Chapter 12 – Nightmare on Cullens' Ground
Halloween.
That word's meaning becomes increasingly less important the older you become. Most colleges and some adults have Halloween parties, but nothing that crazy. Honestly, they're just excuses for everyone to get hammered in a revealing outfit so basically the same as a regular Friday night except nobody can be criticized for how much skin they're showing.
Except Field of Screams and other haunted attractions allow horror junkies the pleasure of the extreme glory of what Halloween symbolizes. If you think the haunted house at your local amusement park or boardwalk is terrifying, come to Field of Screams and get back to me.
The scare is vamped up a million tonight. The lights are turned down low to enhance the eerie and ominous feeling. A distorted voice of Masen through the speakers periodically is wishing everyone a happy Halloween and lowly telling everyone to pray to leave alive and in one piece before evilly laughing off.
Alice and I are donning my recycled black cloaks to get in the spirit. A few of the actors I do makeup for comment on it and say I can do better than that jokingly. I send them on their merry way to scare the general public. There's a plan Alice and I need to execute.
Rose made a request a few days ago that her Halloween makeup be a Two Face inspiration. Half of her is skull makeup and the other half is the beautiful blushing bride she's supposed to be, but the skull half is creeping over and eating her beautiful side, leaving a trail of blood and fresh flesh in its wake.
"Ready?" I ask Alice as I buckle in, ready to go home for the next few hours.
"I sure as fuck am," a low voice rumbles from the back. A bloody hand grasps my seat, grazing upon my thigh, making me shriek. Behind me is someone with a deteriorating skull mask on with a fracture through the side.
Scared out of my wit, I immediately try opening the door, but it's locked. The man continues speaking to me. I'm too concerned for myself to see what Alice is doing.
"Leaving so soon sweetheart? Halloween's just begun! Don't you want to visit the graveyard?" he offers, reaching his hand up to my face.
"No!" I shout, finally finding the lock on the door and manually opening it. I scamper a few cars away, looking back to see if the killer is chasing me. My body pummels into a hard surface. Now I'm face to face with a creepy ass clown. "Fuck no!" I turn to run again, but trip over something so I resort to crawling away.
"Bella!" Alice shouts in the distance.
"Alice, what the fuck is going on?"
"Bella!"
"Alice!"
"Not so fast, Pumpkin!" Creepy skull guy grabs me from behind.
All my extremities flail about, high on adrenaline until I realize something. Taking a good hard look at creepy skull guy, I snatch the mask off his face only to be graced with Edward Cullen's smirk.
"You asshole!" I shout at him, still squirming to get out of his grasp. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
Finally, he releases me from his hold and his creepy clown friend joins us. I snatch the mask off him to find Emmett with a similar smirk on his face which earns him several slaps on the chest.
"Getting you in the Halloween spirit, baby. You can't be dating me and not enjoy the true spirit of a Cullen Halloween!" he boasts proudly.
The adrenaline is wearing off, calming me a little. "I went through your attractions! You chased me out with a chainsaw!" I shout and gesticulate wildly. I'm still a little pissed at him for his little stunt.
"But today's Halloween," he pouts like a little dog.
I narrow my eyes and flicker between his eyes and Emmett's. "You're lucky I like you."
His beaming smile returns. "Truce?"
"Nope," I say, walking past him back to Alice's car only to find with a little smirk herself. She must've been in on it. "Pull that again, and I'll shove that chainsaw and axe up your ass, Edward!"
"Nothing but the best, Pumpkin!"
I give him two middle fingers, slamming the car door shut after I hear both Cullens laughing. I roll the window down and shout with a playful note, "I'll get you one of these days for payback!"
*Field of Screams*
According to Alice, the Cullen brothers recruited her help and she happily assisted in scaring me shitless. She winks at me, telling me that wasn't their initial plan which was worse. Initially, the plan was to throw a burlap sack over me, run around the empty fields, throw me in the back of the car, drive around the block, come back, carry me back and reveal themselves in Masen's office. Alice being the sensible one talked them down.
"You couldn't talk them out of doing anything?" I half-whine, securing my hair into a bun with my accessory.
"Now where's the fun in that?" she chirps, skipping out of the bathroom which is a sight to be seen.
Our plan is the old switcheroo. She's Voldemort this time, and I'm Azula. I can't quote anything Azula says since I just finished book one yesterday, but if what Emmett said was true when Alice dressed up as her, then I'm hoping I look hotter and badder than the cartoon version and also a legal adult.
"I need better friends," I mumble, thinking of everything I've put up with the last several weeks.
