A/N: Happy Halloween! That's all I've got to say.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters or ideas created by Jim Henson. I borrowed them for the entertainment and amusement of my audience.
SUMMARY: Be careful what you wish for.
GENRE: Black Comedy (aka Horror & Comedy)
RATING: PG-13
DATE: October 29, 2013
::~*~::
Sarah coughed as a huge cloud of dust plumed into the air from the couch. She waved her hand in front of her face vigorously to dissipate the cloud rapidly as she got back to her feet to brush herself off. "Geez, Dani! Didn't you clean even a little bit of this place?"
Her friend's voice echoed hollowly from out in the entryway. "Of course not! This is the perfect atmosphere for our spooky party."
Sarah rolled her eyes as she moved about the lounge. "I can't believe I let you talk me into this," she muttered. She twitched the window curtains aside, and peered out onto the side yard. The entire landscape was covered in overgrown foliage that had definitely seen better days. The color of the evening appeared to be gray, gray, and more gray. Even her own brown shirt and blue jeans looked gray in the dim light. "Remind me how you found this place again?" she hollered.
Dani, a petite young woman with flaming red hair cut short and black-framed glasses dominating her youthful features, appeared in the doorway, balancing two large boxes full of assorted Halloween knick-knacks. Dropping them to her feet, she looked at Sarah exuberantly. "Isn't this so much fun? I can't believe we're actually going to do this." A look of confusion crossed her face. "Did you say something?"
Sarah moved over towards Dani. She popped the top of one box and started rifling thru it. She held up an Ouija board with a look of disbelief on her face. "Really?"
Dani protectively pulled the board out of Sarah's hands. "Yeah! We're going to do everything! The Ouija board, a séance, Murder in the Dark, Bloody Mary. It's going to be awesome!" Clearly Dani was way too excited about her simple Halloween party. Though I'm not so sure it qualifies as a "simple" party anymore, Sarah thought.
"I asked you to remind me how you found this place again."
"Oh, it totally fits with the scary theme," she replied, pulling out black wax candles and black wrought-iron candle holders. She bustled off into the dining room, where she set the candles up in the center of an impressively large table. Sarah knocked her knuckles on the table top and was met with the dull sound of thick wood. "My car broke down just down the road two weeks ago, and this was the closest establishment."
"Well, considering you're alive and healthy, I'm assuming you didn't run into a backwoods family of cannibals here. Please don't tell me it was a dark and stormy night, though."
Dani laughed as she set a box of matches carefully next to the candles. "You're right on only one account. It was stormy, but it wasn't dark or night. Nor, did I find anyone here, but I did find a phone number offering this place for sale. I figured 'what the heck' and I called it to see if they would rent it for a night since it had this amazing look."
"I really hope you had the decency to wait until you were safely back in your own apartment before you called them. Your safety is more important than some little party."
"Not after tonight," she chuckled evilly. "In all seriousness, though, I didn't have access to a phone at the time and since nobody was here, I couldn't use any phone that may have been found in the house. My car did start after sitting for a few minutes, so I was able to make it home without having to call anybody."
"Who's paying for this?"
"My dad. He totally supports a little fun from time to time. Can you grab the black gauze out of the other box?"
Sarah returned to the lounge and frowned as she noticed the boxes were not quite where they had left them. "Um, are we the only ones here?"
"Yeah, why?" Dani asked, coming up behind her.
"Weren't the boxes closer to the entryway?"
Dani sighed theatrically. "Sarah, you are reading way too much into shadows and spooks. You probably didn't pay close attention to where I dropped the boxes." She slipped by Sarah and grabbed the needed gauze out of the box. Unraveling it, she disappeared back into the dining room, where she started draping it over the ancient chandelier over the table. "Don't just stand there; help me decorate! Everyone else is going to be here in two hours. And there are more boxes in the car."
Sarah groaned inwardly as she grabbed one of the two boxes and started pulling out decorations and games.
