Requested by a friend, for a friend.
Happy Halloween.
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His breath smelt like tobacco leaves grown in a distillery. Pungent and particular. Not unpleasant, but not without a signature. He smirked from behind a scruffy, nasty beard as a bottle met his lips. He took a sip that seemed far too long to not be for dramatic effect. The bottle hit the porch rail, and he turned back to face her. On the porch, tucked away from the bass boom of the party, the rasp in his voice just seemed all the more apparent.
“So, like I was saying-I can do tricks,”
She snorted, and rolled her eyes. She tipped back her beer (one she had been sure to keep an eye on), and took a slight sip. Her singular horn threatened to fall off again. She clapped a hand to her head, and coughed as the beer washed down. That horn, it had grown so much harder to keep on since she had arrived. She gave thought to simply taking it off, but then she knew it would be gone in an instant.
And that the rest of her clothes would want to follow. She couldn’t have that, not one bit. So she kept slapping her hand to her brow, kept trying to keep it straight. The party had been a last-minute plan. A text from a friend, and an utter lack of anything else to do. But, she thought, that doesn’t mean I can-
“So what kind of tricks?” She asked-If for no other reason than to keep her mouth from the bottle. She didn’t know this particular man-but she couldn’t bring herself to shove him off.
He snorted, and turned to face her. Even with the moon full above their heads, shadows clung to the right side of his face. The left side gave a crooked smile as his eye gleamed from behind a set of glasses.
“Oh, a little of this, a little of that. Slight of hand, slight of that,” he said. His voice betrayed a hint of cocky bravado, but not so much she found it obnoxious. He lifted his hand from the porch railing, and extended it to her. She eyed it a moment, and tipped her beer back once more. As her hand slapped to her horn, her mind raced.
He’s cute.
I don’t know him.
Has anyone else talked to him?
Does it matter?
By the time she pulled her lips away, she had came to an answer. She sat her bottle next to hers, and returned his smile. She lifted her hand, and placed it in his.
“Sure. Got a name, mister?”
He gripped her palm, but gently. His fingers were sure about her wrist-but turned in a slow, methodical fashion. With her palm up at the sky, his other hand lifted. Finger extended, he traced the lines of her hand as he gave a grunt.
“Sure do. Change it damn near every day. Now hold still, okay?” he said. His brow arched as his finger pressed a bit harder down. She felt her face warm-but if it was the drink or his touch, she dared not ponder. The stranger gave a grunt, and let her go.
“Well, isn’t that interesting,” he said. He gave a snorting laugh, and turned away from her. As he lifted his own bottle back, she wriggled her nose and looked at him. Hand still turned up, poised and waiting.
“Uh, what is?”
“Oh, just what I read,” he said, matter of factly.
She snorted, and tilted her head towards him.
“Oh? Let me guess, this is the part where you tell me some handsome weirdo is going to whisk me off my feet?”
His lips-what she could see of them-broke into a smile. “Well, thank you. I happen to think you’re quite pretty as well. But no, not that. Nothing involving me at any rate,”
She felt a chill roll down her spine. It was an odd thing, one that seemingly made each of her hairs stand on end. Her jaw clenched, and she reached for her bottle.
“Oh? I’m going to marry a rich man, or something? That’s it, right?” she said. The beer felt cold as it met her throat. But she gagged as the stranger spoke, his rasp a cloying laugh.
“Life can be rich in many splendid ways, don’t you think? I mean, money is potential embodied. But memories last longer than coin, don’t you think? Even if they lose their luster,”
He turned to her, and the shadow that clutched his face peeled away. In its wake was a solid green, radiant orb where his other eye should have been. He smirked, and raised his bottle to her. As the long neck tipped her way, the chill in her spine encompassed her back. It clutched at her tendons, and made them tremble in a way that shook the beer in her hand. A beer that rose, and met the neck of the strangers own.
She hadn’t made that happen. But the bottle clinked all the same.
“Cheers-to life giving you all it’s joys. Small and big, eh?” he rasped.
“Nadine! Hey Nadine, you coming back?”
The voice-a familiar, welcome one-called from within the house. Back in the dull, pounding bass of the party. She jerked her head towards the sound, heartbeat a ryhtm all it’s own in her ears. Noah, his cow horns lopsided, waved from the door. She lifted her hand, the slow feel of her muscles waking slipping with every inch. She rolled a tongue over her lips and turned to bid the strange, awful man good bye.
