A Scared Writer Runs This Blog

Sterling looked at the table, where a person was having an animated conversation with a statue. He couldn’t get a better look, all he could tell was that whoever they were, they were quite… small. “The little one over there? Did you not hear me? I need-”

“I heard you plenty fine,” the guild master snorted, “and I told you who you’d need. No one else here will take something like that, so she’s the best you can do. So either talk with her or get the fuck out of my guild.”

Sterling huffed before he headed for that corner. This close he could hear the grating, shrill voice of this ‘Manyboots’, chattering away to apparently no one save the terrifying statue she was sitting next to, so clearly she was crazy.

“Excuse me, I’m here to-”

“HOLY FUCK, DO YOU MIND!?”

The chair spun around and Sterling was more than a little taken aback by the sight of a hideous goblin sitting there. She had a hood over her enormous head, disproportionate to the size of her body. Even compared to goblin kind in general, she was small, probably would be barely two feet tall while standing. Her massive red eyes glared at Sterling as she shook a dirty finger in his direction. “I’m in the middle of a conversation! You can’t just waltz up here and interrupt!” she said.

“I- um-” Sterling managed to recover from the shock and he straightened himself up. “I’m here to hire you for a job, but if you keep talking back to me like that-”

The goblin cackled before taking a long swig of her beer. Wiping the foam off her mouth, she leaned in, grinning from ear to impressively large ear. “Okay, you’re forgiven. Whatcha need? Robbery? Arson? Murder that looks like suicide, or just flat out murder?”

“W-well,” Sterling cleared his throat, “my father is the great Governor van Broom, but he will not recognize me as one of his heirs as my mother was one of his maids. She died of a broken heart, and I have nothing but a pitiful clock shop to my name. I have been robbed of my birthright, and I seek revenge upon the man that abandoned my mother and…” he trailed off as he realized Manyboots had tuned him out and was back to slurping from a mug that was over half the size of her torso. “Do you mind?!”

“Huh?” Manyboots looked up. “I’m sorry, I was waiting for you to get done with the boring backstory shit.”

Right. Now he was pissed. Sterling raised his hand to slap the smirk off this stupid little beast.

“Listen here, you little-”

In a blur of gray stone Sterling’s wrist was grabbed by… the statue.

That was not a statue.

It looked like a statue, but on second look Sterling could see it blink its glowing green eyes, how it glowered at Sterling as its claws dug into his arm.

Manyboots shrieked with laughter. “Your faaaace! Man, your faaaaaaace!” she said, wiping a tear away from her eye. “Oh man, that never gets old. Garl, let him go.”

Garl cocked his head to the side and Sterling felt cold sweat dripping down the back of his neck. Even if Garl wasn’t actually a statue, he had a clutch like one.

“Try hitting her again, and you’ll lose more than your birthright, bitch.”

The statue released Sterling and he jumped back, clutching his bruising arm to his chest and trying to say anything, only for meaningless stammering to babble from his lips.

“Right, let’s start from the beginning.” Odra slammed her mug down on the table and stood up on the chair. “I’m Odra Manyboots, and this is Garl the Gargoyle.” She leaned in uncomfortably close, Sterling trying not to gag on the smell of rotten meat on her breath. “Listen, we don’t care why you want us to do this. All we need to know is what needs to get done, when we need to get it done, and how much you’re going to pay us. Got it?”

Sterling cleared his throat. “I get it.” He sat down next to Odra and Garl, keeping an eye on the menacing gargoyle. “There’s a caravan coming into town next week from the west, bearing my father’s insignia. There will be guards, do what you have to in order to deal with them. I don’t care what you do with most of the belongings- burn them, keep them, sell them, but I only ask that you retrieve a necklace and give it to me. It’s silver with a large sapphire at the throat. I’ll pay you one hundred gold now, and another two hundred when the job’s completed.”

Odra twisted her face before turning to Garl. “Sound like a plan?” she asked.

Garl only grunted.

Odra turned back around and gave a thumbs up. “Got it. Now scram, Like I told you earlier, we were in the middle of a conversation, and you were fucking rude to interrupt.” She shooed Sterling away before turning back to her friend, who was back to looking like a nearly normal statue. “Where was I? Oh yeah, you were inside passed out and getting your face doodled on by a bunch of bards. Which you really shouldn’t have gotten so drunk, I’m eighty percent sure a few of them wanted to jump on your stone c-”

Right, time to go. Sterling threw the initial payment on the table and practically bolted out of the door. Odra waited until he was gone before she leaned in close to Garl.

