Twick or Tweat

I heard the doorbell ring and reached for the bowl of candy on the side table. Opening the door, I found a small boy dressed in a bedsheet. His eye holes were cut out in the big, unmatched way that often precedes a homemade costume, and the edges of his glasses poked through the holes at the edges. He held his pillowcase out to me and shook it. I chuckled a little and looked down at the small ghost that stood begging on my front porch.

"Oh my, what a scary ghost. Did you come to haunt my house?"

The ghost stood silently until the large obliging woman standing on the steps behind him prompted, "What do we say, Derrick?"

Then he remembered, "Twick or Tweet!" he yelled.

I laughed as I threw some candy into his pillowcase.

He laughed at it and turned to leave as his mother beamed at me, "You're a dear. It means a lot to him."

I waved a hand at her, "A couple of bucks a week to make a kid happy is nothing. Same time tomorrow?"

She laughed "Like clockwork; rain or shine." and then sneezed hugely and shook her head.

"Getting sick?" I asked, but she waved it off and said it's "just allergies or something" as they made their way to the next house on their daily route.

Derrick has been coming to my house every day at five pm for the last two years. All the neighbors kept a little candy for him because they know it meant a lot to him. Everyone in the neighborhood knows Derrick. You can see him out riding his tricycle under his mother's watchful eye or running to meet his father in the yard so he can wrap him in a big bear hug. The neighbors ask him to help them with their yard work or paint their house and thank him when he refuses the money they offer him and hops off towards home. They've been there for his family on the bad days too when he has his tantrums or his breakdowns, but Derricks's good days have certainly outweighed the bad ones.

Derrick has autism spectrum disorder, one of the more severe types his mother says, and if a little Trick or Treat helps him get through the day, then most of us are happy to help.

I closed the door and went about my evening routine. Dinner, laundry, tidying up, and then dishes. As I was washing up, I couldn't help smiling as I saw Derrick walking back to his house with his mother; a half-full pillowcase swinging from his fist. It was hard to see his expression under the ghost costume, but I was sure that he was smiling and chatting animatedly to his mother. She rested a hand on the back of his head and nodded, laughing as they walked back to the house. She sneezed again as I watched them, and almost sympathetically, I sneezed as well. Another sneeze followed in close proximity, and I shook my head and hoped I wasn't getting sick too.

The next day, however, found me sick as a dog. It was raining, the sky a black mass of dark purple clouds, and I woke up with a wracking headache and my head full of snot. Must have been a summer cold, I thought, but as the day went on, I wondered if it wasn't flu or something. I had soup for lunch, along with some NyQuil and an over the counter cold medicine. I plopped down on the couch with my bowl of soup and a cup of tea as I tried to nurse myself back to health with a dose of TV and rest. The rain was coming down in sheets outside, and I let the pounding on my windows soothe me to sleep as the TV droned and the NyQuil did its work.

I woke up with a start when someone knocked on my door.

I'd left the lights off, and though it couldn't be much past mid-afternoon, it was very dark in the house. The person knocked again, but my legs wobbled like an old man when I tried to get up. I sat right back down and looked over at the clock groggily. It was 5:01 and realized that it must be Derrick for his daily visit. His mother must be crazy to take him out in this weather. As he kept knocking, I finally called from the couch, "I'm not feeling well today, buddy. Lemme take a rain check till tomorrow, okay?"

The knocking paused, and I heard him say, "Twick or Tweet!" from the front porch. It was him, alright, but my head was so spinny that I couldn't even get up from the couch. I tried to appease him a few more times, even tried to get up again to no avail, but finally, I just laid back and tried to ignore him. That didn't seem to stop him, though, and after nearly ten minutes of knocking, I was just about out of patients. I was considering trying to get off the couch again when finally it stopped. I heard his footsteps slowly walking down the stairs and started to get up again, wanting to stop him before he got hurt.

I dozed back off again, though, and the next thing I knew, the clock read 4 am.

The rain had stopped. I wobbled up and managed to make it to the bathroom before I pissed my pants. I staggered to the kitchen to take some more medicine and have a drink of water before collapsing onto the couch again and falling into a muddled sort of half-sleep. I was thinking about a weird dream I'd just had, but before I could think too much about it, I fell asleep again and didn't wake up until my blaring alarm forced me awake. I had to wobble to my bedroom and turn it off, and the act drained me enough to keep me in bed most of the morning. I took it easy that day, called out from work again, and watched tv in my bedroom. As five o'clock crept closer and closer, I started to feel like my old self again and figured I'd make it up to poor Derick after leaving him hanging yesterday. I got up, put on some fresh pajamas, and made sure there was still candy in the bowl before Derrick got there. I even uncovered some full-sized candy bars I'd been saving and put them at the top of the bowl just for him. I turned on the TV downstairs to wait, and as five o'clock came, I figured I'd hear his knock any minute.

