Behind the Scenes

I was inspired by old episodes of The Twilight Zone and my favorite spooky book series Goosebumps to write a short story for Halloween. I originally toyed with the idea that the story would end with Ethan asking Danny if they could drive to Tod's house and Danny would say, "Who?" But that felt a little too depressing. Even though I love a good butterfly effect, I wanted this story to end on a happy note.

Sounds

If you're curious about the sound of dial up that freaked Ethan out, click here (you may want to lower your volume, it's LOUD). Before WiFi, computers connected to the internet using a modem and a phone line. This was called dial-up. When you were online, nobody in your home could use the telephone. Broadband was the next step with faster connections like DSL and cable, and eventually we shifted completely to WiFi. Despite no longer needing a dedicated phone line to get online, AOL continued to use its classic login sound. AOL discontinued its dial up service in September 2025 after more than 30 years of operation.

Here are some other AOL Instant Messenger sounds. Nothing was worse than the sound of the door slamming when your crush logged off!

Smokey IRL

Smokey is the name of a real cat that I had growing up, but this story's version is based on my nearly 20 year old cat Abbie (named after Abbie Hoffman). She's a tortoiseshell with what I like to call lemur rings around her tail. Unlike the cat in this story, she is not very chill, but she does like to sleep a lot!

Music

I listened to this on repeat while writing, thanks to olliveen's incredible Halloween lab.


Thanks for reading! I hope you all have a safe and happy Halloween!
-K.D. Kemp