The One Night, by Heidi Kletzli

In a small town called Cramsville, there lived a young boy named Jeremiah. Jeremiah was unlike the other kids in Cramsville, mostly because he despised Halloween. It was the night that his house was broken into by a bunch of masked men who had killed his parents. So, every Halloween, he locked his windows and doors, shut off the lights, and waited the long and terrible night in a closet until day.

This method seemed to work for three years. On the fourth year, Jeremiah began locking his windows and doors, when he heard a thump in the basement. At first, he thought it was nothing but soon he started hearing footsteps coming closer to the stairs. Panicked, he ran to the closet and closed the door. Slowly, the heavy footsteps went up the stairs, through the hallway, and right to his hiding spot. Holding his breath, he waited for death. But the footsteps hurried past.  He sighed a breath of relief. They didn’t see him. He began planning for the next year. Jeremiah died two years later. To this day, he still lurks inside the house, hiding in his favorite closet.