Short Story: The Halloween That Wouldn't End

 

Chapter 1: The Morning After

Penny stretched beneath her duvet, her body aching in places she didn’t know could ache. Last night had been incredible, the best Halloween Hallow had ever seen. Her parents had actually been home, actually participated, actually made it special. The whole street had transformed into something magical and terrifying, with fog machines pumping out thick mist that clung to ankles, projection mapping turning houses into haunted mansions, and actors in the most realistic costumes Penny had ever seen.

She smiled, remembering the skeleton that had chased Pippa down the street, her ten-year-old sister screaming with delighted terror. Even Phillipa, who was fourteen and far too cool for family fun, had admitted it was “actually decent” before disappearing with her friends.

Penny’s alarm hadn’t gone off yet, but something had woken her. A sound, maybe? She lay still, listening. There it was again, a scraping noise, like fingernails on wood, coming from downstairs.

“Pippa, stop messing about,” she called out, her voice thick with sleep.

The scraping stopped.

Penny sat up, rubbing her eyes. Grey morning light filtered through her curtains, the kind of dim, heavy light that came with November mornings in the North East. She reached for her phone. 6:47am. Too early, but she was awake now.

She padded to her window and pulled back the curtain.

Her breath caught in her throat.

The street below was still decorated for Halloween. That wasn’t unusual, lots of people left decorations up for a day or two. But these decorations were moving. The giant spider web stretched across the Hendersons’ front garden was rippling, though there was no wind. The inflatable ghost in the Patels’ yard was swaying, but its movements were wrong, too fluid, too purposeful.

And the fog. The fog machines must still be running because thick, grey mist rolled down the street like a living thing, pooling in gardens, creeping up driveways, pressing against front doors.

“Weird,” Penny muttered, but her heart was beating faster than it should.

The scraping sound started again, louder this time, more insistent.

Penny left her room and crept onto the landing. Pippa’s door was closed, and she could hear her little sister’s gentle snoring. Phillipa’s door was open a crack, her older sister’s room dark and silent.

The scraping was definitely coming from downstairs.

“Mum? Dad?” Penny called, her voice smaller than she’d intended.

No answer.

She descended the stairs slowly, her hand gripping the bannister. The house felt different, colder somehow, and the air tasted strange, like metal and old leaves.

The scraping stopped as she reached the bottom step.

The living room was a mess from last night’s party, plastic cups and paper plates scattered across surfaces, the smell of crisps and chocolate lingering. The patio doors that led to the back garden were closed, but something was pressed against the glass.

A handprint. No, not a handprint. Too long, too thin, fingers that stretched impossibly far down the glass, leaving smears of something dark and wet.

Penny’s mouth went dry.

“This isn’t funny,” she said to the empty room, but her voice shook.

The handprint began to move, sliding down the glass with that awful scraping sound, leaving a trail behind it. Then another handprint appeared beside it. And another.

Penny backed away, her heart hammering. This was a joke, it had to be. Someone from last night was playing a prank, maybe some of Phillipa’s friends were trying to scare them.

But the hands were on the outside of the glass, and their garden was enclosed by a two-metre fence.

The patio doors rattled.

Penny ran.

She took the stairs two at a time, burst into Pippa’s room and shook her sister awake.

“Pippa, wake up, something’s wrong!”

Pippa groaned, pulling her pillow over her head. “Go away, it’s too early.”

“I’m serious, there’s something outside, something wrong!”

“It’s just leftover Halloween stuff, Penny. Go back to bed.”

Penny wanted to argue, wanted to drag Pippa to the window and make her look, but a sound from downstairs stopped her. A clicking, tapping sound, like something hard on the wooden floor.

Footsteps.

But not human footsteps.

“Pippa,” Penny whispered, “please.”

Something in her voice must have got through because Pippa sat up, rubbing her eyes. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Listen.”

They both fell silent. The clicking, tapping sounds were getting closer, moving through the living room, into the hallway, approaching the stairs.

Pippa’s eyes widened. “What is that?”

“I don’t know.”

The clicking stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

Penny held her breath, every muscle in her body tense. Beside her, Pippa had gone very still, her hand finding Penny’s and squeezing tight.

Then, slowly, deliberately, whatever was at the bottom of the stairs began to climb.

Click. Tap. Click. Tap.

One step.

Click. Tap. Click. Tap.

Two steps.

“Phillipa,” Penny breathed, and without another word, both girls bolted from Pippa’s room and into their older sister’s bedroom, slamming the door behind them.

Phillipa jerked awake, her hair a wild mess, mascara smudged under her eyes. “What the hell?”

“Something’s in the house,” Penny gasped.

“Something’s coming upstairs,” Pippa added, her voice high and tight.

Phillipa looked at them both like they’d lost their minds, but then the clicking, tapping sound reached the landing, and her expression changed.

“Where are Mum and Dad?” she asked, suddenly alert.

Penny’s stomach dropped. She hadn’t checked their parents’ room. Hadn’t even thought about it.

“I don’t know.”

The three sisters stared at Phillipa’s door. The clicking, tapping had stopped, but they could hear something else now, a wet, rasping sound, like breathing through a throat full of water.

“This isn’t happening,” Phillipa whispered, but she was already reaching for her phone, her fingers shaking as she tried to unlock it. “This isn’t real.”

The door handle began to turn.

Chapter 2: What Walks in Daylight

“Don’t let it in!” Pippa shrieked, and all three girls threw themselves against the door just as something on the other side pushed.

