<sub>*This is a freewrite story based on the image below. Hope you like it.*</sub>

<center>![halloween-2393823_640.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmPork9M1wpYTwsKph3gi3L8oMeV5kfeoawrgTkR1csM7i/halloween-2393823_640.jpg)
<sub>*Image by [sik-life](https://pixabay.com/en/users/sik-life-2171488/)
Used under CC0 Creative Commons license. ([source](https://pixabay.com/en/halloween-horror-creepy-scary-2393823/))*</sub></center>

My girlfriend, Allison, has always loved Halloween. Seems like every other week she's bringing home another little knickknack of a black cat, or a pack of stickers shaped like bats. Our entire apartment is filled with bats and cats and pumpkins.

Some might find it a little weird, but I find it endearing. In some ways, she never grew up. She's still playing dress up every day. I love that about her. She's always wearing boots and fishnets with a short skirt and some cute little top with skulls on it or some such. She dresses like death's sexy little sister, but bubbles like a witch's cauldron.

I never much matched her. I work at a law firm. I'm not a lawyer, but I work with them all day. I'm always dressed in a suit and tie, with well-shined shoes. Despite her only being two years younger than me, often people mistake her for my daughter because of my prematurely greying hair, and her almost juvenile style. But she's just being herself, and I'm being like everyone else.

Some people don't really get her and don't see what I see in her, but I don't get what she sees in me. Here she is going against the world to be herself, smiling and laughing the whole way, finding joy in simple little things, and they think she's weird for it. She's weird because she doesn't fit in. They're weird because they do. I'm weird. I'm normal. I'm scarily normal. But I see in her what I can't be, and I love her for it.

With her birthday coming up, it's only natural that I would buy her something Halloween oriented. It's what she loves. I didn't want to get her something that I could find just anywhere though. I wanted to get her something special.

It's kind of embarrassing how much time I spent looking. Every lunch hour I had I would go to another store. I ended up with a bunch of little knickknacks that I knew she'd love, but none of them was what I was looking for. Then one day, on my day off, I went to a small antique shop on the edge of the city, in an old rundown neighborhood.

The place smelled like dust and old wood. It was packed full of things. You could barely even walk through the place without almost knocking something over. There were dressers stacked on top of dressers, books almost falling apart, hand-carved statues that were likely older than my grandparents, and clocks covering the walls.

A beautiful old cabinet with innate carvings caught my eye. Sure, it probably wasn't something that Allison would like, but something about it interested me for some reason. I tried to pull on the tiny little handle, but the door was stuck. I put my other hand on the other door and pulled harder. The door opened with a pop, and the small cabinet shook and almost fell off the precarious position it was stacked in, on top of two dressers. I tried to grab the cabinet as it rocked and made quite a bit of noise, to stabilize it. The noise subsided and thankfully it didn't fall.

"Can I help you?" An old man sitting in a rocking chair behind the counter asked me. I hadn't noticed him before. He hadn't said anything. Maybe he had been sleeping or something.

"I'm sorry. Uh...I'm looking for something for my girlfriend. It's her birthday coming up. I want to get her something special."

"Oh, well, we have plenty of special things, lots of old things, one of a kind things. What's her name?" He slowly got up from the chair. I could have sworn he creaked when he stood up, like some kind of old toy, but maybe it was the chair.

"Allison."

"And how old is this Allison?"

"28. But she doesn't really act her age, so I don't think that will help much."

"Ahh, so we got a child at heart. I have a few things she might like." He walked out from around the back of the counter, picking up a cane as he walked. "What about an old clown marionette?" He pointed with his cane to a clown sitting on top of a dresser again the wall. It was wooden, with chipping paint, and old dirty clothes of red and yellow. He had a huge smile on his face, and crazy eyes.

"Um...no thanks. While she might actually like that, it would be for the same reason I wouldn't. It's kinda creepy."

He laughed, "Yeah, they had a different style back then. They liked making them look like that. A lot of people these days can't really take it. He's worth quite a penny though, and I'm selling him pretty cheap."

"Sorry, no."

"Alright alright, lets keep going. What kind of things does she like."

"Well, Halloween, black cats, pumpkins, bats, scary creepy things."

"Well, we got plenty of things like that. If she likes black cats though, I do have this." He opened a cabinet near his feet and pulled out a stuffed black cat.

"I think that might be a bit much. I don't really know if she'd like it. She likes cats. A dead one might be a bit over the line."

"Understandable. Hmm..." He put the black cat back in the cabinet and closed it.

The old man took me all around the shop, showing me all sorts of old toys, and creepy things. Any one of them would probably make an alright gift for her, but I wanted something really special. None of them really stood out to me.

"I've got one last thing. It's not really something someone young at heart will probably like, but it is a pumpkin. He went behind the counter, and reached under one side, took out a small cabinet, opened it up, and took out a small pumpkin that looked like it was hand made out of brass. There were small uneven hammer marks all over. It was beautiful. I knew instantly that she would love it.

"How much?"

"$190."

"Ehh. I don't know."

"$140."

"$70."

"This is a handmade, one of a kind, piece of art. There are no others like it."

"$90."

"$120."

"Fine, you got yourself a deal. If you throw in the creepy clown."

"$160 for both. And you're robbing me."

"Deal." I took out my wallet and paid the old man. He rung me up on a cash register as old as everything else in the store and took out some paper bags from behind the counter, and some tissue paper. "By the way, what is it?"

"Heh. You bought it, and you don't know what it is? It's an incense burner. You take off the cap by lifting the stem and put the incense inside. Then the smoke billows out of holes hidden near the bottom."

"Ahh. I see. I know she'll love it." The old man wrapped up the small bass pumpkin in tissue paper and put it into the bag, then put the creepy clown next to it. I knew Allison would love both of them.

To be continued...

<sub>*Hope you like the story so far. I know it's a bit out of season for a Halloween horror story, but I was inspired by the picture. Hope you stick around to read the rest.*</sub>

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