Halloween Story

Once there was a man who lived in a peaceful town. He had a good, steady job, a nice, sturdy home, and led a nice, quiet life. Every night after he ate a healthy, home-cooked meal and brushed his teeth, he'd lay down in bed, get under the covers, and, just before settling in to sleep, reach over the edge so that his dog of 5 years or so could lick the back of his hand, whereupon he would pet it affectionately upon its head. And so it went.

One night, though, immediately after his dog had licked his hand, he suddenly felt the need to go to the bathroom. He leapt out of bed, ran down the hall (closing and locking the bedroom door behind him), and opened the door to the upstairs bathroom.

He found that his dog had been skinned and hanged from the shower head. Written in the dog's blood (for things that have been skinned bleed quite a lot) on the wall of the shower in a haphazard hand was the message "PEOPLE CAN LICK, TOO."

This discovery prompted the man to open and reach into a secret cupboard under his sink and pull out a rifle. Now, the man was peaceful, yes, and his life was normal, but neither had been true while he'd been in the armed forces. He'd been wary and dangerous, but comfortable in the city where he'd been stationed, upon which rained death in the form of artillery almost daily. He'd had many comrades die in some old, forgotten war, but he'd always avenged them. So now that same desire for vengeance burned in his veins, compelling him to kill someone to make up for the life of his dog. In the war, of course, any enemy would do, but here the enemy was obvious. And locked in his bedroom.

Back in the bedroom, another man was in a state of panic. He knew the other side of him, brought to life by his schizophrenic condition, had done something absolutely horrible, else he wouldn't be in the bedroom of a total stranger. However, upon attempting to escape, he'd found the door locked from the other side. Far from being annoyed that this was the case and being unable to fathom why, though, he was in a state of shock, because he suddenly remembered what'd happened and knew instinctively that the man was coming for him. His state of shock so weakened his will that the murderer side of him was back in control even as the man came walking back down the hall. The murderer readied himself to fight, picking up the knife that his sane half had dropped in his panic.

The man approached his door, then paused for an instant to consider how he should enter. Settling for forceful entry, he angrily kicked down the door, which just happened to fall on the murderer, who had chosen to hide behind it in the hope of surprising his foe. Kicking aside the door, the man considered his antagonist for a moment, and the murderer, dazed, looked up to see a huge shadow holding a gun standing over him. That moment seemed to last an eternity.

Then the man shot the murderer clean through the heart, ending it.

Remember, the man was a peaceful man. He sincerely regretted this act, but only on his normal side. His other side, the one that now held sway over his body, had become uneasy in the peace he'd found back home and instilled in him a certain paranoia. Hence, the reason he'd built and stocked several weapons caches in secret locations all over his house. Now, as the murderer lay dead in his bedroom, his paranoia took hold again.

The man laying on the ground, dead, was the peaceful side of him, in control at the last. The normal side of the man would have seen that and recognized that there was no reason to do what his other side now did. Paranoia rarely allows for reason, though, and is therefore not so different from insanity.

The man dropped his gun, then, on the pretense of ensuring that his foe was truly dead, took off the man's shirt, picked up the knife, and drove it up under his fallen foe's ribcage, skewering the diaphragm and heart.

Next morning the police were conducting an investigation in the man's front yard. A passing jogger had seen a dark shape lying motionless on the man's porch and gone up to investigate. They'd been horrified to discover that it was a body with a bullet wound in its heart and a dark red stain on its shirt around a bulge in the area of its stomach and had naturally called in the police. The police had removed the body, but had decided, upon reflection, that it was best not to bother the man. The reason for this was written clearly in a steady hand upon a strip of duct tape that the man had put across the murderer's mouth, which just so happens to be the moral of this story:

Let sleeping dogs lie.