The force was enormous, inhuman. Penny’s feet slid on the carpet as whatever was out there shoved harder. Phillipa braced her shoulder against the wood, her face twisted with effort.

“What is it?” Pippa sobbed. “What is it?”

“I don’t know, just push!”

The wet, rasping breathing grew louder, and then a voice, if you could call it that, spoke through the door. The words were wrong, backwards somehow, syllables that hurt to hear.

“Kcab og. Kcab og. Emit s’ti.”

“It’s speaking,” Phillipa gasped. “Oh God, it’s actually speaking.”

The pressure on the door suddenly released, and the three girls stumbled forward, catching themselves before they fell. The breathing sound moved away, the clicking, tapping retreating down the landing.

For a moment, nobody moved. Then Phillipa grabbed Penny’s arm, her grip painful. “What did you see downstairs? Tell me exactly what you saw.”

Penny’s words tumbled out, the handprints on the glass, the fog, the decorations moving on their own. As she spoke, Phillipa’s face grew paler.

“The fog,” Phillipa said. “Last night, do you remember the fog?”

“The fog machines, yeah, everyone had them.”

“No, not the machines. The fog that came after. Really late, when most people had gone home. It rolled in from nowhere, really thick, really cold. Me and Jess were outside, and we saw…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “We thought we were imagining it. We thought it was part of the show.”

“Saw what?” Penny pressed.

“Things in the fog. Shapes. People, but not people. They were just standing there, watching. And when the fog cleared, they were gone.”

A cold feeling settled in Penny’s stomach. “What time did the fog come?”

“Just after midnight. Right after Halloween ended.”

“Or,” Pippa said quietly, her voice small, “right after Halloween should have ended.”

The three sisters looked at each other, the same terrible understanding dawning on all their faces.

“We need to find Mum and Dad,” Penny said.

Phillipa nodded, moving to her bedside table and pulling out a hockey stick. “Right. Stay together, stay quiet.”

They opened the door carefully, peering out onto the landing. Empty. The clicking, tapping sounds had stopped, but the house felt wrong, the air too thick, the shadows too dark despite the grey morning light.

Their parents’ bedroom door was closed. Phillipa reached it first, knocked softly. “Mum? Dad?”

No answer.

She tried the handle. Locked.

“Mum!” Phillipa called louder, rattling the handle. “Dad, are you in there?”

Still nothing.

“Maybe they left early for work?” Pippa suggested, but nobody believed it.

“The car’s still outside,” Penny said, remembering the view from her window. “I saw it.”

Phillipa stepped back, raised the hockey stick. “Move.”

She swung hard, the stick connecting with the door handle. Once, twice, three times. The mechanism broke with a crack, and the door swung open.

The room was empty. The bed was made, perfectly neat, as if nobody had slept in it. But on the pillow, written in something dark that looked horribly like dried blood, were two words:

THEY’RE OURS.

Pippa made a small, hurt sound. Phillipa’s hockey stick clattered to the floor.

“No,” Penny said, her voice stronger than she felt. “No, they’re not. Whatever this is, whatever’s happening, we’re going to fix it.”

“How?” Phillipa demanded, her voice cracking. “How are we supposed to fix this? We don’t even know what this is!”

Penny didn’t have an answer, but she knew they couldn’t stay in the house. “We need to get outside, see if anyone else is experiencing this. Maybe the Hendersons, or the Patels, someone must know what’s going on.”

“And if they don’t?” Pippa asked.

“Then we figure it out ourselves.”

The three girls made their way downstairs, Phillipa leading with her hockey stick, Penny in the middle, Pippa clutching the back of Penny’s pyjama top. The living room was still a mess, but the handprints on the patio doors had vanished, leaving only smears.

The front door was their goal. Just get outside, get to the neighbours, find help.

Penny reached for the door handle.

It was ice cold, so cold it burned. She yanked her hand back with a gasp.

“What?” Phillipa demanded.

“It’s freezing, I can’t,”

“Let me.” Phillipa grabbed a tea towel from the kitchen, wrapped it around her hand, and tried the handle. It turned, but the door wouldn’t open. She pulled harder. Nothing.

“It’s stuck.”

“Try the back door,” Pippa suggested.

They moved to the kitchen, to the door that led to the back garden. Same problem. Ice cold handle, door that wouldn’t budge.

“The windows,” Penny said, moving to the kitchen window. She tried to open it, but it was sealed shut, as if the frame had been welded.

They tried every window on the ground floor. All sealed.

“We’re trapped,” Pippa whispered.

“No,” Phillipa said firmly, though her face was white. “No, there has to be a way out. The upstairs windows, we can climb down.”

They raced back upstairs, tried Penny’s window first. Sealed. Pippa’s window. Sealed. Phillipa’s window. Sealed.

“This isn’t possible,” Phillipa said, her voice rising. “This isn’t possible!”

Penny pressed her face to her bedroom window, looking out at the street. The fog was thicker now, rolling in waves, and through it she could see other houses. The Hendersons’ house, the Patels’ house, the Johnsons’ house.

Every single one had handprints on the windows.

“We’re not the only ones,” Penny said. “Look.”

Her sisters joined her at the window, staring out at the street they’d lived on their whole lives, now transformed into something from a nightmare.

And then the fog parted, just for a moment, and Penny saw them.

Figures standing in the street. Tall, impossibly thin, their bodies wrong, joints bending in ways that made her eyes hurt. They wore tattered clothes that might have once been costumes, Halloween costumes, but now they were something else, something real.

One of them turned its head, and even from this distance, Penny could see its face.

It had no eyes, just empty sockets that leaked darkness. Its mouth was too wide, stretched in a grin that showed too many teeth.

