A short one-shot to prove I'm still alive.

"On this very night… ten years ago… on this same stretch of road…"

There was no road even close to us, but I guess it's just a part of her story.

"In a dense fog… just like this… I saw the worst accident I've ever seen…"

We were inside the clubroom. The lights were turned off and the back window was blacked out with construction paper. The only source of light provided came from random candles that were scattered across the floor, and the flashlight Haruhi was holding in her hands at the moment.

"There was this sound… like a garbage truck… dropped off of the Empire State Building…"

Haruhi drew short breathes for every phrase that came out of her mouth. Her voice was uncharacteristically thin and deep, and her eyes had a blank look, something like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Then when they finally pulled the driver's body from the twisted… burning… wreck…"

She pushed the flashlight up underneath her chin, really pressing for that dramatic effect.

"It looked like this!"

"Eeeeee!"

Asahina-san screamed at the sudden face Haruhi made.

As expected, Asahina-san was very easy to scare, but looking around, it seemed like no one else was. Koizumi, as usual, was smiling like an idiot, and Nagato's expression naturally remained unchanged. Along with me, the vaguely interested but somewhat paying attention dolt, the entire SOS Brigade seemed to be actively involved in another pointless activity.

"Mmm…" Haruhi grunted, "It wasn't that bad of a story."

Let me give you a rundown of our situation.

It's Halloween.

…

That should explain plenty.

Since this club pretty much did nothing but celebrate various seasonal festivals, commemorating a western children's holiday wasn't too far off of Haruhi's list-to-do things.

Let me say that this is especially frustrating for me, as Halloween isn't really celebrated as much here in Japan as in other countries. People tend to give strange looks towards groups of suspiciously costumed teenagers carrying around rolls of toilet paper and cartons of eggs.

Below is an actual description of that event:

"Haruhi, what is that?"

I asked, pointing to the red wagon that lay beside her feet.

"Twenty-four rolls of toilet paper and sixty eggs," she replied promptly, "We can split these equally amongst ourselves to get ready for the harvest!"

My crooked smile faltered a bit. Having met up with the rest of the club members in front of the school gates, I was disgruntled with the random stash of items. I had a bad feeling swell up in the pit of my stomach.

"And why… do we need this?"

And wait, you said split equally? How are we supposed to split twenty-four into five?

"It's trick-or-treat! In the case we don't get candy, we have to be prepared! And as brigade chief, I of course get double the ammunition."

She made it sound like we were going to war.

"That's vandalism."

And that's not splitting evenly.

"It's tradition."

I shot a glance towards the other silent members of our little club gathering, but I was met with no support, unless you count the cute panicked murmurs of Asahina-san about respecting the law and such. Oh, if only all the criminals in the world could hear her, I bet the crime rate would drop significantly. But, the point was, no one heard her.

It would be some time before I managed to persuade Haruhi to drop her idea on arbitrarily visiting people's houses and forcing them to relinquish their candy. But in order to do this, it felt like I had to sell my soul to the devil.

…I'd rather not go into details of our little bargain.

…

Well, anyway, we went into the clubroom, and to my dismay, Haruhi thought telling ghost stories would be Halloween-y enough to celebrate the holiday. As if all of us weren't Halloween-y enough.

Each of us was in costume. And two out of the five of us was wearing something I had previously seen. Nagato was wearing, probably, the only costume she had, the cape and witch's hat from that event, and Asahina-san had forced herself into the frog suit, which was from that other event. I could understand this, as Nagato probably didn't care, and Asahina-san was probably too embarrassed to enter a costume shop on her own.

…but looking at them now, I'm actually kind of disappointed on not being able to see them in something different.

"Perhaps it would be better if we had someone else tell a story."

My eyes immediately turned to the old man sitting beside me.

Koizumi was sporting a gray wig and beard. He was fancily dressed in a brown waistcoat, dress pants, and a white collar shirt. When asked what he was supposed to be, he answered, "Sigmund Freud". I immediately stopped listening to him after that comment.

"…all right," she said grudgingly, "but first."

Haruhi put the flashlight on the tabletop. She stood up, skipped to the other end of the room, miraculously dodging the candles on the floor, and opened the broom closet. From inside she took out what appeared to be some kind of bag of torture.

"All of your costumes are too boring. How about we spice them up?"

By "boring", she must have meant "not like hers". Her majesty was wearing something that looked like belonged to an evil overlord, or the daughter of an evil overlord, if he ever had one. In effect, she looked like the Queen of Hearts, wearing a glorifying crown on her head and wielding an even-more-ego-boosting scepter in her hands. I'm curious to ask wear she got such an outfit, but she would probably say, "The internet" and go on ignoring me like always.