"We're helping you desensitize yourself. If you plan on being with Edward for the long haul, you better come prepared!"
"You sound like Masen. We've only been on a handful of dates. Don't be planning any wedding yet!" I order, pointing a finger at her.
"Your outward appearances may not look it, but in your eyes, you two are absolutely smitten with each other. By the end of the year, you two will be inseparable."
"If his Halloween spirit merges with the other holidays, I'll be seeing a zombie Santa," I grumble, not wanting to imagine a dead looking Santa on Christmas day.
We walk back into the barn to people raving about Alice and brushing me aside. I guess it should be expected since it's Halloween. I just look like a normal person except in a flashy red robe.
In the coming hour, it gets obnoxiously loud as actors trickle in from the organized chaos occurring in the active field. Their screams are dominant over the noises from here though. It seems like the chainsaws are even louder tonight.
Another extremely long, loud hour later, a majority of the actors are wiped clean and off on their merry ways. I haven't seen Rose, Emmett, or Edward all night. The realization has me on high alert. Is Rose in an alliance with them too to make me shit my pants tonight?
Alice bounces over to me all bubbly about the compliments she's been getting about being Voldemort. I've gotten some compliments too even requests for imitations of some of Azula's lines, but I had to break their hearts and tell them that I haven't gotten that far in the series yet. I had to cover my ears a few times to prevent any spoilers.
"Are you sure they didn't abandon ship earlier? There was so much going on maybe we didn't see them leave?" I suggest after waiting another twenty minutes. We're both lucky we don't have a morning class tomorrow.
Like they're celebrities, they finally waltz in. It's almost as if they're walking towards us in slow motion with everyone's eyes on them. Now I understand Rose's request for tonight. Emmett is the perfect complement except his face is all skull makeup. Edward almost matches them. He's covered in white makeup as the base. Black makeup surrounds his eyes and branches off like veins. His mouth has a thin line of black in the middle of them and like his eyes, it also branches off. Against the black and white, his eyes are emphasized and sparkle and make him creepier.
"What took so long?" Alice whines as they approach us. "All of us have day lives, you know."
"The meeting of a patriarchs. It's Halloween tradition. It's the boring back of the house stuff and annual family pictures. Now come on."
Emmett pulls Alice out of her chair and Edward pulls me out of my chair. They position us in front of the gray backdrop and with a snap of Rose's fingers, a photographer comes out of nowhere. He gives us instructions and begins snapping pictures away.
"I'm sticking out like sore thumb, guys." The others are black and white themed while I'm red.
"Maybe that's the point, Pumpkin." Edward winks at me. "You apparently didn't get the memo."
I shove him and hear the distinctive click. "Am I at least hotter and badder than the cartoon version?"
"Definitely." To prove his point, he releases my hair and fluffs it. "Both you and Azula hit different with your hair down, but that spark in your eyes is more alluring."
"Jack off to images of Bella dressed as Azula later, Edward!" Emmett chants and Rose slaps his chest.
The photographer proceeds to take pictures of Emmett and Rose together and Alice all alone. Edward forces me to join him even though a demon like creature and Azula do not coordinate with one another in any way.
"Don't you want to go home? You have work tomorrow," I inquire, genuinely concerned he's not going to get enough sleep.
"It's Halloween, it only comes once a year. My boss and coworkers know all about Field of Screams and how involved I am in it. There's no big meeting or pitches or anything tomorrow so it's okay if I go in a little late. I appreciate your concern though, Princess." He smiles at me and tenderly traces my cheek. "Don't you have class tomorrow?"
"Not until one or else I wouldn't be putting up with your asses," I tease.
"Well, I hope you'll put up with all our asses for a long time. In fact, would you like to join me at the annual end of the season dinner at my parent's place in two weeks?"
"Meeting the parents already? That's ambitious of you, Cullen," I joke. I've already met the patriarchs. Perhaps the matriarchs are calmer. "If I go, no funny business, you hear me?"
"No promises there, Pumpkin," he chuckles and shakes his head. "Our parties can get crazy. I can promise you amazing food and liquor though. Alice can come too if she wants. She can be Liz's 'date' so we have an even number."
"I'll think about."
I'm only making him sweat it for a day or two until I give him a definitely yes.
Dinner with the Cullens can't be that bad right? It can't be any worse than the younger Cullen brothers ambushing me.
Posted: October 31, 2020
Happy Halloween! Watch for your friends hiding in the backseat of your cars in full costume tonight. Just 1 more chapter left next week! See you for the finale then!