I sincerely hope this makes up for the incredibly LONG time between updates. I also apologize for any misspelled words/grammar mistakes. For the reason, see my author's link/page thing. :D
I also hope this is easy to read...if you had a hard time understanding things after you read it, perhaps reading the next chapter will clear some stuff up. Once I get it up, that is. Or you can always e-mail me, PM me, talk about it in your review, etc. :D
Now, onto the long, long, long awaited continuation...
A scream rang out from one of the back rooms, where it echoed off the sterily white washed walls of the lobby. All the occupants capable of such feats turned their heads toward the sounds, wincing in anticipation. One boy, sitting extremely close to the doorway of the hall that lead to said back rooms, paid particular attention to the horrendous noises emanating from the rear of the building. One thought kept him on the edge of his seat, ready to escape at a moment's notice, but then a sharp stab of pain would force him back down, glued to his seat. One thought, that same nerve-rending, doom-impending thought, reverberated around the caverns of his mind. The only thing he could think about was what the lady in white had told him.
He was next.
-- --- --- --- --- --
What can I say about Halloween? It's on October 31st every year. Kids dress up as monsters, witches, ghosts, and goblins. They dress up as mere figments of the imagination, as unreal characters and go 'trick-or-treating' to collect confectionary, sugary treats filled with artificial taste, artificial ingredients, artificial coloring, artificial everything. These 'candies' are stuffed into children's mouths, where they are chewed and swallowed and will later cause agonizing pain and miserable misery when the sweet treats turn into not-so-sweet cavities and toothaches.
Now, you may be asking why I am telling you all this. Why am I going to the trouble of informing you of something you will just regard as useless nonsense and will log away to the deepest parts of your memory, never to be thought of again? Why am I against Halloween?
I'll tell you the reason I'm against Halloween. But first, I had better give you a little background information so as not to confuse you as to how my stance on this particular issue came about. It all started on October 31st, just two weeks ago...
-- --- --- --- --- --
A hyperactive boy of Mexican desent awaited anxiously the dinging of the bell, signaling it was finally time to go home for the weekend. He was particularly antsy this Friday afternoon, seeing as tonight was Halloween night. He couldn't wait for all the chocolate-y goodness, the caramels and the candies, the suckers and the gum. Adrenaline coursed through his veins just thinking about the gobs upon gobs of candy he was sure he would get.
The bell finally rang its last ring for the day, and he was released. Because he was the first one out the door, he was forced by obligation and duty to stop and wait for his fellow classmates and friends to file through too, so they could leave together, as tradition dictated.
Once all three comrades were outside the educational building, the rather large, bulky one asked the short, rather brainy one what time they were to meet at said brainy one's home to begin their annual journey to gather sweets, to which the brainy one replied, "5 o'clock sharp. I've got an invention that I think will help us tremendously boost our respective stores of candy." Seeing the apprehensive look on his bulkish friend's face, he reassured him, "Don't worry Carl; I've already tested it. There's practically no ill side effects shown. Well, not after it starts to work, anyway." He grinned at his friend sheepishly.
"Yeah, Carl. What Jimmy said. Stop being such a baby," Sheen added.
Sensing the oncoming argument, Jimmy proceeded to walk ahead of his bickering friends a few steps. "That's not what Jimmy said Sheen! He said there wasn't any ill side effects!" Carl retorted, then realizing that he wasn't quite sure what that meant, turned to the smartest of the bunch. "What are ill side effects, Jim?"
Laughing, he explained, ticking things off on his fingers, "It means that it won't hurt you, or paralyze you, or make you sick, or kill you, or any other bad thing that could happen to you physically."
Whether he understood or just simply didn't care anymore, Jimmy nor Sheen never knew, but all Carl said in response was a dismissive, "Oh," and that was effectively the end of the invention conversation for now.
-- --- --- --- --- --
The pain was starting to worsen. If something didn't happen soon...
No, he would not think such things. This wasn't the time, nor the place...well, perhaps it was the place, he conceded to himself. He was torn between the agony he was forced to endure presently, and the agony he knew would be experienced further down the road. Of course, he once again contradicted himself, that pain won't last very long...
-- --- --- --- --- --
Carl and I were surprised to feel the ground beneath our feet give way. Of course, we expect this everytime; we know it's going to happen, but for some odd, unknown reason we are never prepared for it. It always takes my breath away. I think that's part of the reason I like it so much. It gives me a rush. It makes me excited. It scares me.