From the bag, Haruhi pulled out a small red ball, and like dogs, each of our heads followed it as she waved it around.

"Here!"

She said. Haruhi jumped in front of Koizumi, twirled around, and placed it on his nose. I'm kind of surprised her dress didn't catch on fire.

"…"

Koizumi blinked several times, unsure of what to say. He fumbled with his words and eventually came up with,

"…and, this is?"

"It's a rubber nose."

She said. Slowly, he brought his hand up to his face and softly pressed the ball with his thumb and index finger, making a plushy squeaky sound.

"...thank you, Suzumiya-san."

He said, making his best efforts to smile proudly. Satisfied, Haruhi moved to her next victim.

"Auuuu…."

Asahina-san cried softly and backed up into the wall.

"Don't worry," she said, gradually advancing, "This won't hurt me at all."

With a flash, she slashed at her face, and a pair of giant antlers suddenly appeared on top of her head. And when I say "antlers" I mean those branches that grow out of a deer's head. …yeah.

Silently, Asahina-san touched the wooden headgear.

"It's nice."

Haruhi had no modesty in taking that compliment and immediately turned around. Her mischievous eyes, this time, were set on-

"Touch me and die."

I said straight away.

Oh, and, just so you know, I was dressed as the Grim Reaper, since it was the most common thing to dress as during Halloween. I would've preferred to wear a mask to hide my humiliation, but due to the lack of cash in my wallet, I was stuck with plain robes.

"You dare defy me?"

She threatened me with her shiny scepter, and I blocked her with my cheap plastic scythe.

"So what if I am?"

I retorted. We engaged ourselves in a short push-pull staring contest. It was one-sided since Haruhi had Herculean strength on her side and I had the normal power of opening jars for my sister on mine.

"Don't you want to see what I've got in here for you?"

She asked, slowly overpowering me.

"No, not really."

I answered. Haruhi frowned, and loosened her pressure.

"Fine," she said, "I wouldn't want to waste this last one on you anyway."

Moving towards the silent Nagato, she held out a hand to her and placed the last items on her head.

"Here Yuki."

"…"

What was the final accessory? Twin drills.

…I had really dodged a bullet there.

I watched as Haruhi glued the metal objects to Nagato's hair, and as expected, she did nothing to stop her. I think this is the closest I've ever seen of Haruhi molesting Nagato.

"Oy, Kyon!"

She said, putting her final touches on the girl.

"Tell us the next ghost story."

It took me a moment until I realized she was talking me.

"Huh?"

"Since you aren't wearing anything funny," she said, "telling a ghost story is in your jurisdiction. If it were anyone else, it would just be ridiculous."

What if I don't want to?

Haruhi frowned at me and decided to take a different approach.

"We'll settle this with the majority vote."

She declared on her own.

"All in favor of Kyon telling a ghost story."

Haruhi raised her hand… and she was the only one raising her hand.

"All opposed."

I raised mine, and as I looked at the other members, I noticed that nobody else had raised theirs. Asahina-san was too preoccupied with playing with her antlers, and Koizumi flashed that usual grin of his, which now gave off an "evil clown" vibe. And surprisingly, I also noticed that Nagato seemed to be polishing her drills with her own personal cloth.

"I win!"

Haruhi declared triumphantly.

"What? It's a tie. I raised my hand."

"Your vote doesn't count," she said, "Since this is about you, you have a personal conflict. Therefore, your ballot is denied."

I cringed at this evil princess… but, it wasn't like she asking me to do anything spectacular.

"Fine… I'll do it."

I took the flashlight from the table and plopped down into a chair, where my robe wouldn't catch on fire.

"…"

I glanced around and saw that everyone was looking at me. Asahina-san's and Nagato's wide eyes were fixed on me like glue, while Koizumi's and Haruhi's seemed ready to analyze every movement I made in conjunction with my story. I opened my mouth to say something.

"…"

It wasn't like I was afraid to speak in public. To tell you the truth, it was just that I've never told a ghost story before. Sure, I've some scary stuff on the internet, but implementing those things into a verbal fairy-tale was a foreign subject to me. In fact, I don't even remember my parents ever telling me bedtime stories. I'm sure, at one point, they did, but that was kind of long ago.

I wonder… did they ever just hang their mouth open until I told them to get on with it.

"Get on with it!"

"…well, err," I stuttered in a panic, "There was this… thing in the news-"

"Stop!"

My rough start came to an abrupt end with her interruption.

"This is a ghost story," she said, "not a recount of your dull monotonous life. You have to get into the mood. You have to speak lower, softer, scary."

She said it like she was an expert in speech and debate. Yeah, like that last story was any good.

"Okay!"

I turned my head away from her quickly… and that's when an idea for a story struck me.

