It was Halloween night and soon the death would start again. “There’s a ghost in my window.” Luke’s sister came into the living room while his father was pulling out the plastic skeletons. “I think he’s angry that we killed him.”

His father looked up with a look of annoyance and sighed. “It’s fine. You’ve just been watching too many Halloween movies.” But even Luke knew she was too young to watch those.

“She does this every year. She’s just nervous again, about the accidents.” said his mother, who was untangling the purple and orange lights.

Luke walked over and patted the head of Melissa’s stuffed giraffe, telling her everything would be fine. But every year was the same. He was tired of telling her that they were just car accidents and that sometimes it was just the way things were. The screeching brakes and sudden sound of a collision did leave him with a sense of post-traumatic stress. Even the video games his parents did allow him to play weren’t as haunting.

“I’m telling you it’s that damn boulder on the corner. People come flying past our driveway and end up fishtailing going around the bend.” said Luke’s father, without an ounce of sympathy. “It’s got nothing to do with our decorations. The city doesn’t know what they’re talking about.” He stood confidently and smiled, holding a noosed torso with its flesh sloughing off realistically.

Always the same, Luke told himself. Dad had already set up the coffin on the mailbox with the spring-loaded vampire. Mom will set up the lights on the porch, with the bats and the spider webs. Several hours later the crashes would begin, first as a single crash and then pile up as the night went on. An hour later the ambulances would arrive and be only able to save a few people. Considering the curve of the road though only few ever survived.

Luke was always pensive during this time of year because of the somberness that followed. Fall was a dark time for them both, for them, and not for their — “Parents. They never listen.” said Melissa bitterly, clutching Mr. Bubbles tightly. “They’re supposed to listen, aren’t they? I can’t sleep with him staring at me.”

“There’s no one in your window.” said Luke looking down the hallway. “Eight-year -olds aren’t supposed to be scared. Ghosts aren’t real. I’ll show you and then you can go back to bed.”

He took her by the hand, and leaned towards the front door, but she resisted. “No, not that way. The man is in my room.”

“It’s okay.” Luke comforted. “If the dead are haunting you, they would be closer to the road, where the accidents happen.” She hesitated but reluctantly gave in. He led her outside after sighing and grabbing the flashlight off the key shelf, while mom and dad continued to play with their ghoulish toys and severed limbs.

Halloween night always seemed to be colder than the autumn days that followed it. Outside, it was dark yet he could still make out the farm fence across the road and realized how remote they were, and how alone he suddenly felt. It would explain the length it took the ambulances to arrive but not the reason for the traffic of so many cars on this night. Past Gainesville there wasn’t much but farm and forest.

Luke approached the road with Melissa’s arm in hand. No cars coming. Parents were at least good at teaching kids how not to kill themselves. Despite the missing monsters dad had yet to put out, the yard still had plenty of demented props. There was the upside-down, human shaped cocoon hanging from the tree, a chainsaw stuck in the back of the minivan window, spiders across the lawn, and police tape around the living room window. Luke suspected that the accidents occurred from the vampire coffin currently sitting in front of the mailbox. He traced the tire marks on the road from the mailbox around the bend, to where the cars would lose control, and spin out into the drop-off, into the field below.

He looked back and didn’t see any headlights again and crossed the road, pockmarked with potholes. “I don’t want to go.” Melissa protested. Luke’s half opened eyes prevented him from rolling his eyes. He would have to spend the rest of the night helping mom and dad after putting her to bed. The only thing he wanted was sleep. It wasn’t like they would be getting any trick-or-treaters anyways.

They approached the drop-off cautiously and stepped down off the road where a cliff opened up from the gap in the railing. Luke guessed the city didn’t really care to come this far out to fix a busted guardrail. Melissa moaned and clutched Mr. Bubbles tighter. “Don’t be a baby,” said Luke. “See, there’s nothing down there. If there were ghosts, they’d be clamoring to get up here. They don’t have any arms or legs to climb with.” He did have to admit though that the darkness at the end of the cliff was pretty eerie. There was that feeling of vertigo, where for a moment he thought he could fall if he just let go of Melissa’s hand. The flashlight glowed in his hand but only cast a narrow beam of light to the bottom, where a rocky forest floor would have easily sent anyone to an early grave. If he did fall would his parents even miss him? Would they start listening to them, to Melissa, once he was gone? Luke gripped the flashlight and tried to slow his beating, guilty heart. Someone had to make her strong, someone had to push her to be brave, and otherwise, when she got older the world would take advantage of her.

