Happy Halloween tomorrow!

Time for spooky bite-sized stories from around the world. Don’t forget to look for the links after my story!

Harvest

Fall is supposed to be a time of abundance, of harvest. Only problem is—the thing gettin’ harvested is me.

Weather is still t-shirt during the day, hoodie at night, but there’s a scab in the crease of my elbow, right over the vein that wasn’t there last night, before my friends dragged me bar-hopping, no hoodie involved. A backless front with string ties in a shimmering copper that lit the highlights in my hair, skin-tight pair of jeans, sky-high leather boots.

Not much of a hangover today and no gaps in my memory. So how did I get that mark and the bruise around it?

Time to retrace my steps along the bar-route.

In a hoodie.

Fool me once, shame on you. Twice? Mama gonna rise from her grave to shame me herself.

*

Ain’t never been a bar that looks at good in the daylight as it does at night. Most of ‘em—bartender included—just look sad, and this one ain’t no exception.

He’d be tall, dark, and handsome, ‘cept for the bags under his eyes and the irritation all over his face. “We don’t have cameras,” he tells me. Again.

Out of desperation, I shove up my sleeve, show him the mark.

He freezes, uncomfortably long, to where I just want him to breathe again and am getting ready to tell him so, but then he says, “Could be a spider bite, but we don’t have bug problems here. Check the sign.” Points.

Someone’s tacked up an inspection certificate and the date on it’s recent. I give him the hairy eyeball, but he doesn’t budge. Eventually, reluctantly, says, “Try two bars down.”

So I go.

Two bars down is a little more upscale—newer carpets, newer paint, three anemic-looking dudes vacuuming and wiping tables. Lights are still dim for daytime, but I can see the cobwebs in the corners and an eight-legged shadow in the dark.

I shudder. If that thing bit me, I outta be Spiderman by now. Ain’t never coming back to this bar. No way, no how. I catch the eye of one of the vacuumers and ask him a few perfunctory questions, but I can’t hold out for long. There’s more webs, more spiders giving me the ick.

Yeah, one of them bit me somehow while I was drinking or dancing. At least it wasn’t vampires.

Not that vampires exist.

*

 Outside that bar, I convulsively wipe off my hoodie, feeling spiderlegs on my skin where there aren’t any spiders. Need another drink.

And since the sun is setting and the bars are opening, I may just get myself one. Not at the spider-bar though.

Another shudder.

The other bar—where I talked to tall, dark, and tired—has potential. I head back that way.

In the shadows of the alleys between the bars, something moves. Something white flashes and then there is a soft, wet sound. Suspiciously like slurping.

No. I’m letting all the pumpkin spice eat my brain. The Something in there is likely two people having sexy-fun-times.

Doesn’t sound like that, though. Someone groans just a little, like they’ve had the best meal of their life. One shadow sets the other shadow gently on the ground.

Turns toward me.

My feet are frozen and my heart is racing.

There ain’t no such things as vampires—

Too much pumpkins spice? Giant spider? Vampire? Let me know your best guess! :D

We don’t have many stories this time around, but here is what we do have:

Existential Conundrum by T. R. Neff

The Big Red Eye by Gina Fabio

How I lost Tom by Katharina Gerlach

Broken Hearted by James Husum