Read Once Upon a Halloween for Free Online

Hunter wondered.
         Even if she is, so what? If I try anything, she'll cut me to pieces.
        "Where are you?" she sang. "Here, kitty kitty kitty."
         Looking for a cat? Hunter had a moment of joyful relief before realizing he had misheard her. She hadn't said "kitty."
        She chanted again, "Here, kiddy, kiddy. Where are you? You can't hide from me, my little sweety-pie. I'll sniff you out."
        The light came on.
        Squatted behind the painting, Hunter cringed.
        She can't see me, he told himself. I can't see her, so she can't see me. She doesn't even know I'm in this room.
        "Hmmm," she said. "What have we here?"
         She can't see me!
        "What wonderful paintings! Oh, my! How macabre! How delightful! Ooo, that one gives me goosebumps. I'm prickly all over, just looking at it. All prickly and goosebumpy. Delicious."
        After saying that, she went silent.
        No voice, no sound of footsteps.
         Maybe she left.
        Silence.
        Trying to make no sounds himself, Hunter held his breath. He heard only the pounding of his heart.
        She is gone, he told himself. She went to look in a different room.
        Then he heard the floor creak.
        It creaked quietly, its sound almost silenced by the carpet, but it creaked so very close to Hunter, where he crouched behind the painting, that he almost groaned in despair.
        "Ah." The voice came from straight above him.
        Cringing inside, Hunter tilted back his head.
        He saw the undersides of two sweaty breasts. The woman did have goosebumps, just as she'd said. And very large, stiff nipples. Above and between her breasts, her face smiled down at Hunter.
        "Gotcha," she whispered.
        The painting blocked his view of everything below her breasts, so he couldn't see if she had the saber.
        "I give," he said to her.
        She looked amused. "Give what?"
        "Up."
        "You give up?"
        He nodded.
        "Glad to hear it."
        As she smiled strangely down at Hunter, her right breast lifted slightly. Then both breasts lurched. The lip of the saber popped through the canvas, rammed toward Hunter and pinned his shill to his chest. He tumbled backward, escaping from the blade but only for a moment.
        It jabbed him in the chest. "Ow!"
        A satisfied smile on her face, the woman stepped back and slashed the canvas to tatters. With the blade, she lifted the remains of the painting and hurled it out of the way. It crashed into others, knocking a few of them to the floor.
        Slumped in the corner with nothing to shield him from the woman, Hunter raised his hands in front of his face.
        "Don't," he whimpered. "Please."
        "Don't what?"
        "Kill me."
        "Why not?"
        "Please."
        "Put your hands down."
        He kept them up, ready to block the descending blade. "Down."
        Lowering them, he glimpsed the patch of red wetness on the chest of his shirt. He crossed his forearms over it and looked up at the woman.
        She was smirking down at him, the saber in her right hand raised high as if she were all set to slash downward and finish him off. Her body glistened with sweat. She looked sleek and strong, like women Hunter had seen sometimes on TV bodybuilding shows.
         Strong enough to cut me in two.
        She had no make-up on. No tattoos. No jewelry. She wore only a brown leather belt, loose around her hips. On the right side of the belt hung a large leather sheath with a knife in it. Below her belt buckle, she was hairless and smooth.
        "Take a good look, kid. I'm the last one you'll ever..." She flinched as if prodded in the back. Gasping, "Yah!" she whirled around and cocked her arm, ready to slash the intruder.
        An intruder she couldn't seem to find
        Her head jerked this way and that.
        Hunter saw no one, but the woman's naked body