“Trick or treat!”

Jason and his buddies huddled together in the bushes, giggling and shushing each other as they tried to keep from being overheard. This was the best night of their lives. They had already scored two trash bags full of candy, smashed every pumpkin on this side of Holland Street, and scared at least four dozen kids to the point of tears.

And it was only eight o’clock.

“Leave this one to me,” Shawn said as he slid on his werewolf mask. It went well with the furry suit he was already wearing and his 6’1, linebacker build was more than intimidating enough for the job he was pulling off.

He crept under the porch, waiting for the front door to close and the unsuspecting kids to make their way down the steps.

Then he pounced. “RAWR!”

Seeing him, the kids burst out laughing.

“Aw, come on,” he said, lowering his claws. “I’m trying to be scary here.”

Pip looked down at the tally on his clipboard. “Do tears of laughter count for children we made cry?”

Jason didn’t answer. Following Butthead (who was nicknamed that because of a mohawk that made the top of his head look like two bare cheeks) and Ram, they slithered out of the bushes on their stomachs like snakes and grabbed the kids from behind. The kids spun around and screamed when they saw the faces of the teenagers.

Shawn laughed as the kids ran past him. Using his claws, he snatched up their goodie bags and watched them tear down the street. Then he looked back to the gang. “With faces like yours, why wear a mask?”

“Damn acne,” Jason muttered, rising to his feet. “No matter, we got what we came for. Anything good?”

He dug through the bags. “Yeah, there’s a few Twinkies in here.”

“Good, try not to eat them all before we get to the next house, fat ass.”

“Whose house is next anyway?” Ram asked, cracking his knuckles. He was the only one not dressed up. Shawn had his werewolf outfit, Jason was supposed to be a zombie (but he only looked like a hobo with his torn clothing and long hair), and Butthead was trying to pull off the gangster look, which was his usual costume even when it wasn’t Halloween.

Pip, crawling out of the bushes, was dressed as Harry Potter for reasons unbeknownst to the rest of the gang. They let it slide because he was new, though. And because he was keeping track of their Halloween pranks on his handy dandy clipboard. “That about does it for Holland Street. You want to hit Christie’s house next?”

Jason grinned, a zombie grin. Christie was his ex. They had broken up over the summer and yet he had hadn’t gotten over her. He had been planning to get even with her for months. And this was the perfect night to do it.

Well, anybody who knows East Shore High knows that Holland Street is the main residential road, which arches around the high school in a half circle. Everything south of the street (inside the curve) is in the poor section of town, located by the school for easy walking distance. Everything north of the street (outside the curve) is in the rich section, where most of the high school girls, including Christie, lived. For some reason, the girls of East Shore High seemed to have better luck financially than the guys, particularly the group Jason hung around.

But still, for as poor as they were, nothing was quite worth the pleasure of giving the rich people what they really deserved.

“Yeah,” Jason said. “Let’s get that bitch.”

They turned around, counting their candy, and froze when they saw a little girl on the sidewalk in front of them. She was dressed as a ghost—but not really. Her clothes were plain but glazed over in a ghostly bluish chalk. Her eyes were faded as well, the pupils almost too translucent to see, and her hair, like the frayed strands of her clothes, danced slowly and eerily in the night breeze. White-skinned, she stared at them, and they stared back, seeing right through her.

“Hey, little girl,” Jason sneered. “You have any candy? Or do we have to scare it out of you?”
The girl continued to stare, unmoving. “…I saw what you did.”

Her voice made them shiver. Her lips had barely moved, but she had caused a cold echo to ring about them, draining down into their skin. Goosebumps bubbled to the surface of their arms.

“You have brought tears to many children on this night…” she spoke again, her very image wavering like paper in the wind. “But you should’ve been careful about who you play your pranks on. You never know who might want to join in…”

“I don’t think she’s going to share her candy,” Ram whispered.

But Jason took a bold step forward. “Enough of this. Fork over your candy or I’ll beat you like a piñata, you little brat.”

“…Little?” the girl mocked in a banshee’s cackle. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

Jason was close enough to touch her now. He reached down to seize her wrist, but his fingers only brushed air—air so cold that his skin went numb and he stumbled back. “What the…?”

The girl didn’t move, but slowly her image began to dissolve. “If you wish to keep playing, then there shall be no pity for you. May the best prankster win…”

By the time her echo had finished ringing, she was gone.

Jason looked down at his hand and curled his fingers, one by one, to make sure he could still move them. “That was weird…” The wind caught his hair and made him shiver again. No stars were out tonight. Instead, the only glow of light came from the front porches and the streetlights down Holland, but even those looked cold and blue and faded now. The trick-or-treaters were scarce now and the gang was alone.

“She must’ve been one of the rich folk,” Butthead tried to rationalize “They’re always trying to top our costumes.”

“Yeah, we’ll get them for it,” Shawn said. “To the rich people’s houses!” He threw back his head and howled at the full moon. Rebels without a cause (and apparently without a clue), Butthead and Ram joined in as well, the three of them locked in arms and yowling and shrieking like cats on a fence. The wind picked up.

Jason and Pip looked at each other. They were the only two who seemed the least bit concerned by what had happened. But even their fears were soon subsided by the gang’s merriment and, before they knew it, the five of them were tossing rolls of toilet paper over the houses of the rich and chucking rotten eggs at their doorways.

They saved Christie’s house for last, though. For good reason. That’s where all the girls from ESH were hanging out. Every year for Halloween, Christie (who was one of the few lucky kids in high school to live on her own) would throw a huge Halloween bash. Usually guys were invited, but ever since Jason and Christie had broken up, she had become very anti-men. This year she made it pretty obvious that she didn’t want any guys at her party (the banners with ‘GUYS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT’ in bold, capital letters and a picture of a man with a red ‘x’ over his face was more than a subtle clue), but that made it all the more perfect to crash her party. The excitement was in the challenge.

