Trick or Treat

Henna plucked the knife from the dead boy’s eyes and returned to the table. Hastily wiping the bloodied knife on the table-cloth, her attention returned to the pumpkin she was carving. After a while, there was some movement behind her and she muttered, “About time!“ She looked around at the dead boy getting back to his feet. He didn’t look so dead anymore. What was left of his eye rolled up his cheeks before settling back into its socket.

“Do you have to be so bloody violent?” he said with a violent scowl on his face but then, slowly, his face broke into smile.

“James, it’s not like the first time you’ve had a knife in your eye and anyway, Halloween is tomorrow.”

“Still, what if it didn’t work this time? We don’t even know why this happened in the first place. What would you do if my brain stayed mashed up and my eye was still a big mess on my face?”

“Well you look alright to me so get over it,” Henna retorted defensively. “How is he? Don’t tell me he’s still a loner.”

James’ face broke into a smile, “You actually thought he was the type to make friends? As far as I can tell, the only company he’ll be having is the type that leaves in the morning in a hurry £50 better off.”

“Well it’s sorted then... What do you think of my Jack-o-lantern?” She held up the pumpkin, or at least what had been a pumpkin. Now it resembled a man’s screaming head. Every line on the face had been carved in detail and the only thing to give it away as a pumpkin was the orange colouration. She studied the pumpkin as though something was missing and her eyes wandered to the knife on the table top. James tugged at her sleeve and as she turned to go, she grabbed the knife. With a flick of her wrist and a flash of steel, the knife embedded itself through the top of the pumpkin.

***

That night, the nightmare returned. She was transported to the Halloween night of ten years ago. She had been with her mum and James in the living room when the door bell rang. Her mum, pregnant with another baby had waddled to the door with a frown. Nobody ventured this way, so far from town. As the door swung open, a gang of hooded trick-or treaters stood at the doorway. At the head of the group a teenage boy held a sack in his left hand and in his right hand he held a knife.

“Trick or treat?”

Chaos had erupted as they barged their way in and began to ransack the house. Henna watched her dream-self crawl behind the sofa with her brother. Before leaving, the attackers dowsed the rooms with petrol and a match was dropped. Just like that, their whole life had shattered. They had died in a frenzy of flames and the burnt out shell of their house stood empty…

The rain was falling through the beams of the ex-roof but the rain didn’t bother the two children as they slept. They felt no pain, not even when their burnt beds jabbed into their backs in a thousand places. Their existence was a mystery even to themselves. The firemen had never been able to recover the bodies of the two children. They watched the police searching from the edge of the woods but didn’t dare go near the ruins.

They had first discovered their newfound strength when they had plucked up the courage to return to their house. It was a month after the tragedy and they had stayed in the woods all that time, afraid of all the policemen and journalists who swarmed over the scene. They climbed through the rubble carefully but when Henna had slipped and smashed her face into what was left of their oven, not only did it not hurt her, there was an imprint of her forehead in the corner. They had giggled themselves silly to that. It was the first time they had laughed since that day. Over the months, they found that they were stronger, faster and a whole lot tougher. They did not need to sleep but still they enjoyed the relief the night brought them from the constant cold. They may have felt no pain but in its place was a lingering iciness of death. As the years wore on, they began to notice that their powers were not stable. It got stronger and stronger until Halloween when it was at its peak. The day after, the strength left them and they had to wait for days until their strength returned. During that period, they were hungry, tired and ached all over but never quite dead.
After years of aimless foraging, they finally realised their purpose. They were given these gifts so they could do what they could not on that day. They were given the power to avenge their mother’s death, their own death. So the planning began.

