It just hapenned to be Halloween - Short Story

It just happened to be Halloween.

I was on my early morning walk to and around Regents Park on a cold but sunny morning, admiring the deep red begonias that were in full bloom, when I caught sight of her. A shortish woman, maybe a tall dwarf, wrapped in layers of clothing, tied together with a belt made of two scarves that had been interwoven tightly. She pulled along, with ease, a brown shopping trolley on wheels. As she walked past, I noticed an indentation in the side of her trolley. I thought I saw someone or something lift the lid of the trolley from the inside. I could have sworn that I could make out two wide eyes, which when they caught sight of me, quickly disappeared back into the trolley. I was drawn to follow her. When she diverted off the main path to the women's toilets, I stopped walking and sat on one of the wooden benches that were opposite.

Something in my bones stopped me from just carrying on with my walk without confronting the lady first and putting my mind at rest. Could I ask her outright if she had something, maybe a pet, in the bag? I waited and waited for the lady to come back out but after what could have been a full hour, there was still no sign of her. I approached the women's toilets shouting out an imaginary name.

It was cold, damp and quiet apart from a dripping tap. There was no one in any of the cubicles but I saw the shopping trolley at the far end, outside the attendant’s office. Would she be behind the solid wooden door? But this couldn’t be the case as the door was locked and bolted several times on the outside. Although my curiosity had driven me to this point, a stronger sense of fear now stopped me from getting any closer and looking inside the trolley. Surely if the trolley was there, the lady must still be around and it would be rude if she found me looking inside her bag. Perhaps she was behind me. However, after building up enough courage, I turned and saw no one. I quickly walked out of the toilets and sat on the seat outside contemplating where she could’ve gone and what my next move would be.

I decided to go in to the toilets again, take the trolley and if anyone should ask me, I would say it was my wife's, who had forgotten it there earlier and I had come back to pick it up.

This time, when I looked into the toilets where I thought I had seen the shopping trolley earlier, I saw nothing. I banged all the cubicle doors open but there was no sign of it. I was now puzzled and beginning to think I was seeing things.

I made my way to the nearest exit gate of the park. I swore I was going in the right direction but I seemed to be walking a lot longer than I thought I should. But then I realised I had simply walked full circle and was back where I started. Suddenly there were black clouds in the sky, and it became almost as dark as evening.

I listened for thunder but heard nothing apart from the trees rustling in the wind and an occasional light scurrying through the leaves on the ground. I saw the tail of a squirrel making its way up a tree.

Then in front of me I saw a little girl at the edge of the lawn holding out some nuts in the palm of hand.

She looked at me and said, "The squirrels always come to me."

Walking towards her I shouted "Where's your mum?"

Before she could answer, I saw that blood was dripping slowly from her arm and her hand then just dropped off as though it hadn’t been attached properly to the end of her arm. It lay on the grass in front of her.

Instead of screaming she was laughing. "My mummy's gone.” Laughter. “My mummy’s not here.” More laughter.

“Where’s your mummy gone?”

“My mummy’s gone shopping," she said and then she stopped laughing .

“It’s OK.” I said trying to comfort her.

"I told you they always come to me." She pointed to the ground with her other hand where two squirrels were now tugging on the hand which lay in the grass. The squirrels were upright, one with a thumb in its mouth and the other with the fifth finger. You could see they had both bitten into the flesh and blood was dripping from their mouths.

“It’s OK. It always falls off.” She smiled and bent down, shooed off the squirrels, and picked up her hand. She came towards me, holding it out in front of her. “Would you like to hold it?”

I took her hand. It felt warm.

She began to move away from me.

“I’ve got to go now.” She made her way in to the toilets.

I found the seat I was sitting on earlier and sat down to pull myself together. I was in a state of shock and do not remember how long I sat there for but after the clouds moved away and the sun was shining through again, I saw the woman come out of the toilets with her trolley.

“Are you OK?” she asked. “You look awfully white. As though you have just seen a ghost.” Then she laughed the same laugh of the little girl.

I realised I was still holding the hand, which had now turned cold.

“I think that’s mine.” Pause. Really long pause.

“Really. Please. Please. Please take it.”

“You are so kind.”

I handed over the hand. She took it from me and put it in her trolley.

“Thanks.”

“Say thank you to the man.”

“Thank you.”