Meghan A. Collins

I’m excited to share some Halloween Flash Fiction with you. I’m participating in a Halloween-themed Story Time Bloghop with several other authors. You can read my story, The Neighbor, below and then click on the links to read more fun flash fiction stories.

I’m also excited to share that my story was accepted in the Halloween Flash Fiction contest hosted by the podcast for fiction writers called Alone in a Room With Invisible People by Rebecca Galardo and Holly Lisle. To hear this story and many others performed on the podcast, please check out the podcast’s website: Alone in a Room with Invisible People .

The Neighbor

Disgusting. I marched across the street to my neighbor’s dilapidated old house.  What a blight on our perfect neighborhood.  Now that I was the President of the Homeowner’s Association, I knew it was my job to set this guy straight.  He was bringing down all of our home values with his trash.  His entire yard was a wreck.  Junk everywhere, all covered in vines that were taking over the entire front yard.  I nearly tripped over a vine, then I carefully stepped over the rotting boards on his front porch as I approached his cobweb-covered front door.

Bang, bang, bang.  I knocked on his front door and it shook.  I heard some strange noises, almost like an animal roar.  Oh geez, what next, did this guy have illegal animals as pets too?  I shook my head in disgust.  Either he would clean up his act or I would get him kicked out of my neighborhood.

Bang, bang, bang.  I knocked again.  I could hear someone stumbling around so I knew this degenerate was home.  Probably drunk.  I would not leave until I had my say.  I knocked harder.  Bang, bang, bang.

The neighbor finally cracked opened the door and he looked worse than I’d ever seen him.  He was young and muscular, but right now his face was washed out with dark circles around his eyes and his dark hair was wet with sweat.  Looked like one hell of a hangover.

“What?” he asked in a raspy voice.  His eyes glowed red.  I blinked.  His eyes were brown.

“Hi, you may not remember me, but I live across the street,” I gestured to my house.  “I’m Jeff and I’m the new HOA President for our neighborhood.” I stuck out my hand.  The neighbor ignored my hand.  His red eyes bore into mine.  I blinked and his eyes were brown again.  I lowered my hand.  “Sir, you are in violation of numerous HOA regulations.  We need to talk about what you can do to get your property into compliance.”

He grinned a feral grin.  His eyes flashed red, then brown.  I blinked again.  “Come in,” he said.  The door creaked as it opened wider.  I gasped as I saw his blood-stained clothes.  “Come,” he said.  His red eyes stared intensely into my eyes.  I relaxed and followed him in.

“Ignore the mess,” he said.  I calmly stepped over the pentagram in the middle of the floor, covered with puddles of blood and surrounded by black candles.  Smoke drifted from the blackened wicks.  The body of that panhandler I reported to the police last week laid on the floor nearby.  We sat on the blood splattered couch. “Tell me more about this HOA,” he said.  So I did.  “Yes, this fits into my Master’s plan, I can spread much misery this way,” he said.  And he went on to become the best damn HOA President we ever had.

Here are the other stories in the Bloghop:

PODCAST: General Link: Alone In A Room With Invisible People
1. Family Time by Bonnie Burns
2. The Exception by Vanessa Wells
3. Number 99 by Juneta Key
4. Edda’s Second Chance by Katharina Gerlach
5. Very Thin Line by Rebecca Anne Dillon
6. Henry Moves House by Nic Steven
7. For The Ghost The Bell Tolls by James Husum
8, Never Alone by Melanie Drake
9. The Neighbor by Meghan Collins
10. Storytime Blog Hop by Raven O’Fiernan
11. Loney Lucy by Bill Bush
12. The Traveler by Barbara Lund
13. Evening by Karen Lynn
14. Man Of Your Dreams by Gina Fabio
15. The Undertaker’s Daughter by J. Q. Rose
16. The Road by Elizabeth McCleary
17. Storytime Blog Hop by C. T. Bridges
18. Storytime Blog Hop by Warp World Books