Take One

A cool, gentle breeze rushed across the ground. The thick carpet of fiery-coloured leaves was kicked up and spun in tiny whirlwinds across the ground, revealing patches of damp, browning lawn or black street beneath. The sounds of young children playing while waiting at bus stops carried far across the otherwise quiet town. Dark skies threatened to drop a thin layer of mist at a moment’s notice. Roads disappeared into the far distance, fading into the lightest hint of grey fog.
On the morning before Halloween, the atmosphere was set for the PERFECT spooky night.
But it seemed like there wasn’t a single adult in Willowdale that agreed.
“Come on kid, just take the mask off…” insisted the bus driver. The tired look in his eyes as he gazed down at me and the line of kids behind me matched his tone. “You know the rules. I won’t confiscate it from you if it goes inside your bag and I don’t see it again.”
I groaned. I slung my backpack off my shoulders, stuffing the transparent mask into it as I sat down heavily near the back rows. It crumpled papers and worksheets on its way inside. The clear face stared up at me with its empty sockets, the spray painted cheekbone shadows and defined rows of teeth stuck out against my math homework.
Its gaze appeared sad, disappointed that its resting place for the day seemed only a few steps removed from the trash can.
I zipped the bag back up in frustration, sealing away my costume’s finishing touch. If the mask were alive, it and I would be equally frustrated that the blood spattered face of my skeletal gunslinger costume was downgraded to your run-of-the-mill yee-haw cowboy.
Two stops later and a pirate sat himself beside me. What was probably an outfit well-preened for photos first thing in the morning was already askew, revealing his blonde hairline, and an eyepatch barely covered his left eye.
“Hey, I love your cowboy costume!” he said with a smile.
“Thanks,” I answered with a grumble. “I don’t.”
The pirate, Cody, looked down at his feet with some sadness. “I’m still trying to be excited. We’re barely going to do anything this afternoon. But it still sucks.”
“It does!” I answered. “Just costumes don’t make it Halloween. They’re acting like we’re not even allowed to say the word anymore.”
Part way through my sentence, Cody had fumbled under his ruffled shirt for his pants pocket. He pulled out his DS and flipped it open to his Pokemon trainer running in circles in a route I hadn’t gotten to yet in my copy of Pearl. I knew from talking to him in the days before that he was concentrating on rare encounters and egg hatching, and with his inability to multitask he was done with our conversation. I peered instead out the window, absolutely furious that this flawless Autumn day was going completely to waste.
Most kids hate going to school, aside from recess. However, as a kid practically raised on Scooby Doo, this time of year made it a lot closer to worth going to. Seeing all the cardstock ghosts, skeletons, and ghouls plastered across the walls. The teachers coming to class in zombie face paint or a witch’s hat. Ditching the regular schedule for snacks and a festive craft in the younger grades. Spending the last hours of the afternoon watching a cute Halloween cartoon on the roll-in TV. For an elementary schooler, it was the best way to spend the day before a night of candy collecting, aside from just having the day off.
But this year was going to suck. Bad.
A lot of things changed in class this year. Our teacher started to do lunch bag checks, sending some kids home with notes to their parents if they didn’t like what they saw inside. We had a lot more assemblies about healthy eating and exercise, and how bullying people was a mean thing to do. We stopped having the bake sale and flea market day in the first weeks back from Summer break.
But this week was the worst of it.
We all got sent home with a bright orange slip in our planners for our parents to read. After Mom got it, she sat down at the kitchen table to talk about it with me.
“Why?” I’d asked. “Why can’t we just do normal Halloween?”
“Well,” she started. She paused and I could tell she was trying to think of a good answer since she didn’t immediately have one yet. “I think you’re really brave to not think any of these monsters on Halloween are very scary. Some kids aren’t as brave.”
She bent down and gently ruffled my hair. “We can still do ours the same way. And I’ll still pack you some candy for lunch on Friday if you promise to eat it at recess. Don’t worry.”
I worried.
I’d grown used to all the decorations and themed activities over the years. But this time, they ditched ALL of it in favour of mostly unrelated spirit days.
Wear a Silly Hat Day.
Dress Like a Pair of Twins Day.
Bring in a Photo of Your Pet Day.
Wear a Sports Jersey from Your Favourite Team Day.
