The Morning After
"It's over, isn't it?" Rodger asked Judy as they got up off the ground.
"It has to be," Judy answered, a bit shakily, "We saw them vaporize. Besides, Halloween's over, their power's gone now."
"Still," Rodger said to her, "Let's get the hell out of here."
Judy just nodded and followed Rodger as he ran from the land surrounding the brick wall marking Hull House's property.
The sun was already rising and taking away the darkness of the night, and with it some of the air of mystery and unknown, but that didn't matter, because what had just taken place last night would stay with both teenagers until they died. The morning sun didn't take away the fact of evil's existence, only its ability to hide in the shadows.
Rodger ran, and Judy tried to keep up, her entire body sore from falling from the side of the house, her hands still bleeding and sore from climbing the barbed wire rope, the muscles in her arms sore from holding on with all her might while the possessed bodies of her friends tried to pull her down, her leg still burned where Stooge's singed and possessed body had grabbed her after she set him on fire, all the aches and pains of the night conspired against her and after a short ways she found she couldn't keep up with him.
"Rodger!" she called to him as she stumbled to a stop, "Rodger, wait for me!"
Rodger stopped running and looked back and doubled back to Judy.
"Come on, Judy," he told her, "We've got to get out of here."
"I know!" she told him, "But they can't come after us, and I can't run anymore, let's just walk home."
Rodger nodded hesitantly, "Alright, Judy, come on."
It hadn't been a particularly long ride in a car, but it was a very long walk on foot. A long walk from the middle of nowhere back to civilization, back to their neighborhood, and would still be even longer to get back to their own homes.
Neither of them said a word to each other for quite a while. Then about half an hour into their walk home, Rodger said to Judy, "What're we going to do? When people ask where we've been, what're we going to tell them?"
Judy shook her head, "We can't tell them the truth, they'd never believe us, and we can't prove it."
Rodger nodded.
"I'm so tired," Judy said, "I don't care right now anyway."
"Me either," Rodger decided.
"All I want to do is go home and go to sleep," Judy told him.
He nodded again, "Me too."
"I want to forget this night ever happened," she said.
"Me too," Rodger replied.
There wasn't another word exchanged between the two teenagers for the remainder of their walk home. By the time they reached their own neighborhood, the sun was up and everybody was waking up to the morning after hangover of Halloween's festivities, whereas they just felt like the living dead. They were both so exhausted, and their feet and legs so sore from walking the whole way back, that they didn't pay much attention to anything else, just getting home. An old man saw them drudging up the sidewalk and called out to them, but they didn't pay any attention to what he said. A few minutes later they got up to Judy's block and her eyes lit up with hope now that she was near home.
They came to a stop on the sidewalk outside her house, Judy turned to Rodger and told him, "Thanks for saving my life."
"No problem, Judy," he replied, "Thanks for saving my bacon in the basement, that was quick thinking with the pipe."
Judy gave a small, tired and sad smile and said, "It was just lucky I picked up the lighter. Angela…" she left the thought unfinished.
"I know," Rodger said.
Judy tried a slightly more sincere smile and told him, "Thanks for walking me home."
Rodger laughed for the first time all morning, "All in a day's work. Now I'm going to go home and sleep for a week."
"Sounds good," Judy said, "I guess I'll see you around."
Rodger walked away, still dragging his well worn and tired body, now that the end was in sight though Judy noted he seemed to have a little more energy for the remainder of his trip. She turned and looked in the driveway and saw her mom's car was gone. Good, maybe she hadn't noticed yet that Judy never came home last night. What was she going to tell her? She'd worry about it later, she walked up to her porch and stepped in. The house was quiet, nobody seemed to be there, good. Judy went to her room and collapsed facedown on the bed, and was out like a light almost instantaneously, a deep and thankfully dreamless sleep.
"BOO!"
Judy's eyes popped open and she saw her little brother Billy standing by the bed. She sat up on the bed and asked him, "What the hell do you want?"
"Are you hung over?" he asked her.
Judy rubbed her eyes and asked him, "What kind of a dumb question is that?"
"You were gone all night," the younger blonde boy told her, "You didn't come home until almost 8, and you slept all morning, and you stink."
"Thanks a lot," Judy dryly remarked, "Where's Mom?"
"You got lucky there," Billy told her, "First she went shopping, then she went to get a perm, she'll be back later. What happened to you?"
Judy hadn't really been prepared for anyone asking her that question. Trying to think how to answer, and having to remember the events of last night, she leaned forward and brought her hands up to her face and cried.
"Oh Billy, it was terrible, nobody's going to believe what happened."
"What did happen?" he asked curiously.
Judy picked her head up and looked at her brother and told him, "Jay's dead. Sal's dead, everybody's dead."
His eyes widened and he asked her again, "What happened?"
Judy sniffed and told him, "Jay said we should go to this girl Angela's party at Hull House."
