Fresh Start

by Andrew Anderson

The doorbell rang.

“So it begins,” muttered Ed, getting up to answer the door for his inaugural trick-or-treaters.

This was Ed’s first Halloween since moving to town, so he’d prepared a tray of rather lopsided homemade cakes, along with some assorted chocolates and lollies from the supermarket.

These kids were polite; not wishing to offend him, they grabbed a cake each and as much wrapped sugar as their buckets could carry. Ed knew they would wait until they were out of sight, then toss his cakes into the hedge.

That’s why he’d put the poison into the store-bought candy instead.

Andrew Anderson

Andrew Anderson (he/him) is a writer of fiction from Bathgate, Scotland. His work has previously been published by National Flash Fiction Day Press, Sampson Low Ltd., Selcouth Station Press, The Drabble, Black Hare Press, Eerie River Publishing, Paragraph Planet, Steering 23 Publications and Blood Song Books.