Halloween night was a hungry thing, and it had eyes the color of streetlamp piss. Down alleys, ‘round corners where even rats shivered, there was a rhythm the cowards missed. Heartbeats. Wet gurgles. And somewhere, the shick-shick of steel, like laughter for the dying. You call that music? Hell, the Philharmonic in its death throes couldn’t touch this orchestra of butchery.
And what played the conductor’s baton in this concert of carnage? Her name was Jessy, a slip of a thing in her early twenties, eyes wide like she’d swallowed the devil’s bargain. Red Riding Hood this Halloween she was, for damn sure – ain’t no wolf would cross her path twice. Not with a butcher knife the size of your grandpa’s war stories sticking out some woman in the hallway like some obscene Excalibur.
Steel gleams under that one buzzing incandescent hallway bulb, like a spotlight for the Grim Reaper’s stage show. This ain’t theater, though. This is real. You get cut, you bleed. You stay still too long, you die. Just ask the woman folded up ‘round the doorframe, life slipping out with every ragged breath.
Just as Jessy pulls the knife out, the woman drops to the floor like a sack of meaty bricks.Then – and who needs an intermission when your heart’s in your teeth – an f’ing iPhone rings. Happy little birthday tune, right in the middle of this Jackson Pollock death scene. Jessy answers, face flat as stone. It’s The Sum. Voice like sugar and nails down a blackboard, part little girl, part snake that had swallowed a synthesizer.”Cutting it close, Jessy,” the thing says. And its word is death.
Deadline on her life, tick-tock like a bomb under her grandma’s rocking chair. But hey, Xena’s still breathing. Her lover. That’s why the knife was wet, see? Two down already, names the living don’t need to know. One to go, or Xena goes from sweet thing to a faceless corpse.
That’s some leverage, wouldn’t you agree?”One more? Rachel and now Tammy, that makes two. One-two, I’m done!” Jessy spits back with the echo of a trapped animal, dangerous and desperate. But The Sum, that child-voiced demon, chirps back in a singsong, “Rachel just woke up out of her coma.” Jessy knew the score now. No ‘out’ button, no pause.
You play till you break or you bust. Ain’t no quitting this game, ‘cept through the morgue.Bing goes the phone! A wicked grin splits Jessy’s face as the name hits the screen. New prey, then. Stacie Watts, the plastic princess. The real-life Barbie those sniveling little wannabes worship and despise, all in one breath. Yet, ain’t nothin’ gonna save her from her fall.No pep rally spirit, no daddy’s lawyer. Jessy will strip that Homecoming crown right off her head, see those painted lips scream with real damn fear.
Blondie had tried to steal Jessy’s man in high school and Jess snapped Stacie’s ring finger in two.A brutal laugh crackles outta Jessy. Oh, this one’s personal. Payback ain’t just a saying, it’s a sacrament. Blood for blood, and she’ll collect with interest. Knife wiped clean on her shirt, no second thought. More blood to come, anyway.
After all it is Halloween.Then some God-forsaken thing with a black leather reaper robe and a facemask redder than roadkill steps outta the shadows. A Facetaker – their kind’s the clean-up crew in this nightmare, all quiet death on two legs.Startled, Jessy stabs it right in the chest. The thing growls some low, wet sound that whispers “unwise” even if its lips don’t move. It raised its glowing right hand, charred like it dipped in Hell itself, and grabbed the blade of her knife.
The knife melted like butter instantly in its hand and turned to wisps of vapor. The thing then shoved a Nata-style hatchet in Jessy’s hands, Japanese steel. Cold comfort is fancier than any meat cleaver.The Sum whispers over the speakerphone that their mutual friend will handle the cleanup. It’s thoughtful like a cobra remembering your birthday. Then The Sum again, like Satan’s personal secretary. “Tick-tock, darling.” Oh, and if Jessy fails. Someone else plays dress-up with Xena’s face tonight. That’s a threat sharper than the damn hatchet. Time limit: fifteen minutes. Mark.
On the screen, a chrome viper twines intimately around a hand dyed in shades of crimson—a stark tableau of red and reptile. Digital death mark.Down the hall she went, Facetaker glaring at her from behind its mask, and out the front door. Still, kids are trick-or-treating out and about. Little demons and candy-crazed angels, ignorant of the real horrors playing out on their block.
