Happy Halloween
Promises
It was 1964 and the streets of New York were bustling with movement, from the shop owners decorating their display windows with pictures of witches, ghosts, vampires, and zombies. Movie theaters were showing monster movie marathons and flyers for Halloween parties were being hung up on every surface available. Amongst all of this commotion there was a young girl and her mother on their way to see a scary movie. This young girl was no normal girl, her name was Mari Anders and even at her current age of seven she was obsessed with horror movies. Mari stood at four foot two with shoulder length black hair that was always pushed away from her face with a sparkly red headband. She was wearing a Dracula costume and an old pair of sneakers. Her mother Kori Anders was a gorgeous women, she stood at five foot eight and had waist length scarlet hair. Unlike her daughter she wasn't clad in a costume, she was just an escort for her daughter.
"Come on mom we're going to be late then we won't get tickets and I will have to wait another year to finally see this!" Mari exclaimed while dragging her mother down the sidewalk and to the ticket booth outside the movie theater.
"Mari, would you calm down we showed up half an hour early for a reason. Just relax and go buy some popcorn for yourself." Kori said has she handed Mari a couple of dollars. Mari huffed and stomped off to the concessions stand to wait in line. Kori then turned to the teenage boy in the booth and smiled.
"Two tickets two Dracula please?" The boy looked at her and in a monotone voice replied,
"That will be six dollars and fifty cents." Kori handed him the money and accepted the tickets, she started walking toward the concessions stand to find Mari but she came running up to her mother before she could even take two steps.
"Mom! There are girls from my school here who are going to see Dracula too. Is it okay if I sit with them?" Mari asked with a pleading look in her eyes.
"Fine but you need to meet me at the doors afterwards. Got it?"
"Yes I got it. Thank you mom."
After engrossingly watching the movie for three hours it came to a conclusion. Mari got up and walked to the door and was just about the head out when someone grabbed her arm and pulled her back. When Mari turned around she saw it was an old man, he was hunched over and his face was wrinkled, he had an evil smile that showed off his yellow teeth.
"You were supposed to wait for your mother, remember?" He asked in a deep voice that Mari's skin crawl.
"Your right, I will just go and find her now." She said trying to pull herself from his grip.
"Now why don't we just wait here for her? Or better yet let's go find her I bet she is standing outside waiting for you." Mari knew that this was a trap she had seen it before on a movie, she knew that the man wasn't going to take her to her mother, he was going to take her someplace where no one would find her.
"I don't think she is outside, she told me to meet her by the door. I'll just go to the door and wait for her and you can go outside and if you do see her you can tell her where I'm at. But thank you for reminding me."
"Now I don't think that is a good idea. Something could happen to you, you could get hurt. Why don't I go with you to wait for your mother?" Just as he said that Mari spotted her mom and started to wave franticly. When the man saw this he got angry and gripped Mari's upper arm.
"Come on I think I just saw your mom walk out the doors." He growled and started to pull Mari away.
"NO! Mom, help me! Someone please help me! I don't know this man." Mari screamed trying to get her mother's attention. Her mother turned around but didn't see Mari for the man had thrown her on the ground. All the while a police officer who had been the tracking the man for months saw him throw Mari and came running up.
"Slade Wilson step away from the child and put your hands up. You are under arrest for the kidding napping of twelve girls in the state of New York." Slade slowly took two steps back and looked up at the officer.
"I'm sorry officer but I don't know what you're talking about." He said trying to sound like an innocent old man, but the anger in his voice could not be missed.
"I believe you do, and that is why you are going to jail." The officer said while taking out his handcuffs and walking towards him.
"Now," the officer said, "Place your hands behind your head and stand still." He did has he was told and just as the officer had finished putting the handcuffs on him he turned and looked at Mari.
"I'll get you, don't you worry about that. You'll be the next one added to my collection." He snarled at her before being dragged away from the theater. Mari started to cry when the police officer came up to her.
"Did he hurt you in anyway?" He asked with a concerned look on his face. Mari looked away from the man not wanting him to see her cry and shook her head no.
"Well you won't ever have to worry about him getting you toy again because I am going to put him away so he will never hurt another girl again." The officer said with a smile. Mari looked at him and wiped away the stray tears on her face.
"Do you promise?" She asked in a small and weak voice.
"Yes, I promise." He said with a warm smile and patted her on the back. "I found your mom; she is waiting for you by the concessions stand. Do you want me to take you to her?" Mari's frown deepened as she thought about her mother and how worried she must have been. She looked the officer dead in the eye and said, "Yes, take me to my mother." The officer nodded and lead her through a crowd of people with concerned looks on their faces, when they finally reached Mari's mother she ran straight into her arms and the tears started to flow again. Kori nodded to the officer and stood up the Mari in her arms and went outside where she called a cab.
