As I strolled down the street, my heels thunking eerily on the wet cobblestones, I heard a difference in the background noise of the night that sent shivers down my spine. Normally, I could always hear the laughter coming from the bars in this area of town, people having fun, competing at pool, and generally laughing it up on a Monday night.

Tonight, however, was different, as I approached my favorite watering hole, the Lizzard Inn.

The door creaked as usual when I put my weight against it, but the echo of that creak sounded louder than usual. Normally, it was drowned in myriads of laughter, if not softened by their clothes. Tonight, however, it peeled earily between the walls before coming to rest.

"Mike? Are you open?"

I've never had to ask that question. Of course he was open. He was never closed. Even during the wee hours of that Tuesday morning long ago, when my wife announced her decision to divorce me, Mike was open, and I downed my third hard drink of my life sometime around 4am. He stayed up with me, he did, as I nursed an ache that never went away.

Tonight, however, there was a new ache, as Mike was nowhere to be found.

I strolled around behind the bar, thinking perhaps he'd simply gone to get some things, and poured myself a cold Guiness.

Liquid bread.

Mmm...

After cleaning up the bar, I began policing the tables, and was mostly finished when Mike walked in.

He didn't look himself. In fact, he was scared witless.

"Mike, are you all right?"

"It's them," he replied, his stare a thousand yards long and vacant has hell itself. "They've come."

"Who's come, Mike?" I asked, but all I could get out of him was "them."

I shivered, and poured myself a shot of Drambui, giving Mike two. He needed it.

About three more shots later, Mike began to talk.

"They came."

"Who came, Mike?"

"Them."

"Who's them, Mike?"

"The ones who came through the door."

Clearly, I wasn't about to get any details about "them," so I tried a different tact.

"What happened after they came through the door?"

"They lead us away," Mike replied.

"Where?"

"To the pasture out back."

"Why did you follow them?" I asked, confident in Mike's ability to take care of himself.

For the first and only time that night, Mike looked straight into my eyes for three haunting moments and said, "We followed them because we had to."

It didn't make sense, but Mike averted my gaze, and I let the matter rest.

"Mike," I said gently. "Where's everyone else?"

"Gone," he replied.

"Gone where?" I asked, still not understanding.

"Just, gone," he reiterated.

By this point, he was really scaring me. People in a bar don't just vanish, and the bartender doesn't just appear out of nowhere. This wasn't right, by any stretch of the imagination.

"Mike, how many people were here tonight?" I asked, hoping he'd say none.

"I don't know. Thirty. Perhaps fifty."

I gulped.

"And all of them are 'gone' like you said?"

"Yeah," Mike replied. "Gone."

"Where did they go, Mike?"

He didn't answer. He simply stared into his drink for about twenty seconds, before responding, "there."

There. Ok, there I had it - it was there. They'd all gone "there."

I knew I was beginning to lose my patience, if not my sanity, when I said, "What the hell kind of an answer is that, Mike? What does "there" mean? Where is "there?" Where are our friends, Mike?"

His long stare into nothingness said it all. Mike, who could never be shaken by anything, was clearly disturbed to the depths of his soul. Chills began building down my spine as I began to realize something was wrong with the world. Terribly wrong. I began looking for a way out, wanting to run, to dive through a window, to do anything to get out of this place. The silence was deafening. I heard myself begin to shout "no, No!" over and over. I ran from door to door, locking them all, the windows too, before shuffling back over to Mike, who just sat there, his thousand-yard stare haunting me, as drool dripped from his lower lip.

"You're next," he said.

"Wh-what?" I asked, trembling with fear.

"They took them all," he said. "But they didn't take you."

At that time, Mike looked into my eyes for a second time that night, and in his eyes I caught the horror and fear of what had happened, but I caught something else - the menace, the harm he intended.

"No, Mike - don't!" I cried, as he slowly stood from his chair, and moved towards me. "NO! Mike!"

About this time, unbeknownst to me, someone had snuck up behind us, and went....

MMMUUUUHHAAAHHAAAHAAAHAAA!!!!!

He was joined by all the bar patrons streaming in from the downstairs rooms (which I'd forgotten to check), and Mike, eyes streaming with tears of laughter, gave me the biggest hug of my life, before saying "Happy Halloween, my friend!"

That was last year.

Wonder what's up this year...