As five o'clock turned into five-thirty, I started to get a little worried. I went to the door and looked up and down the block, but there was no sign of Derrick or his mother. Their car was gone too, and I wondered if maybe they'd went somewhere. I hoped Derrick was okay. Maybe he'd gotten sick after running around in the rain yesterday afternoon. I gave it only minimal thought as I went back inside to start my afternoon routine. Maybe they'd just went on a trip or something, I told myself as I prepared dinner for one yet again.

I had barely started preparing the chicken when I heard a knock at the door. That made me feel better; Derrick was running a little late today. As I walked to the door, I saw the top of a sheeted head and grabbed the bowl with a little chuckle. I had just said how glad I was to see him and started to apologize for yesterday when I saw that the front porch was empty. I looked around the porch, seeing if maybe he'd hidden behind the chairs, but when I saw that no one was there, I went back inside. I shook my head, maybe I'd been hearing things, but no sooner had I gotten back to work than I heard a knock at the door again.

"Twick or Tweet!" I heard him trumpet from the door, and I walked back to get the candy with a big grin across my face.

"Well, you got me. I wasn't expecting you to…"

No one was there.

I looked around the porch, along the front, down the road both ways, but Derrick was nowhere to be found. I might have suspected any other kids of playing a joke on me, but jokes weren't Derrick's thing. He had cried last year at the 4th of July Block Party when I'd pretended to get his nose. Only a big hug and a half a dozen apologies, plus the return of his nose, had made it all better. I still had a very thorough look around the porch before I went back inside and started dinner again.

The next time I heard a knock was six o'clock.

Again the porch was empty.

By seven, I was starting to get annoyed. I reminded myself that if it was Derrick that he didn't know any better. I needed to be patient with him. I was more curious as to why his mother was letting him do this? Was she mad that I hadn't answered the door yesterday?

By seven-thirty, I had received five knocks and still no one on my porch.

I left the candy bowl on the door matt, figuring it was probably what they wanted anyway, and went back in to eat my dinner.

My dinner sat uneaten by eight o'clock because I'd made five trips to the front door to see who was knocking.

As the sun started to set, and the knocks continued, I felt a chill run up my spine despite the July heat. What I had thought was a prank was beginning to scare me. I'd never believed in the supernatural, but this was starting to rattle me. As eight crept towards nine, the knocks came every ten minutes.

Then every five minutes.

Then every minute.

I turned up the TV and tried to ignore it, but it was impossible. The cries of "Twick or Tweet" still came every so often, but at this point, I was sure it was kids making fun of Derick. Kids can be cruel after all, but I had nearly had enough of this little joke. By nine-thirty, someone was slamming their fist on my door hard enough to rattle it in the frame. I took up a fire poker and stalked across to the door in an angry clatter of bare feet. I was done with this, and if I needed to threaten some kids to make it stop, then so be it.

I threw the door open, lifting the poker to strike, but there were no laughing teenagers or snot-nosed brats to be found.

Just a boy in a bedsheet with a pillowcase.

The front porch light cast his shadow back across the porch and the sight of him here at night gave me a shiver. His sheet was dirty, mud crusting around the bottom and spattering the lower parts. The left eye of his glasses were broken in a spider web of cracks. His pillowcase seemed to be leaking water as he stood there, and his silence was almost as unsettling as his appearance. Gone was the fastidiously clean boy in a ghost costume that I'd become accustomed to.

Something about this ghost boy was a lot more unsettling.

"Little late for trick or treating, wouldn't you say Casper?"

Derrick didn't say a thing.

"You haven't been the one knocking on my door all afternoon, have you?"

Still, Derrick didn't say anything.

"Does your mother know you're out this late? She'd probably be pretty worried if she…"

"Why didn't you open your door yestewday?" he asked, and for a moment, I was taken aback.

Derrick rarely said more than four words at a time, often not even in an order that one could understand, but here he had delivered a whole sentence just for me. His voice, normally high and childish with its slight stutter, was harsh and croaking as it came from within the stained ghost costume. He sounded like a river toad more than a little boy. I took a step back as I tried to find my voice.

"Wha...what?"

