Ghost Shadows by Thomas M. Malafarina Read Free Book Online Page A

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    Conscience is no more than the dead speaking to us.
    â€” Jim Carroll  
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    Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind.
    â€” Jim Morrison  
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    Not a single one of the residents of the quiet upscale subdivision of Wellington Estates understood why it was that their reclusive neighbor, William Elverson, divorced, age forty-eight, hated Halloween with such a passion. And because of Elverson’s less than outgoing demeanor no one ever managed to feel close enough to the man to ask him why that might be. Or perhaps they simply didn’t care enough to try to discover the answer. But it was nonetheless obvious to everyone in the neighborhood that Elverson detested the holiday.
    Every year, the entire subdivision went all out to make the holiday a festive event with elaborate house decorations including lights, props , and even a few animatronic displays. Some lawns were adorned with large cheerful-looking inflatable cartoon-like decorations. Others took a more sinister approach having chosen to transform their frontage into frightening graveyard scenes. Ghosts, ghouls , and goblins abounded, as did various incarnations of vampires, werewolves, zombies, famous Hollywood slashers and every monster imaginable.  
    A few of the residents even went to the next level of Halloween enthusiasm and converted their large two and three-car garages into makeshift haunted houses, complete with billowing gray fog and movie quality scenery with frighteningly realistic makeup and stereo sound effects. As a result on Halloween night literally hundreds of revelers walked through the development with their children, turning the entire neighborhood into one big Halloween party. As the word spread, families from other neighborhoods made the pilgrimage to see what new ideas the folks managed to come up with.  
    But not William; he would never do a single thing to participate in the annual festivities. In fact, most people couldn’t help but notice how every year on the evening of October thirty-first , when every other house in the neighborhood was aglow with Halloween decorations, William’s house was cast into darkness and his car was nowhere to be found. Ironically, in many ways the lack of decoration and the solitary darkness surrounding his home on Halloween night often made it seem more frightening and more sinister than even the most elaborately decorated property.  
    William’s absence likewise did not go unnoticed by the various kids of the neighborhood, especially those who were of the more malicious ilk. These creatively nefarious juveniles took the letter of the law when it came to “Trick o r Treat” and felt that Elverson’s obvious absence and snubbing of their favorite holiday granted them carte blanche to play whatever pranks they could imagine and even commit minor acts of vandalism on the man’s property.  
    These hoodlums rationalized that if William had chosen not to be home on Halloween night to offer them treats then it was their right and perhaps even their duty to play any tricks on the man they deemed appropriate. As a result, Every November first William awoke to find the trees in his front yard draped with long, flowing streamers of toilet paper. On more than one occasion William had returned to his property Halloween night to find his doorbell had been taped down in the ringing position and the window to his storm door had been coated with soap-streaked vulgarities obviously added by some of the more daring of the neighborhood kids.  
    And on one unfortunate occasion, the legendary flaming bag of poo had been set afire, fortunately on his concrete walkway so no real damage could be done to his home. That particular incident ended up being more symbolic than effective and in reality was an exercise in futility, since William never was home to rush from the house to stomp out the fire, completing the gag.
    If the people of the