After an hour long cab ride they arrived to their home in the suburbs of New York. Mari had fallen asleep on the ride home so her mother paid the cab driver and carried Mari into the house. Kori quietly walked through the house trying not the wake Mari and placed her in her bed. After tucking her in and turning on the nightlight she left. She walked into the kitchen and grabbed a glass out of the cupboard above the sink. She then went over to the fridge and grabbed a carton of milk, when something grabbed her by the arm and spun her around making her drop the glass and milk. They both fell to the floor one with a thud and the other with a shatter, while her scream could be heard throughout the house. Kori looked up at the man who had grabbed her sighed in relief.
"Richard you scared me." She said smiling at her husband. Richard stood at six foot two; he had short spikey black hair and piercing blue eyes.
"I'm sorry. What's got you all jumpy anyway?" he asked
She sighed, "Well I took Mari to see Dracula today and had let her sit with some friends, after the movie she was supposed to meet me by the doors but when I got there I couldn't find her. As it turns out she was almost kidnapped by a creepy old man, luckily though she had screamed and a police officer stopped him and arrested him for do the same thing to twelve other girls. And as he was being taken away he told Mari that he was going to get her. She spent the whole rid home crying in my lap until she fell asleep." Her husband looked completely shocked.
"Is Mari okay? Where is she right now?" He asked in a blur of words.
"Yes Mari is fine and I put her to bed though I imagine she's wake now. There's no way she slept through you scaring me."
"Let's go check on her." They both walk quietly up down the hallway to Mari's room but when they open the door and look in her room they realize she isn't there.
"Mari! Mari! Where are you?" Kori calls," What if something horrible has happened to her?" She follows Richard out of their daughter's room into theirs where they see Mari laying in the middle of their bed crying.
"I had a bad dream and I heard a big crash and I came to find you but you were gone." She managed to say through her sobs.
It has been a year since Mari was attacked and she was finally getting better her parents had put her in therapy to help her deal with her fears, and her constant nightmares had finally stopped. Kori is supposed to go to Slade's court hearing in two weeks to testify against him along with the mothers of all the other girls he took. It was the day before Halloween and Kori was in the kitchen making breakfast when she heard over the radio that Slade had died the night before of a heart attack. She stood there shocked, it's over he's dead there's nothing left to do. Kori then ran into her bedroom where Richard was getting ready for work.
"Richard he's dead." She said in an exasperated sigh.
"What?" He asked.
"Slade Wilson is dead he died of a heart attack last night. It's over we don't have to do the court case and Mari will be okay." She said a huge smile forming on her face at the thought that he would never get to her daughter again.
"Honey that's great, have you told Mari yet?"
"No but we need to." Kori ran out of her bedroom with her husband at her heels until they reached the door that lead to their daughter's room. Kori knocked on the door and then opened it.
"Mari we have some great news!" She shouted. But Mari didn't answer and when they looked around the room they realized that Mari wasn't even in there. They both split up and started looking for Mari. After the attack Mari started finding hiding places for when she had bad dreams that she could go to, to be safe. Kori gave a sigh of relief when Richard yelled that he had found her in the living room. When Kori got into the living room though she was shocked to see Mari curled up in a ball crying about how Slade had gotten free and was in her room last night.
"Mari honey that's not possible he died last night there's no way he was in your room." Richard says calmly.
"But he was daddy. I saw him, he even spoke to me." She insisted.
"What did he say to you?" Kori asked.
Mari hesitated, "Well at first he said that he had found me but then he started say made up words. I got scared so I covered my ears and ran in here."
"Mari there is absolutely no way that he was here he isn't alive anymore he's dead."
"No he isn't. He was here last night!" Mari cried. Just then all the lights went out and the pictures started to fall off the walls as if an earthquake was happening but the ground was completely still. A laugh could be heard throughout the house, it was the kind of laugh that sent a chill down your spine and made the hair on the back of your neck stand up in fear.
"You should listen to the girl she know more than you think." Both parents turned to Mari trying to figure out what was going on.
"No, he's back." She whispered. She watched as Slade formed behind her parents, he looked exactly the same as the day he attacked her, he was even wearing the same clothes only this time he had a knife in his right hand.
"Mommy, daddy he's behind you please turn around." She pleaded but they were too busy talking to each other. Mari watch as he plunged the knife into her mother's back, tears started pouring down her face as she saw the shock in her mother's eyes as she died from blood loss. All the while her father was freaking out, screaming and turning around in circles trying to find the killer but he had disappeared. Her father finally faced her, "Did you see who hurt your mother?" Before Mari could answer Slade reappeared behind her father. She was so scared that he was going to kill her father that so was caught off guard when Slade's figure came at her and picked her up. Richard stood there shocked to see the flying form of Slade Wilson in front of him with his daughter in his hands. Slade took this to his advantage and flew through the wall with Mari leaving Richard. When Richard finally snapped out of his shock he noticed a letter on the floor. He picked it up and read what was inside.
"I told her that I would get her and now I have. Even in my death I keep my promises.
-Slade Wilson"
Richard suddenly became full of grief for his lost daughter and dead wife; he walked over to Kori's body and sat next to her staring at the stab wound in her back. He finally got the courage to take the knife out of her back. He then called the police and admitted to murdering his wife and daughter.