"Why didn't you open youw doow yestewrday? I was alone in the wain, and you ignowed me. Why didn't you open your door yesterday? Why didn't you open your doow yesterday? WHY DIDN'T YOU OPEN YOUW DOOR YESTERDAY!?!" His croak became a scream, and I slipped on the runner rug as I tried to backpedal into the house. My tailbone came into sudden contact with the hardwood floor, and as I looked back, I could see the ghost boy slowly making his way towards me.

"Twick or Tweet, Twick or Tweet, Give me someting GOOD to EAT. If you don't, I don't cayu, I will dwag you down somewhea." the little boy ghost chanted. I hurried back on the runner rug, bringing my foot up and out as I pushed the door closed in one swift motion. As it slammed shut, I heard the same run over cat scream as Derrick slammed into my door, singsonging his terrible melody, and punctuating the end of each verse with a loud scream.

I stumbled to the phone and called the police. I explained to the operator what was going on and even let her hear the background noises. She told me to calm down and that she would send a patrol car around momentarily. I thanked her as I cradled the phone in my lap, and she promised to stay on the line until the police arrived. I sat huddled in the living room as the slamming and screaming continued at the front door, and time seemed to stretch on endlessly. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes went by, and still the pounding and wailing came from the front door. The lights inside began to flicker and pulse as the monstrous voice rose to a crescendo. Without warning, the bulb above my head popped, and shatter glass fell all over me. I pulled my knees to my chest, put my face against my knees, and sobbed uncontrollably as the racket went on and on around me.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.

The silence was deafening around me. When I lifted my face from my knees, I expected to see him inches from me. He wasn't, though, and as I looked around, I laughed a little and realized I didn't know what to do now. I had been tormented by some Twilight Zone kid whom I had inadvertently snubbed the day before, and now that it was over, the whole situation was just ridiculous.

Then someone knocked on the door.

I looked at the door over the back of the couch and felt a spasm of terror rush through me. The person at the door knocked again, and it wasn't the usual pounding rush I'd come accustomed to. As I got up to walk towards the door, I could imagine my trepidation was the same as Poes character in The Raven. The knocking, knocking, knocking at my chamber door came a third time, and when someone spoke from the other side, I jumped backward.

"Hello? This is the police. We're responding to a call about a prowler?" I relaxed a little then and opened the door to reveal a male police officer standing where my ghostly knocker had stood a moment before.

"Thank God you're here." I swept my eyes across the porch before settling back on him, "The knocking has been going on all day. Someone has been knocking on my door since five o'clock this afternoon, and it's become progressively more violent. It only just stopped as you pulled up, so I guess you must have seen someone on my porch, right?"

The officer gave me a questionable look, "I'm sorry, but I didn't see anyone when I pulled up. Did you say this has been going on all day?" He asked, taking a notepad from his pocket.

"Since five o'clock, are you sure you didn't see anyone? The knocking stopped literally a minute ago. The person knocking would have to be there when you pulled up."

"Nope, didn't see anyone." he said, making some notes, "You don't have any idea who it might be, do you? Neighborhood kids or something?"

"Well, I don't know why he would be out this late, but when I opened the door to chase them off, I could have sworn that Derrick Hughes from next door was here. He seemed very upset, and he was wearing his ghost costume too."

"Ghost costume?" The officer seemed surprised, and when I explained it to him, his face became almost angry, "No, it couldn't be him." he said, putting away his pad and turning to go.

"Wait, it had to be him." I said, reaching out to grab his arm, "He was in the ghost costume he's worn for the last two years, and the voice underneath was identical to his."

"Couldn't be him." the cop said, pulling away again, "I was there yesterday when his mother called. He was killed yesterday while he crossed the street."

My blood ran cold," What?" I said, taking a step back, "No, he...he was here. I saw him he…"

"I helped the paramedics load him into the ambulance myself. His sheet was covered in blood, and his mother was crying so hard I thought we'd have to load her next. I don't know what you're playing at, but it isn't funny."

He turned to go when the little ghost stepped out of the shadows between a banister and started singing again.

"Twick or Tweet, Twick or Tweet, Give me someting GOOD to EAT. If you don't, I don't cayu, I'll dwag you down somewhea."

The cop came back in a hurry when I started screaming. He couldn't see the boy, his bloody sheet clinging to his broken form and his high pitched voice undulating like a strangled animal. He helped the paramedics load me into an ambulance when I wouldn't stop screaming too. I can still see him now, actually. He's hunched in the corner of my room and humming his little song. I don't dare sleep while he's there. If I close my eyes, he'll make good on his threats and drag me away to something worse than this.

I can feel my eyelids getting heavy.

I won't be able to hold out much longer, and after seven sleepless days, I know the end will be soon.

He's stopped humming, and his lenses are boring into me.

He knows it's almost time too.