A Halloween Tale....

It was a cold, miserable night, the winds were howling, pushing the trees against the roof of the little cabin in the woods. Slivers of rain poured in torrents off the sides of the roof, every lightening bolt made the occupants of the cabin jump.

The storm had knocked out all power in the area so they had to make do with candles for light. The fireplace added a glow to the room, but still there was a gloom that draped itself around the little cabin. Four people huddled together, sitting in front of a roaring fireplace, seeking warmth. They were all young very alive and bored to death.

Seth, a nice looking young man of about 20, turned to Angie, a pretty girl of about 18, asking "Ange, don't you have something we could play? Take our minds off this storm? Damn boring just to sit."

Angie smiled, turned to the other girl, asking "Sabrina..where did we put that one board game? You know, the one where you ask the board questions and it answers you?"

Sabrina started to get up. She was a real beauty with dark flowing hair, pleasant smile. "Oh, let me look, just a minute I'll find it," she said, turning on her flashlight as she exited into the next room.

The other young man in the room started to get up saying, "wait a second, I remember seeing it when we loaded in the supplies right before Josh left with the van, it's in the kitchen".

.Sabrina turned to him and said ,"Oh, Tony you notice everything how do you keep it all in your head?" Within minutes the two of them returned bantering with each other as couples tend to do. Sabrina held the game in her arms, "where do you want to play?" , she asked the group.

They pulled a small cocktail table over by the fireplace so they could see better and opened the game. They started to position the pointer shifting positions slightly so that all four would be able to lightly touch the pointer surface.

A sudden burst of lightning illuminated the whole room casting hideous shadows of imagined creatures against the walls, just at that moment the pointer zoomed to "Goodbye".

"Hey! Come on guys, don't fool around ", said Angie. Tony, Seth and Sabrina looked at one another and said in unison "No, we didn't do anything..we didn't move it really."

.Angie said, "Ok, let's start again but really concentrate this time please." This time the board seemed to have a life of it's own, it was moving easily on the different letters, first an R, followed by A J I R A P O O R.

"Hold it, hold it", Seth shouted, it's spelling out a name! Raji Rapoor, look! Sure enough it was."

"Oh", groaned Sabrina " I know that name". "A few years ago, there was a horrible murder committed in our town, they found this poor young man's body murdered and his head was missing!!"

Tony said, "yes, I remember that...they never did find his head did they?"

Sabrina shook her head no. The others looked at each other and Angie said, "Well guys the board is evidently trying to tell us something, unless one of you is doing this. Why don't we continue and see what else it will say?"

They started to play again, this time addressing the board as Raji, asking who he was, what had happened on that terrible night years ago? The answers started slowly coming off the board one letter at a time.

Seth had opted not to touch the pointer this time, but instead to write down all the letters that were flowing off the board. It started with an..I W A S M U R D E R E D B Y A R I V A L M Y W I F E A R R A N G E D I T...M Y H E A D I S I N A B L A C K B A G A T U R D O O R.. Then the pointer just stopped. Nada, Nothing, no movement.

The group breathed a deep sigh jointly. Seth said, "Yum, guys,.err, we have a problem, ummm." " Come on spell it out, what's wrong?", Angie wanted to know.

Seth handed the paper that he had been writing on to Angie, she started to read it and her face went totally white.

Sabrina grabbed the paper, saying "okay, a jokes a joke but it's not funny anymore" She looked down at the paper and it said: I was murdered by a rival, my wife arranged it, my head is in a black bag at your front door.

Tony, either out of bravery or stupidity, reached the front door first gingerly opening it - there sat a black bag. "I'm not opening that bag", Tony said"in fact, I'm out of here."

The rest of the group grabbed their coats and ran for the door. In their haste to exit the door, Sabrina tripped and fell directly on the dreaded black bag. "Oh, my God!", she yelped as she fell, .not wanting to touch what she knew was in the bag.

The rest of the group turned back to help her.. Seth reached her first, pulling her upright and away from the bag. "Oh, no, no, no", she moaned, "I touched it! "A sense of calm descended upon the group, they gathered around their friend to try to soothe her.

Angie said, "Listen, I don't know where we were running to, Josh won't be back until tomorrow with the van".

"Yeah, we have to wait, it's too far to walk, especially in the dark" said Tony. "Let's go back inside where it's warm and bright at least", said Angie.

Sabrina let herself be led back into the cabin, she felt herself being lowered into one of the overstuffed chairs, she closed her eyes and let herself drift. Sabrina drifted into an uneasy sleep. She dreamt she was on the edge of a vortex that kept spinning closer and closer bringing her to a gaping maw in the center of it. She found herself peering into the ragged opening as free floating heads came flying out of the darkness at her.

Tony motioned to the others to come into the kitchen. "I didn't want to get her anymore upset, but I noticed something funny about that bag". Angie and Seth said almost in unison .."What??"

"This is really messed up but I swear that I saw the bag move a bit!" Angie said, "Oh, no - nothing could be alive in there could it?"

"Now I'm scaring myself silly". Seth said, "well, you know what we have to do, don't you?" The other two shook their heads, no, no,no, but Seth continued, "we have to and I mean HAVE to open that bag."

"Okay, if we do it, we do it together, but first I want to get something", said Tony. He reached around Angie, opened one of the kitchen drawers and pulled out a huge butcher knife. "Now, I feel better", he said.

The threesome slowly entered the living room heading even slower for the front door stepping nearer, nearer and nearer with each passing second. Tony, again, was first at the door, he grabbed the door handle, turned it and yanked it wide open, all in one fell swoop, not giving themselves time to even think about it. Standing in front of them was a tall, gaunt figure of a man dressed in total black holding THE BAG.

Angie almost fainted with fright, Tony stepped back a bit and Seth's heavy breathing belied his steady gaze at the man in black.

"Oh, MY!!" said the stranger "I didn't mean to frighten anyone, I'm so sorry, it's just that my automobile broke down and I'm trying to find help".

Tony gathering his wits about him asked "Who are you and what's in the bag?" Now Tony was not painting a pretty picture standing there with a butcher knife poised ready to strike, but the man in black started to tell his tale.

"I'm a traveling salesman, I've covered hundreds of miles today, normally I would be pulling into a motel just about now and resting" "But, my office had received a call telling me to come out on this route that there was a customer near here that really needed our merchandise. Do you know where 7235 Wells is?"

Angie, Tony, Seth and a now awakened Sabrina looked at each other before answering, "Whew!! why that's our address, right here, said Angie". "Who asked you to come here?", asked Seth.

The man in black replied, "He said his name was Raji Rapoor".

All four gasped together at once.. "What's in the bag????", asked Sabrina.

The man in black replied, "my samples of course". .

"Samples of what???", asked Tony "Small headstones, in miniature to illustrate what the finished product will look like to my clients", said the man in black.

The four friends decided not to spend the night even if it meant they had to walk miles to get home, in fact they decided never to ever go back to the cabin in the woods....ever.

PS. Right before they left they threw the Ouija Board and Pointer into the fireplace, the dying embers caught the board quickly. If you listened hard enough you could hear a soft moaning, saying, .my head, my head...ohhhhhh