My Dear Erika, thanks for your thoughtful feedback.
Not every story will be a morality play, though there will always be an element of principle--that is unavoidable. Most of this is tongue-in-cheek, a parody of the original story. However, life does not always have a happy ending. And neither will some of my stories :) Every now and then I will write a fairy tale, though.
I set a Halloween mood (I hope). I think a holiday like Halloween gives us an opportunity to deal with fear and the grotesque. We look at it and make fun of it. It is a part of our psyches whether we acknowledge it or not.
I do poke a bit at hypocrites (a favorite target of mine) and convention (another irritant). But, mostly, the story is just fun. A grisly tale without a happy ending--that's how life works out sometimes. As you know from your Buddhist studies--suffering is an essential part of life. So, I will not deny it, escape it, or ignore it. It won't go away just because I look away.
Glad the story spooked you, at least a little bit. That's what Halloween is all about :)