With Halloween just around the corner, I thought I'd offer my story 'Halloween Eddie's', which appeared in Wicked Karnival's Halloween Horrors and was later reprinted on the Horror-web. It's a fun little tale, I hope you enjoy it.

Halloween Eddie’s

By Alan I’Anson

Nathan wished he’d added another layer of clothing beneath his disguise. He’d only walked a few blocks and the cold, damp night had already seeped right though to his skin. The latex devil’s mask he wore bugged him too. It smelled like old rubber bands, his breath condensing inside and wetting his chin and neck.

Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees walked by. Nathan blinked rapidly and glanced down as they passed, but neither horror icon gave him the even slightest bit of attention.

Nathan grinned. What other night of the year could you stalk the city disguised from head to foot and no one gave you a second glance? Praise the Underlord and the parents of every little vampire, ghoul and demon walking the streets tonight.

He pinched the devil’s rubbery chin and pulled it away from his face, letting a miserable drizzle of condensation dribbled into the hollow of his throat.

Fucking mask.

Halloween was a dumb holiday anyway. Witches and demons? Grown adults dressed as white-faced vampires, walking the streets crying ‘trick or treat’ for a handful of sweets? How lame was that?

Nathan slowed his pace. Halloween Eddie’s costume and novelty store stood on the next corner. Dumb holiday and an even dumber name for a shop, he thought. The guy who owned it wasn’t even called Eddie. Dude’s name was Seymour.

And what was the idea of naming a shop that was open all year round after a single annual holiday anyway? Sure, Eddie’s sold all kinds of spooky shit, but Halloween Eddie’s all year round? That wasn’t just dumb - it was plain stupid.

Nathan eased into the shadows and watched Seymour’s apartment which sat behind the shop. A home made jack-o’-lantern glowed in the window, candles flickering behind its leathery skin.

Seymour was on the doorstep entertaining a bunch of kids in plastic masks and capes, laughing and passing out candy. He was a tall man with a scrawny face and a graying bird’s nest of a beard. He’d painted his face white and blackened his eye-sockets, his mouth bulging with a set of goofy plastic vampire teeth. A flowing, crimson-lined cape completed the costume.

He gave the kids a vampire-like hiss, and waved them farewell before closing the door.

Nathan waited a half-minute, shivering and wondering if he should still go through with it. Seymour lived alone, but Nathan hadn’t thought about trick or treaters calling. Half the costumes on the street tonight were probably hired from Halloween Eddie’s. People liked Seymour and his novelty shop. Nathan should have realized they would include the shopkeeper in their rounds.

Still, Nathan reasoned, he should be in and out in minutes. If anyone knocked while he was inside, he could just ignore them until they got bored and moved on. He felt uneasy about it, but it was a risk he was willing to take.

Nathan crossed the wet blacktop to the apartment. It was getting late, not many people about, and they all seemed too preoccupied with the festivities to notice a lone trick or treater anyway.

Nathan rapped on the door with leather-clad knuckles. Adrenaline rushed him, quickening his heart. Suddenly his palms were slick, his nerves wrenched tight.

The pumpkin grinned at him through the glass, its eyes burning orange and yellow. A shadow passed over it and the flames shimmered.

Seymour opened the door, glow-in-the-dark fangs already bared, hands raised in camp dramatics. But when he saw Nathan’s devil-faced appearance, he hesitated.

Nathan drew a semi-automatic pistol from his pocket, holding it low and close to his body.

“Inside,” he ordered.

Seymour’s hands remained in the air, eyes wide and confused. “What?” he asked.

Nathan gritted his teeth. This fucking mask!

“Get inside!” he said again, louder this time.

Seymour retreated into his living room, his hands still raised, his gaze glued to the pistol.

Nathan closed the door behind him and reached out to flip the pumpkin off the sill. It split open on the floor, splashes of hot wax dousing the candles. Gray threads of smoke curled from between its roughly carved teeth.

Nathan took stock. They were in a cramped living room lit by a couple of small table lamps. By the side of a battered armchair, a sprawling avalanche of books and magazines spilled across the threadbare carpet. The television played, the sound turned way down. The channel was showing Phantasm.

“What do you want?” Seymour asked.

