The night smelled of apple and chimney smoke, and it smelled of melting candle wax and warm pumpkin from a city’s worth of Jack-o’-lanterns. The aroma was so intense that it lingered on JP’s tongue as if he had tasted it. Standing at the end of his parents’ driveway, he licked the fall perfume from his lips and watched his friends file into the house, their candy sacks slung over their shoulders like dwarves back from the mines. He knew this was it: the last time trick-or-treating before they were deemed “too old” to have fun. He looked around with an unfamiliar feeling in his chest; he longed for that which he had not yet lost.
JP plunged his hand into the pillowcase he was using for a candy sack, searching for nothing in particular, eventually pulling out a pair of red Wax Lips. He shrugged, put them into his mouth and, with a hand on his hip, he walked into the house, strutting around the living room like a model as his friends laughed and jeered. The pirate, skeleton, and Freddy Krueger had never seen a cat-burglar power-walk across a hearth before.
After the catwalk had been sufficiently tramped, they all dumped their candy onto the tan carpet and spread their haul around on the living room floor to get a better grasp of what they’d pulled for the night. It was a lot of the same-old, same-old: Snickers, Skittles, Bottle Caps, Abba-zabas, Now and Laters, Smarties…but then something caught their eye: each pile of candy had a large, golden foil-wrapped egg in it. Every pile except JP’s.
“What the hell?” said JP, sifting through his candy. “So, I’m the only one who didn’t get one?”
“Looks like it, sucker!” said Andy, putting the glittery egg beneath his nose, inhaling. “It’s chocolate!”
The other boys put their eggs to their noses. JP looked down at his stash. “So, you all got chocolate eggs, and I got Wax Lips? What the hell?” He tossed the Wax Lips onto the coffee table and leaned back against the couch. “That’s some bullshit.”
Andy, JP’s best friend, handed his egg over and said, “You can have mine. It’s probably leftover from last Easter.” Then added with disinterest, “I doubt it’s even good anymore.”
The egg was warm from Andy’s fingers and heavier than expected. JP turned the egg in his hand; the texture of the foil made the candy feel like something more than a treat. It felt substantial. Familiar. He lifted the egg to his nose and savored the chocolate aroma. It reminded him of Easter, sure, but more than that, it reminded him of the golden foil-covered chocolate coins he’d find in his stocking on Christmas. He’d hide them in his shirt drawer for months, taking them out at night to let the moonlight reflect off of the gold wrapping.
Andy’s ears were as red as his pirate sash. He searched in vain for something to equal the novelty of the golden egg he’d given to JP, his head low so that his dirty-blond hair might cover the disappointment in his eyes.
“You keep it,” said JP, tossing the egg back to his friend. “It’s your egg. I’m going out to get my own. Do you guys remember where you got it from?”
“It could be that yellow house with the blacklight,” said Peter. “Over on Brentwood.”
Eric, taking off his Freddy mask, agreed, saying, “It was dark, so it could have been thrown into the bag. Then again, I can’t see anything in this mask—and it smells like shit!”
They all laughed, throwing the Freddy mask at one another.
“It smells like shit from your breath!” said Peter.
JP picked up the pillowcase he’d been using as a candy sack, grabbed his coat from the closet, and reminded his friends not to get Smarties dust on the furniture—and to stay out of his brother Adam’s room, unless they wanted to get pounded!
Many of the porches were dark, signaling that candy supplies had been depleted or requisitioned by sweet-toothed mothers and fathers, now cozy on their couches reading the latest King novel or watching spooky movies with their sugar-spun children. JP slipped through the night like a cat, his black turtle neck and tight beanie shielding him from sight. If anyone were to look in his direction, they’d see only a white pillowcase floating through the air. He wasn’t sure if the black mask he’d painted across his eyes looked any good in the light, but in the dark, he felt like he could rob a bank and get away with it.
Ghosts, vampires, witches, and wizards walked by in cackling clusters, laughing and stuffing candy into their mouths. JP regretted not grabbing something sweet to snack on before leaving his friends, but soon he’d have a chocolate egg just like his buddies. The final treat before all this was over, and he was forced to leave the magic behind.
Unlike JP’s house, which was freshly updated with a new coat of paint and had a professionally-groomed front and backyard, the houses on Brentwood were weathered, with oil-stained driveways and weeds sprouting from split concrete as if in defiance of mankind. It wasn’t a bad neighborhood, just less cared for. In truth, he liked it better that way. It felt lived in, like it had stories to tell.
As he approached the yellow house with the exposed black light bulb, a woman holding a limp child nearly ran right into him. He was going to ask if everything was alright, but she was around the corner before he could get the words out.
