“We are going to get caught. Let’s just go back to the party, Kev,” Carmen said as she glanced behind her at affluent Lakeview Boulevard, shrowded by the dark fall night. 

The wind whipped off Lake Serenity through the towering pines, carrying the fresh scent of pine needles and a chill that forced her to pull the cape of her Little Red Riding Hood costume tighter around her shoulders.

“They’re never home,” came Kevin’s voice from the bushes in front of the house. “And usually the front door is unlocked, but luckily I know where they hide their… got it!”

Kevin’s head – topped with the wild hair and pointy ears of his Teen Wolf Costume – popped up out of the bushes; he was holding a rock the size of a baseball.

Carmen felt her heart leap a little in her chest as he did. She couldn’t see his face but could hear the smile she had been smitten with since the first day of sixth grade when Kevin’s family moved to their little town.

She wasn’t naive. Growing up in the Timber Mill Quarter, she understood her odds of a lifetime with a boy—from the affluent Lakeside District—wouldn’t last forever.

They were two months into their senior year of high school, and neither had dared to talk about what would happen when the year ended. They always spoke to each other in forever terms. They talked about where they would live and what their house would look like, and even argued about what their first baby’s name would be just this past summer.

“See,” Carmen’s best friend Jenna said, spinning her laptop screen to face Carmen, “Two percent! Two percent of marriages are to high school sweethearts. So you need to stop freaking out and start having fun. You two aren’t going to get married.”

Carmen understood the statistics, but she resolved to enjoy the love she had as much as she could while she had it.

“Aaand, we’re in,” Kevin said as a gust of wind sent leaves tumbling across the driveway. “I can’t believe people still use these ‘hide-a-key’ things.”

Carmen hesitated.

“I—I still don’t think this is a good idea,” she said, looking over her shoulder at the dark, empty street. “What if they come home?”

“I told you, they FaceTimed my mom this morning to make sure everything was okay with the house. Mrs. Connor was on the beach telling my mom about the bottomless mimosas. Even if they got on a plane right after hanging up, there is no way they could make it home from Hawaii until tomorrow morning. We have the house to ourselves.”

Kevin held out his hand, gesturing for Carmen to enter the house.

As she stepped inside, she saw something flash in her peripheral vision and screamed.

Kevin slammed the door, put his hand over her mouth, and pressed her against the wall in the foyer.

“Shhh,” he said, smiling. “Do you want to get us in trouble? When I said, ‘we have the house to ourselves,’ I was including Chase.”

Carmen looked down to see Chase, the Connors’ adorable orange and white tabby cat, head-bunting Kevin’s legs in search of attention.

Carmen exhaled in relief. “Sorry, he scared me.”

“Thanks for clearing that up.”

“Shut up. It’s dark, it’s Halloween, and my boyfriend convinced me to break into someone’s house,” Carmen said, narrowing her eyes at him.

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Kevin said as he wrapped her in his arms and kissed her forehead. “Do you think our house will be this big?”

As he pulled away, Carmen began to take in the house’s interior. The house was spotless and smelled of lemon cleaner. It looked like one of those model houses they put up in a new development. The staples were there: couches, a large dining room table with a place setting, TVs, and a few generic pieces of artwork hung from the walls. It was the kind of place that highlighted the difference between a house and a home.

“I don’t know, darling,” Carmen began, attempting to sound high-falutin. “It’s big, of course, but you know I am partial to marble flooring. And what is it with these low ceilings? It feels rather tight here.”

“Yes, yes, you’re right, my love,” Kevin said, playing along. “I shall find a new realtor at once. Please forgive me.”

They laughed as their lips pressed together.

Carmen pushed him back to arm’s length and said, “So, what’s your plan, mister? You’ve got me alone in this house, and I am getting bored.”

“Hold that thought. I’ll be right back,” he said, winking at her before disappearing into the kitchen.

Carmen walked to the bookshelf on the other side of the living room, adorned with framed pictures, knick-knacks, and, of course, books.

Mr. and Mrs. Connor didn’t have any children, so all of the picture frames were filled with shots of them on vacation. While the backdrop varied from tropical, sugar-sand beaches to historic landmarks, the couple could have been photoshopped into every one of the pictures.

They stood on the same side in every picture and had the bright smiles of newlyweds in every image.