***

The next day, they woke to the sound of birdsong. It rang through the house as a flock of birds had roosted in their house for the night. Henna groaned and rolled over, a brick in her hands. With a casual wave, it soared through the rafters and with a squawk and a cloud of feathers, the brick returned, landing with a soft crunch and an explosion of feathers. They sat up and got to work.
James sneaked into town, silently and swiftly, always in the shadows. The children, chattering in anticipation of tonight’s entertainment in the town centre, made their way to school. Some passed so close to James, he could have reached out and touched them but no one noticed. Finally, he arrived at the supermarket. He nearly laughed as the thought of sneaking through a supermarket was so strange. Maybe he would grab a roast chicken to eat while he’s there, he thought. He made his way up to the Halloween items and wondered what Henna would like to dress in. Probably not the Pink Glitter Fairy.
Meanwhile, Henna was going through what weapons she might take. Of course, she could rip him apart with her bare hands but she had really liked the carved pumpkin. So she took out several knives of assorted sizes. James didn’t like knives. He was a more throw-a-truck-at-them type of guy. It wasn’t long before James returned with their costumes, a pumpkin shaped bucket and a roast chicken. They ate. Even though they didn’t need to eat either, they still did occasionally. It was a good skill to keep they had thought, like breathing, so they did that as well. They could digest anything as James had found out when henna had launched a meat cleaver into his stomach. They couldn’t find the knife and when Henna tried to grope in his stomach for it, she had withdrawn her hand, the fingers dissolved into stumps. From then on, they had tried a little bit of everything, from trees to bars of soap, but they still thought nothing tasted quite as good as a roast chicken.

The night pressed on and the full moon started to rise, casting its eerie glow over the town. Even in their seclusion, they could hear the children wandering from door to door, asking for more sweets and gorging themselves on toffee apples. In a particularly ferocious gust of wind, the clouds rolled over the white orb and the whole town was plunged into temporary darkness. The two children stepped out into the flurry of leaves.

It wasn’t long before they had arrived at the house of their killer. His friends had long since drifted away and most of them were dead, victim to a quick and painless murder. However, he was the one who had planned the attack. He was the one who set fire to the house, amidst the protests of his friends. And he was the one who was going to die a terrible, drawn out death. They knocked on his door and they waited. At last, it opened and his voice, rough and callous, shouted down at them, “I ain’t got no bloody sweets to give you. Go away before I set my dogs on you!” From behind him, the barks rang out. When they didn’t move, he narrowed his eyes.

“Who the hell are you? Take off that bloody hood and look me in the face.”
And so they did. As they pulled down their hoods to reveal their ghostly white skin and blackened lips, he stared in shock. Then realisation dawned on him and fear set in. Henna spoke in that innocent, girly voice of hers, “Trick or treat?”

***

He just managed to avoid the first knife that was flung at him and slammed the door in their face but Henna laughed when James ripped it off its hinges and hurled it back down the hallway, revealing the man struggling to get through the kitchen door. Two dogs, barking in frenzy leapt up at them but James took one by the head and squeezed, crushing it like a freshly laid egg. Casting it aside, he turned to the other dog. Bigger and with definitely worse breath, it whimpered and attempted to flee before a volley of knives embedded itself into the poor animal. It was dead before it hit the floor in a heap. Stepping over, she looked up at the man trembling and smiled. There was a flash of colour followed by a bang and he was seen fleeing up the stairs. James had thrown a dog at him.

They ran up the stairs after him in delight as he burst through into his bedroom. There he cowered at the window.

“Please… don’t hurt me. I’ve changed. I swear!”

“Funny that… We’ve changed too. But whereas you’ve become a cowering snivelling man, we’ve changed into gods. Do you know how long I’ve dreamed of this moment? Do you know how much I wanted to hurt you, make you bleed? Do you?”

James moved forward and began kicking him. His cries mingled with the cawing of crows and his blood painted messy pictures on the wall. Henna joined in, driving knife after knife into his battered body. After a while, they stepped away. There was not one part of him that was not covered in blood. It drenched his clothes and spilled out in rivers into the dirty carpet along with his tears and snot. But still he was alive, his breathing shallow and painful. James came back and handed her the can of petrol and they began to douse the room. They looked at him and he stared back in shock through his swollen and bleeding eyes. She held out the match and after what seemed to be an eternity, she dropped it.

The room burst into flames and the inferno quickly spread, eating up the house like a monster. James looked at her with a strange expression on his face. She crossed over and they held hands, brother and sister, partners in crime, as the flames rose into the night sky. She knew how he felt because she could feel it too. For the first time since their death, so many years ago, she felt warm. She felt alive.