::~*~::
Three hours later, all the guests had arrived and the party was in full swing. Sarah knew everyone there except for Adam. Dani had conveniently forgotten to mention that the house's owner was sending his nephew to ensure the house wasn't damaged. Luckily for the group, he was close to their own age, being a freshman in college to their group of seniors in high school. He was also good-looking, if the way half of the single girls kept hanging off of him was any indication. Even those who were in relationships were staring enviously at those who weren't. The guys in the group probably would have ousted him at the start had Adam not made friends with every single one of them by being a sports and movie nut.
Now that all of her guests had arrived, Dani ushered them all into the dining room for their first adventure. Sarah wasn't so sure "adventure" was the word she'd chose to describe a night full of terror, but who was she to burst Dani's happy bubble. She picked up her can of soda and followed the rest of the group. Dani had set up black and orange plastic bowls all over the main floor of the house that held a variety of candy and Sarah grabbed a handful of M&M's out of a random bowl as she walked by.
Dani had apparently taken the extra time to set up place cards at the table and Sarah was dismayed to see that she was sitting next to Adam. Sarah seemed to be the only unattached girl at the party who wasn't falling all over him. Sure, he was a nice enough guy, but after a few minutes in conversation with him earlier, she'd quickly determined he wasn't her type. Let the other girls fawn over him, she'd thought. She dropped heavily into her assigned seat and watched as Adam extracted his arm from the clutches of Brittany and Susan and took his place next to her. Both girls eagerly checked the card on his other side and faces of disappointment showed neither of them were honored with the seat.
"Let's go people!" Dani shouted over the noise of the guests. "Let's get this séance started!" She expertly lit the candles in the center of the table and turned off the electric lights in the dining room. The mood quickly turned somber with the flick of the switch and Dani nodded in satisfaction as the last of the conversations died away. She took her seat on the other side of Adam and motioned for everyone to take hands.
Attempting to break the ominous silence that suddenly reigned over them, Sarah quietly asked, "So, who are we summoning?"
Dani gave her a look of disappointment for breaking the silence, but she nodded her head towards Adam. He cleared his throat before speaking. He spoke quietly, as though trying to preserve the quiet atmosphere. "I have a great uncle about four generations back who disappeared under very mysterious circumstances." Sarah tried not to roll her eyes at the classic setup. "He vanished from this very house and was never seen again. His name was Richard and he was only five years old at the time."
Somebody snickered and Dani immediately dropped both hands she was holding and glared at everyone around the table. "Come on! Can't we be serious about this?"
Everyone immediately protested at being the one to break the silence and Dani was about ready to insist they start again when one of the girls mentioned that it sounded like the noise had come from under the table. As though they had rehearsed the motion hundreds of times before, everyone scooted backwards in unison and peered under the table. Seeing nothing, they righted themselves and forced a few chuckles as they took hands again. A couple people even muttered accusations about Dani setting it up. Sarah laughed with them and even Dani cracked a smile, but Sarah couldn't ignore the chill that had run down her spine at the snicker. It had sounded eerily familiar but after several moments of intense thinking, she couldn't place it. It probably was just one of her friends and they didn't want to own up to it.
"Are you okay?" Adam whispered on her right. He looked concerned and Sarah realized her confusion must have shown on her face.
"I'm fine," she whispered back. She turned her attention back to the candles at the center of the table. She found the flickering flames very mesmerizing and she quickly became entranced by them.
::~*~::
"Sarah!"
Sarah's eyes flew open and she looked around the table. Adam looked horrified, Dani looked shocked, and everyone else looked amused. "I'm so sorry I fell asleep," Sarah quickly said, pulling her hands out of Adam's and George's grips. "It's been a long…"
"Sarah."
"…and I couldn't sleep…"
"Sarah."
"…so sorry to have spoiled the…"
"Sarah!" Sarah finally stopped talking and looked at Dani. "You weren't sleeping."
