by Sam West
“Bloody Halloween,” she muttered, allowing herself to be steered out into the hallway.
There was a little plastic bucket of sweets by the front-door which Jean and Tom Pearson had thoughtfully left for the inevitable trick or treaters. Jen picked it up as Neil opened the door.
The first thing that hit her was the wall of music coming from the house next door, from the party that Neil had just vacated. Someone screamed, followed by the sound of raucous, but muffled laughter.
“Trick or treat!” chorused four little people wearing masks and black cloaks.
Their voices were raspy, and she suppressed a shudder. She knew they were only mucking around, but the creepy voices, coupled with the even creepier, blood splattered masks were highly effective.
“Hey, great costumes,” Neil said. His tone was light, but Jen was sure she detected a tremor in his voice.
“How about some sweeties? Because I’m all out of tricks,” she said, peering more closely at the masks.
God, they really were truly disturbing. She wondered where on earth they could have got them from – they looked more like something one might find in the prop’s department of a filmset rather than the Halloween section in Asda. The enlarged, bulbous foreheads, hooked noses and too-wide grins revealing rows of sharp, yellow teeth just looked so damn real.
“Sweets…”
“Give them to us…”
“We want sweets…”
Those strange, hissing voices overlapped each other, and when she put her hand in the bucket for their wretched sweets, she was alarmed to discover that her hands were trembling.
Where the hell were their parents, anyway? Children as young as this shouldn’t be out alone at this time of night.
She grabbed a handful of little packets of sweets, thrusting them towards their outstretched hands, balking at the sight of their gloved hands.
They had to be the weirdest gloves she had ever seen. They looked like they were made of leather, and the fingers were far too long. On closer inspection, the leather material had an almost skin-like quality – if said skin was that of a brown, weathered reptile. The weeping boils on the strange-looking gloves were also very authentic.
Again, she wondered if some Hollywood blockbuster happened to be secretly filming in the area, and the actors with dwarfism that wore elaborate costumes in such productions were out and about on Halloween, playing a prank on unsuspecting townsfolk.
She conceded that the theory was pretty far-fetched.
Their grabbing hands snatched at the sweets, and when she looked down at the bucket, she saw that it was empty.
Greedy little buggers have taken all my sweets. What if I get more kids coming round?
The strange quartet stood there on the porch for a moment, those horrible masks upturned towards her. Then, without a single thank-you, they turned away from her and headed back down the garden path.
She stared after the four figures, her heart hammering. She let out a shaky sigh of relief, pleased to see the back of them.
Christ, Jen, why are you so spooked? It’s just kids, larking around.
But that relief she felt when they turned right out of the gate was immeasurable. Her body went slack with the feeling, and she flopped against the doorframe for a second, staring out to the black sea beyond the railing on the other side of the promenade beyond the gate.
“Well, they were a creepy little bunch of fuckers, weren’t they?” Neil said with a laugh that was too high-pitched.
“Yeah.”
She closed her eyes, allowing herself to be soothed by the loud music drifting to her on the chilly, October breeze, coming from next door. For some reason, she found it extremely comforting to know that there were so many people nearby.
And she was very glad that Neil was here with her, tonight. Spontaneously, she reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said.
He squeezed her hand back. “Yeah. Me too. Come on, let’s go and watch that movie.”
He shut the door, and together they made their way back down the hallway. A sharp, rat-a-tat-tat on the front door made them both stop in their tracks.
Neil sighed. “The greedy little bastards can’t want more sweets.”
That bad feeling was back full force, churning up her stomach. “Maybe we should look through the window before we open the door. It might not be those kids.”
It might be him.
“We’re not going to let some sad prick ruin our night, remember? It’ll only be those kids again, or a fresh bunch.”
“Neil…”
Her voice trailed off as coldness washed over her.
Don’t open the door! she wanted to shout, but somehow, the words got stuck in her throat. As if in a nightmare, she stood paralysed in the middle of the hallway and watched as Neil strode over to the door and pulled it open.
CHAPTER FIVE
Danny cowered in the bushes at the end of the long front-garden, too scared to make a decision over which direction to go in. He had pushed himself into the hedgerow next to the gate, shivering with fear as the demonic trick or treaters banged on the Pearsons’ house next door. Because of the music coming from the student house next door but one, he hadn’t really heard much. He had caught bits and pieces of a female voice that he had never heard before, as well as that sickeningly familiar, harsh, croaky whispering sounds that they made which turned his bowels to ice.
He only glanced round the corner once, and the sight of those creatures was enough to make him shrink back into the hedgerow, sick with fear.
From his briefest of glances, it wasn’t Mr and Mrs Pearson at the door, but a much younger couple whom he didn’t recognise. The girl handed the monsters some sweets, and, as he cowered in the bushes, he fully expected to hear her screams of terror ring out in the night.
Amazingly, it hadn’t happened. Instead, he had heard the gentle click of the door shutting, and those creatures walking back up the garden-path, whispering together in those hellish voices.
He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, trying his best not to whimper.
