I Hate Halloween

by J. A. Kinghorn

  I Hate Halloween

  by

  J. A. Kinghorn

  Copyright © 2017 J. A. Kinghorn

  All rights reserved.

  Acknowledgements

  Firstly, thank you Charlotte for everything over the last two decades and for the awesome cover art. Secondly, special thanks goes to Scott, Stevie and Harry for their detailed feedback on my earlier drafts. And last but not least my thanks goes to Adam, my partner, for being supportive of my dream to be a writer...even though he’s not finished reading this novella yet.

  ~*~

  It doesn’t matter what I do, they always come. In masks, capes, bloody and grinning, they’ll always come. I’ve tried sitting in darkness and ignoring the little buggers but they always try, every year. Thankfully, the children hated Eeyore’s barking and usually stayed well away on Halloween night. He was a softie really but could put on a good display when it mattered. To be honest, just me and the dog was how I liked it most nights. And, most nights, I got that luxury. After all, Mum was usually god knows where, far and away, and then the neighbours had always kept to themselves. Well, what was left of them. It used to be quiet. Then it wasn’t. And now it’s quieter still. Mason would tell me that I must get lonely and I would be silent because it barely registered any more - everyone wastes so much breath telling me how I must feel I scarcely get the sense they care much for the reality of the situation.

  He rang me in the morning and invited himself over that night. I didn’t object; I can tolerate Mason. Besides, he suggested we marathon terrible mockbuster horror films and that’s not something I can ever find it in myself to say ‘no’ to. All the classics were on Mason’s playbill: Creature, Virus, even Lily C. A. T – and that was just the Alien knock-offs.

  “Maybe if we have time, we’ll even get to the Alien sequels.” I smirked.

  Mason cackled, “Steady on, I’m not sure either of are strong enough for Resurrection.”

  He told me he was bringing drinks and food. I told him to come over at eight and hung up. He arrived a little closer to seven than I would’ve liked, under a faded red sky. He rang the bell – I can’t stand knocking. I opened the door to the six foot tall, blond and beaming Mason, bag stuffed to the brim with snacks and hard drive fit to burst. We exchanged pleasantries and I hobbled over to the living room. Mason came up beside me and insisted upon supporting me as I made what was an apparently arduous journey from my front door to the sofa. As I lowered myself to sit, I resisted the urge to swat him away. Gingerly, he fussed and faffed with setting out the refreshments. Fussing from Mason is quite rare unless he’s stressed – indeed, this is one of the reasons that I find him tolerable. Other people, once they start they never stop.

  School was a particularly loathsome experience.

  When I came back, it was like my classmates and teachers had all been flayed and monsters with high-pitched voices and constantly furrowed brows now wore their skin. I wasn’t Nina any more, I was the little girl covered in burns in the wheelchair. I was scarcely allowed to go to the toilet alone. Now, Mum would say I was being too harsh, that they only had my best interests at heart. I suppose, credit where credit is due, they did have all of those fun runs and cake sales to ‘raise awareness.’ Don’t you know, it’s so easy to be unaware of the one wheelchair user in a tiny primary school of less than a hundred students?

  It’s a good job Mum is so rarely around.

  You see, the thing is, they did all of that but it still took them far too many terms to make the year three and four classroom wheelchair accessible...and that Summer I moved up to year five - another classroom and another set of stone steps. I had to endure being dragged up and down those, feeling every step of the way, for months until they even put in a makeshift ramp...perhaps I was too demanding!

  Mason knew not to even touch the chair unless I said he could. He’s only broken that rule once and let’s just say I know he won’t do it again.

  Mason came back with crisps, pizza and lemonade.

  “Alright, which do you want? Pink or cloudy?” He grinned.

  I smiled back, “Pink.”

  “Oo, good choice.”

  He flitted out of the room again, returning with our well-loved, huge pink cups. Like a true professional, he poured the saccharine soft drink at an angle, minimising the frothy head. With a flourish, he outstretched his hand to me but fumbled and sloshed some of the lemonade on my hand.