She runs to the car, heart jackhammering. Got more texts from Xena, on her way to the party at the hotel. Needs ice, booze, party crap. Yeah, sure, be glad to. Don’t tell her your hands have that crimson and steel tang.At Stacie’s house. Change of clothes, quick as you can. Bloody shirt for a cute pink sweater. Hatchet hidden up the sleeve. Stacie’s house looks festive enough, pumpkins with those goofy, toothy grins. Timer buzzing on the phone: twelve minutes. Let’s get this over with.
Stacie answers the door in a damn nurse costume, throwback style. Offers candy…and damn her for being pretty. It don’t matter. Red Riding Hood don’t care if her prey got nice legs. Jessy just smiled and played it real sweet. Ain’t that how everyone plays on the carousel? Big Bad Wolf all nice till the teeth drop down.Stacie chattering. Ancient high school gossip – who cares? Jessy smiles on autopilot. Each word another twist of the screw. She dropped out, didn’t she? Virginia Tech to play nursemaid to one more dying relative. Failure’s stink – it gets in the skin, stains you for life. Stacie chirps on about her sorority days, all that blonde ambition… and it grates.That ain’t her life anymore.
Her life’s got bloodstains and The Sum’s voice rattling around in her skull. Her life stinks of fear, but fear with an edge. Every inch of this house is a lie dressed up as a Hallmark card, painted with cheap lipstick and sticky contact paper buried under the Martha Stewart country collection wallpaper.Kitchen. Stacie playing hostess, pouring some moonshine from the jug, backwoods like its damn tea. “Go Wildcats!” she simpers, and Jessy wants to hurl.
They both held up their shot glasses in salute to their old team. They drink. One gulp. It burns like battery acid.”Got myself a little side hustle,” Stacie grins. “Real exclusive club. One hand out, palm up – invitation with a serpentine death sentence attached.” Jessy laughs not realizing what was just said. Mind’s racing too fast. # # Stacie thinks she’s the shark. Please. She’s a suckerfish, playing in the big tank with no clue which fin’s gonna tear her to shreds. Stacie smiled, a mask barely hiding her predator’s smirk. “Your glass slumbers,” she purrs, the words oozing with mock politeness.It’s like watching a cobra hooding up.
Jessy’s eyes find the phone Stacie left beside the glasses. Red hand… and the damn viper… just like hers. “Eyes up, Bambi,” Stacie drawls, “ Jessy’s eyes go wide like a deer caught in headlights. “You ain’t special, honey. Just another pawn on the board.” Stacie smiles, “And I’m the Queen.”Jessy knows now what Stacie has in store. Doesn’t mean she has to give the blonde bitch the satisfaction. It tastes like endings, this poison fire. But she ain’t ending just yet. Not ‘til that phone rings again and she knows Xena is safe from that little bitch.
Then there’s steel on the table. Stacie with a 9mm - where the hell did she hide that? – talking ‘bout being on the carousel for a long time. Higher rewards, sure, but higher risk too. This is some kinda damned Darwin test, survival of the most ruthless? But Jessy feels that poison coursing, numbing her fingers. Roofie. Damn cheap shot. Time’s got teeth now, chewing off seconds from whatever sanity she has left.”Duel ya for it,” Stacie purrs, like this was a party trick, not murder waiting to happen. Stacie spins the gun slap-center between them.
Count of three. It’s all so absurd, Jessy nearly gags. But that damned hatchet feels heavier than ever under her sleeve. Stacie counts… and Jessy ain’t waiting.The HATCHET slams down, the echo rings like bell at a cheap carnie’s booth next to the gun, expecting to hit bone, but instead the Japanese steel bites and digs deep into the table. Bitch didn’t even go for it. Ain’t nothin’ natural about Stacie’s stillness, it’s all staged, part of the gruesome funhouse show. That smug smirk painted on, thick as clown makeup, hides the bloodlust in her eyes.And Jessy…she’s just the latest screaming punter, realizing the whole carnival is rigged.
Panic scrambles her features, turning her painted-on beauty into a mask of genuine terror. Too late, Barbie, the knife’s out, and Stacie ain’t above using it to twist a few laughs out of you as the arm burns with limp uselessness. Legs give way like a rusty folding chair.Jessy claws at the table. Gun within reach, she still has reflexes the roofies haven’t swallowed yet. One desperate lunge, fingers scrabbling…and the gun’s in her hand. She pulls the trigger – click, click, CLICK – an hollow symphony of nothing. “Empty,” that sweet voice rings out as another 9mm pistol is placed on the table. “My clip on the other hand, authentic Dragonfly hollow points. Six dollars a pop.”
