Mischief Night

He’d had enough. After years of toilet paper in trees and eggs smashed on the walkway and bags of flaming dog poop he had finally hit his limit. Apparently his live and let live philosophy wasn’t enough for these maggots. He knew what they wanted, they’d told him in their lists of demands. It all boiled down to the same damned thing: candy.
He couldn’t understand why he was obligated to provide candy to people he had no relation to, no interest in and who had never done anything for him. Because of some archaic ritual that, like so many others celebrated every year, had altered so much from its original form as to be unrecognizable. It was a poor excuse to hold someone’s house ransom.
It had taken him a long time to figure out how he was going to get back at them. The neighborhood kids weren’t terribly original with their ideas for torment and he wanted, if at all possible, to prove his chicanery superior to theirs.
In the end had actually been one of the neighborhood bullies that gave him the idea after he’d observed him pelt a friend of his with small balls filled with paint shot at high velocity from a gun. A small amount of research led him to uncover that this device was called a paintball gun, apparently from an entire “sport” based on the idea of reliving epic battles without fear of death. This ‘sport’ was apparently so popular that there was a supply store not too far from him.
So he went, he invested far more than he ever would have if he weren’t driven by revenge, and he purchased himself a small but high powered paintball gun. He had guestimated the size limitations looking at the rifle before purchasing it and was delighted to find that standard sized sour balls would fit perfectly. As he loaded up his gun that Halloween morn he happily thought to himself ‘If it’s candy they want, it’s candy they’ll get!”