They initially made an announcement that Friday would be Wear Orange and Purple Day. A week later though - I assume after a few parents complained, my mom probably included - it became Costume Day. But we were explicitly told that it had to be school appropriate, and not aiming to scare or frighten.
I sighed as I stared out the window, watching passing cars kick up warm coloured leaves in their wake like rockets. Mom helped me pick out the outfit I was wearing to school that day, and said I could make it as scary as I wanted before we went out trick-or-treating, but I had to go to school “vanilla.”
I clutched my bag close as I felt the hard plastic mask press against my chest. The sharpshooter skeleton cowboy persona I planned to take on the next day was going to be SO COOL, but without his face, that’s all it was. Vanilla.
I caught reflections of other kids in the glass. Fairies, princesses, Disney characters, animals, super heroes, it all felt so sad to me. Like the season lost its bite. To my disgust, I even saw a kid wearing the same hat, vest, and bandana as me.
With the bus pulled to a stop and Cody folding his DS away, having had no luck, we slipped out single-file with the crowd of students. I was about to make my way inside when I caught the eye of another waving kid. As he waded over I recognized who it was, and noticed his uncostumed t-shirt and jeans.
“Hey!” Brandon shouted, lowering his volume as we got close enough for inside voices. “Hey, meet me at Mrs. Smith’s portable at first recess, okay?”
I nodded as he folded back into the brightly-dressed mob. I was a little shocked by the ear-to-ear grin on his face, as I thought Brandon would be just as miserable as I was.
His strange behaviour wouldn’t leave my thoughts, even as I stepped into Mrs. Fleisher’s classroom, recited the anthem, and raised my hand for attendance.
Brandon and I had fun talking to each other sometimes, but I wouldn’t exactly call us friends. Discussing ghosts and monsters with him was fun, because he knew a LOT, but he gave me the feeling that if we didn’t have that one thing in common he’d be my bully. He was a lot bigger than I was, in a grade above me, and his mom let him watch big kid horror movies. But he was just as passionate about Halloween as I was, so seeing him happy despite everything was really shocking.
SMACK!
I blinked back into the present as the ruler came crashing down onto my desk. Raising my eyes, I met the gaze of the monster looming over me.
“This isn’t a saloon you can daydream your time away in,” Mrs. Fleisher sneered as she stepped back up to the chalkboard. “This cowboy has multiplication tables to do just like everyone else here.”
I groaned as I sat up straighter to refocus on my worksheet. Mrs. Fleisher was a miserable old woman. I knew that trick-or-treaters coming to her place the next day would be getting candy canes because she already had all her icicle-shaped lights up and she hated fun. I secretly hoped one day that somebody would egg or TP her house, but I could never do it myself.
Once we’d finished stewing over a worksheet, we were set loose to the yard for morning recess. A slew of characters brushed past me to the yard beyond with sports balls and toys in tow. A few girls hung close to the building to hide from the light wind. Their dresses and princess costumes were so thin and light that I’m sure it was uncomfortably cold.
I strolled over to the opposite side of the yard to where a pair of portables sat to find Brandon leaning against one. His feet trampled long, tall grass around the perimeter. These isolated classrooms probably weren’t as temporary as they were initially planned to be.
“What’s up?” I asked him.
He smirked. “You’ll see in a minute. Let’s get inside first.”
“Wait, it’s unlocked?”
“Yeah!” He slunk up the stairs and pulled the heavy weather door open with ease. “There’s a horse or bible club or something that usually meets here on Fridays that cancelled for the Spirit Day assembly this afternoon, and they forgot to keep it locked.”
I stepped in after him and slipped out of my outdoor shoes. He ran in, only regarding the light switch, and trailed dirt across the polished floor to the front row of desks.
Younger kids’ cartoon backpacks and lunch pails lined the back wall. The board was covered in the answers to a set of grammar questions. A multi-coloured fall tree made of creased cardstock and construction paper was plastered across one wall. It seemed like teachers weren’t even willing to hang up a pumpkin, let alone a jack-o-lantern.
Brandon pulled a folded piece of printer paper from his pocket and smoothed it flat across the desk. “Come take a look.”
I peered over his shoulder at the sheet. It was clearly a website page printed straight from Internet Explorer. I could make out “Page 1 of 1” in one corner, and a long string of URL text in the other. There was a header barely legible against a dark coloured square, almost definitely a garish colour in its native pixel colours. I could make out something about magic spells and incantations.