And it was looking directly at her.

“Get down!” Penny hissed, pulling her sisters away from the window.

They crouched on the floor, hearts pounding.

“What were those things?” Pippa breathed.

“I don’t know,” Penny said, “but I think they’re what took Mum and Dad.”

“Then we need to get them back,” Phillipa said, and despite her fear, there was steel in her voice. “Whatever it takes, we get them back.”

Penny nodded. “Agreed. But first, we need to understand what’s happening. Why is Halloween still here? Why won’t it end?”

As if in answer, a sound drifted through the sealed windows, through the walls, through the very air itself.

Laughter. Children’s laughter, high and sweet and utterly wrong.

And underneath it, a voice, the same backwards voice from before, now multiplied, dozens of voices speaking as one:

“Nwod edispu, thgir si gnorw. Yats lliw niatnuom eht, enog si nus eht. Sruoy era ew, sruoy era yeht.”

Penny didn’t speak the words, didn’t understand them, but somehow, deep in her bones, she knew what they meant.

Halloween wasn’t over.

Halloween was never going to be over.

Not unless they found a way to end it.

Chapter 3: The Rules of the Game

The three sisters sat in Phillipa’s room, the door barricaded with her chest of drawers. It felt safer there, away from the windows, away from the things in the street.

Phillipa had her laptop open, frantically searching for information, but the internet was acting strangely. Websites loaded slowly, if at all, and when they did, the content was wrong. News sites showed headlines from years ago. Social media feeds were frozen on posts from last night, everyone celebrating Halloween, everyone having fun.

“This is useless,” Phillipa muttered, slamming the laptop shut. “It’s like the internet’s stuck in time.”

“Maybe it is,” Penny said quietly. “Maybe everything is.”

Pippa was sitting on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest. She’d been quiet since they’d seen the creatures in the street, her usual chatter replaced by a frightened silence that worried Penny more than anything.

“Pippa,” Penny said gently, sitting beside her little sister. “Talk to me. What are you thinking?”

“Last night,” Pippa said, her voice barely above a whisper, “when that skeleton was chasing me, I thought it was funny. But Penny, its bones were real. I could hear them clicking when it moved. And its eyes, they weren’t lights or projections, they were actually glowing.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because it was Halloween! Everything’s supposed to be scary and weird on Halloween. I thought that’s just how good the costumes were.” Pippa looked up, tears in her eyes. “But they weren’t costumes, were they?”

“No,” Penny said softly. “I don’t think they were.”

Phillipa was pacing now, her mind clearly working. “Okay, let’s think about this logically. Last night, Halloween, everything was normal until midnight. Then the fog came, and these things appeared. This morning, we’re trapped, Mum and Dad are gone, and those creatures are outside. There has to be a pattern, a reason.”

“The backwards voice,” Penny said suddenly. “It keeps saying things backwards. What if that’s a clue?”

“What did it say?” Phillipa asked.

Penny tried to remember. “Kcab og. Kcab og. Emit s’ti.”

Phillipa grabbed a pen and paper, wrote it down, then flipped it. “Go back. Go back. It’s time.”

“Go back where?” Pippa asked.

“And the longer one,” Penny continued, “Nwod edispu, thgir si gnorw. Yats lliw niatnuom eht, enog si nus eht. Sruoy era ew, sruoy era yeht.”

Phillipa wrote faster, her hand shaking. When she flipped it, her face went pale.

“What does it say?” Penny demanded.

Phillipa read aloud, her voice hollow. “Upside down, wrong is right. The mountain will stay, the sun is gone. We are yours, they are yours.”

The room fell silent.

“What does that mean?” Pippa asked.

“It means,” Penny said slowly, pieces clicking together in her mind, “that the rules have changed. Everything’s backwards now. Upside down. Wrong is right.”

“And the sun is gone,” Phillipa added, moving to the window. She pulled back the curtain. Outside, the sky was the same grey it had been since dawn, no lighter, no darker. “It’s not getting brighter. It’s been morning for over an hour, but the sun hasn’t risen.”

“The mountain will stay,” Pippa said. “What mountain? We don’t have mountains in Hallow.”

But Penny was remembering something. Last night, in the town square, there had been a centrepiece for the Halloween celebration. A huge artificial mountain, made of papier-mâché and chicken wire, decorated to look like a haunted peak. It had been impressive, towering over the square, with fake caves and plastic bats and lights that made it glow eerily.

“The Halloween mountain,” Penny said. “In the town square. That’s what it means.”

“So what, we need to go to the town square?” Phillipa asked.

“Maybe. If that’s where this started, maybe that’s where we can end it.”

“But how do we get there?” Pippa pointed out. “We’re trapped in the house.”

Penny thought hard. Wrong is right. Upside down. The rules have changed.

“What if,” she said slowly, “we’re thinking about this wrong? We’ve been trying to open doors and windows the normal way. But if everything’s backwards now, if wrong is right…”

“We need to do the opposite,” Phillipa finished, understanding dawning on her face. “We need to try to keep them closed.”

It sounded insane, but nothing about this situation was sane. They went back downstairs, to the front door. This time, instead of trying to pull it open, Penny pressed against it, as if trying to keep it shut.

The door swung open.

Cold air rushed in, bringing with it the smell of decay and old earth. The fog swirled on the doorstep, thick and grey and waiting.

“It worked,” Pippa breathed.

“Right,” Phillipa said, gripping her hockey stick tighter. “We need to get to the town square. It’s about fifteen fifteen-minute walk, but in this fog, with those things out there…”

“We don’t have a choice,” Penny said. “Mum and Dad are out there somewhere. We have to try.”

