by Joseph Fink
“LET’S SEE IT,” AGUSTÍN SAID.
She opened up the binder and pulled out the costume. It was a lime-green Star Trek uniform, a jumpsuit complete with the logo badge on the chest.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” But he looked kind of excited. He liked sci-fi movies.
“I would never kid you. I have no sense of humor.”
“You owe me such a favor, Esther Gold.”
He hurried off to try on the costume.
“Sure, sure,” she called after him. “I owe you a favor. I think you owe me a favor for letting you wear that cool costume.” She looked around. “Where’s your mom?”
“Oh, she’s already back in her workshop,” Agustín shouted from the bathroom. “Left cash for dinner on the counter. She won’t be out of there until real late. I get it. She’s behind on a large order, and what she does is important.” It didn’t sound like he got it at all.
Agustín came out of the bathroom, posing in the lime-green jumpsuit. “So?” he said. Esther covered her mouth, and her entire body shook. “Stop laughing. Stop it, or you’ll be going out alone tonight.” He tugged at the uniform. It was a little too big for him and rode up on one side. She waved her arms in front of her, trying to find the air to say words.
“No, it’s perfect. It’s perfect. I’m sorry, it just took me by surprise.”
“Whatever,” he said. He looked at himself in the hall mirror for a long time. “I’m only doing this for you.”
“And it’s great. You look great. It’s great.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“Really!” she said. “It’s fine. Let me get ready.” She went in the bathroom and dumped out all the various bags of makeup, then arranged them in the order she would need them. Lots of shades of red and black and green, fake wounds, scars. She carefully applied it all to horrifying effect.
Outside she could hear him posing and jumping around in front of the mirror, sometimes even making laser sounds with his mouth. She found it cute, and then shuddered that she had thought that word about what anyone was doing, let alone Gus. But she did. And so even after she had applied the face of a horror movie villain over her own, she waited, letting him have a few more moments of unselfconscious joy.
Finally she got impatient and stepped out, grinning under her ghoulish makeup.
“Ah!” he said when he saw her, and not just because he had been standing with his arms on his hips, pretending that he had given the command to send an away team down to a hostile planet. “That’s terrifying.”
“What do you think? Did I top last Halloween?”
He looked at her carefully.
“I mean, it’s scary. But . . .”
“But what?”
“Well, it’s just some makeup and fake cuts and stuff.”
“It took me forever to design all this!”
“Yeah, but it’s no Star Trek uniform.” He laughed and punched her arm lightly.
She punched back harder.
“Ow!”
“Don’t trash my costume, or I’ll take pictures of you wearing that and send it to everyone in school.”
“You better not do that. They’ll all start wanting me. There will be fights.”
“See, you like Halloween.”
He shook his head. “I really don’t. I know you like it so much that you don’t believe me. But it’s okay. I’m having fun because you’re having fun.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, so she took out a bag for her candy and thrust one at him. Outside, a couple teenagers were gathering by the gravestones in the front yard, taking selfies and laughing. Esther and Agustín would have to leave by the back to avoid getting hassled for being from the weird gravestone house. She felt sorry for him, and then felt bad about feeling sorry. He could handle himself.
“Okay there, Captain,” she said.
“Okay there, Killer.”
“Let’s go trick-or-treating.”
She felt so grateful to be saying those words. The costumes, the empty bags waiting to be filled, the neighborhood decked out in scary decorations and offering sweets to passersby. This was the best feeling in the world. Why would she ever want to grow older and leave it behind?
THE MOON WAS already up when they left Agustín’s house. It was full and broad and candy orange against the horizon. A perfect Halloween moon.
They started their rounds on Butterfield. The folks on Butterfield put a lot of effort into their Halloween, which Esther appreciated. Mr. Winchell especially turned every inch of his yard into a Halloween display. Fake cobwebs spread over everything with the absolute Southern California confidence that it would not rain. Plastic graves and plastic zombie hands thrusting out of the dirt. Even a little maze made out of plywood that led to the front door, and a playlist of horror movie themes blaring from outdoor speakers. Esther loved it. Here was someone who cared as much as she did.
The only street that was better was Spindrift, where there was a couple that every year turned their entire backyard into a haunted house. Nothing professional, just parents in rubber masks jumping out and waving their arms, but it showed a commitment to the spirit of the night. Esther always saved that house for last. Starting with the second-best street and ending with the best. Everything was thought through.
She felt utterly giddy as she and Agustín went up to the first house and knocked on the door. She had wanted to go trick-or-treating, and now here she was. It had all worked out. There was, she decided, no drawback to being pushy to get her way. After all, doing so had gotten her exactly what she had wanted.
“Trick or treat!” the two of them called.
The woman who answered the door, uncostumed except for a witch’s hat, gave them a squinting look over.
“Bit old, aren’t you?”
But she gave them candy. The next few houses didn’t even make a comment, except one broad-chested, mustachioed man who pointed at Agustín’s costume and said, “Hey, I love Star Wars.”
Agustín wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Me too?” he tried.
