It's The Toad King's Halloween Story Spectacular!

The tree stood black. Black as if the very soul of it
had been stolen by angry devils from an infernal
abyss. It was a cold October day, October 31 to be
exact. Given that date, the manor in which the tree
stood should come as no surprise. After all, on
Halloween, anything from the dark side of the
imaginative spectrum is eligible for manifestation in
our, the mortal, realm.
In this particular tree lived an imp by the name of
Wilbur. “Wilbur?” you ask? Not an impish-enough name
for you? Well, fine. The imp’s name was Aleister. Is
Aleister suitable? Good, then. Let’s continue our
tale.
Now it just so happens that upon the day previously
mentioned (Halloween for our goldfish readers who
can’t seem to remember), that Aleister and his tree
materialize in our world, along with thousands upon
thousands of other spirits, monsters, and
politicians…err, I mean demons. (The difference?
Anyone?) So, it was on this day that Aleister decided
to embark on some impish fun. Now, think about this
for a moment, if you only had one day a year on Earth,
wouldn’t you want to spend it having fun? I thought
so. Now, as to what kind of fun Aleister would be
pursuing, he had already made up his wretched little
mind. He would eat children.
I know what you’re thinking, “How awful!” and so on.
But let me assure you that children are a very large
annoyance, especially to demonic Hell-spawn like
Aleister (I use the term “Hell-spawn” as it’s what you
mortals are accustomed to. Aleister was not actually
from Hell, but from a much more horrible plane of
existence that coincidentally was called Michigan.
Weird, huh?) Anyway, human children had been proven by
the Infernal Council of Michigan to be the single
greatest threat to the known universe. This was the
reason Aleister had chosen to spend his one free day a
year eating the little beasts.
“I smells children, I do”, hissed a patient Aleister.
He had been hiding in the branches of his tree all day
and was ready for delicious child-meat. Just as the
words came out of his fanged, salivating mandibles,
two young male children walked out into the clearing
in the woods where the tree stood.
“Look at that tree!” shouted one of them.
“Neato!” proclaimed the other. (Who the Michigan says
“neato”?)
The children were standing a good 10 feet away from
the tree and were staring in awe at it’s black bark
and monstrous size.
“I bet I can climb it!” boasted the first child.
“Nuh-uh, you wish”, replied the second.
“Fine, Mr. No-it-all, you just wait and watch me climb
the tree”.
“Go right ahead”, insisted the skeptic.
So the first boy approached the tree hesitantly, and
then, upon reaching it’s massive trunk, began to
climb.
“Children are so damn stupid, no wonder they’re the
biggest threat to the Universe”, thought Aleister, “If
too many of them got some stupid idea stuck in their
heads, it’d be the end of the universe for sure”.
The boy had a reached a rather large branch. He sat on
it, taking a break from the agonizing climb. He had
chosen this branch because it was on the far side of
the tree and this way his friend wouldn’t be able to
see him gasping for breath.
Too bad you won’t make it to the top, little boy,
thought Aleister. With that, Aleister sprang into
action. He grabbed the boy with his long, black claws.
The boy began to scream at the top of his lungs. But
it was too late; there was nothing anyone could do now
to save him. Aleister swallowed the boy with one
enormous bite, he would never be heard from again.
Now you may be wondering what the other boy was doing
during all of this. Hmmm….I wonder. He heard his
friend screaming and like an intelligent decision
maker got the Hell out of dodge. He ran back to his
house where he would be killed by a burglar who was
stealing his families’ silverware, which, ironically,
was brand new, as they had just thrown away the last
of their plastic sporks the day before and decided to
spring for some new, logical utensils. Even more
ironically was that if he had stayed at the tree, no
harm would have befallen him as Aleister had just
decided that human children taste horrible and that he
would spend the rest of the day writing poetry about
death and how pointless his life was.
But what became of Aleister, you ask? Upon the stroke
of midnight, he and his tree faded away out of our
world and back to Michigan, where Aleister decided he
hated more than the taste of children. He committed
suicide and everyone lived happily ever after…wait a
minute, nobody lived happily ever after, except for
your humble narrator who just wasted an hour of his
time writing this damn story you probably hated
anyway. Be honest. Eh? Eh? Oh, you’re no fun!

-The Toad King