6 October: Lantern Jack Goes On the Hunt

6 October: Lantern Jack Goes On The Hunt

Lantern Jack was having a panic attack:

Someone had run off with his cat in a sack.

Lantern Jack swore he’d get Hellcat back,

And persecute the perpetrator of the hijack.

Lantern Jack headed out the back,

He could barely make out some traces in the track.

Past tombstones and moonstones and a rotting haystack,

Jack soon spied a shuttered up shack.

Lantern Jack had to hang back:

No telling what was hiding intent on attack,

Jack was prepared to take on a whole pack,

If it meant that Hellcat wouldn’t end as a snack.

Lantern Jack crept up on the sorry shack,

And peered through a window just open a crack.

There was no one inside that he could give a whack,

Just some broken furniture and one lumpy sack.

The empty room took Jack quite aback:

He thought he’d find some ghoul inside talking smack.

Instead, he found webs and dust and fading bric-a-brac,

And ancient Monsters Monthlies in a kicked over stack.

So Lantern Jack crept in, his eyes on the sack,

All his senses on alert and the wall to his back.

He felt he might be risking an attack cardiac,

As he lifted the edge of the gunnysack.

Hellcat reached out a paw and gave Jack a whack!

Just a single claw emerged from the shoddy sack.

Lantern Jack was unaware of this simple fact:

Cats will often wander from any given track.

So Lantern Jack, he headed back without his cat of black,

And Hellcat, he got his nap inside his dirty shack.

And now Jack, he won’t hold back, but sometimes will make cracks,

About love and devotion, and Hellcat the insomniac.

Cliff Lake 10/5/2026

CliffSongs