HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: LAST HALLOWEEN
“Did anyone else hear that?”
No, no, no. Everyone shook their head. Only Laura, then. Manuel looked her in the eyes and gave her a little shake; the only one who heard that weird creak up there is the only non-werewolf, non-talking mongoose, normal human…
They were in the gym at Wulver, though nobody could really remember what they were, like, going to do there. There was just an invitation in the Discord, and she and Manuel were joined by Emily, Alice, Claire, Summer, and, squirming in Laura’s hoodie pocket, Gef.
“I’ve got to get home before it’s too late…” Alice fretted.
“Al, we should wait for Jessie first,” Emily assured her.
“You don’t know she’s even coming.”
“Who else would invite us all here?” Claire said.
“Laura made the invite.”
“I…uh…I don’t know why I made the invite, ‘kay? I must’ve been told something at the Art Gallery or…something. And I put it in there before I forgot, ‘cause…I forgot,” Laura rambled.
“And you think you heard a weird noise?” Summer cocked her head Laura’s way, her hands idly picking at the frayed ends of her jeans.
“I did hear a weird noise. It was up there. On the ceiling.”
“Maybe it’s the Halloween decorations.”
“It’s the middle of September!”
“They put them up early. You know that. It’s…some stupid pumpkin thing.”
“You don’t know that.”
“My dad’s gonna think I’m out taking drugs!” Alice interrupted.
“That’s why I brought all these drugs along,” Emily patted her bag.
“Em.”
“Al.”
“Stop joking.”
“Am I?” Emily smirked.
“I said stop, not you’re.”
“You know, Gef, you can come out.” Laura poked at the shape in her pocket. A mongoose poked out his head and blinked.
“Oh, the hounds would quite enjoy ripping me to shreds, eh!”
“Jeff, it’s not a Full Moon.” Claire waved her hand around in a circle, for…some reason?
“Gef!”
“Literally what’s the difference?” Summer asked.
Creak. The noise again. This time, everyone heard it; everyone looked up. Emily, though, kept a hand on her bag, and…
EMILY
HALLOWEEN, ONE YEAR AGO…
As they neared the end of the street, Emily in her skeleton suit, Kayla in her witch costume, the wind picked up a little slip of paper from one of the trick-or-treater’s buckets and threw it square into Emily’s face. She yelped and nearly fell over; Kayla caught her, but couldn’t hold her, and they slowly slid down onto the pavement. The piece of paper fell onto the humerus painted on her sleeve; it was a tattered little comic titled THIS WAS YOUR LIFE.
“Ugh, sorry,” drawled an older boy dressed as Rick and/or Morty. “There’s this freakin’ house down the street giving out religious comics.”
Emily kicked the comic onto the sidewalk. “Ugh. I hate that.”
“Good thing we didn’t go that way,” Kayla said, helping Emily to her feet, dusting off her skeleton-arms.
“Yeah. This is like...the last Halloween we’re young enough to do this, and getting something like that would...it’d suck,” Emily said.
“Yeah,” Kayla said. “Last Halloween trick or treating. We’ll be too old soon…some of the parents are looking at us funny now, too…”
“It’s late, we should head back?” Emily said.
“No,” Kayla said. “Um. Hey, we don’t...we can keep going a bit!”
“Yeah, we can go a little longer,” Emily said, and they carried off into the night…
“Hey, um…” Manuel idly wrung his hands behind his back. “If Jessie isn’t here, why was the gym unlocked tonight?”
“I…it’s always unlocked?” Summer countered.
“Not this late at night, if there’s nothing planned,” Manuel said.
“Yes, Manuel’s right,” Claire said. “The community center should be closed for the night. If Jessie didn’t invite us, and didn’t unlock the door, someone else -”
“Oh, can it!” Gef shrieked. “Why, what does it matter why we’re in a musty old gym? Goodbye! Goodbye! You may be haunted all you like, but Gef - Gef has the wisdom to leave!” Gef turned to escape, only for Laura to snatch him by the tail. “Un…unhand me! Witch woman! Devil in disguise!”
“Why don’t we leave? J…” Claire furrowed her brow for a few moments, shaping the words with her mouth. “Gef isn’t wrong, per se.”
“No, he’s not, and neither is whoever the heck Percy is!” Alice said. “It’s only some weird noises up above. Why’s that our busine-” A series of quick movements. Deeper in noise, and in rapid succession. Alice jumped. “I’m leaving. I’m-!”
