Spirit Halloween

It's been awhile since I updated! My computer's pretty broken and I've got another one coming in. Before, I would just use a student computer, but since I don't live next to the school and my account is finished, that's not a possibility. Nowadays, I just wait for my mostly-broken computer to be in a good mood. Even now, I have to worry that before I finish writing this, it will decide to start pulling up search bars and plug random combinations of letters and numbers until it drives itself crazy and shuts down.

(Edit: It started writing "vvvvvvvv" over and over and deleted half my post. Two days have passed and I've now started an account with the Kitchener Public Library and am finishing this on a public access computers. They only give thirty minutes as opposed to Guelph's full hour)

However, while my computer's behaviour is confirmed mysterious by my tech-savvy friend, I showed him my phone (which was giving all those strange suggestions) and it turns out that it was pulling suggestions from a combination of Afrikaans and another language that I forget. He re-set it to English.

I was at Conestoga Mall, where they have a shop called Spirit Halloween. As the name suggests, it is completely dedicated to the Halloween season. And apparently there's no Spirit Christmas or Spirit Easter. When the greeter greeted me, I asked her a number of redundant questions regarding whether or not it was a whole store dedicated to one holiday, and she kept saying it was.

There were these ornaments in the shape of spectres that would make some kind of motion if you stood on a button. My friend stepped on a zombie which made crawling motions at him. I stood on a button near a zombie girl, which made her sway back and forth.

I thought mine was a little unintimidating compared to my friend's zombie, and I said as much. I could appreciate th

(Edit: this is where my computer fried on me, I'm picking it up from here. And between my last edit and reviewing what I'd written two days ago, I overheard a librarian explain that the computers to my left give two full hours, and I just got unlucky and chose a half hour one)

the idea behind it, creating a sense of unease by depicting something pure like a young girl and combining it with something unnatural like a zombie. But the comparatively tame motion next to it's adult male counterpart still left it seeming a little uninspired. And I said as much.

Then it said "Help me... Please... Help me....". That gave me a chill. I could appreciate the way it appealed to the human desire to approach and help based on it's seeming fragility, combined with the urge to keep distance based on it's unnatural appearance, combined with appealing to the fear of the unknown as it urged you to question what it needed help from when it didn't seem in any evident danger.

I praised the little girl creature, and told my friend that I'd spoken too soon. My spectre was more frightening than his.

Then it flew at me.

Some of my friends like to jump out and surprise me, because it triggers an old Karate instinct and makes me bounce back into a fighting stance. It's probably not wise to provoke that, but there's some novelty in that I'm always battle ready.

But this girl... came at me in such a way that I couldn't perceive it as human motion. With my senses frazzled, I screamed, covered my face in my arms and jumped backwards off the button, deactivating it. The whole store was staring at me.

I haven't screamed in years. I didn't even know how I sounded when I screamed. I can't remember the last time I've been so terrified.

After we walked away, a staff member came and stood on the button in front of the zombie girl (presumably to test and see if it was too frightening for public display after my fit). Looking at it from afar and knowing what to expect, I was slightly humiliated to see that the girl doesn't really move all that much when she jumps at you. She just kind of lurches forward.

Worst part was when some young boys told me to try out a giant tarantula ornament, telling me that I'd think it was "cool". I guessed that it was going to jump at me too, and they were just trying to get me again thinking that I might be vulnerable to jumpers after my previous display.

I was right. Without the aspect of surprise, the gimmick has no potency though.