The three sisters stood on the threshold of their home, looking out at the street that was no longer their street, at the fog that held horrors they couldn’t imagine.

“Stay together,” Phillipa said. “No matter what happens, we stay together.”

They stepped out into the fog.

The cold hit Penny immediately, a bone-deep chill that made her gasp. The fog was thick, so thick she could barely see Phillipa in front of her, even though her older sister was only a step away.

“Hold hands,” Penny said, reaching for Pippa behind her, for Phillipa in front. “Don’t let go.”

They moved down the path, through their front gate, onto the pavement. The street was silent except for their footsteps and their breathing. The fog muffled everything, turning the world into a grey, formless void.

Penny could feel eyes on them. Watching. Waiting.

“Keep moving,” Phillipa whispered.

They passed the Hendersons’ house. Through the fog, Penny could see the giant spider web, and now she could see what was caught in it. Not fake bodies or Halloween decorations.

Real people. Wrapped in silk, unmoving.

“Don’t look,” Phillipa said, her voice tight. “Just keep walking.”

But Penny had already seen Mrs Henderson’s face, frozen in terror, eyes wide and staring.

They’re ours, the message had said. They are yours.

The creatures had taken everyone. The whole street. Maybe the whole town.

A shape moved in the fog ahead. Tall, thin, wrong.

“Stop,” Phillipa hissed.

They froze. The shape moved closer, its clicking, tapping footsteps echoing in the silence. Penny could see it now, its too long limbs, its eyeless face, its impossible grin.

It stopped right in front of them.

Penny held her breath, squeezed Pippa’s hand so tight it must have hurt. The creature tilted its head, studying them with its empty sockets.

Then it spoke, that backwards voice scraping against Penny’s ears.

“Yalp ot tnaw uoy od?”

Do you want to play?

Before Penny could respond, before any of them could move, the creature reached out with one impossibly long arm and touched Phillipa’s forehead.

Phillipa’s eyes rolled back, and she collapsed.

“No!” Penny screamed, dropping to her knees beside her sister. “Phillipa, wake up!”

But Phillipa was gone, lost in whatever nightmare the creature had put in her mind.

The creature laughed, that high, sweet, wrong laugh, and melted back into the fog.

Penny looked up at Pippa, saw her own terror reflected in her little sister’s face.

“We have to get her to the town square,” Penny said, trying to keep her voice steady. “We have to end this.”

Together, they lifted Phillipa, each taking an arm, and dragged their unconscious sister through the fog, towards the town square, towards the mountain, towards whatever waited for them there.

Behind them, in the fog, more laughter echoed.

The game had begun.

Chapter 4: The Town Square

Dragging Phillipa through the fog was exhausting. She was dead weight, her body limp and cold, her breathing shallow. Penny and Pippa stumbled along, their arms aching, their lungs burning from the frigid air.

The fog seemed to press against them, thick and suffocating, and the silence was worse than any sound. No birds, no cars, no distant voices. Just the scrape of their feet on the pavement and their ragged breathing.

“How much further?” Pippa gasped.

“I don’t know,” Penny admitted. “Everything looks different in the fog. I can’t see the street signs.”

They should have reached the high street by now, should have seen shops and cafes, but there was nothing. Just grey fog and empty streets and the constant feeling of being watched.

Then, through the fog, Penny saw a light. Faint, flickering, orange like firelight.

“There,” she said, nodding towards it. “That way.”

They changed direction, moving towards the light. As they got closer, Penny could make out shapes. Buildings. The town square.

The fog was thinner here, as if something was pushing it back, and Penny could see the Halloween mountain rising from the centre of the square. It looked different in the grey light, more real somehow, its papier-mâché surface textured like actual rock, its painted caves deep and dark.

And at its base, a fire burned. A real fire, flames crackling and dancing, casting long shadows across the cobblestones.

Around the fire stood figures. Not the tall, thin creatures from before. These were people. Adults and children, standing perfectly still, staring at the flames.

“Mum?” Pippa whispered. “Dad?”

Penny squinted through the gloom. There, on the far side of the fire, she could see them. Her parents, standing side by side, their faces blank, their eyes reflecting the firelight.

“Mum! Dad!” Pippa tried to run forward, but Penny grabbed her arm.

“Wait. Something’s wrong.”

“They’re right there!”

“I know, but look at them. Really look.”

Pippa stared at their parents. They weren’t moving, weren’t blinking, weren’t reacting to their daughters’ voices. They just stood there, empty and still, like dolls.

“What’s wrong with them?” Pippa’s voice cracked.

Before Penny could answer, a voice spoke from behind them. A normal voice, not backwards, not wrong.

“They’re caught in the dream.”

Penny spun around. A boy stood there, maybe thirteen or fourteen, with dark hair and tired eyes. He wore jeans and a hoodie, normal clothes, and he looked as exhausted as Penny felt.

“Who are you?” Penny demanded.

“Daniel. I live on Maple Street, other side of town. Been trying to figure this out since dawn.” He looked at Phillipa, still unconscious between Penny and Pippa. “One of them touched her?”

“Yes. What did it do to her?”

“Put her in the dream. Same thing that happened to them.” He nodded towards the people around the fire. “They’re all dreaming now, trapped in whatever nightmare those things put in their heads.”

“How do we wake them up?” Pippa asked desperately.

Daniel shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve tried everything. Shouting, shaking them, even throwing water on my mum. Nothing works.”