“Sooooo… how much you want to bet that the necklace he’s talking about is worth way, way more than two hundred gold?”

Garl smirked. “Safe bet, since it’s for the governor,” he agreed.

“Goodie. I’ll work on the story about not being able to find it, you’ll back me up with your scary face.”

“And what is my scary face?”

“Your scary face is your face all the time.”

Garl rolled his eyes before grabbing on Odra’s ear and roughly pulling on it.

“OW! Ow, lemme go, I’m sorry! Ouch! You’re gonna make me spill my beer, lemme gooooo!”

I was just a kid. A lonely one. It’s hard to make friends when you’re constantly on the move- military dad. Sometimes only a few months would pass before we’d be packing up to move to yet another place, where I’d have to go to another school and figure out how things worked there. By the time I ended up in Falconbridge Elementary I’d decided I wouldn’t even try to make friends this time. Why bother? I’d just be leaving them soon anyway.

But life decided to throw Curtis Riker my way. He was in my grade but he was a year older. He was held back a year, rumors about why ranged from getting kicked out for blowing up a toilet in the boy’s bathroom to getting into a fistfight with a middle schooler. I believed both could’ve happened- Curtis was a wild child, freckled with a mischievous grin full of gaps where he had missing teeth and red hair going every possible direction like he’d stuck a fork in an electric socket. I don’t know what drew him to me, but the third day at Falconbridge he and his posse plopped their lunch trays next to mine and Curtis asked if I’d ever shot one of my dad’s guns.

The answer was no, but I lied and told him I had. That was the right answer because Curtis immediately took me into his crew. He was the de facto leader of course, he was too loud and opinionated not to be. The other boys- Todd, Christian, Luke, and Alan- never questioned him. They practically worshiped the ground he walked on and soon I was too.

In hindsight, they were all jerks. But in hindsight, I guess since I was one of them, I was a jerk too.

At that age I actually liked Halloween. Most kids do- wear a fun costume, get piles of free candy, what’s not to like? That year I decided to be a scarecrow, and this year, I wasn’t gonna have my parents with me. I was going with my friends.

My mom was naturally a little hesitant to not be going with me, but my dad came through for me that night. After I promised to be back by ten, he smacked me on the back, teasingly pushed my hat into my eyes, and told me to have fun.

I met everyone right outside Curtis’ house. Most everyone was already there. Todd in his zombie costume moaned about brains, Christian waved around his pirate sword, Luke bared his cheap plastic fangs at me with the ‘I vant to suck your blood’ line, and Alan was already having to rewrap himself in toilet paper as his mummy costume was already falling apart.

Curtis came out exactly five minutes later than we agreed to meet- he probably made us wait on purpose, now that I think about it. Way to exercise his power over us. His costume was pretty low effort, fake cut on his cheek, ketchup blood on his black clothes, and a fake bloody knife strapped to his waist. “I’m a serial killer,” he said, as if that explained everything. It certainly didn’t explain the stuffed pillowcase thrown over his shoulder.

Curtis snickered as he looked over each of our costumes, offering his ‘creative criticism’- Christian needed to get a new costume idea since was the third year running he was a pirate, he asked if Alan was dressed like a piece of poop, and I had chosen a ‘baby costume’. It was embarrassing, but since we all got the same treatment, we all just laughed it off. None of us judged his costume back though. We knew better.

“Well, come on! There’s candy awaiting us!” Curtis waved his knife about. “I know the best neighborhoods- they won’t mind your baby costume!”

We all charged down the street, and soon we were just one of the many gaggles of kiddos out for treats. I should’ve known we were some of the kids out for tricks though. When an old lady had the unfortunate decision of handing out apples, Curtis pulled quite the face.

“Apples! Gross!” He tossed it up and down before he threw it into the sidewalk. Now I understood the pillow case as he produced a dozen eggs. “Alan, you can do the honors.”

“With pleasure!” Alan snatched two eggs from the carton. He reeled his fists back and sent them flying into the window. The yolk splattered across the glass and oozed to the ground and Curtis threw his head back and laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.

“Come on! We didn’t get a treat, so they get tricked!”

We all ran down the sidewalk before we could get yelled at for being little jerks, Curtis cackling all the way. I was laughing too, but it wasn’t because it was funny. It was the kind of laugh you made when you were terrified you were going to get caught. If I got caught egging some nice old lady’s house, I wouldn’t be let out of my room until I turned eighteen.

