A Very Spoooky Halloween
Thank you for reviews.
Thanks to Nikka for pointing out a little error I overlooked.
The chapter in which they trick-or-treat,Johnny kills a fat lady using a knife and an apple, check for nasties in the candy, where Johnny runs off to get his car, where the means kids close in and where Squee goes crazy.
Shmee is a little, fuzzy bastard.
Chapter 3: Squee goes Nuts
Being the time of the year it was, it was dark by 6 PM. The autumn night's air was cool and not particularly different from any other October night, Halloween or no Halloween. It was cool enough for them to see their breaths hang in the air before dissipating. They crushed fire-colored leaves underfoot and the metal tips Johnny's boots clinked against the sidewalk with each step he took. Squee was extremely aware of the other jingling that came his companion: a jingling coming from the inside of Johnny's black backpack.
Their street seemed oddly empty, childless for the day of the year it was. Maybe it was the feel that this particular street gave out, its atmosphere. That was maybe why it was the center of unpleasant activity and odd yet equally unpleasant random events. Maybe it was because of the aura that emanated from a certain dilapidated house belonging to one homicidal maniac. The point was that not many things survived this street and anything normal evaded it. There were people living in the houses, but most of them were old. There was a couple of the unpleasant, trailer-trash sort that managed to get their hands on a piece of property here. There was a terrifying couple down the street that were horribly normal. Johnny said they were aliens or some sort of hideous being masquerading as human.Because of the tendency to die a horrible, bloody death within a month's living in this street, the houses' prices were very low.
There were some traditional Halloween decorations at the houses, even though they would most likely go to waste because of the lack of children for reasons aforementioned. Johnny told Squee didn't matter much because it meant more candy for them. Some of the houses had plastic skeletons, witches or jack-o-lanterns with wicked grins, narrow eyes and orange flames flickering inside them.
They had knocked on some of the doors, but not many had responded, mostly because old people with hearing problems that lived there couldn't hear them. The few that did answer their doors were people giving out old or bad candy that had been waiting to be given to a child for years. The horribly normal family had given them unnerving smiles and given them a few apples. Johnny muttered a curse and told Squee that it should be illegal to give out anything healthy out on Halloween. They would have left the first street with nobody killed if it hadn't been for one woman. A fat lady with an ugly muumuu, dirty face and breathing problems was very rude to them. She told them to go away because she was missing the Opera Windy show and that she didn't have any candy.
"What the hell are you talking about, lady?" Johnny said, pointing accusingly at the woman's face. It had wet, brown streaks on it. "There's bits of chocolate on your face!"
"What do you care for, you twiggy, little rrrrghh twig!" she said, struggling for an insult. Aren't you a bit old for trick-or-treating? What the heck are you supposed to be anyway? That's one shit costume if you ask me."
"You don't even need the candy. Look at you! God, you're so revoltingly large!" Johnny made a face and handed her some of the fruit they had been given. "Here. You need this more than we do. Seriously."
The woman's face had turned red with anger and she tried to slam the door shut, but Johnny held it open with his hand. For as man as skinny as he was, he was surprisingly strong.
"Don't slam the door in my face. It's rude!" Johnny snarled. Johnny hated people with bad manners amongst many other things people tended to be. He thrust the fruit into the woman's face. "Take the fucking apple and get healthy!"
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" the woman screeched as she continued trying to close there door. "Are you crazy? I'm calling the police! Wait here." And she turned around and waddled back inside, breathing loudly and heavily.
"Can you believe this?" Johnny asked Squee rhetorically. "You go ahead."
Squee nodded and left. Johnny went into the house after the woman, throwing the apple into the air and catching it like a ball. Then he tossed it with dangerous speed and precision at the head of a huge humanoid shadow using the phone. The shadow fell with a thump that made the pictures on the walls shake. Johnny drew out a sinister, shining blade out of his backpack and advanced. As she was covered in a layer of crumbs, chocolate and fried chicken grease, he made a mental note to wash his hands late before going into a rant about kindness, gluttony and personal hygiene.
Squee had started walking away, breaking into a run when he heard an injured howl coming from the fat woman's house. Johnny eventually caught up with him and dropped several chocolate bars into Squee's orange bucket. He was devoid of the apple and had come back with a few bloodstains on his face that he missed. Any on marks his clothes didn't matter because they were dark clothes anyway.
"She took it in the end," he said with a grin. "Oh, you should have been there, Squee. There was a mountain of candies inside her house!"
They had to walk a few blocks before they reached an area where little witches with plastic brooms and aluminum foil robots roamed. All the kids gave Johnny scared/nasty looks. As for Squee, he received angry looks of kids who were hoping to egg him, wrap him in toilet paper and hang him upside down from a tree like they did last year. The little vampire was glad that Johnny was with him when the mean kids left in a disappointed huff.
Johnny and Squee had already visited a many houses and Squee's orange candy bucket was overflowing with sugary goodness. Johnny had to carry some of the candy in his backpack. They had stopped for a moment to sit on the sidewalk and eat some candy to lighten the load.