Manuel watched Alice charge for the door, and flicked through his notebook, and wondered what it may be…
MANUEL
HALLOWEEN, ONE YEAR AGO…
“...Laura said she is going to a party, but I don’t think I’m ready to be around all those people,” Manuel said.
“We could take you,” his father said.
“You want our son to go to a party on Halloween?” His mother said, walking in the living room from the dining...not quite a room, but a little area by the kitchen where everything from dinner was still sitting, since everything ran together, really. “Most parents would be happy their children are staying indoors tonight.”
“It’s at a community center. It isn’t a real party.”
“If one of us could take him, maybe he could go.”
“I don’t have anything against staying home this year.” And every year, Manuel thought. Though, that was his problem, really, as he found himself so thoughtlessly drifting over to the safety of his bedroom and pulling out his laptop.
“...reported that the Tuttle Bottoms Monster was like an ape, but with an anteater’s snout…”
He had seen the video before. Several times, actually. It was on one of his playlists. He didn’t need to take notes with this one, because TEN MORE OBSCURE CRYPTIDS / DARK10 PARANORMAL was as burnt into his mind as his own name.
Huh.
“The Spinnenwechsel is a creature reported in Germany. Sightings are rare since most sources say it only appears once a year. This arachnid can…”
This is my last Halloween indoors. Next year you’re going to the party. You’re going to the party with your best friend. You. Are. Going to go.
Next year.
Manuel’s phone buzzed.
PARTY SUCKS, Laura reported; WAITING FOR MY DAD.
OH NO, Manuel replied; HOW LONG?
A WHILE :(
NEED SOMETHING TO DO?
WHAT ARE YOU DOING
WATCHING A VIDEO.
WHAT VIDEO?
ONE OF MY USUAL THINGS…
LINK IT
Manuel did. And they hit play together.
“The door won’t work,” Summer sighed.
Alice stomped her way back into the gym. “The door won’t work! It’s all…jammed up with something sticky.”
“We’ll have to do what it wants,” Summer sighed louder.
“Whatever this critter is, we’ve gotta find it! It wants something from us.”
“It’s some monster thing,” Summer sighed even louder.
“It’s…I hear you sighing, Sum.”
“Fine, Al. I hear you whining.”
“Sum.” Claire reminded.
“Ugh…yeah, sorry,” Summer reached out to shake Alice’s hand, but rolled her eyes as covertly as she could.
Alice shook it weakly. “What’s the plan?”
SUMMER & CLAIRE
SAMHAIN, ONE YEAR AGO…
“Your mom really doesn’t like my Babadook costume.”
“No, she…likes it, but she didn’t want you to get the makeup on her couch…”
Summer and Claire had planned to hang out at Claire’s house, but they found themselves sitting outside, waiting for a bus over to Summer’s house, which may be more amenable to Babadook makeup.
Summer was a white-faced figure in a top hat; she’d made the makeup from a tutorial online, and it seemed very…stuck, on her face. Claire was, meanwhile, also wearing makeup. Of a cat - in fact, one of the cats from Cats - but, unfortunately, her sisters had brought up the movie too many times, so her makeup shifted to a lower-case cat…
Well, Summer’s house turned out to be pretty quiet, so they continued wandering into…
“A graveyard?” Claire said.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t they lock them up on Halloween?”
“This one’s like, a park. So they can’t.” It was open…but wouldn’t it be closed? For this very reason…
“Why a graveyard? Don’t you think it’s…creepy?” Claire said, as they settled in between two tombstones and a memorial with a statue of an angel on top it.
“No -”
“Being alive is -”
“-being alive is…is creepy. Yeah. Am I that predictable?”
“No.”
“It’s…they’re dead, right? Dead people can’t do anything.”
“That’s…that’s right.”
“Dead people can’t do anything.”
“Yeah.”
“Living people, they’re creepy, ‘cause they’re not asleep underground.”
“Cicadas.”
“Cic…cicadas?”
“They’re alive and asleep underground.”
“They’re not people…people are creepier than cicadas.”
“Yes.”
“We have to be awake for it. They speedrun it.”
“What were we talking about?”
“I…something?”
“Living people can surprise you, yeah.”
“Yeah, they can.”
“They can do things that are unexpected.”
“Like?”
