Star sat on the couch while Marco put the finishing touches on the bowl of nachos for their weekly movie night. Being October, they'd decided to have a horror theme with movie night all throughout the month, but that wasn't why Star was feeling a chill of unease, Marco had been acting odd since that morning.
It began when he'd startled her, standing stone still at attention right outside her bedroom door, greeting her with a wide, toothy grin as she went to leave.
"Marco, what are you doing?"
"Heading down to breakfast?" His expression remained unchanged and there was a cheery flippancy to his voice that irked her, he hadn't even acknowledged her question.
She wiped the last remaining sleep from her eyes. "Uh," was all Star could get out before he interrupted.
"I'm not feeling well today so I'm gonna stay home."
"You're sick?" Star replied, raising a skeptical eyebrow. For someone who claimed to be sick, he sure was smiling an awful lot, also his intense staring was beginning to make her uncomfortable.
"Yeah! See?" Marco said, pointing to his nose. As if on cue, a wet stream of blood dribbled from his right nostril down to his upper lip.
"Marco! What happened? Are you OK?" Immediate concern for her bestie brushed aside everything else.
"Yeah, I'm great, I slipped and smashed my face into a door frame earlier." This took Star aback, Marco sounded almost proud, even elated about the accident.
"But, I thought you were sick?" Her voice came out quieter than she meant it to.
"Oh, I am!" He said with his unbroken grin. After a few seconds of awkward silence he frowned for a moment before bringing a hand to his mouth, "cough, cough."
"Y-you know you just said cough twice instead of actually coughing, right?"
Marco gave her a brief look of confusion before stepping to the side so she could move into the hallway to reach the stairs. Hesitantly, she moved away from him. A level of relief rose within her as the physical distance grew between them when she reached the top of the stairs, as if she were out of the strike zone of some danger—that was a first, which just alarmed her even more. She could still feel his eyes on her and she turned towards him again.
"Marco, are you sure there's nothing else going on? You're acting really strange."
"Ah, I'm just all wrapped up in what's to come tonight, movie night, right? Scary movies," he gestured playfully with grasping hands, "just getting in the spirit ya know?" Marco said as he headed towards his room, "I'm sure I'll feel up to it, I'm just gonna go lay down." He entered his room and closed the door behind him before Star could reply.
Getting in the spirit he says, w-well it's working star thought, descending the stairs with a nervous laugh.
Star had felt something was off all throughout the school day and what she'd been met with when she returned home only reinforced her troubled thoughts. Marco had used some sheets haphazardly pinned up to conceal view of the kitchen area from the front entrance and the living room, insisting that Star not see what he was preparing for their inaugural October movie: the John Carpenter classic, 'They Live'. He promised to "wow" her with a new spin on his old nacho recipe. It certainly smelled vastly different, like cooked meat?
"Marco, I hope you're not pushing yourself too hard back there," Star called from the couch.
The sounds of clattering pans and laughter immediately preceded a rustling of the sheets before Marco emerged from the concealed area with a large piping hot bowl of dark, charred-looking triangles; to call them nachos would have been an insult. He walked with a slight skip in his step, humming an unknown tune to himself as he sat next to Star on the couch, placing the bowl of "nachos" between them. His smile was so uncompromising, she'd swear his face had been stuck that way since she'd last seen him that morning.
"Dig in, Heart Cheeks!"
Star narrowed her eyes at Marco, her face a mixture of puzzlement and indignation, "Heart Cheeks?"
"It's a nickname, you know, 'cause of the marks on your cheeks," Marco stuffed his face with a handful of his mystery nachos, humming an audible sound of pleasure, continuing to talk as be chewed, "we're close enough—pals enough for nicknames, aren't we?"
Star began to answer when she noticed a dark red splotch on the top of Marco's left hand, "Marco, what's that on your hand? Did you cut yourself?"
"Oh, that?" Marco licked away the substance and placed his hand back down on the armrest, red immediately running from under the left sleeve of his hoodie to replace it, "that's just hot sauce, silly," he trailed off with a muffled giggle.
"Alright, that's it Marco. I was willing to humor you for your Halloween Earth customs, but this is too far. Stop messing with me, you're freaking me out! These nachos don't even have any hot sauce!" Star said, her wand held in both hands, aimed at him.
The boy held up his hands in mock surrender. "The sauce is baked in, kid," he plucked a single chip from the bowl and held it out to her, "here, try one. They're delicious!" Marco replied. Star showed no signs of budging, "Look, I'm sorry OK? I admit I got carried away, I love this time of year, what can I say? Please try one?" His eyes were pleading, but it looked as though he was straining to hold the expression.
Star lowered her wand and took the chip, holding it only between her thumb and index finger as she turned it around, examining it from all sides. Now that she was getting a closer look at it, she was sure these were no ordinary nachos; it was thicker, felt rubbery and had a very faint pink tint in spots.
"Uh, Marco what kind of nachos are these?"
"Neat, right? I call them Nacho Rinds!"
She'd eaten stranger looking things when out camping with her father. Her curiosity peaked, she poked at the nacho with the tip of her tongue, a decision she immediately regretted, "Bleck! Ew, ew, ew, nachos shouldn't have rinds!" Star dropped the nacho in disgust.
"Aw, you don't like them? I worked so hard all day on these," the tone of hurt in his voice was melodramatic, "I really put myself into them, just for you, Heart Cheeks." Marco looked away and began to tremble. Was he crying?
Star moved to put a hand on his shoulder when a quiet squee from Marco erupted into a fit of high pitched laughter that sent him reeling back against the couch, his left hand on his forehead. In that moment Star realized she was trembling too, that wasn't Marco's laugh—that wasn't even his voice. She fumbled for her wand again, aiming it at him as she stood and backed away from the couch.
"W-who are you?"
Not moving from his seat on the couch, Marco shifted his eyes from the ceiling to Star. He dragged his hand from his forehead down the side of his face to let it drop at his side, smearing blood as it went.
"Don't worry about me, you should be more concerned for your ol' pal, Beauty Mark." His smile curled into something twisted but giddy, an expression completely alien to Marco's face.
"Marco, what have you done to him!?" Her heart was pounding in her ears, horror rising in the back of her throat like bile.
"Oh, a lot," he sat up, "In fact his body won't survive if you blast me with that thing, so how about putting it down?" He looked up in thought for a moment before shrugging, "I hate to ruin a joke, but I'm just really curious how this is gonna feel," Marco clutched the bottom of his hoodie in both hands and stared Star right in the eyes.
Star felt her knees buckle and she fell to the ground, her wand hitting the floor with a thud. "W-what are you-"
Before she could finish, a sickening sound—a sound she would never be able to forget, interrupted her; it was not unlike the sound of Velcro being pulled apart quickly. In one motion, Marco had ripped off his undershirt and hoodie. He threw it at Stars feet.
"Haha, man that hurt, like ripping of a giant Band-Aid!"
Star wanted to scream, but nothing would come out, she wanted to look away, but she was frozen in place. The entirety of Marco's torso and arms were mutilated, missing triangle-shaped patches of skin in a haphazard pattern. He spun around to make sure she saw his back too, which was also a ruin of butchered flesh. Free of the clothing they had stuck to, the wounds began to bleed again.