The Halloween Tree

by Ray Bradbury

Each wished to pull back, swivel about, run, but found himself trapped against the boy behind or in front or to the side. So, with a pseudopod thrust out here or there, the amoebic form, the large perspiration of boys leaned and made a run and a stop to the front door of the house which was as tall as a coffin and twice as thin.

And if there had been time and it were noon, they might have danced out a cadaver’s tune or a skeleton’s rigadoon, for who can resist an ancient porch which, like a gigantic xylophone, only wants to be jumped on to make music?

Middle of December, thought Tom, I often think: the sun’ll never come back! Winter will go on forever! This time the sun is really dead!

The shadows leaned away from the lost sun in the west and tried to enter the houses. But the warm food, steaming on the porches, kept the shadows circling and stirring.

“Night and day. Summer and winter, boys. Seedtime and harvest. Life and death. That’s what Halloween is, all rolled up in one. Noon and midnight. Being born, boys. Rolling over, playing dead like dogs, lads. And getting up again, barking, racing through thousands of years of death each day and each night Halloween, boys, every night, every single night dark and fearful until at last you made it and hid in cities and towns and had some rest and could get your breath.