“Shut the fuck up!” Nathan said, deepening the tone of his voice.

“Okay,” Seymour said. “Take it easy. I’ll do whatever you say.”

“Sit down!”

Seymour did as he was told.

Nathan brandished the pistol. “I want the money, man. I want all the cash outta the safe.”

Seymour looked horrified. “What money?”

Nathan stepped closer, focusing the pistol on Seymour’s face. “Don’t fuck with me!”

Seymour squeezed his eyes shut. The plastic teeth slipped from his mouth, a silvery string of saliva still attaching them to his quivering lip.

“This place is a goldmine this time of the year,” Nathan said. “I want it all.”

“But it’s not here,” Seymour told him. “I don’t keep it here.”

“Bullshit! Give me the money or I swear to God I’ll kill you.”

“It’s gone!” Seymour insisted. “I banked it.”

Nathan blinked rapidly. His mouth worked, but no sound came out. Banked it? Seymour didn’t bank the takings until the following day. Sometimes he’d even leave it until the Friday. Nathan had observed long enough to know that.

“You’re lying, man! You keep the money in the safe!”

“I...I do...normally I do...” Seymour stammered, “but not on Halloween. I don’t like keeping that much cash over night on Halloween.”

Nathan stood there panting, the devil face sucking in and out like a shriveled heart. This wasn’t the plan. Seymour had to be lying.

Nathan dragged him off the sofa and manhandled him into the hall leading to the shop. “Open it!” he shouted, offering encouragement with a painful jab of the pistol.

Seymour opened the cupboard under the stairs and moved a cardboard box hiding the small vault. He dialed in the combination and opened the chunky door.

“Take a look,” he said. “There’s no cash.”

Nathan pushed Seymour aside and checked. The safe was empty but for a few worthless documents.

“Fuck!” Nathan cried. “FUCK!”

He turned on Seymour, ramming the terrified man against the wall and pinning him there with a forearm across his throat. He thrust the pistol into Seymour’s face and deliberately cocked the hammer. “I’m warning you, man, if you’re lying to me...”

Seymour’s eyes bulged like a cartoon from the black makeup. “I’m not! I swear to you I’m not. I have twenty-five dollars in my wallet. Please, take it!”

Twenty-five dollars? He’d risked all this for twenty-five lousy dollars? There must be something in this shit-hole worth taking - jewelry or an expensive wristwatch?

Nathan suddenly became aware that Seymour was peering down at him, his brow creased and his eyes narrowed.

“What’re you looking at, man?”

“Nathan?”

Nathan froze in horror.

“It is you, isn’t it?” Seymour said. “What the hell are you doing, boy?”

For a second, Nathan couldn’t breathe. His head prickled with heat and sweat. The plan had hinged on anonymity and in a moment that mask had been snatched away.

What made him think he could pull off an armed robbery? He was sixteen for God-sake!

Seymour’s fear sizzled into anger and he seemed to grow in stature, pushing the pistol away as if it were a toy. “Take that stupid mask off!” he shouted.

Nathan shuffled back a few steps, unsure of what he should do next. The game was up. He was caught. He pointed the gun again, his aim trembling. “Don’t mess with me, Seymour,” he warned, but his voice sounded laughably weak and childish now.

Seymour didn’t even flinch. “Mess with you? It’s the police who’re going to be messing with you, Nathan. You’re going to jail, boy.”

He strode off into the living room.

“Seymour, stop,” Nathan called. When he didn’t, Nathan followed, tears already in his eyes.

Seymour picked up the cordless phone. “I can’t believe this, Nathan. I tried to be a friend to you, boy. I even let you work in my shop...and this is how you repay me?”

He tapped 911 into the keypad.

Nathan raised the pistol, the tears blurring his vision. “Put it down, Seymour...please.”

“Put it down, my ass,” Seymour said. He turned his back as the connection was made. “Yes. Police, please.”

“Seymour...”

Nathan looked at the gun with dismay. It wasn’t worth shit now and Seymour knew it. But he couldn’t just stand here while Seymour called the cops on him. Through a starry web of tears, he tried to pistol-whip Seymour across the back of the skull, misjudging the blow and striking him across the back of the neck instead.

The room exploded briefly in a vicious white flash of noise and fire.