Claire quickly kissed Summer, and took her hand, and they sat there in the graveyard until someone chased them out because they weren’t allowed there that late.
“We can’t cut it with our claws?”
“No, Laura. We can’t - our claws are too big to fit in the locks.”
“But we can knock down the door?”
Talk, talk, talk! Gef scuttled up Laura and grabbed onto some of her hair for leverage. What did they come here for, to blather? No plan at all!
Laura batted her hands at him. “Gef, stop!” She grunted.
“I see - I’m no longer welcome at this get-together! Well - vanished!” Gef cried, before vaulting off Laura and landing hard on the floor. And hacking up his lungs from the must of it all. And suffering the slings and arrows of unappreciative dogs!
“Is he…is he okay?” Alice asked, arms crossed. Now, she looked worried!”
“Baaaaaby!” Laura stamped her feet. “You’re such a baby.”
Gef jumped up, smoothly. “Aye, Gef always lands on his feet – metaphorically speaking, of course. The Reaper’s scythe has no business with me! Now, future carrion, allow me to squeeze out and investigate! Vanished!”
Gef crawled up the wall, curling his fingers into the little gaps between bricks for leverage, and through a vent, and out into the ceiling. Into the place where he saw long, sharp, hairy shadows across the wall…
GEF
HALLOWEEN, ONE YEAR AGO…
Gef was lying in his nest. It was a safe nest, a proud nest, a glorious nest – and you didn’t think mongeese made nests, did you? But Gef had shifted through the cages for only the finest straw, and most of it was even clean! It was...it was quite comfortable, and Gef was ready to drift off to sleep for another night. Ready to embrace the inky blackness of sleep.
Then the lights went out.
Oh, Satan.
He jumped at attention. Anything could be lurking down here in the zoo – or the beasts he knew were down here would be – he knew them quite well, in fact – in fact the darkness held no mysteries before Gef -
A clattering against the bars! Shrapnel! Little shards of wood, daring to collide with Gef!
He jumped onto his feet, shook a fist at the darkness. “Braggart! Foul simian cretin!”
Another hand reached in from the darkness. A long, slender one, covered with thick reddish-brown hair. Its thin but strong fingers wrapped around his mongoose body.
“Unhand me! Unhand me!” He yelled in vain at the agropelter, too stupid to ever see reason.
“UNHAND ME!”
It snorted, somewhere off in the darkness.
“Gef?” It was the goatkiller! The vamp! The homewrecking, blood drinking-!
The lights turned back on. The agropelter’s hand retreated in an instant, all traces of the creature vanishing back into its stump before Gef could process its features. Never hung around for a chat, that one.
Eliza leaned down, pressed her face against the bars. Her membranes flicked. “You know you don’t have to sleep in a cage, right? You’re a people.”
“Aye, believe me I know. But you’ve seen people – I’d take my odds with the hodags and agropelters any day.”
“How...many times has Lanky tried to eat you?”
“Assuming he wants to eat me and not just squeeze the life out of old Gef, eh? For the record, this was only the third attempt he’s made on my eternal existence!”
“Yeah, we’re all going to die and you’ll live forever. We know.”
“It’s a burden, being a living memento mori, but…”
Eliza sat down on the floor in front of Gef’s cage. “You really could sleep up in the tunnels, you know.”
Gef snarled. “No, no, I’ve made my choice! Don’t you have something better to do? It’s that one day, isn’t it? Halloween? Isn’t everyone enjoying their one night of freedom?”
“They are. I’m not, though.”
“Why, are you on alert?”
“No. Gef, it’s just…” Eliza clacked her claws together. “I don’t want to go out without Clive. Tomorrow it will be a year without him…”
“I know,” Gef said. “But you have to keep living, don’t you? You don’t have much time left on this rock – what, forty, fifty years? Practically nothing before it all slips into oblivion!”
“It isn’t just that he’s gone, Gef. I don’t feel safe anymore.”
“Go with the others then. Problem solved!”
“Gef…” She shook her head. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“Oh, I get it very well. Does the vamp forget that I, too, lost my friend? But he walked out on us. Seems odd to be so unswervingly loyal to someone who didn’t extend such loyalty to yourself!”
Eliza wrapped her fingers around the bars and started to stand up. “Stay in your nest, Gef. Stay with the animals.”
Gef tilted his head. “And you’ll stay in your room, all alone?”
“I guess I will…” Eliza turned and walked away – and Gef had an idea…to squeeze through the bars, out into the city.
