Another fic for Thalia's Halloween Challenge


At quarter past eight at night, the woods bordering the highway were appropriately misty and spooky underneath a full moon, and Noah still had another twenty miles to go.

He took his eyes from the road long enough to glance at the shoebox balanced on the passenger seat. A slight scritching noise came from inside the box.

"Relax," Noah groused at the box. "We're almost there."

The box responded by scritching again.

He flicked on his high beams as the road wound into a curve. "You're not getting another cricket because I don't have any. You're lucky I caught the first one." He lowered his voice even though the occupant of the box had no comprehension of English or any other human language. "I should just dump you on the side of the road and call it a night."

Deep down, Noah knew he couldn't do that, even if he wanted to. If he started with the white lies, they would eventually turn into colorful ones, and after enough of those, his daughter wouldn't trust him and would start purposely dating guys like Darien to get back at him. He could not let that happen as long as he drew breath.

The box let out a short, squealing screech that made him jump.

Twelve miles to go.


The drama started right when he brought the little black-and-orange witch fairy back from Trick-or-Treating around the neighborhood. She was one of the few children walking the streets, an observation he shared with Val and Ben from next door. They told him that most families chose to Trick-or-Treat at the shopping mall, since it provided a level of safety that suburban neighborhood, obviously resplendent with child molesters and careening cars, lacked. Plus the unsafe candy could potentially contain poison or peanuts or razor blades. The mall also had a costume contest and the winner got coupons for the indoor mini-golf course.

In Noah's mind that was the most retarded thing he had ever heard. Some of his happiest childhood memories were of him and his brothers running amok after dark while dressed as mutant ninja turtles and ripping out their baby teeth with Now and Laters. No wonder kids today were such pussies, like the boy in Aja's day care class who cried whenever she wore red.

He steered the tiny, LED-blinking witch fairy back up their front path, which was lined with fiberglass tombstones and spiderwebs, and a fake skeleton propped against the mailbox that his father had pilfered from an abandoned closet in the biology department of the university. The jury was still out on whether it was real or not. That year, Noah had dressed it a certain persona non grata's Cavaliers jersey. An older, taller witch (a woman wearing a witch hat and a black apron that smelled like coffee) was waiting in the doorway for them. "I gave away all the treats. I think they know to stop here before going to the mall."

Makoto thought that she was easing parental fears about poisoned homemade baked goods by wrapping each leftover brownie and cupcake in plastic boxes and ribbon, and sticking it shut with a label from Grinders. His assumption that the paranoid breeders dumped the treats was proved baseless as their home became a popular target for Trick-or-Treaters of all ages, and had let to several special orders for Halloween parties.

"All of them? Even the caramel ones?"

"Especially the caramel ones." She leaned over and smiled at her daughter. "What did you get this year, baby? Any Almond Joys for Mommy?"

Before Aja had a chance to answer, a small black object swooped down and crashed against the doorframe with a dull, meaty thump. It fell to the grass and flapped a few times before laying still. Aja rushed over and bent down to examine it, the orange and purple lights on her wings blinking. "Mommy, a birdie!"

Noah gently pulled Aja out of the way and bent down to survey the damage. Behind him, Makoto gasped. "Uh, yeah…that's not a bird," he finished.

"Honey, come close to me," Makoto pulled the little girl halfway inside the house. "Is it…?"

"Yep." He reached for a twig and poked it gently. Makoto shrieked as it began flopping around frantically, its membranous wings beating against the grass as it tried to right itself.

"Noah stop! It probably has rabies!"

"It doesn't have rabies," he said. He had had enough of parental paranoia for one night. "It probably got disoriented from all the lights we have up."

"Bats are blind!"

"No they're not." He straightened up and dusted off his hands. "It'll be OK."

"Can it fly?"

Noah bent down and studied the small winged animal. Its chest pumped up and down as it gasped for breath. Its dark, furry body was no bigger than a large egg, and if not for the threat of rabies, he would have picked it up and tried to stretch out its wings to see how far they would go. He had never actually touched a bat before. "I'm not sure."

