Songs of Mortals Dance of Ghosts

Halloween night 2018

Midwestern America

"Anything could move out there in the darkness, I think. A hook-handed man. A ghostly hitchhiker forever repeating the same journey. An old woman summoned from the repose of her mirror by the chants of children. Everyone knows these stories—that is, everyone tells them, even if they don't know them—but no one ever believes them."-Carmen Maria Machado

       The pale mask of the killer seemed to float from the shadows like a disembodied head

as he lumbered for his intended victim. He had already endured being stabbed repeatedly yet

he seemed to persevere like a merciless force of nature. His quarry screamed as she stared into

the dark depths of his soulless black eyes seeing herself mirrored on his blade.

       "Stop!" the heroic doctor cried as he intervened to save the heroine firing his gun

several times. The killer clutched his chest and fell as the doctor cautiously approached

to inspect what surely must be a corpse. Suddenly lightning blazed at the window distracting

him. Cold fingers clutched the carving knife and the unfortunate doctor screamed in agony at his

slashed tendon. The blade slashed again and all went black. Angela set down the remote control

and shook her head.

       "You always have to double tap the monster."

      Then she sat for a moment reflectively looking out the window into the interplay of

darkness and moonlight as leaves blew whisperingly against the panes. She started to fantasize

 about herself facing the seemingly invincible and relentless monster alone as a fearless and

resourceful final girl. Angela was jolted from her daydreams by the doorbell.

      Trick or treaters or her friend? she wondered, hoping her best friend wasn't late again.

      Angela was popular, beautiful, and smiling in giddy anticipation for their annual High
      
School Halloween dance and the promise of being crowned "The Halloween Queen."

She rehearsed her smile in the mirror. She beamed when she heard the doorbell ring.

"Mom! Katie's here to pick me up!"

Her mom smiled.

"You look gorgeous, dear. Have fun!"

"I will, "Angela winked.

The two friends ran laughing into the night. Angela paused in the lantern light twirling in

her glamorous orange gown in the lantern light laughing melodiously into the night flushed with

life. Her smile faded as they passed an old, abandoned Victorian mansion more like the ruins of a

castle in the moonlight. Shifting cloud formations over the moon cast a danse macabre of eerie

shadows over the pale discolored walls and gables. All the neighborhood kids knew and dreaded

that house. Rumor and urban legends swirled around it.

"Psst Angela. Do you remember when we were kids and we would dare each

other to knock on the door of the old spook house?" Katie nudged.

"So, what about it?"

"Come on chicken. Are you the Halloween queen or not?"

"Alright alright," Angela said flustered.

The wind whispered through her golden hair, caressing her face. Angela shuddered as

she approached the threshold and raised her pale gloved hand and rapped twice before turning.

"There. Happy?" waving at her friend filming from her phone.

Angela took a step away then froze as a shadow was cast over her. She blinked as she

was bathed in an eerie blue light spilling out of the door as it groaned open. Angela turned to

see a looming, black-robed figure towering over her. The stranger stood brooding and silent

filling the high threshold.

"Umm…trick or treat "she squeaked timidly.

Angela looked up at a pale skull, leering down from a black cowl.

"Not tonight death," she laughed nervously.

The sinister figure nodded slowly and reached into a dark sack and pulled a shiny juicy

looking apple handing it to her in the palm of a skeletal hand.

"Okay…thank you…Umm…Happy Halloween sir or madame I guess…So, goodnight!" she said

with a forced polite smile feeling the stranger's eyes on her as she skipped away holding the

apple up triumphantly. Angela cast an anxious glance back. Her heels clattered on the pavement

as she retreated back to her friend.

"Alright tall, dark and creepy…I'm absolutely famished. This candy apple looks so

tempting…. Can't resist... I will need my appetite tonight."

Angela's flawlessly white teeth gleamed from her parted red lips as she raised

the apple. She bit down. Her eyes widened. Blood gushed from her split lip as a hidden

razor embedded in the apple sliced through. Minutes later there was the sound of approaching

sirens. Angela had tears in her eyes as she was loaded onto a stretcher and ambulance.

"Well at least you are being carried off by some hot paramedics! Keep pressure

on it!"

Katie called after her. Angela watched as police left the mansion shaking their

heads.

"No sign anyone's been there for years."

"Hey. Maybe it was a ghost. They say that the place is haunted," another

officer laughed.

Angela resigned herself to spending Halloween night in the hospital. After clenching her

teeth Angela gave into the burning impulse to look on social media for pictures from the dance.

She checked her friends' photos. Inexplicably she could not see any. She checked her messages.

None.
"Didn't they bother to call me? Hope you all drop dead," she pouted putting the

phone down as a nurse walked in.

"Angela your mom is here to see you."

Her mother knelt and hugged her, beginning to cry.

"Chill mom. The doctor said the wound is easily treatable. It will heal without a

scar… "

"It's not only that," her mother replied.

"What is it?"

Her mother hesitated; her eyes haunted.