For how late it was, the city did seem alive. Alive with the stench of alcohol, of desperation, oh yes, all the human failings – also the scent of plastic. Moving plastic. A squat white robot, rolling on wheels.
Gef leapt. Held on. Climbed atop it for a ride.
It left him half a block later.
Oh well.
He weaved between the legs of a man in silver armor and a green man with long, pointed ears, between a white-masked man in a jumpsuit and a -
Another chupacabra! He hissed up. The woman laughed and carried on as if she didn’t even notice him. But, as she passed, he could see she was no chupacabra. She was a human! Deception! Foul deceiving-!
Does anyone dress as Gef?
Only one way to investigate.
He had explored the city before. He was small and fast, and would be the ideal scout – if mongeese were native to this frigid hell. But oh, Malphas can scout for danger, nobody ever notices a corvid -
Malphas?
Where was he when Eliza was suffering, eh? Truly this was all his doing! It didn’t take long for Gef to find the wastrel of a crimson-eyed avian. There he was, by a popcorn shop pecking at stray, green-colored kernels. The real birds stayed well clear of him. But Gef showed no fear.
“Malphas, you coward! You monster! You unbelievable-!”
“Love you too, darling,” Malphas croaked back, before he resumed his pecking.
“I’m not your darling!” Gef cried. Malphas picked up a kernel; Gef knocked it out of his beak. “The goatdrinker is-”
“What a coarse nickname. But you always were unrefined!” He flapped his wings for no reason.
“The goatdrinker is melancholy! Yet you flock around out here, eating poisoned trash!”
“Poison? My dear, my beak is too distinguished to eat toxic -”
“WHY ELSE WOULD IT BE GREEN?” A drunken, swaying werewolf turned the corner; they ducked under a metal bench. “By the devil, you are allowing Eliza to rot away to nothing in her own cage!”
“You are the one who sleeps in a cage, mon chéri.” He picked up the kernel again, before spitting it out; it bounced over the curb and skidded into the street. “Merde! It is poison!”
No more cages. Last Halloween spent behind bars. “And you may eat the poison you apparently crave once we have done something about the goatkiller. Now – a plan!”
Malphas swooped in first; Eliza barely looked up from her bed on the floor. “Goatslayer!”
“Malphas…” He perched by her; she started petting his head. He looked so content and warmhearted, the freak. “What’s it like up there?”
He started to cough, and out came a bag.
“This…” She touched it, then wiped the spit off her hand, then put a towel around her hand and opened it. “...is candy?”
“Yes, my goatslayer.”
“I...can’t eat this.” She said sadly.
“But it is enough for everyone,” Malphas said, “and you would like to make them happy, yes?”
“Yeah…” She scooped up some of the candy, and let it run through her fingers back into the bag. “Yeah. I think I’d like that. Like trick or treating, but down here.”
Malphas bowed. “Also, we acquired some blood.”
“...is it human?”
“No! It comes from some animal.”
“One of the normal animals?”
“Variety is the spice of life, eh?” Malphas bowed towards Gef. “Gef has a present for you as well.”
“We went to the bar and found a gift!”
“Gef, I can’t drink-”
“It’s a man’s wallet!” He tossed it onto the floor. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”
“GEF-”
Creaking. Rushing wind. And a
knock
knock
knock
all from the ceiling above. Alice rubbed her arms. It was cold in here.
“Should we be doin’ something or are we just waiting for Gef?” She said.
“We should wait for Gef, since he’s the one who can see what it was,” Manuel replied.
More creaking above. Alice clutched the cross around her neck. At least there wasn’t a seance this time. At least…
ALICE
REFORMATION DAY, ONE YEAR AGO…
Franklin opened his trunk, revealing a crate full of bags of candy; he put one in Alice’s basket and smiled. “You’ve had a growth spurt since you went up north.”
“Uh, yeah. Thanks,” Alice faked a smile. Everyone here was talking about how much she’d grown, but she’d only moved away a few months ago.
“Your daughter is growing up into a beautiful young woman,” he said, and Alice was on her way to the next trunk. Didn’t keep her from hearing her parents thanking him for the compliment.