Aja broke away from her mother and shoved in front of him. "Is the bat OK, Daddy? I can get bandaids for him."

"I don't think he needs bandaids." The bat flopped over a few times and then started crawling across the grass on its wings. "Look, he's going to fly away now."

It didn't fly away. It crawled to the edge of the paved path and seemed to run out of gas.

"Daddy!" The witch fairy's voice had already taken on a hysterical edge. "Why can't he fly?"

"I don't know." He reached for the twig again and gave the animal an experimental poke. It clacked its teeth at him, but made no effort to get off the ground. "Uh-oh."

"Is it injured?" Makoto asked from behind him.

"I'm not sure. It's not like, broken or anything; it's just lying there. Maybe it has a concussion."

"Meu deus, just what we need. Is it going to D-I-E? Should I get the broom?"

"I-D-K."

Makoto made a face. "Eye decay? What are you talking about?"

"No, not—I don't know! I'm trying to tell you that I don't know."

"Why didn't you just say that?"

"Because I thought we were spelling! You spelled out 'die'."

At that last word, the fairy witch's face dropped and her brown eyes filled with tears. "He's gonna diiiiiie!" She pressed her fists into her eyes and began wailing. The bat squawked. "Daddy, nooooooooo, save him! Take him to the hospital!"

Noah folded his daughter into a hug while keeping one eye on the bat. "We can't, baby. The hospital is for people."

She sniffed. "Take him to the animal doctor! Aunt Mimi took her cat there and they made him better please Daddy."

Dammit. Why did Mina have to tell Aja about the veterinarian when her stupid cat got the raging shits? She could have just gotten a new cat.

"Please papa I don't want him to die! Take him to the doctor please please!"

How could he say no to that? He fetched a shoebox and a gardening glove and scooped the injured bat as gently as he could. The bat fixed a beady black eye on him and tried to chew through the leather glove with an emotion that could only be described as pure insane rage. Maybe it did have rabies. Makoto was waiting for him in the kitchen with the phone to her ear; she pulled it away to talk to him. "The vet in town only sees domestic animals. Oh wait—" She bent her head and listened for a moment. "Do we know if it's a protected species?"

Noah dropped the box on the table and went to the sink to wash his hands. "Really?"

"Oh, right." She brought the phone back up. "We're not really sure. It's small and brown and um…angry."

Noah busied himself with poking holes in the lid of the shoebox while Aja anxiously hung on his knee. Makoto wrapped up the phone call and joined them at the table. "The lady at the Humane Society said that we can take it to a wildlife rescue." She tapped on the smartphone for a bit. "Oh, here. It has the address."

"Where?"

Her face was grim. "Off of route 9 near the turnpike."

Noah exhaled. "You're kidding me."

"Noah." His wife folded her hands together and gave him that big, emerald-eyed stare that she knew he couldn't resist. "It would make Aja feel better."

He let one of his hands fall down to Aja's soft curls. "I know." The box on the table started scritching as the bat wiggled around in his new confinement. "What if the thing C-R-O-A-K-S while I'm driving?"

"Just ignore it."

"I get to turn around if it does."

"No, take it in!"

Noah stopped his search for his keys. "Wait, what?"

She crossed her arms. "You're going to turn around if it makes noise? Just ignore it and keep driving!"

"No, I don't mean 'croaks' like making noise! I mean 'croaks' like it dies!"

Aja started wailing again like a fire alarm.


They let her pet the box a few times to say goodbye, and then Noah was on the road with a gimpy bat in a Nike shoebox instead of settling down to pop a beer and gorge on his daughter's candy. Makoto had made him a bagel sandwich to eat on the way, but it was a shoddy substitute for banana Laffy Taffys. Each mile that passed only served to increase his rage at the small rodent. "Why are you flying around in October, anyway? Don't you hibernate? Did you miss that memo or something?"

The bat screeched, clearly offended. And then didn't stop. Noah gritted his teeth and tried to concentrate on driving, not an easy task since he was advised not to play the radio, lest he scare the damn bat, again.

