Treat or treat

During the eerie days of social distancing, Halloween had taken on a strange new form. Bowls of candy sat on porches, inviting trick-or-treaters to take what they wanted without knocking. But Margaret had a different plan that night.

Draped in an oversized sheet, she wandered through the quiet neighborhood, her sneakers silent on the pavement. Underneath the sheet, she felt a gnawing hunger, but it wasn’t the usual kind. Something strange had gripped her this year, something that had her craving candy in a way she couldn’t explain.

At the first house, she snatched the entire bowl and tore into it, the sweet taste of chocolate melting in her mouth. She moved quickly, swallowing candy after candy. By the third house, her body began to change. Her stomach swelled first, pushing against the waistband of her pants, but something else was happening too—her chest, rising and growing fuller with every sugary bite.

She felt her chest press tightly against her bra, the fabric struggling to contain her expanding bust. Her pants, already tight, became unbearable. She ducked behind a tree and, with a huff, yanked them off, tossing her shoes aside with a grunt. Now, free from the restricting clothes, she continued her feast, barely noticing how much her chest had grown, stretching the sheet awkwardly.

As she devoured more candy, her belly swelled like a balloon, gurgling loudly beneath the thin sheet. It sloshed and groaned with each step, her once ghostly appearance becoming more absurd as her body expanded. The sheet crept higher up her stomach, revealing the taut, round flesh beneath. Her chest had grown so large that the fabric now hung awkwardly off her, stretched tight around her bust, leaving more and more of her belly exposed.

“Glorp…” Her stomach made an unsettling noise, loud and deep. She paused, clutching her now-bloated middle, feeling her belly churn beneath her hands. Her navel stretched outward, red and tight like a button about to pop. Her chest, too, felt swollen, the sheet barely hanging on as her belly gurgled louder.

She stumbled toward the next house, but her gut protested with another *glorp*. The candy, all of it, sat heavy inside her, and her belly groaned like an engine struggling to start. Her steps slowed as her bloated stomach wobbled with every move, her chest heaving with the effort of carrying it all.

Finally, she couldn’t go any farther. Margaret collapsed onto a patch of grass beneath a tree, her belly protruding out from under the sheet, gurgling and groaning like it had a mind of its own. Her chest was swollen and heavy, the sheet stretched tightly over her body as she lay there, too stuffed to move.

For years after, the neighborhood whispered about the strange figure who had haunted Halloween that night—the ghost with the groaning stomach. They told stories about how, if you listened carefully, you could hear her belly gurgling in the distance, her swollen figure wandering the streets, still hungry, still searching for more candy.