We’re starting off day three of the 2026 Halloween Flash Fiction event with some returning favorites, Julia Talbot and BA Tortuga, who bring us a heartwarming short.
Hey, y’all! Happy Halloween! So excited to be back this year to do the Halloween short! It shows a picture of a set of old keys hanging on the wall. Because my wife and I both have a big feels about old keys, and my wife helped me write this one. I hope you guys love this, because I had a ball writing it up. If you like my stuff, check out my website at http://www.juliatalbot.com, or my direct web store with my wife www.spursandshifters.com. Be sure to check out my socials and my newsletter link on my website.
Hugs, Julia (and BA)
The Keys to the House
By BA Tortuga and Julia Talbot
“Babe, we don’t even have the keys yet.”
Markus turned the full force of his glare, which admittedly wasn’t much, on his soon to be hubby Elijah. “The realtor said she was leaving them on the hook inside the screened in front porch. She had to go to another appointment.”
Elijah stared at the sagging stairs and the drooping screens of the porch. “It’s definitely a fixer-upper.”
“We wanted that.” They were going to buy their first house, and they had both worked in fixer-up friendly jobs—Elijah in construction, him in cleaning and restoration— so this house was perfect. Even if Elijah was a fireman now.
“Yes, babe, but damn. This place is…the price better be amazing.” Elijah shook his head. “And it better have good bones.”
“The price is great.” At least the offer their realtor put together was. He just had to convince Elijah, who was way less impulsive than he was. “And wait until you see the staircase.” She’d been a painted lady once, this house, out in the wilds of miner country in Colorado. She even had a turret.
And he wanted it.
He wanted to make her the beauty she had been once upon a time.
He could convince Elijah. He knew it. Hell, the house could convince him.
Markus grabbed the keys off the hook. They were the old kind with the loops on one end, all ornate but rusty. “Will you look at this?”
“It’s wild. This house doesn’t scream ‘I need a ring camera’ does it?” Elijah laughter bounced wildly around the porch. “Well, come on. I want to take you to the midnight showing of Halloween.”
“Cool!” He loved scary movies. Seriously. He opened the front door, which gave a satisfying creak when he tugged it.
The house smelled musty and a little rough, but he didn’t smell urine or that distinct scent of rodent. That was a plus. And there was no water damage in the soaring foyer. Score.
Then there was a click, a creak, and then a slamming door.
Elijah blinked. “Babe? What’s that?”
“Uh. Maybe someone left a window open to air the place out? Might have blown an door closed…” Likely as anything. Marcus wasn’t sure he believed it, but you know, he was gonna go with it.
Elijah gave him a super-skeptical look. “I don’t know if I believe that, babe. Go get my baseball bat out of the car.”
“And leave you in here by yourself? No way. Markus was not gonna leave Elijah in there if there was some ax murderer in the house.
“Just do it, babe, please.” When Elijah got that tone, Markus didn’t argue.
Marcus gave Elijah a look. “Okay, but don’t go any further into the house.” The foyer had a lot to look at anyway. It was dusty and full of debris, but the scarlet staircase looked like it was mostly intact, and it was this beautiful big spiral thing with all of these carved newel posts and railings. He pretty much salivated over what he could do with that.
Reluctantly, he turned to go outside. Elijah didn’t keep a baseball bat in his car because he was a psycho who thought he was going to get attacked all the time. He kept it because he played recreational league baseball for the fire department. He always had a ball, a glove, and a bat at least.
When he walked back into the house, he panicked completely because Elijah was nowhere to be seen. “Baby? Where are you? You’re freaking me out. Where are you? I have a baseball bat. If anybody’s hurting Elijah, I’m gonna kick your ass.”
“In here, babe.” The noise seemed to come from the formal parlor, which was off to the right, and it had a great big arched doorway with columns on either side. He thought it might also have pocket doors that slid in and out from the walls.
“You sound a little stressed, baby.” He crept into the room, but he was relieved to find Elijah standing there by himself. He was not relieved to notice that Elijah looked pale, and that his hands were shaking.
“What is it?” He turned in a full circle trying to see if somebody was in there with them, or if maybe a wild animal is cornered over by the fireplace or something.
“Look.” The word came out very softly, and Elijah pointed to the floor in front of the fireplace, where ash and dust had built up from years of the wind blowing down the chimney.
He drew in a sharp breath, his eyes going wide, because what he saw, where Elijah pointed, were words written in a scrolling, antique-looking script right there in the dust.
The bat fell from his nerveless fingers, and he reached out and grabbed Elijah’s hand. They stood there clutching each other, staring at the words.
They read simply, “Welcome home.”
Check out the Kick-off post HERE to see the full list of authors participating in our 2026 Halloween Flash Fiction Blog Event. Links will be added to the main post at the end of each day. Each post will include the inspiration image from an UnSplash creator, the story, and any contest/giveaway info.
And don’t forget to interact with each post! Let us know what you love about the stories, or what scares you about them! Did the world “enchant” you?
Each meaningful comment on event story posts will be an entry into the overall HFF event contest for a $10 Bookish Giftcard!! (See the kickoff post for full contest details.)
Good Luck, and Happy Reading!
After Quentin is horribly injured in a kidnapping, he heads for the Barn, an exclusive club in the Alaskan wilderness that he and his husband co-own with some good friends, to recover. And to hide from the world.
Also to ask for a divorce. He can’t cope with the way his husband, and the only man who makes him want to be vulnerable, looks at him these days. He can’t bear to see pity in Frost’s eyes.
Smokejumper Frost Kelly wants his husband back. He knows he’ll take Q any way he can get him. He doesn’t care if Q is in a wheelchair, or if he always has to use arm crutches to walk. He just wants them to be okay again. So he take time off work, even though it’s fire season, and goes to the Barn to coax Q into living his life.
The two of them have never lost their fire for each other, but they have to work through a lot of guilt and fear, and then deal with Frost going back to a dangerous job, before they might even see if they can make it work. Will they be able to find a new way forward or will they be stuck in the past?
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Julia Talbot lives in the great Southwest with her wife and three basset hounds. A full-time author, Julia writes paranormals, historicals, and sports romance with lots of love and action, and, as her alter ego Minerva Howe, she writes mpreg and alpha/omega stories. She believes that everyone deserves a happy ending, so she writes about love without limits, where love stretches across all eras and genders and tropes.
