The Longest Halloween

“Ready to go trick or treating, sweety?”

Matthew was standing on the front porch, looking up at his mother through the eye holes of my homemade ghost costume.

“Mom, I don't feel good. Maybe I won't go out tonight.”

His mom looked down at him, smiling in that strange way he had become accustomed to. It was definitely supposed to be his mom, her red hair falling softly around her shoulders as she wore the thrift store bridal gown she had ripped up for her zombie bride costume, but Matthew knew it wasn’t her. When she turned her head, he could hear the tendons creak in her neck, and her rictus of a smile made the corners of her mouth turn up painfully.

“Come on, hunny. Halloween only comes once a year.”

Matthew sighed, if only that were the case.

They stepped off the front porch, making their way into the throng of children that happily capered about the cul-de-sac. His ghost costume looked a little plain when compared to the others, but Matthew couldn’t find it in himself to be self conscious anymore. They weren’t kids, at any rate. Not the kids he’d grown up with.

Behind their colorful masks or face paint or oddly yellow eyelids were black and soulless eyes.

“I can’t,” Matthew said, letting his hand slip from his mothers.

“Can’t what, sweety?” she asked, turning her painful smile on him.

“I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE!” he yelled, throwing his bucket down and rounding on her.

The throngs of trick or treaters turned to stare at him, and Matthew suddenly realized his mistake, not for the first time, and not for the last.

“Sweety,” his mother said, turning slowly, her arms and legs like something full of coathangers and newspaper, “It’s Halloween. You either treat, or you get tricked.”

The kids began to circle around him, their voices low and their eyes shining like pools of tar.

“Trick or Treat, Trick or Treat, Trick or Treat, Trick or Treat!”

Matthew could feel his heart beating in his ears. It was noisy, soupy and constantly pounding, fundamentally different from a normal heart beat in every way. He bumped into a teenage Michael Myers, and the big mute pushed him over before he could properly get his bearings. He fell down hard on his chest and then they were on him. Luckily, as Matt lay face down on the concrete, he didn’t have to watch this time. They ripped his back appart, their sharp little teeth digging into his flesh. He felt the warm blood oozing down his back, the asphalt drinking it up as the kids tore him apart. His arm separated with a sickening pop, his sheet tearing as it ripped, and as Matthew lost consciousness, he hoped that maybe this would be the time it would end. He was so tired, tired of being a ghost, tired of Halloween, and as the bright lights made him squint, he felt hot tears join his blood on the pavement.

“Ready to go Trick or Treating, sweety?”

Matthew looked up at his mother, nodding as he reached up and took her hand for the thousandth time. It didn’t feel like a real hand, not anymore. It felt mushy in the wrong places, hard and unmoving in others, like a palsied claw after a loved one had a stroke. She looked down at him, smiling like a corpse, and Matthew tried to ignore the fact that the skin around her ears was darker than it had been the last time. His mother appeared to be rotting before his eyes, but to make note of it might bring on something worse.

He walked once more into the sea of children, watching them run and cheer, but feeling their eyes as they tracked him. The whole street was like living in a forest of lions. Any minute, they might spring from concealment and tear you to pieces. He had been here long enough to know, however, that as long as you played along with this everlasting Halloween, it was content to keep you in its clutches.

As they came to the first house, Matthew could see old Mr. Debrow as he smiled and stepped through his door. The liver spots on his head were starting to look more like mold, but Matthew tried to ignore it as he shook his bag half heartedly. The old man would drop two small kit kats in there and tell him to have a great evening, just like he did every time, and Matthew wanted to get on with this charade.

When the candy didn’t fall into the bag like it always did, Matt looked up and saw the grinning face of the old man as it loomed over him.

“Forgot your manners, son?”

Matthew gasped, he’d become complacent again. He’d been here long enough to know that you didn’t get candy unless you said the magic words, but he was just so tired. He’d been trick or treating for age and he was exhausted. Every time he finished, every time he came to the end, good or bad, it would all just begin again, and he was starting to feel like if he looked at his own reflection, he might be the one who was beginning to rot.