Penny’s mind raced. “The mountain. The backwards voice said the mountain will stay. This has to be connected.”

“I thought the same thing,” Daniel said. “But I can’t get close. Every time I try, those creatures appear. They’re guarding it.”

As if summoned by his words, shapes began to emerge from the fog. The tall, thin creatures, dozens of them, were forming a circle around the square. Their eyeless faces turned towards the three children, their too wide mouths stretched in grins.

“We need to get to the mountain,” Penny said, her voice steadier than she felt. “That’s where this started, that’s where we end it.”

“How?” Daniel asked. “There are too many of them.”

Penny looked at the creatures, at the fire, at the mountain. Wrong is right. Upside down. The rules have changed.

“We don’t fight them,” she said slowly. “We play their game.”

“What game?” Pippa asked.

“They asked if we wanted to play, remember? Maybe that’s the key. Maybe we have to play by their rules.”

One of the creatures stepped forward, its clicking, tapping footsteps echoing across the square. It stopped a few metres away, tilted its head.

“Yalp lliw uoy?” Will you play?

Penny took a deep breath, stepped forward. “Yes. We’ll play.”

The creature’s grin widened impossibly. “Doog. Seulr eht wonk tsum uoy.”

You must know the rules.

“What are the rules?” Penny asked.

The creature raised one long arm, pointed at the mountain. “Pot eht hcaer. Kcab meht gnirb. Kcab og.”

Reach the top. Bring them back. Go back.

“Reach the top of the mountain, bring them back, go back,” Daniel translated quietly. “Go back to what?”

“To before midnight,” Penny said, understanding flooding through her. “We have to go back to before Halloween ended. That’s how we fix this.”

“Tub,” the creature continued, its voice scraping like nails on a chalkboard, “snoitseuq eerht rewsna tsum uoy. Gnorw rewsna, maerd eht nioj uoy.”

But you must answer three questions. Answer wrong, you join the dream.

“Three questions,” Pippa whispered. “Like a fairy tale.”

“Except if we get them wrong, we end up like Phillipa,” Daniel added grimly.

Penny looked at her unconscious sister, at her parents standing blank and empty by the fire, at all the people of Hallow trapped in nightmares.

“We don’t have a choice,” she said. “We have to try.”

The creature gestured towards the mountain. The other creatures parted, creating a path.

“Nigeb,” it said. Begin.

Penny, Pippa and Daniel moved forward, leaving Phillipa by the edge of the square. Every instinct screamed at Penny to run, to grab her sisters and hide, but she forced herself to keep walking.

They reached the base of the mountain. Up close, it was enormous, towering above them, its surface rough and cold. A narrow path spiralled up its side, disappearing into darkness.

At the entrance to the path stood a creature, smaller than the others, child-sized. Its voice, when it spoke, was higher, almost sing-song.

“Noitseuq tsrif eht,” it said. The first question.

Penny braced herself.

“Thgin tsrif eht no, thgil on saw ereht. Thgil eht thguorb tahw?”

What brought the light, there was no light on the first night.

Penny’s mind spun. A riddle. It was asking a riddle.

“The first night,” Daniel muttered. “When there was no light. What brought the light?”

“The sun?” Pippa suggested.

“No, wait,” Penny said, thinking hard. “The first night. Before there was day, before there was the sun. What brought the first light?”

She thought about creation stories, about beginnings. And then she remembered something from school, from science class.

“The Big Bang,” she said. “The first light came from the Big Bang, from the universe being born.”

The creature tilted its head, considering. Then it stepped aside.

“Tcerroc.”

Correct.

Penny let out a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. They climbed the path, the mountain rising steeply. The fog grew thicker as they ascended, cold and damp against their skin.

Halfway up, another creature waited. This one was tall, its limbs so long they seemed to fold in on themselves.

“Noitseuq dnoces eht,” it rasped. The second question.

“Daed era yeht tub, evil era yeht. Thgin ni klaw yeht, yad ni peels yeht. Era yeht tahw?”

What are they? They sleep in the day, they walk at night. They are evil, but they are dead.

“Zombies?” Pippa whispered.

“No,” Daniel said. “Zombies are undead, not dead. And the question says they sleep in the day, walk at night.”

“Vampires,” Penny said suddenly. “They’re dead, they’re evil, they sleep during the day and walk at night. Vampires.”

The creature’s grin widened. “Tcerroc.”

They climbed higher. Penny’s legs burned, her lungs ached, but she pushed on. They were close now, she could feel it.

At the top of the mountain was a flat plateau, and in its centre, a door. An actual door, wooden and ancient, carved with symbols that hurt to look at.

Before the door stood the largest creature yet, its body twisted and wrong, its eyeless face turned towards them.

“Noitseuq driht eht,” it said, its voice like grinding stone. The third question.

“Uoy era tahw, em llet. Uoy dnif ot kees I, uoy ees ot kool I. Gnihton ma I tub, gnihtyreve ma I.”

I am everything but, I am nothing. I look to see you, I seek to find you. Tell me, what are you?

Penny’s heart sank. This was harder, more abstract. I am everything but I am nothing. I look to see you, I seek to find you.

“A mirror?” Pippa suggested.

“No,” Daniel said. “A mirror reflects, but it doesn’t seek.”

“A shadow?” Penny tried.

The creature didn’t move, didn’t respond. Wrong answer.

Penny thought frantically. Everything but nothing. Looking, seeking.

And then it hit her.

“A question,” she said. “You’re a question. A question can be everything or nothing depending on the answer. A question looks for understanding, seeks knowledge.”

