There was tension in the air like Honey had never felt before, swathed in the idle songs of a crisp 'October' night where even the leaves that skittered over the pavement did so in a hushed whisper.
Shadows stretched along the pavement after her, their creeping fingers scratching at the heels of her boots. Their seduction a tired bid, unable to lure her into that violent embrace, even as they offered David up to her, turned his back and placed the hook within her hands. She would try to tell herself he was much too strong, much too big, a losing fight no doubt even if she got the drop on him, but it was all bullshit.
She was afraid and she was kind.
'That will change,' promised the fog.
And maybe it would, but not right then, and not right now.
She padded down the sidewalk, brow furrowed in annoyance as the whispers nagged and begged, teased and promised. It did nothing to sway her beat, still determined to help David's not-friend at the expense of playing tag with a steak knife.
It didn't take long to find her. She was crumpled in the street stewing in her own blood. Honey couldn't tell how many times she'd been stabbed through the plume of crimson that bloomed over her chest, but it was certainly enough to spill her insides to the outsides.
She visibly recoiled from the scene, slapping a hand over her nose and mouth. "Oh crap," she said.
Somewhere behind her a generator chugged to life.
It was David. She could see the house behind her flicker to life, dark shadows chased away by a homely glow. It was almost inviting, until it wasn't. The Shape stood in the peel of black that curled about the sidewalk, his eyes turned up to the very same house from dark mists and whispering fog, watching patiently as David crept out in his success.
This wasn't David's first trial, or his second for that matter, he was experienced, he knew what lured the wolves from their dens and the sounds that followed them in the voice of the crows. He didn't wait to see their teeth. He quietly climbing out of the second story window and onto the porch awning.
Honey had initially found this maneuver to be a bit bizarre. He had the safety of an entire house at his back, doors and all the locks that came with them. Yet he opted for danger and not only for the thrill, but an obvious purpose. Then it hit her, despite all the hinderances he could put between himself and The Shape, he'd still need to get downstairs. Rather than bottleneck himself on the butcher's block, he had climbed onto the roof, squatted and waited.
The generator's idle chugging was sure to attract some unwanted attention, a clear demarcation to his presence within the suburbs. An easy target and he'd be right, because The Shape was still standing there in darkness, looking up at David's growing confidence.
It was a game of patience between the two. David waited in silence and so did The Shape. It was only lucky that Honey had spotted him first, catching just the edge of his sleeve illuminated by the red and blue lights that cut through the thicket of Hackberry leaves.
With his stillness, he was invisible.
David must not have seen him and accepted whatever sliver of safety he'd been granted. He crept to the awning's ledge and before he leapt to the soft spring lawn below, took one final look around.
He spotted Honey first and shrugged as if to ask 'What happened?'
Honey mimed getting stabbed several times and threw in some blood spray jazz hands to really drive home the point.
David nodded back.
He waved a hand over his face like a WWE superstar.
Honey figured he meant to ask 'What about Myers?'
Her eyes flicked over to the shadows, then back up to David. She shrugged and signed, 'I don't know,' out of habit and self preservation.
He seemed to accept this and leapt down from his perch.
Honey instinctively looked back towards the Hackberry branches that veiled The Shape, realizing with a sink of her stomach that he wasn't there any longer.
David crossed through the yard, vaulted over the white picket fence and out into the street. "You found Nea?" He asked.
"Yeah, she's super dead," Honey said, "sorry."
David looked irritated, shifted uncomfortably before her and glanced around, "Son of a bitch," he hissed. "What happened?"
"She wasn't on a hook. It looked like he stabbed her about fifty times."
"Son of a bitch," he repeated. "And The Shape?"
"I think he was hanging out in the trees over that way," she pointed, "but he disappeared when I looked away."
David followed the point of her finger, the police lights dancing over their faces illuminated the shadows just beyond the trees, speckling the ground with the silhouette of leaves. Empty sidewalks. Nothing more.
He looked back at Honey and thought for a moment, "Go check it out."
"You're kidding me."
"Like I said. He can't hurt you. If you see him, just make a noise."
"Yeah? I'll just shout 'fuck you' real loud."
It was becoming increasingly apparent just how much of a friend this guy was. Honey could understand it though, and if it were true, then she was in a very unique position. Still, she wasn't too keen on the whole bait idea and she wondered if maybe that had been his play this whole time, not just with her, but his own teammates.
"Look, I don't care what you say, because I have a hard time believing Michael Myers WON'T stab me given the chance. And as far as that Entity is concerned, I'm supposed to be helping HIM murder YOU. I helped you out, I found your friend. But you want to find him? Do it yourself."
David chuckled, "At least you've got some spine."
"Keep it up, I'll put my hook in yours," Honey replied.
"Cute," David said and pinched her chin between his fingers, "but I know killers - and you're not one."
Honey jerked her chin from his grasp, "fuck you," she said pointedly, "have fun getting stabbed." She stepped back from him, her dark eyes betraying the shadow that lingered just over his shoulder, muzzled breathing just soft enough to go unnoticed.
David smirked, as if he'd already won, key in hatch homeward bound. He enjoyed the rise he got out of her, she could see it in the way his eyes lit up, the dangerous smirk that tilted his lips. It would have frightened her deeply if it weren't for the man standing behind him, harsh shadows cut to the worn edges of his mask, the Devil in his own eyes.