Seymour pitched head first onto a small wooden table, the cape billowing behind him, phone flying from his hand. The table collapsed under his weight, a lamp jumping into the air and rolling on its side, its shade throwing large curving shadows across the wall and floor.

Everything fell quiet, except for the indecipherable murmurings of the television set.

Nathan stared, his ears ringing, acrid gun smoke swirling around him like a blue wraith.

Blood was coming out of Seymour’s ear.

Realization slammed into him like a truck. He put the gun away and ripped back the mask. The rubber tore hair from his scalp, but the pain barely registered.

“Seymour! I didn’t mean to shoot you, man.”

The storekeeper lay face down on the flattened table, the harsh light picking out vivid blood pulsing from the gunshot wound in the back of his head.

Nathan rolled him over, grimacing at the loose flap of skin and bone that flopped over Seymour’s eye. Splatters of brain matter glistened and shivered on the polished tabletop like hot blancmange.

Seymour shuddered, his eyes wide and staring. He convulsed, blood welling in his mouth and oozing down the sides of his face, stark crimson lines against the white makeup.

“Oh Jesus, Seymour!” Nathan shouted. “Don’t do this, man. It was an accident.”

Seymour’s eyes rolled up into his head and the shaking gradually ebbed away. He let out a long, gurgling sigh and fell still.

Nathan blinked and swallowed, swallowed and blinked.

How had all this gone so wrong?

He staggered a few drunken steps away from Seymour’s dead face, not knowing what he was doing.

A small, tinny voice focused his jumbled attention.

The phone. He picked it up and listened. “Hello, nine one one, do need assistance?”

Nathan hung up.

The dispatcher would have heard the gunshot. They’d find the address from the number.

Time to get the fuck outta Dodge.

He made for the exit, but as he reached for the handle, someone on the other side knocked three times. Nathan stopped himself at the last instant, his hand hovering over the handle.

Shit! Oh shit!

No way was it the police already. He moved his ear closer to the paneling and listened. His hand tightened into a fist, the leather creaking.

Three louder knocks. His heart misfired.

He crept over to the window and peeked around the drapes. Four little kids dressed in full Halloween regalia gathered around the door. One of them stepped up and knocked again.

Can’t you see there’s nobody home you little shits? Get the hell out of here so I can get the hell out of here. What are little kids doing out on their own at this time of night anyway?

Seymour’s body jerked and shifted.

Nathan screamed and whirled around, sweeping a small bowl of sweets off the decorative stand by the door. The bowl hit the floor and cracked in half, the cellophane wrapped candy scattering color across the carpet.

The kids giggled and knocked again. “Come on, Halloween Eddie,” they called, “we know you’re in there - trick or treat?”

Nathan rubbed a hand over his sweaty mouth, his gaze never leaving the corpse. One of the kids started thumping the door continuously. They weren’t going to leave now, not now they thought ‘Eddie’ was playing games with them.

The only other way out was through the shop, but that would be all locked up. If he didn’t act quickly, he was going to get caught red-handed.

His feverish eyes scanned the candy. He still had his mask and cape. Maybe he could open the door, shove some sweets into their hands and they’d be happy and leave. Or maybe he should just shove past them and run for it before it was too late.

He worked the mask back down over his face and scooped up some sweets. Opening the door a crack, he peeped out. A bar of light fell across the faces of the four kids.

The last thought Nathan had before the door burst into his face was, “Jeez, those are good masks.”

#

Groggily, Nathan looked up. He was on the floor with his back against the sofa. The devil mask lay beside him, the rubber shredded. His face ached where the door had slammed into it.

Standing in a semi-circle around him were what appeared to be four little kids, except these kids had the faces of wizened old men. They stared impassively at him with milky gray eyes, blue-veined hands hanging by their sides. Limp white hair dangled from their liver-spotted heads.

The sight of the hideous little creatures brought Nathan fully to his senses. “What the fuck are you? What do you want?”

The heavy gaze of one wizened little man drifted to Seymour’s corpse.

It is a night for evil deeds.

The voice came from inside Nathan’s head - none of the little men uttered a word.

You have taken human life on this evil night, Nathan. Now you must choose.

“Choose?”

A trick...or a treat.

“What?”

