FRIGHT NIGHT
Brodrick kissed his wife lightly on the cheek. She looked
lovingly into his eyes.
"Tonight," Precious said, her voice a throaty
whisper, "Tonight is the night. All Hallow's Eve."
Brodrick's smile broke and a puzzled expression replaced it.
"I thought it was Halloween?"
Precious' hand shot up the backside of Brodrick's head like
a two-by-four. "All Hallow's Eve IS Halloween, you idiot!" she barked.
Brodrick grinned sheepishly, "Oh."
The oversized sleeves of Precious' pink clown outfit fell
back as she spread her arms around the glowing Jack-O-Lantern. Yellow light
pulsed out of the neatly carved face and cast shadows in the darkened kitchen.
She grinned wickedly, "Within this Jack-O-Lantern lies power beyond our
wildest dreams!" she paused for a moment and shot a sideways glance at her
green-clad husband. Then she said dryly, "Or your's at least."
The cheapshot did not go unnoticed by Brodrick, who rolled
his eyes and
said, "Oh my precious..." he faltered as he
realized what he was going to say and
recovered with a weak smile, "...Precious-"
Precious cut him off, "Oh, shut up!"
The doorbell rang. Precious quickly grabbed a towel and
threw it over the glowing pumpkin. She raced to the front of the house and
opened door to find a devil-child, a pirate, and a four foot tall "Barrack
Obama," standing on her front porch.
"Trick or Treat!" They shouted in unison as they
lifted their bags expectantly.
Precious smiled sweetly and retrieved three bags of candy
from her colossal sleeves.
"Here you go, my pretties!" she crooned as she
dropped the candy into their
bags, "Don't eat it all at once."
The children dashed off without so much as a thank you.
Precious stared out at the departing brats a moment longer, her sweet smile
transforming into a disgusted sneer. Then she slammed the door closed.
The witchy woman stomped back to the kitchen. "Is
everything ready?" she snarled.
Brodrick's head bobbed up and down. "Yes, it is," he
replied enthusiastically, hefting a large duffel bag from the other room.
"Good. The sooner we get this over with, the
better." Precious snatched the towel away from the glowing pumpkin, its
eerie glow growing stronger. She whipped off her dunce-like cap and leaned in
towards the glowing Jack-O-Lantern.
Her face was bathed in yellow light and, for a moment,
Brodrick thought he saw a beautiful young maiden, instead of the old hag he
called his wife. But the moment quickly passed.
Precious looked up. "Give me,” she paused dramatically
and then demanded, “The Book!"
Brodrick faltered for a moment, jerking back at her harsh
tone. He reached into the duffel bag and retrieved a few stapled photocopies.
Precious abruptly seized the papers from his hand.
"What is this?!" she roared, her eyes going
bloodshot and her face turning red. She held up the photocopies with a shaking
hand.
Brodrick nervously shifted from one foot to the other.
"Uh, well you see, the only magic book they had at the library was a
reference copy. They wouldn't let me check it out. So I had to photocopy the
spell," he stammered out, then he added quickly, "They assured me the
spell would still work."
Precious glared at him for a moment and thumbed through the
photocopies. Everything looked right. She decided she would risk it and
continue. She placed the papers on the table and studied the first page for a
moment. Then she spoke, "Give me the dead rat."
Brodrick reached into the duffel bag and brought out a
rodent, which he placed in his wife's open palm. Precious looked at it. Then
she looked up at Brodrick. "I'm sorry, dear," she said sweetly, her
voice as pleasant as a harp, "I had forgotten you're losing your
hearing," her voice got a little sharper, "I asked for a dead rat,
not a rotting squirrel!"
"Uh, well, I figured a, uh, squirrel would work,
because, uh, I, uh couldn't find any rats," Brodrick stuttered. He was
sweating nervously.
"The spell specifically calls for a RAT!" Precious
shouted in vexation.
"Well, they're both rodents," Brodrick offered
weakly.