First Halloween in her new home city, and her parents take her back home to their old church. Then again, she never had a Halloween before, so why did she think anything might change after the move? She wished she felt more about being back home, but all this was was a parking lot. Across the road she saw...an Arby’s, a truck stop…
She knew the parking lot well, though. Her town didn’t really have trick or treating, but her church really didn’t. Instead they had “hallelujah” night. Everyone was supposed to dress up as a Biblical figure, or at least something non-demonic or scary, but Alice didn’t know she was going so she didn’t have a costume ready. She did have her bucket, though, and they went from trunk to trunk like always. There were other events going on, but they weren’t going to be able to stick around for the movie or the apple bobbing.
“Al?”
“Huh?” It was a woman she’d never seen before.
“You aren’t Al…” She walked off into the crowd. “Al! Allan!”
Soon enough, well before sunset, it was time to get back in their own car and drive back home.
Alice hated Halloween.
She didn’t get to do anything, which she wasn’t too broken up about, since she didn’t totally not agree with all the talk about how it was really sinister, even if she didn’t really believe it was the Devil’s birthday, but…that was what church said, and she didn’t like to dispute it much.
She hated it ‘cause her parents made her hand out the candy, except they didn’t have candy. No, they had little comics. Comics with titles like THIS WAS YOUR LIFE and BACK FROM THE DEAD? and THE CHOICE, and one called HAPPY HALLOWEEN. And all the kids who came by got mad at her ‘cause of the comics her parents made her give out instead of candy. It was late in the night, and she’d heard a lotta grumbling, and had to get into it with a couple boys. More than a couple.
A young girl walked up. Gotta be one of the last trick-or-treaters. She was wearing a spider costume with eight legs splayed out like a skirt. She walked up to the doorway and smiled.
“Hi there!” Alice said. “What’s your name?”
The girl didn’t say anything. Just looked in the basket. “Trick or treat.”
Alice reached in for one of the comics. Searching for a THIS WAS YOUR LIFE and a BOO! And…
She stopped rifling through the bucket. “Shoot, looks like we’re all out of candy. Sorry.”
The girl smiled, swiveled around, and bounced on down to the next house.
Alice sat down on the stoop, bucket on her lap. She ran her hand through the comics a bit more. This is the last Halloween she spends like...the last Halloween she…
She got up and walked inside.
skitter skitter SKITTER skitter SKITTER…
“It’s getting faster!” Alice yelled.
“Fuck. I know,” Laura jumped up and down forcefully. “Gef! Gef! Get down here!”
“Um, Laura, maybe we shouldn’t be yelling, if there is some entity up in the ceiling…” Manuel stood next to her.
“I don’t think it matters,” Emily said; she was leaning against the jammed-up door. “It knows we’re here.”
“Why don’t we just leave?” Alice asked.
“Not without Gef!” Laura said. “...maybe without Gef? I don’t know, we-”
Something leapt out of the walls. Something with sharp points headed right for Laura…
LAURA
HALLOWEEN, ONE YEAR AGO…
Her parents drove away and Laura was all alone at the party.
“Party”. It was a teen Halloween event at the LGBT center. Her parents took her there to “socialize” and “get to know people” and because she wouldn’t have done anything else on Halloween, so.
But she wasn’t really getting to know anyone. They weren’t getting to know her either. She was, as always, sorta...hanging around the fringes, though it looked like most people in this conference room decked out with paper mache skeletons and pumpkins, and trans and progress pride flags on one wall, were hanging around the fringes.
“You’re a lion.”
“Uh…” Laura looked at who said it: someone with mussed up brown hair, wearing angel wings and a nametag saying ALLY SHE/HER. “Yeah. It’s the Lion King. The new one. The lion from the Lion King. It was all the store had. Nobody wants the new one.”
“I saw that one…uh…” Ally stepped closer to Laura.
“You’re an angel.”
“I…” She quickly felt her wings. “I am. Al…Ally. Not ally, like…Aleigh. Short for…Alicia.”
“Cool.”
“My parents think I’m at some church party. But my aunt took me here instead. I’m...not supposed to be here. How...how about you?”
“Me? My parents took me here.”
“They know...you’re…”
“I’m trans? Yeah. I’m gonna guess yours…”
“Don’t know, no. Nobody knows, except my aunt. This is...this is the first time I’ve been Ally, anywhere but my room.”
“Cool. Uh, I’ve been Laura all the time since middle school.” Don’t brag about it, geeze.
“Yeah, I’m -” Ally got to close and whacked Laura in the face with her right wing. “Oh. Sorry, sorry…”
“Don’t worry about it? Uh, do you know what we like, do here?”