He moved slowly up the walkway of the house, looking back toward where the woman had turned down the street. When he came to the door of the house, his black pants and turtleneck were covered in glowing fibers. On the door, a sign read “Dead Man Tell No Tales”. He knocked, but nobody answered. He could hear people talking within the house. He knocked again, and the murmurs ceased. Someone approached the door. JP looked up to see two eyes staring back at him from the transom window. He raised his hand, and the eyes disappeared. He wondered if the chocolate egg was worth all this, but he knew the answer right away: this egg wasn’t just a unique treat. Sure, the golden luster gave off deep Legend of Zelda gold-cartridge vibes, but it was more than that. It was randomness and unpredictability—it was freedom!—the freedom to roam the streets at night with friends, to speak with strangers—to trust your neighbors. He looked behind him as a police car sped past, its flashing lights briefly lighting up the street in red and blue. When he turned back around, he saw a tall man wearing a brown sack over his head. Two eye holes had been crudely cut, and a Red Vines mouth, taped at each end, frowned back at JP.
JP chuckled, held out his pillowcase and said, “Trick-or-treat!”
Mr. Red Vines stared at JP through the small eyeholes.
He opened his bag wider. “I…my friends got an egg here…I think?”
Mr. Red Vines nodded.
JP continued, “I was just wondering…hoping…if maybe you have an extra? I was the only kid that didn’t get one.”
Mr. Red Vines nodded again, held up his finger as if to say one minute, then shut the door.
JP turned around, looking down the road toward his house. Once he got his chocolate egg, he would sprint back to his friends. But I’ll wait to eat mine, he thought. I’ll save it for another day. He felt the breeze as the door swung open behind him, but before he could speak, Mr. Red Vines pulled him into the house.
JP’s mind flashed to milk cartons with grainy pictures and stats like a baseball card for bad-luck-children, a headline in the morning paper with the blunt declaration: JP WILLIAMS FOUND DEAD.
The man with the bag on his head pushed JP into the kitchen and up against a wall. His Red Vines lips mocked JP, who winced in anticipation of...what, he didn’t know.
“Okay, he’s had enough,” said a familiar voice.
JP opened his eyes and saw his brother Adam in the corner, laughing. His girlfriend Kerry stomped in from the next room and flipped on the kitchen light.
“Sorry JP, I told him not to do this,” said Kerry, pulling the bag off of Mr. Red Vines to reveal Adam’s best friend, Tweebs.
JP wiped his eyes and pushed Tweebs back. “What the fuck? Asshole!”
“You know this is my house, right?” said Tweebs.
JP shook his head, looking at Kerry questioningly.
“Oh, shit,” said Tweebs. “He didn’t even know this was my house?” They laughed harder—all but Kerry and JP.
“You weren’t here earlier…” said JP. “It was a woman.”
“That was my mom, dummy. She went over to my aunt’s house twenty minutes ago.”
“Shit,” said Kerry. “I would never have let them do this if I knew you didn’t have any idea this was Tweebs’s house. So you thought this was a random house and that Tweebs was some sort of…killer?” She shoved Adam, who stopped laughing but covered his mouth to hide his grin.
“He said he wanted an egg,” said Tweebs. “Sorry, kid, we used them all. Threw them at a bunch of dumbasses down near the school.”
“I think he means this,” said Kerry, picking up a golden foil-wrapped chocolate egg from a large pile of candy on the kitchen table.
JP’s eyes widened. He pointed and, in a quiet voice, he said, “Yes, that.” He stepped forward to take the egg from Kerry’s hand, but Adam snatched it, holding it high above his head.
“I don’t think so,” said Adam. “We got this fair and square. Well, maybe not fair, but that kid didn’t need any more candy—you should have seen his teeth! We did him a favor, really.”
“Come on, Adam,” said Kerry. “Give the kid a break.”
Adam smiled, unwrapped the foil at the top and bit into it. “Yum. From one thief to another, crime really does pay, don’t it?”
JP felt the rage building within his chest. He thought about his friends eating their chocolate eggs, and he thought about how Halloween was almost over. His brother was laughing, gnawing on the chocolate egg like a dog with a rawhide bone. Before he could stop himself, he kicked Adam as hard as he could between the legs.
The egg fell to the floor and shattered.
Adam dropped to his knees, holding his crotch, writhing in pain.
JP was shocked at what he’d just done. He knew there would be repercussions for this, from his parents—from Adam—but his attention was diverted to the shattered egg: a tiny bird-like creature, no larger than the size of a quarter, lay motionless on the floor amidst the shards of chocolate.
The bird’s beak looked like chiseled stone, twisted and extended too long, as if the artist forgot he was creating a beak and instead crafted a kris blade. The chick’s feathers were the color of a rusty nail: tawny, deteriorating. A tiny droplet of blood pooled around its beak.
“Gross! What the fuck is that?” said Tweebs.
