Halloweensie Short Story: Old Man Spider

Here’s a very short scary story, written for Susanna Leonard Hill’s 6th Annual Halloweensie Contest: a teensie-weensie 100 words suitable for a teensie-weensie person that uses the words ‘spider’, ‘moon’ and ‘ghost’. OK, so I’m aiming (again) towards the upper age limit of 12 and hopefully channelling a bit of a Neil Gaiman vibe (as much as I can for a hopeless amateur with a word count lower than Haribo ingredients labelling). A couple of years ago I entered this competition and was stunned when I came second (see ‘Halloween SMS‘).  I doubt I’ll do as well this time because there are more entries every year and my previous piece was pretty unique. Anyway, here’s my effort which is bang on 100 words. Hope you enjoy it and have just a little shudder at the end…

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“Trick or treat!” shouted Toby as the old man opened his door.

Something crawling on the step caught Toby’s eye. He raised his foot but the old man stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“If you squash it, tonight when the moon is high… and you’re in your bed, the ghosts of all the squashed spiders will come to find you, with their broken legs and burst bellies, and wrap you in a phantom web.”

A hairy spider crept into view on the man’s shoulder.

Toby ran so fast, he must have had eight legs.

Maybe… he did.

 

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