“Uh...no. I was thinking...I thought you might know. Um, that you might…”
“I’ve never been here before.”
“Do we...dance?”
“For Halloween?”
“I’ve never done Halloween.”
“I’ve never been to a Halloween party. Maybe we dance?” Why. “You mean on our own or…”
“Um, I don’t know…” Ally rubbed her ears. “I think...I need to breathe”
“You want to go outside?” The staff let Laura walk out the door, and Ally followed. They couldn’t go far, but there was a picnic table right outside the building, in the greenspace separating the LGBT center’s building and an office block, and the offices from the airport up ahead, and Laura sat down on one side of it, and Ally sat across from her.
“Uh...it’s a night, huh?” Laura said.
“It is a night...it’s cold.” Ally fiddled with her hands.
“Yeah, it’s cold…” What do you say? “My parents made me go here. They want me to get to know people like me.”
“Your parents took you here?”
“Yeah. I didn’t want to but…” Hey Laura. Laura. Hey Laura...
“I wish my parents were...were…able to take me somewhere like this.”
“...yeah. Yeah, it’s nice…did you want to get inside? I’m not meant to live in like...the fall. It’s not like that on the savanna.”
She smiled. “The savanna.”
“’cause I’m a lion?”
“Right!” She reached across the table. She reached her hands over to Laura’s. “I didn’t see that movie.”
“Neither did I.” Laura stared down at Ally’s hands.
“I…” Ally leaned over. Rested her hands on Laura’s.
“I...think...I’ll be right back,” Laura said quickly. “Seriously. Wait right here. I’ll...I’ll be right back.” She darted back inside the building. Into the bathroom by the library. Looked in the mirror. “What’s going on? What the hell is going on? Okay. Okay. Go back out there and...why did you run in here? Go back out there. Out there. Okay…” She unlocked the door. Went back outside. And…
She wasn’t at the table.
She ran back to the “party”. A few people remained, split off into different groups.
She wasn’t in any of them, either.
Laura ran back out to the picnic table. Never embarrass yourself like that again. Last time. Last time you…
She texted Manuel the truth. Manuel sent back the link. She hit play at the table.
“These odorous blobs were seen in the village of Domsten, in Norway…”
Manuel sent a quick text. Actually, it’s in Sweden.
Yeah? Laura texted back.
Yes!
The creature grabbed onto Laura’s face, yanked and…
“Gef!” Alice screamed.
“Gef,” Laura groaned, her face partially blocked by mongoose.
Gef let go, and Laura caught him in her arms. “You look like you’ve seen a phantasm.”
“All the noises upstairs…” Emily said, hiding the ouija board box.
“Only poor maintenance, and your good friend Gef!” He...came as close to smiling as he could, with that face. “Nothing up there but dust. Dust and cobwebs. Door - jammed, it was! Don’t worry, your dear Gef unclogged it. You do know the gym has more than one exit, yes?”
“...yes.”
“Time for us to make a defeated retreat, eh?”
“Yeah,” Emily said. “Guess there’s nothing here.”
“Gef,” Laura growled, “if the invite was from my account, that means -”
“Yes, all Gef! I snuck your phone out of your bag one night - wanted company, I did, and to waste your time!”
“What a waste of time,” Alice said. “You know, it wasn’t easy to get out tonight.”
“I texted my mom, she’s going to give us all a ride,” Emily said.
“Which mom?” Summer asked. “Beth or Rebecca?”
“Beth.”
“Cool.”
“Cooler than Rebecca?”
“No?”
“We were only here twenty minutes…” Manuel whispered to Laura.
Gef rocked in Laura’s arms. “Unhand me! I have more business here. I spied a tasty-”
“I don’t want to know what you eat! Just...don’t keep us waiting, ‘kay? We’ll be outside.” Laura opened the door, and was the first to step outside.
When everyone was outside, Gef scurried back up the wall – quite a bit of a workout tonight for an old mongoose – and back to that closet door.
“They’re leaving now,” he said to the darkness. “Sorry you woke up a month early, but brave Gef helped you get back to sleep, eh! I know quite how I feel when I’m stirred before the proper hour…good thing I heard your screams in the wind…”
The thing within the darkness clicked back a long series of slow moves of its pincers.
“Well...good night!”
A face covered in compound eyes pulled back into the shadows, and Gef left it alone.