It was a sickeningly sick idea, one that would probably make Haruhi turn several shades of white. But adversely, there might be some consequences.

…

…oh, to hell with it.

I started again, this time in a lower, softer, scary voice.

"His name was John Smith."

Haruhi's eyes immediately widened at that name, as if to say, "That sounds a little… familiar".

"Supposedly, that was his name."

Asahina-san put her hands over her mouth, and silently listened. Of course, she wouldn't know the significance of that name yet, so she paid attention intently, like a child to a real ghost story. The rest had a change in attitude. In Nagato's case, it was like a nudge of interest. In Haruhi's, it was a kind of reminiscence. And Koizumi, I guess that would be accumulating stress from Haruhi reminiscing.

"…people have seen him."

I said, staring at the queen.

"When he was alive, they say he hung around alone, wandering the streets like a corpse. People have given the description of him being six foot, ruggedly handsome, strong jaw line, a bold figure wearing a high school uniform.

"He had the appearance of a movie star and was able to charm anyone with a look and a smile."

I smiled.

"If any girl asked him to do a favor, he would do it, no matter what it was. He'd help carry groceries, open the door for you, pet your head, and grin. And if any girl asked him a question, he would answer it the way she wanted, no matter how weird the answer.

"Overall, to any girl in the world, he was perfect.

"…this, however, was just a façade.

"Behind that… devilishly gorgeous face… was a truly mysterious being."

I was making stuff up, but all the same, Haruhi was silently absorbing every word.

"They say he came out at night, carrying a girl on his back, walking to an unknown destination.

"Where he went, nobody knows.

"Nobody asked.

"But it's certain that the girl on his back was unconscious. So, what was with this suspicious behavior? Was this a kidnapping? Was this guy a serial killer with a fetish? If so, are there other victims? Is he still alive? And why wasn't anyone paying attention to such a guy? There should at least be a small news article over this, right?

"The answers to all these questions are…"

Haruhi was leaning in now, eager to learn more.

"There are no answers.

"The cold case of John Smith is supposedly false. If someone were to look for John Smith, they would come to a dead end. There was no one at night wandering around the streets. There would be no person in any high school that would even resemble him back then. And the only evidence of him actually existing is just a few words, maybe a favor, and a goodbye."

"Authorities question whether or not John is even real, as the people who have supposedly seen him were alone when he talked with them, in a place where there were no other witnesses. They also question about the supposed victim herself, as there were no girls who had gone missing in the vicinity, or any girls matching of the given descriptions."

Asahina-san was looking up to me, seemingly relieved that this wasn't really much of a scary story.

"So... it was believed that John was a figment of the imagination."

At this point, Haruhi almost seemed to question herself. I argued on her behalf since she wouldn't dare to do so herself.

"…but then, if that was true, how could a figment of our imagination lift something up, open the door, help with menial tasks, or even touch another person, as what people have described?

"That's the mystery.

"So let's ask a different question."

I turned off the flashlight and let the silence soak in.

"..."

"Have you… yourself… ever met John Smith?"

I ended it. And I thought I wrapped that up rather nicely, but…

"…Kyon."

Haruhi spoke up.

"That was… stupid and boring."

Club was dismissed and everyone was to go their separate ways. Unfortunately, Koizumi decided to tag along beside me before he went his.

"You told quite an interesting tale there."

It wasn't really interesting. I just wanted to try to spook Haruhi.

"And you did. Suzumiya-san was quite taken."

It didn't seem like it.

"However..."

I heaved a sigh and put my hood on. It was getting cold.

"However what?"

"Forcing ideas into Suzumiya-san's head may not be good, especially if these ideas have and correlation to that event."

He emphasized "that" as if I had forgotten. Honestly, weren't you listening?

"As long as I don't say that I'm John Smith, we don't have a problem, do we?"

The unwavering in my voice made me sound a little automatic, and the sound of my footsteps started to match his as we walked along.

"Not necessarily. With those ideas you threw out, you gave Suzumiya-san a reason to believe you were a spectral being."

"And you're afraid I might become undead?"

"That may be a possibility. Another possibility is that she could manifest a corporal spirit, since, to her, you and John Smith are separate entities. Alternatively, this could cause problems, as she believes that this new John is responsible for-"

"Koizumi."

I stopped. We reached the intersection, and he was about to take the crosswalk. With a withering voice, I said,

"I can't take you seriously with that rubber nose on."

I feel obligated to turn something in each month, and since none of my other works seem to be close to done, I thought a short story would be okay. I pretty much came up with this on a whim just several days ago. Personally, I find this a little light with nothing much really going on, but I think this is an average piece for me. I hope you all like it.

Happy Halloween!