Sarah rubbed her hands on her jeans, aware of the clamminess of them. "What are you talking about?"
"You were in some kind of a trance," George said flexing the fingers of his right hand. The skin of his hand was very red and irritated.
"Yeah," Dani quickly added. "You were speaking in a different voice." She bit her lip and continued, "It sounded like a child's voice."
"I don't remember any of that." She finally met Adam's eyes. "I'm so sorry if I mocked or made fun of your great-however-many-ago uncle. The last thing I remember was the snickering that everyone thought was coming from under the table."
"That was thirty minutes ago," a guy's voice said from across the table.
"On the contrary," Adam said, "you were talking about things that nobody outside of my family could have known about."
Silence enveloped the group for several long seconds until Dani scooted her chair back and clapped her hands together. "Let's move onto something else." It was clear that whatever just happened had rattled quite a few people and a few them jumped up at the prospect of moving on to something else. Sarah, however, stayed rooted to her spot. Well, Dani was well on her way to successful evening in the terror department. Sarah hadn't even been conscious of what had just happened and it scared her. She could tell from the looks on faces as they passed by that she wasn't the only one.
When the last person filed past, Sarah realized that Adam was still sitting next to her. From the other room, they could hear Dani giving options for the next activity and blatantly ignoring a call for spin the bottle, "to liven things up." When Dani made the argument that spin the bottle was not a Halloween-themed game, someone else loudly proclaimed that they could bite each other's necks instead of kissing. Dani was in the middle of an argument about it, when Adam's question brought Sarah's mind back into the dining room.
"Did you research my family?"
Sarah shook her head. "No."
"Then how did you know those things you spoke of?"
"I already told you," Sarah replied angrily, "I don't remember anything that happened after that mysterious snicker. I don't know what I said. I don't know what I did. I don't remember any of it." Not wishing to discuss it any further, Sarah abruptly got to her feet and stormed out of the dining room into the lounge where everyone was sitting on the floor with a bottle in their midst. It appeared that Dani had given in and agreed to a very short game of spin the bottle. She started to make room for Sarah, but Sarah plopped down on the same couch that had emitted a dusty cloud earlier and watched the proceedings. Dani shrugged her shoulders and was about ready to close the circle again when Adam appeared from the dining room and sat down in the open space.
::~*~::
The game went longer than Sarah had thought Dani would have allowed, but it had its desired effect. The tension that had loomed over the night from the séance had evaporated and even Sarah had laughed aloud on occasion when someone went in for the bite. It appeared that all of her friends were going to have hickey marks to explain to frustrated parents in the morning.
Despite repeated attempts by Dani to get her into the circle, Sarah managed to stay out of the game thru its end. When it finally ended, Dani announced the next game was Murder in the Dark. Sarah felt a little apprehensive when she realized it was back to the scary activities for the evening, but she'd played Murder in the Dark several times throughout her childhood and she'd never had any supernatural experiences with it.
The game went well and after a few tense rounds, the lightened mood returned. In fact, the mood was deemed to be too happy and enthusiastic when the lights were turned on after the last round and one couple had been found in a passionate embrace. Dani had even lightened up a bit and toned down her bossy attitude, but she insisted that they stick to her outline for the evening and it was with laughter and chiding that she announced the next activity: Bloody Mary.
The séance event had faded to the back of Sarah's mind and even she approached the next game with enthusiasm. They all drew numbers out of a cup to determine the order they would enter the bathroom. Sarah was sixth in line and chatted casually with a couple of her closest friends as she awaited her turn.
The first two to enter the bathroom reported no unusual activity during the ritual. The third shrieked quite loudly and bolted out of the bathroom but proved to be putting on a show when he couldn't keep his face serious. The fourth person said she thought she saw something in the mirror, but it didn't develop into anything else. The fifth person said she thought the mirror rippled, but when she touched it, it was just as solid as any mirror was supposed to be.
