[Spoken Intro] Back in the days of Twitter, before it got ruined and renamed X, writers had a Halloween challenge: tell a horror story in a single tweet. A hundred and forty characters. Set it up, twist it, done. I called them Twitterweens. Here are a few of mine. [Break] [Spoken Tweet 1] The caramel and peanut butter candy he had been offered muffled his screams. [Break] [Spoken Tweet 2] Every year, the same. But not this year; this year he would wear pants. [Break] [Spoken Tweet 3] “Not again!” he thought, as the kids threw toilet rolls through his branches. [Break] [Spoken Tweet 4] His black belt training kicked in when the kids startled him by yelling “Trick or treat!” [Sung Chorus 1] A hundred and forty characters, That’s all you get to spend, To set it up, to let it go, And twist it at the end. [Spoken Tweet 5] His wolf teeth ripped the coyote’s throat open. He had warned the Pack to let the kids be on Halloween night. [Break] [Spoken Tweet 6] She smiled. She always smiled before she feasted. [Break] [Spoken Tweet 7] The growl was scary, the raspy voice chilling, and the rancid breath sickening, but Old Man Miller always had the best candy. [Break] [Spoken Tweet 8] She combed her hair, put on makeup, picked up her head, and went out on the only night of the year that she could. [Sung Chorus 2] No room to build the dread, No pages for the fright, Just a doorbell and a shadow, And a bite before goodnight. [Spoken Tweet 9] Too late he realized the shadow was no shadow. [Break] [Spoken Tweet 10] She woke to a tender caress . . . and remembered she lived alone. [Break] [Spoken Tweet 11] Everywhere she turned, in every room, eyes followed her every move. Oh, how she hated art museums. [Break] [Spoken Tweet 12] In need, she reached behind her, but met only cold steel. “Damn it,” she yelled at the ghost haunting her, “quit taking the toilet paper!” [Sung Chorus 3] Thumbs on the keyboard, Count it down to one, Trim a word, trim a word, Twist it, and it’s done. [Sung Bridge] Posted them on Twitter, Then on Facebook, too, Doubled my indifference, Nobody times two. [Spoken Tweet 13] Despite all the warnings, she had invited them in. There was no escape for her now; the Jehovah’s Witnesses were just starting their spiel. [Break] [Spoken Tweet 14] Her clothes in tatters, she looked at her very own demon from hell. “I really do need a new washing machine,” she thought. [Break] [Spoken Tweet 15] She ran, the beast’s nails clicking on the pavement as it chased her. “I can’t take in another lost puppy,” she thought, picking up speed. [Sung Chorus 4] The bird has flown, the name’s a letter, The timeline’s gone to seed, But a ghost still haunts the archive With a tale for you to read. [Spoken Outro] And one I wrote, then erased, because it felt more like Thanksgiving: The blade cut and cut, finally resting on bare bone. “Next year, you carve the turkey,” she said, wiping sweat from her brow.
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