Kind of like Halloween. Now, I know I'm a bit old for the whole "boogeymen in the closets; monsters in the dark" stuff, but there's just something about Halloween that freaks me out. Something I can't explain. Maybe it's some special Halloween syrum all the candy manufacturers put in their recipes around this time that does it. Maybe it's the full moon that always seems to come out around All Hallow's Eve. Who's to say, really? All I know is that I don't like being out after a certain time on October 31st.
Perhaps I have some sort of sixth sense for these things. Whether you choose to believe it or not, I usually know when something really bad's going to happen. I choose not to say anything because for one, I like the adventure, the exhilaration. For another, not many would believe me.
That could be why, on this particular fall afternoon, I just didn't feel right getting prepared to go out candy-collecting. Don't get me wrong, I still wanted to go trick-or-treating, but something just wasn't clicking. I got this funny feeling, almost a premonition type thing. However, it wasn't strong enough to keep me from doing anything drastic, like stay home.
And besides, with my friends, there's always a great adventure waiting to happen, especially with a few souped up toys to play with along the way...
-- --- --- --- --- --
Just as they promised, Sheen and Carl showed up at Jimmy's doorstep at 5:00 sharp. Anxious to get underway, and in anticipation of a brand new invention to fiddle with, they were more than excited to drop into the unknown that is Jimmy's lab.
Once they had landed roughly on their behinds on the cemented floor, they waisted no time in foraging for Jimmy. They found him huddled over something secretively, clad in a white lab coat, blue rubber gloves, and black goggles that covered nearly half of his face. "Hey Jimmy, what'cha working on?" Sheen asked, slapping him on the back.
Startled by the sudden contact, he dropped what he was holding onto the table, where it bounced and clang until he picked it back up, holding it tightly. Glaring lightly at Sheen, he held up a small, oblong, orange pill. "This is my latest and greatest invention, Hallo-Blaster Fuel," Jimmy explained, setting it down on his workbench and walking across the room to retrieve another piece of machinery. "And this," he said, motioning toward the orange and black tool he held in his hand, "is the Hallo-Blaster."
"What's it do Jim?" Carl asked, observing his friend as he lead them through the inner workings of the ivention.
"Excellent question, Carl! Allow me to demonstrate. First, you place the correct type of fuel into the fuel tank, like so," Jimmy said, flipping up a small square on the side of the machine and popping the pill in. "Then, you twist this dial here to set the frequency. The higher the frequency, the better the result, but the more fuel you use." He fiddled with the knob for a second, twisting it this way and that until he was satisfied. "Finally, you aim the Hallo-Blaster at your target and press the button, like so." He took aim at a blank area on the wall farthest from them, squeezed the trigger, and watched as a dazzling light erupted from the mouth of the tool, hitting the wall dead on. A few seconds was all it took to completely transform the wall from drab cement to a festive Halloween mural.
"Wow," both Carl and Sheen breathed.
"And it works on humans too, so all we have to do is blast ourselves with it and we'll be dressed in no time flat! Now, who wants to go first?"
-- --- --- --- --- --
There was little challenge between my comrade and I. He's rather easy to overpower; you just have to know how to exploit his weaknesses to your advantage. It's really not that hard. I've done it several times in order to sneak a few of his chili cheese fries or a bite of his Choco-Supreme at the Candy Bar. But I digress.
Here comes the rather boring part of my narrative, and since it's not extremely relevant to the main point of the story, I feel it only necessary to skip over all the details of our attire and the step-by-step guidelines of our little excursion. You'll thank me for this later. Really, you will. And, besides, if you've seen one costume, you've seen them all, haven't you? Now, where to pick up? Oh yes, here's a good place to start...
-- --- --- --- --- --
Three preteen boys emerged from a shabby-looking shack, located behind the Neutron's house. All were in costume and felt ready to take on the night. They safely crossed the road to a certain preteen girl's home to pick up the remaining members of their small party.
Giggling, Sheen and Carl lightheartedly pushed Jimmy forward, encouraging him to knock on the door. After giving them both glares, he did just that. After several minutes of waiting and a few muffled, "Hold on! We're coming!"s, the two girls emerged, also in costume and with treat bags in hand. "Ready? Let's go," the blonde-haired of the two huffed, as if she had been the one standing on the front porch, waiting. Her raven haired friend followed her down the steps and out onto the sidewalk.