Once we got away though, I couldn’t deny that thrill. I’d been apart of something bad. And it was fun.

Curtis was the judge of what houses gave good candy. It wasn’t always apples or pennies that earned his ire. Turned out he had a serious peanut allergy so if the house only had candy with nuts in it, he’d bust out a roll of toilet paper or hand out eggs. He never actually did the tp-ing or egging himself, it was up to one of us. I was both excited and afraid for my turn.

But he didn’t choose me for that… he had something worse in mind.

It was near the end of the night and we had all the sugary loot kids could want. Curtis wasn’t settled though. I could see by how he was tapping his foot and scanned his eyes about that he wanted to do something else.

“Hey, Michael?”

The hair on my neck stood up. Curtis had a sly grin on his face and he nodded across the street.

“I know of a way to get some more candy. Look at that baby over there.”

I looked over and saw the ‘baby’ he was talking about.

This little girl was probably no older than five and definitely shouldn’t have been trick or treating on her own. But there she was, skipping down the sidewalk, clutching a bright pink jack’o’lantern bucket that was overflowing with candy.

“You got the baby costume, you go distract her while we get in position.”

I swallowed. “What are you gonna do?” I asked.

Curtis grinned wickedly. “Gonna scare her, that’s all,” he said in a voice that tried and failed to sound innocent.

I wasn’t a stupid kid. I could put together what he was planning on doing. I wanted to say no. That we had enough candy, we didn’t need to take anyone else’s. Especially a little girl’s.

But I wasn’t brave enough. I nodded dumbly before I cut across the street. The guys’ whispers faded into silence as I stepped in front of the little girl.

She was so tiny. Her dress was just as pink as her candy bucket, with plastic wings attached to the back and a tiara sitting crookedly in her blonde curls. She smiled up at me with no fear, no suspicion.

“Hello!” she chirped, cocking her head to the side and almost making her tiara fall off.

I almost threw up with nerves, but I put on a smile. “Hi, uh, I’m Michael. What’s your name?”

“Call me Daisy!” She giggled. “Are you a scarecrow tonight, Michael?”

“Uh huh.” I could see movement out of the corner of my eye. “What are you?”

“I’m a fairy princess!” Daisy curtsied with one hand. “I like being a princess!”

Before I had to find any other way to drag out this conversation, Curtis leaped out of the bushes and snatched up the little girl. Pressing the fake knife to her neck, he hissed, “You wanna die tonight, little girl?”

Daisy’s cheer melted into sheer terror. She shrieked and tried to squirm free, but Curtis had such a tight grip on her I’m sure he left bruises. Alan swooped out and snatched away her bucket.

“That’s mine!” Daisy cried out, but Curtis just shoved her into the ground. Her tiara popped off, rolling down the cracked pavement and coming to a stop a few feet away.

“It’s ours now, you dumb baby!” Curtis sneered before he pulled one of his feet back. Before I could stop him, he kicked that poor little girl so hard in the ribs she nearly went into the street.

She laid still for a moment before she looked up at us, dirt on her cheeks and a bruise forming on her chin. Her bottom lip trembled for a moment before she wailed.

“MOMMA! MOMMA, HELP ME!”

“Come on, let’s go!”

Curtis dashed away, whooping and hollering like we’d pulled off some grand theft. I couldn’t look at Daisy anymore. But I could hear her crying and screaming for her mommy as we made our ‘great escape’.

I felt like the worst person alive. Even as I accepted the cut of the ‘spoils’, I wanted to die from the shame. I should’ve turned around. I should’ve just left the group right then.

But I never got the chance before we met her.

We turned the corner and there she was- a woman, taller than my dad, her smooth, young face not matching her white, flowing hair, wearing a silver gown and a shimmering cape. We all skidded to a stop and stared at her. The way she was looking right at us, it was like she was waiting for us.

After a brief pause, the woman walked up to us. There was a smile on her lips that didn’t reach her eyes and something about it sent chills up my spine. Now that I think back on it… she looked at us like a cat looks at a nest of baby mice.

“My, my, my… what wonderful costumes.” She tilted her head to the side, her eyes landing on the pink bucket that Luke was holding at the moment. “You seem to have an extra candy bucket. Who does that belong to?”

You could hear a pin drop with how quiet it was. Where did all the people go? At the moment, we seemed to be the only people in the universe, let alone on the street. Why wasn’t anyone still out trick or treating? At the very least, the stragglers should still be heading home.

Luke gulped and stared at the sidewalk. “Uh-uh… we just… found it…” he mumbled.