"I know," Billy said, "Sal came by asking for you and I told him you were going there."
Judy did a double take, "You told Sal about Hull House?"
"Yeah," Billy answered uncertainly.
She let it go and told him, "Anyway, Angela wanted to do a séance, we found a mirror and she said we'd do a past life séance, but right after it happened, things started happening and she said the house was possessed by evil demons…and she was right. They possessed Angela, and Suzanne, and Stooge, and they killed everyone else. Sal died trying to save my life, and then he became possessed too. Rodger and I tried to get out of the house but we wound up in the basement with the crematory."
"Whoa!" Billy said in almost the typical 12-year-old boy's 'wow, cool!' way.
"They tried to break down the door, so I lit the gas to the oven's pipe and set them on fire, and we made a run for it. We had to climb over a brick wall to escape, but the only way up was to climb a piece of barbed wire. Rodger got over, and I tried, but they came after me and tried to pull me down. My God, Angela and Stooge were still smoldering from the fire, and he grabbed me…I almost died there, but Rodger climbed back up and pulled me over the wall. Then the sun came up, and it destroyed the demons, and vanquished them back into Hull House…" She looked at Billy and told him, "They said Halloween was the one night of the year when they don't have to go to hell, a special night of evil, when all things unclean are free to roam among us, and they were right."
"Who?" Billy asked.
"Helen, and Angela," Judy answered, and started to shake in recollection, "Oh God, Angela…"
Her whole body started to shake as she stood there, Billy did something out of the ordinary and stepped over towards his sister and hugged her.
"It was all so awful," she told him, "They're all dead, Sal, Jay, Angela, Helen, Suzanne, Stooge, Max, Frannie…" she stopped shaking and added, "Oh God…"
"What is it?" Billy looked at her.
"Angela said that the spirits of a house possessed have never existed in human form…that's why they possessed everybody, to take over their bodies…and the spirits are now vanquished back into hell…that means…" she started to shake again, "That means their…bodies…are still at Hull House…in the yard…oh my God…"
Billy tightened his grip on his sister, not sure what to say to her.
"Ten of us went out last night…and eight of us are never going to come home," Judy realized, "Nobody's ever going to know what happened to them, or where they are…everybody's going to wonder…and nobody will ever believe what happened…nobody will ever believe us."
"I believe you, Judy," her brother told her, sincerely.
She looked at him, "You do?"
Billy nodded, and told her, "You might be smart enough to make up a story like that to jerk my chain, but you're not smart enough to burn your dress to make it convincing…" he looked down and added, "And you wouldn't burn yourself either."
Judy glanced down at her leg with her flesh burned and that section of her white Alice tights seared away. She could still feel Stooge's hand grabbing her.
"Oh God, Billy…"
"Hey, hey, it's alright, it's over, right?" Billy asked, "You said yourself they're gone now, right?"
Judy's voice trembled as she told him, "It will be over…just as long as nobody ever goes back to Hull House, and especially not on Halloween…" she looked at her brother and told him, "Billy, promise me…"
"Hey, no problem, I ain't ever going out there…I told you, I believe you," he answered.
Judy pursed her lips together and nodded, and then she hugged him and told him, "Thank you for telling Sal where I was going. It's horrible what happened to him…but if he hadn't been there, I don't think I would've made it out." She started shaking again, and said to him, "People are going to know that I went out with Jay, they're going to ask me where he is…I can't tell them the truth."
"Judy," Billy said to her as he pulled away from her, "I'm the only one who knows you guys went to Hull House, remember? As far as Mom knows, you just went to the school dance, and nobody knows anything about anybody else going there with you guys…so if anyone says anything, just say you went there, and he ditched you, and he left and you stayed there, and you don't know where he went after that, and you never saw the others last night."
Judy was still shaky but she seemed to calm down with that idea out in the open and she said to him, "That might actually work…thanks, Billy."
"Hey," he shrugged his shoulders and asked with a smirk, "What are brothers for?"
There was a slight pause, then Judy looked to him and asked him, "Do you hear something?"
Billy listened, and looked at her, "Sirens."
They left her room and went to the front door and ran outside to see what was going on. Down the street they could see an ambulance parked at the curb, and police cars around it.
"What's going on?" Judy asked.
"Let's go find out," Billy started running.
"Billy! Wait for me!" Judy followed her brother down the block and onto the next, where there was already a small crowd gathered around, despite the police's attempts to get everyone back and cordon off the area.
"What happened?" Billy asked one of the spectators.
The man turned around and told the two siblings, "The old man who lives here got killed today, swallowed a razor blade."
"A razor blade?" Judy asked in disbelief.
"Yep," the man answered, "They think somebody put them in the apples he got from the grocery store."
The old man's wife meekly walked over to the small crowd and observed solemnly, "Halloween is such an evil time."
"You're not kidding," Judy replied.