Previously: “The Cardboard House.”
The selection of Halloween-themed creepypasta available is surprisingly slim. Perhaps it’s to be expected; layering a creepy story on top of a holiday that’s already supposed to be creepy seems a little like overkill, and might even cancel the creepiness all together. But “Trick or Treat” is quite a successful little story, weaving together well-known traditions, the history of Halloween, and one the most puzzling unsolved mysteries on record. (If you’re keeping up with this season of American Horror Story, you’ll probably know what I’m talking about.)
Like a lot of creepy stories, this one is sort of a cautionary tale. It also brings up a very good point about trick or treating — namely, that it’s actually little weird that we’re so trusting of strangers opening up their doors to a whole bunch of equally strange children on one specific day every year.
[Like what you read? Check out Dangerous Games To Play In The Dark, available from Chronicle Books now!]
Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Don’t bother trying to find it. You won’t find anything about the name of the town or what happened here. This manuscript will be found long after the events that transpired in this place, but I hope against everything else that you’re someone in a position of power. I pray to God himself that you can prevent this from ever happening again, but I don’t want to give you too much credit. Like me, you are only human, after all. They are not. They’ve been around for a very, very long time.
Fat chance, really. You probably don’t want that responsibility, and even if you did take it upon your shoulders to track them down, you can’t single-handedly stop the children. Their manipulators are not “on the grid.” Whoever engineered this is in control of the world on a very disturbing level.
This is what I want you to do. Read these pages, if they’re still legible, and take what you will from them. Don’t go on a wild goose chase, and realize that when you find this book that it will not be in the place where I left it. They’ll move it somewhere else, to deceive you. I’ve left my mark on a tree there. Only then, when you see my name, will you know, “this is the place.” You may have even heard of it in the history books, but be assured, any rumors on Wikipedia or Google pages that you pull up will be guesswork at best.
None of them are even close to the truth. When you find the place, there may already be another town just like it. That’s what I’m trying to stop. If we’re not successful, then just realize, above all things, that evil exists. I’m not talking about bad people, or tragic accidents. I’m talking real, intelligent, ancient evil. It is calculated, and it is always one step ahead of you. Should you decide to take my place and become the paragon to prevent the corruption of the hearts and minds of children, I thank you in advance.
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[Photo via awnisALAN/Flickr]
