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On Halloween, children dress in costumes and collect candy from their neighbors. At each house the little zombies, princesses and superheroes yell "trick or treat!" Halloween, October thirty-first, is also a time for scary stories. For the fourth year in a row, our own Caty Weaver has written an original horror story. It's called "Innocence Burned." Here is Christopher Cruise. It was raining again. It always seemed to be raining in Sephul County. The people rarely enjoyed a blue sky. The sky was usually gray, like ash. And it was a big sky that hung like a huge ash-colored dome over the open prairie land. Carrie Thead was walking home. Her husband, Caleb, and two sons, Sam and Stuart, were waiting for her. She was passing the ruins of a chapel. The building had burned a long time ago -- a long, long time ago, back in the seventeen hundreds. What remained of it now leaned sideways. The angle was such that it made you dizzy to look at. It bothered her that the county government just left it there – dark and hollow. A shadow of a holy place. Carrie shivered and walked even faster. For some reason it always felt a little hard to breathe when she passed the blackened ruins of the chapel. It was like the structure had sucked in all the air around it. Six people had died in the fire. Six others were badly burned but survived. Another six escaped without a single injury. But they suffered in a different way. A heavy wooden beam had fallen in their way. They could not help their friends and loved ones escape the fire. They were an audience to horror. | 