He tried to stammer out a hurried “Trick or Treat”, but he could already see the long, sharp legs as they protruded from the corners of the man's mouth, whatever horrors that lay inside these things already dragging itself free.

The words came from what sounded like a drowned man's throat, or the dying voice of someone whose slowly choking to death, and Matthew heard it just as the pinchers on the horrific whatever it was shot out between Mr. Debrow’s stained false teeth and latched onto his head.

The teeth clicked together as they hit the ground like a set of sad castanets, but Matthew heard his words as he faded once more to black.

“You’ll have to keep it in mind for next time.”

“Ready to go Trick or Treating, sweety?”

Matthew didn’t even look up at her this time. He lifted his hand and grabbed a hold of her withered paw as he let her lead him into the cul-de-sac. He moved on autopilot, remembering only the words that must be said as he came to each house. The candy filled the bag, the grownups continued to smile their hollow grins, and all the while, Matthew trudged onward. He saw the corner coming up, the junction of Marla and Casterly, and Matt saw someone that made him cold inside.

The man was dressed as Indiana Jones, bullwhip hanging jauntily off his waist, and when he turned to wave at someone who had called his name, Matthew steered his mother towards a different house back down the road.

“We missed the, uh, Jafferth’s house, mom. Mrs. Jafferth wanted to see your costume, remember?”

His mother looked unsure, but she turned anyway, smiling as she allowed herself to be led away.

“Alright, Matty, no need to tug.”

Matt looked back as they left, seeing the man and knowing that he didn’t want his mother to talk to him.

She had talked to him once before, hadn’t she?

She had talked to him and something bad had happened, but it didn’t seem like something that had happened in here.

He didn’t know, and he couldn’t say, but when he saw him, the ear shattering heartbeat came on again, and he knew that letting her talk to him would be the scariest thing he had ever experienced.

As the night went on, Matthew held out hope that the lights might start going off and that he might be allowed to sleep. The bag was heavy, the pillowcase bulging oddly as it threatened to split, but still he and his mother walked the streets of the cul-de-sac. How many times had he done this, Matt wondered. One hundred, two hundred, a thousand? It felt like an eternity as his sore feet slapped the pavement and his trainers threatened to fall to pieces.

“Do you remember the first time, Mom?” he asked suddenly, repositioning the bag to rub his eyes.

“Your first Halloween?” she asked, looking down at him with that fishhook grin, “I sure do. You were so cute in your cow costume. You said Oooo instead of mooo, and the neighbors laughed and said how adorable you were.”

“No,” Matthew said, “I mean the first time we did this?”

“Look over there,” she said suddenly, “the Holsteins are waving. Let’s go see what they have.”

Matthew nodded, following behind her as she led him over like a cow to slaughter.

Matt remembered the first time, remembered it well.

He had looked up into his mothers eyes and been so excited. He had run down the street, tugging her along as they went house to house. That had been the first time he’d seen the man on the corner, and the first time he had steered her away from him, not understanding why. He had laughed when the pillow case ripped open, spilling his candy in the road, and when his mother had pulled another one out of nowhere, he had started filling that one too. The moon had been full, a big ole round Halloween moon, and Matthew reveled in the light of that buttery orb.

It had taken him a while to get tired, but he had finally asked mom if they could go home so he could rest.

She had tried to dissuade him, telling him that they should go to a few more houses.

A little while later, when he had asked again, she had tried to push him on, but he had stopped.

“I’m tired, momma. I’m ready to go home.”

She had turned then and that was the first time he had noticed the smile.

Her smile, that sharp, painful grin, had seemed sad as it looked at him, and he had known that there was something off then. This wasn’t what he wanted, this hadn’t been what he’d wanted. He had just wanted a Halloween that would….

He swallowed, true fear creeping into him as he had looked at her unnatural smile, and noticed that the children had stopped moving around them.

He had just wanted a Halloween that would last forever.

“Oh, sweety, you either get the Treats or you get Tricks.”

