The finger in the biscuit jar

‘And this is how 

you end up in jail.’

The gardens were full of carved pumpkins, the streets were full of children in cotsumes. And now his porch was full of «TRICK OR TREAT!» for the eleventh time of the evening (he had counted, because his television was broken and he was incredibly bored).
«Ugh, I hate Halloween...» He dragged himself along the corridor and went to the kitchen, so as not to be seen by the little buggers. He decided he would drink a cup of tea, eat a couple of biscuits, and then go to bed. And if the bloody kids were to ring the bell again, he would take his Boogey Man dummy out on its chair, and that would do the trick. He had almost gotten arrested two years before because of that dummy, but he had made a group of kids cry, and he still thought it had been totally worth it.
The water was boiling. He poured it on the chamomille tea bag, added a bit of sugar, and grabbed the biscuit jar. «Halloween is stupid anyway, just a bunch of small fry getting so much into the spirit of the holiday that they end up being scared of their own shadows. You and I are not scared of anything, are we, Basker?» the big brown hound was not able to answer (precisely because it was a dog) but if it had been, it would have explained to its owner that, no matter how huge it was, it was in reality the dumbest creature on earth and had actually almost been scared to death by the noise of its bowl against its claw, no more than an hour before that. «No we’re not, we’re absolut- » his hand had just touched something at the bottom of his biscuit jar. And it was not a biscuit, he was absolutely sure about that. He slowly took the unidentified object out of the tin. If he didn’t vomit, it was probably because he was too busy being completely blown away by what he was holding. A tiny, child-sized, and also completely wizen, finger. «Well now, what do you think about that, Basker? A finger... In my biscuit jar. It was not there yesterday, I’m pretty positive about that.» The dog, if it had been able to, would have answered «biscuit».
Reality eventually found its way to his brain, and he had to run to the bathroom, dropping the finger on the table. After he was done fouling his porcelain toilet, he went to the sink and splashed fresh water on his face. When he turned the tap off, though, he heard voices. He couldn’t quite distinguish what they were saying.
«Ah! Here...you... time.»
He got closer to the door and opened it. He grabbed his baseball bat from behind his bedroom door, and walked to the kitchen, silently. It was a woman talking.
«Goddamnit Steve, how many times have I told you to be careful with your fingers?»
«Sorry, mum...» That was definitely a little boy. Where was Basker? Why was the bloody dog not barking after the strangers? He glanced into the room, and saw a woman and a boy, who was approximately thirteen. Well, who had probably been thirteen when it happened. Because it was pretty obvious, even if neither Basker nor its master were specialized doctors, that this lovely family was dead. And not to mention rotting on the kitchen floor, which was not the best in terms of hygiene.
«Zombies....?» he was pretty sure he had whispered, and yet the woman and the little boy both shushed and looked at him. The woman looked scared, and she put herself in front of the little boy as if to protect him. Apparently she had been hit by a car, but wasn’t hit by the irony of her gesture, that was for sure. She started talking. «Can you... Can you see us?»
«Why, yes, I must admit it’s not my style to enter my kitchen armed with a bat and randomly say ‘zombies’, ma’am. No offence, but this is a real stupid question.»
She coughed, obviously embarrassed. «Ahum, none taken, I guess you are right...» She turned to the boy «I think he touched your finger then...». The boy remained silent, apparently the tone meant ‘no dead squirrel for you tonight, young man’.
«What was that? Yeah, I found your finger, nice present, really, cheers. But what does it have to do with me seeing you?».
«Well... When people die, they don’t exactly go to Heaven...»
«No Heaven for the rotten!»
«Steven!!»
«Sorry mum... To stay simple, when we die, we come back to a kind of afterlife, but we stay invisible to living people. The only way they can see us is if they touch one of us.»
«...Or a part of us.» the mum added. «It created huge problems in the past. We had to kill the people who discovered us, because being revealed would harm our community. Some people were just so frightened they turned mute, which saved us a lot of time, but sometimes they wouldn’t shut up. You know that Martin Luther King guy? My father touched him by mistake, he discovered us, and then he started ranting over and over about how zombies should be integrated into society and all that... I kind of liked him, but the zombie leaders decided he was too dangerous because people, for some reason, seemed to listen to him. So we had to kill him and pretend he was murdered by a lunatic.»
«Good Lord, that is a lot of information there. So you’re telling me there are zombies wandering everywhere around us, but we just can’t see them?»
«Basically, yes. But most of them are civilized! And clean. Most of the time.»
«Ok... I may have to sit for a second.» The door bell rang, leaving him no time to do so. It was a group of trick-or-treaters. «Aren’t you opening the door, mister....?»
«Ben, my name’s Ben, and I... I actually am. Hey Steven, buddy, would you lend me your finger for a second?».