Precious fumed for a moment and then moved to a cabinet and
pulled out a knife. She quickly stripped off the squirrel's bushy tail. Now it
resembled a rat. Then she tossed it unceremoniously into the glowing
Jack-O-Lantern. Looking down at the papers she read out loud, "Iksnay,
ipsnay, attersnay!"
There was a tiny explosion of yellow light from the pumpkin,
it shot up in a perfectly spherical ball and dissipated quickly.
"Quickly," she hissed, "Give me the ground
buck's tooth!" Brodrick handed her a jar filled with a white powder. She
opened it and sprinkled the contents over the glow of the pumpkin. Another
explosion of yellow energy shot up, this time stronger, lasting almost three
seconds before it dissipated.
"Now the child's finger!" Brodrick handed her a
ziplock bag with a finger in it. She dropped the finger into the pumpkin.
Another yellow ball shot out of the pumpkin, this one almost
reached the ceiling.
Precious rubbed her hands together and smiled maliciously.
"Opsnik, ipsnik, lipstick!"
This time an orange ball of light shot out of the pumpkin
and hit the ceiling. The house trembled.
Precious raised her hands to the ceiling. "Gods above
us! Gods below us! Hear my plea to give us what we decree!" She turned to
Brodrick, "And now, the final ingredient!" She glanced down at the
spell and then looked up again and said, "Give me the Plutonium!"
Precious paused for a moment and did a double take, "Plutonium?"
Suddenly like a kettle reaching its climax, she screamed out, "THIS IS THE
WRONG SPELL!!"
Every bit of glass in the house shattered at her voice. She
towered over the cringing Brodrick, who was now curled in a fetal position
against the wall. Behind her, the energy in the pumpkin was cycling through a
multitude of colors as it approached its zenith; orange, yellow, black, white
and the cycle started over again.
"I'm sorry," Brodrick moaned between sobs,
"I'm sorry!"
Precious glared at him through blazing red eyes, oblivious
to the mounting energy behind her. "You copied the wrong spell and all you
can say is 'I'm sorry'?!?!" she shrieked.
The kitchen was now bathed in the multiple colors.
Incomplete, the energies the spell had conjured were now running amuck.
Precious, pulled from her blind rage, finally took noticed of the event behind
her. She stared dumbly at it. Brodrick got up from the floor, captivated by the
cascade of colors.
Suddenly a beam of energy shot up from the pumpkin and
breached the ceiling, it continued up into the far reaches of the atmosphere.
The Trick-Or-Treaters paused in their festivities to gaze in wonder at the
magnificent sight. For a moment, everything and everyone just stopped and
stared at the pillar of energy extending from the house of the people known
only as the Millers.
Then the beam suddenly dropped back into the house with a
silent explosion.
The house was enveloped in a burst of yellow light and then
everything was as it had been. People gathered around the house, but no one
moved to enter it.
Eventually, old man Foster went inside.
Everything looked normal as Foster made his way through the
house. No one answered his calls. In the kitchen, he found a neatly carved
pumpkin sitting on the table, an empty duffel bag and a few charred pieces of
paper. Next to the bottom cabinet were two little figurines, so small Foster
almost missed them. He bent down and picked them up to examine them more
closely. One looked like a woman in a clown's outfit, she appeared to be upset
about something. The other was a man, dressed in a similar clown's outfit,
gawking. For something made out of stone, they had an extraordinary amount of
detail to them. Quickly making sure no one was in the house, Foster dropped the
figurines into his pocket and went outside, eager to make the most of this
Halloween.
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This story was brought to you by:
Ahh, nothing like a romantic picnic in a cemetery, after dark, on a Friday the 13th. What could possibly go wrong? Will true love blossom for Mike and Danielle? Or will they join the throngs of the undead? Nothing like first date jitters. BONUS CONTENT Original Short Story: The Forgotten. A mysterious stranger with no memory finds himself to protect a helpless family.
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