Chapter Text
The air is chilly, the monsoons have blown through the state with ferocity, all the youngsters of the region breathed a sigh of relief when the day of Halloween itself was clear and sunny. The night however, was humid as the rains made the whole county, very chilly. Still, no one was going to let that ruin their fun. Across the town of Echo monsters hunt the darkness, for once they were monsters of a wholly mundane variety. Seven such creatures went prowling around the houses of the town followed by parents who were all too aware of the meth problem that the town has. Neither the humidity, nor the chill bothers me much anymore.
Leading the pack is a red wolf dressed like a hockey masked machete wielding murderer. A ram dressed as some spikey shelled turtle dragon, half the words out of his mouth are too strange for me to parse. Two otters, one dressed as a pirate; the other looking like he stepped out of the Gilded Age west, a skull mask modeled after a cougar’s skull. The youngest covered by a sheet with two holes cut into it, his tufted ears giving two little horn shapes above his covered head. He’s sulking behind the group, still sniffling after the unexpected dousing of fake blood that splattered his costume. Ahead of him a kit fox, her fur covered in chalk dust and dark eyeliner and black dust around her eyes giving them a sunken look. She’s wearing a tattered night gown and is chewing out the otters and the oldest of their group, a gila bereft of costume, with no real desire to take part in the holiday beyond tolerating it with his friends. Slightly regretting his choice tonight as the fox winds up a second wind on her lecture.
“Seriously, can’t you three not be dicks for one night?” Flynn rolls his eyes, and hisses a bit in annoyance, “Isn’t tonight also called mischief night? So aren’t we like, obligated to cause problems?” Jasmynn huffs and kicks him in the back of the leg, “That was last night jerk!”
“I just wanted to make his costume scarier;” The pirate mumbles. Chase, the otter in the skull mask slinks back to the shrouded lynx and says a low, “Sorry Toby.” The lynx sniffs a couple more times but offers a shy smile back. Though the otter can’t see it.
“Sydney’s right it is scarier like this… But I didn’t really want it to be scary and I wish you guys’d asked.” Chase digs around in his bag, pulling out a caramel apple and holding it out to the lynx in a tiny clenched paw at arms length. Not looking at him. “Here,” the lynx looks briefly to his father who I notice smiles and nods just a little bit. He takes it excited, “But. Are you sure? This was like the biggest thing you got.” The otter nods, “Yeah I’m more a chocolate guy anyway.”
They do a couple more houses before the conversation kicks off again. “You know I think I’m a ghost too?” The otter asks looking at the lynx. Toby cocks his head ear flicking, “You don’t know what you’re dressed as?” The otter shrugs and rubs the back of his neck, “Um, it’s actually from a nightmare I had.” That gets the younger boy’s attention. “Yeah? What about?” He looks at the lynx and hesitates, “Eeeeh, I dunno Tobs, it was pretty scary and I don’t think you wanna hear it.” It’s pretty obvious that the otter’s being sincere in the tactless way only a kid can be.
The lynx puffs up a lil bigger “I’m not a baby!” Chase winces when he hears that, and glowers when Jasmynn says his name in a low tone of warning. “I didn’t say anything! God.” Then he pouts at Toby, “Fine. But don’t cry okay?” I can almost hear the enthusiasm in the lynx nodding.
He takes a breath, before starting his story, “Okay, so you know the road that leads to Parson’s?”
“Yeah.”
“So I was walking along that road, it was… I dunno I think it was night. It was dark like night. But the sky was red. Well, I’m walking along the road and I start to hear this weird sound, it’s like kinda a hum? Like when my dad plugged the sound system in wrong but quieter I guess? More… like I could feel it, but not really hear it. Anyway, I’m walking along and I see this figure on the side of the road, well I get closer I see it’s Syd.”
“Sydney?”
“Yeah, he’s just sitting on this flat rock on the side of the road. Waving at me like a weirdo.”
“That’s strange but not really scary.”
“That’s not the end of it Toby! It was real weird! So I go up to him so I can ask him why he was out there acting like a creeper. Then he just falls over, face down in the dirt, a big hole in his back where he’s been hollowed out. Then this skull faced thing.” He points to his mask, “Rises up from behind the stone. It’d been using Syd’s corpse like a sock puppet. I woke up when it started reaching for me.”
Toby’s ear is twitching like mad and he’s let his shroud fall around his shoulders so he can wrap it around himself as he shivers. “That’s not funny Chase.” His voice is quiet and a little shaky. The skull faced otter looks over his shoulder, lifts his mask, and sticks out his tongue, “Duh! That’s why it’s a good Halloween costume. It’s scary as fuck!” Toby lets out a gasp and claps his paws over his ears. “CHASE! LANGUAGE!” But the otter’s already running away cackling, though I notice that the lynx is too outraged to be shaking like a leaf.
Still, that dream is disturbing, the two of them were talking low enough that only someone paying attention would hear them. Despite me using his ears to eavesdrop and his eyes to watch them, my murderer remains oblivious to the whole exchange. But I’m not. I heard everything.
