Mom always let me eat the leftover Hallowe'en candy, but, like every year, I forgot how the candy hangover would wake me with a cotton-mouth in the middle of the night.

This year, in the excitement of still unpacking the new house, I'd forgotten to bring up a drink, so I carefully shuffled through the unfamiliar house to the kitchen for a glass of water.

A flicker of light from the living room caught my attention. Maybe Dad had fallen asleep watching TV?

Yawning I rounded the corner. "Dad?"

But neither parent was lounging on the circa 1930's furniture the house had come with.

The old 1950's model television we thought was dead had black and white static flickering on the screen, though.

I reached to turn the knob off - and paused. The static... it wasn't the regular kind. There was a pattern there. No, images.

Sinking to my knees, I held either side of the set and shifted around to try and get the best angle.

Every few seconds the static arranged itself into a new image, like I was watching the frames of a comic book on the screen telling a story one snapshot at a time.

A woman in a poodle skirt and ponytail was standing on a lawn with the back of what appeared to be a house in the distance. She was biting the fingertips of one hand in fear.

She looked over her shoulder. Her eyes widened and mouth formed an 'O' of fear or surprise.

Her ponytail flew out behind her as she began to run toward the building while still looking over her shoulder.

In the next frame was a masked man with a knife who had stepped out from behind a tree. He had a sinister smile on his face.

Then a shot from his eyes showing the woman rounding the house's corner. I squinted at the image because the house looked familiar, but before I could get a good look to see why, the image faded to static before the next appeared.

Now through the woman's eyes we saw three cars parked in a driveway. My heart sped up when I recognised my own license plate: GHST LVR.

A shot of the woman's profile looking at our front door. I felt a thrill of pride over how awesome our decorations were even on a grainy black and white image, but that vanished when I read the corny banner Mom insisted on hanging every year that said "Happy Hallowe'en from the Martens" with a dancing skeleton and ghost.

A cartoon speech bubble from around the corner said "I'm coming!"

The woman raced to the door.

The next image of her, now at the door, eyes wide and tear-filled, with raised fist.

I jumped and screamed at the pounding on the front door.

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