With the Halloween season approaching, I decided to get this warning out to everyone I could reach. If you ever come across a haunted house that shouldn't be there, don't go inside. This haunted house pops up between two other houses you already know. It won't be squeezed in like someone built a new house in the middle of the two plots, but rather, it'll fit in like the whole place was designed that way. It'll be as if the street had always been a few hundred feet longer than you remember. If such a house appears out of nowhere, do not approach it, do not knock on the door, and whatever you do, do not cross the threshold. Once you do, your fate is sealed.

Unfortunately, no one gave me this warning when I was a kid. Maybe it was new, or perhaps there just weren't many survivors back then. Whatever the case, no one warned me, so when I went up, knocked on the door, and shouted, "Trick or treat!" I did not listen to the small doubt in the back of my mind that told me to run away.

Now, every year, I have to go back to that living nightmare. After all, I'm on the expected guest list now, and if you don't show up at the haunted house on Halloween night, the house comes looking for you, and from what I've heard, it's much, much worse if you force its hand.

The years have somewhat blurred together, but I still remember the first time all too well. I sometimes curse myself for not listening to my doubts when I walk up to that place, but to be fair, as well decked out as this house was, any kid would expect to get a bag full of loot. The owner clearly went all out. There were realistic tombstones out front of open graves with names like "Timmy" and "John" dated for that very day. Some people in spooky costumes carried body bags out to fill some of the graves as I walked up. I even remember wondering how often they pulled the bodies back out to repeat the show for trick-or-treaters like me.

When you knock on the door, a man I named "The Ringleader" in my head opens the door and invites you inside. Any sane person would probably take one look at the guy, turn around, and walk away. He looks like someone stapled skin directly onto a skeleton, with no thought of where musculature or fat should exist. His eyes look like they're so loose in his sockets that if he leaned too far forward, they'd just fall out and roll around on the ground. His teeth were yellowed and broken enough to give any dentist nightmares for weeks to come, and he wore a baggy, faded suit complete with long tails and a top hat.

On your first visit, The Ringleader will ask you the same question you've probably heard a thousand times before. "And what are you supposed to be?" This is actually one of the few breaks the house gives you. You see, you get one benefit based on what you are. For example, if you say you're a pirate or a ninja, that cheap plastic sword you came in with will become real, a dragon might get actual claws and scales, and so on. At the time, you might think this is cool, but it's really just a chance for the house to make the game more...sporting. And if you manage to survive, you'll be that same thing every time you return until you finally lose the game.

Now I know what some of you are thinking. "What were you dressed as when you showed up." Honestly, I don't remember. That may seem like it doesn't make sense, but let me explain. You see, while the other kids around me were shouting things like, "I'm a soldier!" or, "I'm a princess!" I just stood there, frozen in fear. The part of my brain that should have kept me from crossing that threshold finally kicked in, and I could tell that this man, no, this monster, was looking at all of us as though we were nothing more than slabs of meat. The funny thing is everyone always talks about the fight-or-flight response, but many people fail to realize that there's a third option that your brain can pick to override your thought process, and that's freeze. So when the monster, literally wearing human skin, turned to me and asked, "And what are you supposed to be?" I froze. After a few seconds, he grinned and answered for me. "I see we have a coward!"

At the time, my face burned in shame as the other kids in the room laughed at my new title, but that was the luckiest thing that could have ever happened to me. You see, over the years, I see fewer and fewer familiar faces coming out of the house when I show up for my run. In fact, I've only seen one other person I know in the last five years, but we'll get to him in a bit. Nowadays, when I show up, The Ringleader checks me off on his list and glowers when he says my title, "The Coward..." and I can't help but grin smugly at him. It's probably not wise to provoke the house that way, but in all these years, The Ringleader has been unable to win our little life-and-death game, and it's all thanks to the title he gave me.

Like many haunted places, this house has some rules. Thankfully, it's not a long and complicated list designed to trip you up through sheer complexity. There are only three simple things you need to know.

