This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Verastahl on 2024-10-29 04:33:51+00:00.

“Are you sure you’re okay trick-or-treating alone tonight?” I could hear the concern in Mom’s voice, but I wasn’t sure it was real. She had to work late every night this week, and I knew she didn’t have an answer if I said no.

“Mom, no, I mean, yes, I’m fine with trick-or-treating by myself. I’m twelve. This is probably the last year I can even do it.”

A moment of quiet on the line and then: “But it’s only Monday night, right? Maybe if you do it later in the week I could get off early enough to drive you around.” Another pause. “Or do you think some of the neighborhood kids would let you go with them?”

I felt resentment starting to stir in my chest. I already gave her what she wanted, why is she dragging this out? I thought about just agreeing to wait for her to take me out of spite, but it would just end up with me going on Halloween by myself anyway. “No, none of the kids around here are my friends and most are way young. I’ll be fine. This is the night the town picked for trick-or-treating, which is dumb, but if I don’t go tonight I’m afraid a lot of the houses won’t have candy. I’ll be fine.”

Another pause. “Okay. If you’re sure.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I need to go. It’s getting dark.”

****

Laying under a pile of dead leaves two hours later, I thought back to that phone call. How I should’ve waited. Or if I went tonight, I should have stuck to just the roads I knew well. Instead, I got irritated that some of the houses had already given out of candy before I got to them. And instead of facing the idea of going home to an empty house, I decided to keep pushing on, riding my bike out to the state road and then down a side street that trailed off into another couple of neighborhoods before leading to a narrow paved path that could have been a small road or a giant driveway.

Either way, I figured there had to be more houses up there for it to be paved so well, and I had started getting better candy the farther out I’d went. I was still debating when I saw a killer clown coming toward me with his mother. They didn’t look at me as they walked closer, so I called out to them instead.

“Hey, do they have good candy up there?”

The woman turned and stared at me, letting out a big belch as she nodded. “Yeah. Good stuff up there.” She gave me a weird smile and then kept walking past without another word. I don’t think her little clown ever said a word.

I frowned after them a moment before giving a shrug. People were weird, but what did it matter? Turning my bike onto the road, I started heading up into the trees. It was much darker here, at least in patches, but periodically there would be a solar light dotting one side of the road or the other. I felt myself getting a bit more excited. This must be a giant driveway, which meant the house must be big and rich. As I went up further, most of the lights started having Halloween decorations around them—fancy stuff like you see on television. It was cool, but it was also weird. The trees were so thick and dark, and the lights were spaced out enough that it seemed like I was riding out to the middle of nowhere, but then I’d ride past this awesome zombie waving his arms from the ground next to one of the lights.

You would think that the sign wouldn’t have caught my attention more than the rest, but it did. Not because it was fancy, but because it wasn’t. Just a wooden sign made out of particle board and propped up on what looked like the original decorations for that light—an evil-looking pumpkin that looked like it had a twisted grin, but that you couldn’t really see for the sheet of wood propped against it to catch the nearest solar light. And across the front of the particle board were four spray-painted red words.

Beware the booger goblin

I had actually stopped and laughed a little at that sign. It looked like whoever lived up here had a kid that decided to fuck up one of their bougie decorations for something that looked like it belonged at a flea market or sketchy fair. Booger goblin. How dumb was…

I jumped as I heard a strange whistle from one of the trees above me. It was musical, but it didn’t sound like a bird. Heart pounding, I looked around for where it would have come from. A speaker maybe? Something to spook people when they got close to the house?

I heard another whistle from the other side of the road. Lower to the ground and closer than before. I had the thought that it was a deeper sound, like something else talking back to the first.

“Fuck that.”

I started pedaling again, harder now than I had all night. I considered turning around and going back down, but I was so scared that the idea of taking the time to turn and head back down that long stretch of dark driveway seemed worse than just going on, especially when I had to be getting close to the house. Sure enough, as I rounded the next corner I saw the house. It was even bigger than I’d expected, with orange lights and decorations covering most of its three floors. There were more decorations in the yard, but I just kept to the driveway as I searched the doors and windows of the house for some sign of life or help. Maybe it was all just part of the Halloween stuff these people had going, but it didn’t feel like a trick or a decoration. And…that little girl in the window…up on the second floor there was a dark-haired girl in the window, beating on the glass and waving at me, waving me away. She wasn’t fake. She was crying and screaming and I could almost make out what

That’s when the booger goblin jumped onto me.

I fell off the bike immediately, screaming and clawing at it as it crawled from my back up to the top of my head. It had hard claws that dug in as I reached up to it, screaming louder as I felt the hard, slick surface of plates of bug skin. It felt like a roly-poly looked, or a centipede. But it was smaller, rounder and fatter, and as I tried to rake it off, it just dug in tighter as two fingers or tentacles drifted past my eyes before curving and going up my nose deeply.

Everything went red and my brain felt like it was on fire. But that only lasted a couple of seconds before it all turned cold and numb as it started squirting something into my head. I felt my body slowing down, calming. I still wanted to fight, to run, to get it off and out of me, but I couldn’t anymore. I wasn’t screaming either, and for a minute or two I just laid very still as that numb feeling took over.

Then my hands started pulling me along the ground, away from the house and driveway and into a large pile of dead leaves a few feet away. My body pulled itself into that pile before going still, and using the last of my strength I managed to turn my head so I could still see out of the leaves, trying to get out a call for help from whoever might be out there. But no, I couldn’t make a sound. Just scream in my head as everything went very still except for the soft, squelching noise of more wetness being pushed into me.

**** A few minutes passed like that before I saw someone new. It was a group of five kids, most of them a year or two younger than me, coming up the driveway together. They didn’t seem terrified or like they’d been attacked—maybe the booger goblins only attacked people when they were alone—I thought about the mother and son I’d seen on the way up—or in pairs.

Either way, it didn’t matter. These kids were just laughing and joking and having a good time, and while a couple of them glanced at my bike and candy bag in the yard, I could tell none of them could see me in the leaves. I tried again to move or make a noise, but there was no point. I could have been watching a video of all this for how not-in-control I was now. My only hope was that the kids was notice something was weird with the house. Maybe the little girl or something.

A pale, blonde girl with devil horns and a jack-o-lantern candy pail led the way up the porch and rang the doorbell. I wasn’t sure anyone would even answer, but within a few seconds a man opened the door. I couldn’t see him from my angle, but I could hear his deep voice, strange and detached as he told them Happy Halloween before letting out a wet belch. The kids didn’t say anything other than thank you as they got their candy, but I could tell they were creeped out as they left. They walked faster, and there were no jokes or laughter anymore.

Still, it wouldn’t be enough. They didn’t know anything was wrong, and if nothing got them on the way out, they’d probably go home thinking they’d had a cool, creepy experience close to Halloween. And I could feel myself being pushed farther and farther down some weird hallway in myself. I could still see and hear, but I couldn’t feel anything at all now, and when the goblin finally pulled its fingers out of my nose and left across the yard, I only knew because I saw its speckled belly as it crawled across my face.

A few more minutes passed I think. Then I was moving again, crawling out of the leaves and sitting up with a loud burp. My head and eyes moved up to the figure standing above me. The man from the door, maybe. He watched silently as my body stood up, and then handed me back my bag of candy as he wiped at his mouth with the back of his other hand.

“Happy Halloween.”