Angel/Devil House:This house has a lot of conflicting designs - maybe they couldn’t agree on how to decorate this year? Angels decorate one half of the yard, standing out with lots of gold and white decorations that seem to shimmer in the dim lighting. On the other side of the yard devil decorations are posed running around and causing mischief - digging up plants, taunting the angels, and throwing their heads back in silent laughter. Out of the corner of your eye you see movement and nearly jump - a small puppy has run from the devil side of the yard and pounced on one of the angel decorations! The pup shakes its head, sending pieces of the angel across the yard, and the halo rolls to a stop at your feet. When the puppy notices you standing on the walkway it instantly looks ashamed of itself, dropping what’s left of the angel decoration before slinking slowly up to your side and gives you the best puppy dog eyes you’ve ever seen.
The Demons HouseThe demons house is bathed in red light with flames projected on the front. You’re not sure if any skeletons were ‘borrowed’ from the skeleton house, but they’re abundant in this yard as well, although most wield sticks shaped like pitchforks. Fog rolls in from one corner of the yard and you see a large demon’s head emerging from under the curtain of mist. It looks to be a rather large, carved pumpkin with some white paint on it and some twisting, knotted wood for horns. A skeletal hand reaches out from behind the fog and grasps a large black and red plastic pitchfork. You turn to the front steps only to see a puppy playing with the bowl of candy, using their nose and paws to tilt it. The bowl falls over, scattering candy over the front steps and the puppy runs off with the bowl proudly carried in its mouth.
The Full Moon HouseThis house has its yard decorated with a number of moons, including a large moon projected on the front of the house. A corner of the yard is decorated like the moon’s surface, complete with dusty white stones, a small American flag, and a little rover. Fittingly it is across the street from the werewolf house. There’s a small puppy sitting on the front steps by one of the carved pumpkins staring at the actual moon overhead. You try to engage with them but they move away, changing where they are sitting so they can keep staring at the moon.
The Ghost HouseYou can hear the fluttering of cloth as you approach the ghost house. There’s a number of ghosts set up across the yard, swinging from the trees, dancing around a lamppost, and even one going back and forth on a zipline. You’re not sure how many bedsheets were sacrificed to fill the yard with the ghost decorations, but it was definitely a large number. As you look at the various ghost decorations, movement in the corner of your eye catches your attention and you look up to see one of the ghost decorations has run across the yard and disappeared into the bushes. Was that a puppy?
The Nighttime HouseThe nighttime house is placed next to the full moon house and is covered in strings of glowing lights to look like stars. As you watch the lights change intensity in random patterns, giving the impression of twinkling stars. There’s a few planets hanging from trees as well, and you can clearly see Jupiter from the street. While looking for the other planets you see a cluster of stars start to move on their own, and you can just make out a limber puppy moving through the strings of lights, hopping over them and crawling under them with ease.
The Skeleton HouseThe yard of this house is filled with all kinds of skeletons and bones- there is a tall skeleton standing by the front door with a bowl of candy, an even taller skeleton that towers over the yard whose head reaches the second story windows of the house, tombstones with skeletal arms and legs reaching out from the ground, and a number of bones and skulls scattered across the yard. As you walk past a parked car there’s even a couple of skeletons in the driver and passenger seats. Movement catches the corner of your eye and you see one of the skulls on the front lawn rise into the air before making a beeline for one of the shallow graves with scattered bones. You approach to find a small puppy digging in the dirt, trying to bury a few bones.
The Spirits HouseSomething about this house is unnerving. At first glance there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of decorations, but as you approach the house a light flashes, illuminating spectral shapes hanging in the trees and bushes. You can hear the flutter of tattered cloth in the breeze as you inspect them - they’ve been cleverly painted with a grey reflective paint that blends in well with the dark landscaping but appears white when the light flashes. As you turn back to the house you jump backwards, startled as a puppy has somehow quietly appeared next to you while you were looking at the decorations. You let out a nervous chuckle, shaking your head, but when you look back down to pet the puppy, it has disappeared. Looking around to try to figure out where the puppy went only to find it watching you from
inside the house, how did it get in there?
The Vampire HouseThe first thing you notice as you approach the vampire house is a puppy running around and trying to catch the various bat decorations swinging in the wind. The yard is scattered with a number of bats hanging from trees and a few life-sized vampires, including what looks to be a mannequin dressed in old-fashioned clothing, a cloak, and pointed teeth resting in a coffin. You stop to look closely at the mannequin only to feel a sharp nip at your ankle - ouch! Looking down you see a puppy attached to your pant leg. You shoo it off, and it goes back to a pile of rather slobbery bat decorations it has been able to catch and chew on.
The Werewolf HouseFittingly the werewolf house is placed across the street from the full moon house. Various decorations of canine, human, and combinations of the two decorate this yard. One of the decorations moves - transforming from a four-legged canine to a standing werewolf. The decoration throws its head back in a jerky motion and gives an electronic howl, which is then joined by a very real howl from behind you. Spinning around you spot a rather large puppy sitting on the walkway behind you, who seems amused by your reaction. The pup saunters off into the shadows of the yard, but you can see their eyes reflecting from the lights of the full moon house across the street as they watch you.
The Zombie HouseThis house has a creative take on zombies and brains - there’s shadowy figures in tattered clothes with pumpkin heads posed eating the insides of pumpkins scattered on the ground. Fog from the demons house has spilled into this yard, reducing some of the propped-up pumpkin zombies into vaguely imposing humanoid shapes in the mist. Some of the pumpkins on the ground have clothes spread out behind them, and they all have frightened expressions carved into their faces. As you approach the front steps something collides with the back of your knee, and you look down to see a puppy hopping along with a rather large bone in its mouth, no doubt a treasure taken from the skeleton yard.
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