Oh God, they’re coming back. They’re coming back to kill me.
His fear was so great, that, when the creatures retreated back up the path, he pushed himself so hard into the hedgerow that little trickles of blood ran down his arms. He barely noticed as he held his breath, praying with all his might that they weren’t coming back for him.
Danny could barely believe his luck when the sound of their footsteps grew fainter instead of louder. At one point, they could only have been a few metres away from him on the other side of the hedge, and in that moment, he was certain that he was going to die. But instead of dying, he clearly heard the squeaky gate of next door but one’s swing inwards.
He thought of all the poor people at the party, and his stomach went tight and squirmy.
Just as he was about to squeeze through a tiny gap a little way down the hedgerow and into the Pearson’s front-garden, the sound of a new voice almost made him cry out in terror.
“Hey, watch it,” the unseen man said, and for a horrendous second, Danny thought that the person was talking to him, that his pathetic hiding place had been busted and the creatures were now going to find him.
Danny let out a shaky breath when he realised that the unseen person was not talking to him, but to the creatures. By some miracle, they apparently hadn’t seen fit to rip out his throat, instead choosing to continue with their journey towards the student house where the Halloween party was taking place.
“Fucking wankers,” the new man said under his breath, but he was so close now that Danny had no trouble hearing him.
Danny sank still further into the bushes when the stranger pushed open the Pearsons’ gate. There was a dull thud, his footsteps ceased, and the man cried out in annoyance or pain, possibly both. It sounded like he might’ve tripped on the uneven ground in the dark. At the same time as the man stumbled, something clattered to the
ground less than a metre away from where Danny cowered in the hedgerow, just on the other side of the opened gate.
“For fuck’s sake,” the man muttered.
He walked round so that he was opposite Danny’s front-gate, and therefore directly opposite him.
Shit, he’s going to see me.
Danny didn’t move, didn’t even breathe when the black-clad figure just stood there, the white mask with the contorted, screaming mouth glowing in the moonlight. For a horrible moment, Danny was utterly convinced that this spooky, cloaked, masked figure was staring right at him, but no, he appeared to be looking at the ground just a short distance in front of where he was hiding. Danny followed the man’s gaze. The thing the man had dropped was a toy gun. Danny knew this because not only did he have one just like it, there was no mistaking the hollow sound it had made when it had fallen to the ground; the unmistakable sound of light, cheap plastic clattering against concrete.
The man crouched down, scooped up the gun, and turned away. Danny let out a shaky sigh of relief and wiped away the fresh tears with the corner of his Dracula cloak, trying not to sniff too loud for fear that the man might hear him.
When the man waked towards the Pearsons’ brightly-lit porch, Danny relaxed the tiniest amount, safe in the knowledge he hadn’t been seen. He scurried back down the garden-path a few metres where he knew there was a small gap in the hedge. He could hide there and watch what happened next door, and, when the coast was clear, he could easily squeeze through the gap and ask the couple for help.
He thought about the gun. It may just be a toy, but what if no one else knew that? His mum had always taught him that some things you just simply didn’t joke about, like, you shouldn’t pretend to hurt someone because it was never funny.
Yes, he was deeply unsure about this newcomer. The events that had taken place in his own home had left him reeling with terror. Part of him wanted to run out there and beg for help, but the other part – the part that was suddenly so much older than his tender age of nine – wanted to stay hidden and watch. This newcomer could be anyone. He could be one of them. It was hugely unlikely, given the way the guy had been so pissed off when the monsters had barged past him on the way to the student house, but it was still a possibility. If there was anything that Danny had learned from tonight, it was that anything was possible.
Besides, for a start he didn’t like this guy’s costume. Sure, it was Halloween, but the new, mistrustful Danny was suspicious of the floor-sweeping, voluminous black cloak which obscured every inch of him, including his hair. On his face, he wore a mask – a white one like in that horror movie his mum wouldn’t let him watch but he had seen at his friend Nathan’s house, anyway.
Mum.
A lump formed in his throat just thinking about her. He thought about her lying dead on the ground, all twisted up and bleeding from her head…
No. Don’t think about that now.
He turned his full attention back to the newcomer, concentrating hard. Nope, he didn’t trust the look of this guy one little bit. It was like he wanted to be invisible. Why would a grown-up want to hide his face and everything else about himself? Why would he have a toy gun?
To get up to bad things, that’s why. To scare the couple. To hurt them.
Danny hoped that he was wrong.
He watched from the hedge as the stranger rang the doorbell. For a moment, Danny thought that the couple weren’t going to open the door. He hoped that they wouldn’t, that the stranger would go away so that he was free to bang on the door of the house and get help.
His heart sank when the man, who couldn’t have been much older than twenty-one, opened the door to the masked visitor.
He’s a vampire, just like me, he thought, as he hugged himself nervously.
It was a little difficult to make out what they were saying, but as he was halfway down the garden path, he could pick up most of what was being said. He could see them clearly too, seeing as the porch and hallway light were bright, thoroughly illuminating them.
That’s good. If they’re lit up to me, then I’m in darkness to them.