The page itself was a step-by-step process for summoning something called an “All Hallow’s Eve Spirit”.
“What are we doing?” I asked, almost with a laugh.
Brandon grinned. “We’re casting a spooky Halloween spell.”
“Dude, there’s NO WAY this is going to work.” I briefly pointed to the “summoning sigil” halfway down the page. It was off-centred and just looked like a simple cat face on a pumpkin that I would have doodled on the margins of my notebook. My eyes then glided over to the tiny “try these other spells” menu to the left and I yanked it out of his hands to read closer.
“How to Summon a Demon… Conjure a Spirit… Turn into a Vampire… Unleash Your Were-” I squinted “-D-R-A-G-I-N? Brandon, this is so obviously fake.”
“Probably!” he said with a shrug. His mood seemed unfazed. “But what’s more festive than doing a ritual in the dark? All this Fall-only family friendly junk is dumb. Fake or not, THIS is how I want to spend MY Halloween at school. Not by playing tea party dress-up with a bunch of babies in the sandbox.”
I let his thought process sink in before combing over the instructions more seriously.
It felt a little silly to draw the cat face in chalk on the board, and even sillier to run through this chant in the dark while holding hands. But I couldn’t deny that there was also a bit of a thrill to it. Performing a ceremony in a place we weren’t supposed to be in like this wasn’t exactly as daring as breaking into a graveyard to use a Ouija board right next to the dead, but as a kid, it sure FELT that way.
“Oh Great Spirit,” Brandon spoke into the inky black. I could just barely see him. He had to have read the printed sheet many times over to memorize this. “Great Spirit of All Hallow’s Eve, we call upon you to bind yourself to this Earthly plane. Show yourself to us and bless us with your supernatural powers for this Autumn season.”
I squeezed his hands tightly and spoke in unison with him. “We welcome you now! Come to us in our time of need, SO MOTE IT BE!”
A chill ran up my spine. We weren’t alone anymore.
I let go of Brandon’s hands as I felt them grow clammy. We sat in darkness silently for what felt like hours as I heard blood pounding in my ears, like it punctuated the incantation with a steady drumbeat.
Then, over his shoulder, a bright orange face lit up the darkness.
Brandon and I tumbled over each other, bumping into desks as their metal legs scraping pierced through the room. We rushed to the corner and I slapped my hand against the wall hard enough to sting, repeatedly searching for the light. I finally found the switch and briefly blinded the both of us.
When my eyes adjusted, that’s when I saw it.
Sitting in the middle of the room, perched on one of the desks untouched by our mad scramble, was a kitten.
The cat sat neatly, perfectly still, facing the two of us with Its tail curled gently around its toes. Its face was completely obscured, covered by a tiny pumpkin. Carved into it, with candlelight glowing from a sourceless flame, was a face identical to the “sigil” still in the corner of the blackboard. The kitten’s black fur and face disappeared where Its collar met the gourd.
It tilted Its head, seemingly giving us a questioning glance, despite Its carved expression remaining unchanged.
Brandon whispered a swear under his breath.
I stepped forward and swallowed hard. “What… Who are you?” I asked quietly.
Without averting Its gaze, a piece of chalk rose on its own. The lesson plan already written across the dark green was smeared away as if by a giant hand. In its place, the chalk scribbled a series of rune-like characters, a language I could not read. It was then underlined before the white stick dropped like a stone and cracked against the floor with a sharp tink.
“Are you the spirit that we uh, that we summoned?” I asked.
The cat nodded.
Brandon shakily got to his feet beside me.
It turned Its head, looking around the room as Its body stayed stationary. The pumpkin let out a groaning creak as it rotated like an owl’s neck.
The air in the room suddenly felt like sticky Summer heat. Looking into the face of the creature, the flame inside flicked and grew. It looked like tongues licking at Its chops. There was an angry energy to it that despite the heat, instilled an icy fear deep inside me.
Then there was a sudden pop, and the room’s temperature returned to normal.
The two of us looked around, and we gasped as we took in the visual change.
It looked like a party store had exploded inside.
