Collection · 14 riddles
On Halloween night, costumes and decorations make appearances harder to trust. These original dark riddles are set on 31 October and stay here to read all year round. The rules.
14 riddles
Halloween Night · ★★☆
Every 31 October a man sets the same 11 figures out on his front lawn; two of them move when children come near. Four times during the evening he goes back out to refill the sweet bowl. In the morning he comes to fetch them with the wheelbarrow, two at a time. He counts 12, and he has bought nothing this year. What happened?
Halloween Night · ★★☆
A man turns up at the village fancy dress party as a boxer: gloves round his neck, a purple swelling on his temple, one eye that does not quite follow the other. Best makeup of the night, no contest. He drinks, he laughs, he dances heavily. At 11 they call his name; he does not stand up, and the room applauds. Why?
Halloween Night · ★★☆
Her son comes home with a full bag. As she does every year, she tips it all out on the table and counts: forty. She sets one aside, out of his reach, and spends the rest of the evening ringing doorbells along the street. The next day four families thank her. What happened?
Halloween Night · ★★☆
Outside number 8 a man has set up a folding table against the gate. He is handing out full-size bars, not sweets, and by eight o'clock the whole street knows it. The queue lasts until eleven at night. He has bought 200 bars and he does not live there. Not one child gets as far as the door. Why?
Halloween Night · ★★☆
At midnight, 120 people dance upstairs in an old barn, and the floor holds. By three, only twenty remain, half of them seated. During the final song the floor collapses, killing one person. An engineer finds sound timber and far fewer people than earlier. How?
Halloween Night · ★★☆
At a Halloween party in a cellar, thirty guests dance beside a cauldron spilling white mist across the floor. Later, three are found unconscious nearby: a girl asleep on cushions, a man who lay down, and the dog. The dancers are still on their feet. What happened?
Halloween Night · ★★☆
An 82-year-old man goes missing on a Tuesday. Sixty volunteers, two dogs and a helicopter comb the parish for three days: nothing, and he does not answer when they call his name. On the evening of the 31st, three ten-year-olds walk him home alive. They were not looking for him, and they went exactly where the search had already been. What happened?
Halloween Night · ★☆☆
On the morning of 1 November a dog is at the emergency vet with chocolate poisoning. The night before, the parents counted their son's haul and locked it in the kitchen cupboard; the key never left the father's pocket. The cupboard is untouched. Nobody else came into the house. What happened?
Halloween Night · ★★☆
The 31st, in a hospital A&E waiting room: costumes everywhere and fake blood on half the people. A triage nurse walks past a man drenched in red who is howling, and takes a silent young man straight through whose costume carries one stain the size of a coin. The first man will put in a complaint. She was right. Why?
Halloween Night · ★★★
On 1 November 400 costumes come back to the hire shop: torn, stained, always with something missing. One arrives by post, without a note, washed and pressed and as good as new, and its customer will never claim his deposit. The owner sets it aside and calls the police. Why?
Halloween Night · ★★☆
Overnight on the 31st, four houses in the same street are burgled. The police interview 50 neighbours: nobody saw anything out of the ordinary. Yet the whole street saw the burglar, some of them more than once, and a dozen of them gave him something. How is that possible?
Halloween Night · ★★★
An unidentified woman found in the woods lies in an unnamed grave. For three years, a man with no known link to her leaves flowers there. In the fourth year he asks a mason to carve a first name. Days later, the police arrest him for her murder. What did the name change?
Halloween Night · ★☆☆
On the evening of the 31st a man falls at home, breaks his hip and cannot get up; his phone is in the other room. His window stands wide open over a street full of people. He shouts for help for three hours. Dozens of people hear him. Nobody comes up, and nobody in that street behaved badly. Why?
Halloween Night · ★☆☆
On the morning of 1 November a woman takes scissors to the decoration she had spent three hours stringing between the two birches at her gate. She puts a piece of it in a cardboard box, gets in the car and drives 25 miles. She leaves with the box and comes home without it. She bought nothing and called on no one she knows. Why?