"Okay," Johnny said as he rooted through the candy. "As your chaperon, I demand payment of all the cherry candies in here. Yes?"
Johnny didn't wait for an answer. He simply went through their pile and selected cherry Twistlylisters, cherry lollipops, cherry gummy cherries, cherry night crawlers and anything cherry he could find. Squee didn't mind; his haul was exceptionally plentiful this year and there would be more than enough left for him. Squee told him he could have anything he wanted. This statement devoid of childish gluttony surprised Johnny.
"Waaaaait," Johnny said suspiciously. "Are you an alien posing as a child?"
"No."
"Lies!" he yelled. "What did you do with Squeegee?"
Squee have his patented scared squee. Johnny stopped his yelling and looked at him.
"Nope, you're Squee, all right," the killer said and he went back to the candy.
The homicidal maniac took great care in inspecting all of Squee's pieces of candy before he was allowed to eat them. He had already discarded a chocolate bar filled with needles, a syringe from a packet of Twistylers and some marshmallow peeps that were completely covered in mold. Squee was growing so terrified of the contents of the candy that he was barely eating any.
Don't eat anything he touches Squee, the Shmee stuffing in his pocket said. I bet he's poisoning it.
"No," Squee denied quietly.
"90 percent sawdust?" Johnny said as he read the wrapper of a Poop bar. He made a face and put it in the pile of bad candies. "Did you say something, Squee?"
"No! Nothing!" the boy shouted and gave a big, nervous smile.
Go for that Cuppincake. Quick! Before Johnny contaminates it with his evil!
Squee reached out to grab it, but Johnny snatched it a second before he could.
"Wait, I'm not done checking this one. Eat one of your Dirty Chicken Chocolate bars."
Don't.
Squee unwrapped the candy. The Dirty Chicken Chocolate bar had white feathers and globs of meat in the chocolate.
Ew. Follow my advice on this one.
"That's okay, Johnny. I'm not hungry for chicken chocolate right now."
"I don't blame you," Johnny said, staring at the feathery candy. He continued inspecting the Cuppincake. "I don't think Halloween is a very safe night. There are a lot of sick people out there just waiting to kill you. Just look at this!"
Johnny broke the Cuppincake open and a rusty razorblade tinkled onto the asphalt. Squee stared at the tarnished, chipped edges of the blade and squeaked out something about disease.
"Yeah, tetanus threat," Johnny said rubbing his chin. He leaned back, rested his weight on his hands and smiled at Squee. "Well, despite some less than wholesome candies, I have to say this is a pretty decent amount of candy. It could be more, of course."
Squee nodded shyly in agreement and crunched into a lollipop. Some of the candy came from trick-or-treating, but nearly half of their total was thanks to Johnny's presence. It seems that people were more willing to give candy when you were accompanied by someone as dark and threatening as Johnny, when somebody else was making sure they weren't giving too little. Squee had had his fair share of candy coming from people who deemed his big, puppy-like eyes, cape and plastic fangs cute; he relied on that every year. But there were some who gave it out of fear of being judged. Or maybe just to get the suspicious looking man away as soon as possible. Johnny had also broken into houses of people who told them that they didn't have any candy and taken possession of all sugary treats there.
Squee was worried he'd have to go to the dentist and that he would put that scary drill in his mouth and take out his teeth. Dr. Paingood said anesthetics were too expensive for their budget. Squee didn't want to have to eat mush for the rest of his life.
"Yes. This calls for Brainfreezies!" Johnny said happily. He paused and then added bitterly, "We get that milk your dad was so kindly asking for."
Squee dipped his head sadly as he thought about his parents. Johnny saw this and hesitantly patted Squee on the head.
Johnny got up and brushed dirt off the seat of his pants and put a cherry-flavoured lollypop in his mouth. He looked up at the moon shining in the dark sky happily.
"It's such a lovely night tonight. I'm going to get my car so we can go to the 24/7. I'll be back before you can say 'ravenous wall monster.' Don't move."
The killer bolted down the street sucking happily on his lolly.
Now's your chance, Squee. Grab the candy and run.
"But he's being nice, Shmee."
Even to those people he threatened-slash-killed. Pun intended. I don't think so. Granted they were bastards, but that doesn't make it right.
"You tell me to hurt people."
It's okay when I tell you. I know best and they deserve it. And you don't do it anyway, so it doesn't really count.
Aware of the fact that Squee didn't have his skeletal bodyguard with him anymore, some of the mean kids closed in. A large boy dressed up as some kind of frightening blob thing pushed Squee from behind.
"Hey, shit-buhrains!" he yelled. He laughed when Squee hit the rough ground. "How come you have so much candy?"
"It's cuz his boyfriend gave it to him. Oh, la, la," sniggered a girl dressed up as an alien. One of her pipe-cleaner antennas fell off.
The kids shrieked like monkeys and started to crunching and gulping away at Squee's pile of candy.
"Stop that!" Squee cried as his pile dwindled. "That's mine!"