The first rule is the wolfman is in the basement. This is important because despite how innocuous he sounds, the wolfman is quite possibly the most dangerous obstacle the house has. He's immortal, insanely fast, and impossibly strong. Once he gets your scent, you just have to hope you're close enough to the basement stairs to climb them before he catches you, and if you're not fast enough, you're food. Most of my closest calls came from encounters with the wolfman.

The second rule is to escape the house, you must first find the heart of the house. The heart is in a different location every year, and no one will tell you where. You just have to find it, touch it, and get out. This is where being "The Coward" comes in handy. My benefit is I get hunches. Those hunches might be about a new monster or room you encounter; best of all, they might tell me where the heart is located. The problem is, it's just a hunch, and it's far too easy to let my hopes or fears get in the way of a hunch, but over the years, I've learned to trust my gut. It's a lot smarter than I am.

Oh, and the third rule? It's even more straightforward than the other two. If Mister Hyde joins the hunt, everyone dies. That's it. You just have to hope and pray that Mister Hyde decides to sit out another year. You can do a few things to mitigate that risk, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The rest of my first year was pretty forgetful, relatively speaking. There were some ghosts and zombies to run from, and the heart was in the kitchen. I don't even remember seeing any kids dying that time, but I do remember that while all the other kids were laughing and joking while running through the house, I noticed that those zombies looked just a little too real, and the blood and gore some of them had glistening on their lips looked like it might have belonged to those body bags out front. Maybe the house was taking pity on us because we were just kids, or perhaps it wanted to let our fear simmer a little before it went all out. Over the following years, I saw some of those same kids again, but eventually, all their grins turned grim, and the laughter disappeared.

That's more or less what it was like for a few years. I ran through the house, got to the heart, and ran out. Once you reach the threshold and start leaving the yard, there's just one last obstacle. There, sitting on a bench you never see when you're approaching the house, is a being of pure malevolence. He looks like an oversized man, with arms that are far too long of his body, and always has a grin that would be goofy if it weren't so evil. This is Mister Hyde. You must look at and acknowledge him, usually with a head tilt, then look away and pray he decided your fear is enough that year.

One time, I stared just a little too long, and he stood up and followed me to the yard's edge. The whole time, I could feel his hot breath on the back of my neck, and I knew that if I so much as picked up the pace or turned around, I was dead. Another year, I saw him sitting there with a corpse in his lap. He'd shoved his hand through the back of its skull and was using it like a puppet to make crude jokes and laugh at all the victims walking by. By then, I knew it wasn't just a prop, and I wondered what that poor soul had done to attract Mister Hyde's attention. Maybe nothing. Perhaps it was just an unlucky day for the poor guy. I try not to think about Mister Hyde too much; I get the feeling he knows when you're thinking about him, and I'd prefer not to attract too much of his attention.

When I was fourteen, I made the biggest mistake of my life. My mom told me to take my little brother, nine at the time, out trick or treating. No matter how much I protested or told her I had something important to do, she wouldn't relent, so eventually, I gave up and took him.

Sure enough, the house showed up partway through our little adventure. I remember looking my brother in the eyes and telling him, "Stay out here! I have to take care of something, and you don't want any part of it. Okay?" Of course, he nodded.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

When I got inside, The Ringleader started checking us off the guest list. After I introduced myself as "The Coward" (I still hated the title at the time), I heard an all too familiar voice say, "I'm a wizard!" Looking down in horror, I could see my kid brother standing there, grinning like the idiot he was.

I tried protesting. "No, no, no! He's not supposed to be here! Let him out right now!" But The Ringleader grinned and answered, "All are welcome in the haunted house, and the only way out is forward!" He motioned us through.

The first bit of our run was pretty standard. There were a few zombies that were easily dodged, and this time, the heart was on the second floor. While climbing the stairs, giant spiders jumped down and grabbed people, then dragged them up into the rafters as they kicked and screamed. One came for my kid brother, but with a swift kick, it fell to the floor below. As the nightmare on eight legs started scuttling back up the stairs, we ran up and closed ourselves into the first room available.