That was when he had seen them for what they truly were. They had circled around him, chanting “Trick or Treat”, and as they swarmed in on him, they had torn him apart with their bare hands. All the joy had melted off his face as their nails and teeth dug into him, and when he had woken up on the front porch, his mother asking if he was ready, he had known that something was amiss.

“Matty?”

Matthew looked up, seeing that Mrs. Holstein had asked him a question, “Sorry, ma’am, what were you saying.”

“I asked if you were a scary ghost or not?”

She was smiling, but it was like Matt could see the bugs crawling under her skin. It made him think that each of them had some kind of centipede or spider beneath their surface, just waiting to leap out. All of them seemed to have something in them, just below the surface, and Matthew was no longer certain he wanted to know what it was. It was hungry, whatever it was, and it seemed to enjoy making him suffer for his slip ups.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m a,” he yawned, feeling wobbly as the candy sack tried to anchor him to the earth, “ a scary, scary…gho,”

He fell then, not for the first time either. He hit the ground, his mother asking him to get back up, but he was just too tired. Matthew closed his eyes, hoping he would pass out, but it never happened. He could feel the adults looming around him, hear the chants of “Trick or Treat”, and when something slammed against his chest, he felt the breath woosh out of him as it pierced his heart.

He hoped it would be over this time, hoped he’d be allowed to die or wake up or whatever this was, but as he heard his mothers voice, he knew it wouldn’t happen.

“Ready to go Trick or Treating, sweety?”

His tired eyes came open, but as he reached for her hand, a thought occurred.

“I forgot something inside, I’ll be right back.”

He took a step for the door, but her hand clutched at him, just as it had the last time he had tried this.

“It’ll be okay. We can get it later. Come on lets,” but then he shoved her, and that seemed to take her by surprise.

He ran inside, shutting the door on her as she got back to her feet.

As he turned the dead bolt, she started pounding dully on the hardwood, “Now, Matty. You know how this works. You either get the treat, or you get the tricks.”

He could already hear the muffled cries of “Trick or Treat” coming from behind the door, and he backed away slowly as he watched it buck and jerk in the frame. He wasn’t strong enough to push the couch in front of the door, or even one of the recliners, but he did shove the end table in the hallway in their path before running upstairs and closing the door to his room behind him. He locked the door and squeezed himself into the corner as he threw the sheet he was still wearing across the room. He could hear loud thumping coming from downstairs, and he didn’t think that door would keep them out for long.

He racked his brain, trying to figure out how to get out of this. He thought back across all those trick or treating trips, all the nights that had come before this, and his mind always went back to the man in the wide brimmed hat. He was scared of him in a way that he wasn’t any of the others. Not the bugs or the feral kids or anything he’d seen scared him as much as that man. Why, though? Why did he terrify him so much? Why did he fill him with dread like this.

“I want you to meet someone.”

He covered his ears, but his mother’s voice wasn’t coming from the house.

“He’s kind of important to me, like you.”

He put his head between his knees and started to cry as the door broke loudly from downstairs and the words of the children wafted up to him.

“I’ve been seeing him sometimes, after work or while you're at Grandma’s for the weekend and I think he might be,” but the rest of it droned down to a low growl as his brain hit the brakes on it.

He tried to remember what his mother had said, but he couldn’t. His mind struggled with the memory, but as he tried to make it make sense, he heard them pounding on his bedroom door. They were pushing, threatening to break the door, and he curled into a ball as he tried to make the memories come back.

“Trick or treat, trick or treat, Trick or Treat, TRICK OR TREAT!”

They came thundering into his room, and as they fell on him, one thought broke the surface above all the others.

He needed to see the man, and face his fears.

As they pummeled him to death, one word resonated in his brain and drove him into oblivion.

“No,”

“Ready to go Trick or Treating, sweety?”

The word still sounded in his brain even after the last few times. Matthew had gone along with her for the last…however many times to varying degrees of success. He always avoided the man, always turned her back onto the endless cul-de-sac of candy laden houses, but it always ended the same. He forgot his manners, he went off script and tried to escape, he simply fell over out of exhaustion, and then they had him.

He reached for her hand again, and as they walked, his brain tried to argue itself into sense.

They needed to talk to the man at the end of the block.