Sneaking up Christie’s driveway, which was filled with cars that poured out into the street, the gang scurried across the lawn and crouched down under her front window. They could hear music through the walls and Jason managed to get one or two peeks through the curtains in the window. The house was swarming with girls. They were all dressed in costumes, of course, but it was clear that Christie hadn’t broken her ‘no guys allowed’ policy.

“They’re like a flock of sheep to us wolves,” Ram joked. “We’re going to crash their party and they’ll be running and screaming all over the place and won’t know what to do.”

“Right,” Jason said. “But we take no chances. I want to see Christie’s face when she finds out that I’m the one who ruined her party. I want to be right there in her face when she cries and then whisper, ‘I got you, bitch’.” He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to imagine it, the whole time smiling. Then he turned to Pip. “Alright, what are we doing?”

Pip quickly thumbed through the pages on his clipboard. “Okay, let’s see… Operation one: the inside job. Ram, Shawn—you two need to get inside the party with all the girls.”

“Why me?” Shawn whined.

“Because you’re the only one in a mask.”

“But you’re the one with the feminine figure.”

“No, I’m the one with the intellectual mind capable of formulating complex operations like this. You’re the werewolf. You’re going in.”

“What about me?” Ram said. “I don’t have a costume.”

Pip took off his wizard knapsack, unzipped it, and brought out a wig and a folded-up dress. “You do now.”

“Oh, hell no!”

“You two are the only ones who can do it,” Jason hissed.

“…Fine. As long as I don’t have to use tampons.”

“Thank you for that disturbing image,” Pip said, running his pen down the clipboard page. “Okay, operation two: the dive-bomb.” He took a quick peak through the window. “Good, it looks like they still have the refreshment table by the stairs… Jason and Butthead—you two will need to get onto the second floor and use this rope to tie yourselves to the banister. Then, when I give the signal, you’re good to go.” He tossed them each a coiled rope from his knapsack.

Jason caught it in his hand. “What’s the signal?”

“That’s operation three: the black-out,” he replied. “I’m going to squeeze through the basement window here and find the fuse box. When I shut off the lights, that’s your cue to make your jump.”
“Got it!” Jason grinned. “Oh, this is going to be sweet.”

Pip dropped the clipboard into his knapsack and zipped it up. “Everybody know their job?”

The gang all nodded and then put in their hands in a circle like a football huddle before they broke apart and went their separate ways. Pip kicked open the cellar window. Throwing his knapsack into the darkness first, he then slid his legs into the opening, using his small body to wriggle the rest of the way through. Jason and Butthead crept low around the outside of the house, being careful not to be spotted through any windows. When they reached the back of the house, they found a perfect staircase to the roof—a stack of logs pushed up against a shed, which they could climb onto to reach the greenhouse, from which they could grab onto a branch from a nearby tree that just hung over the slanted roof.

Meanwhile, Ram had thrown on the wig and dress and met Shawn by the front door of Christie’s house. They looked at each, shrugged, and rang the doorbell.

“Twenty bucks she doesn’t fall for it,” Shawn whispered.

“Go bite yourself.”

The door opened, revealing a slender brunette with a red bandana pushing back her hair, a patch over one eye, and a striped shirt with ripped sleeves. She looked at them, lifted the eyepatch, and then looked again. “Um…hi.”

“Oh, Miss Christie, it’s so good to see you again!” Ram squealed in the most girlish voice he could manage.

“…Do I know you?”

“Why, I’m Ram…ella Buttski. We went to elementary school together!”

“Ramella Buttski… From elementary… My, how you’ve changed.”

“Haven’t we all!” Ram giggled. Shawn was a little disturbed of his friend’s almost too good performance.

“…So where’s your costume?”

“What?”

“You’re just wearing a dress. What are you supposed to be?”

“…Britney Spears.”

“I see… Try losing the dress then. And whatever is on under it.”

“Tee-hee, oh, you naughty girl!”

Christie blinked. “Yeah, okay... Well, welcome to my party. Refreshments are in the living room, dancing in the lounge, and if you need to use the bathroom, please use the one downstairs. I’m trying to keep the party off the second floor after the accident last year and all.”

“You’re a doll,” Spike said, kissing her on both cheeks and then starting inside. The werewolf tried to follow him, but Christie blocked his way.

“And who are you supposed to be?” she asked.

Shawn thought quickly. “…Uh, I’m with her.”

With a shrug, Christie stepped aside and watched the two idiots walk into the party, giving us each other a high-five and then mingling with the guests as if they were old friends. She pulled the eyepatch back over her face and shook her head.

“Why did you let them in?” somebody asked. Christie’s friend, Leah, appeared at her side dressed as a butterfly, complete with fluorescent pink wings and two bobbing antennas over her head. “You know they’re guys, don’t you?”

“I know,” Christie said. “They’ve been creeping around outside for the past ten minutes. I’m surprised you didn’t hear them with all the noise they were making.”

“Well, I did see a bunch of guys outside the window. I figured they were just spying on us.”

“They could be, but Jason is with them.”

“That loser? He’s still stalking you?”

“Probably came to wreck the party.”

“Idiots… Should we do something?”

“No, no, this is too good to pass up. Go get a camera and take some pictures of that guy in a dress. Whoever he is, he’s going to have his face posted on every locker of the school on Monday.”

Leah laughed. “Okay, but keep an eye on them. Jason’s been pretty desperate to get even with you lately.”

“And I’m loving every pathetic minute of it,” Christie said as she joined the party again.