The creature was silent for a long moment. Then, slowly, it stepped aside.

“Tcerroc. Ni og won. Kcab meht gnirb.”

Now go in. Bring them back.

The door swung open, revealing darkness beyond.

Penny looked at Pippa, at Daniel. “Ready?”

They nodded, and together, the three children stepped through the door.

Chapter 5: Inside the Mountain

The darkness was absolute, pressing against Penny’s eyes like a physical weight. She reached out, found Pippa’s hand, and held tight.

“Daniel?” she called.

“Here,” his voice came from her left. “I can’t see anything.”

“Keep talking,” Penny said. “Stay close.”

They moved forward slowly, hands outstretched, feet shuffling. The ground beneath them was smooth, cold, and the air smelled of earth and something else, something sweet and rotten.

Then, gradually, light began to seep in. Not natural light, but a sickly green glow that came from the walls themselves. As Penny’s eyes adjusted, she could see they were in a tunnel, narrow and winding, the walls covered in the same symbols from the door.

“Where are we?” Pippa whispered.

“Inside the mountain,” Penny said. “Or inside whatever the mountain really is.”

They followed the tunnel, the green light growing brighter. Penny could hear sounds now, distant at first, then closer. Voices. Crying. Screaming.

“The people in the dream,” Daniel said quietly. “We’re hearing their nightmares.”

The tunnel opened into a vast chamber, and Penny stopped, her breath catching.

The chamber was filled with webs. Not spider webs, but something else, threads of shadow and light woven together, stretching from floor to ceiling. And caught in the webs, like flies, were people. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, their bodies wrapped in the threads, their faces twisted in terror or grief or rage.

“Oh God,” Pippa breathed.

Penny scanned the chamber, looking for her parents, for Phillipa. There, near the centre, she saw them. Her mum and dad, wrapped in shadow threads, their eyes closed, their faces peaceful despite the nightmare they were trapped in.

And beside them, Phillipa, freshly caught, the threads just beginning to wind around her.

“We have to free them,” Penny said, moving forward.

“Wait,” Daniel grabbed her arm. “Look.”

In the centre of the chamber, where all the webs converged, was a figure. Not one of the tall, thin creatures. This was something else, something older.

It looked like a child, small and pale, dressed in tattered Victorian clothes. But its eyes were ancient, black and empty, and when it smiled, Penny saw rows of needle-sharp teeth.

“Welcome,” it said, and its voice was normal, almost pleasant. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Who are you?” Penny demanded, trying to keep her voice steady.

“I have many names. The Nightmare King. The Dream Eater. The Halloween That Never Ends.” It giggled, a sound like breaking glass. “But you can call me Samhain.”

“Samhain,” Daniel repeated. “The Celtic festival. The origin of Halloween.”

“Very good,” Samhain said, clapping its small hands. “Yes, I am the spirit of Halloween, the night when the veil between worlds grows thin. For one night each year, I am allowed to walk, to play, to feast on fear and delight.”

“One night,” Penny said. “Halloween ends at midnight. You’re supposed to go back.”

Samhain’s smile faded. “Supposed to. But this year, something changed. This year, your town celebrated so beautifully, with such joy and such terror, that the veil didn’t just thin. It tore. And I decided I didn’t want to go back. I decided Halloween should last forever.”

“You can’t do that,” Pippa said. “You’re hurting people, trapping them in nightmares.”

“Nightmares?” Samhain looked genuinely confused. “These aren’t nightmares. These are dreams. Perfect dreams where Halloween never ends, where every night is filled with magic and fear and wonder. I’m giving them what they want.”

“They don’t want this,” Penny said firmly. “Let them go.”

“No.” Samhain’s voice hardened. “They’re mine now. This whole town is mine. And soon, when the sun never rises again, when Halloween spreads beyond Hallow, the whole world will be mine.”

“That’s why the sun hasn’t risen,” Daniel said. “You’re holding back the dawn.”

“Clever boy. As long as I’m here, as long as Halloween continues, the sun cannot rise. The day cannot come. And without day, there is only night. Only Halloween. Forever.”

Penny’s mind raced. They’d answered the riddles, they’d reached the mountain, but now what? How did they stop a spirit, a force of nature?

Go back, the creature had said. Bring them back. Go back.

“You said the veil tore,” Penny said slowly. “When did it tear? Exactly when?”

Samhain tilted its head. “At midnight. When Halloween should have ended, when I should have returned to my realm. But the celebration was so strong, so powerful, that the veil couldn’t close. It tore instead.”

“So if we go back to that moment,” Penny said, “if we’re there when the veil tries to close, maybe we can fix it. Maybe we can push you back through.”

Samhain laughed. “You can’t go back in time, little girl. That’s impossible.”

“Not if we’re already in a dream,” Daniel said, catching on. “If all of this, the fog, the creatures, the mountain, if it’s all part of your dream, your Halloween, then time doesn’t work the same way. We’re not in the real world anymore. We’re in your world.”

“And in dreams,” Pippa added quietly, “you can go anywhere. Even backwards.”

Samhain’s smile vanished completely. “You’re smarter than I thought. But it doesn’t matter. Even if you could go back, even if you could reach that moment, you can’t close the veil. You’re just children.”

“Maybe,” Penny said. “But we can try.”

She looked at the webs, at the people trapped in them, at her family. “If we go back, if we close the veil, what happens to them?”

“They wake up,” Samhain said. “The dream ends, Halloween ends, and everyone goes back to normal. Including me. I’ll be forced back to my realm, trapped for another year.”

