"Happy Halloween!"

The children chanted the phrase in unison and immediately ran off across the street to their next target. Their parent chaperone gave me a small wave of thanks — I smiled weakly and returned the gesture. Then he turned away, yelling at the kids to wait up for him. I shut the door and sighed.

Well, that should be the last of them. Maybe some straggling teenagers would come through with pillowcases and no costumes, but otherwise the main horde of kids had passed. Heavy rain was forecasted for tonight so most people had come through earlier than normal. I looked down at the bowl of candy in my hands. Almost empty, save for some Three Musketeers. Never was a fan of those. One Twix bar remained though. I decided I'd earned some compensation for my services, so this bar ended up coming with me as I returned to the couch. I lay down and grabbed my laptop, resuming the movie I had been sporadically watching. It was some Nicolas Cage movie based off an H. P. Lovecraft Novel. Somewhat interesting, but I felt like I needed something more specifically Halloween-y. There was always the classics: Nightmare on Elm Street, Trick 'r Treat, etc. Plenty of time for those later in the night, though.

I stretched out on the couch and took a bite of the Twix. It was an ironic fate I suffered in regards to this holiday. As a kid I never particularly cared for Halloween. I'd half-ass a costume and go trick or treating with friends. The candy was always good, of course, but I never really got into the spirit of things. Now, as an adult, I had suddenly gained a much larger appreciation for it all, but I didn't have any friends to celebrate it with. So instead of doing something fun I was just sitting here house-sitting for my cousins who live in this shitty Detroit suburb. Well, at least the house was alright, and I'd be getting paid by the end of this. And if I really needed to scratch the human interaction itch there was always internet forums. People online were pretty reliable about getting in the Halloween mood — heck, somebody could be hosting a group watch of something interesting. I grabbed my phone off the coffee table, planning to scroll through some threads, but the damn thing was out of charge.

"Urgh.."

I looked over at the wall socket with my charger. It was all the way across the room. Nope — too lazy to get up. Back to the movie then. I leaned back, finished off the Twix bar, and settled in to resume watching Cage act(?) coked up for the umpteenth time.

Knock.

Goddammit. I groaned and pushed the laptop off me, letting the headphones pop out to auto-pause the movie. If it was in fact some teens then I would tell them I was out. The fuckers don't deserve candy. With this intention in mind I opened the door without grabbing the candy bowl.

"Trick or Treat!"

I looked down in surprise to see a couple of kids — two small girls to be precise, no older than ten. They wore complimentary costumes: one blue with dog ears and the other red with cat ears. They had the same blonde hair and blue eyes, and both were missing their front two teeth. They grinned up at me expectantly with gap-toothed smiles, each holding up a plastic pumpkin-shaped bucket already filled to the brim with candy.

"Oh uh, right. Let me go get the bowl."

I stepped back into the hallway to retrieve the candy bowl. To my surprise, kids hopped in through the doorway as well.

"Er.. wait a sec..."

I didn't quite know how to tell the kids to not just run inside some stranger's house. Hopefully their parent would tell them to wait outside — but when I looked outside the street was deserted.

"Musketeers, all right!" the one in blue said excitedly. She reached a grubby hand out and helped herself to three bars. "Thanks, Mister! You're the best!"

"Sure thing.. so, do you guys have like a parent or someone with you?"

The girl in red shook her head. She picked the bars more slowly, examining each carefully before placing them in her bucket.

"Mommy and Daddy are at an /adult/ party. Luan is at a kid's party, Lori is with Bobby, Luna is at a concert, Lynn is training for the football match, Lisa got stuck in an interdimensional portal generated by her costume's robot arm, Leni got stuck in a bush, Lucy has been gone all day, Lily is with the babysitter, and Lincoln is Trick or Treating with Clyde."

She rattled off this list of names with practiced regularity. I didn't quite know how to respond.

"Um, well, you guys should probably start heading home. It's supposed to storm soon so —"

BOOM.

Well, speak of the devil. With real impeccable timing the crack of thunder hailed a torrent of rain. Sheets of water poured onto the road and houses, and wind whipped the trees into a frenzy. The two girls squeaked and ran further inside.

"Ah, wait!" I called out to them. "Let me call your parents or something, they can come pick you up,"

I followed after them into the living room and picked up my cellphone. Shit, out of power, right. No problem though, I could just grab the landline in the kitch—

BZZZT.

You've got to be kidding. The lights flickered out and we were immediately plunged into darkness. This caused the girls to scream even louder, and they ducked behind the couch I had been lying on earlier.

"Ah shi— shoot." I walked over to them, "Hey, don't worry guys, it's just a storm." I tried to reassure the girls. They didn't seem to buy it, but at least they stopped screaming.

"So, do either of you have a phone or something?"

They looked back at me blankly and shook their heads.

Great. What kind of parent sends their kids out unsupervised without any way of contacting them? I looked around for some idea. I could make a run for a neighbor's house, but it's a bit of a ways to the nearest one, and I don't know anyone around here anyways. Maybe the power would come back soon or the rain would abate. Deciding this to be the simplest I went around the couch and over to a drawer.

"So, um, we don't have a way of contacting your parents, so I guess we'll just have to wait for the power to come back or something."

I fumbled around in the dark drawer for a moment before my hands grasped upon my target: some candlesticks and a box of matches. I lit a few candles and placed them on the table before sitting down. The girls popped their heads up from behind the couch.

"You can sit on the couch instead of behind it, you know."

I gestured to the cushions beside me; the two girls looked at each other for a second, then jumped over onto the sofa.

"Thanks."

That was the one in pink. Since we were now stuck here together it made sense to more properly introduce ourselves:

"So I'm [Name], by the way. What are you guys' names?"

"I'm Lola," said the one in pink. "I'm Lana," echoed the one in blue.

"Ok, nice to meet you two. Um.."

I ran out of conversation material immediately. In most social situations this would be about the time I pulled out my phone to avoid interaction, but I had no such luxury now. Instinctively I reached over for my laptop and opened it.

"What're you watching, mister?" asked the blue one — Lana.

"Oh, I was watching a movie but —"

"Oooooh"

The two girls crowded around me in interest. They pressed slightly into my arms on both sides, staring intently at the bright laptop screen.

"Well, it's not really a movie for kids,"

It wasn't a particularly gory movie or anything, but if thunderstorms and power outages scared these kids then this would definitely be too much for them.

"Awwww,"

They sounded so genuinely dejected at this that I felt I needed to provide an alternative:

"We can watch another movie though, have you guys seen The Nightmare Before Christmas?"

They both shook their heads. Kids these days! Haven't even seen the classics. Well, the Oogie Boogie man creeped me out as a kid, but it was still a children's movie, so it should be alright. I rented the movie off Amazon and started it. The two girls squeezed in on either side of me to watch. It was more than a bit awkward having these young girls I didn't know so close. Both of them had a hand on my legs; Lana was leaning forward towards the screen while Lola rested her head on my shoulder.