  “Sorry!”

  I shrugged, grabbing some tissues, “You’re excused for living.”

  As I mopped up the disaster area Eeyore, my long suffering Basset hound, offered his snout to the clean-up efforts and dutifully began licking my hand.

  “When everyone else let’s me down, at least I know I can count on you.”

  Mason chuckled, “Sorry, should I give you guys some privacy?”

  I sniffed, “I suppose you can stay...if you’re also a good boy.”

  He scoffed, fetching his laptop and hard drive, “But you need me!”

  “Not necessarily. If you weren’t here, I could always just torrent something myself.”

  Pouting, Mason hung his head.

  Sighing, I flung up my free arm, “Well, I suppose if you weren’t here, there’d probably be very few other people who would see the appeal of a bad movie marathon.”

  He brightened, “Exactly! See? You do need me: friends don’t let friends watch awful movies alone.”

  Unwilling to drop the joke just yet, I said dryly, “I assure you, if I wanted to, I could do a very passable homage of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 all by myself.”

  After a moment’s consideration, Mason grinned, “I bet you’ve already made your own puppets.”

  The truth of that is neither here nor there.

  We decided to work our way backwards. Virus wouldn’t be so bad…if it wasn’t so awfully derivative. The practical effects aren’t completely atrocious and the performances get the job done but there’s no two ways about it: It’s still Alien on a boat.

  As the first crew member was eviscerated, Mason piped up, “I knew a guy at Uni who had the action figures.”

  I nearly choked on my lemonade, “Oh god, why?”

  “He was a collector. His room was filled with figurines. It was kind of impressive just how much moulded plastic he was able to pack into that tiny space.”

  “Everyone’s got to have a hobby, I suppose.”

  “Yeah, like your puppets.” He smirked back, lightly elbowing me.

  With a pantomime sort of indignance, I snapped, “What other crap did he have, then?”

  “Oh, all kinds of stuff. He liked his sci fi so he had Ripley, Kirk, Skywalker, all the usual suspects. He was a bit of an odd duck though, had a real vendetta against the new Star Wars and kept going on and on about how he’d never buy the Finn or Rey figs. I think he still had one of Kylo Ren, though. I only lived with him for that one year. He was…a little intense.”

  “That’s probably for the best,” I mused, adding with a devious grin, “Now, was that the year you dropped out or the year before?”

  He grasped at his chest as though pained.

  “Oof,” he exhaled, grimacing, “You could at least tenderise me a bit before straight up sinking your fangs in.”

  Unperturbed, I continued, “I never could understand why you threw the towel in – you weren’t incapable and you certainly aren’t stupid.”

  The smile retreated and suddenly he couldn’t decide where to look.

  Mason rolled his head from shoulder to shoulder and all but whispered, “It just wasn’t for me.”

  “I don’t see how that could be,” I started, “You loved school and I know you got straight As in sixth form. What was so different about Uni?”

  Ma
son continued to avoid my gaze.

  His voice wistful, he spoke carefully, “I just found my true calling elsewhere.”

  I rolled my eyes, “Ah yes, the dodgy dealings of the Richter family business. My, what a worthy cause to dedicate your life to!”

  “’Dodgy dealings?’” Mason snorted.

  “Well, I know it exists and I know it has to do with hunting but apart from that details are a bit thin on the ground and there isn’t a trace of it online. One would’ve thought that such a small, family-run business would want to be flogging their wares to every corner of the World Wide Web.”

  Mason gave a short, sharp laugh and sputtered, “You know how touchy people are about hunting in this country. Can you blame us for wanting to keep a low profile?”

  “But that just raises more questions. Why focus on an audience in Britain when you’d have far more demand abroad? Why not reach out to them? And why on Earth, Mason Richter, Eeyore’s best friend and frequent supplier of belly rubs, would you involve yourself in a business I have it on good authority that you find morally repugnant?”