"Mom, you're scaring me. "

Reluctantly her mother wordlessly turned on the room television. Her mother

hugged her again, wordlessly. Angela watched in horror as a news report of a massacre

at the high school Halloween dance played. As the reporter spoke, the escaped shooter

x-ed off the portraits on his hitlist in red before planting a knife blade on Angela's smiling

picture. The knife shuddered from impact. He chuckled, donning a mask, and reloading his gun.

Later that night lightning illuminated Angela in the writhing throes of nightmares.

The windows glowed in spectral light from the storm revealing between intervals a dark

van pull up before the hospital. A lone figure advanced to the hospital marching over

wet leaves. Angela was suddenly jolted awake. The hospital alarm was blaring.

"Nurse! Nurse! Anyone???"

Angela rose from her bed and crept to the door, venturing out. She stifled

screams at the grisly sight of the bodies of nurses and doctors laying strewn across the

hall. She drew back into the shadows at a creepy voice as a sinister figure marched

room to room wearing a grotesque pig mask.

"Angela…ohhhh Angela?"

He read her name posted on the door.

"Trick or treat!" he crowed.

He approached the bed with a grin and pulled up the blanket, revealing it to be stuffed

with pillows.

"Think you're smart you blonde airhead? You're not leaving here alive! You are

being hunted for sport. Just like your friends!"

Angela retreated as the shooter stalked the hall.

       "Come out I said! I will start killing the other patients if you don't!" he cried.

Suddenly a dark figure materialised before her. Angela recoiled at first then with

a smile of recognition ran to it on impulse and fell into its embrace. Wings spread,

majestic and black-feathered like the protective frills of a reptile unfurled covering the

light and casting her in darkness.

The dark wings and arms enfolded her, and it seemed she had just dissolved

into the shadows. Then the shooter chuckled as he turned a corner and then paused startled

by what he at first took for a life-size Halloween decoration. The gaunt figure seemed to

materialize as if restless shadows of Halloween night were granted form and to move.

"Hey. Have you seen this girl? No? Not talking? Cool costume. You really look

like him. The grim reaper, right? Kind of inappropriate for an er but yeah, you kept me

busy tonight. So not fooling. Have you seen her?"

There was no response. The figure stood impassive and silent.

"Look break the character already! Tell me where she is and I will let you live.

Come on, I'm not playing bro. I have already killed dozens of people. Want to die

tonight?"

Finally, the stranger responded. He shook not with fear but laughter. A harsh

grating mocking chuckle as he tapped his fingers along his scythe.

"Alright. You're starting to freak me out. Okay. Enough. Stop laughing at me!

Stop laughing!"

Eerily he heard the laughter of one of the girls he shot down that night. Heard her friends

join in mockingly. It sounded like distant echoes.

"Stop laughing. I will kill you!!!"

The laughter grew louder. Harsher. Maddening.

"Stop laughing. Stop laughing!!!"

The hall glowed red as he fired again and again yet the figure did not fall much less even

flinch. The figure remained impassive and statuesque as a black marble idol. The laughter

stopped. The figure looked down at the bullet wounds. The reaper touched the wounds with a

skeletal hand and they sealed healing instantly.

"Wait. Wait. You're really him. You are…"

"Death..." the reaper hissed.

Suddenly, all the televisions in the patient's rooms turned on at once playing the

same news broadcast.

"Breaking news tonight. Suspected mass shooter Todd Trigg has been found

dead ending the manhunt for the teenage responsible for the tragic Halloween

school dance massacre…"

"No! No!!!!" Todd screamed.

The shooter drew his tactical knife and lunged in driving the blade in again and

again.

"No. You can't be real…You can't be…"

His words were cut off as the reaper gripped his assailant by the throat and lifted him

easily as a cat with a rodent in its mouth. The security monitor in the background showed him

being raised by an unseen power.

"You amuse me mortal…" Death rasped before casting him aside dismissively.

"No. I'm not dying tonight. I always win!"

The shooter rose and wrenched his knife out of the reaper's unscathed torso preparing to

sever the skulled head. Death was quicker raising his scythe like an executioner's axe. The

reaper swung the blade in a hissing shimmering arc. The blade seemed to pass into the shooter's

body. There were no wounds. No blood. No pain. Only a cold sensation like an electric shock.

Todd shuddered spasmodically till he steadied himself. He looked down and saw that there was a

glowing symbol on him like the brand of livestock marked for slaughter. The reaper beckoned.

The shooter staggered back then pivoted and ran screaming for the emergency

exit bursting out as the alarm blared. He paused disoriented. He heard distant sirens. He ran

blindly into the night and chill rain then heard flapping as if the wings of an enormous raptor

hovered over him. He looked up as an ominous shadow passed in a rush of wind. Then he halted

at the sight of an ominous figure perched on the tall gable of a historic building like a dark

gargoyle. Its fingers elongated to sickled-shaped talons as it spread majestic dark wings with the

shrill cries of a bird of prey or harpy launching into the night and gliding from rooftop to rooftop

with unnatural speed.

      As Todd ran, he fired into the air wildly, sobbing and screaming. The reaper
      
swooped down twice, raking him in passing with its claws. Todd screamed at the

gashes torn into his scalp and shoulder spinning as he fired in every direction. The chill

screeches seemed to trail off.

