“Have you ever heard the story of the Blind Watcher?” Sally asks me with a playful yet menacing tone while we get our backpacks out of our lockers. “The Blind Watcher?” I reply confused but willing to play along with her little Halloween story. Sally smirks but tries to quickly hide it with a facade of seriousness. “Yes, you know they say he comes out the week before Halloween to pick his next list of victims. He stalks them in the shadows, or broad daylight. It doesn’t matter for only his chosen few will ever actually see him. Some say he’s a ghost, some say a demon, but what everyone that’s seen him agrees exactly how he looks. A tall figure, greyish blue in color. Almost as if he is a corpse risen from the morgue. His nose isn’t there, simply the hole of where it once sat. His eyes clouded over and grey, dead. He stands with a hunch and is a tall slender build. His toothy grin hidden by a wool scarf, his sunken features still clearly visible even with a heavy pitch dark overcoat, accented with an electric blue flower on the lapel. He’s said to stand outside his victim’s home in the pouring rain huddled under a large black umbrella, hands playfully clutching it as his blind, dead eyes stare towards the home.” I cut her off, “And how is a blind stalker supposed to be dangerous exactly?!” She does her best to hide her growing grin, clearly pleased that her story is getting under my skin. “Well he is a harbinger of death, his gaze causes untold amounts of rotten luck and accidents to start happening to the victims. Progressivly getting worse and more dangerous or painful. He causes horrible nightmares and hallucinations even. Until that unfortunate soul inevitably takes their own life.” I feel my skin shiver as goosebumps creep over my arms,”as if Sally! You’re just trying to scare me back after that Halloween prank I totally got you with last year!” I defensively spit out. “Just watch your back next week, he’ll be out there as Halloween approaches and his next lucky victim may just be…..YOU!” She yells that last word making me jump and fall back. “You jerk, I almost fell!” I say catching my balance. She finally loses all composure and busts up laughing, “God! You shoulda seen the look on your face!” She points and continues laughing. “You were about ready to piss yourself!” She continues. ‘Was not! I was just acting so you’d be all proud of your lame story!“ “Whatever you say you brave boy you” she teases.

We finish getting our things together and start our walk home from school, stepping outside into the cool autumn air, leaves all shades of orange, red, brown and yellow. As we start our journey home down residential streets all decorated for Halloween Sally continues jabbing me with “Ooh I think I just saw him!” Or “What was that?!” And I can only playfully laugh at her, but for some reason I can’t shake the feeling we are actually being watched. The overcast sky slowly starts to darken with what could only be incoming rain and before we know it we are running the rest of the way home using our backpacks as shields from the rain. Laughing we run under the front patio roof of her home, “see you tomorrow!” She yells as I start walking down her driveway “Unless the blind watcher gets ya!”. Ignoring her joke I shout back “see you tomorrow!”. I start walking home from Sally’s, its only about five minutes away. Her and I have been best friends our entire lives, our parents were always good friends and we were practically raised together. As I head down the street, trying to use the trees as cover I notice a dark figure in the corner of my eye. As I turn to look across the street where I could have sworn I saw it, I’m greeted only to heavy rain on an empty sidewalk.