“I want to go back. I heard something…” she said, turning away.

He looked back across the road but didn’t see anything. “Go back and pout in your room and be scared all night? No one’s going to face your fears for you. Stand here.” She did as instructed and moved to the gravelly edge. When he swung the light around a frigid and frail claw latched onto his leg and pulled him off balance in a fast enough motion, barely giving him a second to breathe. The world dropped away. He instinctively grabbed the closest object, which was the giraffe stuffy in Melissa’s arms. She started crying almost immediately as the flashlight clacked down the rocky cliff face and he struggled to keep his feet under him, scraping at the vertical sediment with his heels.

When Luke gazed up, he could see that she was hanging onto the broken rail while grasping the stuffed animal that was keeping him alive. His shoe slipped and he smashed his face against the rock and for a moment, as he grabbed for cracks in the rock with his other hand, blood dripped from his eyebrow. The stone crumbled; pieces trickled below. A part of his eye was covered by red but he could still see the cliff and couldn’t determine what had grabbed his leg. Steadying his feet finally he managed to crane his neck and felt the worsening vertigo, the heart pounding sense of being on the verge of falling. The potential scenario of teaching his parents a lesson for neglecting both of them didn’t seem so important anymore.

A twisted moan emanated from the pit of black stone. His neck shook uncontrollably but he swore he saw shuffling movement down there, dark shadowy figures swaying forward like leafless stems beating against the cliff face. If there were ghosts down there, he couldn’t imagine having his legs broken and being left to the fate of the dead who died the same way. But it was a good thing they were down there and not…. A tree root, bristly with thin vines and dirt, crumbled from a nook in the cliff and grabbed a hold of Luke’s arm. Dirt fell away from it, revealing it to be a hand!

A decaying human skull rose from the cleft, eyeless, dirt-crusted, and soulless. Its teeth clicked and tried to open wider but the vines kept it shut. “Daddy! Daddy!” shouted Luke, even though there was no way anyone would hear. Headlights shown bright just over the cliff, back on the road. No… Not now. A car was coming. Car horns followed and he would have nearly lost his grip if the undead ghost wasn’t keeping him in place. Melissa told him to hang on while peering over her shoulder at the oncoming vehicle. If the driver was spooked they would all be going down and no one would be able save them. The lights came closer at a speed that suggested they weren’t stopping. Tires squealed and Luke’s hand lost its grip. He dropped a foot before the ghoulish ghost caught his weight, the gnarled mouth, absent of expression, looked down at him.

An explosion of light flashed overhead as the car came barreling forward off the cliff, causing Melissa to lose her balance and fall behind him. The car’s undercarriage flew by, narrowly missing him and giving off a smell of gasoline. Before he opened his eyes again Luke’s other hand was holding onto the giraffe, heavier than it should have been.

“What in god’s name?” It was his mother. He didn’t know how long she had been there or how much time had passed but Melissa was crawling back up his arm, tears in her eyes. The next face he saw was his father, his eyes narrowed with dread and anxious loss. He snatched up Melissa first and eventually came back for him and pulled him up without saying another word. Luke turned toward the cliff, looking for the earthen ghost but couldn’t make out the skull or the arm. It was gone but Luke was no longer curious.

His parents held both of them close. Tears and heat from their cheeks pressed against his own. He could feel them shivering as well but not from the cold. They were apologizing, choked with sorrow and regret. It was a good feeling, to be wanted, but terrible to know that they had come so close to death just to get a small ounce of affection. No, that was selfish. The driver of the vehicle probably had a family and they would not get to experience the same affection and appreciation. How horrible. It was in that moment that he realized he also took advantage of them, of their silence and indifference. He would never do that again and he would never allow them to do that again to him, or to Melissa.

His father rubbed his hair, “We’ll always be here. We’ll always be here.”

Luke lifted his head, “Me too. But I think we should call an ambulance.”