"Ha. I actually scared him off…Well that's…"

Suddenly he howled in pain and horror as talons stabbed into shoulders and he

was lifted like a morsel of carrion in a vulture's clutches. They were silhouetted against

the pale orb of the moon as the great black wings flapped raising him high above the

ground.

"Let me go. Please let me go!!!" Todd screamed.

"Very well…" the reaper hissed releasing Todd.

He fell screaming into a thorn bush emerging bloodied and staggering into the road. A car

horn blared and tires screeched as he was almost hit. The shooter bolted down a quiet side street

keeping to the shadows. His boots splashed as he trod on puddles and soggy leaves. Suddenly he

halted at a familiar grisly figure confronting him. There leering from a house's lawn was the

grim reaper in all its malevolence. The reaper's eyes glowed red and he greeted his quarry with

"Happy Halloween!" twitching with strange jerking motions. His trembling with fear turned to

shaking with rage as he reloaded his gun and advanced firing round after round.

Todd cried out in rage as he closed in on his tormentor. The coup de grace came

as he drew his knife again and slashed off the skulled head. The reaper's body

continued to jiggle in a strange dance. Todd knelt and lifted the head curiously.

It did not feel like a skull…It felt like and was rubber.

"This is a bloody Halloween animatronic!!!"

Suddenly all the animatronics of witches, zombies, and vampires seemed

activated into a strange danse macabre then chuckled and howled in nightmarish choir

as if in mockery. Taking out his impotent rage, Todd fired at them, howling maniacally.

Finally, the props all ceased moving; their animated bodies sagging. The street was

eerily quiet. Suddenly the monstrous props all seemed to laugh in one voice ventriloquized.

The laughter of a girl who rejected him. The one who he swore to kill.

"Angela…Angela!!!"

"I'm over here Todd….Over here…"

      Her voice sounded distant and echoing strangely. Todd turned and the real grim
      
reaper stood close behind him reaching for him with a skeletal hand. Turning, Todd raced for

the sounds of a party in a back alley. He heard music and laughter as he forced a gate and

stumbled into a courtyard. Young people were dancing around a bonfire. They seemed oblivious

to his presence as a song by Oingo Boingo blared in the background.

"Let's have a party there's a full moon in the sky
It's the hour of the wolf and I don't want to' die
I'm so happy Dancing while the Grim Reaper
Cuts cuts cuts but he can't get me I'm clever as can be
And I'm very quick But don't forget
We've only got so many tricks
No one lives forever."
The music ceased as the bells of an old church began to ring midnight in the

background.

"You have to help me!"

"Todd, where have you been? You promised me a last dance, "a girl in a witch's

costume said.

"Katie?" he gasped.

With horrified recognition Tod saw a girl he killed that evening. The others unmasked

in unison, and he was confronted by his massacred classmates gathered like the audience of a

public execution. Katie smiled as she pulled off her witch's hat and revealed a bullet wound in

her forehead. The blood trickled down her face onto her lips.

"Kiss me goodnight?" Katie coaxed her voice like venomed honey.

Todd was too frozen in horror to resist. Her lips parted like reopened wounds and a black

tongue more like vapor or an eel slithering into his mouth coiling around his soul. As the shooter

fled, the reaper hooked him with a scythe pulling him back. Transfixed by the reaper's eyes and

voice Todd donned his pig mask on command. The reaper held an apple in the palm of a pale

gloved hand.

"You must be famished. Eat!"

Overcome with an irresistible hunger Todd reached for the apple greedily.

"Put the apple in your mouth. Now bite!"
      
        Todd chomped down on an apple loaded with cruelly barbed razors. The blades tore
through his mouth and cheeks. Shredding his lips and nearly severing his tongue his tongue. Yet
he bit down again and again till blood gushed from his mouth. His human screams became pig squeals.

The reaper raised its arms like a puppeteer compelling the shooter to raise the gun putting

the barrel into his mouth. He fell to his knees looking with pleading eyes blubbering with fear.

The ghosts chanted his name like the climax of a ritual. From the perspective of a cat watching

curiously from a post it saw Todd's shadow as he pulled the trigger. Brain matter and blood

blasting from the back of his head. The reaper pulled down its black hood. Gold hair spilled out

and a gowned figure shed the dark robe. Angela saw the silhouettes of her massacred friends

walking towards the glow of a red portal…The rising sun.

"Katie! Katie, don't go! Stay with me!"

Katie turned and ran towards Angela. Angela laughed and smiled, opening her

arms to embrace her best friend. She closed her eyes in anticipation of feeling her

embrace only to feel a rush of cold wind and Autumn leaves sweep around her. Angela

stifled a sob as she fell to her knees. She sensed rather than saw an approaching

presence.

Angela rose turned and blew a steaming kiss to the shadows leaving the cloak and scythe

in the hands of a marble angel in the cemetery like an offering to a gothic idol. As she was out of

view a shadow was cast on them and a skeletal hand gripped the returned scythe watching

Angela walked into the sunrise singing lyrics from one of her favourite songs.

       "Come on baby… don't fear the Reaper
Baby take my hand… don't fear the Reaper
We'll be able to fly… don't fear the Reaper
Baby I'm your man…"