It kept screeching all the way to the gas station where he stopped to refuel. A cricket was chirping in the grass nearby, and under the fluorescent halogen lights, Noah had an idea.

The unfortunate insect was slipped into the box and stopped chirping shortly after. It shut the bat up, at least for a while.

The drive was long and boring, and started getting spooky after he left the highway and turned down a heavily wooded country road. Even though he was a grown adult, every horror movie that Noah had seen was now merging in his head and filling his mind with the most macabre scenarios known to man. No doubt there was a chainsaw-wielding psychopath at the end of this road; who else would live at the end of nowhere and take care of wild animals? "If it comes down to it," Noah muttered to the box. "I save myself."

The bat scritched in reply.

"Oh, shut up. Next time hit the back of the house so that I'm not even aware of your presence."

The end of the dark road produced not a ramshackle shanty decorated with human skulls, but a parking lot and what looked like a ranger station. Noah read the sign as he turned in: US Fish and Wildlife Service—and immediately felt like an idiot.

The light was on, and inside an older man wearing a puffy vest and jeans was definitely not toting a chainsaw. "Mr. Radway? Ken Frost. I think I spoke to your wife."

Noah followed the ranger to a back room. It was lined with cages like a pet store, and Noah couldn't help but gawk at the fauna that were contained inside. An owl swiveled its head and glared at him from between the bars. At least five cages were occupied by gray squirrels, and a raccoon paced in circles in a large dog crate in the corner. A brown snake coiled around a log in a terrarium and flicked its tongue out at Noah as he passed the tank.

"Can I take a look?" Ranger Frost pulled on a leather glove.

"Oh yeah," Noah handed the shoebox over to him. "Sorry about making you come all this way."

The ranger shrugged. "I had to check on the raccoon anyway. She has an abscess on her gums that was getting nasty." He pulled the bat out and held it close to his face. The tiny creature shrieked and beat its wings against his gloved hand.

"He wasn't that active before. I think he has a concussion from flying into my front door," Noah heard himself say. A small voice that sounded like Darien mocked him in his head. What are you, a bat doctor?

Ranger Frost stretched out one wing. "Doesn't look like anything's broken. I'll feed it and see how he's doing tomorrow. He should be able to go back out, then."

"I fed it a cricket."

"And he ate it? Oh, well; that's a good sign."

"It was a gas station cricket."

"They don't discriminate." The ranger launched into a explanation of the feeding habit of common brown bats, including how many insects they ate each year, and then started telling him about a new fungus that was wiping out a bunch of them, and probably wouldn't have stopped if Noah hadn't pulled out his phone.

"Can I take a picture of it? My little girl won't be able to sleep until she thinks it'll live."

"Sure. Wait, let me get the eyedropper; she'll think it's medicine." Noah snapped a picture of the bat snarling at the end of the eyedropper.

"Hey, thanks man. She'll think I'm a hero."

Ranger Frost smiled at him and tucked the bat back into the box. "I'm sure she already thinks that."


Most of the porch lights were out by the time Noah arrived home. Makoto was sprawled on the couch watching the end of Halloween, her hair damp and smelling like coconut. He plunked down next to her and picked up Aja's pumpkin bucket.

His wife leaned against his arm and kissed him. "Thanks for the picture. She wouldn't sleep until she knew that Candybat was OK."

"Candybat?"

"His name was Candybat. She drew a picture of him." She nodded towards the crayon scribbling on the coffee table. Noah glanced up and continued his search.

"Is that me?"

"The blue blob? Yes. You're driving him to the hospital. The red blob is Santa Claus and the green one is Tinkerbell. So is Candybat going to be OK?"

Noah tossed plastic trinkets and organic dried fruit chips out of the bucket. "If he's not, we never tell her. Speaking of candy," he shoveled out a half dozen red boxes of raisins. "Where the hell is it?"

Makoto sighed. "I ate the Almond Joys and the rest is…not so good. The other moms at daycare were saying something about peanut allergies, but I thought that meant they were going to give away gummies."

He had no choice but to pop open the box of raisins. "I hate parents."

His wife smiled at rubbed his knee. "Some people are really good at it."