But of course, there's no such thing as a safe room in a haunted house like this, and sure enough, as we turned around away from the door, we came face to midriff with a living shadow. It stood tall enough that it had to hunch over in a room more than big enough to house even the tallest NBA players comfortably. I call it a living shadow because its skin seemed to absorb light, creating a void wherever it was. I remember it reaching out and grabbing me, and my skin burning from the extreme cold of its touch. But then my brother decided to take advantage of his gift, and I kid you not, he held out his hand like a finger gun and shouted, "Bang!" To this day, I have no idea how it worked or how he knew it would work, but the thing screamed and dropped me, clutching its arm like it'd been shot.

We kicked out the door, which thankfully slammed into the spider that had been chasing us, stunning it as we ran to the end of the hall, wherein lay the master bedroom and the heart of the house. The heart is a very literal heart, by the way, about the size of a large dog, usually visible through a crack in the wall. I've seen people stab it, shoot it, burn it, and do just about anything else you can think of (Yes, my brother has used his finger guns on it.), and while the damage sometimes looks impressive, it always comes back the next year as if nothing happened. In this case, we merely tagged it, ran back into the hallway, vaulted the banister rather than trying the stairs again, and ran back out the entrance, home free.

Of course, now my brother has to run the haunted house every year. We make a point to go together, as between my coward hints and his magic finger guns, we seem to have a pretty strong advantage against whatever the house wants to throw at us. But that's not to say we don't have our close calls.

Two years ago, the heart was in the basement, and you remember what's in the basement, don't you? For most veterans, the basement is the last place you look, only after you've cleared the rest of the house, but when my gut says to go downstairs, that's where we go. It went pretty much like every trip downstairs goes. The place is filled with junk piled taller than me and smelled of cement, exposed carpentry, and mildew that many Midwest basements seem to have. The layout also changes every year, so you are stuck kind of shuffling about, hoping you stumble into the right room without being caught. Listening for screams and trying to go the other way.

This time, we got to the heart without incident, which was good, but the wolfman started chasing us on our way out. As I broke into a run, I could hear the wolfman right behind me, but I figured I had just enough time to reach the stairs, and then I tripped. Falling in the basement is about as surefire a death sentence as you can get in the house, and sure enough, in half a moment, the wolfman was on me. I still have the scars from where he cut my arm up as I protected my face and throat. My only consolation then was that at least my brother got away. However, not a moment later, the wolfman and I looked up in time to see my brother, with both hands making his classic finger guns, as he pointed right at the wolfman's left eye and shouted, "Bang!" Let me tell ya, seeing a full-grown man making finger guns and yelling "Bang" with a straight face is quite the spectacle, but you gotta do whatever you can to survive that place.

Now, the wolfman might be immortal, but that apparently doesn't mean he can't feel pain because he sat up and screamed while holding his eye. I could see bits of his skull while blood and other substances leaked between his fingers.

I didn't need an engraved invitation. I placed my feet square in the middle of his chest and kicked for everything I was worth. As the wolfman flew back, I rolled over and scrambled up the stairs on all fours like a kid who'd just turned out the light. We both took a moment at the top of the basement stairs to laugh nervously before hearing an impossibly loud and engaged howl come from the basement. We decided not to push out luck any longer and got the hell out of dodge, winking at The Ringleader and nodding more respectfully to Mister Hyde as we passed.

That brings us to last year when at least one of the rules got broken for the first time. My brother and I met up as usual. I smirked at The Ringleader as he scowled at my title. We got past the starting zombies quickly enough. Seriously, who dies to those things? But then I got the feeling the heart was out back, in the garden. I was just relieved it wasn't the basement, as I didn't want to see the wolfman so soon after our last encounter.