Black and orange streamers hung from the ceiling. Swarms of flat bats were scattered across the corners. The plain tree was surrounded now by a matching paper graveyard, accented with jack-o-lanterns and a tiny haunted house in the distance. A sign against the door behind us read “Tricks and Treats if You Please!” in bright blocky letters.
Across the top of the board was a banner with a phrase I thought I wouldn’t hear for another twenty-four hours:
HAPPY HALLOWEEN.
“This is amazing!” I said, admiring Its handiwork, wearing a massive smile on my face.
It nodded, pleased to hear that.
I could feel Brandon’s fear quickly dissipate as he took in the atmosphere. “Woah… We should deck the whole school out like this!” he exclaimed.
“I don’t know man…” I opened the door to peer outside. “If anybody finds out that we did this we’ll get in big trouble.”
“Come on, don’t be a wuss.” He pushed me aside to speak to The Spirit directly. “Hey Creepy Halloween Dude! Can you come outside with us?”
It bent down and in a series of fleshy cracks spouted a pair of large bat wings. It flapped Its way over to us and hovered behind his shoulder, waiting for us to leave. It reminded me a lot of a flying Pokemon or other Japanese cartoon mascot, trailing behind the hero, but the distinct sound of a distant, roaring campfire coming from deep within Its orange face unnerved me.
He rushed outside with It swooping over my head after him before I ever had a chance to protest.
I ran out to follow them both after quickly throwing my shoes on. The weather had started to change; the sky had darkened with heavy clouds and fat raindrops spattered onto the sidewalk like the slow drip of a leaky tap.
When I caught up with them through one of the back-facing doors of the main school building, The Spirit had gone through another change. It stood next to Brandon in the hallway, now at chest height. It stood on gangly legs with a thin frame, while Its tail poofed out into a more wolf-like bush.
It peered about, looking for more decor, as I felt the air around us heat up again.
An entire cast of haunted house characters suddenly popped onto the walls, their limbs posed out with butterfly pins at their pivots into jovial 2D dances. Witches, skeletons, and ghosts spread down the halls between grinning pumpkins.
Their stares seemed to all be pointed at us, glaring down with a sinister look despite their happy positions, and it was uncomfortable to look them in the eyes.
Before Brandon had a chance to get excited over the changes, The Spirit leaned over to the dark window of Mr. Jackson’s kindergarten class. A plain poster hung on the other side of an apple tree that read “Happy Harvest!”
The Spirit let out a horrifying screech as the sound of crackling flames roared through the echoing halls. My skin felt like I was back at Summer camp, roasting hot dogs on a humid night. Brandon’s face grew pale as I could see sweat bead across his brow.
A pair of strong arms, a patchwork of green shades, burst out of Its boney old ones. Skin and hair fluttered to the ground like the remains of a popped balloon.
It reached out, the stitching across Its forearms straining to hold gaps and tears through Its flesh together, and It ripped the door effortlessly out of the frame.
Brandon’s eyes were as wide as plates. “I think we messed up…”
This Thing, this Creature, this Entity that was slowly evolving into some kind of amalgamate of Halloween icons, stormed into the room. It kicked over chairs and tables like they were weightless. The room’s temperature began to increase once more, and the decorations inside changed.
Fluffy fake cobwebs hung to the top corners. A large cauldron bubbled in the center of the room, boiling over with the haze of dry ice. Plastic body parts spattered with neon bright red paint littered the ground.
I looked up at the hanging poster to find the cartoony orchard tree now had a teardrop-shaped noose hanging from it.
“Stop!” I shouted, stepping into the room. Brandon’s hand brushed my shoulder, as if to hold me back, but there was no weight behind it. It only pulled my vest part way off my shoulder. “You have to stop! This class is full of six year olds and-”
“Ooooh, you two are going to be in detention for WEEKS!” A familiar voice carried down the hall from my homeroom class, followed by the clunk-clack of heels sternly approaching.
“I knew you two wouldn’t sit idly by without causing a ruckus.” I leaned out the door frame to see Mrs. Fleisher motioning to the standees along the wall as she stomped closer. “Just because your little demon holiday got cancelled doesn’t mean you can ruin everyone’s peace of mind with your games and pranks.” She tore a decoration off the wall with a loud rip, leaving a skeleton’s arm dangling from it in a jagged rip. “Just wait until your parents hear-”
She looked up behind me and her face visibly filled with dread. I felt hot breath on my back.
