1/ A Small Serial Story Called Halloween

The house had seemed so stunningly sophisticated when you first arrived, with its vast spaces, tall white walls and acres of black carpeting. But now, like everything else about this babysitting experience, the house is just so uncomfortably unfamiliar. And noisy! At first you blamed the scratching sounds on trees—it had to be branches scraping against the windows—but later you remember no trees surround this house on top of a bare hill.

And now the hum. A threatening hum, as if too much electricity coursed through the house. It’s beginning to drive you nuts. You need a TV on—any channel—or a stereo, but you don’t see either downstairs. They don’t watch TV, you think, but they must like to talk on the phone. In the living room sit four old-fashioned looking phones, red ones, with the dial on the base.