The woman heaved a big sigh and frowned.

“Did you now?”

I blinked and missed it. One second she was just standing in front of us with a disapproving look. The next she had heaved Luke up with a single hand, fingers digging into his neck. Luke dropped his candy bucket as he tried to fight her, chocolate bars and lemon candies spilling onto the ground and rolling away.

Curtis reacted first, puffing up and trying to act brave as he grabbed the woman’s arm to try to make her let go of Luke. “Let him go, lady! What’s your problem!?” he snapped.

“My problem?” The woman hardly seemed bothered by Luke’s squirming or Curtis’ pulling of her arm, just slowly looking down at us with the iciest of glares. “My problem is with lying, rotten little boys that steal from my child. Now run, run as fast as you can. The Hunt’s began.”

At that moment we heard a howl, followed by the baying of hounds and a mischievous bell like laughter. The laughter was more frightening than the howl.

Curtis took off first, and Alan was hot on his heels. I paused for only a moment longer, just long enough to see the woman dig her fingers deeper into Luke’s skin and then hear a snap as she broke his neck. Luke gurgled for a second before going completely limp.

That got me running, me Todd and Christian, all screaming in terror. That woman had killed Luke with her bare hand, not hands, a single hand. There was no conscious end to my sprint, I just ran for my life… and so did everyone else.

Alan tripped. I don’t know if he caught his foot on something or if the toilet paper that made up his costume caused him to fall, but he fell on his face. He groaned and I stopped to help him… but that’s when the dogs appeared.

They were huge. Taller than a Great Dane but with a muscular build like a Rottweiler, their shining silver coats were spattered shortly in red as they pounced on Alan’s fallen body. They didn’t go for the kill. They tore away at him, Alan screaming and trying to fight back but it was one boy against five monstrous canines. One grabbed onto his face and tore his cheek clean off before it looked up at me. I looked back into its eyes… its dozen, yellow eyes. At least a dozen, I couldn’t be sure how many eyes it really had, didn’t stick around to count. I just shouted ‘I’m sorry!’ to the still screaming Alan before I ran again.

We heard Alan screaming blocks away. It was strange, I didn’t know the neighborhoods we were in, but I don’t think any of the other boys did either. The world around us seemed distorted, streets leading to nothing, their signs scrambled around and spinning like small whirlwinds. It didn’t really sink in until Christian suddenly broke right.

He was trying to do the smart thing- he headed right to one of the houses. He slammed up against the door before he began pounding away at the wood and turning frantically at the doorknob. “HELP! THERE’S DOGS OUT HERE TRYING TO KILL US! OPEN UP! HELP!” he screamed so loud it sounded painful.

I nearly got hope in my heart when the door slowly opened. I was halfway across the yard myself when I saw… who was opening the door. It was a teenager, dressed in all white, with features sharp like glass and a smile that didn’t speak of good things.

“Oh, nice sword!” he plucked it from Christian’s hand, twirling it around twice before he stabbed Christian. The plastic sword wasn’t anymore- it slid between his ribs like a knife into hot butter. Christian sputtered, his face going dead white as he was dragged inside. I heard him scream once, saw blood spray across the front window, and then I was gone as Curtis screamed that it was too late, that we needed to keep going.

We really weren’t home anymore. I don’t know where we were. There wasn’t going to be any help for us though. The houses were all dark. The streetlights flickered, sometimes nearly going dark too before going on so bright I felt the bulbs would burst.

Todd was cussing up a storm by this point, using words I didn’t even know existed. “This is all your fault, Curtis! It’s all your friggen’ fault!” he got out between his pants. He had to be getting tired, he wasn’t an athletic kid. I wasn’t either and my lungs were burning, my legs aching.

Curtis glared at Todd before he clearly landed on a solution. “Into the woods! We can lose them in there!” he pronounced before sliding down into the ditch and bolting into the trees. I followed, I thought it was a good plan. Todd did too, even if he kept swearing himself blue, Curtis was still the leader of our group… what was left of it anyway.

I almost, almost had hope we’d really get away now. The dogs were getting quieter, the world didn’t seem so warped and foreign now. Curtis held up his hand and we all stopped, finally taking the chance to catch our breaths.

Not a second passed and something scraped my cheek and thudded hard into the tree next to me. Blood dripped down my face as I stared at the offending object in question. An arrow. An actual arrow, fletched with white feathers.