The Hallowgamate climbed and leapt across the wall to stand in front of the two of us. Before we could register what was happening, we were hit with a spray of blood. What was once the teacher who taught me multiplication and division was pulled in half by Its bare hands. What was left of her slumped to the ground like a soaked towel, leaving a bright plastic skeleton where she stood.
She was gone. She was dead.
She was dead and we summoned The Thing that killed her.
It turned Its head to look at me and I saw Its flame had grown. Deep into Its eye-shaped socket I saw another wick thrash and between the crackling I thought I could hear the sound of a woman screaming in torment. I stared on as the bright light burned spots into my vision. It started to shrink smaller and smaller as the distance between us grew.
I came to my senses groggily. Brandon was pulling me by the hand away, further down the hall, and The Pumpkin-Headed Beast turned to look out the window. I looked away, not willing to see or think about the red mass sitting underneath what otherwise looked like cheap plastic bones.
He pushed me through the open door of my classroom before jumping in after me. He slammed it shut and shoved the heaviest desk he could immediately grab and just collapsed. It was like he turned into a rag doll and crumpled into a sobbing heap.
“We’re dead. We’re so dead.” He muttered to himself as he hugged his knees close to his chest. 
A reverberating BOOM rang out in the distance and I could hear a chorus of screaming children from outside. It broke through the wall.
“We’re so dead!” He continued to wail.
“It’s mad.” I stared off toward the broad windows. With the blinds down, I could only see shadows of movement, but I could still hear the shrieks of my schoolmates. I felt something threatening to bubble up in the back of my throat but I buried it as deep down as I could. “It hates that there’s no festive decorations. It’s like Halloween stuff is how It expects us to worship It and since we’re not celebrating, It’s mad.”
Brandon looked up at me with wet eyes, bewildered we were even having a conversation.
“The website you found this spell on. Did it have some kind of undo? A banishing spell?” I asked him.
He shook his head slowly.
“T-that’s all it was,” he whispered. I had to strain to hear him above the noise outside. “I thought it was just a bunch of kids like us making them up.”
“I need to go talk to It.” I zipped open my backpack from its spot on the hook. I fished out the skeletal mask from inside and held the cool plastic gently. Its blank eyes peering up at me seemed almost stoic with its lack of expression, despite everything.
“It’ll kill you…”
“Yeah, well, what do you think It’s doing out there right now!” I shouted. “I’m not going to hide in here while that Thing hurts most of everyone we know! It’s probably going to find us here later anyways.”
Brandon just bundled his body up tighter. He shivered like a dead leaf.
I took a deep breath as I swung my bag over my shoulders. I stepped up to the window and slowly opened it. The screen pushed out with little resistance.
“I’ll see you later,” I told him over my shoulder as I crawled through.
The scene outside was nearly unrecognizable.
The school exterior had changed into the visage of a rotting Victorian home, painted in dark colours. The red bricks were replaced by rickety, aged wood and shutters hung from collapsing hinges from the windows.
A maze of plastic and straw-stuffed figures were posed around the lawn. Between tableaus of spiders, skeletons, witches, and wolves, were tombstones and glowing jack-o-lanterns. The colourful jungle gym was replaced with a giant lawn inflatable of a purple snake. Its jaws spread wide as its coils looped and tangled like the bars I used to hang upside-down from. The sandbox was a wooden tub, apples bobbing inside gently like ice cubes. The swings at the far back were an ominous pair of gallows, swinging in the hot wind.
The playground I spent hundreds of recesses on might as well have been the surface of the moon for how alien it felt.
I slipped on my mask as my clothes clung to my skin with sweat. I couldn’t explain why but it felt more comfortable to hide behind this made-up undead cowboy character’s face than to confront danger with my own.
Crows swarmed in jet black silhouettes against a swirling storm. Both clouds and corvids congregated where the kickball diamond used to be. It had been leveled by a sprawling corn maze, surrounded by lanky scarecrows and bales of hay.
There, in the center, lay The Hallowgamate.
It had become a writhing mass. Limbs, heads, and tails submerged and resurfaced in seemingly random blobs. Not a single holiday monster was unrepresented in this horrible nightmare as Its giant figure sat heavily between the walls of golden stalks.
Looking into the now monstrous pumpkin’s face, I could see three separate flames dancing inside.
