R.I.P.

As you round the corner towards the last street of the evening, your pillowcase full of candy threatens to pull your arm from its socket if it receives so much as one more gumball. This Halloweens’ haul has been a good one but there is just one more house to trick or treat before heading home, the dreaded Fry residence.
You wonder how they are going to try and terrorize you this year. Last Halloween the glowing eyes of their Jack-o’-lanterns kept changing color, and when you tried to get a closer look a demonic floating skull dropped soundlessly down on you from the trap door in the ceiling of the car port and scared you half out of your wits. The year before that they had a coffin beside the front door with a zombie inside that sat up as the front door was opened, and you can’t help but wonder what they have rigged up this year.
Well they are not going to see you coming this time. Forget the driveway, if you just cut through the neighbors’ yard you can take them by surprise for once.
Past the overgrown ornamental cherry tree you are halfway to the house when you see the first gravestones. They seem to be backlit, each with a different colored light. Big deal you think, it’s going to take more than some gravestones to freak you out this year.
That’s when you see the eyes.
Rising from behind the closest grave two glowing purple eyes appear to be watching you, and they are getting closer. An amorphous black shape blots out the side of the tombstone and you realize that the eyes looking at you are not disembodied, but part of a creature as black as the night around you.
The little hairs on the back of your neck stand at attention, your heart starts beating double time and you are about to head back the way you came when you see the others.
Each grave seems to have its own floating eyes and over top of the one on the left, rising like a red full moon, is the glowing shape of a ghost. Its then that you realize you’ve been had once again. Closer inspection reveals nothing more than a lightweight colored polyethylene ghost. A beeswax candle inside provides the glow and the lift for these miniature hot air balloons, each tethered to their graves by a fishing line.
You vow that next year you won’t be tricked.
Next year.