No.

“Trick or treat,” Matt droned, Mr Debrow smiling as the legs sat just inside his cheeks, a silent warning to be careful.

He knows something, maybe it was how to get out of this.

No.

“Come on, mom. Lets go to the Andersons.” he said, stalling for time.

“They’re not going anywhere, hunny.” she said as he pulled her along, her lips looking chapped as she smiled and smiled.

He has to know something. We need to…

No.

“Are you a scary ghost?” Mrs. Holstein asked, and Matt nodded as he told her he was, indeed, a scary ghost.

But if we just…

“No, no no no NO!” Matt finally yelled, clutching his head as he fell to his knees in the road.

He wanted his brain to shut up. He was tired, he was so tired! He wanted to go to bed! He Just wanted this all to end. He just…

That's when he noticed that they were all looking at him.

Matt closed his eyes, and oblivion came on not too much later.

Well, not oblivion.

Something more like purgatory.

“Ready to,” but he shoved again and went running down the street, ghost costume flapping as he jumped off the porch.

The kids were after him in a second, but Matt didn’t care. They would get him, one way or another, but he just needed a break from the constant tricking and treating. He was running up the street, the crowd behind him, and when he looked back, the children seemed to bulge with the scrabbling things as well. They were all full of bugs, all full of hate, and Matthew needed a way to get beyond this. He turned back just in time to bump into someone, and as he fell down, he covered his head, expecting to be killed by the howling mob.

When it didn’t come, Matt looked up to see who he had run into.

“Need a hand up, little buddy?”

It was the man in the Indiana Jones costume, and, to Matthew, he looked like the closest thing to an angel he had ever seen. Matt took his hand, shaking a little as he looked behind him. The mob had stopped, watching the man in confusion, and as Matthew looked up through the eyes of his ghost costume, he became aware that this fellow looked different. He looked real, untouched by this place, and Matt wondered why he had been afraid of him.

“It’s great to finally meet you, Matt. Your moths told me all about you, and I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. I’m Derrick, and, I guess, I’m your moms,” but the words seemed to slow down, and the dread came back over Matthew.

As the mob came back to screaming life, Matt realized why he had been afraid of this guy.

Matthew turned wanting to run again, but he was blinded by bright lights and he put his hand up to stop them.

As he fell into oblivion, Matthew came to terms with what he had to do, and he hoped he still had the strength to do it.

He needed to face his fears, otherwise, he’d be stuck here forever.

“Ready to go Trick or Treating, sweety?”

He looked up into his mothers smiling face, the corners of her mouth red as they threatened to crack, and shook his head.

“Not yet, we’re missing someone.”

He reached up and took her hand, and as they walked off towards the thing he feared most, the kids parted for them. They watched him, chanting their infernal mantra, and it seemed that he had the eyes of the whole neighborhood. As he walked towards that swollen moon, he felt it swivel in the sky and the craters too seemed to watch him as he made a beeline for the spot he had tried so hard to avoid. It wasn’t easy, each step felt like the first step towards the high dive at the pool or the roller coaster at the amusement park. He could see the man, his hat at a jaunty angle, and as they moved closer to him, all the people around them seemed to hold their breath.

“Julia!” Derrick said, raising his hand and walking over, “and this must be Matthew. Good to meet you buddy, I’m Derrick.”

He put out a hand, and Matt shook it heartilly.

“Matty, I want you to meet someone.” his mother said, “He’s kind of important, like you, and I’ve been seeing him sometimes, after work or while you're at Grandma’s for the weekend. I think he might be someone you’ll be seeing more of in the future. Matthew, this is Derrick, he’s my boyfriend.”

Matthew told him he was pleased to meet him, and as he watched the two of them talking quietly, he expected that now things would go back to the way they were. This was it. This was one of those storybook moments that would turn everything back the way it was supposed to be. Matthew smiled as he watched her hand slip into his, and felt like everything would be okay now.

When the first person began to scream, he felt a little less sure than he had before.