  Stiffly and not sounding completely convinced himself, he answered, “It’s just what we’ve always done…”

  I threw my head back, “Oh, don’t start with that shit again.”

  When I looked at Mason, I saw his head almost completely turned away from me and Eeyore’s face in his lap. Eeyore’s huge, dark eyes were staring up into the face I couldn’t see. The dog glanced at me, almost looking accusatory, before returning his attention to Mason, desperately snuffling at his hand.

  In an attempt to return to form, I joked, “All I’m saying is that if you’re going to run such an obvious front, you could at least offer free samples of your ‘merchandise’ to your buddies…I mean, isn’t that what friends are for?”

  Mason burst out laughing, perhaps a little too heartily. He may have laughed but it quickly became apparent that he had not forgiven or forgotten.

  “Actually, whilst we’re on the subject,” He began, turning to meet my eyes, a mischievous grin on his lips, “Why didn’t you go to uni, then?”

  In fairness, I deserved that.

  I crossed my arms and tried to do a good impression of being unfazed, “Why bother?”

  Mason was incredulous, “Why bother?”

  “Suppose I had gone, gotten an alright degree, made friends for life, spent three years studiously drinking and drunkenly studying. Then what? I’d come back home and what would I do then in my chair and with my cane? What would be so different to now?”

  Mason’s voice grew crowded with concern, “Maybe nothing, maybe a lot? You can’t know either way because you never even tried-”

  “I knew enough.” I shot back.

  Undeterred, Mason pressed, “Well, what about other stuff, then: why did you stop doing archery? When we were little, you begged me to go with you every week but then-”

  “Yes, well, we aren’t little anymore, are we?”

  “I just want to understand, I’m not having a go, I just-“

  “Oh, just give it a rest.”

  Mason pursed his lips, knowing he wasn’t going to gain any ground if he pushed. I’d had enough of school and I’d had enough of people in general long before that, with all of their simpering, empty praise. In the real world, I could’ve spent an entire year doing absolutely nothing but sit in my chair and someone would still have tried to give me an award or call me an inspiration for merely breathing. Online, people only saw my words. If they hated it, they’d tell me, no bullshit. Online, I wasn’t the only one using a cane and a wheel chair, let alone anything else; people online actually talked to me like my identity didn’t start and end with my chair.

  I didn’t see what Uni could possibly offer me. Yeah, maybe with a degree I’d have a cushy little office job now but I’d still have to deal with people in all of their…people-ness. I was doing fine without another bit of paper telling me how special I was and at least online I could block people from peopling at me. Besides, working from home meant that, at the very least, I knew my office would always be wheel-chair accessible.

  Anyway, Mason had decided it wasn’t for him after all so why was he being such a pain about it? And what good would pulling a bow in a field have done in the long term, anyway? I was never going to be an athlete, especially not now, especially not the way I wanted. Why bring it up at all? What relevance did it have to anything? I couldn’t help but think he’d ‘just’ been getting his retaliation in first on that one though bringing it up for the sake of it did seem a bit too cruel by Mason’s standards.

  I didn’t want to probe further or give the conversation a second lease of life, I just wanted to enjoy the shitty film. The thing is, watching a shitty film in stony silence isn’t a terribly fun way to pass an evening.

  I offered an olive branch, “You know, our evening is blessed: Jamie Lee Curtis herself implores bad film buffs to put this on their play bill.”

  Mason sighed, bemused, “I’m relieved to know she has a good sense of humour about the whole thing.”

  “If you were in Virus, wouldn’t you?”

  Mason gave me a smug, sideways glance, “Darling, we all know you’d base your entire resulting career around making derisive comments about that turkey any chance you got.”

  In a melodramatic fashion, I fell back in my set, clutching at my chest and whooping, “Do I really come off as derisive?” Unable to help myself, I added, “Honestly, I’m surprised you even know the word.”

  Mason chuckled, “You’re all heart.”

  Outwardly, I let out a weak laugh.