“Right on!” the man said, dropping candy bars into their bags. Esther and Agustín looked at each other. Once the man shut his front door they started laughing. They laughed their way back to the street.
“See,” she said. “This is fun, right?”
“Yeah. But also, that lady wasn’t wrong. We’re a bit old.”
“So we’ll stop next year. Or the year after.”
“Or the year after that. Yeah, you’ve said. I just feel silly when I never liked doing this, not even when I was little.”
Esther saw that the door was open back at the first house, with the woman in the witch’s hat. A small child in a pirate’s costume was walking away from it. It was one of the children she had seen last night. His costume was filthy and torn. He turned toward her, as though he could feel her watching. She couldn’t see his face. Where his face should have been was like a smudged photograph. Well, it was evening, and she was half a block away. It was normal to not be able to see clearly at this distance. That was probably all it was.
She turned back to Agustín, slightly ridiculous in his baggy Star Trek uniform. He was looking at her expectantly. How many days and nights had they hung out in their lives? Hundreds? And yet there were things about Agustín and her that she was just starting to notice. For instance, that his eyes were different shades of brown at different times of day. And also that she was standing here staring at his eyes, something she had never done before.
“Well,” she said, “we’re not going to stop this year. Anyway, the next house is my favorite. You’re going to love this guy.”
The next house was Mr. Winchell’s house, the one that went all out every year for Halloween. Not even the most elaborate Christmas display in town could match what he did in October. Mr. Winchell was an engineer, and he put both his understanding of structure and his frustrated creative impulses into his front yard.
The looping piano of a John Carpenter soundt
rack was coming from the plywood labyrinth that led to the porch. Green-faced ghouls leered from bushes and perched on the rooftops. Mr. Winchell had put a semi-transparent cloth in front of a spinning wheel of shapes he had constructed. In the light behind the cloth, the shapes became elongated shadows (witches on broomsticks, black cats arching their backs, dancing skeletons). It was a neat effect, and Esther made a mental note for when she was a grown-up and making her own lavish front yard Halloween display. She would leave out the cat, though. Black cats got a bad rap.
“Mr. Winchell is who I want to be when I grow up,” she said. “Once I really am too old for trick-or-treating, I can always do this. It’s almost as good.”
“Guy likes playing with toys,” said Agustín. She punched him again. “What? Not saying it’s a bad thing. I’m dressed up like a space captain, so I’m not going to knock him for it, just making an observation.”
“Observe this,” she said, holding up her hand with a gesture that made Agustín laugh, and then ducking into the plywood maze as a familiar two-note string melody from a really old movie about a shark played.
Once through the maze, she was greeted by a skull over the door that maniacally laughed when its motion sensor was triggered.
“Hahahahaha,” said the skull.
“Happy Halloween to you,” she said.
“Hahahahaha,” said the skull again, as Agustín stepped out of the maze.
Esther knocked. The moment after she did, she had an idea, and pulled Agustín behind the support pillar of the porch.
“Whoa, what are you doing?”
“We’ll jump out and scare him. Boo, you know? Mr. Winchell knows me. He’ll think it’s funny.”
“Not as funny as that skull finds everything,” he said, waving his hand out from behind the pillar and getting another laugh from above the door.
“Knock it off, you’ll ruin the surprise.”
They waited in silence after that. A minute went by. Or maybe less than that, but squeezed behind a pillar with her friend, the wait felt endless. She noticed that Agustín no longer smelled like that mango body wash he had used for years. Now he was using something that smelled sour and chemical, a smell like gasoline and like restaurants with dress codes. The change in smell made him seem like a different person, even though in most ways he was exactly the same person. They had been friends forever. Also they had been waiting behind this pillar forever. What was taking Mr. Winchell so long?
“Hold on,” she said, and knocked on the door again, darting back behind the pillar.
“This is the slowest surprise I’ve ever been part of,” Agustín said.
They waited. Still nothing. She felt a tickling in her gut. She didn’t like the tickle, it felt wrong. She didn’t want there to be something wrong, not on Halloween.
Now they both came out from behind the pillar. She knocked a third time, shouting, “Mr. Winchell?” No answer.
“Maybe he’s in the bathroom.”
“Gross,” she said. “Shut up.” But maybe. That would make sense. It would also mean that nothing was wrong, that they had just happened to come by at the wrong time.
“Alright, we’ll try again later,” she said. “Let’s go.”
She was glad there was something like an explanation, and something like a plan, but also looking back at the joyous display on Mr. Winchell’s lawn, she felt nervous. All of this motion and creative expression, but the human at the heart of it was gone. Where was Mr. Winchell?
HAVING DONE ONE SIDE OF THE STREET, they crossed over and doubled back on the other. When they got to the end of that, they would swing around the corner and hit Spyglass Way, the first of the many little cul-de-sacs. It was all planned for absolute efficiency in candy collection, which Esther would then eat very little of. The candy wasn’t the point. The knocking and the collecting were all that mattered to her.