The question is simple enough. Do you choose a trick or treat?

Nathan swallowed, but the walls of his throat were glued together. “Why do I have to choose? What happens then?” His had closed around the pistol tucked into this waistband.

Time is short, Nathan. Choose quickly now.

“No!” Nathan cried. “You choose this!”

He yanked out the gun and pumped the trigger until the slider locked out. But nothing happened. No slugs hit the little men, nor did they punch the wall or kick splinters from the door behind them. He might as well have fired blanks.

The wizened little men stared impassively at him through a haze of drifting gun smoke.

“Oh shit,” Nathan whispered and let the pistol slip from his grasp.

Now you have that out of your system, you must choose a trick or a treat. Choose a trick and we must do something to you. Choose a treat, and we must take something from you.

Nathan’s mind tumbled. Trick or treat? Which would be the lesser of two evils?

If he chose a trick, what might they do to him? He looked at the little creatures with their ancient, wrinkled faces. What could they do? Hurt him? Torture him?

And if he chose a treat, what might they take? A limb? His sight? Nathan’s heart quickened. Could they take his mother or one of his sisters?

What about his soul?

Nathan had heard such stories - demons taking your soul and damning you to an eternity of pain and torment.

Suddenly the light dimmed and the little men loomed over him, their bony hands curled into horrid claws, their faces screaming, their mouths crammed with teeth like jagged shards plunged into bloody, pink gums.

Choose now, Nathan! Lest we choose for you.

Nathan buried his face in his knees. “Trick! I choose a trick!”

When he looked up again, the wizened little men stood as they had before, teeth and claws gone, faces blank and impassive.

You chose well, Nathan, for if you had chosen a treat, we would have taken your soul. Our treat would have been your eternal damnation.

Nathan’s eyes widened.

However, you chose a trick.

The little man’s head tilted slightly, as if considering what trick he might play.

Nathan held his breath.

How would you feel if we made it so that Seymour wasn’t dead anymore?

“What?”

How would you feel if we made it so that Seymour wasn’t dead anymore?

Nathan blinked. That was a trick? He almost sighed with relief. But of course it was a trick...a magic trick. The little man said he had chosen well. And he had! If Seymour were alive, Nathan could fix everything else. If he was lucky, Seymour might not remember anything at all.

“I’d like that,” Nathan said. “I’d like it a lot.”

The four wizened little men bowed, the wisps of hair dangling from their heads.

Then it is so.

Silently, they turned on their stubbly little legs and shuffled out, closing the door behind them with a soft click.

Nathan waited, his eyes flicking between the door and Seymour’s corpse.

Had they really gone?

The shopkeeper still lay dead. How long might it take for it to work? Was resurrection an easy trick for those creatures?

Seymour coughed and shuddered and clawed at the carpet.

Nathan drew a breath and held it.

The flap of skull still hung there.

Surely they would fix that too?

Seymour gagged and choked and coughed up the plug of congealed blood blocking his throat. A wad of gore hit the carpet and split into clinging strings of thick red jelly.

His eyes opened and scanned the ceiling and walls as if he’d never seen them before. His irises shone pure white like a cat down a dark alleyway. Slowly, he began to sit up, his body casting an immense shadow that seemed to swallow the room. His jaw worked, a guttural snarl rising from somewhere deep in the back of his throat.

Nathan got slowly to his knees. He knew what was going on here. He’d seen this shit in movies like Dawn of the Dead.

“Oh, good trick,” Nathan whispered as he slowly eased himself away. “You didn’t make him alive, did you? You just made him undead. Very clever.”

Seymour’s silvery gaze fell on Nathan, focusing and narrowing.

“But not that clever,” Nathan said. “Cause you forgot I can run, man, I can run like the fucking wind.”

Seymour’s lips stripped back from his blood-clotted teeth and he made a sudden screaming lurch toward him.

Nathan bolted for the door and yanked it open.

But we never said that making Seymour undead was the trick, Nathan, we just asked how you would feel about it.

Nathan stood on the threshold, his mouth agape and his eyes pinned wide. The doorway was completely bricked up, just like all the other exits in the small dark room.

As Seymour closed in, Nathan heard the wizened little man chuckle.

There’s the trick, he said

The End