The mob of children had followed them, the adults standing out like sore thumbs amongst them, and many of them were pointing at him. That huge moon that he had thought of as an eye only moments before, cracked like an egg and split into two pieces. It began to rain something down on them, something that didn’t look entirely pleasant. They slapped against his ghost costume wetly, but as one fell across the eye hole, Matt saw that they were bugs. They looked like a cross between a centipede and a spider, and as he threw it away, the crowd began to surge towards him. Matt ran, the only thing he could think to do, and as his mother and Derrick stood amongst the throng of chasers, they looked like rocks in a rushing river. He ran, his sore feet almost spilling him into the road more than once. He had been so sure that this would work, that this would free him, but now he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. The creepy crawlies were biting him as they covered the outside of his costume, weighing him down and making him sore.

As the mob closed in, their cries of “Trick or Treat” sounding like a war chant, Matt saw a bright light coming up fast.

He put a hand up, shielding his eyes, but didn’t dare to stop running.

As the light bore down on him, he hoped he would wake up anywhere besides the front porch of his house.

Heaven, Hell, nothingness, whatever was coming next, Matthew welcomed it with open arms.

The cries of the mob were driven into blissful silence only to be replaced by a harsh and rhythmic beeping.

Matt opened his eyes as his hand shot up and slapped his ear, making his head ring. He could see a pristine hospital room, with a beeping IV pole attached to one arm and the warm sun of mid morning outside a big window. His mother was snoring softly as she lay across his feet, and as he moved, his legs having gone to sleep as she laid across him, she stirred and looked up at him in surprise.

“Oh my God, Matthew!” She wrapped him in a hug, his IV’s making him feel pinched, but he was happy to have woken up somewhere different for a change.

“Hey, Mom. Whats going on?”

She smoothed his hair, her eyes wet looking as she tried to commit him to memory, “You got hit by a car, sweety. You ran away while we were trick or treating after,” she opened her mouth like a fish but shook it off, “It's not important. What's important is that you’re awake.”

“Where's Derrick?” The vision of the two of them standing stationary as the group of screaming children poured past them still vivid in his mind.

“He’s been by a few times, wanted to make sure you were okay. I told him I might need to take a break, though. I didn’t mean to upset you when I told you. I know it was sudden, I should have eased you into it. I’m sorry, Matty.” she said, half crying.

“No, it’s okay. I was just surprised. I shouldn’t have run away. You should call him, let him know that everythings okay.”

His mother looked shocked, but happy. She had clearly been worried for a while, but she was happy that Matthew was awake again. She stood up, asking if he wanted something to drink, and Matt nodded in the affirmative. His throat was very dry and it felt like a while since he had used it properly.

It wasn’t until the sun set and the night came on, that Matthew became anxious again.

His mother excused herself, saying she needed to get some food and maybe call Derrick to tell him that Matthew was okay. She had sat with him all day, watching cartoons and just kind of holding him, but it appeared that her lack of lunch was catching up with her. The hospital was quieter now, the night shift in full swing, but she still stopped before heading out the door.

“You’ll be okay for a few minutes, right? You look a little pale, like there's something on your mind.”

Matt assured her that he would be fine, but he was a little happier once she was out the door.

As another yawn shot through him, Matthew thought again about how his body would make him sleep soon, and he thought of something he should have considered earlier today.

He hadn’t noticed right away, but when he had brought his hand down from his ear, he had wiped something onto the sheet. He must have rolled it into the sheet somehow, because he hadn’t thought of it until he put his hand against the spot a while later. His mother had been in the bathroom, the door open so she could peek out at him to make sure he hadn’t just disappeared, and when he unbound the sheet, he saw something far too familiar there, staining the sheet brown and red as it pressed against it.

It was part of the things he had seen falling out of the moon, the head and pinchers of that strange centipede spider thing. He had picked it up in a napkin and thrown it in the garbage before his mother could see it, but what did it mean? Did it mean that all that had been real? Had that creature come from inside his head? Matt didn’t know what to think, but he found himself wondering something as he lay there feeling tired.

When he went to sleep, would he wake back up in the real world, or would he fall back into that eternal Halloween.

Matthew was afraid that he might find out soon enough.