There was a glass passageway between the house and the garden, and this time, it was filled with paper cranes floating gently on unseen currents of air, many of which seemed to have tiny rubies glistening on their wings. Of course, nothing in this house is ever innocent, and as we started walking carefully through the passage, the cranes began swooping, and every time they passed by, their wings glided across the skin, giving a nasty papercut. That's when I noticed several bodies on the ground with pools of blood around them, apparently death by a thousand cuts. Not having time to think, I raised my arms, covering my eyes, and charged forward. By the time I reached the end, I had probably somewhere between twenty and thirty paper cuts, all of which stung worse than a bee sting, but remembering the bodies in the room, it could have been much worse.

What awaited us in the garden was a solitary figure. There, standing watch, as if he'd been plucked right out of an old Japanese movie, was an honest-to-god heavily armored samurai. His face was obscured by his mask, but I'm reasonably sure that if I pulled down the mask, the armor would have been hollow. However, looking at the bodies beside the samurai that had obviously been cut in two, I decided not to indulge my curiosity. Judging by the placement of the bodies, some had tried to fight, and others had tried to run.

My brother got ready to fight, and immediately, the warrior's hand flew to his sword, but I placed a hand on my brother's shoulder and pulled him back, stepping forward to face the samurai myself.

As the samurai slowly drew his blade, rather than fight or flee, I got down on my knees and bowed, deciding to acknowledge that there was little else we could do. "Oh great warrior, we beseech you, be merciful and let us pass." Yeah, it was a little flowery, I admit, but hey, when asking a ghost samurai to spare your life, sometimes you have to go all out. When, after a moment, he didn't cut me down, which I'm at least forty-five percent sure was due to my actions and words, I motioned for my brother to do the same. After a few more moments, the samurai sheathed his sword and returned to his vigil, and we got off our knees and passed by, approaching the heart of the house.

This time, the heart was standing in a glass cylinder coming out of a rose bush. Carefully opening the cylinder, we touched the heart, which was as warm and slimy as ever, before turning to leave. However, just as we did so, there, coming out of the glass passageway, came the one thing I least wanted to see at that moment. The Wolfman.

He looked a little different than I remembered. Half his face was rotted away, leaving his skull exposed. He had maggots wriggling and writhing in the empty socket that had once housed his eye. His teeth and claws were covered in the blood of whoever had been unfortunate enough to get between him and his goal. And judging by the glare of his sole functional eye, we were that goal.

He stepped forward, crouching to begin his chase. Without the basement stairs nearby, I knew we didn't stand a chance of outrunning him. Unsure of what to do, I froze while my mind ran through what few options we had again and again. However, once again, my cowardice saved the day. As the wolfmen charged forward, he was intercepted by the samurai. The sideways slash should have cut him in half, but the wolfman simply twisted and turned, bending his spine in a way that should have been impossible, before stopping to glare at his new obstacle. However, the samurai did not hesitate and stepped forward again, this time performing an upward slash even faster than his first strike. Realizing he wouldn't get past this annoyance without addressing it, the wolfman launched himself forward, latching onto his opponent. The two fell and grappled in the dirt, and we took the opportunity to run past. When the wolfman reached out to us, the samurai took his smaller blade and plunged it into the wolfman's side, and their combat resumed.

Running through the passageway, all the paper cranes were mangled and torn, lying on the ground, no longer a threat. Once inside, we could see the zombies in the house, all torn to pieces. Running into the entranceway, the Ringleader was just plain missing. Then we were outside and free. We took a moment to catch our breath, but when I looked up to acknowledge Mister Hyde, I realized he was also missing from his usual seat. Then, the screaming started in the house behind us. Some screams always echoed out of the house, but not like this. The screams were tortured and often inhuman. They were also interposed without bouts of manic laughter.

Looking at each other, we both nodded and decided to run. We could wait a year to find out what was happening behind us!

And that brings us to this year. I don't know what awaits me at the haunted house this time. Maybe it won't even show up...but somehow, I doubt I'll be that lucky.