cracked pavement. Only three houses left on this vacant street. A cool wind blows and rattles the trees.

The door at the next house stands ajar. A note hangs from its knob: “Last chance.” The handwriting looks familiar.

You knock at the last house. The sound echoes through the fog like thunder. All twenty-four doors behind you open at once.

You run without looking back.

The air sharpens, the fog thinning into night. Behind you, the sounds of doors slamming one by one. At the corner, a porch light cuts through the darkness. It’s your porch light, your house. You stumble toward it, candy spilling behind you like birdseed.

You don’t stop until you’re inside. You slam the door behind you. Lock it. Silence.

When you look out the window, the neighborhood looks normal again.

Your candy bag is empty, save for a folded note.

“You made it. Leave your porch light on for the next lost soul.”

---

The streets shut down at midnight, but the stories never do. From the Macabre Monday crew, Happy Halloween!