This short story was written in a single night several years ago, born from a sudden impulse on a late Saturday evening. With no plan, just the pressing need to finally put the idea into words. What started as a simple narrative quickly evolved into a disturbing glimpse into the fragile boundary between childhood innocence and hidden darkness.
The story masterfully intertwines everyday tranquility with a looming, psychologically charged tension, creating an unsettling sense of unease. Particularly striking is the protagonist’s internal division between youthful naivety and deeply buried impulses—fueled by everyday frustrations and an obsessive immersion in a fictional horror story. It vividly demonstrates how thin the line can be between harmless imagination and destructive thoughts.
The story poses an uncomfortable question: Is it truly just fantasy, or does a spark of darkness lie dormant within us all?
Step into the world of A Comic at Halloween and feel the shadows lurking behind seemingly innocent moments.
A Comic at Halloween
The trees in this beautiful avenue wear a dress of leaves in orange, green and yellow shades, just like every autumn. The autumn wind gently caresses the treetops, plucking off one leaf after another and presenting it to the ground in gentle waves. The sun slowly hides behind the horizon, with a dark veil covering the road. Small trolls and ghosts run from door to door, only to drag a bag of sweets home afterwards. It‘s Halloween. “Trick or treat” says a small clown to the neighbor Mrs Strobel. The old single lady smiles and fills the clown’s sack with sweet treats. “Here’s my little clown. But don’t hurt me, you bad clown,” jokes Mrs. Strobel. Behind the clown mask is six-year-old Tim. Satisfied, he closes the goody bag and walks to the next house. “Tim, come back, your father and I have to go,” he hears his mother calling. “What does she want now?” asks a voice in Tim’s head. “Don’t bother me. I want to collect more. Again and again it bothers me. Let them go. I want to stay out here.” A deep male voice tears the darkness apart. “Tim, come here. Are you hard of hearing?” Tim looks in his direction and recognizes the budding anger in Dad’s face. “All right”, Tim sighs and trots slowly towards his home, in which he lives with his parents and his sister Sophie. “Go on in. Your sister is waiting for you.” Wistfully Tim enters the house, his stomach filled with a little anger. “Hey Tim, I’m about to have a visitor. Stay upstairs in your room”, Sophie rumbles, “or I’ll tell Mum what you’re doing in your room at night. And take that stupid mask off.” “The mask isn‘t stupid, you are,” he replies and stomps angrily up the stairs. The door to Tim’s room closes with a loud bang.
Excited, Sophie looks out of the window and waits eagerly for her parents to finally leave. “How slow old people are,” she whispers quietly and rolls her beautiful blue eyes. She has made herself especially beautiful today, because today is the big day she has been waiting for for 17 years. “I hope he likes me,” she said to herself and smiled. She has difficulty putting her thoughts in order, with so much running through her head. She feels her heart beating. Boom boom, boom boom boom.
Suddenly a knocking sound pulls her out of her thoughts. She shrugs in shock and tries to suppress a scream. “Damn, what was that?” Carefully, she looks out the window. Her parents’ car is gone. She was so deep in her thoughts that she didn’t hear the engine. A shadow rushes towards her and crashes into the window. Her muscles in her legs contract and freeze. Her heart is pounding in her throat. She feels her lips open – which she doesn’t really want – to emit a loud, short scream. “Hey Sophie, what are you yelling about? It’s me.” Bobby looks into his girlfriend’s terrified face. “Will you let me in now?” Sophie pulls herself together. She’s been looking forward to this special day for far too long. “Oh, Bobby, I’m sorry,” she sobs with some tears in her eyes. She let Bobby into the house and embraces his whole body. The fright has already completely disappeared and a pleasant feeling of security and a little excitement are spreading inside her. He presses her very firmly to him and kisses her. Time stands still as their tongues make their way to each other and circle lovingly around each other. Something hard presses against her thigh. The excitement becomes increasingly stronger, she gasps, and the kisses become more passionate. “Let’s go to my room,” she whispers lustfully in his ear.
Tim sits dressed in the clown costume on his chair at the desk and looks into the bag with the sweets. “There was much more last year,” he mumbles and throws the sack angrily on the floor. A scream sounds from below. “What’s wrong with her now?” Tim thinks and rolls his green eyes, “hopefully the bogeyman will get her soon.” Tim goes to his room door and opens it a crack. Just enough so that he can see what’s going on down there. His sister and this guy Bobby come up the stairs. Quickly he closes the door and devotes himself to his comic book, which he got from a friend for his birthday a few weeks ago. “Tales from the Boogeyman” is written in big, blood-red letters on the cover. He takes out the bookmark in the shape of a large knife and opens the book. A masked,
tall man with a giant knife in his right hand slits open a woman’s body. Blood and guts come out of the gaping wound. Tim likes horror stories, but this story is very special.