Carmen picked up a picture of the couple in front of the Tower Bridge in London. She allowed her imagination to replace their faces with hers and Kevin’s. She tried to imagine taking the picture. She imagined showing the picture to her friends at a dinner party after they returned from another one of their European vacations. She fell head-first into the fantasy.

She froze when she saw the silhouette of someone standing behind her in the reflection of the glass in the picture frame.

“Kevin? What are you doing?”

No response.

Too afraid to move, she tried again. “Kevin, if you’re trying to scare m—”

“What are you doing here?” a voice whispered.

Carmen screamed as she jumped, dropping the picture frame. Glass shattered on the hardwood floor as she spun around to see Kevin standing behind her, holding two hard seltzers.

“Don’t do that!”

“It’s too easy,” he laughed, holding out the two cans. “Watermelon or black cherry?”

“Watermelon,” Carmen said, snatching it from his hand. “What do we do about the picture frame?”

“Let’s figure that out later,” Kevin said, sitting on the couch and patting the cushion beside him.

Carmen took a long drink and winced as the sharp carbonated malt liquor slid down her throat. She set the can on the bookshelf before jumping on top of Kevin and kissing him. He gently slid his hand up her back, to the back of her neck, then to her cheek.

Carmen felt goosebumps all over her body as he brushed her straight, brown hair behind her ear.

He pulled away, looking her in the eye, saying, “I really do love you.”

She studied his face for a moment and knew he meant it. She felt it, too. She didn’t know whether it was lust or love in such moments. All she knew was that it felt good. It felt as though she couldn’t get close enough to him. She pressed every part of herself into him as they lay on the couch.

They heard a thump from the ceiling above them.

Carmen lifted her face away from Kevin’s and looked to the stairs. “What was that?”

“Chase, remember? Actually, the Connors will think he’s the one who broke the picture,” he said, attempting not to lose his opportunity to make it to second base.

“That sounded bigger than a cat.”

“All right,” Kevin sighed. “Let’s go check it out.”

They turned on the lights leading upstairs. Kevin made his way up with Carmen hot on his heels, looking over her shoulder as he went up.

Kevin strutted from room to room, turning on lights and checking in closets and under beds. When he turned on the light to the Connors’ bedroom, Chase ran out of the door to Carmen’s feet.

“See,” Kevin said, unable to hide the frustration in his voice. “What did I tell you?”

Carmen bent down and picked up Chase, who purred as she scratched behind his ears.

“I know, I know, it’s because it’s Halloween.”

“It is? Thank God, I was worried everyone was going to figure out my secret tonight,” he said, looking down at his Teen Wolf costume.

“Well, your secret is safe with me,” Carmen said with a sly grin.

“Good, because then I wouldn’t have to eat you,” he said, walking toward her down the hall.

“My, what sharp teeth you have,” she said.

“The better to eat you with,” Kevin said, snarling into her neck.

They were making their way down the stairs, laughing, when they heard three hard pounds on the door.

They stood halfway down the stairs, staring at each other. Kevin brought a finger to his lips, telling Carmen to be quiet.

He padded to the front door. All Carmen could hear was her heartbeat in her ears. Kevin reached for the doorknob when they heard a knock on the window in the living room.

Carmen saw the tension release from Kevin’s shoulders. He turned and said, “It has to be Andy. I told him we were coming here, and he’s trying to freak us out. I’ll take care of him.”

He yanked the door open and looked on the front porch momentarily. He turned around with a smile and ran across the living room to the kitchen.

“I saw him run around back. I am going to get him for this one; come on.”

Carmen followed him to the kitchen, where he went to the back patio door and opened it.

“I know you’re out there, you idiot,” he said in a hushed voice. “You better not wake the neighbors and get us caught.”

He shut the door and walked to Carmen. “Sorry, babe. I should have known he’d pull some stuff like this. Let’s get a drink.”

Kevin walked across the living room, closed the front door, and went down to the basement to get drinks.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Carmen said. “We are leaving if anything else even remotely creepy happens.”

Carmen entered the main floor powder room and shut the door when her phone buzzed. She received a text from her best friend, Jenna.

Jenna: Are you coming or not?

Carmen: Don’t think so. Is it fun?