Phone vibrates on the table. Each ring digs further under Jessy’s skin. Speakerphone. Damn that child voice from Hell, The Sum, all praise for Stacie, like that little bitch got merit badges for deceit. Then it materialized right there, like a rotten nightmare come to life. Little ethereal girl in a frilly green dress, eyes glowing bright as maggots. “Well, wasn’t THAT entertaining?” The Sum playfully taunted.Ice fills Jessy’s gut. Not fear now, but the cold realization - she’s just entertainment for monsters. Two Facetakers appear behind Jessy and snatch her up, Faceless freaks with nothing behind their masks except a macabre technological miracle.
Roofies got her legs buckling now, like the world’s gone tilt. Each jolt as they drag her is a nail pounded home. Every step feels like there’s broken glass under the carpet. In the Bedroom now. There’s a bed in the darkness… it stinks of copper and old terror. Bodies? Oh God, no…no.Stacie pulls the trigger on the empty 9mm with empty clicks at the dead bodies. “Mom and Dad,” Stacie chirps, a girlish glee in her voice as she pulls the trigger on the empty 9mm. “Click, click, click!” She pauses, tilting her head. Each click twists Jessy’s insides. “Four for Mom, five for Dad. $62 dollars with tax, and worth every single penny.” Then that demon child sing-songing its twisted news to Jessy and her failure. Xena’s the next target. Stacie ain’t even angry, she’s elated at this news.
Xena was always more her type anyway, wasn’t she? All twisted up in some perverse little love triangle. But hey, what’s love worth when your face ain’t even your own by morning? The Sum declares Jessy’s fate with a whisper, “Back on the carousel” before vanishing into the ether. The Facetakers toss Jessy’s body face down on the pile of flesh, 900 thread Egyptian cotton and memory foam.It don’t feel like sleep. It feels like an end. One Jessy didn’t get to write. But The Sum is the type for neat resolutions. Jessy hears Stacie leave, voice light, as if she was heading to a damn coffee date. Then darkness took Jessy, rough and final.
The hotel door swings open. Stacie’s saccharine smile wider than a car salesman’s lie – she flashes the Jack like it’s some magic potion. And Xena, that femme fatale, strutted up, her hips swaying like a rattlesnake right before the strike. Xena coils around a giggling Stacie and pulls her inside. Little does Xena know that Stacie ain’t just bringing her own brand of hell, she’s hauling in the apocalypse for the whole sorry lot of ‘em.
The next day Stacie shopped at her local co-op grocery store. As she pushed her cart down the aisle, she sang a little soliloquy under her breath:“Sound the alarm, let the pain recede.”“If it festers in you, you’ll never be freed.”“Inform the chief, send out the dive.”Stacie rounds a corner, her cart rattling like a lunatic’s teeth, and BAM! Tableau of pure sin in the produce department – Jessy and Xena, hands all over the cucumbers like they’re auditioning for some sleazy back-alley flick.
Their heads snap towards Stacie, synchronized like a pair of jackals smelling blood. Eyes boring into her, they got the kind of focus that ain’t natural, ain’t right.The smiles they had? Vaporized faster than spilled milk in Death Valley.Xena and Jessy’s hands rose, with waves that parody a human greeting. The rhythm’s wrong, too stiff, like bad animatronics trying to pass as normal.
They ain’t just waving at Stacie, they’re flaunting their borrowed skins, perhaps even mocking that one day it will be her face they’ll be wearing.Stacie waves back and finishes her soliloquy.“Only the shadows are left alive.”That infernal phone buzzes, another hit flashing on the screen. Address, name, just another target to keep one step ahead of the reaper.
The Sum’s pet python. Her harbinger, her personal plague. Hell, I never wanted this – didn’t ask to dance with the devil.But you play the hand you’re dealt, and right now that means keeping blood on my knuckles and cash in my bank account. They say I got no conscience, but that ain’t true. My conscience is just busy keeping me breathing.
This game, it ain’t mine… but by God, I’m gonna see it to the end. And if that means every gutter in this rat-trap city runs red, well, then hand me the damn paintbrush.