“A bird, I think,” said JP. “It was inside the egg.”
Kerry kneeled, rubbing Adam’s arm, telling him to work through it.
JP thought of his friends back at his house. He needed to get back to warn them. While Tweebs was distracted, JP slid out of the kitchen and burst from the front door.
The street was bustling; police cars and ambulances raced past, some going north, others south. He saw cars jerking into driveways with parents—back from parties and still in their costumes—spilling out and dashing into their homes. He heard screaming and crying. He walked slowly—purposely calm—focusing on each step.
One, Two, Three, Four. One, Two, Three, Four.
He told himself not to panic—nothing was wrong. It was just normal Halloween chaos. Sure, there was a strange-looking bird in that egg, but so what? It was gross, disgusting even, but was it anything dangerous? And the cops, well, they were probably just looking for troublemakers—probably caught some kids stealing all the candy from a porch with an unattended basket and sign that read, “Don’t be a ghoul, only take one piece!”
As he reached the end of the block, he looked behind him to see if Tweebs or his brother were after him and was glad to find they were not. When he turned back around, he nearly ran straight into a tall, gaunt-faced man dressed in black.
“Easy fella,” said the man through a white handkerchief he held over his mouth.
“Sorry,” said JP, taking a step back.
The stranger’s eyes might have been brown, but his irises were tar-black in the low light, two windows into a vast nothingness. His black western-style suit and crisp-white shirt made him look as if he were heading to a Southern Baptist prayer group, and had it not been for his bolo tie, fastened at the top with a spooky bird skull, JP would have taken him for a bible thumper, out to preach the evils of that pagan holiday known as Halloween.
“That’s alright. No harm, no foul,” the man said.
Although the stranger covered his mouth, JP could hear the smile in his voice, a congenial slither that reminded him of the janitor at school.
The man continued, “Out for some treats?”
“Yes,” said JP, holding up his pillowcase.
“Looks like you’re not doing so hot.” The man snickered, pointing at the sack with one hand while the other cupped the handkerchief over his mouth.
JP was confused, then remembered his sack was empty. “I came back out—my candy is at home.”
“Looking for something specific?”
“Heard there might be full-sized candy bars over here…but there weren’t. I’m heading home now.” He wasn’t sure why he’d lied.
“Oh? Well, there’s always next year.”
“My parents say this is my last year trick-or-treating.”
The man leaned back, looking JP up and down. “Right. I suppose you’re at that age. Listen—what did you say your name was, son?”
A car flew by, and though the windows were up, JP could hear the nasally voice of a reporter on his radio advising everyone to lock their doors. Fun Halloween prank, Thought JP.
“JP. Well, I should really get back—”
“Have you ever stopped and thought about evil, JP? Probably not, you being what, twelve? People throw around the word evil, but if you were to press them on why someone is evil, they’d tell you the cause is something gone wrong with the brain—or they’ll say it’s because of the upbringing of the individual. But they don’t get it…you see, there are things in this world that are not of this world, things not bound by the rules of our nature…beings born of hate, evil baked into their skin, mixed up in their saliva, cruelty in each fleck of color in their irises, these sinister things that walk among us.”
The stranger offered a farewell handshake, which JP took out of politeness, but when he tried to retrieve his hand, the man’s grip tightened, and he pulled him in close. He smelled like roses and mint. JP’s eyes widened. He considered shouting for help, but there was already yelling coming from somewhere in the distance, a woman screaming something about calling 911. The man smiled with his eyes and said, “Happy Halloween, JP.”
JP yanked his hand away and ran down the street toward home. He couldn’t wait to tell his friends all the strange things he’d seen: the woman running down the street holding her child, the grotesque bird in the chocolate egg, the creepy old man. JP turned to see if the man in black was following him, but he was gone.
His street was quiet, and most of the porches were dark. He walked down his driveway, then paused; the door to his house was wide open, with light pouring over the threshold in an unfamiliar way. He peeked in.
A standing lamp leaned over the couch, caught in mid-fall. JP stood frozen like a thief caught in a spotlight. He surveyed the room and spotted Andy’s Reebok shoes peeking out from behind the couch.
“Nice try!” he said, walking toward his friend. The static of the TV was a nice touch, he thought. “Argh, c’mon out, matey!” He grabbed his friend by the legs and pulled. “A heavy pirate are ye!”
He heard a tearing sound. He put a hand over his mouth and said, “Oh, shit! Did I rip your costume?” But when he went around to see what happened, he recoiled in terror to find the corpse of his friend, his midsection ripped apart, flesh peeled back as if something had burst from his belly.
JP looked around for the person screaming, only to discover it was himself. He stumbled backward, tripping over the body of his friend Peter, whose stomach bubbled like hot paint; something was inside of him, moving around like a kitten beneath a sheet.