He suddenly feels a cold inside of him, a familiar cold. What might that be? It feels really good. His thoughts go deeper into the comic book. He feels the killer’s power inside of him, in his whole body. How wonderfully this man waves his knife and slides it into the woman’s body. The large man pulls it out again and stabs her repeatedly, her body red with blood. Tim feels an arousal in his body, but it’s not a horrible arousal. He feels something good. “This is something special,” he whispers.
A loud moaning tears his thoughts apart and drags Tim back into the real world. Anger arouses in him. “Can’t they ever shut up?” A part of him is still trapped in the story and so he flicks on.
Sophie sits smiling on her bed and looks lovingly in Bobby’s eyes. “I love you”, she just thinks those words. “Shall I tell him? What do I do if he laughs at me? I’d better wait.” Bobby kisses Sophie and then puts on his pants. He’s got to go now before the parents return. “What a wonderful evening”, Sophie is floating on air. Bobby sneaks out of the house without being seen.
Deep in the world of his comic book, Tim reads about the nameless masked murderer killing another dark-haired woman. With a huge machete, the mask killer works the woman’s arm until it comes off the body. Blood spurts from the fleshy stump. The woman screams in pain. Again Tim feels this pleasant feeling of joyful excitement. “Wow, what an adventure,” he thinks. Suddenly, sounds come from his sister’s room again. Tim is brutally torn out of the comic world, with his comforting, joyful feeling slowly changing into an annoyed rage. “Shut up already.” He sneaks to his room door and looks out as this guy stumbles down the stairs from his sister to leave the house. Tim doesn’t like this guy. He’s so obnoxious with his oily hair. “The masked man should get that one too.” His mind kept going round and round about his first murder. Again, noises started pounding in his head.
Sophie hums and sings in her room. She seems happy. “I’m tired of that singing.” The image of the first murder comes back to his mind. He remembers the large knife in the kitchen. His mother always uses it to cut the vegetables and other things she uses for cooking. He finds himself wondering whether it can be used to recreate that image from the comic book. This one thought alone makes his heart beat with joyful excitement. A diabolic grin appears on his face, which he now covers with the clown mask. Arriving down in the kitchen, he looks at the large knife block in the middle of the kitchen counter. Just look how it shines. This wonderful tool of death. The joyful excitement he felt while reading the comic book comes over him. How wonderful this feeling is. His right hand grasps the handle of the kitchen knife and pulls it from the block of wood. The knife is so bare that he can see his reflection. He looks into the clown mask, which seems to be his friend, and watches it move up and down in time with his breathing. “Wow, I’m him,” his mind was absolutely focused on the knife. He turns around and slowly walks up the stairs. At the top, he stops and looks down the long corridor into Sophie’s room. A trill penetrates his ears. “I hate it.” Slowly Tim puts one foot in front of the other.
The door of his sister’s room is getting increasingly closer. He feels this inner joy, this excitement he felt while immersed in his comic book. It’s wonderful. As if controlled by a foreign power, Tim opens the door to Sophie’s room. He looks at her as she brushes her hair and looks in the mirror. She hums her favorite song with joy and happiness. “Soon you’ll finally be quiet.” “Tim, what are you doing here?” asks Sophie. During the same second, the kitchen knife pierces her stomach. Tim feels how easily the knife slides into his sister’s body. Blood spurts from the wound and runs down Sophie’s legs. Sophie looks at the knife and then at Tim’s mask. “Why? What are you?” She tries to protect herself from her brother’s further stings by raising her arms. Tim stabs her once more, and then again and again and again. His sister tries to scream, but only a gurgling sound
comes out of her body. This silence, finally silence. And again he feels this joyful excitement. Self- satisfied and at peace with himself, he goes down the stairs and leaves the house, the bloody knife still in his hand. His parents are just coming back.
The father approaches the boy in his clown costume and takes the bloody knife. Under the clown mask, the face of a boy appears. But is this still the boy they left alone with his sister hours ago? Tim finds this screaming of his mother annoying. “When is she going to stop? Wait till I get my knife back!”
