Abigail stood at the old wooden gate and stared at the farmhouse. Old. Unkempt. Rotting. Like the bodies inside. None of that bothered her. It was the silence. The last good Samaritan had expired so quickly. Was that why the crows and ravens had left? Turning, Abigail started to walk away. She’d only gone a short way down the road when she heard an engine. She ducked behind the tall grass. Her pulse raced and her stomach growled. She had to be sure it wasn’t another annoying townsman. They had tried burning her at the stake at least seventy-five times in three hundred years. And don’t even get her started on the attempted drownings. Rude. Of course, she wasn’t a witch. But they still tried to kill her like she was one. Whatever she was… older. More powerful. The car stopped at the gate. What were they doing? The car backed up slightly and turned down the path. Sighing, she stepped onto the road. Annoyance throbbed behind her left eye. They were going to try to burn down her home again. People were so rude. She marched up the drive, jaw clenched, hands balled into fists. Today was ruined. It would take all her energy to deal with whoever was in the car. No finding a good Samaritan for her playhouse. She smiled briefly. They hadn’t come to die, but die they would and that gave her some joy. Neither of them was going to have the day they planned. **** Madison’s grandmother had always said there were places where the world held its breath. Where evil lived unchecked. She didn’t believe her. Until now. The farmhouse stood exactly where the hand-drawn map promised it would, leaning beneath a sky the color of dirty wool. Every window reflected only gray clouds, though she could have sworn one curtain had just fallen back into place. Her grandmother’s dying request had sent her here. “Your mother’s bones are there. Her soul is tormented. It screams to me, but I’ve always been too weak to go. You’re stronger.” What that meant, Madison had no idea, but she agreed to give the old woman peace of mind. Madison was a person of her word, even if everyone else believed the dying woman had lost her mind. With a final look at the map and the house, Madison shut off the engine. Her grandmother’s spirit would be happy she came. Glancing up in the rearview mirror, she saw a girl. A young girl walked up the muddy track. Her hair hung in muddy clumps. Her nightdress dirty, torn, and fashioned like something from the early 13th century. Jumping out of the car, she ran toward the little girl. “Oh, my dear, are you okay? Let me help you. Is there someone I can call?” Abigail smiled. Her day had improved. “Thank you for your kindness. You are a good Samaritan,” she said, then added under her breath, “And no good deed must go unpunished.”

The Mansfield house had been abandoned for so long that the ivy had almost swallowed its walls whole. Rotten shutters barely clung to rusted hinges; the roof sagged beneath decades of storms. The legend began at the harvest of 1894. Mrs Mansfield was up late into the night baking bread for the farm workers working through the night; the house should have been silent, yet laughter suddenly echoed through every room, a soft, playful sound like a child playing. Every candle in the house suddenly lit itself. Their trembling flames created crooked shadows that danced across the walls, leading Mrs Mansfield into the dining room. In the middle of the polished timber floor sat her daughter, Holly, slowly disappearing into a vast pool of fresh blood, the thick metallic scent enough to choke the last bit of air from your lungs. Holly ran her pale fingers through the blood with childish delight, splashing it into the air. Crimson droplets rained over her face as she laughed, spinning her hands through the blood like a warm summer rain. Her white dress remained immaculate; not a single drop marked the fabric. Slowly, Holly lifted her head, smiling. "Good morning, mother." With a scream, Mrs Whitmore fled barefoot deep into the night. When the farm hands searched the house at sunrise, the dining room was immaculate. The polished floor gleamed; not a single mark was found. Most dismissed her story. Women tend to fret at night after all. The parish priest did not. For three nights he searched every inch of the property, recited hundreds of desperate prayers. The blessings lasted through the night; neighbours heard prayers rising above violent banging from beneath the house. Between each prayer came delighted laughter, then pleading, then scratching so frantic it sounded as though someone was trying to claw through solid rock. With the first beam of sunlight, silence finally fell; the exhausted priest emerged white as ash. "I have banished her from this land," he whispered. "She will never cross its boundary while even one soul of Mansfield blood still walks this earth. But when the last heartbeat of your family falls silent... nothing will hold her back." Over time, the Mansfield line slowly dwindled; with every funeral, a little of the laughter returned until the last of the Mansfield bloodline finally died in their sleep at ninety-eight. The solicitor arrived the following morning to catalogue the estate. Inside the dining room, he found a woman twirling through the bottomless crimson pool, humming softly to herself, her bare feet creating lazy waves through the liquid. She stopped when she noticed him. Her smile widened. "Welcome, it's been so long," she whispered, "I've had no one to play with."

“Got it!” Carrie said, lowering her phone. “That’ll look good on my blog. Thanks, you guys. Hope you have a great Halloween tonight. Lots of goodies and all that.” The children didn’t move, their blank eyes continued to stare. “Go on, then,” she said, waving. “You don’t want to miss out on all the treats, do you? Go scare the crap out of your neighbors, like you’re doing to me.” Still nothing. Carrie looked around, trying to avoid their gaze. “Are you out here alone? Don’t you have an adult with you?” From the corner of her left eye, she saw movement from the tallest one. She turned back. He, she, it was one step closer to her. “Hah! Red light!” she shouted, throwing up her right hand, palm out. She saw the third one’s head cock slightly. “Have you never played that game?” Carrie asked. “I say ‘green light’ and you move toward me until I say ‘red light’ and then you freeze where you are. The last one I see move is out.” She began stepping backward as she explained. Her skin was growing clammy and her heart and breath were quickening. The children seemed to be listening intently. All their heads were now cocked sideways like puppies trying to find a recognizable word in their master’s voice. “I’ll just move away across the field and we’ll play.” Carrie turned and started running, glancing back over her shoulder now and then to make sure the children were not following. They weren’t. She continued at a run when she came to the road bordering the field and headed for her car parked fifty feet away. She clicked her fob and unlocked the driver’s door. Glancing once more, she saw the four children still standing where she left them. She dropped into the seat and double-clicked the fob, making sure all doors were locked. As she turned the car around, her headlights picked out the four figures in the field, heads still cocked in an inquisitive attitude. “Damn little bastards,” she said, shaking her fist in the rearview mirror. “Go tell your mother she wants you!” As she turned her eyes back on the road, the children were spread across it, their hands stretched forward, palms up. “Red light!” they screamed, their voices filling Carrie’s car as if they were in the back seat. When Carrie awoke in her overturned car, she felt as if every muscle in her body hurt. It took her a moment to remember what had happened. She searched for her seat belt. “We win,” a child’s voice said. “You moved after we said, ‘red light.’ We’ll take our treats now.” “What?” she asked. Then she screamed as the children began tearing her apart, dropping body parts into their bags, and arguing who had the best ones.