"Nuh-uh. It's in my bag, so it's mine. Ha!" The kid laughed at his own wittiness. Man, I'm smart.
"Quit it!"
"Quit it!" a kid yelled back, imitating Squee's squeaky voice.
Do it, Squee. Punch. Kick. Bite their little brains.
"No! Give it back!"
"It's not your candy anymore," yelled a kid. There was a chorus of laughs.
They laugh at you, Squee. Todd. Do it. Rip out their eyeballs. I can feel your desire to do so in your belly.
"No no no!"
Everyone was laughing and yelling louder. There were more kids picking away at his pile of candy, taking advantage of his weakness. It was getting louder and louder. Parents escorting their kids ignored him like nothing was happening. Louder and louder. No one cared. Squee wanted to curl into a ball and—
"Cry? Are you going to cry, Squeek?" taunted one of the kids through a mouthful of candy.
Shmee's stuffing felt like fire in his pocket. They want your candy? Shove the candy down their gullets until they choke. You know you want to. Feel the hatred. See their hatred. You can see the truth of people.
They were all monsters. Their souls were darkening from cruelty and Squee could see it. He could see their mocking eyes, their blacked cores. He could smell how rotten their minds were, how rotten the world was. Their words were all melding into horrible noise. The world was ugly, twisted, dark and scary. And it was closing in.
Oh, you want to clean. You want to kill. I will make sure nobody knows. Clean. Kill.
All the jeering cluttering up his brain, making his little boy body tense with sorrow, anger and hatred. He was starting to cry and they were chanting. Shmee's stuffing in his pocket kept repeating his mantra. The bear was giggling madly.
Clean. Kill. Clean kill clean kill cleankillcleanKILLCLEANKILLCLEANKILL
Squee has started to throw punches and some kids were hitting him back, but he couldn't see anything. He could only hear laughter, the kids' and Shmee's, ringing in his ears. He could hear Shmee whooping and cheering and he landed a punch. Squee was crying and screaming.
SCREEEEEECH!
There was the noise of tires screeching and kids wailing. There was crashing and the sound of bodies flying. Squee was still blind and every noise made his head pound. A metal door swung open quickly and feet banged on the ground towards him. He felt someone pick him up with painfully sharp fingers digging into his arms. He flailed and wriggled to get loose of the agonizing grip. Whoever it was started shaking him, digging his fingers deeper, and shouting something.
"Let me go! Let me go!" he screamed as he punched and kicked in the stranger's grasp. His foot connected with something and he heard whomever it was grunt and stiffen. One clear word made its way through the din in Squee's head.
"Ow," the voice growled.
"Mommy! Mommeeee!"
No. Noo! Stay with me, Squee!
The stranger's words became clearer.
"Wake up! Wake up, Squee!" the stranger was yelling. The voice sounded raspy, dangerous and pained. It sounded so familiar.
It's a trick! Shmee hissed inside the boy's head. He's trying to take you away to do evil things.
"Open your eyes!" the stranger yelled. "For the love of God, Squee. Stop this!"
"Go away!" Squee yelled. "Shmee, help me!"
"The bear!" the voice shouted incredulously. "The fucking bear? Where is he?"
Don't let him take me, Squee! He's taking me, Squee!
"No! Don't take him!" Squee shrieked. He felt Shmee's fiery stuffing leaving his pocket. The stranger had taken it!
"Fuck! It burns my hand!" the stranger screeched in pain.
"Give him back! You meanie!"
The stranger dropped him onto the hard ground and started yelling at Shmee.
"You fucking bear! You evil VOICE! You're just like them aren't you? You're just another of them, AREN'T YOU? YOU SHIT! You're trying to poison Squee. How dare you? He's just a kid and you're just a ball of lint! How dare you? HOW DARE YOU?"
Something burned in Squee's brain. He heard stabbing and Shmee screaming like a wounded devil.
This isn't over, Johnny C.! I'm still home, Squeegeeee!
Johnny? Johnny. "Johnny! Nny. Nny!"
The noises returned to their normal volume and the world slowly came back into focus. It was still blurry, but only because Squee's tears made it so. His eyes burned and his face stung. He could taste the blood from a wound on his lip and the pain in his arms. They were probably bruising right now. He could see a dirty, grey car parked in the middle of the street. It had rushed here and left black, smoking tracks on the street. There were kids littered around moaning in pain. He could see some lights on in nearby houses and people looking out of windows, but not doing anything about the carnage in the street. His pile of candy was gone save for very few half-eaten pieces. He could see Johnny on all fours screaming and stabbing a ball of Shmee's cotton stuffing into tiny pieces of fluff. A spark would occasionally rise from the contact, but it was hard to tell whether it came from the knife hitting the road or from the pieces of stuffing breaking apart.
"One of them," Johnny was hissing as he stabbed. His stabs slowed down and at some point stopped. The maniac was breathing heavily and unevenly. He choked with held back tears and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. "Just a kid."
End Chapter 3
Once again, please tell me if I misspelled anything.
--Exit