But it wasn’t going well. Doors went unanswered. Doors that should have been answered. Houses with porchlights on, jack-o’-lanterns set out. Fewer and fewer other kids out on the street. On their third house in a row with no answer, Agustín shook his head.
“We’re trying to trick-or-treat during everyone’s dinner break. This must just be exactly the wrong time.”
“Gus, there’s no wrong time. It’s Halloween night. People don’t take breaks from Halloween.”
Above them, the moon was perfect and orange and huge. Merely looking at it made Esther imagine grotesque and fearsome creatures frolicking underneath it, and she shivered with happiness. But she would be happier when people started to answer their doors.
Finally, on the fourth house, someone did. The woman yawned as she opened the door, and held the yawn, nodding, as they shouted, “Trick or treat!”
“Yeah, sorry,” she said, handing them each small handfuls of candy. “I’ve gotten so sleepy. You’ll probably be my last before I go to bed. You kids be safe, okay?”
“Okay,” Agustín said.
“Why is everyone so tired?” Esther said on their way back to the street. “Is this what we’re going to be like when we’re grown-ups? Always sleepy every night?”
“Grown-ups do get sleepy a lot, right? I feel like they’re always yawning.”
“I’m not looking forward to that,” she said.
“Nah, me neither.”
None of the doors they tried after that were answered.
“What is happening?” she said. “There’s something wrong.”
“People just don’t care as much about Halloween as you do.”
“I don’t need them to care as much. I only need them to care a bit.”
They got to the end of the block and turned the corner. On the other side of the street was the canyon. Even in the full moon’s light, its darkness was nearly complete. Only the peaks of the hills were visible, descending quickly into the shadows of the paths. Esther shuddered a bit.
“Man, you watch too many scary movies,” Agustín said. “It’s the same place it was before. Just dark.”
“I do watch too many scary movies. But also, come on, darkness changes a thing. The world is not just the world. The world is a story we all tell together about the world. And that story changes at night.”
“Whoa. Alright there. I know you take Halloween seriously, but whoa.”
“Sorry,” she said. She wasn’t sorry but somehow felt like she had to say it to him, although she wouldn’t have been able to explain why.
The canyon wasn’t entirely dark. There was a fire tucked between two of the hills. Teenagers, partying in one of the hidden spots in the brush. Having their own Halloween, a Halloween she knew she would one day have to graduate to, but that she didn’t see the appeal of. Her Halloween was one of tradition, and of scary tales, and of a chance to look at the world as more magical than it is. The grown-up Halloween was just another night where a party happens, like any Friday or Saturday night. The thought depressed her.
“Looks like a real good time,” he said. “I can’t wait until we get invited to stuff like that.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, don’t you want to see what’s next? I always want to see what’s next.”
“No,” she said. “I never want to see what’s next.”
They tried a few more houses. Only one person answered.
“Sorry, kids, I’m on my way to bed,” the woman who answered said, and shut the door before they could even finish their trick-or-treat.
“What is going on?” Esther said.
“Come on, Est. Can we go home now? Speaking of which, I should call my mom.”
He pulled out his cell phone. Esther looked around. Between the streetlights and the big orange moon, the street was nearly as bright as day. So where were all the trick-or-treaters? Sure, the little kids would be done already, but where were the older kids? She wasn’t the only one still going out. The streets should have had plenty of people. But they were alone, other than a few groups in the distance that all seemed to be hurrying, head down, rath
er than stopping at the houses.
“Gus, something isn’t right.”
“Est, I’m on the phone.”
He waited with the phone to his ear for a bit and then shrugged, slipping it back into the belt of his costume.
“She’s not picking up. Figures. She kind of loses track of the world when she works. Man, there were some movies I really wanted to see, and instead I’m out here not getting candy.”
“Agustín, where are the other kids?”
He looked around.
“Ah, they’re just . . . I don’t know.” He frowned. “That is weird. Where are the other kids? And why isn’t anyone answering their door?” Esther could see the last twenty minutes finally sinking in with him. “This is definitely weird. Maybe I should try my mom again.”
Down the street, she caught movement, a white flash. She squinted against the brightness of the streetlights and recognized the apple truck, slowly cruising toward them down the empty streets.
“Call her later,” she said. “Let’s head back this way.” She took him by the hand, and they went back around the corner. They made it half a block before she realized she was still holding on to his hand.
THEY WERE MOST OF the way back down Meadowlark, although Esther wasn’t sure where they were going. Her house was out. If her parents caught her in costume like this, they would be furious. But she didn’t feel safe out on the streets. She couldn’t say what was wrong, but she felt a certainty that they needed to get back inside.
And then she knew where to go. The house on Spindrift with the haunted house in the backyard. The group of parents that threw a party and then took turns jumping out at the trick-or-treaters. They could go in there, be off the street for a bit, maybe have a chance to think through what to do next. It was only a couple blocks away.
She took those blocks at a jog, and Agustín followed her lead without question. He didn’t want to be out here any more than she did. They jogged in silence, except for their huffing breaths. There were no costumed children walking up the garden paths, no friendly faces opening doors. The streets were empty.