Once again, back to running. It hurt to run. Every part of me ached as we now had to tear through brush and jump over roots to avoid the same fate as our friends. Sometime during the chase my scarecrow hat got knocked off, I didn’t even bother to look back at it. I didn’t want to see our pursuers getting closer.

“They’re doing this on purpose!”

Todd gasped and finally stumbled to a stop. “They’re just gonna-gonna chase us to death-”

I heard a thud and an arrow sprouted out from his belly, the tip dripping red. Todd’s face went stark white as he looked down… then almost immediately six more arrows were sticking out from him in all directions, one even coming out from his eye.

He started to crumple but I didn’t stop long enough to see him fall to the ground. Even if I realized how hopeless it was, I kept going. We were being chased again. The dogs were baying again, but they stayed the same distance. The arrows just barely missed us, but that wasn’t because they couldn’t hit us. They could. They were just waiting for us to give up.

They were going to kill us. They were just going to wait for us to give up first.

I cried. I bawled my eyes out, snot dripping down my lips as I stumbled through the dark, tears stinging my eyes so badly I could barely see.

“Stop crying, you big baby!”

Curtis glared at me, his face flushed redder than his hair. His voice was raspy from all the panting we were doing, and for a second I thought he was going to hit me… then he seemed to get an idea. “Look! Big tree!” He pointed ahead. “Let’s climb up it! If we get up high enough, they won’t be able to hit us!”

That sounded stupid, but my tired brain just couldn’t disagree. I put on that last burst of speed, praying I’d reach that tree before they got me…

And then Curtis stuck his foot out and tripped me. I bashed my face open on the ground, blood gushing out my nose as my vision blurred for a brief moment. When it cleared, I saw that Curtis was already halfway up that tree.

He left me to die.

I sobbed into the ground as shadows stretched over me. All of the hunters were dressed in white, their outfits strangely unblemished from dirt or leaves. And there was the woman again, tall, with an arrow notched in her bow.

And hanging off her back was Daisy, her face bruised, eyes still red from her tears.

Funny part about all this? I hadn’t ever actually let go of my sack of candy. If anything, my grip became like iron.

“I…” I sniffled before I got up to my knees. “I’m so s-sorry, I didn’t want to do it! I did it though, and I’m so s-s-sorry! Here!” I lifted up the bag as high as I could. “You can have mine! Just take it! I don’t- I don’t want to die!”

It was quiet again. Even the dogs had stopped barking.

Daisy let go of her mother’s back, landing on the ground and walking up to me. I was shaking. I think I wet myself. She managed to pry the sack of candy from my frozen grip and looked inside. “Oh, wow! Momma, look! There’s even more candy in here!” She showed off her new haul to her mother, beaming with joy. “You don’t have to kill that one, Momma, it’s okay! He made it better!”

The woman mulled it over, tapping her fingers against her bow as she considered it. Finally she sighed and nodded. “Yes, dear, that one can live. He has… some manners. And I think he’s learned his lesson. What about the other boy?”

“Oh no, you can kill that one! He was the one who shoved me to the ground and kicked me.” Daisy pulled out a packet of candy corn and gasped. “Ooooh, my favorite!”

Her mother nodded before she walked past us. I was shocked. I was… being spared. I was being left alive.

And Curtis’ attempt to hide up in a tree had not gone well. The woman raised her hand and waved it side to side, before my eyes I watched two birch trees sprout from the ground. They didn’t get too big, but they got big enough for her plans.

She whistled and two hunters launched themselves up the tree, in a second they had Curtis by the shirt and were dragging him back down. He fought like hell, kicking and screaming and even trying to bite them, but it was for nothing. He was dragged between the trees.

“Here, have some candy.”

Daisy handed me a piece of candy corn as Curtis was strapped to the trees. I didn’t eat it. I just clutched onto it and watched. The trees were bent down as far as they could go. Curtis looked at me. He probably was going to shout for help. To ask me to save him.

I just stared blankly as the trees were let go. The force of the trees whipping back up….

It tore him in half. Right down the middle. Blood and gore sprayed across the clearing, some getting to my face.

The group all cheered and I finally passed out.

When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed. My mother was crying. She didn’t say anything when I called out for her, she just launched herself and gripped me so tight my ribs about popped.

Between her sobbing she told me that she’d opened the door to cops on the front porch- I’d been taken to the hospital. My friends were found up and down the street, some psycho had attacked us and left us for dead. Only I was still alive.

I wanted to think it was a dream. That I’d just been attacked by some psycho and my mind just made up all the other things that happened.