He scooted back until he hit the wall beside the hearth with a thud. It was all too much—this was a prank—his friends must have pooled their money and hired a professional special effects artist. Maybe they’d found someone for hire in the back pages of Fangoria.
Something in the adjoining kitchen caught his eye: it was a bird, like the dead one he’d seen on Tweebs’s kitchen floor when the chocolate egg shattered, but this one was larger—the size of an owl—and red. And wet. Bloody talon prints peppered the kitchen floor and tan carpet of the living room.
JP darted to the door to leave but stopped at the threshold. The man in black moseyed down the street, his white handkerchief at his side. The fear in JP’s gut twisted like a knife when he saw the man’s square organ-key teeth, unhindered by lips. He knew—he didn’t know how, but he knew—this man was coming to his house. He ran back inside and hid in the coat closet, peeking through the crack, trying desperately to quiet his panicked breath.
The man rapped on the door jamb as he entered and said, “Hello? Trick-or-treat.”
JP looked around the closet for something to defend himself with, but the closest thing to a weapon was a worn-out umbrella with a few loose spokes jutting out, metal fingers pointing to an inevitable, grim death.
The man in black walked over to Peter’s body and shook his head in disapproval, as if a cat had gotten sick on the carpet. He sat down on the couch and ran his thin, pruney fingers through his hair, every so often making a slurping sound as he sucked his saliva back into his lipless mouth.
“Come on out, JP,” said the man in black. “Come on out and see what we do.”
JP wanted to scream, but he stayed quiet. He wasn’t sure what this man was, but he knew his friends were dead, and he knew this man had something to do with it. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he watched the back of the man’s head.
“Suit yourself…suit yourself. I’m just going to rest my bones for a minute—oh, but don’t worry—I won’t stay long.” The man picked up the remote from the coffee table and turned off the television, then continued, “My mentor thought it was God—you know, testing us. Not me. No, I think it’s something else. I think we’re playing some kind of game. I genuinely enjoy hunting Seethers, and you know what they say, ‘do what you love and you’ll never work a day.’”
The Seether, as the man in black called it, dripping with Andy’s blood, strutted up to the closet door like a Harryhausen nightmare, momentarily sticking its crooked beak in the crack. JP pulled the door shut to deter it from pushing through. Its beak scratched at the wood. “Go away,” he whispered. After a moment, the sound ceased.
JP opened the door, peeking through the crack; the man was no longer on the couch. He wondered if he had left. He wondered if—
The man came into view, snatching the bird from the floor, and ripping its head off with his long, square teeth. JP gasped as the man ravenously devoured the creature, bones and all.
The man’s entire face was coated with blood. He picked up a Snoopy sweater that was draped over the couch and wiped his chin first, then his entire face, but his teeth were still red, blood seeping from between the spaces and dribbling down his chin.
JP threw his hands over his face and backed as far as he could against the rear of the closet. Only the smell of his mother’s coat hanging beside him grounded him enough to keep him from screaming in terror.
The man walked over to the coffee table, and paused. Then he chuckled and bent over to pick something up.
The umbrella next to JP fell over, knocking against the wall with a CLACK.
The man in black turned to face the closet.
JP could no longer contain his emotions. He screamed out for his father so loudly he couldn’t even recognize his own voice. The man was wearing JP’s Wax Lips, blood leaking out from the sides of the bulbous candy mouth.
JP closed his eyes, saying to himself over and over again, “This is not real! This is not real! This is not real!” And when he finally opened his eyes, the man was gone. Inside the house it was silent, but outside, in the distance, sirens blared.
JP opened the closet door and looked around; the man in black was gone.
From the front window, JP thought he saw the man turn the corner, but he couldn’t be sure. He grabbed the phone—his hands felt numb—and punched in 9-1-1, but got a busy signal. He hung up to try again, but before he could dial, he caught the scent of roses and mint, and behind him, he heard a low, gurgling sound coming from Peter’s body as the stomach burst open.
The large crooked beak of the Seether emerged first, followed by its head, covered in Peter’s guts. It was larger than the other birds he’d seen, and it looked at JP with hatred. He didn’t know how a bird could hate, but this one did. He stepped back, tripping over his friend Eric’s lifeless body, his dead eyes pleading for one last Halloween.
The creature pecked at JP, its beak stabbing him repeatedly in his hands, which he used to protect his neck and face. He cried. This was it.
Then, the pecking stopped. JP looked up to see the man in black who, with one hand holding the Seether by its neck and the other taking the wax lips out of his mouth, said, “I still go door to door, JP. I still get my treats.”
For JP Slouch. Happy Birthday, homie! 💀
This story was edited by the wonderful S.E. Reid.
Oh, this was great! (The man made me think of Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter.)
Great nostalgia vibe - and creepy AF Sean.