Except he was already gone.
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All its joys-small and big.
The words crept back to the forefront of her mind the rest of the night. One drink became three before she stopped counting. Every imbibe made the room melt like a Dhali painting. Past a point, she stopped trying to discern shapes from the lights. That was, at least until they snapped back to very vivid attention.
Her eyes fluttered as she groaned. She lifted her fingers to her temple and pressed the tips deep as she sat up. A couch. She was on a couch.
Every liquified detail came sharp and quick. The music-a mix of techno and glitchpop that made her ears bleed-had stopped. Instead she was met with the faint rustle from farther rooms. Rough, muffled grunts from upstairs that made her blush. There also was an utter lack of bodies. For a halloween party that had promised to go on “all night”, the crowd was absent. She leaned forward on the couch, and tried to find a wall with a clock.
Doing so made her fall face first into the plush carpeted floor. She gave another groan as her head throbbed, every drink feeling like a haunt at once. She willed her limbs to work, for sobriety to come rearing its ugly head. It did-with an ease that made her feel like she was floating. She blinked a few firm times, and went to talk.
That’s when the reality of floating came hurtling towards her. For that’s precisely what she was doing. Her view snapped towards her dangling ankles. They kicked at the air, at a floor that was growing farther and farther away. She went to scream-but a slender hand met her mouth. It clamped sure, but not so tight she couldn’t breathe.
Which, in that moment, she was doing plenty of.
“Shhh, calm down. You’ll hyperventilate like that sweety-can’t have that, now can we?” came a voice. One that-like earlier-sounded so familiar. Familiar enough to slow the pace of her heart. To have her tilt her head, ever so slightly to the side.
She knew the eyes that met hers. She had seen them every day for the last few years. Cindy, she thought, it’s just Cindy.
Her friend and co-worker smiled. Her halloween makeup made the lines of her face deepen. Nadine didn’t remember Cindy having such a deft hand. The girl tapped a finger against her lips, and raised a costumed finger to her own.
What had she even gone as? The fingers looked armored in a dull chittin. Like aged scales, blackened and blasted by existence. When Cindy smiled, her prosthetic fangs reached all the way to her gums. She’d gone all out this year, Nadine thought.
Then she she felt her legs kick at the air again.
“Ya’ know, what I’m about to tell you? It’s gonna sound like a horror story. Some ‘bloody mary’ bullshit,” said Cindy, “-but the funny thing is, not one single part of it is. Ain’t that wild?”
As Nadine continued to kick, that’s when she felt it. The warmth behind those scales, their texture. The likes of which shouldn’t have been, but were. They weren’t scraps from a craft store given love and attention.
Nor were the eight legs that came into her vision to clutch her.
“So like, there was this guy, right?” said Cindy, her exo-skeleton encased limbs cinching tight, “And like, we were doing the costume party. He just stood in the corner, not saying a word, right?”
The grunting and rustling, sounds that had seemed so far away before, grew louder. There came the crunch of tile, the splintering of wood as forms shoved their way into the room. Massive things on cloven feet, slithering across the tile. Their faces like the spider that clutched her now. So familiar, but no. Twisted they were, changed into the very things they had came dressed as.
Her horn fell to the ground with a clatter as the minotaur approached. Steam curled from it’s nostrils as it grunted, it’s hooves ripping carpet with every step. It’s cock dripped with every motion, smacking against it’s meaty thighs. From the left of it came the snake, coiling about the minotaurs hips. It rose high enough to meet her gaze. It’s yellow eyes beheld her as it’s tongue lulled from it’s scaled lips against her cheeks.
The need to scream met the involuntary cinching of her thighs. She felt a warmth grow in her gut, one that crept down and low. She shuddered as Cindy kissed her, her fangs lingering at the nape of her neck.
“And like, he raised his hands right? And just snapped his fingers. Next thing I know, I’m on the ceiling. And this guy? This weird, random dude that showed? He said there was one way to turn back,” said the spider. A clawed leg rose, and ripped away at the tuled skirt Nadine wore.
“He said we needed to be the animals we were. Weird huh? But you don’t mind, right? I mean, it’s not like it’s the first time with us,” said Cindy.
She gave a laugh as her hand moved from the girl’s chin, and slipped past her curves. As her fingers met her cunt, the minotaur snorted. It’s cock rose with a meaty thwack against it’s stomach. It reached towards Nadine, it’s massive hands encompassing her thighs.
Only then did she scream.