Staring after them, Carl asked, "Wonder what's up with her?" Jimmy and Sheen looked at each other and shrugged in response, then, sensing that the feminine portion of their group was quickly gaining ground on them, they ran to catch up with Cindy and Libby.
-
"Trick-or-treat!" five youngsters sang out in unison to the owner of the house. Nothing could have prepared them for what they would have to go through because they had uttered those three simple little words.
-- --- --- --- --- --
Things were going fine for our quintuplet. Well, Carl did trip a few times, losing a large portion of his sweet morsels, but that was to be expected. By the fourth time he fell, we even had a sort of candy-retrieval system worked out. We had gathered gobs of candy already, and were starting to wind things up, wanting to hit all the houses on the street we were on before going to the Lab to barter treats with one another.
Almost to the point of dragging our feet by the time we had arrived at the next-to-last house, we were little more than courteous, offering the homeowners a tired and overused, "Trick-or-treat." As we trudged down the steps and the few short feet of sidewalk to the last house, I got this funny feeling. It wasn't particularly strong, just enough to pique my interests and sharpen my senses a bit; a whim, if you will. But by that time, I wasn't sure if it was something I really needed to listen to, or just something emerging because of my slight state of exhaustion. Not to mention the fact that over the course of the night, I had consumed a fairly large amount of my candy. Thinking it might of just been a postponed sugar rush, I didn't really listen to my intuition. Following the group, we walked up the last stoop for the night. This fact gave us a boost of energy, and when the door opened to reveal the shriveled old lady with her basket of goodies, we exclaimed, "Trick-or-treat!" with more vigor than a number of the previous houses had recieved.
Had I known what that house contained, I would have listened to my gut and high-tailed it home...
-- --- --- --- --- --
Perhaps, he thought to himself, if we had just called it quits earlier, none of this would be happening right now. So much pain, so much needless pain, so much preventable, avoidable pain. If he was able, he would've kicked himself for not listening to his body when all its alarms were going off. Oh well, he sighed. You live and learn, I guess. Of course, this thought was followed with yet another burst of agonizing pain, and then, "I just hope I live to learn!"
-- --- --- --- --- --
"Trick-or-treat!"
"My, what a lovely bunch of children. And such adorable costumes!" the withered woman exclaimed, smiling widely behind her coke-bottle glasses. She grasped a wooden cane in one hand, and carried a bowl of woven straw filled to the brim with candy discs, covered with a pale yellow wrapper. "Won't you have some Full Moons?" she inquired, sticking the bowl out, offering.
The children took quick glances at one another. Full Moons? That was certainly a new brand. They certainly sounded Halloweenish. They didn't ponder over it long, however, as their feet starting complaining, reminding them they had been out long enough for one night. Encouraged by the old lady watching over them, they grabbed handfuls of the foreign candy, filling their bags up by doing so. "Thank you!" they shouted as the began their trek home, wondering in the backs of their minds just what exactly a Full Moon was.
They never heard the old woman chuckle as she shut the door, saying to herself, "Yes, such lovely children. Lovely, lovely children." Placing the emptied bowl on the counter, she dropped her cane and walked toward the living room, cackling the entire time.
Okay, this was supposed to be a one-shot, but I figured, What the heck? It's long enough, and that's a fairly good place to stop. Such a nice cliffhanger...LOL. I promise, I'm going to work on this story and finish it this summer! I will! If I don't, you all have permission to hunt me down and shoot me. Er, maybe not shoot...
Um...well, good news: school's out today (Monday the 22nd), so I have roughly three months to work on stories. Hopefully, my fanfictions will pick up, since I have no homework. :D
And the title of the story finally comes into play! Part of this was probably familiar, but most of it is new. Well, duh, LOL. Silly me. This is almost done, so expect the completed finale sometime around Wednesday-Friday. I promise! I will finish it this time! I've found a nice rhythm to it, so I can actually finish! Be proud of me! LOL.
I thought about (and actually started) a chapter two, but I really, really, REALLY like this better, and I hope you guys do too. This is dedicated to all the readers who have waited for (gulp) over TWO YEARS for an update. You guys rock! But only if you review this time too...lol.