“Good,” Penny said.

Samhain’s face twisted with rage. “You would take this from me? This perfect, endless night? You would condemn me to darkness and silence for another year?”

“Yes,” Penny said simply. “Because this isn’t your world. It’s ours. And we want it back.”

Samhain shrieked, a sound that shook the chamber, and the shadow webs began to writhe. The people trapped in them moaned, their nightmares intensifying.

“If you want to go back,” Samhain hissed, “you’ll have to go through me.”

The creature’s small body began to change, growing, twisting, becoming something monstrous. Its Victorian clothes tore, revealing skin like bark, like stone. Its hands became claws, its teeth lengthened, and its eyes, its terrible empty eyes, began to glow with green fire.

“Run!” Daniel shouted.

But Penny stood her ground. “No. We’re not running. We’re ending this.”

She looked at the webs, at the threads of shadow and light. Wrong is right. Upside down.

“The webs,” she said. “They’re not just trapping people. They’re threads of time, of moments, of Halloween itself. If we can follow them back, if we can trace them to the source…”

“We can find midnight,” Daniel finished. “We can find the moment the veil tore.”

“But how do we follow them?” Pippa asked.

Penny looked at Samhain, now fully transformed into a nightmare creature, advancing towards them with claws extended.

“We let it catch us,” Penny said.

“What?” Pippa and Daniel said together.

“The webs catch people and put them in dreams, in nightmares. But dreams are made of memories, of moments. If we let the webs catch us, if we let ourselves fall into the dream, maybe we can navigate it. Maybe we can find our way back to midnight.”

“That’s insane,” Daniel said.

“I know,” Penny agreed. “But it’s the only way.”

Samhain was almost upon them, its claws reaching, its mouth open in a roar.

Penny grabbed Pippa’s hand, and grabbed Daniel’s hand. “Trust me.”

And together, they jumped into the webs.

Chapter 6: The Dream of Halloween

The webs caught them, wrapped around them, and Penny felt herself falling. Not physically, but mentally, spiritually, falling through layers of reality, through dreams and nightmares and memories.

She saw flashes of Halloween past. Children trick or treating, jack-o’-lanterns glowing, parties and laughter and screams of delight. She saw the history of the festival, saw ancient Celts lighting bonfires, saw the veil between worlds shimmer and thin.

And she saw Samhain, year after year, walking the earth for one night, feeding on fear and joy, then being pulled back, trapped in its realm, waiting for the next Halloween.

Lonely, she realised. It was lonely.

The falling stopped. Penny opened her eyes.

She was standing in the town square, but it was different. The fog was gone, the sky was clear and full of stars, and the square was packed with people. The Halloween celebration was in full swing, music playing, children running, and adults laughing.

“Where are we?” Pippa’s voice came from beside her.

Penny looked around. Pippa and Daniel were there, but they were translucent, ghost-like. And the people in the square, they were walking through them, not seeing them.

“We’re in the memory,” Penny said. “The dream of last night.”

“Look,” Daniel pointed. “The clock.”

Above the town hall, the clock showed 11:55pm. Five minutes to midnight.

“We made it,” Penny breathed. “We’re here.”

They moved through the crowd, watching the celebration. Penny saw herself, her past self, laughing with Pippa, eating candy floss. She saw Phillipa with her friends, trying to look cool but clearly having fun. She saw her parents, actually present, actually happy, dancing together by the Halloween mountain.

It was perfect. It was everything Penny had wanted.

And in five minutes, it would all go wrong.

“There,” Pippa said, pointing to the edge of the square.

The fog was starting to roll in, thick and unnatural. And in the fog, shapes were forming. The tall, thin creatures, waiting.

“That’s when it happens,” Daniel said. “When the fog comes, that’s when Samhain stays.”

The clock ticked to 11:58.

“We need to find the veil,” Penny said. “Where it tears. That’s what we need to fix.”

They searched the square, looking for something, anything that seemed out of place. The crowd was starting to thin, people heading home, the celebration winding down.

11:59.

“There!” Daniel shouted, pointing at the Halloween mountain.

At its base, the air was shimmering, rippling like water. And through the ripples, Penny could see something else. Another world, dark and cold, full of shadows.

“The veil,” she breathed.

They ran to the mountain, pushed through the memory of people who couldn’t see them. The shimmering grew stronger, the ripples more violent.

The clock began to chime midnight.

BONG.

On the first chime, the veil began to close, the ripples smoothing.

BONG.

But something was wrong. The veil was fighting, resisting, the ripples growing more chaotic.

BONG.

And then Penny saw it. Samhain, in its child form, standing at the base of the mountain, its hands pressed against the veil, holding it open.

BONG.

“No,” it was saying, its voice desperate. “Not yet. Not back. Please, not back.”

BONG.

The veil was tearing, the fabric of reality splitting under the pressure.

BONG.

“It’s scared,” Pippa whispered. “It doesn’t want to go back.”

BONG.

Penny understood. Samhain wasn’t evil. It was lonely, desperate, clinging to the one night it was allowed to exist.

BONG.

But that didn’t change what had to be done.

BONG.

Penny stepped forward, reached out to Samhain. Her hand passed through its shoulder, insubstantial, but Samhain felt it. It turned, saw her.

“You,” it said.

BONG.

“I’m sorry,” Penny said. “I know you’re lonely. I know you don’t want to go back. But you have to.”

BONG.

“I’ll be alone,” Samhain said, and it sounded like a child, scared and small. “In the dark. For a whole year.”

BONG.

The final chime rang out. Midnight.

