The house at the end of the street had always given off a sense of foreboding to residents in the neighborhood. Run down and paint-chipped white wood planking adorned the black-shuttered house and pieces of roofing littered the front yard. Overgrown weeds choked the perimeter, hiding the ground level windows. Gray cobwebs dusted the corners of the eaves and a cloudy film covered every window.

The neighborhood filled with the sounds of kids playing outside in the cool fall weather. Piles of leaves were thrown high. Kids excitedly rode their bikes up and down the street, cramming in outside play before the cold weather kept them indoors. White pillow case ghosts fluttered in the trees. Pumpkins and bales of hay decorated front porches. Halloween was just a day away and expectation filled the air. And at the end of the street, the old house stood silent watch.

Thirty years ago, a family had lived in the house. They were gone now. Something or someone caused them to run for their lives one cold night so long ago. The neighbors seldom talked about this family but all of them requested city officials condemn and remove the home. It never happened.

What caused such reluctance to destroy the house? Some said there were ghosts in the house. Others said the house had a beating heart. Everyone, including the city officials, seemed too afraid to tear the house down. Like a living, breathing entity, the house stood silent at the end of the street…waiting for something.

Halloween night came crisp and cool. Parents forced excited kids to eat dinner. Families lit pumpkins and carefully positioned them on the front steps. Kids adorned in costumes grabbed empty pillowcases and pumpkin buckets in preparation for a night of collecting tricks or treats. Little did they know it would be a night unlike any other.

A cool wind blew leaves onto driveways as a decided chill settled over the neighborhood. Amidst the excited chatter of kids running from house to house rose a muffled humming sound. It wasn’t noticeable to everyone but a few parents felt discomfort in their ears. Of course, the kids were oblivious to the sound.

Down at the end of the street, the old house was slowly coming to life in a most horrifying way. Slow trickles of sap dripped off the spindly pine trees in the front yard. Cobwebs began to shimmer in the moonlight as they rustled with renewed activity from spiders spinning larger and larger webs at a frantic pace. Cockroaches and rats poured out of the cracks of the house, skittering over the front yard, frantically darting every which way in fear. The energy was tangible. And the hum increased.

Pitch black night descended quickly as it does in the fall. Porch lights revealed children happily collecting candy. Parents waited curbside for their little ones as the hum increased in volume. The kids began to notice the noise. Covering their cold ears, they winced in pain. Interspersed with this noise came a scuttling sound that rose above the hum.

Despite the clear sky, a fog began to roll down the street, enveloping the manicured front lawns. White mist soon obscured the front porches, driveways, and festive Halloween lawn decorations. Lighted pumpkins glowed with evilness in the thick mist. As the fog enveloped the streets and yards, children’s eyes teared and began to gloss over with a pitch-black color. From the pupil outward spilled the sinister obsidian until it consumed the eyes of every child.

Parents spun around, frantically searching for children obscured by the dense fog. The frantic cries of kids and parents alike didn’t override the humming sound. It rose higher and higher, causing screams of pain. Frantically grabbing children, their own and others, moms and dads ran for their homes, struggling to find doors in the dense fog that now reached above the rooftops and completely obscured porch lights. Children were left behind, to wander, surrounded by the thickening fog and such a volume of noise that left them doubled over on the ground.

Amidst the fog, a dripping sound began. Drip, drip, drip. Not sap this time but blood…black, metallic smelling, oxygen-deprived blood. Thick, viscous red blood dripped off the branches of the trees lining the neighborhood street. Under the eaves of the neighbor’s homes, scarlet drops of blood poured from the seams of every house. Blood sheeted down doorways, windows, turrets, and gables, staining the siding and bricks of each house. Frenzied hands slipped on doorknobs in an attempt to get inside for protection.

Teenagers and parents who stayed behind to pass out candy threw open second story windows and leap frantically into the enveloping fog. Screams filled the air as the rats and roaches poured down the street. Undefined scuttling creatures made a tide of endless movement, obscured but somehow frighteningly visible in the white mist. Frantically searching for car keys, parents threw their kids into cars and slammed and locked the doors. In fear, drivers backed out of driveways, struggling to see in the dense fog, hands quaking on the steering wheel. As drivers came upon residents or kids huddled in fear on the streets, doors were frantically opened and people were snatched into cars and minivans.

At the house at the end of the street, a light winked on in the attic. Completely invisible in the dense fog and terror of escape, this light remained on for a few moments. Shadows moved in front of the windows. But no one was there to see. Each living resident had abandoned the neighborhood. Bags and buckets of candy lay strewn across the yards and street. Roaches and rats raced frantically around, gorging themselves on the sweets left behind.

The dense fog parted around a dark shape as it moved down the center of the street. Without real substance but delineated by the movement of the mist, the shape ruffled the leaves as it drifted. The white mist slowly evaporated in the specter’s wake as it surveyed the emptiness of the night.

Bright white light cut through the fog in front of the dark shape, barely penetrating the mist. A college girl returning after evening classes drove slowly down the neighborhood street, carefully picking her way through the heavy mist. She drove straight into the black cloud-like shape. And for the first time she knew unimaginable terror. Bloody handprints streaked across her car windows, dripping and smeared by clawlike hands. The empty neighborhood echoed with her piercing screams.

And with that scream, the frenetic noise of the rats and roaches lessened to a low hum, eventually leaving carefully manicured grasses and gardens frosted over with the deafening sound of silence.