Who’s life had it taken? A teacher? A kid? A classmate? A friend? Cody? Was their body used to make one of these statues around me? There was no way for me to know.
Once again I felt my throat clench and I put more effort into dragging this feeling back down.
I sprinted right for the maze.
As I ran, through the haze of the mask filling with condensation from my heavy breathing, I caught quick glimpses of passing shapes between the Halloween props. A group of kids hid fearfully behind the bulky frame of an Egyptian mummy, toppled over on its side with its outstretched arms parallel to the ground. Crawling children littered the yard, their howls of pain and fear melding into a terrible dissonant symphony of almost ghostly wails. Red patches stained the dying grass in so many places. As thunder boomed in the distance the heavy rain felt like bath water.
I couldn’t be sure, yet as I got closer to the looming maze entrance, the schoolmates I weaved around appeared more gruesome. A girl in a fairy costume seemed to writhe in agony with a pair of fly wings bursting from her shoulders. A boy with a Batman hood over his face choked and gasped as he sprinted past. His cape looked fused to his neck, spilling out behind him in a waterfall of bat-like webbed fingers.
I passed the kid in a cowboy costume identical to mine. He was face down, and massive spurs enlarged to the size of saw blades were embedded deep into his calves.
THAT COULD BE YOU, a voice threatened as that feeling bubbled up again.
I fought against it, not giving myself time to think, as I rushed inside the tall stalks.
Bits of The Hallowgamate burst through parts of the wall of yellow crops. I weaved past the boney fingers of a witch, dove under the transparent wisp of a ghost’s tail, and leapt over hairy limbs stretching across the floor. I ran further and further until the large mass of Its main body filled my vision. It reeked of spoiled eggs and the heat coming off it felt like the Earth was burning.
“Hey!” I shouted up at It. “HEY YOU!”
Every eye on The Creature turned to face me, and the pumpkin’s eyes peered down over the walls.
“Yeah You! You’re no Halloween Spirit!”
A wolf’s head bared Its teeth and growled.
“You’ve just been a selfish bully! Halloween isn’t just about scaring people!” I stood on a hay bale to make myself taller. “It’s about having fun! You’re supposed to dress up with friends! Go Trick-or-Treating! Carve jack-o-lanterns together! Eat candy while watching cartoons! Scare your buddies and laugh it off!”
I pointed at the glowing face of the pumpkin. “You’re just scaring and hurting kids. That’s not the spirit of the season, that’s just being a self-absorbed jerk!”
Hundreds of faces screaming in anguish. Its fleshy surface began to boil and bubble as my skin felt like it was sunburnt. I ran behind a nearby wall and braced behind a hay bale.
There was an explosive BANG, a hot flash as flying crops ripped past me, and it was suddenly deafeningly quiet.
After some time, I felt soft fur brush against my side. I coughed and wiped some soot from my eyelids. Pushing off my makeshift shield, I saw burning tufts of crops and scorched, bare ground around me. Embers tumbled gently in the wind.
I looked down to see the pumpkin-headed cat figure that I’d last seen what felt like years ago. It nuzzled gently against me, running Its body sideways along mine. The jack-o-lantern’s face seemed sad, almost apologetic as It looked up at me.
I slipped my backpack off my shoulders and pulled out my lunch box. Opening it, I gently jostled its contents to put my small pile of candy on top. My hands shook as I turned it around and offered it to the tiny Demon.
“Here,” I spoke softly. “Take one. Happy Halloween.”
It slowly lifted Its head and scooped two wrapped sweets into Its carved mouth. They gently fizzled over Its now shrinking flame.
In a quiet voice, like the sound of a gentle breeze whistling through Autumn trees, it spoke. It sounded like a kid, younger than I was, that struggled like someone speaking a second language.
“THANK… YOU…”
The pumpkin fell to the ground and smashed open with a thud as Its body collapsed to ashes. The flame inside extinguished.
The presence was gone. It returned to the unknown realm it came from.
It was over.
The sound of emergency vehicles quickly approaching was barely audible in the distance. That feeling resurfaced, and this final time, after everything, I had no strength left to fight it off.
I curled up, laying between the smoldering rubble. The clear face lifted up across my brow to rest on the hot dirt.
My body then threw itself into violent, heaving sobs.
Category:RTWC23
Category:Beings
Category:Halloween