The mother runs into the house and calls for Sophie. She doesn’t answer. “Whatever, you stupid old woman,” Tim thinks. When he reaches the top, the mother sees a cruel picture. She screams and cries: “Sooophiiiiiiieeeee. Nooooo.”
The wind tugs at the leaves of the trees of this otherwise peaceful avenue again. They are blue leaves, illuminated by the flashing blue light of the police and ambulances, carried by the cries of a desperate mother who has just lost two children.
Philosophical and Psychological Analysis of A Comic at Halloween
1. The Thin Line Between Innocence and Darkness
A Comic at Halloween explores the fragile boundary between childhood innocence and the emergence of darker impulses. Tim, the protagonist, starts as an ordinary child engaging in a harmless Halloween tradition. However, through subtle psychological cues, the narrative shifts toward his gradual descent into violence. The story raises the unsettling question: Is evil innate, or is it cultivated through external influences and personal frustrations?
2. The Role of Media in Shaping Perception and Action
One of the most striking aspects of the story is Tim’s deep connection with the horror comic Tales from the Boogeyman. The graphic violence depicted in the book not only fascinates him but also seems to awaken something dormant within him. This mirrors long-standing debates about whether violent media influences behavior. While many argue that media alone does not create violent tendencies, it can act as a catalyst for those predisposed to psychological disturbances.
Tim does not just consume horror fiction—he internalizes it, allowing the killer’s persona to merge with his own identity. The story suggests that, under the right circumstances, the line between fiction and reality can blur dangerously, particularly in impressionable young minds.
3. The Psychological Profile of Tim: Early Signs of Psychopathy?
Tim exhibits several traits associated with early psychopathic behavior:
- Lack of empathy: He is indifferent to his sister’s well-being and sees her as an annoyance rather than family.
- Fascination with violence: He experiences pleasure while reading about violent acts, indicating a detachment from conventional moral frameworks.
- Escalating aggression: His initial irritation toward his sister transforms into a full-blown desire to silence her permanently.
While many children enjoy horror stories without adverse effects, Tim’s response suggests a predisposition toward violent ideation, which is exacerbated by external frustrations (his parents’ control, his sister’s dismissiveness, and his feelings of powerlessness).
4. The Power of Alienation and Suppressed Rage
Throughout the story, Tim is portrayed as a child with little agency. His desires are dismissed—his mother calls him back from trick-or-treating, his father disciplines him, and his sister belittles him. Each of these seemingly minor moments accumulates, feeding his growing resentment. The horror comic becomes an outlet where he vicariously experiences power and control, emotions otherwise denied to him in real life.
By the time Tim picks up the knife, the transition from fantasy to action is no longer a leap—it feels inevitable. The story presents an implicit warning about the dangers of emotional neglect and alienation, particularly in young minds that lack the maturity to process their frustrations constructively.
5. The Loss of Identity: Becoming the Mask
The use of the clown mask serves as a powerful psychological metaphor. Initially, it is part of his Halloween costume—a playful disguise. However, as Tim’s transformation unfolds, the mask ceases to be just an accessory; it becomes an extension of his inner world. When he finally looks at his reflection in the knife, he does not see himself—he sees the killer from his comic. This moment signifies the complete merging of his identity with the violent persona he has admired.
The story draws on the philosophical question of self and constructed identity: To what extent do we shape our own actions, and how much are we shaped by external narratives and expectations?
6. The Inevitable Tragedy: A Family Shattered
By the end, Tim has crossed an irreversible threshold. His sister’s murder is an assertion of control, a physical manifestation of the power he has craved. Yet, despite his newfound dominance, his satisfaction is fleeting. His mother’s screams irritate him rather than evoke guilt, signaling that he has lost any emotional connection to his family.
The final image of blue police lights flashing against the autumn leaves encapsulates the inescapable consequences of his actions. A once ordinary family is destroyed, and Tim himself is no longer just a child—he has become something else entirely.
7. Conclusion: The Horror of the Human Psyche
The true horror of A Comic at Halloween is not the violence itself, but the psychological realism behind it. Unlike supernatural horror, where external forces drive evil, this story roots terror in the human psyche. Tim is not possessed by a demon—he is consumed by his own subconscious desires.
The story forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth: darkness does not always come from the outside—it can grow from within.
A year has passed since that fateful Halloween night. But the story isn’t over. Behind the cold walls of the Evers & Evers mental hospital, Timmy’s thoughts are still haunted by blood and laughter. And when the doors open again, the nightmare will begin anew…
👉 Read the continuation: Short Story: Timmy – The Sequel to ‘A Comic at Halloween’
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