Mignyan Prompt Jan 2024 - Preparation

It was Halloween night, and Price was in his element. Well - slightly outside of it. Technically his old haunt was the graveyard with the pumpkin patch (something of a morbid combination, if you thought through the life cycle implications) over on the edge of town, and tonight he was firmly in the suburbs. But the locals had gotten wise to his usual tricks, so he needed to switch things up to keep from losing his edge. Tonight he’d snuck his way onto some old lady’s front porch and set up shop. When he sat ragdoll-limp on her porch swing and let his head loll to one side, he looked for all the world like a regular old decoration.

Easy mistake, and one the trick-or-treaters would come to regret.

He could just barely see them out of one triangle eye cutout in the pumpkin he wore on his head. The temptation to let his disguise slip so he could poke an eyestalk out to get a better look was strong, but if he did that the game would be over. Anyway, the delicious drawn-out tension of waiting was what he really craved. He could hear them better than he could see them; what sounded like a group of four… maybe five kids, and there was the telltale sigh of an older teenager roped into guiding them around. They were standing on the sidewalk next to the lawn, murmuring about the spooky decorations. It sounded like one of them had spotted him and was debating with a friend whether he was real or not.

“It looks like a real one,” they whined, and their friend retorted.

“Nuh-uh, see, it’s not breathing.”

Price grinned to himself in the darkness of the pumpkin helmet. Cute, but he’d never had to breathe. It was one of his charms.

“Clearly you don’t want candy that bad then,” came the authoritative voice of the teenage chaperone. “So we can go home now, right?”

A plaintive cry of “Nooooooo!” went up from the group.

“Okayyy, so Toby, get over it, we’re ringing the doorbell.” Price heard the click-click of determined high-heeled footsteps approaching and caught a glimpse of red as the group approached - was the teenager in a devil costume? Oh, delicious irony.

He could see them better now as they crowded onto the porch. The smallest must have been Toby - the kid couldn’t keep his eyes off Price, a morbid expression of resigned anxiety on his face. He was dressed as a skeleton, the stark white & black face paint making his wide, worried eyes pop even harder out of his head. The others ignored Price entirely, more focused on the imminent sugary reward. An argument had broken out, delaying their prize. Two of the kids both wanted to be the one to ring the doorbell, and the chaperone was caught between them, each tugging on an arm.

“Amanda got to do it last tiiime,” one whined. “I only got to ring it once!”

“That’s cuz you always press it over and over til they answer, and then they get mad at us,” Amanda shot back. “I’m the best at ringing doorbells so I get to ring, that’s the rule!”

“There’s no rule! There’s no rule! Sammy, tell them there’s no rule!!”

“I’m gonna ring it myself in a minute if you two don’t quit bickering,” the teen, apparently Sammy, growled. “Let go of my arms.”

Price waited. A twofold tension now - the group was almost entirely focused on the doorbell debate, aside from poor terrified Toby. He waited for the most opportune time, when Sammy finally freed a hand and reached forward to alert the occupants. Just as her finger hovered over the button, he sprang up and let his disguise drop. His horns burst upwards, shattering the top of his pumpkin and sending bits flying everywhere. His eyestalks pushed through the eyeholes, leering menacingly, and he flailed his vestigial tendrils wildly through the mouth hole.

“BWAUUUUGGH BLEEDLE BLEEDLE LEEEEEEE!”

A piercing scream rang out, accompanying Price's string of spooky gibberish, and Sammy turned on her heel and sprinted at top speed. Pierce was impressed - she had been wearing four inch pumps. The kids scattered, each emitting a scream of their own. All but Toby, who stood stock still and staring. Tears were smudging the paint on his face and rolling down his cheeks.

Oh. Uh oh. Price didn’t know what to do with crying. He knew what to do with running away and screaming, it gave him the chance to slither away and find a new hiding place, but he couldn’t exactly do that with those eyes still trained on him. His hands had been flung up over his head in a threatening pose, but now they slowly lowered as his mind worked.

The door opened. An old, old woman in a pink dress held a bowl piled high with candy.

“Oooh!” she trilled. “What delightful costumes! Now then, what’s the magic word?”

Toby didn’t seem like he could speak, so Price took up the call.
“Trick… or… treat?” he burbled through his tendrils.

“Very good, very good, and I don’t want no tricks, so here’s your treats!”

A generous handful of brightly-colored candy was dumped into Toby’s candy carrier - Price had only just noticed it was a plastic jack-o-lantern. A matching pile of candy was pressed into Price’s hands, and the door closed. The two of them stood alone once again. Price lowered himself down on one knee and mashed his handful into Toby’s pumpkin. It was overflowing with goodies now.

“Happy Halloween,” he said, for lack of anything else, and leapt over the railing, running off into the night.

Toby stood on the porch for a long moment in silence. Then he burst into a huge grin and ran off to find his group again, swinging his plastic pumpkin with delight. He had easily twice as much candy as anyone else in his group now, and trading for his favorites would be a breeze. This was the best Halloween ever!