The Last Frame

The night before Halloween in the town of Millbrook was always a strange one. For as long as anyone could remember, ‘Cabbage Night’—as the locals called it—was a time when teenagers would sneak out and pull pranks, from soaping windows to stringing toilet paper through trees. But for my friends and me, it was more about the thrill of being out past midnight, watching the quiet town hum with hidden chaos. We never did much ourselves. Too nervous, I guess. But the next morning, we’d walk to school and marvel at the carnage: a parked car covered in shaving cream, a garden gnome perched on a mailbox, the statue of the town founder wearing a traffic cone like a hat. It felt like the town itself was alive with secrets.

That year—when I was in seventh grade—my friend Delia convinced her cousin, Marcus, to join us. Marcus was a year older and had a reputation for being reckless, the kind of kid who’d ding-dong-ditch the grumpy old librarian just to see her chase him with a broom. That night, we met at the dead end of Maple Street, where the streetlight flickered like a dying firefly. Delia had brought a bag of sparklers and a pack of small fireworks, and we lit them in the middle of the road, the sparks hissing and popping against the asphalt. Marcus took out his phone and started snapping pictures, laughing at our attempts to write our names in the air with the sparklers. But I noticed something odd: every time he took a photo, the flash seemed to linger a second too long, and the shadows cast by the trees seemed to stretch toward him.

“C’mon, let’s go to the old Pembrook house,” Marcus said, stuffing his phone in his pocket. The Pembrook house was a decrepit Victorian at the edge of town, rumored to be haunted. We’d always dared each other to go near it but never had the guts. Delia and I exchanged nervous glances, but Marcus was already walking, his silhouette swallowed by the darkness. “Chickens,” he called back, and that was enough. We followed, our footsteps crunching on fallen leaves.

The house loomed before us, its windows like hollow eyes, the porch sagging under years of neglect. Marcus pushed the front door open without hesitation—it swung inward with a groan—and we stepped into a foyer thick with dust and the smell of decay. Moonlight filtered through broken windowpanes, casting pale stripes across the floor. Marcus pulled out his phone again and began taking pictures, the flash illuminating peeling wallpaper and furniture draped in white sheets. “This place is perfect,” he said, giggling.

Then he stopped. He stared at his phone, his face pale. “What?” Delia asked. Marcus turned the screen toward us. The photo showed the parlor behind him, but in the corner, there was a figure—a tall, gaunt shape, darker than the shadows. “I didn’t see that,” he whispered. “It’s just a shadow,” I said, my voice shaky. But we all knew. He took another photo, and this time the figure appeared closer, its head tilted as if curious. With each flash, it moved. And then, without a word, Marcus turned and ran. We chased after him, bursting through the front door, not stopping until we reached the safety of Delia’s driveway, breathless and trembling.

We never told anyone what we saw, and we never talked about it again. The next day, Marcus wouldn’t answer his phone, and when we went to his house, his mom said he was sick. But that Halloween, something strange happened. I was scrolling through the photos Marcus had posted online from that night—the ones of us with sparklers, the ones in the house. In the last photo, taken just before he ran, the figure was standing right next to him, almost touching him. And in the photo, Marcus’s eyes were wide, his mouth open, his hand reaching out—but the look on his face wasn’t terror. It was a kind of horrible awe, as if he had just seen something beautiful.

I didn’t sleep that night. A week later, Marcus was still “sick.” I finally worked up the courage to call him. The phone rang, and a voice answered—but it wasn’t Marcus. It was a low, rasping voice, speaking words I couldn’t understand. I hung up, my heart pounding. I never saw Marcus again. His family moved away, and no one knew where. But sometimes, on the night before Halloween, I look through those photos again. The last frame haunts me more than the others: Marcus’s reflection in a cracked mirror behind him, showing not his face, but the gaunt figure’s smile. And I know that the mischief night took something from him, and it’s still out there, waiting for another foolish kid to snap a picture of the dark.