October 29th
A chill air drifted from the ocean and up from the harbour as the sky grew dim in the west. A menagerie of bats, spiders, black cats, ghosts, skeletons and pumpkins had greeted Astrid as she made her way along Jay Street, several of the houses having already been decorated in preparation for the 31st.
The front door to the Haddock house opened, and Hamish stepped triumphantly into the doorway to greet her, putting on a look of mock alarm.
"A Viking! What am I gonna do?"
She smiled malevolently and spun the plastic axe by the handle, hoping the glow from the porch light would glint off of the weapon's silver paint.
"Surrender your mead, meats and virgins, for the glory of Thor." she laughed.
He let out a hearty chuckle, and took on a defiant pose. "You'll be disappointed, the best we've got to drink is Budweiser, the only meat we've got at the moment is the peperoni in the fridge, and as for virgins… there's just all… this."
The remark was enough to make her break character. "You just gestured to all of you!"
At the sound of a familiar voice, Toothless emerged from one of his many hiding spots. He gave the Viking a cursory sniff, before he lavished her with his customary greeting.
"All ready to go?" she asked as they stepped into the front hall, scratching the cat in his favourite spot. Hamish chuckled at seeing the often indifferent feline became putty in her hands once again.
"Almost, I just need to grab the drinks and lock up… Dad's at the station tonight." she waited as he disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, and returned an instant later with a 12-pack box of Izze. They gave Toothless one final bit of affection before they exited onto the porch, and he tested the now-secured front door to satisfy his inner worry.
Content, he picked up the box of sparkling juice and angled the makeshift Proton Pack so that it was facing her.
"Could you switch me on?"
Her melodic laugher reached his ears as she felt for the switch in the dying light. "Is that all I am to you, someone who can blow your fuses?" she teased, playing along to his unintended double entendre.
He couldn't hide his amusement anymore. "What can I say? I'm always looking out for the positives rather than the negatives."
It was then that she gave him a familiar whack to the arm, and he rubbed it as she pressed the switch, activating the LED lights on the pack and Proton Gun. "There you go, and your puns are getting worse."
"I know, I know. I've been spending too much time with George."
She checked the time on her phone, and glanced up as the last embers of sunset winked out in the distance.
"Fifteen to eight, let's get going."
"Right." he nodded as they proceeded down the garden path. "Let's get this disaster over with." he joked, and she rolled her eyes.
Atlantic Street lay roughly north-east of Hamish's house, in a small neighbourhood that butted up against the grounds of the High School, and the shore of DeBloise Cove. The relative seclusion of the far end of the street had led Tomi and Rebakka to spend much of their free time around the Town Square, and Barry Cuda's, in order to maximise the impact of their pranks.
As one of the older, and in past times more affluent streets in town, the houses had been granted more generously-proportioned plots of land, and the majority of dwellings adhered to the Queen Anne style.
As Astrid and Hamish navigated the sidewalk, the glow of the LEDs on his costume and the flashlight app on her smartphone lighting the way, they could hear the thump of music in the distance. Occasionally a car would drive past, taking more guests to the party.
"Am I allowed to know what your cousin's dressed as, or do I have to wait until we get to the twins' front door?"
She smirked in the darkness. "He said he was going to be dressed as something that was skeletal, and that he's 'a modern twist on an old idea'."
"Skeleton, with a twenty-sixteen twist. Got it." he nodded, mostly to himself. "I'm not making any promises of anything beyond casual conversation, though."
She let out an exaggerated groan. "Why do you have such little faith in my pick? I haven't given you reason to be this sceptical."
He deliberated on her point, before favouring her with an embellished shrug. "Fine. I just assumed that maybe because you've been so good at lots of other things, that you'd have to be bad at something, and it'd be your taste in guys for me."
She gave him another thud on the arm, and he laughed it off.
They'd rounded the sharp 90° turn near the end of the street, and they could now see three prominent houses clustered around a turning circle, the middle of which blazed with light and was draped in Halloween decorations. The shoulder of the roadway was cluttered with parked vehicles, and a few costumed party guests milling outside.
The two teenagers crossed the brick pathway leading to the house's antique porch, and spared a moment to make sure their attire was in good order before ringing the bell.
The door swung open, and they were greeted personally by Tomi and Rebekka.
"Welcome, oh weary travellers! Tonight you enter a hall most foul and horrible, you will surely lose your minds!" Tomi melodramatised from one half of the doorway, dressed in a weird chicken-like costume, whilst wearing sloppily-applied black and yellow face paint in a design that sort of resembled a skull.
Meanwhile Rebekka, who was dressed like a female version of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator, gave both Hamish and Astrid a look that was at the same time mischievous and unsettling. "Have you brought a sacrifice for great Loki?"
Hamish hefted up the box of bottles, stifling the uncomfortable grunt that had threatened to pass his lips, and waited as the two teenage troublemakers conferred over the selection. Rebekka turned back to them with that unnerving smile again. "Good choice, you can enter… but remember: anything can happen once you're beyond these doors, and we're only sorta, kinda responsible for some of the stuff that might happen."
"So be warned!" Tomi added in a theatrically spooky voice.
Hamish shot one final questioning look at Astrid, and she shrugged at him playfully, before giving him a gentle nudge towards the door. Stuck to the doorframe above them was a crude, hand-written sign. Its vivid red blood-like lettering proclaimed:
Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
