Devonne Brown

“Stop, I lost my shoe,” Bonnie said. She was crying. It was pitch dark and we were in the middle of a flower bed in somebody’s front yard. There were four of us. Bonnie was the tiniest five year old I knew. She looked about three and was just as annoying. None of us wanted to take her with us. We had to. 

All of us were on our hands and knees crawling, feeling around in the flower bed for a tiny shoe. Why our parents sent us out trick or treating without flashlights, the world will never know, but they did.

Jimmy screamed like a cat had been stepped on. That low screech that started in his belly and blew the tops of everyone’s head off. He jumped out of the flower bed and ran. Ran fast and hard up the road. 

We guessed he ran home. Bonnie cried, Sharon cried, I cried. We still had to find that damned shoe before we could move on. Candy was everywhere and long forgotten. Our costumes were muddy messes. 

“Bonnie, would you shut up and at least try to find your shoe? You’re the one that lost it,” said Sharon. She was Bonnie’s closet friend. I couldn’t stand the whiny little pipsqueak. She got on my nerves. I was only on this mission because I was seven and not five. I was too mad and scared to talk, I  just wanted to find the shoe and go home. You leave the house with two shoes, you come back to the house with two shoes.

This time Sharon screamed, but she didn’t run. She stood on her knees in the flower bed holding a shoe with a foot already in it. A big foot. A man’s black leather shoe that tied, like the kind Dad wore to work. 

Bonnie stood still. Crying. That’s all she ever did was loose shit and cried. Bonnie could be counted on for absolutely nothing. 

Sharon threw the footed shoe out of the flower bed and froze. A slow green fog rose from the shoe she threw and a whole man grew from it. The princess crown on Sharon’s head fell to her neck and she didn’t even try to catch it. She was mesmerized by the glowing ghost of a man that had grown from the shoe she tossed. 

Still on my hands and knees, I crawled towards Sharon and Bonnie slowly. Hoping the thing couldn’t see us in the dark. I tugged at Sharon and Bonnie’s hands and screamed, “Run!” Before the thing decided to move towards the flower bed. 

It was a long way across the yards to Bonnie and Jimmy’s house that Halloween, even longer to ours. Sharon and I didn’t stop at Bonnies, she ran inside on her own. I don’t think she stopped screaming. I know Sharon didn’t.