  After a fleeting silence, Mason picked up the idiot ball again, “I’m sorry for prying before-”

  I sighed, heavily, “Oh, don’t make it weird.”

  But, unfortunately, he had. The film closed out with barely two more words exchanged between us.

  Lily C.A.T was an altogether different but no less derivative beast. To be fair, the animation made a change. However, poor Eeyore had decided twenty minutes in he’d had quite enough and began scrabbling at the front door. Thankfully, Mason allowed me to grab my cane and do the honours myself – he knew not to overstep his bounds. Eeyore lolloped out into the night, ears flapping and tail wagging. The darkness swallowed him up whole. Moonlight streamed through the trees, dappling many little pools of light on the drive way below. The night was creeping in earlier and earlier and, indeed, reminding me earlier and earlier each day why I hated this time of year – just one more reason of many.

  “The moon’s huge tonight.” Mason piped up.

  Slamming the door behind me and hauling myself back to the sofa, I said, “That’s all well and good for the moon, isn’t it?”

  Mason snorted, looking bemused more than miffed. I found myself letting out the breath I had not realised I’d been holding.

  Running his hand through his perfectly coiffed hair, he tried again, “Did you see the sky earlier?”

  “Yes, quite a sunset...and an awful lot of smog too.” I said, tumbling into my seat.

  I wasn’t sure how to hold myself. I tried crossing and uncrossing my stiff legs and simply couldn’t get comfortable.

  He chuckled, “I’m not sure what else I was expecting,” Adding, “I’m surprised we’ve not had more Trick or Treaters if I’m honest.”

  Munching on sweet chilli crisps, I blathered, “Next doors on holiday for half term and the other side, where the Paquins used to live, has been empty for at least the last six months. It’s pretty dead up this neck of the woods.”

  “Paquin…” Mason cupped his own chin in such a dainty, delicate gesture I wanted to frame it and hang it up, “Remind me where I’ve heard the name?”

  Through a mouthful of crisps, I mumbled, “The murder house,” Swallowing, I added, “The one where the parents were both found cut open in their beds.”

  His eyes widened and he slowly turned to me.

  In a hoarse whisper, he asked, “That’s next door to you?”


  “Always has been.”

  He shook his head, “No wonder people escape to less murderous climes around this time of year. To think, a whole family-”

  I corrected, “No, no, just the parents. One of the girls passed away a little while before due to a long illness or something like that. I’m pretty sure there’s one girl still left alive though.”

  “Oh God, and what’s become of her?”

  “Last I heard, after the investigation ruled her out as a suspect, she was bounced around from distant relative to distant relative…Though now I think about it, I remember something about the extended family acknowledging they were a bit out of their depth and carting her off to a big fancy boarding school for troubled youths…not that I keep an ear out listening for these sorts of miserable tid bits, mind.”

  Taking a careful sip of lemonade, Mason teased, “Uh huh? Riiiight.”

  I’d written loads on the case. For a while after, the story had brought in twice as much traffic to the site than any other. The news editor sent me a great big bottle of very fancy pink lemonade (sadly not the same bottles Mason and I were polishing off that evening) and a box of chilli chocolates. We didn’t talk much outside of work emails but he was a good egg.

  I defended my honour, “It was difficult not to hear about it really; the murders were the most exciting thing to happen in amongst these trees since…well, you know.”

  I washed away the bad taste in my mouth with more lemonade. It was far tarter than I was expecting and I grimaced.

  Mason shifted uncomfortably in his seat before excusing himself and making a beeline for the loo. I was left alone with my thoughts. They were awful company.

  I crammed a fistful of crisps into my mouth. It was when Mason came back I decided that I also needed the distraction of the bathroom. Mason went into a right spiral of fussing when I hauled myself up and began shambling down the hall but I barked at him to stay where he was. As I turned back, moonlight damn near blinded me. Carried by an uneven march, I swept into the bathroom to investigate. I came face to face with myself. I stood there in stunned silence, but only for a moment.