“Never Too Old to Dance” was inspired by Hampshire Writers’ Society’s prompt to “In 300 words: Write a haunted house story, maximising character agency of the house as the protagonist.” You can read the winning entries, two written by my friends Jena Brown and Matt Gorgans, here.
I love a good party. The bass, more force than sound, expanding inside my drywall like the heartbeat I once had. The bodies filling my belly with heat, and saving on the gas bill. And the Halloween décor. My darling Violet has strung my porch in orange lights, cocooned my stair rail in spiderwebs, and placed carved pumpkins in my windows.
Violet is dressed in an emerald flapper dress—my dress—whose black beads glittered like hidden treasure when she opened the attic trunk. She’s sipping apple cider spiked with bourbon, courtesy of me (I resisted the turn of her mother’s key in the liquor cabinet’s lock). And she’s giggling with a dashing boy dressed as James Bond.
A Monster Mash remix thumps from my speakers as I coax Violet and 007 onto my hardwood dancefloor, along with a costumed robot dancing the robot when….
A jolt passes through my landline; Henrietta, the spirit haunting the house next door, communicating in electric impulses. I translate the dots and dashes. NOISE COMPLAINT.
I shut off the speaker, cut the lights.
Red and blue blur outside my windows.
A car door slams. A fist delivers three sharp knocks. Ouch.
“Open up, kids!”
Hinges creaking like in a horror movie, I open my front door. The cop peers into the darkness, and I blast my air conditioning, lifting his hat in a whoosh of cold air.
He stumbles back.
I slam my door shut.
After the screech of his tires fades, I flicker on the lights. Violet and 007 are hiding behind the same armchair—ah, young love! I crank the Monster Mash until they dance, until I tremble with the deep, pulsing bass.
Until I feel alive.