Sarah's turn arrived and a hush fell over the group. Her hands started trembling, so she shoved them into her pockets as she approached the bathroom door. Dani opened the door for her and Sarah though she detected a flicker of fright in her eyes. Before she could comprehend it, Dani had closed the door behind Sarah, and Sarah was suddenly alone in the darkened bathroom.
Part of her told her woman up and complete the ritual, albeit a little faster than it was supposed to happen, and another part of her told her to count to one hundred and just return to the lounge, pretending she had done it. Suspecting her friends would quickly call her out and having no desire to fiercely support a lie, she decided to just do it.
"Bloody Mary," she whispered once. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, everything was just a variance of different shades of black and gray. She moved her head from one side to the other and watched the vague shape in the mirror copy the action.
"Bloody Mary," she whispered twice. Her overactive imagination created the idea of a very faint and very brief red glow coming from the mirror. She leaned closer to it, touching the glass with her fingers. The glass was very cool under her fingertips.
"Bloody Mary," she whispered for the third and final time. She tensed in anticipation. Nothing happened. She almost laughed aloud at her foolishness. She felt so ridiculous. It was just a stupid kid's game. She turned away from the mirror and put her hand on the doorknob when something stopped her. She remembered a dream she'd had when she had been about fifteen. She had been the heroine in her favorite book and she'd gone on her own adventure through the magical lands described therein. A thought came to her mind. Turning away from the door, she stepped up to the mirror putting her face so close, she could almost kiss her reflection. With a smirk on her face, she mockingly called, "Bloody Jareth. Bloody Jareth. Bloody Jareth."
Nodding in amused satisfaction, she screamed in terror when a voice echoed behind her. "Hello, Sarah."
::~*~::
"Who's in here?" She didn't remember the door opening and closing behind her, but it was almost as dark on the other side of the door as it was on this side. The voice sounded familiar enough and she assumed one of the guys had snuck in and was making an attempt to disguise his voice. Sarah fumbled around for the toilet and, after making sure the cover was down, she sat on it, her knees shaking so bad she could barely stand. Even if it was one of the guys, they'd succeeded in scaring her half to death.
"Are you okay, Sarah?" Dani's voice sounded so distant.
Sarah laughed. "Just one of the guys trying to scare me," she called through the door. Much quieter, she asked, "Alright, which one of you is it?"
Silence greeted her inquiry. "Come on," she tried again, the silence grating on her nerves. "This isn't funny. George? Adam? Jake?"
"Sarah," Dani's voice called again. Sarah could hear Dani fumbling with the doorknob. "There's no one in there with you. Everyone is accounted for out here."
Sarah felt like a bucket of ice cold water had been thrown on her. "Hello?" she whispered to the darkness.
"Sarah, unlock the door!" Dani's voice was more frantic.
"I didn't lock it," she tried to holler back, but her voice came out all choked and barely discernible. She took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing heart. It's only my imagination, she told herself. It was only my imagination.
As she sat there, light gradually appeared in the room. It was very faint, but growing steadily brighter. Eventually she saw that it was contained within a glass sphere…held within the outstretched gloved hand of a very familiar personage. She was so startled at his appearance that she almost fell off the toilet seat in her unconscious attempt to get as far away from him as possible.
"Remember me now?" he asked.
"But, it was a dream."
"If that makes you sleep better at night, I suppose you can believe whatever you'd like." He flicked his wrist and the sphere went away, but the light remained in the room. It was no longer apparent where it was coming from, though; it just seemed to be everywhere now. Sarah noticed the light fixtures in the bathroom had no light bulbs in them which made the whole experience even eerier. She vaguely wondered whether someone had spiked the punch.
She stood up defiantly, crossing her arms over her chest. "You're not real. You're just a product of my imagination…and probably some smuggled drugs."