It was in her silence that David finally noticed and that vicious grin slipped from his face, replaced with abject horror as time seemed to slow to a crawl in turning to meet his fate. There behind him stood The Shape, dressed in Nea's blood.
He didn't hesitate, snapping to life when David's eyes met his. He reached forward in an instant, hands latching about the scrapper's throat and squeezing hard. Real hard.
"Fu-" his curses grew hoarse, strangled quite literally in the larger man's grip. His eyes bulged, face turned red as he struggled to breath. He slapped at the hands fixed to his throat, balled his hands into fists and beat at his wrists, desperate to break his hold.
The Shape was resilient though, unfettered by the assault, only squeezing harder.
Honey had every opportunity in the world to run or even help. But didn't, watching as David desperately tried to curse their names on what lingering breath he had, as if he might have deserved such a fate.
She felt a touch of guilt.
His fingers bit into The Shape's palms, peeled them back just enough to suck in a breath of air, to spit out curses Honey had never heard strung together so creatively while his other slapped and groped at the Bogeyman's face until he finally grabbed a hold of that ghostly mask.
He yanked hard and snatched the mask right off him, brandished it like a trophy, shouted something assanine even as The Shape dropped him.
He was older than Honey imagined, sixties maybe with a silver beard, and deep scar creased over a frosted eye, jaw set in a firm line that betrayed no emotion. Terrifying even without his mask.
He hesitated, not quite a recoil and not quite a shock, more so a pause of pissed of extension, marked in the deep lines of his face. Even the Entity shuddered in his hate.
David knew he'd fucked up, but he didn't care, in fact he welcomed this new found vulnerability. Naked and afraid. Even grounds. He already had the shovel, so he dug in deeper.
"What? You want this? Your precious mask?" He put some distance between himself and The Shape, looked at the mask in his hand, then tossed it down the street. "Fuck you!"
It landed with a 'flupop' just behind Honey.
She looked down at it.
"Piece of shit," he spit at the ground before The Shape's feet. "You and your bitch friend."
She looked up at David's back and physically felt something snap. She wasn't sure what or why, she'd been teased before, been called a bitch, and every other nasty word by inconvenienced clients. These things were nothing new, but something about that mask at her feet did it, broke the last straw perched neatly on her back - and suddenly she was moving towards him.
The Shape noticed, even waited, as if he had any interest to spare. She reached David's back, planted her right foot, closed her eyes, and swung hard.
Moonlight caught on the edge of her hook, curling over the smooth c shaped blade and down its handle. It sunk into his back like it belonged there.
He let out a shriek and buckled to the pain, threw his hands back and groped for purchase, but couldn't quite reach the deadly itch.
"Don't. Be. Fucking. Rude." She emphasized each word with a nudge against the hook. It slipped between his ribs with a silent pop, burying deeper into the knit of muscle and tissue that protected softer organs.
He was shouting now, incoherent words, gasping with foam in his mouth and sweat on his brow.
The hook punctured his lung and he paused, letting out a wheeze that rattled in his chest.
Blood bubbled in his throat, death's cold sudor slickened his fingers and forbid him freedom from his fate as they slipped over the smooth curves of Honey's hook.
"Oh god, oh god," Honey was saying as she pit her weight against his, her own fingers tightening about the handle of her blade, "please just die."
Killing someone wasn't like the movies at all. It was slow and it was excruciating and it was hard. He had survived the hands of the Bogeyman, burdened the blow of her hook, collapsed a lung to their conflict, and still he opposed them, reaching for the offending weapon, swatting at the air behind him and only able to tousle Honey's dark brown curls.
Like a toddler amidst a deadly tantrum, he tired himself out, falling to his knees first, then to his chest. The pavement scraped the skin under his chin, his teeth clicked together loud enough for Honey to hear. She grit her own in response, squeezed her eyes shut tighter as David rasped beneath her, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, and he might as well have been.
Moments passed.
Honey's white knuckle grip was unrelenting even when she saw the steam rising from his body, knowing without a doubt, even though she'd never killed anyone, nor seen anyone die, that he was dead.
Her whole body was shaking, scared to let go, as if that gesture alone would concrete the reality of the moment. Her hands slipped down the smooth handle of the hook until they met blood, long curled bangs sweeping over her vision as she bowed over him. She exhaled a breath she'd been holding for far too long, then sat back on his hips. She felt like wet spaghetti and moved like it too when she tried to get up.
She stumbled over him and snatched the mask up from the street, keeping her gaze down as she approached The Shape, offering him not only the privacy of his mask, but the respect of her aversion.
They stood there in silence for just a moment, offering brandished in kindness as Honey tried to catch her breath and hoped he might not use the time to steal the rest from her.
The mask slipped from her fingers.
He was surprisingly gentle when he took it from her, thumbs tracing almost lovingly over the lines of the mouth before bringing it up and over his face
She looked up at him.
He looked down at her.
And a silent understanding was met.
She exhaled an exhausted breath and turned her back on him with greater ease than she had at the start of the trial. She stepped back around David's corpse and grabbed the hook's handle, planted her foot on his back and pulled. It came free with a sickening 'squealch' and 'crack!' as bone parted in its wake, splashing blood and bees over the pavement.
She looked back to The Shape and offered a weak thumbs-up.
He stared a moment longer, then turned away.
