WARNING: Today’s short story is longer than two sentences and may be a little graphic for some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

They told me to leave her a baby doll, the woman in the white dress and red gloves who wandered my house’s grounds every night. Every night, I hear her with heart-twisting dread and see glimpses of her soiled white gown wandering amongst the woods. Others have insisted that her blood chilling wails were for that of her lost child whom she is cursed to wander the earth until she finds them.

So I bought her one.

I waited on my back step beginning at twilight, until the sun’s dying rays faded into amethyst and then a black, starless night.

When I heard the heart-racing scream beyond the woods, I took the plastic doll I had purchased and made my trek into the labyrinth of trees. Beyond the sight of home, I left the doll on the curled snarls of tree roots before turning on my heel and briskly made my way back.

It was at the tree line, with my house within sight, its windows warmly lit with the promise of a safe night within its protective walls, a hand seized my shoulder and a voice hissed coldly against my ear:

I prefer something with skin to tear…

…with bones to crack…

and blood to bleed…

It was then that I saw her hand up close for the first time, and it was not gloves she wore, but stained sleeves of wet blood splattered over clawed hands.

Then last realization was like a shock of cold water:

She never wanted something to love, only something to eat.

It is finally October! My favorite month and time of year (if the dozen scary stories did not let you know, well, now you know).

I have been sitting on today’s short story for a while now. I wanted to save it for a special spooky time, if not for Halloween itself. However, I couldn’t hold it in any longer! I’ll give credit to Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark as well as the folklore story La Llorona, a woman in white who is cursed to wander the earth in search of the two children she drowned out of rage towards her lover (there are different variations in each culture for this). Also, I wasn’t sure how bloody I could make a story, though I think this one is fine enough.

So tell me, reader: do you like the extra step down into a chilling story? If so, let me know! I’ll try to keep coming up with similar ones.

Happy October, everyone! Stay safe and stay abnormally weird!

A. Rose