"Oh, really," he raised an eyebrow. "If I wasn't real, could I do this?" Before Sarah even had a chance to react, he'd grabbed her arms in his hands and pulled her to him, quickly planting a rough kiss on her lips. Stunned for the briefest of seconds, she struggled free and when she had gotten loose from his grip, she did the first thing that came to mind. She slapped him across the face as hard as she could. Blinded by fury, she couldn't get words of anger out of her mouth, so she settled for slapping him again.
Rather than being outraged, he looked amused and leaned back against the door, the motion of which was not lost on Sarah. He was blocking her only way out. "How dare you?" she finally managed to spit out.
He shrugged his shoulders casually. "What do I care? I'm just a figment of your imagination. Or do you believe I'm more than that now?"
Reminiscent of a goldfish, she opened and closed her mouth several times in a vain attempt to speak before she growled in frustration.
"Sarah? Who's in there with you?" Sarah had almost forgotten that Dani was still outside the door. There was a loud shudder as someone's body weight crashed into the door. However, he continued leaning against it as though it hadn't moved.
"I'd give it another two, maybe three, slams before they get this door open. Would you kindly explain to me why you summoned me?"
Sarah's mouth dropped open. On the verge of dismissing it all as a joke that was never meant to do anything, she stopped. She thought about it for a moment before replying, "You put the thought in my head."
Another shudder threatened the integrity of the door. His index finger came up to tap the side of his chin. "So, I did," he mused. "I thought you would have learned your lesson long ago. Be careful what you wish for." He smiled as another shudder echoed from the door. "Happy Halloween, Sarah."
Suddenly, several things happened simultaneously. He vanished in a shower of glitter. The light that had illuminated the bathroom extinguished itself, leaving Sarah in darkness once again. The door exploded inwards and Sarah found herself getting bowled over by Jake and Dani. I'm not entirely sure I liked his tone of voice.
Sarah, Jake, and Dani picked themselves up off of the floor. Everyone else was waiting just outside, peering curiously into the bathroom before filing back into the lounge. Dani did a quick sweep of the bathroom before focusing her attention on Sarah. A flood of questions flew from her mouth. "Are you alright? Who were you talking to? We heard voices. Where did he go? Are you alright? Stop it, Jake, can't you see I'm trying to make sure Sarah's okay. What?"
Jake was staring at the mirror and tugging on Dani's shirt sleeve. Now that he had her attention, he dropped his hand. Dani and Sarah followed his gaze. Instead of a reflection of the three of them standing in the bathroom lit only by the light from the hallway, a woman none of them had ever seen before was reflected there, but she hardly looked feminine anymore. Ragged chunks of decaying skin were hanging down from her face, strings of flesh barely holding them on at all. Blood was dripping from the gaping holes on her face where the skin used to be. Dark black hair hung around her shoulders, wild and unkempt. Her eyes were hidden as her face appeared to be looking downwards. She seemed to be wearing a nightgown that was stained with all manner of disgusting things, not the least of which was blood and bits of flesh from her mutilated face.
Suddenly, she lifted her head and they were finally able to see her eyes. Red orbs that looked like two hot pieces of coal burning fiercely glared at them. She leaned her head forward, as though to see them better, and all three of the bathroom's occupants screamed in terror as the grotesque head reached the surface of the mirror and started pushing thru.
Fleeing the bathroom, the three of them didn't even stop at the lounge. They ran right out the front door and onto the front lawn. The rest of the group, driven by the sudden departure of their friends, followed them out of the house to where they all found themselves standing around on the lawn.
"What happened?"
"Why are we out here where it's freezing?"
"Why were you all screaming?"
"Did you see her? Did you really see Bloody Mary?"
The three who had witnessed the horrific visage in the bathroom couldn't speak for several moments and when they were finally able to, Dani and Jake were talking over each other trying to describe what they'd seen while Sarah just stood nearby in numbing silence. Her terror was quickly giving way to anger. He did this. That's what he'd meant by saying "Be careful what you wish for." They'd all wished for Bloody Mary to appear in the mirror and he had made it happen.