As I strutted up to my best friend's house with a smile beamed across my face, I thought of all the candy we would get and eat as we walked the streets of our neighborhood, racing to each house to see who could get there first and get a prime selection of the many colorful and chocolatey treats. To us, this was just getting each other's favorite candy so when the other came they would have to choose something else, even though we knew that at the end of the night, we would end up trading either way. I chuckled a little to myself as I remembered the fights that followed. I then raised my hand and brought it to her door three times, creating three loud bangs. As I brought my arm up for the fourth Emily exploded out the door and into my arms hugging me as hard as she could. 

"Are you ready?" she asked eagerly, practically bouncing off the walls.

"Of course!!" I replied, matching her energy with ease.

"Then hurry up, let's go!"  

As we walked from her house into the busy neighborhood road littered with ghosts, unicorns, and zombies, we talked about which house we would go to first. Soon I decided that we would have to go down Juniper Lane.

"What's Juniper Lane?" Emily asked, puzzled.

"What's Juniper Lane?! It's only the scariest street in the entirety of Shucklesbery. Each year one of the houses is chosen to create a haunted house to challenge the one before, and each year they get scarier and scarier. These houses are not for the faint of heart, I heard that last year one boy thought he could escape it, but ended up in the hospital from a heart attack because he got scared so badly." 

I shook my head in disbelief. How could Emily not know? Her family was one of the many families who went all out for Halloween and hosted the biggest party of the year, inviting almost anyone, but she didn't know about the infamous Juniper Lane. Wow.

"But how do you know if it's true?" Emily asked, clearly doubting me.

"My brother told me, apparently it was a kid in his grade. Some guy named Max, poor kid, couldn't even show his face at school. They say he dropped out." I felt a shiver run down my back.

"Are you sure? You do know how weird you're acting right now, right?" she asked with a disbelieving grin on her face.

"Yes," I replied. We both looked at each other and bursted out in laughter. "You're right it can't be true!"

"I told you, now come on! I need to prove that I'm right!" she exclaimed, dragging me by the wrist down the dark and ominous lamp-lit lane. But something didn't feel right. It still felt like something bad was going to happen, like something was going to jump out at me, and for all I knew something could. I took a shaky breath, and one step forward. I'll be ok. Right?

As I stepped onto the cold stone floor, into the house, it felt as though I was walking into a freezer. Goosebumps slowly made their way up my body, and I let out a loud shiver. I looked up at the cobwebbed ceiling. It seemed as though something was lurking over my shoulder. I quickly turned my head to the right but nothing was there, only a clown standing in the corner. Watching. Just. Watching.

"Allie, come on!" Emily called.

"I'm coming!" I replied, snapping out of my daze. Let's go, Allie, don't be a wimp, let's go! I thought to myself.

"ALLIE!"

"I'M COMING!" Get it together, Allie. Come on!

 I took a brave step towards the actual entrance to the house and walked in. Eyes closed. Ready for whatever was going to happen. Soon haunted music filled the halls and I cautiously followed Emily to the end of the hall. There stood three different doors, all marked the same, all with no sign of entree or exit. I shivered.

"Allie! Come on!" I looked up, I hadn't even moved, I was still at the beginning of the hallway and Emily was waiting for me at the end in front of the doors. 

"I'm coming!" I screamed as I sprinted up to her. By the time I got there, I was already winded. "So which door are we going through again? This one?" I asked while opening the left door. 

"NO!" Emily screamed in what seemed to be slow motion, but it was too late. I had already entered fully and before I knew it the door had slammed behind me and I was trapped. I banged on the door as hard as I could. 

"EMILY!" There was no response. I stifled a sob. I guess I just have to go through this by myself then, I thought to myself. I stood up, it almost felt like I was on stilts, I felt dizzy and as if I were to faint at any moment, but I pulled myself together and put one foot in front of the other, attempting to walk towards the person I saw in the distance. Suddenly I was running. I needed to get to that person, maybe they knew what to do. Maybe they could help me. BANG! I ran into a wall, the person seemed weirdly close now, almost as if it was me. Then it hit me, it was. I was in a maze of mirrors. 

I took a step back and saw something emerging from the shadows. Something with a red nose and a smirk that could go overseas. Please don't be a clown, please don't be a clown, I pleaded to myself. It kept getting closer. Please don't be a clown, please don't be a clown. Please don't be a clown, please don't be a clown. PLEASE! I started running with my hands out in front of me trying my best not to run into the mirrors that surrounded me. BANG, BANG, BANG the sounds of my hands hitting the glass rattled my ears. 

I kept running. It felt like forever, but soon it felt like I had reached a door. My fingers felt around for the knob to twist and soon they landed on one. I looked back and the clown was creeping closer, but now it had a friend. With all of my force I pulled and I pulled until I was thrown backward and the door swung open. Quickly I sprinted past it and swung the door closed behind me.

The cold autumn air greeted me, but almost instantaneously my heart dropped. Where was Emily? What door had she gone into? Was she okay? Questions flooded my head as I walked over to the man standing by the entrance.

"Have you seen a teenage girl recently?" I asked.

"What she look?" he replied with a heavy accent.

"Blonde, tall, angel costume," I answered, trying my best to act out the words to him.

"No. You last female escape."

"Oh," I felt my hope dwindling as I slowly started home. It was almost my curfew, and breaking it would mean that even if Emily made it out we wouldn't even be able to hang out. 

"This is what she would have wanted," I told myself as I slumped back to our house, walking as slowly as possible so if Emily just got out she would still be able to catch me, but by the time I had reached the end of the street, there was nothing, so I decided to just go home.

As I opened the front door, my mom greeted me from the kitchen island where someone was sitting with her sharing the rest of the trick-or-treating candy. 

"Who's with you?" I asked her.

"Why don't you see for yourself?" she responded. I looked around the corner. It was Emily! I jumped towards her and hugged her as hard as possible.

"I thought I had lost you or that you had gone home!" I said.

"I was going to do that originally but then I decided to come here. Mrs. V has the best candy anyway" she said, looking up at my mom, who nodded back at her.

"Ugh! You know you gave me a real scare." I replied.

"Seems you girls had an interesting night." my mom interjected.

"You could say that," I replied, eying Emily.

"Yes, you could," Emily said, smirking.