Jenna: It would be better if you were here! But I understand you need to spend quality time with the love of your life. You should watch this tho.

A video popped up in the messaging app, and Carmen hit play.

She immediately turned the volume down as the sound of high school seniors laughing and yelling nearly blew out her eardrums. She saw familiar faces illuminated with the orange glow of a bonfire. Her friend Kim came into the shot, tripped over a cooler, and fell into a heap of laughter when she said something that sent a shiver down Carmen’s spine.

“Andy has a flat tire,” Kim said, gasping through laughter. “And he doesn’t know how to change a tire.”

She looked in the mirror, and it occurred to her that she had never seen what she looked like when terrified. 

“Kevin,” she said, opening the bathroom door, “Are you sure it was Andy? I just got a text from Jenna and…”

She stopped as she looked at Kevin. His blue eyes still dazzled her, like they did when he walked into the classroom on the first day of sixth grade, even next to the pool of blood.

Blood. So much blood.

Kevin lay on the floor, eyes open, as an impossible amount of blood darkened the floor around him. Carmen stared as the pool of blood grew on the floor, and then a shadow emerged, making the blood look like a pool of ink.

Carmen looked to the kitchen doorway to see someone standing motionless. The light from the kitchen behind the person made it impossible to make out any features.

She shook her head in an attempt to clear her vision. They stood there still, motionless, over Kevin’s lifeless body. It looked like they were wearing a hood, or was it a mask?

She tried to scream, but there was no air in her lungs.

Wake up, she thought, you have to get out of here. Run to the front door now. Run. RUN!

She looked in the direction of the front door, still frozen with fear, then looked back at the attacker, who slowly shook their head.

Now or never.

She made a break for the front door, grabbed the doorknob, and pulled.

The door was locked. She grabbed the deadbolt to unlock the door, and as she did, a hand grabbed the back of her hair and slammed her face into the door.

Carmen heard the crunch of her nose breaking before she plunged into darkness.

A LETTER TO THE READER

Dear Reader,

While I find it impolite not to introduce myself properly, I cannot do so now. I do hope you will forgive me for this, as I know by the time this letter ends you will desperately want to know my name. 

Your narrator decided to spair you the details of what I did to Carmen and Kevin. If I were telling you this story, I would not spare you from these details. 

No. I respect you too much to treat you like a child who is too innocent to hear such things.

I was nervous tonight. I’ve never done this before, so you’ll have to pardon me the night felt a bit trite. I was doing my best to recreate a mosaic of all the horror movies I have seen. I watched those two kids sneaking into a house that didn’t belong to them on Halloween night. I would have liked to be more prolific, more origiinal but alas here we are.

It’s true what they say though, there are no failures in life, only lessons to be learned. And I learned a lot.

I wanted to take more time with them. I wanted to have more of a conversation. Get to know them, well, get to know them a little better. I got too… let’s say excited. 

I saw the way they looked at each other on that couch and I have to say, I believe Kevin really loves, err, loved Carmen. She loved him, she really loved him. She loved him so much more than anything in her life.

She told me.

Do you want someone to tell you the truth? 

Put a knife to their throat.

If I wouldn’t have been pressed for time, I would have gotten her full, unabridged, honest life story. She begged to tell me anything to save her life. I got the information I needed but eventually it gets to be a bit annoying. I love my mom, I want to live, Please, I’ll do anything – blah, blah, blah. 

I didn’t intend on writing you this letter. My plan was to disappear like a ghost or a boogieman for you to think about the next time you’re home alone and here a noise in another part of your house. I wanted you to wonder if the next knock on your door was coming from me or someone who cared about your life. 

We never know when we are going to find out pashion though, do ew? 

I have a taste for this now and I want to see if anyone can catch me or if my thirst for blood is insatiable enough to keep me hidden in plain sight while I wait for my next opportunity. And the next. And the next. 

I wonder if you will piece it together first or if someone in this town will beat you to the punch. I am not so disillusioned to believe I will not get caught, rather that is the point. 

The real question is how many innocent people, i.e. Kevin and Carmen, will wind up having there final conversation with me? What secrets will they tell? How much will they beg?

I hope to meet you in person someday. I now know it will be far more fun to talk to you then it is to watch you through your window.

Happy Halloween.