When the masked man spoke, it sounded different to how he had spoken when the monsters had run into him. He spoke like his favourite actors did on the TV – the American ones from the grown-up sitcoms he liked to watch on E4.
“…get the bitch out here right now, or I’ll shoot you in the fucking head.”
As the man spoke, the music from the student house suddenly blared louder, almost drowning out the drama unfolding on next-door’s porch. His stomach somersaulted and a small whimper escaped his lips. This was bad. This was really bad. Before, he had never really fully understood his mum’s funny expression that she used to come out with from time to time; the one that went ‘stuck between a rock and a hard place’. But now he understood. Oh yes, now he understood just fine.
Short of hurling himself into the ocean beyond the railings on the other side of the promenade, his other choice was to enter the pitch-black, mile-long park. His skin crawled at the mere thought of it. If there were monsters like these on his own street, then what other types of evil things could possibly be residing in the park on the night of Halloween? No, that didn’t even bare thinking about.
“Who the hell are you?” the good-looking blonde guy who was dressed as Dracula said.
“If Jen doesn’t come to the door, then I’m the guy that shoots you.”
“This isn’t remotely funny.”
“Who says I’m joking?” Do you want to try me?”
“We’ve already called the police, so I suggest you just leave.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
“Am I, more to the point.”
The blonde guy suddenly twisted his round to look behind himself into the house. “Christ, Jen, get back inside.”
“I’ve called the police,” the girl said, joining the boy at the door.
“You’re lying. Unlock your phone and show me the last call you made,’ the masked man said.
“No.”
“No? Then I’ll shoot your dumb boyfriend in the head. Unlock your phone and take off all your clothes. You too, Neil. Fucking strip now.”
“Rob? What the hell?” The boy turned to the girl called Jen and said. “You were right when you said your mysterious, American caller was probably just a student. This Robert Elton – we’re both on the University football team.”
Danny watched the exchange between the three of them with bated breath. It turned out that his initial hunch had been all wrong – this guy was just an arsehole going too far with a practical joke on Halloween night. Suddenly, he was no longer remotely scared of him. What the hell was he doing, cowering in the bushes when he could be getting help? There were real monsters out there and he wasn’t scared of some idiot waving a toy gun around.
Danny emerged from the bushes and hurried towards the three of them. Just as he approached, screams from next door rang out in the night air. He ground to a halt, his heart pounding. Those weren’t screams of pleasure. The three figures turned to look at him.
“Please,” Danny said as he approached. “The monsters are going to come back. We need to call the police, and by the way, that man’s gun is plastic. I’ve got one just like it.”
And I need someone to look after me because I’m scared, he thought, but didn’t say.
“You what?” the blonde man said who was dressed as Dracula.
“See?” Danny said, striding over to the masked man who was apparently called Rob and reaching out for the gun. “Would I do this if it was real?”
He grabbed the gun, pushing the nuzzle of it against his temple.
“Hey, kid, don’t do that,” the masked guy called Rob said, yanking the plastic gun out of his grip. He had dropped his accent, but when he spoke again, it was firmly back in place. “What the hell is this, anyway? It’s Daddy Dracula and Baby Dracula. Are you guys shitting me?”
The girl called Jen turned to look at
him. Danny like the look of her – she was pretty and had a kindness about her. “What are you talking about?” she asked, a lot more gently than the other two had done.
“The monsters. They killed my mum, then they knocked on this door, but they didn’t hurt you. I think it’s because you gave them sweets. And now they’re next door at the student house…”
More screams rang out, mingling with the music, and the hairs on the back of Danny’s neck stood on end. Those screams weren’t right at all. There was no way that they were the drunken screams of people having a good time. Uh-uh, no way.
The blonde guy shook his head. “Man, this is one fucked up night.”
“Yeah. Fuck this,” Rob said, turning to leave.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going, Rob?”
Rob ignored him and carried on walking briskly away.
“Leave it,” Jen said. “He’s not worth it. I don’t want any trouble.”
“That piece of shit was going to make us strip. Rob’s an alright bloke, but he has this side to him, you know? He always has to be with the cool crowd and can be a bit of a bully if he thinks it’ll make him look good. Hey! Fuckwit!”
“Neil! Please don’t, it was just a stupid Halloween prank.”
“We need to get inside,” Danny said, irritated at the grown-ups for having their stupid, grown-up dramas when his mum had just been killed. There were monsters next door, killing all those people. And when those monsters were done killing all those people, they were going to come back for them. “We have to get inside where it’s safe.”
Not one of them acknowledged him. The blonde guy jogged after Rob, despite Jen’s cries of protests. At halfway down the path, he tackled the masked man to the ground.
In the dark night, they were nothing more than a tangle of black material and limbs. Danny watched in mounting horror – there was no time for this.
“No,” Danny gasped in a small voice when Jen rushed over to the brawling men.
“Neil, stop it, for God’s sake. There’s a kid here,” she said, peering down and clutching her face in horror. “Get inside,” she called over to Danny. “You don’t want to see this.”