The veil should have closed. But Samhain was still holding it open, and the tear was spreading, reality fracturing.

Penny made a decision.

“You won’t be alone,” she said. “I’ll remember you. We all will. Every Halloween, we’ll celebrate, we’ll think of you, we’ll keep the spirit alive. You’ll never be forgotten.”

Samhain stared at her, its ancient eyes searching her face.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, slowly, Samhain let go of the veil.

The tear began to close, reality knitting itself back together. Samhain started to fade, being pulled back to its realm.

“Thank you,” it whispered, and then it was gone.

The veil sealed with a flash of light, and the world lurched.

Chapter 7: The Waking

Penny gasped, her eyes flying open. She was lying on cold cobblestones, staring up at a grey sky. No, not grey. Lightening. The sun was rising, pale and weak, but rising.

“Pippa?” she called, sitting up.

“Here,” Pippa’s voice came from nearby. Her little sister was sitting up too, looking dazed but alive.

“Daniel?”

“I’m okay,” Daniel said, getting to his feet. “Did it work? Did we do it?”

Penny looked around. They were in the town square, the real town square. The Halloween mountain was gone, just empty space where it had stood. The fog was lifting, morning light breaking through.

And the people. The people were waking up.

All around the square, people were sitting up, blinking, confused. Penny saw the Hendersons, the Patels, the Johnsons. She saw neighbours and friends and strangers, all coming back to themselves.

“Penny!”

She turned. Phillipa was running towards her, tears streaming down her face. She crashed into Penny, hugging her so tight it hurt.

“You did it,” Phillipa sobbed. “I don’t know what you did, but you did it. I was trapped, I was in this nightmare, and then suddenly I was waking up and you were there and”

“It’s okay,” Penny said, hugging her back. “It’s over. It’s all over.”

“Girls!”

Their parents were pushing through the crowd, their faces pale but alert. They reached their daughters and pulled all three into a fierce embrace.

“What happened?” their dad asked. “The last thing I remember is the party, and then… nothing. Just darkness and dreams.”

“It’s a long story,” Penny said. “But we’re okay. Everyone’s okay.”

Around them, the town was coming back to life. People were helping each other up, checking on neighbours, trying to make sense of what had happened.

“It was like a mass hallucination,” someone was saying.

“Must have been something in the air,” another person suggested.

“Carbon monoxide, maybe?”

Penny smiled. They didn’t remember. Or they were choosing not to remember. Either way, life would go back to normal.

“Come on,” their mum said. “Let’s go home.”

As they walked back through the streets of Hallow, Penny looked up at the sky. The sun was fully risen now, bright and warm, burning away the last traces of fog.

Halloween was over.

But before they turned onto their street, Penny looked back at the town square. For just a moment, she thought she saw a small figure standing there, watching. A child in Victorian clothes, smiling.

Then it was gone.

“Thank you,” Penny whispered.

And she meant it.

Chapter 8: The After

School was cancelled for the rest of the week. The official explanation was a gas leak that had caused mass hallucinations, and while most people seemed to accept that, Penny knew the truth.

She spent the days at home with her sisters, recovering. Phillipa was quieter than usual, sometimes staring off into space, lost in memories of the nightmare she’d been trapped in. Pippa had nightmares, waking up crying about skeletons and fog.

But they were together, and they were safe, and slowly, things began to feel normal again.

On Friday afternoon, there was a knock at the door. Penny answered it to find Daniel standing there, hands in his pockets, looking awkward.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Penny replied.

“I just wanted to check you were okay. You and your sisters.”

“We’re okay. You?”

“Yeah. My parents think I imagined the whole thing, but…” He shrugged. “I know what happened. We know.”

Penny nodded. “We do.”

They stood in silence for a moment, then Daniel said, “Do you think it’ll come back? Next Halloween?”

“I think so,” Penny said. “But I think it’ll be different. I think it understands now.”

“That we’re not just fear to feed on?”

“That we’re people. That we matter.”

Daniel smiled. “You’re pretty brave, you know that?”

Penny felt her cheeks warm. “I had help.”

“Still. You were amazing.” He shifted his weight, suddenly nervous. “Maybe we could hang out sometime? When things are properly back to normal?”

“I’d like that,” Penny said, and she meant it.

After Daniel left, Penny went up to her room. She sat at her desk, pulled out a notebook, and began to write.

She wrote about Halloween, about the celebration and the terror and the magic. She wrote about Samhain, about loneliness and fear, and the need to be remembered.

And she wrote a promise.

Every Halloween, she would celebrate. She would dress up, carve pumpkins, and tell scary stories. She would keep the spirit of Halloween alive, not out of fear, but out of respect.

Because Halloween wasn’t about monsters or nightmares. It was about community, about coming together, about facing fear with courage and laughter.

It was about remembering that magic, real magic, existed in the world.

And that was worth celebrating.

That night, as Penny lay in bed, she heard a sound outside her window. Not scraping or clicking or tapping. Just the wind, rustling through the trees.

But underneath it, so faint she might have imagined it, she heard a voice.

“Uoy knaht.”

Thank you.

Penny smiled, closed her eyes, and slept.

And for the first time since Halloween, she didn’t have nightmares.

She dreamed of autumn leaves and pumpkin patches, of costumes and candy, of laughter echoing through streets lit by jack-o’-lanterns.

She dreamed of Halloween as it should be.

And in her dream, a small figure in Victorian clothes smiled, no longer alone, no longer forgotten.

The Halloween that wouldn’t end had finally, peacefully, ended.

But its spirit, its magic, its promise?

That would last forever.